《 Skip a Beat 》

What's there

"Seven hours, buddy," echoed Jacob, shaking his head.

Newt tried to reciprocate, but as soon as he moved, a storm of a headache tumbled into his head.

The piercing beeping sounds from the machine next to his bed got a smidge faster. Everything in the room blurred slightly. The lights felt too bright, the blankets too hot... and there were so many cables.

Cables everywhere, tangled around different machines, and most of them leading to him. One or two of them had blood flowing through them- following those cables, Newt felt sick seeing that they lead through folds of white blanket until they were attached to him.

Moving his head again and immediately regretting it as his headache pulsed painfully, he used his eyes to look back at his three companions.

"I feel awful," he rasped quietly. He could've sworn that Jacob leaned slightly closer so he could hear him.

"I don't blame you," replied Leta drily, while the other two gave him sympathetic looks.

Newt silently promised himself that he would talk as little as possible. It felt like shards of glass were stuck in his throat, and he was almost certain that he made a horrible rattling sound when he inhaled.

Newt watched as Queenie retreated to her cushioned chair, Jacob dropping into the seat on her right. Leta occupied the chair next to his bed.

With a gentle creak, the green doors to the right of the room suddenly swung open, and a tall, lean nurse with horn-rimmed glasses stalked in. With a sense of purpose, she briskly began changing the water in the vase next to Newt's bed.

The blinding white lights were starting to make him feel incredibly dizzy, and he was suddenly aware of the fact that he couldn't feel his right leg at all.

Flicking his eyes up again, Newt was also aware of the fact that there were only four of them in the room.

"Where's Tina? And Theseus?" he croaked out. In a heartbeat, Leta, Queenie and Jacob's expressions all morphed into concern.

They all looked at each other, then back at Newt, then at each other again. Newt was starting to feel slightly panicked. Leta indicated him with an incline of her head, willing someone else to speak up.

"Well..." began Queenie. She exhaled through her nose, knowing that she couldn't stop now that she'd started. "They left, honey. They're in New York."

"What?"

It was the first time Newt had spoken something that could be heard when you weren't standing within half a metre of him. Even the nurse fleetingly glanced up.

Queenie cringed, trying desperately to ease the panic in Newt's expression.

"They had to leave, Newt, or they'd be late," she added quietly. He only looked even more horrified.

The beeps from the heart rate machine were getting faster. Alarmed, Leta checked the screen from where she was.

Newt's heart rate had gone from 79 bpm to 124 bpm, the green spikes peaking faster and closer together against the black screen.

Leta scooted closer to Newt, taking one of his calloused hands in hers. It was cold and clammy, and there was a grey pressure peg with a cable clamped onto his pointer.

The beeps were getting alarmingly fast, so much that the nurse glanced at him a second time, then breezed over to tamper with some kind of gear on the machinery.

"Sir, are you alright?" she asked tightly. Newt didn't respond, staring disbelievingly back at Queenie.

Jacob moved to the nurse's side, helping her wheel one of the machines aside so she could reach the other. "Sir, you need to calm down," she continued, fiddling with some of the cables now.