Beautiful Release
by Tina
- - -
On their way back from the cafeteria, Barry and Rachel stopped at the gift shop, on the search of something that might help ease their nieces' feelings.
"How old are they again?" she questioned as they entered the store.
Last time they'd seen the girls was right after Anna was born and Rachel's confused mind wouldn't let her place the memory in time.
"Alex must be around three now, maybe four. Anna's about a year old, I think."
"Cute." Rachel mumbled.
"Oh, look at this, Rachel."
She turned around and saw him holding a very tiny baby shirt. Across the chest she could read the words "I left my heart in San Francisco".
Rachel glared at him.
"I'm no expert, but I'm thinking that won't be fitting either of them anymore."
Barry shot him a look.
"Not for them. For our baby."
Rachel froze. It had been quite a few days since he'd last mentioned anything about that, as it had also been a while since he'd last pushed her into "trying". She gave him a nervous smile and approached a shelf filled with teddy bears.
-
"Here they are."
The nurse walked Rachel and Barry to the little girls' hospital room. They stood by the door for a moment, watching the girls through the glass.
"Wow, they sure have grown up." Rachel commented.
"Oh, that's right, you haven't seen them in a while."
"Yeah."
Barry was constantly making up excuses to visit his brother and his family. Every time he left New York he somehow managed to make a quick escape to San Francisco, always claiming he was out already, so he might as well make a trip out of it, no matter if he was in Nevada or Florida. Being those usually business related trips, Rachel always stayed home by herself.
"OK, let's go."
Barry entered the room and Alex, the older girl, shifted her eyes from the television to them. At the sight of her uncle, she smiled weakly.
"Hi, Alex."
"Hi, Uncle Barry."
"Come here, give me a hug."
Rachel crossed her arms and watched, an uncomfortable frown on her face. She had never seen Barry interact like that with a child before. Given that they'd been married for nearly seven years now, that really said something.
Alex hugged her uncle.
"Where's my mommy?"
"Your mom is fine, she just got a little hurt, but she's OK and I bet she misses you. I can take you to go and see her, what do you think?"
Alex smiled.
"OK!"
Barry turned around and looked at Rachel.
"Hey, Alex, do you remember your Aunt Rachel?"
Alex made a cute shy face and shook her head. Barry gestured for Rachel to approach. She did.
"Here, she met you when you were a little baby, but I guess you were too young to remember any of it."
"Hey, Alex." Rachel said, uncertainly.
"Hi..."
The nurse walked into the room.
"Dr. Ryan has signed them out. Are you two gonna take them?"
Barry stood up and approached her.
"I'm their uncle, so I'm thinking yeah."
"OK, could you just come with me for a little while?"
"Sure." He turned back to Rachel and the girls. "I'll be right back."
"OK."
He left.
Rachel stood uncertainly. Her eyes traveled around and found Anna, sleeping on a bassinet. She approached it slowly and smiled. She was such a beautiful baby.
The silence was beginning to get unbearable, so Rachel turned around and looked at Alex again. The little girl had her eyes fixated on the bags with the presents, curiously.
"Oh, these are for you, sweetie, I'm sorry." Rachel took the bags and handed one to Alex, who smiled. The little girl opened it and got a teddy bear out of it. She hugged her new toy, adoring it.
Rachel watched and couldn't prevent her eyes from filling up with a few tears. What if she lost her dad, if he never woke up again? Rachel herself couldn't even begin to imagine what her life would be like without her father, let alone a four year old who relied so much on her parents. And yet, there she was, playing with a new teddy as her father was lying in a coma, just a few floors down. The joys of oblivion.
-
When Ross and Rachel entered Sarah's room, Rachel uncomfortably holding Anna and Barry holding Alex by the hand, she had company. She was lying on the bed, her visitors - three women in their mid twenties, just like Sarah herself - pampering her as they could. One of them was fluffing her pillow, while the other two were stroking the hair. Though Rachel spotted a miserable expression in her face, the minute her eyes landed on her children they lit up. Sarah smiled and her eyes filled up with tears. Rachel admired just how beautiful her sister in law was. She was short, tanned, had curly brown hair and big green eyes.
"Oh, my babies!" She said with a heavy latin accent that refused to fade after seven years of living in the United States.
"Mommy!"
