CHAPTER TWO : CHANGES
PART ONE
2004, California
Ainsley was home, fast asleep on the couch, when the hospital contacted her. She checked the time before picking the phone up, and marveled at the late hour - she had forgotten what it was like to sleep for more than two hours straight. Alex seemed to have inherited his father's bad sleeping habits.
Then, as she said "Hello," she suddenly wondered why Sam wasn't home yet. Was he still at his mother's place?
"Mrs Seaborn?" a female voice asked, and her stomach contracted.
"Yes?"
"You are Sam Seaborn's wife?" the woman insisted.
Ainsley closed her eyes. "What happened?" she asked.
"Ma'am, your husband was in an accident about ninety minutes ago. He was brought in, along with a baby a few months old - "
"Alex? Alex was with him? How are they?"
"Ma'am, I'm one of the nurses who took care of Mr Seaborn when he came in," the woman explained, her voice calm. Ainsley thought that such a voice had to soothe the patients, and the families she had to call. It didn't work that well with her, though. "He was brought into surgery a few minutes ago, we need you to come as soon as you can."
"Alex?" she asked, her voice imploring.
"He's fine. We're running tests to make sure he doesn't have internal injuries, but we think he'll be fine."
"Okay. I'll... be there," she said, and hung up on the woman without saying goodbye.
She sat in the living room of their apartment, silently praying "Please, let them be okay, let them be okay, let them be okay" for a few minutes. Then she looked at the TV through blurry eyes and realized she had been crying all along. Reaching for a tissue, she tried to think.
The car. She needed to take her car, and go to the hospital, and ask for Sam and her son.
With that plan in mind, she got up and looked for her keys.
**********
Three hours later, she was sitting near Alex's bed, gently rocking the baby, humming softly.
He didn't have anything but a few bruises and cuts.
It was the front of the car that had suffered the most. According to the police, a young man had run a red light - he was busy on his phone and wasn't paying attention to the road, he had told the police. Five cars had been involved in the accident, and there were two fatalities already.
Two people were in surgery right now.
Sam was in surgery right now.
The doctor who had worked on him in the trauma room had talked to her, listing the injuries - dislocated shoulder, concussion, a few torn ligaments in his back, multiple open fractures of the left tibia, five broken ribs, various cuts and bruises. He had also gotten a piece of metal embedded in his left hand.
"We had to cut his wedding band," the doctor had added, almost apologetically. "We needed to see - "
"That's fine," she had said. "Is he... Will he..."
Will he live, she wanted to ask.
"If he survives the surgery, he'll have a good chance."
If.
She was trying very hard not to think about the implications of this ' If '.
She had thought about calling Sam's parents, but had decided to wait until she knew more.
She had also debated whether to call Washington, then had decided that it would only worry them for nothing.
There wasn't anything they could do, there wasn't anything she could do, but wait, and pray.
A nurse startled her when she entered the room. "I'm just checking his vitals," she said gently, moving noiselessly around the room.
Ainsley nodded, and went back to praying - the most useful thing she could think of doing.
**********
Another hour later, she was ready to scream to hear something, anything, about Sam.
Alex was asleep, all she had left to do was drink coffee, and try to keep her mind from imagining all the things that could possibly go wrong during the surgery. The only means to do that she had found was counting the tiles on the floor. She had done so three times, reaching a different number every time, when a nurse entered the room, followed by a middle aged woman in scrubs.
"Mrs Seaborn?" the woman asked.
"How is he?"
"He survived the surgery," the doctor said, and Ainsley felt her heart fall. She hadn't said 'He'll be fine,' she hadn't said 'He'll be out of here in no time,' she had said 'He survived the surgery,' and Ainsley could already feel the 'but' looming on the horizon.
"We're... concerned about his leg," the surgeon added.
"Concerned?"
"The damage was more extensive than we expected. The bone was broken in four places, and the knee was dislocated. We couldn't repair all of the damage yet. He'll need at least another operation, in a few days. Maybe more."
She stared at the doctor, waiting for the rest. There was more, she could tell.
"Even if we do succeed in reducing the fracture, he'll... chances are he won't regain the strength he had. We don't think he'll ever walk normally again," the doctor added.
Ainsley breathed in harshly. He was going to hate that.
"What about the other injuries?" she asked.
"His concussion and the broken ribs will get better with rest. We had to operate on his hand, too, and he'll need time to regain his dexterity, but it'll be okay eventually. His back isn't as badly hurt as we first feared, which is definitely a good thing. He has torn ligaments, but the spine hasn't suffered. He'll need quite a lot of physical therapy, but it shouldn't cause more problems."
"Okay." Ainsley tried to think of something to say but nothing came to mind. She repeated, "Okay," feeling like an idiot. She was usually a lot more talkative than that, what the hell was wrong with her?
"If you want to see him, I'll show you his room," the nurse offered.
Ainsley nodded, then looked at Alex. "Someone will stay with your son, if he wakes up we'll call you. Maybe you should call your family?" she added gently.
"Yes, I... I should warn Sam's parents. I guess. They'll come."
"There'll be a phone upstairs," the nurse assured, and Ainsley nodded. She kissed her son on the forehead before leaving.
