JANEL'S POV:
I couldn't wait. I couldn't wait for Stanley to come back in. I couldn't wait for anything. I got up and despite the nurse telling me I should stay in bed, I raced out of the room. Problem was, I didn't know where Harry's room was. I'd just search around till I saw Stanley or something. I didn't care. "I'm getting discharged any second! I'm fine!" I said to the nurse as I raced out.
I wasn't thinking. I turned back to her......"PLEASE tell me where his room is?"
She told me real quick. It wasn't far, luckily and I barely thanked her as I ran out.
Found it. And there was Stanley, just walking out. I nearly ran into him. "OH! There you are! I was just coming to tell you Harry's results!" He smiled.
"I couldn't wait....can I go in?" I asked him impatiently.
"Yeah! Go right ahead!" he moved out of my way and put his arms out to my prize.
"Harry!" I called, when I walked in and saw him in bed.
He looked over, and tried to sit up, but got back down. "Janel! I'm dizzy, sorry....."
"So??? What did the doctors say?" I didn't beat around the bush.
"They said I've got about 10 minutes to live." he joked.
"Shut UP! What did they SAY!!!?" I barely laughed.
"Impatient, are we? If I didn't know better, I'd think you had a crush on me or something. You're not gonna turn into a crazy stalker, are you?" he joked again.
"Harryyyyyy!!!!" I whined, very impatiently this time.
I've got a concussion. Not a bad one. Just a small one. I'll be fine. I'm gonna stay here for the night, because we don't really have a comfy spot to go home to....and not a proper bed or anything...what with the dead body and crime scene and all.....They just gotta wake me up every hour or so. Keep me on this machine, make sure I'm good, since I'm here. If I wasn't here, you'd just have to wake me every hour or something. But being in here, they gotta cover their as.ses, with machines monitoring my every breath, sneeze or fart." he explained.
SIGGGGHHHHHHH. I was so relieved. I mean, I knew it was probably a concussion. I knew he'd be fine...but you never know. Sometimes things are worse than they seem.
"Then I guess when they discharge me, which will be any second, I'll come move in here. I'll sleep in the chair." I told him.
"Screw the chair. You'll sleep in bed with me!" he said.
"Even better." I said, and I finally leaned down to kiss him and hold him.
"You're shaking." he noticed. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah...I was just nervous about you. And you kept joking around and drawing it out longer and longer, and I was really working up to a panic, you as.shole!" I told him.
He laughed at me.
"Get a hold of yourself, woman. I'm fine." he said. "What did they say about you?" he added.
"Nothing. I'm fine. Just hyperventaled, and panicked...at the same time. They xrayed the side of my head and face, but everything's fine there. Just bruising. Does it look sexy? Do I look tough?" I was able to joke now.
"Bad. AS.S." he said in a low voice, "Don't fvck with my girl....she'll fvcking shoot you in the face!"
I laughed, but it was an awkward laugh. I mean...I killed someone.
Harry must have noticed my awkwardness. "I'm sorry babe. I really shouldn't have said that. Sh.it. Are you ok with it? I mean...as ok as you can get, that is. I know....it's gotta feel weird..."
"Yeah...It's weird, alright. I mean...I don't LIKE it that I took someone's life....but it was hers or yours, so....it doesn't bother me that much, when I think of it like that. She was bad. You're good. She had to go." I told him. And that's exactly how I felt. Harry gave me a sincere and pity filled smile.
Harry patted the bed beside him. "I can't really move much, so if you don't have enough room, you can pull up the chair. I just want you close to me, though. No matter what."
I eyed the bed...tried to think of how I could lay, to be with Harry. I decided I'd hug against him sideways, with a leg over his, and my arm around his stomach.
It worked. He was happy. I could see the cute smile on his face out of the corner of my eye when I settled in and looked up at him.
"Thank you Janel. You saved my life." he finally said, after a minute of us just laying together in silence.
"Well, yeah.....I couldn't NOT!" I said, not wanting him to make me into some big hero or something. "We pretty much took turns saving each other, last night, actually."
