Bridget Pandigaeshik (pandabridge) wrote in morningstar_mnr, @ 2009-10-14 20:47:00 |
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Entry tags: | bridget, phin |
Pandapartment; Wednesday evening; Bridget and Phin
Phin was quite possibly the most uncomfortable he'd ever been in his entire life. He'd spent weeks in the hospital and had multiple surgeries on his leg, on his neck, on his lower back and on his right elbow. He still had to wear the stupid neck brace for another two weeks. The brace on his leg was probably going to be there for another four to five weeks at least. He had two slipped discs repaired in his back and, oh yeah, he was still blind. All of this and, regardless of what Bridget had said when she thought his death was imminent, he was still probably going to wind up going through a divorce once his injuries were suitably healed. He couldn't see his kids, nor their faces as they watched him and his mangled appearance throughout the past couple months.
After letting Bridget and a male orderly help him into a wheel chair and then into the car, he'd had to let Bridget and Billie help him out of the car and back into the wheelchair and then had to endure the elevator ride to their floor. Billie opened the door and fended off excited twins so that Bridget and Phin could get into the apartment.
Bridget wasn't sure at all what was in store for them in the coming months, but at the moment she was still firmly in caretaker mode so Phin wasn't going anywhere. Not that he really could anyway, since he could no longer see. But even if it wasn't Bridget's choice to have him come back home, she would have ended up doing it anyway. Who else was going to take care of him? Probably Billie, but she had school and a life of her own to worry about. Bridget wasn't about to bust that up so she could worry about rehabilitating her blind older brother. It wasn't going to be easy for Bridget though, not with two little kids and a job of her own to worry about. She managed to take some time off so she could help Phin get used to the apartment in this new lack of light, but she wasn't going to be able to stay home with him forever.
But that was stuff that they would worry about later. Right now the goal was just to make it through this particular day. Phin was finally home, and aside from his eyes, he was going to be all right. He wasn't dead, he wasn't paralyzed, he had all his limbs, and he was home again. That right there was plenty to be thankful for.
When Billie got the door, Bridget carefully maneuvered the wheelchair across the threshold. "We're just coming into the apartment now," she leaned over a bit to quietly inform Phin. "I'm going to take you down to the bedroom and set you up there." This meant, of course, that they would be sharing a bed once again. Bridget didn't want that to happen, but she also wanted to be able to keep an eye on him in case he needed her. In any event, she could always sleep out in the living room if she needed some space.
Phin was more than a little conflicted about all of this. He was stressed out about the the sight stuff. He was miserable because he was in pain even though he was still steadily on pain killers. He couldn't walk more than a few steps for himself and even if he could have, he wouldn't have been able to, because he was blind. He couldn't see his kids. He couldn't see Bridget, and he was so used to assessing her real emotional state by looking a her that he felt kind of lost. He tried to smile because he didn't know when the kids were going to see him coming through. He reached down to one of the wheels to stop their trek a moment and turned his head in the direction her voice had come from. "Wait," He said quietly to get her to stop for a moment since they hadn't gone far over the threshold. He was quite a moment. "You don't have to put me in the bedroom..." He said. "I can set up on the chaise in the living room. Really." He already felt guilty about all of this, adding that to feeling guilty about now having to intrude on what was now essentially her bedroom after everything and Phin was feeling really overwhelmed.
"It's all right," Bridget assured just as quiet, shaking her head although Phin was unable to see it. "The kids are never going to leave you alone if you're in the living room. It's all right," she said again. The kids were going to be understandably excited that their dad was back home, so it was a good idea to set him up somewhere that he could be blocked off when in need of rest.
Phin hesitated a moment, but he did lift his arm from the wheel of the chair and put his arm back down on the arm of the chair. "...Are you sure?" He knew she was right, but he was already putting her out and he didn't want to make it any harder on her than he absolutely had to. Once he could move around without the stupid neck brace and once his leg healed a little more, he could probably start being useful...despite the blindness. Maybe. He wasn't sure. He just didn't want to put her out any more than he had to. Sleeping in their bed with her after everything seemed like something that was going to be a huge extra stress on her.
"Yes. I'm sure." Yes, she'd be stressed, but at the moment Phin's stress was more important than her stress. So she pushed him down the hall to their bedroom.
Phin was still wary, and felt guilty too. He tried to focus on smiling and saying hi to the kids, who Billie was dutifully holding back from running and scaling the wheelchair. It was hard to do this when he couldn't exaclty turn his head, not that it mattered since he couldn't see anyway.
So Phin fell silent when he could tell but the distance of their voices that they'd made it past the living room. He frowned and waited for the turn into their room...or more accurately lately, Bridget's room. He wasn't so sure he'd make it to the bed from the chair, if the trip from thebed to the chair in the hospital was anything to go buy. Also, he was feeling sad after thinking about never seeing the kids' faces past their current ages.