**********
When she first saw Sam, she almost cried. He looked bad. He looked worse than bad.
They hadn't taken out the tube that was helping him to breathe yet. He was pale. She had never seen him so pale, not even the last time he had had the flu and he had spent two days begging her to buy him a gun so he could get it over with - making a great show of sounding weak, just so she would sympathize.
The cardiac monitor was beeping regularly, and she smiled at the idea that she knew that rhythm - she often fell asleep on his chest, much to his annoyance, so his heartbeat could lull her to sleep.
His face was covered with small cuts - on his right cheek, on the bridge of his nose, on his neck. There was a small bandage on his forehead, and the doctor had told her that the cut it covered would probably leave a thin scar.
His left hand was heavily bandaged, and she grimaced. The nurse had explained that the metal had cut right through it, and she shivered, imagining it cutting through the skin, breaking the bones. That was going to hurt. It would leave a scar too.
She couldn't see his leg from where she was, and she wasn't eager to.
She sat down next to the bed, taking Sam's good hand in hers, and whispering. "Alex is fine, Sam, he's downstairs. Your Mom will be here soon, too, I just called her."
She went on, talking about the call she had given to her own mother, the day she had had, how Alex was, talking until her throat was hoarse.
**********
One hour later, they had taken the tube out and she was still there.
She was holding Sam's hand, and stroking his hair absently, letting her mind drift off. He would be annoyed with her if he woke up now, she thought. He always hated it when people treated him like a kid, and to him, hair stroking fell into that category. "Why does every woman feel the need to go all motherly on me?" he'd complained once. He had caught a bad cold then, and every single woman of the staff was sending him food, calling to make sure he took his medication, asking him whether he needed something. It was hard to refrain from doing it sometimes. He could look so... well, cute. Another thing he would be annoyed with if he knew she was thinking it.
"You're cute," she whispered, thinking that it worked, sometimes. In movies.
No reaction.
She sighed, not surprised, and began stroking his hair again.
**********
It's the pressure on her fingers that woke her up. She had slumbered a little, and she sat up abruptly when she felt the pressure again. Sam was staring at the ceiling, blinking slowly.
"Sam?" she asked very quietly. The doctor had warned her that he would be disoriented when he woke up, and would probably have the worst headache of his life, so she tried to keep her voice as low as she could.
She heard him whimper when he moved his head to look around.
"Shhhhh," she said, for lack of a more pertinent thing to say.
He turned to her slowly, blinking in the darkened room. A nurse had dimmed the lights, explaining that his head would hurt when he woke up, and that bright light would make it worse. He was looking in her direction, and she knew he couldn't see too well in the darkness but she didn't want to turn on the lights yet.
"Ains?" he rasped.
"Yeah. You're fine," she lied. "You're in a hospital, you're going to be okay."
He frowned slightly. "Why - ?"
"There was an accident."
It didn't seem to remind him of anything and she tried to ask carefully "You don't remember?"
He shook his head slightly and grimaced. "Hurts."
She squeezed his hand tighter and muttered "I'm gonna go call someone."
His grip on her hand strengthened. "Don't go."
She heard the voice of a nurse behind her. "Stay here, I'll be back."
It didn't seem to register with him and she sat back, softly stroking his hand with her thumb. He had fallen back asleep when the nurse returned with more painkillers, and the neurologist.
**********
The second time he woke up, it was morning. The neurologist had managed to wake him again and ask him a few questions, and he had told Ainsley that his memory and his cognitive functions seemed intact - he would need more tests, but he wasn't unduly concerned.
Sam's mother had come in the night and gone back to Alex's room, to keep an eye on him. Ainsley trusted the hospital personnel, they were nice with her, but she preferred to have someone from the family with her son at all times.
"Hey," Sam whispered.
His voice was still hoarse and she gave him an ice cube.
"What...?" he began to ask, a confused look on his face.
"You don't remember waking up earlier?"
He began to shake his head and she stopped him with a hand on his forehead. "Better reconsider that, honey," she warned.
"No," he said.
"Okay. What's the last thing you remember?"
"I finished meeting with Colleen," he said, looking at her. "I went to Mom's."
"Yeah." It was stronger than her, she had to push his bangs back from his forehead. She felt vaguely comforted when he shot her an annoyed look. Well, as annoyed as he could manage, but she was still ready to be glad for that.
"I picked up Alex..." He focused on the wall behind her, as if it was holding the answers he was looking for. "I... There was - " He stopped and swallowed, looking scared.
"I know, Sam, it's over," Ainsley tried to reassure him.
"Alex?"
"He's fine," she soothed. "I promise, he's downstairs with your mother. He didn't have a scratch, Sam."
"You sure?" he asked pleadingly.
"Positive," she smiled.
He closed his eyes briefly, and began to relax a little. "He was crying," he explained.
"I'm sure he wasn't too pleased," she tried to joke.
"I couldn't get to him. I tried."
"I know, honey."
"It hurt," he added, looking at her askance.
"You'll be okay," she said, not wanting to go into too many details just then.
"Okay. It's..." He swallowed again. "How - "
"The doctors say it's looking good." Well, they had said that he would recover. Eventually.
