A/N: Posting this at the same time as chapter 28 so don't skip that one by accident!

"And it all came true, it all came true"

"Thirsty?" Holly pointed to the Starbucks cup Gail had in her left hand. Holly's mom and grandfather had excused themselves to go back to meet Holly's dad and brother who were waiting with her grandmother while the three had gone to get lunch. Summer was still 'in the bathroom.'

Gail looked down to the cup and raised it up a little bit, "oh this little half gallon? Your sister got it for me. I think she's trying to kill me. I'm pretty sure I already have heart palpitations."

Holly chuckled weakly, "she sure is a strange one."

Gail eyed the end of the cafeteria where the food was displayed, "I think I'm gonna grab something to eat real quick before too much more of my stomach lining gets eaten away," then she quickly added, "I you don't mind."

"Be my guest," Holly motioned towards the food, "they have a killer chicken salad."

Gail narrowed her eyes, "define 'killer.'"

Holly smiled, it wasn't her usual crooked smile, and it wasn't her wide smile that reached all the way to her ears, but at least it was a smile, "edible," she corrected herself.

"Gotcha," Gail nodded her head, "do you want anything?"

Holly shook her head 'no' so Gail scooted off and picked something out.

Gail sat down and started to unwrap her sandwich from the cellophane and asked tentatively, "so, how's she doing?"

Holly bowed her head and rested it on her hand. She started picking at the end of Gail's sandwich wrapper that was closest to her, "she had a cerebrovascular accident yesterday morning. Gramp was a cardiologist, I think I told you that, anyways, he recognized what was happening so he called an ambulance. The E.R. doc diagnosed it an ischemic stroke caused by thrombosis and they gave her thrombolysis but she had a few more that afternoon and slipped into a comatose state. She's on a vent now," Holly sighed when she finished and looked up at Gail who was starting blankly back. She put her sandwich down and looked Holly in the eyes sympathetically, "I'm so sorry, Hol." Gail cocked her head to side, "also would you mind translating that into English maybe?"

Holly snorted a little bit but started to explain, "cerebrovascular accident just means stroke, really. An ischemic stroke is caused by decreased blood flow to part of the brain, as opposed to a hemorrhagic stroke which is caused by a hemorrhage, which is bleeding in the brain. With an ischemic attack parts of the brain aren't getting enough oxygen which can cause permanent damage to that area. Depending on where in the brain it is a person's ability to do pretty much anything can be compromised, or the effects could be pretty minimal. Thrombosis is when a blood vessel is blocked because of a clot that forms in the brain as opposed to a clot that forms somewhere else in the body and then travels to the brain. They gave her drugs that are supposed to break up any clots but she kept having more attacks anyway. The damage to her brain caused her to slip into a coma, which is when-" Gail cut her off by covering Holly's hand with her own.

Gail gave Holly a sad smile, "I know what a coma is." Holly inhaled sharply. "Summer said," Gail paused, "Summer said they're waiting for your uncle? She's not going to wake up, is she?"

Holly shook her head no and Gail gave her hand a squeeze. All of the sudden Holly's expression changed in an instant to one of confusion. She peered around Gail, "what the hell?" Gail turned around and Summer waved at them from a couple tables back. She was holding a salad bowl in her left hand and had her legs propped up on the chair across from her own. "Ugh," Holly groaned, "she is such a brat. She totally stole the car keys from me, did she tell you that?"

"Yeah she kinda mentioned that," Gail took another bite of her sandwich.

Holly peeked over Gail's shoulder as she said, "such a torn in my side."

Gail raised a finger and spoke before she was done chewing, "that's kinda in the 'little sister' job description."

Holly leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms, "she trying to snoop, and she's doing a pretty bad job of hiding it."

"That's also in the job description," Gail quipped, "except for the being bad at it part. I'm pretty good at it."

"Yeah, well that's kind of in your job job description."