Alex ran up to the bed and one of Sarah's friends helped her up.
"Sweetie, be careful, OK?" The friend recommended.
But Sarah didn't care. She wrapped her free arm - the right one was on a cast - around her child, embracing her into a tight hug.
"Are you OK?" She asked her.
Alex just nodded. Sarah smiled at her and then looked up at Rachel and Barry. Rachel slowly approached, handing Anna carefully to her mother, who had trouble at first but then managed to hold her child despite her condition. Sarah smiled down at her baby and then looked up at her in laws again.
"Thank you so much. When did you get here?"
"Last night." Barry said.
"You guys, these are Barry Rachel. Barry's Jimmy's big brother and Rachel's his wife. These are Jenny, Paula and Heather, some friends of mine."
"Nice meeting you."
"Hey."
"You too."
"Have you contacted your family yet, Sarah?" Barry asked.
"Yes, they're trying to catch a flight as early as they can. Mom and Dad's visa have expired though, so they're having a hard time renewing that...!"
"I heard that can be a real pain sometimes."
Sarah sighed.
"I'll say... Dad knows some people who might help though, so..."
Rachel mused on how different things were now. Back when Jimmy and Sarah met, Rachel could sense the resentment in his voice, as well as in his parents', that their young boy had fallen in love with a latina. Which was all eventually forgotten, of course, as her family proved to be very wealthy and influential back in Mexico. However, just like Jimmy, Sarah was a simple person, with other priorities in life.
A brief silence fell upon the room. Alex was apprehensively looking at her mother, obviously staring at the stitched wound on her forehead. Rachel shifted her weight to another leg, then back to the other when Barry took hold of her hand.
"How's Jimmy?" Sarah finally gathered up the courage to ask.
"He's doing better." Barry assured her.
"Barry." Sarah said, silently pleading for the truth.
Barry sighed.
"He's still in a coma." He squeezed Rachel's hand tighter, as if expecting that to give him a little more support. "But I spoke to the doctor, he's really optimistic. He also spoke to Rachel's father on the phone, who's a doctor himself. He assured us Jimmy's doing well, that soon enough he must be up."
"Soon enough?" She repeated, making a point that soon enough wasn't enough at all. Soon enough would be if he was already up, if none of this had even happened.
Barry took a seat next to the bed, pulling Rachel to come with him.
"What happened?"
Sarah looked away and was in silence for a few seconds. Her friends all stood up.
"We're gonna take the girls to show them something, OK? Do you want anything from the vending machine, Alex?"
"Yeah!"
One of them picked up Anna, the other playfully grabbed Alex and the other followed them out, giving Sarah a playful, supportive in its own way, wink.
"How did this happen, Sarah?"
"It was so fast." She wiped a tear away. "It was still dark. We had decided to take the girls up to Yosemite for the day... We were driving and-" She shook her head, recalling. "there was this animal on the road, it appeared out of nowhere, I think it was a dog. Jimmy quickly maneuvered and, and then I guess me must have lost control of the car, I..." She trailed off and held her head. "It's all I can remember."
Barry sighed and looked down. It was Rachel who squeezed his hand now, hoping it would take away the tears that had appeared in the corner of his eyes.
The door opened and a doctor walked in.
"Sarah Hernandez Farber?"
"Yes." She said as she sniffed softly.
"Well, everything looks good in your exams, we just wanted to keep you overnight to make sure there was no further damage. I'm signing you out, but you'll have to come back in a week to check on your forehead and the cast should be off within a month, alright?"
She sighed in relief weakly, at least it was one less thing to worry about.
---
Rachel stepped into the shower and sighed, so glad to have some alone time. She let the water run down as she just stood there, looking down, enjoying the sensation. It was as if the water washed out some of her frustration. Just some. It was the best she could get at the moment.
After she finished, she wrapped herself around a towel and approached the long black marble sink, where she emptied her bags filled with beauty products. She applied some, blow-dried her hair, then applied some more. Satisfied, she quickly put on the clothes she'd brought in with herself and stepped out.
"OK, I'll be out in five so we can go back to the hospital." Barry announced as he walked into the bathroom.
Rachel sighed, dreading the idea. She looked out the window, they had a wonderful view of the city. She looked down at Union Square and let her eyes lazily longer on the shops. A little shopping spree one of those days would definitely calm her down. Argh, focus, Rachel.
