This is the end! Thank you all for your reviews, I love you all!
Unexpected
"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit." Megan whispered frantically as the elevator doors closed. Dov's stomach twisted into knots, but he kissed her temple and reassured her as best he could.
"Megan, over here." The doctor called when they arrived on the third floor. She jogged over to the man, with Dov close behind. He chanced a look at Ms. Hayes usual chair, and everything became real. He knew she wouldn't be there, but actually seeing it was horribly unsettling.
The doctor led them down the hallway and around the corner to the intensive care portion of the hospital, which was a very dark place when you knew someone residing in it.
"You need to choose now. Either we let her go, or we induce the coma." The doctor stopped them outside the door.
"What?" She looked at Dov. "What?" Her voice was quiet and shaky.
"The coma is the humane way. It'll ease the pain, you'll get to say goodbye. If we let her go, there's no guarantee that you'll even be able to see her again. The nurses are still working on her." The doctor's words were hurried, and a little hard to process.
"Mom." She whispered, bringing her clasped hands up to her nose. Dov enveloped her in his arms, burying his face in the back of her neck.
"Ms. Hayes, you need to decide. We're nearing the point of no return, here." The doctor repeated.
Megan only began to shake uncontrollably, not able to answer. She wanted her mothers suffering to end, but she couldn't stand the idea of just letting her go.
"Put her under." Dov said to the doctor. Megan turned in his arms and nodded into his chest.
"Alright. I'll be back out in a minute." The doctor opened the door and momentarily exposed them to the chaos occurring inside. Nurses were yelling as a tray fell, no doubt bumped by the one that was still doing the unneeded chest compressions.
Dov flipped open his phone and called Chris.
"Toronto Grace. You need to be here." He said simply, before snapping his phone shut and turning his attention back to Megan. Doing what he did best, he held her close and didn't say a word until the doctor returned.
"We figure you've got about fifteen minutes before either the drugs kick in, or..." Dov knew what he meant. He spoke quietly, stepping aside so the two could enter the room.
"We've got one more coming. He'll be here in five minutes." Dov whispered to the doctor as Megan timidly poked her head into the room.
"Mommy?" She whispered, never letting go of Dov's hand.
"Hello, darling." Her mother said weakly from the bed at the far end of the room. She was too exhausted to say much else.
"Oh, Mom." Megan shattered into tears. Dov put his hands around her and walked her over to the bed. "I'm so sorry." Her words were choppy and muffled, as she spoke through desperate gasps for air.
"Don't be sorry, honey. It's about time." Her mother smiled, those graceful lines placed around her face enough to break anyone's heart.
"Do you want me to give you two a minute?" Dov whispered.
"No. I don't want you to leave. I don't ever want you to leave." She held onto his hand.
"Megan, don't cry." Her mother whispered. "Be happy for me."
"Why on earth would I be happy?" She cried out, nearly falling out of her heels.
"Because I got to see you all grown up, I got to meet your boyfriend and see how wonderfully your life turned out. You've made me so proud, Megan. That's all a mother could ever dream of." Her mother's eyes were the same shade of dark blue as her own.
"No. This, you can't, I ju –" Megan breathed, before letting her knees buckle and relying on Dov to hold her up.
"Remember what I told you? Tomorrow is a new day. No matter what takes place one minute, the world keeps on turning. That's what you're going to do, honey. Keep on turning without me." Leah said, her voice raspy but strong.
"It's was a privilege to meet a woman like you, Leah. I hope I live up to any expectations you have." Dov chimed in, quietly.
"Don't be silly, Dov. You've already surpassed every expectation any mother could think of." She laughed, waving a hand dismissively.
At that moment, Chris burst through the door with Gail in tow.
"Chris! What are you doing here?" Leah smiled. "Shouldn't you be out saving the world?"
"The world? I don't think so. There's someone I want you to meet." He placed his hand on the small of Gail's back and she stepped forward to shake Leah's frail hand. "This is Gail." Chris smiled at the mother of his child, who was smiling at Leah.
"Oh, how great to meet you!" Leah clapped. "I like her better than Denise already." She winked at the group. "Just remember what I told you, Chris" she held up a hand to her mouth to shield her words from the rest of the room. "Put a ring on it!" Megan let out a stifled, devastated laugh.
