Chapter Text
BUZZ
Amidst the clutter of ramen cups and strewn paperwork on his dining room table, Henry’s phone buzzes with an incoming call. Its glow, along with the faint light projecting from his laptop, cuts through the darkness in the room.
He initially ignores it, figuring it was Pez asking if he wanted to go out with him now that he was back in town. Since he had already dismissed his last two calls, Henry hoped a third wouldn't hurt.
Admittedly, it is an asshole move to ignore your oldest, only friend, but Henry was already in the zone and had been for longer than he’s willing to check—anyone within a five-foot radius of him could likely guess, based on his body odor or the state of his hair, strands sticking in different directions from the amount of times he had swept his hands through them.
He was already halfway submerged back into his work when he received a second call; too soon after the first. The urgent vibrations from his phone continued to rattle it until the device eventually shook itself off the table. Henry groaned at the inconvenience of having to move to pick up his phone.
He stood and shook off the tingly feeling in his legs as he walked over to the device. Lucky enough, his phone landed face down on the carpet under the charging mount he’d forgotten to plug it into instead of the hardwood floor right beside it.
Henry was able to answer the phone right before its last ring and in his rush to answer, he forgets to check the Caller ID.
He whines into the speaker, “Honestly, Pezza, if you’ve ranged just to ask me to go to another new club, then hang up immediately.”
“Excuse me, is this Henry Fox?”
He’s shaken from his tirade at the sound of an unfamiliar voice.
“You're not Pez,” he answers dumbly. He would be more embarrassed at his outburst but there were only three people who would be calling him after the sun had well and truly set bringing nighttime (two of the three were likely sound asleep in London).
He checks the number on his cell to double-check that he isn't receiving a prank-called by Pez. It wouldn't be beside the pink-haired man, nor would it be the first time Henry’d fallen for a trick like it. Yet, the number staring back at him is unfamiliar and out of his usual area code range.
“I'm sorry,” he catches himself, “who am I speaking to?” ‘and how did you get my number,’ he refrains from adding.
“This is a nurse calling from St. Andrew’s Medical Hospital in Austin about an emergency room patient who has you down as an emergency contact.” Henry tightens his hold on his phone. “An ‘Alex Claremont-Diaz’ is under our care here getting treatment after a two-car collision on the interstate.”
A car alarm goes off outside, close enough for Henry to hear but not loud enough that he doesn’t miss the nurses next words.
“When he came into St. Andrew's ER, he was already unconscious and we haven't been able to reach his other emergency contact after multiple attempts. Your number was still here in our database so we were hoping you could help us contact them.”
The car alarm seems to be getting louder with every new word being said and a familiar feeling of panic rises in Henry’s throat, his thoughts moving quickly through his mind.
Alex. Accident. Unconscious.
His next inhale is shaky, completely unaware he was holding his breath ever since the lady mentioned the location the call was coming from. The blonde flexes the knuckles of his unoccupied hand in order to steady their trembling. He needed to focus.
Alex. Hospital. Alone. Alex.
“Sir?”
“Yes, sorry.” Think, think, think. “June, um, his other contact should be his sister who is not currently in the states.” He mentally groans, pressing his fingers against the stress lines that were indeed starting to form between his brows.
Despite acting pained whenever Pez went on his highly descriptive, hour-long life recaps over the phone, Henry still listened carefully to everything his dear friend shared and for things he might have missed. Even when the details suspiciously include information about his ex-boyfriend, whom he hasn’t seen in two years.
In their most recent chat, his friend had complained about how disappointed he was that a coinciding work event cut his vacation with his girlfriends short, and in Pez's selfless nature, he insisted they stay the rest of the weekend without him anyway.
“Is there no other family of Mr. Claremont-Diaz you could contact? We just find it better that trauma accident patients wake up to the presence of friends or family rather than our staff. The experience can be overwhelming.”
Henry pauses to think.
From what he knows, Alex’s father is typically either in DC or California, and he had read an article earlier this week with a headline claiming Ellen was in DC as well. If Henry hadn’t gotten the call from the hospital, he’d have probably guessed Alex would be with one of them this weekend.
Instead, Alex was all alone and unconscious in a hospital room.
Pulling away his phone to glance at the time on his phone, Henry blessed whatever god there may be when he checked and saw that it was only a quarter after nine.
“I can be there in four hours.” There’s a voice calling out to him, probably to warn him of the issues that follow a meeting with your ex at mysterious times at night; he chooses to ignore it.
The nurse takes a few seconds to answer but decides not to question his response much like she didn’t question the Manhattan area code he was answering from. He listened carefully as she shared details about the hospital's location and ended the call with a promise to contact any other family as soon as possible.
Henry is shaken from the aftermath of the call, his mind reeling as he stood still in front of his dining room table covered in print sheets. He only allows himself one moment of distress, before wasting no more time and immediately trying to contact Alex’s sister. He calls June once. Twice. Both calls go to voicemail so he ends up sending a quick but detailed text to her. The next person he tries is Ellen and Oscar; he sends each of them an urgent text message, then he’s racing into his bedroom to pack an overnight bag.
In his haze, Henry somehow manages to call a cab to the airport and hop on a late night flight from NYC to Austin that arrives just after midnight. He’s getting a car to take him to the hospital he was told Alex was at when he sees he’s gotten responses from both of Alex’s parents.
Monday 10:45 PM
Ellen
Calling the hospital.
Has June answered your calls?
Tuesday 12:45 AM
you
She hasn’t. Time difference in Italy.
Unsurprisingly, the response from Ellen is quick, asking to keep her updated as she wouldn't be able to make it to the hospital. Next, he checks to see Oscar's reply. They’d only previously contacted each other to discuss the possibility of opening a branch of his shelter in California. The plans eventually fell, and Henry had no further reasons to text his ex-boyfriend's father; until now.
Tuesday 12:07 AM
Oscar Diaz
Take care of him ‘till I get there
Four hours alone on a flight allowed for a flurry of distressed thoughts to occupy a part of his mind—there was a highly likely chance Henry’s presence would cause Alex grief instead of the reassurance the nurse referred to, but the thought of him waking alone made Henry feel even worse—Oscar’s message dissipated a few of the rainstorm clouds in his head out of their fractus shape.
