Hospitalized Part 4

 Doctor Usatashi isn’t much help, either.  She’s by my side now, sure, but I’m still freaking out.  She strokes my hair tenderly, lovingly, like a mother would, and suddenly I’m not afraid anymore.  I look up into her eyes, which shine with a heavenly glow.  I never noticed the color of them before.  They’re like a deep crystal blue.  In fact, the color is indescribable.  And lovely, long lashes frame them.  I guess I never noticed until today just how beautiful she is...

 My thoughts are, as expected, cut short by the blind fart telling me that my cast is now removed.  I did just barely notice that my foot felt quite a bit lighter.  I peer down at it and see nothing but a pale stick of an ankle with dry skin hanging from it.  It looks absolutely horrid.  I guess that’s to be expected, though.  He takes a damp cloth that doesn’t exactly look sanitary and starts scrubbing at it, peeling all of the dry skin away.

 What’s left of my foot isn’t much better after the skin is gone.  It’s still pale and skinny and it looks like it would snap again if I tried to use it.  I compare it to the other foot, setting them side-by-side.  Yep, I was right.  It’s definitely thinner.  About two inches thinner... I feel sick.  I squeeze tightly on the honey flower that still rests in my hand.

 The blind guy inches closer to me, holding up some sort of contraption that looks like a makeshift cast with buckles.  Scary.

 He slides even closer to me, and I can smell his breath.  It stinks, plain and simple.  “You’re going to have to wear this when you walk,” he wheezes.  The light is reflecting off of his bald head and his four-inch thick glasses.  I just love a man in coke-bottle eyewear.

“Sure thing,” I hiss with barely controlled frustration and anger towards the cast and my damn ankle.  H shows me how to strap it on, sliding my foot into the contraption, and the snapping all of the buckles shut.  It’s probably hell to get it off.  He then reaches out a hand and grasps the back of my arm, trying to help me to stand.  I can feel how dry his skin is.  It’s nasty.  This guy is way too old for this.  He needs to have retired fifty years ago.

I finally slide off of the table and onto the ground, where I wobble precariously for a few moments before I finally get my footing.  It’s not easy, by a long shot, especially considering I haven’t stood in what seems like forever.  Doctor Usatashi is grinning at me, practically beaming.  She must be so proud.  The bald doctor takes two crutches from the corner of the room and shows me how to use them, carefully hopping across the room with them shoved in his, more than likely, smelly armpits, and lifting one foot up.  He looks like some sort of flamingo.  He hands them to me.  I hand my honey flower to Dr. Usatashi.  I can barely contain my excitement, now.  I can walk, but I have to wear a bear-trap of a cast on my ankle and shove huge sticks in my armpits.  Yippee.  I hobble there a moment more before steadying myself again, leaning on the crutches.  I try to get the hang of it right off… maybe show the Dr. Usatashi that I’m one smart guy.  Unfortunately, it’s much more difficult than it looks, and I do a hop-skip-jump sort of move.  I probably look like I’m trying to do a riverdance.  I land flat-footed on my bad ankle, and a knife of pain shoots through my body.  I clench my teeth, bugging out my eyes.

This damn foot isn’t going to get the better of me… I try again, this time taking it a bit more slowly, and really paying attention to where my feet are.  Lift up the bad foot, crutches forward, kinda lean into them, lift up good foot, weight on crutches, land on good foot.  Ah!  I got it!  I try another step.  It works perfectly, and now I’m the one that’s beaming.

 “Of course, you’ll only need the crutches for a few days.  After that, you can probably walk on the broken one, wearing the walking cast.”  Heh… No wonder they call it a walking cast.

 “Thanks doc,” I throw back at the blind fart while I’m still hippety-hopping around the room.  Then, I suddenly remember the real reason that I was so excited about today.  “Doctor Usatashi!  Can I go see Heero now?”

 The doc kinda questions me for a moment, seems to roll the idea around in her head.  My heart’s beating a mile a minute, waiting for the response.  I feel like wringing my hands or ripping my precious hair out.

 “I suppose it’s okay.  Do you want to walk down there?”

 I nod, and then grab the door handle and pull, slowly easing my way out, but still going as quickly as possible.  I hop my way around as fast as I can down the hallway, yelling for them to hurry up.  These crutches can actually make you go pretty fast, once you get a rhythm going.  Long strides, I guess.

 Doctor Usatashi steps out the door and nearly jogs to catch up with me.  “Duo!  You’re going the wrong way!”
 
