Chapter 13

Susan's heart jumped when the monitor jumped, once, twice, three times, "holy shit we've got a rhythm." She heard one of them say but Susan was about to break out into song and dance to notice who had actually said it. Once she was sure that Abby was indeed stable, she rushed down to the ER, under strict orders to update them if anything happened, "Well" she thought to herself "something did happen,":

"So Dr. Lockhart, you chose to live," Tom smiled at her.

"Yeah, I couldn't leave them, not yet anyway."

"You mean so much to the ER Abby, you might not realize it just yet, but you do. Not every physician possesses the skills and compassion you do. Your patients love you, as do your coworkers, especially Jake," Tom noticed how Abby smiled as soon as he mentioned Jake's name. "You made the right choice,"

"I hope so. What happens now?"

"Up here, it seems like you've just made the decision, but down on earth, well its been close to six hours." Abby just stared. "So after we say our goodbyes, you'll wake up and wont see me for a very long time, at least hopefully."

"Thank you Tom, I really appreciate you," Abby whispered, near tears.

"Don't cry, not yet, when you see Dr. Jake then you can cry," Tom reached over and pulled her into a tight embrace, "See you later Dr. Lockhart," Abby heard him say, before everything turned black.

The monitors were showing that Abby had finally stabilized, that her heart was beating on it's own again and there was the occasional movement of a breath that she was taking on her own. Susan remained by Abby's side now as she watched over her friend. Then out of the blue, a hand moved. Susan looked down and sure enough Abby's fingers had moved inside hers. "That's it Abby, come on, come back." Susan said giving her friend an encouraging voice to come back to. She watched knowing that if Abby was coming back to them it was going to be a long process that would take hours even days. As the time passed the movements become more frequent and after several hours there were signs that she was going to open her eyes again. Susan could see Abby's eye lids making that attempt to open.

She had paged Jake, minutes before; she wanted him to be there when Abby opened her eyes. Suddenly, the door burst open and Jake rushed in, Kerry at his heals.

"What happened?" he took a quick glance at the monitors, as she rushed to Abby's side.

"Watch, here take her hand," Susan directed. Jake did as he was told, as Kerry looked on. "Abby, squeeze Jake's hand, come on sweetie, you can do it," there wasn't any movement.

"Dr. Lewis, this is..." Jake started to untangle his hand from Abby's but Susan stopped him.

"This isn't for you Jake, its for Abby. Why don't you try and talk to her?"

"Fine," Jake said rather brash with Susan, he didn't like the fact that she seemed to be toying with him right now, he lowered his voice as he bent down on the edge of Abby's gurney leaning in so that only she could hear him, "Abby its Jake, squeeze my hand if you can hear me babe, come on, you can do it," and there it was, a soft movement in his hand. "Good girl, now we just need you to open your eyes."

There was a flutter of moment from Abby's eye lids. Jake's smile grew even wider as he noticed that Abby was trying to come back, she was coming back to them. "That's it Abby, come back toward the sound of my voice." Her eyes just kept fluttering as Abby felt so heavy right now she couldn't open them, it felt as if concrete held them shut against her will, but she could hear Jake's voice and was trying to get back to it. Slowly each time she tried they came open just a little bit further. Until finally she was able to open them all the way. She could feel the annoyance of the tube down her throat unsure of why it was there, pain was shooting thru different parts of her body now as she came back to the land of the living.

"It's okay baby." Jake said brushing his hand across her forehead, "you're going to be alright." He looked over at Susan amazed that she had awoken from the coma she had been in for so long. "Thank you Abby, thank you," he bent down and placed a kiss on her forehead as Susan and Kerry stood in the doorway, tears running down both of their faces.

Soon began the process of telling Abby what had happened to her, the extent of her injuries and what all had been done to her in hopes that it would ease her fears and anxieties some.