Intrepid » n.h. au

Chapter 26

Harry's POV

"Well, I'm happy that your hip is now fine." I lean down so that the older lady would hear me, "You have a nice day, alright?"

She smiles up at me, shaking my hand with both of hers gratefully after I've wheeled her to a vending machine, and gotten her gummy bears. And because she had time to tell me about her surgery while I was waiting for two cups of coffee. Her son and his family live in Australia so she had no one to visit her since her surgery, so I was actually happy to spare a few minutes to listen to her.

Even though there's a good possibility that my sister is going to dump the cup of coffee that's meant for her on my head, if it's not steaming hot. I usually leave my coffee for at least ten minutes after making it, but she just goes straight to chugging it down. Her stomach must be made of steel.

I sigh involuntarily, and slow down as I walk through the long hallway, hearing raised voices from the room at the end of the hall yet again. I kick the tiled floor with the heel of my shoe as I start walking again, accepting the fact that I'd have to play hall monitor all over again. It's like junior high school all over again.

"Try peripheral stimuli, I don't care!" I roll my eyes, mentally preparing myself for walking inside one last time, before opening the door. The sight inside doesn't surprise me one bit; Freya is standing on the right side of the bed, her arms crossed over her chest and her face holding a disbelieving slash I-will-slice-your-throats kind of expression, as she stares at the doctor and nurse on the other side of the bed.

The doctor tries telling her that they've already tried peripheral stimuli, that it's not working and they're borderline torturing him – something I've known since the beginning – but she doesn't listen. I don't even know why they're trying anymore, she literally hasn't listened to a word they've said.

Sighing internally again I make my way around the bed, putting the two cups on the end table while she keeps talking- more like shouting. And it's been going on for days. And at this point, I'm surprised that Niall wasn't woken up purely by her obnoxiously loud voice. Or that they hadn't thrown us out of the hospital and banned us here.

"Hey," I call, staring at the side of her head, but she just keeps looking at the doctor – that's managed to stay calm all this time, with teary eyes. Okay, she's about to start crying. Code red.

"Hey," I say louder, this time gripping her arm and yanking her toward me. She tries to fight me, keeping her eyes on the doctor until she realizes that I'm not going to let go of her, until she stops with this bullshit.

"Stop it!" Freya says, frowning at me as she tried to pull herself out of my hold, but it's of no use. We took kickboxing classes together, she's beginning to forget that we're equally strong in the limbs department. "Just let me-"

"No," I raise my voice, not letting her finish her sentence. "They've repeated it a million times, they can't do anything anymore! He has to wake up on his own!"

"If they could just-"

"No."

"Or let me-"

"No!" I exclaim, in disbelief; does she seriously think they'd let someone who almost looks schizophrenic to try and wake up a patient? "Just- just deal with it, okay? He's not gonna wake up today. Not today."

"He has to!" She finally turns to me, seemingly forgetting all about Niall's doctor and how she's angry at him. "It's-it's Christmas!"

I grimace at that, "We don't even do Christmas," I tell her in an annoyed tone, for a second forgetting that there's a rather big possibility that Niall doesn't share our religion.