Chapter 3: Sleeping With The Lights On

The receptionist popped her gum in her mouth, tapped at the keyboard then looked at John with a raised eyebrow and a smug smile.

"There's no Alex Houghton in the hospital. you've made a mistake.

"Not Alex Houghton. Alex Orton. Or try Alexandra Orton."

The recpetionist sighed and went back to her keyboard, after a few minutes she looked back up at him, still smiling.

"What's your relationship to her?"

"Friend."

"Not good enough. You need to be a family member."

John groaned deep in his throat. She'd been messing him around for ten minutes."Look, all I want to do is see her and I've been waiting long enough. so just tell me where she is and...."

"Hey!" came a call from behind them. "You're John Cena. I saw you on TV last week! You rule!"

The comment had come from a teenage boy with his arm in a cast who gave him the thumbs up and then launched into a conversation of how John ruled to his friend. The receptionist's smirk had been replaced with curiosity.

"You're on TV? So, you're like, famous?"

Minutes later John stepped off the elevator and onto the ICU ward. The first part was private rooms, all with their blinds closed tight. Alex's was the last room on the right, just before the actual ward started. John stood in the door way and looked in. She lay on the bed, with a bandaged face that left just enough room for tubes to disappear under the wrappings. Sitting on a chair close to the bed, with his head in his hands was Randy. Even if Torrie hadn't told him, he could of guessed by his crumpled shirt and jeans that he hadn't left her side. John knocked on the door to draw his attention and Randy's head snapped up. His tired look was replaced with annoyance.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed.

"I came to see her."

John only got to take a couple of steps into the room before Randy jumped up and pushed him back out into the hallway.

"I don't want you to see her."

"What are you, her mother?"

"Her husband."

"Look, do you really think this is the time or the place for petty arguements. I just want to see if she's alright."

John's harmless comment seemed to trigger something off in the exhausted Randy. He pushed John up against the windows of the room opposite.

"Dose she look alright to you?" He demanded before grabbing him by the collar, dragging him back into the room and standing him next to her bed."Take a long look at her and tell me if she looks alright? Her face is smashed in, her ribs are broken, she's in a coma and lucky to be alive. What do you think?"

He couldn't bear to look at her. He pushed Randy off him and turned to face him, anger slowly building.

"And where were you?" he asked. "When this was going on?"

Guilt flashed up in Randy's eyes, but he choose to ignore John and change tactics. "You know what you're problem is? You're bitter and jealous. You hate the fact that you screwed up and Alex saw what a jerk you where, so she married a real man."

That was when the fight broke out. John dived at Randy, knocking him out the room and hitting him in the face. Randy hit him back, right in the eye which caused him to fall backwards and gave him the advanatge. Neither where sure how long it went on for, all they cared about was their own anger. Their anger at each other and at themselves, for not being able to help Alex. Suddenly they where being seperated by hospital security. John was being pulled towards the elevator, away from Alex, glaring at Randy and his bloody lip, being told not to come back.

The hospital security room was small. one wall was packed with small black and white monitors, all with a lable underneath stating there loaction. 'ICU 1' showed the hallway where the fight had broken out, although now you would never have guessed it. The door opened and a man in his late twenties came in, asking the two security guards watching John to leave. The name tag around his neck idenitified him as Doctor P. James, ICU. He sat on the hardback orange chair opposite him.

"I heard the fight, but then again I suppose the whole hospital did." He said with a laugh before extending his hand. "Doctor Paul James. I'm Alex's doctor."

John shook his hand. "Why are you here? In about two minutes I'll be barred forver."

"I know. That's why I'm here. I don't think it's fair you should be left in the dark about your friends condition, even if her husband objects."

He wanted to correct the Doctor. To tell him that calling Alex his friend was a understatment and referring to Randy was her husband was an over- estimate. But he said nothing.

"Alex needs reconstructive surgery to repair the damage to her face, but it will leave her with mininal scarring. After surgery will have to run some CAT scans to assess if she suffered any barin damage."

"What about the coma?" John asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "Who can say? She may wake up tomorrow, but on the reverse side, she may not wake up at all."

John knew he'd been thinking the same thing ever since he found out, but hearing someone say it made him feel like he'd been hit with a sledgehammer.

"And the brain damage? How serious could it be?"

"It varies. Worst case scenario is she could be brain dead, which would leave her husband with the option of wheter or not to turn off her life support. She may be pefrectly fine."

"Which is more likely?"

"There's no way to tell."

Half an hour later John was driving home, offically barred from the hospital and vowing that no matter how bad it was he wasn't going to let Alex die.