She stood in the middle of Kevin's bathroom and gave herself a critical once-over in the mirror, second and even third-guessing the classically-styled blouse and the pair of nice, dark blue jeans she had ultimately decided to wear for their night together. She fidgeted with unscrewing the top to her eye shadow and wondered not for the first time why she worried so much. Elizabeth had given the outfit a virtual thumbs-up when Laura had texted her the picture a couple of hours ago and even Lulu had told her that the jeans were perfect, form-fitting and figure-flattering in all the right places and Kevin would love taking her out of them. (She hadn't been sure which of them had been more embarrassed when Lulu had actually said that last part out loud. Her daughter promptly had invented a Rocco emergency as an excuse to get off the phone and that had been the end of that.) No, the phone message she'd overheard from Lucy was just making her think too much, that was all. All three renditions of that phone message.
Laura hadn't meant to eavesdrop, of course, even though she was in Kevin's home without him as an invited guest he was still entitled to his privacy. She'd simply been in Kevin's bedroom unpacking her small bag of clothes for the weekend when his house phone started to ring and soon after the answering machine picked up. It wasn't her fault that Lucy's apparently normal decibel of voice was so loud that she could hear Kevin's ex-wife perfectly all the way from the bedroom when the answering machine was in the kitchen and it wasn't her fault that Lucy had enough to say to Kevin that she called three times after the first call to make sure she had said everything she wanted to say. Laura shook her head as she reached in her makeup bag for her lipstick. Part of her felt sorry for him for having to put up with an ex-wife like that, but she promised herself she'd tell him about the messages, if he didn't see the flashing red light himself. But not tonight.
There was a fourth and a fifth message on the machine that would make him happier, she thought to herself as she capped the lipstick and left the bathroom. Mac Scorpio wanted to talk to Kevin about her (Mac had actually used Laura's name in the message, Laura would have to remember to tease Kevin about that later) and Christina had figured out a time that would work for her to visit New York and she wanted to make sure it worked with her dad's schedule. Laura also heard the young woman admit in the message that she wanted to avoid her mother if at all possible, that was something for Christina and Kevin and Lucy to work out. Laura knew enough to stay out of that particular minefield as much as she could unless Kevin asked for her opinion, and even then she had to be careful with what she said. For Kevin's sake no one wanted a repeat of last night's unfortunate scene at the restaurant.
She went to the kitchen to retrieve her phone, glancing at the flashing neon numbers on the microwave all the while. The last thing Laura Spencer wanted was to act the stereotype of the nervous and suspicious girlfriend because Kevin was late but he was forty minutes late. When she'd talked to him it was just after four and he was just leaving work and he said he'd be home within the hour. The unspoken I'll be home to you soon and the gentleness in his voice told her that the end of the hour would be the latest. It was five-forty.
She hoped he hadn't stopped along the way to get something substantial for dinner, she'd told him before she didn't want much. She didn't want much in the way of food, that much was true. She wanted Kevin. She wanted him to be home right now so he could pick her up and carry her off to his bedroom where they would spend the majority of their weekend.
Laura laughed in spite of herself at the absurdity of how she was acting like a seventeen year old hormonal teenager and not a fifty-four year old woman with grandchildren. She checked her phone one more time and sighed in a mixture of relief and annoyance at herself for being so silly. She must have missed hearing it ring when she was in the bathroom getting herself ready but here it was, a missed call from Kevin time-stamped less than ten minutes ago.
But when she impulsively decided to look at the missed call a little closer and she clicked on the button to show her the duration of the call because for the first time that she could remember he hadn't left her a voicemail or sent a follow-up text, she saw that the call lasted only thirty-eight seconds, and, for a reason she couldn't explain to even herself much less to Lulu or Nikolas or Elizabeth later that night, she got scared. Kevin's phone calls to her were never that brief and he always left a message, especially if he wanted to talk to her and he had missed her.
Laura liked to think that she'd learned a lot about Kevin the past three months they had dated, some private or otherwise small quirks that were inherent to him, and one of the many things she figured out about Kevin Collins was that if his cell phone wasn't on the nightstand or the living room table or the kitchen table at home, or on his desk in his office at work, it was in his inside jacket pocket. It was rare that he kept his phone in his back pocket and a pocket-dial was highly unlikely which made the thirty-eight second duration of the call even stranger. Laura called Kevin back and for reasons she couldn't understand found herself hoping that he had disregarded her wishes and was in a long line at a restaurant picking up an order for dinner to surprise her. Eating dinner in bed to get back their energy for a second round of lovemaking sounded good to her the more she thought about it, but the more she thought about it the more she worried about why he wasn't home yet. She wouldn't be able to explain, later, why she knew even then that something was very wrong and why she was pacing back and forth when she listened in incrementally increasing panic to his phone continuing to ring.
