"I can't comment on individual patients, you'll understand. What I will say is that the physical and psychological exhaustion that comes with having a loved one in a coma is hard to overstate. Relatives tell me all the time it feels like someone has pressed a pause button on the rest of the world."
- DR. CALEB RAND, INTERVIEW WITH ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, JUNE 2016
"Hey," Rayna says lightly, because there doesn't seem to be any other way to say things in this hospital. Everything, even the most horrendous of news, is delivered with a brittle sort of benevolence.
"Any change?" she asks, though of course, she knows the answer - he'd have called her if there was anything to report.
As expected, Deacon shakes his head.
It's been weeks.
Weeks of no change, weeks of Beverley lying comatose in this hospital room, Deacon opposite her in a tiny cot bed.
They sit there for a moment, and Rayna takes his hand in hers hers, her thumb stroking his skin unconsciously.
"Babe, I think it's time for you to come home," she says then, in that quiet, decisive way of hers.
Deacon looks at her, sad eyes widening ever so slightly.
It's a gentle protest, she knows - the only kind he's capable of right now - but she just nods in response, pushing back just as gently.
"I know it's killing you, to see her like this. But it's killing me to see you like this."
Deacon makes some attempt to rally. "I'm okay," he says, as brightly as he can manage.
Rayna smiles sadly, lifting a hand up to his face. "You're not okay," she replies quietly. "And if things were different, I'd come up here and just camp out right along with you. You know I would. The girls need someone, though, and -"
A fresh shadow of concern seems to cross his face at the mention of Maddie and Daphne.
"- How they doin'?" he interjects, keen for news.
"They're ...alright," she says simply, because that's another conversation entirely. "But you need to come home and just let me take care of you, okay?"
Her voice breaks a little. "I don't want to go to bed without you anymore."
Deacon's face seems to crumple then. "I know, I know, I'm sorry baby," he says, pure anguish in his expression. "I…the last thing I wanna do right now is jeopardize what we have, but it's just Bev-"
"- Woah woah woah," Rayna interrupts, her palm held up to him. "You're not gonna jeopardize what we have," she says, sounding a little dumbfounded by the mere prospect. "That's not even…"
She sighs, unsure how to express herself.
"Babe. Listen to me. There is nothing you could say, or do – there's no amount of time you could stay in this hospital – that would make me leave you. And I'll be damned if I'm letting you leave me."
Her voice is thick with emotion, but she nudges her shoulder against him playfully, an attempt to make him smile. It works, kind of.
"You and me, we're okay," she continues softly. "We're always gonna be okay. I'm just worried about you, is all. I love you, and I miss you, and I don't like thinking about you sleeping in here by yourself."
It's as honest as Rayna knows how to be, and whether it's what she says or the way she says it…somehow it seems to reach him.
That night, Deacon is back in their bed.
Ten days later, they're putting his sister in the ground.