Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Yeah, we've come back with another chapter to celebrate...We want to thank everyone who has read and/or reviewed the last chapter. Much thanks to all of you. Please let us know what you think of this chapter too. We're like addicts for reviews...lol.
As always, we are yours,
butterflyswest and Erin Allen
2
Oh, shit, this sucks, Ray thought miserably. First, Pratt had warned him away from Neela, then Morris had decided that being a doctor on his last day was not his style, and now this. His day had gone from suck to total crap in one split second. He hoped that Abby was okay, but Ray just couldn't seem to catch a damn break. He shook his head trying to dislodge the headache that was forming between his ears. A whining noise seemed to pierce through his brain.
What the hell..?
"Shit, shit, shit! He's crashing! Get those goddamn paddles over here!"
"Pressure's down to eighty!"
"Charge 'em. Come on people, we're supposed to be professionals here."
Ray opened his eyes and turned toward the voices. It sounded like Albright. He'd know that snotty voice anywhere. His breath slammed from him at what he found. His mouth opened, and he snapped it shut. Blue-gowned figures hovered over the figure on the table. The scream and whine of monitors—so that's what that was—was drowned out by their shouts. It was not the activity that had him paralyzed. He'd done his surgical rotation. He knew what an OR could be like. It was not the fact that he couldn't remember how he'd gotten there that had his gut clenched. It was the sight of the patient on the table. A patient that seemed to be dying.
It was him.
"Freaky as hell isn't it?" a voice asked from his right.
Ray spun around and suddenly knew that he had lost his mind. He would have laughed had he not been in complete shock. Hell, it already seemed that he'd lost his life, why not his mind too?
"You're dead," he said, knowing how stupid he sounded. "You can't…"
"Be here?" Gallant laughed. "Afraid so, man. Never could get anything by you, Barnett."
Ray frowned, some of the shock leaving him at the insult. He'd always had a feeling that Gallant didn't like him. Not that he'd cared. He'd had the band. He did his job. Okay, so maybe at the beginning he hadn't taken his job as a doctor seriously, but he had changed. Pain sliced through his chest. That was wrong. Neela had changed him.
But what the hell did he have now. Nothing, that was what. The band had abandoned him for the glitz and glamour of California. And Neela…Well, he'd never really had her except as a friend, and she wasn't even that anymore.
He looked again at Gallant standing there. He looked so…so normal. Dressed in jeans and a long sleeved button down shirt, he looked as if he was ready for a day in the park. He didn't look like a dead man standing in another dead man's dream.
"Why are you here?" Ray asked. Oh, yeah. That sounded sane. He was talking to a ghost. "If you're here to give me crap about Neela, I gotta tell you, I'm not in the mood. I've already had a shitty day."
Gallant offered a small smile.
"I know. That's why I'm here."
"Why? Because of my shitty day? What? Have I gone to hell?"
Gallant's smile widened.
"Not exactly. You're not dead."
Ray frowned again and glanced at the table. Albright's voice was still giving orders in that piercing voice of hers. The monitors were still screeching.
"You could have fooled me."
"Forget about that for a second, Barnett. You're missing the point. As usual."
Ray spun around to pin him with a glare.
"Listen, man, nothing ever happened between Neela and I."
"Oh, I know," Gallant said moving to stand beside him. He stuck his hands in his pockets and glanced back at the activity in the OR. Ray felt a wave of unreality wash over him again. If this was what death really was, then he was really, really having a shitty day. It wasn't enough that he'd gotten shot, but he had to deal with Neela's husband too.
"I need you to do me a favor, Barnett."
Ray laughed.
"I'm dead. I'm beyond doing favors."
Gallant turned his head to glare at him.
"You are not dead. Yet," he added significantly. "I know how much you care about Neela. It's amazing the things you suddenly find out once you die." One corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. "I need you to take care of her for me. I need you to fight so you can be there for her."
Ray looked away, bitter anger burning him.
"She doesn't want anything to do with me, Gallant."
