Title: Until We Bleed
Title: Until We Bleed
Rating, W. Count: PG-13, 2981 words
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not yours. And by God, I do hope that what I wrote stays in fiction. “Until We Bleed” is owned by Lykke Li and Mikael Karlsson.
Summary: Now, sitting on a plastic, dully painted blue chair, he tried to forget the feeling of her hand going limp.
A/N: This is unbeta-ed. The idea for this has been brewing for months, and it’s far from perfect. So I’ll just be posting this on here, and not cross posting it to any other comm. Thank you to linsadair for the beta. If you’re interested, you can youtube the song; make sure it’s the Mikael’s cello version. It’s so hauntingly beautiful. Another A/N at the end of this.
So we're bound to linger on
We drink the fatal drop
Then love until we bleed
Then fall apart in parts
-- “Until We Bleed”, Lykke Li & Mikael Karlsson
He remembered the feeling of her hand on his thigh, the even pressure she exerted as his muscles flexed, his foot nudging the accelerator further down.
She had smiled; he remembered the mischievous grin spreading across her face in various stages, as the streetlight periodically lit her small body. The tiny denim skirt she had hastily put on teased him all through the concert. Paired with his gray shirt and her old Converse, she looked like any other girl on the street of L.A. Hair swept up in a messy ponytail and glasses hastily put on when she realized that they had exactly ten minutes to get across town to see Marcus play.
“Marcus will understand,” he said as he backed her up against the door, his fingers stealing away the car keys.
Kristen had rolled her eyes and deftly snagged the keys back. “Behave. We’ve got time. Remember?” She had arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow, her eyes glinting with a glare meant for him to submit. But lurking underneath the stern expression, he saw the pure, undiluted happiness.
Yes, he finally thought. We finally have time.
“Plus, I can’t wait to tell Marcus and be there for when he takes the mickey out of you,” she added, with a dose of butchered English accent.
“Oh, darlin’,” he grinned, “I’d gladly let the whole world take the mickey out of me.”
The glare of headlight from his left shook him out of his reverie. He slowed the car down, meaning to let the motorcyclist pass, and when it did, a flash came and before long he was cruising down the deserted hillside road surrounded by quick succession of flashes. Bright lights replaced the dark, L.A. sky, and he felt the screech of the car’s tires, the tightening of Kristen’s hand on his thigh.
And now, sitting on a plastic, dully painted blue chair, he tried to forget the feeling of her hand going limp.
*
Elizabeth was just settled in bed when her phone rang.
She sighed and grumbled, before digging out her cell phone from her purse. Pursing her lips when she didn’t recognize the number, she accepted the call.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Elizabeth Pattinson?”
She clutched the phone tighter. “This is she.”
“I’m sorry to call so late, but there’s been an accident.”
Liam emerged from the bathroom, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. She would normally have chided him, but instead, she stared at him with a mixture of panic and uncertainty.
“What is it?” he mumbled around the toothbrush.
Lizzie held up her hand, willing herself to concentrate on the words coming out of the other line. Accident. Memorial Hospital. Internal bleeding. Surgery. Robert. Oh God, Robert.
Liam appeared in front of her with her coat in one hand and her keys on the other, abandoning his toothbrush, and his sport coat already over his pajamas.
“C’mon Lizzie.”
*
She gave her ID to the nurse, her beady brown eyes looking at her with suspicion. Instead of feeling agitated, Lizzie was partly grateful that they’re not letting just anyone in. Lord knows her brother doesn’t need any more scrutiny from the world.
“Alright, Ms. Pattinson, I just need you to sign here and here,” the older woman indicated a stack of papers that, somehow, had materialized in front of her.
She sighed, took a pen from a cup, and began filling out a confidentiality form as well as several forms that an emergency contact needed to sign, apparently. Lizzie was just signing the last dotted line when she heard the whispered conversation of two nurses perching at the end of the nurse station.
“God, he still looks amazing even all banged up. Dr. Spencer was the attending and so Maria got to be there. Even though Dr. Spencer is an ass, I so wished I had his shift this evening.”