"Ya know, when you held the gun up, it was like....aimed right at me! I actually for a split second, thought you were gonna shoot ME!" he admitted. I laughed once. "I really did! I thought either you bumped your head or something, and didn't know what you were doing, OR you were mad at what I'd said to Tammi earlier, about running away with her. I totally flinched....totally thought I was gonna die in that moment! I was heartbroken! I'm glad I didn't die, heartbroken! That would've sucked." he joked.
"She was RIGHT behind you. I was sooo stressed out and scared in that moment...I didn't have time to get up. I didn't have time to think about aiming....I didn't have time for you to move out of the way, or anything! I could see her face behind you, and I aimed for it. Her arm was up, and just about to come down and stab into your back. It was all like...slow motion....only it was so quick. I can't explain it. I just aimed how I thought it would go PAST your head, and hoped for the best. I mean, I DID aim. I did try. I didn't just shoot blindly. But I didn't have time to really think it out. It was HORRIBLE.
And I saw you flinch. I saw you put your arms up and block your head. And I got scared that I would shoot your arm!
It was soooo stressful and terrible, Harry. I was soooo scared that I wouldn't hit her, and soooo scared that I'd hit you, right in the head.....and anything else that could've gone wrong in that ONE second of terror." I explained to him. "If I'd have hit you in the head, I'd have immediately followed you to the next life. I couldn't have handled that for a SECOND."
"Right after the gun went off, I saw your eyes glaze over. I saw the memory form in your mind. From that night when you were a kid. I knew exactly what you were thinking. And then I felt the pain in my back.....heard the thud.....and my mind put it all together, what happened....it was so strange. I mean, I was still in a daze! I don't know WHY I turned my back on her like that....I don't know WHAT I was thinking! That one stupid move almost killed me. I'm actually really sorry, babe, that I was stupid like that. Because that made you have to take someone's life. I keep wishing and wishing....all morning....that it was ME that killed her. Not you. You've been through enough in life!" Harry told me.
"How did you know to get up quick and throw her off of you like that? Were you awake already?" I asked Harry.
"I had become conscious, and I was just laying there, in a fog...and then I felt someone sitting on my shoulder, and I opened my eyes, and saw you from the corner of my eye. And I heard you say "No no no...Harry I love you." And you had a gun. You were fumbling around with it...your hands were shaking, you kept looking up....and then it hit me, what was going on. I suddenly remembered what had happened. And I felt a heavy weight on me when I tried to get up. I couldn't move. But I wanted to move. I wanted to help you with the gun. So I decided to try harder to get up. So I used all my might, and pushed up really fast. And I guess that's why I didn't know to turn around because danger was behind me. I didn't know it was HER I tossed off the back of me. I actually figured that out this morning when I was inside the scanner! I guess that explains why I didn't turn around...why I tried to help you up instead. I was just....out of it. I could barely see, either. Standing up that fast after being knocked out....yeah, not good. My sh.it was fucked UP, yo!" he joked at the end of his story.
We laughed, and held each other tighter.
And Stanley walked in. "Enough time to catch up, kids?"
"Listen, I'm gonna go for now....since I guess you'll have company here all night. Do you guys need anything? Janel? Cell phones? Clothes? Food? Anything? I take it you'll be here with him all night? You're certainly welcome to come to my hotel room. There's two beds, if you need to rest better than this. You're gonna fall out of the bed, missy!" he asked.
"Clothes! Yes!!! I wonder if you can get into the apartment at all?? And cell phones....that would be good....probably chargers too....whatever you can find. Maybe a granola bar or something....I don't care." I said.
"Oh she cares!" Harry butted in. "She needs food. She passes out WAY too much. So find her plenty of stuff, will you mate? You rock. You didn't phone my parents or anything, did you?"
"No, I didn't contact anyone. I figured you'd contact whoever you needed to. Tell them yourself. I thought about it, but I didn't want to make them have to sit and worry and wait for test results. And now that we know....you can tell them your damn self!" he joked.
"Right....so I'll be back soon. Clothes...phones, chargers, food....all good?" he said as he turned to leave.
"Yep. Thanks mate." Harry said.
"Thanks Stanley. I appreciate it." I said.
"Ya know, we're gonna crash HARD soon. We didn't get ANY sleep last night!" I told Harry.
