Chapter Text
The itch on her nose is what ends up waking the woman on the bed, drawn further from her slumber by the steady beeping noise sounding to the side of wherever she is laying.
Helen remembered getting off of work, and feeling short of breath. Maybe she’d fainted in her car again? Ugh. At least she knew the car wouldn’t start without the key in the ignition, and her habit of just sitting in the seat and relaxing for a few minutes after each shift had stood her in good stead.
Still, she can’t fathom what the beeping is, and swipes vaguely in that direction with one hand, as if trying to stop her annoying alarm. Though, her arm feels weirdly heavy, and stiff. Sore.
A warm human hand is not something she expects to contact and she recoils from the touch with a spark of alarm, a hastily wheezed breath starts a whole host of beeping from the side of the bed.
Forcing her heavy eyes open, she blurrily tries to take the room in, head weakly wobbling on the pillow.
Okay, more than one person. Three…three blurry people, two of whom are blurs as they hurriedly step into the room at the sound of the speedy beeps.
A low moan escapes her as one hand is caught again, the woman to the side speaking something in relieved tones, her small hands grasping Helen’s stiff one with fierce strength.
Who is this person? Helen’s glacially slow mind just isn’t catching up fast enough, so she simply clenches her hand gently around the blonde woman’s, which seems to immediately bring tears to the woman’s eyes.
The other two in the room, from what Helen’s tired eyes can see, might be a doctor and a tall pale blonde man with pale blue eyes, wearing some sort of suit.
Thoroughly confused, Helen tries to speak, but finds that as her awareness spreads, she cannot. Something sits between her teeth, secured by paper tape that sits over the bridge of her nose. A square of metal sits on the back of her left hand,
A soft huff escapes around the piece in her mouth, and she stares uncomprehendingly at the three in front of her.
The woman shifts in her seat, and starts to speak directly to Helen, her voice filled with relief and exhaustion. That, however, is not English.
Helen’s brows slowly furrow, and she stares in confusion at the woman, who is desperately trying to tell her something. Even more confused, she lifts her gaze to the men, who glance at one another, before the blonde hand leans forward to set a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
Startled, the blonde woman glances up at the tall man, speaking to him in a wavering voice, to which he responds with something soothing.
Why do the words sound familiar? Helen isn’t sure. It has a cadence that she recognizes just a little, but just…the tip of her tired brain wasn’t up to the task of heavy thinking for now.
Instead, she simply gently squeezes the woman’s hand once more, abruptly drawing their attention back to her before she tries to smile around the mouthpiece, her eyes so heavy.
The woman’s voice is soothing, and the gentle stroking of the back of her hand is enough to send Helen’s confused mind back into the realm of slumber.
~
It is almost a week before Helen is strong enough to sit up in bed. The breathing piece in her mouth had been removed after she was capable of being propped, though the ability to ask What the hell was going on was delayed by the intense soreness of her throat.
The same woman had barely left, almost always clutched onto Helen’s pale hand, gently stroking the back of it. It had been confusing, but soothing, and in the current circumstance, she wasn’t going to question any kindness.
The tall blonde man and the Doctor never went far, and had popped in quite often, leaving Helen to believe that either both of them worked at this location, or the blonde woman and the tall man were a couple? Very confusing.
Taking a deep breath, Helen reclaims her hand back from the woman before gently starting to explore the tape stuck to the upper left of her forehead, which seems to be rather small, and just covers the skin, and perhaps a little into her hair. Okay…not so bad then. Nothing huge. Maybe she hit her head on the steering wheel?
Huffing softly, Helen nudges herself a little more upright, absently reaching up to run a hand through her brown curls…only to find her fingers getting stuck in much longer strands.
Stilling with her fingers still stuck in the hair, she takes a moment to think. It's possible her hair is so dirty that it's just straightened out, but even fully stretched it would never be this long. She’d gotten a haircut not a week before, cropping her brown hair to just under her chin.
Slowly, as if fighting the urge to discover what is happening, she grips a large handful of strands, pulling it over her shoulder. Yes, it is dirty, oily, and with what seems to be hints of sand, and dirt, but that doesn’t hide the sheer length of the blonde tresses that spill over her shoulder.
Confusion settles in heavily as she stares fixedly at the platinum blonde, or the slender hand that grips said hair, with long fingers and carefully manicured nails that still have bits of dust and sand under them.
This is wrong.
Slowly, Helen’s breathing starts to pick up, glancing jerkily around the room. She needs a mirror, any mirror. Something is very wrong, and she needs to confirm. Something happened.
Mirror in the bathroom. There is always a mirror in the bathrooms of private hospital rooms.
Shaky hands whip the thin hospital blankets off of her pale long legs, ignoring the panicked noises of the blonde woman, she hauls herself off the bed, and staggers to the second door in the room, ignoring the shriek of the alarms as they go off, separated from their sensors on the back of her hand. Jerkily, she digs her fingernails around the small gray square and tears it away, ignoring the pain from the needle inside of it being ripped out, throwing it to the floor as she wobbles.
Slamming open the door, she staggers to the mirror, one hand flailing desperately at the light.
In the moment she gets a good glimpse at her own face, she stills…and screams.