Requested on Tumblr
Warnings: car crash, bad injuries, death
Word count: 3 290
„Hey (y/n)!"
You turned around to the person calling for you. It was Louise from your office.
"Hello Louise," you greeted back tiredly.
"What are you still doing out here?"
It was already nine pm and you were still standing at the bus stop in front of the office building.
"I missed my bus," you explained. It had been a long day and missing the bus was just the last of many rocks that fate had thrown into your way today. Waiting another thirty minutes for a bus was definitely not your favorite thing to do after work.
"You don't live to far from my place, don't you? I can drop you off at home if you'd like," Louise offered.
"You're a life savior, Lou," you told the young woman who laughed lightly. "There's just one problem: do you have enough space for a guitar?" You pointed to the guitar case at your feet.
"Sure, the trunk is big enough," Louise waved you to finally walk over to her and so you picked up your guitar and your bag and followed her into the parking lot.
Ten minutes later you were seated in the car, your bags and the guitar safely in the back and both of you talking about work. You did not know Louise that well, so work was the easiest topic.
"Ted really said that," you wondered. "Well, what did you do?"
"I said he should piss off," she admitted with a giggle.
"And right you were! God knows what I would have done to him if he said that to me," you rubbed your hands over your eyes, tired and baffled that someone dared speaking to other people like Ted had to Louise. The car stopped at a red light. You took a deep breath and looked back up just as the car started moving again, the green lights shining brightly in the dark. Something in the corner of your left eye drew your attention to it and you turned your head. Two bright lights were coming straight for you. Then everything happened so fast, you barely registered it. There was a loud honk of a horn, then a heavy impact throwing you to the side and the sound of crashing glass and metal. Then everything went black.
When you woke back up, you had no sense of how much time had passed. Your vision was blurry and your ears were ringing. There were shouts of people and sirens. You head and neck hurt like hell, your left leg felt as if it had been shattered and a terrible pain came from your stomach. You reached for your head when something dripped in your eyes. You tasted iron, blood. You tried to turn your head to look for Louise but it was too dark and your vision was too blurry to make out anything specific. You tried to reach over to her, even though your arms hurt and when you reached her, you only felt more sticky liquid at your hands. The voices grew louder. Someone banged at your window, calling for you. Then the door was opened and someone unbuckled you. You groaned when they touched you. Every motion was causing you only more pain. Someone lifted you out of the car and you tried not to. They were only doing their job, no reason to make it more difficult for them. Unintelligible words sounded in your ears, but the voice was calming, soothing and you closed your eyes, focusing on the voice. Suddenly your head started to spin and you lost every connection to your surroundings, falling back into darkness.
~*~
You were woken up by a regular beeping. You tried to open your eyes but the eyelids were too heavy. Your body felt numb and when you moved your arm a great sting of pain shot through it. Suddenly there were voices again, at first many, all talking with each other. They were close but you could not really understand what any of them were saying. But then the voices quieted down and only a single voice was to be heard. It was the voice of a man, he talked slowly and calmly, making you calm down from the growing panic in your heart.
"(Y/n), are you awake?" these four words, you understood these four words. "If you can hear me, can you nod, raise your hand, squint your eyes?"
Instead of squinting, you tried to open your eyes again. This time it worked. The picture was blurry, dominated by white, bright blue and a light brown. Then slowly a face started to take form in front of you. It was a young man, red-blondish hair, black glasses and in a white laboratory coat as doctors wore it. He stood close to your bed, closer than the other people who stood around you.
When your gaze focused on him, a smile spread all over his face. "Well, hello there," he greeted you. He sounded relieved. "My name's Patrick."
You tried to nod but your neck was stiff so you tried to talk. Your voice was hoarse and it was hard to make a sound but finally you managed to line up a few words. "I'd introduce myself, but I guess you already know my name." Of course you could not just have said 'Hi'.
"I see you haven't lost your sense of humor," Patrick laughed. His laugh made you relax a bit more and you wished you could hear it more often. It sounded lovely. "That's a good sign. What's the last thing you remember?"
You closed your eyes and tried to focus. "A car crash, there was a car crash. And then sirens and there's blood everywhere and someone opens the door to get me out-" you stopped suddenly opening your eyes. "Where's Louise?"
Patrick's face got serious. He took a deep breath and looked you in the eyes.
Oh no.
"I'm afraid Louise wasn't as lucky as you," his voice was heavy with pain even though he had not known her.
You wanted to cry and scream and kick and yell and tell him you did not believe him but your body did not react. Your heart just broke silently while you stared at him. He pressed his lips together and lowered his eyes before he continued talking.