Her slowly-increasing panic switched to full-blown panic when four rings turned to seven and he still hadn't answered his phone. Kevin always, always answered her calls if he wasn't in the middle of working hours or it wasn't the designated night and time he blocked off to FaceTime with Christina and if he wasn't able to talk he was always courteous enough to send her a text saying that he'd call her back. She didn't think she'd ever heard his phone go beyond four rings before and this was after work-hours, on a night when he knew she would be here. A night that was supposed to be special for both of them. Laura was two seconds away from hanging up and blast-calling him again, clinging-girlfriend stereotype be damned, when she finally, finally, heard the click that meant Kevin had answered the phone.
He said hello but he didn't sound like Kevin. His soft hello sounded weak and like it was taking every last molecule of energy he had to say the word. "Kevin, hey, honey, are you okay?" she murmured. "You called me a couple of minutes ago and it's getting late. I was getting worried because you said you'd be home around five and it's -"
Kevin's response took a long time to come, and when she heard that same low and weak and soft voice, and heard him grunting and coughing, she immediately stopped talking and her hand gripped the phone a little tighter. "L-Laura." He said her name in something like a mangled grunt, a low, keening sound that made her blood run cold when she heard it. "Hurt."
"You're hurt? Kevin, where are you? What happened, where are you hurt? Are you still at work or are you driving? You didn't get in a car accident, did you? Tell me where you are and I'll come and get you. I'll be there as soon as I can, I promise, just let me get my purse and lock up your house." The fast and furious questions came flying out of her mouth while she raced to the front door to get her purse and Kevin's spare key that he had given her before she remembered that she didn't have a car, and it took her a few more precious seconds to realize that Kevin had only said one word besides a shaky utterance of her name, the word hurt, and it sounded like it was hard for him to say that, so he wouldn't be able to answer rapid-fire questions, especially if they were open-ended. Laura put her hand on the edge of the island to steady herself and somehow managed to seat herself in one of the chairs. "Kevin, I'm here," she whispered with a hell of a lot more confidence and calmness than she felt. "I'm here. What hurts?"
Laura had worked in a hospital long enough and been in hospitals enough to know that she didn't like it at all that it took her boyfriend at least thirty seconds (she counted) to answer the simple question and she especially didn't like the fact that even when he answered the question it sounded like every breath was a struggle. "H-head," Kevin grunted. "Head hurts."
"Your head hurts?" she repeated. She also knew enough to know there could be many different reasons for why his head hurt and most of them weren't good. She saw Kevin's laptop on the living room table and wondered in horror if fifty-six was too young for a stroke. "Why does your head hurt?"
On the other end of the phone line, Kevin had to admit to himself that he was scared to hear himself breathe because with each breath he could feel his cracked ribs moving, and he was starting to cough up blood. He didn't want to admit either of those things to Laura, though. "I - hit," he said, finally. It took him a few tries to get that word out. "Th-there...was...a bat."
"Someone hit you?" Laura sank further into the seat. Kevin's cough seemed to be getting more pronounced - and worse. "Kevin, someone hurt you? Where are you?"
"Head hurts."
Laura couldn't help herself: she held the phone away from her for a second so he wouldn't be able to hear the whimpering sound she made and wouldn't be able to tell that she was almost going to cry. She'd already asked him that and he already told her that his head hurt. "Yes, honey, I know your head hurts," she whispered soothingly. "Can you tell me where you are? Are you still at work?"
"Y-yeah," she heard him croak. Whatever else he had done must have been horribly painful or made his head wound even worse because he had barely gotten out the word when he grunted again, low and continuously. " 'm a work."
If she wasn't sure with her earlier questions Laura was sure now that basic questions were what was going to work best - something Kevin would answer with a yes or a no and that was all. Kevin didn't sound like he was in any shape to do anything more than that. "Are you in your office, Kevin?"
"Yeah." His weak voice came through the phone line nothing more than a barely-there whisper. "N-no. 'm not. P - parking g-garage. 'two guys." She heard him start to cough again when he said his last few words and didn't even try to stop the tears that streaked down her cheeks when his coughing became louder and more like it was hurting him with every breath to talk to her even that little amount. " 'm sorry." He coughed again, so loud that Laura could hear it through the phone how each breath of his came at an immeasurable cost. " 'm sorry, L-Laura."
Laura reached for the nearest object on the counter within reach and held it in her free hand just so she'd have something else to feel besides the elephant that was sitting on her heart and the three words she wanted so badly to say if she thought he'd be able to understand her and comprehend what she was saying. "You will not apologize for anything, Kevin Collins, do you hear me? You will not. You did great, you told me where you were so now I know where you are and I can call Monica and Liz to go looking for you. You did great telling me what I needed to know, don't talk anymore and just rest for awhile, okay? Focus on my voice while I talk to you, do you think you can do that?"