"Yeah?" He frowned a little, maybe trying to make a quick assessment. "How am I?" he asked.
"How do you feel?"
"Numb, all over."
At least, she thought, the painkillers were doing their jobs. For now.
"Your back and your left leg were hurt, and you'll need physical therapy, but it'll be okay."
He looked at her and she could tell that he'd picked up on the number of 'gonna be okay' she'd uttered in the last ten minutes.
"What?" he asked more firmly.
"Your leg will also require a little more surgery."
He digested that, then looked at her.
"How bad..."
"Sam, it really is too soon to tell," she said, not ready to admit that the problem was serious. "You'll be okay," she added, feeling stupid for always repeating the same words. At that point she was trying to convince herself as much as she was reassuring him.
"When?" he asked, his eyes closing.
Ainlsey suddenly had a hard time swallowing past the lump in her throat. Thankfully, he had passed out again so she didn't have to answer that question.
**********
When Sam woke up, in the afternoon, he was alone in the room. He was also having a hard time breathing, but he disregarded it as an after effect of the accident.
He had seen a doctor earlier in the day - well, more than one doctor, really, but the one he was thinking about hadn't had good news. Ainsley had been with them during the discussion, holding his hand, smiling reassuringly, while the surgeon explained to him what exactly the accident had done to him, and how they would try to repair the problems. It wasn't encouraging, and the surgeon hadn't lied to him (a good point in his favor, Sam thought - there was nothing worse, to him, than medical staff who lied to the patient) : he would limp for the rest of his life, and whether it was noticeable or not would probably be up to him. If he followed the PT program to the letter, maybe it wouldn't be too bad. They would know a little more after the surgery.
After he had gone, Ainsley had told him she would go check on Alex when he was asleep, and not to worry if she wasn't there when he woke up. She had come back with some good news: Alex was fine, his Mom was taking him home with her.
After that, he had stopped fighting the painkillers to stay awake and had allowed himself to drift off. When he had regained consciousness, Ainsley was still there, sleeping on a plastic chair - why did hospitals only provide this kind of furniture to the families who came to visit, Sam had wondered. He had often thought about that when Josh was in the hospital after Rosslyn. He woke her up and convinced her to go home, take a shower, kiss Alex for both of them, and sleep in her bed for a few hours.
"I don't want to leave you alone," she had argued.
"Call someone. My Mom?"
"She's with Alex," she had reminded him.
"Right. My father?"
"You sure?" she had asked.
He was. Seeing his father under normal circumstances was painful, but these weren't normal circumstances, and Ainsley needed her sleep. She had given birth not six months earlier, and Alex hadn't slept much recently. She had to be exhausted, he knew.
He would survive his father.
"Yeah, call him. It'll be fine."
She nodded, clearly unhappy but too tired to argue, which confirmed him in his idea that she needed sleep. Badly.
His father had come as soon as he had been called, and Ainsley had left, promising to be back in a few hours.
He didn't know how long ago that was, but she hadn't returned yet. He hoped she was resting. And in the meantime, he was really having a hard time breathing.
Was that normal?
His father entered the room as he was wondering whether he should call a nurse or not.
"You okay, son?" he asked.
Sam nodded, a little worried himself, but not wanting to make a fuss for nothing.
"You're sure?" his father insisted. "You look a little pale there."
"Must be because I was in a car accident last night," Sam tried to joke.
His father didn't smile though, and sat down next to the bed, on the same chair Ainsley had occupied for hours earlier in the day. "You scared me," he said. "Even after Ainsley told me that you were alive, I was... Sam, I..."
He didn't finish his sentence, gesturing helplessly. Sam nodded, carefully, so as not to awake the headache again. His father loved him, he knew. Even when he was away, even when the fights between his parents had gotten so bad that they didn't talk to each other and made Sam play the role of the counselor, his father loved him. Simply, these things weren't said out loud in their family.
"I know," he said.
He also knew that his father had surely been scared of losing him. He understood that. A lot better now that he had Alex. If something happened to his son, he wasn't sure he would be able to survive it. He had thought he was prepared for the feelings fatherhood would bring in him, but he had been far from truly realizing the intensity of the sentiments he would have for his son.
Now he thought nothing would have prepared him to the gut-deep reactions his son provoked in him, the fear that something could happen to him.
"I know," he repeated.
His father nodded.
"Try to sleep," he said, and Sam felt his eyes close.
He was still having a hard time breathing, and was now hurting on top of it, but he was too tired to care anymore.
**********
Marcia Seaborn's place
Ainsley put Alex back into his crib. He hadn't reacted when she had picked him up, he was exhausted apparently.
She smiled, seeing him sleep. The first few nights he had spent home with them, Sam and her sometimes spent hours watching him sleep, marveling at the simple fact that he existed, that they had given birth to such a perfect little child.
She had the feeling that this lost habit would be revived for a time.
She heard the phone ring downstairs, and the hurried steps of Marcia, her mother-in-law, rushing to take it. She hadn't gone home at all, she had come here directly to see Alex, and Marcia had told her to shower and sleep here. She had gratefully accepted.
Marcia was climbing the stairs with the phone now, and something must have shown on her face because she hurried to say "It's not the hospital, it's the West Wing."
