A/N: all I can really say is sorry. I know it is later than usual and I am sorry. please review anyways.
Cameron felt a lot better the next morning as she and Chase walked into the hospital. They had both slept in, as much as Cameron could, then they took a warm shower, and had even taken advantage of the spring day by taking a walk through the hospital's courtyard while eating breakfast.
"What if he gets worse?" she asked Chase as they walked in the sliding glass doors to the hospital lobby.
"He is critical," he reminded her lightly.
"Yeh, I know. I just wish that they would tell me what is wrong, the fact that he is out from pain medication doesn't tell me much," she ranted as they made their way to her father's room.
He gently touched her shoulder and smiled, both of them stopping outside of her father's room. "Try not to think of him as a patient," he said, though he was thinking the same thing as her.
She said nothing just shot him a 'not going to happen' look and walked into Room 201.
This time a different doctor was there to talk to Cameron.
"Dr. Carlson," the doctor introduced himself and Cameron recognized the name as the doctor she talked on the phone with.
She shook his hand and wasted no time in asking, "Why isn't he awake? I was told that he was out due to pain medication."
"There's been a slight change in his condition," Dr. Carlson told her gently in a tone that told her the change was anything but slight.
She fixed her gaze on him. "Meaning what, exactly?" she asked as she felt her lightened mood slip away.
"The injury that he sustained during the accident was more severe than we initially thought. We ran several tests and the head trauma seems to have caused extensive damage to the thinking and life support centers of his brain…" he trailed off when he realized that her attention was no longer on him.
She looked again over to her dad. Then she spotted the feeding tube that had been inserted since last night. "He's in a coma," Cameron finished for Dr. Carlson.
"He's been deeply unresponsive to all tests," he confirmed Cameron's statement. Deciding there was nothing more that he could say at the moment, he told her that they still had hopes of him pulling out of the coma and left the room.
"He's going to die," Cameron said quietly as she stared at all the equipment that was keeping her father alive.
"Don't think that way," Chase told her. "We've seen people wake up out of comas before."
"Yeh, we have also seen them become vegetables."
Cameron sighed. She sometimes wished she didn't know all that she did, that way she could be one of those people who at this point were still filled with hope. But she wasn't. And she knew from his condition that he was likely to be in a persistent vegetative state, even if he wasn't classified as such yet. She felt the energy drain out of her as she stood next to Chase, watching a machine keep her dad alive.
She remembered something her dad told her on the day he moved out. "I know I screwed up, and I'm sorry. I hope you don't suffer because of it. I love you." She had instantly rejected this, yelling that if he really cared he would have left a long time before then. The argument had stuck with her longer than she cared to admit. It was an accurate representation of their relationship. Not to say that they didn't have great times together, but they were overshadowed in her mind by the fights and silent treatments.
"Chase," she whispered almost inaudibly.
"Yeh?" he said.
She didn't have anything to say, it had simply been a reflex for her to say his name. Cameron looked away from her dad and up at Chase.
"We should go," Chase said, noticing the weary look in her eyes.
"No, I have to stay with him," she said with a voice that betrayed her weakness.
Chase saw the walls she put up for everyone else fall as he pulled her to him and wrapped her in a tight hug.
"You can't do that to yourself; you can't wait by his side and wait for him to wake up. I won't let you," he said into her ear in a gentle tone. He had seen too many people wait and wait next to a loved one, their hope deteriorating with each day. He didn't want Cameron to put herself through that.
"I can't desert him," she reasoned.
"We're 20 minutes away," he reminded her.
After a few more minutes she reluctantly agreed to go, just for a little.
They got inside the car and pulled away from the hospital, creating a pang of guilt inside Cameron.
As if he sensed it, Chase placed his hand over hers and said, "It's okay, we're coming back."
"Robert, what if something happens?" Cameron asked a moment later.
"The doctors have your number."
"No, that's not what I mean." She paused as she searched for a better way to say what she was trying to say. "I never had a chance to fix things with him," she told him and knew that he, of all people, would understand this.
"Don't make yourself feel responsible for his mistakes," he told her, though he held onto his dad's mistakes for a long time after he died. He always found a way to blame himself for not knowing his dad was sick.
Truthfully he knew that had his dad survived he probably wouldn't have tried to make everything better. When somebody dies it changes everything, Chase figured, even for people not close to the person who dies.
"He's going to go into a persistent vegetative state, with the severity of his head wound there's almost no way he can pull out of a coma," she said as if they were back in New Jersey staring at the dry-erase board with symptoms of a complete stranger written all over it.
He wasn't going to tell her that she was wrong.
"Do you know if he has a living will?" Chase hesitated in asking, unsure whether or not he should bring it up.
"I don't know. Most people don't. I do, but most people don't think that it will ever be them hooked up to a respirator, living off machines." She turned quiet and studied the small raindrops that were beginning to fall and hit the windshield. She tried to push thoughts out of her head by watching the slow drops slide down the windshield and catch other drops in their path.
Her concentration on the rain was interrupted by Chase.
"Hun?" Chase said when he realized that he didn't know where they were headed. "Do you want to go back to the hotel or somewhere else?"
"Can we walk around or something?" Cameron asked, suddenly feeling antsy.
They ended up pulling over at a large outlet mall, for lack of a better place to walk around. Chase got out of the car, shut the door and met Cameron in front of the car.
He took her hand and said, "Which way?"
"Left," she said firmly.
"Feeling decisive?" he asked as they turned to the left and passed by a sports store.
"I like left," she said. "It's the side of the bed we always end up on," she added with a lightsmile.
"Don't forget that cute birthmark on," Chase began.
"Shhh…" Cameron interrupted him. As happy she was that he hadnoticed the light brown blotch a few inches below her left hip, she didn't want him to announce it to everybody that they passed, including a teenaged boy whom she was sure had an active enough imagination as it was.
They walked around under the overhang and out of the rain just talking and occasionally making comments about the stores that they passed by. Chase knew that there were definitely more important things that they should have been talking about, but he just wanted to lighten her mood. He hated seeing her with sad, heavy eyes. He knew she was still thinking about her dad, how could she not? But he figured that he could at least cheer her up a little.
'Plus,' he thought. 'We still have plenty of time to talk about that.'
The thought stayed with him as he pulled her intoa hug, slightly surprising her, and kissed her.
"I love you."
TBC.
PS. sorry if it turned out to be a drawn out filler chapter. :-(I hope you liked it though.