Empathy ⌯ Stiles Stilinski

[32] the recovery

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐓𝐖𝐎
the recovery

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( omega; pt.i )

MADDIE had never been more scared for her life than when she woke up in a dark hospital room, wires fitted into her skin, her head throbbing as her limbs ached. She had no memory of how she got there and what made it worse was that she was alone. She was never alone when she woke up in hospitals; there was always someone. It hit her harder than perhaps it was supposed to.

She made no attempt to get up, exhaustion screaming at her whenever she tried —— failing at every attempt —— to lift herself up. Her eyes closed as the hand came around her heart again, but this time she begged, she begged that she hadn't hurt her family in the process. She couldn't go through that again.

As she laid deathly still in the empty room, the machine beside her beeping to remind her that she was still alive, she tried to see if there was any lingering pain. Once again, nothing. Why would she be in a hospital if there's nothing wrong with her?

Her mind was still blank on the how and why. She truly couldn't remember, and that scared her more than being in a hospital room as the patient.

She had to be reminded by the doctors, which only came about an hour after she was noticed to have been awake. Her mom had walked into the room, planning to spend another day speaking to her comatose daughter. The relief broke the both of them, mother and daughter ending up in tears as Sarah pressed her forehead against her daughter's, thanking God and saying how she thought she wasn't ever going to wake up.

Maddie had been in a coma for just over thirty—six hours. The doctors had no medical explanation to offer her family, no matter what test they ran, Maddie was a healthy enough sixteen—year—old girl with no reason to have suddenly dropped into a comatose state —— though they had noted that her cortisol and adrenaline levels were unusually high. What worried them the most was the lack of answers on why she kept going into shock, soon realised to have been mirrored in the state of the girl in the room a couple doors over who was admitted at the same time.

So they compared their results: still nothing. No comparisons, no similarities, no answers.

With no medical explanations available, they did the best they could. That meant diagnosing it as acute distress from seeing a friend attacked by a wild animal having an impact on her already increased stress hormone levels.

Despite the lack of answers, doctors wanted to run a few more tests to ensure that they hadn't missed anything that could detrimentally affect her later, so she was left to stay in the hospital for another ten hours.

She did not appreciate that. Maddie wanted out. As soon as possible.

Nevertheless, she waited ( impatiently ) and those ten hours passed after a series of board games, card games —— Stiles jumping in after lunch and losing three rounds of Uno in a row —— staring up at the ceiling ( which was as, if not more, boring than watching paint dry ), and taking an hour nap to recover from her exhaustion. As it turns out, being in a coma isn't very restful.

Now Maddie sits on the hospital bed, legs crossed as she plays with the drawstrings of her sweatpants, undoing and redoing the bow countless times to control her anxiety as Connor searches her room for her ring. The lack of respect she has for her birth parents does not equate to the respect she has for their ring. It's important to her, partially because it's almost a symbol for the life she could've had if she wasn't given up.