She almost slapped herself.
She had forgotten to call them.
She couldn't believe she had forgotten that.
"Hello," she said, taking the phone from Marcia's hands. Her mother-in-law took a quick look at Alex, smiled, and gestured that she would be downstairs.
"Ainsley? It's Toby."
"Hi. He's fine, Toby," she said, before the man could explode. It was impossible, of course, but she thought she could feel the worried vibes the man sent from Washington to here.
"So Marcia said. What happened?"
"Are you alone?"
"What?"
"It's just that I'm wiped out, and if I tell you, all the others will ask to come on the phone, and - "
"It's okay, we had foreseen that," a grave voice said in the background, and Ainsley blushed furiously.
"Mister President," she greeted. She should have guessed.
"Mrs Seaborn," he answered, a smile in his voice. "We're all in the Oval, so you'll just have to tell it once. How is he?"
She sat down and began to explain everything she knew about Sam's condition.
**********
A few hours later
Hospital
Sam woke up again, and wondered why he was asleep in a foreign room, and during the day, apparently.
Then it came back to him.
The accident.
Ainsley and Alex.
His leg.
And why was it hurting that much to breathe?
He knew he had broken ribs, but was his chest supposed to hurt that much?
"God," he hissed, and his father appeared in his line of sight.
"Sam?"
"Hurts," he said, feeling the pain becoming more intense with every breath.
He tried to slow his breathing down, but it didn't seem to help at all.
He tried to move, but it definitely made things worse.
He vaguely saw his father's lips moving, but he couldn't make out what he said. He was hearing the voice, far, far away, his sight was becoming blurry, and that was worrying.
A nurse appeared near his father, and she seemed to be asking him something.
"Hurts," he said, because at the moment, that was all that mattered to him. He saw her look at the machines he was hooked up to, then a wave of pain of unprecedented intensity shot through him and everything faded to black.
**********
Marcia's place
Ainsley woke up in a darkened room. It took her a few minutes to remember where she was.
Her mother-in-law's house.
Someone had taken her shoes off, and covered her with a light blanket.
She listened, and when she didn't hear Alex cry, she got up and shot a look in the crib. He was sleeping, like the last time she had seen him.
Her talk with the White House had lasted 15 minutes - 15 exhausting minutes. She had had to explain what had happened to Sam, then Toby had explained how they had heard what had happened on the news, and she had apologized for not calling sooner. She hadn't thought that it would make the news, she had told them. She wanted to know more before she warned them.
The President had dismissed her apologies, saying that they all understood that she had enough on her mind without worrying about them. Then, Josh had told her he would fly in the week end, along with Donna. "He's the only one we can spare right now," the President had added regretfully, and she had surmised that the election campaign was harder than they expected.
"You don't have to - " she began.
"We know. We're sending him anyway."
She had hung up, exhausted, and had fallen asleep immediately.
Now she was ready, more than ready, for a shower. She felt filthy, and sore, which always happened when she slept in her clothes.
She was beginning to be hungry, too, and the smell coming from the kitchen made her stomach growl.
She headed to the bathroom, and ran the shower.
**********
She and Marcia were finishing their meal when the phone rang again. Marcia took it, and came back in the room, handing it to Ainsley. "It's John."
Her hand shaking slightly, she took the phone, to hear her father-in-law tell her that there was a problem, and she had to come back.
He was waiting for her when she arrived at the hospital. He told her that he'd been with Sam and he had noticed that he was having a hard time breathing. Then Sam had complained that it hurt, a monitor had begun to beep and the staff had rushed in and wheeled Sam away.
They settled in a waiting room and paced, counted the tiles on the floor and drank coffee. The number of things you can do in a waiting room is quite limited, Ainsley reflected more than once in the following hour.
The doctor entered after two hours, looking grim.
"He should be fine," he said, talking softly.
"What happened?"
"Pulmonary embolism."
After a brief silence, during which Ainsley noticed for the first time that the clock on the wall was clicking really loudly, John and her began talking together. The doctor lifted a hand to make them quiet down.
"We treated it in time and he should be fine. He's asleep now, and I'll ask you not to wake him up. We moved him, I'll have a nurse show you the way to his room."
**********
Sam woke up a few hours after Ainsley had taken position at his bedside. She waited for him to take in his bearings. He finally looked at her, having observed his surroundings.
"Not same room," he mumbled, looking confused.
"No. There was a problem..." she trailed off.
"It hurt." He swallowed and grimaced. She helped him to drink a little, asking if he was still in pain.
He thought for a minute, obviously making a quick assessment. He finally shook his head. "Better now," he said, looking too tired to form a more complete sentence.
"You had an embolism."
"Oh," he said, frowning slightly.
"Yes, oh. Can you stop scaring me like that, please?" she asked brokenly.
"Not doing it on purpose," he protested softly.
"I know, honey, believe me I know."
"Did it..." he gestured vaguely.
She nodded. "The docs say you'll be fine."
He nodded tiredly. "Cool."
They stayed silent for a moment, and after a while, Ainsley said "The President called. They're all worried."
He didn't answer, and she looked at him, to see that he had passed out again.
Taking his good hand in hers, she went on talking.