Bridget had a frown on her face, which thankfully Phin couldn't see. She shut the door behind them so the kids wouldn't be able to run in just yet. They would wait until Phin was settled. She pushed him over to his (old) side of the bed, having some trouble maneuvering him around the various pieces of furniture.
Once he was on his side, she turned the chair so he was facing the right way and walked around in front of it. Her frown deepened as she looked him over. It was odd seeing him back in the bedroom again, and even worse seeing him in this state.
"Okay..." she said, flicking her eyes over to the bed. She leaned over to pull down the covers. "Time to get you into bed."
Phin tried not to frown further, and succeeded where his mouth was concerned but not where his forehead and the outsides of his eyes were concerned. He nodded solemnly and first maneuvered his brace clad leg off the leg rest and rested his heel on the floor.
Next he put his hands on the arms of the wheelchair and, though he couldn't see anyway, clenched his eyes shut and took a deep breath, letting out a stifled grunt as he forced himself to his feet while tryng to keep all his weight balanced on his uninjured leg.
Bridget watched him with a pained look on her face, though nowhere near the amount on Phin's face. She hovered close to him, but after he let out that grunt, she stepped over quickly to help balance him as she helped him onto the bed. It was awkward. He was heavy.
Yeah it was definitely awkward, especially since he never realized before how comforting having someone else touch you was until he couldn't find comfort in y'know, seeing and knowing someone was nearby. He thanked her quietly, after the ordeal of actually getting into bed was over and after he'd managed to sit himself up and prop his pillows up behind him with a grimace. This neck brace shit was getting old. Also, he felt completely incompetent and impossibly small at the moment. He would have looked down at his lap but he couldn't with the neck brace and all, so instead he just wound up staring off, though blankly for obvious reasons. He tried to take a few breaths and calm down so he could prepare himself for when the kids inevitably came in.
He was entirely uncomfortable with the leg brace, and the neck brace, and then there was neoprene elbow brace on the elbow he'd previously had surgery on. Thankfully he'd been able to get rid of the sling it had been in before leaving the hospital. He'd been yearning for his bed for months - including the time before the accident - and now that he was here, he was uncomfortable, guilt ridden and feeling completely lame and pathetic. How, exactly, was he supposed to face the kids when he was laid up like this? Worse, they'd seen him in worse shape at the hospital. He was supposed to be their big strong dad...capable of picking each of them up in one arm and taking care of any of their problems. He couldn't even see them now, let alone barely being able to pick even one of them up at a time.
Once he was settled and she helped him with his pillows, Bridget folded up the wheelchair, intending on putting it against the wall. Instead she stopped and looked over at him. She paused a moment when she saw his face. "Do you want me to fold the chair up or keep it next to the bed?" she asked quietly.
Phin was quiet for a moment. Chances are, at some point, he was going to have to use the bathroom but at the moment he didn't even want to think about that. "Folding it up will be just fine," He answered just as quietly as he rested his hands a little uselessly in his lap. He opened his mouth but couldn't figure out what to say so he closed it a moment later and blinked a few times as if one of these times he'd open his eyes again and be able to see.
Bridget nodded as she watched him blink. And then, a moment later, she added, "All right." She lifted the chair off the ground and brought it over to the wall next to his nightstand. "I'm just putting it here," she explained. "Next to the nightstand."
"Okay..." Phin nodded a best as he could. "Thank you," He added again, which he seemed to be tacking on to the end of almost every sentence lately. He closed his eyes and left them that way for a few long moments when his blinking attempts proved futile. He pressed his lips together into a tight line to keep from frowning anymore. If anything, he was going to have to force smiles soon, especially since he could hear Billie chasing the kids down the hall and dragging them back to the living room while explaining that they could see their daddy soon. Phin's forehead crinkled all up again.
Bridget frowned at him. She reached down and gave his hand a brief squeeze, but let go again before Billie and the kids showed up.
Phin's eyes popped open when Bridget squeezed his hand. His eyes turned to the general direction of the door when Billie finally gave in to the pleas - and probably the puppy eyes, which Phin was never going to be able to see outside his mind's eye ever again, like when Jeth had tried bribing Bridget into letting him see Santa Claus on Christmas Eve? - and knocked on the door and asked if it was okay if they could come in. Phin wondered if he looked as nervous as he felt about all of this.
Bridget looked down at Phin. "Is it okay?" she asked, just to check.
Phin hesitated for just a moment but nodded after that. "Yeah," he answered as enthusiastically as he could. "Of course," He tried to convince himself too but really, he didn't like them seeing him so useless.
Bridget nodded. "It's gonna be okay," she assured him, her voice even quieter than it was before. Then she turned to the door and called louder, "Come on in!" She started walking over there so she could catch whichever kid Billie wouldn't be able to get.
