"I wish you'd say something, anything, make fun of me, call me names, just wake up, please!"
It had been 10 days since Rose had administered the potions for Sam and she was taking to a variety of bizarre tactics to get him to wake up (which she knew, as a Healer would have absolutely zero effect on whether his body was healing, but hey a girl can dream!).
She tried playing loud music, putting on magic light shows and tricks, and now, just straight up yelling at him.
Suffice to say, it wasn't working.
Rose dumped herself into the chair next to Sam's hospital bed, exasperated.
When she had first left the quarantine zone she didn't think she'd get this desperate, or this angry at Sam.
.
He had just waltzed back into her life, swept her off her feet as usual, then leaving her alone, tortured and conflicted over it all - she placed her hands on her cheeks, they felt like they were burning up with frustration.
"Sam, I swear to Merlin, if you don't wake the fuck up, I am going to go barmy in here. I can't work, I can't carry on my life as normal, and I am so sick of this white room, with its blank walls and I'm sick of you sitting there in your bed, not moving, and I am really really over you being in a coma will you pleeeaaase wake up."
Maddened by her helplessness Rose dramatically dropped her arms and head onto the bed huffing.
She rested her eyes for a moment, closing them, just intending to try to calm down but after all the angry yelling she'd done at someone who couldn't hear a word she said, she was incredibly tired.
She quickly fell into a frustrated and uneasy slumber, never quite getting to a deep and fulfilling sleep but rather hovering on the cusp of consciousness with a sense of panic and dread filling her dreams.
.
.
Back when Sam had first been magically induced into the coma, Rose finally left the quarantine zone for the first time in weeks - she had to go through a process of infection control but once she was cleared, she went home and slept for the longest time.
She hadn't realised just how much work it was being Sam's full-time carer and as part of safe work practice she wasn't allowed back into her Healer's robes at St Mungo's for two weeks.
Knowing Rose, her work ban was quite likely to drive her mad but her superior Healer Greenleaf wouldn't budge.
After she got out of quarantine she didn't feel like socialising or trying to get back into normal life - she couldn't escape the feeling that she was running from reality, unable to face the real world, her real life, until Sam was better.
.
After she'd taken a few days off to rest and recuperate she went straight back to Sam's room to visit him and stay by his side, vigilant and hopeful that the coma was healing him.
Nothing in his condition had substantially changed and he was being cared for by a rotation of different Healers
Thankfully (probably out of fear for their own lives) the Healers let her back into the quarantine zone regularly and continued to clear her for signs of Scrofungulus on her way out each time.
Dressed in plain clothes and without her Healer robes, Rose somehow felt less sure of herself at Mungos, and absolutely brimming with a whole host of anxieties - Sam's health, the future, the dark cloud of truth that she had been hiding from him.
.
She tried not to let her mind wander into hopelessness, but it was hard.
How could she have faith in a course of treatment she had resisted?
The first time Rose came back to visit Sam after his coma had been induced, she sat impatiently, listening for the go-ahead from Sam's Healer.
She realised the 'living room' of the quarantine quarters was now spotlessly cleaned, sterilised and set up like a waiting room.
The threshold before Sam's hospital room.
"You may now enter," a voice called out, and Rose walked as quickly as she could through the door into Sam's room.
.
When she saw him her eyes immediately teared up, he was completely motionless, and horrifically pale against the white sheets of the hospital bed.
The room had obviously been rearranged into a more conventional hospital room.
It was awful.
She walked up to the side of Sam's bed and reached out to grasp his hand, but his primary Healer, Healer Greenleaf, stopped her with a light touch to the shoulder.
"Healer Weasley, you know that's not a good idea. You may have been decontaminated and ruled non-infectious but any further contact could change that-"
Rose responded harshly, eyes flashing dangerously in defiance, "I'm keeping an eye on symptoms and taking preventative treatments, I have been for weeks. And you can bet that if I have Scrofungulus I'm not going to let it rage unchecked like this buffoon."
Then her voice softened, "Please."
Healer Greenleaf took a deep breath in and sighed, "Just be careful Rose."
She took that as acquiescence, "Thank you Healer Greenleaf," she breathed out as she lent down and grasped his hand.
.
"Will you give me an update on his treatment, is it working?" Rose queried, while casting her eyes over Sam's form for any sign that he might be stirring.
"You know how it is with magically induced comas, there's no way to know except when there's a change in condition. Unfortunately, so far there's been no change."
Rose raised a hand to subtly wipe away the moisture from her eyes, "Okay, thanks Healer Greenleaf, I appreciate it."
"All right dear, I'll leave you be."
Healer Greenleaf swept out of the room, lime green robes rustling as Rose sat down in the chair next to the bed, bowed her head and wished with everything in her being that Sam would wake up.
.
.
When Rose groggily felt herself coming back into wakefulness, her back was aching from the position she'd been in, stretched from the chair over to the bed.
She stood up and shrugged her shoulders, and as she opened her eyes properly and the room came into focus, she noticed that Sam's hospital bed was empty.
It was neatly made up, it looked unslept in, and it was empty.
She started breathing in short shallow breaths, thoughts racing through her mind -
"Is he gone!? Is he gone?"
A deep horror washed through her and ripped into her insides as she felt a panic attack taking over her whole body.
- he's gone- he's gone - he's gone -
'The bed would have been unmade if he had just woken up' a voice rang through her mind.
She screamed out his name, "Sam? Sam!"
But after a few more seconds she couldn't talk, she could barely breathe, she could barely live, she felt like she was dying.
When Rose first started having panic attacks as a child, she had decided she would learn to manage and control them well before she started Hogwarts.
She didn't want to have any conceivable barriers to her education and had trained herself in a variety of methods to pre-empt or react to them.
It had been more than a decade since her last one, but with Sam gone, Rose felt like she had absolutely no control over her mind or body.
- he's gone - he's gone - he's gone -
'If he isn't here anymore, in this room it's because he's been taken away because'
- he's gone - he's gone - he's gone -
Sobs started to wrack her body as thought after thought crashed through her.
- he's gone - he's gone - he's gone -
'Why didn't anyone wake me? What, are they trying to spare me? Because this was infinitely worse, where was he?'
- he's gone - he's gone - he's gone -
She felt hands on her shoulders shaking her, but she couldn't hear what they were saying, couldn't see through her tears, through the noise inside her own head and her sobs pounding through her ears.
- he's gone - he's gone - he's gone -