AN: This wasn't the hardest chapter to write, but it was the hardest to post. The next chapter will be the last, and seeing as it is already written and mostly betaed, I want to thank Kelly for taking the time over the last couple of months to push and encourage me to do this. I'm sorry if any readers are anguished over the lack of babies. This was something new and raw and although I know it took guts to read, I appreciate taking the chance to branch out.

On a different note, I have had readers ask me for the inspiration and what makes it so real. Some of you know the vague details, others more intimately. The answer is found in my dedication: This story goes to anyone who has watched a loved one pass on, to anyone who knows what waiting is like, to anyone who still finds themselves reaching for a phone two years after that loved one is gone. This chapter is to my grandmother, who was the hardest person I've ever let go of, and Penelope's grandmother, who acted like my own when I needed one, and who went home to God on Saturday. It's only fitting that she and Troy would work together to give me the final push I needed.

~Van

Disclaimer: I do not own HSM.


~*~


Lay Him Down To Sleep

PART NINE

"You can't go back home."

-Flesh for Bones, Terra Naomi


March-June

Gabriella stopped wearing a watch, the whitened blotch on her wrist evidence to the outer world that she was ignoring the passage of time. She told Troy that wearing it made her feel rushed, panicked, each time she made the unconscious glance at the numbers on its face. Despite her discarding of the accessory, Gabriella could sense the passing of seconds as days whipped by and the unknown continued to approach at an undeterminable pace. There were nights when she awoke in her own bed, sweat dripping down her back and her chest heaving, sobs jammed in her throat as she struggled to confirm if her dreams were nightmares or the truth. Other nights, she would wake on the couch or in Troy's bed, his skin warm beside her, and she would be perfectly happy until sleep threatened to return and she lost the war against slumber.

Troy's renewed vivacity released the tension in the house. For weeks, the good days outnumbered the bad. Gabriella would find him working on the truck with Andy or Chad or Jack. Jason and Zeke and the rest of his close knit group of friends came around the house again during the afternoons and more than once he ventured as far as Zeke's apartment or Chad's basement. Gabriella was always invited, but she usually declined, using the time to think or sort her own thoughts. Without drawing attention to his declining health, Troy taught Gabriella how to shoot a basketball by coaching her from a grassy spot on the lawn and to properly drive a stick shift vehicle. They would drive to isolated parks and go for short walks or grab ice cream at his favourite places. Mostly they would stay home and watch movies or play board games. Sometimes Troy would sit in the kitchen and watch Gabriella prepare dinner or simply bake for the joy of it. It was those moments that Gabriella would tuck away, burning the conversation, the looks, the touches, into her memory.

Progressively, the good days slipped away. The headaches increased with a vengeance and the pain medication that was prescribed decreased Troy's energy levels to a point where fatigue wore away at him. The cane was replaced by a walker, even while within the house, and Troy gave up protesting against the wheelchair if they went outside. He no longer shrugged off Gabriella's hand if she saw him falter and his mother stopped hovering outside the bathroom door, but stood inside until the point came when he required her help. His appetite shrunk until the only thing he would bother eating was his mother's homemade soup or Gabriella's Mexican rice. He didn't get to drive again.

The stairs became impossible, even with help. Jack and Andy set up Troy's bed in the spare room on the main floor that Jack had been using as an office. The desk and computer were moved upstairs to the master bedroom and Gabriella and Lucille did their best to decorate Troy's new room to mimic the one left empty upstairs. Lucille hired a homecare nurse to come to the house twice a week to take notes so that Troy didn't have to go into the outpatient clinic at the hospital to be monitored. It was a last ditch effort in their attempt to keep him at home as long as possible. He had confided in Gabriella that he didn't want to die at home if it could be helped; he didn't want his family to feel haunted by the house he and Andy had grown up in. So the household as a whole pushed to make things easier, to accommodate and to encourage.

Chad was constantly at the house. Sometimes he would bring tapes made from practice and Troy and he would dissect the team's game. Other times they would talk privately in Troy's room, Chad leaving late at night with tears shining in his eyes. If Troy was asleep when he arrived, or fell asleep before he left, Chad and Gabriella would sit at the dining room table and she would help him wallow through the piles of homework he sacrificed to spend time with his best friend. Gabriella welcomed the distraction that Chad's assignments brought, and he recognized her need for it in return by rarely talking about Troy. When classes came to an end in late April, Chad would bring his school schedule with him and let Gabriella offer her opinion on which classes to take.

When Troy's concentration began to falter, along with his vision, Gabriella would spend the afternoons reading to him. Newspaper articles, novels, poetry, or magazine entries were read in her melodic and rhythmic voice, usually lulling Troy to sleep or a semi conscious state. Many times Gabriella would make to slip a bookmark inside her book and lay it on the table only for Troy to tell her to keep going. She would, letting him examine the photographs that accompanied some of the articles. His eyebrows would pull together as he struggled to focus the fuzziness and ignore the blackening outer corners of his peripheral vision, and once and awhile Gabriella would allow her finger to trace outlines of what he was trying to see, narrating the details.

