Silence is the worst thing (Emison)

Chapter 19

Chapter 19
Emily had lost all sense of time.
It seemed that lately that was all she seemed to do. Lie in a cold uncomfortable bed waiting for time to pass. With Alison by her side it did make everything a lot easier.
The pain she felt in her chest each time she took a breath was excruciating, it almost felt as if she was being stabbed all over again.
The only other activity Emily would partake in was sleeping.
She felt tired all the time.
The constant amount of medicine that went through her drip threw her sleeping patens out the window; it was hard to keep her eyes open for more than five minutes.
When Emily had first woken from her surgery she had the fuzzy image of her mother and father standing over her. She had tried to speak but her whole body hurt to the extent where moving her lips was unbearable but when Alison walked into her room the only thing Emily could to was smile and force words to come out.
Alison had said she loved her and the words fell from the blonde's lips so effortlessly. Emily had never imagined that her being in a hospital bed would be the first time someone told them they loved her but never the less the brunette was happy with how it went. It was perfect.
Emily opened her eyes to have a tired looking Alison watching over her. Emily wasn't sure when she had fallen asleep but some time must have passed since then.
"Hello sleepy head." Alison murmured softly as she adjusted herself on the seat next to the bed.
"Hi." Emily croaked, her oxygen mask still covering her face. She was told by the doctor that she would move onto a nasal cannula when she had recovered from her surgery. A punctured lung was a new injury and by far the most painful, not including the stab wound but she had already had that injury before.
"How are you feeling?" Alison's asked as her hand went to Emily's, stroking it softly.
"Tired, how are you?" Emily's head was turned towards Alison but the remainder of her body continued to stay flat.
"I'm okay. Toby and the girls were here, they're so worried about you." Emily noticed Alison seemed flat; her usual cheerful self had disappeared.
"I'm worried about you Ali." Alison looked surprised momentarily but her eyes kept on Emily's.
"Do you remember much about the last couple of days Em?" Alison had spent the hours Emily was asleep thinking, she had spent most of her time just sitting in front of the brunette waiting for her to wake again. Emily's parents had tried conversation but the blonde just wasn't in it, she was worried for the brunette and with Noel still not caught Emily was in danger. Her thoughts were also on her father, it seemed it would take Kenneth forever to realise Alison was no longer in her room.
"Not really. I remember you called me your girlfriend before I got in the ambulance though." Emily smiled through several deep breaths. Alison's worried face had loosened and turned into a soft smile. "I like the sound of it." Emily continued and it made Alison laugh.
"What else do you remember?" The blonde asked curiously.
"Not a whole lot. I remember mostly up until Noel stabbed me, from then on it's a blur but some things before that I remember." Emily watched Alison think over her words, the blonde seemed occupied with thoughts and it bothered Emily slightly.
"Did it hurt?" Alison felt it was a stupid question but as she watched Emily think it over in her head it seemed not to be.
"At first the pain was horrible but after a while it slowly disappeared, the doctors said I lost a lot of blood. Were you with me in the ambulance?" Emily thought carefully, every so often she would remember snippets of the last couple of days but it was only small memories and in small doses.
"I was. You told me not to let you go." Alison put both her hands on Emily's and held her tightly.
"Toby said you tried to follow me into surgery." Emily smiled softly.
"I didn't want to let you go Em. I promised you I wouldn't. Wait, when did you see Toby?" Alison asked curiously, trying to push the embarrassment she felt away.
"Before you got here, he tried to get a statement from me but I was still too out of it. I just kept asking about you." Alison blushed at Emily's small confession, she felt truly special and it was nice to feel so wanted by someone.
Moments late there was a knock on the door before Pam and Wayne walked in.
"Oh sweetie you're up." Pam said as she walked into the room.
"Hi Mum. Hi Dad." Emily murmured as her mother laid a soft kiss on her forehead. Sitting on the chair opposite Alison Pam opened a small folder; looking curiously Emily saw her name printed at the top of the paper inside.
"What's that?" Emily asked.
"It's your medical files; the doctor said he would be here in a moment to talk about some of your recovery." Seconds later there was a small knock at the door.
"That was uncanny." Emily chuckled as Wayne stood from his chair to open the door. Doctor Williams entered the room, this time however he was dressed in a plain white medical coat.
"Mr and Mrs Fields." He said as he shook Wayne's hand and nodded to Pam. Wayne motioned for him to entered the room as he himself sat back on his chair.
