Faith ran to the key rack and she cursed,
"Damn it! She took my car!"
Michael appeared behind her with a poof and he says,
"Take Shania's!"
Faith runs for her coat in a sprinting panic and she cries,
"Her starter is messed up! She's been meaning to put in the shop for a week!"
Michael swung open the door, jerking the keys into his hand. Faith hears the jingling of Shania's keys and she spits from around the corner,
"What are you doing?"
He had already vanished the drive way and she hurries out. The engine in her gray Honda was clicking over and over and Michael bit his lip frustrated.
"Michael! That car is dead!"
Faith called out and Michael focused. He grasped each side of the steering wheel and he closed his eyes. He put all his EMF energy into the engine and Faith screams,
"No! Michael! You'll drain your energy!"
She ran to the car door and he pressed the lock button. She beat on the window with tears rolling and he turned the key with the engine now roaring.
He panted as his energy drained to nearly nothing and he unlocked the car. She swung open the door and she tried to hug him, she fell straight through his form and into the seat. Michael had nothing left and she cries,
"Michael! No!"
He barely stood outside and he shuts the door.
"Michael! Your energy!" She sputtered and he calmed her hoarsely,
"Go to Shania, Faith honey please.."
She cried but started to buckle up and Michael says with an echo as his energy nearly depleted,
"Drive safe....I'm already gonna lose you to college..can't lose you to a wreck too.."
Faith's lip quivered and she held her face in her hands sobbing,
"I got accepted.."
There was a silence that was only her ragged breathing and Michael echoed,
"I'm so proud of you."
Faith cried harder and she knows she wouldn't have had this without Michael and she can only spit out,
"I love you, Michael. I love you.."
"I love you too.." he barely spoke, "Go..go...Shania's almost with me please, I can..hear her.."
Faith whipped it out of the drive way and sped off. Michael faded into nothing and he found his way into Neverland. He stumbled but he knew it was necessary for one of his girls to continue living.
~~
"Move!" Faith growled pushing through the crowd, "Move!"
The paramedics were already on the scene and Shania in critical condition layed beside the car as the team maneuvered around. The truck had T-boned Shania fully into oncoming traffic and it was a blessing a passing car stopped in time.
"Shania!" Faith yelled and an officer began to control her,
"Gonna need you to step back, ma'am."
"Shania!" She screamed over his shoulder and she fought his shoves backwards, she was watching her best friend die and someone was actually trying to stop her.
"Listen to Michael, Shania. You can't go yet!"
~
Shania opened her eyes to wind whistling and surrounded by an overwhelming light. She was dressed in glimmering white with a modest dress hugging her waist. She had felt better in her mind than she had in years with energy and not a bit of anxiety. She sat up from laying.
She stood to her feet and she called out not hearing a sound in the strange void she had found herself in,
"Hello?"
The breeze whirred slower behind her and she spun around to the noise. He stepped infront of her like a dream and he was a sight for any set of sore eyes.
"Michael."
She gasped and he held out his arms.
He wore broad, shimmering white that shined in the suit around him and he spoke,
"Baby? What's happened to you?"
She ran to him and hugged him tight. It felt more real than the illusion and her heart found a new excited beat.
"Where is this?" She asks him soft and he says still embracing her,
"Where I stay. It's not heaven, it's just someplace else."
She pulled away and saw his beauty full hue. His eyes so dark but honest and his raven hair curled so flawless even when it fell in his face.
She blinked and she said to him breathless,
"I died. Didn't I?"
Michael shook his head and he says,
"You're not supposed to stay here. This is not your time."
She felt confused and she asks him sudden, "Why are you here? Michael, you're always at the house.."
He didn't answer and he only took her hand,
"This way."
Her eyes widened and she followed him near reluctant. She took the lead and they found a set of stairs going downwards deeper into a fog. She jumped infront of his path and she demands,
"Come with me.."
Michael only looked to her with a blank face and he ignores.
"Michael?"
Shania spat and her sight grew dark. She felt the space close in around her and she worries,
"What's happening.."
She couldn't see as everything turned black,
"Michael...what's happening."
~~
Shania awoke again now in an ambulance and she gasped hard with her back arched for air.
"We've got vitals!" One of the emt's shout and she was frantic. She shook her head around looking and they pinned her against the gurney,
"You're alright!"
Shania looks over and Faith sat now holding her hamd against her mouth,
"Shan!" She said coming close and Shania fought,
"Where's Michael?!?!?"
Faith looked at her with sullen eyes and she says, "He's at home.."