PART ONE
2004, California
Ainsley was home, fast asleep on the couch, when the hospital contacted her. She checked the time before picking the phone up, and marveled at the late hour - she had forgotten what it was like to sleep for more than two hours straight. Alex seemed to have inherited his father's bad sleeping habits.
Then, as she said "Hello," she suddenly wondered why Sam wasn't home yet. Was he still at his mother's place?
"Mrs Seaborn?" a female voice asked, and her stomach contracted.
"Yes?"
"You are Sam Seaborn's wife?" the woman insisted.
Ainsley closed her eyes. "What happened?" she asked.
"Ma'am, your husband was in an accident about ninety minutes ago. He was brought in, along with a baby a few months old - "
"Alex? Alex was with him? How are they?"
"Ma'am, I'm one of the nurses who took care of Mr Seaborn when he came in," the woman explained, her voice calm. Ainsley thought that such a voice had to soothe the patients, and the families she had to call. It didn't work that well with her, though. "He was brought into surgery a few minutes ago, we need you to come as soon as you can."
"Alex?" she asked, her voice imploring.
"He's fine. We're running tests to make sure he doesn't have internal injuries, but we think he'll be fine."
"Okay. I'll... be there," she said, and hung up on the woman without saying goodbye.
She sat in the living room of their apartment, silently praying "Please, let them be okay, let them be okay, let them be okay" for a few minutes. Then she looked at the TV through blurry eyes and realized she had been crying all along. Reaching for a tissue, she tried to think.
The car. She needed to take her car, and go to the hospital, and ask for Sam and her son.
With that plan in mind, she got up and looked for her keys.
**********
Three hours later, she was sitting near Alex's bed, gently rocking the baby, humming softly.
He didn't have anything but a few bruises and cuts.
It was the front of the car that had suffered the most. According to the police, a young man had run a red light - he was busy on his phone and wasn't paying attention to the road, he had told the police. Five cars had been involved in the accident, and there were two fatalities already.
Two people were in surgery right now.
Sam was in surgery right now.
The doctor who had worked on him in the trauma room had talked to her, listing the injuries - dislocated shoulder, concussion, a few torn ligaments in his back, multiple open fractures of the left tibia, five broken ribs, various cuts and bruises. He had also gotten a piece of metal embedded in his left hand.
"We had to cut his wedding band," the doctor had added, almost apologetically. "We needed to see - "
"That's fine," she had said. "Is he... Will he..."
Will he live, she wanted to ask.
"If he survives the surgery, he'll have a good chance."
If.
She was trying very hard not to think about the implications of this ' If '.
She had thought about calling Sam's parents, but had decided to wait until she knew more.
She had also debated whether to call Washington, then had decided that it would only worry them for nothing.
There wasn't anything they could do, there wasn't anything she could do, but wait, and pray.
A nurse startled her when she entered the room. "I'm just checking his vitals," she said gently, moving noiselessly around the room.
Ainsley nodded, and went back to praying - the most useful thing she could think of doing.
**********
Another hour later, she was ready to scream to hear something, anything, about Sam.
Alex was asleep, all she had left to do was drink coffee, and try to keep her mind from imagining all the things that could possibly go wrong during the surgery. The only means to do that she had found was counting the tiles on the floor. She had done so three times, reaching a different number every time, when a nurse entered the room, followed by a middle aged woman in scrubs.
"Mrs Seaborn?" the woman asked.
"How is he?"
"He survived the surgery," the doctor said, and Ainsley felt her heart fall. She hadn't said 'He'll be fine,' she hadn't said 'He'll be out of here in no time,' she had said 'He survived the surgery,' and Ainsley could already feel the 'but' looming on the horizon.
"We're... concerned about his leg," the surgeon added.
"Concerned?"
"The damage was more extensive than we expected. The bone was broken in four places, and the knee was dislocated. We couldn't repair all of the damage yet. He'll need at least another operation, in a few days. Maybe more."
She stared at the doctor, waiting for the rest. There was more, she could tell.
"Even if we do succeed in reducing the fracture, he'll... chances are he won't regain the strength he had. We don't think he'll ever walk normally again," the doctor added.
Ainsley breathed in harshly. He was going to hate that.
"What about the other injuries?" she asked.
"His concussion and the broken ribs will get better with rest. We had to operate on his hand, too, and he'll need time to regain his dexterity, but it'll be okay eventually. His back isn't as badly hurt as we first feared, which is definitely a good thing. He has torn ligaments, but the spine hasn't suffered. He'll need quite a lot of physical therapy, but it shouldn't cause more problems."
"Okay." Ainsley tried to think of something to say but nothing came to mind. She repeated, "Okay," feeling like an idiot. She was usually a lot more talkative than that, what the hell was wrong with her?
"If you want to see him, I'll show you his room," the nurse offered.
Ainsley nodded, then looked at Alex. "Someone will stay with your son, if he wakes up we'll call you. Maybe you should call your family?" she added gently.
"Yes, I... I should warn Sam's parents. I guess. They'll come."
"There'll be a phone upstairs," the nurse assured, and Ainsley nodded. She kissed her son on the forehead before leaving.
