*Author's Note* Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Some personal things came up and delayed my updating. Review please! Have a nice day! :)
"No, no, STELLA!"
Mac screamed as he pressed the nurse call button and started talking to Stella even though he knows it will do nothing.
"Stella, wake up sweetheart."
The nurse rushed in, saw what was happening, paged the doctor, and started playing with Stella's IV drip. The doctor ran in and started giving orders to the nurses, then started wheeling Stella away giving Mac a brief,
"She needs surgery. Now."
Mac heard nothing, it was as if someone had put his head under water. He may have been calm on the outside, but on the inside his soul was falling to pieces, his mind running through all the worst case scenarios. His mind racing, Mac calls his best friend, other than the one currently on the operating table, Jo Danville.
"Danville."
"Jo"
Mac replies, tears streaming down his face, his voice cracking.
"Mac, what's wrong? Is something wrong with Stella?"
Jo asks, the concern evident in her tone. Mac tries to answer her, but starts sobbing uncontrollably. Jo just waits patiently for him to calm down enough to give her some information. When he seemed to be calming down Jo slowly and softly began to speak.
"Mac, what's going on?"
"I was gone for 15 minutes, 15 minutes. That's it. And now..."
Mac tried to find the words without breaking down again with tears still silently falling.
"Mac, she will be ok. She will. From what I've heard about her and now that I have met her, I know she is a very strong woman. She will make it through this."
Jo replies calmly, trying to comfort Mac as much as herself.
"I love her, Jo. I never told her that. She has to get through this"
Mac cried. Mac and Jo stayed on the phone in comfortable silence until Jo had to go.
"Hello? Why am I here again?"
Stella calls out into the space around her she was in just the day before, even though it feels like a lifetime.
"Hello. You are here again because you are dead again."
Marie appeared out of nowhere.
"What happened?"
Stella inquired.
"When you fell at the bomb scene yesterday, you hit your head. No one knew this so your head was never examined. The thing is your brain has been bleeding ever since. Just now you had a seizure caused by the bleeding and you are currently in surgery."
Marie answered matter-of-factly.
"Oh"
Stella replied quietly putting all the pieces together. All the headaches and the increasing pain makes sense now.
"I'm here to deliver another message."
Marie stated, trying to get Stella's attention again.
"Ok, what is it this time?"
Stella asked, distracted but not from the whole seizure thing. She wasn't even worried about Mac and how he is holding up. The thing pressing on her mind the most is the fact that Marie was within arms length. Her daughter. Mac's daughter. Their daughter is arms length away.
"My message is that you can choose this time, stay here or go back."
Marie says quietly, scared of the answer. Will her mom pick her or her father? Stella's head is spinning. The love of her life or her daughter who died much too early for any living being. She thinks back on what is waiting for her back at the hospital. Then she thinks of what could come next for her if she stayed.
"I love you Marie. I love you more than I thought I ever could. I don't want you to ever forget that, ever. I need to go back to Mac, but I can't go without knowing you know how much I love you and that I think about you everyday."
Stella replied, tears falling down her face in streams and she starts hiccuping from her blubbering.
"I know. And I love you too. I may not have been on Earth long, but I received nothing but love when I was. I know how much you love me and I love you too."
Marie replied, starting to tear up as well. They ran to each other and hugged each other fiercly, then in the blink of an eye, she was gone and Stella was back in the hospital bed with Mac in the same position he was in when she first woke up in this hospital. The only change was that this time, tears stained Mac's cheeks as he slept.