“Ranko? Baby, can you hear me? Open your eyes for me if you can?”
The redhead struggled to open her eyelids, but it was like they were made of lead. Everything hurt, and at the same time, nothing felt quite like it was supposed to. Every joint felt as if it had had super glue poured in it, and her head must have weighed thirty kilos.
With some effort, she was able to get her eyes partially opened, glimpsing Hana leaning over her. Over her shoulder was an array of bright fluorescent lights embedded into a white drop ceiling, and there was a quiet but annoying little beep that went off in regular intervals about once per second. Putting the scene together, she deduced that she was in a hospital.
But how did she get here? She tried to remember, but thinking was like trudging through molasses. There was the fight with Ryoga. Did he knock me out? The last few minutes before she’d blacked out were still a blur. She heard the metallic clang of a wheeled food cart colliding with a metal railing in the hallway. She’d heard a sound like that, right before. What could have… the boat ride. She remembered Izumi yelling something about it. But she wasn’t there alone.
“Akane? Hoshi?” She tried to lift her head up to look at Hana, but she couldn’t.
Hana smiled. “Both are just fine, thanks to you. Once again, you’re our regular little heroine.”
“Oh my gods, Ranko!” Akane’s voice leapt an octave at the sight of her girlfriend’s open eyes as she walked into the room from the hallway. Of all the times to have gotten up to get a soda from the vending machine! She’d waited for four days to be there when Ranko awoke, only to miss it over a can of Orange Crush.
Ranko groaned, speaking monotonously. “Hey, you. You okay?”
Akane nodded, holding the nylon brace on her left forearm below her waist out of view. “I’m fine. Just worried about you.”
The redhead tried to summon the last few seconds of consciousness from her memory. She remembered Izumi screaming. There hadn’t been time to cover them both, so she’d pushed Akane out of the way and then covered Hoshi. At least, she thought so. Whatever she’d done must have worked because Hana said both were okay.
“I think I might have kicked you. Sorry.”
Akane shook her head, rolling her eyes with a smile. “Don’t you dare apologize for saving my life, ya big dummy.”
Ranko blinked her eyes, and when she opened them, Mei was in the room with Akane and Hana was gone. Akane smiled down at her. “Hey you. Welcome back.”
“Huh? Did I fall asleep for a second?”
Akane nodded. “About three hours’ worth of seconds.”
Mei looked up to Akane. “Do they still have her sedated?” Akane nodded.
“Do you know what medication they gave her? Was it demerol? Propofol? Ketamine?”
Akane was surprised that the twenty-something bartender would have such a deep knowledge of sedative drugs. “I don’t know? All of them, maybe, judging by how wiped out she is.”
Akane knew Ranko wouldn’t have wanted to be sedated, but the doctors hadn’t had a choice. Once the firefighters had gotten her out of the pile, they rushed her to the ambulance and administered smelling salts to arouse her. Unfortunately, the paramedics hadn’t counted on the fact that, for superficial injuries like scrapes and bruises, their patient probably had the worst pain tolerance of any human being alive. Every time Akane had closed her eyes since Saturday afternoon, her mind had echoed with the sound of that ambulance filling with her beloved’s screams.
The patient groaned again, trying to move in the bed, and finding she was having a great deal of difficulty doing so. “How long?”
Akane squeezed her love’s hand. “It’s Wednesday. It’s been four days.”
Ranko blinked her eyes slowly, trying to lift her hand to her head, but with an IV line protruding from her left elbow, it wasn’t cooperating very well. “What happened?”
The reply came from a masculine voice from her right. “You were in an accident, Miss Tendo. Do you remember?”
The redhead lolled her head to the side, looking up at the older man in the white lab coat. “I… I think so? The carnival ride?”
The doctor nodded. “Yes, very good. That’s an excellent sign.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
She blinked her eyes open, fighting a losing battle to stay awake. “What’s wrong with me?”
The elderly medic pulled up a wheeled vinyl stool from under a wall-mounted counter, sitting down next to the bed. “So, before I get into this, I don’t want you getting too scared. You’re going to be okay.”
Ranko’s eyes widened. Nothing could have made her more afraid than being told not to be afraid.
“So, you’ve got yourself a linear skull fracture, right here above your right ear.” Dr. Ota gently ran his finger along her scalp to illustrate. “That caused your brain to swell a little bit, and that’s why we’ve had to keep you sedated for a few days to give it a chance to rest. The medicine we’ve been giving you has just about taken care of it, fortunately, so we won’t need to do any sort of surgery. We’re going to do some more imaging later today or tomorrow to see how it’s coming, and if it’s far enough along, we might be able to let you go home.”
