"Did you think I would die?" she asked so bluntly one evening as they lay in bed watching TV.
He was distracted and did not hear her completely so his casual "What?" reply was both from confusion and lack of attention on her in the moment.
She was quiet, forcing him to look at her. She was half slouched against the pillows, eyes peering at him anxiously, awaiting his reply.
"I'm sorry sweetness, what did you say?" he offered an apology and a chance to hear her ask the question again, focusing his attention completely on her now.
"When I was in the coma, did you think I would die?" she spoke again, emphasizing her troubling thought.
"Baby what kind of question is that?" he couldn't help himself, speaking before thinking which he immediately regretted.
"Forget it," she snapped now, the red tint of embarrassment rising in her cheeks was the last thing he saw as she quickly turned away from him to lay on her side.
"Hey, wait a minute," he protested her sudden rejection, reaching out to her but she continued to ignore him "what's this all about?"
"Nothing just forget I asked," she tried to escape the conversation.
"It's not nothing," he said, knowing she was hurting, some intrusive thought invading her beautiful mind somewhere between the time he picked her up from the airport, their dinner at his condo and their bedtime ritual. Now with the TV on and the darkness encapsulating them, there was not much else to distract her from that thought so she voiced it in the privacy and security of their room.
"Talk to me," he tried again, gently, lowering the tone of his voice to match her obvious disheartened mood.
"I just wondered," she began again, keeping her back to him, "that night after the attack, how bad everything was, then when it became obvious I was stuck and couldn't wake up, whatever the doctors said or didn't say to you and Russell, did you think I wouldn't make it?"
She finished her thought then quickly turned back to face him, laying on her back, watching his face for a reaction, her fingers playing with the hem of the blanket, fidgeting, restless. He watched her fingers grab at the fabric, entranced by her repetitive motions, a coping mechanism, just like when she grabbed her fingers and twisted them together or bit her lip or bounced her leg up and down.
He knew the treacherous terrain on which he was currently skating on with the nature of this conversation. Sensitivity was key but honesty was what she demanded of him. Managing both to give her a satisfactory answer was more difficult than breathing under water. The longer he stayed silent, the more damage was being done to her soul as she waited for his reply.
"Look darling, a lot was going on with you that night," he began "I don't think the idea ever crossed my mind."
A neutral answer, well played, he realized, hoping that would be enough.
"Nice try" she quipped, his heart sinking when he realized she saw right through him "you had to have thought about it, didn't they ask you? I didn't have a power of attorney, someone had to decide what to do with me."
She ended there, leaving herself in a vulnerable state, hovering between the living world and the dead. This was one of those moments they had discussed before, her questions about the time she spent trapped in the coma, what had happened around her and in the world during that time. What she missed, what she looked like, what the moments had been like before she woke up, details of her life that had been stolen from her violently. It had been a while since they lay like this, discussing those details, cut off from the world, diving back into a realm of darkness until she felt they had reached a point where her questions had been validated.
"No one gave up on you," Nick finally replied to her, hating to keep her waiting "no one was going to give up on you."
"So, you never once thought I would die there?" she challenged him again because this was her way of making sure she had the entire truth behind her trauma from that attack.
She was killing him, he could not help but think. Despite her insistence, a memory began to swim into his subconscious, a memory of hope in their time of despair.
"Never," he replied much quicker this time, "and I'll tell you why."
As he spoke, he reached for her arm, turning it over, making her keep it flat on top of the blankets.
"I told you before how restless you were," Nick continued "we watched you move, a twitch here and there at random times, that's how we knew you were in there fighting, the doctors kept talking to us about music therapy, playing your favorite songs, keeping the TV on to something you would like, talking to you, all the usual options, but I wanted more for you, I wanted you to know how badly we wanted you back."
She was staring at him, holding her breath at times as she listened to him recount this story, at the same time, he was looking at her fingers, her hand lying open in front of him, but he did not reach out to hold it.
"For the first few days," he continued in a hushed tone "they wouldn't let anyone touch you, just the nurses checking your vitals and the doctors making their rounds, no one else, they wouldn't even let me hold your hand, drove me nuts." I hated every second of those days, you were all alone in that bed and I could only talk to you to tell you I was there, I knew you needed more."
"So when they finally told me it was ok, I got to hold your hand again," Nick went on, describing the details of that moment "you managed to keep it curled up the whole time, I don't know how but you did, so I had open it, just like this."
He nodded at how her arm and hand were currently resting on the bed.
"It was silly," he said, smirking at the memory "but I counted your fingers, just to make sure they were all there, one, two, three, four, five."
