That Summer
Rating: T-M
Disclaimer: If the characters were mine I'd be getting paid to write
TV scripts, now wouldn't I? So…you know the drill.
Reviewers: Sam – Thanks. I wasn't sure where the Hunter thing was gonna go
until I wrote it. And then I read it and figure, yeah, I could go with it. I'm
glad it was good enough to read more than once! Laura – Now listen sista, the first step to fixing your addiction
problem is admitting you have one…say it with me now… "My name is Laura…and I'm
addicted to fanfic…" But, since I'm addicted too, here's to feeding out
addictions, no? AudreyF. – Thanks!
I'm a big fan of cliffhangers. The whole adrenaline and the feeling of NO!
Don't just stop there! Is awesome, isn't it? Butterfly Dancing – Yeah…I can be kind of evil…but awesome evil! Thanks! And as
for you dying over there, seems to me Grace feels your pain in this story. Okay
that was cheesy I know.
Everyone else: Thanks
for reading. Much love to you! Keep reading, we're coming closer to the end
here people!
A/N: I got an email from
someone who said the last chapter made them so distraught they couldn't leave a
review and that I was an evil person for ending it where I did. So I apologize
to anyone who was traumatized, distraught or distressed because of the last chapter!
As always, sorry for typos because of my piss poor proofreading!
Chapter 12 – Don't Take The Girl
Luke felt his heart pounding against his ribcage. He was fairly certain that it had broken one of his ribs, because it was getting hard to breathe due to the tightness in his chest. He stared blankly at Grace, blocking out everyone surrounding her, including the crowd of on lookers. He willed her to sit up, coughing and gasping for air, as if it had all just been a sick joke. He reached out mechanically and found her hand, lying motionless in the sand and took her cold, wet hand into his. He wished her fingers would curl around his and she would open her eyes. Shaking, he looked at his watch. Three minutes and fourteen seconds. Come on Grace…please, he thought.
"Girardi." The head lifeguard, who's another lifeguard had called Brody, put a hand on Joan to stop her. Joan had been doing both compressions and breathing because the others had felt it was useless. Joan violently through Brody's arm off of her and continued the CPR, without replying. She was crying as she did so, but was too determined to let that interfere. "Girardi, you're not going to get her back." Brody said. Joan ignored him.
The three lifeguards that had gone in the water to find Ryan came out empty handed.
"Brody! Nobody's out there." One of them said. Brody looked at Joan.
"I thought you said you were going for a victim?" He asked. Joan ignored him. He grabbed her arm.
"Let me go!" She shoved him away. "Grace come on!" Joan began pushing on Grace's ribcage again. Three minutes and twenty-six seconds.
"There was." Luke spoke up, shakily, not taking his yes off of Joan and Grace. "Ryan. Ryan Hunter. He was drowning." Luke forced out, squeezing on Grace's hand. He was still pleading in his head for her life. And that's when it happened.
Without warning, Grace's body lurched at her torso. Her hand instinctively clenched onto Luke's a water sputtered out of her mouth as she uncontrollably gagged, coughed the water up and gasped wildly for air. Her eyes were still closed. Joan and Brody rolled her over onto her side as more water came out. It would have been the most disgusting, disturbing sound Luke had ever heard, if it hadn't been the most wonderful.
"Grace! Grace!" Joan called, pushing Grace's wet, sandy hair out of the way as they settled Grace back onto her back after all the water had come out. Grace's head lolled back and forth. Her eyes opened briefly but only to roll up into her head as she breathed heavily. Color was starting to return to her lips as the other lifeguards put a neck brace on her and moved her to a backboard to take her to the ambulance that was waiting on the street.
Luke and Joan raced along with them, helping to carry her through the crowds of people and up the beach. When they reached the sidewalk, they put the backboard onto the stretcher that the paramedics had ready. Everyone but Joan and Luke-who was still holding Grace's hand tightly-backed up. The paramedics put a green tinted oxygen mask over Grace's mouth, an elastic band held it around her head. They used a flashlight to check her eyes as they spoke in medical code to each other, hooking her to the stretcher and preparing it to go into the ambulance.
"Only one of you can fit in the bus with us." The female paramedics said. Joan looked at Luke. She was getting shaky now.
"You go. I'll drive to the hospital." She assured. Luke didn't hesitate to second guess this. He didn't want to let go of Grace. As they pushed the stretcher in, he held onto her hand and climbed inside, sitting against the wall next to the stretcher. The ambulance began to drive and the female paramedic was in the back with them, checking Grace's blood pressure and hooking an IV up to her arm as well as giving her a needle, but Luke didn't know what was in it. He looked at Grace.
