You hate her. You hate her you hate her you hate her!

Seriously, what the fuck made her think that was an okay thing to do? Oh David, let's go on a ride, it'll be FUN! Not.

Everything hurts as you sit in the hospital's waiting room and the loud bustling of apparently the entire population of New York City is really not making it any better. Especially that baby three rows behind you, why won't it stop crying. Someone make it stop crying. God, you hurt, and that baby needs to stop crying before you scream too.

A hand grabs for your shoulder searchingly and after finding its victim, the poking starts.

Poke-poke poke-poke poke-poke.

You're not going to give her the satisfaction of looking over. "No." you say instead and a second later you could slap yourself for it, because whether you look or not doesn't make a difference with her. Your voice is all she needs to start badgering you verbally, too. You scoot away in disgust, but don't get far in the tiny waiting room chairs before your arm touches the armrest and you bite the inside of your cheek, hard, to swallow the yelp of pain that rose in your throat.

"Daviiid..." Her voice is nasal and ridiculous thanks to the wads of tissue stuffed in her nostrils and you feel an odd sense of satisfaction at that. "Daavid, are you there? I'm sooorry."

"No, you're not." You try to keep your voice steady, even though the constant throbbing pain in your arm makes you want to cry. "You're only saying that because we got hurt. If we didn't, you'd be asking me for another ride right now, don't you dare lie to me."

She sniffs and immediately winces, removing her arm from your shoulder to hold her nose. "Okay fine, maybe. It was fun, though! Admit it, before we crashed it was just like a rollercoaster!"

Oh, she did not. Your head snaps in her direction. "No, it wasn't!" You snarl at her. "I never even said yes! If we're being real here, I told you it was a bad idea! You came at me like," you do your best to make your impression of her as ridiculous as possible. "Look at me, I'm Terezi and I have the beeest ideas! Hey David, let's go for a ride down the hill!" You switch back to your own voice. "Maybe that's not such a good idea because you know, I can't walk and you can't see, maybe some other time." You cackle in a high-pitched voice. "Fuck that, it'll be fun, come on! Terezi, stop! Wheeee! And then, crashing noises!" With your good hand you grab hers and wave it in the air between you two, mimicking an explosion.

She wrenches it away from you with a violent tug and scoffs. "I get it! God, yeah, I get it! Fine, I fucked up. Are you happy?"

You lean back against the waiting room's seat. It's plastic and uncomfortable. You want your wheelchair but of course the left front wheel got bent in your spectacular crash. Of course. You're stuck in this stupid chair and you can't move because your legs always give out after a few steps and you hurt and you hate everything about this! "No, I'm not."

The next few minutes pass in silence, both of you sulking angrily in your chairs. You wish Mom were here. You were on the phone with her earlier, when Terezi's mom drove the two of you to the hospital, and she said she'll be there as soon as possible. Tuesdays are long work days at the lab, you hope she can get here before you see a doctor.

You don't mind doctors, doctors are okay. You've been visiting doctors your entire life, you're not afraid of a needle or whatever, not even those gross wooden sticks you get shoved down your throat really bother you. What you don't like is a new doctor you haven't been to before. They'll ask questions you don't know the answer to and you need to explain everything twice because they want to hear it from your perspective. Yes, since I was five months old. No, it was his fault, he was drunk. Yes, physiotherapy is twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays.

This time it's gonna be even worse if Mom isn't here, she usually jumps in for you if you can't explain something. You don't want to go alone.

When you arrived, you had high hopes, since the line to the counter was longer than the scarves Rose knits, and let you tell you, that's a fucking feat, but now you're not that optimistic anymore. Mrs. Pyrope is already talking to the guy at the desk, making curt hand movements just like Terezi does when she's agitated. The baby from three rows back has shut up now. Fucking finally.

Terezi doesn't try to talk to you again. Good, you think. She's been doing all kinds of bullshit lately, this is the last straw. You're only sort of friends with her because she and Aradia roleplay together, anyway. Maybe this whole thing was a way to get to know you better? You don't care, she just blew any chance of you being friends. Call it petty but you don't like people who touch you without permission. Especially people who touch your wheelchair without permission.

