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Hospitalized Part 3

I think I'm waking up now, but how can I be? It's still dark, everywhere I look. I must be asleep. I fumble for the watch on my wrist, then remember I don't have one anymore. Not only did they take my necklace in that damned mental institute, they took my watch. No jewelry allowed. Yeah, sure. Well, at least I did get my necklace back from them, and it's safe, right here on my neck. I grab the chain and run the golden links through my fingers. They're warm from being stuck to my body. That beautiful cross. Oh, how I missed it while it was gone. Now that I have it back, I'm never letting it go.

I sigh loudly into the dark stillness of my room and inhale deeply in return. It smells so sterile in here. Like they doused it with alcohol before I got here. I reach up to my forehead and scratch at the confining bandages as a thought occurs in my head. If my skull was crushed, they'd have to operate up there to stick that plait in my head. Did they shave my head? What if they did? I can't live without my braid! I sit up a bit and search behind me for the lengthy locks cascading down my back. It's there, silky and fine as ever, though it feels a little dirty. I feel like I haven't taken a bath in years. I wonder if I'll ever get a chance. Maybe after I get this cast off... I certainly hope so. I bet I don't smell too pleasant right now.

Now that these few worries are dealt with and tossed to the back of my mind like yesterday's garbage, I can try to go back to sleep. I can see a dull light coming through the half-lidded blinds of the window, which means it must be near morning. I'm definitely not tired anymore. I'm far too excited. Just to see Heero again, that's all I wish for right now. Even if he's knocked out and near vegetable state, I want to see him. I hope I see him. He's become like this braid that I have wrapped around my fist. I'd die if I didn't have it. It is my past, it reminds me of my present, and it continues with me into the future. What would I be without it? What would I be without Heero?

I may be a lot better off. Think about it, Duo. The guy killed someone. In fact, he's killed a few people before. What if he kills you? No, don't think like that. He would never. What if he did? He wouldn't, so shut up! I curl into a tight little ball on my side and wrap my free arm around my left leg. The cast down there itches. I'll bet my leg has atrophied by now. Stupid leg. Stupid broken bones. Sutpid hair fractures, or whatever that doctor called them. They can all burn in hell. Except the doctor, of course. It would be mean of me to send her to hell. She's too nice. They'd probably beat her up and take her lunch money down there, and I wouldn't want that.

Then again, bad things always happen to good people, so why should she be any different? Because I said so, that's why. I am Shinigami. I hold the powers of death within my grasp. If I want to see you in hell, I will. If I want you to live longer than me, then you shall. I say who lives and who dies!

If I have all these powers, then I say Heero lives. Heero will live. Heero will wake up when I go visit him. If I don't see him tomorrow.. ano... toady, then he'll wake up today, anyway. But when I do see him, he'll be awake. Sure, he will. He will.

I've just realized I'm carrying on a conversation with myself again. I do that far too often when I'm bored. Some people used to tell me I had split personalities because I always talked to myself. Screw them! They don't know shit. Split personalities is when you don't know that you're two different people, right? Right. It's not weird to talk to yourself. Not weird at all. I'm not scizophrenic.

I can remember what one of my friends said so long ago. She said, "It's not weird if you talk to yourself. It's not weird if you talk to yourself and then answer yourself. But, it is weird when you talk to yourself, answer yourself, and then say 'huh?' " I always thought that was very witty. Lucky me, I've never asked myself "huh?" during my one person conversations, so I think I'm safe.

The light's getting a little brighter now and I think I can hear a bird chirping outside. I wonder what floor I'm on in this hospital. I hope it's not too high up. I'm not very fond of heights. I'm not afraid of them, I just know I'm not meant to be one thousand feet high. It's not natural. People just aren't naturally that tall.

There's a knock on my door and a nurse steps in. She's carrying a bucket with some things in it that I can't see from my viewpoint. She smiles at me and slides the table with the bucket on top over to my bedside. "It's time for your bath, dear," she informs me. Great. Another place that has employees who overly enjoy calling you dear. At least it's not "dearie" here. Just dear. Thank you, if there is a god. I grab my notepad and scribble down, "What do you mean?" I'm handcuffed to the bed and all she has with her is a bucket. Does she expect me to sit in that bucket to take a bath, or what?

She smiles at my apparently stupid question and explains that it's a sponge bath. I just sit here in the bed while she bathes me. I don't think so! That may have been just fine and dandy while I was unconscious, but now I'm aware of what's going on, and I'm not particularly keen on having a pretty young nurse staring up my dress and wiping off all my personal body areas with a cold washcloth. Couldn't they get Heero down here to do it? No, he's a vegie right now. I shake my head at the nurse in protest. She reminds me of Doctor Usatashi too much. Red hair and everything. But she wears too much eyeshadow, this nurse. The doc has that natural, 'I just rolled out of bed' look about her. Like Heero, almost. Everything about Heero says, 'just woke up.' Right down to that blank, half asleep look in his eyes. That is, when he's not glaring holes in your head.