"Your left leg was broken and several of your ribs at both sides. We suspect a concussion, but you don't have amnesia, which is good. Also some of your internal organs were ripped so we had to operate." Suddenly he did not sound like the friendly man anymore, he was a doctor and that scared you. You wanted the Patrick back who smiled and laughed and made you feel better, not the one who coldly told you how broken your body was. "We're gonna have to keep you here for at least a few weeks, maybe more, depending on how the different injuries turn out." He looked back up at you, his eyes still holding emotions, even when his words were not. "Nurse Keller is going to look after you, if you need anything, call for her." And with that he turned around and left the small room, followed by the five nurses and junior doctors who had been listening to him talking. Suddenly you felt very alone and very lost.
After that you lost track of time. The windows were always covered by curtains and the artificial lightning in the hospital made it impossible to tell whether it was day or night. In regular intervals nurses checked on you and sometimes even Patrick payed you a visit, but he always was cold and professional. Sometimes you were in pain, that's when you asked for more painkillers but otherwise you were quiet. You were not allowed to get up from the bed because of your internal injuries so all you did was watch tv and sleep. You had hoped your friends would drop by, but no one showed up. And you had no family, none that cared for you anyway. Your parents had died when you had still been a small child. Once you were good enough to sit up, you saw someone had leant your guitar against the small table that was in your room.
Why did the stupid guitar survive, but Louise didn't? you sometimes thought bitterly.
You were just staring at the instrument when the door to your room opened. Much to your surprise it was Patrick. You still had no idea what his last name was, he was just Patrick to you. At first you wanted to turn away, you still felt weirdly betrayed that at first he had been so nice to you and then so cold. But now his face was relaxed and even a slight smile played around his lips.
"Good evening, (y/n)," he greeted, entering the room. For once he was not followed by the usual crowd of other doctors and nurses.
"It's evening then?" you asked, glad that finally someone talked to you.
Patrick raised an eyebrow.
"It's impossible to tell the time with all these curtains and the electric lights on all the time," you complained, completely aware you sounded like a whining three year old.
"Would you like me to open them," Patrick asked and smiled as your eyes lit up.
"That would be amazing," you grinned. Patrick walked the few steps past your bed and over to the window, drawing the curtains open. It was already dark outside, but the lights of the city glimmered playfully.
"Mind if I sit," Patrick asked politely, pointing to the only chair in the room.
"Not at all," you replied. It was so good to finally able to talk to somebody. The nurses checked on you all the time, but they never stopped to talk to you.
Patrick sat down, his eyes fixed on your face.
"How've you been?" His voice was soft, not the usual cold sound as when he came to check on you with his fellow doctors.
"Okay, I guess," you answered, "Thanks to the painkillers."
Patrick chuckled. "Yeah, I heard they can be quite helpful."
You smiled at his comment. "Do you know where the guitar came from?" you finally managed to ask.
Patrick's watching eyes left your face and glided over to the instrument. He smiled a bit. "They found it in the car, in which you crashed." Pictures of the broken glass and metal flashed before your eyes, and for a moment you almost believed you heard a car honking loudly. "It has your name tag on it, so I asked them to put it into your room. I thought, maybe it would give you some comfort."
He looked back at you.
"What made you think that?" you wondered.
"I play guitar myself and I always take it everywhere, I'd even take it for shopping and to work if that was possible," he admitted, "I just feel so much safer knowing I have it around me." He hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Is that weird?"
You shook your head. "No, I think it's kind of true."
For a while you both sat in silence. "Can I ask you something else?"
Patrick nodded.
"Do you think it was my fault the car crashed?"
Confused he looked at you. "Why would that be your fault?"
And then you told him about that one fateful evening. Maybe if Louise had not wanted to drive you home, she would have crossed that traffic light earlier in the night and she would not have died. Or maybe she would have passed it later. Or she would have taken another route.
Patiently Patrick listened to all your thoughts and worries. At some point you started crying, the first time since you were in hospital, and he pulled his chair closer to your bed to hold your hand. He told you that nothing could have been done to change the outcome and he hugged you when you cried so hard your whole body was shaking.
After that he always smiled when he came to see you. Sometimes he would take your hand and hold it for a while, sometimes he patted your shoulder and he cracked silly jokes at the smallest things. He also paid you private visits. After every one of his shifts he came to your room to talk to you. He listened to your stories and thoughts and you listened to him. Soon you knew more about him than you had ever known about Louise.
Sometimes he even played on your guitar to entertain you. That had started one evening when he came into your room and his glance stuck to your instrument. After a few minutes you had asked him whether he wanted to play and he had been really excited, telling you, that he had been craving a guitar in his hands since he woke up. That was the first evening he played for you. At first they were only songs you knew from the radio, but then he started to introduce you to some of his own songs. He confessed that he secretly wrote music and had no one who could tell him if the music was any good. So you became his critic. You loved listening to the quiet sound of his fingers strumming the stings and sometimes he would even sing for you. You always felt so much more alive after you had met Patrick. He had that atmosphere around him that made you want to smile.
