Post by RMT-Mod-Kara on Sept 17, 2016 20:39:59 GMT -5
Kristen had flown out to Florida as soon as she possibly could after hearing about the accident on the news. She'd left the care of the shop to Kate and their new assistant managers and Charlie had agreed to take Eli and Jake for longer periods of the day so Tyler wouldn't have to skip out on his classes and even offered to keep them overnight so he didn't wear himself out trying to do school and take care of two baby boys at the same time. It killed her to leave her sons behind, to not be near them over night, but she didn't dare travel with them alone and there was no way Tyler could miss out on his classes. But, at the same time, there was no way Kristen could not come. Adam was her friend. She'd known him since junior high and, even after their past differences over the misidentified sex-tape, his reaction to it, and his marriage and re-involvement with Belle Whitney--an arch-foe if Kristen ever had one--he was still her friend. He'd been there for her in the past, in a similar situation, in fact, and so too would she be for him.
She'd arrived at the hospital in Daytona when the doctor was in checking on Adam, so she'd had to wait almost twenty minutes before the nurses would let her into his room to see him. Once she got the go ahead, Kristen slowly made her way down the corridor, taking deliberate, deep breaths in an attempt to steel herself for what she would find, before stopping outside his room. She peered through the narrow window of his hospital door and was shocked at what she saw.
The afternoon light of the hospital room left his visible injuries exposed, and they were frightening. His head was secured in a brace--what she would later learn was referred to as a "halo"--to keep his neck stable. His face and arms were covered in lacerations, bruises, and burns. His lip and one eye were swollen. She barely recognized him. A quiet gasped hitched in her throat and she was grateful that she'd had the good sense to peek inside before going in. The last thing Adam needed was to have heard that kind of reaction from anyone, not even her.
After sucking in a deep breath, Kristen pushed the heavy door open and stepped inside.
"Hey, you," she said with a warm smile.
Adam was sure he was in hell. He couldn't feel anything from mid-chest down and the pain had never left his head. It was probably because of the screws that held the halo in place. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was the fact that his life had seemed to have been turned around. Belle, he thought was no longer an issue, that was until Ana's voice came over his headset. He could still hear her warning him to let off the gas pedal. Her voice was almost panicked or maybe it really was panicked. He debated for a moment and hesitated in taking his foot off the pedal. That moment damn near cost him his life. All he remembers is the spinning, then he hit something solid and went airborne. He doesn't remember anything after that first flip which is likely the one that broke his back.
When he came to in the ER, with all the strange faces around, he had never felt so alone in all of his life. And when he realized he couldn't feel his legs or his hands, he felt his heart drop. What was he supposed to do if he couldn't drive that car. He didn't have a family to take care of him and he couldn't burden his friends with that. He couldn't go to a 'home'. He'd rather die first. The doctor's seemed thrilled that he was breathing on his own. Apparently, that was an achievement.
When a familiar voice entered the room, he fought the urge to turn his head to look at the door, "Kristen?" He breathed a sigh of relief, he wasn't alone at least not for these five minutes.
She closed the door behind her and moved over to the side of the bed, stepping within his line of sight so he didn't have to turn his head to see her.
"Yeah, it's me," she said, still with a reassuring smile on her face as she tried not to think about how much he didn't look like Adam right now. She took his hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I hear you got into a high-speed fight with a wall," she said, as a light joke in an attempt to lift his spirits and diminish the seriousness of what had just happened.
"Yeah, seems my car had a little help getting that kinda air time,"Adam spoke but his voice was not as smooth as it normally was. The raspy throat a result of having a breathing tube in during surgery. The sheet was folded neatly at his waist still smooth indicating he hadn't moved since it was placed there. "I um..." his brow tensed, "I can't feel you below my elbows." He knew she had taken his hand only because he'd seen her movements indicated that she had done so.
She glanced down at his hand, his unfeeling hand, and lifted it--gently and slowly--to he could see her hand wrapped around his and gave it another squeeze, even if he couldn't feel it.
"I remember how it felt," she said as if that explained why she was letting him see her hold his hand. "It's scary. But, you're going to be all right, Adam. You know that, right?"
He ached to feel her hand on his, to feel her squeeze it. "No, Kristen, right now I don't know that." His eyes moved to hers, "Kristen, if ... I'm not okay...I need someone I can trust." He lifted his shoulder slightly, "I can't do this...do you understand?"
She furrowed her brow as she looked down at him, not fully understanding what it was he was trying to say.
"You can't do what, Adam?" she asked, still smiling.
"I can't live like this, Kristen," his eyes teared up. The strong exterior was breaking down, "I have to feel the wind in my hair, I have to surf...I have to land on my feet. I can't be like this..." He needed her to understand. He needed someone to understand.
