The Other Side - A Jamilton Fanfiction

Chapter Twenty Seven

Months.

We were at three, and Thomas was still unresponsive.

It was so terrifying. How often do I use that word now? Terrifying. Not scary, not fear invoking, terrifying. Does that somehow make it more real? Does that somehow make it worse?

Months have never been as long for me before, but now each day dragged on and on like a snail crossing the highway at the fastest pace it could and still not making it in time to escape its inevitable death underneath the tires of a car.

Sorry, that was morbid.

Every minute felt like a year ticking by as I sat in the same room day after day, watching the same scene.

A couple of weeks ago, feeling brave yet—once more—terrified, I awoke from the same nightmare and crawled into bed with him. It was stupid and dumb and I hated myself for it the moment I woke up the next morning, but that night was one of the best I'd had in a long time. It was inexplicable, the peace I felt laying next to him and pressing my head against his chest, wrapping my arms around him, and closing my eyes.

Three months, on Earth, is a whole season. I wonder what Earth was like now. Was it snowing, or had spring already graced the trees? And how long had it been since I left in the first place?

It feels like just days, but at the same time, a lifetime.

You know that feeling you get when you're just so upset, whether frustrated, angry, or sad, and you just want that one person who makes you feel better? You know that burning of your throat, constricting of your chest, inability to think? The desire of that person to be there and hug you?

That person for me is currently laying in a bed, unaware of the world around him.

I wonder if he's dreaming? Or maybe he's in a state of nothingness, and when he wakes up, he'll think it was nothing more than just going to bed, when I had to suffer through three long months of loneliness.

And now I'm angry at him. Unfairly. God, I hate this. Sorry, Divinity I hate this.

There was a knock at the door, shaking me out of my state.

I expected Angelica. She came every day to check up on him, so I assumed she had been designated as the healer or whatever she was. It could've been Peggy I suppose, or perhaps Lafayette or James or Aaron or even Washington, but instead, I was surprised.

When I responded to the knock with a gentle, "come in" that didn't show how upset I was, Elizabeth entered quietly.

When was the last time I actually talked to her? Like, a full one-on-one conversation? Probably not since that one time I almost died.

"Hey," she said softly. "Mind if I sit?" She indicated towards the other chair sitting against the wall.

"Go for it," I returned.

She pulled the chair up next to me and sat down without a word. I was just getting ready to get lost in thought again when she finally spoke.

"How're you doing?"

"I don't know. Fine I guess."

"Liar," she accused softly, but she didn't follow up on it. "I don't think I ever apologized, you know. For almost killing you that one time."

I shrugged. "It's not like you meant to. Thomas almost killed me a couple of times in practice. It happens."

"Well, I'm sorry anyway."

And then there was the silence. The silence that veiled how we felt. What we wanted to say and how we wanted to say it. I hated the emptiness of it, the failure to follow through. It felt like I was doing something wrong.