"Yeah," was his only response. Which brought upon yet another fit of deep, hacking coughs. " 'm bleeding a lot."
Laura blinked back even more tears. "I'm sure you are if you got jumped by two guys and got hit in the back of the head. Don't worry, they'll clean you up and fix you up and you'll be good as new in a few hours. I'll be at the hospital as soon as I can to see you. You're going to be just fine, Kevin, honey, I promise you."
"They - stabbed me. Hurts."
The cold metal of Kevin's house keys dug into her skin when she clutched them between her fingers but she barely noticed, and she had to take a sharp intake of breath to steady herself. Kevin was hurt and alone and scared and bleeding an awful lot, if he had been hit in the head and stabbed. And God knows what else had happened to him if he'd been jumped in a parking lot by two guys. He didn't need to be able to hear it in her voice that she was scared, too. "Monica and Elizabeth will fix that, too, once they find you," she whispered softly. "You just rest now and stay here with me. Don't you dare close your eyes and go to sleep. Stay here with me, please, Kevin, please."
His voice sounded groggy now and like it was coming from underwater, somewhere far away. " 'm tired, Laura. Hurts."
"You stay here with me, Kevin Collins, you do not fall asleep, do you understand me? I am going to call the hospital and tell them to check the parking garage to look for you. They'll find you and I will stay right here with you until they do. You don't have to be strong without me anymore, okay?"
Laura didn't know what she said on the phone or who she spoke to or but she used Kevin's house phone to dial the main number for General Hospital and somehow made herself clear that they had a critically injured employee on level five of the parking garage they needed to find immediately. Then she went right back to Kevin.
"N-no!" On his side of the phone line, Kevin was gasping for every breath and coughing up significant amounts of blood every time he talked more than one word at a time, but he didn't want Laura to hang up. He wasn't sure anymore that he would make it for however long it took them to find him. "Please…'tay here...don' - me."
Kevin's tone was sluggish and his words mushy and garbled but that only made Laura grip the phone even tighter and opened up a fresh floodgate of tears. "No, oh, Kevin, no, honey, I'm not leaving you, I'm not hanging up. I'm right here. I'm right here with you. Focus on my voice, try and do that, please. They're looking for you. I'm here, I'm not leaving you by yourself. Hang on for a few more minutes, okay?"
She waited with bated breath for what seemed like an eternity listening to Kevin's wheezing breathing and his intermittent coughing. Kevin wasn't talking to her anymore.
Laura thought she'd fall to the floor in elation and relief when she heard voices in the background - Monica Quartermaine yelling at someone to get him on a gurney carefully and Elizabeth's terrified-sounding 'Dr. Collins!' She heard rumbling in the background and a hurried 'We've got him, Laura' from Elizabeth once she picked up the phone.
"Can I tell him something before you take him?" Laura whimpered into the phone and held the device in her hand even tighter as if the phone would be able to tether her to Kevin and she would be able to telekinetically pass some of her strength to him. "Please?"
But they had already taken him and the flat dial tone was the only thing she heard now. Laura threw the phone across the room and clumsily wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
Laura didn't remember calling Lulu but it wasn't five minutes after she had left Kevin in the trust of Monica, Elizabeth and the rest of the staff of General Hospital that she heard police sirens in the distance and soon after there was a hurried knock at the apartment door. Laura opened the door to her daughter telling her to come with her, she had Nathan with her and they would give her an express-ride to the hospital.
Laura Spencer was well acquainted with terror, unfortunately - when Luke raped her at the Campus Disco, those first couple of months after Stavros Cassadine had kidnapped her and forced her to bear his child, when Helena Cassadine had told her Luke was dead and she resigned herself to being held captive on that island, when saving her toddler daughter's life meant seeking out her firstborn son for a blood transfusion and hurting her marriage in the process, when she spent most of Lulu's teenagehood in and out of psychiatric institutions -, she knew what it was like to be afraid of her future.
Because in all of those examples, her future and her happiness was controlled by someone else, not herself. And now Kevin's health wasn't in Laura's control, either, and she couldn't think of anything in her previous experiences that would have prepared her for this.
The ride in the police car from Kevin's apartment to the front doors of General Hospital seemed to happen while Laura was on autopilot, she didn't remember it at all. What she did remember was how Elizabeth's terrified scream echoed over and over again in her mind and her mind kept forming theories, each more terrifying than the last, about the state of Kevin's injuries to elicit that type of scream.
