OMG:) you guys! The reviews from the last chapter were stunningly fantastic! THANK YOU:')
Disclaimer: I do not own pretty little liars
Hanna quickly made her way to the nearest elevator, clicking her heels and folding her arms across her unbuttoned white pea coat. There was a women already in it who appeared to be a few years older than Hanna. She was petite with short brown hair, and wearing a black fleece jacket. And she also seemed very distraught. They were both standing there together in silence waiting to reach the third floor, not knowing each others story, and not daring to ask. They both knew how hard situations like this were and didn't want to be nosy. So they only stood there, waiting, and waiting. It only took twenty seconds but felt like days.
As soon as the doors finally opened Hanna was the first one out. She quickly located the front desk and came face to face with busy looking red head who was typing away on her computer.
"Um excuse me," the receptionist looked up. "Can you please tell me what room Caleb Rivers is in, or if I can see him, or anything. Please?"
The red head could see the worry in Hanna eyes, it was something she saw all day everyday. She called over a doctor and told him who Hanna was there to see. Because earlier in the day she was told not to let anyone in Mr. Rivers room without speaking to the doctor first.
The doctor stepped around the counter, he was tall with a brown buzz cut. He held out his hand for Hanna to shake, and she weakly accepted.
"Hello, you must be Miss Marin, I'm doctor Stevens." He said with a warm smile.
Hanna was growing worried thinking about why this seemed to be turning into a project. Everything about the hospital was making her worried, the smell, all the nurses, the busyness. She began breathing heavier, and forgot the doctor was still standing in front of her. Her eyes were wandering all around as she crossed her arms tighter across her chest.
"Hanna?"
She looked at him with tear filled eyes not wanting to hear what he was going to say. "Oh, sorry."
"It's fine, I only want to explain to what's going on. I can imagine you're feeling confused."
"A little."
He gestured over to the waiting area. "Let's go sit down." Then picked up a filing folder that the receptionist set on the counter for him.
They both walked over and sat in the comfortable blue chairs. However Hanna probably wouldn't have even noticed if she sat on needles. She felt so small and lonely sitting on the edge of the chair, waiting for some stranger to tell her something she didn't want to know. She wanted answers, but at the same time was scared to death to hear them. Plus she really didn't want to be doing this alone.
She shyly asked, "Um has anyone contacted his mom yet. Is she here?"
"Yes, we believe she is flying in now." He said looking down at the papers.
That wasn't what she wanted to hear. She wanted someone there with her right then.
He abruptly looked up, ready to talk. "So what was believed to have happened was that they were being transported from the airport to the base on a bus. And there was a road side bomb that went off. The majority of the passengers were life flighted here last night-"
Hanna weakly asked, "Well what about Caleb? Is he here? Is he... okay?"
"Yes he's here. The reason I said the majority of them are here is because well, not all of them, made it." He sighed and then continued. "Hanna there were twenty three people on that bus and seven were instantly killed from impact. We've had a very busy day here. As for Caleb, he was unconscious at first, but we were luckily able to get him stable. He didn't need any surgeries, all of the physical damage on him are cuts and bruises." He tossed the folder onto the empty chair next to him and folded his hands, hanging his head.
Hanna was still confused. She shakily asked, "Is that it?"
He looked up at her, "Hanna, it seems that Caleb hit his head pretty badly, and is suffering from memory loss."
Hanna's mind immediately went into denial. "What?"
"Memory loss can go in so many different directions I can't really tell you want to expect. I mean tomorrow morning he can wake up with his full memory back. It's just impossible to know what to expect with something like this. The brain is such a powerful thing, any thing is possible. According to other patients that have gone through this it is common for some memories to come back over time. And by that I mean in the next couple years. It's also common for certain sights or smells to trigger the remembrance of events. Now I obviously don't know him, so I can't tell you what he does remember. That you'll have to find out for yourself. I'm sorry, we're doing everything we can. But you should consider yourself lucky, I could be delivering much worse news."
He gave the scared girl a comforting smile and said, "He's in room 322 when you're ready."
He never said that Caleb didn't remember her, but with the life Hanna has lived she was used to looking at situations on the negative side.
She didn't believe this was happening. It was only twenty four hours ago that they were in her room together, making out, and telling each other how much they loved the other. It was only a week ago that they were sitting together on the steps when he proposed to her, and asked if she wanted to be in his life forever. And now there was this strange man telling her that everything that happened in the past years of their relationship was gone. And there was nothing that could be done about it? None of their memories meant anything if she was the only one who knew about them. Memories are special because its something that two people share together forever. They're never supposed to go away. That's not how it's supposed to work, why was this happening to them? Those were the best couple years of her life, because they were spent with... him. But now she couldn't help but think that he would start a new life, met a new girl, fall in love again having absolutely no idea how special what he already had was. And having no idea what he walked away from. Because how would he know? No amount of explaining or story telling could ever compare to what they had. What they had wasn't explainable, it couldn't be put into words. It was all in the memories. And on Caleb's end, the lost memories.
This was all too much for her to handle, she was getting overwhelmed with horrible thoughts. Thoughts that made her want to give up on life, jump off a building or something. Nothing could be worse than this. Having the love of your life not know who you are? Not loving you anymore. Simply because they don't know they're supposed to.
This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. When she wished that he would come back early, this definitely wasn't what she meant. She would have preferred that he left her for a whole year over this. This was just pure torture.
