Inferno

~71~ Filling Holes

Ellie's POV

I'm sitting here watching him sleep. All the kids have been in to see him, but he's still completely out of it that he didn't even know that they were here. The moment that Wes saw him, he crumpled. He held Taylor's hand and sobbed. Megan was behind him, and silently rubbed his back, wiping away her own tears.

Seeing her husband breaking has devastated her. She told me before that he has only cried one other time in their whole marriage...When his dad died. He is hysterical as he's sobbing inconsolably, with his head on Taylor's hand. The crying has woken Taylor up. He is still so weak and disoriented, he just slowly takes his other hand and puts it on Wes' head. Wes feels it and immediately looks up. Taylor does his best to smile, but he's too tried. He falls back asleep. He knew his best friend was there though, he knows how much he means to Wes.

The next day Taylor is finally starting to actually wake up. I can tell when he looks at me that he's with it. The first time he opens his eyes and looks at me, I smile big.

"Am I still in trouble?" He asks weakly.

I immediately start sobbing as I lay my head carefully on his chest.

"I'm so sorry" I say into his chest.

"I'm sorry, Ellie Jane" he says weakly. That was all he could do though, he fell back asleep for hours.

After the third day, he's not out of it anymore. His pain is intense, though. I'm sitting there holding his hand, when I suddenly look over. He has a horrible look on his face.

"What's wrong, baby?" I ask as I stand up and wipe the sweat off of his brow.

"I'm hurting so bad" he chokes as a single tear falls out of the corner of his eye.

Taylor is an emotional man. He never used to be. Lilah told me once that the last time he cried was when his mom died. He never cried again. That is, until he met me. Now that he's let himself feel again, it doesn't take a lot for him to cry. Taylor doesn't cry when he's in pain though. I've actually never seen him cry when he's in pain. He even nailed his hand to a piece of wood once. He didn't shed a single tear.

His pain must be excruciating right now if he has tears.

I push the call button, and the nurse comes right in.

"I'm sorry. He's at the max that I can give him. I can't give him anything else for 3 hours" she says sympathetically.

Once she leaves Taylor's breath hitches and more tears fall down.

"What hurts?" I ask him, wiping away his tears.

"Everything" he says as a sob racks his chest.

The next day, his pain is being managed a little better and he's starting to feel less like death. I finally allow visitors. He was in so much pain, that out of respect for him, I told everyone to stay home.

Liam comes in the moment I give the green light.

"Hey bud" Taylor says weakly, giving him a small smile.

Liam sits down next to him and grabs his hand.

"How many more times are you going to have to save me?" He asks, tears already falling.

Taylor says nothing, he just wipes away Liam's tears with the back of his hand.

"I thought you were dead" he chokes out.

"I wasn't" Taylor says weakly.

"Yeah, but you should have been. Nora and Drake couldn't get your heart started. Nothing was working, Taylor. I thought I lost you" he says, trying to breathe through his nose to keep from crying.