It was so hard to deal with. It would have been so much easier to lock herself up in a dark room with her fingers in her ears and her eyes shut tight. So much easier than what lied ahead.
Jenny didn't want to have to deal. It was just all too much. First it was Ben's funeral and now this? As she continued to drive, at the end of the street she saw basically what she had seen not too long before with Ben. Young black-dressed mourners approaching the cemetery, preparing to lie to rest a fallen friend. Teens were crying everywhere.
Jenny held back her tears as she thought about the girl lying in the casket. A beautiful girl of 17. Deep brown eyes and long red hair, torn out of the world before she knew what was even happening to her. It was all over the news. Jefferson High, like Bayside, had lost a student. But this girl didn't commit suicide. No. Heart failure. No one saw it coming.
Jenny exhaled deeply, glad that, for the moment, at least, Chelsea was still alive. She turned the corner and drove past the funeral, feeling bad for the Jefferson girl.
Minutes later, she arrived at St. Francis Memorial Hospital, where the Principal of Bayside informed her that Chelsea had been taken a few hours before. The nurse at the front desk told her that Chelsea had been rushed to the E.R. and that she'd have to sit in the waiting room for quite some time.
When she got there, she was surprised to see that among the people there, Eddie was sitting with Piper's head resting on his shoulder as she slept. As he took another sip of coffee, he lifted his head in anticipation when he heard close footsteps, hoping it was a doctor.
"Oh," he said, a bit disappointed.
"You must be Eddie," Jenny said, taking a seat not too far away from him.
"Yeah," he looked confused, "um…how'd you know?"
"My niece has pictures of you and Raven in her room. I'm her aunt, Jenny," she introduced herself.
"Well, it's nice to meet you." Eddie said. There was a bit of a pause after that.
"Have you heard anything, you know, about how she's doing?"
Eddie shook his head. "No. I've been here for hours and I haven't heard anything. It's not as if they would tell me something about her condition. You have to be family, so I guess you'll know pretty soon."
Jenny nodded. "I didn't expect to see you here."
"How come?" Eddie asked.
"Well, because I hear you all got into a nasty fight and stopped talking to each other. What made you want to come here?" asked Jenny.
Eddie put his coffee down on the table, careful not to disturb Piper. "Chelsea is my friend. What more do I need?"
Jenny smiled just as there was a knock on the door frame. They both turned around to find Rachel standing there.
"So, what did I miss?" she asked.
"Rachel, you made it," Eddie said.
"Yeah, I had to do some serious begging in order to get off work early, as if flipping burgers is so important." She took a seat.
Piper wiped the sleepiness out of her eyes as she yawned.
"You're awake," Eddie said. He kissed her forehead.
"Yeah," she yawned again. "How's Chelsea doing?" She looked over and saw that Rachel had joined them. "Oh…hello." Piper was a bit embarrassed, considering that the last words she said to her weren't every nice ones.
"Hey, Piper," she said back. This had quickly become such an awkward moment. Rachel decided to ease things a bit. "Look, you guys, I know we haven't spoken in a while but…
-------------------
She was unsure of whether or not she should go in. Raven stood scared, looking up at the hospital so much bigger than her. So intimidating. She turned away from it and began to walk in the other direction.
"No," she stopped herself. "I have to go in…but I don't want to." Raven pulled on her hair as she thought. 'Chelsea would do it for me. Clearly, she'd do a lot of things for me.' "Ok, I'm going in!"
Raven turned back around and began to walk toward the hospital. She took the elevator to the third floor. Just as she was about to turn into the waiting room, fear took hold of her again. She stopped herself from going any further and just listened to the familiar voices that traveled out of room through the door. The reconciliation of her old friends. They sounded as if they were getting close again. Raven thought that they probably would have all been laughing over a good joke at that moment, if it weren't for the severity of the situation.
Closing her eyes didn't stop a few tears from falling down. "There's no place for me in that group anymore. I've lost everything. My friends, my girlfriend…" Raven quickly peeped through the window at everyone talking. "They don't want me anymore, I'm sure. I bet they're mad at me because Chelsea's in here thanks to me. Not that I could blame them. It's all my fault. Everything! Ben's death, Chelsea getting hit by the car," she shook her head. If I wasn't so concerned with myself all the time, none of this would have happened.!"
"Hey, did you hear someone?" Rachel asked.
"Maybe it's a doctor," Eddie said. "Let's go!"
The three kids eagerly got up and ran to the door.
