Wildflower

Forty-Eight

The scans seem to take hours, doctors in and out of each room, furrowed brows and confusion on their faces, no one giving Zeppelynn any answers. The MRI of her brain gives her a headache, the CT scan of her legs is more than enough to irritate her. By the time she is back in her room she is in a more than unpleasant mood and ready to talk to absolutely no one.

Of course that isn't her luck, seeing as her dad and Zac are both seated on the couch waiting for her just as they had said they would be.

"So..?" Zac smiles at her as she is helped back into the bed.

"So what? I have no answers yet, I can't fucking move my legs and I am in a ridiculous amount of pain, mostly so my left leg but both nonetheless." She snaps.

"But you are alive, and mentally you are you. We have that to be grateful for." Her dad points out.

"If I am paralized, my life is over. What the hell am I supposed to do if I don't have working legs dad? I can't do stunts, I can't ride my bike, I can't even walk up the stairs to the damn apartment if I've got no legs." she bites right back at his response.

"We can get an elevator! Oh that would be so cool!" Zac grins, "And I remember once we went to a show in high school where they had a performer in a wheelchair, he did sick tricks. You could definitely learn how to do that too."

"I don't want to learn how to do anything! I want to be me! Normal me! I want to go to Europe this summer and jump out of buildings and be Black Widow. I don't want to be the gimmick girl, the paralized used-to-be, someone people only come to see because I am in a wheelchair."

"Whatever it is, we will figure it out Zeppelynn." Her dad speaks more softly, "We will figure it out together. No matter what the outcome is, you have a loving family and friends who will stay by your side and do anything to help you get through this change. Don't give up on life now. You have always known the risks of your profession. As your father I am just grateful you woke up. I couldn't imagine actually losing your mom and you and having to continue on with life away from both of you. I don't want that life."

A small trace of guilt paints itself across Zeppelynn's angry eyes. "I'm sorry dad. I- I didn't mean it like that, of course I want to be here with you still. But I don't know what my life looks like without my job, it was everything to me. I'm not supposed to be taken out of it like this." She shakes her head, the anger seeming to give way to pain, pure and honest pain at the idea of losing her career over this accident.

"You've got a shit ton of support while you figure it out if that is the case." Zac smiles sympathetically. "I'll carry you up to the apartment every single night if I have to. We can get a chair for downstairs and outside and another for just in the apartment."

"I don't want two chairs, I don't want one chair... I want my legs to wake up and be strong again." She whispers, poking at her thigh, frowning more deeply when the touch response is only in her finger.

"Alright Ms. McCabes." All three of them turn as a doctor backs his way into the room with a tablet in his hands.

"What are they saying?" She asks nervously.

"Well nothing looks bad in your scans, there is definite muscle loss in your legs, but that is to be expected having gone from working a physically demanding job like yours to laying in a bed for six weeks. Your entire body has overall lost muscle mass."

"So if nothing looks wrong on the scans why can't I feel anything but pain, and why can't I move my right foot at all? And my left only slightly?"

"There is still another round of testing I want to do on your legs. We can do it here, and I won't actually be performing the testing but our neurologist team will."

"Neurologists? Don't they work with the brain?" Zac asks quickly.

"A lot of the time yes, but truthfully Neurologists work with nerves, anywhere in the body."

"You think I have nerve damage in my legs?" Zeppelynn has gone pale at the idea.

"Can you tell me, is the pain constant, flowing, tingling, stinging? What areas are you feeling it in?"

"I mean it all aches, sort of like when you finish a grueling workout and it feels like the muscles just want to spasm or keep going or explode. But it also is kind of like there are veins of tingles moving through my left leg. My right mostly just feels heavy? But I don't think it's the leg feeling that way, it's more at the hip." Zeppelynn answers honestly.

"I truly believe you are suffering some level of neuropathy in both legs. To what extent the nerves are damaged and if the damage can be reversed is not my expertise. The neurology team will be much better at mapping the damage and informing you how best to move forward to maintain the feeling you do have, and reverse any damage if possible."

"Oh, okay." Zeppelynn nods, biting into her lower lip as to keep the tears held back. She isn't a crier. Ever.

"The doctor and a couple assistants will be in to do some testing shortly, I do hope they can give you some hope for recovery from this unfortunate accident. I am glad to see everything else seems to be healing well and the extra time within the coma did not damage your mental state or memory." The doctor excuses himself, leaving Zeppelynn with her dad and Zac to process the information.

"Do you want to let Calum know what's going on or should I?" Zac asks after a couple minutes of silence.

"I don't want him to know." Z barely whispers it.

"What?" Her dad's response is booming, surprising her as she looks up at him, meeting anger in his eyes.

"What? It's my choice isn't it?" she gawks at him.

"Well yes, but that boy has been here as much as possible, holding your hand, crying, writing music, torturing himself waiting for news. And then got in a wreck because he was distracted with worry about you, landed in his own small coma with physical injury to boot and has still made his way down here to support you. And you don't want to tell him what's going on?" Frank lays it out flat.

"No." She simply responds. "I don't want him to know."

"Lynn, he's going to have to know." Zac scoffs slightly, "You can't hide this from your own boyfriend."

"I can."

"Not if he's going to stay your boyfriend." Zac challenges, suddenly understanding where Z's thought process seems to be headed.

"That boy has proven—" Zeppelynn slips her airpods into her ears as he dad starts up again, blocking out the sounds of both men. Leaning back against the bed and entering her own world, letting only her thoughts reach her mind.

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One more chapter and an epilogue.

What goes down in the last one!?

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~M =)