|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2017 6:06 pm
He didn't actually remember putting on shoes, but at least he was wearing them now, Fritz stumbling across the carpeting just past the double automatic doors in the main lobby of the St. Agnes Hospital in downtown Destiny City. He was also only half aware of the rest of what he was wearing - a pair of khakis, a button down shirt, a sweater vest and a coat all tossed haphazardly together, because none of that had been inside of his head after he'd gotten the call.
He skidded to a stop by the main admissions desk, almost crashed into a passing nurse, and slapped a hand onto the counter to keep himself from falling over. The receptionist didn't even bat an eye; likely she saw too many people in a rush, though at least it wasn't the emergency room.
He was told the right room, the one thing he did have to pay attention to, and then Fritz was off again, his heart pounding hard in his chest, his hair a tangled mess as he pushed past a crowd of people on their way out, joyfully laughing and talking. He slid into an elevator just before the doors dinged shut, jabbed the fourth floor button with his thumb, and slumped against a wall.
His chest was aching, and so was the stitch in his side from running. Fritz did not own a car, and had had to run the three blocks from his flat to the hospital, and now he was almost completely out of breath and in desperate need of a drink of water.
Later. Not now, not now, not now -
The doors pinged open. Fritz stumbled out, glanced at the sign on the wall, and went right, past a few open doors until he found the one labeled 406, which was only mostly shut. There were no voices or beeping on the other side, but Fritz wasn't really listening for either.
He burst in unceremoniously, eyes wide and terrified, and stopped momentarily with his hand on the doorknob.
"Cordy? Cordy!"
She looked -
It was hard to say. Fritz staggered towards the bed, fingers wrapping around the rail on the side of it, his heart in his throat.
"Cordy..?" he said, a little more softly.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Apr 12, 2017 6:47 pm
Cordelia was lying on her side in the hospital bed, the slash across her back still too tender for her to want to ease onto it. One arm was wrapped around a pillow, chin lightly resting against it up until the moment the door had burst open. When her eyes met his her heart stopped, the frantic sound of his voice bringing her out of whatever daze she might have been and solidly back into reality. Under the fluorescent lights her skin was far more pale than usual, the bed and the wires connecting her to the monitors and rolling IV stand making her seem small. Her eyes were bright, a good sign, and she smiled as she brought a hand up to gently rest atop his fingers briefly before lifting it just a bit higher to lightly tug at a strand of hair. "Stars, Fritz, you look terrible," her voice was lightly teasing, that soft smile still in place in an attempt to downplay just how serious everything looked. "Can I get you something to drink? I think there's apple juice with no sugar added... Water with ice chips? Fritz... Breathe."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2017 3:32 pm
She was, at the very least, alive.
She was alive, and she was awake, even if she was also in a damned hospital room, curled up on her side and looking more than a little worse for the wear. But she wasn't out of it - well, not that he could see just on first glance - and she wasn't unconscious or visibly agonized.
The medication flowing through the IV probably helped with that. Fritz glanced at the silent monitor keeping track of her vitals, and then back down at Cordelia, his heart rate still unsteady. It was beating too fast against his ribcage, his chest feeling tight with every breath.
For once, the gentle physical contact - a quiet, simple sweep of Cordy's fingers across his own - registered secondary to everything else. Fritz swallowed hard as she tugged on a lock of his hair, the smile on her face at least helping to ease a fraction of his anxiety.
Breathe.
"I'm breathing," he said, which was mostly true. "Are you?"
His hands were shaking. Fritz slid them off of the rail so she wouldn't see and folded his arms across his chest instead.
"What the bloody hell happened?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Apr 13, 2017 4:27 pm
" Yes, I'm breathing." Eyes closed as Cordelia made an attempt to laugh, the draw of breath it required pulling at her bruised side. The shallow puncture had started to heal on their way to the hospital thanks to the energy that Arsinoe had given her; the final diagnosis on that wound minor despite the bruised ribs. "When you ask what happened do you mean what did Luc tell the doctors? I've no earthly on that... As for what actually happened?" What had happened? What had possessed her? It was the same reckless drive that pushed them all when there was danger. It was the urge to protect, the knowledge that it was their duty to stand between those who had already done their best and the forces of evil. It was... Friendship. Family. Justice. Vengeance. "General with a Greater Youma and a few smaller ones at the power plant." Cordelia's voice was low as she finally spoke, more than relieved that she'd been granted a private room but still not wanting to risk talking too loudly. "Took a few stitches, but they've patched me back up... Might have to take a bit of time off of work until they've healed completely."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 2:06 pm
She was breathing. She was breathing, and she was alive, and she was okay, and she was alive, and she wasn't unconscious, and she was alive.
Fritz tried to remember all of this as he fumbled behind him for the chair, dragging it forward to beside the bed and slowly sinking into it, his hands resting on his knees, fingers curled against his palms. He hadn't asked the doctors - they wouldn't have told him, anyway - but the text he'd gotten hadn't said much, either.
