Pain

"Just come tonight, will you?" Carly begged Sam as they sat in their shared office at the television studio where they both worked as writers. "I need all the votes I can get."

"Come on, Carls, you know I hate PTA meetings," Sam moaned. "Besides, I haven't been to one this year…or last year."

"But if I want to be PTA president for next year, I need to get more votes than that stupid Angela Benet," Carly pointed out.

"Relax Carls, that lady's a nut job," Sam assured her. "You've got the win in the bag."

"I don't know," Carly sighed. "She always brings some fancy plate to the meetings. Like last week she brought in this roast beef platter with-"

"Whoa, there was a roast beef platter and you didn't mention that to me?" Sam exclaimed. "If you want me at one of those meetings, that's all you've got to say!"

"Well, since it's election night, she's sure to bring something good," Carly smiled. "So will you come and vote for me?"

"Fine," Sam conceded. "Why not?"

Just then Sam's phone rang.

"Ugh, dang telemarketers," Sam moaned, picking up her phone. "They've called three times already this morning."

"So just don't answer," Carly suggested.

"Nah, it's always really funny to try and get them to go off the little scripts they have to read off of," Sam grinned, as she answered her phone. "Hello?"
"Hello, is this Samantha Benson?" the lady on the other line said.

"Um, yeah?" Sam nodded. Whoever this was, it didn't sound like a telemarketer.

"I have you listed here as the wife of Fredward Benson, is that correct?" the lady asked.

"Yeah," Sam said again. "Why? Who is this?"

"I'm calling from the Seattle Medical Hospital," the lady told her. "And I'm sorry to say that I am calling you because Mr. Benson has you listed as his emergency contact."

"Wait, what?" Sam exclaimed, her heart starting to race. "What's going on?"

"Mrs. Benson," the voice said gently. "I'm very sorry, but I'm calling to inform you that earlier this morning your husband was involved in serious car accident-"

"W-What?" Sam said shakily. "Is he okay?"

"He's in surgery currently," the lady replied. "You will be able to get more information if you come into the hospital and-"

"I'll be there," Sam said at once. "I'm on my way."

"Sam? What's going on?" Carly asked, knowing by her best friend's face that something was very wrong.

"It's-It's Freddie," Sam mumbled, getting to her feet and grabbing her bag. "He's in the hospital…in surgery…car crash…can you cover for me?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Carly said quickly. "Go, Sam."

Sam sped to the hospital, trying not to go over the worst-case scenario in her head…when she arrived at the hospital, she ran immediately to the front desk.

"Someone called me about my husband," she said breathlessly to the nurse there. "Freddie Benson?"

"I'm sorry, but he's still in surgery," the nurse replied.

"Well how much longer is he going to be in there?" Sam asked.

"It's hard for me to say," the nurse said. "If you'll have a seat over there, I can send one the doctors to you when they have an update."

"Can you at least tell me what happened?" Sam pleaded. "All I know is that he was in a car crash."

"According to the report drawn up when he came in, another vehicle sped through a red light and crashed right into Mr. Benson's car, causing his vehicle to flip over."

"Oh my God," Sam mumbled, running her fingers anxiously through her hair.

"I'm very sorry," the nurse said again, offering Sam a sympathetic smile.

As Sam sat in the waiting room, it felt like the longest three hours of her life. She tried to go over the last time she had seen Freddie. It was at breakfast that morning. Sam had been busy trying to pack the kids lunches while Freddie had been helping their son, Tyler finish up the last of his homework that he had forgotten about the previous night, while stressing about some meeting he had at work. They had both been so busy that morning that Sam didn't even think they got a chance to say bye to each other before Sam drove the kids to school and Freddie headed off to work; the last thing she had said to him was for him to hand her the jar of peanut butter…

Around one in the afternoon, Sam's phone rang, and she saw it was Carly.

"Hey," she said in a voice she barely even recognized.

"Hi," Carly replied gently. "How is he?"

"He's been in surgery for like, five hours," Sam said miserably.

"I-I hope you don't mind, but I told Spencer what happened," Carly said. "And he's in Olympia right now, but he wants to know if you want him to come and sit with you while you wait for news."