The first kid through the gate was Penny, even as Billie tried to catch her by the back of her shirt. When she saw Bridget, she doubled her efforts on Jeth by scooping him up so he couldn't keep running. Jeth immediately started begging to be put down because he wanted to see his daddy. "Heyyy, shhh, I know, we're going over to see him right now," Billie assured as Jeth pushed out his bottom lip and pouted a sad little frown at her.
Penny almost managed to dodge and get around Bridget - a move she'd learned while playing with uncle Neil one of the time he'd babysat them recently - to get to the bed. There was a picture hanging from one of her hands and she was babbling away about showing daddy because she made it just for him.
It took Phin great effort to smile. "Okay, okay, I'm right here," And obviously not going anywhere. He didn't know where, exactly to try and look as he listened to what was going on around him to decipher it as best as possible. All he knew was both kids were intercepted in some way and they were both upset about it.
Luckily Bridget's reflexes were pretty good, so she was able to grab Penny even after the dodge. "I know you're excited, but daddy's leg is hurt so you guys can't go jumping on him," she explained as she adjusted her grip on Penny and brought her over to the side of the bed.
"Penny's got a picture for you," Bridget told Phin in a cheery voice even though her face had a slight frown on it. It was a picture, after all. "Why don't you tell him what it is, honey?"
Penny hid herself a little against her mom's shoulder when she got a slight scolding. She brightened up when she was carried closer to her dad. She looked at her mom when the picture was brought up and, in response to her question, used both hands to hold up the picture in front of Phin's face, something that would normally cause him to lean back out of reflex but he didn't even blink this time. "It's for daddy!" Penny declared as if that said it all. The whole thing about Phin not being able to see was a little hard for them to grasp off and on.
Jeth was still frowning. He pointed to Phin and looked at Billie with one of those sad, pouty, grumpy looks. "I wanna see daddy..." he frowned.
Billie nodded. "I know and we're going over there right now. Daddy's not feeling so great, we don't want to crowd him, right?" She asked. Jeth put his head down on her shoulder, sadly.
Phin was trying to figure out what was going on. Penny had a picture for him, that much he knew, and Jeth was still sad. "That's a very pretty picture, Penny," He said all through a fake smile while trying to keep all the sad expressions off his face. Billie walked around to stand next to Bridget since she didn't want to let Jeth go climbing on the bed.
Bridget's face contorted when Phin commented on the picture. She pulled it out of Penny's hands and guided the paper into Phin's so he could hold it. "Can you tell us about the picture?" she asked Penny sweetly.
Phin fumbled a little but eventually was holding the picture, and staring at it blankly. Penny babbled through a description of stick figures and squiggles. It was a family drawing of course, but she'd had help from Poe, who'd been watching them earlier. Phin was a standing stick-figure though, with working eyes and not in a wheelchair. Phin pressed his lips together and forced them into as big a smile as he could for her. "I think I'll have to keep this right on the night stand," Phin nodded and turned as much as he could toward the side of the bed. "Thank you, sweetie." He added.
Jeth leaned as far out of Billie's arms as he could. "S'my tuuuurrrnn!" He cried as Billie struggled to keep him from leaping from her arms. Jeth didn't have a picture, but he wanted to give daddy a hug! Billie was trying to talking him down from the ledge so to speak, and get him to chill but so far it wasn't working. "Mooooommmy!" Jeth whined when Billie didn't give him what he wanted right away, only because she didn't want to bombard Phin. "Myyy tuuurrrnn!"
"All right, all right," Bridget nodded with a glance at Jeth. She reached down and took the picture from Phin, brushing her fingers along his hand to let him know what she was doing. "I'll put the picture right there for you," she said as she pulled it away. She took a step back with Penny as she set the picture down so Billie and Jeth could move into her spot.
Phin nodded and relinquished his grip on the picture as he thanked Penny again.
"See," Billie said as Jeth settled down some when the stepped closer to Phin. "Daddy's right here." She leaned closer but didn't let go of Jeth to keep him from jumping onto Phin.
Jeth had other plans, of course, so he threw his little arms out and wrapped them around Phin's neck and part of his shoulders before he started babbling away about what he and Penny did all day in broken English. Phin let out a grunt but stifled it and moved his arms up to support Jeth's weight instead of having him hang off of his neck since Jeth had kicked - yep, kicked - his way out of Billie's arms. He even got her in the chin on his way. Billie went to reach out to reclaim Jeth but he had a death grip around the neck brace and wasn't planning on letting go since everyone kept taking him away or making him stay away from his daddy.
"Okay, it's okay, Jeth," Phin said as he ran his hand over Jeth's back and tried not to grimace too much. He really hated this not seeing thing, and more importantly, he hated that Jeth was so desperate to give him a damn hug, like he was never going to get to do so again or something.