The nurse has gone to the bathroom and is filling the bucket up with water. I hope she makes it nice and warm. I don't want cold water tossed onto me first thing in the morning. That'd be bad. As she returns, I begin to scribble down on the notepad that I don't want her bathing me. She literally laughs in my face at the statement and asks me not to argue with her. Just let her do her job. There's no need to be modest. She's seen hundreds of females' bodies before. What the hell!? I wish I could scream at her right now. She reaches for my gown and begins to take it off, but I slap her hand away and hold up a finger for her to wait a minute. I then write down, very angrily, that I'm a BOY! She takes a quick look at it, shrugs, and says, "Sorry," then continues to go for my gown. I groan into the tube in my throat, again making that hideous gurgle- bubbly noise, and swallow my pride.

It's not all that bad if you shut your eyes real tight and pretend like you're not there. Just find a happy place, I suppose. I try not to pay attention as the warm cloth scrubs over my chest and neck. My stomach, my unmentionable, sensitive areas. I don't like her scrubbing around down there. That's my job. It's my body. She rolls me onto my side to get my back and my butt. Yuck! She shoves the little cloth down my butt-crack and scrubs all around. I hope it's not too dirty down there. I mean, I only have a bedpan to use, ya know... I'll tell you what, the entire being hospitalized experience makes you extremely humble. It reminds you that no matter who you are, you can still be reduced to having nothing but a pot to piss in. Literally. You get people ignoring the fact that you're a human and treating you like a baby doll that has to be fed and bathed and have their hair combed. Okay, maybe they don't comb your hair, but it's still a humbling experience. Just gotta swallow any ounce of dignity you may have had left and take it like a man. Or a woman, if they think you're female.

That shit-eating nurse. I don't know her, but I hate her almost as much as that other stupid male doctor that was in here before. Why do people mistake me for a girl? Did I sprout huge breasts while I was asleep? Do they appear on my chest when I'm not looking, or what? Maybe she saw the braid and assumed. Even so, it still pissed me off.

She's finally done with her cleaning chore now and off she goes to the bathroom to dump out the dirty water. At least I feel cleaner now. No more funk on this body! She trots back into my room, twicks my nose, and smiles, saying, "Now that wasn't so bad, was it?" Ha ha. Screw you, bitch. Get the hell out of my room and let me wallow in my pathetic, emberrassed pile of misery now. Just go away. I wish I could tell her that. Of course, all I can do is glare at the back of her head as she leaves my room with the bucket. Stupid woman. I can't sleep now that I'm so pissed off, so I'll try and pass the time some other way.

I grab up my origami book and try to find something interesting to make. There's something I've never seen before. A picture of an origami honey flower stares out at me from the pages of the book. I read the caption next to it. "Honey flowers, in the language of flowers, symbolize Love sweet and secret." Sweet and secret, huh? Suits me just fine. It's not the prettiest flower I've ever seen, but it's okay to look at. I think I'll make it. I pick the lock on the handcuffs again and slide my hand out to get to work on my honey flower.

~~

Must be at least noon by now. It seems like I've been working on these things forever. Doctor Usatashi hasn't come in yet. When is she going to get here? I want to show her my perfect honey flower. Okay, so maybe it isn't perfect, but at least it's recognizable. To me, anyway.

Of course, that's not the only reason I want her to hurry her skinny butt in here. I want to get this cast off! There's a knock on my door and I quickly drop everything I'm doing and stick my hand back into the handcuff. It's not locked when Doctor Usatashi pokes her head in, so I throw my blanket over it. She walks in and smiles at me, as always. "I see you've been working pretty hard on these?" she says, giving me another big smile. "Very nice. Though, it must be kinda hard to do these things with only one free hand." She winks at me and I pale. I hope she doesn't know I've been picking the lock to these things. There's no way she could know. I scrbble down on my notepad, careful not to reveal my uncuffed wrist, that it isn't too difficult. She smiles again and rests her hands on the rails of my bed. "Well, Mr. Maxwell, are you ready to walk again?"

~~

We're on our way downstairs in the elevator to get my cast off. This is so grand. I'm riding in a comfy little wheelchair. First time I've actually sat upright in a chair of some sort. It's all very exciting. I didn't get caught with my hand uncuffed, of course. I never get caught. She had to leave to fetch the wheelchair and I clicked myself in while she was gone. All safe and sound and confined. Just like they like it here.

I never thought I'd be so happy to be moving around somewhere again. I've always taken it for granted, I suppose. You know, motion in general, but now that it seems as if I've been immobile for so long, I'm grateful even to be wheeled around somewhere. It also gives me a chance to memorize the floors of the hospital and check out the security of the place.