 

 It seems like forever to get to Heero’s room.  We have to jump through a lot of hoops.  First, we check in at a nurses’ station, and Doctor Usatashi signs her name, as well as I, on a clipboard.  I’m given a visitor’s card that clipped to my shirtfront to let everyone know that I wasn’t an escaped patient, or something.  We then have to be buzzed in, and the automatic doors open, sliding out of our way on noiseless hinges.  It whizzes as it closes behind us.  Then, there’s a guard a little way down the hallway.  He checks my visitor ID and Dr. Usatashi’s ID card, and then opens the door in what looks like a chain-link metal fence that covers the hallway from floor to ceiling.  We take a left at the next hallway, and it’s darker than the others, almost eerily so.  A few of the lights are out, it seems, and they make a dull buzzing sound and try futilely to flicker to life.  Dr. Usatashi’s heels click on the floor as she walks, and my bare foot makes a padded noise on the tiles.  Other than that, it’s silent as we make our way to his room.  She comes to an abrupt stop next to a large window, motioning to it with her hand.  I peer inside.  It’s nearly pitch black in there, so I press my face to the glass and wrap my hands around my eyes.  I finally see inside.  Heero’s lying on the bed, a mask over his face and his hand cuffed to the bedrail and IV tubes and all kinds of other wires are sticking out from his body.  I nearly gasp.  He looks so helpless, lying there all alone in the dark.

 I get into my serious state and give Dr. Usatashi a begging look.  “May I go inside and see him, please?”  I know I sounded pathetic, but right now, that’s how I feel.  I think I may cry, and, truthfully, I don’t want to do that again in front of the Doctor.  I can feel my eyes starting to water and the knot forming in my throat.

 She looks down at me like she’s just found a lost puppy.  “Of course,” she says, nodding and looking away at the same time.  She probably feels sorry for me, and I think that maybe she understands just how important Heero is to me.  She slides a card through a device of the door handle, and the red light turns to green.  She opens the door noiselessly and steps inside, holding it open for me.  I hop inside on my crutches slowly, then take a few more steps inside, and stop.  I can’t move.  I can’t get closer to him.  I can’t stand seeing him like this.

 “I’ll give you a moment alone with him, Duo,” the doctor says softly, nearly a whisper.  She sounds as if she’s about to cry, too.  I nod silently, not even bothering to turn, and finally release the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding when I hear the door click shut.

 For a moment, I just stand there, staring at him.  His face is so slack, and he looks very pale and thin, lying in the center of the bed, both arms on top of the cover, palms up, a tube leading from the elbow joint of his left and a pair of handcuffs on his right.  All I can hear is my own heartbeat in my ears, even though the machine next to his bed is beeping and the respirator continues to make airy, wheezing sounds.

 Then, it finally happens.  I realize just where I am and what the Hell is going on, and I let the crutches fall plainly from my arms and rush to his bedside.  I barely even hear the crutches click on the floor before I’m nearly on his bed, wrapping my arms around him and lifting his head to my chest.  I start to cry for real, now.  I can’t help but let out a low, pathetic and tired-sounding sob.  “Heero…” I try to say, but it only comes out as a whisper as another sob wracks my body.  My tears flow quickly out of my eyes, and one of them lands on Heero’s cheek and rolls down to fall on the bed cover.  I look down at him, loosening my grip and letting him slowly slide back down to the pillow.  The tear that fell onto his face… it almost looks as if he were crying, as well.  I stand up straight, then drag the nearby chair over and sit down in it, grasping his hand tightly in my own.

 “Heero… can you hear me?”  I whisper.  He doesn’t answer, of course.  I brush at a few of the bangs that obscure his face from my view, letting my fingers trail through the rest of his hair, then lightly touch his cheek.  His skin feels cold and clammy.  “Heero… If you can hear me… Squeeze my hand, or something.”  I know, that statement is the oldest one in the book.  But I find myself hoping beyond hope that this time, it’ll happen.  That maybe it doesn’t only happen in movies.  That he’ll show a sign of life in his lifeless body and give me something to believe in.  I release the hand and place it back on the bed, palm down, like it was.

 “Heero… I know you probably can’t hear me… but I have to say it now.  I have to let you know that I…” love you… I can’t bring myself to say it aloud.  I can’t do it.  I resign myself silently, clenching my hand near his face, determined to tell him.  “I love…  I love you, Heero.”  I sob as I say his name, my brick wall just comes crashing down at my feet, but I don’t care.  “Heero, answer me, dammit!”  I clench my fist even tighter, until one of the knuckles cracks and my nails dig into my skin.  I sob once more and lean my head on the blanket, letting the tears soak into the fabric, but not giving a damn.  I hate this so much!  I hate everything that’s happened… Everything that I got everyone into.  I hate the fact that I had to be a big shot and try to escape that damned mental institute and endanger everyone and end up crashing the fucking car!  If I hadn’t been so insistent upon running… We could have pulled over, gotten arrested, and gotten Heero some medical attention.  Hell, now he may die!  At least by giving up, we may have had a chance.

