Olivia jumped, tightening her grip on Bette's shoulders in time with the third blast of the defibrillator. The charge crackled in the air as it dissipated from Gregory's still form. As it died away, the bedroom became silent. Roger lowered his fingers to Gregory's neck and waited.
Silence held them all. Roger's face had gone stone, like the two paramedics at his side. Sean knelt besides him, his suit in disarray. Somehow it was comforting to see him worried about his father. Olivia clung to her chest, tears soaking through to Bette's blouse. She was still getting used to Olivia being pregnant, the hardness of her belly pressed against her as Bette kept held her. She couldn't help wondering if this baby was going to have a father.
It wasn't right to see Gregory still. He was impervious. No one hurt Gregory, he didn't even get sick. Bette couldn't remember the last time she'd even heard of him having to take a day off work for himself. Sometimes he took time off to take care of Olivia or the kids, but he didn't even get the flu.
Bette was the only one who saw the twitch in Roger's face. The hint of emotion he hid from everyone else. As he realized she was watching him, their gazes met. The spark in the depths of his green eyes was so deeply hidden that she was sure she was the only one who knew.
Roger's voice was barely above a whisper, without the oppressive silence of the bedroom no one would have heard. "I've got a pulse." He found the time to squeeze Sean's hand as the paramedics loaded his unconscious form onto the stretcher.
Bette still had her hands full. "They've got a pulse Livie. He's alive. We're going honey. We'll be right behind them." Bette promised to deaf ears. All Olivia had heard was that he was alive.
The sirens were painfully intense in contrast to the silence of the bedroom, but the fragile beep of Gregory's heart monitor cut through the scream of the sirens inside the ambulance. The hiss of the respirator was more faint. Everything hung on that fragile line on the monitor. Roger could force Gregory's chest to expand, force his lungs to spread life through his body, but he couldn't instill a steady rhythm into his heart.
The clear plastic mask over Gregory's face was still providing oxygen to his blue lips, but without the movement of blood it did little good. The monitor squealed a warning as the peaks flattened into a ominous line. At Roger's command more epinephrine poured into Gregory's vein's. He slammed the paddles down himself, feeling his oldest friend's body jolt upwards as the electricity called him back to life.
"Don't give up yet." Roger whispered to himself. "I'll chase you right down to hell if you make me tell her I couldn't save you." Letting go of the breath he was holding as Gregory's heart responded. Watching the monitor creep back up towards normal, Roger looked back towards the cars behind them. Sean was behind the wheel of Bette's white Lexus. Sean was too young to be going through this. Everyone was too young to lose a parent.
Sean had never seen his mother so upset.
Bette just pressed the car keys into his hand, no witticisms or remarks. "Follow the ambulance, keep it legal."
It was all he could do to dumbly get into the driver's seat. As he followed the trail of the ambulance he spent one glance towards the back seat. His mother was white, pale, ghostly white that make her skin seem transparent. Her grip on Bette's hand was slack, and even her fingers were limp with shock.
Bette, like Roger, it seemed, depended on stoicism. She was calm in a regimented, artificial way because she had to be. Olivia needed someone to be strong because she couldn't. She couldn't face a world without his father in it.
Sean turned his attention back to the road in front of him, missing the silent tears that coursed down his mother's face. They pooled under her chin, then they feel, unheeded onto the smooth silk of her dress. The green fabric spotted darker, nearly black when wet and Bette nearly smiled when she realized how foolish it was to worry that Olivia was ruining her dress. She'd never wear it again anyway.
If- (only in the darkest part of her mind did Bette let herself think if instead of when) if Gregory recovered- the anniversary was ruined. It might be rescheduled, but it certainly wasn't soon enough for Olivia to wear the same dress. Pregnancy certainly would have altered her figure too much by then.
Bette forced the idea of Olivia finishing her pregnancy alone out of her mind. Gregory would be there when this baby came because she couldn't even imagine it differently. As she had told Olivia a hundred times, this was real love. Real love would fight for itself wouldn't it?
Her heart wanted to believe her, to trust that this couldn't be the end. Surely if there was a divine intellect, this wasn't part of the plan. No one would be cruel enough to let two people finally find happiness and then rip one of them away.
Olivia couldn't feel anything. She'd lost the capacity to reason and her heart was as still as her husband's had been on their bedroom floor. Gregory had been dead and dragged back to life by a thread. Now only that thread held him. The worst part was how impossible it was to believe everything was going to be all right.
