Roll Up Your Sleeves (Lea/Dianna)
Name: Roll Up Your Sleeves (3/3)
Pairing: Lea/Dianna
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Seven days is enough time to find your heart in a place where most have lost their mind.
Author's Note: Hey guys, IT'S FINISHED. San Fernando Valley Psychiatric Hospital is made up, to the best of my knowledge. I've never been in a psychiatric hospital, so I made most of that up too. This one nearly killed me, I SWEAR, and it's also really personal to me, and hopefully to everyone, really. Because I like it :D And the song title is still from We Were Promised Jeetpacks, too. And, no day but today is the tagline for Rent. Also, a poll: HOW INTERESTED ARE YOU IN SEEING THIS FROM LEA'S POV?
DAY ONE
The San Fernando Psychiatric Hospital is like nowhere Dianna has ever been before. The place is absolutely morbid, somehow, despite its cheerful, inspirational posters. In the room next to hers, theirs this boy who can't be older than her who started screaming in his sleep her very first night, and in the room on her other side, there's a girl not more than twenty who Dianna only sees when they're all forced into lunch time together. She sits and stares at her food, pushing it around on her plate and scribbling away at a notebook, scratching things out constantly. She looks normal, maybe just a little harried, just a little off, but she looks like a normal twenty-year-old. In fact, all the people here are pretty normal (one of the talkative ones mentioned that all the real crazies are in ward nine).
Dianna sort of figures that there isn't anything like a psychiatric hospital to make you feel better about yourself, and if she were any other state, she probably would.
But she's laying flat out on her bed with all the blinds closed, staring up at the ceiling, half-hoping that something would just swallow her up and she'd be gone when Jen knocks on her door and pushes through, dragging along a rolling chair and sits down at the foot of Dianna's bed, clicking her pen and looking at Dianna pensively.
"What?" Dianna finally asks, sitting up and looking at Jen with a disgusted look, and she immediately kicks herself mentally, because she really should stop sounding like Quinn Fabray, because she isn't her, she isn't anyone, but she knows she doesn't want to be like this, snapping at people and being all...how she is.
"Why did you resist treatment when you obviously knew you were depressed?" Jen asks, and Dianna wonders if the woman uses the same lack of forewarning in bed, if she even know such a thing as foreplay exists.
"I didn't know," she mutters, picking at her blankets. Jen sighs at her, rolling along the floor until she's right next to Dianna, looking at her with reproach.
"Dianna," Jen says, and Dianna looks over at her, "You agreed to come here to get better. And I can't make you better if you aren't honest."
Dianna used to be honest.
//
"I love you, grandpa," Dianna says, wrapping her arms around the man in question as best as possible, because he's in a hospital bed, on account of a bad fall, and he still smiles up at her even though his medicines are clicking away, distributing themselves to the far corners of his body courtesy of his blood stream.
//
The flash is over quickly, but Dianna immediately starts shaking, pulling at her blanket until she's surrounded in it. The shaking doesn't stop, but it's hidden enough that Jen doesn't notice it.
"So, Dianna. Lea Michele Sarfati was, quote attributed to yourself, 'the love of your life,'" she says, looking down at a piece of paper in her hand. "And you sabotaged the long-awaited relationship for some reason. Why?"
Dianna is shaking more now, and she can feel what feels like a steady thump right behind her eyes, pulsing. This question is expected, absolutely, but she can't stand it being said out loud, can't stand the sound of Lea's name, because it hurts, because it feels like ice on her spine.
She shakes her head, and Jen sighs, writing something down on the paper. "Something easier then. Talk about her," she says, gesturing at Dianna as if to say, 'take the floor.'
"What do you want me to say?" she asks quietly, feeling her chest shake like a leaf in the cold wind.
"Whatever you want to," Jen returns, leaning back in the chair and propping her feet up on a bar under Dianna's bed.
"I...well...she...Lea. Lea is amazing," is what Dianna settles on, and a lot more follows immediately after the initial statement. "She loved me, she wanted to be with me, I don't know why. She's talented and beautiful and caring and she let me talk about things that no one else ever did, and she listened to every word. She kissed me first, and she never once...she never thought anything about it, she just did whatever her heart told her to. She's passionate and gorgeous and fiery and she made me forget everything about myself that wasn't about her, in the best way possible. She made me feel like a fire, like she was oxygen and I was heat and all we needed was a spark to set the world on fire, and I loved her. She loved me. I still love her."
Jen is looking at Dianna curiously, her head cocked to the side.
"Then why'd you give that up, Dianna?"
Dianna just shakes her head once more, shaking and tightening her hands in one another's grip, and Jen nods slowly and gets up and walks out, saying just before she's through the doorway that, eventually, she's going to have to come up with the words to explain.
//
The waiting room of the ICU feels heavy, like a weight is suddenly draped over your shoulders as soon as you pass through the doorway. The people seem so somber, so desolate, and desperate, and people come and go every day, and Dianna never asks why because she doesn't want to know the odds.
