a forty-three second phone call is what brings abbie to the hospital that day; mia had called, rushing and stumbling through something so vague and tense that abbie didn’t stand a chance in being able to follow. what had happened before the call ended is all that really cemented in her mind : the coffee at the hospital is shit, jenny is at the hospital for some reason, and abbie has been tasked with performing acts of coffee preparation as well as delivery services. the only thing she knows for sure is that jenny is not the one in the hospital bed, and that is pretty much the only thing that kept her from running out of the house in her pajamas. now she enters the hospital, coffee in hand, and begins her search - not an easy task when she has so little information to go upon, but she’s willing to put in the leg work.
it turns out though that the leg work is not required. only moments after she steps through the sliding glass doors of the emergency room, a familiar voice breaks out in what may very well be the most heartbreaking sound that abbie has ever been forced to hear. she doesn’t think; one moment she is frozen and the next moment she is running. coffee left behind at the nurse’s station, an older woman calling after her out of concern or panic or worse, abbie can’t be bothered with any of it. jenny calls out for restitution, a wail of heartbreak what’s source abbie is not yet aware, but the most important thing now is to reach her. she comes through the door.
pale skin, scarlet blood, ivory hair that looks so much like jenny’s, now tacky with viscera and limp from lack of life. her hand is one of the only things left clean, wiped clean perhaps if they had the time, or maybe it is simply a tragic coincidence. it hangs at her side, death making a mockery of what once would have connected her to other people, intertwined fingers, skin against skin. worse still is the flat tone coming from the monitor; mia stands by it, blood soaking their scrubs through, sad eyes as they press the button - the monitor turns off, and the flat tone goes with it.
the task at hand: jenny’s hands, pressed to the floor, the blood there and abbie cannot stand it - she reaches for her, wants desperately to make everything okay, to make right what cannot be made right, what can never be right again. she doesn’t get the chance to comfort her before the young woman is standing, grabbing onto her with surprising strength. tears stream down her face and abbie’s heart aches, tears welling up in her own eyes; what can never be right again - she never would have wanted this to happen. not to anyone she knew, not to anyone important, but especially not to jenny. the young woman speaks, and abbie’s tears well over - she is crying too, and she hates herself for it.
“you-” abbie starts, but jenny is already moving, grabbing ahold of a chair and slamming it against the ground, again and again. the noise is a cacophony, an echo that reverberates around the small hospital room, and abbie is desperate - she has no idea what to do. she looks to mia - they only stare blankly back; they are just as lost as she is. reluctantly, she looks to carlisle - he left the room while she wasn’t paying him mind. she hesitates, but she cannot just stand here; she reaches for jenny, pulls her away and into the tightest hug that she can manage. any other time she would worry about hurting the other girl. now, all that matters is calming her. “jenny-”
but the woman is moving again, hair twisted beneath searching fingers, body against the wall as she slides down it. all abbie can do is hover within reach, hope that jenny will sit there, that she will allow herself to be held, that holding her will somehow make things even just a little bit better, as impossible as that would be. “jenny, i’m here,” she says, because it is all that she can say. and she waits.
the anger was overwhelming in the way that rose within her being at how unfair life is truly being. not only has she taken care of her youngest sister since their father’s death with their eldest brother’s help until she was of age to get a job to help in supporting, but then said brother ditched them to follow his dreams. there was an agreement that happened where she would stay behind to support their younger sister so that he can complete college and pass the bar to garner more money to support them in the future. now the brother has left them behind to enjoy his new life in seattle as they stayed behind with struggling to keep the shop open. it has been like this for years except her younger sister was able to help support the shop by running it along her side with the side job of painting and selling her paintings to collect money this way.
there was no doubt that their bond was more closer as she look to her more of her best friend than just her younger sister. she lost family, the one she took care of and closest to, her only best friend in this lifetime that understood her through and through. knowing all her problems and now there was no more arguments to be made in that household, no advice to be given. the pain is simply too unbearable as she couldn’t help the sob that rippled through her entire being at the other. “d-dai..sy..” the sob is so broken as she could feel her being then begin to shook under the overwhelming emotions that push through her.
“i was always ready!” her hands squeezed at the strands against her scalp t hat it burned, unmingling them in that moment to suddenly grasp abbie’s arms as she stared into the other’s eyes. “i’ve always been ready to go first!” her gaze searching as the tears simply poured with redness around the rim - scared of being alone was her worst fear in this entire world. her younger sister was her safety net to pull her back by reassuring her that she wasn’t going to leave. “sh-she was so.. young!” she took an quick breathe then moving her searching hands until an hand rest upon the back of abbie’s neck to suddenly pull her close into an crushing hug. knees spread and she’s accepting the other fully in this sense as she clung to her in a devastating moment - letting the other feel how fast her heart was racing.
the memories were still flooding her brain of how her younger sister looks upon the stretcher and in the ambulance. how the skin simply ooze in it’s mess of blood and maybe some part of her understood that she may not make it, but there was always that hope that she would. she looked so much worse than the better and she couldn’t bring herself to understand what had happened for this much of an attack to happen. her younger sister had always known what to do situations when a bear is approaching - even shoved a few bear sprays in the youngest’s bag before she left on her trip.
