Henry feels something is wrong only just after he gets back home.
He's about to go to bed after a long shower which mostly drowned out the scent of America as well as most of his current emotions (of which he's such Bea will be on the receiving end of tomorrow when they have their walk in the gardens), when a pain blossoms in his chest that's hard to ignore, leaving him wheezing and breathless, falling to the floor.
The room spins for a quiet second, a mess of colors and lighting that Henry's brain can't make sense of, before it's suddenly over as fast as it began. Henry still is having trouble breathing however, the persistent wheeze that sounds like a car tyre slowly losing air alarming him greatly. Despite not being the most emotionally stable prince in history, Henry had never had a compliant about his health. There was a few times when he was child that he had the odd stomach bug and he'd once gotten the flu quite badly in his teens that had left him bedbound and feeling like the world might end, but it was nothing like this.
This pain in his chest, along with the rattle and wheezing and dizziness, this was nothing like he'd experienced before and he could barely grasp his nightstand to grab his phone and call somebody when a knock sounded and Shaan suddenly appeared in the room at his side, looking as worried as someone English bred could muster. "Henry. Exactly as I feared."
"W-What?" Henry could barely get the words out, his entire being straining with the effort as his voice seemingly sounded airy and not at all like himself. Exactly as Shaan feared? What possibly could that mean? What was wrong with him?
Shaan could most likely see the question in his eyes and carefully, he assisted Henry in sitting down, his chest feeling heavier and heavier with the words coming from his equrry's mouth moments later. "I just got a call from my White House contacts. Mr Claremont-Diaz has been rushed to hospital…they suspect it was a heart attack."
Suddenly, being breathless doesn't seem to be the worst thing he's going through now.
Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy. Broken Heart Syndrome - he'd practically almost killed Alex with his selfish attempt at protecting himself. Because he'd unknowingly denied his soulmate.
Shaan doesn't say that to him nor does he say anything about why and how Henry is being affected by it as he escorts him onto the plane, an oxygen machine now in palace thanks to his breathing levels and ability to keep himself alive dropping steadily over the course of a few hours, his lips the color of of the sky on a good day with no rain, but Henry knows this is his punishment. It has to be, for what he hoped not to do, breaking Alex's heart.
He's grateful no one else on his team that usually end up coming with them to overseas events comments on his pale, clammy skin, exhaustion he seemingly shows every moment or the rawness around his eyes from tears that have run their course on and off as they've made preparations to get back to the US as quickly as he'd left it.
It's a deliciously sadistic irony that Henry feels like claws in his skin as they touch down onto the tarmac of DC, much like the stinging ache and pressure in his chest that refuses to go away and swift strikes of lighting like spinning that hit at once when he stands or sits or even moves, Shaan and another member of his staff having to even help his pathetic self out of the plane and into a waiting car.
He must look a scene, a formerly straight standing member of the Royal family, the prince of England's hearts, reduced to a hunched over, barely walking, oxygen dependent wreck in the span of 24 hours. He was lucky that no one had found out yet that he was there again and when they got to the hospital where there were cameras and reporters and clambering voices, they somehow get though without so much as batting an eye, the crowd oblivious to Henry and his predicament.
There is a person who is not oblivious, however and Henry catches the dark and etherically beautiful skin of Nora Holleran in the sickly fluro lighting only mere seconds before she's staggering over to him, something obviously wrong with her as well as she slaps him square across the face, tears fresh on hers.
He lets her do it, he doesn't pull back as he knows this is also deserved and the sting of it barely outweighs the pain he's already in and holds his hand up as some of his staffers surge forward to restrain her, having to drop it last minute and stumbling on the spot once they step back due to it making him hurt more.
It's only then she sees how equally (or perhaps more?) poorly he is, the tank being carried by Shaan catching her eye and helps them guide him to a chair, where she settles on one side with Shaan on the other, him and Nora hunched unlike everyone else. Her eyes say so much and while Henry /wishes/ he had that same power, as words fail him, it seems he seemingly does say something with them (more than likely how guilty he is) as Nora draws back before she's holding him in a one armed hug that seems genuine, his head resting on her shoulder quite heavily as he can feel her chest also working overtime like his.
Time passes in waves and while he's not sure just how much of it has gone by, he knows it must have been a while as a hand that isn't Shaan's touches his shoulder and he's faced with the inevitable confrontation with Alex's father, Oscar, who stands over him looking very disappointed, but also very concerned.
