Fic: Little Lamb, Lost in the Woods (AI Kradison friendship)
Title: Little Lamb, Lost in the Woods
Fandom: American Idol RPF
Characters: Allison, Kris, and Adam friendship
Rating: PG-ish
Summary: The season 8 reunion at Megan's doesn't go exactly smoothly.
Notes: This was written as a laaaate pinch hit for pricelessone in the aiholidaybash. The prompt I chose was Allison goes through the ice on a snowmobile. Kris and Adam are there to help her recover. Bonus if you include Spanish-speaking. Huge thanks to oatmeal_cookie, pinkygoldfish, smittywing, and kageygirl for looking over this and cheering me on. 3600 words. (Title is from 'Someone to Watch Over Me'.)
"Oh, God, that smells so gooooood," Allison says as she slides into the kitchen, Risky Business-style (only wearing a lot more than a button-up shirt and tighty-whities). The thin, super-science-y micro-fiber socks she borrowed from Lil are perfectly slick against the tile of the kitchen floor--until they're not. She comes to a stop a full two feet from the counter, arms outstretched and fingers grasping unsuccessfully at the tray of muffins just out of the oven.
Megan laughs at her.
"They're too hot to eat right now, anyway," she says, pinching the papers between her nails to pull the muffins out of the tin and then toss them onto a cooling rack. "You'd burn your tongue and I'd have to hear about it for the next three days."
"Would not." Allison sticks her lips out in an exaggerated pout. Megan laughs again, so when she turns her back Allison swipes her index finger through the bowl of batter. Apple cinnamon, and not from a mix. She sucks her finger clean and pastes an innocent look on her face right before Megan looks back at her. Judging by her narrowed eyes, Allison isn't pulling it off any better than she has in her previous eighteen years of life.
Luckily, that's when Adam shuffles into the kitchen. He's wearing his ratty old sweats and an Idol tour T-shirt, faded thin enough that she knows he's not wearing it solely to be ironic. He's barefoot, toes curling in tight from the cold of the floor as he dips his head for a Megan smooch.
"Please tell me you have coffee," he says, reaching past her towards the muffins. Megan smacks his hand, then shoves the huge can of instant at him.
"I don't have a coffee maker," she says. "You'll have to make do."
"I can do that." He winks at Allison, then pulls a mug off of the rack above Megan's head. He starts scooping and pouring, and Allison takes the opportunity to duck into the giganto mud room next to the kitchen to put on the old pair of shit-kickers that Megan was so right to tell her to bring. She tightens the laces good, double knots, then stomps the floor to settle them on her feet. By the time she grabs her coat and heads back into the kitchen, Adam's pulling the mug back out of the microwave, hissing at the heat before he gets it down to the countertop.
"Going somewhere?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at her as he blows on his fingertips.
"Me and the guys are taking out the snowmobiles." She scoots to the side as Megan opens the freezer door. "It's gonna be crazy fun, man."
"The guys? Did Kris get in already?"
"Anoop's gone to pick him up," Megan says as she pries the lid off a can of frozen orange juice. "They should be back in time for breakfast."
"You want to come?" Allison shrugs into her coat, already anticipating a no. It's not that Adam's not adventurous, but the typical Southern Californian reaction to snow is to either think it's the most amazing thing on earth, or to think it's the most amazing thing on earth which should absolutely be viewed from a safe, very warm distance. They're in opposite camps on this one. "We'd have to ride double, though. There aren't enough snowmobiles for everybody."
"I'm good, sweetie." He steps forward and wraps her in an Adam special, arms tightening into the thick down of her coat. She probably looks like a magenta marshmallow man right now. Or Adam in his space suit thing, if he'd gone for a pink theme. He kisses her on the forehead and then lets go. "Have a good time for me."
"Don't go too fast," Megan warns. "It's hard to see stuff in all the white. And don't stay out too long--we're supposed to get more snow this afternoon."
"Yes, ma'am." She mocks a salute. Megan smacks her on the ass in retaliation, but it only makes her down-filled coat fart a little bit. Allison races for the door before they're all done laughing, sure that the boys are going to take off without her if she doesn't get out to the barn pronto.
"Hey! Those are for later," she hears Megan shout before the door slams shut, and Allison cracks up all over again. This reunion thing has been the best idea ever, definitely.
