Warm Bodies: Awakening

Watching Over You

Julie lay on the thin hospital bed pulled up against R's own. Her arm was curled under her head, her blonde hair splayed over her pillow, her hand resting gently in his. She watched him. The steady rise and fall of his chest as the ventilator hissed and jerked, the faint pulse of life in his neck, the tiny movements of his eyelids as he dreamed.

She was absorbed in every detail of his face - the soft curve of his lips, the small scars that seemed angrily flushed with red now as they healed. His cheekbones, much softer now than they had been as... as a corpse. It was hard to think of him that way now.

He frowned deeply, the motion dramatic but fleeting. He'd done that a few times now, and Julie hated to see it. Every time those brows of his drew sharply together, her heart ached, and she wished she could ease whatever was haunting him in those moments. She squeezed his hand instead, and whispered softly that she was there. He'd relax then for a few moments, his featured easing into stillness, until slowly the dark mood, whatever it was, gathered over him again.

Eventually she realized that she was now focused on him as much as he had been fixated on her when they first met, and her cheeks flushed red.

But she couldn't pull away. She realized she could watch him for hours more, lost in everything that made him R, now so beautifully human. It wasn't that he was very handsome, even with the scars on his face - heck, even as a zombie he'd been strangely attractive. It was this fragile life he held now, his past that she had yet to discover, the name that he'd lost. His struggle to be with her, to connect with another human being, and the fact that in doing so, he'd found his own soul. This is what she was in love with, the yearning, hopeful being who'd clawed his way out of a grave to be with her, because he wanted to live.

A lone tear fell slowly down the side of her cheek, and she let it fall.

What would happen next? She had no idea, and it scared her. What would all of their lives be like in a year, if - when, he pulled through this? She'd seen the change in him, and knew that the other dead were changing. And she'd heard about the skeletons, those horrible demonic things, how they were being hunted now, destroyed. Everything was changing, and somehow she and R were at the center of the tempest. The source of it. There was a terrifying expectation there, and she wasn't sure what to do about it, how to stuff down the fear coiled in her gut. Would she do the right thing? Would what they had grow, or would it fade away, leaving them all lost and confused? Would he change back if she wasn't with him all the time? Would he... die?

That idea horrified her. He'd actually died in that other room. His heart had stopped beating. If Stephen hadn't brought her in to be with him... What kind of responsibility was that? How could she hold his life in her hands like that?

She stared at him, and a moment back at the plane flashed in her mind. The first time he had said it, sitting on the arm of the chair, those incredible words.

"Keep you safe."

She echoed it in the present back at him, without really meaning too, her voice a soft whisper.

And he had. He'd saved her over and over. She was his responsibility, and he never flinched from that. She had to find that same strength and be there for him now. To keep him safe.

A frown passed across his brow again, and only then did she realize that her knuckles were white against his hand. She was squeezing it so hard her hand actually hurt.

"God, sorry... sorry," she whispered to him, and let go for a moment, shaking the pain out, trying to restore circulation.

"I always seem to get you hurt," she said softly, lacing her fingers in his again, and lightly traced the curves of his index finger with her thumb. "I hurt you when I left you didn't I... back at that house. After you told me..."

The feelings of that evening washed over her again, and she closed her eyes against the wave. Again she felt the odd need she'd had for him to be a little closer that night at the house, the confusion she'd felt when she realized just how much it would hurt her if he was killed, shot in the head, just like any other corpse. That strange realization that he meant so much more to her than she truly admitted to herself or even understood.

And then the moment when he'd placed Perry's watch on the bedside table.

That horrible moment, when everything inside her lurched. The horrible shame and guilt that had clawed at her gut, at finding herself drawn to a being who had ripped the life from the man she'd loved.

She'd heard him apologize, after she'd turned away, but she couldn't take it. All she'd wanted to do at that moment was retreat inside herself, curl up in a little ball and not feel. Not feel so terribly, horribly, wrong.

And when she'd woken with a start, and found R curled up beside the bed completely unresponsive, she knew she had to leave. It was time to go. He would be safe away from her father, and she could leave the guilt behind and move on. It had been so incredibly hard though. Stepping out of the doorway he'd broken, driving away in the car he'd crashed, without him. The further she drove, the tighter her heart felt, until when the car finally ran out of gas and she had to walk the last mile to the wall, she was sure she would start sobbing and never stop.

Just like she was crying now, holding his hand, lying next to him in this improvised ICU. The tears fell freely, and she let them, realizing she was letting go a lot of the pain that had followed her around this past week. Even before Perry died. The pain of seeing his hope wither and fade. His death. It was good to let go.

Finally, the tears slowed, and she wiped her face against her pillow and released a long sigh. It felt... better.

She was going to be okay. R was going to be okay. They'd just take everything one moment at a time, and let fate unfold as it would.

Julie drew closer to R, curling up against his body as much as she dared amidst the wires and tubes. Resting her head against his shoulder, she traced his fingers in her own and sighed.

"We're going to be okay," she whispered, and gradually relaxed into an easy sleep.