The doctors had finished the bloodwork on her grandpa and found an excess of something that was not supposed to be excessive, and the words feel like bricks crashing into windows in Dianna's brain, and the dark look on her grandma's face whenever a doctor says it is enough for Dianna's stomach to drop through the floor, enough to make her drop to her knees and cry and beg for whoever would listen to stop doing this, stop it.
//
Ryan Murphy pays her a visit on her first day, his face awash with sympathy but not pity, and he pats her knees and rubs at his eyes worriedly when she speaks a vague version of the story: there was a thing, and it went bad, and now she's sad, but he gets enough out of her to figure the thing out.
"She'll want to visit you, you know," Ryan says, his hand gripping hers, and she shakes herself, because she doesn't want Lea to come here because she feels like she's obligated, when Dianna was the one who took her heart and tore it into a million tiny pieces. Dianna deserves every penance, and Lea deserves to be apathetic and unknowing.
"She doesn't know. She won't know," Dianna whispers, and Ryan nods and rubs at his eyes again and tells her she'll have her job if she wants it once she gets it, like it's a sure thing, but Dianna feels like it's not a sure thing at all when she cries herself to sleep at night and the boy in the room next to her starts moaning like his soul's being torn through with a dull blade, and she feels just the same.
//
DAY TWO
"So you broke it off with Lea for some unknown reason. When did you start feeling like...this?" Jen asks, gesturing at Dianna sitting in her hospital-issued pajamas, running her spoon through applesauce that is at once delicious and tasteless, settling in her stomach like rubber just beginning to dry.
"The minute she walked out," Dianna whispers, and Jen nods like this is understandable and she understands, and Dianna knows she doesn't, because she threw everything that ever mattered to her away, everything that was worth anything, and Lea took the world away when she left Dianna's apartment with tears running down her face and with Dianna's hand clenched in her fist.
"She was everything," Dianna mutters brokenly, haltingly, and the tears stream down in her face silently, and Jen offers Dianna the tissues with a practiced stoicism that Dianna just never had, not ever.
//
Lea comes and picks Dianna up from the hospital on the second day of ICU for her grandpa, and she lets Dianna cry on her shoulder when they get home, and even lets Dianna fall asleep with her head tucked under Lea's chin, and Dianna doesn't once have a nightmare with the word 'cancer' being bandied about, so very different from the nightmare she's been living for just two days.
//
Her second visitor is Chris, who charmed an orderly into handing over a pack of cards that so far appear to be missing two jacks, because Dianna's gone through what seems like the entire spread out deck of cards and asked for a jack numerous times, but Chris keeps saying 'go fish' and so far, her fishing is futile.
"She said she called you today," he says as he's flipping over a set of sevens on the table, showing off his ability to find the proper cards where Dianna can't seem to find one damn jack, and she feels like that's the story of her sorry life.
"They took away my phone," Dianna returns, setting down the seven in her hand because now it's useless. "You can't tell her," she whispers, and Chris looks up from his cars with shining blue eyes and nods, even though she knows that he would want Lea there for her, but Dianna just want Lea away from her, away from the mess she is, and Lea would want the same.
"She loves you, Di," he whispers, setting down his entire hand and right before she starts crying and crashes into his waiting arms, she sees that fateful jack right there in his hand.
Dianna's always getting played by a winning hand.
//
The entire table is silent as they silently eat their food, the hospital cafeteria still being a part of a hospital and she's only three floors away and it still feels like she can hear the beeping of those machines, the constant press up-and-down of the ventilator, perfectly in time with a sad, slow song that feels like the soundtrack of her life.
//
DAY THREE
"H-O-R-S," Jen says, passing the ball over to Dianna, who just takes a jump shot from where she's standing, not even feeling like moving. Jen's somehow broken Dianna out into the employee parking lot, through some miraculous flash-a-badge type move that Dianna would've done at Paramount once upon a time.
"You said the first time you kissed, you pushed her away but then kissed her again and that you were together for around two months," Jen says, as Dianna's shot goes right through the center of the rim, the swish a comforting sound amongst the eerie quiet surrounding the hospital building. "What was that like?" she asks, grabbing the ball and walking over to where Dianna just was.
"It was...good," she says as Jen takes the shot with perfect form ("I was all-state in high school," she had said, right before taking perfect stance and landing the ball precisely). The ball bounces over to her and she scoops it up, tossing it back and forth from hand to hand. "It was amazing."
Jen waits until Dianna takes her next shot to ask her question.
"Were you two ever intimate?" she asks, picking the ball up and dribbling it easily over to where Dianna was standing, looking over at her until she answers.
"Well...yeah," she whispers, and Jen swishes easy, and the ball's back in Dianna's hand but it's shaking as she lines up her next shot and misses it.
"I just don't understand, Dianna. Obviously, this relationship meant a lot to you. To both of you, and you purposefully threw it away, and in the process, you tore your own self apart," Jen says, shooting perfectly despite talking through the motion. Dianna doesn't even look to the basket to see it go through.
Jen hands the ball over to Dianna, who's hands are still shaking, and she stands in Jen's spot and misses it.
"Horse," Jen whispers behind her, and it's just another loss in an ever-growing streak.