*****
Utah is amaaaaazing. Allison doesn't try to hold back her yodeling laugh as the snowmobile flies over another drift, her stomach plunging in the very best way while she's airborne for those two seconds. Snow spray kicks up over the windshield, stinging her face, making her feel alive like nothing else. She knows that most of the others would say the same about being on stage, but for her, performing is a Zen-like state, something that she can't really remember when she comes out of it again. This, though, is pure exhilaration. Even the roar of the motors adds to the image she has in her head, her hair flaming out behind her as she rockets across the vast whiteness of this space.
Matt zooms out past her, tongue out in a nyah-nyah-nyah before he faces front again. Allison guns it a little harder, well aware of Michael and Danny closing in on her tail. Todd and Scott are lagging way behind, along with CJ and Ryder, although every now and then she swears she can hear Scott's shrieks of joy.
They're out of the woods now, heading down a short hill into a flattened basin that looks like it stretches forever. Maybe it's filled with potatoes during the summer or something. Right now, though, it's going to be a battlefield, one that'll see the boys whimpering in defeat.
Danny swings out wide next to her, fishtailing a bit before he tries to cut her off. Allison swerves, but Megan's brother is edging up on her from the other side. Allison lets up on the gas for a second, startled. She'd thought he was way back there, being careful for Ryder's sake. He's yelling something at her, but she can't make it out.
That's when she goes airborne again, arcing out into the sky with the ground nowhere in sight. Her heart grabs for her throat and she has time to think oh, snaaaapppz, didn't see that hill before she's crashing back down. The runners catch snow for a second, but then there's a crack loud enough for her to hear over the motor.
The ground goes away.
Water rushes over her head before Allison realizes what's happened. She gasps instinctively, the cold and shock of what happened taking control of her body. Instead of air, she pulls in water. She's choking, oh, Dios, she's drowning, and she can't see anything but black water. The snowmobile. She's still hanging onto the snowmobile, she thinks, and it's dragging her farther under.
She focuses everything she has on letting go and kicking upward--and then she passes out.
*****
"You're going to be okay, Alli-cat, okay? You hear me?"
"Just open your eyes. Just for a little bit. That's all you need to do."
There are blue eyes right above her. Something's wrong with them, though. Not enough glitter, maybe.
"Just stick with us, baby. We're getting you help. Everything's going to be just fine."
*****
There's guitar music in her dreams. She knows the melody, she knows she does, but the words aren't coming to her. Whoever's playing has slowed it down way too much. It almost sounds sad, and she knows it's not a sad song. It's a song that has...bubbles, or something.
She starts humming along, hoping the lyrics will come to her from muscle memory alone. A cough rips up out of nowhere, flooding her throat and suppressing the words.
The music stops. "Allison?"
Keep playing, she wants to say, but even as the fit subsides she's drifting back down into sleep, don't stop believing just another lullaby taking her towards her dreams.
*****
She whimpers herself awake. She doesn't even realize why at first, but then she takes a deep breath and pain shoots through her chest and into her head, so sharp she can't relax to let the air back out again.
"It's okay, babygirl. You're okay," Adam murmurs from right next to her. "Just breathe, okay?"
Not okay, she thinks back at him as a coughing fit dials up the pain to excruciating. Adam moves away, some chick in a blue top taking his place. Hospital, she thinks, but somewhere between the coughs easing and the pain dying down to a dull throb, she's out again.
*****
The next time she wakes up, things make a lot more sense in her head. She's in a hospital, her chest hurts, and Kris is sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed, softly plucking away at the half-sized guitar he carts around when space is tight. She tries to push herself upward, into a better position, but it hurts so much that she gives up instantly.
"Hey, careful," Kris says, at her side just like that. "You're pretty banged up."
It feels like an anvil's sitting on her chest, one of those super-sized ACME ones that always gets Wile E Coyote. She tries to take a deeper breath, but she can't, and all of a sudden she's scared. She looks at Kris, and it must show on her face.
"You're going to be fine," he tells her, cupping his hands around her left. There's some kind of monitor thing on her index finger, and he weaves his fingers around it. "Do you remember? You went through the ice on the snowmobile. Busted a couple ribs and your ankle. Not to mention they had to get half a pond out of you the hard way."
"Fuuuuuu--" she gets out, then drops her head back to the pillow. Her voice sounds even more like a guy's than ever. Hell, she could out-gravel Danny, easy, right now. If she could get the air to sing, that is.
"Your family is going to be here as soon as they can," Kris says. He's still got his hands on hers, keeping her safe. "The Salt Lake airport's shut down for a bit. Just until the storm blows through."
