"Hey there," Cheryl greeted Emily, walking into Matt's room, knowing she'd find her there.
"Hi." She was sitting in her chair, holding Matt's hand, just as she had been when Cheryl left on Monday.
"How is he?" She was almost afraid to ask, afraid he'd be worse, afraid there was no change, afraid that Emily couldn't take much more of the waiting.
"The same. The doctors don't say much anymore. They don't check on him too much either." Her voice seemed distant, as if she'd floated away from this place, and left nothing but an empty shell with a voice box.
"Everyone in LA is pulling for him. I guess you already got the cards an flowers." She looked around and noticed the flora decorating the room, and cards among them.
"Yeah, nurses had to use a cart just for our rooms. How is LA?" Cheryl had spent the previous day in her CNU, checking that everything was still as it should be.
"Unchanged in any way, shape or form. Temple and Binder have been busy, not that they mind, they get to ignore their paperwork." With only one set of negotiators in the office, new cases took precedence over finishing paperwork.
"Washington still making noise?"
"Well, now that the press quieted a bit down here, Washington has quieted a bit. You know, it isn't a problem unless people actually know about it." When Emily made no comment, Cheryl spoke again, "Lia's been asking about you, she'll probably be down Friday."
"I'll look forward to it."
"How have you been?"
Emily didn't make a move to answer for several silent minutes, and then her words were a soft question. "Do you know what we talked about before this happened?"
"No, what's that?" She didn't need to ask who we was, or what this was, Emily's unwavering gaze on Matt made that pretty clear.
"Kids, we talked about having kids."
Cheryl was taken aback, they hadn't even really been dating that long, and they were talking about kids already? They weren't even married.
"Yeah, Donovan was asking Matt why he didn't have kids yet, and said if he found the right woman he should marry her and get working on that."
"And Matt said he found the right woman."
Emily cocked her head to the side, surprised Cheryl didn't even question her assumption.
"I know Matt, I can tell when he's serious about someone."
That seemed to be good enough for Emily, "Yeah, he did, and Donovan gave this wonderfully graphic description of childbirth…I can only imagine our faces at that moment." She laughed lightly at that.
"Oh yeah, they were that good?"
"We both had the same image in our heads when he said that, me having a baby. If they'd been there to see us, Frank and Duff would have pissed themselves laughing."
"That would be a sight, two open-mouthed negotiators, and two HRT agents rolling on the floor laughing."
"Yeah, and Lia squealing back in the IA room." She gave a small grin, enjoying the thought.
"So, how did you two manage to get past that?"
"We agreed to talk about it back in LA and focus on the negotiation. Didn't really work though, so we just said what was in our heads. Matt said he meant everything, but that we could take it slow for me." She closed her eyes at this point, guilt evident in her face.
"And what did you say?" Cheryl could sense that this was the part that was bothering her.
"I told him I wasn't ready for any of it, but I did care about him." She hung her head again, small pearls of tears forming in her eyes.
"It's okay Emily, Matt will give you all the time you need."
Her head flew up from looking at her feet. "I wish I hadn't told him that."
"Why?"
"I don't just care about him, I love him. And I'd say to hell with needing time if he'd just open his eyes. I'd marry him today and be pregnant by next week, if he'd just open his damned eyes." Emily barely got the sentence out, dissolving in tears after the last word.
Cheryl pulled her chair closer, and embraced her friend, allowing her to cry on her shoulder. She was right, Emily couldn't cope with much more of this waiting, not while the rest of her world was crashing down around her.
Emily must have sat there crying for over twenty minutes, when a young man entered, looking around. He cleared his throat and looked painfully uncomfortable at the sight of the women in front of him.
"Can I help you?" Cheryl asked unkindly.
"Yeah, I'm looking for Mathew Flannery?" He told them, reading the paper in his hand.
"You're looking at him. Who are you?"
"I'm a courier for-"
"Oh let me guess," Emily cut him off, speaking in a nasty tone, "Sanders, Rush, and Brenner?"
"Yes ma'am." He noticed her wheelchair for the first time, "are you Emily Lehman?"
"Yes, I am. What do those attorneys want now?"
"I'm just to drop these off for you and Mr. Flannery." He handed her the form to sign.
She signed for both of them, taking the folded documents in his hands, and waiting until he left to open one.
"Oh," she blurted out, reading through the papers.
"Oh what? What's it about?" Cheryl asked nervously.
"Patricia Evans is dropping out of the suit," She said, mouth stuck open in shock. The woman who'd lost her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson had dropped out of suing them. That meant that they were now only being sued for two deaths.
"Does it say why?"
"No, it just says that she dropped out, but the other parties still plan on going through with the suit." She handed Cheryl the paper, desperately needing a minute to make herself believe what she read.
Cheryl didn't have time to comment, as the woman in question made an appearance at the doorway to Matt's room.
