I'm on medication since I can barely move my neck (fun times), and maybe that has something to do with my update ratio. ;)
Excuse the hideous separators. *wails* I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO DESERVE THIS. :'(
And enjoy! Let me know how the progression is going, k? And thanks to the few reviewers and the tons of lurkers, whose numbers continue to surprise and delight little old me. :')
Part 11
He sees her only one time.
One visit.
Molly is upstairs with her new baby, and he has gone for pudding cups.
Pudding.
Such triviality.
He is still thrilling with the sight of his first grandson, unable to stop staring at the freshly-snapped image on the phone he has no idea how to use.
It has been three hours since he should have had breakfast, and the cafeteria is full of exhausted, scrub-clad hospital staff on break.
And that is when he sees.
-.-.-
She said the door was open, after the surgery. She said that if they got through it, the door was open.
He knew that.
He knew it was open.
But he could not go through.
-.-.-
Now, standing with a tray of pale, unappetizing pumpkin soup and two pudding cups to take back upstairs, he catches a glimpse of golden hair, about twenty feet away.
The sight of the apple-cheeked toddler floods him with memories of his own daughter's childhood, back when everything was simple. The little girl is gorgeous, wavy honey tresses tumbling freely over her shoulders. She's walking into the cafeteria with a couple he's never seen before, and he feels his lungs relax as his brain registers that this is just a coincidence.
-.-.-
As he attempts to digest the concoction disguised as soup, he finds his gaze straying back to the girl. Her father is holding her hand, while her mother is carrying a tray. They walk between tables, from behind to in front of him, and he feels himself almost smile as he recalls the events of thirty-odd years ago.
The family arrives at their destination, a booth table already occupied by other workers, and the child scrambles up next to—
And that is when his heart catches.
-.-.-
He had been wrong. The first couple was not her parents.
He can tell that immediately from the way she snuggles between the other couple, facing toward him.
He knows it's her.
The intervening two years are evident. Her hair is shorter, cropped to shoulder-length. Her smile is wider, more ready. She seems more tired, more experienced, more grown up.
She does not notice him.
-.-.-
It could only be a maximum of ten minutes before their meal is over, one of the doctors being paged away. Her partner, judging by the only slightly too-long kiss they exchange as he leaves.
It is the attending she had been with, all those years ago.
The other two are summoned not long after, and then there is nobody left between them.
It was only a matter of time before she saw him.
-.-.-
In the end, it took another four minutes.
The lonely man stopped staring at the busy woman. People sat between them and he lost sight of her. He went back to his soup and the photo in his hand.
The woman gathered her things and stood.
It's then that she sees him.
-.-.-
When he looks back to the food line and debates the potentially-fatal repercussions of another bowl of chalky soup, their eyes meet.
She is startled.
Not as much as he is.
-.-.-
He had thought that Molly's new baby, fawned over upstairs, was his second grandchild.
Like so many other times, he was wrong.
A grandchild from her, too.
She never fails to surprise him.
-.-.-
The girl, a few years old, is tugging at her scrubs. There is a baby on her hip, too, about a year old. Had probably been in a carrier on the seat. Dark hair, big blue eyes, one hand fisted in the neck of her scrub top.
She clips gadgets one-handedly back to her waist, trying to not look over at him.
When she turns to push the others' chairs in, he notices the strain at her scrubs, the angle of the baby's foot against the terrain of her belly.
Grandchildren, then.
Very, very plural.