Stocking Stuffers || Top Gear / the Grand Tour

★ A Not So Perfect Christmas

This one is more whumpy than Christmassy, but I'm quite pleased with it.

Enjoy!

//\\//\\

When Richard wakes, he's unsure of where he is, or why he feels so loopy and confused. He doesn't remember what had happened to the lead up to him being wherever the hell he is, and something feels a little... off.

Looking around, he finds that he's in a hospital room. Something that he definitely didn't expect to wake up in, but here he is, lying in a hospital bed once more, and he cannot remember how he got there this time. However, he can guess exactly how he has ended up here.

He's crashed again, and has very likely broken something. Because of course he has.

Fan-fucking-tastic....

And so close to Christmas, too, which makes this whole situation, however he's ended up in it this time, all the more perfect. Not.

He's gone and done it again, and crashed. And now he's in the hospital.

Looking over towards the door as it opens, he's not surprised to find Mindy making her way inside carrying a takeaway cup of coffee. And if he's not mistaken, she looks rather exhausted, especially as she makes her way over to him, pulling one of the chairs over next to the hospital bed.

"Hey." he says, as Mindy reaches out to take a hold of his hand. "What happened?"

He really doesn't remember what had happened to cause the crash. Even as he tries to wrack his brain around, trying to figure it out, he just... can't. Nothing is coming to him. He just can't remember ever crashing.

In fact, the last thing that he remembers, is accompanying James and Jeremy at the Roy Swallowcliffe, the pub that James owns half of, for a couple drinks for his birthday. But he never drove home afterwards. He's not stupid enough to drive under the influence. He, along with James and Jeremy, had spent the night in one of the rooms of the pub's inn.

Anything after that though, he doesn't remember anything. Except that he got home around lunchtime the next day.

"What do you remember?" Mindy asks.

"That... that I went out for drinks with James and Jeremy at James's pub, and that we spent the night together." He says. "Then I got home around midday the next day. Then I..."

He doesn't remember what he had done after that. His mind is coming up blank, and he doesn't like it. Doesn't like to think that maybe his memory is starting to fail him. He's only 53! Then again, he always knew that ever since his first big crash where he received damage to his frontal lobe, that he may suffer memory problems later down the line. And yeah, he already can be a little forgetful, but he really doesn't like the idea of suffering major memory problems."

"Mindy, please." He says. "What happened?"

Mindy sighs, squeezing his hand a little as she lets out a shaky breath. And that most certainly doesn't make Richard feel good about any of this....

"From what I've been told, the doctors think you may have had a mini stroke while driving and ended up crashing into a tree." Mindy says. "Your leg is broken. The left one, again, and you've got a couple bruised ribs."

Richard makes a strange choking noise at that news. There's the possibility he had a mini stroke? Jesus.... And of fucking course it's his left leg that he's broken again.

But why can't he remember anything leading up to all of that after he had returned home from having a couple drinks with James and Jeremy?

"That was all three days ago, Richard." Mindy says. "And you've been in and out of consciousness since then. The doctors want to keep you in for a few more days to monitor you."