1) Thank you for your reviews. I usually don't aks for them - so thank you for writing them anyways. And they motivate me like hell so a big shout out to all of you!
2) Just for those of you who didn't notice the change - Ariana is 17. The first time jump was just 2 years. I totally got carried away in the story and decided that her being 17 gave me options for different thoughts.
When Gaby had realised what just happened, she decided to close her shop. After she told all her costumers that there was an emergency in her family, she closed up and left, headed home.
Nick was already home, sitting in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea.
"Nick! Nick, I have to tell you something." Gaby came running in and had a hard time to breath because she ran so fast.
"I almost told Ariana about Will."
Immediately as she had spoken out these words she felt a slap on her cheek. It burned like hell, and made her sob.
"How could you Gaby? How could you? We have been careful for 18 years and now you blurt something like that out?" Nick raged.
But Gaby had other worries. She held her cheek, trying to calm down and between her sobs she stammered: "You hit me. You hit me.
But Nick had no time responding that because a voice cut through silent like a knife through butter. It was a clean, surprising cut.
"Who is Will?" Ariana stepped into the kitchen.
Nick lost his temper.
"I DO NOT WANT TO HEAR THIS NAME IN MY HOUSE!" He stepped up to Gaby, forced her to put her hand down and kissed the red burning cheek.
"I am sorry, honey. I really am. That shouldn't have happened. And you," he said, looking at Ariana.
"I pray for you you forget this name."
But he saw on the way that Ariana crossed her arms and how her eyes spit fire that this threat wouldn't change her mind. In fear that he was about to hurt her also he looked at Gaby.
"You messed this up. So fix it." With a sad look at Ariana's face he left the kitchen. Just moments later both women heard the loud sound produced by the door falling in its lock.
"So mom. Who is Will?" Arana said with a voice so demanding that Gaby felt that certain parts of Nick were in Ariana, too.
Gaby took a deep breath before she started telling what Ariana should've heard long ago.
"Will was your father until ..." She stopped. How so often in her life she was forced to choose. And like always she chose Nick.
" … until he died in a car crash."
Ariana stopped to breath. Something inside her broke. She felt miserable.
"So you are finally, after 18 years, telling me that my dad is not my father – just like I always suspected – and that my real father is already dead?" She screamed from the top of her lung. "And now I don't even have the chance to get to know him. You are definitely the worst parents ever!"
At the last word Ariana stormed off and the barricaded herself in the bathroom upstairs.
Gaby was still and silent. She didn't move for what felt an eternity. When she felt that she could indeed still move her body she went to the cupboard in the living room and pulled out a drawer. She searched quite long until she found what she was looking for. A framed picture of her and Rafe.
Her hands were shaking when she pulled the picture out and a smaller, folded paper fell into her fold. She opened it up and saw herself at graduation. Next to her stood a taller, blonde guy with the bluest eyes she had seen in a long time. Even Ariana's eyes weren't as blue.
"Oh, Will. What did you put us into." Her thumb stroke over the picture. A lonely tear fell on the surface.
"I am so sorry Will." From the next drawer, Gaby took a box of matches and lit one. Slowly with a heart already full with regret she held the picture into the flame.
Sad and alone she stared into flames, eating the picture from the lower corner up to the top.
Nick came home three hours after the kitchen talk. When he opened the door, he already smelled the dinner Gaby made them.
"Honey? I'm home." He shouted towards the kitchen, expecting Gaby to come out of the door to his right. But she didn't. Looking into the kitchen he didn't see her. Slowly a feeling of worry conquered his heart. Did something happen to them?
"Gaby? Where are you?"
He did not hear his wife shouting back but what he heard was something upstairs. It was a sound of something falling over and then he heard a scream. Not an angry, raging scream but a scream indicating something was just terribly wrong.
Courageously, Nick climbed the staircase running with three steps at once, nearly stumbled but caught himself.
He had a suspicion where the scream came from and so he ran in the bathroom. The picture he saw there wouldn't leave his head for a while.
His wife Gaby kneeling next to the bathtub, kneeling in loads and loads of blood. His daughter lying in the bathtub with both of her wrist to the sides, both cut. The blood still fell to the floor, drop by drop by drop. As if someone knocked him to the floor, Nick fell, gliding to his wife. Crying, he got his daughter out of the tub, pressing towels onto her wrists.
"Gaby. Call 911." He said impatiently to his wife, who sat next to him in shock and didn't move an inch. "Get help – NOW!" The last word was shouted almost directly in her ear, and suddenly she awoke and jumped out of the bathroom.
The way to the hospital had been a torture. Ariana had lost so much blood that the paramedics shouted and screamed at each other because no one had a real plan how to save her life.
In the hospital, Nick and Gaby sat side by side but they wouldn't say a single word to each other. Silently, they prayed and they hoped and they feared.
Every time they heard steps coming towards them, the hastily jumped up but the doctor didn't come. No one came. Left alone like this Nick had a lot to think about. He thought about how everything he did in the past would be in vain if his daughter couldn't be saved. He casted out Will and Sonny for a reason. The only reason there has always been – protecting his daughter. But if she were to die he wouldn't have succeeded. He failed her the same way as them in that case.
When they heard steps again, they didn't bother to stand up. Although this time it was actually the doctor coming through to them.
"Mr and Mrs Fallon?" He said with that voice only doctors have when they tell relatives that there were complications. And indeed. When Nick and Gaby stood up, looking hopefully and the doctor he crashed their hoped.
"Your daughter has lost a lot of blood. Though we were able to stop the bleeding … "
"But that is good, isn't it?" Gaby brought her hope up.
The doctor wasn't answering her question, instead he was repeating his previous statement, stressing the first word.
"Though we were able to stop the bleeding, I am sorry to tell you that but we are fearing for the life of her daughter." When the words came out of his mouth, Gaby sank back to the chairs. She covered her head in her hands staring to sob.
The doctor took a quick look at her. In his view wasn't real concern or worry. Most probably had he done this for too long. He didn't differentiate anymore between his job and the feelings involved with that. He started to carry on, looking at Nick while he spoke.
"As you know your daughter … "
"Ariana." Nick interrupted. He was getting sick and tired of the doctor referring to Ariana just as "daughter". He had a name for a reason.
"Thank you. Ariana has, as you know, a rare blood group. We were able to give her some blood transfusions with 0- but we need to have her blood group, too to fully stabilise her. Anyway, is there any chance you might be able to donate some blood?"
Gaby looked up, her face being red from all the crying and sobbing. First Nick thought she would nod, saying everything would be alright, saying Ariana would be saved.
But then she said something that shattered his world. She made it spin around and would not make it stop again.
"No. Neither of us has her blood group."
The doctor bit on his lips. He looked troubled.
"Do you know anyone who has her blood type then? An other family member or a close friend of the family?"
Nick and Gaby shared a look.
Just want to say - I don't know anything about blood groups (except what i learnt in school) so the stuff happening in the hospital ist just fictional ...