**********
When she first saw Sam, she almost cried. He looked bad. He looked worse than bad.
They hadn't taken out the tube that was helping him to breathe yet. He was pale. She had never seen him so pale, not even the last time he had had the flu and he had spent two days begging her to buy him a gun so he could get it over with - making a great show of sounding weak, just so she would sympathize.
The cardiac monitor was beeping regularly, and she smiled at the idea that she knew that rhythm - she often fell asleep on his chest, much to his annoyance, so his heartbeat could lull her to sleep.
His face was covered with small cuts - on his right cheek, on the bridge of his nose, on his neck. There was a small bandage on his forehead, and the doctor had told her that the cut it covered would probably leave a thin scar.
His left hand was heavily bandaged, and she grimaced. The nurse had explained that the metal had cut right through it, and she shivered, imagining it cutting through the skin, breaking the bones. That was going to hurt. It would leave a scar too.
She couldn't see his leg from where she was, and she wasn't eager to.
She sat down next to the bed, taking Sam's good hand in hers, and whispering. "Alex is fine, Sam, he's downstairs. Your Mom will be here soon, too, I just called her."
She went on, talking about the call she had given to her own mother, the day she had had, how Alex was, talking until her throat was hoarse.
**********
One hour later, they had taken the tube out and she was still there.
She was holding Sam's hand, and stroking his hair absently, letting her mind drift off. He would be annoyed with her if he woke up now, she thought. He always hated it when people treated him like a kid, and to him, hair stroking fell into that category. "Why does every woman feel the need to go all motherly on me?" he'd complained once. He had caught a bad cold then, and every single woman of the staff was sending him food, calling to make sure he took his medication, asking him whether he needed something. It was hard to refrain from doing it sometimes. He could look so... well, cute. Another thing he would be annoyed with if he knew she was thinking it.
"You're cute," she whispered, thinking that it worked, sometimes. In movies.
No reaction.
She sighed, not surprised, and began stroking his hair again.
**********
It's the pressure on her fingers that woke her up. She had slumbered a little, and she sat up abruptly when she felt the pressure again. Sam was staring at the ceiling, blinking slowly.
"Sam?" she asked very quietly. The doctor had warned her that he would be disoriented when he woke up, and would probably have the worst headache of his life, so she tried to keep her voice as low as she could.
She heard him whimper when he moved his head to look around.
"Shhhhh," she said, for lack of a more pertinent thing to say.
He turned to her slowly, blinking in the darkened room. A nurse had dimmed the lights, explaining that his head would hurt when he woke up, and that bright light would make it worse. He was looking in her direction, and she knew he couldn't see too well in the darkness but she didn't want to turn on the lights yet.
"Ains?" he rasped.
"Yeah. You're fine," she lied. "You're in a hospital, you're going to be okay."
He frowned slightly. "Why - ?"
"There was an accident."
It didn't seem to remind him of anything and she tried to ask carefully "You don't remember?"
He shook his head slightly and grimaced. "Hurts."
She squeezed his hand tighter and muttered "I'm gonna go call someone."
His grip on her hand strengthened. "Don't go."
She heard the voice of a nurse behind her. "Stay here, I'll be back."
It didn't seem to register with him and she sat back, softly stroking his hand with her thumb. He had fallen back asleep when the nurse returned with more painkillers, and the neurologist.
**********
The second time he woke up, it was morning. The neurologist had managed to wake him again and ask him a few questions, and he had told Ainsley that his memory and his cognitive functions seemed intact - he would need more tests, but he wasn't unduly concerned.
Sam's mother had come in the night and gone back to Alex's room, to keep an eye on him. Ainsley trusted the hospital personnel, they were nice with her, but she preferred to have someone from the family with her son at all times.
"Hey," Sam whispered.
His voice was still hoarse and she gave him an ice cube.
"What...?" he began to ask, a confused look on his face.
"You don't remember waking up earlier?"
He began to shake his head and she stopped him with a hand on his forehead. "Better reconsider that, honey," she warned.
"No," he said.
"Okay. What's the last thing you remember?"
"I finished meeting with Colleen," he said, looking at her. "I went to Mom's."
"Yeah." It was stronger than her, she had to push his bangs back from his forehead. She felt vaguely comforted when he shot her an annoyed look. Well, as annoyed as he could manage, but she was still ready to be glad for that.
"I picked up Alex..." He focused on the wall behind her, as if it was holding the answers he was looking for. "I... There was - " He stopped and swallowed, looking scared.
"I know, Sam, it's over," Ainsley tried to reassure him.
"Alex?"
"He's fine," she soothed. "I promise, he's downstairs with your mother. He didn't have a scratch, Sam."
"You sure?" he asked pleadingly.
"Positive," she smiled.
He closed his eyes briefly, and began to relax a little. "He was crying," he explained.
"I'm sure he wasn't too pleased," she tried to joke.
"I couldn't get to him. I tried."
"I know, honey."
"It hurt," he added, looking at her askance.
"You'll be okay," she said, not wanting to go into too many details just then.
"Okay. It's..." He swallowed again. "How - "
"The doctors say it's looking good." Well, they had said that he would recover. Eventually.