"No," she said, placing two fingers over Adam's lips in an effort to shut up him, to get him to stop talking crazy. "Don't. Don't even talk like that. Okay? You're going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. You've just got some cuts and some bruises and a few broken bones, but that's it. Okay? You're going to be fine. The doctors are going to take care of you and you're going to heal and then you're going to bust your skinny ass to get strong again. All right?"
He closed his eyes and softly kissed her finger that rested across his lips, but spoke again as she removed it, "Kris, what if it's not?" His voice was eerily calm now, steady but still soft, "What if it's not all okay?"
His chest heaved slowly, breathing was about the only thing he could control and he savored the control he had over it. He was sure that Kristen probably couldn't stay long. She had a family that needed her.
She shook her head and wiped away a tear that was trickling down her cheek. She knew what he wanted from her, knew what he wanted her to say, to do, but she couldn't say it, couldn't do it. She couldn't be that friend. Not now. Not under these circumstances. Not when it wasn't a matter of life and death. Not when it was him giving up. Not when what he was asking for was her permission to give up. She couldn't. She couldn't promise to kill him.
"No. No, no, no. You can't ask me that, Adam. You can't ask me to do that." She felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her chest that she knew was her heart breaking, breaking from seeing him like this. He was despondent, talking nonsense.
Placing her free hand on his pillow to brace herself, Kristen leaned over him until her face was inches from his and she squeezed his hand tightly. She dropped all pretense of being gentle. Even if he couldn't feel it, he would see that her grip on him had tightened. He'd know she was serious. She hoped.
"I won't," she said, shaking her head again. "I won't be that person. I won't tell you it's okay to give up on yourself. Because it's not. And I won't be that person that says you're not worth saving or your life isn't worth living because of some dumb accident. Because it's a lie. It's a stupid, silly, selfish lie. And there's no way in hell you would ever let me think like that."
Adam wanted to scream at her, to yell at her to get her to understand what this felt like but he knew it didn't matter to her. She couldn't feel it, she didn't know what THIS felt like. He needed to feel his car around him again, needed to feel the waves underneath him again. He needed out of this god damned bed and not have some nurse coming in to wipe his ass and empty the catheter bag.
"Kristen..." he blinked his eyes rapidly, "could you...give me a drink of water? I think the nurse left it on the bedside table there." He darted his eyes towards where he thought the nurse had left it. Maybe if she realized how little he could do for himself...maybe she'd understand. He decided maybe he'd drop the subject with her. He wasn't asking for permission to give up, just for help if something happened that everything wasn't okay. How could he live a life where the risk he ran day in and day out was whether or not he'd develop a fucking bedsore or not?! He wanted to rage, wanted to throw things, break things but his body was betraying him. "How long can you stay?"
She rounded to the other side of the bed and picked up his water jug from the tray table and held it over him, tilting the plastic straw toward his mouth. She shrugged at his question. "Lauren said they were going to fly you back to Los Angeles in a few days," she answered. "I figured you might like the extra company."
Adam took a long deep drink of the water. He wasn't able to move his head to do so and had to rely on her to know when to pull the straw back. "Thank you." He lay back in as much as he was able to, the halo was not exactly comfortable and certainly wasn't conducive for sleeping worth anything, but if Kristen was spending the nights with him. It might make things easier to take. Maybe.
"You're going to stay until they get me back to LA?" His brow furrowed as he tried to understand what that meant, "But what about your boys? Tyler?"
She gave him a weak smile but even that couldn't hide how much she already missed her husband and children. She'd just left California last night and had only been in Florida for little more than twelve hours and she already was crazily missing them. "Tyler's got it under control and his Aunt Charlie is helping him out. Contrary to what I like to think, the world will not end if I spend a few days away from my children." She let out a light laugh. "Tyler's already bragging that, by the time I get back, they're going to love him more and be 'daddy's boys' instead. So, the sooner we get you back to Los Angeles and home the better. Because if he snakes my number one spot I'm soooo coming after you, you know that right?" she teased him.
He blinked his eyes instead of what he would have done normally with a nod. He understood and he also could see that she missed them terribly. "He's a lucky man, you know that?" He sort of smiled, inhaling again cause it felt good to feel the air flow into his lungs. "I'm sure he knows," he swallowed not sure what he'd done to warrant her forgiveness to the point that she was here. "So I hear the crash was pretty dramatic. Even though I had a front row seat, I kinda missed it."
Kristen crossed the room and pulled the visitor's chair toward the bed, dragging it along the floor, then sat down when she'd gotten it in a more desirable location. Once she was comfortable, she took hold of Adam's hand again. "I don't know. I haven't seen it. Well, aside from a few seconds of it on the news but, other than that.... It's not exactly something someone wants to see: someone they care about getting hurt."
Adam blinked again, this time his eyes were a bit heavier than previously. He stayed quiet for a few minutes, "You can turn the tv on if you want." He cut his eyes to her, "I'd like to have the noise if nothing else. It's been so quiet..."
"Oh? Am I boring you already?" she teased. "And here I thought I was the most entertaining person you knew."
