Author's notes: This chapter is comparatively short and completely dedicated to the Salvatore brothers. But there's going to be a lot of Bonnie/ Damon in the next chapter! Happy reading!
Within seconds the room was filled with doctors and nurses and they were ushered out of the room.
The next minutes passed agonizing slowly, and their eyes were fixed on the door to the room where Damon was fighting for his life. Stefan listened closely but at some point he lost track of the situation due to the many different voices that shouted instructions at each other. Finally the door opened and one of the doctors stepped out.
"Are you family?" he asked at first.
"Damon is my brother." Stefan replied.
The doctor nodded, introduced himself and started to explain.
"We could stabilize him for now, but he's not out of the woods yet. The next hours are going to be critical. He has four broken ribs and one of them punctured the lung which caused a massive internal bleeding. We also had to remove the spleen since it was ruptured. At the moment he can't breathe on his own, he's considerable weakened and also running a fever. Though we did everything we could, it's up to him now."
"May we see him?" Bonnie inquired.
"I'm afraid I can only allow family members to visit him." the doctor replied.
"That would only be me. There's no one else." Stefan explained.
"You can stay as long as you want. Right now it is really important for him that he's not alone. Hold his hand, talk to him, just let him know that you are there." the doctor added.
Stefan nodded and glanced at Elena and Bonnie who had both tears in their eyes.
"Give us a call if anything changes or if you need anything." Elena said and gave his hand an encouraging squeeze.
Eventually Stefan entered the room. Damon looked strained reminding him of the battle he had just fought. He moved the chair that stood in the corner of the room to the left side of the bed and sat down. When he took Damon's hand in his the first tears started to fall. He scolded himself for not having talked to him earlier fearing that it might be to late now.
"Please Damon, don't give up. I'm not ready to lose you, don't do that to me." he whispered while he was observing his brother's feature.
"I wasn't able to watch you die back in 1864 but today it's even worse. I'm so sorry that I gave you such a hard time lately." The tears were falling freely now and it became more and more difficult for him to speak.
Memories of their childhood started to come back into his mind. He remembered how Damon had always protected him. How he had comforted him when he had been sad. How he had taught him to play football. Back then Damon had been the best big brother that he could have imagined and he had loved him dearly. And he still loved him, he realized that now. No matter what had happened, Damon would always be his big brother and deep down inside he would always love him.
Stefan sighed and rubbed tiredly his face. He took the wet cloth that one of the nurses had laid on Damon's forehead because of the fever that he was running, went over to the small sink and soaked it with cool water. After he had gently wiped Damon's face with the cloth he placed it back on his forehead.
Once again he was just sitting at Damon's bed holding his hand and squeezing it occasionally when he suddenly felt Damon's fingers twitch. He almost jumped up from his chair and leaned over the bed. While his left hand was still clutching Damon's, he laid his right hand softly against his cheek.
"Damon, can you hear me?"
"If you can hear me, squeeze my hand. Come on Damon, I know that you can do it."
Stefan continued to coax him into squeezing his hand until he finally felt a faint pressure. A feeling of ease crept over him which was shortly followed by hope.
"You're going to survive this." Stefan mumbled not sure whether he was trying to reassure himself or his brother.
Two hours later a nurse entered the room to check on Damon. She came right on time as Damon had recently started to become restless and attempted to toss and turn.
"The effect of the pain medication is probably starting to wear off. " the nurse assumed and called for the doctor.
The doctor confirmed the nurse's assumption and injected Damon another dosage of pain medication. Since Damon kept moving he also wanted to restrain him in order to prevent him from hurting himself, but Stefan immediately objected. He didn't want to see his brother tied down onto the bed and told them that he would keep an eye on him.
The doctor wasn't completely convinced but eventually agreed. Shortly after the doctor and the nurse had left, Damon made another attempt to turn around. Stefan reacted instantly and laid one hand carefully on his bandaged chest and the other one on his forehead. While he was gently smoothing his messed up hair he whispered soothing words to him and finally succeeded in calming him down.
It was a long night and in the wee hours of the next morning one the doctors finally announced that Damon's vital signs had improved and that his temperature was back to normal. Stefan breathed a sigh of relief and was finally able to relax.
