Thanks to Justice237 for reviewing.

This story and five others are getting close to their ends. So right now they are prioritized. I currently have thirteen stories going on which is tad too many. And I don't really have time for it all. I had already planned when this story will end, but from now on this and the others will be updated so I can finish some. The other five stories that are getting finished are

-Unpretty hurts
-The one where rawr means I love you in dinosaur
-Dancing in the rain
-Stranger defended
-The little girl

So, if you're a fan of this or any of those listed you could expect to see more chapters until they're finished.

Okay then. Everybody's got it? Great! This chapter is too told from Gabriel's pov.

It shouldn't take many minutes after Gabe had been taken off the narcosis, it still hadn't been more than thirty seconds after Mike left when I had a worried feeling in my stomach. What would happen if he didn't wake up? Or if it happened to slowly? If something happened that would mean complications were on?

I took the stuffed Sloth that I held in my hands and hugged it tight, mostly to have something to hold onto than if a stuffed animal could give me comfort. I then noticed patches of fur being ragged off.

"What have you been through my friend?" I tried as I wiped one of them with my thumb. "You must have spent a lot of time along with my son. Have you? Maybe you could tell me a bit more about what happened? Was there something Gabe didn't tell me?"

I was interrupted from talking to Slowen when Gabe moved and moaned, this time for a few more than when he had the first time. And then his eyes fluttered open with a deep breath. Something in between a yawn and a sigh while he stretched out every piece of his body.

"Hey." I reached out and pushed my hair through his fringe feeling his forehead. "How are you feeling?"

Gabe didn't answer. But his eyes fell closed again. And if I didn't have to understand how tired one must be only vaguely waking up from the narcosis I would have kept on talking making sure to keep him awake.

I didn't even have to anyway, having kept his eye closed for a couple of seconds they tiredly fluttered open again and he lifted his hand towards me.

"Are you making sure I'm really here?" I took his hand and pulled out the ring he had been wearing earlier. "Is this yours? The doctor only spotted it when you'd fallen asleep and they gave it to me so I'd take care of it while you were out." Gabe nodded. "Here. Ring finger?" He nodded again and I pushed it onto his finger as with a wedding ring. "Isabel and Meri came with a box of things while you were in surgery." I held up Slowen. "I think I can guess why you had tried to hide him. But a stuffed animal is nothing to be ashamed for. I've got them too. They make perfect sleeping buddies." I laid him right next to Gabe and Gabe rubbed its head slightly. "You've been together through a lot? Haven't you?"

"Yeah I guess…"

Gabe turned his head away and let go of Slowen. We both let the silence fall across the room while he stared towards the windows were we could see the hallway. Mike was just coming back up and only sent the two of us a quick look before he slumped down into a chair with his back against us.

"If social services asks then Mike is sitting right in that chair…" I pointed to one at the other side of the room. "…and keeping an eye on the two of us. Of course he never left us alone and surely. When he didn't come back, because he never left he didn't sit down on the other side of the wall with his back against us. Okay?"

Gabe only looked back on me in confusion. His drug-ridden mind was too foggy to work out what I had just said. I felt bad for not getting that when he slowly lifted his hand to his head and exhaustedly leaned it backwards towards the pillow.

"I'm sorry. I just mean that. The social services doesn't have to know that Mike left us alone. He's not supposed to do that. I think you probably get all of that… How are you feeling?" Gabe didn't answer, only sighed and kept his hand against his head. "Should I go get a doctor? Maybe you could get some painkillers or something."

"No. I'm fine."

Fine?

I couldn't help but frown, Gabe was just coming back from being put out under narcosis and God knows what else, had had surgery and before that been sick. Put in a hospital that he obviously hated, he'd been in pain. And after everything he had told me as much as he had about what had happened to his mum and stepdad. Of course he'd done great, been so brave anyone could ever ask of him.

But there was no way he was fine. Not right now.

I wanted to say something else. Gabe was obviously forcing his eyes open, refusing to fall back asleep. But I didn't want to pressure him into anything or tell him what to do. So I looked back towards the box with things the others had brought. I didn't want to mess with Gabe's things but I couldn't help but feel curious and nodded to the sketch book sticking up from the box.

"They brought your sketchbook and some pens and pencils as well. For when you feel better. Can I take a look on your sketches? I'm only curious. But I know some artists doesn't like people seeing their drawings."

"It's fine… But they're not that good."

I took the sketchbook from the box I'd put on the bedside table and then left it lying on my lap as if I was waiting for something before I started riffling through it.

