Chapter Text
It’s about the second worst call of my life, when Brian rings my burner phone.
“Hello?” I say, more than a little confused. Calls were supposed to only be for cape business, and we didn’t have any heists planned today. I glance out the living room window, checking for my dad coming home early. “What’s up?”
“Hey, Taylor. It’s…” Brian pauses, sounding more unsure then I’d heard him before. “I, uh… look, don’t freak out, okay?” Dread begins to flood my stomach, my spine goes ramrod straight.
“Historically a sentence that does nothing but make people freak out, Brian.” I mutter through clenched teeth. Did he know? Did Lisa figure it out? I’d been worried about this since day one, but I’d hoped keeping my answers more or less emotionally true would—
“Lisa was in a car accident.”
And just like that, my world shatters. My ears begin to ring so loud that it’s a shock that every bit of glass in this house hasn’t exploded. My heart, already beating so fast, decides that it would be more efficient to skip a few beats to keep up with my mind, which is running away like an out of control locomotive on high octane gasoline. “Taylor? Hello? Oh, you’re definitely freaking out. Oh, shit, I can hear you hyperventilating. Fuck, don’t summon a bee army.” Brian’s voice sounds about a thousand miles away. “Taylor! Hey, gimme a sign of life? Do I need to drive—”
“Is she…” I don’t want to say the word. I don’t want this to be real. I want to fight this new reality I’m in with every method I have available to me.
“She’s okay! Just in the hospital. She’s, uh, unconscious, but…”
“Where?” I demand, already slipping on my shoes.
“Brockton General, but Panacea has a waitlist, and we figured it might be too risky to—”
“I’m on my way there.” I say, hanging up and running out the door.
For a girl who’s about as built as your average beanpole, I think making it to Brockton General Hospital in a dead sprint lasting nearly thirty minutes is pretty impressive. I’m huffing and puffing like the wolf about to ruin a poor pig’s day, but almost no one looks at me as I make for the stairs. I don’t feel like arguing with a nurse about seeing Lisa when other people actually need to talk to her. My bugs can find her easily enough as I sweep them quietly through the building, my headache growing as I use their limited vision to sweep through faces by the dozens as I climb up, up, up—
Found her! Floor five, room four-hundred and one.
My already aching legs protest further as I double my speed upon locating my friend. I tell them to shut up and suck it up as I race up two stairs at a time, barely remembering to avoid other people coming down. I swerve out on the fifth floor and nearly knock over a poor family, muttering an out of breath apology as I count, four thirty, four twenty-two, four thirteen, four o’six, four one.
I push open the door, and…
Well, I’m not really sure what I was expecting. Somehow, despite seeing this already, it doesn’t actually hit me until I use my own human eyes. But the sight of Lisa lying there with an oxygen mask strapped over her face, heart monitor slowly beeping on a sedate rhythm, dead to the rest of the world?
That breaks me. I stumble over to her bed, not even thinking to grab a chair as my legs wobble and then give out, my knees aching as they smack against linoleum tile, but I’m too busy sobbing to care. I reach out to grasp her hand.
Her fingers are icy cold.
Eventually, pain finally beats sentiment, and I rise wincing at just how badly I’d pushed my legs, to say nothing of the certain bruising I’d inflicted upon my knees.
I drag one of the chairs in the corner over to the bed, scanning Lisa for injuries. A few scrapes and cuts, but nothing that would knock her out cold. She’s still breathing and her heart’s still beating, at least. I can’t tell what’s keeping her asleep like this without checking some paperwork, which they don’t appear to have left in the room. With little else to do, I pull out my phone.
Brian: Taylor?
Brian: Taylor maybe don’t go the hospital it might draw attention
Brian: oh you’re just ignoring me
Brian: kinda rude
Brian: dw I get it though
Brian: it shook me up too
Brian: had to fake being Lisa’s uncle’s office jockey
Brian: that was fun
Brian: anyway just text me when you park, okay?
Brian: oh my god wait you don’t have a car you’re running there
Brian: oh that’ll take like an hour
Brian: just text me when you see these I can pick you up
Taylor: I’m here.
