Knock Before Entering

Alex paces the floor outside of the surgery room. The thirty minutes Lizzy has been in there has been the longest thirty minutes of Alex's life.

"Calm down Alex. She is tough." Stacy says leaning against the wall. His pacing was getting to her and making her more anxious.

Grams, Gramps and Stacy are with Alex outside of the operating room. Hitohito, Dragon, Tate and Stephen came too. They are waiting in the waiting room with Tiger, Angel, Jay, Ray and Jaff. They all dropped what they were doing and rushed here.

Grams and Gramps are silent while they sit. Almost afraid to breath. The light goes off above the door. Alex isn't sure what that means.

The doctor comes out. He removes his mask and scrub hat. "She did very well in surgery. She is lucky her lungs did not collapse. Lizzy will make a full recovery. She just needs rest for her fractured and four broken ribs and her femur broke. So she will need to stay off that for six weeks." Everyone sighs of relief. "Karen informed me Lizzy doesn't like to hold still well so we will be administering her with a day or so of sedation. Just so her body can heal. She is able to breath on her own so her recovery time will be fast." He smiles at them.

"Thank you doctor." Grams tells the man.

He bows to them.

"When can we see her?" Alex asks a little forcibly.

"In a little bit her room will be open for visitors but only family members can be in there while she is sedated." The doctor comments. Gramps sees Alex's face become defeated.

"He is her fiancé." Gramps butt's in.

Luckily for Alex he turned completely around to give Gramps a shocked expression. The doctor bought Gramps story though.

"Oh, if that's the case, you can come with me. We are taking her to her room now." The doctor says. 

Alex goes along with it. He follows the doctor to a Soleil who shows him to Lizzy's room. He quietly opens the door. The sun is setting and the light filtering through the window. The red and orange light makes the place feel warm. She is sleeping peacefully in the bed while the machines beep. Her hair is a complete mess around her face.

He sits beside her bed. He is happy she is alive. Now that he sees she is alive, anger slowly settles in toward the idiots and that bull. He could have lost her today. He lays his head down on the bed by her hand. He lightly holds onto her hand, afraid she could break if he squeezed.

"Lizzy, you scared me again today. I thought I would loose you. Why must you be so reckless?" He buries his face in the sheets. "You could have let them figure out how to get out. So what if they got hurt. I can't bare the thought of loosing you." The sheets wipe away the few tears that formed in his eyes.

Karen is silently watching him from the corner of the room. He has no idea she is watching him. She will save the smart acre comments till Lizzy is awake. Everyone has had a long day.

The next day Alex barely leaves Lizzy's side. Grams dropped off food and a change of clothes. She told him to make sure he is taking care of himself too. He told her he will and hurried back up to Lizzy's room. And he didn't do anything but sit with Lizzy. So Karen decided to get involved.

"Fine you don't want to shower? I will give you a sponge bath." Karen gives him a sly expression.

"Like I would let you touch me." Alex replies.

"Alright fine. I didn't want it to come to this." Karen shows Alex the video his pulling Lizzy into his bed.

"You were to delete that!"

"Nothing is fully deleted. Now shower! Unless you want Lizzy to get an infection from your dirty a-"

"Calm down Karen." Amethyst says. "Alex can you leave us for a bit?" Amethyst's stealth is on another level with how much she just shows up.

"Y-yeah." He grabs a few things and heads to the shower.

Amethyst and Karen talk through messages so Alex doesn't overhear.

"If you came here just to talk through messages, you could have stayed at your office." Karen says bluntly. 

"You all know I like to see things through my own lens. Along with I was on my way to personally talk to some college students." Amethyst explains.

"Better you than me..." Karen comments.

"I see operation love is going alright for you." Amethyst looks over gesturing to the occupied shower.

"The task was a touch difficult at first but I think it will be fine in the long run." Karen comments.

"Humans sure are finicky to bred. Some are fine running around every night but they barely care for their offspring when they do that. While others believe they need love to do anything. Then there's the type these two are. Stubborn." Amethyst states. She tilts her head at Karen. "You're stubborn too."

"Yea yea, I did not believe I would enjoy human company this much though. Now I understand why you want to preserve the human species." Karen nestles herself between Lizzy's ankles like a cat.

"They are fascinating. This one for sure was a gem of a find." She looks Lizzy over. 

"Tomorrow she turns eighteen. I'm going to have them take her off sedation in the morning. And hope she can enjoy some of her birthday." Karen's tone was kind.

"I hope it goes well tomorrow. I should head back to work. Keep me in the loop." Amethyst tells Karen.

