A/N: Thanks for the reviews and the suggestions everyone. Your ideas are all great, but I had finished writing the story before I posted the first chapter. Also, eM's aLter Ego, I can understand what you're saying about combining chapters to make it easier to read. The problem is that this story is pretty short, and ending the chapters where I do makes the story much more interesting and suspenseful, (at least I think so!).
Chapter Six:
Several hours later, (although neither Cory or Shawn kept track, things like time had no meaning any more.), Cory's mother entered the small office. In her motherly arms, she grabbed her son and his best friend, who she had practically raised. She held them both, sobbing with them and rocking them like babies.
A nurse came in to check on them, and she informed Mrs. Mathews of the situation, and also of the organ donation.
"May we see her?" asked Amy Mathews, who felt as if her own daughter had died.
The nurse nodded, and led them into the room. Shawn stood in the doorway, obviously torn between terror and grief. Cory and his mother knelt at the bedside and wept together, united in grief.
"Cory, I agree with the doctor," she said. "This death must not be for nothing. Topanga didn't have the chance to make all the beauty she wanted in her life. That chance was snatched away by some foolish drunk driver, who may have survived the crash but who will never forgive himself. But Cory, you can give her that chance in life. Cory nodded at his mother, and spoke in a voice which sounded as if it had aged twenty years in the past hours.
"I'll do it."
A doctor came in, and began to speak to them.
"We'll do it tomorrow," he said. "That will give enough time for her family to say good bye. Her mother and father should be arriving first thing in the morning. We'll do it in the afternoon. You can stay here tonight, if you'd like."
Suddenly, Cory remembered something which he had forgotten in his grief. "The baby!" he said. "She's pregnant!"
"Mr. Mathews, the baby did not survive the trauma of the accident. Even if it had, we wouldn't have been able to keep it alive until the due date. There's just no way. I'm sorry."
The doctor left the room, and a new nurse came in with a pill for each of them.
"To sleep," she said.
They all took it, knowing that without it they'd never rest. And if there was anything they needed for the coming days, it was rest. They curled up in chairs around her bed and slept the artificial sleep of a sleeping pill.