"Being in pain is like watching a fire burn

It is all consuming

Everything is bent and twisted in the flame

But only for a moment

One single, burning, agonizing moment at a time

Then you either suffer another moment, or the pain dulls and you sense relief

Unless you suffer a nagging pain

An ache - a continuous murmur

Always there under the surface

Waiting beneath for an opportunity to consume

But only if you allow it that air to breathe

This kind of pain can only be held at bay one moment at a time

The inverse of physical pain, one moment of fighting prevention of feeling this way

As opposed to one moment of feeling pain and trying to cast it off as soon as possible

There are certain forces, two of them, that can keep a nagging persistent ache at bay

Two things that keep me breathing every day, drawing strength inward to my soul

Drawing the fuel away from the fire to make it smaller but never out completely

Two things that keep a sense of peace, that rarely recedes,

except in brief moments of weakness and all consumption.

Hope and love.

Hope in a love I know exists, not existed, but is still existing

Hope in the love that will one day return and quench the fire forever

Put it out, and bring back life and flowers.

If pain is an all-consuming fire than love is the sun

Radiant and giving life, where fire only takes away

The sun makes any fire seem less then consuming, weak, powerless

The sun is happiness and joy and hope that one day both will come about

And in the obtainable future, always there in the sky, just barely out of reach

Her script tantalizes me when I want to hold her hand

Her voice makes me yearn to kiss her sweet lips

And her picture…

It makes me want to hold her tight and never let go

And this is the fire, the pain, the burn

The realization that I can't.

Not yet.

But then I need only look to the sky and see the sun, which has seen lives lived and gone and to which a year seems nothing

Untouchable, miniscule, a small step before a life of happiness.

Hope and love. The sun.

The same sun her beautful eyes glint at, or had glinted at hours before, if only for a moment

I shan't let any fire consume me before she comes home

An ache, however persistent

is still nothing in the face of my glorious shining sun."

I took a deep breathe, as I held the small black journal in my hands. I read the poem over again and again, until my hands were shaking persistently. Tears had been pouring down my face, but then I finally looked up, and I saw him. My Shawn. In that hospital bed. It had been three days since I'd first seen him, and we were all taking turns, shifts, so someone would be there when he woke up. He would wake up, he had to. But unlike the others, I never left. Only twice to eat and bathe when Topanga and Cory dragged me out, they made me sleep in their apartment, saying I needed rest. The doctors said his body was doing well. They'd taken the breathing tube out that afternoon. But he still wouldn't wake up. My Shawn.

I choked, placing a hand over my mouth. I shouldn't have read that poem. But I knew it was meant for me. He told me once that all his poems were meant for me. He said that sometimes they were directly about me, and other times they were just about life in general, or people; but everything he thought about in life related back to me. I was like "a screen on his window of observing his life - always there to filter things through". Over the phone he murmured that once to me in his introverted artistic way. Most people wouldn't see Shawn as much of an introvert, but I knew better, the things he was the most passionate for, he kept close to his heart and only let a select few see.

I wiped my eyes, refusing to give in to my nagging pain. My fear. I gingerly picked up his hand and brought it to my lips. Then I stroked it with my thumb the way he always stroked my hand, or my shoulder, or my cheek. I choked again, but fought with the inner turmoil, remembering his written words. I could keep this pain at bay. All I had to do to fight was have hope…and love. And we both knew our love would never go away. I squeezed his hand tighter, willing him to wake up. But he didn't. So I leaned down toward his face and kissed his unresponsive lips, whispering, "Shawn I'm here. I'm back. Wake up - p-please!"

Then I just couldn't fight any longer. The fear consumed me and I collapsed onto his heavily bandaged chest sobbing into his shoulder as if he would hear, or comfort me. But he didn't. He just lay, breathing in and out. What if he never woke up? All of us in conversation said that he would, but what if we were wrong? The doctors hadn't given us a straight answer about what his chances were of coming out of the coma, so our resolution that he would wake up was just an optimistic shot in the dark. What if we missed? There is a fine line between unfounded optimism and naiive stubborn denial. Just moments ago I grasped onto hope, but with thoughts like this, and the fact that he was totally unresponsive to me sobbing on tiop of him - made my strong hold on hope slacken. The aching pain of fear came rushing in, taking advantage of my less then whole resolve. The fire consumed me.

