Dark is the Way, Light is a Place - Part Two
Title: Dark is the Way, Light is a Place
Rating: PG-13 [strong]
Pairing: Thomas Leroy/Nina Sayers
Word Count: 2,356/2,356
Warnings: I'm pretty sure there a lot of things I could put here, but I honestly can't think of anything
Summary: The ending of Black Swan and what happened after [right now this is only two parts, but I might make it three (or more) later]
It really shouldn’t have come as a shock to Thomas that this had happened. He had noticed how hard she was working, how it was wearing her down, turning her into something else. She’d been stressed before. He’d watched her. It had been hard not to notice her getting all of her moves right, becoming the definition of perfection, though she was rigid, cold, and unfeeling on the dance floor. But this was something different altogether and, for the first time since Beth’s accident, Thomas felt true fear settling itself deep in his stomach and growing slowly until it consumed him.
“An ambulance is coming,” some girl nearby said, but he barely heard her speak. He was watching Nina, watching her eyelids slowly flutter shut, watching the stain on the white satin beneath her grow, turning the mattress crimson.
He clutched her limp hand as she lost consciousness and heard himself muttering over and over again, “No, no, no, don’t you die on me, don’t you do this. Don’t you leave me, too.”
He’d already lost Beth, maybe not as completely as he was sure he was losing Nina, but he knew that he and Beth could never be what they once were. To be honest, Thomas had been falling in love with his little White Swan since she came to him to beg for the role, not knowing she’d already gotten it. Or maybe it had even been before that when she’d joined the company and he saw the talent that he possessed. In any case, no one could deny that there was something about her that set her apart from all of the other dancers, made her stand out, and this was one of the many reasons he’d chosen her to be the new Swan Queen instead of anyone else. They didn’t capture the audience like she did and that was what he’d wanted.
But everything had changed within seconds.
Now, the one thing Thomas wanted more than anything else, was for Nina to survive. Someone had passed him a towel and he was pressing it to her middle, watching her chest rise and fall erratically. He’d stopped believing in God when he was a child, but right now he was praying, begging that his little princess would be alright, that she would at least live.
“What happened?”
“Why is she bleeding?”
“Was she attacked?”
The girls behind him asked these questions repeatedly. He heard Lily saying, “I talked to her right before we went on stage and she seemed fine then. Something must have happened between then and now.”
This only arose more questions.
“Why didn’t we notice her bleeding until now?”
“But why is she bleeding?”
“Seriously. What the fuck happened?”
The crowd was talking now, too, wondering why the company wasn’t taking their bows. When they all heard the ambulance sirens coming towards them, they expected them to keep going, but when they stopped, when they saw two men rushing a stretcher from backstage towards the mattress hidden from view, they began to panic. Nina’s mother ran up the aisle, but was restrained by some orderlies. Thomas heard her cries, but he didn’t want her anywhere near his little princess.
However, only a few moments later, the paramedics were lifting Nina from the mattress to the gurney. One of them kept the towel still pressed around her midsection as they rushed her across the stage. Thomas heard a collective gasp from the audience and more cries from Nina’s mother. He turned towards her, glaring, keeping pace with the paramedics moving his White Swan across the stage.
“Don’t let her near her!” he yelled at the orderlies still restraining Mrs. Sayers. “She caused this!” He didn’t know if that was true or not, but he needed someone to blame and, while the blame probably belonged to the girl on the gurney, that wasn’t who he wanted to accuse.
Thomas turned his attention back to Nina and watched as the color slowly drained from her face, watched as her lips turned a sickly gray, watched as her fingers became limp in his grasp. The paramedics tried to fight him, telling him he couldn’t ride with her in the ambulance, but he yelled at them, using English mixed with French, until they realized they couldn’t keep him from joining her and if they tried they might lose the girl on the stretcher.
The minute the ambulance started to race back towards the hospital, the paramedics crowded into the small space in the back of the car began to work on the girl before them. One put a mask over her nose and mouth, giving her oxygen to breathe. Another stuck an IV into her arm and hung the bag of liquid from a pole that he attached to the gurney. A third took the blood soaked towel from around her middle and replaced it with another, telling Thomas to keep it pressed against her wound. He barely heard the command, but it was Nina’s safety and well-being that he cared about and it was that he was struggling to protect.
They reached the hospital in what, Thomas was certain, was record time. The minute they burst through the emergency room doors, the paramedics starting shouting things at the doctors that he didn’t understand. He tried to follow Nina down the hall into the operating room, but one doctor restrained him.
“You can wait for her here,” he said firmly after listening to Thomas spew French and English profanities at him for not allowing him to oversee her operation.
Thomas had never been a violent man, at least, he’d tried not to be, but right then, he wanted nothing more than the punch the doctor restraining him. That was his Nina, his little princess, the doctor clearly didn’t understand how much she meant to him and what it would mean if she died.
Eventually, Thomas calmed down enough that he was able to collapse in one of the chairs in the waiting room, put his head in his hands, and silently pray some more for Nina’s safety.
Let her be alright, he pleaded to the God he didn’t believe in. I can’t lose her, too.