On sunny days, Troy wouldn't let anyone close the curtains in his room. His father would help him get situated on the couch or outside on the patio. Gabriella would weigh him down with blankets to combat the heat loss caused by his dwindling weight and curl up beside him and watch as Lucille and Jack planted spring bulbs and mulched the lawn and the pool guys arrived to balance the chemicals. Early mornings could find Gabriella in the garden cutting fresh blossoms from the lilac trees to leave in Troy's room. Troy liked to joke that she always smelled like dirt. The references to dirt made Gabriella cringe.

Lucille found her in the backyard on a chilly morning in May, the sun having just risen to glint on the shingles of the roof. Dew blanketed the shadowed areas of the yard but the spot in which Gabriella sat was dry. Her legs were bent, the skin of her knees poking out through the holes in her tattered jeans. Her sandals had flecks of dirt on them, and there was more under her fingernails which she absently picked at. An oversized hoodie taken from Troy's closet slipped off one shoulder. It was too big for him now, but it stilled smelled like his aftershave. Her hair was in a limp ponytail and she clutched lilacs with hacked stems in her hand, letting them dangle over her knee. She looked up when Lucille's shadow washed over her, looking back to the horizon as the older woman sat down beside her.

"Did you sleep last night?" Lucille asked, and Gabriella ran an absent finger under eyes where she had already seen the dark smudges. Troy's sleeping patterns had become so unpredictable that members of the household had begun a tentative rotation schedule that ensured someone was always up when he was awake. If Troy wanted to watch a movie at two in the morning, someone would watch it with him. "I heard you shut his door a little while ago."

"I'll go inside in a few minutes and get some sleep," Gabriella assured her quietly, her mind still following her thoughts from a few moments ago. Her fingertips brushed against the silky buds of the stems. "I wanted to make sure he had these when he woke up."

"It's a sweet gesture," Lucille told her kindly. "I know he appreciates it."

Gabriella nodded, twirling the rough branches between her hands, taking care not to knock any flowers off. The smell drifted to her nose and she resisted the urge to bury her face in them and inhale. Looking around the yard, she saw the rose bush greening up as buds for leaves sprouted. Shoots from the bulbs pushed through the ground and the grassy still had that silky, springy new feel to it before summer cooked it to straw. Usually she would love spring with its symbolic new beginnings and assumed fresh starts. Instead it felt like the flowers were gaining life by sucking it from Troy and everyone else around her. Outside, the earth was bursting with energy but Gabriella felt like lying down and sleeping until winter.

"It's hard, don't you find?" Lucille asked, interrupting Gabriella's thoughts. "The quiet seems less comforting now. It's more foreboding."

"It makes me edgy," Gabriella admitted. "Like a warning. I'll wake up at night and creep down to his bedroom door and ease it open just enough that I can hear him breathing..."

"...And then you sit outside in the hallway and let it calm the pounding panic in your heart," Lucille finished for her with a grim smile. "I do it too."

"It's going to happen soon, isn't it?" Gabriella whispered, tipping her head to watch Lucille's face. Her fingers felt cold and numb, her feet wet in her sandals.

"Maybe," came the husky answer and Gabriella saw the mother swallow heavily before dashing at her eyes. "What will you do afterwards?"

"Go to Seattle," Gabriella shrugged, her arms feeling heavy. "Mom will be home by the end of the month but I asked her not to come here. I'll stay with her until I'm ready to go back to school." She took a deep breath but her lungs hurt. "After that, I don't know. I don't want to think about it."

"You're always welcome here," Lucille reminded her. "If you wanted to stay or come back to visit."

She meant well by it, but Gabriella knew there would be no reason to stay after Troy was gone. The pain of being in his house, of being so close to him and yet so far away, would be unbearable. To have her broken heart on display to others made her uncomfortable to consider. Seeing Andy everyday would be like having Troy haunting her with his shaggy hair and bright eyes. It felt right to go to her mother's house where she had only been once. Without Troy, the mere consideration of the idea made Gabriella feel like a spinning compass needle with no direction. Without him, home seemed unattainable.

~*~

Mornings were when Troy was at his best. He was more alert and his focus could be held for lengthier periods of time. With hours of sleep behind him, he was able to control his speech so that for a little while, the slur went unnoticed and his words were clearer. Gabriella liked the mornings because she could fall into the household routine of simple activities. Lucille would start breakfast and Jack would help in between reading the morning paper. Andy would join them just as breakfast was served and would ignore his father's protests as he slid the sports section from beneath the haphazard pile in front of Jack. Troy would wake up just as everyone was finishing and Gabriella would flit about his room, telling him the highlights of the news as she pulled the curtains open and added fresh lilacs to the vase.

The current morning in late May, just weeks before the official start to summer, was no different to Gabriella. Breakfast had been cleaned up and Jack and Lucille had left for some alone time while running errands. Andy was outside mowing the lawn which had been mowed four days ago but he insisted needed to be done again, leaving Gabriella and Troy in an empty house where the only sound was the humming of the lawnmower that passed outside Troy's window every few minutes. Turning back to face Troy who was sitting against the pillows piled at the headboard of the bed, Gabriella offered him a bright smile.