His heart was still in overdrive. "A general with Greater Youma?" Fritz repeated, feeling everything in him turning icy cold. "And you have - stitches?"
He tried not to panic. Tried to breathe. Fritz closed his eyes momentarily, nails digging crescent marks into his palms, then opened them again, his face pale underneath the shock of vibrant red hair and the smattering of freckles all across his skin.
"I can't believe - what kind of stitches?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 5:55 pm
" Fritz. Fritz, please..." Cordelia's fingers rested on the bed rail for a moment before she turned her hand slowly, holding it outstretched to her friend. If she thought she could do so without putting herself in a world of pain she would have pushed herself up to shift closer to him. Seeing him like this, pale and frantic, reminder her too much of the man from the park playground. It made her heart ache and all she wanted to do was reassure him. "Fritz, take my hand," she spoke softly, shifting just enough to reach closer. "Please, Fritz. I'm alright, really. If you take my hand you'll see. Please." Unable to hold the stretch she shifted back, wrist still resting on the bed's rail. Her eyes closed as she tried to gather her thoughts, needing to focus on something other than how distraught he looked if she was going to answer his question. "Several... Several stitches along my thigh-- The cut was deep enough to need stitches, but not deep enough to be serious. They were concerned with the slash across my back. The-- the stupid butt wings took the worst of it, really." Her bow hadn't been hit at all. It was an attempt at humor, once again trying to downplay how serious it could have been. Most of the damage to her back had been done to her shoulder and she was certain they wouldn't have insisted she stay for observation if she hadn't fainted. She could just as easily lie around at home...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 7:01 pm
His eyes fell to her hand, and then rose to her face, Fritz's lips pressing together. There was a complicated expression on his face, something between frustration and panic and pain all mingled together; but there was something else instead, something twisting low in his stomach.
Just take her hand. Ignore the rest.
His chest felt tight. He was trying not to think of all the possibilities of Cordy dying or injured or dead or anything, and yet it was all that he could think of. The rapid pulse that was fluttering in his heart was not yet settled, and he doubted that it would be settled anytime soon.
Take her hand.
His nerves were screaming. Fritz uncurled the white knuckled fingers of his hand and tentatively lifted them, brushing them ever so lightly over hers before he carefully wrapped them around Cordy's hand, ignoring the instinctive desire to yank it immediately away, the sudden stings of stop stop no too much too much too close -
"Were - there others? Were you alone?" he asked, and his voice was slightly higher than it should have been, though it was at least somewhat level. "Was anyone else hurt?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 7:40 pm
"No," she swallowed, giving Fritz's hand a gentle squeeze. "No, I wasn't alone. I-- I was late to the party. The fight had already started and I got in the way. I couldn't..." I couldn't let him hurt Denebola. Seeing her friend hurt had spurned her into action, but it wasn't just her. If it had been anyone... "In order to attack him back I had to let him hit me. I could have been smarter about it, I could have made a better call. I didn't." Her grasp on his hand tightened, lips pursed together as she tried to sort through words. uncertain as to which ones were the most important to say first. "Others were hurt, I don't know how badly. There was a knight-- page, I think-- treating people on the scene. Bloody hell, I'm sure it made its way into the papers." PR nightmare for both sides of the war, she was certain. She could think about it for hours; how things could have been done better, what the ideal approach could have been, but... "Fritz, your hand is trembling." Her hold on his hand loosened slightly so that he could take it back if he wanted to-- needed to. It was the last thing she wanted him to do, though. She didn't want him to pull back any more than she had wanted Lucien too, but Luc hadn't been able to get Arin back on the phone after receiving an oddly silent call from him so he had gone to check on their friend. "Fritz, I'm alright."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 8:18 pm
He forced himself not to think about the instinctive desire to pull away; the crawling, unsteady sensation that crept up his fingers every time he did anything even remotely resembling physical contact. Somehow, though, it was easier when he could focus on something else; something like the gentle squeeze of Cordy's fingers, the reminder that she was alive and breathing and right in front of him.
His chest was aching again.
"You let him - " Fritz's voice had gone up an octave again. He tried to calm himself, taking a slow, deep breath, and then another. The grasp on his own hand had loosened somewhat; she'd relaxed her own fingers, a sign of respect, he knew, for his aversion to touch, but he didn't let go.
"You could have bloody died," he said, and this time the tremor wasn't fully out of his voice. Fritz's heart felt like it was in overdrive.
"Cordelia, you could have died, and I would never have known, and I - "
I wasn't there for you. Of course I wasn't.
As if on cue, his neck gave the faintest of twinges. Fritz pressed his lips together, trying to force himself under control, and failed.