"Yeah. I can feel it starting, actually. But I gotta be woken up every little bit, for the next 24 hours! So that sucks for me! I'm gonna crash even harder when we finally get ho.....where the hell ARE we gonna go when we leave tomorrow?" Harry said, in realization.
"Yeah...I don't think I can go back there. Live there. Sleep in the bedroom where I ki.....she.....yeah. I'm gonna have to move!" I said, stuttering all over the place.
Harry gave me a supportive, knowing smile and grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
"Well, I hear there's a nice places in the UK..." he said, and when I looked up, he smiled his innocent silly smile.
"I KNOW there's nice places there. I've seen them." I teased, and smiled up at Harry.
We fell asleep together, and I barely woke up when I'd hear the nurses come in and check on him every half hour or 45 minutes or something. It was annoying, but I liked hearing his voice, knowing he was alright.
Stan had come back and left us clothes, our phones, which he set up on our chargers next to the bed, and left a bag of whatever he could find at the corner store nearby that I could eat here. I also found my discharge papers on top of my pile of clothes. I'm sure Stanley took care of everything, and told the hospital that Harry was a celebrity, and to let me stay here, and all that. It was good to be around famous people sometimes. But then again.....sometimes.....NOT. We were in the hospital right now BECAUSE he was famous. So yeah....but right now, I was glad no one was kicking me out or making me sleep in the chair, at least.
I had asked Stanley to visit Bonnie at work, too, let her know what happened. He was happy to, he said.
And then, I let myself crash, hard. Just like I knew I would.
Between wake ups, more naps, meals, nurses waking Harry up all the time, doctors coming to check his vital signs, and ask him questions and stuff, it was all a foggy blur of time. But then, it was the next day, and we were discharged. Ahhh.
I saw on our phones, that Bonnie called several times and texted several times, but they were on silent, from it being bed time the last time we'd touched them.
I guess I'd call her soon. I was surprised she didn't come here by now.
We waited for Stanley to come to take us home, but Bonnie showed up instead. We followed her out to the car and Stanley was inside, waiting! What the.....?
She said they both wanted to pick us up, so they cooperated and came together.
Harry and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes. Bonnie started driving but then she suddenly asked where she was taking us? We told her we didn't know. We'd probably just get a hotel room which would make it easy for Stan and Harry to do their work anyway. Bonnie offered for us to stay with her, but she only had a couch. She said she'd sleep on it and we could have her bed, but we said we'd be fine.
We didn't really care where we ended up. Just as long as it was together. We held each other tightly in the car the entire ride.
Bonnie dropped us three off at the hotel.
As we said goodbye, Bonnie asked if we all wanted to get dinner later maybe. Or tomorrow. Stanley was up for it right away. Harry and I, not so much. But I bumped his arm with my elbow after I noticed something. I gave him a wink and told him we should do dinner all together, to get back to normal. He looked at me strange, but agreed. So dinner tonight it was.
We went inside and as soon as we got into the hotel room Harry looked at me ready to ask wtf.
I stopped him and said "Stan and Bonnie like each other!!"
Harry stared at me a few seconds.
"Really??" was all he said.
"Oh yes. They do. No wonder they BOTH came to the hospital to get us. And I saw the looks they gave each other in the car. I could feel the tension. And then she made up a dinner excuse....and he was all for it.....this is SOOO COOL!! I hope they get together and love each other forever!" I babbled on to Harry.
"Wow! I can't believe I missed that! It must be my bumped head. Heh.
Well.....I guess dinner tonight will be interesting! We'll have lots to giggle about!" Harry said excitedly.
Dinner WAS interesting. We picked a restaurant bar, and we all danced after. And of course, Bonnie and Stan danced. Harry and I couldn't help but tease them by the end of the night, when it was obvious they were "hooking up".
And guess who went inside the hotel with us all when we got back late? Yep. Bonnie.
And, we learned over dinner, that Martin's son and Bonnie's daughter were dating also!
What a mixed up cluster of dating between Harry and I's friends! We loved it.
And life was finally back to normal, except living in a hotel room. We did get everything from the apartment packed and into storage slowly. Harry moved us into an efficiency hotel room after a week.
We dealt with the cops and statements and all that, and then we put it out of our heads and got on with our lives.
And our lives were great again.
We "lived" at the hotel for a while, and then decided to look for flats in London.