"I was thinking that we could go outside to the patio once Andy finishes with the lawn," she told him, folding the blanket at the foot of the bed and laying it over the back of a chair for later. "It's beautiful out and the air will have that fresh cut grass smell."

"I guess," Troy agreed, rubbing a hand over his eyes in the way he did whenever his sight was foggy. "Can you find my meds in the kitchen?"

"Sure," Gabriella answered, pausing at the doorway. "Do you have a headache?"

"Just a small one."

She returned a few minutes later, a cup of water in one hand and a fistful of pills in the other. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she let him grip the cup in his hand before handing him one pill at a time to swallow. With each sip of water, Gabriella's hand guided the cup to ensure his shaky grasp didn't spill any on the covers. With each pill, she recited its clinical name and uses in her head as Troy had done the first time she had asked. The routine was done with practiced skill on Gabriella's part while she whispered encouragement and meaningless chatter meant to take the tension off the situation. When Troy handed the cup back to her, she set it aside on the nightstand before leaning forward and lightly kissing his forehead.

"Better?" she asked gently, letting her hands slide through his hair as his eyes remained shut. When he nodded, she bit her lip. "Do you still want to go outside?"

"Yeah, of course," he whispered, his tongue slurring on the final word. "Can you help?"

The dizziness and poor depth perception made getting dressed an impossible task for Troy by himself. It had taken awhile to let anyone but his mother help and even then, it usually soured his mood. Once allowed to be involved in the somewhat intimate task, Gabriella realized it was a moment when they were as close as they could be and yet still heartbreakening by its implications. Selecting sweatpants from his bottom drawer and an undershirt from the one above it, Gabriella helped Troy move until he was seated on the edge of the bed. Guiding his feet into the legs of the sweats, she acted as a support for him to lean on when he stood and pulled them up.

"Easy," Gabriella murmured as she helped him sit back down without missing the bed. "It's warm out but you may want a sweatshirt," she told him as she slipped the undershirt over his head.

"Probably," Troy grunted. He managed to get his arm through one hole in the shirt before Gabriella paused in her rummage for the mentioned sweater and helped him with the second one. Tugging the white fabric into place, they repeated the same steps with the sweat shirt. "I need socks."

"I got them," Gabriella assured him, putting one on and then the other. "Let me find your sneakers; I'll be right back."

With Troy's sneakers in her hand, Gabriella returned from the hallway and announced that Andy was finishing up outside. It took a few moments for her slip the shoes on and lace them up, mostly because Troy's coordination made it difficult to get his foot inside. After a few choice swear words that made Gabriella roll her eyes at him, they succeeded and she sat back on her heels with a grin. Outside the engine of the lawn mower cut out, only to be replaced by the buzzing of the whipper snipper. Gabriella couldn't help but sigh in disappointment.

"I thought you said he was almost done," Troy commented, noting the slight pout to her lip.

"I just looked out the front door," she told him quietly, "I forgot about trimming all the edges around the walkways. It's okay, we can read while we wait; your dad's Sports Illustrated arrived with the mail today."

"El?" Troy asked, her attempts to hide the quiver in her voice from him unsuccessful. Her back was too him but she stiffened.

"I'll go find the magazine," Gabriella mumbled, her hand dashing across the wetness on her cheeks that she had only just noticed. "I think I saw Andy leave it in the kitchen."

"El, you're crying," Troy noted with incredulousness, his voice concerned.

"I'm fine," she insisted. The tears were evident in her voice, along with her frustration at their appearance. She jumped when he reached out and caught her hand as it dangled along her side. "It's nothing," she insisted, "Stupid, even."

"Crying is not stupid," Troy persisted, his voice not frantic but anxious. "I haven't seen you cry in weeks and now you're crying over a lawn mower. Talk to me, El."

"It's not a big deal," Gabriella responded, running a hand under each eye to catch stray tears. She gave a strangled laugh that sounded false and hollow and did nothing to ease them back into the easy feeling of before. "I'm just tired and I was looking forward to going outside and it's fine; we'll read and then I'll get Andy to help you to the patio."

"Gabriella!" Troy called, exasperated as she took quick steps to the door in an effort to escape. She would take a couple of minutes in the kitchen to calm herself and get the raging emotions under wraps and return to the room with a smile and tea, the magazine under her arm. She just needed a moment, she was about to say when she turned at his call.

For Gabriella, it happened in slow motion, but yet too fast for her to react. Troy, in his attempt to make her stop and talk to him, had decided to follow her. The walker was just out of his reach, causing him to use an arm to prop himself further on the bed while stretching towards the piece of equipment. His fingers barely grazed the metal before the arm on the bed slipped and gave way, setting him off balance. He didn't have the strength or coordination to correct the angle of his body before he fell off the bed, hitting the floor with a muffled thud. Gabriella gasped when he let out a groan, but didn't move.

"Oh, God, Troy! Troy!" Gabriella cried, panicking while trying to decide to help him or go get Andy first. One hand pressed to her forehead and the other gripping the doorframe to keep her upright, she tried to swallow the dryness in her throat and the pounding of her heart as red spots danced in her vision. The walls seemed to expand and contract until she found her voice again. "Troy!"