“Well, apparently, Tony from ER saw him completely going ballistic when they wouldn’t let him come inside the room where they were trying to revive the girl,” chimed the second nurse.
“I can’t believe the rumors are true.” The first nurse shook her head, in either disbelief or disgust.
“They’re true alright. That’s why they were in the accident I think.”
“What do you mean?” the first nurse leaned closer, and Lizzie, despite the fact that it was her brother they were gossiping about, took a minute step towards the gossipers.
The second nurse lowered her volume and said, “You know how Cassandra from the gift shop is always spending her break hanging out by the ER where Jonathan works? Anyways, Jonathan told Cassandra that along with them, there were two other guys being brought in at the same time, but they sustained only minor injuries. So the police were questioning them and Robert, and apparently it was like the whole Lady Diana fiasco all over again.”
“The Diana fiasco?”
“ You know, photographers trying to take pictures of them…”
“Ladies… stop chatting and get back to your station,” the old nurse barked. “Here, Hannah,” she thrust a blue see-through plastic bag to the nurse she had interrupted. “They’re Kristen Stewart’s belongings. She’s just been prepped for surgery. Drop them off at her post-op room.”
Before the nurse could fully grab the bag of articles, Lizzie shoved the clipboard with the papers towards the head nurse and said, “I can keep them.”
The younger nurse, Hannah, gave her a challenging look.
“I don’t think you’re authorized…” nurse Hannah began.
“And you’re not authorized to discuss patient status and business at such careless ease.” Lizzie snapped. She turned to the head nurse, and said, “Tell your staff to keep their mouths shut regarding anything about my brother and Kristen Stewart’s conditions prior to and after their admittance to this hospital, or so help me, I will file a lawsuit.”
With that, she snatched the blue plastic bag. “Now, where can I find my brother?” she asked the three, suddenly quiet, nurses.
*
“Here ya go, mate,” Sam slammed a now half-filled glass of clear amber liquid on the table in front of him. Beer sloshed merrily out of the glass and wetted the already sticky table. Sam grinned at him as he, like the beer mug, dropped unceremoniously onto the opposite stool.
“I’m not drinking, Sam,” he said for the thirtieth time.
Sam gave him a puzzling look before turning to Kristen, who was slumped on the bench they were sharing.
“Kristen?” Sam slurred, and Robert wondered just how much his friend had had to drink.
“Yes….?” Kristen answered, slow and soft, seductive in the way she always was whenever she’s beyond tipsy and heading towards the land of drunkenness.
“Can you please make your….” Sam scrunched up his nose and seemed to rack his brains for an elusive word before he gave up and merely pointed the neck of his beer bottle in Robert’s direction, “lover boy here to drink the beer I had purchased?”
“You didn’t buy the beer, mate. You flirted with the bartender and she of course thinks you’re a rock star and gave this,” Robert gestured towards the still untouched beer, “and her number to you for free.”
“She did?”
“Yup.”
“Oh.”
“I can’t make him drink the beer, Sam,” Kristen suddenly replied, as if she just remembered what Sam had just asked her.
“Why not? We’re celebrating! Aren’t you his keeper now?” Beside him, he heard Marcus laugh.
Kristen, blissfully ignoring Marcus’ sudden bout of giggles, turned her drunken eyes to her lover’s, where she gave him a small smile and said, “I am his keeper.” He instinctively leaned forward and gave her a quick peck on her rosy lips, tasting the Heineken and cherry chapstick.
“And that is why I’m not drinking. Someone’s gotta get my keeper home.”
Half an hour later, Robert tucked Kristen into the passenger seat and pulled out of the parking lot.
He felt her hand brush against his thigh, grazing, before tenderly patting, his knee.
“Thank you, for letting me be your keeper.”
He stopped at a red light and gave her a smile. “Thank you, for agreeing to be my keeper.”
