Work Text:
You start to come back around slowly, eyes fluttering back and forth as your limbs lay heavily around you. The unfamiliar sounds of low voices and methodical beeping ring through your ears, the scent of antiseptic stinging the air. The first thing your mind registers is the pain; every part of your body has a dull, thumping ache as your senses come back after what feels like an eternity. You groan lowly as you try to bring your arms to your face, finally opening your eyes. The sudden, harsh light of a hospital room hits you and floods the rest of your senses. A hand reaches up to trace the nasal cannula resting on your face, eyes drifting down to the IV tubing flowing out of your arm. Your brows furrow in confusion as you slowly crane your head side to side, not quite recognizing your surroundings.
The small, sterile room doesn’t seem to leave much to the imagination. Monitors loom above your bedside, numbers flicking across the display and beeping steadily, breaking your concentration. Tubes and wires flow around the room, in and out of monitors and equipment, kept neatly away from the small couch and arm chair that are sat against the wall opposite your bed. Your eyes flit around the room, landing on a messily strewn stack of papers that litter the couch cushions, a mass of dark grey fabric is draped over the arm of the chair beside it. A backpack is slumped on the floor in front of the couch, more papers tucked haphazardly into the large pocket.
You blink the last remnants of sleep out of your eyes and turn your head towards the other side of the room. You notice a small table in the space next to your bed, just close enough to barely touch the side railing. A plastic pitcher of water and a cup catch your eye, making you aware of just how dry your mouth feels, sitting just out of your reach. You lift your arm once again, eyes widening at the dark red and purple splotches that bloom across your wrist. Despite the soreness that comes with the movement, you grasp the edge of the table with your weakened hand and pull it marginally closer. You curse under your breath at whoever placed the cup just far enough out of your reach, fingers almost grazing the smooth material. Your hand suddenly slams down onto the railing of the bed, your arms clearly not strong enough to hold the position for too long. The hard plastic rattles loudly as you pull your arm back towards your chest, hissing as a fresh wave of pain shoots through your wrist and up to your elbow.
Your eyes squeeze shut as you cradle your arm and breathe through the deep ache resonating in your bones, head pounding in time to your heartbeat. You figure that the commotion must have alerted a nurse just outside of your room, as you hear the quickened shuffle of feet across the linoleum floors.
“Oh!” You hear a voice croak out from the doorway, followed by a patter of shoes moving across the ground.
“Woah, woah, are you alright?” The voice asks, closer now as they come to a stop at your bedside.
You force your eyes back open as the pain starts to dissipate enough for you to gently lower your arm back down to the scratchy hospital blanket laid across your lap. You turn your head to make eye contact with the nurse, who you are hoping will give you some insight as to what you are doing in this bed to begin with, but your eyes land on a pair of jean clad legs instead. You scrunch your face, brows nearly touching as you wonder when they start letting nurses wear jeans during their shifts. Your eyes drift upwards, taking in the muscular forearms that are now flexed in front of you, one hand holding the railing attached to your bed, and the other gripping a cup of steaming coffee. The sleeves of a simple button up are rolled and pushed up above their elbows, your eyes now flitting across the broad expanse of their chest and shoulders. A gear slowly turns in the back of your mind as your gaze follows along the line of light stubble adorning their jaw. Your eyes snap up, closing the final distance as the gears click into place, and you are met with soft, albeit worried, blue eyes that you would recognize anywhere. You blink a few times, thoughts flying through your head at a million miles an hour, heartbeat echoing in your ears as the eyes staring back at you are none other than those of your ex-boyfriend, Ryland Grace.
Your jaw, undoubtedly, falls open as you try to make sense of the situation you’ve somehow found yourself in. What was he doing here? Is he moonlighting as a patient care aide in his free time? How was his luck so poor, that he would be assigned to you of all people? You shake your head, trying to clear your mind of your racing thoughts as Ryland keeps his eyes focused on your face. You close your mouth and open it again, willing words to come out, but all you are met with is a desperate croak. You turn your attention to the water pitcher yet again, mouth going even dryer than before. Ryland’s gaze follows yours and lands on the hospital-branded plastic cup, flicking between your face and the water that you are so desperately trying to reach.
