Let Me Hold You

Chapter 12

He kept nodding off in a chair at her bedside but every time he did images of seeing her in the ambulance flooded his mind and he'd jerk awake, afraid to sleep, terrified to keep seeing her that way, swollen and bloody, her pretty pink dress torn and dirty. She now lay in a hospital bed in the intensive care unit, peacefully, cleaned up and bandaged, in a medically induced coma due to the extent of her injuries. On arrival to the hospital, her mother and sister had been notified and were also in the room on the other side of her bed. They had the lights down low and the only sounds were the beeping, the incessant beeping, of the monitors.

Once she was examined fully at the hospital, it was found that she had a broken collarbone, multiple broken ribs, her right wrist and ankle were broken, and there was damage to her neck, though they wouldn't know for sure the extent until she woke up. The fear was paralysis. The doctors told Sam and her mother and sister that she was extremely lucky to have survived the impact; the other driver collided with her car mere inches behind her driver's seat, nearly tearing her car in half. The impact had set off her airbags, causing swelling to her face but likely reducing the amount of injuries. Her car had rolled over, witnesses said. The other driver had been ejected from his truck and died on impact. It was later found out he was drunk and had run the stop sign at an excessive rate of speed. They had taken Quinn to surgery immediately, fearing she was losing blood internally. A broken rib had lacerated her spleen and it had to be removed. She had a lung contusion but otherwise miraculously escaped other internal injuries. After surgery, they left her sedated and on a ventilator. Those first few hours after getting to the hospital were a blur to Sam; he never could really recall what happened...he just knew he wound up sitting at her bedside and that was where he was staying until she opened her eyes.

He had handed over her purse and phone to her mother. The nurses had removed all her clothing and jewelry; Sam held the heart necklace in his hand as he watched over her. He wasn't even sure how their friends found out but soon the nurses whispered to him that they were in the waiting room if he wanted to see them. He told the nurse to tell them maybe later, he wasn't leaving her side.

When he'd jolt awake from another nightmare, he'd touch her hand, sometimes hold it in his, praying to God to heal her.

xxxxx

For three days, he sat next to her, only getting up to go to the bathroom. The nurses brought him things to eat and drink but he had no appetite. Quinn's mother told him he could go to Artie's, get some sleep and change of clothes-he was still in his suit for the wedding, but he politely declined her offer. That was the day Rachel begged Quinn's sister to let her come see her. She had also been at the hospital, in the ICU waiting room, since hearing of the accident...convinced it was her fault that it had happened. Finn had brought her a change of clothes; their wedding had been postponed.

She slipped into Quinn's room quietly, struggling to hold back sobs. Sam turned in his chair and when she saw him it all burst forth. He jumped from his seat and hugged her.

"I'm so sorry, Sam, so sorry...this is all my fault..." Rachel cried in his arms.

"It's not, Rach...stop saying that...it's not your fault, okay? Please...don't cry...c'mere..." He sat her down in his seat. "Talk to her. I know she'd want to hear your voice."

He stood back and watched Rachel hold Quinn's hand. He could tell Rachel was trying to be in control but was still whimpering. It was too much for him to take, so he took a brief walk down the hall to the waiting room. Finn sat in there, along with Puck, both of them looking lost.

"Dude, you look like shit," Puck said when Sam entered the room. "You need to take a break. Sitting at her bedside 24/7 isn't helping her...it's only making you sick."

"Shut up, asswipe," Finn mumbled to Puck. To Sam, he said, "She's stable, right? Why don't I drive you to Artie's so you can shower and change clothes and maybe eat something?"

Sam sat down in a chair across from them, feeling defeated. He knew he needed to change out of the suit; he smelled. He knew he needed to eat. He knew he needed to get in the shower. The thought of leaving the hospital...oh my god, what if something happened to her while I'm gone?...concerned him most.

"Listen, Rach can stay here...I'll run ya home and bring ya right back...dude, it's for your own good," Finn said to him.

Sam ran his hands through his hair and felt how greasy and nasty it felt. Resignedly, he sighed and stood up. "Fine...take me home."

"How's she doing, Sam?" Puck asked him.

"Still the same...they said if they woke her up she'd be in a huge amount of pain...might take her off the vent in a day or so and she if she can breathe on her own," Sam said, suddenly very tired.

Puck looked him up and down. "She'll be okay, man. She's a fighter."

Sam nodded a bit. "Yeah, she is…"

They walked back to Quinn's room to tell her mom and Rachel where they were going. Sam gently kissed Quinn's cheek before leaving with Finn.

xxxxx

Finn took Sam to Artie's and told him he'd hang out with Artie while Sam showered and ate and took a nap or whatever.

"Gosh, Artie, I'm so sorry I haven't been here for you," Sam said apologetically when he and Finn walked in.

"Dude, it's okay. Sugar's been helping me and Mike and Tina have been dropping by too…it's all good here. How's Quinn?"

Sam kind of shook his head, sat down, and rubbed his temples. "I don't know, man…we just don't know."

Artie powered over to him and rubbed his shoulder, feeling how tense he was.

