Another chapter up fast, but all is not well in the world. Or, at least, for Spike. Thanks for all the comments and feedback! More at the end. Enjoy!
Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?
-Henry David Thoreau
Greg refused to leave the hospital that night, despite the rest of the team insisting that there was absolutely nothing he could do until tomorrow, and that there was no use in running himself down now. He told them that if anything happened in these twenty-four hours, he wanted to be the first to know about it, and I'm sorry, but you can't change my mind. So one by one, they left, shooting wary glances back at him as they walked out. Ed offered to stay, but Greg shook his head and told him to go home to Sophie.
He was just about to go sit back down on one of the benches when someone tapped him on the arm from behind. Greg turned around and immediately felt guilty; he had forgotten about Laurel. Her mother was holding her hand, and she was still wearing his coat. The sleeves came down a good foot further than her hands, and the hem rested at the back of her knees. She was looking up at him.
"Will Spike be okay, Mr. Parker?" She asked quietly, still blinking the sleep from her eyes.
"We're not sure yet, sweetheart." He tried to smile when she let out a small, shuddering sigh. He crouched down, and was just about to say something else when she beat him to the punch.
"Thank you." She said. "For helping me today. And for helping Spike. I like him a lot."
"So do I. And Laurel?" She blinked at him. "You don't have to thank me. I should be the one thanking you. Without you, I don't think Spike would have made it off that boat. So thank you. You were very very brave today, and you should be proud of yourself. Okay?" She nodded, and he reached out and squeezed her arm. "Good. Now go home and get some sleep." He stood up and quietly addressed her mother. "You've got a very special kid there, Mrs. Bennett."
She smiled. "I know. She likes you a lot, you know. You and Spike. She's not usually this good with strangers." She looked down, and Laurel was leaning heavily against her. Greg doubted the girl was hearing a word of what they were saying.
"Is she going to be okay?" He asked. "She saw…" He was about to say a man drown, or set himself on fire, or shatter someone's leg, but decided against it. "She saw a lot today."
The woman nodded. "She did. But I think she'll be okay. We'll see how she deals with it as time goes on."
Greg paused for a second, and then made a decision. He turned around and jogged to the nurse's desk, and when he came back, he had a sheet of paper and a pencil in his hand. "If she ever needs someone to talk to, or a friendly face, or anything at all, call me." He scribbled his name and number down, and handed it to the other woman. "Whatever it is, you can call me. I mean it."
She took it gratefully, and then bent down to Laurel. "Hey, baby, time to give Mr. Parker his coat back, okay?"
Before Laurel could move, Greg stopped her. "No, let her keep it. It's cold outside, and she needs it more than I do. No- it's fine." He said when Mrs. Bennett opened her mouth to object. "Really, it is. I want her to have it."
Laurel looked up at him sleepily. "Thanks, Mr. Parker." She mumbled. "Please, Mom, it's warm. I like it." Greg smiled, and took a tired step back.
When Mrs. Bennett started herding her towards the door, Laurel looked back one more time, and Greg waved. "Goodnight, sweetheart. Tell your mom if you want to talk to me." She nodded, and he watched until she made it out the door. Then he went back to the desk.
"Ma'am?" He asked, and she looked up. "Can you make sure I'm notified of any changes in Michelangelo Scarlatti's condition?" When she nodded, he smiled gratefully and went back to take a seat.
As he sat down, he distantly heard his phone buzz. When he fished it out of his pocket, he exhaled slowly. Four missed calls and three text messages, all from Dean. The last one had come five minutes ago. He hit dial, and Dean answered on the first ring.
"Hello? Dad?"
"Hey, Dean. What's up?" God, he was so tired.
"Dad, it's one in the morning- where are you? I was scared you'd been shot or something, and that you were in the hospital." Greg closed his eyes.
"Dean…" He said, and had to stop. He took a deep breath.
"Dad, what is it? Are you hurt? Come on, Dad, what's wrong-"
"No, buddy, I'm not hurt. I'm just…" He had to push the words out. "Dean, I am in the hospital. No, Dean, stop-" He tried to talk over his son. "Dean, you've got to listen to me, please, just listen to me. Please." The other end of the line slowly went quiet. "I'm not hurt. I promise. I'm just here for…" He took another shaky breath.
"Spike's been hurt really bad, Dean." He finally said. "I'm staying the rest of the night- I need to be here in case… well, in case something happens." There was no reaction from Dean.
Then, "I'm coming over. Now."
"I'm sorry, but you can't do that. I'll keep you updated, just don't come over here."
"Too bad, Dad. I'm coming over. Do you want a change of clothes? Never mind, I'm bringing a set anyway. I'll be there in half an hour." Greg had never heard Dean so determined in his life. "Are you in the emergency room?"
"No, I'm in a separate- hold on, Dean, no, you should be staying home. It's late-"
"It's a Friday night, Dad. I don't have school tomorrow. I'm coming, and there's nothing you can do about it. Now bye. I'll see you in half an hour." And the phone clicked off.
Greg slowly lowered it away from his ear and blankly stared at it as he held it in his lap. Was it really one in the morning? He shook his head. It didn't matter.
Before he knew any time had passed, Dean was running through the doors and sliding to a stop as he saw Greg.
"Dad, what's wrong, how was Spike hurt, how bad is it, is he-"
Greg raised a hand wearily, and Dean stopped talking. "Dean, I don't know how to… how to explain all this. It's been a really, really long day, and month, and year, and there's just too much. I wouldn't know how to start."
"Just start from the beginning, Dad. We have time." Said Dean as he sat down next to him. Greg couldn't argue with that, so he started from the beginning.
