Hana's Game: A SequelShipping Story: Chapter 13

    Hugh paced the hallway of the hospital for what felt like an eternity.  Rosa was just in the next room over, but she might as well be miles away from him.  There was a doctor checking her out to make sure she was all right, but until he came out, Hugh would remain in the dark about her condition.  He couldn’t rest.  He had to know if she was going to be okay.  How long had he been waiting out here?  He pulled out his C-Gear to check.  It felt like days, but it was probably just about eight hours, or ten hours or…

    …Fifteen minutes.

    Frustrated, Hugh threw the device across the hall.  He leaned against the wall and slumped down to the floor.  It was his fault.  He didn’t know how or why, but he knew that he was to blame.  It’s because of him that Rosa was in this hellhole in the first place.  He had no idea what she was going through, but he knew that it couldn’t be good.  He didn’t even know if she was going to make it through this okay.  If she didn’t…

    Oh Arceus, please don’t let that happen, Hugh thought to himself as he buried his face in his hands, I’ll never live it down if I find out that I just killed her.

    Finally, after a full hour had passed, the doctor finally came out of the room.  Hugh sprang to his feet and confronted him.

    “How is she?” he asked, “Is Rosa going to be all right.”

    The doctor seemed surprised to find him waiting in the hall.  Nevertheless, he quickly recovered and gave him a warm smile.

    “She’s going to be just fine,” he told him, “It appears that she’s already come through the worst of it.  We’re just going to watch her for a couple days to make sure that she’s okay.”

    Hugh breathed a sigh of relief.  “Thank goodness,” he sighed, “I was really worried about her.”

    “It was really nothing major,” the doctor continued, “Just a little bit of hypertension caused by chronic stress.  The poor girl must have been under an obscene amount of stress over the past couple months.  It’s a good thing you brought her in when you did.  If she had been in this condition much longer, we could have been looking at some more serious, permanent damages.”

    Rather than elevate his spirits, this bit of news only served to make Hugh feel even worse.  This had been going on ever since the filming.  It really was his fault.  Rosa had been getting closer and closer to the edge and he never even knew.  She had never told him anything like this before.  No, as her friend, he should have noticed this long before it became a problem.  Hugh hated himself for not doing anything sooner.  He had to go make things right.

    “Um,” he asked, “Would it be okay if I went in to see her now?”

    The doctor thought about this for a moment, as if contemplating what to say.

    “Technically,” he began, “According to our policy’s definition, she is in a stable enough condition to have visitors.  However, in her case, I would advise against it for now.  She’s still in a delicate enough state that she could easily be pushed off the edge.  We wouldn’t want her blood pressure to spike again, would we?  I’ll leave the decision up to you, but try to think of what would be best for her.”

    With that, the doctor left down the hall.  Hugh understood what he meant.  He didn’t need him to spell it out for him: Rosa didn’t want to see him.  He really couldn’t blame her, after what he did.  Still, he needed to apologize to her, and he felt that this may be his last chance to do so.  His hand was hovering over the door handle, as if waiting for him to make a decision.  Steeling his nerves, Hugh turned the handle and slowly stepped inside.

    Rosa was laying in the bed closest to the door; the far one was, thankfully, unoccupied.  She was wearing a spotted blue hospital gown, as her normal clothes were folded neatly on the bedside table next to her bag.  An IV ran from her right arm to a bag handing from a pole that had some kind of liquid in it.  As soon as Hugh stepped into the room, Rosa shot him a murderous glare.  This time, the venomous attitude did not go unnoticed.

    “What do you want?” she asked, “Haven’t you done enough to me already for one day?”

    Hugh felt about three inches tall right now.  In retrospect, he probably should have figured out what he was going to say before he came in here.

    “Um, listen,” he began, “I… I just wanted to apologize about what I did.  I was way out of line, and I’m sorry.”

    “You’re sorry?” Rosa scoffed, “I’m afraid ‘sorry’ isn’t going to cut it!  Of all the stupid, reckless, violent, irresponsible, bone-headed things you could have done – what the hell were you even THINKING?!”

    Hugh kept quiet.  He had been expecting this.  Frankly, he couldn’t blame her for yelling at him; he knew she was right.  He just had to be careful not to let this escalate into an all-out fight again and just let her vent.

    “How could you do something like this?” she asked, “What lame-brained thought process led you to think it would be okay to physically assault someone and threaten their life?!  I would have thought that you would be smart enough to know that’s not appropriate for any civilized human being to do!”

    He let that comment go, but it was starting to get difficult holding his tongue.

    “Do you have any idea what you could have done?!” Rosa continued, “You could have seriously hurt him, maybe even killed him!  You’re lucky it’s just me sitting here and not the both of us, because high blood pressure or no, I would beat the crap out of you!  Curtis was only trying to help me when I was feeling down, but then you had to go and ruin it!”

    At this point, Hugh was biting down hard on the inside of his cheek to avoid blurting out what was on his mind.

    “I thought you were my friend!” she added, “I thought I could count on you to be supportive of me when I needed you the most!  But I guess not; I guess the only thing I can trust you to do is be aggressive and critical of my choices!  If I wanted that, I would have joined Team Plasma!”

    Finally, the dam broke, and Hugh could no longer keep quiet.