By the time Henry had arrived at the hospital, he'd tried both June and Nora’s cells again with no success in reaching either. He walks past the entrance and he’s already asking for Alex before the late-shift attendant can even look up from her hand-crocheted scarf. He doesn't know whether he’s moving too fast or the attendant is moving too slow, but when she’s told him Alex’s room number, and he’s walking in the hallways of the emergency unit, his mind catches up to his heart and the reality of the situation dawns upon him.
Nerves build in his stomach as he walks toward Alex’s room. He stands in front of the door and his hand is grasping the click-shut handle, but Henry can't get himself to step in.
Besides the updates fed to him by Pez or the tidbits of his life Alex decides to share on Instagram (Henry ashamedly keeps up with the account profusely enough to know that the postings were sparse), Henry has no idea what he's walking into. There’s a chance he could walk into the room, and Alex is already awake and disappointed to see him. He nearly died, and his first encounter would be the last person he wanted to see.
Alex almost died. Henry tightens his grip on the door handle. He takes a shaky breath. Even if Alex decided he didn't want to see Henry when he woke, Henry desperately needed to see Alex. He didn't realise how desperately he did until this very moment. Henry needed to know he was safe.
He pushes to enter the dimly lit room and is immediately hit with a soft beeping noise coming from a vital monitor attached to the hospital bed and an IV drip attached to an unconscious Alex.
Henry’s heart burned with a familiar feeling at the sight of him. Alex’s curls were damp, wilder than ever, and reaching down to touch the tips of his eyebrows much like they were when they first met. The smooth curve of his nose was still as beautiful as the last time Henry had felt it against his, and despite the bruising cut scarring the edge of them, his lips looked just as soft. A white brace was attached to his neck; similarly, his right ankle had bandages attached to it; mild scratches were on his arms, and another cut that would surely scar was bandaged right on his brow.
Despite all the damage, Alex looked at peace in his sleep, missing the wrinkle that typically sat between his brows and the dark bags under his eyes indicated how much he must’ve needed it.
That's right, he’d finished law school early.
The image Henry conjured of Alex, sleep-deprived, hunched over a paper strewn desk, cut a familiar tear in Henry's heart. Something profound inside of him ached at the thought of it.
He thinks of the last time he’d seen him, broken and worn out from another argument, hands clung to his luggage. Henry has to remind himself that this wasn't that same man that left their brownstone all those years ago. He’d grown to achieve the goals set by a younger version of himself. They both did.
After a few minutes of Henry standing at Alex’s bedside and silently noticing, an older nurse walked in. “Are you the young man we spoke with about Mr. Diaz? His boyfriend?”
Henry goes to correct her but only gets as far as “It's Claremont-Diaz” before she interrupts him.
“That's correct, sorry about that, sir. You got here at a perfect time.” She sanitized her hands and went to a computer. She begins to explain what she heard of Alex’s accident: that he’d been in a side-impact collision; that he’d already been in-and-out of consciousness when they brought him back to the emergency room before he fell into the comatose state he was in currently.
The nurse is typing down information into the computer while she explains, the overflow of news is making a stressed ridden Henry wonder whether he should be writing any of this down.
“Thankfully, there was no damage done to any major organs as well as no critical bone damage, though he does have a minor sprained ankle that should heal within the next 1-3 weeks. Although there is no diagnosis yet, even with no skull damage, he may have a closed-head injury which is not uncommon among trauma patients in similar circumstances.”
She finally looks away from her screen to take a break from inputting data and she must see the fear on his face because she then rushes to reassure him that it could be as mild as a light concussion. They were still waiting for him to wake up before an official medical diagnosis.
“As his caregiver, I’m going to ask you to sign over his rights so we can give him a quick unconscious CT scan.” The nurse clicks another button on her computer before she walks over to the printer in the corner of the room and grabs the documents for him to sign.
A bit unconsciously, he signs the papers and listens to her tell him they'll pick him up in the next hour for his scan.
As soon as she is gone, Henry's brain begins to ponder on how his role in Alex's life had shifted so much in so little time. He’d gone from friend to lover to near stranger, and now ‘caregiver’. Yet, even now there was a chance that when Alex woke, he wouldn't want to accept any of these titles nor Henry back in his orbit.
He remained by Alex’s side, afraid to touch but too scared to look away and lose him again. There’s an agonizing space of tension between Henry and the bed; soon the pre-op team was heard knocking, entering the room to prepare Alex for his scan. Henry is forced to take a step back to allow them space to work and finds himself on the single couch occupying the room, further from Alex but cautious of every touch from the professionals. From there, it’s a blur of bodies moving and things getting disconnected and reattached until eventually Alex is slowly rolled out of his room, leaving Henry alone, once again.
He’s only been waiting a few minutes for the nurses to return when another soft knock is heard and the door is being opened; Henry couldn’t be more relieved to see someone other than another medical professional entering the room.
“Henry?”
“June, thank goodness.” He’ll later blame this on his anxiety but he wastes no time standing to meet his ex’s sister with a strong encompassing hug, both of them unwilling to let go of the comfort first.
When they detach, Henry sees the remnants of streaked makeup and tears on her face and guides her to sit, grabbing the napkins occupying the coffee table and handing them to her, she takes them generously.
“Did you see him? How was he doing? Did they say anything about the crash? Do they know how it happened or where it was? How bad did his injuries look? Is he gonna need any surgery?” The barrage of questions comes at a whirlwind but Henry doesn't stumble and answers her questions in consecutive order.
He spends a few minutes repeating the information he was given from the nurse almost verbatim to Alex’s concerned older sister and reassures her that most of his injuries seem to be superficial.
“Fuck,” She runs her hands across her face, clearing the tears that had accumulated during Henrys recount, using their momentum to push her hair away from her face and raised her head in a deep exhale. She breathes a deep shuddering breath for what seems like the first time in the past ten minutes. “Thank you, Henry. For being here, for not letting him go through this alone.”
