Dying in Your Arms Tonight - Chapter Nine
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The four friends waited impatiently in the well decorated waiting room.
"Guys!" Joey yelled, spotting them as he came through the emergency entrance dooors. "Is he okay?"
"We don't know, they haven't told us anything yet, he's still in surgery.," Monica replied as they all got up to greet him with hugs.
"How'd you get here? Didn't they arrest you?" Ross asked.
"They other hostages told them I was a hostage, not one of those damn guys," Joey spat, then looked regretfully at Monica. "I'm so sorry, Mon, I shouldn't have taken him out. He wanted to stay in, I should have just let him," he cried as tears ran down his face and he grabbed onto her arms.
"Joey, it's okay, it's not your fault. You didn't know this was going to happen," Monica soothed, wipping his tears away and wrapping her arms around him as he cried into her shoulder.
A doctor came into the waiting room, dressed in standard baby blue scrubs, and looked around the room.
"Doctor, were you in the opperating room with Chandler Bing?" Ross asked, stepping ahead of the group.
"Yes, I was. Are you related to him?"
Monica stepped away from Joey and approached the doctor, "I'm his girlfriend."
"Does he have any immediate family here?" the doctor asked.
"No, but it would take forever for his parents to get here, let alone to get in contact with them," Ross replied.
"Please, we need to know how he is, we're the closest thing he has to family," Monica pleaded.
The doctor looked at them sympathetically and sighed. "Alright, but you have to contact his family as soon as possible. He had a gun shot would to his lower left shoulder, we were able to get the bullet out just fine. We cleaned and stitched up the penetration wound to his left right thigh. When the paramedics found him, he didn't have a pulse, but they got his heart going again. He lost a lot of blood, which caused his heart rate to drop and we lost him again during surgery. He's stable now though and we expect him to recover well. He might need some physical therapy for his left shoulder though, we're not sure yet."
The group breathed a sigh of relief and visibly relaxed into each other's arms.
"Can we see him?" Monica asked.
"Yes, you can, one at a time for tonight though, we still have nurses checking on him frequently and we don't want the room to get too crowded. He's unconscious, so you won't be able to talk to him, although, he might still hear you, so you can give it a try.
"When will he wake up?"
"It could be a few hours, could be a few days, that's really up to him. He should be moved up to the ICU by now, room 412."
"Thank you, Doctor," Monica said as she jogged past him over to the elevator.
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"Oh, baby," Monica said softly as she walked into his room and took a seat. She stared at his still form, propped up into a reclined position by the bed, as if he had fallen asleep watching tv. "Can you hear me? Squeze my hand if you can hear me," she said, gently picking up his hand off the bed, careful not to disturb the pulse monitor on his finger. "Nevermind. Look, I'm really sorry about not talking to you for the past few days. I believe you, I know you wouldn't do something like that. I guess I was just mad at you, at me, I don't know. I love you, Chandler, I don't want to lose you, you have to wake up, you're the best thing that's ever come into my life. You're my life too, Chandler, I can't live without you. Open those beautiful baby blues and come back to us," she paused, staring at his peaceful face. "Well, I guess I should go, the others want to see you."
Monica stood and leaned down a little to give him a kiss on his forehead before walking out of the room.
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the next afternoon...
I had definately gone through the right door...or so I was sure.
Being unconscious in this coma-like state was not how I imagined it would be, it wasn't how people described it in books or in movies, it was rather...human.
I was in my own body, I couldn't see, but I could picture the room. I had heard everybody when they came in to talk to me, every word, every cry.
I needed to wake up, but I was far too tired. I knew I wasn't awake when I heard everybody because I couldn't move anything, not even a finger.
My time was spent listening to my friends and dreaming. I dreamed of real things, like alternate situations of the past few days.
Joey was in my room now. I was glad that he was ok, physically unharmed. Emotionally, I knew he was spent, he felt responsible for what happened, I heard him say that he was even thinking of leaving if I never woke up.
He had his feet propped up on the end of my bed and was watching a basketball game on the TV in my room.
