Chapter Text
Twenty minutes later, Harry is all alone in the small room they roll you into after getting off the ambulance. The ambulance ride was an out of body experience. Luckily, Harry had never been inside one before. Sadly, he couldn’t even look around much because of the pain. The paramedics pointed a tiny flashlight into his eyes, then said that it wasn’t a concussion, only a bump on his forehead that would go away after a few days. She felt along his legs and arms, asked Harry to move them and then said that at least none of those were broken. Harry tried to tell them that the worst pain was still in his lower hip and ass, but they couldn’t see anything without an x-ray.
After all that movement, Harry felt nauseous and dizzy with pain. They left him with the decision whether or not they should bring him to a hospital. Harry had furrowed his brows and leant his head back. Wasn’t it their place to decide that? He was barely thinking straight. Then he decided that sooner or later he would go to a hospital anyway if the pain kept on like this, so better now than try to get there himself. Once he had calmed and sat down, he called his roommate shakily.
“Yes?” Liam answered after the third ring.
“Don’t freak out.” Harry said with closed eyes. “I’m on my way to the hospital.”
Of course Liam freaked out. Harry tried to explain what happened and that he wasn’t in a critical state as far as he knew. He told Liam that he was pretty sure he couldn’t come, because he would be in the separate part of the emergency room only for the ambulance transport. Besides, he knew Liam had to get up for work at four thirty in the morning. Fucking cooks and their shifts. So he once again told Liam to stay calm and that it would surely not be that bad but take a while, knowing hospitals. He sent the paramedic that stayed in the back with him an apologetic smile but she only waved off.
Liam insisted to keep his phone on and told Harry to call him the second he got out and that he would pick him up and bring him home. Until then, he would go to sleep. Harry was more than fine with that. He’d been to the hospital before with a broken arm when he was eight, and it took hours before he was even x-rayed. So there was a long night ahead of him, Harry thought as he leant his head back in pain.
Now he’s in the emergency room, the tight strap of a blood pressure monitor around his bicep and a pulse oximeter clipped to his pointer finger. There are nurses and paramedics rushing around, nobody is really taking their time with Harry. He’s had to explain the entire accident all over again to four different people already. One did another quick check up, one noted the monitors’ readings and then forgot to remove them, one harshly cleaned Harry’s abrasions and one eventually pushed him out into the hallway on the stretcher. He briefly tells Harry that there is some sort of emergency that needs urgent care but he will be sent to x-ray and able to talk to a doctor as soon as possible. Harry knows that means it could take hours.
He leans his head back and finally the first tears pool in his eyes. It’s such a weird feeling of helplessness. He’s all alone. His family is a hundred and seventy miles away, back home. He only moved to London for uni two semesters ago, which means everyone he knows here he’s only been friends with for about eight months. He’s pretty close with his roommate Liam but he doubts anybody else would just drop anything at ten in the evening to visit him. Just as Harry thinks that, however, his phone buzzes in his Adidas shorts. It’s a miracle his phone survived the accident without a scratch, and even more so that there are no rips or holes in his clothes. Harry sniffles and pulls out his phone to check what it is.
His closest uni friend, an Irish guy named Niall has sent him a picture. It’s a screenshot of the find my friends app, of Harry’s icon in the middle of the hospital area on the virtual map. The text that follows shortly after is: H what the fuck are you doing?
Harry wipes over his face even though the tears have not escaped yet. He thinks about those people that find location sharing weird and possessive. Suck it, he thinks. This is what it’s supposed to be used for. Harry does the same, checks every evening if all his friends are safe. Now is one of the occasions where someone isn’t, and thank lord Niall checked. Harry almost smiles. He types out: Bad accident. Doctor could be here any minute. Waiting for x-ray.
Niall doesn’t answer. He just calls.
The second Harry picks up, he feels his throat clogging up and his eyes watering. This is a feeling he hasn’t quite experienced before. All alone in a hospital, everything changed within split seconds on that bicycle. And now he’s in pain so unbearable he can’t move an inch and he doesn’t even know what it is. He finds himself feeling such unfamiliar vulnerability and loneliness. Harry wouldn’t wish it upon his worst enemy.
Harry tells Niall as much, trying not to start crying. Niall seems to get it, talking to him softly and asking a few questions.
“How’s your phone battery?”
“Got a portable charger,” Harry hiccups.
“Are you cold?”
