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The second she sees the surgeon take off his gloves she leaves the room. The door flies open and she leaves Robert behind in her wake. She might have hit him with the door as she left, but right now she doesn’t care, all she wants to know is something, anything, after being left in the dark for hours. She runs down the corridor, calls for the doctor to notice her, to tell her something.
She meets Doctor Walsh outside and he looks… neutral. Maybe everything’s ok. Doctors are supposed to look neutral. Even if they’re telling you the best news of your life they can’t let it show. Maybe this is the best news of her life.
And then he opens his mouth. He starts talking, saying things like ‘blood loss’ and ‘organ damage’ and ‘we did everything we could’ and all she can hear are her ears ringing. When her and Liam were younger they used to say that when their ears rang they were trying to call each other. She wishes he were here right now, not a phone call or a flight away because her entire world is slipping out from under her feet and all she can hear is ring after ring.
“What are you saying?”
She can hear herself speaking but she can’t feel her mouth moving. She doesn’t know how she’s speaking because in this moment she doesn’t feel like her brain can communicate a message to any part of her body, let alone to someone else.
“We did everything we could, Your Highness.”
It’s in that moment, when he uses her official title that she feels everything crumble around her.
“Unfortunately he had lost too much blood by the time he got here. If he’d been here sooner we would’ve stood a better chance, but we were unable to save him.”
“Oh.”
“He’s on a ventilator at the moment. You can go in and see him, say your goodbyes, but we need to contact the family before we take him off.”
“Ok.”
Doctor Walsh turns and heads down the corridor, telling her to page him if she needs to. He’s gone past the double doors when it hits her. He’s dead. Not yet. But once his family have been called he will be. He’ll be gone and she’ll never get to see him again, she’ll never get to talk to him or write him a letter or hold his hand whilst they both pretend to be asleep. Robert comes up to her and her back hits the wall. He attempts to comfort her but she can’t see anything and all she can hear is ring after ring. This is what he wanted. He doesn’t care that the man in the next room, the man who just saved his life, is dead. He doesn’t care.
And Jasper died thinking she didn’t care.
She doesn’t feel like she’s inside her own body because she can hear someone crying and she knows it’s her but she can’t feel it happening. She feels Robert grab her hand and wrap his arm around her shoulders as he tries to keep her upright. She wants to shrug him off, wants to push him away but if he lets go she’s going to fall to the ground and not be able to get back up.
He’s saying something that she thinks is supposed to be comforting. It isn’t. She doesn’t want her eldest brother, she wants Liam, she wants her mum, she wants him.
But there is no him to want.
She closes her eyes, lets herself slide down the wall like some hopelessly dramatic heroine in a period drama and feels the cool tiles of the hospital floor against her skin. Robert towers over her, tall and menacing with a shadow on his face that makes him look unlike the big brother she grew up with and adored. She wants Liam. In this moment, he’s the only one who’ll understand, and he’s miles away. She can’t speak, can’t properly construct a sentence but she tells Robert to call their brother, tells him to tell Liam to get here now and pulls herself off the floor.
Her face feels weird and damp, and she wipes a tear off of her cheek with her thumb. (She can’t afford to think about the last person who did that - she can’t let her mind wander to that place because she won’t come back.)
Her brother squeezes her shoulder in a gesture that’s supposed to be comforting but just feels demeaning as he stalks off down the corridor, phone pressed against his ear as he attempts to contact Liam.
With shaking hands, and shaking legs, she pushes open the door to his room. She’s done a lot in her life - brave things, stupid things - but this might be the one thing she can’t do.
-
His hand is cold when she holds it.
It’s wrong because she’s supposed to be the one with cold hands and he’s supposed to be the one warming them up. Instead they’re both sat there, cold hands interlaced.
Hospitals are cold.
She wishes she hadn’t left her cardigan at home. He looks cold. Even under the layers of blanket and the hospital issued gown he looks cold. It’s wrong again. He may’ve been cold to her, cold to most people when he got here but he’s never actually been cold.
Everything’s wrong.
She holds his hand close to her chest so he can feel her heartbeat. Her heart pumps for the both of them, she tries to get it to transfer its energy to his.
