AN: Why hello everyone! -ducks from flying fruit and veggies thrown her way- haha it wasn't that bad of a cliffy was it? -crickets chrip- .;; okay maybe it was a pretty bad cliffy! Haha! Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed/kudo'd depending on which site you read it on. I'm gonna warn you guys, it's gonna get angsty before the fluffy happiness. At this point in time, I do envision a happy ending...but that could change lol so don't quote me!
Smirking softly Isabelle looked like a cat who had just caught the canary, "Anything?"
Suddenly he felt very trapped and he didn't know why, but he knew he'd soon find out.
He shifted uneasily on his feet and swallowed a large lump that had lodged it's self in the middle of his throat with difficultly, "Yeah, anything. As long as I can see him."
"Well then, I knew you had to be a smart young man deep down, after all you went after my son." Her icy blue eyes glinted in amusement and satisfaction, "Alright then Kevin, you have my full permissions to see Eddward while he recovers; but when he does recover fully and leaves the hospital, you will cut all ties to him."
Shards of panic filled his chest like glass breaking inside of his heart.
Was this all worth it he wondered.
"You will not seek him out, nor talk to him in any shape or form. You will thoroughly break off whatever it is that you two think that you have together." Isabelle smiled in a facade of a gentle smile, "After all you're just children really what would you really know about such things?"
Suppressing a biting remark in response he thickly swallowed again, "What makes you think I'd ever agree to never seeing him again anyway?"
This time it was Alastiar who spoke, "We have been informed that Eddward sustained quite a severe head injury. There is quite a large possibility of him having memory loss or permanent cognitive impairments."
Isabelle cleared her throat in a stern way, "What my husband is trying to make you understand is that, if or when Eddward wakes he may or may not be the same way he was before the accident."
It felt as if she'd knocked the air out of his lungs with each word.
Edd might forget him?
He couldn't even fathom such a thing.
It felt almost worse than the possibility of him dying.
An Edd who couldn't remember him.
Was like him dying but being alive at the same time.
All of their experiences together, the smiles, the laughs, the tears, the anger and frustration even.
Gone in an instant.
Leaving only him to remember it all.
But then something ugly and cowardly curled deep within his gut like a snake.
But maybe this was a good thing?
Maybe, just maybe him forgetting would be better off for Edd.
After all he'd ever done to Edd was make him cry in the end.
Rubbing his face he looked Isabelle straight in the eyes, "Fine."
She lifted an eyebrow, "I assume that is your way of voicing agreement to my terms and conditions?"
Glaring ever so slightly he nodded, "Yes, I'll leave him alone after this is all over."
Isabelle's candy red apple lips formed into a sly smooth smile of victory, "Splendid, I'll put you on the list of visitors then."
"I have my own condition." He spoke up suddenly.
Her lips pursed together slightly in annoyance as her brow furrowed, "Oh? Do you?"
Alastair chuckled beside her, "Give the boy his condition, it's not like he'll be ever seeing Eddward again afterward."
Rolling her eyes slightly she looked back to him, "Alright, what is your condition?"
"Put Nathan, Nazz, and Marie on the list too." He blurted out.
Frowning Isabelle seemed to consider it for a moment but then shook her head, "No, I don't think so. Only one to two people are allowed to the ICU rooms, it creates too much stress upon the patients otherwise. Besides, I've never heard of these people before today. Anything else you'd like to ask for instead?"
He looked back at his friends frustratedly trying to figure out what to ask for.
Closing his eyes he sighed and then reopened them, "I want to be able to say goodbye."
"Goodbye? Ah you are a clever one I have to give you that much." Murmured Isabelle, "You must be why his transfer papers magically disappeared hmm?"
"Alright, I will give you this one request. For my son's future I will let you say your goodbyes before he leaves."
With that she turned to the Nurse's station and spoke with the head nurse to add his name to the list of visitors allowed to see Edd.
Feeling as if he'd been dismissed he walked back over to his friends and mom.
"Well? What did the Bitch say?" Marie asked hurriedly the usual bite to her words lessened by exhaustion.
"She's letting me see him." He mumbled out looking down.
Rosemary smiled brightly, "Oh sweetie that's great news! But why do you look so sad? Do I have to pull that woman's glossy hair out one strand at a time? What else did she say to you?"
"Yeah dude you look even worse than before, and that's saying something." Nat said as he draped a comforting arm over his shoulder.
"There's a catch though, isn't there Kev?" Nazz spoke sadly her blue eyes red rimmed and dull compared to their usual sparkle.
He shrugged off Nat's arm and sat down heavily rubbing his face in his hands, "She said I can see him but after he's better...well if he gets better is what she said; I have to...I have to stop seeing and talking to him."
Rosemary looked pissed her emerald eyes sparking with anger, "Who does that tiny little Prada wearing bitch think she is?! You are both nearly legal adults! She can't just-"
"Ma...he's still seventeen. His parents are really strict, and completely old school. I doubt even if he was eighteen that it would matter much.."
"Kevin you didn't agree to this did you?" His mother touched his shoulder gently, "Baby please tell me you didn't..."