The part of her brain that still functioned at a non terrified-with-emotion level had known that by the time she and Lulu got to the hospital Kevin would either be in an observation room or in surgery and she wouldn't be able to see him, but the second Laura got off the elevator of the emergency room floor she went charging for the nurses' station. "Kevin Collins, is he in surgery? How badly is he hurt?"
Laura didn't immediately recognize the nurse at the front desk, which surprised her. Considering she'd visited Kevin at the hospital enough times in the last two months to be on a casual-acquaintance basis with most of the nurses on staff and of course Maxie's video had done its rounds all over the hospital more than once. "And you are?"
"Laura Spencer, I'm -"
" - she's his girlfriend and she's the one that told me to call this hospital so your staff could go out to the parking lot and find your employee before he bled out!" Lulu interrupted her mother. She pounded on the desk inches away from where the nurse was signing off on some charts. "Not only is she his girlfriend, but she loves him very much. I suggest you tell the three of us where Kevin Collins is immediately, unless you want my mother to convince him to sue this hospital because he was attacked on hospital property."
Nikolas put a comforting hand on his sister's shoulder. "Stand down, Lu," he muttered under his breath. "Mom's upset as it is without your histrionics adding to it." He flashed his most charming smile at the unfamiliar nurse and took a closer look at her name tag. "Veronica, is it? Pretty name for a beautiful woman. All we want to know is if Kevin Collins is in surgery and what his immediate prognosis looks like. If Elizabeth Webber isn't busy at the moment, we'd like to speak to her as well." He wrapped his other hand around his mother's. "Elizabeth called me. And then Lulu called me," he murmured by way of explanation, but Laura didn't care. She was just grateful they were both there with her, she couldn't do this alone right now.
The nurse picked up another chart and didn't look impressed with Nikolas. "This is an emergency room with multiple critical patients, sir, our nurses are busy all the time. And unless you are family I'm not going to be able to tell you about whether any specific patient is in surgery."
Lulu opened her mouth right away to protest some more and this time she would invoke Tracy Quartermaine's name as a board member of this hospital, but as soon as she saw Elizabeth Webber coming down the hall she shrugged Nikolas' hand away from her shoulder and decided to go straight to the source.
Lulu spoke in hushed tones to Elizabeth for a few minutes, or at least something Lulu thought passed for hushed tones, and after Elizabeth set down her current chart Lulu led the nurse to the waiting room. Nikolas had already taken Laura to the section of the floor that doubled as a waiting area and already was sitting beside her in the always-uncomfortable hospital chairs and Lulu quickly squeezed past Elizabeth to slide into the chair on the other side of her mother. Nikolas and Lulu held to each of Laura's hands and Nikolas glanced at Elizabeth with a guarded, you-better-not-upset-my-mother look on his face. Elizabeth nodded at Nikolas and took a seat on the edge of the table in front of Laura.
"Dr. Collins…" One look at Laura's tear-streaked face and Elizabeth quickly amended how she referred to the patient. "Kevin is in surgery, Laura, and we're looking at a best case scenario that he will be in surgery for the next three to four hours. He suffered multiple stab wounds to his stomach, three to his chest and one to the side of his neck. The one to the side of his neck was superficial, thankfully, and that's a good thing because the intent of whoever attacked him was to hurt him, not to kill him. The hit to the back of the head and the kick to the side of the head both concern us and we're monitoring his brain function closely. His broken ankle is the least of our worries, considering everything else, but - " Elizabeth stopped abruptly when Nikolas meaningfully shook his head no at her over Laura's head. Elizabeth softened her tone and reached for Laura's hand. Lulu glanced at Nikolas but dropped her mama's hand and allowed her to hold Elizabeth's.
"Laura," Elizabeth said firmly. "I need to make sure that you know that you saved Kevin's life. You did everything right. He's got very serious injuries but ultimately he's going to be fine, and that's because of you. I also wanted to make sure you knew that he knows you're here. He regained consciousness for a few minutes while we were taking him into the OR. I told him that you were here and that you were waiting for him, and you'd be there after he got out of surgery, and he squeezed my hand." Elizabeth patted Laura's hand and handed her a tissue from the box Lulu had helpfully swiped from the nurses' station. "Kevin knows you're here, Laura," she murmured softly. "He went under anesthesia knowing his girlfriend was here waiting for him."
Laura shredded the kleenex in between her fingers just to give herself something to do. "Thanks," she whispered. "Thank you for telling me that. I'm - I'm glad he knows I'm here. I'll be here - as long as it takes." Elizabeth quickly handed her a new tissue for her to blow her nose, and another to wipe her eyes. "Not that I don't appreciate you talking to me, but I'd rather you be in that operating room with him."
