A surprising turn: Chapter 15: The Hospital
Pairing: Hermione/Pansy
Warnings: Later on in the story Ron will be really mean, so if you adore him, then maybe you shouldn't start reading.
Disclaimer: Not mine, never where and never will be, but I do own the plot.
AU: This is my first try out for a femslash story, please review. Thanks to Sarah for betaing!
Summary: Hermione is married to Ron, pregnant and life couldn't be better. Until he does something to muck it up, and Hermione receives a letter that changes her world.
AU: thanks to my great beta Sarah, don't know what I would have done without you:D
The Hospital
As Pansy slowly woke up, she looked around and realised she was lying in a hospital bed. She felt a hand holding her own and looked to the side to see Draco sitting in a chair next to the bed, looking at her with a careful smile.
“Hi.” Her voice was low and full of sleep, and she cleared her throat.
“Hi, welcome back.” Draco squeezed her hand, and gave her a crooked smile.
Suddenly everything that happened crashed down on Pansy, and she sat up in panic. “Hermione, where is she? Is she okay? Alive? The baby? Our baby?”
Draco pushed her down to the pillows again. “Hey, you need to calm down, okay?” She nodded but he could still see the panic in her eyes, and he sighed. “Hermione is still in surgery; she was badly hurt, and they are still working on her. We don't know anything yet. You have been out for about four hours, and the doctors said you passed out of panic and stress and that you need to relax. I don't know anything about Hermione's baby yet, but ours is doing fine. You have been ordered bed rest until the end of the pregnancy.”
Pansy visibly calmed down after hearing this and nodded her head in understanding. “Where's Blaise?”
Draco sighed again. “He's waiting outside the operating room in case there is something new. As he is the 'father' of the baby, he's the only one who is privy to information about Hermione's state.”
Pansy growled a little at this. She started to sit up, moving her legs so they could hang over the edge of the bed, before she was stopped by Draco's hands again.
“No, no, no! Where do you think you're going?” He pushed her torso a little before holding on to her legs.
She looked at him like he was crazy, and answered as if it was obvious. “I'm going to see Hermione, to sit with Blaise.”
“Oh, no you're not. You are supposed to on bed rest, and you are not leaving this bed for any other reason that using the loo or going home.”
“What?? But what about Hermione?” She started looking around, as if looking for a way out behind Draco's back.
“Blaise will tell us when they know something, and he promised he would try to get the two of you a double room. Apparently it's a slow week.” The sarcasm at the end was obvious that Pansy snorted.
“Fine, I'll stay. But as soon as something happens, I want to know!”
They waited for what Pansy was sure was at least four hours, when in truth it was only two, where they talked and Pansy worried. Every time the door moved, Pansy looked up, and every time it was someone else. When she heard the door again, she almost didn't bother look up, but when she did, and saw the tired face of Blaise, she gasped and woke up the slumbering Draco. The latter looked around a little confused before he spotted his boyfriend, rose and went over to gather him in a hug.
After a while just standing there and Pansy looking panicked, Draco asked loud enough for her to hear. “Is there any news?”
Blaise sighed, but nodded, and pulled away from the hug. He rubbed his face a few times, before he put his hands in his pockets and stared off into space. “They have been working on her for hours, I was just in to talk to her doctor. Her whole body was bruised, and they found indication that most of them came from either a shoe or a Beater's bat.” At Pansy's half scream and Draco's obvious surprise and disgust, Blaise took a break. He knew this was bad, and that there would be worse to come, and he sighed again before he continued. “Most were placed on her arms, lower belly and legs. One of her arms were broken. They also had to treat her for...” He stopped again and put his hands to his face. He hated to have to tell them this. To tell the girlfriend and friend about the injuries the girl had gotten from her ex-husband. He kept his hands over his face when he continued. “They had to treat her for the Crucatius curse.”
From behind his hands he could hear two gasps of horror, and clearly recognised Pansy's crying, which he had only hear once before in his life. He removed his hands, and met Draco's eyes with concern as his boyfriend flickered from anger to sadness. Blaise enveloped Draco in a hug, and the latter clung to him.
All three of them stood in silence for some minutes, working through their own thoughts. Pansy's tears were still trickling down her chin, but she didn't make a single sound. As she thought about her girlfriend, she pictured the smile that the girl had given her every morning before she had been taken, and then the picture of her broken body made it through her images. Suddenly it hit her. “Wait. Is she going to be okay?” She looked at Blaise, begging him with her eyes to give her good news.
Over Draco's shoulder, Blaise looked at her with a sad smile, reading all the hope in his best friend's eyes. “Yes. Eventually she will be okay. They managed to heal everything, although she will still have some after affects of the curse. She's still sleeping, but it's a natural sleep, and once she wakes up, we can see her.” As the relief showed on Pansy's face, he smiled at her again, a tired smile this time. “They don't know if the baby will be okay, they have to wait until she wakes up to examine it .”