"Ow," Troy grunted, pushing himself up clumsily into a sitting position. Gabriella seemed to unthaw at his awkward movements, rushing forward to grip his elbow, reaching easily for the walker and sliding it closer.

"Here, I'll hold it steady and you can use it to support your weight until we can get you close enough to the edge of the bed," Gabriella rushed, her voice frantic and her words quick as she hovered over him with her hands resting firmly on the handles of the device. "Or we can--," her eyes flicked over him momentarily, checking for injuries or pain on his face. "Did you hurt anything? Bump your head? Does anything feel funny or out of place? What about your—"

"El," Troy replied evenly, his tone firmly controlled to get her attention and keep her trained on what he was saying. "I am fine. Nothing hurts. I didn't fall that far and it was a stupid stunt anyway."

Gabriella let her gaze inspect him once more, her eyes leaving his for a moment and then returning to watch as he slowly shifted so that he was positioned with his back against the side of the bed and his legs bent in front of him. His arms kept him balanced by resting on either side of his hips. He looked fine, but Gabriella's earlier fear hadn't completely dissipated and her body hummed with anticipation of another incident or crisis. Focusing on his words, she let her anxiety disappear by replacing it with anger.

"You're damn right it was stupid! What were you thinking? I was going to be right back, or I would have helped you or something! Don't you dare scare me like that again! What if we were home alone and you weren't fine? Huh?" She was irrational but the emotion that had been bubbling earlier had erupted with the shock of the event just moments before. "What would I have done then?"

"You 'd have called an ambulance," Troy replied calmly. He winced as his back dug into the rails of the box spring for the bed. Gabriella stared at him blankly. "El, we've gone over this before. If something happens and you're by yourself, you call 911."

"Could you not be a smart ass for a moment and listen to me?" Gabriella asked, hating the way he could speak about an emergency without flinching. "Something serious could have happened to you."

"Ella, something serious is going to happen," Troy reminded her, "And you will call the ambulance and they will take me to the hospital and I won't come home."

"Stop saying things like that!" Gabriella cried, the tears welling up in her eyes.

"I need to say things like that," Troy said back, raising his voice and causing the slurring to be more pronounced as he stumbled over words. "Otherwise you're going to freak out and panic just like you did now and that won't do anyone a lick of good."

"Stop it! You don't need to tell me! I get it, Troy!" she yelled, anger burning through her and making her hands curl into shaking fists that dangled by her sides. The tears were hot on her face. "You're going to die! You're going to leave me here and nothing will be the same and all you can say is 'call 911 and don't panic'. Of course I'm going to panic! Don't you get it? I fucking love you and you're going to die. Not only that, I know you're going to die!"

Gabriella felt her eyes go wide as the words spilled forth; words she never wanted to say to him in that manner because he would realize that she wasn't okay and it was all an act. He watched her quietly as she clamped her hands over her mouth and slid down to the carpet next to his knees. After a few moments of neither of them speaking, Troy drew his legs apart and without a word, Gabriella climbed in between them and pressed her face against his chest. She had spent nights sleeping in that same position if they fell asleep together. It was as close as they could physically get and the only way Gabriella could sleep properly.

"Is this what the lawn mower was about?" Troy asked softly, curling a hand around the back of her neck and leaning down so he could smell her hair. Gabriella felt him against her curls.

"There's not enough time," she whispered, coughing as she sniffled. "I just want more time, that's all."

"I know, but no matter how much we had, it would never be enough." His hands wove around her back and pressed her to him and Gabriella gripped his sweatshirt in both hands as she buried her face in his neck. "It's not about hurting you when I say things you don't like." Gabriella watched as one of her tears trickled down and wet his collar. "It's about knowing you'll be okay. I need to know you'll be okay."

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do after," Gabriella admitted. "Yeah, I'll go home and then go to school and have a career, but what about everything else? How am I supposed to live my life the way you want when you can't be there?"

"But I will be, Ella," Troy told her ferociously and with momentary strength, he cupped her face and stared directly into her gaze. "I love you and I will be in everything you touch, and everything you see and everything you do. I'll be there when you find someone you can love just as much, and when you have babies and when you're old and staring death in the face like I am now. You'll find me once I'm gone, El. I promise." Gabriella held a finger up to flick away the tear that rolled down Troy's face that was blurred from her own tears. "You have to believe in something bigger than us and that faith will help make sense of what you're supposed to do. It's how I can let go, knowing that everything has a purpose."

"I don't want to let go," Gabriella replied stubbornly.

"You have to," Troy told her. "Promise me you'll be ready when it happens. Promise me you'll find something to live for."

"I don't think I can," she admitted.

"I need you to. Promise me." Troy's eyes were burning the colour of sulphate, their heat boring through her and making it impossible to deny him anything.

"I promise."

They stayed huddled together on the floor until Andy came in and found them. Together, they got Troy back into bed where he and Gabriella read for the rest of the afternoon. They decided not to go outside that day, feeling nothing more than to stay secluded away in privacy and peace. The next day it rained, and the day after that, Lucille called an ambulance when she couldn't wake up Troy.