---
The room was silent. The only noises that could be heard were the beepings of the machines and Rachel's eventually page flips, as she dug through the latest issue of Vogue. Barry was staring intently at his brother. Sarah observed him, he looked like a ticking bomb. Three days it had been, and the three of them had been locked up inside that room, it seemed, while the little girls usually stayed at the hospital's day care in the first floor. Sarah looked down, that couldn't be healthy for any of them.
"You guys should go out,"
"What?" Barry questioned.
"There's no need for the three of us to stay here, Barry. You guys should go and do something for a couple of hours, maybe take the girls with you if you could, I'm sure they'll appreciate it."
"But what if something-"
"If something happens then I'll call you. Don't worry." Barry kept looking at her. "We'll take turns if you want. Now you two go and I don't wanna see you back for another two hours."
Barry smiled weakly at Sarah and then looked at Rachel, who nodded. They stood up and walked to the door.
"Any suggestion on what we should do with the girls?"
"There's a Ben and Jerry's by pier 39. They also like to see the sea lions and the seals that stay there. You'll hear it, can't miss them." She said with a weak smile.
"OK, then that's where we'll be. Don't forget, if anything happens-"
"I'll call."
---
Being a random October monday, the pier was quiet, not many tourists around. Rachel pushed Anna on her stroller towards a bench, while Barry went to pick up some ice cream with Alex.
Rachel took a seat and arranged the stroller in a way that Anna would be facing her. The baby was awake and just stared at Rachel.
Rachel smiled. She was such a well proportioned mix of both her parents. She had Sarah's tan skin and green eyes, while the nose and lips looked a lot like Jimmy's.
She leaned closer and made a cute sound, hoping to make her smile. But Ana didn't look so amused. Rachel then shook some toys that were hanging above Anna's head in the stroller. Again, Anna watched it with disdain.
"Not funny, huh? How about a song, huh? Ah, who am I kidding? Oh, sweetie, Aunt Rachel can't sing."
Anna gave her a half smile, as if understanding what Rachel was telling her. Rachel smiled widely. She was usually never really in contact with kids, even though most of her friends had them. However, they were always surrounded by nannies, which usually ruled out any physical contact. And yet... This wasn't much, but Rachel thought she was doing well with her nieces. And she liked it.
"You have to meet Rex!" Alex said as she approached Rachel, holding a cup filled with chocolate ice cream.
"Rex?"
"Yeah, she's my favorite sea lion! He always answers me when I talk to him!"
Rachel smiled at Alex's excitement.
"OK then, let's go and meet him."
She stood up and Barry approached her, holding an ice cream cone himself. Without asking, he took some in his spoon and pointed it towards Rachel's lips.
"Their butter pecan is the best."
She took it and smiled weakly. Silently, they made their way to the side of the pier, where they could face a numerous group of sea lions and seals that sun bathed in large wooden floats in the sea. Alex rushed to the wood fences and stared at them, who started "singing", as she put it. Contently, she "sang" back, trying to imitate their sound.
"See, Rex must be around here somewhere!" She said, looking at them carefully.
Rachel smiled, wondering what was the four year old's method for telling them apart.
Barry hugged her from behind, both watching Alex trying to communicate with the animals.
"This was a great idea." He whispered.
"Yeah..." She whispered back.
After a couple of minutes, they broke apart when they heard Anna squealing with delight. Rachel chuckled and looked at the baby, who was laughing at her sister. Rachel carefully picked her up from the stroller, smiling. She approached the fences and stood next to Alex, being filled by a sensation she had never felt so strongly before. She looked at her nieces with adoration.
"Oh, I want one..." She thought to herself.
---
It may seem like I'm wasting time, but I can't rush, sorry, I'm building something. You can't quite see it yet, and maybe you won't even when it's done. But I have a process, I need to take my time and do things in a way that in the end everything fits, you know? So be patient. On a good note, I am very much into this again, so I expect it to keep on coming on a nice flow ;) I wanna finish it soon, but I don't wanna rush. Oh well... let's see how it goes. For now, woot, leave me a review, please? Pretty please? ;) And I know Ross wasn't in this chapter. And yes, I miss him too. But it had to be done.