Louis gently reached out, carefully touching his son's face for a moment. Did Elmer even realize how much he cared? Louis felt a wave of sadness wash over him as he thought of his relationship with his son. How had he let things go so wrong and was the damage too severe to fix? He hoped that it wasn't, had hoped that having Elmer work at the hospital with him would have helped things but.... He gently reached out once more and touched Elmer again before turning his attention back to Lona and assessing her condition. Pulse was still there, weak, of course, but steady, a definite good sign. If they could just get her out of there and upstairs for proper treatment, he had a feeling that she would be fine.

He reached down, feeling that Elmer was still clinging tightly to Lona's hand even in sleep before taking one of the larger blankets that Hook had found and draping it across both of the side by side gurneys to cover them. It was a bit warmer now but definitely not as warm as he would like it to be considering their situation and Lona's injuries.

"It's going to be fine." Louis whispered softly to his son as he reached out and took Elmer's free hand, gently holding it for a moment before tucking it back under the covers. He wished that Elmer would wake up for a bit although he knew that sleep was the best thing for him at the moment, sparing him from worrying for Lona anyway. They hadn't really had any time to just talk in so long. Or had they ever really talked? "I didn't care about Edgar more, you know." Louis said softly. "I know you thought that but...." He could understand why Elmer would have believed that too. It seemed that through most of his younger son's childhood, he had been moving from crisis to crisis with his older son, leaving Elmer in the background. Was that why Elmer did some of the things that he did now?
Louis had a feeling that it might be. "I'm sorry, Elmer." he continued,
now glad that his son wasn't awake to hear this, knowing if Elmer had been he wouldn't have been able to say it. "I'm so, so sorry I wasn't there for you."

Although he couldn't see, he closed his eyes anyway as memories of the past started to come back. He knew he had made more than his share of mistakes and no matter how hard he tried to justify it, to explain away the things that he had done being due to the fact that he had been left with a seven year old and a newborn after Emma's accident and her subsequent slip into addiction, he knew that he could have done better, should have done better. Elmer had been his miracle, the child he had tried so hard to save, the one had had been terrified that he was going to lose before he ever saw him. Had he ever let his son know that, how desperately he had wanted him?

"I promise when we get out of this, I'm going to try harder"
Louis whispered. "I want to be a good father, Elmer. I promise that I do." Was it something about being blind, something that was suddenly making him see things clearly?

"Dad?" Louis looked down when he heard his son's voice suddenly calling.

"It's okay." he whispered. "Just go back to sleep now. Chris and Hook went to see about finding a way out for us. It's alright."

"Lona? Is Lona...." Elmer wasn't really fully awake, just drifting in a semi-conscious daze, but his fears for Lona came through to his father loud and clear.

"Lona's fine. She's going to be fine thanks to you. Now go back to sleep. Everything is going to be fine." Louis gently patted his son's shoulder, tucking the blankets more securely around him as he felt Elmer starting to drift off once more. Sleep, no matter how much Louis would have liked to talk to him, he knew that sleep was exactly what his son needed at the moment.

Gottreich sneered as he watched Louis comforting his son. So pathetic, the mortals, with their petty little emotions and love. You would never see one of his kind acting so foolishly, letting themselves become vulnerable. And for what? The boy was a total idiot. His father would be doing everyone a favor if he disposed of him now while he slept.

Gottreich started to slowly move forward, as he did, extracting a syringe from his pocket, the tip coated with what appeared to be dried blood. He supposed it was his task to dispose of them, though. Goodness knows that that brainless assistant of his didn't have the skill to do it,
always trying to get others to do his dirty work for him or leaving an out so his victims could escape at the last moment. If Gottreich had been so foolish, that pest Maddie Kruger would still be roaming about as well as Laurel Whirling.

His pale lips twitched slightly as he thought of the two women.
Now that was the way to kill someone, with due planning so the death would be ruled a suicide, not sloppy like Paul wanted to do it. Luckily, he had saved some of the warfarin from his disposal of the nurse. An injection of that into the woman's IV should be more than enough to take care of the problem. The men other two would never know what had happened until it was too late and then guilt would dispose of them as well. He smirked once more as he moved forward, easing around Louis, slowly reaching out and snagging the closest IV line. This was going to be easy.