Disclaimer: See first chapter. Part 3
-Paris-
Bianca smiled brightly as she made her way through the crowd. It was going on one in the morning and the party had yet to end. She could have left hours ago, she had wanted to, but hadn't been able to weasel her way past those crowding the room. The moment she escaped the conversation of one group another would form in front of her and she found, even at this early hour in the morning, the crowd had yet to diminish enough to let her escape. Parties used to be fun. These could hardly be considered fun, or even parties. They were just a get together of the most prestigious in Europe attending a gala.
Then again, at least nothing horrible had happened. Bianca could count her blessings. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy coming. She enjoyed talking with the world's future leaders. She enjoyed hearing their opinions and giving her own. What she did not enjoy was missing her daughter's bedtime. She liked to tuck her own child into bed. The fact that these parties didn't allow her the chance to do that was one of the very reasons she had only attended three of the fifteen she had been invited to. It wouldn't do to miss every one. After all, this was a rewarding benefit and most nights she'd be gracious, polite and at least pretend to enjoy herself. Tonight it wasn't easy to pretend and after being here for almost five hours, she was sick of pretending. Bianca tried to pay attention to the ramblings of…she looked at the men in front of her…she couldn't recall any of their names. She recalled hearing something about gemstones, crystals, and the drop in value silver had taken over the last few years. Jewelers Bianca assumed. For the life of her she couldn't muster up enough interest to care. Their wives stood at their sides smiling and nodding along with whatever their husbands were saying. Bianca knew the look on their faces, it was sure to be mirrored on her own.
Bianca opened her mouth to excuse herself from the group but stopped mid word. Her champagne flute, the one she had been carrying around with her for at least a half hour fell from her hand. Her heart skipped several times against her chest as a pit suddenly formed deep within her stomach and she felt instantly nauseous.
"Oh my dear…" one of the women gasped as she reached forward. One of the younger men from the group stepped forward and wrapped his arm around her waist before leading her to one of the many open chairs around the deserted tables. The moment she was in the chair she bent over, putting her head between her legs. A tear slipped from her eye. Something wasn't right. She felt sick.
"Are you alright?" Bianca looked up at the man kneeling in front of her and shook her head. For a moment she smiled at his British accent but soon put her head back between her legs as she realized shaking her head was silly of her. Something was wrong.
"I feel…" as sick as if the room just completed a 360 flip. "…I apologize but I must leave. I…" Bianca tried to stand on her own, only to sway from side to side. She had eaten! Had only two and a half glasses of wine and two champagne flutes over a five-hour period! She wasn't a lightweight, not anymore, not since…before. This shouldn't be happening!
The sinking feeling in the growing pit in her stomach told her what she needed to know. She needed to leave, to get out of there. Something was wrong, very wrong.
The man in front of her seemed to need no further prompting to help her when he saw she was light on her feet. He slipped his arm under and around her shoulder to keep her up. Bianca leaned heavily against him as he led her through the throng of people that gathered a few feet away from the table she had been led to. She felt horrible for not even caring to remember his name when he obviously was a kind man and had taken the interest and care to remember hers.
"We're almost there Ms. Montgomery," he formally addressed her as he moved them to the front of the catering hall.
"Thank you." They stepped outside of the catering hall and Bianca felt slightly better instantly. The fresh air and cool breeze doing her more good then she'd like to admit. They moved to the curb and the young man looked at her for a moment, asking with his eyes if she would be all right for the time it took him to call a cab. Bianca smiled sweetly at him and bowed her head—rather than shake it—in assent. She'd be fine for the time it took him to get the car. She could make it on her own from here, she was sure. She was out of the party, and although this hadn't been even a flicker of an idea to escape, she was out. She was out of the party and needed to get home immediately.
Something was wrong. Bianca didn't know how she knew it but something was wrong. Her heart felt…it felt emptier somehow. Like something that had always been there wasn't anymore. She needed to get home. She needed to make sure Miranda was safe. That she was still there. With a quickening heartbeat Bianca pulled her cell phone from her purse and dialed the penthouse's number. Two rings, five, seven…
"Hello you've reached Bianca and Miranda…." Bianca's chest constricted as she listened to her own voice and waited for the machine to let her leave her message.
Click
"'Ello…" Bianca sighed. The husky voice on the other end answered and Bianca smiled and felt her heart begin to slow. Miranda's au pair, Marcie—a delightful French-American woman only a few years older than Bianca—was still there. She could be her eyes and ears until she reached home. Let her know that Miranda is alright.
"Marcie, thank god."
"Ms. Montgomery is everything all right? You sound out of breath," Marcie stated calmly and checked her watch, 12:49 digitally blinked back at her.
"I'm leaving the party now, but I just wanted to know if everything was okay. If…" I'm sorry, was left unspoken. She already apologized the first hundred times she called home the first few months of being in Paris. Marcie had been updated on her past, and could only pretend to imagine how Bianca must have felt. So when Bianca called every once in a while to make sure everything was A-OK, it translated to 'I need to hear her, if I can't see her, or hold her.' She needed reassurances and Marcie was happy to oblige them. Tonight was no different.