Brian: here where
Taylor: Brockton general.
Brian: oh did you take a cab?
Taylor: No.
Brian: did you
Brian: did you run what must be nearly six miles in…thirty six minutes?
Taylor: Not six, I cut through Rucka park.
Brian: oh okay that’s not impressive in that case
Taylor: ok.
Brian: SARCASM, taylor
Brian: that’s ridiculous. You are ridiculous
Taylor: I told you I run.
Brian: yeah i thought you meant like light jogging, not that you were planning to challenge Usain Bolt
Taylor: Who?
Brian: you don’t
Brian: nvm not important. Since you’re there, how is she?
Taylor: She’s completely out.
Brian: yeah, that’s what I thought
Brian: knew it would be bad when it was the ICU called
Brian: while you’re there, try and see what the deal is? They were more concerned about getting into contact then really telling me what the deal is. I gotta get back to my actual day job, so hang tight, okay? And be careful.
Taylor: Be careful?
Brian: Too soon to tell if this was an accident or deliberate, you get me?
Taylor: Oh.
Brian: Yeah. Look after our girl. TTYL.
I close the phone, suddenly very, very glad I hadn’t talked to the front desk. If this hadn’t been an accident, but a deliberate attempt on Lisa’s life…then they could still be looking for her. Hell, for all I knew, they were in the building.
I spread out my swarm, this time focusing less on faces and more on distinctive shapes. By this point, I’m pretty familiar with the general places people hide weapons on their person, and there are more than enough bugs here for me to scan everyone in the building. I make my way from the top down, scanning everyone not lying in a hospital bed— not just because I didn’t want to spread any sickness by accident, but because I doubted that whoever could potentially be going after Lisa would have already set up fake patients in the hospital. I still wasn’t too sure of the general timeframe, but knowing how much Lisa was not a morning person (she, in fact, reacted with an expression of visceral horror when I told her I would get up at five to do my daily jogging and declared that she wouldn’t get out of bed before nine for anything less than a million dollars.)
Assuming Brian called me shortly after the hospital called him, for her to already be here… she couldn’t have had her accident more than maybe three hours ago? The chances of whoever targeted her already having something as elaborate as that set up…no, no way. They’d be under too much scrutiny from the doctors when it was far simpler to pretend to be a concerned family friend or something like that.
I continue my sweep, and to my immense relief, I don’t find any hidden guns or knives on anyone. That doesn’t mean we’re in the clear, though, far from it— parahumans, after all, didn’t need weapons to be deadly. I had to stay vigilant. Lisa needed me to keep her safe.
It takes almost an hour before someone gets close enough for me to be concerned. Judging by the lab coat, probably a doctor, but I needed to be careful. If a fight broke out, I needed to get them away from the room by whatever means possible. The man walks in and does a double take when he sees me. Dusty blonde hair, brown eyes, haggard face. A few years younger than my dad, maybe? Didn’t look physically intimidating, but that doesn’t mean much. He’s wearing a very small rainbow pin on his lapel, which at least means he’s not an empire member.
“Oh, hello! I didn’t realize Miss Wilbourn had gotten any visitors. I’m Dr. Stephen Drake, Neurologist. Are you family?”
“No, I’m Taylor Hebert, her…” I pause, wondering if I should lie before just sticking with the truth. “Friend.” He glances at me and then at my right hand, which I belatedly realize is still interlaced with hers. I unlock our digits, fighting the flush that’s crawling up my face at being caught holding her hand like a child.
“Right.” He says, clearing his throat. “Well! Since we’ve yet to actually get ahold of any family members, I suppose you’ll have to do. I’m sure her friends are eager to hear how she’s doing.”
