Work Text:
When Helena wakes up in the hospital bed she gasps sestra, and next to the hospital bed Sarah startles. This sentence is in one piece, which means it should be something easy. It isn’t. Helena wakes up, and that hurts. There is a bullet scar in her chest and it hurts; it hurts because Sarah shot her. It also hurts because Sarah shot her.
Helena gasps sestra when she wakes up because she still wants Sarah to be there, even though there is a hole in her chest made from Sarah. Sarah is there when Helena wakes up. Sarah is sitting next to her hospital bed. Also she is awake, which makes this not an easy thing – if she was asleep Helena would have time to remember her, would be able to shift the aching in her chest. Instead she blinks and Sarah is there, using her foot to push her chair back away from the hospital bed. It screeches on the floor. That is an easy sentence too, but what it means is: Sarah was sitting close to her hospital bed. Helena’s hair only falls in her face on one side, which means: at some point Helena’s sister pushed it behind her ear. Which means:
“You came,” she says. Her voice is a rasp, like flakes of dried blood falling off all of her clothes.
(They’re gone. Her clothes. Sarah’s clothes, that she stole. All gone. Bye bye.)
“Art told me you were here,” Sarah says. “Detective Bell. The guy you shot at.” Partway through that last sentence her voice stumbles, like she’s realizing that’s a terrible thing to say right now. That guy yooou shotat. Helena wishes Sarah would come closer to the hospital bed. Helena could kill her four different ways, if she’d just come closer. Also, Helena would be able to touch her hand.
“Sarah,” she says, and then her eyes slip shut. Maybe that’s enough. She knows it isn’t; she wants it to be. With effort she pushes her eyes back open. “Do you want me to be your family or not.”
Her eyes fall back closed. In the dark, Sarah says: “I don’t know.”
Helena wakes up and Sarah is gone. The room is empty and white. Once Helena saw a television show with a hospital room and it had flowers in it, but she realizes now that those aren’t part of the hospital room. People get other people flowers when they want to say I am glad that you aren’t dead. There are no flowers.
“I know,” she tells the room. “I always knew.”
The room doesn’t answer. After a while of waiting, Helena falls back asleep.
She wakes up again and there’s a plastic package of snack cakes on the table next to the hospital bed. There’s a piece of paper stuck to it that says: THE NURSE SAID YOU COULD EAT THESE IF YOU GO SLOW. Three lines are crossed out, and Helena can’t see what they say. Underneath at the very bottom of the paper, where there almost isn’t room for it, is Sarah’s name.
There’s a plastic clip on her left hand which makes it hard to open the package of snack cakes. If Sarah was here she could open them. They taste like nothing in Helena’s mouth and then they’re gone.
Later, when she wakes up, Sarah is there. She’s texting someone on a bright green phone. She looks tired.
“You look tired,” Helena says.
“You’re in a hospital bed,” Sarah says. Her lip is split. “I shouldn’t even be here,” she mutters. She sends the text. She looks at Helena.
“Look,” she says, and stops. Helena blinks at her and then sits up. It hurts, but what doesn’t. She scratches a hand through her hair and keeps blinking; Sarah keeps on not saying anything.
“You tried to kill me,” Sarah says.
“I didn’t,” Helena says patiently. “If I tried to kill you, you would be dead.”
“What do you call this, then,” Sarah says, circling her face with her finger. Helena squints: bruises on her neck.
“I don’t know,” she says, which is the truth.
“That’s the problem,” Sarah says. “You don’t know.”
“That is the problem with you,” Helena says. “You don’t know.”
They stare at each other and then Helena’s arms give out and she slides back down. Some emotion moves across Sarah’s face and is gone again before Helena can see what it was. Sarah’s phone buzzes and she frowns at the screen, sends a text message, puts the phone back in her pocket.
“I really,” she says, and stops. “I really,” she says again, and her voice cracks, and she stops. “I really want to give you a chance, Helena,” she says. “God knows I could use your help.”
Helena’s heart shakes her bullet wound. Bang bang bang. “I want to help,” she says.
Sarah leans forward, eyes flat metal. “If you come after me or my family,” she says slowly, “I won’t miss. You got that?”
“I won’t,” Helena says. Sarah studies her. Her eyes are flecked with gold and Helena could pop them with her thumbs and then Sarah would be blind forever, living in the dark. Helena could dig her fingers into the bruises on Sarah’s neck. Helena could—
“Come closer,” she says.
Sarah’s jaw shifts back and forth.
“I’m tired, sestra,” Helena says. “You are so far away.”
“I’m not falling for that,” Sarah says, and she looks to the side, and her jaw works at itself – chewing on nothing at all. She slides the chair forward a few aching inches, the feet clawing at the floor.
Helena reaches out and puts her hand over Sarah’s hand. It was worth it. “If I hurt you,” she says, voice slurring with almost-sleep, “you can shoot me and not miss.” She pats clumsily at Sarah’s hand and then – selfish – doesn’t let it go. She leaves it there.
Sarah lets out a breath. She doesn’t move either. “I’m glad you’re not dead,” she says, in a small little voice.
Helena’s eyes close again. In the dark, she says: “I know.”