Adam smirked at her, cutting his eyes toward her, "You gonna get naked or something?" he laughed, his shoulders moving as he clearly amused himself by the suggestion that she'd actually get naked.
"Oooo! If you weren't in a hospital bed right now," Kristen teasingly threatened him. "Just for that, I'm not gonna hold your hand anymore."
She made a display of dropping his hand right on his stomach and sat back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest. "You should really be nice to me, you know, my husband's a big guy and he'll totally beat you up."
"So you're saying I don't get to see you naked?" he laughed and cut his eyes to the door of his room as it opened to allow in one of the nurses. The nurse was an older frumpy woman who moved around the room more like a juggernaut on a mission. She wrote her name on a little dry erase board and wrote down what time she would be leaving the following day as well. She turned to smile at Adam moving over to begin taking his vitals. "I"m Nelda and I'll be your nurse this evening. If you need anything, you just let me know."
Adam's brow furrowed, "How exactly am I supposed to let you know? Just yell really loud?" Nelda tightened the blood pressure cuff around Adam's bicep. "It's a good thing your wife is here to keep you in line," she teased before she waited on the BP cuff to finish it's work. She also put a little clamp on his index finger to measure his O2 saturation levels. She documented everything and then looked at Kristen, "I'll get you a cot and some pillows and a blanket in here so you'll at least have something more comfortable then that old chair to sleep in."
Kristen smiled at the take-charge woman who'd been assigned to take care of Adam through the night and, surprisingly, didn't correct the assumption that she was Adam's wife. Even more surprisingly, her only response to the offering of a cot to sleep on was to say 'thank you.' Once the nurse had left again, Kristen shifted her chair so she could watch the television along with Adam, then picked up the remote that was secured to the bed and clicked it on. She immediately started flipping through channels. "You think they get HBO in this joint?" she asked, glancing at Adam through the corner of her eye.
"I hope so," he cut his eyes to her, closing his eyes as he tried to sit up a little better, but his shoulders only moved forward slightly. He grumbled, "This is so frustrating." He closed his eyes, "Kristen...why are you here?"
She shrugged at his question but continued to flip through the channels. No HBO. No premium channels at all, in fact. Which left them with TNT.
"Same reason you spent the night in the hospital with me after Jared sent those goons after me. Back when I thought I would never walk again," she said. "Because I'm your friend and I love you."
"Then I need you to listen to me," he was careful to keep his tone calm. "I'm not talking crazy, Kristen. If..." he cut his eyes to her interrupting her before she could interrupt him, "Listen to me! Damnit, just listen...IF things don't get better, I need you to promise me...promise me you'll help me not be like this..." He had to get through to her, he had to make her understand. "When you were hurt..you remember? You could at least scratch your own nose..." Swallowing the lump in his throat, he started to panic, "Kristen, what if ... you're lying there in bed and you know your nose is running...but you can't even wipe it all you can do is lay there and let it run over your cheeks onto your pillow. Do you know what that feels like, Kristen? I can't even call for a nurse because I can't use my hands." His speech was more pressured now, "I can't even wank off, Kristen!"
Kristen's brow furrowed as she listened to him. Every time she tried to interrupt him, to tell him he was talking crazy, he cut her off. She couldn't believe the things coming out of his mouth. The things he was saying weren't Adam, not the Adam she knew. This wasn't the Adam she'd gone to school with, the one that had been one of her closest friends, the man who had more enthusiasm and zest for life than anyone else she knew, aside from--perhaps--Tyler.
"So what?" she said, standing up and leaning over him again since he wasn't able to move his head to look at her. She wasn't going to let him talk to a wall, to just listen to what she was saying, he was going to look at her while she said it. "So what if you have to have someone wipe your nose or scrub your ass or empty a bedpan or jerk you off when you feel like watching some porn," she said.
"Look at me," she commanded when he tried to close his eyes. "You are not broken, Adam. You're hurt. That's all. And you will get better. Even if you don't walk again, you will get better. You aren't just some guy that gets behind the wheel of a car and drives around in circles at ungodly speeds. You're Adam Prescott. You're my friend. You're Lauren's brother. You're Meredith's son. And there's a pretty good possibility that you're someone's father.
"You want me to help you be like this, fine, I won't. I won't let you live like this. And I'm going to start right now by not letting you lay in that bed and feel sorry for yourself and tell yourself that you're never going to heal and that you've got nothing to live for. Because I'm not going to lose my friend. And I sure as hell am not going to let that baby be raised by Belle and grow up never knowing what a wonderful person his father is. And I'm not going to let you talk yourself into not watching that baby grow up. I'm not going to let you miss that."
