Cassandra (predicted) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2011-02-08 00:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | batgirl, roxanne |
Who: Quinn and Wren
What: Hospital Visit
Where: OAH Hospital
When: Sunday morning
Warnings: None
Quinn didn’t stay awake for much of Friday or Saturday. She barely remembered the ride in to the hospital after Luke was talking to her about Corbinian getting the Night Terror. Most of her memories she did have from the past two days had been hazes of blinding white and the overly clean smell of the hospital. It had seemed every time she woke, her bandaged fingers found the button for the morphine and flooded her system with the pain medication. She could hear Gwen or Luke’s voice occasionally when she drifted between states of being awake and sleep. None of it seemed to be coherent to her ears nor could it filter through the medication fog.
She opened her eyes fully on Sunday morning, blinking tiredly at the ceiling of the sterile room. She looked and felt so small in the hospital bed, engulfed in a too big hospital gown and white sheets. Finally she moved, slowly to take in her state of seeming to be more bandages than uncovered skin and multitudes of needles sticking in her arms, feeding her body all the things she had been missing for nearly four days. Quinn looked around her empty room before she attempted to reach for her bedside buttons to adjust her bed so she could make some attempt to sit up.
Wren had finally worked up the courage to go to the hospital on Sunday. The long, narrow-white halls made her think of Thomas, of Hal. She hated them, just as she always had. They reminded her of being sixteen, of months spent in a hospital gown, of scars where no one could see. She didn’t like it any better now that it was Quinn who was hurt. She thought of the last time Quinn had been hurt, of how she’d refused to go inside with her. Guilt flared within her, but her step stayed steady as she stopped in front of Quinn’s hospital room door. She was dressed in long sleeves and overalls, and she pushed the door open almost soundlessly, in case Quinn was sleeping.
Wren was expecting to find Oracle or Luke, but instead she just found Quinn attempting to adjust the bed, and she hurried forward and pushed the button for her. Her friend looked small, tiny and hurt, and tears began to roll down Wren’s cheek. She couldn’t say anything, not without starting to cry messily, so she just smiled down at the dark haired girl through her tears.
Quinn was surprised when she heard the door open. She had just managed to really get the others to go home and rest themselves, so she didn’t expect visitors. All she expected was quiet until she found the remote for the television set. “Wren,” her voice still thick with sleep but pleased to see her friend. When she focused on her friend’s face as she sat up in her adjusted bed, Quinn’s face fell to concern. “Why’re crying?” As if she couldn’t figure out why anyone would cry over her. “You okay..?”
Wren just shook her head, wiping at the tears with her fingers, and then she leaned over the bed and kissed Quinn’s forehead. “You’re okay?” she asked, somehow managing through the tears, even though she knew the answer was no, just as sure as she was that Quinn would say that yes, she was fine. She wanted to hug her, to squeeze her, but she couldn’t, and her arms hung ineffectually at her side.
“Been better,” Quinn managed, a very hint of a smile was all she could offer Wren when she met her eyes after she kissed her forehead. She stubbornly moved, pushing herself with weak arms and burnt hands to sit up properly in her bed. Patting the bed next to her, Quinn gave Wren a look. “Sit with me?”
Wren did, not needing much convincing to do so when there was enough space to do it without hurting her friend. She reached out a hand, and she grabbed Quinn’s fingers, holding them without squeezing or exerting too much pressure, not wanting to hurt. She looked at all the machines, at all the wires and tubes, and then she looked back at her friend. “Were you scared?”
Quinn allowed Wren to grab her hand, turning her hand over so she could properly grasp it. She was still tired. A sort of tired that just went through and through until it didn’t seem like she would ever have energy to do anything again than stay in bed. Yet for Wren, she was attempting to look a little more lively. A little less scared and weak. Her friend didn’t need to see that, not when she looked so worried already. Quinn shrugged her shoulders a little at Wren’s question and redirected, “How’s Petti? Decided name. For puppy earlier. Forgot to tell you at party.”
Petti seemed like a small thing to talk about after everything that Quinn had to have gone through, the horrors and how bad it must have been. Wren remembered three days where nothing happened, and that never went away for her. She couldn’t imagine what it had been like to be Quinn, to be on the receiving end of all those injuries. She shook her head, the memories of being sixteen and in a bed like this crashing to the surface. “Petti’s tearing up my uncle’s apartment. I’ve been staying there the past two days,” she explained, smiling at the fact that the kitten was probably kneading his claws on a sleeping Charlie or Hal right then. “Do you like him?” she asked about the puppy. “What are you naming him?”
“I do,” Quinn said with a little nod. It wasn’t a total lie, since she liked what she had seen so far of the puppy. His face had made her laugh, because he seemed so happy the entire time she had held him before they had gone to the paintball field. She could use someone happy in her life right now. “Runt,” she said, giving Wren another weak smile. “Cause small. And silly looking.”
There was a pause as Quinn gently tugged on her friend’s hand and gave a little request. “Talk to me,” she requested from Wren. “About anything. Don’t...want to talk about it. Something else.”
