Disclaimer: I in no way own HOA
His eyelashes rest gently on his cheeks, soft and blonde, as he sleeps. She wonders if he knows she's there, holding his hand, tracing his soft wrist with her thumb as he rests. They say he doesn't, she hopes he does.
She is alone in the room with him, save for the beep of machines and the odd nurse who bustles in carrying a chart. They check the numbers on the screen, as if they might provide some algorithm or formula to fix the boy in the bed beside her. They say he's near the end now. That soon the machines won't be able to keep him breathing and his lungs will simply give out. If not his lungs, his heart will stop beating and that will be it. The fight will be over and she'll be lost again. He's been her life these last six years. She's not too sure what she'll do without him.
"Patricia, can I get you anything?" she is her favourite nurse. Old with fine wrinkles around her soft blue eyes and strong hands. She knows how to look at Patricia without sympathy, but with admiration. Louise is her name and she wears flowery scrubs and round, wire framed glasses that slide down her long nose when she hugs Patricia. She knows Louise's question is sincere, she does want to help.
Even so, Patricia shakes her head, her eyes trained to his face, his soft cheekbones, the curve of his lips. If she thinks of something else, even fleetingly, she is afraid he'll leave her, as if her love and attention is keeping him alive.
"Darling, you haven't eaten in three days. He needs you to be strong," Louise's voice is gentle, wrapping it's comfort around the cold hospital room, brightening the dull gray of the sheets and lighting up the I.V drip and the oxygen mask. Sometimes, when Louise is in the room long enough, they fade away and she can imagine his deep brown eyes opening again. Not today though. The blind hope has turned to tears that dry on cheeks and screams of frustration and anger.
Patricia nods, appeasing her. She can feel her presence a moment longer, lingering, before she turns away and leaves Patricia with him again.
Often, when she watches Eddie, before her eyes start to droop with exhaustion and grief, that day plays in her mind again. They were in the park, throwing a Frisbee between each other, laughing giddily. Cancer wasn't a thought, chemo wasn't in their vocabulary and death was a distant terror. They hadn't had to worry about that yet.
Then his peals of laughter had died and from thirty feet away she watched him crumble, collapsing in on himself. She hadn't screamed or even cried, not then, rather she just stared for a full minute, terrorised. She ran to his side, shaking him, begging him to open those deep chocolate eyes.
She'd brought him to the hospital once he came around, trying not to scare him in her haste. The doctors had frowned at him, poked and prodded, drew blood. For what seemed like eternity, they waited, she drinking a coffee, he lounging across three hospital chairs, munching on a chocolate bar.
They called them back in. Patricia remembers the doctor's face, the pity etched across his forehead, swirled into his eyes that regarded her with something unrecognisable.
A nurse, not Louise, a different girl, so young and wide-eyed and innocent, held her hand as the doctor pointed out Eddie's results, how they were different. How they contained cancer that laced his blood. This foreign infection that was racing it's way around his body, infiltrating his vital organs, eroding his immune system, killing him slowly.
They discussed chances and treatment and success rates, as numbness spread through her. She remembered Eddie leaning into her, threading his fingers in hers and squeezing tightly, turning her hand purple. She never looked at him though, she couldn't have, not then. Her own fear would've scared him.
For the first few weeks, they'd been so positive. She never cried, nor did he, not even at night in the dark when they thought the other couldn't hear. She drove to the hospital three times a week so they could destroy the monster trying to steal him from her. The other days, they just spent time together, giggling over silly things and making pancakes. Patricia figured she loved him so much that she'd be sent a miracle. She wasn't too worried.
She remembers passing time in the back garden, he was lying on the grass, the green sprouting up around him, surrounding him so that his bald head wasn't so obvious. She was sitting in a deck chair, drumming her nails on the table as he watched the clouds pointing out shapes to her every now and again, chuckling so loudly that she'd have to smile back at him. It was a beautiful sound, even back before it was rare.
She remembers the sound of the phone ringing, shrill in the quiet of the long afternoon and sticking her hand through the window to grab it off the kitchen counter.
She remembers dropping it onto the decking as he said those words into her ear, the scream, desperate and pleading, as it smashed off the wood, pieces flying over the wood, spinning slowly until they came to a sudden, silent stop.
"I'm very sorry, Patricia. It hasn't worked."
The next time they went to the hospital, she met Louise, who held her steady as they signed Eddie in. She whispered softly to Patricia, words of strength. She'd told her to outside, get some fresh air as they carted him off for tests where she couldn't rub his back and utter empty promises of a better future.
