Art Swing (1x1 remade. Spartan x minus)

[minus infinity]

Momma, I need to go right now.
"Bathroom's over there," A passing nurse said.

(Couldn't resist!)

I need to go back to the park and get that sketchbook. Please, Momma, Daddy.
Her parents stared at her, wanting to stay here until Nicholas' father arrived and could take charge if anything regarding Nicholas' condition changed. But that would take hours, and Fiona knew that. Feeling helpless and sorry for herself, she decided to go into the bathroom just for the sake of it. Away from her parents, away from the hustle and bustle of the hospital, maybe even away from herself. Maybe she could splash her face or something, she thought as she closed the door behind her.
"I hear another snow storm is coming."
What?
Oh ... a woman standing in front of a mirror with her makeup bag infront of her was talking loudly on her cell phone just next to Fiona. The younger girl hadn't noticed her until now. A storm?
"They're saying no one can fly out of here for the next week or two. It's a real winter wonderland."
Fiona ignored the loud woman's sarcasm on the words 'winter wonderland' and tried to focus herself. A snow storm. The sketch book would be ruined. She had to go. Had to go. Had to --
The door opened and her mother came in. Avoiding conversation, Fiona left just then. She had to get out of here. Now.
So in ten minutes time she had sneaked out as silently as she could and had broken out into a run out of the huge white building.
Wait, which way was Dead Park again?

 

[spartan309]

Nicholas was in a much more critical condition than what first seemed. At first it just looked like it was a fever, but it just "looked" like a fever. Nicholas had a critical case of Pneumonia. Oxygen was needed, putting him on a breathing machine till further notice.

The snow storm was brewing quickly, the winds picking up speed. The black clouds stared down at the city with an intimidating glare, threatening to begin its storm at any time.  

[minus infinity]

"He's got a pretty severe case of pneumonia," the doctor said. "Are you his parents?"
"No, we're not. Our daughter here ... "
Fiona was gone.

Fiona ran back and forth frantically, trying to remember which way they had gone when they were in the car. Was it this stoplight? This street? This intersection? There was only the howling wind and the loud horns of cars to answer her. She needed to get to Dead Park. She needed to. She needed to, now. She could have sworn she just felt a snowflake fall on her face ...

It was a last resort. It was crazy and it was stupid. It was something her parents told her never to do, ever. It just might be illegal.
Fiona was standing at a curb with her thumb out to hitchhike.
She got a whistle from a dirty old pervert who looked thirty years older than her father, some strange looks and a thumbs-up back from a little boy who probably didn't understand what she was really trying to do. If only she were that innocent.
Finally, though, someone stopped. Fiona paused to look at them ...
It was the senior boy she had ran into the other day, who had approached them and ...
"Need a ride?"
Fiona didn't have time to think about what might happen. She needed to get to Dead Park, now.
Yes ... can you take me to Curie Street?
"Yeah, sure. You're going to have to give me directions though."
So with a whispered thank you, Fiona opened the passenger door of the silver pickup truck and got in.

 

[spartan309]

"In any case, he's not looking well at all. We are going to give him the vaccine, but he does have a small chance of actually dying." The doctor announced sadly.
The white crystals of snow started to slowly fall, looking as if it was a nice, peaceful snowfall. But, this was only the calm before the storm, the storm itself still brewing in the clouds. The wind began to pick up some more, making the calm fall of snow twist and fling around, making it seem less peaceful. Time was running out, fast.  

[minus infinity]

"Alright, here we are. Curie Street. But there's one more thing."
About twenty minutes later the stocky boy and Fiona were in the silver pickup truck just across the street from Dead Park. Fiona had made sure to thank him multiple times, but now that they were here the only thing she wanted to do was get out. A light snow had began to fall and in another five minutes the sketchbook would surely be ruined. She hoped whatever this boy wanted wasn't --
His strong, cold calloused hands grabbed her by the sides of her face; digging into her skin. Fiona closed her eyes and tried as hard as she could not to scream or bite him as he kissed her hard on the lips.

The sketchbook was colder than dry ice and the bottom left corner was wet, but as Fiona picked it up she was glad it hadn't melted into a puddle before her feet. She was glad she herself hadn't melted into a puddle, to say the least. At least that horrible boy had driven away almost as soon as she got out of his car. She didn't know what she would have done if he had stayed there in his car, watching her ...
Fiona shivered, and the swing by which she had picked up the sketchbook creaked in a screaming gust of wind. Briefly, she thought of sitting in the swing just to know what it was like ...
But this was Nicholas' swing, and she knew that. However, before she began the walk home to warm herself up and hopefully salvage the sketchbook, she gave the rusted handlebars a light pat. They were surprisingly warm to the touch ...

