Chapter 65
Tegan played a few more songs but got tired pretty quickly. She was breathing quite fast. "I'm going to be a responsible adult and take a break, I'm pretty tired now. Seems I'm not music fit anymore" she said lifting her eyebrows. "Guitar coupled with singing will take it out of you. Lots of arm movement. Maybe you should play a bit of piano later?" said Sara. She knew that Tegan was an exceptionally gifted pianist but she hardly ever played, always preferring her beloved guitar. "Yeah, maybe. Thanks for that observation and advice Dr Quin" said Tegan sarcastically and leaned back into Lindsey's arms with a cup of tea. "Oh bite me!" said Sara annoyed.
Tegan sat in the sunny living room on a soft carpet with her back against a couch. Sara and Emy were next to the pool and Lindsey was snoozing on the couch a few feet away. Kate made a quick trip to the hospital to drop off some of Tegan's blood samples at the lab and to have a meeting about her extended leave of absence. Erin and Alex took Sonia out for lunch and a drive to see some sights as she would be returning to Canada the next day. Tegan didn't feel up to a long car ride and decided to stay at home. Tegan started up her Macbook Air for the first time since she became ill. Strangely enough she never had the craving to even pull her iPad closer. She was pretty out of the loop with what was happening online. At least Sara update her iPod with some new music. She scanned through her personal emails. Lindsey had printed out most of her mails for her and read it to her in the hospital. There were a few new ones though. Tegan smiled and sometimes laughed out loud as she read the heartfelt and sometimes hilarious mails from her friends. She replied to a few of them and made a mental note to arrange a big party for all of them as soon as she felt up to it. She missed them all.
She moved to Twitter, the number next to the notifications tab startled her. She started reading their mentions and her eyes went wide. Wow, so many messages... these people were fucking freaking out... We have some pretty awesome fans... The more recent messages were begging for an update on Tegan's condition. Tegan felt a pang of guilt for being so self centered and not sending a message to the fans earlier. She convinced herself that she simply wasn't up to it before now. She started typing "Back on the Twit, feeling so much better. Thank you for the love and support xxx T" she hit send.
Tegan read some of the older tweets and soon came to the conclusion that some people on Twitter are absolute idiots. They write about them by directly addressing them. It's like talking behind somebody's back and then giving them a transcript, she thought, shook her head and giggled. Some of them acted as if her being in the hospital was literally the end of the world, their's at least. She appreciated it so much though. She giggled at the first lot and then foolishly clicked on a youtube link. She watched herself appear on the screen and frowned. Good lord I did look like crap she thought. She watched herself try and perform on that fateful night. She watched a clip of her struggling through Dark Come Soon before leaving the stage to throw up. These clips were jogging her memory and it made her heart beat fast and feel nauseous. She watched herself cling to the keyboard stand with closed eyes looking as if she could fall down and die any second. Tegan could feel emotion building inside of her but she couldn't stop watching. She had her hand in front of her mouth. "Holy crap..." she whispered.
She clicked on some more links that took her to some photos taken that night. She flipped through them fast but stopped at one of her clutching the microphone with her eyes closed, she looked scared and tired, she looked ill. Sara was looking over at while singing with a worried look on her face, so were all the members of the band. Tegan stared at it for a few minutes, lost in thought. She snapped out of it and closed the photo and clicked on the next link. Her eyes went wide, the photo showed her being wheeled into the hospital on a stretcher. Lindsey was holding her hand looking frantic. She clicked the arrow next to it and it showed some more pretty invasive photos of her friends and family at the hospital and then of Tegan going home. Those fuckers.... she thought and slammed the lid of the computer closed. Lindsey stirred but didn't wake up. Tegan put her hands over her mouth and nose and suddenly looked pale again. She pulled her hands away and shook her head.