He told Dean about the mines at the school, and how Spike had taken care of them, and how the team had thought he was dead and how relieved they were when he wasn't. He told him about Cabe, and about Spike leaving, and about him coming back three weeks later. He described the note on the second bomb, and the part about Spike being given a choice between himself and the building, and how Spike had seen his mistake, but had just broken down after he got out. He told him about the third bomb, except it wasn't really a bomb, and how Cabe had taken Spike and a little girl to a boat, where he had the real third bomb, and how he had broken Spike's leg and then his ribs. He told him about Spike knocking Arbor unconscious and then getting Laurel out safely, and then about the team's mad rush to the docks, except it didn't really help, because Cabe was there, and Spike was so far gone that he didn't even twitch when Cabe lit himself on fire. He told him about Spike falling into the water, and how Ed had gone in after him and brought him back to shore, and how Spike wasn't breathing and he didn't have a pulse, and how the paramedics came and they started his heart again, but they couldn't get him breathing. He told him about the ride over here in the ambulance, and how Spike coded again and how he had been rushed straight back and Greg hadn't been able to follow him.
As he was telling Dean all these things, he distantly thought that he shouldn't be, that Dean was too young to hear it and to carry that burden with him. But he kept talking, because once he started he couldn't stop, and Dean just listened and never tried to interrupt, because he realized how important it was for him to just get it all out there.
When Greg reached the part about the doctor coming out with the news about Spike, his breath hitched, and he buried his face in his hands. He hadn't had the time or the awareness to really process anything yet, and now that he was being forced to, it was more than he could handle. As he started shaking, Dean just put a hand on his back and started rubbing comfortingly, waiting until he was ready to talk again.
When Greg straightened, Dean spoke quietly. "Is he okay, Dad? Will he be okay?"
"I don't know. I just don't know. The doctors are saying it's about 50-50, maybe a little higher. But I went back to see him, and he looked bad, and it's just so hard to make myself believe that everything's going to be okay. You didn't see him on that beach, Dean. It was… it was beyond horrible."
"I can't imagine. If I had been there, I don't know how I would have dealt with it. But all we can do now is wait, and hope. We'll get through this, Dad. And Spike will too."
Greg nodded weakly, but didn't say anything, and the pair of them lapsed into an anxious silence. Even when the clock passed two, and then three, they didn't speak, and eventually, Dean drifted off in his seat, leaning awkwardly against the wall. Greg was exhausted, but still, he didn't sleep, couldn't sleep, because Spike was in that room attached to all those machines and he needed to know if something went wrong.
Something did. At four-thirty in the morning, Dr. Cooper came slowly through the doors, and looked around. His face was haggard, and he had bags under his eyes. Greg was out of seat and at his side in two seconds flat. The movement jostled Dean, who also leapt up to meet them.
"Mr. Parker?" He doctor asked, his voice rough.
"Yes? What's wrong? Please, you have to tell me-"
"I'm trying to." Dr. Cooper said, and Greg shut up immediately. "There have been some… issues."
Greg paled. "Is he-" He couldn't get the word out. "Is he still…?"
"Yes, he's still with us. But we had to take him back to surgery, and we were afraid that it might have been too-" He stopped himself, and reached up to rub at his eyes. "Well, it's a non-issue now. But it wasn't looking very good."
"What happened, Doctor?" Dean asked quietly. Greg was ashen beside him.
"He had another seizure about two hours ago. We weren't expecting it- we had given him anticonvulsants, and they should have stopped anything like that in its tracks. We still don't know why they didn't. But it shook up his head pretty violently again, and he reinjured his leg. We've been trying to fix the damage for the last two hours."
"And…?" Greg didn't know if he really wanted to know, but he had to ask.
"It was touch and go for a while, but we stabilized him. We actually had to remove a piece of his skull to let the fluids drain out, but we've replaced it with a synthetic. It won't affect him in the long term."
Dean smiled, relieved, and began to say something, but the other man stopped him. He still looked grim- he wasn't done.
"We can't afford to risk any more seizures, because his brain can't handle any more trauma- not even the slightest bit. You don't know how lucky we were to get it under control this time, and we won't be able to do it again. But we still don't know why the anticonvulsants didn't work, so we had to resort to a different approach."
"What does that mean?" Asked Dean.
Dr. Cooper paused for a moment before going on. "We had to induce a coma. Normally, we wouldn't risk it, considering the state of his lungs, but it was our only option. I wouldn't have done it if there had been any other way." He looked at them tiredly.
"A coma?" Greg asked, and his voice cracked. "When will he wake up?"
"Assuming there aren't any more problems, we'll bring him out of it in a week, but we can't guarantee he'll wake up immediately. It depends on his body and what its limits are- it's impossible to know exactly when."
"But he will wake up, right?"
Dr. Cooper paused again. "We're almost sure of it."
"What do you mean, almost? Almost isn't good enough-"
Dean stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Dad." He said.
And Greg looked at the doctor, and realized for the first time how tired he seemed, and how beaten down. This had taken a toll on him, too. He swallowed.
"I'm sorry." He said quietly. "I don't blame you. It's just that… Spike…"
"I know. And it's okay. It really was the last resort, or I wouldn't have tried it. I can understand why you're upset." He seemed to be finished, and so Dean thanked him, and he turned to go.
"Wait- Doctor. Can you let us know if anything else happens?" Dr. Cooper nodded, and then he was gone.
Poor Spike! Actually, this whole chapter was originally part of the last one, but I decided to separate them because a) I thought it would be too long, b) I thought the transitions would be jarring, and most importantly, c) I didn't want to leave you guys with the millionth cliffhanger in a row. So you should thank me :)
I really appreciate when people comment, even if it's just to say they're reading. It means a lot to me. That said, if you have any critiques, please, share. I like to know which parts work and which parts don't. Thanks so much, everybody!
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