Mrs. Pyrope is on her way over again with a disgruntled look on her face. Oh man, what's she gonna say? You can't help but shrink back in your chair a little, at least until in doing so you jostle your arm and let out a little involuntary, pathetic whimper. Mrs. Pyrope is intimidating. She's tall and walks like she means business, shoulders back and chin up and heels clacking against the floor. She's a lawyer and she looks the part and you're a bit nervous, fidgeting as you try your best to meet her gaze.

She comes to stand before you and throws her hands in the air in exasperation. "These people are incredible! No form or organization at all! How is anything supposed to work here?"

Terezi snorts but aborts halfway through to make a pained groan. "Did you sue them?"

Her mother narrows her eyes at her. "Don't try to joke around, Terezi. I'm still mad at you. I did not sue them, you two were already put on the waiting list a while ago, and even if you weren't, that's not grounds to sue anyone. I was asking for a new wheelchair for you, David." She looks at you and eases up her stern expression a little.

You shift and try to readjust your hold on your arm, wincing and dropping your gaze, uncomfortable. "Thanks but my Mom is going to bring me my replacement when she gets here anyway, so, um, that's not really necessary." Your voice is squeaky and your words tumble out in a rush and god you're so nervous right now, and you don't even know why!

She waves a hand dismissively. "Nonsense, you can't just sit in the waiting room like this until she does. It's almost five, so the traffic will be terrible, and she'll be in the middle of that, and I won't have you just sitting here until whatever moment she arrives. The least I can do to apologize for Terezi's unacceptable behaviour is make sure you're as comfortable as it gets." There's an indignant huff next to you and Mrs. Pyrope narrows her eyes again, shifting her sharp, piercing gaze to her daughter. You can't help but be relieved her eyes have left you. "Don't think I'm done with you. We will talk about this when we get home."

Terezi shrinks back in her chair, looking shamefaced as she turns her face down. You would say she stares at her lap, but she can't see it anyway. What a pretty pickle this is! The blind kid and the one who can't fucking walk are the ones who get into a big fucking accident and end up in the emergency room. This is so stupid you might laugh, if you don't start crying first.

Silence falls again until a nurse arrives with a standard edition hospital wheelchair that looks tiny in comparison to his huge frame. He clears his throat and Terezi's mom turns around. "Mrs., um-"

"Pyrope." She cuts through briskly, like she doesn't have time for this. "Ah, great, you're here."

The nurse nods and looks at his clipboard for a second. "Mrs. Pyrope. Doctor Foster is free now, if you'll follow me, ma'am."

You feel a jolt of nervousness shoot through your body, coiling in your stomach like a cloud of anxious, fretting butterflies. Twisting around you glance at the door but it's no use; Mom still isn't here, and you're stuck in this huge building in pain all on your own. But before you can so much as protest, the big nurse is carefully helping you into the wheelchair and then pushing you down the aisle towards the double doors.

An hour and a half later Terezi, Mrs. Pyrope and you are back in the waiting room, this time because you're waiting for Mom to arrive. While Terezi's nose is all taped up and should take about two weeks to heal, your arm might stay in this dumb white cast for six weeks. Broken radius, Doctor Foster said. At least it wasn't something more serious, she said. Oh joy. You hate looking at it. It's boring and bland and only reminds you of the fact that you now have three limbs that you can't use properly instead of just two, like that wasn't enough already, and you can't even push your chair around anymore or put on your clothes or tie your shoes or, or anything!

You swallow around the lump in your throat and shit, NO, you're NOT going to cry now, not in front of them or anybody, you are sick and tired of being labelled the weak one who cries anytime something goes wrong. N-no, you're not going to… Quick, something to distract you. There's a flower shop across from you and uh, more patients sitting around in chairs and, and the clickclackclick of heels running on the hospital floor and- Wait, you know that sound. You know that sound.

