She had no idea how long she had been asleep, and when Miley Stewart opened her eyes for the first time since God knows how long, the world had become too bright. She squinted, and tears flowed from her eyes. Finally, her vision seemed to have returned to normal, and she began to take stock of her surroundings.
She was in a hospital room, if the white walls and strong smell of antiseptic were everything that she needed to know. She had more than a dozen wires and tubes on her body connected to an equal amount of complicated-looking machines. An intravenous line fed some sort of clear liquid into a tube in her arm, and when she tried to sit up, she felt something sticking into her lady area. She looked down and saw a catheter leading out from her vagina to a plastic bag filled with a yellow liquid that had to be her pee.
"Oh, sweet niblets," she muttered.
When she spoke, Miley saw three figures stir from the corner of her eye. Miley looked up, and she saw her father, her brother, and her best friend running up from the couches and chairs where they had fallen asleep while watching her. "She's awake!" they said. "She's finally awake!"
"Welcome back, Miles!" Miley's best friend, Lilly Truscott, said. "Man, Miley, you really had us all scared when the rescuers found you unconscious. We thought you weren't gonna wake up ever again!"
"Wait, what?" Miley asked.
"Lilly, you really should have gone easy on her," Miley's father, Robbie Ray Stewart, told Lilly. "She's still having trouble taking everything in."
"Huh? What are y'all talking about?" Miley asked once again.
"Don't mind us, Miles," Jackson, Miley's brother, replied. "We ain't talking about anything that's real important for you."
"Jackson Stewart!" Robbie Ray said. Jackson looked at their father, and he turned back to Miley and said, "All right, the thing is that you were already unconscious when the rescue workers finally managed to pull you out of the wreckage, and then your brain swelled up when the EMTs tried to treat you. They had to put you in an induced coma. It was supposed to last only twenty-four hours, at most. When you didn't wake up after twenty-five hours, Lilly and Dad here expected the worst. They thought you weren't gonna wake up ever again at all. I said that all we had to do was wait, and you would eventually wake up sooner or later. Kind of like old times, when you're supposed to wake up at like eight o'clock, and then you end up sleeping until noon."
"Yeah, right," Miley said, nodding her head. That was typical Jackson: the more he tried to say that he wasn't really worried, the more Miley knew that he was very, very worried. Just then, the door to her room opened, and a well-dressed black man entered the room. "There's my favourite pop star turned pilot!" he said jovially.
The man was Cornelius "Cory" Baxter, a successful pilot, businessman, and lawyer, and the current legal representative of the Cash Airlines Pilots' Union. Cory was originally from San Francisco, just up the coast from LA, and he had moved to Washington DC when his father had been hired as a chef for the White House. After college, Cory had entered one of Cash Airlines' sponsored flight schools on a whim, but it turned out that he had more than just whims in him, if his high marks during the training courses told the tale. As soon as he was finished with flight school, Cash Airlines had hired Cory almost immediately. Cory rose through the ranks quickly, and in his spare time he had begun investing his money on the stock market, of course with an emphasis to Cash. When Cory's stocks began to pay off, he became a very rich man almost overnight. There were rumors that Cory was the richest man in the whole of Cash Airlines, second only to the airline's reclusive owner, Cabot Dobson. And those rumors were most probably true. Cory could start up his own airline with his own net worth, but he was loyal to Cash, the place that had made him rich in the first place. And he had no intention of leaving.
Cory squeezed himself in between Jackson and Robbie Ray as he took up a place before Miley's bed. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Miles," he said.
"Yeah, I sort of guessed that already," Miley replied. "What happened?"
"You crashed."
"Fuck that!" Miley blurted out. "I know that we crashed! What I meant was what happened after the crash? Did the plane blow up or something like that? If the plane blew up, you better check for explosives, because we were running on empty when we crashed."
"Uh, Miley, about that," Cory said, and he gestured towards Lilly, Robbie Ray, and Jackson. Robbie Ray took the cue and said, "Well, we'll be leaving you with my daughter now, Mr. Baxter," he said. "Lilly, Jackson, come on. They've got some important business matters to discuss."
