Five Little Words

Part 5

"See? Told you, ya wally" Lisa teased softly, nudging Ant in the ribs.

Smiling sheepishly, Ant just chuckled and kissed her through a blinding smile.

*****

Going about their morning chores and normal activities seemed to take forever as they both waited impatiently for Ali to text them.

Lisa cooked up breakfast while Ant took Hurley for a quick walk, stopping off at Dec and Ali's house to check on Rocky (who stuck to the pair of them like a burr) and in the end Ant brought him back to his place, where the two dogs lolloped happily in their back garden as he and Lisa ate their breakfast.

Then, finally, as Ant was loading the dishwasher and Lisa was giving the dogs their own breakfast, Ant's phone buzzed with a new message.

The mere sound made his ears prick, and Ant slowly turned and padded almost silently across the tiles to the counter - where his phone was currently charging.

Sure enough, a new message from Ali flashed across the screen.

Taking a deep breath, Ant swiped the screen and tapped on the message.

Ali: Swelling's gone down. Karen's gonna bring him round in about an hour or so.

It took a moment for the good news to sink in properly, Ant leapt in the air with a cheer, grabbing Lisa and hugging her as they both danced ecstatically around the kitchen - causing both of the dogs to throw them a very funny look at their strange behaviour.

Sending off a quick reply, telling Ali that they would be over shortly, Ant and Lisa quickly got themselves ready to leave, before they let the dogs out into the garden as they left.

Climbing into Lisa's car, Ant was too excited; he could barely sit still. Lisa threw him an amused - but knowing - smile as she started the engine and pulled out of their driveway as they began the journey to the hospital.

Annoyingly, the traffic was not on their side, and the normally half-hour journey took nearly forty-five minutes. Lisa pulled up into a carpark just as the clock on the dashboard clicked over to 10am, and they both quickly bounded out of the vehicle and walked briskly down to the entrance of the hospital.

There were slightly fewer members of the press there this morning, but they all seemed to get very excited upon seeing their approach. Feeling his temper begin to stir, Ant put a protective arm around Lisa's shoulders and pushed past them - still refusing to say anything to them.

They saw Karen waiting for them in the lobby, a big smile appearing on her face when she saw them approaching.

"I thought it would be best to wait for you two before we start going ahead with bringing the little one around" she whispered as they pulled her in for a hug.

Giving her a grateful squeeze, the three of them headed back to the secluded room in the ICU, where they found Ali in very much the same position she had been in the night before, but this time there was a gigantic smile on her face and her eyes were shining with relief.

"Sorry it took us so long, pet" Lisa greeted, walking over and hugging her friend, "Traffic was absolutely horrendous!"

Ali chuckled as she hugged her back, before Ant stepped forward and hugged her as well.

Once the greetings had been exchanged, Karen stood from her chair and walked over to the four of them, a syringe and drug vial in her hand. Screwing the syringe onto the port in the IV line, she began to speak.

"Okay, now just to warn you all: these drugs can take up to ten minutes to start working, and as he starts to wake up, he will be quite disoriented and confused, but that will pass" Karen explained softly, injecting the drug into Dec's IV line as she spoke. "And as he starts to gain more control, it is highly likely that the ventilator might cause some problems - but don't worry, once we know he can breathe on his own, we'll get that out."