//
DAY FOUR
Dianna is coaxed out of her room after lunch time to attend group therapy, moderated by one of the med-school psych students who sometimes wander around looking at the charts. The one waiting in the room has a name tag that reads Gabe, and everyone is handed a matching name tag as they come through the door. Dianna feels vaguely like a child in this place, and she's caught between complete indignation and resignation.
The girl in the room next to her's name tag reads Natalie, and the boy on the other side's says his name is Charlie, and a few other people around their age come in and sit, and one of them looks at her strangely, and asks if they've met before.
Dianna just shakes her head no, because she doesn't feel like who she was, and she definitely isn't her character.
They all introduce themselves and they sit in silence until Gabe suggests that Natalie start with why she's here.
"My dad died," she says, simply, but it feels like a knife to the gut.
//
"It isn't getting better, Lea," Dianna says, her voice croaking in the middle of the bathroom, her phone pressed to her ear. On the other end, she can hear take a deep breath.
"It doesn't seem like he's getting better," she whispers, and the phone call drops out before Lea can answer.
//
"He had a heart attack," Natalie continues, looking around the circle with an interested disinterest, her eyes still seeming like they're looking past everything they see to a different level, "But he died before I got to say goodbye. I wasn't there, I wasn't...I didn't save him. I would give anything to be able to just say that I...loved him. Love him, I mean. I mean...yeah. I think I answered the question with just the first two sentences, huh?" she says, but her voice breaks in the middle of her laugh and she slumps over a little, rubbing away tears.
The group is silent, and Gabe looks to Dianna, who can only look at Natalie with stunned, wide eyes.
After the therapy session is over, after dinner is eaten, after four hours of Dianna consistently staring at a wall, Natalie knocks on her open doorway and steps in.
"I know you didn't really...say why you pushed your...girlfriend away, and I don't need to know, really, but...whatever it is, whatever it was, it was a stupid reason," she whispers, and Dianna can't tear her eyes away as Natalie brushes away a tear on her face. "Nothing should ever stop you from loving and being loved, not even...death, really. You should love her," she continues, and Dianna's shaking once more, just a little. "Because, tomorrow, she could be gone."
Natalie nods and turns back, and Dianna can hear her footsteps echo down the hallway to the guest area, matching the beat of her pounding heart.
//
DAY FIVE
Jen knocks on the doorway just as Natalie did yesterday, but she isn't pulling a rolling chair in, she just stands there and Dianna feels her chest tighten up.
"Dianna," she says, and Dianna nods because, yes, that is her name. "You have a visitor."
She steps to the side, and Lea is suddenly right there, the fluorescent lights of the hospital making her look bright when they just make Dianna look sick. Jen just closes the door behind Lea, nodding at Dianna, who doesn't see, just stares at Lea.
"Hi," Lea finally says, looking around the room with a look that's almost pained, and it matches the painful clenching of Dianna's stomach right about now. "Someone finally told me where you were."
Dianna nods, because she doesn't know what to say. Lea slowly steps forward, closer and closer.
"No one would tell me why, though," she whispers, sitting on the far end of Dianna's bed, as far away as possible, and it feels like Antarctic winter settling around Dianna's head. Dianna tries to open her mouth and say something worthwhile, to apologize, to tell her to leave, but nothing comes until Dianna feels the tears sliding down her cheeks, until Lea's face passes from pained to excruciating and she slides closer and pulls Dianna into her arms.
"It'll be okay," Dianna hears her whisper, over and over and over. And for the first time in a long time, it feels like it could.
//
Her uncle is the one who tells her. She gets a call in the middle of a re-watching of Funny Girl, Lea's go-to choice, and she already knows what he's going to say before he says it, but she listens anyway. When he says that her grandpa's heart stopped beating, it felt like hers stopped right then, and when he said that he felt no pain, she felt it all.
//
She jolts awake from a remembrance of that day wrapped in Lea's arms, and she almost starts crying again, but she feels warm for the first time in a long time, since the last time she was this close to Lea, so she just sinks back into Lea's embrace and finally says it.
"I was afraid I'd lose you," she whispers, turning her head further into Lea's collarbone, and she can feel the sudden intake of breath Lea takes. "I figured that if I never had you, I wouldn't feel it when you were gone."
"You would've never lost me," Lea finally answers, her voice airy in the silence.
"When my grandpa died, my grandma might as well have died with him. I didn't want...to feel like that, I never wanted to make you feel like that. I was afraid," she says, and kisses Lea's collarbone before she exactly realizes what she's done.
She sits up immediately, backing away from Lea, who's eyes are locked on hers, rimmed with red.
"Dianna...not to sound cliche or anything, but...no day but today comes to mind here," she whispers, sliding toward Dianna.
"Today is not a good day for me. I'm kind of a mess," Dianna says, staying still despite Lea's increasing (once more) closeness. "I mean...I'm in a psychiatric hospital. Obviously."
"I love you, Dianna," Lea says, reaching for Dianna's hand, and for once it isn't shaking, because Dianna feels that old familiar burn pick up right in her chest and she takes a gulp of air just to prove to herself that she can. "I'll do anything to make sure you aren't a mess anymore, excluding letting yourself wallow in your messy self."
