xOC (Penelope)
•L0v3ly_saints•
Author's POV

"Carol? Carol. Baby, please wake up..." Whitty shook Carol's unconscious body as she lay still on her hospital bed.

"There's no use. She's been out for a week now. She's being fed through a tube and honestly, us doctors see no light..." The doctor gave his picth as he readjusted her position. He would only come in to change her bag to her tube or to help her blood circulation stay regular.

Whitty watched Carol's sleeping body as she was moved around. The doctor paused. "Do you want to help?" He smiled a little.

Whitty flinched. "U-uh.. sure..." he nervous leaned in over her left and started massaging her side. He secretly wished that this would wake her up even for a little bit. He couldn't stand seeing her not being able to eat by herself, to stand up a scold him for something. Better, to stand up and help him untangle his headphones. She was always there to help him and keep his head on his shoulders. Literally.

Once they finished shaking Carol around, the doctor thanked him and walked out of the room, welcoming Whitty to stay as long as he needed. He looked down at Carol again and smiled at her. He traced one of his fingers down her cheek, caressing her gently.

Suddenly, he felt her stirring under his hand. Her eyes fluttered open as she looked up slowly. After weeks of eye fog cleared her lenses, she smiled as Whitty's face became clear to her.

Her half lidded eyes beamed brighter than the sun on the horizon. He watched as her smile grew wider by the second. "Whitty?" She calls in a low hushed tone. He sat down and pulled his chair all the way to the side of the bed.

"Carol! I'm so glad you're awake!" Whitty grabbed her hand and squeezed it gently.

"Whitty, why am I here? What's happening, am I dead?" She opened her eyes all the way and glanced at her surroundings.

"Babe, you're silly. No you aren't dead. You're just in the hospital." He stroked her hair softly.

"What happened?"

"Well, I came back to our apartment after... well you saw what you came back to.." he looked down shamefully as she nodded. "Anyways, I came back and it was like really cold. So I went to the very back of the kitchen and checked the thermostat and saw it was fine. Then, I started to get scared so I went off to look for you. I could have sworn that I saw you floating upside down... I thought I was dreaming but... then you looked at me and your eyes and mouth were white and glowing."

"Soo.. instead of an exorcist... you took me here?" She raised a brow.

"Hey don't argue with me, woman. I could have let you bleed out. But I didn't. Because I love you." Whitty blushed.

"Fair point. But I was bleeding?"

He just nodded, still blushing.

Carol sighed and smiled at him. "I love you too, Whitty." She grabbed his cheek and squished it.

He blushed even more, his wick started to burn a little bit. Carol immediately put it out before any catastrophic could happen. "You need to control yourself, you big baby.." she giggled.

Whitty smiled. "Well, I should probably tell you what happened next.." Carol sat up a little bit, fidgeting with the tube in her stomach.

"So after I scooped you up, you actually weighed like eight more pounds than you usually did.." He blocked Carol's weak slap, already expecting it.

"You hoe!" She fussed sleepily.

"Carol, please... The reason I said that is because, right after I scooped you up, I... I saw... I saw her.." Whitty frowned, looking at the ground.

The room was silent and the atmosphere went thick with shame. Carol looked out the window very much unsurprised by what Whitty had just admitted. He felt like garbage for even yelling at her, denying the whole thing from the start.

"I just... didn't... want to believe that she was harming you.." he tried to hide his shame.

Carol turned her head again, "Oh, stop. You knew you were seeing her too, and now you're too ashamed to admit that I was right about her existence, and will you please get the doctor back in her and get this tube out of me? It hurts."

"Yeah.. but can I finish first?" Whitty dodges the subject again.

"Whatever." She clutched her navel, wincing in pain.

"I'll talk faster. So, she was just standing there staring at me a-and... she, somehow, kissed me?" He paused, realizing how bad this sounded. He continued, "Then she backed up and.. pointed at you and then the knife she laid on the floor beside your body. And, I started crying again, of course. Then she wrote something down on some paper."

"Do you still have it?" Carol leaned closer.

Whitty pulled out the bloody paper. He looked down at the page. "It was a dream."

All of a sudden. Whitty found himself walking up in his bed next to Penelope's ghost.

"What. The. Fuck." He looked down, seeing Carol sitting in the closet. He looked back to his side, staring at the ghost. It sat there, staring out of the window. Because the closet was right next to the bed, Carol couldn't see much. All she heard was Whitty talking to someone. She just blew it off as someone on the phone and went back to playing her Nintendo switch in the closet.

"S-so.. she's alive?" Whitty kept talking to Penelope.

Sshe simply nodded and smiled. She took his hand in hers and whispered to him, "I never left you." She kissed him softly.

"Penelope.. wh-... Who killed you?" Whitty choked back tears as he remembered the day he found her in the apartment. Back then, everything was different. He never fell so hard for someone like he did her. But that one night made him a completely different person.

Penelope got back in his face and just stared at him. She grabbed his hand and put it against her unbeating heart. Her warm smile always made Whitty feel better about anything. When she smiled, he lost his last bit of composure he had and started sobbing. Then, something happened.

As she was smiling, images of that night he found her flashed through his head in her POV. He saw everything she did that day. And that means... everything. He even saw Penelope blush a little bit as she reslized he could see that.

When she let go of him, everything stopped at the scene of her body on the ground, just hours before Whitty found her.

He knew her killer.

Whitty let a few tears fall down his face as his lover kissed him one more time, and fade slowly, until she was completely gone. He just sat on the bed, sobbing quietly. Carol was just in the closet, against some blankets, dozing off playing a random game. Whitty stood up and gained his composure.

"Babe.."

She sat up, smiling. She frowned instantly seeing his wet face. "Whitty.. what's wrong?"

"I-I saw her again..."

Carol raised a brow. When she realized what he was talikng about, she stood all the way up and hugged him. "I shouldn't have fussed at you like that the other night..." he picked her up by her small frame and held her close.

"I forgive you, Whitty."

"But, I didn listen to you when you said you wanted to move. And, I just don't think I'm ready to leave her..."

"But Whitty, you can't date a ghost.."

He paused for a minute. "....I could... but I love you, Carol. I love you too much for that. I-I just..."

"Baby, you need therapy. I'm not saying I don't want to help. I just really want you to see things like I do."

He sat down on the bed, still holding her. She stretched her body halfway accross his top half. "I guess you're right..."

Deep down, Whitty didn't want to go. He never felt okay with the idea that he had to tell some complete stranger about his whole life and all his problems. But Carol, like Penelope, could make him do pretty much anything.

Besides

He already knew what happened to her...

********

1399 words