a/n i've decided to keep mel in here (although she will be present a little less to make everyone happy) because this is an au. au means alternate universe - as i said before. however, if she is proven guilty, i will remove her.
once mel, spencer, jon and patrick came back to the waiting room, hayley, phil, kenny and both dans went to go and see ryan. they were all extremely anxious - they didn't really know what to expect when they first went into ryan's room. since no one had spoken when they came back from seeing him, everyone had different ideas of what the hospital room was going to look like. however, they all knew that there would be a lot of wires - and ryan wouldn't really look like the ryan that they knew and were used to seeing nearly everyday. when they reached the room, hayley opened the door for them all to go in. no one spoke a word until everybody had sat down and were looking at ryan.
"well, i mean, he looks better than i thought he would..." hayley said softly, breaking the silence and trying to positive. let's just say, it didn't cheer any one up at all. to be honest, it didn't make hayley feel any better either.
"i mean, i guess. can he hear us?" phil asked, looking intently at ryan, seeing if he could magically wake him up. of course, he knew that it wouldn't work. but it was phil, and he's the most positive out of all of us, right?
"i mean, i don't know. i always read fanfictions where nurses tell the visitors that they can hear them." the tall dan said. phil just gave him a look that said 'now is not the time for these books written by people who probably don't know'.
"look, i'll just google it." kenny said, sighing and pulling out his phone. he did a bit of typing and then looked up. "here we go. coma communication: always assume the person in the coma can hear. hearing is usually the last sensory faculty to deteriorate when people are- never mind. but, chances are, he can hear us." everyone smiled a little, and looked back to ryan.
"so if we read him things from his tumblr dashboard, he'd know what was going on?" the shorter dan asked. kenny sighed again and nodded.
"if he can hear, then yes. i don't know if he'd remember when he wakes up though." kenny replied.
"look it up again." hayley said, gesturing towards kenny's phone.
"i don't know why you can't do it yourself, but okay." again, kenny looked down at his phone. "uh, it doesn't actually say anything on that specifically, but if we talk to ryan, familiar voices can help coma patients with recovering their consciousness faster and start responding to conversation and directions."
"what does that even mean?" phil asked, pulling a confused expression. "if we said 'squeeze my hand', would he?"
"if he can hear us, he might try. but it's difficult to move and can cause him pain. plus, he's only been in this state for a while - although it feels like ages to us - and no one has stayed with him for a full hour on their own. if he can hear us, he wouldn't be able to get used to the voice before another one of us starts talking."
"so he can hear the conversation we're having now, but not be able to tell who's talking?" the tall dan asked (this is the best way to describe who i'm talking about).
"if we talked for hours, he'd probably have a good idea of who's talking. maybe not spot on, but he'd be able to work out who a couple of us are, and could probably guess from that. like, hayley is one of the only girls, and they all sound different, so ryan could guess that it was hayley who was talking. also, if he worked out either dan or phil, he could assume that the other one was there too. and then he might be able to recognise mine and dan's voices, but i'm not sure. he hasn't known either of us that well for very long."
"wow, the more you know." hayley said, cracking a small smile.
"that meme is dead." the tall dan deadpanned. hayley pouted.
"is there anything else that we should know about comas?" phil asked, looking at kenny.
"i'm not sure. i'll do a little bit of googling, but we should be getting back in a little bit. we've been in here for a while." he looked back at his phone again, doing a quick research on 'important things you should know about comas' (i'm trying to look up coma and an advert for nick jonas came up what). "okay. damn this is long. when coming out of a coma, a person will probably be confused and respond slowly to what's going on. it will take time for the person to take all of this in and feel better. whether someone fully returns to normal after being in a coma depends on what caused the brain to send that person into the coma. sometimes -if the brain was only lightly damaged - someone who comes out of a coma will be just as they were before. they will be able to remember what happened before the coma and will be able to do everything that they used to be able to do. however, other people - who's brains were more severely damaged - may need therapy to relearn basic things such as tying their shoes or the ability to walk all over again. they may also have trouble remembering things."
"so, how bad do you reckon that ryan will be?" phil asked quietly.
"i think he'll be fine. he'll be confused when he wakes up, and he might have a bit of memory loss, but other than that, he'll be fine."
a/n the next chapter will finish off this thing (hopefully).
when does everyone's school break up?
also, for those of you who don't know, melanie released another statement.
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have a thing to cheer you up
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