Chapter Text
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She dreams of warm sand between her toes, and an endless ocean cascading in over the shoreline, burying her feet deep in the sand. It’s such peaceful place. She is filled with the most wonderful calm.
She is not alone. Someone she loves is standing next to her.
—
The fluorescent light hits Bea’s eyeballs like a sledgehammer and she squeezes her eyes shut in shock. The remains of her dream is blurring with the unavoidable present. The temporary loss of her sight makes her disoriented. Her surroundings are eerily quiet, except for a distant buzzing sound, and there is a faint smell of rubber and disinfectant hovering in the air.
Her mouth is dry. She scrapes her tongue against the roof of her mouth. It tastes like copper. Her arms feel heavy and not like her own.
Where the hell is she?
She covers her eyes with her numbed hand and angles her head to look around the room, her sight slowly adjusting to the blinding lights above. A burly screw she doesn’t immediately recognize is sleeping on a chair in a corner.
It’s a hospital.
A faint stab of pain ripples in her abdomen. She gasps, and it all comes rushing back. The screwdriver, Ferguson...
Allie.
Her heart goes immediately cold as it dawns on her.
“No”, she croaks, her voice small in the huge room.
She’s still here.
Why the fuck is she still here?!
“No!” she moans. “No!” Soon she is screaming at the top of her lungs, the sounds coming out of her barely human.
The screw is by her side, trying to restrain her flailing arms that are ripping at all the wires coming out of her body. “Nurse!” he bellows, and she clocks him right in the nose.
The pain in her stomach is acute now that she’s moving. She doesn’t care. It cannot cancel out the agony of the realization that she is still here, while Allie will never be again.
She doesn’t know where she wants to go, just away from here. Just right out the bloody window.
But she cannot get away. The screw is bleeding profusely, but he is effectively pinning her down to the bed. Her body has been drained, all her strength has run away from her, but that doesn’t stop her from struggling. She just needs everything to stop.
People in scrubs come rushing in. “Calm down love, you’re going to hurt yourself”, she hears someone say underneath her own howls of despair. “We’re going to sedate you now, okay?”
As she feels the sting of the needle and her body slacken against the mattress, all she can hear is her own distant voice saying “No. No. No.”
—
The next time she drifts awake, her head is throbbing. It takes her a while to come to. She cannot quite reach all the corners of her mind. It’s like wading through thick layers of quicksand. But then she remembers Allie slumped on the shower room floor and that everything is over. Tears are already dripping down her cheeks.
When her eyes are finally able to focus, she finds Will Jackson looking at her from the foot of the bed.
“Hey Smith. Good to see you.” He smiles slightly. “I’m sorry we had to cuff you to the bed. You fractured Hodgins’ nose last time you were up.”
She turns her head away from him. “Leave me alone.”
She feels like she might retch any second. How is it possible to hurt this much and not die from it? She had asked herself the same question over and over when Debbie died. She knows all too well that no matter how much she wants it to, this is an ache that doesn’t kill. It just festers on your flesh forever, scarring the soul beyond recognition.
“Look, Bea…”
“Just go away.” She starts sobbing helplessly. “I’m not supposed to be here”, she cries. ”Why couldn’t you just let me die? Why didn’t you just let me…” She buries her face in the pillow, the wracking sobs killing her intestines, but she cannot stop.
“Bea. Bea!” Mr. Jackson is close now, cradling her head between his huge hands. “Listen to me.”
She tries to half-heartedly push him away with her free hand, but she doesn’t have the strength.
“Listen! Novak has been asking after you.”
It’s so cruel, how can he say such a thing? “Fuck off,” she caws, and struggles to get out of his grip.
“Bea! She woke up two days ago.”
“What?” Bea’s mind grinds to a complete halt. Is he lying just to fuck with her? But this is Mr. Jackson, and his face looks so honest… She wants to believe him so badly. “But, she… They said she wasn’t…”
“She was in real bad shape. But she’s recovering. She’s in a ward a few floors above you, right now.”
”She’s…” Bea keeps crying uncontrollably, unable to wrap her head around this new information. ”She’s going to survive?”
”We had to restrain her to the bed when she heard you were here too.” He looks at her, nothing but well meaning and kindness in his eyes. ”I think she’ll be just fine.”
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