June Claremont-Diaz was always the more cautious sibling between the two. For all that she was a professional to a fault and an amazing girlfriend, she was also always going to be Alex’s big sister first, constantly looking out for her little brother through all of his trials. Henry knew that she had offered her two bed, two bath apartment to Alex when he first moved to Texas; he was roommates with his sister until he found the time to move into his own place. June was always a leading role in Alex’s few social media posts, a consistent character in his daily life, she always has been. She likely supported him through the aftermath of his and Henry’s breakup as well.
Henry wouldn’t have taken any offense if she had decided to become more protective of her younger brother over it; if she chose to be more careful with what information she shared around Henry when the friends came together sans Alex. But the smoke never came, it rarely ever did with June. There was no hesitation or upset confusion in her eyes as she thanked him for being there and set the palm of her hand on his shoulder, nurturing him even as she was still crying. Henry belatedly notices her lack of curiosity on his presence in the emergency room, treating him like he was always meant to be right here by Alex’s side.
“Excuse my memory, but weren’t you meant to be in Venice with Nora? How did you get here so fast? It's hardly been,” Henry spares a glance at his silver watch, “four hours since I contacted you. Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm sure not even June Claremont-Diaz with all of her might could fly herself out here that fast.”
Henry feels a little proud when this gets a light chuckle from the tearful brunette. “We got a flight back home yesterday because Nora had a work emergency. When we landed and I saw your texts, I came here right away. I tried calling you but I guessed your phone was off.” Henry only now notices the pajama-like get-up she wore, similar to the fashion of the average American at an airport.
“We?” Henry looks past June in case he somehow missed her girlfriend's entrance in his rush to speak.
“Yeah, Nora’s here. She’s making calls and trying to figure out how the accident happened outside right now. We were both so worried.”
Her eyes well up again but are interrupted when a click is heard at the door and the medical team enter the room with Alex’s bed in tow. June rushes over, careful to not get in the way of the medical assistants reattaching his set-up and setting spare pillows under his sprained foot. She sniffs once while taking in his bruised state. One of the nurses on the team let them know the doctor will return with the results of the CT scan soon and for them to let them know when Alex wakes up. As soon as they are left alone in the room with Alex, June takes a step closer to the bed and lightly grazes the scars on his face with just the tips of her fingers.
“Oh, Alex.”
Henry watches the heartfelt moment between the two siblings with reverence, it was a reminder of how much he was missing his own older sister right about now. Now that June and Nora were here and Alex was back in the room, Henry was no longer needed; he had no reason to be there anymore besides his own selfish ache to stay by Alex’s side a little longer. Though, he would hate to risk ruining Alex’s night even further with the surprise of the ex-boyfriend he never thought he'd see again on the same night he got into a collision.
Slowly and quietly, he gathers his things from the couch and stands from his warm seat, preparing to make his exit speech. Stopping him before he could try, June speaks up first.
“Have you eaten yet, Henry? You’ve been here all night.” Henry thinks about the cold cup ramen that was likely still sitting at his desk, getting soggier by the minute. There’s a light ache in his stomach from lack of nourishment but it was a feeling he’d become familiar with ever since he’s buried himself in his work. He must take too long thinking about it, the brunette's face turning downward with concern. “Why don't you go check the hospital cafeteria for something. I’ll take a shift watching him here while you go eat.”
Henry weakly tries to explain to her that he was actually leaving back to his lonely home in New York, but June intercepts again.
“And can you make sure to bring back a water bottle with you, I haven't drank anything since the airport and I'm parched.”
“Make that two. Hi Henry.” The voice coming from a crack in the door is Nora, no longer on the phone and walking towards the same side of the bed as June to get a careful look at her sleeping best-friend.
Henry clearly has no power in the situation and relents, nodding his head towards his best-friends girlfriends, “Hello, Nora. I will grab those for you then, I suppose.” He turns on his heels, a little bewildered at how his plans changed so quickly. There is a shout from behind the door just as he shuts it behind him.
“And make sure to get something to eat too!” Henry dumbly walks out into the emergency room corridor and finds the elevator doors leading to the other floors in the building. As he waits for them to open he removes his phone from his back pocket and taps the screen once but gets no response.
Definitely dead then. The doors slide open and Henry steps in, staring at the buttons next to the closing doors. He shoves an arm between the doors as they’re closing, forcing them to reopen when he realizes he has no idea where he's going and goes to ask a passing man in scrubs who lets him know it's on the lower level of the hospital.
Henry walks back to the elevator and heads for the basement floor.
Perhaps Henry stalled a little on his short-tasked trip.
In Henry’s hands were: two water bottles, a brittle, plastic-wrapped muffin and a bag of gator jerky he bought at the hospital store. He also had: one new charger, a mildly charged phone and fifteen missed calls with a dozen text messages to complement them. Letting his phone die when he was in a dire situation was perhaps a huge oversight but god bless the medical centers thoroughly stocked convenience store.
Henry passed by the shop first when he reached the basement floor, getting what was requested of him. Then he spent another thirty minutes in the dining area next door. He allowed his phone to charge during this time and responded to the messages he missed, most of them coming from June and Nora, a few from Pez who was checking in on him again, unknowing Henry was miles away from his stuffy apartment, and one from Jacob, another partner helping manage the Henry Foundation; he was requesting files that Henry was supposed to have filled out and sent yesterday night. It was around five in the morning now. He ignores most of them, sending a quick sign of life to Pez and mentally prepares for the text he was going to have to send to his associates on why he might be absent from work the following day.
Eventually, he's unplugging his phone from the wall and gathering his belongings, having occupied the appropriate amount of time allotted for men who run away from confronting their comatose ex-boyfriends. It’s when he’s on the elevator trip back up that he starts overthinking how he's supposed to behave in the predicament he’s in. Was there a guide on how to handle confronting the very thing you've been avoiding for nearly two whole years? A tiny part of his brain whispers back, That would be therapy dear. He’s trying to remember the last time he spoke with Dr. Shelby when the elevator doors open and he's back on the emergency room floor, dragging his feet in the direction of Alex’s room.