“Yes,” I say, eager for more information. “I know she was in a car accident but when Brian called me he didn’t say why she had to be admitted to the ICU, and…”
“Ah, yes, apologies for that ma’am. We’re rather understaffed and overworked…like always, so non-urgent calls tend to be brief.” He adjusts his glasses before going over to fiddle with some of the machines they have Lisa strapped up to. “Well, I won’t bore you with the minute details, but essentially, Miss Wilbourn suffered some head trauma that knocked her unconscious in the crash. Other injuries are all minor at most, but she’s yet to waken. Fortunately, she’s already displayed pupillary reactivity as well as a gag reflex— just cotton swabs, don’t worry— and is currently experiencing REM, so we’re not concerned about her entering a vegetative state. Now, I want to preface this by saying that just about every brain injury is unique and as a result, every individual will regain consciousness from a coma at a different rate.”
The word coma hits me with the force of a runaway freight train. In the back of my mind, I’d suspected something like that, but hearing it confirmed is…
“However, we are fairly hopeful with regards to Miss Wilbourn’s recovery. She’s already showing positive signs, and in previous coma patients with this level of head trauma, most regained consciousness in about seven to ten days. But I’m afraid other than keeping her hooked up and monitoring activity, there’s not much else we can do besides wait.” He pauses for a moment before looking at me. “Something you can do however, would be to talk to her. While it’s an inexact science, we have records of coma patients recovering more completely if they had loved ones providing stimuli. Telling her good things about your day while stroking her arm, that sort of thing. It might help more than you know. Just be sure to stay positive.”
I nod, committing the words to memory.
“Great. Well, all of her IV’s are in working order, and unless anything changes, I’m afraid I have other patients I need to check in on. Feel free to stay with her until visiting hours are over. Good day, Taylor.”
He leaves, and I slump back into my seat as the reality of the situation really starts to sink in. My best friend is in a fucking coma. I didn’t even think I’d ever have one of those again, not after Emma, and now…
Lisa has to wake up. She has to. I’ve only been in the Undersiders a short while, but already the thought of going without that gloriously smug grin in my life makes my ribs grind against my heart.
I reach out again, intensely aware of my hands, and lightly brush against the skin of her forearm. It feels…well, nice, but also makes me feel weird as hell. I’ve never really intentionally brushed my skin against another person before, and doing so consciously is…not unpleasant, but my new bout of hyper-awareness makes it all the more awkward.
“H-hey, Lisa.” I say, feeling both very stupid and very sad. “I, um. Came as quick as I could. Apparently I run pretty fast, according to Brian. Which is good, right? I can help the team.” I pause, considering the reality of listening devices, and continue after a moment of deliberation. “The track team. I’ve been thinking about trying out. But Sophia would probably get mad if I tried.” Wait, no, positive things. I need to talk about positive things that happened to me.
…um.
Uhhh.
Crap, do I lie? Lying would feel weird, and if her power is active while she’s asleep, then that would just create more of a dissonance. Not lying. Think! There has to be something not depressing that happened to me recently!
“...I caught a dragonfly the other day.” I land on, feeling my face flush at the realization that somehow this is the only thing I have. “Did you know that dragonfly wings can all move and rotate independently from each other? It’s really fascinating to just watch them pull off all kinds of maneuvers other flying animals can’t. They can go backwards, maintain flight while their body is upside down…it’s really cool. It reminded me of bee wings, and how they don’t just flap their wings like birds or larger insects. Bees almost use them like propellers if the blades themselves also rotate— it’s a lot more complicated than that, but that’s the general idea. They essentially move those little wings so fast they create air pockets below and above themselves and use that to control their pathing. I was testing flight patterns, and…”
I keep talking about whatever inane thing comes to mind, eventually deciding to just go back to holding Lisa’s hands after the brushing just continued to feel too unnatural. She’d always complained about her fingers being cold in the mornings and usually hogged me as her “personal heater” whenever I was on the couch, stuffing her freezing joints into my sides and just grinning when I complained about it. I didn’t really mind, of course. Lisa was always pleasantly cool, and she never did anything to make me uncomfortable. I tell her that, just in case she didn’t know.
But I’m pretty sure she did.
Eventually I have to take a break to get water, which I all but sprint to and back for. As I settle back down in the chair, it occurs to me I should probably inform Brian about Lisa’s condition.
Taylor: Hey. Doc came by. Was legit as far as I can tell. Lisa’s in a coma.
