Unspoken
By mihoyonagi
Chapter 3: Reality
He wanted to open his eyes. He really, truly, did. He needed to see if she was all right. But the warm sun beat down on his body through the window and tried to push him back to sleep. Finally, forcing his heavy lids open, crystalline eyes met with the bright white interior of a sterile hospital room. He sat up and the world spun around him. Shutting his eyes tightly, Sephiroth waited for the room to return to stillness. His head felt huge, and the imagined weight of it only furthered the spinning room's effect. Clutching a handful of the sheet that covered his legs, the general fought a wave of dizziness. He bit his lip to keep from vomiting.
Once the spell had past, Sephiroth opened his eyes. The room was bright and held a strong odor of generic lemon cleaner. Aerith was nowhere to be seen. Throwing the sheets aside, the silver-haired man placed his legs over the side of the bed and looked down at himself. He had, apparently, been changed from his blood-covered black pants into a more appropriate white hospital gown that hardly passed his knees. Curse being tall. Upon inspecting his arm he found an IV buried deep within his flesh. Biting his lip he gripped the needle with his hands, he pulled it out. Sephiroth stood, though his legs felt as if they would fold like a deck of cards beneath him.
Stumbling to the doorway, he gripped the frame for better support, and then began his trek down the hall. A nurse spotted him and threw down the pile of fresh towels she carried. "Sir, get back into bed!" she ordered, pulling on his arm in an attempt to make him comply. He grunted and tore his arm free of her grasp, only to continue down the narrow hall. "Doctor!" he heard the nurse yell.
An elderly man popped his head out from a near-by door and was thoroughly shocked to see whom it was walking, slowly but surely, toward him. "I didn't think you'd be up for another few days, given the amount of blood you lost." The doctor smiled at his patient and stepped into full view in front of the staggering man. Sephiroth reached out his hands and grabbed the doctor's shoulders, searching his eyes for answers. Again, the doctor smiled. "She'll be fine."
Sephiroth let out a sigh of relief. He hadn't meant to be so obvious, but given the state of his body and face, he knew it was beyond his control. The doctor moved aside and made a simple gesture to the door in which he had just come out of. "You can go see her, if you like."
He didn't need the doctor to tell him that. Staggering into the sterile room, Sephiroth gasped at what he saw. Atop the hospital bed lay the petite flower girl whom he had saved. How ironic that he had done such, considering not long before he had taken her life… Based on the lump in her clothing in the region of her chest, he could only assume she had a massive amount of stitches attempting to hold her together. He couldn't imagine the pain she must have been in. And it was entirely his fault.
"What happened to the both of you?" the doctor asked, pulling a chair into the room for the silver-haired man to rest in.
Sephiroth took the kind gesture and sat down next to the bed Aerith laid in. The general looked down at her. His face was a cold and emotionless mask, but his heart beat faster at the mere sight of her. What was there to say? He couldn't explain himself. He had thrown away a lifetime of engraved behavior at the mere sight of her in distress upon the shore and ignored his own pain for her safety. How had he become so weak? When? He deeply sighed, completely at a loss of words and common thought.
The doctor's kind smile spread. "I understand; it must be hard for you. Maybe when she wakes up you'll be able to tell me, hmm?"
Slowly, Sephiroth nodded.
"But for now, young man, you need your rest."
Sephiroth shook his head violently. He would not be moved.
The doctor put a hand on his own forehead and shook his head. "Very committed, aren't you?"
The silver-haired man remained quiet, his intent gaze still upon the sleeping wingless angel before him.
"I'll send the nurse in with some blankets later, an I expect you to eat if you aren't going to keep that IV in you." The doctor left.
The corners of Sephiroth's lips curled up in a small smile. The doctor was a kind man, and that was something the general wasn't used to. For him, when the term 'doctor' came to mind, an image of a sterile lab popped into view, complete with mad men in white trench coats, where everything was white and no one was kind. The kindest thing that ever happened in the 'doctor's offices' that he could remember were the doctors actually warning him before they jammed a needle deep into his skin, pressing into his body some foreign, glowing substance.
Aerith stirred in her sleep, pulling Sephiroth from his memories and back into reality. He continued to stare down at her, as if he were waiting for her to do something. She, however, did nothing, save falling back into sleep's comforting spell.
Sephiroth continued to stare and Aerith continued to sleep. However long such antics went on for Sephiroth could not for sure say, however, when his eyelids became heavy and he removed his gaze from her, the only light in the room was creeping in from the hallway.
Voices could be heard from the hall, and Sephiroth listened intently, his eyes focusing on nothing in particular in the dark room.
"He seems very dedicated to that young woman in there," he heard the doctor's voice sound. Sephiroth didn't need to see the man's face to know that he smiled warmly over his said observation.
"I wonder what she is to him?" the nurse's voice inquired that of the doctor's.
"Important, at the very least."
Sephiroth hadn't noticed when his eyes had closed, for the he found the same comforting dark behind his eyelids as he had in the room. He didn't know quite when he decided to tune out the conversation in the hall, either, but not long after he leaned forward, placing the larger portion of his upper body on what bed space was open. He folded his arms and placed his head atop of them, letting out an exhausted sigh. Sephiroth couldn't recall when, exactly, he fell asleep, but he thought he felt the flower girl move before he plunged head first into dreamland.