Some soft beautiful and cute moments for thenamesh Doctor au? They deserve a little break ❤️
"How is she?"
Ajak turns with a smile at the head just barely poking into the room. She waves him in, and Gil shuffles in quietly, his hands pushed deep into his hoodie pockets. "She's okay, Gil. She's coming down from the anaesthetics, her vitals all look good. Aside from some physio and some time off, she'll be just fine."
Gil chuckles, walking around to the other side of the bed with Thena sleeping soundly. "She'll be furious she has to take time off. If she comes in for physio she'll probably just slip away and try to work."
Ajak shrugs, giving him a grin, "I'm sure you wouldn't let her anyway."
"You're right."
Ajak averts her gaze as Gilgamesh reaches out to push some of Thena's hair away from her face. Maybe he's forgotten they aren't alone, or maybe he just doesn't care who sees him do it. "You know you can't take two weeks off too, right? I know you want to, but if Thena isn't here, then I'll need you more than ever."
Gil nods solemnly, his hand almost back in his pocket when he suddenly decides the place for it is around Thena's hand. "She wouldn't let me take the time off either, I'm sure. I can check on her between my shifts."
Ajak just shakes her head. It's not as if she would be able to do anything to stop him from doing so. "Just remember to get your proper rest, too."
"Yes, Ma'am," Gil offers a tired smile before looking down at Thena again. He reaches up to her hair again, but this time he trails a finger over her cheekbone, then down her jaw. "Oh, Thena."
Ajak is about to leave the two lovebirds alone when Thena shifts. "Thena?"
"Honey?" he whispers, leaning to get a look at her eyes. They're still hazy, but she blinks at him. "Hey, Sweetie, how are you feeling?"
"Hey."
Ajak's eyes sneak over to the heart monitor displaying her heart rate, blood oxygen and blood pressure readings. The heart rate has picked up speed a little, not that either of them have taken notice.
"Morning, Sunshine," Gil chuckles, visibly relieved at the sound of Thena's voice. He leans over her, liberally planting a kiss on her cheek. "How're you feeling?"
Ajak observes a funny little skipped beat, but it seems to be a momentary effect.
"I'm okay," Thena whispers to him, her eyes still struggling to open all the way. She makes the faintest attempt at pulling herself up.
"Hey, easy," Gil rushes to hold her. He wraps his arm around her shoulders, helping her up to her desired angle and bringing a cup of ice chips up to her lips.
Ajak adjusts the bed so Thena can lie down/sit up comfortably. Not that they notice that either.
Gil takes the cup from her as she swallows down the much needed water. "Better?"
She nods, her thumb moving against his absently as she tries to absorb her surroundings. She - finally! - looks over at Ajak. "What happened?"
Ajak smiles at her, pulling her blankets up again. "We got you right into surgery, got some blood in you. You're lucky it wasn't more serious."
Thena sighs, lying heavier against her pillow. "How long?"
"Two weeks, minimum," Ajak says firmly, and watches Thena make a face like a teenager being forced into a family reunion. "And that's if things heal quickly and your physio goes well."
Thena rolls her eyes at it, although she gets jabbed in her good leg with Ajak's pen for it. "Hey!"
"Don't roll you eyes at me, little lady," Ajak smirks at her, happy at least to see Thena regain some of her usual fire as she glares back at her. "I'm going to tell them that you're up. You two, wait here."
"I'll do my best," Thena grumbles, further ensuring her recovery. She smiles at Ajak on her way out before looking at Gil again. "Are you okay?"
"Me?" he asks, and then openly scoffs. "You were stuck under a car, Thena--for hours!"
"It wasn't hours."
"Well, no one would tell me how long it was!" he protested, "so I had to imagine the worst!"
Thena just sighs. She has a clear memory of him lying down with her, holding her hand and whispering sweet comforts to her as the rain and wind and her own impending death loomed over her. "Thank you."
Gil leans over her again, pressing his forehead to hers, as he had done in the moment under the car. "I wouldn't have let anything happen to you, Thena. I swear."
"I know you wouldn't," she whispers back. Her eyes flutter open again while Gil's are still closed. He's so close he's blurry, but she can make out the pinkness of his lips.
Gil pulls back, smoothing over her hair again. "Hey, what were you going to say?"
"Hm?"
"Just at the end," he frowns, twirling a long of blonde around his finger. "You started saying 'Gil if-' but I wouldn't let you finish."
"Oh."