He tapped on each one of her fingers as he spoke, mimicking the memory from that day.
"And I made sure you still had every single one of these," he added, now tracing the lines on the palm of her hand with one finger, slowly, delicately, making sure not to miss any, smiling when he noticed her shiver suddenly.
"You were freezing," he recalled, intertwining his hand with hers at last "so I kept both hands on yours, hoping to warm you up, it reminded me of that scene we worked up in the mountains at like two in the morning, way before we started telling everyone we were together, you forgot your gloves and I saw you trying to warm up and when no one was looking, I got to hold your hands and keep you warm until we saw one of the officers staring and we stopped."
She had closed her eyes, recalling the memory, smiling at it, one of their earliest moments together, their hearts racing at the bitter cold and the potential threat of getting caught. She continued to smile, enjoying the present moment and how the pressure of his hand on hers was comforting.
"When I did all that, I expected you to wake up in that moment," Nick pressed on "I had the wild idea that just a single familiar touch could bring you back to me, but when nothing happened, I may have lost a little faith, but not in you darling, in the medical world for allowing such a terrible thing to happen to someone like you and not have a cure."
"So, I tried something else," he said, lifting his hand from hers, the loss of pressure and warmth making her open her eyes. She barely had time to process that, when he started dragging his fingers up her arm, starting at her wrist and moving slowly up to her elbow and ending at her shoulder. It was a familiar and comforting affection they shared since they first started being together. Each time he started the motion, she felt the urge to twitch her arm away, a natural reaction to the tickling sensation she felt. She scrunched up her face, biting her lip, trying not to laugh.
"I knew how much you love this," he said grinning, "so I figured it would get your attention, coma or not."
He continued with the motion now, watching her react with giggles and loving it. It was the reaction he hoped to see on her face when she was lying there in the hospital but no matter how long he kept up the motion, her expression remained the same, unphased, unaware.
Until one day, three weeks into the coma, when he sat down beside her bed and began the usual routine of counting her fingers, tracing her palm and tickling her arm did she react, twitching once when his fingers reached the end of her wrist. He remembered jumping, startled, but joy surging through him at this movement. It was a sign, she was there, feeling everything, reacting as if they were simply lying in bed watching TV or falling asleep and she raised her arm, stretching it out wanting him to give her those comforting tickles. He didn't know what to do at first, call the nurse, call out to her, continue to rub her arm, hold his breath and stay silent, praying she would open her eyes and say, "Keep going, why did you stop?" her usual complaint whenever he paused to check if she had fallen asleep yet.
He chose the latter, continuing to drag his fingers back up her arm, then down, over and over for a few more minutes, pausing whenever he saw her twitch her arm in response to his touch. From that moment on, he would sit by her bedside for hours, tenderly touching her arms, her hands, her fingers, eventually being allowed to sweep her hair back after the bruises healed and kiss her forehead, then her cheeks when her face was no longer tinged purple and blue. But only when he was near her right side, tending to her arm did she ever react, twitching, the only way he could tell she was there and fighting.
"That's it," he concluded of his story "if you couldn't sit still for those arm tickles even in a coma, I knew it was just a matter of time before you would be opening your eyes and when you did, well, you know the rest."
He glanced back at her, hoping that was what she wanted to hear. She had slid down against her pillows, grinning, delighted at the tale and conclusion.
"How could you have possibly known?" she asked, scooting over to be closer to him, lifting her arm so he could continue with the tickles.
"Easy," he said "when Russell brought you on to our team, I never expected to fall so fast for you, I didn't think you would want anything to do with me, I was messed up, angry at everything, annoyed by all the negative stuff around me, then that McKeen case just sent me over the edge, but when you were with me, that stuff stopped bothering me, you made me think of all the good things still in the world, and you were the greatest gift of all, from then on, all I wanted was to be with you every second of every day, and I still want that now."
He paused to lift her arm and kiss the spot on her wrist where his fingers had come to rest, the same spot that caused her to twitch in her coma.
"You helped me feel again," he finished "so when you needed to find your way back, I knew I had to make you feel again too."
In that moment, she felt an ache in her chest, her heart ready to burst from the amount of love and affection he had given her. That tender spot on her wrist tingling, as if that was somehow the reason she was alive. That was the base of her soul and he found it. It connected them when they were in completely different worlds, it transcended the valley between life and death and bridge a way for her to climb out from its depths. There was no other explanation for how she had endured such violence and defied medical odds except for him. She felt at peace now, another questionable part of her life solved. Now all they had left to do was be together, her favorite place to be, surrounded by comforting feelings she had been given thanks to him. What a wonderful part of life it was, to feel.