It suddenly felt like I was about to read someone diary, or read somebody else's private letters. Gabe was so groggy. Maybe he wouldn't said it was fine if he wasn't as groggy from the narcosis as he was and…

Changing my position the opened sketchbook fell out of my lap, opened to the first page and landed with the covers up on the floor. Gabe didn't comment on it, so I looked up only to check if he maybe had fallen back asleep.

"It's okay…. If you want to I'd really want you to see them."

I leaned down to pick the sketch book up from the floor and turned it. The first page was covered in several drawings of different people. There were probably ten people or so all sketched off on one sheet of paper. Yet none of them seemed to have anything to do with the other.

But I couldn't help but to look over the drawing for, for sure five minutes from one face to the other. Impressed by the details and how correct the proportions seemed.

"I was only learning how to sketch faces with that one." Gabe suddenly moaned. "None of them are very good at all."

Well, weren't all kinds of artists only so hard on themselves always?

"Not very good?" I changed pages in the sketching book to one that looked to be sketched of a picture with grass in the front, one tree, then two mountains right behind and clouds. "These are really good." I held up the drawing in front of him. "Where's this? Somewhere you've been or something you saw a picture of or something you just took from your mind?"

"Somewhere I've been."

"Wow." I looked back on the drawing. "Looking as if it must be somewhere beautiful. Where is it?"

"Norway."

I guess I'd been expecting something like Scotland or somewhere not as far away as freaking Norway.

"Wow. Norway? Now that is a place I always wanted to go. Have you been to any other cool places? Like… I don't know. China or New York or somewhere like that? How far have you been?"

"Only Norway."

As if hypnotized by the drawing I stayed by it without turning the page. What made me freeze I did not know. But Gabe must have noticed how I was because after a while he started talking. And it only a took me a few seconds to get that he was talking about the view in the drawing.

"I was three." Gabe was looking away from me and towards the window while he talked. "I was on a road trip with mum and George. We stopped for mum to get to smoke a cigarette and get out of the car for a bit. I was running around since we'd been sitting still for so long… Then I saw mum and George talking and stopped as if I knew something was going on. That was when George pulled a ring out of his pocket and got down on one knee."

Gabe paused in what he was telling me tiredly. The sketch book I had in my lap but was mostly forgotten. A part of me wanted to go back in time and made sure I and Julianna stayed together. Not that there had been anything wrong with that George but for Gabe to have a childhood without everything he had been through.

He was too tired to hide it. Even though what he was telling me about was a good memory pain was shining from his eyes and even more when he sighed and then kept on talking. Still while looking away from me.

"I always wanted to meet you. I would always have done anything or gone anywhere to meet you. Even though I liked George and he was great and everything… I guess at that moment, I was only three and don't remember clearly. I'm not sure I got much. But I knew I wanted to see you more than anything else. But at that moment. When I saw George and mum together…. It was like I knew everything would be okay. I can still feel what I felt then and… I still wished to meet you someday." Gabe finally turned his head without lifting it from the pillow. "It was like I felt I was going to be alright even though I didn't…. Then I can't remember anything more of that… And I guess… I guess things have changed."

I wanted to say something. Something at all that would be any kind of good answer to what he was saying. But no words appeared, and when Gabe looked down towards the sketch book again, then up at me and nodded slightly I turned the page again, and again, and again.

The drawings were of all kinds, mostly in black, white and different shades of grey, but some in color. There weren't any more of views like the mountains there had been a drawing off in the beginning, but of people, of dogs, birds and all kinds of things. On most pages there was more than one drawing, as if Gabe had been afraid he was running out of paper sheets to use.

Maybe he was.

I lost count on how many pages I had turned. There was nothing for a while that caught my attention. Until suddenly there was one.

One of a park bench, where there sat a man- maybe a dad, with a boy. It might not have been easy to tell in a drawing but in it he looked about five or so. And with his head leaned back against the man's shoulder they were both laughing. Both looking so happy I could almost hear them laughing to myself.

"I used to dream…" Gabe was looking down on the drawing and not at me. I flinched when he started talking, I had thought he was asleep again. "That you could come and sit next to me like that. Or just hug me and… it would make everything that hurt just go away."

I swallowed and tried to fight away the lump in my throat. It didn't exactly shrink by the fact that I knew Gabe might have forgotten everything he said right now in the morning. Still being so drugged by whatever medicines he'd been given.

"I'm sorry son. No can do."

I wish I could. But I can't make all that pain go away.

I looked down on the drawing again and on the way there was a man holding his arm around the boy's shoulder. They might have been father and son, or maybe brothers or friends. I couldn't help but wondering who the two in the drawing were.