The brave smile he held wavered a little, and he could feel himself deflate. It had been so hard to wait for someone to tell him what was going on, and when he finally got to see her, she looked utterly broken. He was scared shitless that the baby wouldn't survive, not just because of himself, but because she would break if the child died. The conversations they had had made him really want this child. In the fear of losing what he never really had, he felt a tear making it's way down his cheek. Absent-mindedly he noticed Draco tighten his hold on Blaise, and the darker man couldn't thank whoever gave him Draco enough. He knew he didn't say it much, neither of them did, but he couldn't have loved the man in his arms any more than he all ready did. Draco was his rock, his safe haven, his everything. Until a week or so ago, when he decided he wanted the responsibility for the child he was now scared of losing, and his everything had expanded. He tightened the hug even more, leaning his head in so that his lips were at Draco's ear, before saying gruffly “I love you”. He could fell the surprise in Draco as he tensed a millisecond and took in the words, before Blaise received a kiss at the neck and a voice with all the compassion in the world. “I love you too.”
Fifteen minutes later they had acquired a wheelchair for Pansy, as both boys refused to let her walk to Hermione's room. They didn't know how long she would sleep, but wanted to be waiting for her when she woke up. Someone had already moved Hermione to the room that Draco had set up for them, with two beds in it so that Pansy could stay in the same room. The chosen room wasn't far away, and soon they were standing outside the room, getting their identities checked by the Auror outside. It was common to have a guard outside in the case of kidnap victims, and seeing as it was Hermione Granger, the security was tight. As they had all ready left their wands when they got to the hospital, they were being checked for any kinds of glamour. After ten minutes, they were finally able to enter the room. Both Pansy and Draco gasping as they noticed Hermione.
She was sleeping, her face and sleep seemingly peaceful, but they all noticed the small twitches her hands and feet made, and how her face puckered into small frowns. Her left hand was in a cast, the skin they could see above the hospital gown looked sore and irritated. They were rather glad they couldn't see any more at the time, and Draco silently pushed Pansy's wheelchair forward again whilst Blaise walked next to him. As they reached the bed, Pansy took her girlfriend's hand, silently weeping for each twitch. They seemed less when she felt them, but it was probably a figment of her imagination. Blaise walked up to Hermione on the other side of the bed and stroked her hair.
“They told me that we just had to wait a few days for the twitches to subside, but that human contact usually helped a little.” Blaise picked up Hermione's other hand whilst he continued to stroke her hair, and as if to show him right, the twitches lessened and became less frequent.
Draco walked up next to Pansy and simply put a hand on the sleeping girl's shoulder. Again they felt the twitches lessening and Pansy sighed and put her head on the girls stomach whilst still stroking her hand, and looked up towards her face.
They all stayed like that for a while, watching over the sleeping girl. But as Pansy hadn't exactly been able to sleep that much the last days, she soon dozed off. When Draco noticed her breathing slowing down, he carefully lifted her from the wheelchair and put her under the covers of the other bed. He pulled the beds close so that they still could hold hands. Blaise helped him with the bed, and they went to the other side of the bed, one taking Hermione's hand, the other replacing the hand on her shoulder. Draco waved his wand and made the beds into a double. Blaise sneaked a hand around his boyfriend's waist, and the blond rested his head on the brunettes shoulder, putting his arm around him whilst they silently watched over their friends.
?*?*?*?
Hermione woke up hours later, feeling stiff and sore all over. She wasn't totally aware of where she was, but she soon recognised the white floor and the smell of St.Mungo's. As she started moving, she felt a hand holding hers, and looked over to the bed next to her, which held a sleeping Pansy. A small smile graced Hermione's lips, and she looked at the girl with happiness. She could have stared at her girlfriend for hours, but she heard a sound at the end of her bed, and looked up to see Blaise and Draco sitting in separate chairs, sleeping. Another smile graced her lips when she looked at the two boys, and she knew she couldn't feel any safer then when she was with the three of them.
She put her head down, and turned it to watch Pansy again, but what met her was not a sleeping girl, but a pair of clear, blue eyes. “Hi”. Hermione's voice was raspy as if she hadn't spoken for a long time.
Pansy smiled at her. “Hi”.
Hermione tried to smile at her girlfriend, but her face felt stiff, and all she could manage was a twitch in the corners of her mouth. Pansy seemed to fight tears seeing her girlfriend like that. She carefully crawled as close to Hermione as she could get and their hands lay parallel to each other, holding on tight. They were both lying on their backs, their heads on the side, and a small tear made its way down Pansy's cheek.
“I was so scared.” Her voice broke into a sob, but no more tears escaped.
Hermione lifted a hand and stroked Pansy's cheek, trying to comfort her with the touch. At the time she couldn't feel anything but relief and happiness. She leaned in and gave her a chaste kiss on the lips, earning one back, before they simply laid down and looked at each other.