"You said you wouldn't let any fire consume you before I came home. And now I'm here. Don't let this fire be any different!"

I crawled up onto his bed against his chest and curled into a ball, just listening to his breathing and pretending he was just asleep. But even with my eyes closed I could smell the hospital smell and within moments someone was screaming down the hall with their own pain to deal with. The walls were thin and I couldn't escape into fantasy, because my mind never left the confines of hospital walls and harsh unfeeling reality. After a few minutes there was a soft knock at the door and I composed myself; sitting up moving to the chair and wiping my face, before managing a shaky, "Come in!" I grabbed onto hope again, my lifeline, ignorant optimistic bliss, forcing the nagging pain back down, but with it never going away. How could his words from days ago, before any of this had happened, perfectly describe what I was feeling now.? My Shawn, the geat poet, one of the many reasons why I love him. Tehre was a painful snag in my chest that I refused out of stubborness to ackowledge.

The door opened.

"Hey, anything changed?"

I shook my head, Cory sighed. "Yea. I figured."

He handed me a cup of coffee which I took without a word, then he sat down next to me and placed an arm over my shoulder. I leaned back into him automatically and he rubbed his hand up and down my arm soothingly.

"Angela, he's gonna be ok. Alright?"

I still didn't respond. I was too busy wishing his arms were Shawn's.

"Well, C'mon. Topanga's making me take you back to our place for a home cooked meal. And then for a nice bath and some sleep. Even if he wakes up, Eric'll be here and you'll be the first to know."

I nodded and he got up, offering me a hand, but I was too busy observing the hospital floor.

"…Well, c'mon then." Cory said awkwardly, not wanting to fight me, but I knew he wouldn't leave without me either.

I sighed and took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. I looked at Shawn my whole way out of the room. I felt like I was stuck in a dream, so surreal, a nightmare in the night. Cory kept his arm around me until we got to his car.

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Cory and I were both very worried about Angela. So I made sure that that day after classes, we would have a nice homemade meal for her and then I sent Cory out to bring her home. By the time the two of them walked in the door I had three nice steak dinners complete with mashed potatoes and green beans, waiting on the kitchen table.

"Hey!" I said with a smile, mustering up some fake cheerfulness. Neither Cory nor I felt up to entertaining, but we knew that Angela needed something more than despondent hospital surroundings for several straight days at a time.

I'd taken Eric up on his word and had him call the family. I'd called Angela myself purely because I thought she would rather hear it from me. But by now the whole Matthews clan had come and gone. Once they heard the news they insisted on coming down. Mrs. Matthews brought lots of home cooked meals that we could freeze, and Mr. Matthews said he was always here if we needed anything for Shawn at all. After all, he still considered him his fourth son. Even Morgan was surprisingly pleasant, it really made her sad to see Shawn, her practically adoptive brother whose stories were always ,"Better than her real brother's anyway" - in such a state.

And of course Mr. Feeny came down too, and while he couldn't stay, he'd left Shawn a gift of what he called, "Some fresh advice". It turned out to be an old notebook belonging to both Shawn and Cory, which contained some of Feeny's best quotes in class, and some of his absolute and hilarious worst. "Oh yes." He'd said, as they had all gathered in the closest Ramada Hotel when they'd all arrived on that first night, "I confiscated this thing way back when the boys were just starting to pull their first pranks and shenanigans. Fourth or fifth grade I think. I just found it recently and thought I'd give it to you and Mr. Hunter to look through once he wakes up." That was everyone's attitude. It wasn't spoken about but when it was, it was just assumed that he would wake up, he had to. No one would accept any other answer, so no other answer was said aloud. Making it shouted all the louder in each person's mind.