"You and I both know that's not true. She's just stubborn as hell. I've known for a long time how you felt about her. I wasn't blind." He sighed. "It was one of the reasons that I went back to Iraq. I knew that if anything happened to me, that you would take care of her."
Ray could only stare at him. What the hell was this? His eyes drifted back to the surgeons in the OR. This had to be some kind of surrealistic nightmare. He really wasn't talking to Gallant about taking care of his wife. He'd just died for Christ's sake! Surely he couldn't…
"Yes, I do," the man said sincerely, and Ray glanced at him in surprise. "I do want her to move on." He laughed softly. "Contrary to popular belief, spirits do care if the living move on. It's what they're meant to do."
"Do you read minds now?"
Gallant smiled and shook his head.
"No, but I could tell what you were thinking just by the look on your face." He paused. "I want Neela to move on. I can't take care of her," he said with a shrug. "Hell, maybe I never could, but that's neither here nor there. You can. You'll take care of her and love her like she deserves."
Ray shook his head.
"I still don't get it. How am I supposed to take care of her when she won't talk to me? Not to mention…there's the little issue of me dying over there," he said, gesturing toward the table.
"That is in your hands," Gallant said, pulling his hands from his pockets. "You have to fight, man. Let me worry about Neela."
"You? What can you do?"
"You just make it through this." His face became grave as he looked at Ray, his eyes going dark. "She needs you, Barnett. More than she's willing to admit. You just make it…for her."
Ray opened his mouth to say something when the room began to spin. He staggered, giving Gallant a look of mute appeal. Michael just smiled before he, and the rest of the room, faded to nothing. His words followed Ray, echoing over and over as he fell into darkness.
You just make it…for her.
000000
The waiting room wasn't empty. Jerry's mother had come in an hour after Neela had planted herself there and was now sitting in the corner praying. Neela would have comforted her, but she was too raw to do it. A rather large family had taken up an entire wall. Their voices and laughter grated on Neela's nerves to the point that she would have happily slapped the living crap out of each and every one of them. Fighting for some sort of control, she looked down at the file that she had taken from Abby and tried to make some sense of all of it.
Her name glared out at her from the paper in accusation. She had lived with him for two years, and he'd never said a word. Not one. She racked her brain, trying desperately to remember if he'd ever talked about family, but couldn't come up with anything. The pain in her chest seemed to double. Somehow, she knew that she wasn't just forgetting in her shock. He really had never said anything about his family, and that hurt. It made her ache for him. He truly was alone, and she…she had only made that worse.
She closed her eyes to stop fresh tears from falling. She had cried a river in the past hour and couldn't stand to cry anymore. She wasn't doing herself or Ray any good by weeping like a child. Nor did she want to cry in front of the family. Somehow the thought of perfect strangers seeing her guilt and fear was more than she could stand.
"Hey, kiddo. How ya holding up?"
Neela laughed shortly and opened her eyes to find Abby settling into the chair beside her.
"I'm about to go crazy," she admitted. "How's Luka?"
A fleeting look of mingled fear and worry crossed Abby's face before she hid it.
"He'll be fine," she said softly. It would take a long time before she could get past the fear she'd felt when she'd returned to the ER and had been told what happened to him. She would never forget the look in his eyes as he'd looked at her from the bed in Exam Two. She drew a deep breath and forced a smile. She wouldn't burden Neela with that right now. She had worries of her own.
"Have you heard anything?" Abby asked, shooting a glare at the family that was now laughing hysterically over God only knew what. Neela followed her gaze, feeling as if she were about to splinter.
"No, I haven't." She drew in a deep breath. "There should have been some word by now…" She broke off, her mind rejecting the thought that something had gone wrong or else she would have been brought word.
"I'm sure they would have told you if…" Abby broke off. She didn't want to go down that road either. They sat in uncomfortable silence for a long moment, neither one of them knowing quite what to say.
"I always thought that I knew him," Neela finally said, her voice no louder than a whisper. "I thought I knew most everything about him." She ran her hands through her hair distractedly. "I'm just confused, Abby. I just buried my husband, and now I'm Ray's next of kin." She gave a laugh that was more like a sob. "How strange is that?"