"His father will be here soon," Fiona's mother said as she exchanged conversation with the stern faced doctor standing infront of them. Her husband was all but having a nervous breakdown that their daughter had seemed to dissapear into thin air, and was pacing nearby. "It'll be a couple of hours though. I can give you his name."

 

[spartan309]

When Fiona was kissed by the boy, something happened to Nicholas. There was a huge jump in his hear rate, something that shouldn't have happened! "Doctor! HIs heart rate is increasing gradually! We don't know what the cause is!" One of the nurses said. "Quickly, try to relax him! He may be suffering other symptoms as well!" The doctor exclaimed, quickly going back to help Nicholas. It's like he felt the pain of skin being dug into by the boys hands, the disgust and putridness of his kiss to her lips. It's not like he knew, but he could just feel it. He's known Fiona far too long not to know what may be going on and he didn't want that creep anywhere near her!  

[minus infinity]

Panic arose in Fiona's parents when Nicholas' heart rate jumped so drastically. Fiona's father stopped pacing and her mother started biting her nails (a habit she thought she had given up when she was a teenager.) They had no idea what had just happened to their daughter, they had no idea that she had hitchhiked, all they knew for sure was that they needed to stay here until Nicholas' biological father came around. They were like family, but nothing can replace the biological. They just hoped he would come soon.

Fiona, having been in such a hurry to leave the house earlier that day (even though now it felt like it had been weeks ago), decided to take a shower when she got into her house via house-key and set the sketchbook down somewhere safe in her room. Not only did she need the warmth right now, but she also needed as much distraction as she could possibly get. She just hoped it would work.

A frazzled, fat and fluffing herself nurse approached the Delacroixes and asked, "Could you tell me who this boy's father is? Do you know any way to reach him? Does he have a mother we can reach?"
Even though Fiona was far away by now, she could have sworn she saw, somewhere deep in her mind's eye, her parents squeeze one another's hands as the doctor inside of Nicholas' room tried to stabilize his heartbeat.

 

[spartan309]

Nicholas' heart rate started to slow down some, sensing that Fiona was safe. He needed her warmth, her kindness. She had his sketchbook too, that not overlooked. His father was still and hour away and his health had yet to improve.  

[minus infinity]

"Nicholas, can you hear me?"
The doctor stood just above Nicholas, wanting to check for signs of response - was this boy unconscious or could he still respond? He seemed to be slipping in and out, and they needed to keep him awake for now. The nurse had just given him a vaccine and she had told the doctor that she could have sworn he flinched, but she couldn't be entirely sure ...
Stay with us, guy. You've got your whole life ahead of you.

Fiona sat on her bed in her pajamas and with her hair wrapped in a towel, trying not to resist opening the sketchbook sitting next to her. Oh, how she wanted to see the one place her best friend revealed his emotions - but at the same time it felt like doing such a thing would be akin to betraying him. She wondered ...
What might she see if she opened the book?

 

[spartan309]

"F-...Fiona...." Was all that Nicholas murmured, his eyes still closed and not fully conscious. He was still slipping, but he was getting better.

The sketchbook increased the curioisty, the temptation to open. All of his emotions for each day of the current month stashed in the book. Not only emotions, but memories of his childhood with his mother, as well as Fiona. Three pictures were lightly hanging out of the others though, the ones he ripped out of his book. It was of the park split to two sides yet still gloomy, both the same picture with minor differences, and his younger self, but with a saddened face, which was very uncommon for him back then until that day....  

[minus infinity]

"Fiona?"
"Fiona is our daughter."
The Delacroixes continued to stay nearby, watching like hawks, looking out for any significant change in Nicholas' condition. He still wasn't entirely stabilized, but at least now he was talking to them, right?
"I wonder why the first thing he said was her name."
Fiona's mother leaned towards her husband and whispered, a little confused - what exactly did this mean? Their daughter had left the building, but did he know that? Did he want to visit with her? Did he possibly even know where she was?
That last thought put a twist in her stomach and she sat straight once again, wondering - where had their daughter gone? And would she be back? There were so many questions going unanswered, and the only two people that could answer them were halfway unconscious and more than fifteen miles away.

Fiona thought about how Nicholas never talked once about his drawings, never once let go of it (that she had seen.) This was his santuary, and she certainly had no right barging into it if that was the case. But curiousity still pulled relentlessly at her heartstrings, and she wanted to know so badly just what her best friend's santuary was. What would she find inside? Would she find even the tiniest remnant of the little boy she used to know before ... that day? Would she find the emotions he had kept secret for so long?
Would she find something that could save his life and Dead Park?
And with a big breath,
(there was no going back)
She opened the sketchbook.