"Thank you. Hello Emily, I'm Doctor Williams. I was the senior surgeon in your operation." Standing at the foot of Emily's bed Doctor Williams smiled towards the brunette.
"Hi." She said almost shyly.
"I just thought I'd come see how you were doing. By now you would have been told about your lung, yes?" Emily nodded, the surgeon seemed very formal, it was slightly over powering. "Since it's such a serious injury..." Suddenly Williams stopped and looked towards Alison; the blonde was slightly taken aback by his abrupt silence.
"This is my girlfriend Alison, she can stay." Emily said confidently. Pam and Wayne shot their looks from Alison to their daughter in slight shock. Yes they had seen the videos with Noel but they didn't expect Emily to be so casual about her relationship with Alison so soon. Not that it wasn't obvious, considering the two were holding hands.
Doctor Williams raised his eyebrow to Wayne and Pam before continuing.
"Since it's such a serious injury you will need to be provided oxygen for a good percentage of the time. Now the good news and the reason I'm here is to say that you will be moving from the mask to a nasal cannula." Williams had a small smile rise in his cheek when Pam exhaled happily, Emily could see from the corner of her eye everyone in the room relax slightly.
"When can I leave the hospital?" The brunette asked eagerly.
"In a few days. A week tops." Emily looked over to Alison and smiled softly, the blonde's hand tightening slightly around its hold.
"Why so long?" Emily focused her attention back on the doctor.
"We will be working on rehabilitation over the next few days; it will be a judgement on whether you are capable of taking care of yourself." Doctor Williams' formality was starting to bother Alison; the way he spoke made it seem as if Emily's injuries were almost nothing in comparison to others.
"Rehabilitation for what?" Emily felt worry course through her, what was wrong with her that made her have to stay in hospital for so long. Doctor Williams looked between Emily and her parents who both had looked away from the brunette in a silent guilt.
"Walking." The doctor said neutrally, it seemed this was the easiest way to break news to people. Emily looked down at her legs and realised that she hadn't moved them in a very long time, subconsciously forcing herself, the brunette tried to sit up and move her legs but when the only action that followed was her toes moving slightly Emily felt tears well in her eyes.
Alison covered her mouth in an attempted to cover her own cry.
"Why can't I walk?" Emily's voice was softer and had a helpless tone to it, she felt even weaker than before.
"Well, with the amount of head injuries you sustain, your primary motor cortex or the M1 which is the main area of the brain that involves motor function suffered serious damage. The role of the primary cortex is to send impulse messages to the brain and therefore create the execution of movement. The frontal lobe, where the primary cortex is located was hit a dangerous amount of times but you only suffered minimal damage, as you can see you can still move your arms and neck."
As the doctor spoke Emily's hand squeezed at Alison's, the blonde had withdrawn from the conversation because she couldn't handle the bad news and it caused her to forget to hold back her tears.
Noel had done this to Emily, he had hurt her to the degree where she could barely move and what was worse is he had escaped.
"How long will it take for me to walk again?" Emily's eyes didn't leave Alison's, she knew the blonde wasn't coping and the last thing she wanted to do was look away from that.
"Rehabilitation will only take a couple of days, depending on how you respond. As this isn't a serious case, your brain will remember to walk once it begins to practice. There a severe cases where people have had to learn to walk all over again Emily, I am considering you a very lucky patient at this point. When you return home you will still be practicing but the main part of rehabilitation will be done here." Doctor Williams finished speaking and closed the folder he had been holding, Emily looked away from Alison momentarily to acknowledge him. Her parents didn't seem as shocked as her and Alison; it would seem they already knew this.
"Will I be able to swim again?" Emily asked. The doctor looked down briefly before looking to Pam and Wayne.
"That will be something we will have to tackle in the future Emily." A silence fell in the room and Emily felt tears fall from her eyes. "I will arrange a nurse to get your nasal cannula ready." The doctor shook Wayne and Pam's hand again before departing the room.
"You knew?" Emily directed to her parents after several minutes of silence. Wayne moved forward and grabbed Pam's hand.
"We were told when you woke up from the surgery." Before Emily could speak again a nurse walked into the room and began setting up the nasal cannula. She went through some simple instructions and explained to everyone how the machine worked.