"As always." Karen replies.

Amethyst is gone before Alex makes it back. His clothes are changed and his hair is still wet.

"At least dry your hair! Don't you dare get her wet!" Karen demands.

"Fine." He grabs a towel and dries his hair.

"You need to eat the food your Grandma made you." Karen states.

"Not hungry." He is sitting and holding Lizzy's hand.

"Fine make her cry when she wakes up after she finds out you haven't been eating. You selfish-."

"Fine! I will eat. Just drop it!" Alex is irritated from sleeplessness, hunger and emotions from the day before.

Alex eats and then stays up most of the night. He is scared to take his eyes off of her. He falls asleep around 1am. Karen sets the sedation to slowly wean off. Making it so Lizzy will wake up around 5/6am like she normally would. 

Lizzy wakes slowly around 5:30. Karen detects this and comes to her side. Lizzy sees Alex sleeping partially in her bed with the rest of him in the chair. Her right hand is clasped in his. She motions for water from Karen with her left one. 

Lizzy drinks quite a bit since it's been a little bit. Karen even hands her lip balm so she wouldn't pick and make her lips bleed. Lizzy mouths a thank you to Karen as she rests. Karen displays a happy birthday screen with little confetti popping everywhere. Lizzy's smile is a very happy one. She almost starts to cry.

Lizzy turns her attention to Alex. He must be exhausted to be sleeping this heavy. Than again he could be a very heavy sleeper. Lizzy thinks back on when she took care of him when he was sick.

Seven o' clock rolls around. Alex is still sleeping while Lizzy rests and watches him. Karen pops a message on her screen asking if Lizzy wants to inform her friends she has woken up. Lizzy gives her a nod. Karen nestles back down into Lizzy's ankles and sends out messages.

An hour goes by and Lizzy is uncomfortable and wants to change her sitting position. She lifts her left hand and hoovers it over Alex's hair. She hates to wake him. Karen pops a message on her screen. Wake him up. He has been asleep for awhile and has been an emotional reck the whole time you have been here.

Lizzy smiles at Karen since she gave her the courage to wake him. She gently strokes his hair. Never in a million year did she think his hair would be as soft as it is. She continues to more or less pet him fascinated with its softness. He blinks a few times and then looks up at her.

"Good morning sleepy head." She whispers with a smile.

Without warning Alex bolts up. He touches his forehead to hers and cradles her face in his hands.

"I'm sorry. I'm going to ask for forgiveness and not permission." He leans in and kisses her gently. He pulls back slowly. "Please forgive me." His eyes are kind while looking into hers.

Lizzy grabs his shirt collar and pulls him in for another kiss. This one lasts for a second before she slightly winces in pain.

"I'm sorry!" Alex stiffens up and tries not to touch her.

"It's.. it's alright. My ribs are just tender." She very slowly shifts over realizing her left leg is bandaged and braced. "Sit here." She pats to the right of her on the bed. 

He sits facing her. Being careful of her legs. 

"What happened? I remember getting pinned but why is my leg bandaged?" Lizzy asks.

"I almost had you out when Bob hit your leg breaking it... Promise me, you won't do something like this again." Alex pleads.

"No can do." Lizzy starts.

"What?! I nearly lost you!" Lizzy holds her hand up and he stops. Alex's eyes well with tears.

"Animals are unpredictable. Yes there are precautions but if one wants to harm me they will try. I love them too much to stop working with them." She tries smiling gently at him.

"You didn't have to jump into that pen." Alex tries to hide his anger.

"He would have killed them." Lizzy rebukes.

"He almost killed you!" Alex is clearly upset.

Lizzy sighs. "I'm sorry for worrying you. I will do what I can to not get into one of those situations again." She holds her right hand up as high as his face. She hides the pain from her ribs well. "Please come here. I don't wish to fight with you today."

"I don't want to fight with you either." He leans in so she can rest her hand on the side of his face. Lizzy lightly pulls him closer to kiss him since her ribs hurt too much to lean up to him.

"Happy birthday!" Everyone shouts as Stacy throws open the door. Alex leaps from the bed. Everyone that has some form of friendship with Lizzy is standing behind Stacy.

There is an awkward silence for about half a second. Yet it felt like a full minute for everyone.

"KAREN YOU TOLD ME NOW WAS THE PERFECT TIME TO SURPRISE HER! IT OBVIOUSLY ISN'T!" Stacy slams the door shut.

"Tee hee!" Karen makes a winking face with a tongue sticking out.