Dianna smiles at that, and Lea smiles back slowly.
//
DAY SIX
"This is not the cure-all, Dianna," Jen says, looking between Dianna and Lea with a cross between frustration and amusement. "Your problems are still there," she continues, looking down at her clipboard. "And they still require looking after."
Dianna nods, Lea's hand in hers spreading warmth through her body.
"I understand that a majority of the ones involving Lea here have been resolved, but they weren't the base of your depression, a fact not obvious until now do to your own secrecy," Jen says, shaking her head and writing something down. "And normally I'd be concerned about the dependency problem just waiting to happen with you two," she points between Lea and Dianna. "But as I mentioned, it's now obvious that your problems with Lea were brought on by other problems."
Dianna nods once more, while Lea sits up straighter in her seat.
"Doctor," Lea says, and Jen looks over to her with plain amusement on her face. "I want to help Dianna in any way possible, and if that involves not pursuing a relationship right now-" Jen cuts her off with a snort.
"Like I could stop that from happening?" she mutters, looking at their clasped hands with a smile. "I appreciate how dedicated you are to helping Dianna, but I'm absolutely certain to a percentage around a hundred and seventeen that what Dianna needs right now is to be around those who love her, in every sense, including your own special brand of lesbian love."
Both girls just stare at her.
"It was a joke, girls. Laugh," she says, sighing down at her clipboard. Dianna does laugh, for real, and it's a nice feeling.
//
DAY SEVEN
"Remember, next Saturday at seven," Jen says handing Dianna a bag filled with the stuff they took away from her upon her admittance to the hospital with one hand and signing Dianna's release papers. "Inhaler for chest pain," she says, and Dianna nods. "Call if you feel badly," she continues, walking around the desk and sliding the papers down to an orderly and telling him to file them. "Lexapro every night, Ambien as needed, Lea is not a drug. Don't make any strange decisions in your relationship without at least explaining them to her so she can properly yell at you for them. Is that it?" she asks, stopping in front of the elevators. Dianna wasn't sure when this one-sided discussion became a walk and talk.
"I think so."
"Okay. And, remember, you aren't fixed just yet, Dianna. You don't need to be perfect, and don't expect it. Work through it, but not by yourself. There are plenty of people around you who are willing to help," Jen says. "And I do realize that I sound like a suicide prevention line," she adds, smiling at Dianna.
"That's good," Dianna remarks, stepping into the elevator when it opens and Jen waves just before the doors close.
Lea's waiting in the car when she gets downstairs, tossing her bag into the backseat and looking up at the building.
Lea's hand finds hers on her lap, causing warmth to run through her so quickly she almost gets a head rush, and she smiles over at Lea, truly.
Jen was right, she isn't fixed just yet. But she feels like she could be, eventually, as long as she has Lea on her side.
//
A YEAR LATER
"I think it's time we stopped seeing each other, Dianna," Jen says, writing something down on her ever-growing clipboard of Dianna-related things. "Because you could probably write a book on how to be happy at this point," she mutters, looking up at Dianna with a smirk.
"Lots of sex," Dianna says, giggling when Jen shakes her head at her.
"There are things a person doesn't need to know," she says. "But seriously: you still aren't perfect, no one is. But you pretty much have the next best spot cornered," Jen says, and Dianna nods.
"I'm sorry to say this, but I really hope I never have to see you again," Dianna says, looking at the woman with a sentimental smile playing across her face.
"It's my lot in life. Don't become a psychologist if you can't stand watching people walk away from you," she says, before standing up and opening her office door, allowing Dianna out first.
"Thank you," Dianna says, right before she goes through the door to the waiting room.
"You're welcome," Jen says, smiling up at Dianna. "Now go home."
//
"DIANNA, WHERE ARE MY SHOES?!"
Dianna looks up from the television when she hears Lea shouting, occasional thumping coming from their closet in the other room, rolling her eyes, because, Lea has a lot of shoes.
"Baby, does it matter what shoes you have on? We're just going to the movies," she answers, her own shoes already on and already dressed.
Lea immediately comes out into the living room, a pair of purple pumps in her hand.
"I found them!" she says brightly, sitting next to Dianna on the couch and pulling them on. "What are you watching?" she asks, just as Billy Bush comes onto Entertainment Tonight. "Oh, well, why are you watching-"
Billy himself cuts Lea off, distracting her with the phrase, "...Glee stars together," showing a series of pictures of Lea and Dianna over maybe the past week or so, hand-in-hand.
"Eventually, we're just gonna have to put them out of their misery, baby, and just say we're together," Dianna mutters, giggling at different 'expert' opinions on the matter.
Lea gets distracted, of course, by how radiant Dianna looks at that moment, and reaches for the remote to turn the television off.
"Let's not go out tonight, baby," she whispers into Dianna's ear, and Dianna just laughs again, turning toward Lea and flipping her shoes off easily before she kisses her.
