I Can Hear Your Heart (A Heartstopper FanFic -- BOOK 1)

16. Awake

By half past twelve, Sarah was circling the crowded hospital car park once again. She sent Nick inside while she went to pay and he found his way back to the wide, bright corridor.

He had thrown on a random pair of joggers and a ratty old t-shirt after the worst shower of his life. He hadn't been able to stop himself from watching the pink tinged water swirl down the drain with some kind of morbid fascination.

A part of him, a horrible, dark part of him he hadn't realised existed, mourned the new found cleanliness, mourned the loss of the closeness he felt to Charlie through the blood on his skin. He had shuddered at the realisation, shook his head clear and focused on scrubbing the rest away.

Tori was sitting alone by the double doors when Nick approached. When she heard him coming, she looked up and Nick knew she had been waiting for him.

"Is there any news?" he asked as he sat down beside her.

"They removed that big tube," said Tori.

"Tubey's gone?"

"Don't get too excited." Tori grimaced. "He's not sedated any more but he hasn't woken up for more than a few minutes."

"Wait. He woke up?"

"Not for very long." Tori sighed. "He was super groggy. He opened his eyes but I'm not sure how much he was actually properly awake. It was only for a minute or two at the most."

"I wish I had been there..."

Tori hummed sympathetically. "Maybe if you had been there, he would have stayed awake longer. But instead, he just saw mum and thought he was better off staying asleep than dealing with her."

"Sounds like something he would do." Nick smiled sadly.

Tori made a sound like a distant laugh. "I think mum was expecting him to just magically open his eyes and he would be fine and that would be that."

"Do you think there's a chance she's ever going to let me see him?"

"I wouldn't try again just yet. She's still in a foul mood. It's not just you -- even the staff here are suffering and they're the ones keeping Charlie from dying, for fuck's sake... I know she's scared and worried just like the rest of us but I just wish she'd find a different way of coping with it. Without making everyone else around her even more miserable. Dad had to take Oliver home because she was being so hostile."

Nick was a little disappointed. The littlest Spring had a certain way of diffusing the tension, even when it was unintended, even when the tension was so sickeningly thick.

Sarah arrived and sat down beside Nick. He suddenly felt a bit guilty.

"You don't have to stay with me, mum," he said. "You can go home if you want. I can probably take a bus home."

Sarah smiled. "Nonsense. I've taken the rest of the week off work. I care about Charlie too, you know?"

And so, the waiting began again.

Tori went back and forth between the chairs and Charlie's bedside a couple of times every hour or so, to get updates for Nick and Sarah, and to bravely check on her mum's boiling point.

She returned each time with much the same news. Charlie is sleeping. There are no complications. Mum is being a bitch.

They all made several trips to the nearby vending machines for tea and snacks, to the cafe for some horrible dinner, to the loos, to the other end of the corridor to stretch their legs.

Sarah and Tori mostly did these things. Nick drank one cup of tea and ate some dinner but other than that he sat. And waited.

He absent-mindedly found his hand reaching into his hoodie pocket every now and then. He would draw out Charlie's phone and click it on and off, to check the time and to see the lock screen photo. Maybe he was torturing himself but he didn't care.