I'm Right Here by Rose Haze

Disclaimer I do not own The Suite Life of Zack and Cody

Author's Note: Warning! Boring Chapter! This chapter has two purposes. The first one is that I wanted to develop Samantha and Kurt's relationship as well as them as characters. The second one is to set up the next chapter. Anyways, I hope you like this even though it's a little bit boring. Please let me know what you think about it!

Chapter Fourteen

Losing Hope

"The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart." –Robert Green Ingersoll

It was still dark when Zack woke up the next morning. He rubbed his eyes and looked around. His mom was asleep in the other chair. The heart monitor was beeping rhythmically and the respirator was hissing. Cody's eyes were still closed.

Zack checked his watch. It was just passed six. This was much earlier than he usually woke up, but the chair was so uncomfortable that he knew that he would not be able to get back to sleep.

He kissed Cody's forehead, then grabbed his toothbrush and a change of clothes from the bag. He went to the communal bathroom and took a shower and got ready to face the day.

---

When Zack returned to the room his mom was just waking up.

"You're up early," she commented.

"So are you."

Carey stood up, "I'm going to get a shower and change my clothes," she told him, "We can get breakfast at eight o'clock when the cafeteria opens."

She left.

Zack squeezed Cody's hand. He wished for the hundredth time that he would be okay. He was thrilled to see that the puffiness in his face had gone down over night. He looked like Cody again even though he still had black eyes and the line of stitches that was still prominent on his pale face. His lip was still busted and his head was still bandaged. But despite all this, Zack noticed that Cody's bruises were lighter than they had been on that first day. And his cuts were healing too.

"I know you're going to be okay, Cody," Zack said out loud.

---

Samantha and Kurt pulled up to the hospital parking lot in Kurt's red Saturn. They were tired. They did not leave the hospital the night before until just after midnight. Once they got to the Tipton they talked to the manager, Mr. Moseby. Apparently, he knew Carey and the twins very well, so Kurt and Samantha told him everything they could about Cody and how he was doing. They did not get to sleep until after two in the morning.

"How long are you planning on staying here, Kurt?"

Kurt looked up as he put the car in park, "until tonight."

"No," Samantha said as she picked up her purse from the floor, "I mean how long are you planning on staying in Boston?"
He sighed and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

"I don't know, babe," he said, "The office gave me the week off, but I might have to stay longer depending on what happens."

He opened the door, "Come on," he said, "Let's get up there."

Samantha followed him with her head bowed. She was worried about Cody too even though she didn't know him. He was important to Kurt and Kurt was important to her. She loved Kurt and she knew that Kurt loved her. But in the past few days she wasn't so sure that she could trust him—not when he was around Carey at least.

And Samantha knew that she would not be able to stay in Boston much longer. She would have to get back to her own job. But she did not want to leave Kurt in Boston when he would be alone with his ex-wife at all times.

---

"How is he?" Kurt asked as he and Samantha walked into Cody's hospital room.

Carey and Zack were sitting by the bed. Nurse Robin was changing Cody's bandage.

"Still no changes," said Carey.

Zack cringed as he watched the nurse unwrap the bandage from around his brother's head. He could not help but be reminded of a TV special that he and Cody watched a few nights earlier. It was about mummies being unwrapped. Zack did not want to watch it. He thought it was boring—too educational for his taste. But he watched it anyway because Cody wanted to.

'That was probably the first nice thing I did for Cody for a long time,' Zack realized sadly, 'I hope it doesn't have to be the last'

Without the bandage, Zack could clearly see Cody's injury. They sewed up where his skull had cracked, and they cleaned the blood out of his hair, but there was dried blood where the doctors shaved his head for the surgery. It looked bad.

However, he was glad to see that the new bandage was clean. The old one had brown streaks of dried blood. The new one was perfectly white.

"I don't know how you can do that," Carey said lightly, "Just the sight of blood makes me queasy."

"Hazards of the trade," Nurse Robin grinned, "the blood and needles bothered me at first, but I'm used to it all now. Nothing shocks me anymore."

"It's the stitches that I can't stand," Samantha spoke up, "When I was in high school I fell on the sidewalk and had to get stitches in my knee. I practically fainted when I had to get them taken out."

Carey nodded in understanding, "It's been bad enough watching this. I don't think I'll be able to handle being in the room when they take out the stitches."

"When are they doing that?"

Carey's small smile faltered. The light conversation quickly became heavy as they were reminded of the seriousness of the situation.

"The ones in his cheek come out in a month. Six weeks for the ones in his forehead and two weeks after that thy can take out the ones in the back of his head."

Nurse Robin finished changing Cody's bandages. She said goodbye to the Martins and told hem she would be back at around one o'clock.

"Dr. Harrison is going to meet with us before lunch," Carey said to Kurt and Samantha, "they are going to take more x-rays to see if Cody's brain is still swelling. And they are going to see if his GCS is any higher than it was before the two surgeries.

Although the 'coma lingo' confused Zack at first, he understood everything that his mom just said because Dr. Harrison explained it all to him when he was there earlier. 'GCS' stood for Glasgow Coma Scale. The numbers were based on the responsiveness of the coma patient. Before his operations, Cody had a GCS of eight which, according to the chart, was not very good. But Cody seemed to be more alert when his he and his mom were there with him, and sometimes he would respond to different sounds.

Zack did not know what to expect from the meeting with Dr. Harrison. The meetings that they had been having with the doctors in the past two days had not exactly been enjoyable. Dr. Harrison never seemed to have any truly good news to deliver. Both of the operations had been very successful, but Cody was still in a coma.

Zack hated to admit it to himself, but after two days of bad news, he was beginning to lose hope.

To Be Continued

A/N There you go. I hope you liked it… let me know if you didn't (and if you did). How do you do this? By reviewing, of course : )

Up next: Chapter Fifteen: Just Breathe