Author's Note: Part five. Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed and read this, it's totally awesome of you guys. This chapter is extra long, so I've split it into two parts (if you review both parts separately, I'll give you a cookie *crosses heart* Enjoy
Everything is white.
The walls, the bedsheets, her hospital gown, the doctors' coats, their surgical masks, her skin, the light bursting through the window that runs parallel to her bed, and it's making Naomi's eyes hurt, her head, too, and she already feels shitty enough as it is; the backs of her hands are sore, from the nurse's trying to stick her with an IV; she feels sick to her stomach, so nauseous she can barely move without provoking the urge to vomit; Naomi is scared, and she's alone, and everyone's left her, and everything really fucking hurts –
Naomi smells the blood before she sees it, detects the metallic and coppery scent as she draws air into her lungs, and she freezes where she lays on her hospital bed. Naomi watches with her heart in her throat as the white sheets turn red, blood leaking from her body and spilling to the floor like a crimson waterfall, and she's already screaming by the time the pain kicks in and fires through her body like an electric current.
There are people everywhere, suddenly, and she hears things like code blue and rectal bleeding and her mother crying in the hallway, wracking sobs that hurt more than whatever the fuck is rapidly killing her where she lays, and there are hands all over her, helping, healing, shaking –
– and then Naomi is awake and upright in her bed, skin slippery with sweat and drawing harsh breaths into her lungs as Effy pulls her close and rubs her back with both hands, trying to soothe her; Effy's voice in her ear pushes the last mental pictures of her nightmare out of her head, and then Naomi is crying against her and gripping her body tightly with shaking hands.
Naomi hears Effy say things like it's okay, Naoms and I'm here and it was just a dream.
(Naomi nods against her neck, pressing her forehead to the cool skin of Effy's shoulder, even as every empty space in her body closes up and she feels dizzy from a lack of oxygen. She doesn't have the words to tell Effy that it wasn't a dream that's got her blood running cold in her veins, her pulse racing like a butterfly beating it's wings erratically beneath her skin.
The word memory sticks in her throat, a truth she's not ready to share).
;;
Naomi wakes for the second time somewhere around daybreak; the sky is still pink and beginning to glow softly as the sun rises, different shades of pastel colours that overlap and blend together. She shuts her eyes tightly and turns away from her window (she can't stand to look at the beauty of the world when her own is so dark and twisted and ugly).
A hand on her knee turns her attention to the foot of her bed, where Gina is sat watching her, eyes tired and red, and looking as exhausted as she feels; Naomi sits up and rubs the sleep from her eyes, running her hands through her sleep-tousled hair and threading her fingers with her mum's, squeezing lightly. It makes a vein in her wrist flex, and the mess of cuts in the skin there move with the muscle; Naomi winces when her mother's gaze drops to the wound, her face pinching like a lime, and she opens and closes her mouth as her heart clenches in her chest.
"I just wanted it to go away," she stutters out, after much deliberation, feeling far too ashamed too look Gina in the eye. "I didn't want to have to –" Naomi's voice breaks, catching on emotions she doesn't have a name for. She takes a deep, shuddery breath. "I'm just so fucking scared, y'know?"
And she is. She's absolutely fucking terrified. Naomi is sick of doctors and tests and treatments, and she has grown to hate hospitals with a fiery vengeance, can't stand the sight or smell of them. She had spent months at a time just lying in a hospital bed, being poked and prodded and hooked up to monitors, seeing death reflected in the window panes fitted into the walls, or the eyes of those around her; it was an ever-present threat, hiding in the corners of her room, the shadows in the hall, a lingering scent in her linens. It contaminated every inane conversation she had with her parents where they acted like everything was fine, laced every single word that fell from their trembling lips to the point where it was less painful to sit in silence and listen to her mother cry, because at least the heartache and devastation her sobs translated to was honest.
(Of course, what scares her most is what will happen to the people around her in the face of this, how they will hurt and bleed when she does, how they will see how she's failed them and take back the promises they have made to always be there, even when times are hard. What scares Naomi the most, is just how much she's got to lose).
A warm palm against the skin of her cheek makes Naomi look up and meet her mother's gaze. A few days ago she would have flinched, swatted her away and mumbled her embarrassment, but now, Naomi clings to the moment and burns the touch into her memory.
(Just in case).
"I know," Gina says, and the way the words come out, like despair is lining her throat and suffocating her words as she speaks them does something to Naomi's heart that feels a lot like it's being ripped down the middle. "I'm scared, too."