Duo Maxwell, you're an evil little genius. Yep, I'm breaking out of here, just like the mental institute. No way I'm going to let them incinerate my Heero. I doubt that's the right word. What was it? Incapacitate? Insinuate? No, none of those. Ah, what the hell?! I know what I'm talking about. They're not going to stick him in jail. I'll get him out the same way I did last time. Of course, we'll try not to commit murder, like we did before.

The elevator makes a faint ding sound and the doors open. Doctor Usatashi pushes my chair out and goes down the hallway to the right, a nurse following behind us. She's pushing a little wheelie cart with a respirator machine on it. I tighten my grip on the origami honey flower in my lap as we continue down the hallway. We pass through a few doors, turn a few corners, and enter a long, thin corridor. It looks just like a doctor's office hallway. There are cheaply painted, poor excuses for art hanging all over the walls. Pictures of fruits and flowers stare out at me. They start to make me sick, so I turn my attention to the floor. Blue carpet. Royal blue. It's pretty. A tall, thin man walks past us on our way down the hallway, and he stares at me strangely. What? Haven't you ever seen a boy with a tube down his throat and bandages all over his body? Maybe not. It's possible that I'm a one in a million patient right now. I bet I do look a little strange. I don't feel all that normal, to tell the truth. Not being able to talk for so long is beginning to get to me.

We finally slow down in front of a door. The doc turns me around backwards, opens the door, and wheels me in. She finally turns me back around, and I get a good look at the place. The entire room's decor is a pale off-white. There's a large counter to the left and a little wheelie stool chair and a large examining-type table. She pushes me over to the table and instructs me to “hop right on,” which I do. I don’t exactly “hop,” per say. I kinda lift myself with my arms, trying to step with my injured leg as gingerly as possible. My arms wobble a moment, I plop back into the chair looking pathetic a moment, and then I growl. I must have lost some of my strength. I can barely lift myself out of a fucking wheelchair. I grit my teeth and stand up with my good leg, putting a little weight on my broken one, and then jump up onto the table.

I sit there looking proud of myself for a moment before I notice that the doc and the nurse are just kinda loofing around, waiting. I shrug and lean back, relaxed. I still have my little notepad and my pen. I take the pen out from behind my ear, flip open the notepad, and scribble down, “how long’s this gonna take?” and show it to the doctor.

Dr. Usatashi peers at it a moment, then shrugs, “Not long.”

“Can I take the tube out for a while, PLEASE?” I write to her.

She heaves a sigh and puts on the stethoscope that is always dangling around her neck. Then she puts the little thing on my chest, listening. Her brow furrows a moment, she switches sides, concentrates some more, then removes it. I stare at her. “I guess so. But only for a little while. We tried taking it out once while you were still unconscious, but your lung collapsed on us. It may take a while to get it totally healed back up.”

I nod crazily, ecstatic that this foreign object shall be extracted from my person. Woo hoo! The doc starts peeling the tape off from around my mouth, then she grips on the tube a bit, right next to my mouth. Her finger is touching my lip. “When I tell you to, blow out as hard as you can, okay?”

I nod.

“Okay, blow.” I do just that, causing my ears to kinda pop, and she pulls on the tube and it feels like she’s ripping my lungs out. I gag a bit as it comes up, but try to act composed, and out it comes, trailing a bit of gooey saliva after it. Oh, that’s really sexy, Duo. A nice trail of drooly stuff following the tube that a young, beautiful doctor just yanked outta your throat. Damn, I’m cool.

I kinda smile a weird smirk and wipe at the drool. She smiles back. I clear my throat a bit, making my chest hurt, and say, “Feels good to have...” and I stop right there. I’m croaking again. I doubt she could understand me. She grabs a little dixie cup from a dispenser and fills it with water from the sink and hands it to me. I swallow it quickly, eager to finally get to talk again, and clear my throat once more. It doesn’t hurt as much, and I attempt to speak again. “It feels good to have that thing out.” Much better.

She grins at me, just as the door behind her opens. She turns around as a short, balding man enters the room, his face pressed into a clipboard. He looks up at me peculiarly, his eyes covered with about five inches of lens in his glasses. It makes his eyes look really, really big. I can practically see his retinas through his pupils. “Mr. Maxwell?” He gruffs out at me, more of a statement than a question. I nod. He smiles. “Time to take that cast off?” More of a statement, yet again. I nod. He stops smiling and begins to gather up the things he’ll need. This man kinda freaks me out. He’s going to be doing something to me when he sees like that!? I don’t know what it takes to get a cast off, but I’ve got a good idea of what it could be... something sharp... that cuts. Damn. If that blind bastard slips and amputates my leg I’ll sue ‘im.

~~~~

Yay! Chapter 3, finally finished!
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