"What are you doing here?" Max's tone was harsh, a snap through the silent air of the hospital waiting room. It was a stark contrast to the monotone pages, and steps down the non-slip floored hallway. When Lando looked up from where he was sitting, staring down at the bouquet of flowers in his hand, he was met with the hostile gaze of his teammate.
"I could ask you the same question." Lando's tone was quiet, defeated, like all the fight had been taken from him. His eyes were almost permanently bloodshot from all tears he had shed over the past few days, and the bags under his eyes showed the amount of sleep he had gotten in the same days.
Something slid over Max's face as his eyes traveled over his teammates face, realization? Understanding? He wasn't sure, but his shoulders slumped from the weight of everything, and he turned back to the flowers and the cream-colored tile floor. "I just want to make sure she's okay." Lando breathed, his voice hitching on the final words.
"Same." Max nodded towards the flowers in Lando's hands. "Nice flowers." He commented, taking the seat across from him.
"You too." Lando said looking up towards the flowers. "Daisy's, her favorite." Max nodded, setting the flowers down on the seat beside him.
"Those are?" He nodded towards the bouquet of purple flowers in Lando's hands.
"Lilac's." Lando twisted them within his hands. "We went to a lilac field once, not long ago," his voice broke again as he brought one of his hands over his lips, "I just remember how the purple brought out the grey in her eyes." He bit his lip, the entire time his eyes remained on the flowers.
Max nodded, not knowing what to say, or if there was anything he really could say in that moment. So, they sat in silence for awhile under the florescent lights of the hospital waiting room. Each of them sitting in a mass-produced deep green and wooden chair. An arrangement of magazines were spread out over the coffee table between them, an abandoned Styrofoam cup sitting along the edge.
"Have you heard anything?" Max asked, his tone cautious. Lando didn't' look up from the flowers, just ran a hair through his mess of chocolate brown hair and shook his head.
"They won't tell me anything, won't even let me see her." Max nodded, leaning back in his chair; that had been the line he had been fed the last time he had tried to visit. "Levi's in with her though."
"When did he get here?"
"He never left." Max nodded, glancing down the hall towards the light bustling of nurses, and hospital staff in and out of the intensive care unit. It wasn't as busy as I would be during the day, or during the past few times Max had tried to come to visit. "He's her only family, they let him stay the night. You know," he paused swallowing, "just in case." Max nodded, understanding his meaning, also realizing that based on Lando's wrinkled hoodie and sweats that he probably hadn't left either.
Not long after the silence between them fell again, and the only sound being the light bustling of staff as well as the near muted tv commentary, a man walked into the waiting room. He paused at the door surveying the two men and sighed. Bringing both of their attentions to him.
"I thought you both might be here." Levi said running a hand through his messy dirty blond hair.
"What did he doctor say?" Max asked, pushing himself to the edge of his seat. Lando just stared at Levi expectantly. His eyes full and anticipatingly waiting. Levi sighed and sat down leaving a chair between him and Lando.
"I'm taking her home." Levi didn't look at either of them, instead he focused on an invisible piece of lint on the sleeve of his long-sleeve university shirt. "I signed the paperwork last night." Lando's eyes widened in surprise, he had been there the night before, waiting for any news. Levi never looked at him.
"She woke up?" Max asked, he glanced from Levi to Lando who just silently stared at him. When he looked back at Levi, he was shaking his head. "I thought the doctors said to wait till she woke up to move her."
"It's been long enough to allow her body the time to heal, physically at least." Levi let out another long breath. "There is no reason for her not to be awake, she's just not." He threw his hands up in defeat. "I'm sorry, I wish I had better news, I really do."
"So, what do we do now?" Lando asked, desperation seeping into his voice. "When is she going to wake up?" Levi glanced between the two of them, each had their own level of desperation, exhaustion, and pain on their faces. The looks on their faces threatened the last few threads that were holding Levi together.
"They don't know when she's going to wake up, do they?" It was Max who spoke the words, but Levi's shadow of a head nod that made them true.
"But..." Lando stuttered looking back down at the flowers in his hands. "She has to wake up." His voice broke, his breathing shaking as he tried to bring air in and out of his lungs. "She just has too."
"She will." Levi said, mustering up all the strength he had to reach across the chair separating them to touch his knee. "She just needs more time." His tone was absent of the hope that the three of them really need. "There's a facility closer to home that has an open bed, they'll take good care of her. Until" he trailed off swallowing, "until she's ready." Lando nodded. "And we need to get back to our lives." Levi's hand retracted. "She'd kick our asses for sitting around like this waiting for her." Max let out a broken laugh.
"You've got that right." Max nodded, smiling despite the situation. "We can still come visit right?" He added, after seeing the look of defeat on Lando's face. Levi's let out a long sigh and ran a hand over his exhausted face.
"I think it's best, for everyone," he didn't look at either of them, "if you say goodbye here."
"I don't want to say goodbye." Lando said in the same shaky tone. "I don't know how too." As his tone cracked again, this time a few tears slid free of his shimmering eyes. Neither of the other two men in the room made any more to comfort him, in a way neither of them knew how.
"It's not forever, mate." Max said after a few moments of silence. "It's just for now." Max met Levi's gaze who gave him a silent nod of gratitude as a few tears slid out of his own eyes. Max could, in a way, imagine what Lando was feeling, but not Levi. That much pain, he couldn't imagine. "If we know anything about our Arabella," he cleared his throat after his own voice threatened to break on him, "it's that she's stubborn. This is not how she goes out." Lando and Levi both nodded. "She'd kick our ass for thinking it is." Levi let out a broken laugh that blended into a sob.
Lando just stared at the lilacs in his hands, tears now dripping onto their pedals and stems.
YOU ARE READING
He's my teammate
Fanfiction**There will be some edits over the next few months** Arabella Van Dijk is a well-known Dutch snowboarder, especially after taking her place on the podium at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games. As a Red Bull sponsored athlete no less. After her...