I'm not so sure what made me do it. I was still scared to death I'd scare Gabe away or do something wrong so we'd be taken away from each other again. But from that drawing and what Gabe had said I stood up, pulled my shoes off and then crawled up next to Gabe.

"If you don't want me to do this then you can tell me. I won't get angry. But I just wondered. Is something like this something like you meant?"

Gabe didn't say anything, he seemed to be getting more and more tired. But he didn't protest either while he looked around in the room, his eyes stopping at the windows towards the outside wall facing the parking lot outside the hospital.

And then, for I don't know how long we only sat there, I laid my arm around Gabe's shoulder hoping that whatever I was doing I was doing it right. Gabe didn't make a move under my touch, but he didn't say anything else neither. And all of a sudden I just felt I needed to say something at all. Whatever it might be.

It was looking towards the window and the cloudy night outside I finally thought of something.

"I never liked the dark. I wouldn't say I'm afraid of it nowadays but I am very happy if I don't have to go outside at night. But then, there's always this thought I had…. I think I was about your age when someone said it. And it helped me not to fear the dark as much as I used to… It was that it only gets dark for us to be able to appreciate light when it does come around. Because it will, and every time a new morning rises there comes a day that haven't been yet. And to those we are left without any mistakes at all to start off with. While the mistakes we made yesterday we can leave behind… My dad, he always used to tell me in the mornings. Gabriel, remember that today is the first day of the rest of your life. And remember to seize the day as much as you can. Because even at its very best it can suddenly all change within a second."

Gabe didn't answer. But I could tell he still heard and understood what I said. Even though he looked half asleep and mostly just tired while he looked up at me. Still keeping tense with his head only a centimeter or two away from my shirt.

"You can sleep you know. I can see you're exhausted."

"I don't want to."

What Gabe said was something in between a mumble and a whimper. And I couldn't help but hear the desperate tone of trying to keep awake while he forced his head up not taking his eyes off me for a moment.

And that was when I understood.

Maybe I had understood already earlier when I had promised I would still be here when he woke up. But at the time Gabe had been unconscious and not heard me. And I had still been too stressed out, barely known the words spoken…

"Don't let them take me away from you."

Whatever reason Gabe had for not wanting to fall asleep at this very moment it had to have something to do with wanting to stay with me.

"It's okay. I ran my hand through Gabe's hair one more time in a move as comforting as I could possibly make it. "I won't leave. And I think that when you wake up you will be feeling better… and… well, at least it doesn't feel like this could be real right now. But from today on… we'll have every day of the rest of our lives to get to know each other. Okay? Because I promise you. I'm not going anywhere. Not now and not ever. Okay?"

"Okay…." Gabe still had his head barely lifted and his eyes were falling closed while his ear was coming closer and closer to the fabric of my hoodie. "Okay…"

"Do you want me to go and sit down on a chair again or do you want me to stay here?"

"Please stay."

It wasn't even a whisper, only barely more than a breath. But I couldn't have heard it more clearly if he had shouted it at the top of his lungs. And so, very slowly Gabe's head sunk down towards my shirt as he leaned into the soft fabric.

"Meredith, Michael and my Logan all call this shirt my best hugging shirt. Soft fabric, isn't it?"

I'm not sure anybody else had seen any reaction at all, Gabe didn't smile or say anything. But I could see the way his eyes fluttered to almost open. And then, while his head felt heavier and heavier against my shoulder and Gabe's breaths slowed down as he fell asleep.

"Well then…" I whispered under my breath to myself while I looked up through the windows where Mike stood watching us. "…I guess this day is the first of the rest of our lives. Now son…" When Gabe had fallen asleep I suddenly felt how tired I was and I couldn't help it when my own head fell backwards, half against the pillow and mattress, and half against Gabe's dark brown thatch. "And here's for a new start…" I looked up towards the clock on the wall that just passed midnight. "…I can't wait for the part of our lives that we'll finally be able to spend together."

And even as I faded away from reality and let myself be surrounded by dark, I couldn't help but smile when I heard my old man's words in the back of my hand.

"Don't forget son. Today is the first day of the rest of your life."

Random fact

There are lines in this chapter referring to the story's title and cover picture. And if nobody noticed, the picture that Gabe had drawn of something he saw in Norway, is supposed to be what is in the photo on the cover. And yes it is in Norway. I've forgotten exactly where it is now but I know we do pass it when going to Lofoten…. And now I've realized I don't even remember if it is before you get there, if it's at the "Lofast" (the road tying together the main land with Lofoten islands. So you don't have to go by boat) or if it is there… Hmmm… Maybe mum will recognize it…

Nope, she didn't know where it was. And now I think about it you guys probably don't care. Anyway, it's in Norway.