~*~

The hospital sounded like death, Gabriella had decided after the first night Troy was brought in. No amount of flowers in his room could brighten the white walls and ugly pastel green trim. No Mr. Clean could scrub the sickness off the floor and the windows did nothing to welcome the sun. The room they had placed Troy in was just off the main corridor so that they were left in peace and uninterrupted by visitors for other patients. The nurses stopped by like clockwork, ticking off their checklists of duties and writing numbers from the heart monitor on the wall. They would offer small chat about the weather and inquire about the Boltons' day, but Gabriella was sure they were just as happy to escape the prison atmosphere of the room.

It had been a stroke, or a seizure or something; Gabriella couldn't remember the exact words of the doctor, only that Troy was in a coma and there was nothing that could be done except wait for the inevitable. He could breathe on his own, but they weren't sure how long that could last and Jack and Lucille had already requested that nothing be done for their son except to ensure there was no pain. It would be peaceful, the staff assured them, and with that, the Boltons and Gabriella set about living their days at the hospital. They rotated in shifts, sometimes alone and sometimes in teams. Jack and Lucille took turns having private moments with their son and then would hold each other's hands while reading the local paper aloud. Andy would take his laptop and watch a movie, sometimes quoting the funnier parts to Troy. The nurses had told them it was possible he could hear them, even feel their touches, and the family maximized what little they could give Troy as comfort.

Gabriella would bring a book, but never read it unless it was to Troy. She rarely spent time in the room when someone else was there, and when alone, she would recount their days in Colorado. Minute by minute, she would relive happy times as Troy lay sleeping on the bed. That's how she preferred to think of it, sleeping instead of unconscious and unaware. She would talk about Christmas and the stories Andy had told her about his brother before she realized who he was. The blue eyed snowboarder from the hills. At night, when she knew no one would come back to check on her for awhile, Gabriella would climb in bed and curl up beside Troy, singing in his ear.

On the fourth day of keeping vigil, Gabriella was stretched between two chairs beside Troy's bed, reading to him from Dante's Divine Comedy. Her voice was smooth and melodic, lilting in all the right places. They had moved on from Hell to Purgatory and Gabriella was describing the souls rolling stones up the hill. She looked up at the soft knock on the door that she knew would be Andy without looking. She lifted her head in greeting, noting with empathetic sadness that the circles beneath his eyes were darker.

"You should take a break," he told her softly, pulling up a third chair on the other side of the bed. "The meeting with the doctor took longer than we thought. They brought a counsellor in case we wanted to talk; she's down the hall with mom and dad." Andy looked across to Gabriella. "She'll meet with you if you want."

"I don't want to talk to her," Gabriella answered, slipping her gaze to Troy's face and smoothing his hair across his forehead.

"That's fine," Andy replied, although he sounded unconvinced. Gabriella didn't press him to find out if he had spoken with the woman. "But I still think you should go for a walk or grab something to eat. I'll sit with him and then Mom and Dad will want their turn. You have some time, go get some fresh air."

"But I don't—," she paused and dropped her protest, knowing it wasn't right to keep Troy to herself no matter how much she wanted to. "I'll be back soon."

"Of course," Andy said gently, propping his feet up on the bed. "There are some shops on the main floor."

"Thanks," Gabriella told him, her heart not in it as she gathered her sweater and shoved a ten dollar bill into her pocket so she could leave her purse in the hospital room. Bending down, she pressed a kiss to Troy's forehead before leaving the room.

She used the bathroom, scrubbing the oil and sleep from her face in an effort to wake up. Taking the stairs, she wandered through the selections at the cafeteria and the cafe on the second floor only to feel like throwing up at the idea of eating any of it. Instead she purchased a bottle of water and strolled self-consciously through the gift shop, ignoring the racks of Get Well Soon and With Sympathy cards. When her water was gone, she used the bathroom again. Looking at the time on the wall in the corridor, Gabriella sighed at realizing only forty-five minutes had passed. She couldn't go back yet. Noting a sign on the wall, Gabriella began following the hallway past offices labelled for various support groups offered by the hospital until she reached a dim archway at the far end.

The chapel was non-denominational according to the sign as she entered. A couple of pretty rugs were laid out in a corner with a copy of the Quran closed on a tiny stool in front of them. The main part of the room was set up like a traditional church, with two rows of pews facing a bare altar. Letting her eyes roam, Gabriella located a small niche in the back of the room where candles were lit. Making sure she made no sound, she lifted the large, gaudily decorated bible from its podium and brought it to the front pew. Gabriella wasn't sure what possessed her, but after flipping aimlessly through the pages, she located Corinthians 13. Reading it over, Gabriella drew strength from the words as if Troy was the one reciting them to her. Laying down on the pew, Gabriella rested her cheek on the timeless pages and thought of the boy upstairs until she fell asleep in the serene oasis that many had not discovered.