But while everyone else was trying to get lost down memory lane and taking the optimistic route, it was obvious who was looking directly at the elephant in the room. Angela had barely said a thing all night that first night everyone had been there and neither had Mr. Turner.

Yes, even the infamous Mr. Turner had come all the way out to NYC when he heard the news, and he was the only one who stayed longer than those first few days. We hadn't seen him around much for a while, it feels like we hadn't even seen him since our Junnior year, but when he heard Shawn got a bike he was nervous. Shawn had blown off quite a few letters and phone-calls from the older man, until like everyone else even Turner stopped trying, stopped nagging. When he heard about Shawn's accident he was completely distraught. He was another one like Angela, moping around barely saying a word.

I haven't told anyone, but I walked in on Mr. Turner that first night. He was the last one to leave Shawn's room, and I'd forgotten my jacket inside. I cracked the door open only to hear Mr. Turner sobbing quietly and whisper so only Shawn (And I) would hear, "Damnit Shawn, I told you that a bike was dangerous. But you never listened to me anyway, you never did, and you probably never will… But I heard what you said to me that day when I was in your position and you better hear me now - Don't. You. Turn. Your. Back. On. Me. Yet. Hunter. I'm still not done yelling at you." It was said so passionately, and threateningly, but with more love than I thought possible from someone who wasn't actually Shawn's father. But at that moment he might as well have been.

And then he'd placed a hand over his face and just stood there for a while, finally I walked away - giving him privacy and getting my coat the next day. He'd probably be there tonight while Angela was here, he said he was planning on staying in town for a while. However long Shawn needed him. I thought it was sweet, in a haunting kind of way.

Jack was coming home too. It had taken Eric a few days, but he finally got the news to Jack and Rachel out in Nigeria. They were both on their way back to the states. And Jack's step-dad had branched out and paid for a private room just like Jack had for Chet. Shawn would probably be mad at the charity, but if he ever got to yelling at Jack about it we'd all be so happy we wouldn't care what he had to say.

Cory had been getting better. He was calmer now that the waiting period had set in. He was still overly jumpy and nervous, but he was Cory again, my Cory, and I think I was again slowly becoming Topanga again. We weren't trying to act like a huge chunk of our lives wasn't in a hospital bed not waking up, but we were till trying to live. And put on the best face we could, because we knew Angela needed it.

So I plastered a smile on my face when she walked through the door with my husband's arm around her. And it stayed there the whole evening, as I talked amiably with my husband, and occasionally she said something, but mostly she didn't. Until I told her that she was positively free to take a bath and then I'd set up the couch again for her.

But she shook her head, and my smile faltered. She wasn't going to demand we take her to the hospital again, was she?

"Angela. You really need a good night's sleep." I said reasonably. My hands were shaking. My brow was sweaty, I couldn't keep hold of the happy façade much longer, she really shouldn't make this more difficult.

"I know." She said quietly, staring at her fingers and fiddling with them during a pause, "I want to sleep in Shawn's apartment tonight." She said, looking up and making direct piercing eye contact for one of the first times tonight.

My stomach instantly did a back flip and I felt sick. She looked so unbelievably heartbroken. My heart broke for her. And just as I let the dam of emotions overflow me, unadulterated fear shook me to my bones that Shawn maybe wouldn't be ok, and I was pretending everything was fine for no reason; because it wasn't. Now I really felt sick.

"Please?" Angela asked, quietly. "I've been thinking about it all night and - I… I want to sleep in Shawn's bed. See his things... I want to go home."

Cory's face had fallen too, and when I looked into his eyes I saw the same fears and stirred up emotions reflecting back in his. Then he looked back to her and said solemnly, "Of course." With a horrible nod.

Within a few minutes he took our spare key to Shawn's room and walked Angela across the hall. He was going to show her the rooms and ask if she needed anything. I smiled sadly as they walked out the door, and as soon as it shut behind them I ran the bathroom and was violently sick.

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I like writing poetry, its kind of my thing - so I made this little one up for Shawn because it really seemed to be him. Hope you like, please review! -FA