The door opens. Slowly.
She’s almost scared to look up, but she does anyway and through stupidly misty eyes she sees her twin making his way towards them.
He looks sad.
Liam hasn’t looked sad since their father died. So he shouldn’t look sad now because no one has.
Except they have.
He drags the chair from the corner of the room next to hers, sits as close as he can and wraps his arm around her shoulders. He doesn’t attempt to move her hands from where they’re clasped around his. Liam knows better.
“The last thing he said to me was that he loved me. And I didn’t say it back.”
Her voice shakes on each syllable.
“He knew.”
It’s quick, affirmative.
“He didn’t know.”
It comes out as a rushed whisper. Now that it’s just Liam, now that someone who understands is here she lets out a choked sob. Liam holds her tighter.
“I always thought he’d wake up.” She hears herself say. It’s muffled again, but at least for now the ringing has stopped, “He’d wake up and he’d be fine. He’d say something stupid like ‘of course getting shot would get you home’ and I wouldn’t care because he’d be fine.”
Her voice breaks.
“He’d be fine.”
Liam just holds her tighter.
She can’t turn her head to look at him because all he’ll see is her looking a mess but she can hear him next to her. He sniffles slightly, and out of the corner of her eye she sees the hand furthest from her reach out to tap Jasper on the leg, sees his thumb fiddle with the knitted blanket.
It makes her feel worse when she realises she’s not the only one losing someone.
-
“How’s she doing?”
“Not great. Can you blame her?”
She keeps her eyes shut whilst she listens to her twin talk. She’s fairly sure who he’s talking to, and if she had to guess she could say with almost ninety-nine percent certainty that it’s James. She doesn’t open her eyes to check. She must’ve fallen asleep in the chair, but she’s in the same position she was when Liam came in. His arm is still around her shoulders, and she feels guilty because it must’ve gone numb hours ago.
She stays quiet, listens to their murmured conversation clouded with the quintessential hospital sounds of beeping monitors. It’s quiet, and at the same time it’s overwhelmingly loud.
“What does Sara-Alice know? Have you told her yet or…”
She hears her brother ask the question and stirs immediately.
“I can tell her.” She counters. It feels only right.
“No.”
James is quick to respond, “No. I can tell her. Later. Do you need anything?”
It feels like a stupid question to ask, because the one thing she needs right now she can’t have.
“I’m ok.” She says. It’s so obviously a lie.
Her hands grip his tighter. They’re still cold. It’s still cold, but she’s wearing a jacket now. It’s black with two white stripes on the collar and she recognises it as one of Liam’s. She’d been with him when he bought it.
James walks towards them, places his hand on the back of her chair. He laughs dryly, mirthlessly, “I told him not to go. He wouldn’t listen. I thought he was just being stubborn.” He pauses, shifts on his feet, “He was worried about your brother firing him. He thought I hadn’t forgiven him. I hadn’t. But now…”
He takes a breath, pauses for a moment.
“I have to go. There’s a press conference we have to prepare the team for. Call me if you need anything.”
She nods, and James leaves with a comforting squeeze to her shoulder and another to Liam’s.
“Where’s Mum?”
“Outside. Do you want me to get her?”
She shakes her head. “Don’t go. Can you call her?”
Liam nods, takes his arm off her shoulder, gets his phone out of his pocket and goes to his Favourites list. He clicks on the third number down and dials. It rings, once, twice, before their mother picks up. She can only hear Liam’s side of the conversation, and can barely gleam any information from what he’s saying but he hangs up after about two minutes, puts his phone back in his pocket and wraps his arm around her again.
“She’ll be here in a bit. She’s in the cafe downstairs. She said she got you something.”
“I don’t want anything.”
“Len,” He warns, “You have to have something, ok?”
She figures it’s pointless to argue. She’s too tired in this moment to put up a good fight and all she wants to do is just stay where she is.
Liam gives up and sits quietly. She’s glad he’s here. Robert would’ve pressed and poked and not left her alone but Liam understands. He stays with her, quietly supportive. She can’t find it in herself to be mad at him for not coming back earlier because he’s here now and that’s really all she can ask for.
