When I Needed You | RusAme |

Fourteen

'Dumb Amelia,' she scolded herself. 'You had a chance to be there for Ivan and you weren't here when he needed you.'

She couldn't help but let a tear slip down her cheek. Her head was held low with shame, her hair offering a curtain to hide her face. After a few moments of standing there, disappointed in herself, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"...Amelia?" Feliciana gently brushed some hair from her face, Monica, her mom, and Matthew there and wondering what upset her so much.

She sniffled, "I... I missed the performance, I messed up so bad-badly." She wiped an eye, looking at Feli.

"It's okay, you can tell us. You don't have to be upset." Feli took one of her hands. Amelia's mother didn't know how to react to her daughter being upset like this.

"It star-started with Arthur today.. He wouldn't leave me a-alone! I had to get-get away, and all the doors were l-locked." She was in hysterics, a stuttering mess. "Mo let me i-in, and I missed it. I missed it..." She collapsed into Feli's arms. Sirens were starting to sound in the distance

"I'm so sorry... You need to visit him afterwards, and tell him. He looked so heartbroken, but if you tell him how hard you tried to make it here, he'll understand-" Feli stopped when she saw some firemedics walk in. One of them looked at Amelia's mother, which cued her to point to the stage where a very distraught blonde woman sat, holding her son in her arms.

It was a very traumatizing scene, especially for the Braginsky-Arlovsky family, considering this wouldn't be the first time they've seen the poor boy carried out on a stretcher (with the exception of Il'ya).

Amelia took a short glimpse at Ivan while he was being carted away, and the first thing she took notice of was how white and gaunt he looked, especially wearing concert black. The image was forever burnt into her eyelids.

She wished she could blink it away, but even after an hour it was still engraved into her mind.

They had driven to the hospital by demand of Matthew, since he had never before in his life seen Amelia this distraught, and thought she might need to see him. The three were in a few chairs in the waiting room, when her mother decided to ask about what had just gone down that day.

"Okay, so let me get this straight... Arthur beat up your friend because he had a crush on you...?"

"There's more to it than that..." She sighed. For the first time, Amelia E. Jones actually seemed colorless, no expression.

"Arthur had a dumb crush on me and let it get to his head... So he beat Ivan up and tried confessing to me. It ended up getting violent... But I ended up leaving to see Ivan perform, and I missed it." She held her head in her hands, "He told me not to hang out with him, and that Ivan was 'a lunatic'.. He's a nice boy, mom! Everyone is just mean to him because he's different. It's not fair..." She wiped away a few stray tears.

Her mother held her in her arms, rubbing circles in her back. "It's okay, I know.. We're going to see him in a moment. His mom talked to me, she told me she was glad you came to see if he was okay." The woman tried comforting her, slightly succeeding.

"Really?" Amelia looked up and asked.

Her mother smiled calmly at her, "Really really. She said you cod stay with him as long as you want."

Before Amelia could reply, Il'ya walked in, looking a lot older from the last time she saw him.

"He isn't up yet, but you can go in and see him if you want."

She sat up immediately, "Would I ever." She smiled weakly at him. She walked with him, Il'ya clearing his throat.

"Did anything happen earlier today?" He asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah. I'm tired, so you van ask my mother. She'll tell you." She yawned. Il'ya yawned as well, stopping in front of a door.

Il'ya stepped to the side, "You can go in. I'm going to talk to your mom, maybe I can try to explain a but more to her so she has more context." He smiled wryly, patting her shoulder and walking in the opposite direction.

'What a dad,' she thought as she opened the door slowly.

The white walls made him flushed as well. There was no pink in his cheeks like there usually was, and his hair looked more grey. Hi mom sat by him, brushing hair from his face. She looked up, smiling with melancholy. Her eyes were also sad and bloodshot, and her hair also looked a bit more grey as well.

"Hi Amelia." She beckoned her to step in the room. Ivan's sisters had walked out of the room with their father, to get some air after spending over an hour or o in some stuffy hospital rooms.

Amelia sat across from Anya, her hands folded in her lap to keep from fidgeting. "Do you know why he fainted, if I may ask?" She asked her carefully.

"Well," she started, heaving a despondent sigh. "Doctors ran tests on him, they say he has bad heart." She patted her chest gently were her heart was, looking on the verge of tears. "They say he had heart attack, mild."

Amelia shook her head in disbelief. She had no more tears to shed, but she sobbed dryly once or twice before taking one of his hands and squeezing it gently.

"He'll be fi-fine, right?" She looked at Anya, the poor woman wiping some tears from her face silently.

"Don't know." She stood up, and approached Amelia to hug her. She had her arms delicately wrapped around the young girl, and told her, "It no matter what happens, as long as you with him he will be okay."

Amelia hugged her back, a sad smile creeping up her face. It made her feel a bit better that she meant that much to his mom.
She laughed wearily, not being able to stop looking at him. The hand that belonged to the arm with an IV twitched, Amelia noticing g him starting to stir in his unconsciousness as he squinted from the bright lights in the room.

Amelia released her embrace, grasping his other hand. "Oh, Ivan!" She sighed in relief. "Everyone was so worried..." She lowered her voice so she wouldn't startle him

Ivan opened his eyes, recoiling immediately from the bright lights in the room. He looked at Amelia and his mom with a confused look, and remembered what happened. He blurted out the first question that came to mind.

"Where were you?"