“Oh, sorry— you’re probably so parched, you’ve been out cold for quite a while,” Ryland says as he swaps his small coffee cup for the other and gingerly brings the straw to your mouth.
Your eyes flutter shut as you gulp down nearly half of the cups contents, the water intake almost making you feel normal again. Once you are satisfied and feeling a lot more rejuvenated, you lay your head back against the thin pillows behind you and open your eyes to look up at Ryland. He sets the cup back on the table and pushes it forward until the edge meets the railing of your bed. You smile gratefully at him, sighing slightly as he pulls the arm chair over to sit on the other side of you.
You watch for a moment as he fiddles with the sleeves of his shirt and adjusts the gold frames of his glasses a few times, clearly trying to settle his own nerves.
“So,” He begins, finally clasping his hands in his lap. “I’m sure you’re confused, I can imagine that you probably want to know why I’m sitting in a hospital room with you.”
You nod slowly, not trusting your voice just yet.
“Do you remember anything from today? Do you know how you got here?” Ryland asks softly.
You look up at the ceiling, wracking your brain, as if the answer is written up there somewhere. Why don’t you remember? Were you drugged? Attacked? Do you have some sort of fast-acting amnesia? You try to narrow down the scenarios playing in your mind by thinking back to this morning. You remember your routine seemed to go as planned; shower, coffee, bag, keys, work. Ryland is patient, waiting by your side as you recite the steps back to yourself in a whisper a few times, running through each task in your mind.
You woke up to your blaring alarm after hitting the snooze button one too many times, as usual. You took a shower, brushed your teeth, did your hair, just as you do every morning, without fail. You brewed your daily coffee and transferred it to your travel mug while chewing on a piece of toast, trying to get out the door as fast as you could as sleeping in has now made you considerably late. You scrambled out the door, bag slung over one shoulder and coffee cup in the other as your keys jingled around one finger. Everything seemed to be normal, just your usual mundane routine before heading to Grover Cleveland for the day. Grover Cleveland. Work. You don’t recall actually getting to work this morning. You don’t remember the comforting smell of the library or the twinkling lights you have strung throughout the room. Why don’t you remember? What is different about today?
You reach up to run a hand through your hair, wincing as your fingers brush against a large patch of stitches running across your temple. You look down at your bruised wrist resting on your lap, the colors standing out starkly against the white hospital blanket that has been placed over you. You follow the lines of the blanket towards the end of the bed, eyes pulling to the bulky fabric piling up around your legs. You grab one edge of the fabric and yank it off your lower half, gasping at the sight of one of your legs wrapped firmly in a cast. You are starting to wonder how this could have happened as you’ve never broken a bone before, not even as a child, when it hits you all at once.
The drive to work was the same as always; too much traffic, too many red lights, not enough patience. It was your usual commute, until it wasn’t. Your breath starts to come faster as the memories come flooding in. An intersection. The signal on both sides always too short to get through. A green light turns yellow, and then red all too soon as you are one of the last to cross through the intersection. Another car. You feel the impact before your brain can register anything else. The broken glass. The crushing pressure. You feel searing a pain move up your leg, weaving around your body and through your limbs. There’s an insurmountable pressure in your head as bright drops of blood drip down onto the airbag slowly deflating against your chest. The red pattern is the last thing you see before everything goes black.
You come back to the present with a jolt, tears flowing down your cheeks and your breath coming out in rapid pants. You feel soft, warm pressure around your hands. Ryland. His fingers envelope yours, rubbing soothing circles against the backs of your shaking hands. You look at him through tearful eyes, panic spread across your face.
“I- my—“ You manage to get out in between quickened breaths.
Ryland squeezes your hands gently, careful not to injure you further.
“You were in an accident.” He says so softly that you almost miss the way his voice cracks towards the end. “Someone hit you straight on in an intersection. The left side took all of the impact.” He continues to move his thumbs back and forth over your hands, his fingers tightening around yours once more as he opens his mouth.
“You’re lucky to have made it out alive.” He whispers, a tear of his own flooding over and running down his face.
You pull one hand free of his grip to gently brush the tear off his cheek, still shaking slightly. You hold your palm against his cheek for a moment longer, grounding yourself and relishing in the warmth of his skin, looking into the bleary eyes of the man in front of you. The man you are still desperately in love with.