"She's gonna kill me." It's coming back to her now, a bit, though she's still not sure how she went from snowmobiling to drowning. Whatever happened, it was because of something stupid, she's sure, and her mama is not going to be happy. "Estoy muerta."
Kris chuckles. "She's not gonna kill ya. Smother you with love, maybe."
"Oh, believe me, she'll kill me. If not her, then my sister will." Just like that, Allison wants them there terribly, so much so that a sob hitches up in her throat, which causes her to gasp with pain. She turns her head, trying to hide the tears that escape, but Kris just keeps rubbing his thumb in circles over the back of her hand.
"Hey, sweetie," Adam calls softly as he steps into the little room. He doesn't say anything else, just gets as close as he can on the opposite side of the bed from Kris, reaches across the rails and covers her with the lightest, most frustrating, bestest hug ever. She can't stop crying, and the more she cries, the more it hurts, and the more it hurts, the more she cries. Adam pulls back a little bit, resting his face next to hers and running a hand through her hair, all while Kris keeps petting her hand.
Eventually she pulls it together. Kris hands her a tissue, then another after she snots up the first real good.
"Sorry," she says. "Sorry for everything. I really messed up, huh?"
"It's not your fault." Adam swipes away some of the tears she missed with his thumb. "CJ said he forgot you weren't in with the others when he told them about the lake. You didn't know."
"He feels really terrible," Kris adds.
"Well, it's not his fault!" Allison shouts--or tries too, voice throttled back by chest and throat both. "I shouldn't have been going so damn fast."
"It's nobody's fault," Adam says firmly. "We're just glad you're okay. That everyone's okay."
"Everyone else?" Panic's rising up in her again. "Did somebody else get hurt?"
"Shhh, shhh," Adam soothes. "No, everyone's fine. The guys just got a little bit cold pulling you out, that's all."
Allison relaxes back into the pillows. She could sleep again, for a week, which is crazy since she just woke up.
"The doctor's here to see you," Kris says. "We'll be right outside, okay? We're not going anywhere."
"Yeah," she croaks out, and then there's a woman shining a light in her eyes, poking all kinds of places she doesn't want to be poked, and Allison wishes she could just go to sleep and wake up yesterday.
*****
She does a lot of waking up. She's tired all the time, but what sleep she manages is full of bad dreams and a constant sense of anxiety, like something bad's going to happen if she doesn't wake the fuck up right now. When she was really little, she used to dream about nasty, snarling monsters grabbing by her the back of the neck and pulling her under the bed so they could eat her, and no matter how much she tried to scream for help, nothing would come out. That's what it's like now, except it's not monsters in her head this time.
Thank God there's always someone there when she wakes up to distract her from the scary stuff. Megan and Lil shower her with enough motherly love that it's almost as good as having her family with her. Matt's full of funny faces and voices, at least until he sends her into a painful laughing fit, and then he just sits beside her, awkwardly quiet but faithful. Danny's as pale as the snow outside; she can't imagine how tough this must be on him. Anoop reads to her for a while in the most soothing voice ever. It's really nice, but when she wakes up again she can't remember what the story was about. There's Michael and Scott and Todd, CJ and Ryder and Lil's husband and kids, always somebody with a tight smile and a hand on her arm to reassure her that everything's going to be all right.
And always, in between the others, there are Adam and Kris. She loves all her Idol family a lot. She's maybe closer to Megan and Lil in many ways, and Matt always seems to be the one who worries the most about her--but Adam and Kris are her bros. It's been the three of them since Group 2 week, and she doesn't think that will ever change.
"You think you can eat something?" Kris asks later, after they've moved her to a private room for a night of observation. Her bed is angled towards a big window with half-drawn blinds, but the only thing she can see out of it is that weird orange glow cast by parking lot lights shining through snow. Most everyone went back to Megan's before sunset, not wanting to risk the roads after dark in this weather. But her bros are still here. "They said you can have some soft stuff, see how your stomach handles it."
"Ice cream?" she asks hopefully.
"Pudding cups." Kris holds up what looks like vanilla-chocolate swirl, along with a plastic-wrapped spork. "I won't even make you eat the mashed potatoes first, unless you want to."
"Gimme," she demands, making graspy-hands at him. Even that hurts, her fingers still swollen and achy from the time spent in the cold. Kris peels the lid off the pudding and passes it over before unwrapping the spork. At least he doesn't have to feed her. The pudding tastes fantastic. After the first bite she's convinced she could polish off a whole case, but before she scrapes the bottom of the single cup her gut starts rumbling in ominous ways. The pressure from her expanded stomach is making it harder to breathe, too. She hands the cup back to Kris, who dumps it on the lemon-yellow tray at the foot of her bed.
