The room is strangely steady. There’s a rhythmic beeping, the steady woosh of an oxygen machine, but other than that, the room is quiet. Standing in the doorway, looking at the prone figure on the bed, Reeve can almost pretend that everything is stable. That it isn’t the closest thing to a best friend laying in that bed, clinging to life after–
His hands are shaking, but Reeve can’t stop it. He can’t seem to keep the tears back as they well up in his eyes, but no matter how often the doctors have reassured him, he isn’t sure he can believe that Tseng will survive this. Only one other person (two? maybe, he still isn’t sure what Cloud is) has survived an attack from the masamune, and she bears the scars from it.
He isn’t expecting anyone else in the room, and when he finally drags his eyes away from Tseng, he stares at the blonde sitting beside his bed. It takes him a minute to place her, two to come up with her name (Laney? No, Elena. Elena.), and he hesitates before he finally crosses the threshhold into the room.
Her head comes up the minute he does, and she twists around in the chair to look at him. Her eyes are as red-rimmed as his are, and they stare at each other for a long minute. Then he moves to sit beside her.
She’s not holding Tseng’s hand, but then again, Reeve would have been surprised by that. The Turks are professionals. Such moments of weakness–
He’s the one who reaches out to take Tseng’s hand, and he holds his other hand out to her.
She stares at him for a heartbeat, watching the way he swallows, the way he shakes, and then she takes his hand. He doesn’t look at her face when her fingers flex against the too-still weight of Tseng’s hand.
He doesn’t mind being their moment of weakness. Their excuse for it.
// Send me a word and my muse will reveal a memory that has to do with it.
2087
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