When the nurse had told Rayna and Deacon they could spend the night with Maddie, she had protested loudly. "I'm not a child!" she cried.
"You're my child," Rayna had said sternly. She had glanced at Deacon. "You're our child." Maddie had made a face, but said Rayna could stay as long as Deacon did too. Deacon had looked like he was ready to leave, but Maddie had pleaded with him. Neither one wanted to argue with her, which was how they had both ended up asleep in Maddie's hospital room. Or at least pretending to be asleep.
Rayna was on the sleeper chair, Deacon in the regular chair next to Maddie's bed. There had been no time for them to continue the conversation they had started in the waiting room. Rayna had a hard time sleeping. The sleeper chair wasn't that comfortable. Being in a hospital, this hospital, brought back unpleasant memories of her own stay. But more than anything it was the fact that Deacon was dozing in the chair by Maddie's bed. Looking over at him now reminded her that she needed to finish that conversation.
In the fifteen months since the accident, she rarely talked about Deacon to anyone. At first it was because she was angry and hurt and disappointed. Then it became kind of a habit. But now it was because talking about him, or thinking about him, just called attention to the hole in her heart. The one she thought might never be filled by anyone else. Because when she thought that there would never be Deacon again, she could hardly breathe. And now here he was.
She thought about his comment that he had forgiven her. She had suspected, when she'd met him at the crash site not long after she'd gotten out of the hospital, that he was no longer angry with her. But she had shut him down that night. She had not wanted to revisit things and she was sure she was ready to move on without him. She was sure then that there would never again be a Deacon and Rayna. She thought, at the time, that her head was clear and she knew what to do. After all, she'd just had a near death experience. If that wasn't enough to clear your head, what was? But she was still in denial about the real issue back then.
She had, in fact, not dealt with it from the moment Deacon had confronted her at the CMA's. She had put the blame all on him – "think about how you were at that time." Maybe she had been thinking about what was best for Maddie then, but she had never once thought about what was best for Deacon. She had wanted to explain things to him then, but it would all have been his fault – his drinking, his problems.
How could you do that to someone, especially someone you loved? she thought. How could you have made that choice for someone else? She could blame Teddy, but it was time she acknowledged that she had willingly agreed and that she had convinced herself it was the only way.
She loved Deacon and yet she had treated that love callously, thoughtlessly. Tears filled her eyes as she looked over at him, asleep in their daughter's hospital room. She had been terribly unfair to him.
She remembered telling Tandy she didn't want to ever talk to him again. And she hadn't, for a long time. He had not approached Maddie for months and Maddie had had no interest in him either. Her feelings were complex – she thought of Rayna as a liar, she pitied Deacon but was also embarrassed by him, and she still looked at Teddy as her dad. But when Teddy got back together with Peggy and tried to hide it, Maddie exploded. And in her upside down world, she chose who she felt was the lesser of all evils, and turned to Deacon. At least they had being lied to in common, she remembered Maddie shouting at her.
So then Rayna was forced to communicate with Deacon, but it was sporadic and she kept it as impersonal as possible. Texts and emails mostly, phone calls occasionally, but never face-to-face. She wondered how Deacon must have felt then – her shutting the door on him so completely when he wanted to made amends, refusing to partner with him on Maddie's wellbeing. She realized how dismissively she had treated him. She had begun to wonder if her desire to keep her "private life private" back when she and Deacon were together wasn't more a function of keeping him and his problems hidden than just wanting some normalcy.
She felt heartbroken when she realized how she had treated this man who had loved her unconditionally. Whom she had loved as well but obviously with parameters. She never thought of herself as doing that, but the reality was that she had.
He said he had forgiven her. Could she ever forgive herself for what she'd done to him? She'd tried to change history when she'd told Liam that she should have gone to St. Lucia with him instead of going to Deacon's that night. As though it was her decision-making that was flawed. But it wasn't that at all. Truth – if she'd gone to St. Lucia, perhaps none of what followed would have happened. But the reality wasn't that choosing Deacon that night had been a mistake; it was that denying Deacon fifteen years ago had been. That decision had set the course for what had happened at that intersection.
Maybe if she told him she knew it was her fault, they could find a way to fix things. Since she couldn't sleep, she thought maybe it would be helpful to get up and take a walk, to clear her head.
The hospital chair was probably the most uncomfortable place he'd ever slept. And that was saying something, considering all the places he'd slept off a drunk night. Even though he was only dozing, he was oddly happy to be there. For the first time, he felt like part of a real family. It was every bit as disjointed as the family he'd grown up in, but there was a certain measure of comfort in being here with Rayna, supporting their daughter.
He looked first at Maddie, who was sleeping soundly, then at Rayna, who seemed to be asleep but restless. It felt good to be with her, even though he was uncertain as to her feelings. She had cut him off after the accident and had kept him distant. He knew she had been with several different men in the past year or so, which had hurt him to his core, even though he tried not to let it. He had no right to be jealous.
He wondered about what she had intended to say to him in the waiting room before they were interrupted. She had said that she'd failed him. What did that mean? He didn't want to assume anything and he hoped that they would be able to go back and finish that conversation. He was feeling a lot like he did all those years she'd been married to Teddy. Not being able to let her go, wanting to stay in her life no matter what, having to put up with her telling him to "see what was around the bend" or "take a different path" or some other similar shit like that. He'd always known, back then, that her feelings for him weren't really over although, of course, he hadn't known that much of that was tied up in Maddie. But this time it had felt very different. It had felt like she had truly closed the door. Had something, finally, changed?
When the truck had stopped rolling that night, he had been terrified. He knew he was hurt, but all he could focus on was Rayna. In those few moments, his anger at her about not telling him Maddie was his was gone. He instantly knew that his being drunk in that truck was the cause of the accident. He had taken responsibility for it because it was the only way he knew to atone for the pain he'd caused her. If she had not woken up and told the police that she was the driver, he would have gone to his death taking responsibility. He had hoped he would have a chance to tell her he was sorry. For everything.
But when he had called her that night, when he had come face to face with the prospect of never playing again, she had pushed him away. And when she gave him back the ring he'd given her all those years ago, it felt so final. He'd never had a chance to say what he'd wanted to say to her.
When he had left that night, he realized that he could be bitter and hate her or he could just put his head down, do the work to get his life back in order, and maybe have a chance to prove himself to her again. He wanted to do the latter, but he went through a period of bitterness anyway until he realized it was holding him back. He'd had his own share of relationships, trying to force her out of his system. But then Maddie needed him.
After Teddy had gotten secretly engaged to Peggy, Maddie found out and was furious. Again it seemed her world had exploded around her. This time, though, she had reached out to him. He wanted to be there for her and for a while it was a struggle for both of them. That's when Juliette had stepped in and acted as kind of an intermediary. He couldn't quite figure out her angle, but it seemed that she had been someone Maddie had turned to and trusted. He had been somewhat amused by how grown up Juliette seemed when dealing with Maddie and her confusion. He was grateful, though, that Juliette had encouraged Maddie to give him a chance. Now, if only Rayna would as well.
He heard her get up then, stand still for a moment, probably looking at Maddie, and then walk softly out of the room. He hesitated for only a minute, deciding that this might be the chance to finish what they'd started in the waiting room. He stood up and followed her path out of the room.