Hospitals always made Kim feel weird. Like she was sterile herself; uncomfortable, displaced, completely lost. She instinctively clung to her mom, reminding herself of a child. But, it didn't matter much at this point. Dr. Gleason was talking to Peg about things to do with Edward, so Kim zoned into her own thoughts. The last time she had been this worried, this scared, was probably with Jim. And then again after Edward and that Christmas. It brought back things that she had tried to bury, hiding how much she missed Edward. Trying to mourn over Jim. Just trying to move on.
And suddenly Peg and Dr. Gleason stopped.
Kim looked up at them.
"So, how long have you known Edward?" Gleason asked as she pressed 10 in the elevator.
Kim stared blankly at her. Snapping back into reality, she sighed. "I... I uh, I met him in high school. He lived with us for a while."
"High school?" Gleason blurted out. She instantly covered her mouth.
Kim stuttered out a small response. "He's always looked young..."
They stepped out onto Edward's floor.
Kim instantly slinked to her mom's side, finding the strange white walls and the weird amount of space very unnatural. Plus, the machines on this level were bigger, and were threatening to Kim in a way.
"What happened after?" Gleason asked.
Kim stopped. "Things didn't work out, you know, and um, well we decided that it was best if he goes back to where he came from."
"And that's the mansion on the hill, right?"
Kim looked up at Gleason, then at Peg. Guilt flooded Peg.
"Yeah... yeah the mansion." Kim said quietly.
"I remember hearing something about that... when I was in high school myself." Gleason muttered.
They stopped again, this time in front of a large door. Kim suddenly wanted to throw up. Behind the door was Edward. And he made it snow. For her.
What would she say to Robin? What if she began to love Edward again.
Gleason was opening the door.
Now or never.
Kim looked down and her feet were moving. Into the room. The patterned tile changed into plain white.
Her eyes traced up and she didn't have time to react. Her heart was already breaking.
She practically fell into her mother's arms.
Edward.
That wasn't Edward in the bed. That broken, fragile, dying, leather-clad figure wrapped in a hospital gown and loads of pads, IVs, and tubes that had his weak eyes closed and his chest rising as slowly as ever, with his hands wrapped in casts and his leg in an intricate brace, gauze wrapped around his head, was not Edward. Edward had a spark about him, this life and air that wasn't like any other person in the world. Edward's small but sweet smile, his endless eyes, and his glimmering hands always moving, separated him from any one else Kim had ever met. And it broke her to see Edward like this. He didn't deserve it. He never could have done anything to deserve it. The world seemed to love hurting Edward.
Gleason put her arm on Kim's shaking shoulder, trying to comfort her as best as she could. How close could Kim and Edward have been?
"Don't worry, he just dozed off. We gave him a large dose of morphine for his wounds. He'll be awake once he gets used to the effects of the drug."
Kim felt tears stream down her face. Never had she realized how much she missed a person. Reconnecting with this part of her life, this part she had tried to forget, was turning everything in her upside down.
Her voice broke as she tried to speak. "Uh," she gulped down the lump in her throat. "Will he be okay?"
Gleason was silent. In all her years of being a doctor and surgeon, this was the hardest question to answer.
"We are looking at a potential full recovery. But, with the severity of his wounds, the internal problems that have been popping up,"
Peg interrupted. "What internal problems?"
Guilt swept through Gleason. "Well, during the surgery," she paused to explain to Kim. "Edward had a 21 hour procedure because of his completely unique physiology. He is an artificially made human being, the first artificially made human so you can imagine that, and we needed quite a lot of time to figure out how to treat him." She turned to Peg. "We've noticed drastic temperature drops and heights in his body since we've tried to take off the suit. Plus a damaged aorta, a punctured lung that we have managed to start healing, and a strange blood type. It's making everything 10 times harder than we originally thought." Gleason exhaled deeply as she finished.
Peg and Gleason turned to comfort Kim, but found her crouching by the bed, holding onto Edward's wrist like it was her life. She had buried her head in the sheets, quietly sobbing.
Peg was pulled to Kim, as any other mother would, but she knew that she needed her time with Edward.
Gleason understood this too. "Let's step outside for a second." Gleason smiled at the nurse coming into the room and into the small space to the side, and she led Peg outside.
It was just the nurse, tapping away at her laptop, Kim, and Edward. Accompanied by the hum of the uncomfortable hospital machinery. Kim was absolutely miserable. She had lost all control. What was she supposed to do? How was she supposed to survive watching Edward dying? Edward, the man who had changed her, Edward, Edward, Edward. She had never loved someone more.
