fic: forgiveness, I saved a plate for you (Rookie Blue, Sam/Andy)
Title: forgiveness, I save a plate for you
Author: threeguesses
Rating: PG
A/N: The "lowriseflare and threeguesses wrote a book!" fic extravaganza continues. radleyboo prompted: Anything with Sam's manpain.
The third day after surgery, it’s agreed that Sam can walk around the hospital unsupervised. The nurse who tells him holds out the news like a gift, like here, shuffle through the waxed hallways with the other gimps and be happy about it. Sam just barely manages not to tell her where to go.
Still, there’s not a shit-ton of stimulation to be had lying on your back behind a privacy curtain, so eventually he drags his ass out of bed. His first trip, he makes it as far as the big bay windows in the hallway, spends a good ten minutes staring down at the smokers. Every hospital Sam’s ever been in, it feels like, there’s a group of them clustered exactly nine bylaw-mandated feet away from the entrance. More than clubs, more than bars, more than outside any office building in the nation. Hospitals.
They were outside SickKids too, Sam remembers, where Sarah got treated all those years ago. A wall of smoke in the atrium when his mom took him outside to run around. Sam was nine. He remembers the murals and riding in the big elevator, eating chicken nuggets in the hospital cafeteria. No one told him his sister was being treated for vaginal trauma. No one said the word rape at all. All that Sam knew was that there were boys, bad boys, and Sarah ran. “You did a good job,” he overheard their mom telling Sarah in the hospital bed. “You did exactly right.” Sam still remembers the way her voice turned sideways with tears.
Sam’s dad smoked.
So. Sam makes it to the windows, stands for a while, and shuffles back.
“Hear you can walk now,” McNally announces later, banging in with her go-bag over her shoulder. For the past two nights she’s been coming by after shift to sit by Sam’s bedside for an awkward half-hour, asking chirpy questions about his pain level whenever there’s a lull in conversation. By Sam’s calculations, she’s about one uncomfortable silence away from fluffing his pillows. She’s driving him up the fucking wall.
He’s never been more grateful for another person in his entire life.
“Just like Lazarus,” he agrees, watching her zip herself out of her dumb puffer jacket. She smells like the cold. Then: “Wait, who told you?” The nurses all hate McNally. Just yesterday, she was told off for laughing too loudly at her own joke.
Andy shrugs, shifting aside a plant so she can perch on the windowsill. Sam’s got about a million of them, everything from expensive bouquets to the tiny pots you can pick up at the supermarket. Oliver sent a giant, obnoxiously pink It’s a Girl! bear. “Carol? I don’t know, whichever one doesn’t hate joy.”
“I hate joy,” Sam reminds her, gesturing at himself. “That one is me.” When he first woke up from the morphine, he yelled and yelled and yelled. He told her to go back to Collins and leave him the fuck alone.
She went to get a coffee.
Now McNally just smiles, flicking the end of her ponytail free of her lipgloss. “Okay,” she says. “Then I hate joy, too.”
No, you don’t, Sam wants to tell her. You really don’t.
“Okay,” he sighs. “Pull up a chair, stay awhile.”
Author: threeguesses
Rating: PG
A/N: The "lowriseflare and threeguesses wrote a book!" fic extravaganza continues. radleyboo prompted: Anything with Sam's manpain.
The third day after surgery, it’s agreed that Sam can walk around the hospital unsupervised. The nurse who tells him holds out the news like a gift, like here, shuffle through the waxed hallways with the other gimps and be happy about it. Sam just barely manages not to tell her where to go.
Still, there’s not a shit-ton of stimulation to be had lying on your back behind a privacy curtain, so eventually he drags his ass out of bed. His first trip, he makes it as far as the big bay windows in the hallway, spends a good ten minutes staring down at the smokers. Every hospital Sam’s ever been in, it feels like, there’s a group of them clustered exactly nine bylaw-mandated feet away from the entrance. More than clubs, more than bars, more than outside any office building in the nation. Hospitals.
They were outside SickKids too, Sam remembers, where Sarah got treated all those years ago. A wall of smoke in the atrium when his mom took him outside to run around. Sam was nine. He remembers the murals and riding in the big elevator, eating chicken nuggets in the hospital cafeteria. No one told him his sister was being treated for vaginal trauma. No one said the word rape at all. All that Sam knew was that there were boys, bad boys, and Sarah ran. “You did a good job,” he overheard their mom telling Sarah in the hospital bed. “You did exactly right.” Sam still remembers the way her voice turned sideways with tears.
Sam’s dad smoked.
So. Sam makes it to the windows, stands for a while, and shuffles back.
“Hear you can walk now,” McNally announces later, banging in with her go-bag over her shoulder. For the past two nights she’s been coming by after shift to sit by Sam’s bedside for an awkward half-hour, asking chirpy questions about his pain level whenever there’s a lull in conversation. By Sam’s calculations, she’s about one uncomfortable silence away from fluffing his pillows. She’s driving him up the fucking wall.
He’s never been more grateful for another person in his entire life.
“Just like Lazarus,” he agrees, watching her zip herself out of her dumb puffer jacket. She smells like the cold. Then: “Wait, who told you?” The nurses all hate McNally. Just yesterday, she was told off for laughing too loudly at her own joke.
Andy shrugs, shifting aside a plant so she can perch on the windowsill. Sam’s got about a million of them, everything from expensive bouquets to the tiny pots you can pick up at the supermarket. Oliver sent a giant, obnoxiously pink It’s a Girl! bear. “Carol? I don’t know, whichever one doesn’t hate joy.”
“I hate joy,” Sam reminds her, gesturing at himself. “That one is me.” When he first woke up from the morphine, he yelled and yelled and yelled. He told her to go back to Collins and leave him the fuck alone.
She went to get a coffee.
Now McNally just smiles, flicking the end of her ponytail free of her lipgloss. “Okay,” she says. “Then I hate joy, too.”
No, you don’t, Sam wants to tell her. You really don’t.
“Okay,” he sighs. “Pull up a chair, stay awhile.”