A/N: Well I'm back but I'm not sure for how long. It's exam time at school and I will be busy for the next week (I have four exams next week) so in-between studying I decided to update. Hope you like it. The end is near. :-(
In the far distance church bells were ringing but even through the closed window, Booth could still hear them. He closed his eyes, enjoying the melody of them. He was pretty sure it was the first Sunday when he didn't go to mass since he had started gambling again and he promised himself that the second he was setting foot out of this hospital he was going to go.
He tried getting some sleep. He felt exhausted but the sound of his daughter's respirator and heart monitor prevented him from getting some shut-eye.
He had been moved to Riley's bedroom the previous day after Temperance had asked for him to be transferred. She found it ridiculous to have to go back and forth between both rooms when the neighboring bed in her daughter's room was empty. And Booth had to admit, it was better this way. Maybe he wasn't able to sleep but at least he could keep an eye out for his daugher.
Her condition had detoriated, once again, after two weeks of illness. She was once again hooked on a respirator for she couldn't breathe on her own. Her breath was labored even with the machine and Booth could hear the springs in the mattress as the five-year-old's entire body shook. Booth knew she was awake and, from where he laid, he could see her eyes closing every second or so and open immediately after. He immediately began to feel helpless and he turned his head away, unable to look at her anymore. He tried to drown the sound of all the machines in the room but found that he couldn't. He was scared. Terrified. Terrified that the end was coming for the both of them.
The little boy in his daughter's class had finally succumbed to the disease a couple of hours earlier after being sick for close to three weeks. Riley's teacher's condition was quickly aggravating as she stepped in the third and last phase of the illness and the doctors feared she was on the verge of passing away also.
Tests had been conducted on both father and daughter but Booth didn't need them to know that Riley was well in the third phase and that he was pretty close of falling in it himself. The doctors were preoccupied by his coughing and he could see the worried looks they wore on their faces when they thought he wasn't looking. He just wished that they'd stop hiding and simply tell him what he needed to hear: that he was slowly, but surely, dying.
A soft knock at the door brought him out of his reverie. He turned to the door to see Temperance standing in the doorway. She was giving him that forced smile again, the one that made him wish she'd just stop pretending everything was alright.
"You have visitors." She announced.
Her voice was bizarre, which made Booth frowned.
Temperance stepped aside to let in two dark blonde heads and three adults. Booth felt his heart stop beating for a second. There, in his room, stood his two sons, sister and parents. All of them wore masks and hospitals jackets.
It's about time. Booth thought to himself.
His eyes immediately went to his father. By instinct of being reprimanded or simply because he was the first one on his left, he couldn't decide. Nevertheless, his eyes fell on his father. Dark brown met lighter brown. Lighter brown wore a cool armor. Booth looked down at his younger son.
"Lukas!" He tried to say, cheerfully. "Come see Daddy."
Lukas turned to his grandfather who nodded. He then picked him up and placed him carefully on the bed. Booth brought up his hand and ran it through his son's hair.
"Hey buddy. How are you?"
"I'm good."
His voice was muffled by the mask but his eyes spoke volumes.
"Have you been a good boy for Grandma and Grandpa?"
"Uh-huh." Lukas replied, nodding slightly.
His eyes immediately settled on his sister on the other side of the open curtain and as if sensing his look, Riley slowly turned her head towards him. Their eyes locked for a few seconds and Lukas felt a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't quite figure out what it was. It felt a whole lot like fear but Lukas was sure that wasn't what it was. He tried smiling but found that his lips weren't cooperating. He turned back to his father.
"Riley..." Was all he was able to say.
Booth coughed lightly.
"Isn't doing too well. She needs a LOT of rest."
Lukas nodded. He felt an arm grab his and drag him off the bed.
"Come on, Lukas." His aunt told him, picking him in off.
Sea set the child down on the floor.
"We'll get something to eat, okay? Maybe Grandma could come too?"
Judith nodded. She leaned forward and kissed her son on the forehead before squeezing his hand lightly. With one look to her husband that told him not to mess things up, she followed her daughter and her grandson out of the room.
Awkwardness immediately fell onto father and son the second the door closed behind them. Booth immediately turned his gaze to his daughter and his father fell onto the floor. A minute or two passed before Marceus finally cleared his throat.