"Anything else?"
Allison shakes her head. "I just want to get out of here." She's still tired, but not enough to go back to sleep, and starting to feel restless and a little trapped. Like she needs to get out of bed, even if it's to get into a different one.
"Sorry. Tomorrow, hopefully." Kris pushes a cup with a bendy straw into her hand. Allison takes a sip, more out of boredom than thirst. It's water, flat and bitter, but it turns out she's pretty parched despite her earlier dunking. She drinks about half before her stomach hits the wall again.
They're simply quiet together for a few minutes. Kris has never been the type to say stuff to fill a void. Normally Allison wouldn't mind, but she keeps going back and forth between being bored out of her mind and remembering how she got here. She thinks about turning on the TV, but her head hurts a bit too much to contemplate both the noise and staring up at the screen in the corner of the room for longer than a few minutes. Finally she just closes her eyes, hoping that she'll fall asleep again.
She was really lucky, she knows that. The snowmobile could have flipped, trapping her deep under the water, or crushing her against the ice before it broke through. The guys could have taken too long to get to her. Or not been able to pull her out. Or, oh, God, one of them could have died trying to save her. The thought is too awful to exist, but now that she's thought it she can't get it out of her head. The more she tries to stop thinking, the more awful thoughts keep coming. Hell, something could have happened to Ryder while they were all focused on her.
"Allison?"
"What?" She opens her eyes slowly. Kris is next to the bed.
"You're crying again." He wipes away the tears with soft brushes of his thumb. "What's up?"
She shakes her head, not wanting to confess what's going on in her head. "I'm," she starts, but then a sob forces its way out of her throat. She shakes her head again. "I almost died." She doesn't start bawling, which her ribs are grateful for, but the tears come on so strong she can barely see Kris.
"Yeah," he says, calm as anything. She reaches for his hand, and he returns her desperate grip. "You almost did. But the almost is the important part."
"What if-- What if--" She doesn't even know which 'what if' she's trying to get out. All of them, maybe. Or just the big one.
"Hey. Listen to me, okay? None of that matters. It's all about from here on out." He's smiling, that crooked little half-smile that he gets whenever there's a joke in his head nobody else is in on, but his eyes are completely serious. "Believe me, I know."
"So, what, I'm just supposed to forget it happened?"
"That's not what I'm saying." Kris shakes his head. "It happened, and that's going to be with you. But now you know how much life is worth living."
"Yeah." Allison nods a little. "Yeah, maybe."
Kris hands her a handful of tissues. "You want me to turn on the TV or something?" he asks after she's done as much as she can to dry her face.
"No, I'm good." Kris starts to step away, but she catches him by the cuff of his shirt. "Wait. Maybe you can play for a while?"
"Just let me get my gui-tar," he says, emphasizing the first syllable with a really silly Western drawl that makes her snort. He squeezes her shoulder, then moves towards the door just as it's opening for Adam. They exchange words she can't hear, heads pressed together and hands on each other's upper arms, before Kris scoots on out the door and Adam comes over to her.
"Hey, sweetie." He kisses her forehead, just like he did this morning. God, she can't believe it was only this morning. His hoodie is unzipped enough that she can see he's still wearing the Idol tour tee; he never had a chance to change into anything else, thanks to her.
Tears start to well up again. Allison blinks them back. She might love the song, but she's not a cry baby, damn it. And there's no time better than now to start taking Kris's advice. "I'm so glad you're here. I love you guys so much," she says, and she's pretty sure Adam's tearing up, too, but he hides it by giving her another hug.
"So," he says when he pulls back, totally swiping at his eyes. "Good news! The airport is open again. Your family should be here before morning."
"Awesome," she says, snuffling a little. Good snuffles. Yeah, it'll be good to see her parents and everybody, but there's no doubt in her mind that she's got family with her right now.
The door opens, Kris returning with guitar in hand. "I called Katy real quick, let her know how you're doing. She sends her love," he says. He settles onto the arm of the chair beside the bed. "Any requests?"
"I don't care. Just...not 'Live Like We're Dying', okay?"
Kris snorts. "Not a problem." He strums a few chords, checking the tuning, then flows into 'Hey Jude'. Adam joins him on the chorus, voice tamped back so he doesn't wake the entire ward. Allison smiles and closes her eyes. By the time they start on 'Crazy', she's drifting off.