Marcie nodded her head aware Bianca wouldn't see her doing so put feeling the need to do so anyway. She stood from her chair and walked up the stairs towards the nursery. "Everything went well here tonight, Ms. Montgomery. Miranda ate all her mashed peas, well everything that didn't end up on the floor or me. She watched a Disney movie about a bear and fell asleep and has only woken up once all night."
Bianca bit the inside of her lip. "So everything is—"
"Well, Ms. Montgomery. I'm in her room right now. She's sound asleep, holding onto her teddy bear and sucking her thumb." Bianca waited a moment before Marcie placed the phone close enough to Miranda's face so she could hear her daughter's breathing and light snoring. Bianca's heart stopped racing and she felt a tear slide down her cheek.
"Ms. Montgomery." Two voices echoed and Bianca looked up from the pavement answering both.
"Yes?"
"Your cab is here." The man from the party stated as he held the door open for her.
"Are you well, Ms. Montgomery? Do you want me to send the car?" Marcie asked and Bianca sighed.
"No Marcie, I have a ride." Bianca spoke into the phone as she stepped into the car, and stopped the young man from closing the door for her. "Hold on a moment Marcie…" Bianca turned to the young man standing on the curb. "Thank you…." She left it open hoping to find out his name.
He smiled politely at her. "Christian Holland. Feel better, Ms. Montgomery," he said and then closed the door, watching as the cab pulled away from the curb.
"Ms. Montgomery?" Bianca brought her cell phone up to her ear once again. "I'm on my way back now, Marcie. Thank you, see you soon." Marcie said goodbye and Bianca flipped the cell phone closed.
Bianca leaned back into her seat and after giving the driver her address she fell silent. Trying to understand what was going on. Miranda was fine. So why didn't the empty pit that she felt disappear and her heart fill again?
-Pine Valley-
-7:30p.m.-
Maggie found it hard to breathe. The doctors, at least a dozen of them, had each informed her that it was normal. Nothing about this was normal. She had been dead. She knew she had been dead. She had seen the last moment of her life flash before her eyes but…
…There was more. More to…everything.
Life wasn't the same because she wasn't the same. She had only been awake from her coma, of two years, for forty minutes and she was aware. Aware of every difference, every detail to life that was different. She knew things she shouldn't know; she saw things that…weren't real. Hadn't come to pass yet. She'd seen things, her past. Seen…something. What did she know? What was she aware of? It was blurry now. Getting fuzzy. Disappearing and nothing she did to try and grasp her understanding of what was going on worked.
The doctors told her it was normal, again. They just didn't get it. Nothing was 'normal' about this. About what she was feeling, what she knew. Nothing. What did they know about normal? What did she? She didn't know, at least she wasn't sure she knew. She just…did because something was different. Different with everything and different with her. Something wasn't right with her. Something had changed.
She had died. Everything was different. Everything…
…she needed clarification.
Nothing was right. She shouldn't be here. She should be dead. She was dead. That was it! That was why everything was different! She was dead, but the pain. There shouldn't be pain! She was dead! She had to be dead, didn't she? Because she knew…knew what? What did she know? What made everything different? Why did things have to be fuzzy? Why did there have to be pain? Why hadn't they let her die? Why was she still here? She had been dead. They said so themselves. She had been dead for minutes. She had died. Her heart had stopped beating, her lungs were deflated 'never to take in air again', her organs had stopped, and she was dead. At least…for a few minutes. But not now. Now she was alive. Now she wasn't dead and something wasn't right—with her. – cut back with a question or two.
Bright…everything was too bright. Too loud, noises and voices and they were just too loud. She wanted to hide, wanted to pull her arms up and cover her ears to escape from it. Escape from the noise; from the voices, from the teary confessions, from doctors poking and prodding at her; from the questions, the demands that she follow, the bright assaulting light from side to side, that she squeeze people's hands, that she let physical therapists move her legs and arms and help her sit up and lie back down. When all she wanted them to do was stop touching her and treat her like she was actually in the room. Talk to her, not at her. Help her understand what was going on. She wanted to cry. They weren't helping her. She needed to understand and they weren't helping her do that. They were too busy trying to help themselves understand that they seemed to forget that she had just woken up from a coma and the normal effects of such coma were to leave her unfocused, confused, and amnesiac. Well, there were only a few things wrong with that; she wasn't any 'normal case'. Voices, they just kept talking around her, at her, never to her. Not even Anna or Greenlee or even David.
They weren't listening! Now, why did that seem so familiar? They hadn't listened to her in two years. Given that she didn't exactly have the ability to speak to them, but now—she wasn't much better off—but she was awake, aware and still no one was ready to listen to her!—And there was just so much noise.
She wanted to run away. To find answers to questions she didn't even know yet. To find peace. There had been peace. She remembered peace. It had been there, for just a few moments. There had been a bright light, not like the flashlight the doctors shoved into her eyes, not like the headlights of the car, not like the blinking lights of the casino or the Christmas lights hanging in the mezzanine. No it wasn't ruthless. It was gentle, calming, and oh so beautiful.
The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, except it wasn't. Not for her. Because she was alive and everything was wrong.