They stay that way for a while, fingers knotted together against the lilac of Naomi's sheets, and Naomi thinks of telephone wires drawing lines on the horizon as a thousand words pass between them in silence; minutes pass before long fingers curl around her wrist in a loose embrace, and Naomi realises that Effy has woken beside her. She smiles weakly at the brunette, who presses a gentle kiss to her temple in response, and Naomi can't help but feel relieved that at this moment, she doesn't have to pretend; they know, they know everything's fucked up and she's in serious shit and this could very well be the end of her, but she doesn't have to face it alone anymore; the fear she feels in her bones and the thoughts that burn like fireworks with lit fuses in her head are still present, but Naomi knows that if they explode and send her reeling, blinded by the sheer horror of their reality, she has people to hold her together when she breaks.
;;
(Yesterday night, Effy had come back to Naomi's house to find her and Gina still collapsed on the bathroom floor, and had untangled them from each other, escorted a sobbing Gina downstairs to the kitchen and put the kettle on before running Naomi a bath and stripping her down to her underwear and helping her into it; she had drawn the hot water over the bruised skin of her back, taken special care to clean out the cuts she'd made on her arms, legs and stomach, her hands unsteady as she tended to the one just above her heart.
"We are going to fix this," Effy had said, arms and hands blurry and out of focus beneath the water. "You're going to get better."
Effy had looked directly into her eyes as she spoke, and Naomi felt her exposed skin heat up along with the rest of her, something akin to hope warming in her chest and spreading through her body. "Thanks, Effy," she'd whispered. And then, "I'm glad you're here."
(Effy's eyes were the wrong colour and she smelled of smoke instead of vanilla, but it was comforting to have her there all the same).
Later, they all sat at the kitchen table, Naomi and Effy across from Gina; Naomi's hair and skin were still damp from her bath, and she had shivered in her seat until the brunette had wrapped an arm around her shoulders and curled into her side, and it was so reminiscent of something Emily would do that something started aching in Naomi's chest.
Her mum broke the silence that had settled over them in the aftermath of the chaos. "How long have you –"
"Not long," Naomi interrupted, injecting far more conviction into her words than she actually felt. "I didn't know – I didn't notice until a few days ago – Sunday, I think –"
"Why the hell didn't you say anything?" Gina yelled, hands curled into fists on the table top, and Naomi flinched at the outburst, dropped her gaze to her lap (though her mum's pain still diffused the space between them, pricked sharply against her skin). "You know how dangerous this is, how fast it progresses! God, Naomi, how could you be so stupid –"
Anger had spiked through her entire body and had her jumping from her chair as if a fire had sparked beneath it. "You don't get it, do you?" Naomi cried, putting as much distance between her and Gina as possible, pacing across the tile. "This can't be happening again, okay, it just can't! You don't get to tell me I'm stupid, because you have no fucking clue how hard it is to have done this over and over and know that you have to do it all again, all of it – the fucking treatment that is supposed to make me better, but actually makes me feel so fucking awful I wish I was dead; being terrified all the time, knowing you could be dead in a second, not having a clue how much it's going to hurt or what happens to you afterwards; having to watch you suffer," Naomi choked out, "because you can't stand to see me be sick."
Naomi exhaled shakily, leaning against the countertop and rubbing her face with her hands. "I can't do this again," she breathed, tiredly, before meeting the gazes of the women in front of her, staring at them imploringly. "I don't want to die."
Gina had shook her head fiercely as her face had hardened, and declared, "You're not going to die, Naomi, I won't let it happen." She rose from the table and strode over to her daughter, smoothed her hands over her shoulders. "You're strong, Naomi, you've beaten this before – you can do it again," she stated, even as Naomi was shaking her head in disagreement, "yes, you can, I know you can. You have to, okay? Because I fucking love you, Naomi, and I'm not letting you go without a fight."
Naomi took a deep breath, flicked her eyes over to Effy who was openly crying, a pleading look in her eyes, and she found herself nodding at her mum before bursting into tears, suffocating under a fear so intense it threatened to tear her apart at the seams; this was real, and Naomi felt as if she had been drenched with ice water, the numbing cold seeping into her bones and settling there, at the thought that she might not be alive much longer.
It was too much to bear, and she'd be damned if she was going to burden anyone else with the horror of it.
"Don't tell anyone," she begged, breaking free from her mum's death grip so she could talk to Effy, too, and make sure they both understood. "Please," she sniffed, wiping tears from her cheeks, "please don't tell Emily."
"Love, you can't keep something like this from her –"
"I can," she swore, "I can and I will. She can't – it would destroy her."
The truth of her words was inarguable, and was met with silence. Effy broke it with a truth of her own.
"She loves you, Naoms. She really, fucking loves you."
"I know," Naomi replied, resolve tightening her mouth and darkening her eyes. "That's why she can never know.")