Falling Skies Invasion Alone

Hospital All-Nighters

We drove to the hospital where Hal and Maggie had gone to earlier. Anne, Lourdes and I were never so in sync. We knew what we needed to do before anyone opened their mouths. We had no anaesthetic so I was grateful Maggie was knocked out while Anne was fixing her up.

Eventually, the bleeding slowed, Maggie's pulse came down, back to normal. The hospital was a complete blessing. Good tools, needles to give her drugs to manage her pain so that when she woke up, it wasn't unbearable.

I felt like I hadn't breathed until Maggie woke up in the hospital bed.

She was groggy, obviously.

"Hey, holey." I smiled softly.

She breathed in, winced a little and moaned. "We're in hospital?"

I nodded. "Yeah, where you and Hal went earlier."

I explained what had happened, how she was gonna feel over the next few days.

She hadn't really said anything. I was leaning on the bed on my forearms.

"I've never seen you without a jumper." She smiled. I guess she hadn't. Jamil had got the generator going so it was warm. I had my jackets and sweaters off for the first time in ages so I was just wearing a vest top.

"You scared the shit out of me, Mags." I flicked her leg. "Out of everyone actually."

Maggie just smiled and lay her head on the pillow. "Well, it wasn't planned."

"Hal told me you told him to leave you." I rested my chin on my hands. "Don't do that shit. I don't think we could face losing you."

"He could have got hurt." She whispered.

"You could have died." I shook my head. "You can't say that you're my sister and then fuck off out of this mortal plain."

She laughed and then instantly regretted it. "Oh god." She winced.

I laughed and rolled my head to the side.

We sat quiet for a minute.

"I kissed Hal."

It was so out of the blue. Incredibly out of the blue. I looked up at her. "No goddam way."

"I know." She took a deep breath.

"What happened? Did you kiss him?" I sat up, ready to hear her excuses, but just as she opened her mouth to talk, Lourdes came in with Hal. She was explaining what had happened. At the worst time possible.

I deflated a little, knowing Hal would want to stay with her. There was no way I was getting that story anytime soon. Lourdes left and Hal came to stand next to Maggie, directly across the bed from me.

This was my time to go. "I'm gonna take off, get some sleep." I stood. Maggie knew that it was best for me to go. They had things to talk about. "Make sure she rests." I warned Hal.

"Yes, ma'am." Hal saluted me.

"I'll see you in the morning." I squeezed her hand.

"Night, Cass." She said croakily. I left the room and then realised I didn't really know what to do. With our arrival at the hospital, everyone had kind of just collapsed once we got settled. I was too busy with Maggie to even find out what I was supposed to do.

So I just wandered. My irrational issue with sleeping in bed alone made me avoid the wards. Yes there was an excess of at least fifty beds, but my stupid brain and my even stupider heart prevented me to even approach the thought of sleeping in a bed.