He’s about to use his elbow to open the room door when it swings open on its own. All Henry could see through the open door was the privacy curtain and June, wide-eyed and buzzing with energy.
“Henry, oh my god. He’s awake! Go call the nurse, holy shit.” The clutter in his arms is snatched away and he's being urged to walk in the direction of the nurses desk. A group of nurses rush past him and into Alex’s room after he shares the news—there’s a heavy weight against his chest right above where his heart beats, irregularly fast in its pace. Moments pass in a flurry and Henry is still standing by the nurse station silently staring across the hall, the direction the medical crew rushed towards.
He felt relief, mostly. Henry never once doubted Alex would wake up from his short lived coma, Alex was always stubborn in that way.
Soon a doctor is walking past him and into the room, styled with the classic white coat and labeled documents in hand, accompanied by two residents. More time passes, minutes, maybe an hour. Different teams come in and out of Alex's room the entire time and Henry’s worry grows deeper but his feet remain glued in front of the nurses station. After a bit of time, the area inside of the hospital room clears with medical staff exiting as they are dismissed. Both medical assistants and nurses make their way around Henry, re-occupying their desks. A few of them give him a sad glance as they pass. Anxiety begins pouring over Henry in waves. He can no longer force himself to stay in the dark, not when there was possibly something going on that he could be missing. He steps into the room.
Subsequently, the doctor who had walked in before was now exiting, residents in tow along with an apprehensive looking June—they were all looking directly at Henry.
“Hey, Henry. We need to talk to you about something.”
Dear god. Something is wrong. Something happened to Alex. There’s a complication. Or he woke up and became angry when he heard Henry was there. They were going to kick him out.
“This is Dr. Otoye. She’s gonna let you know what's going on but Alex is awake and he’s safe.” She makes sure to squeeze his arm on her emphasis of Alex’s well being before passing the mic to the medical doctor.
“Hello, Henry. My name is Dr. Otoye,” she re-introduces herself and offers him a firm handshake, “I was able to consult with my team on the results of Alex’s CT scan and thankfully, his brain activity is mostly normal. Though, there are some signs of mild closed-head trauma, there isn’t any internal bleeding or hemorrhaging that could cause serious concern or encourage the need for any surgery.”
Henry swallows at the news, confused with how he was supposed to react, glancing at June to double check that there wasn't something he misheard in the doctor's statement.
“However, Alex seems to be suffering from a bout of symptoms such as confusion and post-traumatic amnesia. He seems to be showcasing signs of grade one concussion as well. What we can do to help progress his treatment is continue to monitor him here at the hospital and try to avoid any agitation or stressors that could worsen his concussion and possibly slow his healing process.”
“I don't mean to sound presumptuous, but why is it important that I hear all of this?” Perhaps they were trying to kindly tell him that he can’t see Alex because it would cause him too much trouble.
June is the one to answer him, “Henry, Alex can't recollect most of his life from the last three years at least. We're still trying to figure out what he can remember but, in Alex’s mind, you guys never broke up. And he's asking to see you, pretty urgently.”
It takes Henry an embarrassing amount of time to process the new information he just learned but it happens in pieces: Alex has amnesia, Alex can’t remember their breakup, Alex is asking to see him. Somehow even as he repeats this to himself, he still doesn't fully understand how he’s supposed to proceed here without glitching ten times in the process.
Henry directs his next question to Dr. Otoye, “You said that stress can make his injury worse?”
She nods and responds with a solemn yes. She seems to empathize with him, speaking with a calming lilt, one she might use to tell a child that he needed to get his flu shots perhaps. Henry honestly can't imagine there's a lot of scenarios similar to his that could happen in a hospital but there was always room for misjudgment.
Henry turns back to June who was already staring back at him apologetically, knowing probably more than most how conflicted he was. “What did you want from me?” Somewhere in his head, there is a single-action revolver and silver bullet in his hands.
“We think his memories will come back quicker if he’s allowed enough time to heal. It would just be until then but if you didn’t want to do this then we’d completely understand, Henry. Really.”
“You want me to,” Henry’s either unable or unwilling to finish the sentence; the gun is loaded.
“I’m going to leave you guys alone to discuss this. If there's anything else you guys need you can ping the call light in the room. Excuse us.” The doctor walks away, likely towards her next patient and her residents scatter after her in escape.
Now it was just Henry and June in the hallway in front of Alex’s room, “I want you to not tell Alex that you guys aren't together anymore. Having to console him through it the first time was,” she deeply inhales, head down and eyes unwilling to meet Henry's, “You know how Alex can get when you don’t stop him from winding himself up. I’m not asking you to pretend you're still together but I just don't want to have to see him like that again.”
Henry doesn’t respond for a while and June allows him the space to breathe.
“You can think about it. I’m going to head inside now; Alex is worried about you. We didn’t tell him you were here, but he keeps asking us to see you. You can either come inside and join us or you can head downstairs and take the first flight back to New York. I wouldn't blame you for choosing that second option, just let me know, okay?” She pulls Henry in for another hug and Henry hugs back weakly. June turns around and heads into the room like she said she would and Henry is alone again outside the patient room.
The same handful of nerves that was with him when he first arrived at the hospital is building itself back up in his stomach, and distantly, there's the beginning of a migraine building in Henry's temple. The worst part of the predicament he's caught himself in is that he already knows what he's going to choose. The metaphorical gun is cocked and aimed straight at his foot as Henry turns to take a step towards the hospital room. His finger is shaking on the trigger; he takes the door handle and just as he slowly pushes forward, a loud bang goes off, blowing his entire foot off.
Perhaps it's due to the humidity that came with the classic New York summer, something Henry is still not used to having only moved to the states with the rest of his family two years ago now, but it goes without saying that Henry was irritated before they had even entered the charity gala.
They were invited to the event by a friend of their grandmothers, another token in her neverending game of power play; of course she would find a way to make them miserable even thousands of miles away in Queensland. When his mother had gotten the request to attend from the landed gentry, she was still grieving their deceased father, the wound of his death still raw and aching in their home. Yet, she did as her mother asked and gathered Bea, Philip and Henry to follow her to the charity to keep their family in good standing with his grandmother's acquaintance.