Elizabeth nodded at Nikolas and Lulu and gave Laura a sad little smile as both Nikolas and Lulu immediately went back to doing whatever it was they could to comfort their mother. "If I can't come back, I'll send someone to talk to you at the first available opportunity. If it's not me, it will be someone that knows you." She stood from the table and walked away.
Lulu tracked Elizabeth's movements with her eyes and quietly whispered to her mom that she wanted to go call Dante and tell him where she was. (She didn't think it necessary to tell her mom that Dante or other officers from the PCPD were probably already spread out in the parking garage marking off the scene and collecting evidence). Nikolas stayed focused on his mother and didn't allow her to watch as Lulu quickly started to follow Elizabeth.
Lulu jogged and caught up to Elizabeth within seconds. "Elizabeth, can we talk for a second?" She started to talk without even waiting for the nurse to respond, glancing back for half a second to where Nikolas sat with their mother. "I appreciate you promising my mother updates on Kevin's condition, but please, will you make sure Nikolas or I are with her when you or your colleagues talk to her? I don't know how badly Kevin is hurt and we don't want her to be alone."
Elizabeth forced a smile onto her face. Lulu's heart was in the right place but Laura wouldn't appreciate being placated like this if she knew Lulu was running interference on something as critical as Kevin's health. "I care about your mother as much as you, Nikolas and Lucky do," she said matter-of-factly. "Kevin was brutally attacked tonight and to be frank, it's miraculous he survived all of his stab wounds and blood loss long enough to make it to surgery. I'm not going to sugarcoat that for your mom and I'm not going to pick and choose what I tell her."
"I wasn't asking you to sugarcoat anything, Elizabeth, I was just asking…"
Elizabeth was already walking down the hall and away from Lulu. "I have other patients I need to check on before I can go back to Kevin. But someone will be out to talk to Laura and the two of you as soon as we're at a place where we know anything more, I promise you that."
The next time they saw Elizabeth wasn't until four hours later.
Lulu had indeed finally spoken to Dante who, like she had first thought, was down in the parking garage with Detective West and other officers from the PCPD attempting to make sense of the scene and collect whatever evidence they could. On orders from Commissioner Ashford, Dante and Nathan had spoken to Laura for ten minutes to find out what if anything she knew about Kevin's attack or who if anyone might want to hurt him, but cut the interview short because they were obviously upsetting her, plus Lulu was glaring at Dante in a way that meant if he valued sleeping in their bed and not the couch he better wrap this up. Nikolas had long since made his own phone call to check on Spencer and see to it that he was fine at his friend's house for the time being. He kept his explanation to Spencer short, saying only that Grandmother's friend was hurt and they had to check on him.
Laura hardly knew what to do with herself for all of that time. She wasn't the most patient person to begin with and it had been years since she had been in this position, to have to wait in a hospital for news about someone she cared about. It wasn't even until somewhere between the first and second hour of waiting that Laura realized she had somehow brought with her to the hospital the green nightshirt she wore last night, the shirt Kevin had let her wear and made his eyes go so dark and wanting when he saw her in that shirt and nothing else, and that realization made the cold hand that had been squeezing her heart ever since she heard Kevin's weak and completely-unlike-him voice telling her he was hurt clamp down on her heart even tighter. Tonight was supposed to have been the night she and Kevin made love for the first time but here she was in the waiting room of GH waiting for word on if he lived or died.
It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. This was supposed to have been their night, damnit. And then she felt horribly guilty not to mention like the world's worst girlfriend for being disappointed they hadn't been able to have sex that night when Kevin had been stabbed and smashed in the head and had been in surgery for hours.
As luck would have had it, Laura was coming back from the restroom when she saw Elizabeth talking to Lulu and Nikolas so she quickly dropped her half-drunken plastic cup of hospital coffee in the nearest trash can and hurried back. If Elizabeth was here that must mean she had some updates about Kevin.
The three of them were clearly in the middle of a hushed conversation and didn't notice Laura at first. " - would you rather I have told her the truth, that Kevin was unconscious when we found him and never regained consciousness? He was hit in the back of the head, kicked in the side of the head at close distance and the stab wound to his chest was millimeters from his heart. Him not regaining consciousness wasn't a surprise, it's a miracle he was coherent for as long as he was. Excuse me for wanting to give your mother some hope." Elizabeth lowered her voice even more. "It's better for Kevin that Laura think he was thinking about her. Sometimes the power of positive thinking does more for patients than medicine ever could."
Laura cleared her throat before Elizabeth could say more and dig her grave even further. "If you are out here talking to Nikolas and Lulu about how you lied to me that Kevin woke up, and he in fact never regained consciousness after I hung up the phone with him, that must mean Kevin is out of surgery. Where is he? How is he? Don't lie to me this time, please."