"We can't explain this. We'll have to do more tests, but this is…is…" a doctor babbled as he looked over Ms. Stone's chart. The notes his fellow doctors made about time of death, how long she had been dead, and how responsive she was since waking up. Things like this didn't happen often and when they did, miraculous didn't begin to cover it. A comatose woman who was clinically dead for five minutes revives without the assistance of CPR and is aware, responsive, alive and awake!—afterwards. Miracles like these were far and few between.
"It's a miracle," a nurse piped up. The doctor bowed his head in agreement, but wouldn't speak it aloud.
"What's going to happen now?" Anna asked gently, her eyes focused over the man's shoulder, where Maggie sat on her bed.
"The tests…"
"After the tests," Anna probed. They'd gone through this before. Tests, tests and more tests. Always saying the same thing; high coma scale, brain activity increasing before decreasing, but this time it would be different. Maggie was awake, aware and alive and it would be different. So what would happen after the tests? What were the doctors planning on doing now that things were going to change? What were the proper procedures in these kinds of cases? Were there procedures? Were there even guidelines? Anna didn't know and by the faces surrounding her—the doctors who should know—they didn't know either.
"We'd have to wait and see befo…"
By the door a vase was knocked over. Heads snapped to the door and eyed the young man standing before them in sweats. He gasped for breath as he apologized for making a mess, but made no move to clean it up, or move from where he stood. His eyes were riveted on the woman lying awake in the bed. His eyes began to water and he only moved when the blonde moved her mouth and whispered a part of his name.
"J—me…" Jamie rushed over to the bed and fell to his knees and grabbed onto Maggie's hand openly sobbing as he rested his head on the edge of the bed. He continually whispered three words.
"I'm soo…sorry, I'm so sorry." Maggie smiled as big as she could, which wasn't much, and moved her hand to pat the man's head.
"-s'ok," Maggie rasped gently.
"I'm soo...sorry," Jamie continued whispering which only caused the man to choke on air as he sobbed and kissed Maggie's hand repeatedly.
"Who's he?" one of the nurses asked.
"Her fiancé," Maggie's primary doctor, Dr. Josh Madden, answered easily.
Anna cringed as she watched Maggie's eyes widen, as far as they could due to her pupil dilation. She would make sure to clear that mess up with Maggie as soon as possible. The hospital—though lenient in some areas—hadn't allowed Jamie to see Maggie while she was in the ICU and the boy had foolishly informed them that he was her fiancé so they'd allow him to see her. They had.
At the time it infuriated Bianca because Babe was even allowed in and she was being kept out. Babe!— She had been allowed in to see her and she could do nothing due to Babe's actual blood relation to Maggie. Greenlee swiftly dealt with the Babe issue knowing how much Maggie would NOT appreciate hearing Babe's voice. Greenlee and David were, of course, allowed in because they were family. Bianca fumed and bitched for three days after which she was allowed in if only because she was Maggie's second emergency contact.
Josh didn't even look up from his chart to answer the inquiry. He continued to write on the pad in his hands, his eyes focused on what he was ordering. An MRI, CAT scan, and an immediate request for a neurologist consult. If only to be sure the dirty blonde hadn't suffered any permanent brain damage. With a quick scribble of his signature, he called on the two nurses in the room, and they moved towards the bed. They needed to have these tests done immediately.
"Sir—" Josh sighed when he saw Jamie wasn't about to move without being removed. He liked the young man. He was sweet and adored the woman on the bed. "—we need to take Maggie for some tests." Jamie shook his head and kissed Maggie's hand once more. "Jamie…" he sighed.
"Can I come?" he asked, his eyes holding Maggie's.
Josh looked at the nurses and then at the family members in the room. He would let them hash out who'd be going into the room with Maggie. They were all welcome to leave the room with them, if they wished. "You can come with us," Josh answered and watched as Jamie squeezed Maggie's hand and then stood and let them make the proper preparations.
Anna and Jamie both moved out of the room first, followed by Maggie and her entourage of nurses and doctors. Greenlee exited after them, leaving David to call the doctors he swore were the best in the field, calling in favors they owed him so they'd be there in the morning.
The first group entered the elevator, which now worked thanks to the fixed generators. The power was still out in the city and Greenlee didn't know when it'd be back on and didn't much care at the moment. She waited until she saw which floor the elevator stopped at before moving to the stairwell. As she walked down the stairs to the second floor, she wondered where Kendall had gone off to.
Kendall waited. Maybe this wasn't the best idea. But Dr. Madden insisted, told her it was Greenlee's only chance. For the life of her, after their fight upstairs, she couldn't find it in herself to care for what was Greenlee's only chance. Which only made her feel all the more wretched before she finally agreed. Greenlee wanted this, and Kendall wanted to give this to her. That was all that mattered. Just as long as it was Greenlee and Ryan's baby, all would be as it should be. Greenlee would have the child she deserved and this child would have a loving, nurturing, and beautiful mother who would do anything for him. It would work out in the end. Today was the perfect day to do this. After all, wasn't today about the miracle of life?
With a deep breath Kendall relaxed and laid back. "Let's get this over with." Her attitude for such a moment just as plaid as it ever was.
TBC….