Harry looks down on himself. Adidas shorts, his wet swim shorts are in his tote along with his towel. A slightly cropped shirt with the sleeves cut off. Flip flops. A typical outfit you wear for a day at the lake and a bike ride home, not for the cooled down emergency room.
“Yes.”
“Alright,” There’s rustling in the back.
“Niall, what are you doing?”
“I’m coming to see you.”
Harry’s chest warms, but he still scrambles to answer quickly, “No, Niall, I don’t think that’s allowed here. There’s no entrance except the ambulance one. I don’t even know in what part of the hospital I am-”
“Don’t care.” Niall cuts him off. “I’m on my way.”
A tiny sob escapes Harry. He’s not so alone after all.
He spends the next twenty minutes trying not to cry. Above all the shock and confusion, the adrenaline from the fall has worn off and the pain gets harder. Everywhere. There’s a new pain in his ribs that wasn’t there before. A nurse sees him and stops shortly. “Need painkillers?”
“Yes, please,” Harry breathes out.
“Any allergies?”
“Not that I know about.”
She nods and hurries off. It takes her more than five minutes to return with a tiny plastic cup. It’s the size of a shot glass, filled with a clear liquid. She’s rushed off before Harry can even ask what it is. Anything is better than this pain, though, so he downs it without further contemplation.
That’s when Niall appears.
“Can’t believe you,” He snickers. “All this and you still find a way to order tequila.”
“Niall,” Harry exclaims weakly. Upon seeing him, the dams break and he starts crying. God, what a situation. He raises his hand to take Niall’s because he can’t sit up. Niall gets it and leans down to hug Harry carefully, soothing one hand over Harry’s uninjured arm.
“Shit, you look awful,” He mumbles, kissing Harry’s hair and pulling away to inspect him.
“Only my left side, though,” Harry tries his best to smile. The painkillers have not kicked in yet. “How’d you get in here?”
“Sneaked right past the receptionist,” Niall grins. “Wasn’t that hard.”
Niall then unpacks a bag of gummies, some chocolate and a hoodie. Harry cries a little harder.
They talk quietly for a while and Niall takes about half a minute to make Harry laugh through his tears until he needs to stop because laughing hurts his ribs. Then Niall takes some silly pictures of him just to have evidence of this.
“Harry Styles?”
They both stop goofing around when his name is called. Niall takes Harry’s bag and sits down on a chair when Harry gets rolled into the x-ray room. Everyone around them is so busy and rushed that nobody even takes notice that Harry has a prohibited visitor.
Inside the room, they take x-rays of his shoulder and elbow, then tell him to stand for the ribcage picture. When he is forced to stand on both feet, Harry only nearly prevents himself from throwing up all over the machine and the floor. He has never felt pain like this. Under suffering grunting he has to take off his shorts and lay down to have a picture of his pelvis bone taken.
Once he’s finished he gets rolled back outside. Under almost hysterical and very painful giggling, he tells Niall that nobody helped him put his shorts back on, only put a sheet-like blanket over him. Niall breaks down laughing and helps Harry into his shorts. It's only hilarious because his friend is here to help, because Harry doubts he would be able to get into his trousers on his own. Their fun is cut short once more when a doctor walks out of another room.
“Harry Styles?”
“Yes?”
The doctor halts right in front of him and glances at Niall shortly. “And who are you?”
“His mate.”
“Oh, you’re not supposed-“ but then he cuts himself off and sighs. “Well, you’re already here, so might as well stay.” He turns back to Harry. “Ribs and elbow are only bruised, thankfully. It hurts a lot, I know, but it will go away in two to three weeks. Your pelvis, however…”
Harry swallows. “What is it?”
The doctor shows him a print of his x-ray. He points to two places, one on the left side a bit higher up and one right on his pubic bone. “It looks like fractures. On this x-ray, we can only assume. That’s why we need to do a CT scan. It might just be bruised, but we can’t let you go without knowing. If you have broken your pelvis in those places, the fractures are highly unstable and you wouldn’t be allowed to walk for a while.”
The lump in Harry’s throat grows with every word leaving the doctor’s mouth.
“We need to keep you here tonight, I’m sorry.”
“Why?” Niall asks.
“It’s too late for a CT. We’ll try to get you scanned as soon as possible, hopefully within the next few days-“
“Days?”
The doctor ignores Niall's infuriated echo patiently. “For tonight, we have to wait until a bed is free and then get you all settled in. Until then, we will run some tests, take some blood and urine and do a quick ultrasound just to check for internal bleeding.”
Internal bleeding? Oh god.