"T-they said he might not remember anything when he wakes up anyway. This way he might get a fresh start...without..." He trailed off.
"You're a fucking coward Barr, I hope for his sake he doesn't remember you!" Marie spat out his last name like venom as she loomed over him her dark blue eyes flashing with tidal waves of barely suppressed anger.
He smiled sadly, "Yeah, I guess I am, and it might be better if he doesn't."
She looked taken a back by his response, and merely shook her head in disgust as she let tears leak out the sides of her eyes.
She looked to Nazz, "I need air, what about you Blondie?"
Before Nazz could properly give a reply Marie pulled her down the hall and outside of the hospital leaving them behind only to stare after them.
Nathan sighed disappointed and sadly, "Kev this isn't the way man, really it isn't."
He rubbed the back of his neck anxiously before smiling weakly at him as he turned and followed after the girls.
His mom sat next to him and kept silent for a few minutes before speaking, "Are you really going to be happy with just letting him go?"
Stiffening he sighed, "What other choice do I have Ma?"
She smiled gently at him, "If there is something I've come to learn in my life is that we always, always have a choice in the end. We just have to be brave enough to find or want it bad enough despite the repercussions it causes."
"I will always love you Kevin, whether you love a man or a woman, or both at the same time if you're into that kinda stuff." She winked and nudged him some with her shoulder making him snort in disbelief, "What it comes down to is that I want you to be happy; I want you to have the things I didn't. Don't let your fears trap you in a locked room of your own making."
"If you love him, and I think that you do. You need to admit it to yourself, and tell him. Don't you think he deserves that? Don't you both?" She combed her fingers through his hair soothingly while he took everything in with extricating silence.
"The only one stopping you, is yourself Kevin. Don't let other people make your choices for you. Don't do what I did, because in the end you'll regret it and there will be no changing it." Rosemary stood up and smiled down at him, "I believe in you, now it's time to believe in yourself."
His gaze was locked with the chipped white tiling of the floor and he gave no response to her long touching speech that he'd never admit had effected him in anyway.
"Now stop being a moody grumpy teenager and go see him. I'll give you two hours and then you are dragging your butt out of here to go home with me and eat something better than cafeteria food. understood?"
After a moment he nodded in defeat.
"It's not the end, not until you let it be." Patting his head she walked off to find the other teenagers she knew were hurting almost as badly if not just as badly as her son.
He was soon lead down the seemingly long winding hallways past various sick rooms filled to the brim with the dying, and injured.
He'd been taken to a plain white room with only one chair in it, and a hospital bed which was occupied by someone he wished it wasn't.
The steady slow beep of a heart monitor filled the silence in the room.
The nurse soon excused herself leaving him alone.
He could barely make himself look at him let alone walk any furthur into the room.
There were too many wires, and Iv bags hung up, machines buzzing and beeping.
He felt overwhelmed.
Finally taking a look at him, the poor guy was covered in bandages from head to toe.
His raven hair was nearly completely obscured by the white gauze that had been wrapped around his head several times to stop the bleeding of the head wound that rested beneath them.
The ravenette's right leg seemed to be broken because it was elevated and had a thick cast on it; he was covered in dark bruises going up his arms and even the sides of his face.
He also noticed that Edd's arms were bandaged from wrist to elbow.
Which had him on edge, and instantly made him even more worried.
Had he been cutting again?
Why hadn't he noticed?
A thin chest shuddered to breathe even with the help of the breathing apparatus that was hooked to his face.
Tears welled in his eyes, "Ah fuck Double D, how did this even happen?" Carefully he sat in the chair next to the unconscious smaller teen.
"Why is it always you? Why does shit always have to follow you around like a goddamn black cloud of bad luck? It's not fair...it's not..." He edged the chair closer to the bed and hesitantly took one of Edd's smaller hands in his own.
They were so fragile and icy cold feeling to the touch.
He was afraid he'd break them if he held on too tightly to them.
"You had to go and do something like this huh? I was already going crazy and then you almost get yourself killed. Are you trying to give me a heart attack man? Seriously there are way better ways to get my attention." He whispered fervently.
He laughed wetly his shoulders shaking every so often, "Look at me talking to you like you can hear me, I'm so fucking stupid, but you already know that more than most don't you?"
Edd looked so very small bundled in blankets on the way too large hospital bed.
"You don't belong here you know? You belong somewhere fancy and intellectual like Europe or something; researching and discovering new and different things. You don't deserve to be trapped here of all places. So, when you wake up. Not if, fuck that! WHEN you wake up I'm gonna send you off with a smile." His voice wavered toward the end.
"At least I'm gonna damn well try to D, because you deserve so much more than I could ever possibly give to you. I know that now, hell your parents knew that all along. It'd be selfish of me to try to make you stay." Wiping helplessly at his tears with his free hand he hiccuped and sobbed softly, "Why does doing the right thing hurt so much?"
But there was no one to answer his question.
Just the beeping of the heart monitor, and the soft troubled breathing of the one he now knew that he loved but couldn't have.