Brian: Oh shit.
Taylor: But he says that her recovery is likely. Tentative estimation of about a week, maybe a bit longer.
Brian: Well, that’s a relief.
Brian: I don’t hear any word from my contacts about anything going down this morning, but still keep an eye out, okay? You’re the only one of us without a job or… other complications, so you’re going to have to be the one to play bodyguard. I can probably get Alec to handle shifts while you’re in school, since I assume you can’t get away with skipping multiple days.
I frown. I can’t quite place my finger on why, but I don’t like the idea of Alec being the one watching over Lisa, and not just because he’s easily distracted and largely apathetic about subjects he’s not interested in. Something in my gut squirms at the thought of him doing what I’m doing right now.
Taylor: I can fake being sick for at least three days. After that, yeah. They’d probably expel me. Which honestly wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Brian: still
Brian: I can tell it’s important to you
Taylor: Thanks. But Lisa’s more important.
Brian: well cant argue with that
Brian: i’ll inform the rest of the crew later, thanks for the update
Taylor: No problem. See you later.
I put my phone away and settled in, clearing my throat.
“So, where was I? Oh yeah, so when I went to summer camp…”
Someone makes their way to the door and I snap to alertness. Fuck, I’d fallen asleep. And judging by the nearly black sky outside the window, I’d been asleep for a while.
It’s someone dressed as a nurse. Large build, thick arms, hair as black as mine. She stares at me for a moment and I tense in my seat, ready to take the fight outside by any means necessary.
“Ma’am, visiting hours ended…” She checks her watch, “Nearly forty minutes ago. I’m very sorry, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave and come back tomorrow at eight am. ” I glare, scanning her for weapons. Trying to make me leave had my hackles raising. I can’t find a knife or any sort of container for poison, but strangulation alone could kill Lisa right now.
“You don’t allow overnight stays?” I ask, my hand creeping into my pocket, where my baton was. “I thought that was universal across the US.” The nurse sighs, clearly exhausted of me already.
“Unfortunately, with the added load and concerns with regards to parahuman patients, we had to discontinue overnight stays without prior paperwork. If you’d be willing to get on the phone or talk to someone tomorrow morning, I’m sure we could get you a pass.”
“That’s great,” I lie, knowing that trying to get that done would take at least several days, “but I can’t leave her. I need to stay with her.” She pinches her brow before giving me a pitying look.
“Family still hasn’t shown up?” I blink, a bit startled by the sudden topic change.
“No,” I say, cautiously. “And they’re almost certainly not going to.” The nurse’s gaze turns to Lisa and I tense, but she just looks morosely at her unconscious form before sighing. “Look, kid. I really feel for you. That sucks, and I understand you want to protect your partner.” Partner?! Fuck, she knew we were capes! Any second now, it would come, any second, I position my bugs and get ready to strike— “But I can’t make an exception, or I risk losing my job, and I need this job to take care of my family.” No attack. Why isn’t she attacking? What’s her angle?
“I’m not leaving her.” I growl. “I can’t.”
“Kid, come on,” She reaches out and I fling myself away from her touch. Striker, possibly? I’m about to signal my spiders to attack when—
“Taylor! Woah woah woah, hey, Taylor, hey!” Brian steps into the room, a nervously apologetic grin on his face. “Hi, ma’am, I’m a friend of her’s and Lisa’s…” His gaze trails to Lisa’s unconscious form and he falters for a moment before continuing, “Sorry about her, they’re, uh, they’re really close and Taylor can get a bit antsy without her. I’m here to take Taylor home, would have gotten here earlier but some work stuff got in the way, anyway we’ll be going now! Sorry about all this.” He slings his arm around my shoulder and begins pulling me back towards the doorway. What is he doing?
“Brian,” I hiss, “what about—”
“Taylor,” he says gently, “if you get banned from visiting the hospital, how are you going to come back tomorrow?”
My eyes flick from him to the nurse, who appears to be rubbing her forehead in exasperation. He gets my meaning and very minutely shakes his head, and I let my muscles untense a fraction.