Elizabeth straightened her shoulders and braced herself to be the bearer of bad news. Which wouldn't be pleasant considering Laura was ticked off at her now, for understandable reasons. "He's still in surgery, I just was coming out here to give you an update. There were unforeseen circumstances and some complications that we're - "
"Tell me about them," Laura interrupted. "Tell me what's happening to him." She saw Elizabeth's eyes shift towards Nikolas and stepped forward. "No. You don't look at my son or my daughter for permission, you look at me. Tell. Me. About. Kevin."
Elizabeth nodded and indicated to the chairs for her to sit, but Laura understood well by now what sitting represented and calmly and firmly told Elizabeth that she would stand, thank you very much, and she wanted to know about Kevin right now and didn't appreciate Elizabeth or her children working together to withhold information from her.
Elizabeth sighed and held a chart - Kevin's chart - to her chest. She knew his injuries, prognosis, and step-by-step treatment plan with contingencies for any setback in his recovery by heart and Laura looked like she very much wanted to set her on fire if she didn't start saying words immediately. "There were complications during the first part of the surgery. His stomach acid levels were high enough that it already started to perforate the lining of his gut and flood into his abdominal cavity. We had to re-inflate his right lung that collapsed. The doctors are doing everything they can, Laura, please trust me. And Kevin's fighting, believe you me, I know he's fighting to come back. So far, despite all of his injuries, he's been very lucky."
Laura swallowed and blinked and crossed her arms in what Lulu and Lucky still always referred to as her self-preservation stance. "He's been lucky," she echoed dully, a fresh batch of tears pooling in her eyes. Lulu rested her chin on her shoulder and Laura almost jumped in surprise, honestly having forgotten Lulu and Nikolas were still there. "I don't think Kevin would call any of this him being lucky, Elizabeth."
"He is, Laura. Nine stab wounds and none of them hit any major arteries or blood vessels. The most severe stab wound to his chest missed the pericardial sac by a couple of millimeters, if that."
Laura swallowed again at the thought of how small a millimeter really was and how Kevin could have died without ever making it inside to the hospital if even one of the stab wounds had punctured him differently. "Should - should Lucy be here?" she heard herself whisper. "Should someone tell her what happened? I, um, Kevin and I have only been together for three months, it - it wouldn't be my place to tell Christina about this." She wiped clumsily at her eyes and all of a sudden let out a sharp, on-the-edge-of-hysterical laugh. "No, I can't even do that. I don't think I even know Lucy's phone number. For the love of God!"
Lulu and Nikolas exchanged a glance over their mother's head and Lulu lifted her chin from her mom's shoulder and squeezed her hand. "Let me go get you another cup of coffee, mom, you hardly drank the first one," she murmured. "You haven't eaten tonight either, do you want something from the vending machine?"
Laura shook her head. "The last thing I need is to be more caffeinated, honey. And I'm not hungry."
She pretended not to notice Lulu and Nikolas exchange another longer and more meaningful look. The way they seemed to be having an entire conversation about her without talking out loud. "Tea, then," Lulu offered. "I'm not talking about a three course meal here, mama, just something from the vending machine. You won't be able to do anything to help Kevin's recovery if you pass out because you haven't eaten in -"
"It's been five hours, Lulu," Laura interjected, an edge of sharpness in her voice when she talked to either of her children for the first time since they'd gotten here. "I will not starve in five hours. And this is a hospital, they don't have tea."
"The doctor's lounge has tea. Elizabeth will let me in and I'll make you some. Won't you, Elizabeth?" Elizabeth hesitated and nodded when Lulu nudged her in the ribs. "Then I will go down to the cafeteria and get you a sandwich and a big bag of chips and Nikolas and I are going to sit here and watch you until you eat at least half."
"If you want to," Laura shrugged. Lulu went back to the chairs to retrieve her purse and headed for the elevators to go to the cafeteria, murmuring to Nik to keep an eye on mom and get Elizabeth to make mom some tea. Nikolas half-heartedly hit his sister on the shoulder for the second request but agreed. Lulu sounded like she was going to be more than okay with staying the entire night with mom at the hospital if that was what it took and so he could go back to Wyndemere once Lulu returned from the cafeteria. Lulu turned back at the sound of her mother's voice. "Turkey, please," she said quietly. "I want a turkey sandwich on rye bread with no mayo and extra mustard."
Elizabeth purposefully scurried off to the direction of the doctor's lounge to make Laura some tea so she wouldn't have to meet Laura's gaze and admit to her that she knew exactly why Laura had ordered what she had ordered - that turkey on rye with no mayo and extra mustard was Kevin's go-to sandwich.