"Actually," Gail chimed in, holding up her left hand. "He did." A chorus of gasps echoed throughout the room, followed by a shriek from Leah.
"It's beautiful!" She looked at the diamond ring on Gail's finger, sparkling magnificently.
"He came home with it last night. Said that someone had talked some sense into him." Gail said, her eyes smiling.
"I was always good at that, wasn't I, Chris?" Leah smiled.
"Leah, I'm serious. I thought about what you said. You always told me that life was better when you understood how fragile it was. Then seeing you yesterday, and now, it just made sense. You made everything make sense." Chris stepped forward and held the woman's other hand.
"Oh Chris, you give me too much credit." She blushed.
"No, I don't give you enough." He took a deep breath. "You said that I saved you so many times. But you were always the one saving me, always. That time I crashed my dirt bike and Dad was out of town? You stayed at my house with me for two days, making sure the concussion didn't kill me. And when Denise and I broke up for a while, I was such a mess. And it was you two," He glanced up at Megan, who was still sobbing. "That kept me going."
"Don't make the dying woman cry, Chris." Leah laughed, sniffing a little.
"Look, I don't want to take up anymore time here." He stood up and motioned for Gail to join him on the other side of the bed. "But more than anything, I just want you to meet my little girl." He whispered. Standing beside him, Gail reached for Leah's hand and gently placed it on her stomach. Leah's face lit up as she felt tiny kicks against her palm.
"She's going to have the best parents, Chris. Better than I ever was." She whispered, looking back at Megan.
"Bull. If I'm a good parent, it'll be because of what I learned from you." He leaned over and kissed Leah on the forehead. "I love you, Leah. Thank you for every moment of my life. It was a pleasure." He didn't know how to say the final goodbye to the woman that was essentially his mother. Realizing that her child was standing on the other side of the bed, shaking, he stood and nodded briskly before leading Gail out of the room.
"I don't want you to go." Megan cried, letting go of Dov with one hand only to grab onto her mother.
"I have to, honey. Nothing lasts forever." Leah answered quietly, her eyelids drooping a little.
"This isn't how it's supposed to happen." Megan wailed, shaking her head.
"I know, I know." Leah held onto Megan's hand. "I love you, Megan Hayes." She could feel her own breathing begin to grow shallow, but she did her best to be strong.
Megan shook her head, covering her eyes with her other hand as Dov slid his arms around her stomach.
"No, no, no." She whispered. "No." Her voice grew frantic as she looked up and saw her mothers eyes, closed. She shook her mother's hand, and stopped breathing completely when it elicited no response. "Mom? Mom? No!" She stood and leaned over her mother. "No!" Her voice grew louder as the doctor rushed in, accompanied by two nurses.
Dov leaned forward and roped his arms around her waist and pulled her back, against the wall.
"Mom! Mom!" She screamed as the monitors behind the bed began beeping and screeching out horrible noises.
"Hold her!" The doctor told Dov as the nurses began checking her vitals and shifting the machines around her.
Dov carefully stepped around the nurses, taking Megan with him. She struggled against him, for once unhappy with his muscular arms around her. She wanted to be with her mother, she wanted to fix her.
"Let me go!" She screamed. "Mom!"
"Megan, Megan!" Dov called out. "Look at me!" He turned her around. "The doctors are what she needs right now." Megan pounded her fists into his chest, but he only tightened his grip on her. Eventually, the sound of her tears were drowned out by the shouts of the nurses behind them as she stopped struggling and sobbed into his chest.
"Mom." She cried as Dov ran his hands over her back, feeling completely inadequate when nothing he could do made her feel any better.
Panic set in as a lull settled over the room, and Dov raised his eyes to see the doctor and nurses hanging their heads in defeat.
"Call it." The doctor mumbled, before turning and exiting the room.
"No!" Megan screamed, turning to look at the lifeless body of her mother in the bed across the room, where just minutes ago she'd been smiling so brightly. Dov sucked back tears of his own and anchored himself to the spot, saying a silent prayer that he'd be enough for her.
