Swept To The End
DISCLAIMER I OWN NOTHING
She sits there, everyday for hours, getting up only to use the bathroom or to painfully leave and go home. How long has she done this now, too long, she can't even remember when, but; she does remember the lightning bolt that started all of it. The door opening brought her out of the daydream she'd been lost in, a weak smile slowly crawls across her face as he enters.
"How is he Delia?" he asks, the clicking of his shoes fills the silent void that had been hanging around her all day.
"The doctor says there haven't been changes," she replied, her voice weak and soft, she hasn't spoke to anyone in what seems like decades, though it had only been a few minutes since the nurse had left, her voice sounds strange to herself, rarely do her words cut through the dull haze that lingers in her head and covering her brain in a protective shell of ignorance.
"I'm sure that he'll come around," his words are hollow, the two have had this conversation many times, the words passed between them over and over are the same as two people who dance the same dance over and over, their just going along.
He sits with her, his larger, calloused hand covers her smaller, softer hand as his thumb runs back and forth over her knuckles. Leaning over, she places her head on his shoulder, as her eyes slowly begin to mist over with tears threatening to fall.
"I just… I don't," she mutters softly, she can't bring herself to say the rest, the vain hope that things will change chokeholds her tongue. "Sam….. What should I do?"
Looking up at his face, once strong and virile, now weathered by time and covered by growing wrinkles, he closes his eyes in thought, and fear grips her heart like a vice. Seconds seem like hours before he opens his eyes and speaks.
"Delia, you need to do what's best for him," he says, looking her straight in the eye. "Not what you think is best for him."
She shrinks back from him in shock and horror at the realization of his words as they hit her like a speeding truck.
"You can't mean….." she begins, but; her words die off in her throat. He nods grimly.
"Who is this helping?" he asks, his voice now softer and more gentle. "Is this helping him or helping you?"
"What do you mean?" she asks, confused by the question, how could it not be helping him, he's alive. "It's helping him."
"Is it? Or is it helping you, so that you don't have to let him go?" he asks, his hands reaching out for her shoulders, but; she jumps up from the chair. The echo of the slap fills the room as the red handprint on his face stands out on his tanned face. Now, the tears really are falling from her eyes.
"How dare you! What gives you the right?" she asks, turning away from him she looks down at the bed. "He's alive, don't you see that? He'll wake up soon."
"Delia please, this is only hurting yourself," he said, standing up he reaches for her again and this time she does not shy away, but; lets his arms encircle her body. "Every moment he's here your wasting your own life. 14 years you've spent here everyday for hours on end with no change in him whatsoever. Do you really think he'll wake up?"
She reaches out, and runs her hand through his black hair, underneath she can feel where his head has swollen by atrophy, her eyes look over his malnourished body, how his skin stretches of his joints so tightly it looks like it will rip any second. The beeping she's slowly conditioned herself to ignore comes back, assaulting her ears.
She turns away, not able to look anymore, and buries her face into his chest and begins to weep openly. He holds her, rubbing her back in a comforting manner as her tears stain his shirt.
"Oh god! Sam what have I done?" she asks, gripping his shirt tightly in her hands. "I've kept him alive for my own sake because I was weak! I watched my father waste away from cancer, and then my husband slowly die from radiation poisoning, and now this! Take me home Sam, I don't want to be here anymore."
He leads her away out of the room, soon, the doctor enters with a nurse, both a straight faced, they've known this was coming for a long while. The doctor watches as the nurse pulls the plug, and the heart rate monitor shuts off for good.
"Time of death 12:26 PM," he says, looking down at his watch. "Poor kid, no one should linger like this for so long."
"Can you blame his mother?" the nurse asks, as she pulls the sheet up over his face, and thinks of her own son.
"I can't say that I can," he replies.
She wakes up late this morning, the clock on the nightstand reads 11:15, she hasn't slept past 7 in years but; now there's no reason to get up early anymore is there. She lays there, staring up at the ceiling, then out the window at the rolling green hills. Getting up she walks to the window and opens it, the warm wind of early summer blows through and she breathes it in.
She feels alive for the first time in years.
END STORY
this is based on the Pokemon Theory that Ash in in a coma in the hospital, seriously, go look it up.