Mei raised her hand timidly. “Are there going to be, like, long-term effects?”
The doctor shook his head. “She’ll probably have some pretty rough headaches, the occasional dizzy spell. Some mood swings are possible, changes in appetite, things like that. All of that will probably clear up within two weeks or so, and then she’ll be mostly fine. She just needs to be careful not to get any more blows to the head until that fracture can fully heal, and that’s going to be probably six to ten weeks.”
Akane smiled. “You hear that, Ran-chan? No carnivals without a helmet for you.”
“Will you be backing off the sedation,” Mei asked, and the doctor nodded, checking the plastic bag hanging from the IV stand. “Yep, in fact, she’s already had the last of it. She’ll be a little groggy for a while coming off of it, plus it’s not uncommon for the injury itself to do that. Honestly, the best thing she can do right now is sleep and let the steroids do their job.”
Dr. Ota lifted the thin white blanket draped over Ranko’s legs, checking some of the bandages that covered more than half of her skin. “The general cuts and bruises seem to be healing well. If you’re lucky, Ranko, you might make it out of this without so much as a scar. And, honestly, you’re already lucky just to be alive.”
Ranko opened her mouth to ask a question, but by the time she could, the doctor was gone. “Huh?” She slowly turned her head, finding herself alone in the room with Izumi.
The brunette stood when she spoke, walking over to the bed and taking Ranko’s hand in her own with a smile. “Hey, little sis. You fell asleep again. How are you feeling?”
The redhead took a moment to let her nerves report back, as she was still waking up. “Pretty bad headache. Everything else hurts a little.”
Izumi gave a small frown and nodded. “Yeah. they’re slowing down on the medicine to help you wake up a little more. I’ll ask the nurse to give you something for your head, though.” She gave her sister’s hand a squeeze. “Ranko, I will never be able to thank you enough for what you did for Hoshi. You saved my baby’s life.”
Ranko exhaled heavily in relief. “He’s okay then?”
Izumi nodded with a grin, wiping a tear from her eye. “He’s just fine, thanks to you. He’s at school today, telling all his friends about his brave auntie.”
Ranko managed a small smile. “Good. Tell him as soon as I get out of this bed, I’m gonna come kick his butt at some Nintendo again.”
Hoshi’s mother couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh, I will.”
As she spoke, the door opened quietly and Akane slipped back into the room. “Oh, hey there sleepyhead. How’s my girl?”
Ranko smiled more broadly. Never in a million years would she have thought being somebody’s girl would feel so good, busted skull and all. “Getting there. Anything from the doctors?”
“They’re gonna come get you in about an hour to do another test, and if that’s as good as they hope, we can start thinking about taking you home.”
The patient nodded slowly. “Speaking of which… How are you still here? Haven’t you been to school? What about your dad?”
Akane waved off her girlfriend’s concerns. “The doctor wrote me a note saying I was in an accident and needed a few days before I could go back to school. Dad knows that my friend in Tokyo was in the accident, and I told him I’d be staying to help take care of her. Lately, he isn’t really asking too many questions. I’ve even got Kasumi on standby to feed P-chan in case he comes home while I’m gone.”
Ranko nodded with a small frown. Under the circumstances, she wondered if it might be appropriate to tell Akane the truth about her transient pet, but she was worried it would cause an argument. Ryoga had to know better than to show up at her place now anyway, she thought. “Where have you been staying?”
Akane motioned to the blue-green vinyl recliner next to the bed. “Right there, the first few nights. Hana finally took me back to your place and made me get some sleep.”
The redhead blushed. It was one thing that Akane cared enough to stay with her in the hospital, and another entirely that Hana had started looking after her girlfriend like she was another member of the family. She wasn’t at all surprised, but she liked seeing Akane getting close to Hana and her sisters. It meant that her new life and the one thing she wanted to retain from her old one could co-exist and be better for it.
“You should go home.”
Akane shook her head. “Not a chance.”
Ranko tried to sit up, but only managed to adjust herself on her pillow somewhat. “Akane, even once I go home, I’ve got all kinds of help. I love you and I’m so grateful you’ve been here with me, but I don’t want you messing up your grades or anything over this. I promise I’ll be super careful and you know Hana will have me bubble-wrapped before I take two steps out of this hospital.”
With a blush and a nod, Akane replied. “We’ll see how you’re feeling in the morning. Maybe once they let you go home.”
Akane still couldn’t believe how good it felt to hear that girl say I love you. She couldn’t believe she liked hearing it from any girl who wasn’t Nabiki or Kasumi, but this was different. Ranko was different, and not just because she used to be a guy. She smiled warmly. “And I love you too, silly girl.”