04.
❝and if it's quite all right
i need you, baby
to warm these lonely nights❞
— i love you baby
—
She breathed. For how long before she stopped mumbling, started hurting more, because the damage was too good for the clotting capacity, all these things only her carrier, Kenji Louvis knows.
Marlin clears the way.
Kenji didn't doubt the process. He only rushed through it. 20 feet is a lot, the chances of her making it out alive were less than zero. Negative numbers.
Her blood clung to his skin.
Her black frame was attached to him as if she was budding, as if he was the plant she grew out of. And yet, looking at her soft, tormented expression — it was evident that this is no beginning. This is how it ends.
"Just hang in there," Kenji only recalls whispering that, copper filling his senses as he reached out to fight her angel of death. "You have a home... It's on Earth, angel... You aren't going to heaven just yet," he encouraged her weakly.
Marlin did most of the talking.
Thanks to the connections, perks of being famous, Willow Harding was immediately rolled onto a stretcher and carried away to the Emergency room, of the city hospital.
—
"I brought a fresh change of clothes," said Marlin in a tender manner. Kenji appeared to be a hillside house on its last leg. On Kenji's shoulder, he laid a comforting hand. Shook.
"I heard you... I'm just... Do you think... Do I?" Followed with a lip tremor.
He folded arms, covered knees and chin, in the lobby they sat — a strange thing to cry over a stranger's corpse.
"I'll get you some coffee." Momentarily, Marlin decides to leave his side. His eyes are on the white tiles anyway, and everything he smells smells like a head injury, clotted blood, maroon in vision—
He turns on heel at a sharp turn. "—And biscuits... Wouldn't you like to meet her when she's okay? I know I would," he urged his sir to hope. "I... "Kenji stops.
"Of course, sir! Count on me -"
That's when a man in scrub appears.
"Lou---vis? Louis?" Kenji acknowledged him. "The patient has severe head injury. Possible amnesia..."
"What?"
"Yes. Few stitches, maybe leg fractures. How did this.," the doctor trails off. Looking a little shocked himself.
He checks his notepad. "I have no idea," Kenji balls a fist, frustrated. "Is it too late? Please, please be honest. I need to hear it from you," and grabs the doctor almost if it hadn't been for Marlin minding him, restraining him from back.
The hospital is a heartless place. Nobody even glances their way. It's all regular drama.
"She's alive... We found a pulse"
Kenji bites lip as not to be too relieved. Not yet.
"Her condition is very critical. Do you have other relatives?"
"Other relatives?" Marlin voices his confusion.
"She's... Um, his sister in law, yes?"
The man looks in between them, glances back, and finally meets with Kenji's gaze. He's clueless. "Well, you can meet her in an hour, if you want."
"Yes," Marlin speaks first.
As soon as the doctor is out of earshot — he glances at his hunched figure as he struggles to sit, struggles to hope to lesser extent, dark head clouding gloomy thoughts —
"Coffee?"
"I must change first, Marlin"
"Very well, sir."
Instantly he rose from the metal seats.
"You heard him, Marlin. She's gonna pull through."
—