“Fine.” I mumble, and storm away, like the very mature person I am. He sighs in relief, offers another apology to the nurse, and catches up to me.
“You really need to check your phone more often.” He grumbles. I pull out my burner phone and sure enough, there’s a whole host of missed messages and even one call from him. I wince.
“I fell asleep, sorry.” He pinches his nose ridge at that, looking as if he’s trying to fight a headache.
“Taylor, what’s the point of having you on guard duty if you’ll fall asleep?”
“I didn’t mean to,” I snap. “And besides, my bugs wake me up if anyone enters one of my tripwires.”
“Tripwires?”
“I have spiders set up and spinning webs. They detect movement and relay that back to me. If anyone so much as comes through this floor, I’ll know, even if it’s a stranger.”
“Huh. That’s clever.” I shrug. It’s really nothing special. “Anyway as far as I can tell, this wasn’t anything, uh, work related. I’d still like you to keep an eye out all the same, but don’t attack the nurses? Because that would be bad. Bit jumpy, huh?”
“Aren’t you?” I mutter. He pauses for a moment and then snorts.
“Yeah. A bit. This whole thing just really shakes you, huh? Big, glaring reminder that shit like this can happen to anyone.”
Yeah. To anyone.
“I’ll drop you off at home,” Brian continues, oblivious to my internal angsting. “I’m sure your dad is worried.”
“Taylor!” My dad yells as I walk through the front door. “Thank christ, I was so worried! It’s nearly past ten!”
“I was at the hospital,” I mumble. His face goes flat, and he rushes towards me. “I’m fine,” I say, then remembering I need to prep the lie, “I’m feeling a bit under the weather but that’s not why I was there.” I swallow. “Lisa’s in a coma.” I didn’t actually mean for it to sound as sad as it did, but hey, whatever helps, right? His expression softens at the news as he wraps me in a hug. “It was a car accident,” I continue, and my voice cracks a little on that last part. “Another fucking car accident, and I just…I needed to be there. I couldn’t…”
I didn’t want to cry again, but I suppose old wounds have a way of drawing them out of me.
“Oh honey,” My dad sighs, holding me nice and tight, like I was seven years old and had a nightmare again, “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. That must be awful.”
“I need her to wake up,” I whisper. By now, my mouth is on full autopilot, my brain’s off somewhere else, fully fried from the long day of trying to convince myself that Lisa could be okay. “I can’t lose anyone else to this, I just can’t…”
“She’ll recover,” my dad promises, like he always does; it’s his superpower to make oaths he can’t keep. “She will. Why don’t you go get some rest? If you want, I can drop you off to visit her sometime tomorrow.” I nod, and shuffle off to bed, exhaustion really starting to set in. I don’t even bother changing into my pajamas, I just kick my shoes and socks off, throw my jacket on my desk and burrow under the covers, half-asleep as soon as I hit the pillow.
The last thought I have is that I’d keep going back, no matter how long it took, until Lisa wakes up.
And I did keep going back.
For four days straight, I would arrive precisely at 8:00 AM, having jogged there from my house after playing sick for my dad, and I’d make my way up to that horrible little room, and talk and talk and cry and then talk some more, until I couldn’t make words come out of my throat. Then I would bring out my notebook and start doodling one handed while my other was laced within Lisa’s fingers, and every time she would groan or twitch my heart would leap into my throat with hope. The nurses and I gained a tense if tolerable relationship, where they would not interact with me and I would watch them like a hawk every time that they so much as moved towards any of the equipment that was connected to Lisa.
I watched, I hoped, I prayed.
And then, Wednesday morning at about five-forty-seven am, my phone rings, and I’m out of bed like a shot’s gone off. I don’t recognize the number, but answer it anyway.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Brockton General Hospital, we’re trying to contact a Miss Taylor Hebert regarding—”
“Is she awake?” I say, the beginnings of sunrise creeping through the clouds, and it’s never looked more beautiful.
