Chapter Text
Cameron is in a hospital bed among a room of many others. The nurse who welcomed her into the ward stated that because of the attack, the occupancy was over capacity, and that where she had come from wasn’t so much of an exam room, then a repurposed broom closet used for these exact situations.
He’s asleep—not unconscious from anesthesia or other drugs, a feeling she wishes she didn’t remember so clearly despite being in a stupor. The floating feeling of drifting through time, through events occurring in around her, of hallucinating a beautiful daughter in her arms, lifeless, but still the prettiest person she’s ever seen.
She occupies the chair next to his bed for some time. Listening to the rhythmic beeping of the eight monitors in the room, the hushed whispers of the nurses conversing with patients who’ve just awoken from surgery—having lost a leg, or a hand. An arm or an eye—a few of them are on machines called respirators, something she learns when asking a nurse, who looks peeved that she has pulled her from an overload of work for such an unnecessary question.
After a few hours, she falls asleep uncomfortably in the chair, her neck at an odd angle and the smell of blood and ash still in her nose, while using her coat as a blanket.
Doesn’t know how long she dozes for, just that the sleep is reckless and brought on by a pure exhaustion.
When she awakens, the room is still the ghostly dark it’s always been, but his eyes are half open—from pain, from medication, she’s not sure—but he has the same grin he gives her every morning when they wake together. “Morning, Honey.”
She reaches forward, sweeping some of the hair plastered to his forehead away, and he closes his eyes at her gentle touch. “Good morning, Darling.”
“What happened?” His voice holds an unearthly level of grogginess to it, something unnatural that she’s never heard from him in all their time together, and she supposes it’s from medication to ease his pain.
“There was an explosion downtown.” Strokes the side of his face, her fingers brushing through his hair, how it parts in clumps due to dirt and sweat.
That garners his attention, and he tries to shift more in the bed, just like on the Ori vessel. She’s half assuming he’ll offer her part of the mattress for another ill-gotten nap. When he turns, aggravating his injury, he hisses in pain, and she holds her hand to the side of his hot face, trying to comfort him.
“Are you okay?” Asks her through gritted teeth, with beads of sweat popping up on his skin from exertion and ache, as he’s confined to a bed.
She smiles at him warmly, her finger caressing over his nose, over the bump that he garnered when he crashed his plane, and keeps her voice an even whisper, “I’m fine.”
Clumsily, he reaches out his hand that appears heavy and oafish in the air, hardly showcasing the dexterity years of flying have earned him, trying to touch her face, which he falls short of until she leans in, bringing his hand to her cheek.
“You hit your head again?”
Has so fully forgotten about her own injury at this point, that it takes his finger ghosting over her hairline where they’ve stitched together her wound to remind her. She grabs his pointing finger, holding his hand in both her own, trying not to aggravate the area where they’ve hooked tubes unto the back. Feels the way the sweat has begun to dry between his fingers, the way they unravel as he relaxes to her touch.
“It’s nothing, just a minor injury.”
“That’s something.”
His attempt at arguing is paltry, as his hand grows heavier within her own, sleep reclaiming him before she can ask the extent of his own injuries.
His eyes close, but she keeps hold of his hand, waiting for him to wake again. Happy to spend as long as it takes in the chair beside him.