Wren looked down at her hand, the one Quinn was tugging, and she nodded. “Valentine’s Day is coming. I don’t know if you’ll be up for it, but we can push you in a chair if you aren’t,” she offered, sitting more fully on the bed and crossing her legs. “I saw them setting up yesterday. The rides look huge, like the ones we would get when the fair came south when I was little. My mother took me once, and I ate so much cotton candy I was sick, and she had to tell me I couldn’t stay there forever, because I wanted to.” She paused, smiled. “The lights at night were pretty. And I think Runt is a good name.”
Quinn had never been more thankful for having friends than at this moment. She listened and nodded along as Wren spoke. “I...” she faltered a little before she admitted, “Behind knees cut. Not walking around for awhile. So...pushing in chair. If up for it.” Pressing her lips together for a brief moment to collect her thoughts. “Bad Valentine’s day,” she tried to joke about it. “Not able buy Luke present. Stuck here unless wheel to gift shop.”
“If you tell me what you want, I can go get it for you. Or, I can bring my laptop or catalogues,” Wren offered, smiling surely a second later. “And he won’t mind pushing you in a chair. I know he won’t.” She pushed Quinn’s hair off her forehead, and she tried very hard not to look down at her knees, imagining the cuts behind them, beneath the cover of the blankets. “It won’t be a bad Valentine’s Day,” she added, a moment later, going back to sounding positive for Quinn’s sake. “You’re safe now, and you have Luke,” she said, and it made her think back to Will and how worried he was. She bit her lip. “Your tutor was worried, too, I think. Very much.”
She tilted her head towards Wren’s hand as she pushed her hair back, giving her a little smile. “Okay,” she would agree to just about any of Wren’s suggestions. Quinn frowned a little as she thought about Will. She wondered if anyone had told him yet that she was okay. Gently she tapped Wren’s hand and asked, “Anyone tell him? ‘m okay?”
“I don’t know. I can find out?” Wren offered, willing to do anything at all to make Quinn feel better right then. “And tell me what kind of present you want for Luke, and I’ll find something,” she added, glad to be useful, glad to do something to help that didn’t involve sitting in this antiseptic room and watching her friend look so small in the hospital bed. Just being there brought back memories she would rather forget, stronger than when Thomas or Hal were in similar beds. Quinn looked so young, so tiny.
“Let him know,” Quinn told Wren with a nod, “If people at party don’t know, let them. So they don’t worry.” With a tired sigh, Quinn rest her head on Wren’s shoulder and gently gave her friend’s hand a squeeze. Wrinkling her nose a little, Quinn told Wren quietly, “I was thinking. Before everything...that at carnival, would give him a present. But something special. Don’t...know what special is though.” There was an abrupt change in her demeanor as she straightened up, “Luke says Corbinian caught him. But he’ll come back. When I sleep. I...don’t want to sleep anymore, Wren.”
“I think Luke told everyone else, but he and Will don’t seem to get along very well,” Wren said, biting her lower lip and trying to think of what a special present for Luke would be, the same way she’d helped Luke come up with presents for Quinn. “What do you want the present to say? That will help find one.” When Quinn straightened, Wren pushed her back gently. “They aren’t going to let him get anyone in dreams. Oracle is too smart for that, and you need sleep.”
That made Quinn frown a little, but filed it away to ask Luke about. “But Will is nice. Thought they’d get along,” Quinn muttered, a little more to herself than to Wren. Quinn fiddled with the edge of the blanket with her free hand and looked sheepishly downwards. “Present say...I like him?” She sounded unsure of how to phrase it. It took her a moment before she looked up at Wren again. “Remember you said. About singing heart? That. Feel that.”
Quinn knew they were trying to assure her that everything would be fine. Instead she didn’t feel it would, rather it felt like she would never be able to sleep right again. “Know that,” she muttered again, but didn’t look so convinced.
Wren smiled wistfully at the singing heart comment, and she leaned forward and kissed Quinn’s forehead again. “I’ll bring you a card. I think if you write that on it, it’ll be the best present you could give him.” She thought she’d like to get a card that said that, and that made her assume Luke would, too. She squeezed Quinn’s fingers softly, knowing her friend hadn’t believed her about the Night Terror. She’d check with Oracle once she went home. She squeezed Quinn’s fingers once more, and then she let go and looked down at her again, expression more than a little worried. “I’ll be back with the card?” she asked.
Quinn ducked her head a little when Wren kissed her forehead, smiling sheepishly at her friend. Talking about these sort of things at least helped take her mind off of the worry of what would be beyond the hospital doors. Here, at least, she could recover and pretend like she will be fine when Wren was here. “You get card. And help me write?” She asked hopefully, “My writing’s bad. Yours is pretty.”
“Oui,” Wren promised, glancing up when a nurse walked into the room, then looking down at Quinn again. She gave Quinn’s hand one last squeeze, linger-soft, and then she backed away, watching her friend as the nurse neared the bed, and then almost running from the room and breaking down in the hallway.