"No, no." She choked out, trying to stabilize her breathing all the while her sobs never letting up.
His stomach wrenched itself into a knot as he clawed at her shoulders, trying to hold her closer; being eaten alive by the feeling that he could never be close enough.
After a few minutes, the nurses vacated the room and suggested that they do the same. The only thing harder than watching your mother die was seeing her covered up by the trademark white sheet that made it real. Quietly, Dov took the first steps in leading his completely numb girlfriend out of the room, then out of the building. The ride home was silent. No one cried, no one moved. The dead level that one dreams of had been fully achieved, because as they climbed the steps to Dov's house, neither of them felt anything.
They found their places in the living room, and after three hours of silence, Megan spoke.
"How long will we last?" Her small voice didn't even dent the deafening silence.
"What?" He answered in a whisper.
"Before we reach for the bottle." Her words echoed in his ears. It took a minute, but he got the point across.
"We don't. Ever. If you ever see me even eye a bottle, I want you to kill me." This announcement was sudden, but as he thought about it, accurate.
"Me too." She concurred. He got up and walked to the couch, where she lay on her side. She sat up momentarily, only to let him lay down next to her before resuming her position on top of him. Silence consumed them for another half hour before tears slowly began to form in her eyes.
She didn't cry like she had at the hospital. She didn't cry like she had when she was losing one of the most important people in the world to her. They weren't sharp, painful sobs. They were quiet, calm cries that to anyone else would've looked just the same. They sang of a heart broken, torn in two by a merciless fate seemingly undefeatable. She didn't cry like she had anything to lose, because at the moment, it felt like she'd already lost it all.
They lay there almost all night. Not in the comfortable kind of silence which Dov so enjoyed, but in a conflicted one. One that had many questions, and many unrelated answers. Both of them with an unsettling pain in their chests, heads spinning, slowly letting themselves trickle down the drain into nothing.
"I don't want to do this." She sat up. "I want to forget."
"And how do you suggest we do that?" Dov said, his voice rough after not being used for hours.
"Guess." She straddled him, and ran her index finger along the length of his jaw.
"Not a good idea." He mumbled, desperately trying to resist the warm body on top of him.
"Yeah, Dov, cause I'm really just full of those right now, right?" She scoffed before leaning down and placing a soft, enticing kiss on his lips. Every hair on Dov's body stood up as he felt every plane of her body press into his.
His body gave in to temptation before his mind did, but before he could blink his hands were firmly situated on her hips, and she was again sliding out of her dress.
"No, No. We can't, we shouldn't – " He began to speak in between kisses, but she refused to let up. "Megan," his voice was huskier than intended, but he stood his ground. His hands moved from her hips to her arms, and he lifted her off of him. He sat up, but she remained sitting on his lap, looking slightly dejected.
"Why not?" Thoughts swirled in her head. Did he not want her? He sure did earlier, that's for sure. Her words were soft, barely audible.
"Because you don't want to do this." His hands remained on her arms. "I know you don't."
"Pretty sure that I do, Dov." She tilted her head to the side.
"No, you don't. You're upset. You can't drink, so this is the next thing that popped into your head under the title 'will make me forget everything'." He shook his head, watching her expression fall.
"You don't, I know, what about," Her eyes went wide and she began to ramble, determined to prove that she knew what she was doing.
"Listen to me!" He interrupted. "I've been where you are right now. I know, okay? I know."
"No you don't! How could you possibly know what I feel like right now?" She squealed, placing her palms on his shoulders.
"I just do, okay?" His eyes began to swirl, and it definitely wasn't lost on her.
"So what do we do?" She asked defensively.
"What we were doing before. Lying here." Dov responded quietly. "Forever." His eyes fell to the floor.
"Why, Dov? So I can cry, and bitch and moan and you can just sit there in silence? Like you have for the past three days?" She accused. "Why do you do that? I'm upset and you can't say…" She let out a choked sob and covered her eyes with her folded hands.
"Because sometimes you don't have the words." He whispered, his own eyes brimming with water.
"What?" She dropped her hands and whispered, her voice crumbling.
"My mom died. She died when I was seventeen, three months after my Dad left because he couldn't deal with her having cancer." He let go of her arms. "They were my life, and then they were gone."
