"Attention all units. Adult code blue. 12th floor. Room 1204." The overhead speaker blared, pulling Marlowe aggressively out of her dream.
She jumped up to look at Carlton. Their room was still empty, but the air around them was getting louder. She looked out the sliding glass door and saw what seemed like 30 people swarming around the room next door, all talking loudly at each other.
She went to sit back in the chair next to Carlton, watching as a medical drama played out through the window and held his hand, grateful the commotion wasn't in his room.
Her heart skipped a beat when she saw an old woman, seemingly in her 70s, being escorted past the window. She was visibly crying, her long white hair pulled into a messy ponytail and Marlowe realized it might not be her husband, but it was someone's. It was possibly her least favorite part of sitting in this crowded room day after day, aside from the stress and worry of it.
She would sit in her room, watching her husband breathe, knowing that he was doing okay. But every so often something would happen to someone else, and she would be left watching through the window as some other poor family's world was destroyed while she was left feeling grateful that it wasn't her world being ripped apart.
But it was someone's.
"Someone call it," she heard a voice outside the room say twenty minutes later. And just like that, that poor old woman was a widow.
"Carlton," she said into the heavy air, watching the crowd slowly disperse, a solemn energy hanging heavy in the air, "I need you to be okay. I need you to get better so we can get out of here."
She was so sick of being there. Especially after what happened last week with Lily, she felt so anxious all the time. She could still hear her little girl screaming for her daddy, and it made her chest feel tight every time she thought about it.
She felt her eyes blur over as she lost herself in watching the monitors. The lines went up and down in funny patterns with each breath, each heartbeat. She watched the lines form under a black gap that flowed gracefully across the screen round and around and around again.
She had become so used to watching the lines form, comforted in the proof of life that they provided. Each spike proof that his heart was still beating- proof that she wasn't alone, no matter how alone she felt sitting in the room day in and day out.
She felt Carlton's hand start to twitch purposelessly under her own, and she readjusted her eyes to the screen on his ventilator. The nurse had explained to her that the little pink T that popped up on the screen meant that he was breathing on his own. As his hand twitched and his head shifted minutely under the breathing tube, she saw little pink T's showing up as the line drew itself across the screen quicker than before.
"I know you're in there," Marlowe said, leaning over to kiss his hand that was tied tightly in place after he had tried to pull out his tube when Lily came. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I know that you are in there and you are doing everything you can to come back to me."
She traced the back of his hand, her fingertip drawing circles around thick tape holding an IV in place. She missed holding her husband's hand. Before they went to bed, when they were sitting on the couch watching movies, taking walks in the park with Lily. She missed him wrapping his big hands around hers, warming them whenever they got cold.
"Take your time, Carton," she said, wishing she could sound more earnest and convincing. "Take as long as you need. I'll be right here."
She said that, but in reality, she just wanted her husband back- like, now. Like, yesterday. Like, three weeks ago when this whole mess started.
Her mind drifted off as she thought about before. What used to be, and what, for reasons she still hadn't quite wrapped her head around, would never be again.
"How was your workout, baby?" Marlowe asked, giving her husband a kiss as he walked through the door. He had been training to be able to complete the FBI physical exam after a pursuit with Juliet had left him feeling particularly winded, and more importantly, had left Juliet feeling fine.
"I got the 50 pushups perfect!" Carlton said, picking Marlowe up and twirling her around in his arms.
"Me too, Daddy!" Lily said, jumping for Carlton to scoop her out of the air mid-jump.
"You've got one buff Daddy, Bunny," Marlowe said, patting her husband's strong arms.
"You like that?" Carlton asked with a mischievous smile. He bent over with Lily for momentum and threw her above his head an inch, catching her as she screamed with glee.
But that was the last time it would ever be like that. The next day, Shawn came over after she dropped Lily off and told her what happened.
And the day after that, the doctors told her his stroke was caused by a dissecting artery in his neck that threw a clot and was likely caused by a strenuous workout.
He had been in the best shape of his life, and it nearly killed him.
"Mrs. Lassiter?" Dr. Weller said, walking into the room and interrupting Marlowe's thoughts. "I have been closely monitoring your husband's progress."
Marlowe sat up and tried to calm herself. Please be okay, she willed her husband, squeezing his limp hand for support.
"The pressure in his brain has gone down significantly and his vital signs have stabilized quite nicely. I would feel comfortable weaning his sedation and attempting to take out the breathing tube over the next 24 hours."
"Take out the breathing tube?" Marlowe asked, her heart singing. "As in, I could hear his voice again?"
"It would just be a trial. We would have to make sure he can truly support his own airway. But I think that he is in a stable enough position to move on from this acute phase of care to the recovery phase."
Recovery.
That simple word sounded so good in Marlowe's ears. It meant getting better. Moving on from this horrible nightmare. Coming home. Bringing him home with her. Getting to be a family again, all under the same roof.
"We will go down on his sedation today and overnight and as long as he is still stable, I think we can plan for extubation tomorrow afternoon."
"Okay," Marlowe said, smiling. Tomorrow afternoon. She could do that. Tomorrow afternoon she would have her husband back. "Thank you, Dr. Weller."
He nodded silently and backed out of the room. She watched through the window as he spoke to the nurse who came into the room and began pressing buttons on the big pumps with multi-colored fluids running into his arms.
Marlowe took Carlton's hand in both of hers. "Come back to me," she whispered to him. "I need you to come back to me."
She felt his hand continue to twitch under her own.
"I miss you too, baby."