InsaneJournal

Who: Neil
What: Narrative: Waking up.
Where: UMC.
When: Nowish?
Warnings/Rating: Language and glossing over medical stuff woooooo.

After the first twenty-four hours, Neil's prognosis had been good. Surgery had been a success, as had the blood transfusions to make up for what he'd lost after being stabbed three times, and he was hooked up to IVs and machines to monitor his vitals should the unexpected occur.

But it didn't.

He could breathe on his own, and as the doctors said, it could have been worse. Had Chloe been at full strength, it probably would have been. But he'd live. He remained unconscious, though, days and days of family waiting and the police being told time and time again that they'd be contacted once he regained consciousness. And when he did wake up it wasn't a sudden thing, no, it was like coming out of a really fucking long nap. At first he was confused; the beep-beep-beep of machines was the first thing he heard even before he opened his eyes, and he blinked a couple of times to clear his vision. Nope. Still didn't make sense. The hospital room was unfamiliar, foreign, and he looked down to see small tubes hooked up to his arms. What the fuck? There was one in his nose, too, and that just felt weird.

There was a small remote-like device by his hand, and on instinct he pressed the button. Maybe someone could tell him what the hell was going on, because he was tired and fucking sore and he didn't know why--

Except yeah, he did. The pain in his stomach was like fire when he tried to move, and Neil fell back against the pillows with a loud curse, jaw clenched tight and eyes squeezed shut. Ow. Ow, that fucking hurt. He'd been stabbed, right? He remembered that. The strange sensation, the blood, and the pain that came with the realization. Home. He'd been home. There was a knock at the door, right, yeah, someone calling for help...

He was still trying to remember all the details when the nurse came in. Neil tried to move again, tried to sit back, but she eased him back down, telling him that he was weak, that he needed to rest. "No," he protested, trying to make her understand. Someone had stabbed him and he knew who, he did, it was right there; he just had to reach out and grab it. Meanwhile, the nurse started talking about surgery and stitches and how long he'd have to stay, but he wasn't listening. He needed to remember. If she'd just shut up for five seconds he would, he knew it. The door, someone there... he'd opened it, opened it and saw who? Who was it? Think, goddammit, think. Outright ignoring the nurse, he focused entirely on the moment he'd pulled open the door, pushing past the murky fog that covered his memory.

And then it clicked.

Ignoring all insistence that he rest, Neil attempted to struggle out of bed despite the pain that shot through him. "I need the cops," he shouted at the nurse when she tried to stop him, threatening to sedate him if he persisted. "It was her, that fucking bitch! Get out of my way. I need-- I need the police. Where's Sam? Louis? My family, I need to tell them-- where are they?"

At some point the nurse must have sent out some kind of goddamn S.O.S. because two more nurses and a doctor were there in seconds, all working to get him back into bed, to stop him from getting up. And he tried to fight, he did, but every movement was hell and even this small effort left him exhausted. The doctor slipped a needle into his arm and he barely even felt it; he just stopped struggling, and his demands for the cops, for his family, grew weaker. "Sam," he murmured, and the doctor said yes, his family would be informed, and not to worry. He just needed to rest.

Right. Rest. He could rest. And when the cops came, later, when they came, he told them who stabbed him. Chloe Murphy. He told them everything he remembered, over and over, and when he was satisfied that they'd listened, he let sleep overtake him.

Just for a little while.