Chapter 12 Zev

Disclaimer: the characters and all recognisable situations belong to Stephenie Meyer - this is a work of fan fiction, except for the legends and histories of the Quileute and the Makah that, of course, belong to them. I pay my respects to their gods.

Thanks to BanSidhe for betaing.

The next day Rose said 'Seth'; at least he thought that was what she said. The ss made it hard for her to say clearly. It sounded a bit like 'Zev', but he would take it.

She looked at his swollen hand where he had punched the tree and she almost frowned at him. Thank goodness, she didn't see it last night. It had healed a lot since then.

"I was upset," he explained.

She blinked.

"I can't tell you," he said. "Not right now."

Her eyes looked hurt at that. She closed them and won't look at him.

"I can't tell you… you know I tell you everything… but I can't tell you this… not right now…maybe later…"

Her eyes stayed firmly closed.

"Look I know this is really hard for you… I don't think your mother told you her reasoning for leaving you here… did she?"

No response from Rose.

"Okay…" he sighed. "…the cost to do a medical evacuation for you from here to Deadwood would be $5,700 for every 17 miles… if they use air transport it would start at $20,000… plus the cost of the ambulance at each end … they can't afford that… and they worry about moving you… you are getting better here… if they move you and you regress… even if the hospital is better… moving you is such a big risk to take… if you go backwards… your parents will never forgive themselves… they are moving the entire family here to be with you… because it is the right thing to do for you…"

She opened her eyes. She looked guilty.

"It's not your fault…"

He held her hand, rubbed across her knuckles and stared at her hand. He felt an overwhelming urge to tell her he caused the accident. But, she had become the centre of his life and he didn't want to lose that. He also worried that if there was no one to do what he did for her, she wouldn't get any better. He had to make sure she got better.

She could hate him later.

"It must have been so weird for you to wake up and find me here… trying to help you… when you didn't really know me…"

She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah… well… you know me now…"

He resisted the urge to tell her the truth again.

He made a decision to tell her when she was better.

"I will make a deal with you," he offered, "I will tell you when you why I was upset when you are one hundred percent better; walking, talking, the whole deal." He looked at her face. She looked doubtful.

He knew what she was worried about. "Don't be silly… you can do it… and now you have a reason… you can learn all my deepest darkest secrets." He looked suddenly serious, "I would tell you everything," he promised her. "Everything," he repeated.

"You have to squeeze my hand if you agree… no more flash cards… you can say 'yes' or you can squeeze my hand… this is a one time offer," he encouraged. "You can do it… come on."

It took her some time, but she managed both.

He was ecstatic and kissed her forehead again.

Nurse Evelyn caught him doing it. "Seth is there something you haven't told us?" she teased. "You falling in love with this girl?" she asked.

He just blushed and didn't answer her, but Evelyn kept staring at him.

"She said 'yes'," Seth blustered; anything to get Evelyn to stop staring at him.

"You asked her if you could kiss her," Evelyn cackled.

"Well… no ... we were talking about something else and she said 'yes'… she can say my name too… at least I think it is …" he blustered again.

"Hmmm," said Evelyn. She looked down at Rose. "Is that right girl? Is he telling me the truth?"

They waited for a minute or so.

Rose's face twisted with the effort. "Yeth," she managed.

"Uh huh," said Evelyn. She got a rascally look on her face. "Did you want him to kiss you?"

"Yeth," said Rose, she drooled a lot with that one and Evelyn matter of factly wiped it up with a tissue.

"Can you say anything else other than 'yes'?" Evelyn asked, and then she cackled with laughter and patted her hand. "Don't answer that one; it's a trick question."

"Zev," said Rose.

"Oh… you're a tricky one, aren't you girl?" She laughed as she walked away.

Rose stared at him.

"What?" he asked her and blushed again.

Angryday

Another day she was having a really bad day. She was angry. She was angry with him and uncooperative about everything. She fought him over the simplest thing.

The weather was appalling again and the air crackled with static electricity.

Seth lost it and shouted at her.

"I am trying so hard here, Rose," he shouted. "You cannot just push me away."

There was a crack of lightning that seemed to frighten Rose, it was so close.

"Why," she said. Her vocabulary was slowly acquiring more words.

"Why am I here? Why am I helping you? Why do I care?" Seth was losing it and he knew he was, but he couldn't stop it.

He paced back and forth in the gap between the bed and the window. He was so close to telling her everything, but he couldn't. He knew she would withdraw from him and he wanted her to get better. Fix her body and then break her heart?

He decided to stick with the Leah version of the story; like she told the nurses the first day he came to visit Rose. "My sister, Leah… you remember Deputy Clearwater?"

Rose blinked.

"She was the first officer at the scene of your accident. She said that it really touched her." Well that was true; that was exactly what she had told the nurses the first time he was here. And she was the first officer at the scene, but not the first person; so that was not totally a lie. "She asked me to look after you… because she worried about you…" That one was a lie.

He looked at her face. She looked doubtful.

He continued; he could not stop the words coming out of his mouth. He had verbal vomit. "And now I worry about you, too," he said in a very small voice. "If I don't come and help you; you might not get better. Your mum is not here and you would be all by yourself. I don't want you to be all by yourself."

She looked… disappointed.

She turned her head away. There was another crack of thunder from the approaching storm. What had he done wrong? Why was she disappointed? What did she want from him?