Adam rose up slightly, as far as his shoulders would pull him. The muscles of his neck, shoulders and upper arms straining to move him further, his voice loud now in the room, "The baby isn't MINE! My own wife is having YOUR BROTHER'S baby!" His face contorted in rage and a thunderous pain ripped through his head, "My wife...is having...Colby's baby...." He couldn't even take his eyes off of her, damn her! "Where is my sister, huh?! She sure as hell isn't here...neither is my mom...and who the FUCK wants to jack off a has been racecar driver?!"
Adam's loud voice brought Nelda, the night nurse into the room. Her eyes looked concerned from Adam to Kristen. She moved to put her hand on Adam's chest, "Mr. Prescott, are you alright?" Adam damn near spat at her, "Fuck no...do I LOOK alright?!" Her brows raised but she remained remarkably calm. She looked at Kristen, "I'll check his orders...there's probably something there to calm him down."
"That won't be necessary," Kristen answered the nurse. When the other woman hesitated in the door, Kristen looked her in the eye. "I said that won't be necessary!"
She then turned her attention back to Adam and waited until the nurse left the room. She would have loved to slap him right then but with his neck injury, slapping him could very well sever his spinal cord and Kristen wouldn't take that chance. Even if she would have loved to slap him around until he finally got some sense knocked into him.
"Knock it off!" she snapped at him, her eyes narrowing at him. "I said knock it off!"
She glared at him for several lingering moments, waiting for him to calm down and stop yelling.
"You don't know that baby isn't yours. Nobody does. Not even Belle. It could be yours. It could be Colby's. We won't know until the baby is born and the way you're talking, you're not planning on even sticking round long enough to find out for sure. So, yes, as far as I see it, you're checking out on your unborn baby. And I won't let you do that. You want help, I will help you. I'll help you get better. I'll help you heal. I help you learn to use your hands and start walking again. I'll do all of that. But I will not promise to help you kill yourself.
"I mean, do you even have any idea what you're asking when you ask me that? You're asking me to murder my friend. You're asking me to go to jail and never see my sons again. And why? All because you think your only worth something if you can drive a car and jack off? Well, you asked the wrong person. Because I won't do it. And I won't let anyone else do it either. So, you've got two options: one--you can give up and spend the rest of your life confined to a bed with someone like Nelda scrubbing your balls, or; two--you can fight, get back on your own two feet and get back behind the wheel of that car and do what you love. Checking out isn't an option. Because if you give up and you find away to do it anyway, I will hate you for the rest of my life."
He shot daggers at her, "Get out...get the fuck out of my room. All you've done in the last year is tell me what a loser I was...and now you're telling me that I'm checking out on a baby that isn't even mine! You know full well the baby isn't mine, Kristen! For fuck sake, she's moved in with him!" His eyes rolled back slightly in his head, "Just go...you've got a famil...someone waiting for you..."
The nurse returned a few moments later with the doctor. Nelda gave Kristen an apologetic look, "He was in the hallway..." The doctor immediately began checking Adam's vitals and when he was sufficiently convinced that Adam was 'okay', he put his hand on Adam's shoulder knowing that was the only place he could feel right now, "Mr. Prescott, I'm going to give you a little something to take the edge off." He glanced at Kristen, "It's just something to calm him down. We don't want him thrashing about and if he continues to remain agitated...I have no qualms about putting him into a medically induced coma until we can get that swelling down in his spine."
Kristen stepped away from the bed as the doctor did what he needed to do with Adam while she stood and watched her arms folded across her chest. She nodded as the doctor spoke, half-tempted to tell the man to skip the prerequisite thrashing and just knock Adam out anyway. But just because Nelda had confused Kristen for Adam's wife didn't make Kristen Adam's wife, and any order she gave them would and could come back to bite all of them in the ass later.
"I understand," she said, then looked to the doctor as a thought popped into her head. "Do you have a staff psychologist on hand? Maybe someone who specializes with patients who've suffered violent traumas likes this?" she asked, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Adam. She knew he had to be seething that she'd recommend a shrink for him.
Adam was too busy trying to get the room to stop spinning and his head to stop pounding to give much fight when Kristen started to suggest a shrink, "I don't need a damn shrink...I need a god damn shot of morphine." The doctor quickly motioned for Nelda who bolted from the room to get whatever it was he'd ordered, "I'll get him a pysche consult. It's standard practice with cases like this - we'll make sure the order follows him to LA." He offered Kristen a smile and settled down onto the side of the bed, "Adam, I need you to listen to me as carefully as you can." He picked up Adam's hand and slowly began poking the finger tips methodically with a needle. He was testing for any response, "The good news is that the x-rays didn't show any complete fractures in your back. I don't want to get your hopes up, but there's a good chance that the paralysis may be temporary."
Nelda appeared in the doorway with the hypodermic needle. The doctor spoke indicating she should inject it directly into the IV. "This is going to go right into your system...you should rest well tonight." He stood now, talking to Kristen, "Let us know if you need anything. I know this kind of an injury can be hard on the family as well." He smiled a tight lipped smile and glanced down at Adam who was now staring into something on the ceiling, relaxed and almost euphoric looking.