Bea had already made a few sketchy associates in the NY social crowd and ran off with them as soon as they arrived and had seen each other. Philip stayed with their mother, likely attempting to save face with his professional grade ass kissing skills; their mother shared absolutely none of the same enthusiasm her son did but remained by his side as they networked at the bar.
That left Henry alone at a standing table in the corner, a single glass of lime water in the tumbler glass in front of him. The crowd was mostly upper class New York elites and politicians, all of them talking about policies that would benefit them or fundraising for their campaigns. Henry’s not even sure what charity they're supposed to be raising money for here. It was a sea of personas and fakes, it was all a charade.
“What did you slip them to let you get that?” The voice is coming from his left side and he turns, caught off guard, unaware anyone had even walked up to him.
“Excuse me?” Perhaps he’s a tad rude but Henry will leave the schmoozing to Philip, thank you very much.
“The cocktail? You can't be much older than I am. C’mon, how’d you convince the bartender to sneak you one, I tried like three times and was shooed away.” There’s a mischievous, beautiful smile matching the playful trouble of his statement.
The boy was incredibly attractive, his curly, dark hair hiding a bushel of thick brows above his eyes, and his eyes framed by long fluttering eyelashes. He did seem to be about the same age as him, if not a bit younger. Henry wishes they could have met in another timeline where his father hadn’t died when he was sixteen and their mother hadn’t moved them back and forth between London and New York ever since. One where he wasn’t grieving his father at the same time that he came to terms with his sexuality. Perhaps in that universe, Henry wasn't irritable and sweaty as the sun beat down from the sky into their mid-day, outdoor event; where he wasn't feeling petulant because he was forced to parade his family's name at another pointless event. Perhaps in that universe, the one where he’s kinder, he chooses not to say what he says next.
“Do I know you?” The beautiful boy's smile slowly drops when he realizes Henry isn’t joining him in his playfulness. It is a pity, truly.
“I’m Alexander Claremont-Diaz, Ellen Claremont’s son.” He says it like Henry should know which politician in the room she was but they all looked the same from where he stood in his corner of the room.
“Henry Fox. I don’t plan on supporting anyone here on their pursuits or be a proxy in whatever game you're playing. Now if you’ll excuse me.” Henry grabs his glass and turns his back to the boy, left speechless in his wake.
Just before Henry’s too far to be out of earshot he hears the boy speak up again.
“What a prick.”
“Hen, there you are.” Alex is ecstatic to see him when he enters the room, turning his head as much as he physically can in its brace and lowering his eyebrows in that way he did when he was relieved. Henry shoots a single short glance at Nora and June, hesitant to enter the room.
“Hello, Alex.” Henry has possibly imagined his reunion with Alex over a hundred times, all of his rehearsed phrases ringing in his head: I’m sorry. This is my fault. I never stopped loving you.
“Why are you all the way over there, baby? They told me you weren't with me during the accident but I didn’t see you when I woke up.” Alex holds his hand closest to Henry out, palm up and waits for his ‘boyfriend’ to greet him properly.
Henry’s not quite there yet. “I don’t want to accidentally hurt you while you're still bruised.” He vaguely gestures towards Alex’s bandages in a smiley grimace.
Alex laughs, or he tries to with his neck held in its stiff position. “Nah, I'm good, baby. See?” He lifts his scarred arms, showcasing the functionality still in his hands and tries to lift his head and do the same when he's stopped by Nora.
“Stop moving so much, oh my god. You're going to give me a headache. I won't hesitate to call the nurse to give you a sedative if it keeps you still.”
“These are all just for show, really! I'm fine. I feel great actually. That might've been the best sleep I’ve ever gotten and it only took getting hit by a car to have it.”
It's June's turn to scold him now, giving him a sisterly, ice-cold glare.“Alex, that’s not funny.” It does the trick because Alex stops his squirming and lowers his arms back onto the bed in defeat.
He turns his head, petulantly, like a child who’s just been scolded by their mother and catches Henry’s pitiful glance at his injuries. “Really,” he says this softly, speaking only for him, “I’m fine.”
Henry’s only response is a short nod and then he runs towards the safety of the same couch he was sitting on a few hours ago, conventionally the furthest piece of furniture from the hospital bed. Alex pouts at this and is about to say something about it when Nora saves him.
“So you really don't remember anything that happened? We have some street-light footage and my guys are grabbing the video from your car's dashcam now but they said it's likely that whatever asshole hit you, drove away from the scene before the police could arrive.”
“The last thing I remember is going for one of my morning runs. I can’t even recall getting into a cab after that.”
“You were the one driving, Alex,” Nora emphasizes.
“Damn, we got a car? Guess I ended up driving us through all five boroughs eventually then, huh?” He winks at Henry who is praying he doesn't look as nauseous as he feels.
“So you really don't remember anything from the last three years? Not even law school?” His sister has to stop Nora in her tirade and remind her that Alex wasn’t supposed to be dealing with stressors including back-to-back questioning while he heals; she drops it.
“It’all come back eventually or it won’t. She said it was only a minor brain injury right? Just a bit banged-up up here, what's new?” He does his best smirk without irritating the scar on the corner of his lips and seems to fail, flinching at the burn of an open wound.
There is no way to escape here. He’s not sure if he can handle Alex touching him or calling him baby again but he’s surely not prepared to confront the version of Alex that hates him so he remains still on the sofa.
“What day is it anyway?”
“Tuesday, March 18th, 2025.” Henry finds the courage to answer this time. It was pretty early in the day still, Henry having arrived closer to 1am and it was now a little past four in the morning. He wasn’t especially needed at the shelter, perks of being the CEO. But he would eventually have to let someone know that he would be away from his office for the next day at least; however long it took Alex to heal or remember that he didn’t want Henry around.
“Oh shit. That’s after your birthday. Did I miss your birthday? How long was I out for? They never told me how long I slept for.” He was beginning to work himself up.
“You weren't out for that long, Alex. The accident only happened yesterday.”
“Oh. Then what did we do for your birthday?”
