Calliope/Roxy: "Could you please listen to this selfish request of mine? Please... don't forget about me." - Ennis (Baccano!)
She stares at the walls (the walls are white). She watches out the windows (her window overlooks a parking lot). She breathes in time to the ambient noise (it's the sound of her heartbeat and the beeping of her vitals). A hospital is a lonely place.
She's lonely, she gets no visitors, and she knows her nurses by their first names but only ever addresses them like that with the accompaniment of a Mrs./Mr. Her brother never comes to see her, and she's glad about it (he helped put her in here). She has neighbors in this hospital, neighbors she is familiar with and fond of.
Dave is a permanently scowling preteen who talks softly and constantly, but always shows up exactly at noon to enjoy a lunch with his brother, Dirk (she doesn't know exactly why Dirk is in here, but he never takes off his glasses and he has bandages around his wrists). Jane lives down the hall (she cries every time she sees baked goods, for some reason), and is often visited by her cousin John (a nice young man). Jake rooms with Dirk (he sees things, she hears, things that aren't real).
They're all nice people, and the fact that they're in here with her makes her so sad.
Rose is her roommate (she said she's here because she picked up her sister's alcoholism, you didn't know that could be transferred like that). She likes her; she's snarky and soft under a shield and vest of bulletproof Plexiglas. She's complex, but she likes her.
She just likes her sister more (as horrible as that is).
Roxy is a ray of sunshine in the hospital (everyone is gray and gloomy and so cracked and broken). She strides into her room, smiles and laughs and smuggles juice and other foods not available to the patients in, just so she can give them to Rose.
And Roxy always makes sure to give her something, be it a juice box or a hug or a chocolate bar (Roxy's visits always brighten her day). Roxy remembers all the little things she tells her. Even the bits about how her favorite color is pink, and that her best friend growing up was a girl named Jade. Roxy always remembers.
"Roxy?" She asks, voice timid. Rose is being discharged today. The bed Rose has been sleeping in for weeks is stripped bare, the yarn and books and colorful scarves all packed away make that corner of the room seem grim and lonely.
"Yeah, Callie?"
"Please don't forget me."