Gail wagged her eyebrows. She had been nervous about seeing Holly again, she still didn't know where they stood. It was almost like nothing had happened, except Gail definitely felt an elephant in the room. "Holly," Gail put down her sandwich and asked tentatively "do you-do you think we should talk?"

Holly closed her eyes, "no-I mean, yes. But not now. Not now, okay? Please?" Holly's eyes were sad and pleading but warm.

Gail smiled with closed lips and nodded once, "of course."

They spent the rest of the afternoon just sitting in the waiting room. Only two visitors were allowed in the ICU at a time and Holly always managed to find something else she 'had' to do when her Dad or brother or mom came out to switch. Gail hadn't seen Ed since Holly introduced them in the cafeteria. He wasn't leaving his wife's side. Summer was here one moment and then gone the next. She flipped through a lot of magazines but didn't seem to be actually reading anything. Whenever Holly's mom was in the waiting room she took out her knitting and slyly watched her family like a hawk. She clearly didn't actually need to look at her knitting to avoid making mistakes.

Around six fourty-five Holly's mom walked over Evan, Holly, and Gail in the waiting room, "I just talked to the nurse, they're closed to visitors from seven to eight so we should head back and get something to eat," her eyes darted around the room trying to locate Summer, "where's your sister?"

Right on cue Summer walked past her mom and announced, "girls in mom's car," while jingling the keys she had swiped before. Anne rolled her eyes at her daughter as Evan offered, "I'll wait for dad and Gramp Ed." Anne nodded and waited for Holly and Gail to stand before taking off after Summer.

The kids were all gathered around the kitchen breakfast bar as Holly's mom removed her freshly baked cookies from the tray and made some tea. Holly had excused herself a few minutes ago to 'go to the bathroom.' Gail was pretty sure that was a lie though, seeing as Holly had headed towards the side door off the kitchen. She grabbed a cookie off the plate and realized that Summer had disappeared again. Gail wasn't judging, but it was starting to get a little creepy.

Evan looked around the room confirming his sisters had left and leaned over the counter, "they haven't been in once, mom." Anne didn't respond, she just looked Evan straight in the eyes. "The girls?" As he prompted her his eyes widened and he shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

She looked taken aback and placed her bent wrist on her hip, "Evander Edmund Stewart, who do you think you're talking to?"

'Woah,' Gail thought, 'Mrs. Stewart has sass.' She could practically see Evan's tail go between his legs, 'or should I say, Evander?! Who knew.'

"Do I ever miss a thing?" Her voice became a hissed whisper, "of course I know Holly and Summer haven't seen your Gram," she stopped whispering, "and you, you think you're so clever pushing your food around, smashing it up, what have you. Don't think I don't know that you haven't eaten more than two bites since you got here." She paused her lecture to push two cups towards Gail and smiled, "I'd check the porch swing, dear."

Gail stood and took the cups by the handles. She smiled at Holly's mom and nodded as she turned away towards the door. She could hear Holly's mom start up again as she backed through the screen door. Gail looked left and right, up and down the porch. No swing in sight. Holly's grandparents house looked like an old farm house. It was big and grey, and it had a wraparound porch. It was the kind of house that had swinging doors into the kitchen and glass knobs on all the doors. Totally the kind of house that would have a porch swing. She headed along down the porch towards the backyard. Yahtzee. Gail spotted the swing at the opposite end of the porch. Holly was sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her, leaning against the armrest with her back to Gail.

"Your mom made tea," she held the mug in front of Holly who seemed to come out of a daze as she craned her neck to look up at Gail.

"Thanks," Holly took the mug and scooted her feet up so Gail could sit before resting her calves in Gail's lap. Gail put her own mug on the little side table to the right of the swing and casually started massaging Holly's feet. Well, as casually as Gail did anything.

"Your mom just ripped your brother a new one. I never knew she had so much sass."

Holly chuckled, "she's always making sure his head doesn't get too big." She took a sip of her tea before she asked, "what'd he do this time?"

Gail tried to act nonchalant, "just sticking his nose where it doesn't belong I guess."