"Keep the shoes though," Dianna returns, and Lea giggles before both of them shut up for a good long while.
the end.
Pairing: Lea/Dianna
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Seven days is enough time to find your heart in a place where most have lost their mind.
Author's Note: Hey guys, IT'S FINISHED. San Fernando Valley Psychiatric Hospital is made up, to the best of my knowledge. I've never been in a psychiatric hospital, so I made most of that up too. This one nearly killed me, I SWEAR, and it's also really personal to me, and hopefully to everyone, really. Because I like it :D And the song title is still from We Were Promised Jeetpacks, too. And, no day but today is the tagline for Rent. Also, a poll: HOW INTERESTED ARE YOU IN SEEING THIS FROM LEA'S POV?
DAY ONE
The San Fernando Psychiatric Hospital is like nowhere Dianna has ever been before. The place is absolutely morbid, somehow, despite its cheerful, inspirational posters. In the room next to hers, theirs this boy who can't be older than her who started screaming in his sleep her very first night, and in the room on her other side, there's a girl not more than twenty who Dianna only sees when they're all forced into lunch time together. She sits and stares at her food, pushing it around on her plate and scribbling away at a notebook, scratching things out constantly. She looks normal, maybe just a little harried, just a little off, but she looks like a normal twenty-year-old. In fact, all the people here are pretty normal (one of the talkative ones mentioned that all the real crazies are in ward nine).
Dianna sort of figures that there isn't anything like a psychiatric hospital to make you feel better about yourself, and if she were any other state, she probably would.
But she's laying flat out on her bed with all the blinds closed, staring up at the ceiling, half-hoping that something would just swallow her up and she'd be gone when Jen knocks on her door and pushes through, dragging along a rolling chair and sits down at the foot of Dianna's bed, clicking her pen and looking at Dianna pensively.
"What?" Dianna finally asks, sitting up and looking at Jen with a disgusted look, and she immediately kicks herself mentally, because she really should stop sounding like Quinn Fabray, because she isn't her, she isn't anyone, but she knows she doesn't want to be like this, snapping at people and being all...how she is.
"Why did you resist treatment when you obviously knew you were depressed?" Jen asks, and Dianna wonders if the woman uses the same lack of forewarning in bed, if she even know such a thing as foreplay exists.
"I didn't know," she mutters, picking at her blankets. Jen sighs at her, rolling along the floor until she's right next to Dianna, looking at her with reproach.
"Dianna," Jen says, and Dianna looks over at her, "You agreed to come here to get better. And I can't make you better if you aren't honest."
Dianna used to be honest.
//
"I love you, grandpa," Dianna says, wrapping her arms around the man in question as best as possible, because he's in a hospital bed, on account of a bad fall, and he still smiles up at her even though his medicines are clicking away, distributing themselves to the far corners of his body courtesy of his blood stream.
//
The flash is over quickly, but Dianna immediately starts shaking, pulling at her blanket until she's surrounded in it. The shaking doesn't stop, but it's hidden enough that Jen doesn't notice it.
"So, Dianna. Lea Michele Sarfati was, quote attributed to yourself, 'the love of your life,'" she says, looking down at a piece of paper in her hand. "And you sabotaged the long-awaited relationship for some reason. Why?"
Dianna is shaking more now, and she can feel what feels like a steady thump right behind her eyes, pulsing. This question is expected, absolutely, but she can't stand it being said out loud, can't stand the sound of Lea's name, because it hurts, because it feels like ice on her spine.
She shakes her head, and Jen sighs, writing something down on the paper. "Something easier then. Talk about her," she says, gesturing at Dianna as if to say, 'take the floor.'
"What do you want me to say?" she asks quietly, feeling her chest shake like a leaf in the cold wind.
"Whatever you want to," Jen returns, leaning back in the chair and propping her feet up on a bar under Dianna's bed.
"I...well...she...Lea. Lea is amazing," is what Dianna settles on, and a lot more follows immediately after the initial statement. "She loved me, she wanted to be with me, I don't know why. She's talented and beautiful and caring and she let me talk about things that no one else ever did, and she listened to every word. She kissed me first, and she never once...she never thought anything about it, she just did whatever her heart told her to. She's passionate and gorgeous and fiery and she made me forget everything about myself that wasn't about her, in the best way possible. She made me feel like a fire, like she was oxygen and I was heat and all we needed was a spark to set the world on fire, and I loved her. She loved me. I still love her."
Jen is looking at Dianna curiously, her head cocked to the side.
"Then why'd you give that up, Dianna?"
Dianna just shakes her head once more, shaking and tightening her hands in one another's grip, and Jen nods slowly and gets up and walks out, saying just before she's through the doorway that, eventually, she's going to have to come up with the words to explain.
//
The waiting room of the ICU feels heavy, like a weight is suddenly draped over your shoulders as soon as you pass through the doorway. The people seem so somber, so desolate, and desperate, and people come and go every day, and Dianna never asks why because she doesn't want to know the odds.