Henry swallows but his throat is dry, “We didn’t. Guess we were both too busy to celebrate.” It wasn’t a complete lie, both of them are always busy in their own ways. Henry was just omitting the truth, there was a difference.
“Fuck, I’m sorry baby.”
“It’s fine, truly. Don’t blame yourself for something you can't even remember.”
“I know but we always do something for our birthdays. Maybe we can plan something when I’m out of here.” Alex is pouting and Henry’s heart crumbles in his hand.
“Maybe.”
A phone is heard vibrating and a ringtone version of a pop song fills the room. June digs into her pants pocket to stop the noise; she looks at the caller ID (touche) and answers with a tap.
“Dad?” There’s a mumbling coming from the speaker and Alex pretends to try and snatch the phone from his sister's hands but she ducks and walks a few feet away from his bed, unfazed with her phone still held up to her ear. “I’ll come downstairs to grab you, hold on.”
She grabs the sweater she was wearing when she arrived from the chair at Alex’s bedside and rushes outside, presumably to meet her father who had arrived. Nora and Alex chat for a bit longer when she’s gone, mostly about celebrity drama updates he’s forgotten from the past three years but also about important things that happened in theirs, aside from the obvious. Henry watches from his warm spot on the couch. “We bought a house out here last year, and Pez comes to visit when he can. We’re really happy.”
Henry pretends to not notice the look Alex throws at him in between conversations, checking to see that he was still there and hadn’t snuck off whenever he looked away like Henry seemed antsy to do.
Eventually, Nora also gets a call too, this time by the guy she hired to grab the street camera images of Alex’s accident; she steps out of the room to take it.
“And then there were two.”
When Henry looks up at Alex from the unremarkable coffee table he tried very hard to put all of focus on, Alex is already holding his hand out for him to take again. This time, Henry doesn't deny him, carefully standing to meet him at his bedside before slowly lowering his hand. Alex interlaces their fingers with swiftness that came with years of muscle memory and Henry can’t help to think about how warm it felt to be touched by Alex after so long.
“Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Are you okay?” Question for the ages.
“Are you?” Alex often covered up for his own misery with jokes but the stiffness in his jaw betrayed his pain. Henry will need to call someone to give him something more for the pain soon.
“I’m better now. Nearly had a panic attack when I woke up and they told me I was in a car crash. When I didn’t see you here with me, I thought maybe you were hurt too. I wanted to go run and find you but I think June would physically restrain me to my bed if I tried getting out.” That’s something that hasn’t changed about Alex in the time they’ve spent away from each other; even as he lay wrapped in bandages in this hospital bed, Alex still thinks of others before himself. Henry briefly imagines what it would’ve felt like for Alex if he’d ended up choosing to leave before instead, the pain and anxiety it would’ve caused him. Henry’s own mental anguish with having to interact with Alex paled in comparison.
“There’s nothing for you to worry about. I’m here now,” he pushes a stray curl out of Alex’s view unconsciously and Alex traces the movement with his eyes.
“Knew you were here before you walked in,” confusion colors Henry’s face as he distantly wonders if June or Nora had mentioned him after all, “Gator jerky?” Alex lifts the bag Henry hadn’t noticed was sitting on his chest, hidden just under his sheets. “You always used to get them for me whenever we would fly back to Austin to visit my dad. You hated the way my breath would smell after eating it, though.” He chuckles again and his face pinches when it's followed by another tug at his scared lips.
“I guess I thought you might need the pick-me-up.”
“Where’d you find it near home though, I could’ve sworn I checked all of the convenience stores in the neighborhood? Or did my campaigning at the local bodega’s finally convince them to add my favorite snack to their selection.”
“Ehm, that’s actually because we're not in New York, Alex. We're in Austin.”
Alex’s eyebrows shoot up and he flinches, disrupting yet another bandaged scar on his brow. “When did we come down to Austin?”
This was all gonna be harder for Henry to try and explain if he didn’t know exactly how to frame his answers. “Alex, what is the last memory you have of us together?”
He tries hard to think about it and Henry’s close to revoking his question when he finally answers with a snap of his fingers in realization, "That's right! We just got back from our trip visiting my grandparents. It was on the trip we took to celebrate both our birthdays-”
“Right before you started your second year of law school. I remember.” Alex fidgets with their hands and rubs over a freckle on Henry’s knuckle, fond of their shared memory. Henry is careful with the delivery of his response, “You moved to Austin for work. It’s been a while now, you also have an apartment down here.”
“Oh.” He becomes timid and begins to fidget with their conjoined hands. Maybe he said too much. When he speaks up again, the lilt of his voice is slightly nervous, “Hey, Hen? If there was something important that I was missing, you’d tell me right?”
Alex looks up to meet his eyes and Henry doesn’t have the heart to lie to him outloud, so instead he nods and Alex responds with a small smile that tugs at Henry’s heartstrings.
The question must’ve been weighing Alex down much because after the moment passed, he grew drowsier with rapid speed. “You should rest. I’ll call the nurse to give you some more pain medication and let the girls and your dad know you're tired so you can get some sleep.”
The bandaged boy looked up at him with a care that had become unfamiliar to the blonde—Henry had almost completely forgotten what it looked like to be loved by Alex. “You’re always taking care of me. What would I do without you?” Alex squeezes their interlocked fingers and his eyes flutter shut, just as tired than Henry had guessed.
It didn’t take long for Alex to fall into a deep sleep. Henry reaches for the patient control panel with his free hand and presses the call light. Soon after, a new nurse arrives and leaves to return with more pain medication for Alex to take through his IV. Through all of this, Henry makes no move to disconnect their laced hands, placed gently just on the edge of Alex’s bed. Henry lowers himself onto the seat that was once occupied by June and watches.
He had been staring at the sleeping form of his ex for a while when Henry felt his own eye begin to droop. Incidentally, Henry spent a full twenty-four hours awake—from the start of his work day yesterday to this very moment, he hasn’t gotten a wink of rest—not for the first time. He tells himself he’s just shutting his eyes for a moment as he lays his head on the edge of the bed, besides their clasped hands. Soon enough, Henry is as asleep as his companion next to him, his rest unaccompanied by its usual disruptive dreams and sound.
