Chapter Five - Awakenings

The boy in the bed blinked several times and tried to focus. The room was bright white and it hurt to try to look around. He had a monstrous headache and he hurt in other places that he couldn't really pinpoint, there were a lot of spots that were hurting. His throat felt dry and rough, his lips cracked and sore. He tried to make a noise, but couldn't seem to make his lips or throat obey his mind. Where am I? He wondered. What's wrong with me? Something moved in his line of vision, but he couldn't concentrate and make sense of the blurry shapes around him.

Adrian walked in to see that Sharona wasn't in her chair but once again staring at the blazing sun that seemed to be just beyond the window. The set of her shoulders and her crossed arms told him she was alright or at least hanging on. Her narrow shoulders were straight and even, not slumped and defeated. Once more, her courage and her strength of will stunned him. That was something he truly admired about her – the stubborn determination and belief in the positive outcome of most anything. She tinged her positivism with caution when necessary, but mostly to protect him or Benjy from getting their hopes dashed on the rocks of failure. He sighed softly and she acknowledged his presence without turning.

"Hi."

"Morning," he replied. She didn't move or give any other indication that she welcomed his company or wanted to see him. He was tired from his sleepless night and he was feeling grouchy and not willing to pander to Sharona's mood. He shrugged uncomfortably while he sulked at the continued strain between them. He turned with the thought that he would sit next to Benjy for a while and ignore her until she wanted to speak to him. When he settled himself, he rearranged the items on the low table beside him, managed to get the trash into the bin without touching it, and then he looked at Benjy. His intentions of ignoring Sharona went right out the window.

"Sha..Sharona…"

"Hm?" She responded absently.

"Sharona," he said with more urgency.

"Adrian, what?" she asked with impatience and irritation. This morning, this month, this waiting was an endless chasm of impatience and irritation.

"I think you should… should look..." he didn't finish before she struck.

She whirled from the window, and lashed out at him, "Look at what Adrian? At my son, who is barely alive, or at the man who can't find the person who did this, or maybe I should look in the mirror at the image of a terrible mother who allowed it to happen in the first place?" Immediately, regret for the hurtful words washed through her when she saw the pain she'd inflicted with her sharp, thoughtless tongue.

Adrian winced as if she'd struck him physically. But the wince wasn't because she'd hurt him, nor because of the truth she'd spoken about him but rather because of what she said about herself. He didn't mind when she pounced on him, it was a sign that she considered him somewhat normal; able to withstand her fury, but when she attacked herself… it hurt him endlessly. He actually physically ached when she was self-deprecating.

With rarely seen compassion and his basic brand of stoicism, he replied to her anger, "No Sharona, look and say good morning to your son." All thoughts of sleep deprivation and bad humor gone from his mind, as happiness began to course through him.

Her brow knit in confusion. She looked from Adrian's kind, understanding expression to Benjy's face and then back at Adrian. Her face transformed immediately.
Her expression was indescribable. The joy, the love, and the relief were apparent in equal parts. His heart contracted painfully as he witnessed the change from anger to elation. Everything she was thinking and feeling was evident in her expression and he wished just once, she'd look at him and he'd be able to see that kind of joy.

"Benjy," she said tentatively as she moved close to the bed, inserting herself between Adrian and Benjy. He groaned a little in response to her voice and Sharona reached back for Adrian's hand. He gave it to her without hesitation and he felt her squeeze it tightly. He pressed hers in return. With her free hand, she reached for Benjy's unbroken but scratched and bruised hand. They stayed that way, the three of them connected for a long moment.

"Mom," Benjy croaked, throat burning.

"I'm here, honey. I'm here. Don't talk… Just try to focus on me."
Adrian dropped Sharona's hand and hurriedly reached for the pitcher, poured some water into a plastic cup, and plucked a straw from the bedside tray. While Sharona tried to get Benjy to center his gaze on her, Adrian put the straw to Benjy's lips. Sharona pushed the emergency call button by the bedside and then smiled ruefully over at Adrian.

"I'm sorry for…for before…I was out of line. I wasn't thinking clearly."

"Sharona, it's okay."

"Thank you…" she said with sincere gratitude. "I'm … I'm…glad you're here."

"Me too," he said simply.

Benjy sipped the water.

"Slowly, Benjy," Sharona said gently.

"Mom? Mr. Monk?" he finally rasped, throat still raw from the intubations and the ventilator.

"Hi, sweetheart. We're here."

"Here?" he wondered where here was.

"Yes honey, you're in the hospital. There was an accident," Benjy slowly turned his aching head and looked back and forth as their faces swam blurrily in front of him. His eyes rolled, threatening another bout with unconsciousness.

