Hey all. Sorry it's been a bit longer than I've wished in between updates but it was important to me to get ahead with writing the next two chapters that follow this one before updating. Anyway, it's up now and I really, really hope you enjoy it!

Big thanks to all the reviewers of the last chapter... Now am I going to get to the big 4-0-0 mark after this chapter? Wow, 400's (even 389 is!) a REALLY big number... I would give up before counting to that figure, ha ha. So really, THANK YOU to each and everyone who has persisted, hung in there and given me advice of the first 24 chapters of this.

Chapter 24 – Spark of Life

Cleo's POV

Opening my eyes from yet another uncomfortable catnap, the first thing that I looked over to out of my new founded habit, was Lewis. No change and no movement. He hadn't changed or moved since the entire time that he'd been in the hospital, which was coming up for a fortnight. Since the diagnosis, he'd been in an induced coma until his body was strong enough to wake up and deal with this huge obstacle that had been dumped down in front of our lives.

I'd found it hard and didn't deal with the change well for the first few days, but now, spending my days at the hospital was becoming familiar and settling… spending my entire day there, sitting and waiting until I was dragged away from his room by one person or the other. I could deal with the boredom, the lack of change. Right now, I deemed it the easiest option. To me, it was almost like a comfortable routine in this deluge of uncertainty and depth of scary unpredictability.

Although I wanted him to wake up and be cured more than anything else, I was petrified by the prospect of Lewis waking up.

Now, I could fool myself into the idea that he was just sleeping and that he was doing well like the doctors were telling me, but when he woke up, that would be a very different story. No one knows how extensively the Guillain-Barre will have affected his physical and mental capacities, and I was scared witless for those questions to be answered.

"Kim and I have to head off for a while, sweetheart, but I'll be back later with Sam. Are you alright here on your own for a little while?" Dad, who I had almost completely forgotten I was sharing the room with, asked as he pressed a kiss on the top of my head from where I was sitting down on the chair closest to Lewis' bed while he prepared to leave the room.

"I'll be fine, dad. Bye" I muttered with a sigh, speaking the most words that I had all day, but preparing myself for the upcoming hours of solitude.

I sat up a little more in my seat, finding a comfortable position as I leant over to the hospital bed from my seat. I took a hand of my unconscious husband's and held it securely with two hands. Although it broke my heart knowing what Lewis was in for, that both of us were, before our lives returned to how they had been before this, part of me couldn't wrap my head around how sick Lewis was…

Aside from the horrendous memory of waking up after a fight to the fact that Lewis couldn't move, Lewis looked no different. Lying on the bed, eyes shut, all day every day… he still looked like Lewis. He looked just like he would if he'd had a big day at work and came home to crash and have a nap on the lounge. He looked just like the Lewis who'd be lying there asleep in our bed if I'd gone to bed later than he had. But Lewis wasn't that simple now.

I know that the fight before all of this was of less than mediocre importance now, but it crushed me to know that one of Lewis' last memories of what happened when he was conscious and before the Guillain-Barre had reared its ugly head and really presented itself through the night, was us fighting. A fight he'd tried to fix and make an attempt to resolve which I'd ignored accidentally, all through the matter of a misunderstanding.

That fight, his last memories, was one of the things that kept going over and over in my head. Why had I been so stupid to of worked late that day, in avoidance of returning home, thinking that the sequel of our fight would have been continued? I should have remembered and realized whom it is that I'm married to. Lewis was the classic example of someone being a lover, not a fighter. I felt completely terrible... like I had completely let him down when little did either of us know that was when he needed me most.

I would have continued to let my guilt and my thoughts eat me alive if it wasn't for a knock on the door.

I knew that it wouldn't have been family; they were used to just barging in and the nurses were getting pretty good at that too. Everyone had tiptoed around me when Lewis had first been admitted, but now it was almost becoming normal. Life was settling down, everyone was adapting back to their usual selves – but Lewis wasn't awake. I couldn't possibly acknowledge life as the normal that everyone else was beginning to.

"Come in" I said instantly, but unenthusiastically before I turned around to see Rikki standing in the doorway.

"You need to work on your 'welcome home' skills, miss" was the cryptic reply that I heard from a familiar voice, but a voice that certainly didn't belong to my expectation of Rikki.

"Emma?" I squeaked out of surprise as the familiar blonde that I hadn't seen in over a year, since my wedding day and on much happier terms.

My disbelieving question was responded to by being wrapped in a warm hug; an action that I had become more than accustomed to receiving since Lewis had been taken to hospital. However, this hug was a different sort of comforting, it was an unexpected warmth that had come from a surprise, instead of duty. A little reminder that people, other than my family and direct friends, still cared for Lewis and I, and not just as a burdening requirement to support me.

