A/N: Here is the next chapter. Remember to see the next chapter you gotta review. So please....read and review.
Disclaimer: Don't own anything you recognize.
The teenager ran back out of the house, locking the front door behind her. She needed to know what was wrong with her mother.
Why was she in a hospital so far away? There were at least two or three others closer to home.
The young brunette caught the first cab, which stopped for her. She saw the man pick his nose and wipe it on his pants before turning around in his seat to see her.
"Where you headed, young lady?" He asked in a gruffy voice.
"Saint Mark's Hospital please," she replied, softly.
She shut the back passenger door and put on the seatbelt.
The whole trip to the hospital, Annalise sat in the backseat, thinking about all of the good times that she'd spent with her mother before their relationship slowly went down hill at the age of thirteen.
The earliest one she remembered was when she was five. Ayden was only four months old and her mom took her to park. Just 'Mommy/daughter' time.
They played chasey and played on the playground, her mother even went down the slide with her. She remembered them laying on the soccer field. Her mom lifted her up above her with a smile, saying, "Anna's a plane."
As she pretended to be a plane with her arms spend out to her sides.
Another time was when she was eight, she and her mom went for a one night vacation together. They went to upstate New York. They rode horses. The one she rode was called 'Heaven-lea Star' and the one her mom rode was called 'Star-Dust.'
She and her mom then had a carriage ride to a restaurant, where they had a mother and daughter dinner.
Annalise remembered it as one of the best days of her life.
The last good time she remembered, which had been cut short, was a mom and daughter shopping trip.
Some of her friends saw her shopping with her mother and laughed as her. She blamed Olivia, gave her all the bags and ran off with her friends, to show that she didn't need her mother to go shopping.
Their relationship started to go down hill rapidly from that.
Annalise wiped away a stray tear.
What had she done?
Her mom had sacrificed a lot for her and she accused her of being the worse mother ever. She was so very wrong. She was the best mother ever. Always made time for her, no matter how busy or tired she was but she always rejected her mom after the time at the mall.
"We're here. That will be $58.61," the cabbie's voice startled her out of her deep thoughts.
She opened her purse and gave him $59 of her emergency money and told him to keep the measly change.
Anna undone the seatbelt, opened the car door and ran out, heading toward the building.
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The teen rode the elevator up to the Intensive Care Unit floor. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. She stepped out and found her 'Grandpa', 'uncles'' and 'aunts' in the waiting room.
"Aunt Casey! What happened to my mom?" She asked crying.
Casey Novak gathered her 'niece' in a hug and kissed her cheek before pulling back a bit to look in her brown eyes. "Baby, mom was..."
"Was what?"
"She was hit by a car, sweetie. A hit and run," she tried to explain.
Annalise's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. "What?!"
"She's in a coma, Anna. Your dad and brother are in the room with her. It's bad, sweetie."
"What room, Aunt Casey?"
"Room twelve B, Anna."
Annalise dislodged herself from the law professor, mother of three's arms and ran down the hall.
She got to the door and pushed open the door. She gasped in shock.
Her mother looked so vulnerable in that bed. In a lot of pain. Black and blue. Cut up. Scratched. Grazes on her face. Left arm in cast. A tube down her throat connected to a vent.
Her father and brother sat in the chairs beside the bed.
She cried.
Had she caused this? Was she to blame? She needed to know.
"Dad?"
Elliot looked around behind him to face her. Eyes red rimmed from crying. Black bags underneath his eyes from not sleeping. Five o'clock shadow from not shaving.
Her ten year old brother didn't look much better, in the seat beside their father.
Elliot shook his head, not know what to say right now to his daughter.
"Am...am I the cause of this? Is this my fault?"
"Yes and yes!" Ayden answered, furiously. "This happened because of you, you evil bitch!"
"Ayden," Elliot warned his son.
Elliot sighed, continuing to caress his unconscious wife's hand. "She was running around looking for you, Annalise. Your mom was hysterical. You called her a bitch and the worse mother ever, but she still went looking for you in the snow, Annalise. She sacrificed so much for you, young lady. A lot of things. Things she loved. To give you the best chance in life," Elliot said, refusing to take his eyes off his comatose wife.
"Is...Is she going to wake up?"
"We don't know," Elliot replied, shaking his head, sadly.
Annalise slid down to the floor with her back against the wall, sobbing.
"Oh God, oh God. It's all my fault. I'm so sorry, mommy."
Elliot scrubbed a hand down his face. "Annalise?"
Annalise stood up. "Yes, dad?"
"You are ground for two months and I want you to stay at Aunt Casey's house during that time. I don't want you in the house."
"But dad?"
Elliot exhaled a deep breath. "You heard me. Casey already knows. You are going be to helping her with her house work and no playing with Abby or Angela, ok?"
Annalise sighed. "Am I still allowed to visit mom?"
"Of course. I can't stop you from seeing your own mother."
The teenager nodded and walked out of the room to see her 'aunt' again.
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"Aunt Casey," she said, approaching the red head, "dad said I have to stay with you for two months."
"Yeah, honey. You do," Casey replied, sadly and guided the girl out of the hospital.
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Annalise sat in the passenger seat of the silver sedan while her 'aunt' drove.
"Aunt Casey?" The teen spoke up, turning down the car radio.
The red head put the indicator on, looked to see it was safe before changing langes, so she could turn down an upcoming street.
"Yes, honey?"
"I might have to stay with you until I'm eighteen," she said, sadly.
Casey turned right on to a back street. "What makes you think that, honey?"
"Because... 'cause my family hates me."
"I'm part of your family and I don't hate you, Anna," Casey answered.
"You know what I mean," Anna said, a touch angry.
The law professor sighed and pulled in to the drive way of her two storey home. She turned off the ignition, taking out the keys and took off her belt, as her 'niece' did.
She took the young brunette's hand in hers. "Honey, I'm certain that they don't hate you. It's just your mother is in a critical condition at the moment..."
"'Cause of me," Annalise replied, tears running down her cheeks like rain.
Casey licked her lips and went to respond but was cut short by two of her three children. "Angela (Angel) and Abigail (Abby). They were six. Her eldest child, Benji, was thirteen.
Angela opened the driver's side door and Abigail opened the pasenger.
"Mommy!" Angela greeted her cheerfully.
"Anna!" Abigail greeted her 'cousin.'
Annalise looked down sadly and sighed. "Hi, girls, excuse me," she said and got out of the car, heading in to the house.
Casey got out of the car and closed the door behind her.
"Mommy, what's wrong with Anna?" Angela asked.
"Angel, Abby. Anna is just going through a rough patch right now. Let her cool off, ok?"
Both the girls nodded and ran back inside to play.
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Casey softly rapped on the door of the spare bedroom and waited for a positive response from the teen.
She didn't get one at all, so she slowly opened the door and entered slowly and quietly.
In the two hours that the brunette had been in the spare bedroom, she cried herself to sleep.
Casey pulled the covers up and tucked Annalise in. She then leaned down and kissed the teen's forehead.
She walked out and closed the door behind her, letting the distraught girl rest.