The doctors had finished the bloodwork on her grandpa and found an excess of something that was not supposed to be excessive, and the words feel like bricks crashing into windows in Dianna's brain, and the dark look on her grandma's face whenever a doctor says it is enough for Dianna's stomach to drop through the floor, enough to make her drop to her knees and cry and beg for whoever would listen to stop doing this, stop it.
//
Ryan Murphy pays her a visit on her first day, his face awash with sympathy but not pity, and he pats her knees and rubs at his eyes worriedly when she speaks a vague version of the story: there was a thing, and it went bad, and now she's sad, but he gets enough out of her to figure the thing out.
"She'll want to visit you, you know," Ryan says, his hand gripping hers, and she shakes herself, because she doesn't want Lea to come here because she feels like she's obligated, when Dianna was the one who took her heart and tore it into a million tiny pieces. Dianna deserves every penance, and Lea deserves to be apathetic and unknowing.
"She doesn't know. She won't know," Dianna whispers, and Ryan nods and rubs at his eyes again and tells her she'll have her job if she wants it once she gets it, like it's a sure thing, but Dianna feels like it's not a sure thing at all when she cries herself to sleep at night and the boy in the room next to her starts moaning like his soul's being torn through with a dull blade, and she feels just the same.
//
DAY TWO
"So you broke it off with Lea for some unknown reason. When did you start feeling like...this?" Jen asks, gesturing at Dianna sitting in her hospital-issued pajamas, running her spoon through applesauce that is at once delicious and tasteless, settling in her stomach like rubber just beginning to dry.
"The minute she walked out," Dianna whispers, and Jen nods like this is understandable and she understands, and Dianna knows she doesn't, because she threw everything that ever mattered to her away, everything that was worth anything, and Lea took the world away when she left Dianna's apartment with tears running down her face and with Dianna's hand clenched in her fist.
"She was everything," Dianna mutters brokenly, haltingly, and the tears stream down in her face silently, and Jen offers Dianna the tissues with a practiced stoicism that Dianna just never had, not ever.
//
Lea comes and picks Dianna up from the hospital on the second day of ICU for her grandpa, and she lets Dianna cry on her shoulder when they get home, and even lets Dianna fall asleep with her head tucked under Lea's chin, and Dianna doesn't once have a nightmare with the word 'cancer' being bandied about, so very different from the nightmare she's been living for just two days.
//
Her second visitor is Chris, who charmed an orderly into handing over a pack of cards that so far appear to be missing two jacks, because Dianna's gone through what seems like the entire spread out deck of cards and asked for a jack numerous times, but Chris keeps saying 'go fish' and so far, her fishing is futile.
"She said she called you today," he says as he's flipping over a set of sevens on the table, showing off his ability to find the proper cards where Dianna can't seem to find one damn jack, and she feels like that's the story of her sorry life.
"They took away my phone," Dianna returns, setting down the seven in her hand because now it's useless. "You can't tell her," she whispers, and Chris looks up from his cars with shining blue eyes and nods, even though she knows that he would want Lea there for her, but Dianna just want Lea away from her, away from the mess she is, and Lea would want the same.
"She loves you, Di," he whispers, setting down his entire hand and right before she starts crying and crashes into his waiting arms, she sees that fateful jack right there in his hand.
Dianna's always getting played by a winning hand.
//
The entire table is silent as they silently eat their food, the hospital cafeteria still being a part of a hospital and she's only three floors away and it still feels like she can hear the beeping of those machines, the constant press up-and-down of the ventilator, perfectly in time with a sad, slow song that feels like the soundtrack of her life.
//
DAY THREE
"H-O-R-S," Jen says, passing the ball over to Dianna, who just takes a jump shot from where she's standing, not even feeling like moving. Jen's somehow broken Dianna out into the employee parking lot, through some miraculous flash-a-badge type move that Dianna would've done at Paramount once upon a time.
"You said the first time you kissed, you pushed her away but then kissed her again and that you were together for around two months," Jen says, as Dianna's shot goes right through the center of the rim, the swish a comforting sound amongst the eerie quiet surrounding the hospital building. "What was that like?" she asks, grabbing the ball and walking over to where Dianna just was.
"It was...good," she says as Jen takes the shot with perfect form ("I was all-state in high school," she had said, right before taking perfect stance and landing the ball precisely). The ball bounces over to her and she scoops it up, tossing it back and forth from hand to hand. "It was amazing."
Jen waits until Dianna takes her next shot to ask her question.
"Were you two ever intimate?" she asks, picking the ball up and dribbling it easily over to where Dianna was standing, looking over at her until she answers.
"Well...yeah," she whispers, and Jen swishes easy, and the ball's back in Dianna's hand but it's shaking as she lines up her next shot and misses it.
"I just don't understand, Dianna. Obviously, this relationship meant a lot to you. To both of you, and you purposefully threw it away, and in the process, you tore your own self apart," Jen says, shooting perfectly despite talking through the motion. Dianna doesn't even look to the basket to see it go through.
Jen hands the ball over to Dianna, who's hands are still shaking, and she stands in Jen's spot and misses it.
"Horse," Jen whispers behind her, and it's just another loss in an ever-growing streak.
