Are you tough enough?

Hold me

That night Robert barely slept. Every time he doze off some beeping from the IV pump or something would wake him up again.

His eyes were fixed on her bp number on the monitor that brought the only light into the otherwise dark room. Every hour or so an intern would come in and check the stats but Andy only woke up twice and was always fast asleep again.

Slowly the dark got lighter as the sun came up and made her way through the blinds.

When the door opened Robert thought it was another check up but to his surprise it was Amelia.
A: "Coffee?" She whispered.
R: "That would be great!"
He carefully got out of the bed making sure he wouldn't wake up Andy.

He adjusted the blanket over Andy before he walked out of the room with Amelia. They stood in front of the class window of her room and every few seconds Robert would peak inside.
A: "Here" she said as she held out the coffee to him.
R: "Thank you." He drank some.

A: "How is she doing?"
R: "Worse again..." he stroke over his head with his free hand.
A: "And you? Did you get any sleep?"
R: "I'm good, I got some sleep and yea I'm good." He said and took another sip from the hot coffee.

A: "Robert..." Amelia sighed. "You don't have to talk to me, I'm not your sponsor but please talk to someone. You can't forget about your own health."
R: "I'm not. I talked to Richard yesterday and I'll call him again later." He defended himself.

A: "Alright, I should probably go. I need to start my rounds." She started walking away.
R: "Thank you for the coffee Amelia."
Amelia turned around to him and smiled before she kept on walking.

He walked back into the room and settled down on the couch, finishing his coffee waiting for rounds and for Andy to wake up.

When he saw the group of doctors approaching their room he decided to wake Andy up.
R: "Andy, time to wake up. Dr Pierce will be here any second." He gently cares her cheek with his thumb to wake her up.
A: "Good morning."
R: "Good morning." He placed a gentle and short kiss on her lips before the group of doctors bursted into the room.

P: "So i got filled in outside, I figured you two needed another second. In the last two hours your stats were holding, so we will keep monitoring you and hopefully they will improve soon. If not we should talk about other options like surgery, a high bp like that over a long time can be damaging as well."

R: "Surgery?"
P: "Yes, we would try to cut away the infected part. But we can talk about this if we get there. For now we will wait and see."

A: "Okey."
P: "That's it for right now, so I'll leave you two be."
R: "Thank you dr. Pierce."
And the doctors all left.

Andy sat up, she struggled a little but made it. Her bun had completely fallen down and her hair was a mess. She wanted to put her hair in a new bun but her arms felt so heavy she was struggling.

R: "Let me." He said as he reached out for her hair tie.
A: "Make my hair?" She chuckled slightly but gave him the hair tie anyways.

R: "Yea sure!" He said confidently. He took her hair in his hands but then paused again. "Uhm so, what - how am I doing this?"
A: "Just get all the hair together and put it into a low ponytail."

Robert tried his best but he had to admit it wasn't his best work.
R: "Well that... Uhm yea... doesn't look too great."

A: "Then good thing no one will see me." She said as she laid back down.
R: "Are you sure you don't want them to come? Maya keeps asking, and so do the others."
A: "I am sure. I don't want them to see me like this. And I'm fine so no need for them to come."
R: "Hmh, sure."