Break

Chapter 5

Shayne has a disjointed sleep, although he does sleep. He isn't surprised when Courtney is still resting soundly when he finally gives up on any further of his own rest somewhere around 6am, just as Emma tries to silently step into the room to, he guesses, do her morning rounds.

"Oh, morning Shayne," she whispers, when she glances across and notices he's awake, but Courtney isn't.

"Hi," he replies, quietly, shifting a little to un-recline the chair and sit up properly, "thanks for all... this."

"No worries. Not all the nurses will let you do that, but I don't see any harm," she replies, "I'll be back in with someone else for shift changeover in a couple of hours, but hey – she has a private bathroom just over here, feel free to shower or freshen up or anything if you'd like to."

She gestures to the door at the side of the room, and Shayne nods at her before she steps out again. He doesn't hate the idea, he feels a little gross, but he's sure as shit not going to risk Courtney waking up without him there.

That possibility is quickly removed, though, when he hears her stir and wake only a few minutes later, mumbling a sleepy good morning at him as she does. She blinks a few times, and she twists a little to the side to face him. She can move a little more freely, now that they've removed some of the wires that were attached to her head.

"I wonder what happens today," she mumbles, and Shayne shrugs.

"I think it depends on the test results from yesterday, they said they'd have them this morning," he tells her.

"I hope they let me sit up. And eat real food, maybe. I think I could," she muses, before switching topic, "did you sleep okay?"

"I slept a bit, yeah," he answers, "did you?"

"Yeah. I was so tired. I feel like... way better this morning, though," she replies.

Courtney gets her wish about real food, almost, when for the first time in her now almost-three-weeks in hospital, one of the food staff knocks on the door and moves into the room with breakfast, Emma trailing behind her, not long after she wakes. Emma quickly explains what parts of the breakfast the doctors had said she was allowed to try – the juice, the scrambled eggs, the plain toast – and she implies, although doesn't outright say, she ordered the full breakfast for her anyway for Shayne's purpose.

The second pair of cutlery does make it pretty obvious.

So, they share their crappy hospital breakfast, Courtney feeling herself almost immediately brighten up as she's able to actually eat some real food, her bed raised on the slightest incline so she can kind of eat from the table swung over the bed in front of her. Her hands feel awkward and out of practice as she holds the cutlery, and she has to get Shayne to cut up the toast for her, but it's something. It's food.

(And he happily takes the cup of fresh fruit, chicken breakfast sausage and roast tomato that she wasn't allowed to eat.)

He mentions the shower idea to her, after they finish, and although she grumbles out her own jealousy in the knowledge that she hasn't had a shower for weeks and she does indeed feel gross as hell, she tells him she doesn't mind.

"You know," Courtney grabs his attention, as he moves towards the bathroom, causing him to turn back to face her, "I keep hearing them talking about how like – they're worried my personality will have changed, or something. And I don't think it has, but- I have a request, and it might sound out of character, but I promise you it's something I've been thinking for years but I was too scared to say it until you spent four days telling me how much you love me..."

"Yeah?" Shayne prompts, eyebrow raised, not sure where she's going.

"I don't get to see you shirtless nearly as much as I'd like to. You think you can take it off before you go into the bathroom?" she asks, smirking. It makes him laugh out loud, feeling his cheeks go red.