Note: Since the cliffie was very evil, I don't keep you waiting too long for the update :)
Of course, the following chapters will only be from Matt's POV for obvious reasons.

Matt
I exited Mihael's apartment, strangely very calm. I took the elevator, left the building and stood in the parking lot.
It's only when I saw the old Ford pull in the parking lot and my mother exit the car, my father on the driver's seat, that I burst into tears in her arms. She was crying too, and my father didn't look in a better shape. She pushed me inside of the rusty vehicle and we left.

"Mail..."
"Mum? Mum why are you crying? What happened?"
"Mail... the hospital called and..."
"Dad? Did something happen to Dad? Mum tell me!"
"It's Mihael honey..."
"NO! Mum! What... oh God no..."

The hospital called the number that Mihael had last dialled on his cell phone. I had called him from home a little earlier so he had called back on my parents' phone.
My mother took the call, since I had already left for Mihael's apartment and was waiting for him there, telling myself he was taking longer than he had said since he should have been there for at least 45mn already.
I wasn't even worried at that point, just impatient because he was probably stuck in traffic. Can you actually be stuck in traffic with a motorcycle?

When she rang me on my cell phone, she was crying so much she could hardly speak, and she tried to explain the call she just got from the hospital between sobs that only made me more anxious. My father, whom she had called first because she was totally unable to call me straight, was on his way to pick her up, and they came for me after that. My father had strictly forbidden that I took my own car.
I would have been unable to drive anyway. The hospital hadn't said much apparently, just that I needed to come as fast as possible since I was his boyfriend (my mother had had to explain how we were related to Mihael since they couldn't locate any family among the IDs in his phone), and I couldn't help but think that I was going to the hospital to tell him goodbye. They didn't even say if he would make it out alive!

Once we arrived there, a nurse at the counter asked several questions but I didn't want to answer, I just wanted to see him, and they didn't understand, I just wanted to see him damnit!
My mother gave the answers, although her patience was wearing as thin as mine. Did he have parents? Yes, he had, under 'Eltern' in his cell phone (german for 'parents' but they couldn't figure it out otherwise they would have been the firsts to be called and I was grateful that they hadn't because I may not have known about...), was he allergic to anything? Was he under treatment? Did he take drugs? Did I think he was drunk when he got the accident? No! No! No! Please, just let me see him!

"The parents speak english, yeah?" the nurse asked at some point while my mother was giving as much informations as she could for the files.
His parents were supposed to be here the day after tomorrow, my mum told her.
"I hope he can make it until then..." the nurse murmured to herself, but we all heard...

We were sent in a waiting room filled with patients and families, some in the same state as we were in. I was crying silently, my head buried in my hands. My father went several times to the counter but the nurse sent him back to his place each time. Mihael was in surgery, no, we couldn't see him now, no, she didn't know about his state, no, she didn't know if he would live. Compassion wasn't her thing obviously. But I guess working in a place like this... you can't let yourself feel for the patients or you just go insane.

A doctor with a very serious face came to us more than five hours later, as I was beginning to break down in the middle of the hospital's emergency waiting room as the nurse told us she had called Mihael's parents and they had made a scandal because she had told them I was there already.
"Are you Mihael Keehl's family?" he asked. The nurse replied to him loudly from her counter:
"Actually it's the boyfriend and the boyfriend's parents and..." she stopped cold under my mother's gaze, whose voice came up all of a sudden, cold like I've never heard her before: "If you're about to tell us that only the family is allowed, just don't, because if my son is not allowed to see his boyfriend immediately, God help me, I'll lead him to Mihael's room on your dead bodies."
My father blinked several times while looking at her, and the doctor didn't try her a single second. "Follow me. But be prepared, it's... you may have a shock."
I followed like an automat, my mother holding my arm, almost supporting my weight as I stumbled. I was about to faint, as I saw the "mortuary room" sign with an arrow showing the direction we were going in.
I looked at my mother, then at my father, and I collapsed.

I woke up being slapped. It was my mother, and I was half on the floor in my father's arms.
"Mail. Mail. Wake up. Stand up. Now." I've never seen my mother like this, she was emotionless, her face was so hard, her voice so cold...
I got back on my feet but my legs were shaking so badly that my father kept an arm around my waist to help me walk.
"He's alive." the doctor said.
"Why didn't you begin by that?" my father snarled, making the man cringe.
"This way please." the doctor was suddenly way more cooperative and knowing that Mihael was alive, I managed to stay on my feet alone.

My parents were not allowed in the room though, so I had to enter alone after an admonition from the nurse who had been following, that I wasn't supposed to be here, that Mihael's parents were against it, but the doctor shut her up at some moment saying that he was in charge now, and would face the consequences, not her.

I wasn't prepared to see that, even with the doctor's warning. No one is ever prepared to something like that.
I was unable to tell if it was him, under all those bandages, with all the tubes and the respiratory help and the machine with the green lines and the few skin I could see that was not a normal colour and the bloody, broken and torn nails. All that was left of Mihael was some blond strands falling out of the bandages. Even his head was covered, I barely could see his closed right lid. Even this part was that awful shade of purple...
But his chest was rising and falling and he was alive. That's all I wanted to think about right now, he was still here with me, no matter the injuries, the recovery, whatever would happen next. I wanted him even broken, even disabled... just alive was enough.

I was only allowed five minutes, and I just kept on staring. I barely called his name, but he didn't respond. How could he? He was in an artificial coma, the nurse told me as she pushed me out of the room without ceremony when the five minutes ended.

I stood still a few seconds before sitting on the nearest chair, lined with several others along the wall like a makeshift waiting room. My body kept its calm although feelings were raging inside of me. I didn't know how to handle the fear, the worry, the emotional pain, so I tried to shut them up because I didn't have the right to be a wreck when Mihael was in that state. But it made me unable to move further so I just sat there and listened as my parents enquired about Mihael to the doctor. He was reluctant at first because he wasn't supposed to tell all of that to others than family, but somehow he softened when I looked at him desperately.