Abby laid her arm across Neela's shoulders and gave her a squeeze.
"I don't know, honey. I don't know any more than you do about why he would give your name. All I do know is that he saved me and the baby." She sighed and glanced toward the door. "It should be me in there. Not him."
Neela gave her a startled look. She hadn't thought about that. In her shock over Ray, she'd never considered the possibility that Abby could have been…
She shook her head. It hadn't happened. It was madness to consider the what-ifs of this nightmare.
"Can I ask you a question?" Abby said. "What happened between you two?"
Neela froze.
"Nothing happened," she said evasively. "Why?"
Her friend gave her a patented Abby Lockhart look.
"Really. Well, you moved out so suddenly, and he's been going nuts trying to call you, trying to see if you're all right. You won't return his calls. He's been worried about you. Very worried…"
"Nothing happened," Neela repeated.
Abby was silent for a long moment before she withdrew her arm from Neela's shoulders.
"I don't believe you," she said bluntly. "There's something you're not telling me."
It was on the tip of her tongue to repeat the old litany. There was nothing wrong. Nothing had happened. It was just time to move on…Neela opened her mouth to say those things, but stopped. It was time to stop pretending.
"I don't know what happened," she said softly, avoiding Abby's eyes. "All I could think about was spending time with Ray, hanging out. I wasn't even thinking of my husband. The one man I should have been thinking of." She covered her face with her hands. "I feel so horrible, Abby."
Abby was silent a moment, just staring at her.
"Do you have feelings for Ray?"
Neela froze and dropped her hands to stare at her friend.
"How can you ask me that?" she hissed. "I just buried my husband…"
"And now you're here crying over another man," Abby said brutally. "I've seen you two together. I'm not stupid. You care about him just as much as he cares about you."
Neela shook her head, trying to deny it.
"You have to face it, Neela."
"I can't face it! Don't you understand that? It's wrong of me to feel this way…" Neela burst out, earning odd looks from the family across the room. Abby glared at them until they looked away.
Abby took Neela into her arms to shield her from the looks of the raucous family…vultures that they were.
"Honey, it'll be okay. I promise," she whispered. "I'll be here for you no matter what, but you've got to tell him."
The door swung open then, and they both raised their heads to find Albright standing there. Her sharp eyes settled on Neela as she scanned the room. Neela felt her heart rate triple as she pulled away from Abby to meet her. Whatever the woman had to say, she would be strong. But, God! If he was gone….
"Well?" she asked sharply as she neared. Neela didn't care if this was her attending she wanted answers. Like, two hours ago.
"Dr. Barnett is out of surgery, but it was touch and go," Albright said, her voice unusually subdued. "We almost lost him once, but we brought him back. He's in a coma right now, so we'll have to wait and see…"
Neela didn't hear any more. She was beyond hearing. He was alive though barely. That meant a second chance.
At what? her mind accused. You won't admit what you feel so what…
Shut up! she ordered sharply, though she knew that that insistent little voice was right. If she couldn't admit to herself what she felt, then what was the point? She vaguely heard Albright tell Abby that a nurse would be down to take them to ICU where he was. She was too caught up in indecision. Should she tell him? Shouldn't she? Her head snapped around at the sound of her name.
"Yes?"
Albright exchanged a look with Abby.
"By the way, I'm really sorry about your husband," she said. Neela could only gape. The woman actually sounded sincere. Before she could form an appropriate response, Albright was gone.
"Well, that was unexpected," Abby said. "I didn't think that she had it in her."
Neela shook her head, trying to clear it. Albright's well-intentioned words had only succeeded in making her more confused. She had only just lost her husband. She didn't have any right to be thinking of another man. Not right now. Suddenly the memory of his words on the video rose to the surface of her mind. He had wanted her to live, to find love again, to have children. But surely he couldn't have meant…
"Are you all right, Neela?"
Neela focused on her friend and shook her head.
"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."