She remembers sitting in the car with Nina in the passenger seat and letting the tears flow, uncontrollably distressed as she mourned the loss of the faith she'd held onto so fiercely.
It had been quick from there. The cancer gripped ever more tightly, squeezing the joy out of the life she loved so much.
Frequent visits to the hospital followed, which grew ever more lengthy, until he was spending more time with Louise and his doctors than he was with her. She remembers his brown eyes filling with longing as she'd squeeze him goodbye, silent tears rolling down his cheeks, over his eyelashes, slowly growing back after the medication stopped.
"Here you go, love," the sandwich sits in front of her, one of the labels she's grown familiar of over the last nine months. Some brand they only sell in hospital canteens.
"It's not long now," Patricia says to herself, watching her boy struggle to raise his chest over and over again, "not long at all."
Behind her a chair scraps as she watches her nail trace 'love' over and over again onto his soft, pale skin as if the power of her love for him will seep into his blood and massacre the cancer in a way the therapy never did.
"Not long at all," Louise's gentle hand lands softly on Patricia back, guiding a little more power into her heart as it breaks for the boy she cares for the most. They watched him together for a minute, the lights dancing in Patricia's eyes as tears for the life that was torn away from him tumble out.
His hand is warm beneath hers as she feels Louise standing, leaving her silently .
It's not long before she feels another replace it, lower down, drawing abstract patterns on the small of her back.
She does not let go of their son's hand as she turns into him, sobs wracking her body as she pours her soul out her confusion and misery flow out onto his shirt, soaking him with their pain and their loss.
"Shh," Eddie senior coos slowly in her ear over and over, his own sadness evident in his voice.
They sit there for a while before she can let him go and turn back to their little man, so strong at only six, still going, fighting until the end. She can feel his pulse under her forefinger as Eddie lays his hand over her own, squeezing lightly. She considers that for a while, his fingers, dancing with hers and little Eddie's. They are three parts of a whole, a family she and Eddie made together.
Looking up at her husband she finds it in her somewhere to smile through the tears, "we did pretty good, Slimeball."
He regards her for a moment, as if he cannot decide whether or not the last few months have finally taken their toll and she has cracked, before he grins back, wider than she has seen since the diagnosis.
"We did brilliantly, Yacker."
The doctors come in an hour later, flipping charts, pointing out statistics and muttering to each other. They leave the young family alone. They've already discussed funeral arraignments, Nina has everything organised. This is a time for goodbyes.
Patricia climbs slowly into bed with Eddie, curling her legs around his, wrapping an arm around his waist, securing his hand in her own. His head rests heavily on her arm, twitching slightly in his sleep. She hopes he is dreaming of beautiful things, of days in the park, uninterrupted by fainting spells and trips to Disneyland, where they got to eat breakfast with all the characters and ride Space Mountain so many time that Eddie Senior almost threw up before lunch.
Patricia commits this image to memory, his peaceful face, so smooth and carefree and his chest rising and falling beneath her as her husband settles into the armchair beside the bed, laying his hands over theirs.
She drifts off, his uneven breath tickling her forearm, the sound of Eddie snoring so comforting in the sorrow of these final moments.
It's nearly midnight when Patricia can feel it, a gentle hand on her shoulder, tugging her away from dreams of an easier time.
She bolts awake, out of the bed, terrified she's missed his last breath.
"Is he gone?" the panic resonates in the room, but Louise shakes her head above her, watching her sadly.
"Not quite. Almost."
Patricia can see Eddie resurfacing now, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he peers at Patricia, her previous question etched out across his eyes. She nods to Eddie, who begins to cry as she leans into her son, brushes the hair out of his face and kisses his cheek, imprinting her immeasurable love for a little boy she feels so privileged to have met.
She trails her lips across his face, placing butterfly kisses on his nose and forehead, before reaching his ear, pressing her nose into the sweet smell of his hair, as dark as hers.
"I love you," she swears into his ear, the softest lullaby he will ever hear, "we love you, little guy. Always."
She waits a moment longer, not quite ready to let him go, before backing away, towards Eddie's embrace, as he moves to stand behind her. His arms, so old and familiar to her, wrap around her waist, holding her close as Patricia watches the screen, as the numbers beep, slowly decreasing, until they aren't even there anymore.
Well, that was sad. Not too sure where that came from. Reviews are appreciated. As are prompts.