 I shake my head back and forth and cry some more, my shoulders shaking as I bite back the sobs that want to escape my body so badly.  If only I hadn’t run…  “I’m so sorry, Heero.  I did this to you, didn’t I?  It’s my fault…”

 I nearly jump out of my fucking skin when I feel something land heavily on my head.  Instead of doing that, I jerk back into the seat, gasping so loud I nearly bust my own eardrums.  My heart begins a grueling pace and it feels as if it’s ready to explode. I stare dumbly at Heero’s hand that now rests plainly on the bed, palm down.

 My fucking God…  I finally use my brain for once and force my eyes to look at his face.  His eyes are open, and he’s staring directly at me.  Albeit, he looks a bit confused, but he’s looking at me, and his eyes are open.  I gape at him, my mouth working, but no sounds coming out.  I merely make a pathetic squeaking sound at him, and his eyebrows knit themselves close together in a sign of confusion.  He looks down at himself, then studies his hand, and brings it up to his face, grabbing the small plastic mask that sits over his mouth and nose and pulling it away and up, letting it fall onto the pillow above his head.

 I continue to gape.

 He turns back at me, still looking a bit confused, then opens his mouth as if to say something.  I beat him to it, finally getting my voice to work at something other than squeaking.  “Heero??  Heero!! Doctor Usatashi!!!”  I stand from my seat and run to the door, turn the handle, and pull.  It slips out of my hand, I pull so hard, and I fall onto my ass on the floor.  I immediately stand back up, realizing the door is probably locked, and go to the glass, giving it the beating of a lifetime and yelling so hard my lungs feel like they’re ready to come up my throat.  “Doctor Usatashi!!”  I screech at the glass as I beat on it.

 She’s in the room in a split second, her eyes wide and darting about.  “Duo!  What happened?”  She rushes to my side and grabs my shoulders, pulling me away from the glass.

 “He woke up!  He’s awake!”  I point at Heero, lying on the bed with the mask off and looking at us both oddly.

 Dr. Usatashi does the gaping now, but only for a split second.  She quickly goes into Doctor mode and goes to his bedside, grabbing the stethoscope that is always around her neck and putting it to his chest.  “How do you feel, Mr. Yuy?” she asks him bluntly.  I’m next to his bed in a flash, grabbing onto his cuffed hand and squeezing it tightly. I can’t help but smile like a madman at him.  I know I probably look it.  I’m still crying, tears running down my face, and I’m smiling like I’ve lost my mind.  I think I have.  At least now I’m crying out of joy, and not despair.  It’s a good feeling.

 “Duo, I think I need to take you back to your room.  We’ll get some nurses in here to deal with Heero.”  I look at her forlornly.  I don’t want to leave him yet, but, I guess I really don’t have a choice, do I?  So, I resign myself and nod with a sigh.

 “Who are you people?”  Heero finally says, staring at us both like we’re some sort of odd alien creatures.  “Where am I?”

 “Heero… It’s Duo.  Don’t you remember me?”  He shakes his head and now I’m not crying anymore.  All I can bring myself to do is stare at him in disbelief.  “I…”

 Doctor Usatashi interrupts me, saying, “It’s okay, Duo.  It’s to be expected that he’ll have some temporary memory loss.  You did, too, remember?”

 I nod.  “Now, let’s get you back to your room,” she tells me kindly, but I can tell that she’s serious about it now.  It’s more of an order this time.  I nod again and walk to the middle of the room, picking up my crutches.  She follows me, opening the door with the same card she used before.  I don’t even bother to look back at Heero as I leave the room.  I’m almost mad at him for not remembering me.  Was I really that unimportant to him?

 Before I leave, the room, I suddenly remember the honey flower.  I reach out to Dr. Usatashi and she looks at my hand strangely, then realizes what I’m waiting on, and hands me the origami flower.  I limp over to Heero’s bed, with the flower held tightly in my hand, trying not to crush it against the crutch that is also in my hand.  He stares at me oddly.  I don’t even bother to look at him with my blood-shot eyes that have been crying; I simply place the honey flower on his bedside table, turn around, and walk out of the room.  He starts to say something as I leave, but it’s nothing more than a small whisper to himself, and I can’t hear it.  I almost wish I could.
 

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