Recuperation

Trigger Warnings: Talk of attempted suicide, Hospitalization, Depression, and Guilt

A/N: and now we see why I don't name chapters a lot. I'm an amature writer so please tell me if there's something you see that you like or don't like. I decided to continue this story because apparently the idea wasn't as bad as I thought it was. I did quite a bit of research on both Wally's diagnosis and how mental hospitals work now, as well as on the precedures medical hospitals take when caring for patients who are admitted after an attempted suicide.

thank you for reading and please review.

It's a little bit later in the day when Wally wakes up again. Apparently it's now evening if the lack of natural light was anything to go by. The mask from earlier is still on his face but he's been taken off of the automatic blood pressure machine (Thank God) but he can see the IV is still attached to his arm (shit)

Wally shifts his position in hopes to relieve at least some of the tension that's built up in his neck and shoulders from sleeping in the gurney for so long. He starts to wonder's why he's still in the emergency room, when his attention is pulled to the figure standing in the door way. It's a short brown skinned young man with a slight almost imperceptible southern twang.

"Good evening Mr. West." The young doctor says as he reaches the head of Wally's bed. The doctor looks over Wally's IV before introducing himself. "I'm Doctor Nowar, Mr. West do you know where you are?"

"The hospital." his answer comes out closer to a whisper than Wally intended. It's still difficult for him to breathe, and his throat still feels as if it's peeling.

Dr. Nowar nods his head before continuing "Yes it is. Do you know why?"

Wally opens his mouth to answer, only now realizing exactly what he did. "I tried to kill myself." He says it as though he was detached. Still slightly in denial as to what he did. He looks back at the doctor and sees him nod.

"Mr. West you're very lucky your class mate found you in time. The large amount of Ambien in your system slowed your breathing to the point where we had to put you on oxygen the Tylenol you took could have destroyed your liver. Luckily you got here in time so we were able to use charcoal to get most of it out of your system, but you're still going to have to be on an IV to flush the rest of it out. Once you have a room we'll talk a bit more."

The doctor's on his way out the door when two women wearing scrubs enter the room. The older woman wearing pink scrubs introduces them both.

"Hi, there. My names Julie, and this is Sarah. Sarah will be your sitter." Sarah and young blond woman wearing blue Superman scrubs nods towards Wally in greeting and sits in a chair by the door.

Wally sits there staring at the door trying to ward off the head ache that just won't seem to go away (and they won't let him have any Tylenol He's about to head back to sleep when a young man with black hair and blue eyes enters the room.

Dick looks tired. From the bags under his eyes and slump in his shoulders he can tell that Dick probably hasn't slept all night. Once Dick notices that Wally was awake even the speedster was surprised with the speed at which his best friend made it to the side of his bed.

Just looking at Dick make's Wally's heart break. He feels selfish and stupid because the more he studies Dick's face, the more he can see where the cracks in his brother's mask have spread. Though he's smiling Dick's eyes show his guilt in full force.

"Hey, man." Dick says trying to make his smile look at least somewhat sincere. "Gave me a scare for a minute there."

There was an awkward silence, with Dick biting his lip and Wally looking anywhere but at his best friend. Neither really knew how to handle this. Nobody could ever have conceived the idea of one of them getting to this point. Especially not Wally, he was the one who smiled, who when knocked down always got back up again.

Dick thinks Wally shouldn't be here. He shouldn't have gotten to the point where he felt there was no other way out. Wally should have felt like he could turn to someone, he shouldn't have felt like he had to keep secrets.

Dick blames himself. He should have been there. He should have called earlier, he should have visited Wally instead of just following his best friend's request to be alone. Wally shouldn't have been alone while trying to pretend to mourn over the "death" of his girlfriend, losing what bit of normalcy the couple had gained, and dealing with the mounting pressure from school and work.

Dick should have known. He just can't get the idea out of his head that if he had done something differently, or said something then Wally would have opened up. They could have gotten him help before it got to this point.

Dick was broken out of his revere when Wally asked him a question.

"Have you called Uncle Barry, or my parents?" Wally looked up and Dick could see the slightly guarded anxiety in his gaze.

"That's something you're going to have to do." The young man paused a moment before continuing. "They probably won't want to hear this from me. I've hacked your medical files and amended it to say that you were anemic. The doctors will probably put you on double portions, with small snacks through out the day, when you're finally on a regular diet."

"Thanks Dick, you should probably go home and get some rest."

Dick was about to protest, but one look at Wally and he decided to relent. Even though Wally had been unconscious for most of the day, it didn't provide the same relief that sleep did. And with the pills still in his system on top of that, Wally was so pale he practically looked like a corpse. "I've rented a hotel room. I'll see tomorrow morning." Dick gave Wally's shoulder a squeeze before leaving the room.

Glossary

(A/N: I'm most likely am going to leave this here after the end of each chapter to explain some of the words used in each chapter of the story, some of them aren't exactly common knowledge.)

Sitter: a sitter is a member of the hospital staff pulled each shift (seven hours) to watch over a patient who either a) can't take care of themselves and has no one to sit with them around the clock or b) cannot be trusted to be on there own and must be watched around the clock. They are not allowed to leave suicidal patients alone for any amount of time for any reason.