"This is a machine but when you leave the hospital you will have a simple oxygen tank connected to the tubes and since this will be with you most of the time it'll be much more mobile than this." The nurse took Emily's mask off and showed her how to put the cannula on; it fit simply around her ears before sitting on her cheeks and upper lips. "So the air sits here in the oxygen tank, the Ribbed End Connector is attach to it and the Extension Tubing, which feeds the air through the Wye Connector and headset loop which is sitting around your ears right now and then its final destination is the Nasal Prongs."
Emily just nodded to the nurse's words, though the short older woman was very sweet all the information made her feel overwhelmed.
"Now if you are at all feeling short of breath, just give us a buzz, there is also the oxygen mask if you need extra help." The nurse gave everyone a small smile before leaving the room.
Emily looked over at her parents and then over to Alison.
"Hey. It's okay." Emily said encouragingly to the very quiet blonde.
"You need help to breathe Emily." Alison said as she wiped away her tears.
"Put it this way, it's easier for us to kiss now." Alison laughed softly and moved her hand to Emily's free cheek. "That's what I wanna see, your beautiful smile."
"You will swim again Em. I'll help you get there, I promise." Alison kissed Emily's hand gently, she knew how important it was to her girlfriend and she would do whatever it would take to get Emily in the pool again.
Wayne and Pam looked between each other; Pam thought her daughter's affection towards the blonde was very adorable and even if she was mildly surprised about it she was still happy Emily was happy, as was Wayne.
"Where is she! Where is my daughter!" A loud shouting suddenly came from down the hallway and Alison knew, from even behind a closed door that it was her father.
"Shit." Alison murmured.
"He doesn't know you're here?" Emily asked through a deep breath, Alison looked away from the door and towards Emily but before she could answer her father began to scream again.
"Alison?" Kenneth yelled before barging through the door into the room. The older DiLaurentis man looked incredibly angry, his face was almost red with fury and his hands were in tight fists.
"I told you! You are not to see this girl again! Take your hands of my daughter!" Kenneth almost screamed at Emily. Wayne stood from his chair and moved between Kenneth and Emily.
"You need to leave Mr DiLaurentis." Wayne said calmly.
"Just because your daughter is a dirty dyke doesn't mean I'm going to let her corrupt my daughter." Before Kenneth could even finish his sentence properly Wayne's hand went to Kenneth's suit and pushed him against the door.
"You listen to me, I am a Lieutenant Colonel in the Pennsylvania National Guard, I would be very careful of what you say about my family." Wayne's words were low but very powerful, it was terrifying to just observe the older Fields but it seemed even though Kenneth was scared he didn't waver from his position.
"Is that a threat Mr Fields?" Kenneth said as he looked at Wayne's pulsing muscles.
"No Mr DiLaurentis. A threat would be that I have been taught to know how to kill a man and to make it look like an accident." Wayne let go of Kenneth's suit and stood a few steps back giving Kenneth some space to rethink his objectives.
However Kenneth just stood there and straightened his suit out, he had a small thought that if he wasn't so angry with the Fields family that he and Wayne might've actually gotten on in a different life but it seemed here they would never get along.
"I can see I'm not welcome here. Come Alison, we're going home." Kenneth went to open the door before looking over at Alison who hadn't moved since he had entered the room.
"I'm not going." The blonde spoke bravely as she stood from her chair not letting Emily's hand go.
"I said we're going now!" Kenneth almost screamed again, Emily jumped at the noise, she was wondering where Toby was. Surely he was around, since he was supposed to be keeping an eye on her.
"No! I'm staying here with Emily." Alison held tightly onto Emily's hand, she was terrified but stood her ground.
"You are choosing this slut over your own family?" Wayne felt his own fist ball up but they were greeted with Pam's, holding them tightly she stood by her husband in support.
"She is my family." Alison looked down at Emily who smiled softly, even in such a horrifying moment Emily found herself being pulled to the blonde, now it was Alison's time to protect her.
"Fine. Don't come crying back to me when you realise it was nothing. You're not welcome home anymore, goodbye Alison." Before anyone else could speak Kenneth left the room and slammed the door behind him.
"Ali-" Emily began but Alison sat down on the bed next to the brunette and held her cheeks softly.
"It was going to happen, Em. I'll figure out where to go once you're better." Brushing her fingers against Emily's bandages Alison softly kissed the brunette's forehead.