"Thank you, I will," she said with a smile and nod to the doctor as he and the nurse left the room. Sucking in a breath, Kristen returned to her chair and eased herself down into it and took his hand again, watching him as the drug started to take effect almost immediately.
"You're going to be all right, Adam," she said, even though she didn't know whether he could even hear her anymore or, if he could, if he'd even understand a word she was saying. "We'll get you the best help there is and we'll get you back on your feet. I promise."
She'd arrived at the hospital in Daytona when the doctor was in checking on Adam, so she'd had to wait almost twenty minutes before the nurses would let her into his room to see him. Once she got the go ahead, Kristen slowly made her way down the corridor, taking deliberate, deep breaths in an attempt to steel herself for what she would find, before stopping outside his room. She peered through the narrow window of his hospital door and was shocked at what she saw.
The afternoon light of the hospital room left his visible injuries exposed, and they were frightening. His head was secured in a brace--what she would later learn was referred to as a "halo"--to keep his neck stable. His face and arms were covered in lacerations, bruises, and burns. His lip and one eye were swollen. She barely recognized him. A quiet gasped hitched in her throat and she was grateful that she'd had the good sense to peek inside before going in. The last thing Adam needed was to have heard that kind of reaction from anyone, not even her.
After sucking in a deep breath, Kristen pushed the heavy door open and stepped inside.
"Hey, you," she said with a warm smile.
Adam was sure he was in hell. He couldn't feel anything from mid-chest down and the pain had never left his head. It was probably because of the screws that held the halo in place. But maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was the fact that his life had seemed to have been turned around. Belle, he thought was no longer an issue, that was until Ana's voice came over his headset. He could still hear her warning him to let off the gas pedal. Her voice was almost panicked or maybe it really was panicked. He debated for a moment and hesitated in taking his foot off the pedal. That moment damn near cost him his life. All he remembers is the spinning, then he hit something solid and went airborne. He doesn't remember anything after that first flip which is likely the one that broke his back.
When he came to in the ER, with all the strange faces around, he had never felt so alone in all of his life. And when he realized he couldn't feel his legs or his hands, he felt his heart drop. What was he supposed to do if he couldn't drive that car. He didn't have a family to take care of him and he couldn't burden his friends with that. He couldn't go to a 'home'. He'd rather die first. The doctor's seemed thrilled that he was breathing on his own. Apparently, that was an achievement.
When a familiar voice entered the room, he fought the urge to turn his head to look at the door, "Kristen?" He breathed a sigh of relief, he wasn't alone at least not for these five minutes.
She closed the door behind her and moved over to the side of the bed, stepping within his line of sight so he didn't have to turn his head to see her.
"Yeah, it's me," she said, still with a reassuring smile on her face as she tried not to think about how much he didn't look like Adam right now. She took his hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I hear you got into a high-speed fight with a wall," she said, as a light joke in an attempt to lift his spirits and diminish the seriousness of what had just happened.
"Yeah, seems my car had a little help getting that kinda air time,"Adam spoke but his voice was not as smooth as it normally was. The raspy throat a result of having a breathing tube in during surgery. The sheet was folded neatly at his waist still smooth indicating he hadn't moved since it was placed there. "I um..." his brow tensed, "I can't feel you below my elbows." He knew she had taken his hand only because he'd seen her movements indicated that she had done so.
She glanced down at his hand, his unfeeling hand, and lifted it--gently and slowly--to he could see her hand wrapped around his and gave it another squeeze, even if he couldn't feel it.
"I remember how it felt," she said as if that explained why she was letting him see her hold his hand. "It's scary. But, you're going to be all right, Adam. You know that, right?"
He ached to feel her hand on his, to feel her squeeze it. "No, Kristen, right now I don't know that." His eyes moved to hers, "Kristen, if ... I'm not okay...I need someone I can trust." He lifted his shoulder slightly, "I can't do this...do you understand?"
She furrowed her brow as she looked down at him, not fully understanding what it was he was trying to say.
"You can't do what, Adam?" she asked, still smiling.
"I can't live like this, Kristen," his eyes teared up. The strong exterior was breaking down, "I have to feel the wind in my hair, I have to surf...I have to land on my feet. I can't be like this..." He needed her to understand. He needed someone to understand.
"No," she said, placing two fingers over Adam's lips in an effort to shut up him, to get him to stop talking crazy. "Don't. Don't even talk like that. Okay? You're going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. You've just got some cuts and some bruises and a few broken bones, but that's it. Okay? You're going to be fine. The doctors are going to take care of you and you're going to heal and then you're going to bust your skinny ass to get strong again. All right?"
He closed his eyes and softly kissed her finger that rested across his lips, but spoke again as she removed it, "Kris, what if it's not?" His voice was eerily calm now, steady but still soft, "What if it's not all okay?"
His chest heaved slowly, breathing was about the only thing he could control and he savored the control he had over it. He was sure that Kristen probably couldn't stay long. She had a family that needed her.