After a few minutes of silent contemplation she gave a deep breath before opening the computer again. She read some more tweets. Most made her smile, some made her angry but she didn't give those much airtime. Around valentine's day a lot of tweets were super soppy "Ahhh this is love / Some lovely valentine you have there/ through sickness and health" etc etc. – all with a link next to them. She clicked the link and it opened an Instagram photo. Tegan cocked her head as she saw it was from Lindsey's account. The image was of what was obviously her arm with loads of tubes and wires attached to it. Lindsey's hand was in hers. Tegan smiled and her eyes jumped down to read the caption. "Not the ideal way to spend Valentine's day but I've NEVER been more in love" Tegan smiled and felt her throat prick with emotion. She looked over at a sleeping Lindsey and whispered "Neither have I my love... neither have I" She clicked on the page with all their tweets and started reading through Sara and Tom's updates. She read through them one by one and shuddered to think what her loved ones went through. She read Sara's longer updates on their website and tears started to roll down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.
"Teegs?" she heard somebody say. She looked up to see Sara standing in the door. "Tegan are you okay?" said Sara and sat down next to her sister. "Sure, I'm fine" said Tegan trying to smile and hide her emotions. "You don't look fine... What are you doing?" asked Sara. Tegan stayed quiet for a few seconds and looked away. "I thought it's time to get back onto the internet..." she said softly. "Ooooookay... don't know if that was such a good idea" said Sara. "Well... I can't avoid it forever" said Tegan and looked at Sara. "Hey Sar... I just read all your web updates and tweets and I... fuck... that must have been tough" said Tegan and looked down. "I'm kinda dreading reading that journal now" she said. "Then don't" said Sara and smiled. "Do whatever you need to get over this Tee" she said. "Yeah... I see you had your hands full with the paps" snorted Tegan. Sara rolled her eyes. "I started off by wanting to sue every single one of their asses but you know what... getting upset about that kind of shit isn't worth it" she smiled. "Tom did as much damage control as possible but you know... it's the internet... there's not that much you CAN do" said Sara and shrugged.
Tegan turned back to her screen now displaying her mail. She scrolled down and saw Sara's name. She clicked on the mail. It was sent a few months ago. "Dearest Tegan. I want to send you these photos and clips so that when you're better you can see just how far you've come." Tegan read out loud and her brow furrowed. "Don't open it now Tee... Open it in a few months" said Sara. "No I want to open it now" said Tegan and clicked on the first photo. "Don't" said Sara and grabbed Tegan's hand but she was too late. Tegan stared at the screen and swallowed hard. She saw what looked as if it could be her on a hospital bed but she was almost unrecognisable. There were so, so many machines and monitors around her. She had tubes, bags and wires attached everywhere. Her neck, her arms... tubes in her mouth and her nose. Her arms both had BP cuffs around them. Her face was swollen and bruised. "Jesus... this is... it's..." exhaled Tegan and shook her head as words failed her. Sara looked down at her sister's hand hovering over the keyboard, it was shaking. Tegan clicked on a video clip, it seemed to be taken later because it showed some new machines and more tubes including what must be the ecmo machine, thick tubes transporting oxygenated into her body". Sara could hear Tegan breathe faster but she didn't dare look at her face. She took the lid and softly closed it. She took the laptop and put it on the floor next to her. "Enough now Teetee" she said and put her hand around Tegan's shoulder. Tegan pulled her legs up to her chest to unconsciously mirror Sara. Tegan's hand was still shaking when Sara took it with her free hand and held it to her chest. "It's okay Tegan... it's over, you're better now. Look forward" she said. "I love you Sara" said Tegan with a shaky voice. "I love you too Tegan" said Sara. The twins sat like that in silence on the floor for the next few minutes. Lindsey woke up and opened her eyes. She looked at the twins perplexed. Some days they looked so much alike. This was one of those days. She knew that they had such an incredibly special bond. The kind of bond she would never have with Tegan. Not necessarily a better bond, just different. She smiled and closed her eyes again, not wanting to interrupt what was obviously a special moment.
A/N: kind of a weird chapter, I know. But I just went with it. Tried to capture Tegan's reaction as well as I could. Let me know what you think - pop me a review or a PM Please.