Thankfully, it was a nurse who had the pleasure of waking Henry a few hours later, needing him out of their way in order to take Alex’s morning vitals. Henry carefully detaches himself from Alex while he’s still asleep and scans the room. They’re somehow the only two non-staff in the room and the short hand was barely past the on the clock on Henry’s watch. He starts getting suspicious when he peeks just outside the emergency room door, in search of one of the girls he was with perhaps. He’s surprised when instead, it was his ex-boyfriends father who he found sitting in one of the chairs across the hallway. He’s checking his phone when he notices Henry.
“Henry. Are you both up?” Oscar rises so quickly at the sight of him that the blonde feels bad when he has to gently shake his head, lowering the congressman back onto the blue bleacher seat facing Alex’s room.
He remembered June announcing she was going out to grab him hours ago, yet she was nowhere to be found now that Henry had awakened. “How long have you been here? You should’ve woken us up so you could talk to Alex.”
“Nah, you both looked like you needed the rest anyway.”
Henry shouldn’t feel as shy as he does after Oscar mentions the position he discovered them in. Sure it was tame and it was hardly the worst scene anyone’s found the two boys in, but being around Alex is putting him in vulnerable spots he hadn’t expected to reach when he booked his flight to Texas. He can’t help it when a peachy blush flushes his cheeks.
“So, uh, June explained the situation to me a bit,” The situation being: Alex’s accident, Henry getting the emergency contact call because of spontaneous circumstances, Alex losing most of his memories from the past three years including his and Henry’s breakup forcing Henry to hold his tongue of the truth because it could possibly give Alex further brain damage.
Right.
“How are you holding up?”
The question of Henry’s well-being felt like hearing the delayed chirps of a fire alarm with a dying battery; he hears it the first time, understands where it's coming from and recognizes that he should be more concerned, but ultimately it’s not a priority.
“I am definitely doing better than Alex is currently.”
“Yeah, it's good that his physical injuries aren’t much but of course his hard-head wouldn't be of much help when he needs it most.” The puff of air Henry lets out at the congressman’s joke is the closest thing to a laugh he can come up with. The nap he took rejuvenated a lot of his energy but his overall exhaustion from the situation continues to build in between all of the soft parts of his limbs.
“The staff should be finishing up soon if you want to head inside to see him.”
“I actually think I’m going to sit out here for a little longer. Thank you though, Henry.”
Henry responds with a simple nod and begins slightly rocking back and forth on his toes, unsure of what he should say next. Lucky for him, Oscar jumps in to avoid an uncomfortable silence.
“Y’know this’ll mean a lot to Alex when he gets his memories back.” Henry notes the “when” in place of an “if” in his statement.
“I don't know how true that is actually. We didn’t exactly leave each other on a positive note.”
Henry is a private person naturally. He’d gotten used to so many strangers knowing who he was as a kid because of his fathers acting career and then later, his death. None of that was his choice as it was public information, but Henry usually prefers keeping the details of his private life to a minimum as he’s matured, if not to be kept solely to himself. The manner of his and Alex’s separation unfortunately left no room for Henry’s preferred style of sharing, it having been an ordeal that caused a cascading pattern of events to follow afterward. All that was left for Henry to coddle after the brunt of the storm was his own ego and the brutality of the things that had been said. The slam of the door when Alex had made his final exit from their New York brownstone home still echoed in the walls of his mind.
“I mean it, Henry. There’s a lot I’m sure he’ll have to tell you eventually and I’ll leave it all to him but having you around Alex again is a good sight,” he offers up a kind smile to the blonde, “And hey, with that all being said, I’m also just really glad to see you here, mijo.”
Oscar's reassuring, fatherly tone leaves no room for him to undervalue the significance of his words and their matter-of-factness shoves Henry’s doubts to the side with its presence. It felt like a weight lifted off his chest to know that he still had the same parental support from the congressman. After all, he did inadvertently watch Henry grow up alongside his own son through the duration of their relationship.
It’s then that a click-clack is heard coming down the hallway and both Henry and Oscar turn to see June walking towards them, eyes wary in their wanderings.
“Hey, sweetheart. Did you guys get something to eat?”
“Barely. I talked to mom, she’s expectedly too busy to show. Nora’s texting Alex’s boss so he knows what's going on.” She quickly throws a glance at Henry before turning back to her dad. “Did you guys get to talk about..” She trails off.
“How Henry's foundation is doing? I forgot to ask about that, champ. How are things over at headquarters?”
Shit, that reminds him. “I actually should let them know I’m not in town soon.” He completely spaced on sending that message, allowing himself to become distracted by Alex waking and then having his weariness catch up to him.
“We’ll leave you to it, then. Let’s go wake your brother, bug.” Oscar greets him with another nod while June gives his forearm a squeeze. Then both Diaz’s are off, following each other into the emergency room before disappearing.
Henry takes his phone out of his pocket to check the time. They had only been sleeping up until just past noon, meaning the group of emails in his inbox weren’t urgent enough to warrant panic, thankfully but he does take his time responding to them all. He pins anything he can come back to and then skips over to his text messages so he can begin sending a multi-paragraph long text to Pez, apologizing for ignoring him and updating him on anything his girlfriends probably hadn't told him, and another to his sister who had apparently heard about the situation from Pez and was rightfully concerned for her younger brother. Henry tries not to spend too much time on his phone, but there's only so many apps he can scroll through; it’s after his third glance at the weather app that he's walking back into the room and walking back to the gray couch, watching while Alex reconvenes with his dad.
The next few hours pass by in a blur like this: Nora gets back, Oscar has to leave to take care of work business, Henry does his best not to act pained whenever Alex look at him with his dreamy, still-in-love eyes, the nurses move Alex’s bed into an inpatient room and they’re told that the doctor is made to give them an update on Alex’s condition soon.
She is noticeably devoid of her residents this time. “Everything on our chart here looks great and there’s no signs of infection on any of your injuries. We're continuing to monitor brain activity just in case something does pop-up but short to long term amnesia isn’t uncommon in trauma cases like yours. Home care could start as soon as tomorrow, but we would like to keep you here at least for another night just in case we catch anything at the last minute, which is highly unlikely, but not uncommon.”
