VIRAGO

eccedentesiast

eccedentesiast (n.) - someone who hides pain behind a smile

"What the hell happened?" She heard Nash shout, waking her from a paranoid slumber. She jumped awake, her eyes shooting open and panic arising. She heard the beeping on the monitors start to quicken, and nurses came rushing in. They started to work on her, but she waved them off, claiming she was alright.

"Please I'm fine." She assured, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself down.

"Your stats skyrocketed, just let us take a look." The nurse said as Nash came into the room.

"Sir you need to step out of here." The other nurse told him.

"No, please, I'm alright." She tried to reassure, but they ushered him out of the room anyway.

"You need to calm down, sweetheart, otherwise you're going to bust your stitches open even more. Take a few deep breaths in for me, alright?" The first nurse told her as she placed a full face oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. Samantha took it in her hand herself and let the mask do the work for her and she calmed down from her panic attack. While they were there, the nurses went ahead and checked her stitches and replaced the gauze on her cheek. Once she felt calm enough she put the oxygen mask on the bed beside her against protest from the nurses.

"I can breathe fine. Please just finish up so my fiance can come back in here." She grunted as they tilted her neck up to double check that none of the stitches had split. She could feel the blood that had slipped down her neck, and the paper towel soaked with a cool cleaning solution gave her a shock as they cleaned up the blood that had stained her neck.

"Luckily your stitches didn't rip but you've got to try not to stress too much, otherwise you will rip your stitches." The nurse told her as she put fresh gauze over the neck wound.

"I'll try not to stress too much over a guy who has tried to kill me twice." She responded with a darkness to her voice that even surprised herself. "I'm sorry, that was ill-mannered."

"It's alright, I know you're going through a very difficult time. Just remember to be strong, because you never know who you're inspiring." She told her, her voice mellow and understanding. "I'll send him in, just promise me you won't move around too much."

"I'll try not to." She answered. "Hey, what time is it?" She asked quickly before the nurse left the room. She took a quick look at her watch then looked back up at her.

"About eleven o'clock." She informed, and Samantha felt her face turn white as the nurse left the room. Nash came back in, looking a little calmer.

"Nash, Dana and Rick were flying in this morning and I totally forgot to tell you and they probably landed like an hour ago-" She stammered on, then saw Dana and Rick walk in behind him.

"They called me last night, I picked them up before I came over here." He said, shutting her down. Dana saw her and rushed over, taking her hand and giving her a hug.

"God I missed this." She muttered as she pulled away, tears in her eyes as she caressed her head. "My God you look terrible." She blurted out with a laugh, wiping away her tears.

"It's good to see you too." She chuckled as she sat up a little more in the hospital bed.

"I talked to the cop outside. Henry Fox broke in here?" Nash asked, and she took a deep breath in and nodded slowly.

"Yeah, scared the hell out of me." She answered with a nervous laugh.

"Didn't they have a monitor on him?" Rick asked after he gave her a hug of his own. With the two of them here it gave her a sense of home that she did not realize she had been missing.