"Dov." She mouthed, her voice failing her completely.
"Sometimes, you don't have the words. You can't apologize, or say that everything will be okay, because you don't know if it ever will be." He whispered, his eyebrows furrowed together. "My mom had breast cancer. Near the end, she was nearly comatose. I'd sit next to her bed, and she'd squeeze my hand. It taught me that a lot of times, a single touch can do more than words ever could." She pushed him back onto the couch, and she made herself comfortable on top of him again.
"She was right." She whispered, letting tears fall from the corners of her eyes. Suddenly, she felt like she understood. All the little unexplained things that she'd noticed about him; the way he always held her hand whenever he could, his pure disdain for hospitals, and his visits with her cancer stricken mother on his own volition. He just needed the reassurance that it was all real.
Dov lay quietly, stroking her hair and chewing on his bottom lip. He weaved his fingers underneath the layers of her dark locks, and rested his hand on the back of her neck. Unconsciously, he began running his thumb back and forth over a small bit of raised skin just above her hairline. Completely lost in his thoughts, it was she who broke the silence.
"It's a tattoo." She said quietly.
"Hm?" Dov opened his eyes and looked down at her.
"That bump, on my neck. It's a tattoo." She smiled. Dov realized what he was doing and nodded in recognition.
"What is it?" His voice was rough.
"It's an anchor." She smiled. "I got it when I was fifteen at some sketchy little parlour in Timmins."
"Was this the result of a drunken night?" Dov laughed, rubbing her back with his other hand.
"No." She laughed. "Growing up in my house, it made me mature a little faster than everyone else. I never really had that phase; there was a bigger thing at hand."
"I see." Their breathing fell in tune with each other. "What does it mean?"
"Well no one knew I had it. So whenever things got crazy, I could just touch it and it would remind me that I did have some control." She breathed. "I got an anchor, because I always knew that I could get swept up in the craze. It reminded me to step back and take a breath when things got heavy." She breathed out, as if a weight had been lifted off of her chest. In truth, it had. No one knew about her tattoo, not her mother, not Chris, nobody. Except Dov, now.
"You're brilliant." He smiled, kissing her forehead. "And apparently, you were a brilliant fifteen year old."
"You're too kind." She smiled and yawned into his chest. A few moments passed.
"Do you trust me?" Dov asked suddenly.
"Trust you?" She looked up at him. "Of course. With anything."
"Alright, then I need you to trust me when I tell you that you need to tell me what happened to you two months ago." Again, he threw all of his metaphorical cards on the table.
"What?" She choked out. "I don't want to."
"Hey." He said softly, tilting her face up to him. "You wanna feel better about all of this? You want to start moving on? You need to start with a clean slate."
"My slate is perfectly fine the way it is." She put her head back down on his chest.
"Look, if anyone knows, it's me. You can't carry all of this weight alone, you can't. It'll kill you." He brushed her hair out of her eyes.
"What if I'm not ready to talk about it? What if I can't even think about it, myself?" She refused to look at him.
"You're always thinking about it. I know you are. I look at you at any given time of the day and your eyes are like saucers, and you look terrified. You flinch when I reach for your hand, or hug you. I know you think about it. I know that it's always there." He was getting desperate. But you can only help someone when they want it.
"Telling you will make me feel better?" She asked quietly. "You promise?"
"Of course, love." He kissed the top of her head. "It'll all be okay."
"Really?" The tone in her voice was nothing short of haunting.
"I promised, remember?" He kissed her again.
"Can we talk about what happened when I was younger first?" She was hoping she'd warm up to the idea of talking about things over time. So, she started with the memories that had spent years buried.
"Sure." He unconsciously held his breath.
Her words were quiet, but she only got through the first sentence before Dov's ears started ringing.
"I'll kill him." He seethed. "I swear to God, I'll kill him."
Now, it's up to you. The next fic I write will be about what happened to Megan and why she is the way she is. I can write it like I did in At A Loss, with Andy and Sam. With the flashbacks in italics and then little breaks in between, or I can just write a straight up fic about it. REVIEW, AND LET ME KNOW!