Work Text:
his classroom, mid-morning.
His sophomores were splitting off into groups to work on a project when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He was in the middle of explaining the ins and outs of the project to one of his students, so he didn’t answer it. He couldn’t say no phones in his classroom and then whip his out in front of all his students just because he might have a message.
Instead, he would answer the questions that were slowly accumulating in the form of raised hands and then would sit behind his desk, hide his phone in his lap, and surreptitiously check for notifications.
He moved from group to group, making sure they had chosen to collaborate sensibly, answering the questions he had responded to already when explaining the group task in the first place.
Why was he a teacher, if not to repeat himself twenty times, and still get asked the question again?
It was already time for his class to pack up when he had finished with the Q and A that lasted far too long, sometimes he missed the AP English classes he taught, he missed not having reiterated every-fucking-thing. But at the same time, he loved the conversations his student’s questions started, loved getting to know them better, and loved the connection it forged, even if it did only last a year.
He sat back in his desk chair, pulling his phone out and placing it on the desk, promising to get to the message once he was finished uploading the group project onto the online classroom they were now using.
He was answering emails, during his free period from teaching—which he was supposed to spend marking and lesson planning—twenty minutes later when his phone began vibrating again. Ditching the riveting email to a student’s parent, about their constant lateness, he picked up the phone and answered.
“Hi, can I ask who this is?” he was not about to tell some scammer his name, nor was he about to be rude. Sometimes people got the wrong number.
I’m a nurse at Orynth General Hospital, can I ask if I’m speaking to Mr Whitehorn-Galathynius, guardian of Oren Whitehorn-Galathynius?” her tone was serious, but Rowan knew it was put on. He knew that no one in their right mind could speak this evenly, naturally, when asking such a question.
“Yeah, this is— this is he. Can I ask why you’re calling me?” he didn’t know why he had asked that; she was going to tell him anyway. He knew why, automatically, but sometimes you don’t want something to be true. Sometimes you want to have heard something different.
“We tried you earlier, but you didn’t answer. Then we tried your wife, but she also didn’t answer. So, we called again, hoping you’d pick up this time. But we're calling you to inform you that your son has just been admitted to the hospital’s Accident and Emergency department, he was involved in an accident.”
“What, what kind of accident? Is he okay, what’s wrong with him? Can you tell me he’s alright?” his voice was breaking after every question; he couldn’t think straight. He knew rationally that his body was releasing adrenaline as a result of the shock, knew that as he began to feel sick to his stomach, it was body preparing to make itself lighter should it need to run, should he choose flight when presented with the choice.
He knew, he’d been teaching for so many fucking years now, had listened to each of his children—Oren first, he was their eldest—inform him of this when they reached the topic of the human endocrine system in biology, he knew.
He couldn’t help but think it was a premonition, that something was going to go wrong.
So wrong.
“I can’t disclose any information at this time, not until you arrive at the hospital and provide proof of your relationship to Oren. We ask that you arrive as soon as possible. Thank you.” He couldn’t know if his son was fucking alive until he was at the hospital, he would have to live for some unidentified period of time wondering about his son as though Rowan was Schrödinger, and his son was a fucking cat in a fucking box, with a vial of poison, in the boot of a car.
He wanted to cry. He couldn’t. He had to tell Aelin, he had to let her know. Had to tell her that their son was in the hospital, that he might be fucking dead. He couldn’t imagine a worse job—and he had worked in fucking hospitality in college.
“No worries, I’ll be there as soon as possible. I’ll be picking up my wife, so no need to call her again. Thank you again.” Saying thank you to the woman who had just told him his son was in the hospital, Rowan could not imagine a more ridiculous thing, a more painful thing to do as a parent, as a fucking person. As a living creature. Whilst his son might be dead.
He hung up the phone. Worked quickly. Shut down his computer. Left his backpack under the desk. Put his phone in his pocket. Put his wallet in the other. Grabbed the car keys. He stood up and pushed his chair under the desk. Opened his classroom door, and pinned a note on it saying to go to Mr Hanson’s classroom, addressed to the rest of his classes. Pinned an identical note on the door next to his.
