Chapter Seven
2:36 p.m. 24th December
Shawn's new bride waited anxiously in the hospital hallway for news of her husband. Still dressed in the bloodstained clothes she had held his head in her lap in, she was oblivious to everything but his condition, and there was no news yet.
Jan was in custody. The police had dragged her off the plane and raced her away as soon as they had landed in the first airport they'd come to after Shawn was stabbed. She felt nothing towards her, no hatred, no loathing, nothing except emptiness. She was not important. That she had done this to Shawn only showed how far gone she was in her delusions, Blue Eyes thought nothing of her. Shawn consumed her every thought.
The bloody scissors had been removed as evidence by the same police who had taken Jan away, and Shawn had been rushed away to the local hospital, his lifeblood seeping out of his chest and into the cloth his wife had pressed to his chest.
She would never forget the triumphant look on Jan's face as she had watched Shawn being loaded into the ambulance, or the grey one on his. Tears running freely down her beautiful face for what felt like the fiftieth time in the past few hours, Blue Eyes tried to get a grip on herself, for Shawn's sake, but whenever she closed her eyes to stop herself weeping more, she saw him closing his eyes and his head lolling sideways as he lost consciousness on the floor of that accursed aeroplane. If she had only been able to remember her premonition, the premonition that now stood starkly out in her mind as clear as any memory, she would have been able to convince him to take another flight, and then perhaps Jan would not have been able to harm him.
Unable to bear it longer, she raced to the tiny chapel in the basement of the hospital, decorated for Christmas with red holly that only reminded her of blood and greenery that was reminiscent of her wedding the night before, though God knew it felt like a decade had passed in the interval.
She knelt solemnly, tears still pouring down her cheeks, and began praying with the fervency of new love and youth.
"God," and it was an entreaty, not a blasphemy on her angelic lips, "please, you gave him to me only this morning, don't take my Shawn away from me so soon. Please…"
The priest listening to her felt his own heart become heavy and worn with her sorrow. To be so young, so obviously in love and so desperate was tragic. He walked forwards slowly, and touched her shoulder gently.
She did not move.
He touched her again, a little more roughly, saying, "Miss?"
Still Shawn's Blue Eyes did not respond.
The priest, suddenly afraid, shook her by the shoulders hard.
She stayed completely unresponsive.
"Nurse!" He ran to the chapel door and yelled down the corridor. "Nurse, help me please! Anyone! Dr Horton!"
"What is it?" Dr Michael 'Mike' Horton raced to the chapel door and looked over the priest's shoulder. "Nurse! Get a trolley, stat!"
He was at her side in an instant, checking her pulse and her pupils. She seemed fine, except for being unconscious and unresponsive to the priest's shakings of her.
"It'll be fine, Father John," Mike reassured him, "I'll take her upstairs and check her out."
"You're so good, Mike," the priest calmed down instantly. The girl would be in good hands if Dr Horton was looking after her. "Poor thing, she was really upset about something."
"She'll be all right now," the tubby black nurse said, helping the good Dr to put the girl on the trolley, "God wouldn't let anything happen to such an angel on Christmas Eve."
The priest clutched at his rosary, and nodded. "I pray not."
Blue Eyes was oblivious of the priest's concern, the nurse's gentle attentions to her or even the gorgeous doctor's examination of her.
She stood in a hospital waiting room, but not the one she had been standing in a few minutes before, but in Salem General. The place gleamed with cleanliness, and smelt slightly of disinfectant. It was not decorated for Christmas, and it was barren of the usual barrage of patients, doctors, nurses and hospital staff. Even the usual ubiquitous Colin Murphy was missing.
It was empty but for herself and one other figure.
Shawn stood in the light filled ER doorway, facing away from her, but unmistakably himself, dressed in his usual blue jeans and leather jacket. Her heart thudded loudly in her chest as she looked at him.
"Husband," she held out a creamy skinned hand to him. "I'm here, Rhett."
"Blue Eyes," Shawn twisted around, and she saw that the red bloodstain on his chest had vanished. "Is that you?"
She nodded and started walking towards him.
"No," he started back and put out his hands to stop her from coming closer. "Stay there. You don't understand: this is Heaven's door."
