by Laragh » Tue Aug 04, 2009 10:28 am
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TITLE: Frothy Goodness
AUTHOR: Laragh
CHAPTER RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: I don’t own any of the characters, Joss does. I may totally disagree with what he did with them, but alas, he still owns them.
SUMMARY: They meet. They fall in love...I’m really bad at summaries. Happy, light reading.
SPOILERS: None. No demons, no hellmouth.
FEEDBACK: Go for it.
Part 34
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Willow stopped in the doorway as she took in the sight of her prone girlfriend, deathly pale, two large bruises on her face and covered in a variety of tubes and wires. For a moment she thought she might burst into tears again, but realised she must be all cried-out from the copious tears that had been shed since she’d first gotten the phone call from Anya.
Was that only twelve hours ago? Feels like days.
“...’low? Are you okay?”
Willow shook herself out of her reverie when she realised Nikki was speaking to her and both her and the nurse were looking at her strangely.
“Yea,” she said, rushing over to Tara’s side, “Can I touch her?”
“Of course. Just be careful not to dislodge anything."
“And she’s still doing okay?” Nikki asked.
“She was very lucky. The knife missed any major organs. We won’t know more until she wakes up, but her blood pressure and pulse are both at a good level, which is very positive. She’s also showing no signs of infection.”
“Thank you Nurse...” Willow trailed off and looked at the ID tag the nurse was wearing, “Maria F. Bilton.”
The nurse chuckled.
“You can call me Maria. The doctor will be in shortly to review again.”
Both Willow and Nikki smiled gratefully as the nurse went back to her station, leaving one girl either side of Tara, holding a hand each.
“She’s cold. She doesn’t like being cold,” Willow said absently, stroking her girlfriend’s hand, carefully avoiding the IV.
The two women sat in silence, just looking at Tara’s sleeping form, occasionally reaching up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear or to tuck the blanket in tighter.
After an hour, a younger doctor walked in the room, accompanied by six others, who Willow assumed were students. After her encounter with the intern earlier, she was wary of letting any of them near Tara.
“I’m Dr. Ramos,” the doctor said, never making eye contact and taking Tara’s chart from the end of her bed, flicking through it, “I’m taking over Dr. Reynolds patients for this shift.”
He instructed one of the interns to examine Tara’s incision sight, much to Willow's chagrin, and another to take down her vitals again, firing questions to the all of them about abdominal wounds and the treatment and care of such injuries. When everything new had been noted, the doctor finally acknowledged the two women.
“Ms. Maclay is recovering remarkably, her incision sight is clean and shows no sign of infection and her blood pressure is steady,” he paused and took a breath, “We saw signs of scarring around her chest and stomach area and towards her back as well.”
“She was abused as a child,” Willow interjected quietly and Nikki’s eyes filled with tears.
Dr. Ramos smiled in sympathy and wrote a few lines on the chart.
“Do you have any questions?”
Both women shook their head no and the doctor replaced the chart, ushering the interns out of the room and continuing on to the next patient.
A while later, Nurse Maria returned. Willow smiled in greeting and Nikki gave a small wave, neither girl having given up their hold on Tara’s hand since having to move out of the way when her incision was being examined. She checked and noted everything again and smiled when she saw Tara was still doing well.
“How’s my girl doing?” Willow asked, then began backtracking, “I mean, my cousin-girl. Cousin.”
“She’s doing very well. This appears to be her first time in this hospital, do you know where we can get her records from?”
“Yes,” Nikki said, thinking for a moment before answering, “Northwest Hospital in Seattle. But they’ll be under Tara Roberts.”
Maria nodded and left the small room again.
“Roberts...” Willow said, not even realising she had said it aloud.
“She didn’t tell you her old name?” Nikki asked, getting Willow’s attention.
“She didn’t need to,” Willow responded, smiling fondly at her girlfriend and lifting her hand slightly to put a kiss on it, “I love who she is now. Her past might have affected that, but she’s always been Tara Maclay to me, and I think, in her heart, she’s always been Tara Maclay to her too.”
Nikki was stopped from saying anything in response as Buffy and Anya slipped in the door.
“Hey,” Buffy said quietly, looking over sadly at the sleeping girl.
“We snuck past some scary looking receptionist getting in here. I don’t know if we’ll be able to stay long,” Anya added.
“Okay,” Willow nodded, “Well, she’s still doing well. The doctor was in a while ago and there’s no infection or anything. She could wake up anytime.”
Willow stood up an offered the seat she was in to Anya.
“Oh no, Willow, it’s fine.”
“You should sit with her for a while. I can stand here. Especially if you’ll have to leave soon.”
“Thank you,” Anya said taking the seat and putting a hand on Tara’s upper arm.
Nobody knew what to say, so the room remained quiet apart from the steady beeping of the machine monitoring Tara’s vitals.
“I still can’t believe this happened,” Buffy said a few moments later, breaking the silence, “I feel like I’m living in some alternate dimension or something.”
Willow walked over and wrapped her arms around the athletic blonde.
They stayed hugging for a few long moments, until once again the nurse entered the room.
“Sorry to interrupt again, Tara’s chart has to be updated frequently until she wakes up… And I’m afraid we can only have two visitors here at a time,” she said, genuinely apologetic.
Buffy nodded and turned to Anya, who stood up with one final squeeze to Tara’s arm.
Nikki stood up as well, to give Maria room to work and stifled a yawn.
Willow noticed.