"How do you know?!" She asks until finds herself in the middle of a coughing fit and the medics contain her. Faith leaned back in the seat and felt her world crumble around her. Shania almost died but now she worried that Michael could be gone.
~~
Machines beeped and Shania laid in a drug induced sleep. Faith held her hand and figured the rest had to be good. She felt her phone in her pocket and she stepped out into the icu hallway to call Dee.
She tossed around the thought that maybe she was too busy with whatever she was doing at planned parenthood and she grimaced pissed off. Dee was driving back to the house but she answered,
"Hello?"
Faith sniffed and she says,
"Get to the hospital, ICU room 203."
Dee gawked and she asked,
"Ugh, what?"
Faith looked to the wall blankly and she says with her attitude seeping in,
"Whenever you're done ya know at Planned Parenthood. Come see our sister as she lays close to dying."
Dee slammed on the breaks and she shouted in the phone mic,
"What the fuck is going on?!"
Faith clicked to end the call and she rolled her eyes. She chewed the inside of her lip to stop a scream in frustration and she went back to Shania.
Dee busted an illegal u-turn in the middle of the street and she sped up to 90 on the highway. She felt her hands shake around the grip of the steering wheel and she tried to stay calm. Getting into the hospital parking lot, camera's and reporters gathered around the entrance and seeing her face they exploded,
"Deidra!" One woman shouted and they begin to crowd around like a swarm of hungry sharks,
"Do you know Shania's status? Is she in critical condition? Will you be shutting down Neverland Inn?"
Dee ignored every word and she forced her way inside. She shrugged them away and found her way into an elevator. Her hands shook in anxiety and now anger as she finally realized why Michael hated those people so much. The ICU floor dinged and she stepped into the hallway. She looked for room 203 but the rooms all looked alike. She finds a nearby nurses station asking near desperate,
"Room 203, Shania Zimmarmen, she's had an accident?"
The nurse looks up from her manicure and she says,
"We're only allowing the fellow hostesses see her right now, ma'am."
Dee broke down into a fit and yelled across the booth,
"Does this mob of paparazzi not prove I'm a hostess! Point me to the room!"
The nurse cut her a dirty glare after glancing to the mob of paparazzi.
"That way." She mumbled and Dee shook her head.
She stomped going further down the left hall. Rivers of too many bad scenarios ran through her mind and she began to sob. Shania could've been permanently injured for the rest of her time with Michael and the girls. Dee's heart breaks as she imagines losing a sister and she hears a harsh voice,
"Where've you been?!"
Dee snaps around from the room, not even stepping a foot in the door. Faith appeared from beside a nearby drink machine. She bit her cheek seething mad and she says,
"So uh. Planned parenthood? You said you were going to the store?"
Dee lets tears fall and she stutters, "Faith, you don't understand!"
"Oh no, I understand!" Faith yelled, "You wanted more rubbers for when your lost dog of a boyfriend comes back happily to visit you!"
Dee tries to stop her rant but fails, "Well ya know what Dee!" She wags her finger in Dee's face, "While you were out lying to us annnnnnd Michael about where you were going! This happened! Shania could've died-"
"I went to planned parenthood for a pregnancy test, Faith!" Dee shouted with her face red and tears pouring.
Faith's entire manner changed and her hands came down. Dee had snapped from everything. The stress, the sickness and the worry.
"I took a pregnancy because I'm pretty sure that lost dog of a boyfriend is the reason I'm sick! And ya know what the lady told me! She told me to book an appointment for an abortion if I'm positive! Cause no baby should be raised without a father!.."
Dee wiped tears from her face with her sweater and Faith stood gasping. "Yeah.." Dee sputtered,
"I wasn't in there twenty minutes and I was already offered an abortion!" She leaned against the wall and sat with her head down. Faith cried too and held her close,
"They wanted to kill my baby before they even tested me."
"I didn't know, Dee. I'm-" Faith started but Dee stops her,
"It's not you sis. Its okay."
Faith and Dee met first in the long road to Neverland. She introduced Faith to Shania and crossed her fingers that they would be as close as they are today. Neverland was Shania's idea but it took so much of all three of them to put it into frame, piece by piece.
Faith knelt beside Dee crying and she sobbed,
"Come on. Shania needs us both right now..."
She helped Dee up and they walked in. Arms interlocked the moved infront of the cloudy privacy curtain. Shania lied hooked to the breathing machine. The meds were helping her rest but she looked so uneasy.
"What happened?"
Dee asks with tears still falling and Faith stammers,
"She rolled past a stop sign while we were on the phone, it must have fallen in the floor. A truck was going about thirty or forty and t-boned the car."