*
Lizzie stood at the end of the hallway, where a doctor was currently by her side, explaining to her the various cuts and bruises that Robert had sustained. She heard the words minor and superficial, words that were meant to ease her because Robert was essentially okay.
Just cuts and bruises like he had gotten from playing carelessly in the backyard when they were little.
But the man that sat on the corner of the waiting room looked nothing like the boy she used to chastise after he had taken a tumble.
Even from afar, she saw the heavy slumped of his shoulder, the clench of his jaw. His anguish was barely restrained and she knew that no one in the waiting room, not his manager or Kristen’s parents on the other side of the room, had the heart or the strength to approach him.
“Ms. Pattinson?”
Lizzie looked up and saw that the doctor that was speaking to her previously had left and was now replaced with another man, geared in scrubs and she tried not to notice the small speck of blood on his sleeve.
“Yes?”
“I’m Dr. Thomas. I was the attending doctor when Ms. Stewart was in the ER,” he explained, and she saw kindness in his eyes.
Lizzie took a breath and asked, “Is she going to be okay?”
Please say yes. Please.
Dr. Thomas tried to smile, and he succeeded, but Lizzie felt like it was rehearsed, genuine yet placid, like the way the girl behind the counter at Starbucks would smile and say “good morning” even though it was 6 AM and all Lizzie wanted was her cup of caffeine.
“She has the best team of surgeons working on her now.” He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, like a parent would to soothe a child’s worry away, and she wondered if he has a daughter that a pat on the shoulder would make the clench inside her rib lessen.
Lizzie turned her eyes back to Kristen’s parents, the usually animate Mrs. Stewart clutching a rosary between her palms. She didn’t even know Kristen was Catholic.
“When she was in the ER, Ms. Stewart told me to give Mr. Pattinson this.”
Dr. Thomas pulled a wad of tissue out of his pocket and offered it to her.
She was confused and asked, “Why are you giving it to me?”
Dr. Thomas shifted from one foot to another and she knew when he glanced past her shoulder, he saw her little brother, more broken than the gauzes and stitches they’ve placed on him could hold.
“It looks like it belonged to the family.” He simply stated and gently placed the wrapped tissue, which bore a simple heavy weight, on her upturned hand.
She opened the tissue paper and saw a row of small diamonds, twinkling against the harsh florescent light.
“Oh,” she gasped.
“She refused to let that be taken when we had to prep her for surgery, adamant that she keeps it.”
Lizzie nodded, lifting the simple band of platinum, too small to fit any of her fingers.
“She made me promise to give it to Robert before the morphine fully kicked in, screamed at me, actually,” he smiled, and Lizzie, who thought Kristen would eventually break her brother’s heart, closed her palm and finally shed her first tear of the night. Kristen had just worn her mother’s engagement ring, and she knew that at this very moment, Kristen was indeed breaking her brother’s heart.
“I’ll…. Thank you. I’ll give it to him,” she promised.
*
He brought her closer to him, loving the way her smooth legs intertwined with his.
Brushing back her hair, he kissed the slight sheen of sweat away from her throat, lapping up the salty taste of her ecstasy that dampened her clavicle.
“Mmmm…. We’re going to be late,” she stated, lazily twisting the hair at the nape of his neck.
“ Yup…” he popped the ‘p’ and caught the silver chain of her necklace with his teeth, following the chain down the valley of her breasts, scratching and teasing her skin along the way. When he got to the apex of the circular chain, he tenderly kissed the ring that hung there.
Kristen tugged his head up and he gave her a reassured smile.
“Someday,” she had said.
She brought her head down and kissed his forehead, loving and tender. Slipping her fingers through his hair, he relished the feeling of their travel as they skimmed his nose, mouth, his jaw, and down the plane of his throat until her hand touched the ring nestled between their bodies.
“Put it on me,” her eyes clear and calm.
He unclasped the necklace, slid the chain away and kissed the finger where a moment later, his mother’s ring lay shining.
“Perfect.”
*
Lizzie heard Stephanie hissing and cursing her way to whoever was on the other end of the mobile phone.