She shook her head and wiped away a tear that was trickling down her cheek. She knew what he wanted from her, knew what he wanted her to say, to do, but she couldn't say it, couldn't do it. She couldn't be that friend. Not now. Not under these circumstances. Not when it wasn't a matter of life and death. Not when it was him giving up. Not when what he was asking for was her permission to give up. She couldn't. She couldn't promise to kill him.
"No. No, no, no. You can't ask me that, Adam. You can't ask me to do that." She felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her chest that she knew was her heart breaking, breaking from seeing him like this. He was despondent, talking nonsense.
Placing her free hand on his pillow to brace herself, Kristen leaned over him until her face was inches from his and she squeezed his hand tightly. She dropped all pretense of being gentle. Even if he couldn't feel it, he would see that her grip on him had tightened. He'd know she was serious. She hoped.
"I won't," she said, shaking her head again. "I won't be that person. I won't tell you it's okay to give up on yourself. Because it's not. And I won't be that person that says you're not worth saving or your life isn't worth living because of some dumb accident. Because it's a lie. It's a stupid, silly, selfish lie. And there's no way in hell you would ever let me think like that."
Adam wanted to scream at her, to yell at her to get her to understand what this felt like but he knew it didn't matter to her. She couldn't feel it, she didn't know what THIS felt like. He needed to feel his car around him again, needed to feel the waves underneath him again. He needed out of this god damned bed and not have some nurse coming in to wipe his ass and empty the catheter bag.
"Kristen..." he blinked his eyes rapidly, "could you...give me a drink of water? I think the nurse left it on the bedside table there." He darted his eyes towards where he thought the nurse had left it. Maybe if she realized how little he could do for himself...maybe she'd understand. He decided maybe he'd drop the subject with her. He wasn't asking for permission to give up, just for help if something happened that everything wasn't okay. How could he live a life where the risk he ran day in and day out was whether or not he'd develop a fucking bedsore or not?! He wanted to rage, wanted to throw things, break things but his body was betraying him. "How long can you stay?"
She rounded to the other side of the bed and picked up his water jug from the tray table and held it over him, tilting the plastic straw toward his mouth. She shrugged at his question. "Lauren said they were going to fly you back to Los Angeles in a few days," she answered. "I figured you might like the extra company."
Adam took a long deep drink of the water. He wasn't able to move his head to do so and had to rely on her to know when to pull the straw back. "Thank you." He lay back in as much as he was able to, the halo was not exactly comfortable and certainly wasn't conducive for sleeping worth anything, but if Kristen was spending the nights with him. It might make things easier to take. Maybe.
"You're going to stay until they get me back to LA?" His brow furrowed as he tried to understand what that meant, "But what about your boys? Tyler?"
She gave him a weak smile but even that couldn't hide how much she already missed her husband and children. She'd just left California last night and had only been in Florida for little more than twelve hours and she already was crazily missing them. "Tyler's got it under control and his Aunt Charlie is helping him out. Contrary to what I like to think, the world will not end if I spend a few days away from my children." She let out a light laugh. "Tyler's already bragging that, by the time I get back, they're going to love him more and be 'daddy's boys' instead. So, the sooner we get you back to Los Angeles and home the better. Because if he snakes my number one spot I'm soooo coming after you, you know that right?" she teased him.
He blinked his eyes instead of what he would have done normally with a nod. He understood and he also could see that she missed them terribly. "He's a lucky man, you know that?" He sort of smiled, inhaling again cause it felt good to feel the air flow into his lungs. "I'm sure he knows," he swallowed not sure what he'd done to warrant her forgiveness to the point that she was here. "So I hear the crash was pretty dramatic. Even though I had a front row seat, I kinda missed it."
Kristen crossed the room and pulled the visitor's chair toward the bed, dragging it along the floor, then sat down when she'd gotten it in a more desirable location. Once she was comfortable, she took hold of Adam's hand again. "I don't know. I haven't seen it. Well, aside from a few seconds of it on the news but, other than that.... It's not exactly something someone wants to see: someone they care about getting hurt."
Adam blinked again, this time his eyes were a bit heavier than previously. He stayed quiet for a few minutes, "You can turn the tv on if you want." He cut his eyes to her, "I'd like to have the noise if nothing else. It's been so quiet..."
"Oh? Am I boring you already?" she teased. "And here I thought I was the most entertaining person you knew."
Adam smirked at her, cutting his eyes toward her, "You gonna get naked or something?" he laughed, his shoulders moving as he clearly amused himself by the suggestion that she'd actually get naked.
"Oooo! If you weren't in a hospital bed right now," Kristen teasingly threatened him. "Just for that, I'm not gonna hold your hand anymore."
She made a display of dropping his hand right on his stomach and sat back in her chair, folding her arms across her chest. "You should really be nice to me, you know, my husband's a big guy and he'll totally beat you up."
