Prompt 023: "Maybe something angsty? Maybe Chell ending up getting hurt and having to go to the hospital and Wheatley being scared that she almost died or something?"
Wheatley doesn't see the car.
He doesn't see the make or the model or the chipping paint. He doesn't see the shadow of the driver through the passenger side window and he doesn't see it peel away down the road.
What he sees is her on the ground, crumpled and limp. He sees the periwinkle of her jumper and the denim of her jeans. He sees the knot of her dark hair spilled in a pool by her head, and he sees her arm bent in a way it should never be.
Everything slows. The crowd ticks by in half time. There is a blur in his vision as he leaps from the curbside and plunges into the intersection.
Chell is lying there, still, painted white blocks of the crosswalk beneath. His knees kiss the asphalt and small pebbles stick to the meat of his palms as he kneels beside her.
He can't hear his own voice. There's a din that ripples the film of his eardrums and all he can do is push sound out of his throat. He thinks it's something like "Are you okay?" or "Someone help" or "You're alive, please be alive," but he doesn't know. His mouth is open and pouring something out, but the world seems submerged beneath the water, beneath rolling waves, and all he hears is a muffled roar.
Wheatley reaches out with shaking hands. He's afraid. Terrified. She has to be okay. She has to be. Has to be. Cradling her, he pulls her head into his lap. She's still, still breathing, but there's blood coming from somewhere, warm and wet and red. A cold puncture of panic harpoons through his innards.
Gently, he cups her cheek. Her skin is cold from the autumn chill. Her eyes are closed, unmoving, her face expressionless.
There is no determination there. No tenacity. No iron will.
Nothing.
Minutes pass before he realizes that someone else is there, cutting in, trying to pull her away. He thinks he shouts at whoever it is, the shadow, the entity, but he can't be sure. Nothing registers quite right. There's anger and horror and there is a painful tightness centered in the hollow of his chest, nesting between his lungs.
She's being lifted. There are more now, carrying her.
Wheatley is holding her hand. His grip is so tight. He wants her to squeeze back like she always does. He wants her to peer up from the white bed of plastic and metal they've placed her on and give him the sorts of looks she does when he's overreacting or when he's convinced himself something is wrong or when he's panicking over absolutely nothing.
One of the others pulls him back by the shoulder. There's something being said, something about transporting her to the hospital, but it doesn't sink in. He still clasps her hand. He doesn't want to let go. He just wants to be with her. He wants her to be okay. She has to be.
She's too strong to die.
Somehow, they've ushered him into the back of the ambulance. The ride is a haze and he stays huddled by her stretcher, watching the figures in coats and scrubs as they work. There are needles and tubes and pouches of transparent liquid, and he wishes so badly he could reach out for her again because he needs to feel her and to know she's still all right, but he doesn't want to be in the way.
Wheatley almost killed her once. If he somehow managed to cause it with his own desperate stupidity amongst medical emergency staff, he would never forgive himself. And so he watches, and waits, and a knot makes its home in the back of his throat as the green line of the heart monitor spikes across a black screen.
At the hospital, they make him wait in a stale white room with tables and chairs and old magazines. He doesn't sit. He doesn't read. There's pacing and pawing at the counter and pleading with the lady at the desk in hopes that she'll tell him how she's doing. (No, she doesn't know. Go sit down!)
When they fetch him at last, he's brought to another white room with white curtains, white lights, and white floors. Chell is asleep, wrapped in layered blankets, a tube of some sort attached to the bend of one arm. The other, the hurt, the never-should-be-bent is encased in some sort of sling, suspended above.
They close the door behind him and he rushes to her side. His bony fingers enfold her tiny hand and he blinks back tears as he hears the soft sounds of her breathing. Her ribcage rises and falls in a delicate rhythm beneath the snowy blankets, slow and easy, and he can't remember a time where he's ever been this thankful.
"I'm so glad," he whispers. "I thought you were gone."
Wheatley kneels by her bed, knees against the cold tile. He presses his face to the back of her hand, warmth and comfort and home, and he kisses the slope of her wrist. He laces his fingers through hers, craving reassurance.
It's weak. It's small and fragile and barely there, but there is a squeeze.
The pressure registers in the webs of his nerves. He looks up, and she's smiling, smiling at him from the plane of her hospital bed. She's strong, she's stronger than anything; she's amazing and incredible and he doesn't know how many times she's fought death but no matter what, she's come out on top.
Wheatley squeezes back, choking with tears and laughter, and he doesn't let go.