"Bloody hell, you scared the s**t out of me."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 14, 2017 9:12 pm
Cordelia winced, thinking as quickly as she could on whether or not she had ever mentioned that to Fritz before. That the magic of Corvus that she had been awakened with required a sacrifice? A call to vengeance. How could she have forgotten? It had been true for so long, had she just assumed...? "I thought you knew..." Her voice was a ghost of itself, eyes stricken with apologetic concern as she watched him for as long as she could before closing her eyes. It hurt to see Fritz like this; frayed at the edges, panicked and afraid. Her chest ached and the teeth biting down on her lip did little to distract from it. She'd been the person in the chair beside the hospital bed. She had been the worried friend, the frantic loved one, the fractured soul. She... Cordelia, you could have died, and I would never have known... His words brought the sting of tears to her eyes, the ache expanding into a sharp pull. She couldn't breathe. "I-- I'm sorry, Fritz. There was a distress call and I-- I had to. I'm alright. I would have made Luc take me home if... If I-- If I hadn't exerted myself too much. I'm already healing... Please, it's alright." Maybe if she could convince him that everything was alright she wouldn't feel so small and frail herself.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:47 am
He saw the shift of her eyes, the change in her expression. Fritz sucked in a sharp breath, a breath that hurt, and everything inside of him was twisting, reminding him of how useless he was, how little help he'd been, how much he could not possibly stand to see Cordelia lying in a hospital bed.
The world had tilted, and now he could not get it back into focus without everything having changed.
He moved without thinking, without considering the possibility that touching was painful, that any physical contact left him feeling drained and uneasy, because she was in pain, and she was hurting, and it made his soul crack apart inside of his body. A hand reached out and settled over Cordy's eyes, obscuring her vision, and then Fritz was leaning over her, his lips pressed to the back of his own hand.
"Breathe," he said softly, voice barely above a whisper. "You're all right. You're here. You're alive."
His eyes fell shut, a shuddering breath escaping.
"You are alive."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:30 pm
"I'm alive." Her words came on a breath, barely there between them. Her skin tingled beneath his touch and she could feel tears, hot and real, escaping to spill beneath his fingertips. Her lashes fluttered against his skin as her eyes closed just a bit tighter. "I'm alive." She brought her hand up with every intention of taking hold of his hand, of drawing it back down so that she could hold on to it again. Hold on to him. She hadn't expected trembling fingers to find the line of his jaw first, fingers curling lightly without drawing back entirely. When they flexed again it was to tenderly run them along the side of his face as she let her own head rest against his hand. "Fritz?" Her voice was still soft and she found herself swallowing hard before trying to find it again. "I-I'm breathing... Are you breathing?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 7:43 pm
She was crying.
He could sense it, even if he couldn't see it, the first brush of wetness against his fingers confirming this a second later. Fritz felt as though breathing was something painful, as though he couldn't seem to get the right amount of air into his lungs to work properly.
Alive alive. You're alive.
He jolted, just a little, under the touch of her hand against his jaw, every instinct yelling at him to pull away, because he couldn't - shouldn't - wouldn't - couldn't - but Fritz was putting every ounce of self control into not doing that, into staying exactly where he was, because he needed Cordy to be okay more than he'd ever thought possible.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Everything is okay.
You're okay.
Everything will be okay.
"I'm breathing," said Fritz, his voice barely above a whisper. "Don't ever scare me like that again."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Apr 21, 2017 8:10 pm
She felt him twinge at her touch and her first instinct was to draw back; to put that comfortable distance between them again and set things back the way they should be. She couldn't-- To reassure him? Reassure herself? She wasn't sure, maybe it wasn't doing any good at all for either of them. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, hear it in her ears... She heard his voice above it all. Don't ever scare me like that again. "I'm sorry." Sorry for touching him. Sorry for being the cause of the ache that wouldn't go away. Sorry for making him worry... Sorry because she wasn't as sorry as she should be for pushing his boundaries and risking his comfort any time their fingers touched-- for wanting it even though she shouldn't. "I'm sorry," she whispered softly as her hand drifted away from his jaw, gently falling back down to the bedside rail. She knew that she couldn't promise him that she would never frighten him again, and for that she was the sorriest of all. "I"m so sorry, Fritz."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Apr 22, 2017 7:20 pm
He felt, strangely, the loss of her hand.
It was a peculiar sensation; half of Fritz was relieved, because he still wasn't used to it, because he still felt that instinctive desire to immediately pull away anytime anyone got closer, because he wasn't prepared for any of it. But the other half of him felt the warmth slowly seeping away where Cordy's fingers had touched his jaw, leaving his skin oddly cool.
"Stop apologizing," he said, and he tried to make it sound light, but it wasn't. "Just...sleep. Rest. I'll be here when you wake up."
Fritz pulled his hand from her eyes, leaning back just enough so that he could see her face. His heart felt like it was going to break inside of his chest; like it was already breaking, coming apart at the seams, so that he had little chance of every trying to put every piece back together again.
His body moved on it's own. Fritz bent his head and, very gently, very lightly, pressed his lips to Cordy's forehead. He did not immediately draw back, his eyes stinging at the corners; but then, after a few seconds, he withdrew and sat back down in the chair beside her bed.
"Sleep," said Fritz quietly. "Please."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