"Excuse me, excuse me, sorry, pardon me!" An all too familiar voice calls through the waiting room as you turn around and see Mom push her way through the crowd and turning her head to look for you. Then she spots you and you have never in your life been so glad to see someone. Mom renews her effort and five seconds later she's crouching in front of you and pushing the hair out of your face to get a good look at you.

"David, honey, I'm so sorry, I came as fast as I could. How are you?" She glances at your cast and back to you. "What happened?"

You bite your tongue to pull yourself together because it's Mom and she's finally here and you just want her to hug you and tell you it's going to be alright, so you just shrug instead since you're not sure you'd be able to talk right now. She looks so worried, but before she can say any more, Mrs. Pyrope steps closer and speaks up.

"Mrs. Lalonde?"

Mom turns her head halfway and gets up from her crouch while never removing her hand from your head. She straightens her skirt a little with her other hand and reaches out to shake the other woman's hand earnestly. "Mrs. Pyrope, I can't thank you enough, you really didn't have to wait up for me, I would have gone with David as soon as I arrived."

Terezi's mum shakes her head and waves her off. "It's no trouble. This whole fiasco was Terezi's fault, I feel like it's my responsibility to do as much as I can. That is also why I took the liberty of covering David's medical bill. See it as an apology on my part."

As Mom starts to argue with Mrs. Pyrope about how that is and isn't necessary, you take the chance to regard Terezi, who's been sitting in her chair with her arms crossed and oddly silent since you came back to the waiting room. Her eyebrows are furrowed and her shoulders hunched, you guess she's feeling pretty guilty, but that doesn't matter to you. You actively hate her and don't plan on changing that anytime soon.

The tap on your shoulder makes you snap your gaze back to Mom and Mrs. Pyrope, who seem to have come to a conclusion in their argument. Mom looks down at you fondly and squeezes your good shoulder gently. "Let's go home, alright?"

You nod quickly and say your thanks to Mrs. Pyrope for everything she's done before Mom takes a hold of the hospital wheelchair's handles and starts pushing you towards the exit.

She doesn't say much until you get to the car, where she helps you in and kisses the top of your head before she closes your door and gets in on her side. After she pulls out of the parking lot and turns the indicator on to make the turn onto the road, she finally asks again, "What happened, David?"

This time you know you have to answer. She let it slide earlier because you were in public and Terezi and her mother were right there, but now it's just the two of you and it's not like you can just not tell your own goddamn mother why exactly you have a cast on your left arm, is it?

"...Terezi pushed me down a hill," you mutter, the fingers on your right hand curling into a fist. Your nails dig into your palm a little. "I hate her."

Mom doesn't say anything for a moment. You stare at your reflection in the mirror out the window, then watch cars go by in the rain, and then turn your head to look at her, kind of uncertain and hesitant. You can't really tell what she's thinking and that's kind of unnerving to you, but her lips are pressed together into a firm, disapproving line as she watches the road.

"I see," she says after another moment. The car draws to a stop at a red light and she glances over at you, her face softening. "How long did the doctor say you have the cast on?"

"Six weeks," you mutter, "at most. Maybe less, depending on how fast it heals but we all know that's sure gonna happen." Your gaze drops to your lap, where the cast is staring at you innocently. You don't even have the energy to tell it to fuck off.

"It might," Mom says reasonably. You cast a kind of dirty look in her general direction for a second because you are over here wallowing in a puddle of misery and self-pity and you're not sure how much you appreciate logic and rational thinking right now. It's immature and silly and Mom doesn't deserve any of your moody teen crap today, so you try to pull yourself together for the rest of the ride home. Neither of you speaks but you can tell she's not happy. Probably because you got turned into Splash Mountain with a little more concrete than water rather than anything you did. You pray to whoever is out there that she won't insist on talking to Mrs. Pyrope again.

Half an hour later she pulls up in your driveway but before Mom even gets the chance to help you out of the car the door flies open and both your sisters spill out and towards you in a rush. While Roxy tries not to slip on the wet tiles in her hurry to get to you, Rose quickly ends a call with "... they just arrived, I'm going to call you when I know what happened."