Elizabeth was back in five minutes with the tea, even going as far as to use a napkin as a makeshift coaster, and she and Nikolas got Laura settled back into the waiting room chairs. She offered the two of them as well as Lulu when she got back with the food an on-call room to have a little degree of privacy or they could go sit in the doctor's lounge, but Laura shook her head to both. If a doctor or nurse that wasn't Elizabeth came out with updates on Kevin she wanted that person to be able to find her quickly.
Laura took a tiny sip of the tea at Nikolas' insistence and mostly so he and Lulu would stop their dual-hovering over her, and was pleasantly surprised at how good she found it. Maybe she really was thirsty. Hungry, too. She set her tea back down on the table and looked at Elizabeth. "Thank you for continuing to update me about Kevin," she murmured. "I feel like you could get in trouble for everything that you've told me. I'm not - I'm not his family."
If Lulu had been there she would have been the only one to notice Laura's voice almost crack when she admitted that she wasn't his family and had no legal right to know anything about his care.
"If by that you mean you don't have his ring on your finger or his last name that's just a matter of time." Elizabeth's voice softened. "Maybe you aren't his family in that sense, but everyone in this hospital knows how important you are to him. Your daughter's friend's little video saw to that." Laura's cheeks flushed with color and her mouth curved upward into a tiny smile. It wasn't quite a laugh but it was close. Elizabeth scooted backwards as Lulu returned all of a sudden with two turkey sandwiches and a large bag of chips and handed one to her mother and told her they could share the chips. Elizabeth waited for Lulu to sit down and reached across the table to pat Laura's hand. "Laura, Kevin would want you to know everything about his care. I know that for a fact. He cares about you very much and I also know it for a fact that you are the first face he'll want to see when he wakes up."
Laura took the sandwich that Lulu had unwrapped for her and took a bite. It was cold and wasn't the best-tasting sandwich in the first place but if it was Kevin's favorite she would eat it. "You said there were complications."
"I said there were complications but the doctors were getting it all under control, and he should be out of surgery in a few hours. When he gets out of surgery he's going to be taken to intensive care and you'll be able to see him when the nurses up there say he's allowed a visitor. I'll clear it with the nurses on the floor to see that you're allowed in without trouble, and you might even be able to stay the night if you wanted."
Lulu hesitated the slightest bit at that particular suggestion of Elizabeth's but nodded encouragingly at her mother.
Elizabeth waited respectfully until Laura's attention was back on her before she continued. "I better get back. We think his surgery should be two more hours but that's best case scenario and I'll come back to let you know if anything changes. You are more than welcome to stay down here or I can have Felix take you to the intensive care floor and let you get acclimated to that floor because that's where Kevin ultimately will be."
"But right now Kevin is still on this floor," Laura murmured. "I want to be on whatever floor he's on."
Elizabeth nodded even though she already had a feeling that was what Laura would have said. That wherever Kevin was was where Laura wanted to be, even if he was unconscious on an operating table and didn't know she was there. Kevin and Laura might have only been dating for three months, but clearly whatever had brought them together had started so much earlier than their first date. She might just win her bet after all.
"And you still didn't tell me what to do about Lucy and Christina," Laura continued, setting her sandwich back down and picking at one of the stray pieces of turkey that had escaped its bread. She turned to Lulu and sniffled and Lulu was taken aback at the unchecked emotion in her mother's eyes, the emotion that had been there all night and was permanently on the edge of spilling over. "Kevin and Lucy...don't have the best relationship anymore, haven't since even before their divorce, really, but - she's still his ex-wife and his daughter's mother. If I were in her shoes I'd want to know."
Lulu's gaze shifted to the left of her mother. Laura was seriously getting tired of Lulu and Nikolas having silent conversations about her when she was right there and still perfectly sane. "That would probably be your call, mama," Lulu said hesitantly, quietly. "You know Kevin and his relationship with Lucy better than we do. If their divorce wasn't a good one and they don't talk anymore, then - "
"I mean, no matter the problems I had with your father, Lulu, I'd want to know if he was hurt and on the verge of death, if for no other reason then you and your brother could say goodbye to him."
"Now, my father on the other hand..." Nikolas interjected.
Laura wiped her mouth with a napkin and grinned. "I'm sorry, Nikolas, but your father could have died a painful death alone in a rat-infested bedroom for all I care. You are better off without him." It was the first time she'd laughed all night.
Nikolas subtly reached for his phone and typed a quick, short message to Lulu when their mom wasn't looking. You're good to stay with her, right? Lulu looked at him and nodded and Nikolas stood up from his chair. "I'm going to go home, Mother, but call me if you need me or if anything changes with Kevin. There's some emergency business I need to attend to. If I don't see you at Wyndemere tonight I'll see you in the morning." He kissed Laura on the cheek and bent down to give her a hug, holding her for a few seconds more than was usual to try and reassure her that everything would work out the way it was supposed to and Kevin would make it through his surgery. He waved to both Elizabeth and Lulu and headed for the elevators.
