all we can do is keep breathing

thirteen.

please take my broken heart in your hands.

||☤||

By the time Louis finally leaves the hospital and gets home that night, it's hardly even night anymore. He collapses right into bed, utterly exhausted, but despite how worn out his body feels, he lies frustrated and restless in his bed. And after several stretched out hours of constant tossing and turning, only finding a few minutes of fleeting sleep here and there, Louis' alarm begins to go off.

Louis groans heavily, lying motionless on his back as he stares up at the ceiling fan. He feels like calling in sick; because if he can't quiet his mind long enough to fall asleep, if he can't focus on such a simple, brainless task, how the fuck is he supposed to focus on his practice throughout the day? He's probably called off sick a total of four times since he started working at SSMC and the majority of those instances were recently. And he's really not trying to make a habit out of it; it's just that his entire body feels as weighted down as a slab of lead and the internal motivation he usually relies on to make it through the duration of the day is dwindling faster than he can find a suitable way to restore it.

So after lying immobile in his bed for another thirty minutes, too drained to even turn his alarm off, Louis decides to push all of his scheduled surgeries for the day. None of them are emergent anyway, so they can easily be rescheduled for tomorrow or any other day for all Louis cares. Any day that's not fucking today. Louis has never been so over everything and as much as he wants to shake himself from this perpetual funk he's in, he has no earthly idea how.

Well—he does. Louis knows exactly what would make him feel worlds better faster than the blinking of an eye. But that's just it, what Louis so desperately needs to happen, he doesn't know how to make happen, how to turn his jumbled hopes and inconclusive ideas into action to save the little girl who completely governs his heart.

Using the last surge of short-lived motivation he has left, Louis decides to still go into the hospital, but only with the intention of locking himself in the research lab to devote all the brainpower he can manage into mapping out some kind of treatment plan options for Avery. At least that way he's still making himself useful, and maybe today will finally be the day that he makes real headway on her diagnosis.

Before going in, Louis forces himself to also go on his routine run around his neighborhood, hoping to center himself at least somewhat. The ground is slick from the early morning rain and the grey sky is as dreary and depressing as Louis feels inside. But nonetheless, the run is good for him, clearing his head enough to give him a clean slate for the long day of research he has ahead.

Louis avoids everyone when he gets to the medical center, purposefully zooming past each and every nurses' station, while also dodging all the places that he usually meets up with his friends for coffee in the morning. He even goes so far as to turn off both his pager and his phone to prevent potentially being interrupted or distracted.

Sitting at the farthest desk in the research lab, Louis dives right into a mountain of medical journals, reading through every archive and entry that is in any way related to the treatment of astrocytomas and gliomas. He doesn't limit himself specifically to pediatric cases, figuring that a more likely route may be able to be adapted from an adult case study.

And although Louis has every intention of remaining focused, the biggest distraction turns out to be his own head, taunting him with ceaseless thoughts and cruel reminders. Most of all he thinks of Avery, her gentle words still dancing around in his head on a loop, holding him prisoner.

you mean so much to me, louis...

Louis tries to use the words flashing back in his mind to motivate him further, to fuel his determination that much more, but somehow they only seem to make his heart even heavier.