Chapter 19 Sienna #2
"You've been in surgery. About seven hours total, including prep and recovery. Dr. Mars operated. Fractured ribs, collapsed lung, internal bleeding." Elise's voice was level, the clinical details a framework she could grip. "She said you came through well. You're going to be fine."
"I dreamed about you," Sienna whispered.
"The whole time. There was this light and I was floating and nothing hurt, and I could have stayed there.
It was peaceful. But you were here. In this world.
And I needed to come back because a life without you in it, even a painless one, isn't a life I want. "
The words cost her more breath than she had but she said them because they were true and because Sienna Park had spent forty-one years not saying the true things and she was done with that.
Elise's face crumpled. The composure she'd been holding dissolved and she pressed her forehead against Sienna's shoulder, the good one, and cried.
Not loud, not dramatic. Quiet, shuddering sobs that Sienna felt through her whole body.
Sienna lifted her good hand and put it in Elise's hair, her fingers weak but there, threading through the dark strands.
"I love you," Sienna said. The words cost her. Each one was a breath and each breath was pain but the words mattered more than the pain. "I love you, Elise. I'm not going anywhere."
"You'd better not." Elise lifted her face. Tears ran down her cheeks and her eyes were fierce and full and her hand gripped Sienna's hard enough to ache. "I love you. I love you so much. Don't you ever do that to me again."
"I'll try not to."
Elise pressed her lips together, chin trembling. "Promise me."
"I promise." She squeezed Elise's hand and the squeeze was weak, her grip nothing compared to what it should have been, but Elise's fingers closed around hers and held and the connection was a circuit completed, current flowing between them, and the pain receded fractionally in the face of it.
"We're going to be okay," Elise said. Her voice was calmer now, finding its ground. "We're going to get through this and you're going to heal and I'm going to be here for every minute of it. You took care of me for eight weeks. Now it's my turn."
The word was small and rough and inadequate but Elise took it and held it and leaned in and pressed her lips to Sienna's forehead with infinite care.
The kiss was salt-damp and Sienna closed her eyes and felt it settle into her, a counterpoint to the pain, a reason to be here, in this body, in this bed, in this life.
Footsteps. The door opened and Dr. Josephine Mars entered, her petite frame purposeful in the white coat, her sandy hair pinned back. Her face was tired but her expression was kind, and Sienna recognised it: the look she had worn herself when a patient pulled through.
"Welcome back, Sienna." Her voice was the same calm, kind tone she'd used when she'd delivered Elise's injury diagnosis in this same hospital weeks ago.
She moved to the monitors, scanning the readings with practised efficiency, her small hands deft as she checked connections and adjustments.
"Your vitals are strong. Stronger than I expected, honestly, and I expected a lot.
The surgery went well. We've repaired the internal bleeding, reinflated the lung, and stabilised the fractures.
Three fractured ribs, a splenic laceration that's been sutured, and a forearm fracture we've stabilised with an internal plate.
The cast stays for six weeks. You're young and fit and that made all the difference.
Your swimming, your conditioning, they gave your body the reserves it needed to come through this. "
Elise's hand tightened on Sienna's. "When can she go home?" The question was premature and they all knew it and Dr. Mars smiled gently.
"Not for a while yet. She needs to stay until the chest drain is out and we're confident the lung is holding. But I'm optimistic. A few weeks and we'll have you on your feet."
Sienna's jaw set. "A few weeks."
Dr. Mars glanced between them, one eyebrow raised. "You're a terrible patient already. I can tell." She checked the IV line, adjusted the drip rate with quick fingers, made a note on the chart, and squeezed Sienna's good hand. "Rest. Let us take care of you for a change."
She left. The room was quiet again. The monitors beeped. Through the half-closed blinds, the sky outside was dark. Night had come while she was under.
"You've been here the whole time," Sienna said. It wasn't a question.
"The whole time. Since Mara drove me here this morning.
I held your hand until they took you into surgery and then I sat in the corridor and waited.
" Elise stroked Sienna's hair back from her forehead.
Her touch was feather-light, avoiding the cuts and bruises.
"The team was here too. They only went to get food when Dr. Mars said you were stable.
Frankie kept making terrible jokes to keep me from spiralling.
Lou sat in the corner and didn't say a word and somehow that helped more than anything.
Helen came. She sat with me. She didn't try to therapise me, she just sat there.
Mara ran logistics, called people, kept everything moving. Lex brought coffee."
Sienna blinked. "Lex brought coffee?"
"Four rounds. She said someone had to and everyone else was useless." Elise's mouth twitched. The ghost of a smile. "They love you, Sienna. You think you're just the team doctor but you're not. You're theirs. And they showed up for you."
Sienna's throat ached. Not from the ventilator tube. From a grief bigger and older and more important than that.
Sienna's eyes were heavy. The pain medication was pulling her under, a warm, blurring fog that softened the edges of the room and the bed and Elise's face above her.
She fought it. She didn't want to close her eyes.
She'd had enough of the dark, the in-between space where Elise was a memory instead of a presence.
"Stay," Sienna whispered. The word she'd said to Elise weeks ago, on the sofa, wrapped in a blanket, undone. The same word. The same need.
"I'm staying." Elise pressed her lips to Sienna's temple. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."
Sienna closed her eyes. Elise's hand was in hers, solid and real. The pain was there, a constant bass note beneath the medication, but above it was the sound of Elise's breathing and the beep of the monitors and the knowledge, certain and absolute, that she was alive and loved and held.
She let the fog take her. This time the darkness was not the formless void of the operating theatre but a gentler dark, layered with the scent of Elise's skin and the press of her hand and the low murmur of her voice saying words Sienna couldn't quite make out, words that sounded like her name, words that sounded like love, words that followed her down through the layers of consciousness like a rope she could hold.
Elise's thumb moved across her knuckles in slow, steady circles, and the rhythm followed Sienna down into sleep.
This time she wasn't floating in nothing.
She was falling into a life that was waiting.
Into a love that was real. Into tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after it, with the woman who had sat in a hospital chair for hours because leaving was not an option.
Sienna slept, and she was held, and she was home.