It was just a little reminder that people were willing. Willing to travel across the globe for us. I was grateful, undoubtedly, for everyone's care and effort that they had shown, everything they had done for me especially, but I was beginning to sense they were getting just as tired as I was. Mentally weighed down, and Lewis and I were the source of that burden.

"I am so sorry that I haven't been able to make it over sooner. Rikki called me a few days ago about Lewis, but I was tied down and couldn't leave the country for a few days. Has there been any change? And what about you? How are you?"

I shrugged as she clutched my arm sympathetically, supportively. "You know… As good as can be expected I guess…"

"Oh Cleo. You guys don't deserve this, but I know you and Lewis are strong enough to get through it."

"I hope so."

Her mouth tightened, a look that even despite the time and distance that had between us for so many years, I could tell meant that my close friend was thinking. However, whether I liked or disliked what she was thinking about was yet to be proven.

"I was thinking," she informed me unnecessarily, simply proving that I had nailed the body-language-reading test as she tightened her grasp on my arm just slightly for comfort. "Do you want to go for a walk along the beach? I think you need to get out of here. You've been here for days, haven't you?"

"Yeah" I sighed, cryptically answering her question, although not providing her with any distinguishable points that would enable her to readily interpret the word I uttered. Normally, I would have been quick to explain myself, bring Emma back up to speed, but lately I'd lost a lot of enthusiasm for a lot of things. The hospital has the capability of emotionally and mentally draining you, without your even realizing it.

"I was hoping that you would say that" she replied, obviously not even needing my refined translation, not releasing her grasp that she had on my arm, just accentuating it as she lead me out of the room, with Rikki following close behind.

The drive from the hospital to the beach was not that far, and it seemed even shorter due to my familiarity of both destinations. Most of the trip, Rikki and Emma talked like two Italians passionately watching Eurovision, but every now and then I noticed Emma's brief sideward glances in my direction as the car continued on it's rough course from Rikki's appalling driving.

Normally Surfer's Paradise was the place to go. When it had been the three of us, Rikki, Emma and myself, we'd all liked the energy of the Gold Coast's most well known beach, but even by the time that Emma had traded places with Bella, the tradition was set and our course was always for the popular beach, unless we actually had the intentions of swimming. Even before Rikki, before our tails, Emma loved training at Surfer's Paradise while I equally enjoyed the energy of the beach from the spots I would sit and make myself comfortable on the sand to watch her from afar.

However, today was different. None of us had the intention of swimming, not now while Rikki and I made the most of talking to and soaking up the company of our friend, but yet we still didn't go to Surfer's. Perhaps the vibrant energy was unsuitable for us suddenly, but none of us questioned why or why not. It was like an unspoken agreement to spend as much time together as possible when I didn't even know how long Emma was down for… however long, deciding to spend it talking and catching up.

"Despite the terms" Rikki's glance grazed passed me in a momentary pause. "It's so great to see you again Ems. How long are you down for?"

"As long as I'm needed" Emma smiled, again using the pause to warmly look towards me. "I haven't booked a return ticket yet."

Despite both of my friend's efforts to at least make me feel included, I remained silent.

"So how is France anyway? Got the language under your smarty-pants belt yet?"

Emma laughed at Rikki's question, compliment and dig; all in one, and I couldn't help but smile. Aside from the terms and the subject matter, it was the exact manner of how our conversations were five years earlier. Before time, distance and age had rifted us from that time of our lives.

"Not quite. Nearly. There are still a few sentences I struggle with stringing together and remembering. France on the other hand is lovely… Flipping cold compared to the coast here, but I like it there."

"I seriously should come over for a Parisian holiday. I can hear the little poodles and croissants calling my name…" Rikki replied, as her voice trailed off to pack her bags at the idea.

Emma nodded enthusiastically at the idea, while I continued to happily take the backseat conversation-wise. "You should! And you know what they say, Paris is the city of love, Rikki. You might be able to bring more back to Aus than Eiffel Tower souvenirs and croissant-hips…"

"Meh" Rikki replied, with a brief wave of a hand, lacking care, over her shoulder before her face lit up with a smirk. "City of love? How is Ash by the way?"

Never being one overly fussed with her relationships, Emma waved Rikki's question off with a wave in a similar manner as Rikki herself had just seconds earlier. Those two were more similar than they'd ever like to admit. She was never one to go overboard in the highs and lows of relationships and kept a pretty sturdy balance throughout the course that she'd been with Ash. "He's fine. He was going to come with me, but he's just moved to a new job and didn't want to make a bad impression so early on."