As much as she wanted to go in the room and find out the truth she wouldn't. She couldn't get herself to stand up and walk into his room. And she didn't. She sat there for nearly half an hour, looking at the ground, not knowing what to do. Because it was easier to simply sit there in her own little world than to leave the chair and face what could be true.
Caleb shifted around in his bed as his eyes slowly opened from his nap. He moaned at all the pain he felt with the simple movements of sitting up, or repositioning himself. His back was killing him, his head was pounding, and he was in desperate need of more pain medication. He slowly reached over and pressed the call button for a nurse.
A few minutes later a middle aged nurse lady with her hair in a ponytail and wearing her uniform hastily walked in.
"Everything all right?" She perkily asked.
Caleb glared at her. Does everything look alright, he resentfully thought.
"Uh, no. I was wondering if I could get some more medication for the pain. It's getting really bad."
She looked at his chart. "Nope, not for another hour. We already have you doubled up on it. Anymore could be fatal to your organs."
"An hour? But I need it right now." He complained with a painful expression.
She chuckled at him. "They all say that, don't worry, you'll live through it."
He moaned some more, but then stopped realizing that even that caused him pain in his chest. He was a mess, just like the blonde who was now standing in the bathroom looking at herself in the mirror.
She fixed her makeup, and had her hands on the sides of the sink telling herself what she needed to do. It had now been forty five minutes since she arrived there, she couldn't put it off any longer. She took a few deep breaths and then walked back into the hallway.
Under her breath she said, "322." While looking around at the room numbers. She was next to 314 so she couldn't be too far away.
Slowly and cautiously she made her way down the depressing hallway and to his room, feeling her hands getting shaky with every step that brought her closer.
She eventually made it, she felt her heart beating faster, and vision blurring as she placed her fragile hand on the cold metal door knob. She didn't know what she was going to do if he didn't remember her. And didn't know what she would do if he did. She was basically just planning on walking in and winging the whole thing. Probably not the best choice, but she didn't care. She needed to do something other than sitting in the waiting area for another hour.
Caleb moved his eyes over to the door as he heard it slowly opening. Then he saw a head of blonde hair and teary eyes looking into his from across the room. They didn't break sight of each other as she slowly made her way closer to him.
It was scaring her that he wasn't saying anything. Should she say something?
She stopped walking a feet few from his bed and parted her lips to say something, but was speechless. And before she could muster up something to say four words fell from his mouth. "Do I know you?"
Now she was even more speechless. She just stood there feeling more pain than she ever imagined possible. She didn't even want to be near him, because it hurt too much. So she clenched her jaw closed and slowly turned around to leave. She didn't know what else to do, they were strangers now.
Caleb soon realized what he did was pretty mean. And he certainly didn't want her to leave, so he softly called out, "Han please come here, I was only joking."
In those couple seconds Hanna never felt her emotions change so quickly. She went from terrified to relieved to furious. She truthfully thought her life was over, but no, it was only Caleb being an idiot thinking it would be funny to scare her like that.
She folded her arms and turned around to face him, shooting him a death glare as she quietly said, "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Clearly a lot of things." He said looking down at all the bandages all over his aching body.
Hanna didn't find any humor in that either. She scoffed and shook her head in disbelief. This was typical Caleb, he was in the hospital, yet still making jokes and messing with her. "You're such a jerk, I thought you were serious."
Caleb only smiled back at her, knowing she would get over it.
She angrily exclaimed "Why are you looking at me like that, I'm mad at you."
"Because I'm happy to see you. I've been in this stupid room all alone for like... Five hours now."
She looked at him for a moment before responding. "Why didn't you call me?"
"Well, for one my phone is probably in a million little pieces scattered in the desert right now..."
She could see that there was something else he wanted to say, but wasn't. "And...?"
"Honestly?" He asked.
"Yeah."
"Okay, so when you first walked in you looked kinda familiar, but I couldn't quite recall, exactly, who you were. I've truthfully been laying here all day trying to remember the people in my life."
"So basically what your saying is that you didn't remember me, or think about me, until you saw me?"
"Yeah, after looking at you for a second or two it came back to me."
Still being shook up she slowly walked over to the chair next to the bed and sat down. She uneasily scanned his injured body with her eyes. He had a small bandage on the edge of his forehead, one around his bicep and wrist, one going all the way around his torso, and one around his left shin. And all the other exposed areas of his body had small scratches on them. He was only wearing boxer shorts so the bandages could be easily changed. His face looked exhausted and worn out while the rest of his body sank into the sheets, completely still." It scared her to see him like that. She could feel his pain by just looking at him, or noticing the facial expressions he would make while moving.
He noticed her concern. "It's not as bad as it looks. I mean yeah it hurts, everywhere, but, I'm just glad to have lived. I was tossed pretty far, so I'm surprised I didn't break anything."
She met her eyes back up with his and quietly asked, "So you really do know who I am?"
"Yes, Hanna, I know who you are. I promise." He held out his hand for her to hold, but she hesitated when seeing the thick bandage wrapped around his thumb. "I needed stitches there."
She felt so sorry for him. That's all there was to it, it was killing her inside seeing him like he was. She looked up at him and blinked as tears started running down her face. She took his hand in hers and lightly stroked his bandaged thumb with her finger.
Neither of them knew what would happen next, or what he would remember, or what was permanently gone. All they knew in that moment was that they were making a new memory together, and it wasn't going anywhere.
Soooo?! What did you think? I'm going to start the next chapter off with them still in the hospital so if there is anything you think they should talk about let me know:) I already have some ideas.
Please please review!:) I worked really hard on this!