She lifted her head slowly to look at him. Up close it was even worse. Some scars had reopened, followed by bruises forming around them. His eyes had dark bags around them, like the life had been sucked out of them. His cheeks were highlighted with small burns. Edward was a depressing sight. A broken sight.
"Edward," Kim whispered, savoring the feeling of saying his name again. His beautiful name.
A stirring in the bed caught her attention. She watched earnestly as Edward's fingers wiggled. It was just his index blade, but it was better than anything else. Kim couldn't take her eyes off it. It glinted a bit in the hospital light.
Slowly, the hand began to scoot itself closer to Kim's hand, so that her fingers were wrapped around Edward's palm. Kim gasped. He was trying to hold her hand.
Her eyes traced his arm as it slowly started shifting, all the way up to his slowly shifting head. After squinting a few times, Kim's red and puffy eyes watched Edward slowly open his. It was the most her heart had ever fluttered.
Their gaze was locked. Everything else disappeared. It was just Kim, losing herself in Edward's bottomless gaze. It was almost too weak to stay afloat, but the exhaustion and the dark circles around his eyes did not take away from the beauty of it. His gaze was filled with emotion and pain, but a spark of relief stuck out. Edward was alive, and he was charming Kim with his spell. God, she missed this. She was young again, dancing in the snow.
Edward hadn't changed a bit. She wondered how she must look to him, he must be surprised. Age didn't seem to affect Edward in any way. Only the new scars on his face, and bandages, and tubes coming out of his nose brought out the change. It seems that his eyes had grown weary, tired, and wiser. But he still looked like the young man she had know so many years before. He still looked beautiful.
Edward's blue lips quivered. He wanted to say something, but his mouth seemed to freeze. Kim was scared that he would faint or have a seizure or something, but his comforting gaze put her at ease.
Finally, Kim whimpered, tears rolling down her cheek, and a smile crawled onto her face.
"Edward," she cupped his cheek in her hand, slipping under the oxygen tubes and being careful around the cuts. It hurt her to see Edward hurting, but that didn't matter. He was back.
And Edward, fireworks burst inside of him. Everything he had tried to remember to the very detail, to recreate and escape into, was reawakened and staring at him with those beautiful teary eyes. The pain was gone. The fear was gone. The drugs were gone. He was dumb-founded by Kim. The beauty that he had forgotten in the act of trying to remember it, the eyes, the eyes that defined everything good in this world. If this magnetic pull towards her was love, then he was falling into it. Kim. He was looking at his dreams, straight at the one thing that kept him going. And he loved it. This endless feeling of completion made him want Kim to hold him forever, to stay and take all the pain away. He felt human once again.
"Edward, Edward, Edward," Kim whispered the sacred name, as if scared to say it too loudly so as not to break the dream. Edward didn't talk. He just stared and smiled weakly, and he fell into her hand. "What have you gotten yourself into?" Laughter burst from Kim, followed by tears and a quivering lip.
Edward lost himself in her words. To hear them again was like to fly. He didn't want to smile, he just wanted to remember Kim in this moment like he had tried to remember so long ago. But the smile came, and he let it fill his face with joy.
Kim's smile conquered her tears. "God, I've missed you so much." And the tears kept rolling. It was a moment written in the stars.
Edward closed his eyes and leaned against Kim's hand, basking in the feeling of her skin against his.
He tried to squeeze his hand, to let her know that he felt her, but that brought a load of pain with it. Edward tried not to wince at this, but it happened anyway. He hated it.
Kim's smile disappeared. She began to worry. "Are you okay?" She bustled around. "Should I get a doctor or something..."
Kim lost her train of thought the moment she looked back at Edward. His eyes made her melt and she loved it. There was comfort in his eyes, a comfort that was infectious to Kim. A comfort she had forgotten.
His lips quivered with the tips of words and slowly sound escaped them. His voice was rough and horse, but it was his voice nevertheless. Slowly, his thoughts came out in simple words.
"Hold me." He croaked.
The walls disappeared, the wires disappeared, and it was just Kim and Edward, like on that Christmas so many years ago. That cosmic love that made the universe turn flooded into the two.
Kim cried, smiled, and loved. She leaned over and gently kissed his pale cheek. Edward's eyes fluttered, just like they had when he saw her for the first time. Magic.
The moment never ended. The two of them never ended. This, this is the thing that both Kim and Edward missed so much about each other. The innocent love.