It had only been three hours since Nick had left Ashley, but it seemed like an eternity.
There were few things, 'scenes' that kept playing, quite out of order, in Nick's head.
The door of Ashley's room being shut in his face once again.
The way Zoey had rushed over to him, tears in her eyes, giving him the biggest hug ever.
The crunch of the car metal as his front bumper collided with that of the drunk driver..
"Nicolas Barretti?"
Nick looked up, drawn from his thoughts, with tired eyes.
A cop, standing next to a doctor who had been in Ashley's room, waved him over from across the room.
"Okay, so, we're here to fill you in.."
Nick just stared.
"No charges are being filed against you, Mr. Barret-"
"Nick." He was certainly getting tired of being referred to as 'Mr. Barretti', or worse, 'Nicolas'.
"Nick… anyway, the other driver is okay, just injured, and has been arrested for DWI. You have nothing to worry about."
The cop turned towards the doctor.
"Ah.. Nick," It was as if he couldn't find the words.
"Is Ashley okay?" Nick said, trying to edge him on, but his voice remained flat.
"She.. she's not yet been deemed comatose, but.. she's unconscious. We don't know if or when she'll wake up."
Nick couldn't even find words to speak, and he certainly didn't want to hear more. Tranced, he turned and walked back to his seat in the waiting room.
"Is she okay?" Rochelle asked.
But Nick just couldn't respond, and leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed, hoping that when he woke up, it'd all be a bad dream.
The next morning.
"Nick?"
Nick blinked awake to see a nurse, standing in the hallway.
As he looked around, he noticed the others were gone, except Ellis who was curled up on a bench of three connected seats across from Nick.
Nick slowly stood up and followed the nurse.
"Ashley is still unconscious," she turned to face him as they reached his wife's door. "But we didn't want to keep you away any longer."
"I appreciate that."
And then she was gone.
He entered the room and just stared at his wife's "sleeping" figure.
Please, Ashley. I need you. He mentally begged his wife to wake up.
Four hours later
"Come on, now, what are you cryin' for? You need to show your sister how strong you are, little man! Oh, and you're much too pretty to be crying. Yep, way too pretty. Just like your mom. You even have her eyes. I just wish you could see them.."
Nick stood by the wall-sized window of Ashley's hospital room holding his newborns who had now been returned to him and were awake. He lightly moved from side to side, one baby cradled in each arm.
"You know, you both look like your mom.."
"No, James definitely looks like you. And that sight right there is the sweetest thing I've ever seen."
Nick suddenly turned at the voice he heard.
"Ashley!" he barely whispered.
He set the babies back down in their two "cradles" and ran to his wife's bed.
Holding each others' faces, they kissed gently, but with more passion than ever before.
"God, I missed you." Nick breathed as he kissed her forehead.
"I missed you, too." She smiled weakly. "I'm sorry."
"No.. no, no, no, Ashley, no. This is all my fault." Nick shook his head.
"Nick.."
"It is. I was driving, I should have been paying more atten-"
"Nick!"
Nick stopped talking, but couldn't lift his eyes to meet hers.
"An intoxicated man swerved his car into ours and caused a wreck, there was nothing you could have done."
Silence. Then Nick's mind brought him back to another recent scene.
"These were the personal belongings your wife had in the car with her, we figured you'd want them with you."
"Yeah, thanks." Nick shrugged and told the EMT as he grabbed the faded maroon backpack.
He sat down and after a moment, decided to go through the bag, just to see if everything was there.
As he dug, he heard a noise. Faint music?
Then his fingers reached Ashley's iPod, which was still left playing.
He slowly stuck the headphones in his ears, and just in time to hear the last words of the song.
Stay with me here now, and never surrender..
Ashley needed him more than anything. But he couldn't bring himself to say he was good enough.
"I just wish it felt that way." Nick whispered after a minute.
Ashley didn't speak, but she kissed the top of his head lightly, the way he always had her when she felt like that.
"Oh my God, oh my God.." They could already hear the muffled voices coming down the hallway.
"Hayden." Nick announced just as Ashley spoke.
"Zoey."
They laughed a little at their commenting in unison and kissed once more before there was a knock at the door and Hayden flew over to Ashley's other side and embraced her in the tightest hug ever, followed by Zoey, both looking like they hadn't slept much, and.. had they been crying?
"Ashley, I-, we're so happy you're okay." Hayden sighed hugging Ashley again.
Nick slipped back to let everyone else crowd around Ashley's bed and hug her, something he didn't mind, and something no one noticed.
"Hey.." Zoey started once everyone had calmed down. "Hey, where's the baby!"
Ashley caught Nick's eye as everyone began to exclaim in agreement with Zoey, and laughed.
"Babies." Nick corrected, causing everyone to whip their heads around to see Nick standing there, cradling his two newborn twins once more. Jaws began to hit the floor in unison, causing Ashley to laugh.
"Now hold on," he continued. "'Cause their mother hasn't gotten to see them too much."
Everyone on the left side of Ashley's bed scrambled to make a hole for Nick as he passed the babies onto his wife, and then there was the eruption of "Aww", and Nick kissed her on the head.
"Wow.. that's a bigger surprise than you expected, huh!" Ellis grinned.
Nick and Ashley laughed as they all recalled the day the two announced they would leave everything but the baby's health unknown, which resulted in them not knowing they'd be having twins.
"Names?" Rochelle smiled, peaking over Louis' shoulder.
"Andrew James." Ashley smiled up at Nick, then to everyone else.
"And Jessica Rae." Nick smiled back down at her.
"He was going to pick the name if we had a girl, and I was going to pick the name if we had a boy, but since we had twins, it coincidentally became Jessie and James, since we planned on calling him James." She nodded down at the sleeping child in her arm, and everyone exclaimed their excitement.
Coach just smiled the way he always did.
Ashley passed one baby at a time to Nick who handed them to another person in the room to awe over, the coos growing in number as the babies woke up, and were slowly traded, and passed around.
Nick smiled at the sight; all these people he had that actually cared about him, and cared about his children.
The door silently opened, and a tall, slim figure slipped in unnoticed, heading straight to Nick.
"Nicky." she smiled.
"Sam, hey."
The siblings embraced in a tight hug, and Sam kissed her brother on the cheek as they broke off.
"I'm so sorry I couldn't make it, the flight was longer than I thought."
Nck froze. "Wait.. Sam, you.. Sam, you were in your meeting in Cali?"
Sam nodded slowly, an innocent smile creeping onto her face.
"Oh.. Sam! You left a meeting for this? That was so important to you! You could get fired."
Sam shook her head and put her hands on her older brother's shoulders. "Nothing, no job, no meeting, is more important to me than you, and my family."
Then she sat down in the chair Nick had previously occupied.
"Hey, Sam." Ashley smiled.
The two girls began to talk and Coach nodded at Nick and he slowly stepped back to make his way to the older man.
"This is a great day, Nicolas."
Nick chuckled. "Yeah, yeah it is."
Coach slapped a hand on Nick's shoulder as he turned to face him.
"I'm proud of you, Son. Never would have thought you'd be this man today when I met you."
Nick nodded and slapped his hand on Coach's opposite shoulder, and then the two pulled each other into a hug.
Me neither, Coach. Nick thought. Me neither.