Nikolas waited until he was safe behind the closed door of the elevator before he looked at his phone again and pulled up a most-recent text from Lulu. See what you can find out from Dante. If someone hurt Kevin on purpose, for Mom's sake we need to find out who attacked him. Nikolas pushed the button for the parking garage.
Dante was family, a good guy. Good enough for his little sister, at least. Dante would tell him what the PCPD had learned so far. And if he wouldn't, what good was the Cassadine name if Nikolas couldn't use it to get information he wanted?
The next two and a half hours were torture for Laura, she could have sworn the second-hand on the clock took forever to change from one minute to the next. At some point Lulu disappeared into the doctor's lounge and returned with a deck of cards and had made quick work of dealing out an arrangement of solitaire for her mom, ordering her to play. Laura tried to concentrate on the cards and lasted for an entire ten minutes, until she found herself staring at the upturned cards already in play and couldn't for the life of her remember what was the next card in order that was allowed to be played on a red six.
Laura forced herself to finish all of the turkey sandwich. It was Kevin's favorite and he would be so disappointed in her if she didn't eat both halves. She found herself blinking back tears when Lulu wasn't looking and wished more than anything that Kevin was awake so she could split the damn sandwich with him. The chips were actually ones she liked, but she would have let him have the entire bag without question if he would get out of surgery soon and wake up fine. She'd go back to the vending machine and buy him as many as he wanted.
Every ten minutes Laura would pick up her phone and write an important but purposefully vague text for Christina, delete everything she had written, start over again with new ways of telling her that her dad was hurt, then delete it all. She'd put her phone back in her purse and wait for the next ten minutes, where she'd repeat the same process. It kept her sane, weirdly enough, being able to focus on Kevin's daughter instead of herself helped.
She didn't have the authority to be the one to tell Christina her father had been attacked. Partly because she knew Kevin and knew he wouldn't want Christina to be worried and jump on the first flight out of Paris to New York, but also because Kevin's daughter had a perfectly suitable mother. Perfectly suitable hadn't been the words Lucy had used. Lucy had cornered Laura in the hospital one morning when she'd come to visit Kevin and had been very clear that she was Christina's mother and Laura wasn't to interfere or else she'd be forced to speak to Kevin some more - in person. Which she was allowed to do any time she pleased and Laura couldn't say diddly-squat about it. Because she was his ex-wife and his child's mother. Laura hadn't been entirely proud of the way she'd reacted, how she'd pushed not-entirely-accidentally past Lucy and snapped that whatever type of relationship Kevin saw fit for her and Christina to have was the type of relationship they would have, and she would abide by his parameters until told differently or until she and Kevin became more serious, whichever came first. Lucy didn't scare her.
But she couldn't lie, she had been a little bit proud of the way Lucy's eyes flickered and dimmed ever so slightly at the idea of Laura and Kevin getting serious.
Lulu finished the discarded solitaire game, Laura shooting her daughter a happy but clearly distracted smile when she won, and Lulu had just started to deal out the cards in a new game that both of them could play when Elizabeth appeared.
Lulu was so surprised at the nurse's sudden presence that she dropped a quarter of the cards on the floor and didn't move to pick them up. Laura didn't tell her to. She immediately shoved her phone back in her purse and forgot all about worrying about Christina and Lucy. "Elizabeth," Laura said urgently. "What's going on?"
Elizabeth was standing in front of both Laura and Lulu and Lulu was the first to notice that for the first time in hours she was smiling. "Kevin made it through surgery and is being transferred to the intensive care unit. We don't expect him to wake up for another hour and the doctors prescribed him a few heavy-duty pain medications so he'll be out of it even when he does regain consciousness - meaning don't attempt any meaningful conversation - but -"
Elizabeth was stopped from saying the rest of her speech when Laura stood up from her chair and wrapped her in a tight hug. The stress of the night, the worry, the confusion, the helplessness, all the emotions she had tried so hard to keep down for the last five-and-a-half hours seemed to come rushing all at once to overwhelm her and Laura fought to control herself and not fall to pieces like a sobbing mess all over her former daughter-in-law. Her own feelings could wait until tomorrow, when Kevin had talked to her and felt more like himself and they both could hear it for themselves from his team of doctors that he would be okay. Then she could go to one of the bathrooms on the intensive care floor and let it all out. But not in front of Kevin and not until she knew for a medical fact he had beaten all of his injuries. Not a minute before.
It was all about Kevin right now, would be for the foreseeable future until she was holding his hand and able to look into his brown eyes and tell him how much she loved him. He'd say it back. And then she could cry.