Damage control.
And the anger that she first felt when she had learned the way the media had twisted everything her brother had said, how intrusive they’ve been toward his private life, seemed to be doubled to the millionth integer.
She stopped in the middle of the room, acutely aware of the grief pressing from all around her.
Robert noticed her then. “Lizzie?”
She fought against the anger, the terrified feeling that seemed to grip her heart the moment she picked up the damn phone, and gathered her strength to marched forward against the grief and faced the most bittersweet moment of her life.
Like when they were little, Robert’s hands immediately sought hers out.
“Oh, Robert,” she caressed his stubbly cheek with her free hand.
“Don’t cry, Lizzie…” he murmured, swiping away the tears that she didn’t realize she was shedding.
A million and two questions were at the fringe of her mind, ready for her quick mouth to ask and lecture him. But he gripped her hand tighter, as if he finally realized she’s truly here.
And here meant in this dreary room, with his fiancée fighting for her life a couple of dozen feet away.
Lizzie took out the ring from her coat pocket and took a steady breath.
“Rob… I think you should keep this.” She opened one of his palms and closed it again, with the metal securely in his hand.
Without opening his hand, Robert’s eyes grew wider, and if it was possible for a boy, a man, to look more fragile than her little brother, then she’d flee the room before encroaching his line of vision, for a single breath seemed to carry enough energy to shatter the tattered hope he’s clinging to.
*
“Thank you.”
“For what, darling?”
“For being patient. For your mother’s ring.”
He kissed her, soft and childlike, the most innocent kiss they’ve ever shared.
“It’s yours now.”
*
When he was little, he used to be afraid of the dark. Victoria had made fun of him, because boys weren’t supposed to be afraid of anything. Brave boys aren’t.
His lips had trembled and when his mother came into the room and asked him if he would like the little lamp next to his bed to be on or not that night, he’d stubbornly shook his head and pretended to be brave.
But Lizzie was different than Victoria. Where Victoria would taunt him, Lizzie would chastise him for being stupid enough to be bossed around by Victoria. Her idea of being a brave boy was different than Victoria’s.
He felt torn between the two types of brave boys his sisters had instilled in him.
Robert wanted to be brave, strong enough to hope that everything will be all right. That despite the fear that’s taken up residence since her hand went limp across his thigh, everything will be all right.
Lizzie laid her head on his shoulder, a sister reassuring a brother.
“Don’t be stupid, Robbie. Just admit you’re scared. Brave boys admit their fears,” Lizzie, buckteeth and wild hair, admonished him before turning on his lamplight and huffed away from his room.
Robert hugged his sister closer. He felt the all-encompassing fear, and bravely whispered, “I feel like I might be losing everything I’ve ever had.”
Lizzie tightened her grip on his arm as Jules Stewart began ticking back another round of Hail Mary.
*
He scrubbed the remaining blood from his arm, the soap suds washing away the remnants of his patient, leaving his arms heavy and tired.
There were many complications, more than he had thought. The patient had flat lined twice, and he had dismissed the suggestion to call, to quit, knowing that somewhere outside, a father was waiting for his daughter to be okay.
When they got her back, it was as if there was something in the operating room, a new pulsating strength that seemed to whisper instructions in his ear, the steady beat of the patient’s heart lulling him to stop the last of her bleeding.
His residents were closing the patient up, and he was finally comfortable enough to turn and walked out of the operating room.
When the double door swung open, he braced himself for the gloom that always coated the waiting room. No matter how jovial the staff had tried to make the room appear, the lingering feeling of what could be lost still hovers.
A woman, with a tightly clutched rosary rose first, followed by who he guessed to be the father, and almost immediately, a young man looked at him with such sorrow that he forego necessities and for the first time since he started practicing medicine simply said, “She’s going to be fine.”
*
A/N: I really hope that nothing like this will ever happen. And I don’t think it will, so long as those paps know their boundaries. Should I have put a tissue warning up there? Drop me a line if you like it =D.