[ part one]
Rating: PG-13 [strong]
Pairing: Thomas Leroy/Nina Sayers
Word Count: 2,356/2,356
Warnings: I'm pretty sure there a lot of things I could put here, but I honestly can't think of anything
Summary: The ending of Black Swan and what happened after [right now this is only two parts, but I might make it three (or more) later]
It really shouldn’t have come as a shock to Thomas that this had happened. He had noticed how hard she was working, how it was wearing her down, turning her into something else. She’d been stressed before. He’d watched her. It had been hard not to notice her getting all of her moves right, becoming the definition of perfection, though she was rigid, cold, and unfeeling on the dance floor. But this was something different altogether and, for the first time since Beth’s accident, Thomas felt true fear settling itself deep in his stomach and growing slowly until it consumed him.
“An ambulance is coming,” some girl nearby said, but he barely heard her speak. He was watching Nina, watching her eyelids slowly flutter shut, watching the stain on the white satin beneath her grow, turning the mattress crimson.
He clutched her limp hand as she lost consciousness and heard himself muttering over and over again, “No, no, no, don’t you die on me, don’t you do this. Don’t you leave me, too.”
He’d already lost Beth, maybe not as completely as he was sure he was losing Nina, but he knew that he and Beth could never be what they once were. To be honest, Thomas had been falling in love with his little White Swan since she came to him to beg for the role, not knowing she’d already gotten it. Or maybe it had even been before that when she’d joined the company and he saw the talent that he possessed. In any case, no one could deny that there was something about her that set her apart from all of the other dancers, made her stand out, and this was one of the many reasons he’d chosen her to be the new Swan Queen instead of anyone else. They didn’t capture the audience like she did and that was what he’d wanted.
But everything had changed within seconds.
Now, the one thing Thomas wanted more than anything else, was for Nina to survive. Someone had passed him a towel and he was pressing it to her middle, watching her chest rise and fall erratically. He’d stopped believing in God when he was a child, but right now he was praying, begging that his little princess would be alright, that she would at least live.
“What happened?”
“Why is she bleeding?”
“Was she attacked?”
The girls behind him asked these questions repeatedly. He heard Lily saying, “I talked to her right before we went on stage and she seemed fine then. Something must have happened between then and now.”
This only arose more questions.
“Why didn’t we notice her bleeding until now?”
“But why is she bleeding?”
“Seriously. What the fuck happened?”
The crowd was talking now, too, wondering why the company wasn’t taking their bows. When they all heard the ambulance sirens coming towards them, they expected them to keep going, but when they stopped, when they saw two men rushing a stretcher from backstage towards the mattress hidden from view, they began to panic. Nina’s mother ran up the aisle, but was restrained by some orderlies. Thomas heard her cries, but he didn’t want her anywhere near his little princess.
However, only a few moments later, the paramedics were lifting Nina from the mattress to the gurney. One of them kept the towel still pressed around her midsection as they rushed her across the stage. Thomas heard a collective gasp from the audience and more cries from Nina’s mother. He turned towards her, glaring, keeping pace with the paramedics moving his White Swan across the stage.
“Don’t let her near her!” he yelled at the orderlies still restraining Mrs. Sayers. “She caused this!” He didn’t know if that was true or not, but he needed someone to blame and, while the blame probably belonged to the girl on the gurney, that wasn’t who he wanted to accuse.
Thomas turned his attention back to Nina and watched as the color slowly drained from her face, watched as her lips turned a sickly gray, watched as her fingers became limp in his grasp. The paramedics tried to fight him, telling him he couldn’t ride with her in the ambulance, but he yelled at them, using English mixed with French, until they realized they couldn’t keep him from joining her and if they tried they might lose the girl on the stretcher.
The minute the ambulance started to race back towards the hospital, the paramedics crowded into the small space in the back of the car began to work on the girl before them. One put a mask over her nose and mouth, giving her oxygen to breathe. Another stuck an IV into her arm and hung the bag of liquid from a pole that he attached to the gurney. A third took the blood soaked towel from around her middle and replaced it with another, telling Thomas to keep it pressed against her wound. He barely heard the command, but it was Nina’s safety and well-being that he cared about and it was that he was struggling to protect.
They reached the hospital in what, Thomas was certain, was record time. The minute they burst through the emergency room doors, the paramedics starting shouting things at the doctors that he didn’t understand. He tried to follow Nina down the hall into the operating room, but one doctor restrained him.
“You can wait for her here,” he said firmly after listening to Thomas spew French and English profanities at him for not allowing him to oversee her operation.
Thomas had never been a violent man, at least, he’d tried not to be, but right then, he wanted nothing more than the punch the doctor restraining him. That was his Nina, his little princess, the doctor clearly didn’t understand how much she meant to him and what it would mean if she died.
Eventually, Thomas calmed down enough that he was able to collapse in one of the chairs in the waiting room, put his head in his hands, and silently pray some more for Nina’s safety.
Let her be alright, he pleaded to the God he didn’t believe in. I can’t lose her, too.
[ part one]