Once Robbie Ray, Lilly, and Jackson had left Miley's room, Miley turned to Cory and asked him, "What was that all about?"
"The crash of Cash Airlines Flight 4892 has now become a national and criminal investigation," Cory replied. "Everyone from the LAPD to the FBI to the NTSB's down here checking out the wreckage now. So, you know, can't really tell people about where we are in the investigation. Except for you, obviously."
Miley stuck her tongue out blew a raspberry. "Oh, please, Cory, stop it," she said with fake enthusiasm. "You're making me blush!" And then she turned serious. "All right, Baxter, give it to me straight now," she said. "How many?"
Cory looked Miley in the eye and said, "Three hundred twenty-eight."
"Oh, my God!" Miley said, shaking her head. "That many dead?"
"No!" Cory said. "No! Jesus Christ, Miles, sometimes you just don't do yourself any good!"
"All right, Cory, how many died?"
"Forty-eight, as of the NTSB's last count."
"Oh, shit!" Miley muttered, running her hand on her face. "Those were forty-eight who were under my responsibility! And they died during my flight. My flight, Cory!"
"Hey, Miley, don't kick yourself for it," Cory said. "You still managed to save three hundred twenty-eight people, right?"
"I guess you're right, man," Miley finally agreed. "But still…" Yes, she might have saved a lot of people, but Cory knew that the deaths of those forty-eight people onboard Flight 4892 would gnaw on Miley's soul for years to come.
"Okay, at least that part's finally over," Miley muttered. "What day is it, Cory?"
"July 15."
"Oh, shit!" Miley said again. The United States had been defeated by Belgium in the World Cup on July 1, and Flight 4892 had taken off from Sao Paulo at exactly midnight of July 2. If Cory was telling the truth, then Miley had been in a coma for a good fourteen days now. From her perspective, it was just like the moment between falling asleep and waking up, but to her family she was sure that it had been the longest fourteen days of their life.
"All right, man," Miley finally said after a few moments of contemplation. "Who won the World Cup?"
"Germany," Cory replied. "Made myself about fourteen million bucks in Vegas on that bet alone. But, you know what, Miles? A funny thing happened to Germany on its way to the World Cup Final. During the semifinals, they faced Brazil. And you know what happened? Germany scored five goals against Brazil in the first half. And then they got two more through in the second half. Sure, Oscar scored one for Brazil just before the game ended, but who cares about that? Brazil lost to Germany, 7-1!"
"I'll be damned," Miley said. "Maybe the 2018 final will be USA versus England, after all."
"What was that again?"
"Just something Ron and I talked about before the flight," Miley said. "Speaking of which, how's the rest of the crew? Alex, Sonny, Beck, Ron, Ervin, Clara, Ginny, Annabeth, everyone else? Are they all right?"
"Oh, they're all okay," Cory replied in an off-hand manner. "Except for one."
"Shit. Who bit the dust?"
Cory looked at Miley again and said, "Beck."
"Oh, God!" Miley said. "What happened to him?"
"I don't have all the details as of today, but rumor has it that he doesn't have a head anymore."
"Oh, God!" Miley repeated. "What are we gonna tell Jade?"
"Don't worry about it, Miles. I already broke the bad news to her."
"How did she take it?"
"Not very well, obviously. Look, Miles, don't dwell on it so much," Cory advised her. "What's done is done. Beck is dead, and there's nothing else we can do about it, except maybe just pray for his soul or something like that. Now this is what I want you to do: get some rest, get your ass healed ASAP, and let me do my job. I got this."
"Ah, shit, Cory," Miley muttered. "I give up. This shindig's all yours now."
"Thanks, Miles," Cory said. "Let me hand you back to your family." And just like that, Cory Baxter slowly made his way out of the room, just as Miley's family went back in. Miley had a lot of questions that she had wanted to ask the man, but her family came first, and they had a lot more questions for her. In the end, Miley Stewart just wanted to fall asleep again. But she doubted that her sleep from now on would be dreamless, not after she had learned the scope of the tragedy that was the crash of Cash Airlines Flight 4892.
A/N: Once again, drop a review if you want to say something about my story! Every little bit is appreciated all the same!