 

[minus infinity]

(Bump. If you'd like me to edit my post, I can. heart )

 

[minus infinity]

Revival post!


I couldn't resist. heart Jeez, I'm so happy.

 

[spartan309]

Each page was like a different masterpiece, time taken and details splashed onto each sketch. All of his emotions are displayed in these pictures. Happiness, sadness, anger, everything was there as plain as day. Each picture had a story, an emotion, a grip of Nicholas' life. It can be seen what he was feeling with each picture, when he was happy, when he was depressed, and sad. Most of the pictures had a little boy in it, this character portraying Nicholas. There was the older woman, who was his Mother, but there was sometimes another, a young girl who was with the boy sometimes. Most of the times they looked happy, having fun on the swings, sliding down the slide, old memories seemingly brought to life. The little girl was Fiona.

The more she looked, the more she learned of his life, each drawing like a new day. The quality of the drawings improved as Nick grew older, more details added and the some more color as well. Two of the pages were different then the rest, one lined paper like in textbooks, the other in a average sort or printing paper.

The lined paper looked rather old, it bent and crumbled here and there, but that wasn't the point. The point was the picture on the paper. It was a tombstone, a little boy kneeling next to it, tears flowing down his eyes. The tombstone had the word "Mother" inscribed from it, a sort of thought cloud coming out of it. In the cloud was a woman, crying as well. This picture was drawn only a day after the accident, the date on the side proving so.

The next picture was rather different. It wasn't something that was done by Nicholas, but it can been seen a lot or hard work and detail went into work for it. It was a head-shot drawing of Fiona, every detail spot on and colored with masterful skill. The picture was also much more recent, only being drawn a month ago. Nicholas always thought Fiona was beautiful, but only recently started to feel a romance for her, the hug pretty much the catalyst. The drawing didn't mean anything at first, mostly a experiment on what he could do. But seeing how much effort and detail he put into it, and that it was Fiona's face and not anyone else, showed how much he did care for her.  

[minus infinity]

Mother.

Mrs.Delacroix sat down again on the cold, unforgiving waiting room chair; watching as her husband talked to a nurse about something or another. So many thoughts were whirling through her head like angry hornets trapped in a jar, each competing for space and the opportunity to be heard. Where was Fiona? Was she safe? Where had she gone? And would Nicholas rise out of this horrible illness that engulfed him like a menacing sea?
Although she didn't know it and couldn't have, she began to cry right about the same time as Fiona did looking at the drawings of the best friend whose life was hidden within these pages.

She sobbed even harder when she saw the headshot of herself. Like he hadn't drawn it but actually taken a picture of her. Dual colored eyes and all. She cared about him, and he cared about her too. That hug. How he had gone underneath the slide to check for her. The pictures of the two of them as young children, without a care in the world. And now he was at the hospital and she wasn't even there for him. She wondered, would she be able to go back? How would she get back? She couldn't exactly call her parents and ...

The phone rang, downstairs in the kitchen.

"Fiona, where in the world are you? You--"
Daddy, I--
"Nicholas' heart rate jumped like a freaking trampoline. And he said your name, Fiona. He said your name. It was the first thing he said! I want you to march over here right now. If I have to pick you up myself --"
Daddy, I needed to get that sketchbook. Fiona was sobbing again, and the sound was starting to carry over the phone. She heard her father let out a gigantic, exasperated sigh. They're going to turn Dead Park into a ... a ... I don't know, but we have to save it, Daddy. For Nicholas. I -- ... he ...
"Sweetheart, there's nothing more we can do for Dead Park. Your mother and I were thinking of taking you and Nicholas out of state, maybe over to --"
No! Daddy, don't you get it? Nicholas didn't even go to school yesterday at all. He won't leave. He can't. His mom -- Her throat hurt from the sobs racking her entire body. Her breathing was labored gasping and squeaks and sobs. Why didn't her father understand?
"I'm coming to pick you up, honey. This is far from over. Your mother and I need to have a long talk with you about boundaries."

Fiona actually ran past her mother and into Nicholas' room despite the harsh warnings of a nurse, her crying spell over but her fear and sadness far from dissipated. Nicholas.
He had said her name while she had been gone. She didn't know when exactly it had happened, but his heart rate had spiked when that horrible boy kissed her. He cared about her, and she cared about him too. So much.
Very gently, she took one of his hands in hers.
And began to cry, again.

Just once ...
She squeezed his hand the tiniest bit.
Show me that you're still here with me.
The nurse in the doorway watched her cautiously, sitting so precariously on the edge of the hospital bed with her hand in his.
Are you here?