He noticed her eyes weren't shut all the way. He could feel that he was still crying. He wasn't sobbing but the tears were still overwhelming his eyes and sliding down his cheeks. He reached a hand out and stroked her hair, carefully.
"I'm right here." He told her.
Grace struggled to keep her eyes cracked open as they were. Her vision felt foggy and blurry. The mixture of only being cracked open and being full of saltwater and sand make them burn. But she saw Luke. She could barely make him out but there he was. She felt his hand and she gripped it tighter. Luke nodded as if he could read her mind.
"I'm not going anywhere." He promised as they raced to the hospital with the lights and sirens on. Luke listened to the heart monitor the paramedic had hooked up and to the wheezing sound of her breath as she inhaled and exhaled painfully.
"Jane!" Adam called. Joan looked up to see Adam sprinting up the hall towards where she was standing, leaning against the wall next to the uncomfortable plastic chairs. She couldn't get herself to sit down for the three hours she'd been there. She was biting on her fingernail when she heard him. Looking up Joan saw him a second before he'd engulfed her to him. Joan felt herself melt into his embrace, her face burrowing itself into his neck and collarbone. She shivered as she began to cry. Adam smoothed her hair with one hand and held her to him, rubbing her back gently with the other. She could smell the house paint on him.
"Adam…" Joan choked out, her sobs cutting into her voice now. "It was…a-awful…oh God…" She shuddered. Adam swayed slightly as he held onto her.
"Shh…it's okay. It'll be all right, Jane." He said. He didn't even know what had happened. He just wanted to calm her down. Looking around the waiting room, Adam saw a few of the other lifeguards sitting and waiting for news. He knew then that it must have been Grace, which would explain Luke's absence. He knew Luke wouldn't have just sat in the waiting room.
"What happened?" Adam asked quietly.
"Ryan." Joan spit out.
"Ryan?" Adam asked, growing more confused each passing minute.
"He…he was drowning…" she said, still crying and not letting herself out of Adam's embrace.
"Is he…?" Adam tried to form a question, unsure.
"No. I don't know." Joan sniffled. "We were looking for him. In the water." She said, shaking. "Grace didn't come back to the surface." She felt herself crying harder again. "L-Luke came out…He found her…just…f-f…floating…" her shoulder shook violently. She had, after all, held all of this in on the beach when she was ready to break down. Joan couldn't lose another friend. Especially not her best friend.
"Okay…" Adam tried to keep her calm. He swallowed hard, afraid to ask his next question. "Is Grace, um…is she…?" He couldn't get the word past his lips.
Grace had been the one who sat with him when his dad was picking out a coffin, and ordering floral arrangements and making the other funeral arrangements. She had been the one to reach out and hold his hand at the funeral when he wouldn't let anyone touch him. She had followed him when he'd run away to their favorite hiking trail and sat with him all night until he wanted to return in the morning. She hadn't given him and fake stupid cliché sayings like 'she's in a better place now,' and 'it's going to be okay, you'll see,' or 'some people just don't know how to handle their problems.' She hadn't given him any of the false sentiments that were meant to comfort but only inflicted more pain and made life more real and painful. She had been the one to simply sit with him in his darkest times. He didn't need words to make his feelings more complicated then, and Grace knew that feeling well, so she'd just sit with him and let him cry, ot scream or yell, or rant and rave. Could she really be gone now too?
"She was." Joan said. She looked up. "We…CPR…and then they brought her here. I-I don't know if she's still awake…or, or if anything else happened. They won't tell us anything." Joan glared at the nurse's station. The emotions that washed over Adam's face were strange. He was relieved, but still frightened.
"It'll be all right." He said solemnly. Joan put her head back down.
"It has to be…" She agreed softly.
Grace heard the sound of water in her ears. She forced her eyes open in the murking water and there was Ryan staring back at her with that wicked smile on his face. She screamed out and felt the water engulf her lungs. No, her mind screamed. She kicked and flailed to no avail. Ryan grinned at her, waving almost demonically. She felt hands on her neck but Ryan was too far away. Panic set in as it became harder to breathe. Please, not again. No!
Luke sat up straight. Grace's eyes had just popped open wide, as she awoke with a jolt. Her hand gripped his so hard he thought she may have dislocated one of them.
"Hey…" He said just loud enough. Her eyes averted to him as the sound of her heartbeat steadied on the monitor and her breathing slowly returned to normal and she let her body relax back into the bed. It was propped up so she was in a sitting position. Luke reached his hand out and pushed her hair behind her ear. He offered a tiny, scared smile. "It's all right. You're awake now." He said. She studied him, still confused. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy. The end of his nose was red and he sniffled. There was an tube in her nose feeding oxygen in as she breathed. An IV bag was hooked into the back of her right hand. Luke clutched her left hand as tightly as she was holding his. What was she doing here? She should be dead.