"You need to get some rest, Sam. You look awful. You don't want her waking up and seeing this the first thing, do ya?" Artie ruffled Sam's hair, causing Sam to chuckle a bit.

"You're right, I know, it's just, just so hard to leave her side…if something happens to her I don't know what I'll do," Sam mumbled.

"Nothing is going to happen to her. They're watching her closely and she's healing. You wouldn't want to see her lying there in pain. Go get a hot shower, Sugar made some chili, and then get some rest," Artie told him.

Sam sighed and thanked him and headed off to the shower.

The hot water felt better than anything he had known recently. He stood under the stream, bracing his body against the wall, and let the water pour down him. Thoughts of Quinn flooded his mind; he couldn't stop thinking about her. It was then that he all the emotions finally broke loose and he cried for her and what she had to endure, what she was going to have to endure. He questioned God and why would He let something that awful happen to her? No answers came, just the hot steam surrounding him. When the water started cooling, he stepped out and dried off, suddenly exhausted.

He put on some clean shorts and a t-shirt and wandered out to the kitchen to eat some of Sugar's chili. It might've been the best chili ever; he didn't taste any of it, though. After a bowl of that and a peanut butter sandwich, he crawled into his bed and crashed hard.

His dreams were full of Quinn. Mostly good dreams of her…making out in his car, their first time, the time recently when he made her get on top of him…gradually, though, the dreams turned to nightmares. He kept dreaming the same sequence over and over…driving up to the scene of her accident, seeing her in the ambulance…even as he dreamed, his subconscious tried to rouse him awake to make him stop dreaming those images.

A sudden rapping on his bedroom door finally pulled him from the restless sleep.

"Sam! Sam! C'mon man, get up! The hospital called…Quinn's waking up!" Finn was blabbering.

Sam sat up, still dazed from his nightmares.

"Whu? Waking up? Wait…she's waking up? Oh my god, you gotta get me back there!" he said, coming to.

xxxxx

Back at the hospital, Sam rushed to Quinn's ICU room. Her mother, sister, and Rachel were clustered around her bed, a nurse was fiddling with the monitors.

Sam pushed his way past Rachel and Frannie and was never so relieved to see Quinn's pretty green eyes looking at him, a smile on her lips.

"Quinn?" he whispered to her.

"Hi Sam," she said, her voice hoarse. He hadn't even realized…the mask on her face holding the ventilator tube in place was gone…she was awake and breathing on her own. He picked up her hand gently.

"I'm-I'm sorry I was gone…"

"S'okay…"

He didn't know what to say to her so he just stared at her. The nurse told them that Quinn's throat would be sore for awhile and they were monitoring her closely to make sure she was holding her own but that she had tolerated the extubation very well. The nurse also said she was still requiring major doses of pain medicine.

He felt a chair behind him and sat down automatically. Until she felt well enough to talk, he'd sit there with her. Her sister was gently stroking her hair, and her mother held her other hand.

"What happened?" she whispered.

They all looked at one another. No one wanted to be the one to explain the seriousness of the accident to her.

"I hurt…"

It crushed Sam when her face scrunched up and tears began to fall down her puffy cheeks. He stood up and kissed her cheek softly.

"You're gonna be okay, Quinn," he said to her quietly.

Quinn's mother spoke up. "You were in a car accident...on the way to Finn and Rachel's wedding..."

"Ohhh..."

"You have some serious injuries, Quinn, that's why you hurt. It happened several days ago," her mother continued quietly.

Quinn looked confused. The room was quiet while she processed that information.

"What happened…to me?" she finally asked.

Her mother told her not to worry about that now, that she was on the mend and it was going to take some time. Quinn still looked confused and sad to Sam. He would've given anything to take her place.

"Did Finn…and Rachel…married?"

"No, sweetie…they put it on hold," her mother replied.

"Quinny, don't wear yourself out. Just rest," her sister said.

Quinn slowly and somewhat painfully turned her head to look at Sam. She smiled weakly and drifted off to sleep.

xxxxx

She was watched the next couple days in the intensive care unit before being moved to a regular bed. It was on the "transitional unit," where people just coming off an extended ICU stay went. After the TU, she'd be moved to the progressive care unit and hopefully start physical and occupational therapy.

When they had finally told her the extent of her injuries, she cried. She told Sam she felt useless and in constant pain. She seemed to slip into a depression, and her mother and sister thought that maybe seeing her Glee Club friends would cheer her up. They weren't allowed to visit her while she was in the ICU but now that she had moved to the TU she could have more visitors. Quinn had this feeling that the doctors were keeping something from her, something important. She felt sort of empty for some reason, and she had no idea why. All she knew is it was a different sort of pain and emptiness compared to the rest of her injuries from the accident.

Quinn's mother spoke to Sam about getting the Glee Club together to come and visit her, and Sam instantly agreed, as both of them were extremely worried about Quinn.

Sam sent out a mass text to everyone in Glee, and 20 minutes later Sam was meeting them out in the waiting room.

"Okay, when you guys go in, don't say anything about the way she looks. She seems to be in a state of depression, and we thought that a visit from you guys could help cheer her up," Sam told the group before he led them to her room. Rachel had been the only person, besides him and her family, to have actually seen Quinn since the accident, so she knew but the others didn't. Sam didn't want them to say something about the accident that would upset Quinn further.