"Hey, Joe," Rachel said, entering the room. She plopped down in the chair next to him and crossed her legs. "Any change?"
"Nope," Joey replied with a sigh.
Rachel flipped open the latest issue of Cosmo. "Hm, bet you don't want to hear how to do a self pedicure with fruit, do you, Chandler?"
God no, I really could do without.
Rachel stared at my unconcious body for a few seconds before flipping the magazine shut and tossing it on my nighstand.
"We called your parents adn told them what happened, but they couldn't come, sorry Hun. Your mom said she'd drop by in a few weeks though," she said.
I figured they wouldn't come anyway.
"Hey, I thought we were just going to tell him that we couldn't get in contact with them?" Joey said, rather alarmed.
"Relax, it's not like he can hear us anyway."
"You don't know that. Watch what you say," Joey warned.
"Fine, Dad," Rachel huffed and stood up. "I'm gonna go find something to eat, want anything?"
"No thanks, I'm not really hungry."
"Wow, Joey Tribbiani, not hungry. This is one for the books!" Rachel laughed and walked off down the hallway.
I head Joey shut the TV off, scoot his chair closer to me, and rest his arms on the edge of my bed.
"You in there?" he asked. "You gotta wake up sometime, you know. I miss you, you're laying right here, and I miss you," he paused and leaned back in his chair. "I'm sorry, Chandler. I shouldn't have taken you to the club, you didn't want to go, I knew that, but ignored it. Please wake up, man."
I wasn't ready to wake up yet, physically I was getting close, but emotionally I was far from. Joey needed to be convinced by everybody else that this was not his fault, I couldn't do it, I wasn't supposed to.
I had had enough listening for now.
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Later that night...
Phoebe casually strolled into the room, glanced at Rachel sleeping in the chair next to the door, and walked across the room to sit next to my bed.
"Hey you, first off, I'd like to say that you have got a killer view here. Check it out, this whole wall is a window, you can see right down the street! It looks so pretty, all those cars, people, buldings, lights, you don't know what you're missing," she said, motioning to the window behind her.
"And second, I know that you can hear me, and I know that you're not ready to wake up yet, but listen, Joey's leaving. He doesn't want to be here, not after what happened, he can't stand to see you like this. He thinks it's all his fault. You reall need to wake up, Chandler. Monica loves you, she really does, and you're scaring the crap out of her. We finally got her to go home this afternoon and get some sleep. I miss you, Chandler," Phoebe said, resting her hands on the edge of my bed.
It was a strange new feeling, like my whole body was being recharged. I could move again. I slid my hand towards Phoebe's at the first change I got and was able to get my pinky finger up on her hand. She glanced down at our hands then up at my face.
I slowly cracked my eyes open and stared at her for a few seconds, my vision was blurry, mostly from not using my eyes since last night. "Water," I whispered, my throat was so dry.
Phoebe grabbed the cup off my nightstand and moved to hand it to me, but after seeing that I was unable to life my injured arm, she lifted the cup to my mouth. I took a sip of water and forcefully swallowed it.
"Nice to see you again," Phobe smiled. I weakly smiled back.
"Is Joey really leaving?" I asked quietly.
"No, I just said it because I knew it would get you to wake up."
Wow, I really was getting tired now. I turned my head toward the window, it truly was a great view.
"I'll go get the doctor, visiting hours are over in about five minutes, so we'll all come by tomorrow morning. G'night," she stood up, bent down to give me a kiss on the forehead, roused Rachel out of her deep sleep, and half carried her out of the room.
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to be continued...
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Wow, it's been a really long time since I last updated. I've been so incredibly busy though, and everytime I get on the computer to type some of this story up, I run out of time. I have nothing left to type up though, I'm on my own now, I have to finish the story by myself. I think the next chapter should be the last one, so please review and let me know what you think! Thank you SO MUCH for all of the reviews, I love you guys! Oh, by the way, I didn't have time to check this chapter for any mistakes, so sorry if there are any.
Thanks for reading, please review!