Mom steps aside to get your chair and Roxy slides to a halt in front of you. Wow, her lipstick is smudged and she hasn't fixed it yet, she must've really been worried. Her eyes wander to your cast and she inhales sharply. "David, honey no! What did you do?"

You put on a brave face and grin sheepishly, you don't want to get snippy at her. "It's not so much what I did but whatever. Broke my arm, no biggie. Three down, one to go, haha amiright?"

"David!" Rose looks at you like your self-depreciating joke didn't come across well and well, that's ridiculous. Laughing about injury is obviously the best way to go about getting rid of existential crisis' on the topic of mobility and your lacking usefulness. Just stuff that fucker in a box and hand it to Pandora, nothing can go wrong here, nope.

Roxy frowns and and takes your chair from Mom to help you get in without bumping your arm too much. Day one of total and complete dependence on others, yayy! At least it's your right hand, you're not sure how long you could make it without even being able to write properly.

Rose walks next to you on the way in. "Kanaya just called, she couldn't reach you, none of us could, actually. Did you play too much Angry Birds again, is that it?"

Roxy snorts from behind and you groan loudly. "Rose that was like one time. I don't even have that stupid app anymore, it was just a waste of time."

"Really?" She sidles up close to you and smirks. "More like you couldn't beat a level and decided to hide the shame from everyone who ever respected you as a real gamer."

She stands back up properly, still grinning, but before you can make a compelling argument of 'How Dare You' and 'Go Fuck Yourself', Mom sets down her purse on the coffee table and turns around to the three of you. She still doesn't look to be in the mood for jokes but for now you think she's just glad nothing worse happened. Tired, that's it. You can sympathise.

"Come on now girls, David is tired, you get to bother him any other day anyway. Baby Bird, hush and into bed with you," She checks her watch. "I know it's early but all that adrenaline is bound to wear off soon and you're going to crash in bed, not on the couch. I don't look it but this lady right here can't carry thirteen-year-old twerps anymore."

"What about seventeen-year-old twerps, Mom?" Roxy sets her chin on your head and you blow upwards to catch her face. She turns up her nose. Success. Mom puts a hand on her hip and jokingly points at Roxy with the other.

"Watch it kitten, soon you'll be the one carrying me and then who's going to make the jokes?" All three of you groan. Pftt, she says that every time. It's probably a mum thing all mums discuss on so-called 'Book Club Meetings'. Yeah, right.

"So I have to go to bed, right?" You say because a thought just occurred to you and you think that exceptions can be made in special situations like these. Mom hums in agreement. "Can Roxy and Rose watch a movie in my room then? I did just suffer a terrible, terrible injury, I think only that could make it better." Your sisters both perk up and Roxy wraps her arms around your chest from behind. Rose waves a hand in the air. "That's right, I just recently read an article about how movies are the cure for everything," She explains with raised eyebrows. "David is a patient in dire need, who would you be to hinder his rehabilitation?"

Mom only laughs and shakes her head. "We wouldn't want that, would we?" She shrugs and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "Alright, one movie. Then you two need to leave him be, these things really tire you out. And don't forget your painkillers, Roxy, you know where they are." Yesssss, score! The rest of tonight is gonna be awesome, you can tell.

Mom comes over to give you all a good night kiss and tells you that she'll be in her office for a while before bed, as usual. As you're waiting for the lift, Rose suddenly brightens up and puts a hand on your good shoulder. "David. Do you know what this means?"

Oh no, you have a feeling this isn't good. Especially since she said in in that tone, the one that always gets Roxy interested and oh yeah, there we go, Roxy straightens up and nods in Rose's direction. "What's the sitch, Lalonde?"

Rose nods right back. "It means, Lalonde, that Lalonde has acquired a whole new and fresh canvas for doodle practice."

…

Oh no.

AN: WOW okay, it's been a while! I know we said after exams but technically it's always after exams, who knew?

In all seriousness though, we're going to try to update at least once a month, so see this as the July update! August could be slightly iffy because of holidays and stuff bUT that doesn't mean we won't try!

Please leave us a review to tell us what you think!