all we can do is keep breathing

sixteen.

fix it, breathe new life back into it.

||☤||

Louis is hardly watching where his legs are carrying him, barely cognizant of the path he's somehow found himself taking. One step at a time, he stumbles through the halls of the hospital feeling like he's going through some sort of fever dream. His mind is split between two different places and neither of them is the present.

Minutes ago Louis' heart and mind were swept up into a sudden whirlwind, nearly causing all elements of time and space to stop altogether. Everything happened so fast—the confessions, the tears, the declarations, the promises—that now it hardly feels like it really happened, everything swirling around in his overloaded head in broken fragments. Sort of like having a hazy, distant dream that can't quite be reached, slipping just past the realm of tangible memory. The only reason Louis knows that it really did just happen is because his heart rate is still racing out of control and key words and phrases keep jumping out at him at random.

i am completely and totally in love with you, louis tomlinson

But there wasn't time to react, to feel—not when his pager started beeping emergently. Louis was in no way prepared for any of the words Harry spoke, but god does he want to stop and dwell on all the soft, sweet words Harry said to him out there under the breezeway. Pause just to piece them all back together, pick apart every last line in his head, replay the emotion frame by frame, relive through the sound of passion growing strongly in his voice.

But there's not any time for that either, not when the page has something to do with Avery. Once Louis had finally pulled himself together enough to snap out of it and realize his pager was going off, he had no choice but to dart right back into the medical center, doing his best to push everything else out of his mind. But he's not even had the chance to catch his breath, feeling like everything around him is moving far too fast for him to keep up with.

And compiled with the mountain of worries Louis already had on his plate for today, it's safe to say that he's not standing on the most stable ground, mentally speaking. Which is definitely not a good place to be, especially not as a neurosurgeon. A neurosurgeon set to operate in a few hours' time.

"Oh, Dr. Tomlinson!" Charlie meets him at the nurses' station. "Thank god you're here."

Louis is already on alert, zoning in his complete focus, although his pulse still hasn't settled back to normal. "What's wrong with her? Where is she?"

"No, she's ok—she's alright...stable as of now...I um...I just brought her back from pre-op scans, but I had a little problem with her central line. It was accidently removed during her scans."

"Oh..." Louis exhales a massive breath of relief, feeling his pulse start to settle down gradually. As long as she's not in any sort of critical condition, he can breathe a bit easier.

"Yeah and um—I mean, I could try to do it for her, but I know she likes it best when you do it, and I think she really wanted to see you...so I thought I'd let you know before I did anything..." Charlie explains, rambling a bit as she talks. "I hope that's not a dumb reason to page you—you told me earlier to page you right away if anything happened with her so I um...I just wanted to follow your instructions."

"Yeah, Yes, thanks, Wesley. I'll do it for her, it's ok." Louis nods slowly. It's not an emergent task, or even a task that requires loads of skill or advanced practice, but Louis understands that it's a task that's somehow become a bit of a thing between him and his favorite girl. And that in itself makes it important.

"The nurses and I haven't finished prepping her yet, but she's back in her room now." Charlie debriefs him. "She had 0.3mg of morphine two hours ago and it made her sleepy, so she may not be awake when you go in."