Consciousness comes back intermittently. It feels like I’m trying to swim through an ocean of mud. I’m aware of voices, but only one stands out.
“…toe,” I try, but I know it’s not right.
Goddammit, eyes, I need you to fucking open.
“…tone,” I try again, getting closer.
“Hanlon,” he answers. His voice clear, strong—alive.“Hanlon, I’m here.”
“Ssstone,” I force out, even though the ‘s’ is a little difficult.
“Skittles, let me see those beautiful eyes. Can you open your eyes and look at me?”
“Tr…ing,” I mumble through dry lips.
“You’re doing so good, baby,” Stone coaxes in that wonderful voice I never thought I’d hear again.
I feel the corner of my mouth twitch at his words. That’s a good sign, right?
Finally, I’m able to open one eye, but everything is blurry.
“Lana, can you put his glasses on?” Stone asks.
My mom ishere?
A second later, I feel the familiar weight of my glasses slipping on my face, and I smile at my mom.
“Hi, sweetheart,” she says to me before looking to someone else and saying, “Can you go grab the nurse?”
A moment after that, James enters my line of sight. He pauses at the doorway. “Welcome back, Han.”
“Mmm. Where’s?—”
“Over here, baby,” Stone answers immediately.
My neck is stiff, but I manage to turn my head enough to see Stone propped up at a slight angle.
My eyes close again because the sight of Stone is too fucking much, and I break down in a sobbing mess. His face is black and blue, and purple bruises poke out from under the neck of his hospital gown. His shin and ankle are swollen where they rest on top of the covers, with a surgical incision running vertically about five inches from his kneecap toward his shin.
“Hey,shhhh. Han, it’s okay. I’m here. We made it… thanks to you,” he coos.
I want to climb into bed with him. Want to hold him, touch him anywhere, everywhere. Feel him wrapped around me again.
It’s clear my fingers are going to be a problem, and I’m going to have to start over at square one to regain my motion and dexterity, but it’s a small price to pay since Stone survived.
Suddenly, what must be my entire medical team rushes through the door, shining lights in my eyes, making me drink water, asking me questions—most of which I get wrong because I have no idea what day it is or how I got here—and poke me all over.
Once they’re satisfied that I can identify my family, swallow without choking, that I’m sore, but not in any frank pain, and that my reflexes are present despite not beingstrong, they help me into a wheelchair so I can get closer to Stone.
Oh, they’re not happy about it.
In fact, they’re quite pissed, but after proving that I was hellbent on getting to him with or without their help, they lowered my hospital bed, dropped the arm of the wheelchair, and slid my bare ass onto the seat just to move me three feet so I could feel Stone’s hand on my face.
I kiss his palm and his wrist because it’s all I can reach.
“I thought I lost you,” I tell him.
“I would’ve joined you one way or another, Hanlon,” he says seriously. “That mountain was either going to take us both or lose us both,” he says, brushing my greasy, disgusting ICU hair away from my face.
