Last Hope - (Sarah Paulson & Holland Taylor)

HURT

TW : Mention of Rape and Assaults, Blood, Anxiety

Sarah POV :

Meredith asked all the nurses to leave and we remained Lizzie, her and I in the room. She suggested me to sit and she did the same. She took a file and a pen, and raised her eyes to meet mine, then Lizzie's.

"Okay honey, I know this is not going to be easy for you but we need to treat you the best we can, and for that I need to know what happened to you, with the most details you can." Meredith said, giving a reassuring look at Lizzie, but she was stern and seemed concerned.

We both knew deep down what happened, but we needed to hear it.

Lizzie stared at her lap, which was still a bleeding mess. She started fidgeting with her fingers so I took her hand in mine and stroked it, then, a huge silence filled the room.

"If it's hard to speak, I can ask you questions and you can just answer by nodding to say yes and shaking your head to say no. Does that sounds good ?" Meredith demanded and Lizzie simply nodded.

"Alright." Meredith sighed. "Did someone hurt you ?"

Lizzie nodded.

"Did someone hit your face ? Is it why you have some bruises ?"

"Mmmmh." Whispered my sweet girl.

Meredith wrote something down on the file and kept going.

"Did this person hurt you anywhere else ?"

Lizzie nodded again, blushing a bit of embarrassment.

"Did this person assaulted you sexually ?"

Lizzie froze. Her eyes filled with tears and I could hear her heartbeat from where I was sitting.

"Lizzie ?" Asked again Meredith.

A new silence filled the room before Lizzie sobbed out a painful "Yes".

My heart broke, even if I guessed when I first saw the blood what happened. Who could ever hurt a so sweet and pure soul ?

Meredith asked a couple of other casual questions to Lizzie, who was crying silently. I wiped her tears but she wasn't moving and she kept wetting her cheeks by another wave of tears as soon as the previous one were dry.

Lizzie POV :

After the questions, Meredith stood up and went to the corridor. She asked few female nurses to come preparing me for the examination and she moved her finger mentioning for Sarah to meet her outside. I was able to see them, but not hear what they were talking about. When they came back, Sarah had a weird look on her face. I was scared of what they were going to do to me. For my previous assaults, I never went to hospital because no one cared about how hurt I was. But this time they did, they cared. Sarah cared.

Sarah sat again next to me and started to speak. "Lizzie honey, they need to examine you, to make sure you don't have internal injury. They need to clean you up for the exam and then take a look at... At where you're hurt."

My eyes filled with tears again as I understand that they were going to touch me, where I was assaulted yesterday. I was so scared, and this area was so sensitive and painful, and above all it was my intimacy and so many people already violated it.

"Do you understand what I'm saying my dear ?" Asked Sarah as I wasn't answering.

I took all the strength I had to reply.

"Yes, I- I do. But I can't. Pl-please, don't make me do that." I was shaking.

"Oh sweet girl, I wish I could take all the pain you have and make it disappear. But I can't, and we really need to make sure that you're okay."

"But I'm not !" I screamed and started sobbing uncontrollably. Sarah took me in her embrace and hugged me as tight as she could. She was shushing reassuring things at my ears and it made me calm down a little.

She slowly pulled away and Dr Grey entered the room.

"Are you ready ?" She asked softly.

I sighed but I knew I had to do it. So I nodded and lie on my bed, closing my eyes to hide my tears, and my fear.