“Yes, and we’ll need to arrange Lisa’s release, so…”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” I say, slamming the phone shut and scrambling for pants and my jacket, all but tumbling down the stairs in my haste to get to my shoes. “Dad!” I shout up. “Lisa’s up, I’m going to go see her, be back later loveyoubye!” I’m out the door and running, an echo of that horrible morning on saturday, except now what’s fueling my limbs isn’t desperate dread but sheer, unmitigated relief that I hadn’t lost someone else. I know that there will probably be a recovery period, I know that Lisa might be different, but at least she’ll be alive.
My feet pound against concrete, against grass, down through Rucka park, back up into the streets, right turn, straight for a mile, left turn to duck through an alleyway to save a minute, stay on course and just focus on speed. I burst through the hospital lobby and the nurses barely blink as I rush past them, focusing on just performing the same route that I’ve done before, so close, I’m so close—
The first thing I think when I see her is that her hair looks good. They must have given her a comb. She’d been staring out the window, but her verdant eyes turn to me, wide with surprise, and I feel as if I can breathe again.
“...Hi!” Lisa says, an easy smile coming to her face. “Taylor, right? The doctor said you’d be coming.”
“Lisa…” I breathe, staggering forward. I want to wrap her in my arms and never let go, but I’m afraid of somehow hurting her, so instead as I inch closer, waiting for any sign she wants me to stop, I hug her with all the gentleness I have in me. She returns it, and it’s just as good as her hugs have always been. I get a little…distracted for a few moments, hugging her, and when I pull away, I wipe at my face and try to pretend the tears had never happened at all. “Sorry,” I murmur, brushing my eyes, “I just…”
“It’s okay,” Lisa says, doing her best to cheer me up despite the fact that she’s the one who’d woken up from a coma. “I sort of expected it. I woke up around…two? In the morning. Doc came by with a few nurses, and once he was done asking questions and filling out some forms, the nurses told me about you. About how you stayed here with me for as long as you could— that the first night you nearly got into a fight with Moesha because you didn’t want to leave me. Did you really?” I flush and glance away, embarrassed at how paranoid I’d been about what in hindsight was nothing, but Lisa laughs, which makes me feel a bit better. “Don’t feel bad! I’m touched. Anyway, uh…” She shifts on the bed to a different sitting position, no doubt a little stir-crazy. “Now that you’re here, I think they said that we can start the process to get me out? Aside from one thing, I’ve got no lasting complications or injuries, so I can get back to the outside world and out of this dumb gown.
”What one thing?” I ask, feeling my old friend dread stepping back in, flooding my body with frozen lakes of terror. What if Lisa had some terminal disease? Or a new condition that would cause her to deteriorate? God, how much more of this did we have to go through? How much more did we have to suffer—
“Hey, honey, hey.” Lisa’s hand is in mine, her thumb gently brushing across my skin as she gently pulls me to sit down on the cot next to her. “It’s not…okay, I won’t lie and say that it’s not bad. It really sucks! But the doctors say it’s something that I can recover from. So don’t work yourself up, okay?”
“Okay,” I say, squeezing her hand back in a motion that’s become second nature to me now. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. I promise.” Lisa smiles at me in a way that I’ve never seen before, something warm and bright, and then she glances away with a chuckle as if embarrassed. I notice with a bit of shock that she’s blushing a little.
“It’s funny. I…your voice is so familiar. I don’t quite remember what you said, but I know you were the one talking to me while I was out. And even without the retrograde amnesia, I… I think I would be able to tell just by looking at you.”
The words retrograde amnesia hits my brain with all the impact of two bullets to the head, and I’m so busy trying to process that bombshell that I almost miss—
“The doctor said that all signs point to this being temporary and that memories should come back to me before too long, but don't worry! Like I said, the staff here filled me in about you and how dedicated you are and...honestly, even if they hadn't, I would have known." Lisa leans up on the bed, her face hovering closer and closer. "From the moment you walked in the room and I saw you, I just...felt it, you know? Even right now, I just...want to be next to you." Inches away. "I may not remember our time together, but I definitely remember loving you."
Um, I think, as Lisa leans in and nuzzles into my neck. What? “I’m so lucky to have such an amazing girlfriend.”
…WHAT?