    “Hey!” he interrupted, “I screwed up; I’ll be the first to admit that.  But don’t you ever try to compare me to the likes of them ever again.”

    Just when Rosa had almost calmed down, this outburst had renewed her anger.

    “I’ll do whatever the hell I want!” she screamed, “What you did was so unacceptable and so unbelievably selfish that if I want to liken you to Team Plasma, I will!”

    “Selfish?!” Hugh exclaimed, “You call going through hell and back just so I could be there for you selfish?!  You call trying to protect you from some guy who barely even knows the real you selfish?!  Everything I’ve ever done was all for your best interest!”

    “I don’t need you to protect me!” Rosa told him, “I can handle myself, AND it’s not your job to watch over me in the first place!”

    “Well, excuse me!” he began, “But I’m not about to just sit back and watch as some random guy comes in and takes advantage of you when I turn my back!”

    “I don’t believe you!” she scoffed, “You never let me do anything on my own!  I hate you!  I wish I never even met you!!”

    Silence filled the room as Rosa’s words hung over them like the toll of a death knell.  Hugh stared at her in utter disbelief that she could say something like that and give enough emotion to mean it.  Color drained from Rosa’s face as she realized the magnitude of what she just said.  She wanted more than anything to take it back, but she couldn’t get her voice to work.  Finally, Hugh turned and ran out of the room.

    “Hugh, wait!” Rosa called.

    She tried to run after him, but she got tangled up in the IV stand.

    “Damn it!” she half-sobbed, “Why did I have to go and say something stupid like that?”

    She ripped the IV out of her arm and dashed out the door to find him.



    So that’s it, Hugh thought as he raced down the halls of the hospital fighting back tears, She never cared about me at all!  I can’t believe I could have been so stupid!

    “And where are you off to in such a big hurry?”

    Hugh skidded to a stop to see who spoke.  He saw Delta and Gemini leaning against the wall directly ahead of him.

    “You two again?!” he began, “Look, I’m really not in the mood right now.  Can’t you find someone else’s day to ruin?”

    Not in the mood indeed.  Delta was well aware of the fight that went on between him and Rosa.  Hana had watched the whole thing from her headquarters and had briefed her about everything, all the way to Rosa’s telling Hugh that she wished that she’d never met him.  By now, Delta knew Hugh well enough to know that he would be in a very volatile state.  This would be a very delicate job, but Delta forced herself to suppress her anxiety.

    “Whatever do you mean?” she asked innocently, “I just heard that you were back in Unova, so I figured I’d come say hello.”

    “Really?” Hugh began, “Then how did you know that I was going to be here at the hospital?”

    “We heard the news about Rosa,” Delta explained, “And since you two are so close, we knew that you would be worried about her as well.”

    “Don’t flatter yourself,” he told her, “We’re not as close as you think.”

    By this point, Rosa had caught up with Hugh.  Seeing who he was talking to, she quickly ducked behind a corner before anyone noticed her.  She started listening in on the conversation.

    “And what could you mean by that?” Delta asked, “You two seemed so close to me.  You hardly went anywhere without each other.  Did the two of you get into an argument?”

    “It doesn’t matter,” Hugh told her, “Because now I know what she really thinks about me.”

    “Be careful, Delta,” Hana said over her earpiece, “Brother looks like he’s really upset.  He could potentially blow at any moment.”

    “If she said something to upset you,” Delta began, “You shouldn’t take it to heart.  The girl was under a lot of stress lately, and she ended up in the hospital.  Whatever it was, she must not have meant it.”

    “You didn’t hear what she said,” Hugh said bluntly, “The way she said it, there was no way she didn’t mean it.”

    Hearing her friend saying that broke Rosa’s heart.  It really WAS a mistake.  She had no idea what she was saying until it was already out of her mouth.  She wanted to say that, but she had to remain hidden.  Tears started welling up in her eyes as she lamented her unfortunate slip-up.

    “I suppose now,” Gemini intervened, “The question is, what you will do from here.”

    Hugh turned to look at Gemini, who had remained quiet up until now.

    “What do you mean?” he asked.

    “I mean,” he continued, “What are you going to do about this?  You can’t just leave things as they are, can you?  What did you do when Rosa went off to Sinnoh without telling you where she was?  What did you do when she went out on a date with another man?  You ran to her side then, so you ought to do it now.  What’s it going to be?”

    Suddenly, everything clicked in Hugh’s mind.  He realized that the events that had happened over the course of the past three months was never up to them.  He was never in control of what was going on.  Ever since they met Delta and Gemini, their lives have become some kind of sick game for them, and he and Rosa were the game pieces.  These two had been pulling the strings the whole time.  But now, Hugh wasn’t going to let that happen anymore.

    “You know what?” he growled, “I’m getting damned tired of playing your little puppet.”

    “Oh?” Delta asked, “And what do you mean by that?”

    “Since I’ve met you,” he began, “You two have done nothing but controlling our lives!  Everything that happened between us was all because of you!  Ours has been just some kind of twisted game for you, hasn’t it?  Well, no more!  I’m through being your plaything!”

    Delta forced herself to look calm, but on the inside, she was starting to get nervous – an emotion she hasn’t felt in years.

    “Is that so?” she started, “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

    Delta, Gemini, Rosa, Hana, everyone listening now hung onto Hugh’s next words.

    “I’m out of here!” Hugh told her, “I’m done.”