Moral of the Story

Chapter Sixteen

The next day was what everyone had said it would be... Multiplied by ten. Thank God for the opiates that Sherri had prescribed for her, or else she wouldn't have been able to step out of bed.

Hell, she hadn't been able to step out of bed. She had to wait for the pain meds to kick in before she even had enough motivation to go to the bathroom. They weren't kidding about the next day's soreness.

Y/N had relocated to the downstairs couch for the most part of the day. After getting home last night, she didn't have a standing chance of taking a shower as sudden exhaustion took over her body. She barely made it upstairs to her room before she fell asleep on her bed. The hallway carpet seemed more comfortable than taking the next ten steps to her room once she hit the top of the stairs.

Her father was the amazing father he was, though, and was helping her with everything. He even picked out her clothes and laid them out for her so she wouldn't have to worry about the small steps. 

Did he pick an old high school sweatshirt with mix-matched old pajama pants that somehow magically still fit? Yes, and they were comfortable and easy to put on. That's all she needed right now. It was a good thing she liked oversized clothes in high school because they fit perfectly on her almost 30-year-old body.

For the first half of the day, she mainly slept and laid around. She got up a few times to try and stretch her muscles just by going to the back porch or something, but the pain pills made her loopy and tired.

So once her first dose wore off, she took a few hours break to do normal things before the pain set back in. Taking a shower was the first thing on her list.

It was about 3 in the afternoon now, and she had watched at least five episodes of Criminal Minds in a row. Drifting off into little cat naps throughout it.

As she was about to drift off for the 50th time in the last hour, she heard the doorbell ring. She jumped slightly at the noise, but before she could question it, she heard her father say he was coming to the surprise guest.

"Hey!" Thomas smiled as he opened the door to Bucky.

"Hey, how is she?" Bucky asked, returning the smile and stepping into the house.

"Stubborn as ever. I finally got her to take another dose of the meds after she swore them off after the first round," Thomas sighed, moving to the kitchen.

"Not a fan of the loopy stuff?" Bucky asked, following behind him.

"Not at all. She said she hates feeling like she was going to fall over any second from spontaneous vertigo," Thomas answered as they turned into the kitchen to talk privately before facing the open-concept living room, where she was laid out on the couch. "I have to force her to keep the brace on, too. The bulk of it is aggrivating her."

"Yeah, I may or may not have stolen some equipment from work to hopefully help out with that. I hear a lot of complaints about those braces. Definitely aren't fun when you want to sleep."

"Hey, since you're here, do you mind if I go on an errand run?" Thomas asked, turning to Bucky, who was watching Y/N's now sleeping figure on the couch. "I was going through the pantry to cook some dinner for us later and realized I'm in desperate need of a grocery run. I only stocked up on vegetarian food for a few days."

"Yeah, I can do that," Bucky nodded with a smile. "Take a quick break from babysitting. I'll take care of Everest."

"Thank you, Buck," he patted his back before grabbing the keys off the counter and moving to the fridge for the grocery list. "She's been sleeping and resting most of the days. Besides the meds and the brace, she's been easy. Like I said, I finally got her to take some painkillers a little over 30 minutes ago, so they should be kicking in soon."