"Yeah?" He frowned a little, maybe trying to make a quick assessment. "How am I?" he asked.
"How do you feel?"
"Numb, all over."
At least, she thought, the painkillers were doing their jobs. For now.
"Your back and your left leg were hurt, and you'll need physical therapy, but it'll be okay."
He looked at her and she could tell that he'd picked up on the number of 'gonna be okay' she'd uttered in the last ten minutes.
"What?" he asked more firmly.
"Your leg will also require a little more surgery."
He digested that, then looked at her.
"How bad..."
"Sam, it really is too soon to tell," she said, not ready to admit that the problem was serious. "You'll be okay," she added, feeling stupid for always repeating the same words. At that point she was trying to convince herself as much as she was reassuring him.
"When?" he asked, his eyes closing.
Ainlsey suddenly had a hard time swallowing past the lump in her throat. Thankfully, he had passed out again so she didn't have to answer that question.
**********
When Sam woke up, in the afternoon, he was alone in the room. He was also having a hard time breathing, but he disregarded it as an after effect of the accident.
He had seen a doctor earlier in the day - well, more than one doctor, really, but the one he was thinking about hadn't had good news. Ainsley had been with them during the discussion, holding his hand, smiling reassuringly, while the surgeon explained to him what exactly the accident had done to him, and how they would try to repair the problems. It wasn't encouraging, and the surgeon hadn't lied to him (a good point in his favor, Sam thought - there was nothing worse, to him, than medical staff who lied to the patient) : he would limp for the rest of his life, and whether it was noticeable or not would probably be up to him. If he followed the PT program to the letter, maybe it wouldn't be too bad. They would know a little more after the surgery.
After he had gone, Ainsley had told him she would go check on Alex when he was asleep, and not to worry if she wasn't there when he woke up. She had come back with some good news: Alex was fine, his Mom was taking him home with her.
After that, he had stopped fighting the painkillers to stay awake and had allowed himself to drift off. When he had regained consciousness, Ainsley was still there, sleeping on a plastic chair - why did hospitals only provide this kind of furniture to the families who came to visit, Sam had wondered. He had often thought about that when Josh was in the hospital after Rosslyn. He woke her up and convinced her to go home, take a shower, kiss Alex for both of them, and sleep in her bed for a few hours.
"I don't want to leave you alone," she had argued.
"Call someone. My Mom?"
"She's with Alex," she had reminded him.
"Right. My father?"
"You sure?" she had asked.
He was. Seeing his father under normal circumstances was painful, but these weren't normal circumstances, and Ainsley needed her sleep. She had given birth not six months earlier, and Alex hadn't slept much recently. She had to be exhausted, he knew.
He would survive his father.
"Yeah, call him. It'll be fine."
She nodded, clearly unhappy but too tired to argue, which confirmed him in his idea that she needed sleep. Badly.
His father had come as soon as he had been called, and Ainsley had left, promising to be back in a few hours.
He didn't know how long ago that was, but she hadn't returned yet. He hoped she was resting. And in the meantime, he was really having a hard time breathing.
Was that normal?
His father entered the room as he was wondering whether he should call a nurse or not.
"You okay, son?" he asked.
Sam nodded, a little worried himself, but not wanting to make a fuss for nothing.
"You're sure?" his father insisted. "You look a little pale there."
"Must be because I was in a car accident last night," Sam tried to joke.
His father didn't smile though, and sat down next to the bed, on the same chair Ainsley had occupied for hours earlier in the day. "You scared me," he said. "Even after Ainsley told me that you were alive, I was... Sam, I..."
He didn't finish his sentence, gesturing helplessly. Sam nodded, carefully, so as not to awake the headache again. His father loved him, he knew. Even when he was away, even when the fights between his parents had gotten so bad that they didn't talk to each other and made Sam play the role of the counselor, his father loved him. Simply, these things weren't said out loud in their family.
"I know," he said.
He also knew that his father had surely been scared of losing him. He understood that. A lot better now that he had Alex. If something happened to his son, he wasn't sure he would be able to survive it. He had thought he was prepared for the feelings fatherhood would bring in him, but he had been far from truly realizing the intensity of the sentiments he would have for his son.
Now he thought nothing would have prepared him to the gut-deep reactions his son provoked in him, the fear that something could happen to him.
"I know," he repeated.
His father nodded.
"Try to sleep," he said, and Sam felt his eyes close.
He was still having a hard time breathing, and was now hurting on top of it, but he was too tired to care anymore.
**********
Marcia Seaborn's place
Ainsley put Alex back into his crib. He hadn't reacted when she had picked him up, he was exhausted apparently.
She smiled, seeing him sleep. The first few nights he had spent home with them, Sam and her sometimes spent hours watching him sleep, marveling at the simple fact that he existed, that they had given birth to such a perfect little child.
She had the feeling that this lost habit would be revived for a time.
She heard the phone ring downstairs, and the hurried steps of Marcia, her mother-in-law, rushing to take it. She hadn't gone home at all, she had come here directly to see Alex, and Marcia had told her to shower and sleep here. She had gratefully accepted.
Marcia was climbing the stairs with the phone now, and something must have shown on her face because she hurried to say "It's not the hospital, it's the West Wing."