She doesn't know what they sing after that, but it's enough to keep the nightmares away for good.
Fandom: American Idol RPF
Characters: Allison, Kris, and Adam friendship
Rating: PG-ish
Summary: The season 8 reunion at Megan's doesn't go exactly smoothly.
Notes: This was written as a laaaate pinch hit for pricelessone in the aiholidaybash. The prompt I chose was Allison goes through the ice on a snowmobile. Kris and Adam are there to help her recover. Bonus if you include Spanish-speaking. Huge thanks to oatmeal_cookie, pinkygoldfish, smittywing, and kageygirl for looking over this and cheering me on. 3600 words. (Title is from 'Someone to Watch Over Me'.)
"Oh, God, that smells so gooooood," Allison says as she slides into the kitchen, Risky Business-style (only wearing a lot more than a button-up shirt and tighty-whities). The thin, super-science-y micro-fiber socks she borrowed from Lil are perfectly slick against the tile of the kitchen floor--until they're not. She comes to a stop a full two feet from the counter, arms outstretched and fingers grasping unsuccessfully at the tray of muffins just out of the oven.
Megan laughs at her.
"They're too hot to eat right now, anyway," she says, pinching the papers between her nails to pull the muffins out of the tin and then toss them onto a cooling rack. "You'd burn your tongue and I'd have to hear about it for the next three days."
"Would not." Allison sticks her lips out in an exaggerated pout. Megan laughs again, so when she turns her back Allison swipes her index finger through the bowl of batter. Apple cinnamon, and not from a mix. She sucks her finger clean and pastes an innocent look on her face right before Megan looks back at her. Judging by her narrowed eyes, Allison isn't pulling it off any better than she has in her previous eighteen years of life.
Luckily, that's when Adam shuffles into the kitchen. He's wearing his ratty old sweats and an Idol tour T-shirt, faded thin enough that she knows he's not wearing it solely to be ironic. He's barefoot, toes curling in tight from the cold of the floor as he dips his head for a Megan smooch.
"Please tell me you have coffee," he says, reaching past her towards the muffins. Megan smacks his hand, then shoves the huge can of instant at him.
"I don't have a coffee maker," she says. "You'll have to make do."
"I can do that." He winks at Allison, then pulls a mug off of the rack above Megan's head. He starts scooping and pouring, and Allison takes the opportunity to duck into the giganto mud room next to the kitchen to put on the old pair of shit-kickers that Megan was so right to tell her to bring. She tightens the laces good, double knots, then stomps the floor to settle them on her feet. By the time she grabs her coat and heads back into the kitchen, Adam's pulling the mug back out of the microwave, hissing at the heat before he gets it down to the countertop.
"Going somewhere?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at her as he blows on his fingertips.
"Me and the guys are taking out the snowmobiles." She scoots to the side as Megan opens the freezer door. "It's gonna be crazy fun, man."
"The guys? Did Kris get in already?"
"Anoop's gone to pick him up," Megan says as she pries the lid off a can of frozen orange juice. "They should be back in time for breakfast."
"You want to come?" Allison shrugs into her coat, already anticipating a no. It's not that Adam's not adventurous, but the typical Southern Californian reaction to snow is to either think it's the most amazing thing on earth, or to think it's the most amazing thing on earth which should absolutely be viewed from a safe, very warm distance. They're in opposite camps on this one. "We'd have to ride double, though. There aren't enough snowmobiles for everybody."
"I'm good, sweetie." He steps forward and wraps her in an Adam special, arms tightening into the thick down of her coat. She probably looks like a magenta marshmallow man right now. Or Adam in his space suit thing, if he'd gone for a pink theme. He kisses her on the forehead and then lets go. "Have a good time for me."
"Don't go too fast," Megan warns. "It's hard to see stuff in all the white. And don't stay out too long--we're supposed to get more snow this afternoon."
"Yes, ma'am." She mocks a salute. Megan smacks her on the ass in retaliation, but it only makes her down-filled coat fart a little bit. Allison races for the door before they're all done laughing, sure that the boys are going to take off without her if she doesn't get out to the barn pronto.
"Hey! Those are for later," she hears Megan shout before the door slams shut, and Allison cracks up all over again. This reunion thing has been the best idea ever, definitely.
*****
Utah is amaaaaazing. Allison doesn't try to hold back her yodeling laugh as the snowmobile flies over another drift, her stomach plunging in the very best way while she's airborne for those two seconds. Snow spray kicks up over the windshield, stinging her face, making her feel alive like nothing else. She knows that most of the others would say the same about being on stage, but for her, performing is a Zen-like state, something that she can't really remember when she comes out of it again. This, though, is pure exhilaration. Even the roar of the motors adds to the image she has in her head, her hair flaming out behind her as she rockets across the vast whiteness of this space.
