Chapter 4: Clock Running Down

Kent's POV

Sam and I forgo a traditional honeymoon beyond driving out to the coastline and contemplating the Pacific Ocean, cuddling and just being together. The very next Monday, we are back in school, same as always, looking forward to graduation. By lunchtime, the whole school has seen the rings on our fingers and the whispers have grown to a dull roar. I trust that Lindsay will confirm what rumors are true and which aren't. Though we've never had the best rapport, Sam's best friend does have her uses, gossip being chief among them.

Seating myself beside my wife (I still cannot believe that the woman I have always wanted asked me to marry her), I kiss Sam's lips gently and pass her her tray. Though she is barely 3 months along, I have insisted on doing everything I can for her until she either tells me to stop or I drop in exhaustion. So far, Sam has lobbed no complaints, and I know she thinks it's cute that I wait on her hand and foot. We begin to eat in silence, with no words beyond how our days have been. Finally, Sam sets down her sandwich and fixes me with a curious stare.

"Do you think it's weird?" she asks.

"Is what weird?" I ask.

"That we're married and still have to go to school."

I chuckle, wiping my napkin across my mouth. "It's no weirder than some of the things we've seen in this place. Like that," I point out my example, which is Rob Cokran staring daggers at us from clear across the cafeteria. There is hunger in his eyes as they rove over Sam, resting uncomfortably on her baby bump. Sam tenses and tears her gaze away.

"He'd better not try and steal me away from you."

"Stealing someone else's girlfriend and someone else's wife are two very different things. If Lindsay's rumor mill is any good, he should know by now what we are to each other. And if he doesn't, then he's a bigger damn fool than I ever took him for!" I declare emphatically, stabbing a fork into my salad for emphasis. Sam beams at me, squeezing my hand.

"My hero... defending my honor."

"Always, sweetheart," I wink.

I am now a regular fixture at Sam's doctor appointments, which includes forays into accident recovery, pregnancy and cancer treatment. Once we graduate, I devote sole time and energy into my wife's medical care. I can clearly see that the strenuous demands are taking a toll on Sam's spirit and body. As her belly grows rounder, she grows progressively weaker, as spring heats into summer, chills into fall and freezes into winter.

"We're not gonna make it," I despair, panic.

"We're gonna make it," she counters me firmly. She is determined to have that baby, even if it kills her... and I shudder to think that it very well may.

Finally, in the middle of the holiday season, days before Christmas, I am staying over at the Kingstons' house, checking over the packed overnight bag. Sam is confined to bedrest, looking ready to pop. She is ballooning most everywhere, in fact - the sign that the tumors are continuing their assault, despite a fierce chemotherapy.

"Kent, sweetie, make sure you have enough bottles in there... OH!" Sam suddenly squeals as her hand flies to her stomach. I drop the bottles into the overnight bag as I spring to her side. Our eyes lock.

"Is that...?"

She nods. "My water just broke."

I try to take calm, steadying breaths, just like how we learned in the Family Planning classes Sam signed us up for this summer. But it doesn't last long before I am throwing my head out the door and screaming "ELLEN!" Sam's mom comes running.

The drive to the hospital gives me painful flashbacks to the night of Sam's accident, and although this kind of stress is much preferable to the one I felt that night, it is none the less nerve-wracking. With Sam ordering me from the backseat, I go through her phone, texting Lindsay, Ally, Elody, Juliet. Lindsay pings back if she can bring Patrick, and I quickly say Yes.

We scream into Ridgeview Hospital, and Sam is taken away on a gurney. I pelt after her; no less than my family is nestled in that stretcher and I know that if I let them out of my sight for just a second, I might never look upon them again.

The Kingstons and I dutifully wait just outside Sam's hospital and operating room, none of us speaking, though our thoughts are one. None of us wanted to be back here, in any situation, but particularly one where the setting appears not to have any control. Sam's appointments were different, because we had a pretty good idea how they were going to go. Now? All bets are off.

The girls and Patrick arrive first, Lindsay looking utterly stricken and demanding to know how Sam fares. Encouragingly, she isn't rude about it, but I can't tell if that means much. Juliet arrives a little later, and when Lindsay sees her, she loses it.

"What's she doing here?"

"Sam invited her," I snap shortly, which is the truth. She ordered it. "So, enough." Lindsay is struck into silence, but still chooses to take a seat as far down the hallway from Juliet as possible. It is hours before the door to Sam's room opens, and we are ushered in.

My wife looks so small in her gown, in the bedclothes, and I skid to a halt when I see that a pink bundle is nestled in her arms. The doctors must have moved on the delivery as quickly as possible, and I hear one speaking to Mr. Kingston in low tones.

"We had to operate quickly to save the baby. The tumors were beginning to threaten the amniotic sac."

Sinking to my knees besides the bed, I push Sam's bangs back from her sweaty forehead, kiss her temple. She smiles weakly at me, but her eyes - full of crippling love - are for the cooing infant currently wrapping a teeny hand around her finger.

"Katrina..." she whispers, and I moan a little at the name. Katrina. So full of beauty and yet raw power; I recall the infamous hurricane that struck New Orleans when Sam and I were small children - just kindergarten. "Hold onto this for me..." And I watch her rest her locket pendant across our daughter's chest. "It isn't much, my baby, no, but it will let you remember me..." At these words, my heart constricts. Oh no...

"Sam, don't..." I beg.

Sam just gazes at me tenderly, sadly. "It's too late, my love." And her voice is disturbingly weak. "Just take care of our girl. You can do this, Kent."

"No, I can't!" I break down, weeping.

"Yes, you can. After all, you're my hero. Thank you for being my hero."

Behind me, Juliet lets out a wail. "You can't go, Sam! You saved me!"

"No," Sam murmurs, her gaze affectionate. "You saved me." Reaching up, she kisses my lips one last time. "You know I love you," she whispers. And then, sinking down into the mattress, she grows still. The monitor flatlines, the tone almost mocking.

Shaking, I pick up our baby from where she is rested across her mother's chest, and affix the locket around Katrina's neck. Slowly, I turn to the group, everyone looking to me in disbelief. I clear my clogged throat, my mind drawing a blank as flat as the unresponsive monitor. "This is..." I cough. "This is Katrina." And I hold the bundle out to everyone.

Lindsay, who is standing closest, gets a good first look at the baby. Upon seeing her face, Lindsay's one eye visibly twitches, shakes, and the tremors soon take over her whole body. And then she is fleeing from the hospital room with a blood-curdling scream, and just before the door slams, I hear her wail, "SHE LOOKS JUST LIKE SAM!"

It is many hours before we leave, my wife's body having already been transported to the morgue. In all that time, Lindsay still has not returned, though we find her waiting for us numbly in the hallway outside. Upon seeing me and baby Katrina, life seems to come into her body again and she drifts close to me with purpose, peering at me as though she has never seen me before.

"Did you really love Sam?" she whispers. I hold her gaze gravely.

"From the moment I met her," I reply. "And I love anyone who ever made her happy, and I love our child."

Lindsay blinks back tears, her mouth in a taut line. "I'm sorry I ever thought less of you!" she breaks. "I... I am your friend from now on."

I smile wanly. "No. Now we're a family. That is what Sam would have wanted."