//
DAY FOUR
Dianna is coaxed out of her room after lunch time to attend group therapy, moderated by one of the med-school psych students who sometimes wander around looking at the charts. The one waiting in the room has a name tag that reads Gabe, and everyone is handed a matching name tag as they come through the door. Dianna feels vaguely like a child in this place, and she's caught between complete indignation and resignation.
The girl in the room next to her's name tag reads Natalie, and the boy on the other side's says his name is Charlie, and a few other people around their age come in and sit, and one of them looks at her strangely, and asks if they've met before.
Dianna just shakes her head no, because she doesn't feel like who she was, and she definitely isn't her character.
They all introduce themselves and they sit in silence until Gabe suggests that Natalie start with why she's here.
"My dad died," she says, simply, but it feels like a knife to the gut.
//
"It isn't getting better, Lea," Dianna says, her voice croaking in the middle of the bathroom, her phone pressed to her ear. On the other end, she can hear take a deep breath.
"It doesn't seem like he's getting better," she whispers, and the phone call drops out before Lea can answer.
//
"He had a heart attack," Natalie continues, looking around the circle with an interested disinterest, her eyes still seeming like they're looking past everything they see to a different level, "But he died before I got to say goodbye. I wasn't there, I wasn't...I didn't save him. I would give anything to be able to just say that I...loved him. Love him, I mean. I mean...yeah. I think I answered the question with just the first two sentences, huh?" she says, but her voice breaks in the middle of her laugh and she slumps over a little, rubbing away tears.
The group is silent, and Gabe looks to Dianna, who can only look at Natalie with stunned, wide eyes.
After the therapy session is over, after dinner is eaten, after four hours of Dianna consistently staring at a wall, Natalie knocks on her open doorway and steps in.
"I know you didn't really...say why you pushed your...girlfriend away, and I don't need to know, really, but...whatever it is, whatever it was, it was a stupid reason," she whispers, and Dianna can't tear her eyes away as Natalie brushes away a tear on her face. "Nothing should ever stop you from loving and being loved, not even...death, really. You should love her," she continues, and Dianna's shaking once more, just a little. "Because, tomorrow, she could be gone."
Natalie nods and turns back, and Dianna can hear her footsteps echo down the hallway to the guest area, matching the beat of her pounding heart.
//
DAY FIVE
Jen knocks on the doorway just as Natalie did yesterday, but she isn't pulling a rolling chair in, she just stands there and Dianna feels her chest tighten up.
"Dianna," she says, and Dianna nods because, yes, that is her name. "You have a visitor."
She steps to the side, and Lea is suddenly right there, the fluorescent lights of the hospital making her look bright when they just make Dianna look sick. Jen just closes the door behind Lea, nodding at Dianna, who doesn't see, just stares at Lea.
"Hi," Lea finally says, looking around the room with a look that's almost pained, and it matches the painful clenching of Dianna's stomach right about now. "Someone finally told me where you were."
Dianna nods, because she doesn't know what to say. Lea slowly steps forward, closer and closer.
"No one would tell me why, though," she whispers, sitting on the far end of Dianna's bed, as far away as possible, and it feels like Antarctic winter settling around Dianna's head. Dianna tries to open her mouth and say something worthwhile, to apologize, to tell her to leave, but nothing comes until Dianna feels the tears sliding down her cheeks, until Lea's face passes from pained to excruciating and she slides closer and pulls Dianna into her arms.
"It'll be okay," Dianna hears her whisper, over and over and over. And for the first time in a long time, it feels like it could.
//
Her uncle is the one who tells her. She gets a call in the middle of a re-watching of Funny Girl, Lea's go-to choice, and she already knows what he's going to say before he says it, but she listens anyway. When he says that her grandpa's heart stopped beating, it felt like hers stopped right then, and when he said that he felt no pain, she felt it all.
//
She jolts awake from a remembrance of that day wrapped in Lea's arms, and she almost starts crying again, but she feels warm for the first time in a long time, since the last time she was this close to Lea, so she just sinks back into Lea's embrace and finally says it.
"I was afraid I'd lose you," she whispers, turning her head further into Lea's collarbone, and she can feel the sudden intake of breath Lea takes. "I figured that if I never had you, I wouldn't feel it when you were gone."
"You would've never lost me," Lea finally answers, her voice airy in the silence.
"When my grandpa died, my grandma might as well have died with him. I didn't want...to feel like that, I never wanted to make you feel like that. I was afraid," she says, and kisses Lea's collarbone before she exactly realizes what she's done.
She sits up immediately, backing away from Lea, who's eyes are locked on hers, rimmed with red.
"Dianna...not to sound cliche or anything, but...no day but today comes to mind here," she whispers, sliding toward Dianna.
"Today is not a good day for me. I'm kind of a mess," Dianna says, staying still despite Lea's increasing (once more) closeness. "I mean...I'm in a psychiatric hospital. Obviously."
"I love you, Dianna," Lea says, reaching for Dianna's hand, and for once it isn't shaking, because Dianna feels that old familiar burn pick up right in her chest and she takes a gulp of air just to prove to herself that she can. "I'll do anything to make sure you aren't a mess anymore, excluding letting yourself wallow in your messy self."