That heart monitor is beeping faster again.
"I didn't want you to say anything because there was no if, then," he shrugs, more able to talk about it now that the immediate danger has faded a little. He tilts his head at her, "so, what was it?"
Thena's eyes dart around a little, listening to that damned heart monitor blaring her guilt. Not that it was as loud as media made them seem, but it wasn't as silent as she would like.
"I don't think I remember."
Gil tilts his head at her and her sudden unwillingness to look at him. He leans over until she has no choice but to see him (being stuck in a bed, and all). "Hey, wait."
Thena's fluster only worsens as his palm presses against her forehead. She squeezes her eyes shut, "Gil, it..."
"You look a little flushed," he frowns at her, and just now looks up at her monitor readings. "BPs kind of high too--you might be fighting an early infection. I'll get Ajak."
Gil takes off before Thena can really stop him and tell him not to. And at least it gives her a chance to try and get her traitorous heart to calm down a bit.
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“Come on.”
“Uh?”
Diane looks up as Naomi stands and holds out her hand as if this isn't a ridiculously careless thing she's asking her to do, as if neither of them has the good sense to mention that neither one of them has any idea what they're getting themselves into. As if neither of them might be walking straight into a trap of their own making, or nothing much will change at all and they'll forget about each other in a month, or a few days. As if it's a risk worth taking to find out which.
As if there's anything else to do today.
“I'm not going to the hospital.”
“I know.” Naomi reaches a little closer. “I have a first aid kit at home.”
Enough to get them through, that's all. Enough for now.
“You know how to wrap it?” Diane asks as she takes Naomi's hand to pull herself up, as though the answer might change her mind somehow. Naomi smiles a little, as though she knows it just as well that it won't.
“Yeah.” She sets Diane's hand down on her shoulder. “It's not far, come on. I'll carry you down the stairs.”
“You'll drop me.”
“I will not.” Naomi urges her forward, along the concrete path out of the park. “I mean I'm just offering, I don't have to.”
It's a nice gesture, though, isn't it? It was a nice thought.
They walk slowly down the street, stepping more or less in sync past the general store with the baking supplies just past the doorway, turning at the corner to walk toward the coin laundry that's open even at three in the morning and also on holidays. A hand-drawn poster in the window of the discount shoe store across the street loudly advertises VACUUMS REFURBISHED while a Times New Roman printout on the telephone cubicle in the middle of the block offers “suitable compensation” in exchange for willing test subjects, No Questions Please; a few steps farther along stands an apartment building that somehow looks like it's missing a couple of stories, and Diane shifts her weight to her good leg as Naomi steps away to fumble with the lock on the front door.
“It's the door on the left,” Naomi says, the door sticking only slightly as she shoves it open. “When you get to the basement.”
She opens the first door on the right, a stairwell that only leads down.
“Upstairs is that door over there, but I don't know any of the neighbors, so. I'm not gonna introduce you to anyone.”
That's fine. Diane doesn't want to know any of them, either.
Naomi walks down the stairs first and doesn't try to carry her.
“Bathroom's at the end of the hall,” she says. “The taps aren't broken, the water's just cold when it's cold outside and warm when it isn't, but if you let it run for a little while, it'll...fix itself. And make sure you don't touch the water heater, it's metal and it gets really hot sometimes.”
Diane clutches the wooden banister nailed to the wall as she limps her way down and wonders how much of all this she's supposed to remember. All of it, probably. It isn't very complicated.
Naomi unlocks the door on the left and holds it open.
“You can sit on the bed.”
It's good of her to offer. It isn't much of a bed, really, more of a mattress pushed into the corner, but that isn't exactly a surprise, and it's good of her to offer all the same.
“Thanks,” Diane says, a little too late to seem quite natural. Naomi hums a disinterested acknowledgment and doesn't seem to mind.
“Take off your shoes.”
Diane promptly unties her sneakers, placing them on the floor beside the bed as Naomi kneels in front of her with a roll of ACE bandage in her hand and her eyes focused on Diane's ankle like she's the only attending physician in the entire complex who doesn't have better things to do with her time than tend to something as trivial as all this. Diane should count herself lucky the timing worked out the way that it did.
Lucky, was it? It's about time.
The single bulb in the overhead light flickers a little as if a public execution has just disrupted the power grid, or someone's turned on too many air conditioners at once and blown a fuse a few floors up.
“Don't worry about it,” Naomi says. Diane doesn't bother to assure her that she wasn't.
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