Matt zooms out past her, tongue out in a nyah-nyah-nyah before he faces front again. Allison guns it a little harder, well aware of Michael and Danny closing in on her tail. Todd and Scott are lagging way behind, along with CJ and Ryder, although every now and then she swears she can hear Scott's shrieks of joy.
They're out of the woods now, heading down a short hill into a flattened basin that looks like it stretches forever. Maybe it's filled with potatoes during the summer or something. Right now, though, it's going to be a battlefield, one that'll see the boys whimpering in defeat.
Danny swings out wide next to her, fishtailing a bit before he tries to cut her off. Allison swerves, but Megan's brother is edging up on her from the other side. Allison lets up on the gas for a second, startled. She'd thought he was way back there, being careful for Ryder's sake. He's yelling something at her, but she can't make it out.
That's when she goes airborne again, arcing out into the sky with the ground nowhere in sight. Her heart grabs for her throat and she has time to think oh, snaaaapppz, didn't see that hill before she's crashing back down. The runners catch snow for a second, but then there's a crack loud enough for her to hear over the motor.
The ground goes away.
Water rushes over her head before Allison realizes what's happened. She gasps instinctively, the cold and shock of what happened taking control of her body. Instead of air, she pulls in water. She's choking, oh, Dios, she's drowning, and she can't see anything but black water. The snowmobile. She's still hanging onto the snowmobile, she thinks, and it's dragging her farther under.
She focuses everything she has on letting go and kicking upward--and then she passes out.
*****
"You're going to be okay, Alli-cat, okay? You hear me?"
"Just open your eyes. Just for a little bit. That's all you need to do."
There are blue eyes right above her. Something's wrong with them, though. Not enough glitter, maybe.
"Just stick with us, baby. We're getting you help. Everything's going to be just fine."
*****
There's guitar music in her dreams. She knows the melody, she knows she does, but the words aren't coming to her. Whoever's playing has slowed it down way too much. It almost sounds sad, and she knows it's not a sad song. It's a song that has...bubbles, or something.
She starts humming along, hoping the lyrics will come to her from muscle memory alone. A cough rips up out of nowhere, flooding her throat and suppressing the words.
The music stops. "Allison?"
Keep playing, she wants to say, but even as the fit subsides she's drifting back down into sleep, don't stop believing just another lullaby taking her towards her dreams.
*****
She whimpers herself awake. She doesn't even realize why at first, but then she takes a deep breath and pain shoots through her chest and into her head, so sharp she can't relax to let the air back out again.
"It's okay, babygirl. You're okay," Adam murmurs from right next to her. "Just breathe, okay?"
Not okay, she thinks back at him as a coughing fit dials up the pain to excruciating. Adam moves away, some chick in a blue top taking his place. Hospital, she thinks, but somewhere between the coughs easing and the pain dying down to a dull throb, she's out again.
*****
The next time she wakes up, things make a lot more sense in her head. She's in a hospital, her chest hurts, and Kris is sitting in a chair at the foot of the bed, softly plucking away at the half-sized guitar he carts around when space is tight. She tries to push herself upward, into a better position, but it hurts so much that she gives up instantly.
"Hey, careful," Kris says, at her side just like that. "You're pretty banged up."
It feels like an anvil's sitting on her chest, one of those super-sized ACME ones that always gets Wile E Coyote. She tries to take a deeper breath, but she can't, and all of a sudden she's scared. She looks at Kris, and it must show on her face.
"You're going to be fine," he tells her, cupping his hands around her left. There's some kind of monitor thing on her index finger, and he weaves his fingers around it. "Do you remember? You went through the ice on the snowmobile. Busted a couple ribs and your ankle. Not to mention they had to get half a pond out of you the hard way."
"Fuuuuuu--" she gets out, then drops her head back to the pillow. Her voice sounds even more like a guy's than ever. Hell, she could out-gravel Danny, easy, right now. If she could get the air to sing, that is.
"Your family is going to be here as soon as they can," Kris says. He's still got his hands on hers, keeping her safe. "The Salt Lake airport's shut down for a bit. Just until the storm blows through."
"She's gonna kill me." It's coming back to her now, a bit, though she's still not sure how she went from snowmobiling to drowning. Whatever happened, it was because of something stupid, she's sure, and her mama is not going to be happy. "Estoy muerta."
