Our love couldn't go wrong

Chapter Twelve :

Tw for mentions of injury, abuse, and previously mentioned sexual harassment

It doesn't surprise him when Courtney asks Omar if she can be discharged not even an hour after the police leave. It also doesn't surprise him when the nurse firmly tells her no, that they'll reevaluate after twelve hours, but they've got a few tests they still need to run - if she feels up to it now, that is.

Courtney blushes at that, and if he wasn't so concerned about her, he might've laughed. She has a lot of anxiety in general, but her medical anxiety is always the worst; she's prone to panic attacks and (unintentionally) freaking out during exams. There was even one time in her childhood when she broke a doctor's nose, albeit accidentally, over an X-ray that they weren't talking her through. He doesn't want a repeat of that.

"I-I...can Shayne stay with me? Please? I know that may cause issues but...I'd feel safer i-if he was there?" She seems deflated, almost as if she's expecting a no, but Omar nods in understanding.

"Of course - if you think it'll help. And don't worry, I'm going to be with you the whole time, too, so I'll explain everything that we need to do before we do it. You're welcome to ask questions and I'll do my best to answer them; I will warn you that Shayne can't be in the room when we do your X-ray and CT scan, but we'll do those both at the same time and we can get them over and done with first, if that makes it any easier with you?" The nurse responds, clearly sympathetic. Shayne finds himself thankful that Omar had been assigned to Courtney, because he clearly seems to understand her needs and has already gone above and beyond to meet them. After this, he'll make sure to get a thank you card and some chocolates for him, or something. It only seems right.

"Okay. That...yeah, we'll do them first." She responds. He can hear the tiredness seeping into her voice and it causes his heart to tug, knowing just how exhausted she must be to not fight back on this.

Credit where credit is due, the staff who do scans and help tend to her injuries work efficiently, always asking if they're okay to continue before moving onto the next thing. Omar stays with them the whole time, letting Courtney take breaks when she gets slightly overwhelmed and keeping her distracted when someone from the fracture clinic comes to cast her arm. As awful as the whole process is, it simultaneously isn't. He appreciates everything they've done to make it easier for everyone involved.

It doesn't even take ten minutes after returning to her room for Courtney to fall asleep, her exhaustion clearly getting the better of her. He watches the slow rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps, the even pace of her gentle breathing like white noise among the sounds of the machinery around them. She doesn't look like she's in pain - not asleep, at least - and it calms him, but he can't help but glance at the cast on her left arm, the stitches in her hairline, and the bruises that have seemingly darkened since he first saw them hours ago.

It makes him feel sick.

A doctor had given them the rundown on her injuries after her tests and, well, the list had been extensive. Broken nose, ribs, spiral fracture to her left arm, concussion, and a suspected bruised lung - although a comment had been made about a potentially recent collapsed lung that had fixed itself recently. They'd been assured that everything was looking okay and that she could be discharged after the next round of meds, and Courtney had been quick to assure the doctor that she didn't need a SANE assessment. That had eased his worries, a little.

Everything will heal, eventually, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was that none of this should've happened in the first place.

The issue was that Jason had done this to her in the first place.

Sure, Courtney hadn't necessarily told him that, but she didn't need to. She'd told him in the way she'd responded to her boyfriend's coworkers interrogating her, she'd told him in the look in her eyes when anybody asked her to corroborate her story. She gave him the answer to the question he'd been scared to ask for weeks. Unfortunately, the answer just came too little, too late.