Chapter Text
Ricky had never felt more anxious in his entire life. It was like he was drowning, suffocating in thick hot air. Clouds full of worry and fear. He sat in the waiting room, his leg non stop pouncing, his head buried in his hands. Nini’s moms had somehow ended up next to him in the waiting room during the time he sat there. The one time his looked up from his small cocoon was to greet her moms. To apologize to them. How he couldn’t get to her in time. How he wished it would have been him.
It was also the first time where he actually looked down at his hands. Her blood still stained his fingertips.
They told them that she was in surgery, and that they didn’t know how long it would be. As the minutes ticked by, the more scared he became. Why was it taking so long for them to save her? Was she that hurt? What if she’s already gone? What would he do without her? Oh god. Why couldn’t it have been him?
About an hour after he had washed up, washed his hands, the surgeons walked into the waiting room. Ricky immediately stood up, though remaining behind Nini’s moms, knowing it was his place. Carol, however, signaled for him to stand next to them.
Ricky was trying to read the doctor’s faces. Were they remorseful? Relieved? Ashamed? He couldn’t tell. He just couldn’t tell.
What had happened to her?
————
Nini couldn’t remember much, but she remembered a few things. She remembered the weight of the metal piece, crushing her body from head to toe. She remembered the warmth of Ricky’s hands and lips on her face. The coldness of his tears. She remembered the lights of the hospital ceiling passing by in a blur. The tight grip of Ricky’s hand as he followed her gurney as far as he was allowed. The urgency in his voice, as if their time was running out.
“You’ll be okay.”
“I’m right here.”
“Hold on for me.”
“Please.”
“I can’t, I can’t”
“Nini—“
“I love you,”
I love you, too, Bowen
She had said it back to him. It was a wonder and a relief that Ricky told her in the first place, especially because she believed that he moved on with Gina. But he did, he loved her. And she loved him back. In that moment of pain, those three words kept her going. Just so she could make it through, so she could be with him, finally.
Nini stirred. Her head was pounding and a bit foggy. Even though she could tell she was pumped up on painkillers, her abdomen was sore, along with the cut on her scalp, and her broken leg, and—
Well, everything hurt.
Her eyes fluttered open to blue and white hospital room. The glass windows opposite from her bed showed a nurse making a call at her desk, marking some file with a blue pen. Her eye’s shifted to a noise she heard on her left, aside from the beeping of the machines.
It was snoring. The noise she was hearing was the soft snoring of none other than Ricky Bowen.
He had his cheek buried in his palm, resting on the armrest. A coat was draped over him, up to his shoulders, certainly placed there by one of her moms no doubt. One of his curls had fallen in front of his face, floating in the air as each breath escaped his mouth. He was so peaceful.
A small smile started to form on Nini’s face. He had stuck by her all this time.
Nini thought it best that she let him get his beauty sleep, so ever so quietly she tried to shift her position, trying to get a little bit more upright. Straining, she struggled to sit up, a sharp pain suddenly emerged from her abdomen. No matter how hard she fought to not make a sound, she winced, awakening the sleeping boy beside her.
“Nini!” He exclaimed, but in a hushed voice.
Ricky immediately sat up, moving the chair close to the bed. He put a hand on her upper back to support her, and helped her to lower back down on the mattress.
“Just rest,” he spoke softly.
Resting her head back down on the pillow, she looked up at him once more. His honey brown eyes, surrounded in this all too familiar look of concern on his face. He brought his hand up and stroked her cheek, moving to tuck her hair behind her ear. She watched as his eyes started to glisten, his calm expression start to crumble.
“I was so worried about you,” he whispered, his voice breaking just slightly. “Really worried. And I just—“
She shushed him softly. “It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m just fine.”
“I just couldn’t imagine a life without you, and I got so scared,” Ricky started spiraling. “And I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that it was you. If I had just pushed you out of the way, or taken your place, I would in a heartbeat. I would, Nini—“
“Hey,” she raised her hand to grip his. “Don’t ever be sorry. There was nothing you could have done, Ricky.” She watched his face break. “This was not your fault.”
“I just— I love you, so much. I was so afraid that I would never get to say it.”
“I love you, too, Ricky,” She smiled. “And we’re gonna get to say it anytime we want.”
For the first time in their conversation Ricky smiled. His was small at first, probably his hesitance to believe that everything might be okay, but it slowly grew into a smile of pure happiness.
His eyes searched her face. Studying each detail like he wanted to remember it forever. He brushed his thumb over her lips, and just after a moment, to let to relief sink in, he brought his lips down to meet hers. Nini reach up a bit, too, for it was like finding the clarity in a thick room of fog. His lips felt warm and sweet against hers, a feeling that was all too familiar, also one that she had been so greatly deprived of for the past couple of months. She felt him smile against her mouth.
When they separated, a tingling went down her spine when she looked upon his face once more. Some sense of fulfillment. Some sense of reassurance.
She was right. Everything was going to be just fine.