Kris chuckles. "She's not gonna kill ya. Smother you with love, maybe."
"Oh, believe me, she'll kill me. If not her, then my sister will." Just like that, Allison wants them there terribly, so much so that a sob hitches up in her throat, which causes her to gasp with pain. She turns her head, trying to hide the tears that escape, but Kris just keeps rubbing his thumb in circles over the back of her hand.
"Hey, sweetie," Adam calls softly as he steps into the little room. He doesn't say anything else, just gets as close as he can on the opposite side of the bed from Kris, reaches across the rails and covers her with the lightest, most frustrating, bestest hug ever. She can't stop crying, and the more she cries, the more it hurts, and the more it hurts, the more she cries. Adam pulls back a little bit, resting his face next to hers and running a hand through her hair, all while Kris keeps petting her hand.
Eventually she pulls it together. Kris hands her a tissue, then another after she snots up the first real good.
"Sorry," she says. "Sorry for everything. I really messed up, huh?"
"It's not your fault." Adam swipes away some of the tears she missed with his thumb. "CJ said he forgot you weren't in with the others when he told them about the lake. You didn't know."
"He feels really terrible," Kris adds.
"Well, it's not his fault!" Allison shouts--or tries too, voice throttled back by chest and throat both. "I shouldn't have been going so damn fast."
"It's nobody's fault," Adam says firmly. "We're just glad you're okay. That everyone's okay."
"Everyone else?" Panic's rising up in her again. "Did somebody else get hurt?"
"Shhh, shhh," Adam soothes. "No, everyone's fine. The guys just got a little bit cold pulling you out, that's all."
Allison relaxes back into the pillows. She could sleep again, for a week, which is crazy since she just woke up.
"The doctor's here to see you," Kris says. "We'll be right outside, okay? We're not going anywhere."
"Yeah," she croaks out, and then there's a woman shining a light in her eyes, poking all kinds of places she doesn't want to be poked, and Allison wishes she could just go to sleep and wake up yesterday.
*****
She does a lot of waking up. She's tired all the time, but what sleep she manages is full of bad dreams and a constant sense of anxiety, like something bad's going to happen if she doesn't wake the fuck up right now. When she was really little, she used to dream about nasty, snarling monsters grabbing by her the back of the neck and pulling her under the bed so they could eat her, and no matter how much she tried to scream for help, nothing would come out. That's what it's like now, except it's not monsters in her head this time.
Thank God there's always someone there when she wakes up to distract her from the scary stuff. Megan and Lil shower her with enough motherly love that it's almost as good as having her family with her. Matt's full of funny faces and voices, at least until he sends her into a painful laughing fit, and then he just sits beside her, awkwardly quiet but faithful. Danny's as pale as the snow outside; she can't imagine how tough this must be on him. Anoop reads to her for a while in the most soothing voice ever. It's really nice, but when she wakes up again she can't remember what the story was about. There's Michael and Scott and Todd, CJ and Ryder and Lil's husband and kids, always somebody with a tight smile and a hand on her arm to reassure her that everything's going to be all right.
And always, in between the others, there are Adam and Kris. She loves all her Idol family a lot. She's maybe closer to Megan and Lil in many ways, and Matt always seems to be the one who worries the most about her--but Adam and Kris are her bros. It's been the three of them since Group 2 week, and she doesn't think that will ever change.
"You think you can eat something?" Kris asks later, after they've moved her to a private room for a night of observation. Her bed is angled towards a big window with half-drawn blinds, but the only thing she can see out of it is that weird orange glow cast by parking lot lights shining through snow. Most everyone went back to Megan's before sunset, not wanting to risk the roads after dark in this weather. But her bros are still here. "They said you can have some soft stuff, see how your stomach handles it."
"Ice cream?" she asks hopefully.
"Pudding cups." Kris holds up what looks like vanilla-chocolate swirl, along with a plastic-wrapped spork. "I won't even make you eat the mashed potatoes first, unless you want to."
"Gimme," she demands, making graspy-hands at him. Even that hurts, her fingers still swollen and achy from the time spent in the cold. Kris peels the lid off the pudding and passes it over before unwrapping the spork. At least he doesn't have to feed her. The pudding tastes fantastic. After the first bite she's convinced she could polish off a whole case, but before she scrapes the bottom of the single cup her gut starts rumbling in ominous ways. The pressure from her expanded stomach is making it harder to breathe, too. She hands the cup back to Kris, who dumps it on the lemon-yellow tray at the foot of her bed.
