Warm Bodies: The Answer

Come Back to Me

Mark nodded to the nurse on duty as he passed by the little desk on his way to ICU. The man gave him a small smile and shook his head softly.

"No change Mark, sorry."

"Figured. Thanks," Mark answered, and turned away to push through the door, letting go a heavy sigh.

Rowan lay on the bed, motionless save for the soft rise and fall of his chest. A heart monitor flashed a steady rhythm at his side, the wires efficiently angled over his shoulder, and saline and nutrient bags hung from a nearby stand, one connected to the cannula at his neck, the other taped and threaded through his nose.

Thankfully, no ventilator. He'd never ended up needing one, as his body kept doing what it was supposed to do, even when it didn't seem like anyone was home inside.

Traumatic brain injury, Dan had said, leading to a massive cerebral hemorrhage, though nobody understood the true cause. Julie had tried to explain it to them, something about souls and walls and cords and... eventually she'd given up, leaving them no closer to a reason. Didn't really matter now though. It'd been six months and Rowan was still comatose. The EEG's had at least improved, showing a recent increase in activity. Stephen swore it looked as if Rowan was dreaming.

Mark hoped they were good dreams.

With another sigh, he sat down in his usual spot, on a bar stool they'd brought in for him so he could sit level with Rowan and talk to him whenever he came to visit. He spent most of his time here now, since Brandon had taken over for him on the solar refit for the power plant.

Early on he'd spent most of the time trying to get his son to just wake up, pleading in something like desperation. He'd leave the hospital an emotional wreck, feeling more than a little responsible, with memories of what he'd done to his son carving him up inside. Now he just gave Rowan a quick update on the day, and started reading the books he'd been borrowing for him from the library.

He knew Julie came in every day to see Rowan, so he never worried about mentioning her. He'd see her as often as he could - they shared lunch together on Tuesdays over in the Market - and she was getting mighty big now. The scars had healed as well as expected, but even with them she had a glow about her. He knew pregnancy had that affect on a lot of women - though Claire had always rolled her eyes when someone tried to tell her she was glowing, usually cracking a joke about irradiated babies - but it went beyond that. Julie had always glowed. It was amplified now, sure, but also tinged with a sadness he knew wouldn't go away until Rowan woke up.

"So you should just wake up Rowan," he said out loud, the thought spilling through his lips. "Make her glow real bright again."

Rowan's eyelids, gently closed with thin strips of tape, stayed still.

Mark smiled. One day. He knew it, one day those eyes would open and he'd have his son back. Then he'd grab him, take him home, wrap him in bubble wrap and never let him leave the house again.

Snorting at himself, shaking his head, he slid the book out from the pocket of his rucksack, setting it on the bed beside his son's curled hand.

Rowan was getting too thin. His muscles weren't getting the exercise they needed to stay strong and they'd shrunk all over, making him look like a goddamn skeleton who'd had some work done. He knew Nora and the other nurses did what they could, but there was only so much you could do when the fight was one sided.

Thinking about skeletons brought a hazy flash of memory that left Mark gasping and sweating and gripping the edge of his chair till his knuckles shined white.

Quickly, he went through the breathing exercises the shrink had given him to cope with the panic attacks he'd been dealing with since that day, and slowly brought himself back, thankful that nobody had been in the room to see it.

"Jesus," he whispered, and he stared up at his son. "That was a rough one."

With a soft sigh, he reached out and grasped Rowan's hand, rubbing his thumb gently over the boy's cool skin.

"So, Sarah's just started helping out at the big hospital, they finally got that place up and running a couple of months ago. Even got the whole place wired with electric from the roof system, which is great. Brandon's doing some good stuff over at the plant. Looks like they might get forty percent throughput on the old grid, which is better than they expected. Going to make a big difference, going to lead to some big changes. Helps the people who've shifted outside the old perimeter, that's for sure."

He sighed, and squeezed Rowan's hand. "What else... oh god, do you remember the old sled you guys used to run down Mercy's hill back home on snow days? Brandon found it, would you believe, buried behind some ferocious weeds against the fence at the garden back home. Bran's digging it all up, fixing it all up. He's pretty set on moving back there with Sarah actually. I keep trying to talk him out of it, house is still a mess, though he's done some good things."

Mark grinned then, staring at Rowan's still face. "Jesus, I remember when you and Bran crashed that damn thing through Baker's fence. I'd never seen that shade of red on a man's face before, you remember that? He was so goddamn angry. You two ended up doing chores over at his place for a month after... that's right."

He laughed. "And you rubbed poison ivy on his toilet seat the day you were done! Holy shit, I remember that!"

Mark laughed hard, till the tears squeezed from his eyes and he had to stop because his stomach hurt. Then he grinned at his son.

"Here's some karmic justice," he snorted, "The weeds Brandon was digging through to find that old sled?"

He laughed again.

"Poison ivy!"

Rowan shifted his head and laughed.

Mark almost fell off of his chair.

Eyes bulging, he clenched his hand around Rowan's like a vice and stared at his son open jawed, not daring to breathe.

It hadn't been much of a laugh, more like an airy gurgle, but Rowan's mouth lifted in a grin, and he made that sound, and Jesus CHRIST he was WAKING UP!

"...'member that.. dad..," Rowan rasped, and his mouth lifted in another smile as he laughed again, this time sounding a little more like himself. "..serves'm right.."

"Rowan?!" Mark cried, and he jumped off the chair to lean over his son, pressing his hand against his cheek.

Rowan frowned, swallowing hard, and his eyelids shifted under the tape.

Then he grew still again.

"Son?" Mark asked, frantically pulling the tape from Rowan's eyes, and cradling his face. "Son?! Hey, I heard you son, wake up now!"

He shook his son then, and gently opened his boy's eyes, but they were unfocused, distant.

Rowan was gone again.

"Son..." Mark whispered, his eyes flicking back and forth between Rowan's fixed, unseeing gaze, and he gathered his boy in a hug. "Goddammit Rowan, come back to me."

"Come back."

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Love it when a chapter writes itself. I popped into Mark, and all of this poured out. Thanks for reading.