He opened the door to the classroom next to his. Walked in and shut it. Kept walking as the teacher fell silent, as the class fell silent. He walked forward, the world on his shoulders, feeling like a pallbearer as he walked up to the desk. As he uttered the words that pained him to speak, that stabbed him in the heart like nothing ever had.
“Oren’s in the hospital.” It was silent. A pin could drop, and it would deafen everyone in the classroom at that moment.
“He’s in the hospital,” Rowan repeated hoping that repeating it would make it less real, that it would wake him up from whatever dream he was caught up in. “Aelin, our son is in the hospital.” His voice caught as he spoke.
He rushed to his wife, as the whiteboard pen she was holding dropped from her hand and rolled towards her students. He wrapped an arm around her, tucking her head into his shoulder, murmuring all kinds of things, everything that popped into his head. He told the class to enjoy the next few minutes of freedom and grabbed his wife’s belongings.
He didn’t make any stops, except for the reception area, where he told the young receptionist he and Aelin would be gone for the day, and to send a substitute to the classroom. He walked out to the car park, and they drove away not much later.
…
As Rowan and Aelin drove to the hospital, to find out if their son was dead or not. As they cried in the car and watched the lights of other cars turn blurry, as they drove at slow speeds to make sure they didn’t crash, as they called their other children, to tell them the news, to ask them to meet them at the hospital.
As Rowan and Aelin faced the reality that their son could be dead, the school they worked at was jumping for joy. Bills were being traded, and students were bragging about how they knew already. Everyone was happy to find out that Ms G and Mr W were in fact married.
Everyone managed to forget the whole reason why they found out.
…
Rowan had been alive for forty-nine years. For thirty-four of those years, he had been suffering from regular heart attacks as a result of his girlfriend-turned-wife. For twenty-three of those years, he had been a father and had been suffering from even more heart attacks.
And yet, in all of those years, he had never quite felt like this. Never felt so helpless or hopeless. He’s never had to visit a hospital to see one of his children, not since their births. Sure, he had brought them to the hospital, with broken bones or cuts or fevers, but in those cases, he had always been with them.
But now, he had to drive to his son, wondering if his son was even alive. If he needed to plan a funeral if he needed to make up all the guest bedrooms when family, and when his children, came to stay a while.
He was driving with tears threatening to spill over, but he would not let them. He could not be crying as he driving.
It felt like seconds later when they pulled into the hospital car park, found a spot to park in, and ditched the vehicle like it would blow up as soon as they could. It was difficult to walk into Accident and Emergency, so incredibly difficult not to run and hope they beat the clock. Hope that those twenty minutes he hadn’t answered the phone weren’t crucial to say goodbye to their son.
As the sliding doors opened, as the smell of disinfectant greeted them, Rowan had his driver’s license in his hand and was placing it down on the desktop, a breathless sentence escaping his dry mouth, and drier lips, “Mr and Mrs Whitehorn-Galathynius to see Oren Galathynius. We’re his parents, he’s our son. Can you tell us where to find him, please?”
“Absolutely, if you head down the hall, just head into exam room five and you’ll our son there.”
“Thanks,” was mumbled to the nurse, as Rowan scooped up his driver’s license and they hurried together down the hallway, bursting into exam room five, expecting the worst.
But nothing could have been worse than walking into the room to find their son with his hand in some nurse’s hair, his tongue down her throat, and with the aforementioned nurse sat in his lap, his wrist in a cast.
They had been crying for nothing. Their son was alive, with a broken wrist—which he had broken four times before, there had been a weakness since his first break, sprains and fractures had been common since—and was healthy enough to be kissing women.
“Oren, darling, if you could detach your mouth from hers, please. I’d like to see the face of the son I have thought was dead for the last half hour.” He didn’t turn around. He hadn’t heard them.
He was very much alive.