The Vigil.htmlDisclaimer: Profiler and its characters
don't belong to me. They belong to some very unenlightened people.
But, on the plus side, at least Court TV is showing it respect. Anyway,
since the characters seem to live in my head most of the time, they seem
to get a kick out of coming out to tell new stories once in a while.
Who am I to argue? To the powers that be, sorry for playing with
your toys, but you don't seem to like them anymore and I do. I don't
make money from them and I don't have anything so I wouldn't bother suing.
Rating: PG
Classification: Drama and Angst
Authors note: So here is another story that seems
to have just popped out. Actually, I am incredibly late for bed but
I wanted to get this down while it was still in my head. Not much
like most of my writing but then if it was all the same, why bother reading
it.
The Vigil
By Tarrant
Sam sat quietly in the hospital room staring at the figure
laying on the bed. She had been here for days now. Hoping and
praying for some movement. Some sign that the body there had a soul
still attached to it.
She sighed heavily and stood up to stretch. Gently,
she put her hand over the larger one on the bed. "You know, it can't
end like this. We need to really talk before you decide to go."
There was no motion from the body. No acknowledgment of what she
had said.
Sam walked around the room some and then came to rest
in front of the window. She looked down at the bustling weekday of
Atlanta. She watched the cars come and go from the parking lot and
after a bit wandered back to the chair beside the bed.
Minutes turned into hours and then day turned into night
and still she couldn't bring herself to leave the room. The few minutes
that she needed to use the bathroom she was afraid to even shut the door
for fear of missing an awake moment.
Four days passed and still not a sign of life. The
doctors would come and go, but just shrugged their shoulders when she asked
them about the possibility of more time. "Dr. Water's, you must understand,
the stroke was very large. I can't tell you he will wake up.
But I also can't tell you he won't."
Sam sighed and took her place again beside the bed.
"You know, you have to wake up. I need to talk to you. I want
to understand why we couldn't tell each other things that needed so badly
to be said." Still not a sign.
She waited what seemed like years. Friends had stopped
by and brought her clothes and magazines, but all knew she wasn't about
to leave. They didn't even try.
One morning she saw a slight flicker of his eyes.
"Its a good sign, isn't it?" She had asked one of the doctors.
"I don't know. Maybe, but I think at this point
you are expecting too much." He had said. His compassion for
her written on his face, even as the doubt in his voice was easy to hear.
Sam shook her head. She didn't want to hear negatives.
When the doctor left she again took the hand that felt
so lifeless. "I believe you can hear me. I want you to know,
because I think I have been very lousy at telling you, I do love
you and I believe you love me too. Please come back to me.
I need to make this right."
She lost track of time. It didn't really matter
anyway. This was where she needed to be. She discovered that
it was pretty easy to carry on a one sided discussion, if you didn't think
about it too much. She talked about things that had happened years
ago, memories that she hadn't thought of in such a long time. Then
she discovered it was pretty easy to get mad. She yelled and cried.
"How dare he leave her without giving her the opportunity to make things
right between them? How could he get sick and leave her feeling guilty?
Hadn't she had enough of that in her life?"
Still the figure lying on the bed didn't move.
The doctors came and asked her to make medical decisions.
"You are his Healthcare surrogate. We need you to tell us what you
think we should do." Sam blanched at the thought. She looked
over her shoulder and at the figure laying on the bed. Her own feelings
of need weighing heavily over questions of what he would want.
"How did we come to this point? How is it, that
I am making life and death decisions here and we still need to talk?"
Sam whispered more to herself than to the figure on the bed.
Sam gave the doctors her decisions and walked again to
the window to look out over the parking lot.
There was a knock at the door and she turned enough to
look over her shoulder. She wasn't surprised to find Bailey there.
The tears welled in her eyes as she looked into his face.
"I'll never know." She whispered as the tears began
to leak down her cheeks.
"I'm sorry Sam." Bailey said as he embraced her
tenderly.
"I always thought I had time to talk to him, Bailey.
I always thought someday, father and daughter would somehow find a way
to discover each other. The great FBI profiler never could find a
way to reach out to Walter Anderson, the great scientist. I just wanted
him to know I loved him and I think I did everything but that."