Alex and the doctor go back and forth asking each other questions for a couple minutes while June watches her younger brother like a hawk. Since she had come back to the emergency room, she’d watched his every move as if he were going to stand and walk out of the hospital any minute. Nora takes notes and Henry stands off to the side, having gotten tired of his new couch.
His physical presence wasn’t truly needed at work and there were no social events scheduled for him to attend for at least the next week—there was nothing keeping Henry busy and though he didn’t feel out of place in the room anymore, he was still feeling antsy.
“Henry.” The man looks up from where he was unconsciously pacing by the wall, feeling caught despite having not done anything to warrant the reaction.
“Yes?” Okay, so he definitely did space out at some point as well but the air conditioning in this new room is whirring very loudly and the pacing helps with the cold a bit, his arms were hugged tightly to his chest as well.
“Great! I'll see you guys tomorrow morning for check-out then?” Alex tells the two girls on his side. June is looking right at Henry with wide concerned eyes and Nora is making the face she makes when she knows exactly what’s happening and is way too entirely amused by it to stop it from happening.
“I don't under-," he tries, weakly.
“Someone will be by later tonight with discharge papers for you to sign but if you have any questions before then, feel free to ask.”
Maybe it’s in Henry’s imagination but he swears the doctor is hiding a small grin as she exits the room.
“Okay, then I guess we will see you guys tomorrow.” June and Nora gather their coats from their chairs and are leaving the room sooner than Henry’s brain is able to catch up.
In the back of his mind, Henry has a distant memory of times when he was younger and his mother and Bea would come back from a girls day, giggling to each other about secret episodes that had happened while they were out and about. That was before his mother shut down, his brother chose to become the absolute worst and Bea decided that not being aware of anything was better than being there for Henry. Of course, that was all resolved business now, each of them having admitted about how much they’ve needed each other since their fathers passing. Choosing to support each other now that their mother was older and they were all nearing their thirties was refreshing, but the vivid memory of that still floated around his subconscious time and again.
“They’re gone now, you don’t have to keep acting like you're scared I'm gonna break if you touch me.
Henry’s eyes flash to Alex’s playful glance.
“Did I agree to something just now?” He’s embarrassed to admit how zoned out he had been.
“I mean, you did volunteer to be the only person allowed to stay in my room overnight. Unless you didn’t mean to do that?”
“No.” Alex’s eyebrows furrow, “I mean yes. Of course, I was just, um, double checking.”
Thankfully Alex seems to take his skittish behavior lightly, brushing over it and choosing to instead focus on the fact that he and his boyfriend were finally alone.
“Come here, Hen. Please.” Henry’s not sure how he’s managed to avoid falling back into the siren song that was his name coming from Alex for so long. The combination of his ex’s long eyelashes fluttering with his frown creasing the edge of his mouth makes it impossible for Henry to stop himself from floating towards what will surely be his end.
Once he was within arms reach, Alex reaches out for Henry's hand and laces their own back together like they had never let go in the first place. Henry can see the cogs in his head turning so he waits patiently for Alex to speak while ignoring the burning feeling of their enclasped hands.
“Uh, the girls told me earlier that I have a place out here in Texas. And that I work down here too. It’s why I’m here instead of home in New York, apparently. We still have our brownstone right?” Alex is shy in asking the last question. He’s choosing to rub his thumb against the back of Henry’s palm, unsure if its answer would indirectly make Henry uncomfortable while being patient for his answer. Little did he know.
This was his chance. Henry’s first real chance at choosing to tell Alex the truth of their present-day relationship rather than the fairytale story he’s put on since he woke up. In telling him the truth, Henry knows he wouldn’t just be betraying Alex’s trust, he would also be going against his word with June and sure he didn’t necessarily owe her this, but he’d also be putting Alex’s well-being at risk. Was telling Alex the truth worth the risk of losing him again? So it goes.
“Yes, the brownstone is still there.” Alex sighs in relief and smiles back up at him.
“Thank god. I don't know how I would've had to cope with having to go home to some unfamiliar place down here without you even if I did miss living down in Austin. I’m surprised I took a job this far from home. Who knew we’d have to go back to being long-distance so soon.” He chuckles.
Henry nods and hums, choosing to avoid any more outright lies over dropping the ball completely.
“I didn’t just up and leave you by yourself in New York did I? Cause if I did that was a dick move.”
“No, of course not.” Henry rushes to correct him, “You’d never abandon something you cared about over a career. The one who convinced you to take the job down here was me, actually. You wouldn’t have accepted the opportunity otherwise.”
“Of course not.”
He says it so resolutely, so completely sure of what he was affirming despite having lost a large portion of his memory. Henry would’ve been clueless if he wasn’t to recognize something he had heard from Alex before almost verbatim; there's a sting in the chest, memories of a scar that’s never fully healed.
“Hey, Hen?” Henry squeezes his hand to show him he’s listening even as he’s drifted off in thought. “If I wanted to go back to New York with you after this instead of my place down here that would be fine right? I don't know, maybe being home will even jog my memory or something.”
Henry had leased their upper Manhattan brownstone home for him and Alex a year after they officially got together. It indeed was still there, though it was definitely worse for ware, even compared to when it still housed two people. Henry had made his adjustments and had grown to live in the space as alone, but this version of Alex had never left home. How could Henry deny him the right of going back? After all, there was a chance that being there would jog a bit of Alex’s memory and end their situation sooner than later. Yes, he was doing this for Alex.
“Perhaps. After all its,” your home too. Though he doesn't complete his sentence, Alex receives his sentiment. The question must've been weighing on his mind during their conversation because soon after that, his eyes are drooping shut and he's falling asleep.
Tonight Henry will need to book two flights back to JFK for the next morning, have a conversation with June about what he and Alex discussed, and have her contact his primary care doctor to set-up his first physical therapy session there.
A little more than fourty-eight hours ago he had thought he was never going to see Alex again but in less than twelve he was going back home with him.