one last chance

chpt 21

Chapter 21

Roberto Moretti de Luca was Italian/English by heritage. It didn’t show. His features strongly resembled his father’s side of the family. The only hint at his English heritage showed in the lighter tone of his olive skin. He knew he was a looker and to be completely honest he was more than a bit cocky about it. He could be a ladies’ man when he wanted to be and his male friends constantly berated him for it. Which is why he would put his own balls in a vice before he admitted to them that he volunteered at the hospital because he liked it, as far as his friends knew he did it because he needed the volunteer hours for his already impressive resume.

This particular night he was on a volunteer night shift in the children’s ward. The hospital, currently understaffed, employed a nurse and two nurses aids per floor for the ward for the night shift. To compensate for this they also had a volunteer per floor to do things like fetch extra pillows or glasses of juice or water or even just sit with the kids if the nightmares came. He was working the terminal care ward, where the kids with cancer stayed, and if he felt like being honest with himself, the sight of the children’s bald heads gleaming in the moonlight didn’t break his heart he did know what would. He wasn’t a completely heartless bastard, that’s was good o’le dads job.

------------------------ ------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- -------------- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Dawn woke up for the umpteenth time that night unable to see. She carefully listen to the breathing around her. The long deep breaths coming from somewhere on her right told her that Buffy was sound asleep. Dawn was glad she hadn’t woken up when Dawn herself did. Ever sense waking up and discovering she had a broken arm and was blind to boot she hadn’t had much alone time. There were either doctors wanting to check her eyes or her arm or her various small cuts and bruises or a concerned member of the Scooby gang or Anne there by her side asking her if there was anything she needed and wanted.

Yeah there’s something I need. I need my damn sight back, she wanted to scream at them, knowing it wouldn’t do any good she forced herself to hold her tongue. Hearing her sister was soundly asleep Dawn felt around her. Her hand connected to the bed railing and she had an idea. There was no reason she couldn’t get up and walk.

Sure there is Donnie girl, she thought to herself, you can’t see a damn thing is one of them. Laughing cynically at herself she decided to try anyway. After all she was blind now. Couldn’t really get much worse now, could it.

Dawn slowly eased her legs over the edge of the bed. She felt around for the bed controller that was always in reach and slowly lowered the bed until her feet made contact with the cold, hard hospital floor. Gripping the rail Dawn slowly rose to her feet, by feeling from the bed to the wall she managed to find the door, thankfully it was open. Easing her way out into the hall Dawn paused for a moment to adjust her arm in her sling. Turning so her good arm faced the wall she let her left hand guide her way.

After about four minutes of literally blindly feeling her way down the hall and around the corners of the hospital Dawn realized this may not have been her best idea. Her ward was fairly low key with minimal staff. Only a nurse and an aid patrolled during the night. It was late enough all the cleaning and clerical staff had long retreated to their own beds. Dawn had no idea how she planned on getting back to her own bed and if she had to be honest she didn’t really care.

Dawn paused in the hall. Somewhere ahead of her she heard a small child’s giggle. She smiled gently to herself. Yeah she was pissed at the world but hearing a kid laugh still made her smile. She heard a lower, male sounding voice say something she couldn’t quite make out. Not wanting to spoil the moment by wandering past whatever room they were in Dawn decided to turn around and try to find her way back, or find someone to help her find her way back. Realizing she couldn’t feel the wall with her right hand due to the full arm cast and sling she made her way to cross the hall.