"Well that's a bit boring" Rikki stated bluntly. "Trust you two workaholics…"

Emma burst out laughing which triggered a similar reaction in Rikki to laugh, then between the two of them created the contagious domino-effect of spreading to me. And I didn't stop it. I didn't even try.

Since Lewis had been admitted and hospitalized, every ounce of humour and happiness I had felt had felt wrong – like I was guiltily betraying him while he was missing out. It felt as if I wasn't allowed to enjoy myself while he was going through that… Could you blame me? But despite the niggling guilt in the back of my mind that wanted to prohibit me from it while Lewis was in the state that he was, for a few minutes there I was genuinely happy.

For just a moment, time could have been mistaken for being four or five years earlier; we could have been still in high school, Emma could have still been living the ten minute walk from the beach, Rikki still could have been living with her dad and I could have thought that Lewis was simply at his house, in his own world as he tried to invent products to make hiding the mermaid-side of our lives easier; not that he ever really perfected that technique in an invention.

As we happily stood there together, it wasn't even like Rikki had cracked one of her infamous jokes or anything, whatever she had said to Emma that had started her off with laughing was nowhere near the quality of her normal humorous material, but it was almost like I had reached breaking point of being able to contain and stop any happiness within myself.

Honestly, I think it was just being with the girls that had triggered the caving of my happiness walls that I had been trying desperately to ignore and build up as I stayed watching and waiting by my husband's bedside vigil.

However, it was right when I was living in the moment, enjoying myself that my guilt came crashing down on me again as I answered the phone call that I was receiving amidst laughs.

"Sweetheart, hi. Lewis has woken up."

Within minutes I was back at the hospital, likely having broken a few world records of distance to time ratio. With the other two girls trailing close behind me as I walked into the room, I knew that it would be startling to see Lewis awake, let alone in whatever state that he was in, but I think that I would have been able to handle that better than the sight of an empty bed.

"Where is?!"

Before I had the chance to freak out and let my fears overtake me any more than what they already had, dad had wrapped me in his arms comfortingly. "Calm down Cleo… Don't worry. The nurses have just taken him out of the room –just then- to try and take a few more tests, assess any damage or changes now that he's awake.

I should have been ecstatic to know that he was awake, but internally there was a battle of my guilt and apprehension. What impact would the illness have on my husband that I knew and loved? Would Guillain-Barre have some sort of an amnesia-effect? Would he even remember me, know who I was? Could he walk? Hell, could he even move? But the flood of those questions bore no resemblance to the question that actually came out from my mouth.

"Was anyone with him when he woke?" I whispered, noticing the sensation of physical contact with the girls as one held my hand and the other's hand fell on my shoulder. However, their touch was of no consolation as I read my father's expression before he had even said the words that I was hoping were different from the ones that were written over his face, and I hoped that someone, anyone had been with him… His parents, my sister, the rowdy neighbor in our old apartment whom we had never met - anyone…

"No sweetheart. No, I don't think so" dad whispered softly and gently, in an attempt to try and dilute the guilty punch that his words delivered. "The nurse said that she had walked in to find his eyes open when she came in to do his obs."

I collapsed into the nearest chair, with tears fighting for presence from the thought of Lewis being there; finally awake, in a room that he probably had little idea of why he was in, with whatever physical inabilities the G.B.S had on his body… with no one and with no answers… He probably thought that I had given up on him... that everyone had given up on him. That no one loved him or cared for him enough to be there. Not even his wife. The thought, the simple possibility of him thinking that, killed me.

To add to the guilt was the waiting game. Waiting to know how he was, what he thought. How he felt… Whether or not he was okay…

I really wanted to incorporate Emma in this chapter, but I don't think she's going to be around for very long unfortunately sorry. Perhaps more in the sequel, but I really couldn't think of many ways around it seeing as the planning and storylines are already very established for this story. It was just a little surprise for you guys as much as Cleo.

Editing this chapter felt really bizarrely emotional for me compared to writing it (when I would normally get weighed down sadder themes in my work) seeing as a few days ago, I was at my grandfathers house and in his room I noticed a nearly 12-year-old calendar hanging there... I nearly laughed before realizing it remained on the month and year my grandmother passed away. Seeing that just drilled into me how absolutely horrible it is when illnesses threaten and tear apart true love, as with the case of Clewis.

Next chapter: With realization and comparisons weighing heavily on her, Bella makes a bold move with disastrous results.