"Benjy? Benjy! Stay with us." Adrian said insistently.

The doctor and a nurse hurried into the room then and asked Sharona and Adrian to leave so they could examine Benjy.

"He woke up. He said our names."

"That's great, Ms. Fleming," replied the doctor, "But we still need you to leave for a few moments."

"But..." Sharona, the nurse, the mother, started to argue, but Adrian put his hand to the small of her back and guided her to the hallway. They paced separately, passing on each return trip, each pausing to look into Benjy's room to see if they could discern what was going on inside.

"He's going to be scared if I'm…" she paused. Benji had asked for both of them just now, so she amended with a meaningful smile, "If we're not there."

"He'll be okay; he's in great hands with Dr. Brewer. You know that. You've trusted him this far. Give him a few minutes, before you jump on him." He made a sardonic face and gave her a small smile to show he was trying to be humorous.

"You're right. I know you're right. Oh, Adrian… he woke up, he looked at me. He's going to be okay, isn't he?" He nodded and a tear of relief slid down her cheek. He'd thought there couldn't possibly be any more tears on reserve inside of her after the amount she'd cried in the past few weeks – more than he believed she'd cried all put together since he knew her. Sharona wasn't a "crier." He smiled, nodded again slightly, and without thinking, held out his arms to her. Gratefully, she went into them and pressed against him. Absorbing his comfort and support like it was the air she needed to breathe. He swallowed with difficulty, she felt so right in his arms, as if it were where she belonged.

"I tried to keep believing, but-but it was so hard," she sniffed quietly.

"I know, I know. You've been very brave."

"No, not really. I just couldn't imagine what I would do – if… if he died. I don't know what I would have done."

"Sharona, you, of all people, know that you would have mourned and then put your life back together after a while."

"It would have been impossible."

"For some of us. But not for you, Sharona. You… you are a strong woman – a survivor." He held her closer and rubbed her back in small, soothing circles, the way she often did for him. His cheek was pressed against the soft tendrils of her blonde curls and the smooth skin of her temple. He breathed in her simple, floral scent and once again swallowed with a struggle. He closed his eyes, composed himself, and said softly into her ear, "Let's not dwell on that. He woke up. He's healing. He'll come back to you… to us… and eventually, we'll all leave this nightmare behind." She nodded against his shoulder, and his sense of contentment with her in his arms increased. Being able to comfort her, calm her, and make promises to her, ones he now knew with certainty would come true, filled him with pleasure.

"Ms. Fleming?" the nurse quietly interrupted the moment of peace and effortless normalcy between them.

"Yes?" she said as she wiped at her eyes with the backs of her hands, still held firmly in Adrian's warm embrace.

"Dr. Brewer said you can come back in. Benjy's asking for you. Both of you." The nurse smiled over at both of them, sorry to have interrupted what looked to be a very intimate moment. They stepped back from each other quickly; both dazed by the way they'd been fused together for those few minutes. Each tried to quickly assimilate the feelings of longing that had been stirred... as well as something that edged over into contentment and ease. Feelings stirred that, for form's sake, would have to be just as quickly disregarded by each in order to preserve the status quo. Feelings stirred that would be disregarded as simply a momentary lapse of defenses, or good sense, in the context of the highly-charged emotional situation. Without another word, they walked back into Benjy's room, the moment forgotten by their minds, if not by their hearts.

Benjy was foggy that first day – in and out of wakefulness, Stottlemeyer and Disher came in and they took turns questioning Benjy with Monk hovering in the background, listening; but the child fell asleep in the middle of the questioning, almost right in the middle of a sentence. At first, Adrian worried that he'd lapsed back into unconsciousness, but the nurse he'd all but dragged into the room assured him that Benjy was simply asleep. It didn't really matter; Benjy didn't seem to be able to remember much. He seemed to recall being on his scooter, and even being hit, but not what he saw just before the accident.

While they waited for Benjy to wake again, Disher went to make calls, Stottlemeyer took Sharona to the cafeteria for coffee but Adrian stayed by Benjy's bedside. Poor boy, Adrian thought. Just a few sentences had exhausted him. He watched Benjy sleep, like a guardian angel. They were alone and Adrian tried to think of where to begin.