Getting better was a slow and unnerving process, but you managed. After some weeks you were even allowed to walk around by yourself, which made the hospital life a lot more bearable. And of course there were Patrick's visits. Now he even took of his coat when he came to you after his shift, usually wearing a soft sweater or a dorky comic t-shirt underneath. Sometimes you wondered if he considered you a friend, because you sure considered him as one. It was probably unprofessional, all the visits, and guitar concerts, and jokes, and small touches, but you needed it so desperately. You felt as if everyone apart from Patrick had abandoned and forgotten about you. But Patrick made you happy, he made you smile and laugh and feel save and loved. And the last point was crossing your mind more often in the last time.
Then Patrick stopped coming by. He was in none of the rounds, and he did not drop by after his shift was over. In fact you did not see him at all. At first you thought nothing of it. Maybe he enjoyed a longer weekend, but after a few days you began to worry. It had been five days when you finally found the courage to ask a nurse where Patrick was. She looked at you in confusion, taking a moment to realize who you were talking about.
"Doctor Stump? He's on leave." The she turned around and walked away.
So that was his last name, Stump. But why was he on leave? Was he sick, was it for holidays? If it was for holidays, why had he not told you about that?
Another five days passed and there still was no sign of Patrick. By now you were panicking slightly. You were to be released from the hospital today and you really would have loved to stay in contact with him, as friends or maybe as more. You had grown fond of the short, blond haired doctor with the black rimmed glasses and the soft sweaters. The nurse handed you the prescription for the painkillers you still had to take and noticed your hesitation to take it.
"Is there something else I can help you with," she asked carefully. You liked this one, she was nice to you and had always opened the windows for you when you had asked for fresh air.
Deep in thoughts you shook your head, but then you made your mind up and decided to try your luck.
"When Doctor Stump is back, would you mind giving him a message from me?"
"Of course, what should I tell him?"
Yeah, what should she tell him?
"Ahm, do you have pen and paper?"
She handed you an empty sheet of paper and a pen with the logo of the hospital. Quickly you scribbled down your name and your phone number. For a moment you hesitated before adding 'If you ever need a critic again'. You folded the piece of paper twice and wrote Patrick's name on it before handing it to the young nurse.
"I'll make sure he gets it," she smiled. You were pretty certain she knew what was going on in your head.
"Thank you," you smiled kindly before picking up your guitar and the bag with things that had found their way to you into hospital, waving at her and leaving.
In front of the hospital you checked how much cash you had. Just enough to take a cab home. You strode over to one of the waiting taxis and opened the passenger door.
"Good morning, are you free?"
"Yes, I am. Where do you need to go?"
You told the cabby your address and got in the back. You had just closed the door behind you, when it was opened again. Confused you looked to your side and were met with Patrick's blue eyes.
"Thank god I caught you," he panted.
"Patrick," you exclaimed surprised. Then you turned to the cabby. "This might take a while." Quickly you got back out of the taxi, making sure you did not bump the guitar anywhere.
"I haven't seen you in ages!" You really wanted to hug him now, but he was wearing the white coat so you were not sure if you were allowed to.
"I was sick, I know. And then today on my first day back they made me work in another wing. I just finished work and I came to check on you and the nurse told me you just left and I didn't know if I could catch you..." He stared at you, and you could see all the stress and fear of not catching up to you in his eyes. But then he smiled. "You're better again!"
"Yeah, I'm better," you smiled back. Oh damn, his smile was just so beautiful.
"You're not my patient anymore!" He seemed incredibly relived about that.
"You're not my doctor anymore," you replied, not sure where this conversation was going.
"Brilliant," Patrick was still panting slightly, "Then there is nothing wrong if I do this."
With that he placed his hand at the side of your face and pulled you to him, firmly placing his lips on yours. The kiss was as sweet as his smile and you realized that even if you never really imagined what it would be like to kiss him, it was exactly what you had wanted the whole time. Far too quickly he pulled back again, his eyes nervously scanning your face, aware that he might have overstepped his boundaries.
But to his great relief you just smiled. "Nothing wrong with this," you assured him.
"Brilliant," Patrick repeated, smiling brightly back at you.
For a moment you just stood there, looking at each other before Patrick spoke again.
"If you want to, I can drive you home, my shift's over," he offered.
"That would be amazing," you agreed.
"My car's that way," Patrick pointed to the parking lot. "Shall we?"
You nodded happily and blushed terribly as he extended his hand for you to take. His skin was soft and smooth on yours, and together you walked away from the hospital.