She almost slapped herself.
She had forgotten to call them.
She couldn't believe she had forgotten that.
"Hello," she said, taking the phone from Marcia's hands. Her mother-in-law took a quick look at Alex, smiled, and gestured that she would be downstairs.
"Ainsley? It's Toby."
"Hi. He's fine, Toby," she said, before the man could explode. It was impossible, of course, but she thought she could feel the worried vibes the man sent from Washington to here.
"So Marcia said. What happened?"
"Are you alone?"
"What?"
"It's just that I'm wiped out, and if I tell you, all the others will ask to come on the phone, and - "
"It's okay, we had foreseen that," a grave voice said in the background, and Ainsley blushed furiously.
"Mister President," she greeted. She should have guessed.
"Mrs Seaborn," he answered, a smile in his voice. "We're all in the Oval, so you'll just have to tell it once. How is he?"
She sat down and began to explain everything she knew about Sam's condition.
**********
A few hours later
Hospital
Sam woke up again, and wondered why he was asleep in a foreign room, and during the day, apparently.
Then it came back to him.
The accident.
Ainsley and Alex.
His leg.
And why was it hurting that much to breathe?
He knew he had broken ribs, but was his chest supposed to hurt that much?
"God," he hissed, and his father appeared in his line of sight.
"Sam?"
"Hurts," he said, feeling the pain becoming more intense with every breath.
He tried to slow his breathing down, but it didn't seem to help at all.
He tried to move, but it definitely made things worse.
He vaguely saw his father's lips moving, but he couldn't make out what he said. He was hearing the voice, far, far away, his sight was becoming blurry, and that was worrying.
A nurse appeared near his father, and she seemed to be asking him something.
"Hurts," he said, because at the moment, that was all that mattered to him. He saw her look at the machines he was hooked up to, then a wave of pain of unprecedented intensity shot through him and everything faded to black.
**********
Marcia's place
Ainsley woke up in a darkened room. It took her a few minutes to remember where she was.
Her mother-in-law's house.
Someone had taken her shoes off, and covered her with a light blanket.
She listened, and when she didn't hear Alex cry, she got up and shot a look in the crib. He was sleeping, like the last time she had seen him.
Her talk with the White House had lasted 15 minutes - 15 exhausting minutes. She had had to explain what had happened to Sam, then Toby had explained how they had heard what had happened on the news, and she had apologized for not calling sooner. She hadn't thought that it would make the news, she had told them. She wanted to know more before she warned them.
The President had dismissed her apologies, saying that they all understood that she had enough on her mind without worrying about them. Then, Josh had told her he would fly in the week end, along with Donna. "He's the only one we can spare right now," the President had added regretfully, and she had surmised that the election campaign was harder than they expected.
"You don't have to - " she began.
"We know. We're sending him anyway."
She had hung up, exhausted, and had fallen asleep immediately.
Now she was ready, more than ready, for a shower. She felt filthy, and sore, which always happened when she slept in her clothes.
She was beginning to be hungry, too, and the smell coming from the kitchen made her stomach growl.
She headed to the bathroom, and ran the shower.
**********
She and Marcia were finishing their meal when the phone rang again. Marcia took it, and came back in the room, handing it to Ainsley. "It's John."
Her hand shaking slightly, she took the phone, to hear her father-in-law tell her that there was a problem, and she had to come back.
He was waiting for her when she arrived at the hospital. He told her that he'd been with Sam and he had noticed that he was having a hard time breathing. Then Sam had complained that it hurt, a monitor had begun to beep and the staff had rushed in and wheeled Sam away.
They settled in a waiting room and paced, counted the tiles on the floor and drank coffee. The number of things you can do in a waiting room is quite limited, Ainsley reflected more than once in the following hour.
The doctor entered after two hours, looking grim.
"He should be fine," he said, talking softly.
"What happened?"
"Pulmonary embolism."
After a brief silence, during which Ainsley noticed for the first time that the clock on the wall was clicking really loudly, John and her began talking together. The doctor lifted a hand to make them quiet down.
"We treated it in time and he should be fine. He's asleep now, and I'll ask you not to wake him up. We moved him, I'll have a nurse show you the way to his room."
**********
Sam woke up a few hours after Ainsley had taken position at his bedside. She waited for him to take in his bearings. He finally looked at her, having observed his surroundings.
"Not same room," he mumbled, looking confused.
"No. There was a problem..." she trailed off.
"It hurt." He swallowed and grimaced. She helped him to drink a little, asking if he was still in pain.
He thought for a minute, obviously making a quick assessment. He finally shook his head. "Better now," he said, looking too tired to form a more complete sentence.
"You had an embolism."
"Oh," he said, frowning slightly.
"Yes, oh. Can you stop scaring me like that, please?" she asked brokenly.
"Not doing it on purpose," he protested softly.
"I know, honey, believe me I know."
"Did it..." he gestured vaguely.
She nodded. "The docs say you'll be fine."
He nodded tiredly. "Cool."
They stayed silent for a moment, and after a while, Ainsley said "The President called. They're all worried."
He didn't answer, and she looked at him, to see that he had passed out again.
Taking his good hand in hers, she went on talking.