[Todd]
The healers told us that we would be able to see Viola in a few hours. It hasn't quite been 5. I want to go up and see her, but Ben says that I shouldn't bother, that the healers would notify us if anything significant happens, but he doesn't get it.
I have to be there for her.
Like she was for me.
I ain't never leaving you, not even in my head.
I grin at "ain't" as I always do for a second, but then I wipe it off my face.
Ben and I are sitting across the living room, not speaking a word. We've been like this since Lee went back, his noise still blurry. We still don't know If Wilf and Jane know yet. I doubt they've been able to pull anything out of him. I think he hasn't spoken since I puled Viola out of the water. Solid as a rock.
I finally decide I've had enough. I can't just sit here while Viola's up there maybe dead or maybe not. I just need to know. I need to be with her. Without warning, I get up and tell Ben I'm going to see her. Before he can even object, I'm halfway to the front door. He calls after me halfheartedly, but he knows that there's not anything in this world that'll stop me, so he stays, reluctantly.
Before long I'm up the path and onto the hilltop. I find the tent marked "Intensive Care and Life Support" in red, where we were told we might find Viola. I go in, pushing the tent flap aside. I walk slowly past a few walled-off rooms in the tent before I find a doctor who doesn't look like he's critically busy. I ask hi if he knows where I might find Viola. He hears her name, and he gives me a look. "A girl, about my age?" In a moment of realization, he nods his head "Oh." "Follow me," he says. He takes me past a few other sections of tent, before he stops at the only open one, and there's Viola inside, hooked up to some big boxy machine. "She's unconscious, but alive," the doctor says. And I melt at the word alive, 'cause now I know she might make it, that there's at least hope. "She might take a long time to wake up," the doctor interrupts. "She might never wake up at all." But I ignore that. 'Cause she's my Viola. She'll be back. I know it.
I sit down next to her on a stool for visitors, I guess. The doctor leaves. I don't really know what to do. She doesn't have a book or anything I can read to her… but then I remember my birthday present. I never finished it, I only got it yesterday. But I might as well bring it back up here and try to dictate it to her. But I don't want to leave. So I just talk to her. I just have a casual, one-sided conversation with her. I talk about the things we normally do. How the new settlers have really made things better. About more and more people starting to move into houses or spiting into smaller groups and going of to start settlements nearby. I tell her about how I felt when I realized she was starting to drown. Things like that. I must be there for a long time, because the same doctor that brought me here comes in and asks me to leave. But I tell him that I'm not going anywhere, and I think my face and my noise make him leave me be. I start talking for a long while again, and eventually I realize it's dark outside. The tent is lit up with fluorescent light bulbs. I still don't leave.
And eventually I must fall asleep, 'cause Ben wakes me up and he tells me I've been here long enough, and I should come down. I say no, and he says he figured, so he packed me a rucksack. And then I remember the last time Ben packed me a rucksack. I take it from his hands and I say bye to him. He says he promises to come and visit everyday, and that I should eat something. He hands me a granola bar. And then he leaves.
I look through the rucksack. There's not much. Just a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and two books. My ma's, and the one Viola got me yesterday. I've never read through either of them all the way. So I read Viola's first. I read it out loud to her for a while. 'Cause there's nothing else to do.
That's how I've been spending the past few days here, in this tent, Ignoring doctors and healers and Spackle telling me to leave and reading Viola's own book to her, only sleeping when I can't stay awake, Ben visiting every once in a while, watching day turn into night into day. And it's miserable and it sucks but she's here. And that's what matters. That I can be with her. And I'll wait for however long it takes Viola, 'cause you made me a promise. And you'll be back soon.
~END~
Author's note: this was a first-draft of this story. I'm revising and editing it now, and I'll upload a finished version when it's done. 'till then, turah!