"Shawn," his new bride was tapping her foot with impatience. "If you think I'm staying on this side just because you're being pig headed about death as you've been about everything else, you can think again. Didn't you hear what we promised each other-" she glanced at her watch, which was still ticking, "-twelve hours ago?" She quoted the words they had spoken with such love and with complete faith, "'Entreat me not to leave you, or to return from following after you, For where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. And where you die, I will die and there I will be buried.'" She smiled and took his reluctant hand, looking love straight into his soul and seeing her gaze returned with equal feeling. "You're stuck with me, sugar."
"But I may die," he took her in his arms and crushed her to him.
She looked up, her blue eyes for once not filled with tears, "Do you think I could live without you? Where you go, I'm going."
"I love you more than life itself," he whispered, leaning down for a kiss.
"Compared to what we have, life isn't that terrific," she replied, kissing him back.
A bell rang in the air and the ER waiting room vanished. With a jolt, the joined souls fell back into their two bodies and found themselves in beds that were side by side.
Reaching out a hand, they touched across the crevasse and the miracle was complete.
"They remind me of you and Carrie, Mike," the black nurse told him, and Mike smiled, but said nothing. To be compared with such a pair was a compliment beyond his wildest dreams, and to be told that he and Carrie had a similar love made his soul come alive.
"Feeling better?" Shawn's female doctor asked him, slightly surprised by the looks of love between the young patients.
"Yeah," he replied, dragging his gaze away from his Blue Eyes for a few precious seconds. "Can I go home now?"
"As long as you promise to stay in bed for the next few days," she sighed, "I don't see why not." She could hardly deny this beautiful boy his Christmas, especially if he was going to spend it with the girl next to him.
"Thank you," her heart went into a puddle as she saw that smile, but she felt no jealousy as an even brighter one was turned on the beautiful blonde in the bed next to his.
"Friend of yours?" She asked, nosily.
"You could say that," said Shawn's Blue Eyes with a wicked smile on her lips, "we were married this morning."
"Congratulations, Shawn, Mrs Brady," Mike called as he ran out the door to find Carrie. "Have a very merry Christmas!"
"You too!" They yelled after him. "Send Carrie our love!"
Shawn's doctor left them alone to dress and sign the release papers.
"Are you ready to face the parents?" he asked his young bride, and she did nothing but smile. An angel had taken the place of a mortal in her, and Shawn knew that he owed his life to her. It was to be a debt he would spend the rest of his life repaying.
Outside the hospital, the snow was deep and it had drifted into huge mounds. The lovers walked through it without eyes to see anything but each other, making their slow way back to Salem and Christmas with the families there.
They knew they had to go home, and it was no surprise when Hope called, demanding he return immediately.
"Hey Mom," he held his new wife's hand a little tighter as they wandered to the car rental shop.
Blue Eyes heard only one half of the conversation, but she could guess the rest.
"I promise, I'll be there, and I'm bringing your Christmas surprise with me," he smiled down at Blue Eyes, and she winked back up at him. "You'll love it."
There was a pause as Hope chattered on about something, and then Shawn finished, "OK, Mom, I'll be there tonight, six o'clock. I know, I know, miss it and I won't bother coming home at all. Send Abby my love. Bye," he looked at his wife seriously. "Promise me that when we have kids, you won't turn into my mother during the holidays."
"No, I'll turn into mine," and that made him laugh so hard the stitches in his chest almost ripped apart.
"I'll warn the fire brigade now," he picked her up and swung her around, kissing her sweetly in the middle of the snowy landscape. "I love you."
"I love you too, but if we don't get a car soon, your mother will never forgive either of us for being late," she giggled as Shawn gave her the puppy dog look he had perfected with his mother. "OK, one more kiss, and then we go."
It was not one more but five more later that they climbed into their car, and with the heater blasting, they roared down the highway to Salem, love lighting their road and their hearts. Nothing could harm them now.
So, twenty-four hours from Salem, Love and death faced off, vying for the souls of a pair so unusual and pure that the Devil himself could not corrupt them. Love won through for now at least, and though they knew that death could never be cheated forever, a lifetime of love was allowed to flourish. Jan and her evil schemes had been defeated, and now all that could stop them returning to Salem was the weather, but when God himself has judged the case, the danger of fate has passed, and only the purity of angels and the innocent love found in the heavens remains.