Henry's brain blurs out a little as Shaan talks to him beside his husk, as that's what he feels like right now and he expects Oscar may just cuss them out like he knows his son can (thankfully he wasn't on the receiving end of that, it was reserved for some probing person on the end of Alex's phone) or worse, dismiss them and tell them to go back across the pond without letting him even see Alex despite his condition, but instead, he finds himself being physically manhandled, practically picked up like a small child in his weak state and held by Oscar in a fatherly embrace that he hasn't felt since his own father died.
While it's kind of obvious he can't breathe properly anyway, Henry still chokes on dead air sobs as he lies like a dead weight against the slightly shorter man, unable to reciprocate due to just being so bloody exhausted. He hopes Oscar can forgive him for this, not just this moment of lost decorum, but for hurting his son.
He hopes that Alex, wherever he is, may find it in him to forgive him too.
He doesn't know when he falls asleep, but he just partially wakes when Shaan assists him back to his feet for some unknown reason. On one side, he can feel someone helping him other than his assistant, but is really too tired to care who it is. He remembers that Alex's father lingered around after holding him, but he's not so sure if it's Oscar or not. He's actually not quite sure still of how the world is right now.
He can hear Nora, catching her gentle speaking here and there and some response from others around them (there was more than two people?), but it's all noise and no discernible version of anything but that.
He';s seemingly being led somewhere however, as he feels a jolt of wakefullness as he's placed in a chair somewhere with something being wheeled next to him, along with something else, most likely a hospital blanket, being draped over him, the warmth and sudden easing of the feeling he might die if he doesn't hyperventilate putting him back into a terribly exhaustive state again, eyes closing.
He most likely was on the edge when it happens, about to fall asleep once again and head dropping when he hears a voice. A familiar voice. "..nry..?"
A stab in his chest sends a signal to his head to re-open his eyes as quick as he can in his sluggish state and while it takes a good moment for his head top catch up, eventually, the world returns to itself as the voice calls again. "...Hen-ry..?"
Twisting his head every which way (Where was he? Had they moved into a different part of the hallway? This chair was far more comfortable than the last, but that's till no excuse because the does'nt think that's a good enough excuse to move-), he tried to find where the voice was coming from, unsuccessfully mind you, before someone's hand, shaky and feather light, touches his one that's still resting on the arm of the chair. "Hen-ry..."
Finally, he turns his head and his eyes take in the sight he's been dreading, the one that's brought him here, the one /he/ caused and he flops, breathless once again as he tries to speak, tongue and throat doing their best to enunciate. "A-Al-lex…"
Alexander Claremont-Diaz, first son of America, lies across from him, connected to meters of wires and an IV almost as tall as Henry, despite Alex's insistence that he's not the height that he swears he is. His skin is clammy and several shades lighter, much like Henry's and he has oxygen tubes, like the latter as well.
Unlike Alex however, Henry's not lying down and his heart isn't beating as fast as the other's as he looks desperately at Henry like he may disappear if he looks away, his own mouth and jaw attempting to work in the same pitiful way Henry's is. "You- c-came b-back."
Henry inhales, chokes (obviously) and finds himself sputtering, the wheeze sounding like it did back home where he was safe, where he wasn't so vulnerable and terrified, before flopping like a fish that's been smacked with a river paddler back on the seat, staring at Alex as his eyes water. Alex's eyes are watering as well watching him, which makes him hate himself even more.
Still wheezing, Henry clumsily reaches out, missing several times in the process which makes him frustrated beyond belief along with the current conglomerate of emotions he's cycling though now, before he finally finds Alex's IV'd hand and raises it to his face, brushing his baby blue lips that match the pajama shirt he's still wearing from that first hit of attack against the tape line before he entraps the hand between the chair's top and himself, shifting it under his cheek near his throat, where his breathes barely move his Adam's apple, but where Alex can feel them, eyes still on the other.
It's the only kind of sorry he's got in him right now and it will have to do till he can make up for all the harm he's caused.
Alex stares into his eyes, both seemingly unable to look away, before he shifts as close as the bars on the bed will allow him, Henry and him almost nose to nose if it wasn't for them and a slight distance as Henry was sagged so far down the chair he could have tipped over and met him there.
There's so much talking and recovery and a dance in the dimlty lit room to cover of a song that means so much that's going to follow after this, but they don't know that yet. They don't know Henry will be asking for patience from him after begging him for forgiveness and they don't know that Alex will be telling him that he still wants to make history together despite almost dying at Henry's hand.
For now, they rest, knowing eachother are near if needed and when nurses and doctors come in to fill their duties, they don't dare wake them thanks to Shaan giving them a look that shows there will be hell to pay if they do and the combined presence of the CIA and royal guard is thankfully enough to ward off any other curious gawkers.
For now, it's just Alex and Henry, just like it was before.