The door swings open again and their mother walks in, looking far too put together for the situation. She’s holding two bottles of water and a brown paper bag. The items look strange on her, out of place next to the diamonds and couture. Eleanor wonders if that’s what she looks like.
“Darling,” Her mother says with too much sympathy in her voice. She makes her way over to them, presses a kiss to the top of her head and places her hand on the back of Liam’s chair.
They stay like that, in silence, for a long time. At least it feels like a long time.
“Liam, can you come with me for a moment.”
Her brother turns to look at her, and for once she brushes him off.
“It’s fine. Go, I’ll be here.”
“Ok.”
He’s reluctant, but stands and follows their mother behind the blue hospital curtain. He glances over his shoulder as the curtain is drawn, looks far too concerned for her given that he had sat with her and silently cried. Not that she’ll ever tell anyone that.
They’re supposed to be indistinct murmurs, but everything has cleared up now and she can hear every word they say.
“She needs to get out of here.”
Her mother, strong and sure and far too calm.
“She’s not going to leave him. I tried, she can’t. She thinks it’s her fault.”
“Of course she does,” Their mother sounds disappointed, “I tried to tell her things would be alright earlier, but look at how that’s turned out.”
“I didn’t know what to do when I got here. When Robert called me I was prepared to tell him that I didn’t try to assassinate him. Instead he’s telling me that Jasper’s dead. It’s not fair.”
“Life isn’t fair. But that doesn’t make it any easier.”
“You know Robert threatened to send him to jail if he tried to contact Len.”
“Is that why he sent the letters?”
“She read them? The whole time I’ve been taking them from a drawer in his desk. He said he wanted to send them but he couldn’t. Couldn’t tell me why.”
“We’ll talk with Robert about it later. For now, we need to get her out of here.”
“I said, I’ve tried. She doesn’t want to go.”
“Can you try and get her to eat something. Or drink something.”
“I can try, but I don’t think she will.”
Their mother sighs, “Ok. Thank you for being here. I didn’t think I could face it. Even just walking in there…”
“I know. But we’ve got to hold it together. For her sake.”
“I know. It’s just terrible to see. It’s all so sad. She looks so sad. There’s no better word for it.”
“I know.”
“How are you?”
Liam’s voice sounds heavy as he replies, “I’ll be ok. I just don’t think she’ll be.”
-
She’s taken out of the room, pulled away from him when a man with a thick American accent, dirty blonde hair and crooked teeth arrives. It isn’t difficult to work out who he is. She doesn’t watch as he enters the room, can’t bring herself to, so she sits on the blue plastic chair by the door. It’s uncomfortable and she’s impatient.
She can’t hear anything that’s happening in the room, and whilst Liam stands and watches on through the blinds, she sits. She thinks. She tries to remember the last thing she said to him. She’s certain whatever it was was a lie.
Liam’s pacing starts to annoy her after ten minutes. She can’t get mad at him, not when he’s the only one who stayed. Robert and their mother had gone off to the press conference. She hasn’t watched it. James had said it was best not to.
They must have stayed like that for half an hour, Liam pacing, her sat still, when the man emerges from the room and goes to talk to one of the nurses nearby. She has red hair, and is fiddling with a fluids bag when the man begins taking to her. She looks startled. Eleanor realises this isn’t the first time she’s done this.
The conversation is in hushed tones, and when it is done the nurse heads down the corridor, abandoning her trolley and pressing a button on her pager.
The man walks past them, his steps firm and purposeful, starkly contrasting Liam’s frenetic movements.
“It’s done. You can go in now.”
He keeps on walking. Down the corridor and out of the hospital. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. She’d been in there for hours. He thinks she’d just sat outside. It’s not the most upsetting thing about this, but it’s unsettling. She feels uncomfortable, and her patience has grown thin.
-
She’s back in the room, and she’s holding his hand again. Liam surveys from the foot of the bed. They don’t have long.
The monitors beep consistently.
The door opens, and Doctor Walsh walks in. He nods to them, and does his job.
He presses a few buttons, flicks a few switches, unaware that entire lives are about to change. Everything is upside down. Everything is wrong.
The beeping stops and the ringing returns, loud and persistent. She supposes she’ll just have to get used to it.