“Hey Nikki, why don’t you go back to ours and get some sleep? It’s been a long night. And day. Wow, it’s almost the afternoon already…”
“I don't want her to be alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I promise, I’ll be by her side and I’ll call you if she wakes up.”
Nikki took a deep breath and nodded. If Tara woke up, she wanted to be fresh and alert, not almost falling asleep in the chair next to her.
“What about you?”
“I can’t sleep without her,” Willow said and wiped a single tear from her eye, “We’ve been meaning to get a second bed in the spare room but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I changed the bedclothes yesterday morning in our room, so it’s all clean in stuff in there. And there’s towels if you want to shower. Buffy, can you…?”
“Yea. I can show you the way,” Buffy said to Nikki.
Willow put her hand in her pocket and, her fingers briefly grazing velvet before wrapping around her keys. She pulled them out and tossed them to Nikki.
Maria took the chart and began writing in the information slowly, knowing she couldn’t leave until there were no more than two visitors in the room but trying to give the ladies time to work things out.
“I’m going back into work tomorrow, Willow. I can go to your department, schedule any time off you might need…” Anya said, glad to have something to be able to help with.
“Oh god, work. Yea, Anya that would be great. Um…Maria? How long do these things….?”
Maria looked up and smiled warmly.
“If she continues progressing as she is and doesn’t contract an infection, she should be able to leave in three to four days. After that, there’s a three week recovery period for abdominal injuries.”
“Okay,” Willow said, internally processing everything, “I have overdue holiday time…so four weeks until she’s recovered…physically at least. I want to be there to take care of her... Okay, Anya, um, better make it five weeks. If it’s unpaid, that’s fine, okay?”
“I work with the money guys, Will. Neither of you will be going unpaid during this.”
“Thank you Anya. Uh, thank you everyone. I never would have gotten through this without you guys.”
“Hey,” Buffy said, rubbing Willow’s upper arm, “We’re family. So, Nikki, you come with me, yea’?”
“Yes,” Nikki leaned down and placed a kiss on top of Tara’s head, “Okay, ready.”
Buffy, Anya and Nikki all left the hospital room, leaving Willow and Maria alone. Willow sat down to the right of Tara and took her hand again.
“Your girlfriend is going to be okay,” the nurse said, putting the chart back.
Willow chuckled.
“That obvious, huh? I told her on our first date that I wasn’t good at lying, guess it’s true. I don’t the energy to do anything but hold her hand right now, but if they try and force me to leave…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you’re treated as a family member while you’re here.”
“Thank you for being so nice,” Willow said, finally turning her head and making eye contact.
“It's no problem. I’ll be back in thirty minutes to recheck everything. You know, you can talk to her. I’ve seen a lot of patients wake up faster when they have people talking to them. Incentive, I suppose. And I’ll just be over there,” Mara said, pointing to the nurses station outside of the room, “If you need me.”
With that, she exited the room, leaving Willow now totally alone with Tara. After a minute of just holding her hand, she decided to try talking.
“Hey baby. It’s me. Willow. I guess you knew that…” she trailed off nervously, “God, Tara, I have no idea what to say… They have the guy who did this to you. Steve made sure the cops got him. He’s a really nice guy. Steve that is. Came in just to see how you were and everything. Buffy and Nikki came up from LA, too. And Anya, wow, she’s been so great.”
She took a deep breath and looked into the corridor. Seeing it was deserted, she carefully manoeuvred herself so she was lying on the bed, next to her girlfriend. She dropped a kiss on her cheek and brought her hand up to place over Tara’s heart.
“Please, baby, please wake up. I can’t live without seeing your smile. Please.”
She began sobbing into Tara’s neck, quiet sobs so as not to draw attention to herself, until she felt a hand cover her own. She raised he head and looked into the blinking baby blue eyes that she had fallen in love with so many months ago, and heard the voice that soothed her, always.
“I promise I’ll play hooky with you next time.”
Last edited by
Laragh on Sun Apr 24, 2011 10:46 am, edited 1 time in total.
you said no angst 
I truly hope that when Tara wakes up the first thing she sees is Willow's smile...
Good, relieving, happy update. 
I'm starting to forgive you already. Can't wait 'til post-accident smoochies arrive. Buffy's interrupted orgasms, eh? Good thing Anya responded to that conversation. Poor Nikki, nothing much else can be said for her. Stupid intern -_-, can't even get stupid directions right. Really, never in my life have I ever seen anybody do that. I hope there's no court thing, I hate lawyers. And it takes a god-awful amount of time to process through all of it. Willow and Tara, cousins? Oh, you had me laughing off the bed at that one! ^^ Waiting for your update tomorrow. 
Tara better play hookie next time. I don't think I could stand it if they get hurt again. I swear, somewhere in the middle of this update, I wanted to play 'We Are Family'. I give my sympathies to Willow. And, so lucky they have such a wonderful nurse. I've seen some who could really care less about their patient and the family. That would be so hilarious if Nikki were to sleep on the....other sheets. *giggle* But, why make her that close to her nieces' sex life? I hate interns. 
They make everything catastrophic. I don't like the doctor, he seems more preoccupied with the students more than the patient/s. Thank god we don't have to live the nightmare of the trials! I hope that pig-headed, perverted, bastard is stuck in prison for the rest of his life. *deep breath* Onto a more soothing topic. When I read the last line of the update, I was so choked up, that I litterally laughed so hard, that my dog started barking. I think he was concerned. 
