Happy New Year, everyone! 2010 is going to be great, I can feel it. This isn't a particularly happy story, but then again, most everything having to do with Nate and Blair isn't happy. This is a chapter story, and I promise to be a good as I can be with these updates; that's my one new year's resolution.
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You Can't Treat Women Like Hotels
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Two people could never wreck or unsettle another person the way they wreck and unsettle each other. It wasn't on purpose or forced, but sometimes love comes at a higher cost.
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A whisper.
A breath.
A heartbeat.
A nurse peaks her head in though the door, dispelling the eerie quiet.
"Visiting hours are over, Mr. Archibald."
The man in question picks his head up.
"I'm her husband," he replies dejectedly, tracing his hand absentmindedly over the hand of the person on the hospital bed. A woman; his girl.
"You know the rules; family or no family, visiting hours end at six on Sundays."
He nods.
"Alright. Could I just have a few more minutes with her?"
The nurse sighs at the distraught sight of him, knowing that it's against hospital policy, but she's seen him here every chance he's had, so she gives her consent before leaving to check on the rest of her patients.
Nate turns back to the woman lying on the hospital bed, shaking his head sadly and reaching out for her hand once more.
"I really hate you for doing this to us," he whispers fiercely. "We could have been so happy. So fucking happy. It's all screwed up now, though. You don't even know what's been going on; who your own daughter is. And she doesn't even know you either."
She remains silent, still; the ideal picture of perfection. Her chestnut hair is fanned out around her head on the pillow, and with her cheeks faintly pink from blush, she looks like an angel who is just taking a little nap. She's not taking a nap, though, and she's certainly not listening to him. If she had been, they would be home. They would have been home for the past two weeks, but it can't happen like that.
It's been two weeks. Twenty days, actually; tomorrow will mark three weeks. Nate refuses to believe it though, he pretends not to count the days since he last saw her eyes (21; she was asleep when he got home from work that last night,) or the last time her saw her smile (he honestly doesn't know the answer to this because he really has been that long. A little over seven weeks; just before the baby was born).
He's actually been hopelessly counting since she was placed in this bleak hospital room. Over and over and over, but he doesn't acknowledge this fact out loud; people in the know can see that he's coming apart at the seams, but he just dares them to say something to him about it. Three weeks in less than six hours. Shit. What if that were to turn to four weeks, and then the time would be measured in months from there. Is it really an almost-absolute possibility that he'll have to spend every day coming to this hospital for months, just waiting for her to come around? God forbid that happen, but he's not a doctor, and he sure as hell doesn't know what's going on.
He remembers the last time he was here for a similar occasion, junior year, on Thanksgiving of all times, when his father had passed out from the mix of pain-killers and alcohol. He doesn't understand how this can keep happening to him, but that hadn't been half as bad of a time as this is, not by the long shot. He wishes that she could have handled her alcohol better, handled that and dropped her addiction to the pills. He knows it's his fault as well, they say it's not but if he could have found some way to save her from the habit her life had become, maybe they wouldn't be here.
Looking at her again, he can't help but feel himself fill with rage. He knows this isn't the time or place to do anything about it, and he can't. He'll have to leave her soon, and he's so tired; it was a long day. And then there is the matter of Holly, he really does need to get home to check on their daughter.
Running his fingertips over her cheek bone, he bends down to kiss her on the forehead.
"I love you, Blair," he says in a softer tone than he had used before, "and I really need you to come back to me. I can't do this by myself. I can't be a father, you know that, you promised you'd be there. I need your help."
He pauses; waiting, hoping, and praying for a reaction, but what he receives is nothing, and so he continues his monologue.
"She's beautiful, you know. Absolutely wonderful. And she's getting so big. I'm worried you'll miss her grow up. She needs you, and I do too, and we both know things run a lot smoother when we have each other. I'll help you; I'll get you someone to talk to. Anything, please, just wake up."
The nurse taps at the door, signaling to her watch impatiently. Her face doesn't look annoyed though, she looks sad for him, and he hates feeling the pity that others see in him. Blair has had the same nurse since she's been admitted into the hospital. Nurse Morgan Montgomery; a nice woman, just a little bit older than he and Blair are, but she seems to do her job to the best of her ability, and that's all Nate asks.
"I'll see you tomorrow, sweetheart. Maybe I'll bring Holly by."
He kisses her forehead again, and then her cheeks and eyelids and lastly, her lips. It pains him to leave her in this place, but he knows there is no other way.
After shrugging his coat on, he turns the light off and closes the door gently, meeting Morgan out in the hallway.
"So," he mutters, "how did the tests come back today?"
"Still nothing, you know we would give you news if there was any."
Nate runs his fingers though his hair and lets out a heavy breath.
"I know, it's just difficult. I don't know how to deal with this anymore."
Morgan nods, "your wife's case is a special one, but, of course, you already knew that. There is no protocol when it comes to coma patients though, and all traces of the alcohol are completely out of her body. We just have to play it by ear, and you would be the first to notice a change, seeing as you're in her room constantly."
"I just need her back, that's all. I'm hoping she'll sense my presence and know she has to wake up, that she'll know I'm in trouble. She's always been good at that."
An intercom bellows through the hospital hallways, alerting a doctor on some far-off wing that their help is needed.
"You should probably go now, Mr. Archibald, the hospital is closed."
She's not hostile with her words, and Nate knows it is, in fact, time to depart.
"I know," he sighs, stealing one last look at Blair's room before he begins his retreat of the hospital.
He exits the hospital and walks into the cold air of a New York winter. It's only six thirty, but he knows it's time to relieve Serena of her babysitting duties and tell her of the non-news of another day.
This is life now, and he knows it'll be this way until she is back. What else is there for him anyway?