"Anything else?"
Allison shakes her head. "I just want to get out of here." She's still tired, but not enough to go back to sleep, and starting to feel restless and a little trapped. Like she needs to get out of bed, even if it's to get into a different one.
"Sorry. Tomorrow, hopefully." Kris pushes a cup with a bendy straw into her hand. Allison takes a sip, more out of boredom than thirst. It's water, flat and bitter, but it turns out she's pretty parched despite her earlier dunking. She drinks about half before her stomach hits the wall again.
They're simply quiet together for a few minutes. Kris has never been the type to say stuff to fill a void. Normally Allison wouldn't mind, but she keeps going back and forth between being bored out of her mind and remembering how she got here. She thinks about turning on the TV, but her head hurts a bit too much to contemplate both the noise and staring up at the screen in the corner of the room for longer than a few minutes. Finally she just closes her eyes, hoping that she'll fall asleep again.
She was really lucky, she knows that. The snowmobile could have flipped, trapping her deep under the water, or crushing her against the ice before it broke through. The guys could have taken too long to get to her. Or not been able to pull her out. Or, oh, God, one of them could have died trying to save her. The thought is too awful to exist, but now that she's thought it she can't get it out of her head. The more she tries to stop thinking, the more awful thoughts keep coming. Hell, something could have happened to Ryder while they were all focused on her.
"Allison?"
"What?" She opens her eyes slowly. Kris is next to the bed.
"You're crying again." He wipes away the tears with soft brushes of his thumb. "What's up?"
She shakes her head, not wanting to confess what's going on in her head. "I'm," she starts, but then a sob forces its way out of her throat. She shakes her head again. "I almost died." She doesn't start bawling, which her ribs are grateful for, but the tears come on so strong she can barely see Kris.
"Yeah," he says, calm as anything. She reaches for his hand, and he returns her desperate grip. "You almost did. But the almost is the important part."
"What if-- What if--" She doesn't even know which 'what if' she's trying to get out. All of them, maybe. Or just the big one.
"Hey. Listen to me, okay? None of that matters. It's all about from here on out." He's smiling, that crooked little half-smile that he gets whenever there's a joke in his head nobody else is in on, but his eyes are completely serious. "Believe me, I know."
"So, what, I'm just supposed to forget it happened?"
"That's not what I'm saying." Kris shakes his head. "It happened, and that's going to be with you. But now you know how much life is worth living."
"Yeah." Allison nods a little. "Yeah, maybe."
Kris hands her a handful of tissues. "You want me to turn on the TV or something?" he asks after she's done as much as she can to dry her face.
"No, I'm good." Kris starts to step away, but she catches him by the cuff of his shirt. "Wait. Maybe you can play for a while?"
"Just let me get my gui-tar," he says, emphasizing the first syllable with a really silly Western drawl that makes her snort. He squeezes her shoulder, then moves towards the door just as it's opening for Adam. They exchange words she can't hear, heads pressed together and hands on each other's upper arms, before Kris scoots on out the door and Adam comes over to her.
"Hey, sweetie." He kisses her forehead, just like he did this morning. God, she can't believe it was only this morning. His hoodie is unzipped enough that she can see he's still wearing the Idol tour tee; he never had a chance to change into anything else, thanks to her.
Tears start to well up again. Allison blinks them back. She might love the song, but she's not a cry baby, damn it. And there's no time better than now to start taking Kris's advice. "I'm so glad you're here. I love you guys so much," she says, and she's pretty sure Adam's tearing up, too, but he hides it by giving her another hug.
"So," he says when he pulls back, totally swiping at his eyes. "Good news! The airport is open again. Your family should be here before morning."
"Awesome," she says, snuffling a little. Good snuffles. Yeah, it'll be good to see her parents and everybody, but there's no doubt in her mind that she's got family with her right now.
The door opens, Kris returning with guitar in hand. "I called Katy real quick, let her know how you're doing. She sends her love," he says. He settles onto the arm of the chair beside the bed. "Any requests?"
"I don't care. Just...not 'Live Like We're Dying', okay?"
Kris snorts. "Not a problem." He strums a few chords, checking the tuning, then flows into 'Hey Jude'. Adam joins him on the chorus, voice tamped back so he doesn't wake the entire ward. Allison smiles and closes her eyes. By the time they start on 'Crazy', she's drifting off.
She doesn't know what they sing after that, but it's enough to keep the nightmares away for good.