"It's quite the situation you have there, son." He said, his voice betraying the nervousness he felt.
Booth turned to his father and nodded.
"How are you holding up?"
"I've been better. I don't feel extraordinarly great but I can't complain either. I could be worst. I could be like my daughter."
He paused for a split second.
"The doctors say that she doesn't have much time to live. She's entered the third phase of the illness and her fragile body can't take much more."
Tears welled up behind his eyes but Booth didn't want to cry in front of his father. Anyway, crying never solved anything. He just had to come to terms that his daughter was slowly dying and that he was too. Thinking that he wouldn't have to live without his daughter cheered him up a little. He was being utterly selfish. He knew it but he couldn't care less.
"How long? Do they know?"
Booth shook his head.
A full minute passed by once again before either man spoke.
"Listen, Seeley. About the money. Don't worry about it."
Booth chuckled sarcastically.
"How can I not worry about it? My wife hates me because of it, my parents are mad at me. It's torn our whole family apart."
"To be honest, Seeley. You kind of knew that before today. It's not the first time that's happened."
Booth glared at his father.
"And you really think I didn't even thought of that while I was gambling that money? Do you even know what it is to have an addiction? Because I'll tell you what it is."
Anger boiled in his veins and Booth was forcing himself not to raise his tone. After all, he was in a hospital and his sick laid beside him, listening to every word that they said. He could hear a change in the sound of breathing behind him. She was listening intently and she was beginning to feel some stress. Booth wanted desperately to make her feel better but he just couldn't hold in what he was about to say. His father had never supported him in his addiction. Never. And it was time to tell him so.
"An addiction becomes so much part of your life that you find you can't define yourself without it. It becomes part of your identity. It becomes the solution to your problems. It relaxes you even if just for a little while. Then the stress hits you in the face once it's all done. You play money, you have fun. You win or you lose, it doesn't matter at the time. But then when you have to go home empty-handed, you feel guilty. You can't sleep. You get stressed and scared that someone is going to find out. You start lying, you borrow money from people to pay off your debts. You're so stressed that when someone offers you to play cards for money, you say yes because you know it'll relax you. Then the cycle starts over.
That's what my life has been since I've started gambling again, a fucking vicious cycle that I can't get out of no matter how hard I try. I have urges to play that I have to control and sometimes I'm able to but nobody cares about that. All you guys ever care, all you ever cared about is the money I owed you. The progress I made didn't matter because I still owed you money. It was the same back when I was with Rebecca and it's the same today."
Marceus looked away from his son, the glare in Booth's eyes too strong for him to bare it. He knew his son was right. His whole definition of an addiction worked perfectly. He used to smoke and he remembered taking twenty years before being able to stop. He didn't know whether or not smoking could be compared to gambling but the way his son made him sound, he guessed it was pretty much the same.
He stared at his granddaughter on the other bed, so petite and so fragile in her big hospital bed. She seemed to be drowning in pool of white cotton sheets, tubes and wires. Her pillows were twice the side of her head. He could hear the shallowness of her breathing, the machine monitoring her heartbeats, the respirator pushing air into her lungs. Her eyes... closed? He turned back to his son.
"Seeley..."
"No, listen Dad. Nothing you will say right now will get through to me. Just leave, okay? I think it's the best for the both of us."
Marceus shook his head.
"No, Seeley, you don't understand. It's..."
Booth leaned back against his pillows and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.
"Just leave, Dad."
He heard his father sighed, frustratedely.
"Seeley, it's Riley. I think she's fallen back into a coma."
Booth's eyes immediately snapped open. Sitting up in his bed, he looked over at his daughter. From his bed, he could see her small eyes closed. He turned back to his father, panic coursing through him. In an instant, he was jumping out of his bed but his knees, weak from the illness and from inactivity, immediately buckled under him and Booth collapsed on the ground, hitting his head painfully hard on the metal bars of the bed's railing. Stars immediately appeared in front of his eyes.
He was beginning to black out when he felt a strong pair of arms grabbing him and trying hard to lift him up.
"Help yourself, Son, for crying out loud!" He heard from his father.
His voice seemed to come from a far distance. Booth tried to shake the darkness that engulfed him away and found that he couldn't.
He wasn't sure how he could to stand up and climb back in his bed but he did. And the next thing he heard before passing out for the door bursting open and footsteps racing around the room.