But the more informations I heard, the less I could process them.
I had already registered the detail of his various injuries, both legs broken, the left one's skin badly torn off, that would need a skin graft if it didn't heal correctly, left arm broken, left clavicle broken, right hand broken, almost all ribs broken... as well as how it had happened, from what some witnesses had said to the police and ambulance. And the truck and pick-up drivers had been questioned by the police several hours earlier.

Then the doctor began to explain how apparently his helmet had broken in two under the pressure of the truck from one side and the car on the other side, since witnesses had said that he kept his helmet on until the truck was on him and fell off after the truck hit him before stopping. The helmet parts just flew away, Mihael totally fell on the ground as the truck came to a stop because of the light backward movement of the vehicle in the process, but the pick-up lost some gas and Mihael's motorcycle's back wheel was still in movement, the rubber scratching the ground set the gas on fire and if the truck's driver hadn't come out with a carbonic extinguisher, the whole thing would have exploded.

He blithered about how the helmet saved his life like in a badly done traffic security advertisement, the truck stopped just when it hit Mihael and he has a guardian angel looking after him and bla bla bla because if the truck hadn't stopped...

And that's when I realised how bad it really was. What Mihael had gone through. That he could have really died.
I rushed back into the room before anyone could stop me, and just took his hand. His blueish hand, the one that wasn't broken, and it looked so fragile in mine...

The doctor came to me very kindly, and touched my shoulder.
"I know it's difficult, but it won't change anything if you stay here, he can't hear or feel anything... we had to induce the coma because he would be in such an excruciating pain that even the painkillers wouldn't be enough, and one rib almost pierced through the lungs so it's better if he doesn't move at all. And as long as we don't know what the exact damage to his mental abilities is..."
"What?" I cut him. So the damage wasn't only physical?
"He had a lot of pressure on his skull, and there's a crack on the back of his cranial bone. The helmet fortunately reduced the damage but still, the few minutes when he was awake just before surgery, he wasn't coherent and if he was to have violent reactions, it would do no good to his state right now."

I held Mihael's hand against my chest, I just couldn't let go.
"I'm sorry..." the man whispered.
"How long?" I hiccuped, trying not to scream my pain. It was not only emotional now, I felt it physically.
"The recovery? Months, he won't be able to leave before months... but only time and his own willpower will tell..."
"Before he wakes up."
"It will depend on how good the major injuries heal... when we can have him awake without a risk for himself..."
"What did he say?" I know it was a stupid thing to ask, but I wanted to know what his last words were.
"He kept on repeating that he had a date and we'd better clean all the blood because he couldn't go like that... and a few swears directed to the anaesthetist that I won't repeat. I also believe he spoke german at some point, I didn't know but since he is german, I guess that's what it was. I can't tell you what he said though. It's even a miracle that he was conscious at some point..."
I chuckled despite the emotional pain. Even almost dead, Mihael was Mihael...

The doctor let me stay some more, seeing that I wouldn't move. But when he came to make me leave for good I refused. I fell on my knees beside the bed, still holding Mihael's hand, I was sobbing and bawling that I wouldn't leave him. There was no way I would.

The doctor seemed helpless, and my mother convinced him to let me stay. He abdicated.
My parents waited all night on the chairs along the wall, one of them checking on me from time to time. My mother tried to force me to eat or drink but I refused everything. I just stayed there on my knees, head resting on the bed, Mihael's hand on my cheek.

When morning came, I was still awake, I hadn't moved from my position. I jumped on my feet when I felt Mihael's hand so cold against my cheek. It was kind of normally hot a few hours ago but now it was ice cold.
I calmed down a bit when I saw his chest rise and fall evenly, and the monitor showing no sign of distress, just the regular beeps and green curves.

The nurse entered not long after, telling me it was seven and that I had to get out at least for the time she would take care of the bandages and clean him. But no one could make me move out, and I stared every of her moves, and most of all, every part of Mihael's damaged body.
The state he was in was the reason why she would have preferred that I got out. Maybe I should have, but it was too late, I was stuck to the floor.

The more I looked, the more I wanted to vomit. It wasn't Mihael anymore, it was just charred skin and torn off flesh, blood and lymph and stitches, blue, purple, yellow marks.
The nurse glanced at me from time to time, making sure I wouldn't pass out, because I probably looked like I would. My stomach was in my throat, my heart had almost stopped beating although I could feel blood pressure hammer in my temples, I was too hot but my hands and feet felt frozen, and I was beginning to be dizzy.

But when she went for the gauze around Mihael's head, I supported my weight on the wall behind me. It was just... My God, it was awful...
The first thing I saw was his lower lip split in half on the left. Where he hit the cement.
Then the bruises around his right eye, extended to the cheek bone. Where the helmet had pressured the bones.
The nurse look hesitant. "Please, leave, it won't do no good if you see that."
I gritted my teeth but didn't move. So, shaking her head, she began to unwrap the rest of Mihael's face.

The hair on the left side was burnt, bloody. The nurse didn't care about that and just brushed it away with her fingers to get them out of the way, so she could pat the wound clean.
I suddenly ran to the bathroom. It was too much, too much.

My mother ran to me when she saw me reach the bathroom, but she didn't miss the sight of Mihael's half ruined face as she passed by the bed. She was crying while helping me stand straight.
I cleaned my mouth and my mum made sure that the nurse had finished covering Mihael's face before she pushed me out of the bathroom, only to find myself nose to nose with Mihael's parents.
They had taken the first flight to LA. I had totally forgotten about them. To me they barely were part of his life anyway.