"No," Sam said at once. "No, I-I don't want people around right now…"

"I understand," Carly said. "And I'm going to leave early so I can pick your kids up from school, so don't worry about them."

"Thanks," Sam mumbled. "But…don't-don't tell them anything."

"I won't," Carly promised. "Let me know when Freddie comes out of surgery.

Just as Sam hung up her phone, a doctor wearing navy blue scrubs came into the waiting room.

"Samantha Benson?"

"Here," Sam said, not even caring about the use of her full name.

The doctor led her into an empty hallway next to the waiting room.

"How is he?" Sam asked.

"You're husband was very lucky not to have died on impact with the force of the car crash," the doctor told her. "He had severe internal bleeding, we had to remove one of his lungs that was badly punctured by his broken ribs, and he has several broken bones."

"But he's okay now?" Sam asked desperately.

The doctor sighed. "We fixed him up best we could…but right now he's still in a coma."

Sam tried to ignore the numbness that was beginning to creep down her body.

"But-But he'll wake up, right?" she asked. "Right?"

"We just can't say for certain right now," the doctor said softly. "Right now we're estimating that he has a 30 percent chance."

"Of living?" Sam exclaimed. She could feel tears flowing down her face, but she didn't care. All she could think about was Freddie.

"I'm very sorry," the doctor said.

Sam was sick of hearing those words.

"Can I see him?" she whispered, wiping her eyes.

The doctor nodded. He led her up to a small room and opened the door for her.

Freddie was laying there on the white hospital bed, with about a million beeping machines hooked up to him.

Sam didn't like this. She couldn't even imagine how much pain Freddie was in right now…

She slowly walked into the room and sat down on the hard chair next to his bed. For a few minutes, she only stared at him. Maybe the doctors were wrong. Maybe he was only sleeping…

But even as she thought it, she knew it was crazy. Freddie didn't look like this when he slept; he would always have his head cocked slightly to the right and his nose would occasionally twitch. Right now he was just lying motionless.

Sam cautiously reached out her hand and took her husband's.

"Freddie?" she said gently. "Freddie?"

But of course there was no answer, and Sam's heart sunk even lower.

"Freddie, it's me," she said shakily. "You-You need to wake up, okay?"

Again, nothing.

"Freddie," she said once more. "Please. I know it's probably hard, and I don't even know if you can hear me right now, but you have to wake up."

The only sound she got in reply was the steady beeping of one of the monitors.

"Baby," she said in a voice so soft she could barely hear it herself. "Baby, please! Don't do this! Don't!" she was openly crying now. "You can't die! We have four kids you still have to help me raise and see grow up. They still need you, you can't leave them! You can't leave me!"

Sam couldn't take it anymore, she had never cried this hard in her life.

"Freddie!" she said loudly. "Come on! You're stronger than this! You can wake up, I know you can! What am I supposed to do without you, huh?"

She held firmly onto her hands as she continued to sob.

"I love you," she whispered through her tears. "I love you."

And then, she felt a light squeeze on her hand. Her heart jumped, and she stopped crying. She looked down at Freddie's hand that she was holding and saw his fingers grasping hers ever so gently.

She looked up at his face, and saw his eyes were beginning to twitch.

"Freddie?" she said, hardly daring to believe it. "Freddie?"

She heard a moan escape his lips and he slowly opened his eyes.

"Sam?"

"Oh my God," Sam said, throwing her arms around Freddie's neck.

"Ow."

"Sorry!" Sam said, releasing him at once. "Did I hurt you?"

"Everything hurts," Freddie mumbled. "Where am I?"

"You're in the hospital, baby," Sam told him. "Don't you remember?"

"No, what happened?" Freddie frowned.

"You were in a car accident," Sam explained. "And-And then you were in a comma. They-They told me you only had a 30 percent chance of living."

She couldn't help the tears that began to fall again.

"Oh, Sam," Freddie said. "I'm sorry."

Sam smiled as she wiped her eyes. "God…only you would get in a car crash and then apologize for it."

"I-I just didn't mean to worry you like that," Freddie said.

"It's all right," Sam told him, leaning down so that she could kiss him. "But you know, if you could never do this again, that would be great."