ShivIka SS: Heart of Stone- Ch 2- Heart Sick (Pg 3) - Page 2

It was night when she returned.

"Are you okay?" she asked, tugging gently at the sleeve of his t-shirt. When you were in hospital as long as Shivaay had been in hospital, they let you wear your own clothes.

"No. I'm in hospital."

"But you're alive?"

"No. This is my ghost you're talking to."

She giggled and the sound made him feel a bit strange.

"You're funny, Mr Weird-Eyes. I'm glad you're okay."

She sat down on the bed and beamed at him. Shivaay glared but was startled when her eyes widened and she was suddenly on all fours, crawling towards him. Her face was mere centimetres away from his as she stared awestruck into his eyes. "Mr Weird-Eyes, in the moonlight your eyes are silver!"

She sounded spellbound and before Shivaay could stop her, had grabbed his head in her small hands and was examining them, mouth open.

"Get off me." He spluttered, scuttling backwards.

The girl seemed to realise what she had done and moved back to where she had previously been sitting closer to the foot of his bed. "Did the water help?"

"Huh? Water?"

"You know? The water I threw at you earlier. My little sister sometimes wakes me up in the morning by sprinkling water on me, I thought it might help you."

"Tell me, Little Girl, do you really think that my problem this morning was that I was falling asleep?"

"No," she shrugged, seemingly nonplussed by the sarcasm in his tone. "But I thought it might help."

"What if you'd given me an electric shock?"

She looked puzzled. "Isn't that what you're supposed to do if someone's having a problem with their heart? Shock them?"

"I- No. No it isn't."

"So then what are those-" he watched as lifted her arms in the air and made a move like she was pressing paddles to his chest and then made a loud BUZZZ noise. "Those things?"

"A defibrillator?"

"De-debifilator?"

"De-"

"De-"

"Fib-"

"Fib-"

"Ri-"

"Ri-"

"Llator."

"Llator."

She grinned. Shivaay, despite himself, almost smiled back.

"Debifilator."

"You are the weirdest person I have ever met."

She laughed again and for some reason he couldn't quite explain, Shivaay was proud of himself for being responsible. Not that he had been trying to make her laugh, and he couldn't quite understand why calling her the weirdest person he'd ever met had made her laugh... but he was glad that it had.

Girls were weird.

"Why are you back?"

"Ah!" She sprang off the bed and started looking around on his table. Then at the foot of his bed.

She found what she was looking for and dragged it out from under one of his blankets. It was the tiger.

"Found it."

"Are you kidding me? You came back for that?"

"You said I could have it, were you lying?"

"Yes. Now give it back."

She just pulled it closer to her chest and pouted at him. "You know, if you lie you won't grow tall and you'll end up being short."

Shivaay frowned. "My Dada is tall, my Dad is tall. Even my Uncle is tall. Your height isn't affected by how honest you are."

"Yes it is."

"No it isn't."

"Try telling that to Pinocchio."

"That was his nose and it did grow when he lied. What point were you trying to make there?"

"Fine. But don't blame me when you end up a foot shorter than you want to be." She shrugged her lip and turned her focus to stroking the tiger toy on her lap.

He was about to say something, when she looked up at him and the look in her eyes stopped him before he could begin. "Thank you, Mr Weird-Eyes. Doesn't it feel nice to share?"

-<3-

Shivaay's mother, Dadi, Chachi and Om had all been to visit him earlier, rushing over to the hospital as quickly as they could when they heard about the incident in the early morning.

He and Om had been left to play while the doctors took everyone else aside to talk to them. It annoyed Shivaay somewhat that he wasn't allowed to hear the full truth of what was wrong with him. Had to wait for it to be filtered and made suitable for his child brain. He was a child but he was not childish.

The only reason he hadn't thrown a fit was because his doctor, Dr Khan, did not treat him like a baby. He came to speak to him immediately after discussing it with the elders.

"Hello Shivaay."

"Hello Doctor."

"As you know, you have a hole in the wall in the middle of your heart which makes some of the blood flow in the wrong direction."

"Yes. And that's why I get tired really easily and sometimes my chest really hurts."

"Sadly yes. And although usually we would simply stitch it up and have it hopefully never bother you again, in your case, that centre wall is just too weak. The risk is that eventually that little hole will become a tear and the two separate pumps of your heart could just become one pump that doesn't do either job properly."

"And then I'd die?"

"Yes."

"So I need a new heart?"

"You need a new heart."

"Are you making me one? I'm sure we can afford it."

Shivaay's mum had choked out a sob then, and that was when Shivaay realised. "Wait- you're not making me one, are you?"

"No, Shivaay. We're not."

"Are you taking it from someone else?" he felt a cold horror creeping over him. "Does someone else have to die so I can live?"

"Sometimes-" Dr Khan was speaking carefully. Shivaay was watching him very carefully, determined to call him out the instant he sugar-coated anything, or even worse, lied to him about anything. "Sometimes people die, but we're able to get to them before their organs die too. Keeping them wouldn't help them come back to life, but if they've agreed before they died to donate their organs, then by sharing those they might be able to save another person's life. Even after death. As doctors, we would have done everything possible to try to save that other person's life, please don't worry about that, Shivaay."

"Can I think about it?"

"What is there to think about? Of course you'll get the surgery. You'll take the heart. Doctor, how soon can you get my son a heart?"

Shivaay had tuned out, not hearing a word of the conversation his family had with Dr Khan after that point.

-<3-

"Hey, Little Girl?" he decided he would ask this girl, this avid proponent of all things sharing. She was, as he spoke, helping herself to a packet of his biscuits.

"Yes?"

"If you could give someone your heart and save their life, would you?"

She chomped down on a biscuit and gave the question about four seconds worth of thought. "Sure."

"Even if it meant you had to die?"

"Oh." She chewed slower. "Maybe if it was someone I really liked, like my sister. Or my Amma or Abba. It would be like a part of me was living on through them anyway, especially if it was my heart."

Shivaay watched as she gobbled her way through about half the packet before suddenly choking on a crumb. He passed her a cup of water and she gulped it down, a little dribbling down her chin in her haste.

"Eurgh. You seriously have no class." He passed her several tissues from the box beside him and she dabbed at her face.

"Thanks Mr Weird-Eyes. You're the best."

He smirked. "Yes. Yes I am, aren't I. Now, I have a request. Consider it both a way for your to apologise to me and show your gratitude for all the food I'm letting you eat."

"Sure, anything."

"Pour whatever's left in that jug of water over your head."

"Huh?!"

Shivaay shrugged and folded his arms. He leaned back on his pillows and raised an eyebrow in challenge. "Scared?"

"Not even a little."

She picked up the jug, took a deep breath... and tipped.

"Aaarrggghhh."