"What…" she said hoarsely.
"You scared the hell out of us there…" He said sweetly, trying to make light of the situation. "Do you remember what happened?" Grace nodded slightly. Luke grabbed the cup of water he'd poured with his freehand off the nightstand and held it for her to take a sip. Grace hesitated a moment before sipping out of the straw. Luke set the cup back down.
"Hunter." She said, tiredly resting her head to the left side, looking at Luke with half-open eyes. Luke nodded.
"Yeah. He was drowning. You and Joan went after him." He said. "Do you know what happened after that?" He asked. "I mean, you're a strong swimmer and all." He closed his eyes only for a second, trying for the billionth time to get the picture of her floating just above the surface of the water out of his mind.
"Hunter." She said again when he opened his eyes and looked at her. Her eyes filled up but didn't spill over. "Was a trick." She used the least amount of words she could, feeling exhausted. Her chest felt like it was on fire. Luke's face turned cold when it clicked in his head what she meant. That's when he noticed the finger marks on her neck. He felt rage surge through him, until he saw the discomfort and pain on her face.
"You, uh, it's gonna hurt to breathe for a while." He almost chuckled as he wiped at his face before she could see. "Joan put a hairline fraction in one of your ribs." He said. Grace looked at him. "W-Wh-uh, When she wouldn't stop. The CPR, I mean." He said. He reached up and ran a hand across her cheek and through her hair before leaning over and kissing her forehead. "Go to sleep, okay?" He told her. Grace was too drained to argue. She nodded slightly and closed her eyes.
"Luke! Where's Grace?" Joan asked, leaping to her feet when she spotted her brother walk up the hallway and look around for her and Adam. He walked over to them.
"Is she all right?" Adam asked. Luke felt so many emotions he didn't think he could list them all, from rage, to fear and relief to love. Adam saw Luke's fist clench. "What's going on?"
"They said she'll be all right. They're gonna keep her here for two days." Luke cleared his throat. He looked at Joan. "One of her ribs has a hairline fracture. From the CPR." He said. Joan looked down, feeling guilty. "He tried to drowned her."
Both Joan and Adam looked up upon hearing this.
"Hunter?" Adam asked. Luke nodded, too angry to say it out loud. Joan was in shock, even though deep down she'd known it had to be him Adam's face went cold. Joan thought he looked almost as angry and hurt as when she'd smashed his art. Worse even.
"What are we gonna do?" Luke asked, looking to Joan. Joan looked between them nervously.
"I…I'm gonna go get a coffee…and think." She excused herself. She headed around the corner and leaned back against the vending machine as the coffee machine prepared to pour her drink. She put her head back, tiredly. "What are we gonna do?" She asked desperately, on the verge of tears again.
"Call your father, Joan."
Joan looked up to see a nurse decked out in green scrubs putting money into a soda machine. Joan stared at Nurse God.
"She could have died because of you." Joan said. "Let her go! She could have died! She did die!"
"She's all right Joan." Nurse God looked at Joan. "Thanks to you. And Luke."
"And your only advice is to call my dad!" Joan shouted. "He's trying to kill us!"
"I know Joan-omniscient, remember?" Nurse God replied. "Call your father." She turned and waved and walked before Joan could reply. Shaking her head Joan grabbed her coffee cup and then pulled out another quarter, walking up the hall for the payphones. She stuck the money in and dialed. It rang three times before there was an answer.
"Girardi." Her father replied after seeing the unknown number.
"Daddy?" Joan asked, sounding quiet and desperately like a small child.
"Joan?" Will replied, sounding scared and caught off guard. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"Hey." Adam said when Joan had returned. "Everything okay?"
Joan nodded. "I called my Dad." She said quietly. Luke and Adam stared at her. "He should be here in a few hours." She cleared her throat. "The local police should be here soon to take our statements. They're sending out a manhunt to look for Ryan." She said.
"I'm going to check on Grace." Luke stood and walked up the hall.
"Can I come with you?" Joan asked.
"Yeah." Adam said, standing. Luke nodded and the three of them heded for Grace's room.
Grace heard them enter and a smile crept across her face before she opened her eyes.
"Herrre…comes…the cavalry…" She said sarcastically. She noted their faces. "Geez…did somebody die?" She asked.
"That's not funny." Joan said, hiding her smile as she walked closer with Adam and Luke.
"Oh, right. I did." Grace said nonchalantly.
"Grace." Adam said, uncomfortably.
"I'm all right." She assured. She looked at Joan. "Thanks to you especially." She said. Joan nodded, afraid she might cry again if she talked.
"So, Adam, how was your day?" Grace teased.