~*~

Gabriella woke stiff and cramped on the pew in the chapel, the silence pressing in on her and the peace from the night before shattered as she glanced at her cell phone to see how much time had passed. A trip to the public bathroom had her splashing water on her pale face before quickly stopping at the canteen for horrible coffee that she forgot to sweeten with sugar. Her foot tapped impatiently as she waited for the main elevator, each connection with the floor tiles increasing her heart rate until finally the doors slid open and she could step inside. The coffee cup was warm in her hand as Gabriella stood in the elevator, watching the numbers climb to the eighth floor. Yawning, she covered her mouth with her hand before moving it up to tousle her limp curls. People chatted quietly about their loved ones as they waited with her, but it was the only thing Gabriella felt they had in common. She felt alone and isolated, her pain on display and yet unknown at the same time; the strangers beside her cloaked in their own personal crises.

People moved aside when the elevator chimed its arrival at Gabriella's destination, the doors sliding open with a calm and even pace that was not present within her. The floor was quiet; the lights dimmed to show that regular visiting hours were over for the night. Two nurses talked softly, their voices inaudible to Gabriella as she passed the big desk on her way down the hall. They stopped talking when they saw her, but it didn't mean anything to her; probably just gossip they didn't want the public to overhear. Another nurse ducked out of an office to Gabriella's right, her arms full of charts and clipboards. Her rubber soled shoes made no sound as she walked past Gabriella and headed for the nurses' desk. The doors to the patient rooms were shut or left slightly ajar and Gabriella wondered how it felt for their families to leave them at night. Turning the corner, she shivered once before looking up from her shoes and their rhythmic clicking on the tile.

Andy was at the end of the hallway. His hands rubbed against his upper arms, moved to the pockets of his jeans, and then back to his arms. Gabriella's heart hammered in her chest as she watched, taking three steps forward and then abruptly halting when his head came up to look down the hall in her direction. The poor lighting of the corridor highlighted the shadows gracing Andy's face, painting his cheekbones to look hollow and pale. Gabriella saw the slump of his shoulders first, the flash of tears in his eyes second, and the tremble in his hands third as he dashed the back of his hand against his face. She knew then.

He was waiting for her, she realized. He was waiting for her and the implications of that knowledge tumbled through her head like thundering waterfalls, pulling her under and taking her breath away. The coffee cup slipped unnoticed from unfeeling fingers, splattering against the worn grey tiles that were flecked with green. Her shoes were wet but Gabriella didn't care. Every part of her was numb, except the excruciating pain in her chest where her heart was shattering fragment by fragment. A strangled cry erupted from her throat as Andy took a hesitant step forward, the tears streaming down his cheeks. Gabriella didn't feel herself falling, but she was on her knees before Andy reached her.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head furiously. "No, no, no."

Tears blurred her vision but refused to fall, their salt burning her eyes. Chills raced up and down her spine, sweat broke out on her forehead, and her breath came in rasping breaths that never gave her the chance to inhale. It felt like bricks were crushing her and water was drowning her and through it, the only clear thought that rung in her mind was that Troy was gone. He had left her there in the cold, empty hallway on her knees to beg with God to not let it be true. He was gone. The tears came then, running hot down her cheeks and dripping off her chin. Arms captured her within their reach, but Gabriella didn't want them.

"No!" she screamed. "Don't touch me! I don't want you to touch me!"

"Shh," Andy whispered in her ear, his voice thick. "It's okay. It's better this way."

"It won't be better," she protested, failing to break away from him as he tugged her closer and gripped her hands to keep them from hitting him. Lowering her voice and choking on her words, Gabriella fought to breathe. "It will never be better again. It will never be okay."

"One day it will," Andy told her, his chin resting on her head as she cried into his chest. "One day it won't hurt so much and it won't feel like you're dying."

Gabriella stopped struggling to stare at the perfectly round tear that fell on her hand. It wasn't hers and she looked up to see Andy's tear stained face inches from hers, his eyes swollen and red and his bottom lip puffy. He had just lost his brother and had already lost her and yet he was struggling to hold it together in front of her. Her fingernails dug into the skin on the backs of his hands as she struggled to string words together and stop the shaking of her entire body. She was freezing, her teeth chattering between sobs and her jaw ached. Tears sliding down her face and mixing with Andy's, Gabriella bit her lip before speaking.

"He's—," Gabriella gagged on her words. "He's—really gone?" Andy nodded and Gabriella slammed a fist to her mouth to keep from screaming. She felt like she was going to puke. "It's ridiculous, isn't it?" she asked, her voice high pitched and hysterical. "You leave and—," Gabriella swallowed painfully, "—he's just gone." Again Andy nodded, words impossible for the moment. Gabriella inhaled sharply, her stomach coiling and the bile rising in her throat. "Oh, God, it hurts!" she exclaimed, clutching her hands to her chest and leaning forward while Andy rubbed circles on her back as she tried to grasp the meaning of everything that her brain was telling her.

Every atom of her being wanted to deny the truth. Every piece of her wanted to believe that she would walk into the room at the end of the hall and see Troy sleeping on the bed, his hair messily falling over his eyes. He would look peaceful and serene, and when she put her cheek to his chest, she would hear his heartbeat and feel his breath move her hair. And yet, she knew it wasn't true. She knew that if she walked in that room, it would be as cold as a tomb and just as empty. She knew the boy on the bed would never be Troy again. Heart wrenching sobs echoed in the hallway but to Gabriella, it sounded like they were coming from someone else.

