Falter Chapter 2

I am SO sory this tookmeforever to get to you guys! I have finals and it was horrid but is OVER! So here! takethischapter and have your fun! I appolagize in advance for any typos or missing words you find. My table is hating me when it comes to editing. Alrighty! How you enjoy and don't forget to follow me on Tumblr to get updates on the story! My account is named Avelister. Until next time, Salve!

Everything around her was Black, but she could still process what what going on around her. Her fingers felt like solid blocks of lead, mixed with the feeling of cement covering the rest of her body, while her eyelids were practically stitched together. She must be dead. God, was she dead?

There were quiet muffled voices coming every so often from few directions, and a subtle beeping of a machine coming from somewhere. Were those normal things to hear when you were dead? God, she hoped not.

Astrid didn't understand what was going on, nor where she was, and that sent her into a panicked tail spin.

Her whole body seemed to lurch forward as she was brought out of her state of numbness and confusion. Her eyes shot open, and the panic set in. She started breathing heavily and her body shook at an almost uncontrollable rate. Astrid tried to sit up, moving her elbows under her body. But as soon as she attempted to lift herself, all too quickly to say the least, an afflicting pain shot through her spine and stomach. she cursed at the pain, but her words fell short when a pair of hands, firm but delicate, landed on her shoulders and gently began pushing her back down.

"Hey-hey,easy. It's ok, you're ok." An unfamiliar voice cooed to her. The hands that were on her shoulders had moved down to her upper arm and had squeeze ever so gently in an attempt of calm her nerves. "Calm down, it's all ok."

The fact that she had not one clue as to where she was, nor knew who was talking to her, didn't help with the process of calming her down, but the voice was calm, as well as comforting, and she took charge in herself and began to somewhat try and control her breathing.

Her vision started to clear as she began to wake further, she was slowly but surely coming back into her own body and out of the strange feeling of numbness.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" the strange, nasally voice asked her. And this whole time, she realized that even though her eyes had been open , she was in too much of a state of panic to even think about trying to look at who stood beside her trying to clam her.

"Where am I?" she managed to choke out, finding her voice raspy and dry.

Her eyes finally came up to fall on the stranger, and she fell stunned. His brilliant green eyes met her's, concern manifested into his eyes as he answered.

"You're in the hospital." He said, his voice coming off as if it were obvious. Obviously none of this was even in the vicinity of obvious.

Her whole body went tense, a shot of fear pulsing through her veins.

Her breath began to quicken once again, and his grip never slacked. "Why the hell am I in the hospital?" she breathed out, voice struggling. Her breaths were laboured, and she struggled with each intake of air.

His hands fell gently away from her shoulders, and he brought his arms up to cross them across his chest. "I'll tell you in a minute, right now miss I need you to clam down and do your best to relax; your putting a lot of strain on your back right now, and you're recovery time will double if you re-injure it." He explained, but it fell on stunned ears.

"Wait, re-injure? Why would I-? Ugh...Ok, ok fine. Ill relax." she exhaled a breath she didn't realize she was holding in. her heart stammered nervously in her , why was she no nervous?

"If you're up to it, I'm going to ask you a series of questions." He stated, reaching an arm over toward a small table in the corner to pick up a clipboard that held an array of papers. He flipped through the first few pages, stopping to dig through his coats pocket and pulling out a pen a few moments later.

"Go for it." she said, words forced. She brought her hand up to her temple and prodded there for a few seconds, attempting to relive the invisible weight she felt was pushing there. she made a mental note to ask for pain relivers, even though she knew she was most likely already pumped full of them.

He looked up from his clipboard to give her a quick shy smile before he clicked the back of his pen, looking back down toward the clipboard.

"What's you're full name?" He asked, his pencil twisting around between fingers.

"Astrid Marie Hofferson." She replied, eyes trained on the ceiling.

"How old are you, Astrid?"

"22."

"Have you ever had any medical issues that you can recall?" He asked, eyes coming up from the clipboard to fall on her.

"Osteoarthritis." Astrid replied, flinching when the word fell from her lips. Should she embarrassed about that? The fact that she was one of the best runners in the state and she was suffering from osteoarthritis.

It was. It honestly was embarrassing.

The doctor sucked on his bottom lip, focused on what he jotted down onto the paper. his hand moved fast and diligently, most like someone who had to write salient information down as quickly as possible.

"What's your name?" She asked, trying to make the informal question sound less out of context than it really was.

His eyes found hers when he replied. " Dr. Haddock." he stated, giving a sheepish grin that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Astrid gave him one in return, then fixated her eyes back onto the ceiling. He hands were roughly clenching the sheets when another shot of pain shot through her back.

"Am I aloud to know what happened now?" she asked, squinting her eyes at him impatiently awaiting his answer. He looked almost fearful about telling her. Was it that hard of a question to answer? No. Did she actually want to know what happened to her? Well...

He sucked in a breath, much more unnecessary than he thought it was at the time, and slowly let it back out. "You were-you were in a car accident."

She was taken aback by his straight forward answer. There was no denying the fact that she had been in car accidents before, but never any that had landed her in the hospital, attached to machines and breathing shallow.

"I was...I was what?" She stuttered. "Ho-How was it so bad to the point that it landed me in the hospital?" She asked. Her brain became fuzzy with the new realization and her fingers and toes twitched with anxiety.

"You were T-boned by another truck. From what the police report said, you ran a red light and that's when the other car came and hit you. He was going about 65 when he hit you, and the impact caused you to be thrown from your vehicle. Your back is whacked out of alignment, you broke your leg," He gestured a hand toward her leg. It was only then that she looked down from the ceiling and noticed the leg, purple and black peaking though the large cast.

He gave her an apologetic look before he continued. "Anyways, you also ruptured a kidney and had lost a lot of blood when you arrived, but we were able to replace the kidney, luckily without it failing, then we gave you a good amount of blood and they said you'd pull though." He gave another sly smile before turning back around toward where his papers lay.

Then it hit her. She couldn't run.

She felt hot tears welding up behind her eyes, but as always, refused to let them come to fall.

Her team needed her, and she had one of the biggest races of this season coming up, and what had she done? Gone and been reckless and gotten herself injured. What if this completely ruined her career? What if every time she ran all that it came to was discomfort despite the up-most contentment she felt whenever she ran.

"What's the estimated term for recovery?" she asked, voice unconfident and shallow.

"It varies in all honesty, and it depends on the patient. It can take from as little as 2 months, and range up to 6 or so months. It all depends on how badly it was injured and how much you actually let it heal. You're a runner, right?" he asked, fingers fiddling with the paper he held.

Astrid scoffed, fingers fumbling with a crease in the beds sheets. "Yeah."

"Well, in that case, I would estimate your recovery time to be somewhere near 3 or so months, only considering the fact that if you are going to be running as much as I think you are, the longer you give your bone time to set and mend back together, the better the chance is that you won't re-injure it. You could wait for 2 months, but there is no guarantee that you won't re-injure it. Even the slightest wrong step could cause it to re-fracture." He took a glance back down to his paper, still fumbling with the edge of it.

"Same goes for your back. depending on your stride sand posture when you run, you back is always at risk of being strained with a wrong step. So, considering what your back went through, your risk of injuring it while running increases. Even if it is re-aligned."

"So what your atempting to get at here is that fact that my career is pretty much screwed?" She asked him, agitation boiling in her gut. or was it fear of the unknown?

"That, Astrid," He started, placing the papers back down while leaning back on the counter behind him and crossing his arms across his chest. his words were determined when he spoke. "Is all up to you."