"Raven?" Eddie asked when he saw her. "Man, I though you were a doctor."
"I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'll get out of here," she said, turning around.
They all reached out and grabbed her by the arms. "No, stay." Rachel said.
"What? Why? Don't you all hate me?" Raven asked.
"If we did, do you think we'd ask you to stay?"
"I guess not. Look, I'm really sorry for what happened that night. It was…"
"Chill, it's in the past," Piper said. "Come on, let's sit."
They all walked back into the waiting room where Jenny now stood. "Raven Baxter," she said, shaking her head with a smile.
Raven looked confused. "Yes I am, but, and I mean no rudeness by this, who on earth are you?"
Her smile grew wider. Jenny walked up to her and put her arms around her. "Raven Baxter, it's nice to finally meet you!" she unwrapped her arms. "I'm Jenny, Chelsea's aunt."
"Oh, yeah, I forgot she was staying with you." Raven said.
In all of her excitement, Jenny, once again, threw her arms around the girl, this time whispering something in her ear. "She still loves you," she said through tears, "Oh, you'll never know how much that girl loves you."
A man at the door cleared his throat. The girls broke apart and everyone in the room that was there for Chelsea went up to him.
"How is she, Doctor?" Jenny asked.
"Um, well, we got her just in time. She lost a lot of blood, but luckily, her blood type isn't rare."
They all breathed a sigh of relief and hugged, happy that things weren't as bad as they had originally thought.
The doctor cleared his throat again. "But that's not all," he said. "Um, see, when Chelsea landed, her head hit the ground with great impact…"
"How bad is it?" Jenny asked.
"What we're trying to do is…" the doctor was interrupted.
"Just tell me how bad it is!" Jenny sounded impatient.
"She's in a coma. We don't know for how long,"
Eddie and Rachel stepped in to support her when Jenny looked like she was about to faint."
"Let's get her a seat," Eddie said.
"I'm ok. I'm ok," Jenny assured them. Slowly, they backed off.
"I'm really sorry. Would you like to see her now?"
Jenny looked around. As much as she really wanted to see her niece, she knew someone who had to see her first.
"Raven, I want you to go before the rest of us." She turned to them. "That's ok with you guys, right?"
They nodded.
"I'm sorry, Ma'am," the doctor started, "But only family may go in."
"She is family, Doctor," Jenny said, smiling at her. "Just lead the way."
Raven mouthed the words "Thank you" to Jenny and her friends as she walked past the window with the doctor.
He brought her through a few twists and turns before he finally opened the door to the room where Chelsea was lying unconscious in her bed and bandages around so much of her body, they might as well have just wrapped her up completely.
"It's good to talk to them," the doctor said. "Things like talking have been known to bring a few people back."
"Just talk?" Raven asked skeptically.
"Just talk." The doctor left the room to give them time alone.
Raven took a seat on the chair next to the bed. "Hey, Chels. How's it going?" She shook her head. "Stupid question. Obviously things aren't going great, I mean look at you. I can't believe you would just jump in front of a car like that for me. It must have hurt like hell." Raven smiled and put her hand in Chelsea's. "To tell you the truth, I would have done the same for you. I would have done it in a heartbeat, though with the way I've treated you over the past few months, you'd probably think I'd have pushed you in front of the car. God, how did things get so messed up? I just want things to go back to the way they were before. I want us to be happy again and have all those fun times back."
Raven looked at Chelsea's face. She showed no sign that she was taking in any of what she was saying.
"Hey, do you remember that time you fought with Rachel's brother when you were dressed up as Charlie? We left the party, and got ice cream," Raven chuckled a little when she recalled how it melted all over her hand. "I still can't believe you actually dressed like a guy to be with me…and that when I found out, I let you go and almost lost you forever." She could feel her eyes burning up. For a second, Raven squeezed Chelsea's hand tighter as she looked to the ceiling, holding back her tears. "I'm afraid. I'm terrified. Chelsea, I don't want to lose you again." Raven stood up. She placed a kiss on Chelsea's forehead. "Please, don't leave me. Don't leave me! I love you."
A/N: Um…yeah, I just can't think of another way to end this chapter off. Oh well, I tried. Yeah, so did anyone think that the dead girl at the beginning of the chapter was Chelsea? I just wanted to see if that would have worked on anyone. I know I would have fallen for it, you know, had I not written the chapter myself. Anyways thanks for the reviews so far and keep then coming. There are still a few chapters left.