"You will stay with us Ali." Pam said confidently as she said back next to Emily. Both girls looked over the Pam who had a smile dancing across her cheeks, she was not going to deny Emily the happiness she deserved, not after all this.
A small knock came at the door before Hanna, Spencer and Aria barged in.
"We saw your dad leaving!" Spencer puffed. All three girls looked like they had just ran a marathon, Hanna was even hunched over briefly to catch her breath before she stood up straight again.
"Yeah and he looked rather pissed off." Hanna said through a deep breath, Aria went to speak when Toby entered the room, also in a huff.
"What happened? I heard Kenneth was here?" He was still in his uniform; Emily thought momentarily if the young officer had even slept in the last few days.
"I'm sure China heard he was here, but he's gone now. Where were you?" Pam asked, slightly frustrated at Toby's absence.
"I received a call from the precinct. Noel was spotted at a gas station in New York not too long ago. They've sent a unit out to investigate but he will be long gone by then." Toby's tone was apologetic towards Pam and Wayne, he knew Emily was safe here but he also knew her parents weren't happy about Noel escaping.
"Thanks Toby." Pam stood and walked over to the exhausted Toby. "I'm sorry for snapping. It's been a long few days. Why don't you go home and sleep?"
"It might be a good idea Toby." Spencer said as she made her way to her boyfriend. Toby nodded slightly before looking over at Alison.
"Are you okay?" He asked her assuming that her father was here because he knew that Kenneth wouldn't be happy about Alison being with the brunette.
"I'm fine. You go and get some rest." Toby nodded again before moving his arm around Spencer.
"Come on. I'll take you home." Spencer said as she pulled the tired boy towards the door. "I'll be back later, okay?" Aria and Hanna nodded at the pair before they disappeared out the door. The two girls looked over at Alison and Emily.
It was the first time they had actually seen Emily wake and without the face mask on. The brunette looked as if she was in a lot of pain and it was painful to see.
"How are you feeling?" Aria asked as she stood at the end of the bed with Hanna.
"Tired more than anything." Emily responded, her voice was cracking and she struggled to breathe properly but she knew it was just a matter of practice with the nasal cannula.
"How about you?" Hanna directed at Alison as she sat down on the only free chair and patted her legs at Aria, the petite brunette laughed and sat on the blonde's lap.
"I'm okay." Alison looked over at Pam and Wayne who had remained seated, she wasn't really comfortable talking with them in the room, and she felt she had to be delicate about everything because of the stress levels Pam and Wayne were at.
"Well I'd better head to work, the day is still young." Wayne said as he stood from the chair, Pam followed and kissed Emily's forehead before saying goodbye to the rest of the girls.
"We will be back later Em. Ali if you need anything, just call us okay? We'll organise arrangements for tonight later." Pam said as her and Wayne turned to leave the room.
"Okay no problem. We will see you later." Alison waved goodbye before they left the room.
"What arrangements?" Hanna asked as Aria stood and moved to a now free chair.
"I'm staying with Emily's family for a bit." Alison asked as she went to move from the bed to the other free chair; however Emily's hand stopped her and held her in place. The blonde smiled and made herself more comfortable on the bed next to Emily.
"Why?" Aria asked curiously. Alison looked down at Emily whose eyes were constantly opening and closing from exhaustion.
"My dad kicked me out." Alison responded softly, it seemed she had forgotten to actually feel upset about being kicked out, about being abandoned by her father because of who she loved and she realised how bad it made her feel.
"You can stay with me? Or Aria? Or even Spencer? We've all got space for you Ali." Hanna offered kindly.
"Emily's parents said they were happy to have me which is good." Alison smiled at Wayne and Pam's hospitality. Hanna's eyebrow rose slightly before she looked over at Aria. "What?" Alison asked curiously.
"Well, I was just going to say don't be too loud, you don't want Emily's parents hearing." Hanna winked at the pair.
"Han!" Aria said as she rolled her eyes.
"Shh." Alison murmured as she looked down at a now sleeping Emily. All three girls looked at the brunette, her hand was still connected with Alison's but since the blonde was sitting up against the headboard of the bed and Emily was lying down it looked as if Emily's hand was uncomfortable.
When Alison went to move in hopes in would create less discomfort Emily slowly moved into her, smiling Alison gently placed her other hand on Emily's bandaged head, rubbing it tenderly.
"Aw." Hanna squealed quietly, happy to finally see Emily and Alison reunited and safe again.