"Mrs. Evans, what can I do for you?" Emily asked her quickly, startled by her sudden appearance.
"I see you got the notice from the lawyers."
"Yes, I did, thank you."
"Don't thank me, it was the right thing to do."
"Thank you for seeing that then."
"Can I just ask you one thing?"
"Of course, go ahead." Emily would eagerly accommodate the women's request after what she did.
"You did everything in your power to get my family out of there alive?"
"Yes, we did. I would give anything for it to have gone down differently, but there is no way we could have predicted the sudden change in the hostages takers." The part of her speaking the words knew them to be true, but another part of Emily didn't really believe what she was saying.
"Thank you…" Mrs. Evans trailed off, lost in thought, her gaze eventually landing on Matt. "Is he going to make it?"
Emily was taken aback by the bluntness of the question. "I, I don't know. The doctors don't know."
"I'll pray for him," she told them, before leaving as abruptly as she'd come in.
Emily and Cheryl were left blinking in surprise until seconds later Abby came in, looking behind her at the older woman passing her.
"Who was that woman?" She was pretty sure Matt's father said his wife was dead.
"One of the people suing us. Or at least she was," Emily told her sister.
"She dropped the suit?"
"Yeah, she said it was the right thing to do." She still wasn't sure what to make of it.
"At least one of those people has sense," Abby said bitterly.
"They're angry Abby. They just want someone to blame for their family members' deaths."
"Yeah well, those people are already dead."
"Which is why they want to come after us."
"It's still not right Em. You've suffered enough." She glanced at Matt, and back to her sister, wordlessly expressing how she suffered.
"He's not dead yet," Emily told her sister unkindly, giving Matt's hand a squeeze, as if to somehow tell him she knew he'd wake up.
"Sweetie, you know that's not what I meant. Whether he dies or not, this is still hurting you, badly." She looked to Cheryl to confirm her point. Cheryl nodded at them, agreeing, though she'd been silent since Mrs. Evans stopped by.
"I'm sorry, I'm just worried," Emily shook her head tiredly.
"Maybe it would be a good idea to get you out of this hospital for a little while." Emily had barely left since she got there, and surprising them all, hadn't whined to leave. She didn't want to get better while Matt was still the same; her recovering made his lack of one all the more real.
"I don't want to go to far incase he wakes up," she answered, before her eyes widened in alarm and she gasped.
"What wrong?" Cheryl demanded coming closer, Abby not far behind.
"He-he just squeezed my hand," she stuttered, afraid to hope. She leapt from her chair, studying Matt, as Cheryl hit the call button to bring the nurse in.
"You really felt him squeeze your hand?" Abby asked in disbelief
"Yes, yes, I felt his grip tighten on my hand." She squeezed his hand back, hoping he'd repeat his earlier gesture.
"What can I do for you ladies?" Betty smiled at the familiar group.
"He moved Betty, he squeezed my hand," Emily told her almost frantically.
"Really? I'll be right back with the doctor." She rushed out to retrieve Matt's doctor, returning only minutes later.
"So Matt here moved?" Dr. Miguel Bernhardt asked.
"Yes, he squeezed my hand a few minutes ago, after I squeezed his," Emily explained for the umpteenth time.
"Alright, if you ladies step back, I'll just have a look. His left hand?" Emily nodded. Moving back, one hand bracing herself on her chair. Abby wrapped an arm around her sister, supporting her emotionally and physically. Cheryl watched with a nervous hand over her mouth.
Dr. Bernhardt performed a short series of diagnostic checks, and studied the printout from Matt's EKG machine. His face betrayed very little, falling into the impenetrable mask all doctors learn to wear. He finally finished and turned to them.
"Emily, you're sure you felt him touch you?" He was beyond the point of using formality with her; Emily Lehman was in his patient's room constantly, he'd become very familiar with her.
"Yes I am. You don't believe me?" The hand that wasn't gripping the arm of her chair was gripping her sister's arm, and began to grip harder as she got increasingly nervous.
"No it isn't that. I just wanted to be sure."
"Okay, so what does it mean?"
"At this time, it means nothing. I've examined him and everything is the same, and his EKG shows no added activity."
"But, he held my hand, it has to mean something," she insisted in disbelief.
"Sometimes it happens. It could mean something Emily, but it's also likely that it's nothing. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I don't want you to get your hopes up for nothing."
She nodded at him, her eyes blank, already lost in her reeling mind. He offered them a sad look, before leaving to tend to his next patient, a happy case than this one.
The tears started dripping down her face, before she had the chance to stop them. Abby wrapped her other arm around her, her gut aching for her sister. Emily held onto her sister, the disappointment, fear, worry, pain, and guilt weighing too hard for her to manage it alone any longer.
Sorry this has taken so long to get up, work and other stories are keeping me busy. I think I'm aiming for two or three chapters with this one, hopefully to be done by August. Thank you for sticking with the story, reading, and reviewing!