Dianna smiles at that, and Lea smiles back slowly.
//
DAY SIX
"This is not the cure-all, Dianna," Jen says, looking between Dianna and Lea with a cross between frustration and amusement. "Your problems are still there," she continues, looking down at her clipboard. "And they still require looking after."
Dianna nods, Lea's hand in hers spreading warmth through her body.
"I understand that a majority of the ones involving Lea here have been resolved, but they weren't the base of your depression, a fact not obvious until now do to your own secrecy," Jen says, shaking her head and writing something down. "And normally I'd be concerned about the dependency problem just waiting to happen with you two," she points between Lea and Dianna. "But as I mentioned, it's now obvious that your problems with Lea were brought on by other problems."
Dianna nods once more, while Lea sits up straighter in her seat.
"Doctor," Lea says, and Jen looks over to her with plain amusement on her face. "I want to help Dianna in any way possible, and if that involves not pursuing a relationship right now-" Jen cuts her off with a snort.
"Like I could stop that from happening?" she mutters, looking at their clasped hands with a smile. "I appreciate how dedicated you are to helping Dianna, but I'm absolutely certain to a percentage around a hundred and seventeen that what Dianna needs right now is to be around those who love her, in every sense, including your own special brand of lesbian love."
Both girls just stare at her.
"It was a joke, girls. Laugh," she says, sighing down at her clipboard. Dianna does laugh, for real, and it's a nice feeling.
//
DAY SEVEN
"Remember, next Saturday at seven," Jen says handing Dianna a bag filled with the stuff they took away from her upon her admittance to the hospital with one hand and signing Dianna's release papers. "Inhaler for chest pain," she says, and Dianna nods. "Call if you feel badly," she continues, walking around the desk and sliding the papers down to an orderly and telling him to file them. "Lexapro every night, Ambien as needed, Lea is not a drug. Don't make any strange decisions in your relationship without at least explaining them to her so she can properly yell at you for them. Is that it?" she asks, stopping in front of the elevators. Dianna wasn't sure when this one-sided discussion became a walk and talk.
"I think so."
"Okay. And, remember, you aren't fixed just yet, Dianna. You don't need to be perfect, and don't expect it. Work through it, but not by yourself. There are plenty of people around you who are willing to help," Jen says. "And I do realize that I sound like a suicide prevention line," she adds, smiling at Dianna.
"That's good," Dianna remarks, stepping into the elevator when it opens and Jen waves just before the doors close.
Lea's waiting in the car when she gets downstairs, tossing her bag into the backseat and looking up at the building.
Lea's hand finds hers on her lap, causing warmth to run through her so quickly she almost gets a head rush, and she smiles over at Lea, truly.
Jen was right, she isn't fixed just yet. But she feels like she could be, eventually, as long as she has Lea on her side.
//
A YEAR LATER
"I think it's time we stopped seeing each other, Dianna," Jen says, writing something down on her ever-growing clipboard of Dianna-related things. "Because you could probably write a book on how to be happy at this point," she mutters, looking up at Dianna with a smirk.
"Lots of sex," Dianna says, giggling when Jen shakes her head at her.
"There are things a person doesn't need to know," she says. "But seriously: you still aren't perfect, no one is. But you pretty much have the next best spot cornered," Jen says, and Dianna nods.
"I'm sorry to say this, but I really hope I never have to see you again," Dianna says, looking at the woman with a sentimental smile playing across her face.
"It's my lot in life. Don't become a psychologist if you can't stand watching people walk away from you," she says, before standing up and opening her office door, allowing Dianna out first.
"Thank you," Dianna says, right before she goes through the door to the waiting room.
"You're welcome," Jen says, smiling up at Dianna. "Now go home."
//
"DIANNA, WHERE ARE MY SHOES?!"
Dianna looks up from the television when she hears Lea shouting, occasional thumping coming from their closet in the other room, rolling her eyes, because, Lea has a lot of shoes.
"Baby, does it matter what shoes you have on? We're just going to the movies," she answers, her own shoes already on and already dressed.
Lea immediately comes out into the living room, a pair of purple pumps in her hand.
"I found them!" she says brightly, sitting next to Dianna on the couch and pulling them on. "What are you watching?" she asks, just as Billy Bush comes onto Entertainment Tonight. "Oh, well, why are you watching-"
Billy himself cuts Lea off, distracting her with the phrase, "...Glee stars together," showing a series of pictures of Lea and Dianna over maybe the past week or so, hand-in-hand.
"Eventually, we're just gonna have to put them out of their misery, baby, and just say we're together," Dianna mutters, giggling at different 'expert' opinions on the matter.
Lea gets distracted, of course, by how radiant Dianna looks at that moment, and reaches for the remote to turn the television off.
"Let's not go out tonight, baby," she whispers into Dianna's ear, and Dianna just laughs again, turning toward Lea and flipping her shoes off easily before she kisses her.
"Keep the shoes though," Dianna returns, and Lea giggles before both of them shut up for a good long while.
the end.