This story was originally conceived as a short oneshot and stayed that way for almost a year. A friend of mine, Sara, enjoyed it so much that she wanted to read more. It is for her that I am writing these chapters; the story is now going to be a three chapter endeavor. What follows is the second chapter. I hope you enjoy, you have Sara to thank. If you are curious you should follow her on Twitter at saradotta. You can also read her stories here that she publishes under the name Dottynha.
"Where am I? What happened?" Freddie's voice brought Carly to full attention out of her sleep. "Carly, is that you?"
Carly rose and turned her head to Freddie. "Freddie, you're awake." Carly carefully wrapped her arms around Freddie, "You have no idea how happy I am."
Freddie was still confused, "What happened?"
Before Carly could answer a nurse came into the hospital room, alerted by the change in Freddie's vital signs. She quickly stepped to the side of Freddie's bed and Carly moved out of the way to give her room. "Mr. Benson, how are you feeling," she asked as she took his wrist in her hand.
"I'm confused. I'm in the hospital, but I don't remember how I got here." Freddie's voice was getting stronger but was uncomfortably dry. With the nurse's permission Carly got him a cup of cold water. As he was sipping his water a doctor he did not recognize came into the room.
"Freddie, I'm Dr. Janssen," he was looking over some charts Freddie assumed were his. "It's nice to see you're back with us. How do you feel?"
Dr. Janssen took up position on the other side of Freddie's bed. Dr. Janssen was in his mid 30's, but looked younger. It occurred to Freddie that he must have been too young to be a doctor, but he didn't feel he was in any position to argue. "To be honest I feel kind of numb all over."
Dr. Janssen took out a pen light and examined Freddie's corneas. "That's understandable; you are on some strong pain medication. Ok, see if you can follow the light?" Satisfied, he continued, "So what's the last thing that you remember?"
Freddie thought hard while Dr. Janssen, the nurse and Carly waited anxiously. "I…uh…I remember getting ready to film something for iCarly. We were…filming," Freddie concentrated as hard as he could, "We were filming something outside. That's the last thing I remember."
Carly was somewhat crestfallen but didn't say anything and did her best to keep it from showing on her face. Dr. Janssen did not seem too concerned. "That's fine, it's normal after something like that to have some memory loss near the actual event. Can you remember your middle name?"
"Karl," Freddie answered immediately.
"Where do you live?"
"Bushwell Plaza."
"Who's the President of the United States?"
"Barack Obama."
"Do you know what year it is?"
"2010."
"Good. What's your girlfriend's name?"
The question threw Freddie and he had to think for a moment. "I don't have a girlfriend."
Dr. Janssen couldn't help from smiling. "Very good. It was a trick question," he motioned towards Carly standing off to the side, "though that might be changing soon."
Freddie shifted his attention to Carly. Now that his mind was clearing it seemed odd to him that Carly was with him. He noticed from the clock that it was near 2:00a.m., very late. The fact that Carly was blushing slightly puzzled him. He wondered just what happened to him. "Doctor, just what happened to me?"
Dr. Janssen answered without hesitating, "You were hit by a truck. You suffered some terrible injuries and been in a coma for the past eight days."
Freddie finally took notice that he was unable to move his legs. "Am I paralyzed?"
Dr. Janssen shook his head as a single tear welled up in Carly's right eye. "No, but your legs were crushed. We have performed multiple operations on them. We're pretty sure your left leg will recover, but I can't lie to you, we don't know about your right leg yet."
Freddie was horror-stricken. "You're going to cut off my right leg?"
"No, not necessarily, we just don't know yet. We're hopeful another operation may save it. Let's stay positive on that. Your wrist will heal completely and your collarbone should be fine. There was pressure building up on your brain but we've taken care of that. Likewise, your internal injuries should heal completely, though we did have to remove your spleen."
Freddie had no idea what a spleen did and wasn't sure if he'd ever miss it. The whole list of injuries was completely overwhelming to him and he visibly slumped. "I…I don't know what to say now."
