Illuminated Silence

39

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Beep. Beep. Beep.

The monitor beeped obnoxiously loud in the near silent room, intruding in on the stillness of it all.  For those who managed to stay in the hospital rooms, it had become the only constant in an otherwise no new news  few weeks, the sole hope to hold onto that showed any life for the girl at all. Every beep of the heart monitor was another beat in Stellar's chest, and for the boys, that's all they could ask for.

"Here bro. " Joe handed Pete a sandwich, which the latter all but placed next to the other uneaten one. "I'm not hungry." And he really wasn't. He couldn't remember the last time he ate, but he really couldn't care less. All he cared about was the near dead girl laying in a coma next to him,  deathly pale bar the fading masses of purple and black bruises that littered her skin. What he didn't see however is how much he resembled her complexion, along with a broken arm and a few fractured ribs. He felt numb to all of it.

Joe gazed on at Pete in concern, sharing a look with an exhausted Josh in the corner. "Pete, you need to eat. You only just woke up like a week ago, you need time to recover,"

"I said I'm not fucking hungry okay?" Pete growled, thin hand tightening around Stellar's frail one. He didn't mean to go off at Joe. He didn't mean to go off at anybody. He was just fed up with people trying to look after him. That he felt that he was going slightly stir crazy, sitting in the same chair all day with nothing to do and no where to go, it was really getting to him. That and the sickenly sweet stench of decaying bouquets in the corner. Everyone could tell he was spiraling out of control again. Back in to the pit less void of depression.

And they all knew what happened last time he reached breaking point.

* Five Weeks Earlier  *

"It was only kissing Patrick, you're such a grandpa sometimes, I swear. "  Pete teased as he and stellar grabbed their things and locked up the car.

Patrick rolled his eyes, before walking back to his car laughing quietly to himself despite the situation. He jumped back in his SUV, cranking the heating up a notch and warming his gloved hands as the two love birds jumped in the backseat and did the same. "Right kids, everything set?"  Patrick grinned at them in the rear view mirror. Pete poked his tongue out playfully as Patrick did a U-turn and began driving back to town.

The drive was fairly quiet, the car cruising through the frosty night making it back to the outskirts of the city in no time. Patrick made a left turn near a cluster of trees, the skyline twinkling into view. He was just about to tell Pete when—

BANG!!!!!!

The SUV was hit side on as another car ploughed into them sending Patrick's car skidding across the icy tarmac, spinning in circles with screams echoing inside the car. Patrick didn't know if it was him screaming or someone else, all he could see was memories flash before his eyes until everything was suspended in midair and then they were rolling. Whether it was the car or his brain doing it he was unsure, the only thing he was sure of was when it all faded into black only for him to wake up a day later to find both Pete and Stellar each in a coma. Patrick was told they were hit by a drunk driver on the outskirts of Chicago at 12.23am. He was told that they spun out across the road and down a steep ice ladden hill, only to be broke out of the wreckage almost half an hour later by emergency services that the other driver had called for.

* Return to Present day *

Patrick took Joes place as he sat next to Pete, Gerard and Frank entering the room as Josh excused himself to go get some sleep. They had all taken turns sitting with her, yet Pete was the only one to never leave the room except to go to the bathroom. Patrick felt unbelievably bad for him, all this pain caused by one persons drunken mistake. Even in some messed up way Patrick couldn't help but feel that it was all his fault. If he hadn't have done this or that, none of this crap—

"—She twitched! Look! Call the nurse she must be waking up!"

Patrick looked down at her for any signs of movement and sure enough her hand moved slightly. Everyone crowded around her bed as Frank came running back in with the nurse, staring at the girl before them. Moments later, she did it again, and her head lolled, chapped lips parting slightly.

"...P–Pete?" She rasped out quietly. Pete leant in closer to her, a hand clasped in hers while the other stroked her hair. "Yes baby, I'm here. So is Gee, Frank and Pat. Wake up—" Pete was cut off as her back arched violently into the air, bloodshot eyes shooting open and body convulsing with equal vigour as the machines beeped louder and more frantic than ever. The nurse slammed her hand on the red buzzer above the bed, pushing Pete and everyone out of the way as doctors flooded the small room and they brought her on her side.

"Fuck fuck FUCK! what's happening to her! Please–" Pete screamed but no one listened, instead being herded out by orderlies and back into the corridor as the door to her room slammed in their faces. Pete's wild eyes watched desperately through the glass as the love of his life was stuck with needles and tubes until she stilled and the seizures stopped. And for Pete in that moment?

Everything stopped.