Aloud he said to the boy, "Benjy…let's make a deal…" Sharona, who was looking for her cell phone to make a progress report to Gail and her mother, quietly crept back in and listened as Adrian told the boy that everyone loved him, and that he, in particular, admired his strength. Surprised at the emotion in Adrian's voice, she smiled a wry smile, knowing that Adrian could be equally strong, he just didn't know it. "Your mom…your mom loves you so much, Benjy. She misses you, we all do, but she does most of all. She doesn't know what to do without you. The deal I want to make is this: I'll take care of finding out who did this to you, and why, and you take care of getting well, and together we'll take care of your mom. How does that sound?" Wishing for a response, quite like he always did when speaking to Trudy, but knowing one wasn't forthcoming, he sighed and took Benjy's hand in his own.

When Sharona saw Adrian with her son's hand in his, encouraging Benjy, taking comfort that he was getting better… her heart melted. When she looked from their joined hands to Adrian's expression, which was full of determination, anger, and what could only be identified as love… all at once, she felt her heart beat faster.
Sharona had never seen that particular expression on Adrian's face before, and she thought she had all of his grimaces, pained glances, frowns, introspections, and the occasional smiles with their corresponding emotions memorized. She usually knew what to expect based on his expression, she knew how to react. This expression, soft and loving, was one she didn't have a prepared reaction to or a defense against. In that moment she realized just how much he cared about Benjy, and about her. He wanted to take care of her, he'd said so.

She'd understood for a long time now that her own feelings for Adrian were confusing and almost too painful to scrutinize. Briefly, she uncovered the feelings stirred once again that morning in the hallway outside of Benjy's room. The moments in his arms had simply highlighted the perfection of being held by him, they fit like pieces of an unfinished puzzle. That feeling was followed by the inevitable recognition of the agony she'd feel when he didn't, or couldn't, respond and the impossibility of trying at all; the moments just now highlighted her inescapable want and the sheer improbability of it. She cared for him; she idolized him almost as much as Benjy did, he drove her crazy sometimes, he made her truly angry sometimes. But no matter how many men she dated, losers she dated, she amended, none of them compared to Adrian.

In the beginning, she hadn't even realized she was comparing each man to her boss. This one wasn't smart enough, that one wasn't caring enough, the other one wasn't sensitive enough… when all of this time… right in front of her was a compassionate, sensitive, and brilliant man. However, Sharona knew in her head that nothing could come of the feelings her heart harbored and that she had successfully squelched for so long. He was never going to fall in love again, that much was apparent. He looked at her as a friend and, sometimes, it seemed to her, almost like she was his mother, and in no way was that romantic. Besides, he would never look at someone like her and make a favorable comparison between her and the sainted Trudy. Not to mention, he could barely take care of himself, no less a ready-made family. What Sharona failed to see was in his own way he'd been taking care of them all for years. She slipped quietly out of the room.

Adrian studied the sweep of Benjy's lashes against his cheek, and watched over him, making sure his breathing continued uninterrupted. His features, sleeping or waking were an echo of Sharona's. Children really were amazing. They echoed their parents' best features and the worst flaws as well, Adrian mused. Benjy could be moody, temperamental, disobedient, and stubborn…just like his mother. But he could also be compassionate, kind, funny, and sometimes when Benjy looked at him with his steady aquamarine gaze, Adrian felt that he was looking into Sharona's eyes. He cared so much about both of them, he realized, because they cared about him just as much. Although, sometimes he worried that Sharona looked at him as merely another child to tend. He needed to show her he was a man, not a child, and he wanted, no, expected, to be looked at that way. The moments in the hall earlier this morning had plainly accentuated the rightness of what they could have, the way she belonged in his arms…the way it felt to hold her… the privilege of being allowed to embrace her and give her reassurance and it highlighted the hopelessness of his wanting. He just had to find a way to solve this case and make Sharona see that he was far better for her than the idiots she chose to date.

Sometimes he thought her forgiving heart was a better detective than he was… if Sharona fell for the guy, two things were certain he was a liar and a loser, and more often than not, he was the guilty party in the cases they worked. In this case, Adrian didn't realize quite how wrong he was. A nurse came to let him know that there was a message for him at the front desk. Hesitantly, he left Benjy's side and went to the nurse's station. There on folded paper, he recognized immediately, was his name in the familiar square, printed letters. He asked the nurse for a pair of latex gloves and he carefully put them on. He turned the note and looked for visible evidence of fingerprints on the back –none were visible, Stottlemeyer's fingerprint techs would have to dust. On the lower inside section of the note, it simply said, "O."

"Did you see who dropped it off?" he asked the nurse.

"No, sorry. I just came on duty."

"Yeah, thanks anyway." He rushed to a private area where he could safely use his cell phone in the hospital and pressed and held the "S" – his speed dial directly to Leland's cell phone.