Dr. Janssen smiled apologetically, "It's a lot to take in right now, especially since you've just woken up after a weeklong coma. Tell you what," again he motioned towards Carly, "I'll go call your mother now and let her know what's happened. I'll let Carly fill you in on what happened. She's refused to leave your side since you've been here. You could do a lot worse for someone to nurse you back to health."
Dr. Janssen and the night duty nurse quickly left the room, leaving Carly and Freddie alone together. Freddie couldn't believe everything that was broken on and within him. He looked hard at Carly, "Carly, what happened?"
Carly sighed and pulled the chair close to Freddie's bed again and sat down. She found she couldn't look directly at him; her shame and grief proving too difficult to overcome. She wanted to be strong but found herself sobbing instead. After a few anxious moments Freddie reached out for her and she hesitatingly took his uninjured left hand inside both of her own.
"Carly, whatever happened, you can tell me. I need to know, please." Carly kept her head down, her tears flowing freely. "Please look at me Carls. This is important."
Carly finally managed to summon the courage to look at Freddie again. Once it had become apparent that Freddie did not remember what had happened, the guilt and shame she had managed to keep submerged beneath her concern for his health came rushing to the surface like an exploding geyser. "I'm so sorry; you're here because of me. This is my fault."
Freddie wasn't sure what she meant. "What happened? How could this be your entire fault?"
Carly wiped her tears away with the back of her left hand. "Yes, this is my fault. We were taping a dare for iCarly that day. I was supposed to offer to brush people's teeth while wearing a bunny suit." Carly paused; she never imagined how difficult this part could be. "After we were done, on the way back up to Bushwell, I crossed the street without paying attention. I was crossing against the light while a taco truck came through the intersection. You and Sam were well behind me and tried calling to me but I couldn't hear with the suit covering my ears." Carly started crying again.
"It's ok Carly, you can go on." Freddie squeezed Carly's hand to encourage her.
Carly took a moment to bring her breathing under control and then continued. "When you saw I couldn't hear, you ran after me and pushed me out of the way of the truck. Unfortunately you couldn't get out of the way in time. The truck hit you and…" That was all Carly could manage.
"And now I'm here." Carly slowly nodded her head as Freddie continued, "And that's why you think this is all your fault."
"Isn't it? If I had just looked before crossing that street you wouldn't be here now. You'd be fine, you wouldn't be hurt and..."
"You could very well be dead now," Freddie interrupted. "I don't care what happens to me, as long as you're alive and well I don't care."
"Freddie, I don't know what to say. All this time I've been waiting here for you to wake up, I kept thinking of all the things I wanted to tell you, and now I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry about this, God I'm so sorry."
"It's ok, it really is. I'll get better, what's important to me is that you're safe. That's all that matters to me." Freddie made his point as emphatically as possible then slumped back into his bed. He found himself more tired than he would have thought after being comatose for eight days.
Carly had no idea how to reply to that. She decided that nothing she could say could adequately convey her feelings. Instead she quickly leaned in and kissed Freddie deeply on the lips.
Neither of them had any idea how long they were kissing when they were interrupted by the night duty nurse, who's name it turned out as Nancy. "Excuse me," Nancy began sheepishly, "Freddie your mother is on her way now. She's anxious to see you." Nancy couldn't help but smile, "She said she'd be here in roughly 15 minutes. How about if I leave the two of you alone until she gets here?"
It was close to ten in the morning when Carly woke up in her own bedroom. After so many nights in Freddie's hospital room it felt downright weird to sleep in her own bed. She hadn't really wanted to leave Freddie at all, but after his mother got to the hospital she decided to give them some privacy. For someone as overprotective as Mrs. Benson the entire ordeal of Freddie's hospitalization was nearly unbearable. The least Carly could do was give them time together.
Carly arrived home close to three in the morning. She was too excited to keep the news of Freddie waking up to herself and immediately woke Spencer up to tell him. While he was glad to hear about Freddie, it was the middle of the night, and Spencer went back to sleep quickly. He did recommend that Carly get some sleep herself and call Sam later after waking up.
