Healing

by Nny11

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don’t own MLP FiM, and I don’t make money off of it. Please see Hasbro for that sort of thing.
Un-beta’d, but triple checked. Edited on 8/17/12.

I don’t know how many times I’ve stood here. Over you. Waiting. Watching your broken bandaged body breath. Listening to the beeping machines and the wheezing pumps as they labor back and forth to keep you going. Again. I’ve stood here and watched the IV drip, those little clear drops falling soundlessly and I’ve wondered so many times if this is how it will away be. If this is how it will all end; with me watching over you.

They wrap you up in thick white gauze and thin green gowns, and the bed sheets are cotton and pink. The plastic bars keep me from getting close to you, so I stand nearby waiting for you to wake up. And I know someday you won’t, I’ll just be there watching you die and not know it until you’ve gone.

I swung the little table top off to the side so that you can leap out of this plastic bed if you feel like it. You never do right at first, but eventually you will. This is how I stay ahead of the game, by just one step. I have to stay ahead by one step or else I will fall so far behind that I’ll never catch up. You never do anything slow. Sometimes I wonder if it’s even possible for you to go slow.

Your breathing is so slow and smooth. The drugs keep you sleeping so that you can recover. For a moment I let my eyes drop as an almost green liquid goes through a tube away from you and into the bag hanging on the side of your little plastic bed. My gaze drifts to look at the tubes in your arm. That tube keeps you hydrated so that other tube will have yellow-green liquid to take away. Plastic tubes all over you, little extra limbs that snake away from you. It’s disgusting. I am disgusted to see you here. You should be outside in the sun and the rain, with your face turned up; smiling as the wind blasts past you. You love to be outside so much, you don’t say it but I know you love nature so much. It disgusts me to see you here with all this sterile, plastic, beeping crap.

If it didn’t keep you alive I would tear it right out of you.

I take a deep breath and grind my teeth.

I don’t cry when I’m here. Just in case you’ll wake up when I am, I don’t want you to see me crying. It would break your heart and you can’t afford to have nothing else broken. …but I want to cry so badly. You know, it almost hurts worse to know that I can stop those tears. I feel guilty that I’m not hurting so much that I can’t help it. I can stop myself and that scares me a little. I’m worried that I don’t care for you as much as I think I do. When someone loves you don’t they weep uncontrollably, inconsolably? I don’t. I just stand here, eyes dry, and watch you breathe.

A nurse comes in to works around me. She checks your bags and vitals and changes things as they’re needed. She unwraps your bandages revealing the now discolored gashes, and then she wraps you up again in clean white ones. The red and brown strips are discarded somewhere. You are on those scraps forever, your blood, and they have so little trouble throwing part of you away. She works around me because I’m a fixture here.
I want to tell you how I’m here every fucking time, how every time I stay when everyone else leaves. How every single time I leave when you show signs of waking up, but only when you are gonna wake. You don’t like to be coddled and I don’t want you to think I am. I’m not here to treat you like a child. I’m here because I’m scared that every breath I watch you take will be your last.

I hate this place and I hate you for putting yourself here. I hope that thrill you get is worth it; I wish they’d just clip your damn wings and force you to stay safe. I hate that you go back to flying after every crash. I hate seeing you hurt. I don’t even care if it’s just a skinned knee, when I see you crash I think of this place. When I see your blood, I think of this place. When I see the bruises, I think of this place. You see a mild scratch. I see you in this little room wrapped up like the dead waiting for angels to come for you. And I hate you for that.

But I’m here for you.

The nurse leaves. My eyes stay dry as I watch you sleeping. And I wait for you to wake up.

Comments

[Chill Mists(Chilly)]

That was pretty good. But oh so short. Sequel?

[Adam Crocker]

Welp you just took one of the most hackneyed premises in FiM fanfiction and managed to redeem it by finding an interesting angle that hasn't been explored all that much. There are stories that relate the other characters reaction to this sort of thing happening. Yet none explore those reactions so thoroughly as you have here by completely internalizing the characters' reactions through a first person narrative and really showing the emotional cost entailed by someone's continued recklessness. Hence I found this more profoundly emotional that all the other stories I've read in this vein. Well done.

[RIPinPeaches]

If I could explain all the feels that I have right now, I gladly would, but since I can't, I'll just say that you have done a magnificent job writing this. Explaining feelings is never an easy task, and you were able to do it smoothly. It's sad that this is such a short story. Short, yet sad and heartbreaking. So all I can say is that you're an awesome writer, and I sure do hope to see more from you in the future. 5/5

[Mobius of the Moon]

Oh, come on! It's an amazing one-shot, probably could win an award or something. But you could make it something great. Favorited anyway.

[cammerhammer]

I can't pass judgement on this. It feels like it is crying out for more. I want so badly to rate this thing to my heart's content, but I can't until I have time to feel it more.

[RainbowSoul]

Dam that was good but sad you should try pull a sequel 5/5

[Nny11]

148560

I can understand that completely. What I've found with my writing is I can do at least decent flash fiction that leaves people wanting more or I drag it out too far and it doesn't leave as good of an impression. *shrug* So I tend to just write them until I feel like there's nothing more I can add without messing up the feeling and leave it. Thanks for the comment though, I'll try to put in some more length on the next one!

[Adam Crocker]

148738
"So I tend to just write them until I feel like there's nothing more I can add without messing up the feeling and leave it."

Personally I think that's the smarter approach and the results of this story bear this out. To me it's not really a matter of length so much as whether the story does what it says on the tin and how well it accomplishes that. This does it in spades, and it captures the feelings of the narrator perfectly.

Though I can understand wanting more from the quality shown here. If you want to do something more lengthy in the future, handling a longer story structure might be a point of craft to work on.

I think I have lost all abilities in responding to sad fics.

[MellowMabari]

Just realized I hadn't commented on this. I really enjoyed it. You took a situation that has its fair share of portrayals (Dash getting hurt flying) and put a new, heartfelt spin on it that was simple yet emotional. Really great work - I really don't know how stuff like this doesn't get more views. Have this Dash and Applejack for a lovely story