Then he remembered her reaction to him taking his shirt off, and he remembered that the second word she had said was his name, and she had told Nurse Evelyn she wanted him to kiss her. Plus, his mother had warned him about emotional involvement after accidents.

She liked him. Of course she did. He was an idiot not to have thought of it before.

"And I like you," he watched for her reaction. That was the truth.

Her head turned back towards him slowly. She looked hopeful now.

"I really like you."

She blinked. They stared at each other.

He sat on the edge of her bed, facing her. He leant forward and brushed his hand down her cheek.

"Can I kiss you?" he asked tentatively.

She blinked. "Yeth," she said.

He brushed his lips against hers. Her lips barely moved against his. But, they did move. His head pulled away and he looked into her eyes. She beamed at him.

He brushed her cheek again. She smiled.

"Besides," he added, "it's cool to have a girl who doesn't hog the conversation all the time."

She rolled her eyes and made a grunt noise.

After that, Seth started to use kisses as rewards and Rose made some great leaps ahead.

The hospital was very concerned about this, but they checked with her mother and she just sagely said, she thought that might happen. She also argued that if it helped Rose it was okay. The nurses all vouched for him, stating that he had not abused his position of trust with her before now and that she was awake and speaking enough to confirm that it was what she wanted. The hospital made Winona sign something so she couldn't sue them. Seth had no idea this was all happening behind the scenes.

He started trying to get her to walk. His strength and tirelessness were invaluable here. He thought he would carry her everywhere but she needed to walk by herself. It was so frustrating for her to have to relearn everything. It was a slow process. He could support her so easily with his increased strength. She didn't seem to realise how much upper body strength it took to hold her upright away from his body so that she could 'walk'.

They practiced walking ever day; up and down the corridors at the hospital.

Rose could now go to the bathroom by herself. Seth walked or carried her in if she has worn herself out, left her, came back and gets her when she asked him to. Oddly, it was an intimacy most couples have never reached.

They worked on her speech. She grunted one day and every time she did, Seth would grunt back at her. It became a game with them grunting at each other like monkeys.

She got tired really easily.

She and Seth giggled like loons when he had to teach her to brush her teeth again. She could get dressed now and sit in a chair by the window.

Her speech improved daily.

Raven started Rose on some needle work. Bargello or something she called it. She just needed to follow one line of stitching that Raven had started for her with a different colour. Big mesh, with a big needle and thick wool so that it was easy for her to hold. She had to count squares and think about where the next stitch went, plus it made her try hard with her fine motor skills. Raven would encourage her, sit, and natter away about her grandchildren. And thread needles when she needed her to.

Rose had days where she would forget things. She would get so frustrated when she couldn't think of the right word. Alternatively, she forgot what she was doing or saying in the middle of it.

Sue explained to Seth that the right front part of her brain controlled a number of things... spatial relationships, art, music, emotions and intuition. It was the right front part of her head that she had banged on the window of the car. It also held the controls for the opposite side of her body. So her physical movements on the left side of her body may be affected.

She had one very bad day where the nurses had to restrain her before she hurt herself. They knew the best solution was to phone Seth. He came as fast as he could run. It was pouring with rain again, but he ran in to the hospital ward with no shoes on and wearing wet cut offs. He didn't even stop to try to ask her what was wrong; he just undid the restraints, scooped her up and held her against his naked chest. He bound her in his arms and she tried to fight him but he was just too strong. He just rocked her and crooned at her.

Eventually the fit ended, she stopped trying to fight him and she just cried.

Cried and cried as if her heart was breaking.

Afterwards, he tried to ask what had started it and she could barely explain. Something she had forgotten. Something that was important to her. It was worse now that she couldn't even remember what it was.

He asked his mum and she looked a little worried and then she explained about long term issues for coma recovery patients. She told him about absence seizures. They sounded serious to him.

Sue told him that a person suffering from these will not lose normal body posture; they don't slump or fall over, and they may appear to be staring into space with or without jerking or twitching movements of their eye muscles to give it away. These periods can last for seconds, or much longer. Those experiencing absence seizures sometimes move from one location to another without any purpose. They could just wander off in the middle of a seizure.

That sounded dangerous to Seth.

They started having to write everything down for Rose. Seth found an old filofax and they transferred all the little notes, scribbled phone numbers, and website addresses into it. They called it her 'control journal'. It held everything; usernames, passwords, phone numbers, names, appointment times, everything. She joked that it was her black leather brain and shouldn't it really be pinker. Seth pointed out that brains were more of a grey colour and Rose gave him a very odd look.

Memory triggers like lists helped. She had a morning plan that actually listed: get up, get dressed, put your shoes on, eat breakfast, check the calendar and take your medicine. Systematically, so she did not forget anything. Seth had laminated it and she used a dry erase marker to tick things off. She had to relearn stuff that used to be habitual.

She just could not rely on her brain to remember for her. She had another plan for afternoon and evening.

They had to keep reminding her what day it was and that she had been in a car accident. She kept forgetting. Seth thought that was weird.

He found a big wall calendar with lots of space in the boxes and Rose took pride in writing in her achievements, using coloured stickers like rewards and 'X'ing off the days as they passed. At least she was right handed so she was getting her writing back up to par.

Seth made her read aloud to him; he said she owed him, but it worked her speech, and thought patterns.

Their romance, such as it was, did not progress beyond handholding and some chaste kissing. Seth didn't want to take advantage. Her health was his main priority.

FF_2154210_ - 23/03/2011 06:04:00 PM

FF_2154210_ - 31/08/2011 12:29:00 AM