Carly reached for her cell phone and dialed Sam's number without even looking. Ten in the morning was early for Sam on a Saturday, but Carly didn't care if she woke her up. She was sure Sam would want to know about Freddie right away. Even though they fought often, Sam did care about him very much like a brother and was worried about his welfare nearly as much as her.
"Carly, is that you?" Sam wasn't quite awake yet and her voice reflected that.
"Sam, Freddie woke up. We talked for a bit." Carly was excited and blurted the words out quickly. Most people wouldn't have been able to understand Carly in that moment, but Sam had had plenty of practice talking to Carly when she was hyper-excited and knew exactly what she'd said.
"That's great. Can we go see him?" Sam's voice lost all traces of sleepiness.
"Yes. How fast can you get here? We can go over to the hospital together."
"Are you home? I can be there in an hour, 45 minutes if I push it."
"Yes, I came home after Freddie's mother got to the hospital. Push it; I want to get there as soon as we can."
True to her word Sam came barging into the Shay's loft in 40 minutes. Carly was waiting for her on the living room couch and was up on her feet before the door even closed. She grabbed Sam by the arm and steered her back towards the door. "Come on Spencer, we're ready to go." Spencer was going to drive them over and say a quick hello to Freddie.
"Hold it Carls, I haven't eaten yet. Can I grab something before we go?"
Carly had expected Sam to be hungry and pulled a muffin out of her purse. "Eat this on the way."
After spending eight days in the hospital Carly could have found her way to Freddie's room with her eyes shut. She quickly and confidently led Sam and Spencer there now. Upon entering his room, however, she was in for a shock. It was empty. Freddie was gone; the bed was empty and freshly made. His get well cards and flowers were cleaned out. It was as if he had never occupied the room. For a second Carly thought maybe they had gone to the wrong room after all. An inspection of the room number showed that they were in Freddie's room.
Carly was standing with Sam and Spencer wondering why they had moved him to another room when a young nurse came into the room. "Excuse me," Carly asked, "can you tell me what happened to Freddie Benson? He was in this room."
The young nurse was new at her job and meant well, but had yet to master the art of giving bad news tactfully. "Oh, the teenage boy? He died this morning." She turned and left the room, leaving Carly, Sam and Spencer in a state of shock.
Carly couldn't believe it. Freddie had been fine less than eight hours earlier. She hurried out after the nurse only to find no trace of her in the hallway. Spencer and Sam followed after her and together the three of them stood looking for someone who could provide them some answers.
The night nurse, Nancy, had stayed after her shift to help finish some paperwork. She was leaving and saying her goodbyes when she noticed Carly standing in the hallway with all of the color drained from her face. She immediately knew what must have happened and rushed over to Carly's side.
Carly saw her approach and met her halfway. "What happened to Freddie? He was fine, he was going to be ok." Carly tried not to scream but her voice was noticeably loud, she was barely able to control herself.
Nurse Nancy put her hand on Carly's shoulder. "Freddie developed a blood clot that couldn't be detected. This morning close to six the clot broke free and traveled up to his brain." Nancy paused before continuing, a look of genuine sadness on her face, "there was nothing that anyone could do. It happened too quickly. I know this doesn't really help, but Freddie died without any pain. It was fast and he didn't suffer."
Nancy left then; Carly completely devastated. She had no idea what to think or what to do. She could barely function at that point. She found herself moving, but did not realize she was walking, being led by each arm; Spencer on her left and Sam on her right. The three of them wound up outside a waiting room at the end of the hallway. Inside were Mrs. Benson and a woman that neither Sam nor Carly recognized but Spencer knew to be her sister.
Spencer walked into the room to give his condolences with Sam close behind. Carly stayed back a moment then cautiously entered. After a couple steps Mrs. Benson and Carly briefly made eye contact. The eye contact only lasted a moment, but to Carly it seemed to go on forever. In that moment Mrs. Benson's visage changed, from Carly's point of view, from one of grief to one of pure hatred. The moment passed and Mrs. Benson resumed her grieving, but Carly knew that in her heart, Mrs. Benson held her responsible for the death of Freddie. Carly had a very hard time disagreeing with her at that moment in time herself.