"I was supposed to be there," she told Andy, guilt adding to the anguish in her face and in her heart. "I promised him someone would be there, that he wouldn't be alone. Tell me he wasn't alone."

"He wasn't," Andy whispered gently as he stroked her back, "Mom and Dad were there. It was easy, Gab. No pain or dramatic measures. He was just gone. It's how he would have wanted it. He wasn't alone, you kept your promise."

"Not all of them," she replied, the tears starting again. "I promised I would be ready. He made me promise and I did but I'm not Andy. I'm not ready."

"I know," Andy told her awkwardly. "I know you're not."

Gabriella clung to him—to his solidness and his presence and his own pain.

~*~

Gabriella stood at the edge of the gravesite. Her eyes remained fixed on the headstone, beautifully carved and elegantly curved. Each time the edge of the hole appeared at the corner of her vision, Gabriella's brain would taunt her with its awareness. She refused to look further; refused to acknowledge the casket that rested at the bottom. Roses and their petals lay scattered along the green plastic grass that cloaked the upturned ground in an effort to make the reality slightly less coarse. More flowers rested on the oak stained wood box that held Troy as well. Gabriella had laid one of her roses on top of it when it was still above ground, but now she didn't dare look to see if it had fallen off and been crushed when the casket was lowered. She had been unable to bring herself to give away the second rose Lucille had handed her, clutching it to her chest with cold fingers instead as its thorns dug into her palms.

A hand touched her elbow, causing her to jump, and she looked away from Troy's name to see Andy talking to her. She couldn't make out his words from within her foggy bubble that no one had been able to penetrate for days. Following the turn of his head, Gabriella noticed her surroundings. People had left and only family remained and they too were heading towards the cars provided by the funeral home. They were leaving? Confused, she tried to focus on Andy's words.

"Gabi? We're leaving, sweetie," Andy told her patiently, his voice losing the hollow tone that had been present all day in an effort to reach her. She looked at him. "There are people waiting at the house for us; people who didn't come to the cemetery."

"We can't leave him," Gabriella mumbled numbly, turning back to watch the gravesite. Two employees from the cemetery had appeared with shovels, but they held back when they saw Andy shaking his head at them. "I can't do that."

"Gabi, you're scaring me. You're scaring all of us. Troy is gone, and you can talk to him and love him and feel his presence without being here. All that's down there is a box. It's not really Troy." Andy swallowed, and she saw the tears glistening in his eyes, but his words seemed jumbled in Gabriella's mind. "These people need us to leave so they can do their job."

"You mean bury him?" Gabriella asked bluntly, her eyes trained on the workers who offered sympathetic glances. Andy flinched beside her at the emptiness in her voice, before steadying himself. Gabriella wondered how he could be so put together at a time like this, and then realized that people may think the same about her. She hadn't shed a tear all day and she had heard Andy's aunt whispering about it behind her in the church. "They have to wait because it's inappropriate to do it while we watch."

"I don't think you should watch," Andy replied gently, reaching for her hand and when she pulled away, he wrapped an arm around her slim waist and tugged her towards him. Gabriella knew she was pushing him to the limit of composure, but he struggled to hang on to make sure she was okay. "We will come back tomorrow, okay? I will drive you myself, I promise. And you can stay as long as you want. Right now, though, we need to go home."

He didn't wait for her consent, turning her in the direction of the sleek black Lincoln cars where people waited, watching them. Gabriella let Andy lead her across the grass, her feet moving without thought as she hugged her arms around herself and shivered. Reaching Jack and Lucille, Gabriella walked past them without a word or acknowledgement of the concern on their faces and slid in the door being held open by the driver from the funeral home. Clutching the rose in her lap, she stared straight ahead blankly while Andy and his parents discussed her outside. After a few minutes, Andy joined Gabriella, reaching out to take her hand. She looked down when she heard him swear.

"Damn, Gabriella, what did you do?" Her palm and fingers were punctured and bloody, the angry broken flesh swollen. "Let me see the other one."

Silently, she gave him the hand that held the rose, unfurling her fingers from the stem when he asked. It looked the same as her other one, the thorns pulling out of new wounds when Andy peeled it from her grasp. She watched as he set it on the seat beside him, the stem stained with her blood; some dried and some new. It captured her gaze, drawing her in as she tried to swim through the crushing feeling that threatened to overwhelm her.

"Gabi? Gabriella!" Andy snapped his fingers in front of her face and Gabriella blinked slowly, bringing her attention back to him. "I need you to snap out of this, do you understand me? What is going on with you? It's like you've decided to just shut down and I can't deal with that right now. Crying, anger, hell, I'll take denial, right now, but something to show me you're alive and in the same world we are."

"He's not here," Gabriella responded in a tiny voice, hoarse as if she'd abused her vocal chords. Andy looked surprised that she was answering him, but then guarded when he heard her words. "He told me he would always be here, watching, but he's not. I can't find him."

"He is here, Gab," Andy sighed and Gabriella looked past him as his parents got in the second car and the line of vehicles began to creep away from the gravesite. "You just need to look in the right place. You'll find him, it just takes time, but withdrawing from the rest of us won't help you any."