The group all agreed to keep away from that topic, and they were on their way. Sam opened Quinn's door after knocking and gave her a big smile. She smiled back at him, a smile sort of forced, but better than the ones that she had recently been giving to him and her mother.

Her smile widened when she saw the Glee Club. Sam silently cheered because so far the plan was working. This was the happiest Quinn had been in days.

"Sup MILF! How ya feeling babymama?" Puck asked. Sam rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything. He knew the two were close, and they had a weird relationship, but he also knew that that was all it was, a friendship.

"Hello to you too, Puckerman. I've been better, but something about getting slammed by a truck seems to do that to you!" Quinn joked back.

The group of teens chuckled at that. Same old Quinn it seemed, always trying to lighten up serious situations.

"If I didn't know any better Q, I'd say that you were never in a horrible accident and just had major surgery!" Santana joked. "But I am glad that you're okay! Trouty Mouth over here was depressing everyone with his mopey mood!"

Quinn actually laughed, the first in ages. Sam thought it was literally angels singing, that sweet sound that came from her mouth. Sam was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't even retort to Santana's dig at him.

The group visited for about an hour before they were asked to leave so that Quinn could rest. The whole time that their friends visited, Sam couldn't take is eyes off of Quinn. She was sincerely happy for the first time in ages, though some of it was forced he could tell. Sam knew that it would take time before she was perfectly back to normal again, but he promised himself, and her, that he would be there the entire way, by her side and never leaving.

After they had all said goodbye, Quinn turned her head and looked at Sam tiredly. Sam took her hand and smiled at her.

"Rest baby. You need your strength. I'm right here and I'm not leaving," he said quietly.

Quinn smiled and gripped his hand. "Sing to me?"

"Of course," Sam replied and started to softly sing Lucky to her. Sam watched as she drifted into a restful sleep, her eyelids fluttering closed and her breathing evening out.

xxxxx

When she awoke a few hours later, she was alone, but not for long. Soon, Sam walked back into the room, giving her a small smile. She smiled back, though it was hard because even though she was on a ton of painkillers, she could still feel some of the pain. Well, pain everywhere else except for her legs but she didn't think too much about that.

Sam sat down on one side of her and picked up her hand.

"Hey…how're you feeling?" he asked her, his voice low and deep. She could hear the tiredness in his voice.

"Better. The sleep helped. You sound and look tired though," Quinn pointed out. "When was the last time you slept in a proper bed for a full night?"

"Umm…the night that you woke up. But don't worry…I'm fine. I can't sleep with you here anyway," Sam told her, shrugging it off.

Quinn felt bad though. He had been here the whole time she had been admitted to the hospital, and he looked truly exhausted.

"Sam, go home and go to sleep. I'm alright here. I want my boyfriend to be alive and well, not half dead and zombie looking. Come back tomorrow after you have had a good night's rest!" Quinn told him.

Sam just nodded, knowing that he would and always will do anything that she told or asked him too.

They conversed for a few more minutes before Quinn forced him to go home. Before he could leave, though, the doctor walked in, and Quinn grabbed his hand and told him to stay.

"Miss Fabray, how are you feeling this evening?" the doctor asked her.

"A bit better…still kinda tired and painful though," she replied.

He sat down in a chair on the other side of her bed and glanced at Sam.

"I needed to discuss an issue with you. It's a personal issue…if you'd rather be alone…" He again glanced at Sam.

She looked at Sam also, a worried look on her face. "Sam can stay."

The doctor flipped her chart open to a certain page marked with a tiny red flag.

"When you were admitted, we ran a battery of tests on you…x-rays and blood work…which is how we found the spleen laceration and needed to proceed urgently to surgery. The blood work, though, returned a finding that you need to know about."

Sam and Quinn looked at one another.

"Per protocol, we always check women of childbearing age for pregnancy before giving any anesthetic agents or proceeding to major surgery. Your pregnancy test was positive, Miss Fabray. The level was still fairly low, putting you at 4-6 weeks pregnant. However, the spleen injury was life-threatening to you, and your mother consented to proceed with the surgery. The anesthetic agents given to you terminated the pregnancy, unfortunately. Even if no surgery was done, the pregnancy would not have survived as the bleeding would've caused your demise," the doctor told them.

Sam squeezed her hand, standing to kiss her cheek where silent tears fell.

"Again, I'm very sorry for your loss. Is there anything else that you were concerned about?" the doctor asked the quiet pair. For Quinn, it was just too much to process at the moment, too overwhelming for her.

"Um…I was wondering when the pain killer effect was going to wear off because I wanted to start walking around but I can't seem to feel my legs," Quinn told the doctor. What she didn't expect was the look that Sam and the doctor shared. Sam looked back at her, a look of what she suspected was pity on his face.

"What? What is going on? Sam tell me!" Quinn said to Sam desperately.

"Quinn…you can't feel your legs because you were paralyzed from the waist down in the accident," the doctor replied hesitantly.

Quinn closed her eyes, willing herself to be taken from the room that instant.