It hadn't been for her father. When she'd found him, still, lying on the floor without breathing- it had been anything but all right. Just like Gregory, Thomas represented all was good in the world. Gregory might not have her father's dedication to virtue, but he was so strong.
Gregory was constant, as dependable as the sunrise. He was far from perfect, but he loved her. He dragged her out of the water, became so overprotective when she needed him. He'd built their lives together, carved out a space in the world that was theirs alone. In all his careful plotting he'd never considered this. As good as he was at protecting her, there was no contingency plan for something happening to him.
Just like her father, who loved her and made her feel wonderful and special. The one thing he'd never taught her was how to do that without him. Without Thomas the world had grown dark. Daylight was a grey mockery of what it once had been. The little pieces of loneliness grew around her like thorns. It wasn't that he was just gone- it was having breakfast alone. It was making tea and realizing it was for one. Coming home to an empty flat and sealing in loneliness when she shut the door.
Manchester became more silent hell than home. When Ethel Baxter handed her the money she needed to get out, she'd left the following morning. Even the California sunshine had felt like a lie, a flash of light in the darkness she couldn't chase out of her heart. Then Gregory exploded into her world with the force and brilliance of a comet.
He was charming and intelligent and even though he was always the center of a conversation, he found a way to catch her eyes. That special, confidant little smile that said he'd been watching her all along. The way he winked at her and made the rest of the room fade away.
Bette tightened her grip as they got out of the car, but it was a stranger's hand in Bette's fingers. Someone else was wearing her rings, her watch, the silver and diamond bracelet Gregory gave to her before the Police ball. The expensive stones glittered in the weak fluorescent lights of the hospital, but even they were fading.
The whole world was fading into darkness again, but Gregory wasn't there to illuminate it. He was the center of attention, surrounded by medical staff who worked desperately to keep his heart beating, but he couldn't smile at her. He didn't even seem real, she couldn't touch him. Roger hadn't even let her touch him.
No one bothered to keep her away now. They were too busy with Gregory to notice her standing there with Bette and Sean. Olivia's hearing snapped back on as a cacophony of alarms went off at once.
"He's crashing-"
"BP seventy over thirty-five and falling."
"O2's dropped to sixty percent."
"We're loosing him."
"EEG's going flat-"
Gregory was kissing her neck and laughing as they talked to their wedding guests. Caitlin hiccuped and stopped crying as her father held her. He carried her over the threshold, tucking her feet back to keep them from hitting the doorway. He held up his hand to stop her from talking, fury burning in his eyes as he realized she'd been having an affair. His hands closed around her wrists, and he kissed the bruises he had left when he apologized.
He held her eyes open in the car, forcing her to look at him, to stay with him even as their baby died within her. Sean took his first trembling steps towards his father and Gregory waited with the kind of patience only a father could have as he held out his hands. Caitlin ran to him after her first day of school. Gregory held her hand as they watched Sean graduate from elementary school.
The vodka bottle shattered on the wall over her head and Gregory crushed the martini glass beneath his foot as he backed her towards the bed. Her dress tore as he ripped it from her. Her hand stung as she slapped him for having yet another affair with some little wh0re from his office. He shook her until she collapsed to the floor of the bathroom and vomited. He whispered to her when he thought she was sleeping. Wondered how they'd gone so wrong, gotten so lost from each other.
Gregory held up her knife and waited for her fingers to grab the handle.
"I love you." Olivia echoed as her life flashed to a halt. That was it, that was everything. "Gregory-"
The gurney rattled beneath him. The crash cart drew so much power the lights in the emergency room dimmed. The alarms stopped as Gregory's heart started beating again.
"Gregory-" She broke through the nurses, and Roger nodded that they should give her a moment.
Bette took his hand. There were some things that couldn't be explained medically. "Is he going to make it?"
Roger shrugged faintly, grateful for her presence at his side. "I hope so."
"What does that mean?" She turned her away from Gregory's bed, pulling him back so only she could hear his reply.
"It's not up to me. We've got his heart beating, Gregory has to keep it going."
Olivia dropped her hand to her husband's forehead, brushing his soft brown hair with trembling hands. "Stay for me." She kissed his cheek, trying not to think about how cold it was. "I stayed for you. You can't leave me now."