"They hurt," she mumbled as if she hadn't digested a word he'd just said.

"What hurts?" Andy asked, following her down-sweeping gaze to the blood on her palms.

"My hands," she answered dully, "They kind of sting. That's good, right? It means I'm trying."

"Yeah, Gabi," Andy told her as he pulled her head down to his shoulder and left his arm to lay across her trembling shoulders. Gabriella heard him sniff, but didn't look up. "That's good."

Trees sped past them as they wound through the streets of Albuquerque towards the Bolton home. Gabriella watched them, letting her mind dance around and flood her with memories still too fresh to be considered welcomed. Andy remained silent beside her, his hand warm as it rubbed her shoulder. When they reached the house, Gabriella got out of the car without waiting for someone to open the door and walked up the path to the crowded house on her own. Inside, she slipped past the people and ducked inside the room Troy had used downstairs and where all his things still hung in the closet and folded in the drawers. Yanking the black dress over her head and ripping the shoes off her feet, Gabriella pulled on a pair of sweats and a Wildcats sweatshirt that belonged to Troy. Pulling the hood over her hair and the sleeves over her mangled hands, Gabriella curled up on the neat bed and cried.

She was asleep when Andy crept in later, setting the rose on the nightstand beside her and covering her with the blanket draped over the chair in the corner. Satisfied, he left her to bear her grief in the privacy of his brother's bedroom.

~*~

The house was silent the morning after the funeral when Gabriella woke well before 8am. Feeling empty and lost, she tiptoed to her room to find jeans in place of the oversized sweatpants she wore to bed. She left the hoodie on, with its hint of male body wash still lingering, and crept back downstairs to slip on her sandals. Without making a noise, she sifted through the bowl of keys on the counter and found the keychain to the battered truck parked in the driveway. Chad had driven it to the funeral the day before. Pulling open the door, Gabriella slipped behind the wheel and turned the engine over. The noise was deafening and it didn't surprise her when the cell phone on the passenger seat began to ring. Gabriella ignored Andy's call, and Lucille's that came after it, silencing the phone and tossing it on the dashboard where it slid down to join Troy's collection of odds and ends.

Pulling the vehicle out of reverse and driving towards the outskirts of town, Gabriella kept her eyes on the road and avoided the empty passenger seat. The roads were mostly vacant considering it was early on a Saturday morning. After locating the road to the river park, Gabriella followed the winding path to the last private moment she and Troy had truly shared. Surely, there was something she could find that proved him right; that he was with her. So, Gabriella sat in the truck and waited. After thirty minutes of seeing nothing but trees and the muddy water beyond them, she slammed her hands on the wheel, evoking a protest from the horn.

"Where are you?!" she screamed to the cab of the truck. "Where the fuck are you hiding?"

There was no answer and her frustration and anger only increased.

"You promised me! You said you would be here and that I wouldn't be alone but I am, Troy! I'm all alone and there's no one here!" Gabriella leaned her forehead against the unforgiving hardness of the steering wheel. "I need you to be here. I'm not ready and you promised!" she sobbed. "You promised."

The phone on the dashboard flashed in silent mode, indicating four voicemails and feeling desperate, Gabriella reached for it. Andy's voice chastised her via voicemail, panic and anger and pain coming through in his voice. Numbly, Gabriella decided to call him back to assure him she hadn't driven into a lamppost or the river. Her fingers slipped on the keypad and she fumbled before it fell to the dirty untouched space in front of the passenger seat. Fishing around blindly with her arm, Gabriella groaned when she cracked her forehead on the glove compartment.

"Damn!" she cursed, holding her head as the compartment latch let go and the flimsy door fell open to spew its unorganized contents all over the place. "Fuck, Troy! Stupid frigging truck."

Laying belly down on the passenger seat, Gabriella began gathering up the registration, mechanical papers and old gas pump receipts off the floor. Feeling under the seat for any stray item she may have missed, her fingers crazed against something small and square. She pulled it out, along with half a roll of electrical tape, and held it in her hand.

It was a blue box, identical to the others but slightly dirty from the constant presence of grease in the truck. Her phone vibrated for her attention somewhere under the seat but Gabriella barely noticed. She turned the charm box every way, trying to decide if it was random or if it contained something. If it was empty, she would be filled with disappointment, but it had no reason to be empty. Steeling herself and wiping the tears from her cheeks, Gabriella sat up and rubbed her gritty hands against her jeans before picking up the box again. Biting her lip, she closed her eyes as she flipped open the lid.

It was a rose, gold on silver with a diamond petal. Choking on the fresh flow of tears that dripped down to splatter the blue velvet of the open box, Gabriella felt her face ache with the grin that stretched across it. She laughed, coughing as if it were a foreign reaction, and then let it bubble over. She clutched the box close to her chest, and let herself feel hope for the first time in days. Serenity washed over her, dulling her pain by a smidgen, but enough that she noticed the difference. Peace replaced her despair. Shoving the truck into drive, Gabriella drove back into East Albuquerque, the box with Troy's charm never leaving her grasp.