Ross’s head felt blurry. He couldn’t open his eyes for some reason, but he could hear Laura. Talking, talking, talking. All she ever did was talk. He liked listening to her talk, though. He couldn’t figure out what she was saying. His head felt blurry. He forced his eyes opened, blinking slowly as his eyes adjusted to the light, and was aware of pain. Pain all over his body, pain down his legs and arms and a distinct pain in his side where he assumed his rib was. There was pressure on his hand - someone was holding it. Their palm was sweaty. He heard Laura’s voice, louder now, more distinct. She was telling him about her day. He missed hearing about her day. Ross concentrated hard and very slowly turned his head towards her, finding her looking messy and pale but as beautiful as he had always found her. “Laura,” he croaked. It felt like he hadn’t spoken in days. At that point, her face suddenly lit up, colour flooding into her pale cheeks and her voice growing even louder as she called someone in to join them. He didn’t like that. He wanted to be alone with her.
“Laura,” he said again, because it seemed to be all he could say. A doctor approached him with a nurse, asking him questions. He tried to answer them by nodding or shaking his head, even laughing or smiling randomly without meaning to. He wasn’t sure how to control his body. The only thing he could really do was repeat ‘Laura’ or make vague moans or grunts to answer questions. He heard them say something like ‘minimally conscious state’ before they left. He gave Laura another random smile before he fell asleep again. His head still felt blurry. He wasn’t sure how many days passed with him in this state, randomly bursting into tears or smiling or laughing, only able to nod or shake his head, vaguely grunt and repeat ‘Laura, Laura’ over and over, but one day he sat up, and his head had stopped feeling blurry. Laura had never left his side.
Ross turned to her, finally giving her a genuine smile instead of the weird, uncomfortably dopey smile he’d been giving over the past week. It was as though the fog that had been covering his body and making it hard for him to control it, to feel like himself, had finally lifted. He was still sore everywhere - he had a cast on his leg, arm, and bandages on his side, but mentally, he felt way better. He finally felt in charge of his body again. “Well, well,” he managed to rasp, wriggling his fingers and glad to find that her hand was still in his. “Do my eye deceive me, or is that Laura Marano?” He asked, stuttering just a little, because talking felt foreign. He looked around the hospital room with curiosity, trying to figure out how long he had been there for. “Where am I?” He asked dumbly, not really sure how else to phrase it. He clear his throat. “I mean… what am I doing here? How long have I been here for?”
The last couple of weeks had been nothing short of torture for Laura. She replayed that moment in her head too many times, wondering why on earth it had to happen that way. Ross was leaving the café, and she was simply watching him walk right into an accident, literally. She was angry at the vehicle, she was even angrier at Ross for whatever reason. Above all, she was angry at herself. She started to blame herself for not leaving the café with him, for wondering what she said that could have dazed him, and just in general for how they had been recently. She was sure of one thing; she wasn’t going to leave his side. Not anymore.
She spent days and weeks on end beside him in the hospital. She called Calum and got some support from him, but wasn’t about to leave him along for longer than a bathroom break. The doctors said it was nothing serious but recovery would be gradual. Realizing she had a lot to lose with her internship, her personal life, her own health perhaps, did not change the bigger realization that she could be losing something much worthier than all of that put together; Ross. She disappeared at her internship initially, but then slowly started to go back when she was certain Ross was asleep and unconscious. It did not matter much, because wherever she was and whatever she did, only the image of Ross was on her mind. She was fragile, devastated, tired, but persistent. When the doctors told her that he might be able to hear her, she began talking to him about her day, her life, how she knows that he is going to be okay.
The day Ross finally awoke and said her name felt like the most precious moment of her life. It breathed life into her and made her so happy, even though he was far from being completely normal. When he finally sat up, he looked like Ross again. His facial expressions were normal, his eyes looked at her in that way that made her heart jump, although he did need a shave and some grooming. She was emotional, a little shocked and elated all at the same time. “Ross..”, she muttered, throwing her hands around him in a comfortable hug, hiding that quiver in her voice that came just before she started crying. Her eyes were pink, tears rolled down so quickly from the touch of his hands around her and his chest against hers. There was always the haunting fear that this moment would never come, which is why she the tears were uncontrollable.
She pulled back a few inches and looked at his eyes, his now pale skin and his weak lips. “You poor thing. You fought so hard. You got into a car accident. A few weeks. But you’re better now, you’re almost back to normal”, she said reassuring, embracing him again tightly, wondering if he had any memory of her being by his side. Laura didn’t know what question to ask first, or what to do. She wanted to brush her lips against his, tell him how important he is to her. And that nothing was more important than not leaving his side in the hospital; something she proved to herself and to him. In that moment, she just hugged him with all the willpower she had in her, thankful that he was coming to life again.