Absence
© 2001 Kylie
The most vivid memory she had of the day he died was of Curio and Romeo.
She recalled other things of course.
The 9:00pm phone call the previous night, telling her that he was in the hospital.
In Intensive Care.
In a Coma.
She vaguely remembered the two hour drive to the hospital. Noting -- strangely enough -- that every overtaking lane along the two lane blacktop, was on an uphill slope. Feeling guilty that she hadn't been there.
The image of his body -- lying still and silent on the bed, an array of machinery performing the functions necessary to keep him alive -- was all she saw when she closed her eyes.
The respirator attached to the tube that jutted out of his throat, performing four artificial breaths to every one of hers, in an attempt to get oxygen into his blood. Heart monitors beeped furiously, an array of drip machines slowly fed a cocktail of drugs into his body. There were a couple of other machines that she couldn't identify also surrounding the bed.
After a few minutes spent talking meaningless babble to him -- hoping for some sign of response -- she grilled the nurses.
Later that morning she woke with Curio curled up on her hip, and Romeo curled up on her chest, licking her face. The majority of the rest of the day was unremarkable. That is to say that she couldn't remember any of it. Not until she got the call from the hospital.
He wasn't expected to survive the night.
Now she sits alone, the flicker of a single candle the only illumination in the room.
She is numb.
She worries about that. Shouldn't she be feeling something? She'd felt shaky and off balance for the 24 hours leading up to his death. But the only thing she's felt since, is numb.
Perhaps part of the trouble she is having accepting this, is that it wasn't something she'd prepared herself for.
She'd prepared herself for the eventuality that one day they wouldn't return. That one day Gunn, or Wesley, or Angel would bite off more than they could chew, and end up as 'kibble and bits'. Or maybe that Angel would get staked, Wesley or Gunn shot. Hell, even that they'd end up dying in a car accident.
She hadn't prepared herself for his body just giving up.
After suffering a chest infection, they'd finally managed to get him to a hospital. He'd immediately been put into intensive care as he'd begun to have increasing difficulty breathing. Then he'd been unable to exhale -- been unable to rid his body of carbon dioxide -- which had caused his blood to turn acidic.
In the six hours it took the staff to get an airway into him -- eventually having to do a tracheotomy when conventional intubation failed -- his lungs collapsed, and the acidic blood had caused his kidneys and liver to fail.
By the time she reached his bedside he'd been put on dialysis to clean and filter his blood, his heart was pumping three times more blood per minute than was normal -- not allowing the oxygen carried by the blood to be absorbed by his cells.
Finally his heart had worn out, and given up.
Numb. That was all she felt.
Shouldn't she feel more?
He was gone.
When they'd first met he was the outsider. After their inital awkwardness however, they'd gotten close. He'd supported her. Taught her. Most of all, he'd been her friend.
A soft noise behind her alerts her to a presence. She turns to see Angel silently regarding her. He doesn't speak. He doesn't have to. Right now it's enough that he's here. That she isn't numb alone.
She turns back to stare at the flickering candlelight. With a sudden movement she leans forward. One breath and the flame -- like the life of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce -- is extinguished.
END