My Greatest Adventure

Wish That You Were Here

A/N: Just to be safe, I'm giving a mild content warning for a couple brief allusions to slight dissociation/out-of-body experiences due to shock/trauma. It's nothing overly descriptive but I wanted to give a heads-up in case anyone might be bothered by it.

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"And I never minded being on my own
Then something broke in me and I wanted to go home
To be where you are
But even closer to you, you seem so very far
And now I'm reaching out with every note I sing
And I hope it gets to you on some Pacific wind
Wraps itself around you and whispers in your ear
Tells you that I miss you and I wish that you were here..."

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It's past midnight by the time the painkillers wear off.

Unfortunately for Helen Parr, she has yet to succumb to sleep. So when the pain once again rears its monstrous head, she is fully conscious, unable to escape the surge of white-hot fire setting her nerves ablaze. She clamps her jaw hard and squeezes her eyes shut in an attempt to quash the sickening sensation of bile rising in her throat, but it's no use. Cursing under her breath, she hastily throws the covers off her and rolls out of bed, desperately hoping that she can make it to the bathroom before she empties the contents of her last meal onto the hotel carpet.

Helen barely contains the shriek of agony that claws at her insides as she gingerly places her feet on the floor and slowly pushes herself up into a standing position. The movement sends a stab of excruciating pain shooting up her thigh and into her hip, and the room begins to swim in her vision, her surroundings momentarily blurring into a formless haze of color and light. She sways dangerously to the side and flings her arm out on instinct, scrabbling at the nightstand in a frantic attempt to regain her balance. She manages to plant her hand firmly atop its surface before she has the chance to stumble back onto the mattress, and she shuts her eyes once more, sucking in several deep yet quavering breaths in a strained effort to steady herself. When she opens her eyes a few seconds later, the room has righted itself in her view, and she takes a cautious step forward, her hand still clutching the side of the nightstand in case she should wobble again. The first step goes without a hitch, but the moment she tries to bring her opposite foot up underneath her, she realizes to her horror that her other leg has gone limp once again, rendering it practically useless. She bites back another scream as the pain sears through her muscles, and forces herself to keep moving one step at a time, dragging her injured leg behind her.

Without the flood of adrenaline pumping through her veins like earlier, Helen is unable to pick up much speed, so the progress of merely walking is agonizingly slow. It's only a few feet to the bathroom door, but in her current state it feels like miles, and by the time Helen reaches it she wants nothing more than to collapse onto the floor in a heap and remain there for the rest of the night. But she grits her teeth, pressing on despite the maelstrom of aches and nausea and exhaustion, and pushes the door open. She fumbles around in the dark for the light switch and then hobbles to the edge of the toilet where she finally drops to her knees. She hardly has enough time to thrust the seat up before her stomach lurches, and she spends the next several minutes clutching the side of the bowl and retching until she has nothing left inside her. When she's finally finished, trembling violently and gasping for air, she shakily lifts a hand to flush the toilet before allowing herself to list sideways and fall against the sink cabinet with a dull thud. A second later, however, she jerks backward with a startled cry as another bolt of razor-sharp pain slices through her shoulder and up her neck.