Scottish Gold (An Outsiders Fic)

Chapter 41: The Love of My Life

Two-Bit's POV

Once Vikki left, I crawled back to my place on the floor to look up at Cookie. I tried not to think about anything that had happened in the past week. I just wanted to spend time with her before I was forced to leave. I had begun mentally planning when I would visit her everyday until she could go home. I'd help her with Gracie, and maybe have races with her wheelchair. Everything was going to be fine.

"Kieth." Cookie said, smiling down at me after I replaced Vikki on the floor.

"Hello, Fiona." I joked, referring back to the night of our first date when I told her my real name. It seemed to brighten her spirits a little more, but at the same time it seemed to crush her. Tears gathered in her eyes and she looked like she was about to break. "Hey, love, no... don't cry, darlin'."

"Ah'm so sorry." She cried, tears dripping down around me.

"Hey, hey, what are you sorry for?"

"Just..." she sniffed, "Ah'm a fucking arse."

"No, you're not."

"Ah am." She said, "this wasn't supposed tae happen."

"I know."

"We could be eloping in Vegas now." She joked.

I snuck my hand in my pocket and said, "ya know, I've done some research on Scottish traditions. I came across one..." I let my voice trail off as I pulled out a little rope from my pocket.

"Ah cannae believe ye picked up a book." Cookie joked, cutting me off.

I placed the little braided rope down in Cookie's eyesight and she paused mumbling something I couldn't hear.

"Where's your hand?" I asked.

She closed her eyes, and I saw her fingers tap gently from under the sheet. They slowly crept to the edge of the bed and stuck out, with her palm still hidden under the sheet.

I went on my knees, carefully pulling the sheet back and seeing the burns on her hands, covered in dressings and creams. As careful as I could, I placed my palm on top of hers, and wrapped the rope around us gently.

I cleared my throat, and recited, "I, Kieth 'Two-Bit' Matthews, do take thee, Cookie Jamison, to be my lawful wedded wife. With my goods would ye endow, with my body I thee worship. In sickness and in health. In richness and in poverty so long as we both shall live. I plight my troth."

"I, Cookie Jamison," She coughed, "do take thee, Kieth 'Two-Bit' Matthews, to be my lawful wedded husband. With my goods would ye endow, with my body I thee worship. In sickness and in health. In richness and in poverty so long as we both shall live. I plight my troth."

"Wow," I said when the Scottish ritual was over.

"Ah cannae believe ye memorized that." Cookie said.

"Believe it, babe." I chuckled.

"Ah love ye, Kieth." Cookie said. I clenched my jaw, taking the small golden ring that hadn't left my pocket since the day she ran away from my proposal and sliding it onto the ring finger of her left hand. Her fingers didn't twitch and I wondered if she could even feel me touching it.

I let go of her hand, tying the rope around my wrist as a reminder, and rested back to the floor so I could see her beautiful face. My beautiful girl, our souls bound together from our spiritual ritual. Not all of Scotland is kooky after all.

"I love you too, Cookie." I smiled with a small laugh, I almost forgot the situation. As long as I was in her presence, nothing else mattered.

She closed her eyes and winced, "can you hold mah hand?"

"Why?"

"Ah don't feel good."

"It's okay," I reassured, "I'll get the doctor."

"No," she said. "Ah heard them talking, there isnae much they can do fur meh."

Hearing her say that was too much for me. I looked up at her, "They don't know what they're talking about."

"They're... doctors," she said softly.

"Where do you think you're going, stay with me, darling," I said. "We still have to run away together."

"Hold mah hand." She begged.

"No. You're not dying. Do you hear me?" I said, wishing that my rough tone would scare the injuries off of her. I wished I could just yell it all away and she'd be safe.

"Ah donnae have a choice." She said, trying to lighten the mood. That's my job.

"No. You don't get to die today. You ain't gonna leave me so easily." I said, "you gotta stay alive. We are gonna get married, Gracie will be our flower girl. We are going to have kids. Lots of kids, we will give Gracie siblings."

"That's nice." She said in a drowsy tone.

"We are going to be so happy." I said, imaging our life together, "we will move to the Swiss Alps. Live in solitude, just you and me. Cookie, just you, me, and Gracie. So you can't die, okay? Don't make me live our dream life alone. I'd go around the world a hundred times to find you."

"Cross your heart?" She asked, blinking slowly.

"Cross my heart," I said, making an 'x' mark over my heart.

She smiled, and chuckled softly as her eyes lit up again momentarily. She was blinking so slow, then she wasn't blinking at all. Her eyelids were relaxed, and her eyes stopped darting back and forth. She was looking at nothing, straight ahead. Glassy, fixed, and dilated. Even her lips relaxed, letting gravity take over and droop towards the floor. I furrowed my eyebrows together, clueless on why she was unresponsive. Until a continuous beep filled the room.

"Cookie?" I asked, but she didn't answer. "Cookie!"

A nurse rushed into the room, running to a panel on the wall and pressing a button. "Code Blue! Code Blue!" the machine yelled before the nurse came over to me and grabbed my arm, and pulled me up from the floor with ease.

"Cookie!" I yelled as the nurse blocked me from getting back to her, "Cookie! No! Cookie! You can't leave me! I love you!"

Doctors rushed in, surrounding her and rolling her onto her back. The nurse kept pushing me out the door, but I kept looking over her, trying to keep my eyes on Cookie. I watched as a doctor stuck an instrument in her mouth and said, "it's tension pneumothorax."

"What's that?" I asked the nurse with my voice breaking, "What the fucking hell does that mean?"

I watched, horrified, as the doctor stabbed Cookie's bare chest with what looked like a pick, lifted her arm to rest by her head, and made a cut in her ribs and inserted a tube into her chest.

"Cookie!" I shouted, trying to push past the petite nurse who was trying to block me.

"Get him out of here!" One of the doctors shouted.

Another nurse came by, and they physically had to escort me out of the room. Panic was rushing through my blood, watching them stab Cookie and seeing her thick blood drip to the floor. I was in so much shock, I couldn't help but freeze. One of the nurses stayed out with me while the other shut the door and closed the blinds to the window so I couldn't look in.

"She needs me." I begged the nurse, "please, I gotta be in there."

"If you want to help her, you'll let the doctors do their job." The nurse said sternly. I needed stern right now. I let go of the reigns, and mentally prayed to God to save her. I needed her.

I got distracted when I heard someone yell from the waiting room. I turned my head and made eye contact with Vikki as she desperately tried to run down the hallway but got carried off by Soda. I wish I hadn't.