Holly raised her eyebrows, waiting for Gail to continue, "he was just saying something about you and Summer not seeing your gram, and she basically told him to s-t-f-u because she notices everything. She said something about him not eating anything."

Holly sighed, "yeah well, that might just be because he ate that slop from the plane. He's lucky to be alive," she skirted over what Evan had said about her.

Gail laughed lightly and let the silence sit for a minute before she asked "I told about our cottage up north right?" She looked over at Holly to make sure she was following. Holly nodded as she swallowed a sip of tea, so Gail continued, "and I told you about the 'ditch your kid and make 'em walk home alone through the woods' Peck family tradition right?"

"Yeah, I still don't really think that's totally legal," Holly answered casually.

"Yeah, well, anyways there's sort of a part that I leave out when I tell the story to kinda give the full effect of how terrifying it was," Holly raised her eyebrows at this confession. "Well the whole time I kept looking over my shoulder and all around because I had this erie feeling that I was being followed. Scared me brainless. When I got home everyone was in the living room playing Scrabble, half watching the window for me. That is, everyone but my granddad. He shuffled in like five minutes after I did with some wood for the fire. The thing was, he didn't bring the wood carrier, and we already had enough wood inside for like four days because it was supposed to rain the day before but never did. He put the wood down and said 'I hope you cheaters didn't skip my turn while I was gone.' I stormed upstairs because obviously I was pissed as hell. But I watched him from the staircase. He didn't have a board of tiles for the game." Gail paused to look over at Holly who had cocked her head to the side. "He followed me the whole way home from the store. He was always kind of doing that, you know? Looking out for me but trying to hide it, like an invisible safety net or something," Gail looked back at Holly to make sure she was following. She was watching Gail over the top of her mug so Gail looked back at the backyard before she continued, "I used to watch the Jays games with him. They sucked back then, but he didn't care. He taught me all the rules and he'd roll his eyes when the umpires 'called it wrong.' But mostly we just sat and watched together. I just kinda stopped caring though; watching without him just didn't interest me. It wasn't the same." Gail took a deep breath, "he died about eight years ago. He was old. He was almost ninety-five. He had a good life; he had a happy life. He missed my grandma a lot. She died about five years before him. That's the only time I saw him cry." Gail paused for a second to reach down and take a sip of her tea before returning her hands to Holly's feet. "Anyway, he wasn't doing so great. He was in a home for a couple years and he got sick. Then he got really sick. They decided to stop his medications. It was his time and I wanted that for him. Peace? It was my third year at school. I was home for winter break. My dad took me to see him a couple days before. We had to put masks and gloves and those meshy blue gowns on to go into his room. It was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do. He looked so old, so weak. He had an oxygen mask on, ya know? I couldn't really understand anything he was saying. Took me a while to realize he was saying 'hi' to me. But I just couldn't say anything back. I could barely move, I couldn't speak. I just wanted him to drift away, you know? I couldn't go near him. I just stood there like a celery stalk until the nurses came in a few minutes later and needed us to leave. I didn't say goodbye. I didn't hold his hand. I didn't tell him I loved him." Gail wiped a tear away from her cheek before looking over at Holly, "you have to say goodbye. Even if you think she's not there, even if it's the hardest thing you ever do, because not saying goodbye will be harder. You won't ever forgive yourself, even if you know she would have."

Holly didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to do with that, so she looked away towards the setting sun. She side eyed Gail, "who are you, and what have you done with Gail Peck?"

Gail grabbed one of Holly's toes and tugged a little while deadpanning, "how do you know my evil twin?"

They sat in silence for a minute before they heard the screen door slam and footsteps coming their way. Summer shook a set of keys in front of her, "Susie's for ice cream, you guys wanna come?"

Gail practically threw Holly's feet off of her lap before jumping up and dragging Holly with her, "yes we do."

"And it all came true, it all came true"
- Matt Walters "I Would Die For You"

A/N: This section of the story isn't particularly cheery but Happy Holidays everyone! Don't worry, there's more to come.