"So you're saying I don't get to see you naked?" he laughed and cut his eyes to the door of his room as it opened to allow in one of the nurses. The nurse was an older frumpy woman who moved around the room more like a juggernaut on a mission. She wrote her name on a little dry erase board and wrote down what time she would be leaving the following day as well. She turned to smile at Adam moving over to begin taking his vitals. "I"m Nelda and I'll be your nurse this evening. If you need anything, you just let me know."
Adam's brow furrowed, "How exactly am I supposed to let you know? Just yell really loud?" Nelda tightened the blood pressure cuff around Adam's bicep. "It's a good thing your wife is here to keep you in line," she teased before she waited on the BP cuff to finish it's work. She also put a little clamp on his index finger to measure his O2 saturation levels. She documented everything and then looked at Kristen, "I'll get you a cot and some pillows and a blanket in here so you'll at least have something more comfortable then that old chair to sleep in."
Kristen smiled at the take-charge woman who'd been assigned to take care of Adam through the night and, surprisingly, didn't correct the assumption that she was Adam's wife. Even more surprisingly, her only response to the offering of a cot to sleep on was to say 'thank you.' Once the nurse had left again, Kristen shifted her chair so she could watch the television along with Adam, then picked up the remote that was secured to the bed and clicked it on. She immediately started flipping through channels. "You think they get HBO in this joint?" she asked, glancing at Adam through the corner of her eye.
"I hope so," he cut his eyes to her, closing his eyes as he tried to sit up a little better, but his shoulders only moved forward slightly. He grumbled, "This is so frustrating." He closed his eyes, "Kristen...why are you here?"
She shrugged at his question but continued to flip through the channels. No HBO. No premium channels at all, in fact. Which left them with TNT.
"Same reason you spent the night in the hospital with me after Jared sent those goons after me. Back when I thought I would never walk again," she said. "Because I'm your friend and I love you."
"Then I need you to listen to me," he was careful to keep his tone calm. "I'm not talking crazy, Kristen. If..." he cut his eyes to her interrupting her before she could interrupt him, "Listen to me! Damnit, just listen...IF things don't get better, I need you to promise me...promise me you'll help me not be like this..." He had to get through to her, he had to make her understand. "When you were hurt..you remember? You could at least scratch your own nose..." Swallowing the lump in his throat, he started to panic, "Kristen, what if ... you're lying there in bed and you know your nose is running...but you can't even wipe it all you can do is lay there and let it run over your cheeks onto your pillow. Do you know what that feels like, Kristen? I can't even call for a nurse because I can't use my hands." His speech was more pressured now, "I can't even wank off, Kristen!"
Kristen's brow furrowed as she listened to him. Every time she tried to interrupt him, to tell him he was talking crazy, he cut her off. She couldn't believe the things coming out of his mouth. The things he was saying weren't Adam, not the Adam she knew. This wasn't the Adam she'd gone to school with, the one that had been one of her closest friends, the man who had more enthusiasm and zest for life than anyone else she knew, aside from--perhaps--Tyler.
"So what?" she said, standing up and leaning over him again since he wasn't able to move his head to look at her. She wasn't going to let him talk to a wall, to just listen to what she was saying, he was going to look at her while she said it. "So what if you have to have someone wipe your nose or scrub your ass or empty a bedpan or jerk you off when you feel like watching some porn," she said.
"Look at me," she commanded when he tried to close his eyes. "You are not broken, Adam. You're hurt. That's all. And you will get better. Even if you don't walk again, you will get better. You aren't just some guy that gets behind the wheel of a car and drives around in circles at ungodly speeds. You're Adam Prescott. You're my friend. You're Lauren's brother. You're Meredith's son. And there's a pretty good possibility that you're someone's father.
"You want me to help you be like this, fine, I won't. I won't let you live like this. And I'm going to start right now by not letting you lay in that bed and feel sorry for yourself and tell yourself that you're never going to heal and that you've got nothing to live for. Because I'm not going to lose my friend. And I sure as hell am not going to let that baby be raised by Belle and grow up never knowing what a wonderful person his father is. And I'm not going to let you talk yourself into not watching that baby grow up. I'm not going to let you miss that."
Adam rose up slightly, as far as his shoulders would pull him. The muscles of his neck, shoulders and upper arms straining to move him further, his voice loud now in the room, "The baby isn't MINE! My own wife is having YOUR BROTHER'S baby!" His face contorted in rage and a thunderous pain ripped through his head, "My wife...is having...Colby's baby...." He couldn't even take his eyes off of her, damn her! "Where is my sister, huh?! She sure as hell isn't here...neither is my mom...and who the FUCK wants to jack off a has been racecar driver?!"
Adam's loud voice brought Nelda, the night nurse into the room. Her eyes looked concerned from Adam to Kristen. She moved to put her hand on Adam's chest, "Mr. Prescott, are you alright?" Adam damn near spat at her, "Fuck no...do I LOOK alright?!" Her brows raised but she remained remarkably calm. She looked at Kristen, "I'll check his orders...there's probably something there to calm him down."