You were the one who broke things off, you shouldn’t be allowed to feel upset still. Or at least that’s what you keep telling yourself, every time you would steal a glance at him in the crowded hallways or from the corner of the staff break room. It wasn’t anything monumental either, you were just getting in your own head and feeling insecure about the whispers and looks thrown your way whenever the two of you were seen together during work hours. You decided it was all too much to handle as you were trying to find your place at a brand new school and thought you would both be better off being friends, or at the very least, coworkers. Ryland was not quick to let you go, he tried so hard to convince you to give it another chance, trying to rid your mind of the opinions and gossip from the other staff members at the school. Ultimately, the stress from each day just became too much and the only solution you could find was to spend some time apart. It had been a few months and you started going to therapy not long after, wanting to be able to process your anxieties more clearly and understand what about this relationship made you so worried. You had been clinging to the small glimmer of hope that you would be able to work things out in the end and try again if it wasn’t too late, and in the midst of this, you had never gotten around to removing Ryland as your emergency contact.
“They called me,” Ryland says, gesturing towards the doorway with his head. “I didn’t see your car in the lot this morning and the library was still dark, I thought maybe you were running behind or just took a day for yourself.” He shakes his head slightly, a nervous laugh slips past his lips.
“I had just finished passing out a quiz to my students when I got the phone call. I figured you had forgotten your badge at home from trying to get here on time and needed me to come open the doors for you.”
Your heart drops into the pit of your stomach hearing this. You can imagine Ryland still answering the call quickly when he saw it was you, always eager to help you even though you had hurt him. He was too afraid to admit it, but losing you hurt far worse than being kicked out of academia and being forced into teaching middle schoolers who could not care less about science. Whenever you weren’t stealing glances at him, he was looking at you. Always. He checked for your car every morning. He lingered in the break room for a few extra minutes after getting his coffee, hoping you would find yourself there too. He understood your worries and never wanted to dampen them, so he agreed to go back to being just friendly coworkers, even if it killed him to not have you close to him anymore. He hoped you would come back around eventually, and he didn’t have a problem with waiting, no matter how long it would take. As long as he had you back by his side.
“I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast,” Ryland murmured. “I don’t think I even said anything to my class. All I know is one minute I was standing there, quizzes in hand, and the next I was driving like hell to get here. To get to you.”
He takes in a deep breath, exhaling shakily before continuing.
“I don’t know what I would do if I had lost you. You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I didn’t think I ever deserved to be loved, but you showed me just how wrong I was.”
You take in a shuddering breath.
“I love you. I’ve always loved you, probably since the moment we met. I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you. It’s been hell these last few months, acting like I don’t.”
He smiles up at you, eyes glistening behind his crooked frames as tears slowly stream down his face. You let out a wet laugh and bring your palm up to rest against his cheek once again. He leans into your touch, reaching up with a free hand to hold yours in place against him. You look at him, reflecting all the love and devotion that fills his gaze as hot tears continue to stain your cheeks.
“I never stopped loving you, Ryland. I need you to know that.” You say softly, moving your thumb across his cheekbone. “I’ve been pretending this whole time that I’m not still hopelessly in love with you. I was wrong. I was so wrong, Ry. These last few months without you have been far worse than any gossip coming from those crones at work.”
You can’t help but chuckle at the sheer amount of adoration coming from Ryland’s eyes as they bore into your soul.
“I don’t want to spend another second of this life without you.”
In one swift movement, Ryland pushes himself forward, closing the distance between you, one hand coming down to rest firmly on your hip while the other cradles the back of your head. His lips are on yours in an instant, warm and constant as he pours every ounce of devotion and longing he has ever felt for you. Your mouth moves in tandem with his, kiss deepening as your hands come up and get lost in his shaggy blonde hair. The kiss gets sloppier as your teeth clash together, tongues moving alongside one another. You pull the strands tangled between your fingers lightly and Ryland sighs into your mouth, which you swallow hungrily. After what feels like an eternity, but also not nearly long enough, Ryland pulls back slowly, resting his forehead against yours. You both breathe heavily and stare into each other’s eyes, as Ryland’s hand comes down from the nape of your neck to cup your jaw tenderly. Your hands snake down to grip his shirt collar, pulling him into another deep kiss, showing him just how much you missed him.