"That won't be necessary," Kristen answered the nurse. When the other woman hesitated in the door, Kristen looked her in the eye. "I said that won't be necessary!"
She then turned her attention back to Adam and waited until the nurse left the room. She would have loved to slap him right then but with his neck injury, slapping him could very well sever his spinal cord and Kristen wouldn't take that chance. Even if she would have loved to slap him around until he finally got some sense knocked into him.
"Knock it off!" she snapped at him, her eyes narrowing at him. "I said knock it off!"
She glared at him for several lingering moments, waiting for him to calm down and stop yelling.
"You don't know that baby isn't yours. Nobody does. Not even Belle. It could be yours. It could be Colby's. We won't know until the baby is born and the way you're talking, you're not planning on even sticking round long enough to find out for sure. So, yes, as far as I see it, you're checking out on your unborn baby. And I won't let you do that. You want help, I will help you. I'll help you get better. I'll help you heal. I help you learn to use your hands and start walking again. I'll do all of that. But I will not promise to help you kill yourself.
"I mean, do you even have any idea what you're asking when you ask me that? You're asking me to murder my friend. You're asking me to go to jail and never see my sons again. And why? All because you think your only worth something if you can drive a car and jack off? Well, you asked the wrong person. Because I won't do it. And I won't let anyone else do it either. So, you've got two options: one--you can give up and spend the rest of your life confined to a bed with someone like Nelda scrubbing your balls, or; two--you can fight, get back on your own two feet and get back behind the wheel of that car and do what you love. Checking out isn't an option. Because if you give up and you find away to do it anyway, I will hate you for the rest of my life."
He shot daggers at her, "Get out...get the fuck out of my room. All you've done in the last year is tell me what a loser I was...and now you're telling me that I'm checking out on a baby that isn't even mine! You know full well the baby isn't mine, Kristen! For fuck sake, she's moved in with him!" His eyes rolled back slightly in his head, "Just go...you've got a famil...someone waiting for you..."
The nurse returned a few moments later with the doctor. Nelda gave Kristen an apologetic look, "He was in the hallway..." The doctor immediately began checking Adam's vitals and when he was sufficiently convinced that Adam was 'okay', he put his hand on Adam's shoulder knowing that was the only place he could feel right now, "Mr. Prescott, I'm going to give you a little something to take the edge off." He glanced at Kristen, "It's just something to calm him down. We don't want him thrashing about and if he continues to remain agitated...I have no qualms about putting him into a medically induced coma until we can get that swelling down in his spine."
Kristen stepped away from the bed as the doctor did what he needed to do with Adam while she stood and watched her arms folded across her chest. She nodded as the doctor spoke, half-tempted to tell the man to skip the prerequisite thrashing and just knock Adam out anyway. But just because Nelda had confused Kristen for Adam's wife didn't make Kristen Adam's wife, and any order she gave them would and could come back to bite all of them in the ass later.
"I understand," she said, then looked to the doctor as a thought popped into her head. "Do you have a staff psychologist on hand? Maybe someone who specializes with patients who've suffered violent traumas likes this?" she asked, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Adam. She knew he had to be seething that she'd recommend a shrink for him.
Adam was too busy trying to get the room to stop spinning and his head to stop pounding to give much fight when Kristen started to suggest a shrink, "I don't need a damn shrink...I need a god damn shot of morphine." The doctor quickly motioned for Nelda who bolted from the room to get whatever it was he'd ordered, "I'll get him a pysche consult. It's standard practice with cases like this - we'll make sure the order follows him to LA." He offered Kristen a smile and settled down onto the side of the bed, "Adam, I need you to listen to me as carefully as you can." He picked up Adam's hand and slowly began poking the finger tips methodically with a needle. He was testing for any response, "The good news is that the x-rays didn't show any complete fractures in your back. I don't want to get your hopes up, but there's a good chance that the paralysis may be temporary."
Nelda appeared in the doorway with the hypodermic needle. The doctor spoke indicating she should inject it directly into the IV. "This is going to go right into your system...you should rest well tonight." He stood now, talking to Kristen, "Let us know if you need anything. I know this kind of an injury can be hard on the family as well." He smiled a tight lipped smile and glanced down at Adam who was now staring into something on the ceiling, relaxed and almost euphoric looking.
"Thank you, I will," she said with a smile and nod to the doctor as he and the nurse left the room. Sucking in a breath, Kristen returned to her chair and eased herself down into it and took his hand again, watching him as the drug started to take effect almost immediately.
"You're going to be all right, Adam," she said, even though she didn't know whether he could even hear her anymore or, if he could, if he'd even understand a word she was saying. "We'll get you the best help there is and we'll get you back on your feet. I promise."
hello everyone!