Dee blinked to try and dry her eyes asking,
"So, whats broken?"
Faith comes sitting by her and Dee goes to the opposite side. Faith cleans her glasses and says,
"Well. They think so might have a concussion. Whiplash certainly doesn't help either in her neck. Besides that only a broken wrist and maybe a rib. The breathing machine is for her fits.."
Dee nearly chokes and asks flabberghasted,
"Fits?! She's having fits?!"
Faith nodded sadly,
"Sometimes she'll wake up screaming for Michael. We had to tell the nurses that was her brother's name. We couldn't explain much.."
Dee wiped her face and she watched Shan breathe ragged. Her chest rose and fell which was a blessing and Dee moves a piece of hair away from her eyes.
She sighed heart broken,
"Did you call Marisha and Vincent?"
Faith nodded,
"Yeah and boy did that go well."
Dee nodded knowing that her parents' couldn't have been happy. Dee leaned back in the chair and she said what was on both their minds after crippling silence.
"I wish Michael were here.."
~
Dee and Faith stayed there all night curled up where ever was comfortable. Dee was slung over the arm chair beside Shania's bed and Faith was perched across the loveseat on the opposite wall. They wore their hoodies as blankets and with the windows shut, a breeze moved through the room. Dee felt a chill but she covered herself up tighter.
The chill scans over the room in its energy and stays next to the hospital bed. Its brushes hair away from Shania's face and rubs her cheek. She twitched in response and shut her eyes tighter. Everything stopped when the hospital room door swung open with a shrieking ruckus.
"SHANIA!"
A high pitched voice screamed and everyone jumped. Marisha stomped through the curtain being pulled away by a nurse, preaching that it was far beyond visiting hours.
The girls all groaned awake including Shania. She tried to sit up until Dee stops her careful.
"Shania! Just look at you!" Marisha cried again holding her chest. She had bags under her eyes from the drive through seven different states and Faith awoke muttering,
"What the hell?"
Shania squinted to see and Marisha slapped on the lights with a fuss.
"I hope you're happy, young lady because I am not!"
Shania groaned to the bright lights and she growled,
"Mom, get out! It actually takes a car wreck for you to step down from your pedestal doesn't it!"
"It was my car, Ms. Zimmarmen. You don't have to pay any insurance. We've got it covered." Faith said calmly
Marisha jerked back disgusted and snapped,
"I am speaking to my daughter!"
Faith retreats offended and decides to butt out and Shania shakes her head,
"There's nothing to talk about, Mom. I'm fine."
Marisha retorted now fiery in defense and she says with a pointed finger, "There's plenty to talk about! Number one, this little business you're running is getting shut down! Tonight!"
Shania rolled her eyes and she layed herself back down,
"I'd like to see you fucking try mother."
A nurse came in with two security men behind her and she glared,
"Ma'am you must leave, or you will be escorted out."
The men wrapped their arms around her pulling her to the door and she kicked and wailed for them to stop and the door shut as the echo carried down the hall. Shania rolled her eyes again and she laid back down in bed. The girls were speechless with the show they just witnessed and Dee speaks,
"Are you feeling okay?"
Shania nodded lying on her back and she says,
"My thinking is just a little foggy. I never usually cuss my mom."
Faith scoffed and she said, "If she told me to shut down everything I've worked for, I would too."
Shania pursed her lips and she says back to Faith,
"I'm really sorry about your car sis. I really am."
Faith comes over shuffling and she pries, "No baby. Don't worry about that car. I needed new transmission anyway, so now I have a better excuse to go car shopping."
Shania weakly smiled and Dee came over as well.
Shania looked to her and asked,
"Get your rest results back yet?"
Dee's eyes bugged out wide in disbelief and she says,
"How....did you- How..did you know?"
She shrugged and said,
"Michael told me."
Faith rose her brow unsure and she says, "Shan, you didn't see Michael after the crash."
She shook her head again and she says, "It sounds dumb. But Michael talked to me before the paramedics got there. When I was outcold. He was in my head. It sounds dumb but I promise, it's true."
Dee and Faith look to each other but Faith's expression grew sad. There was now a sad truth about Michael and she started,
"About that. I'm worried. Michael did something stupid so I could get to you out there on the road."
"What do you mean?" Shania asked beginning to panic and Faith stuttered,
"Well,Your car? It wouldn't start so I freaked out. And Michael....he...he used his..."
Dee immediately broke down with her voice cracking and she says, "You cannot be serious! He powered the car!"
"But!" Shania said worried, "That's gotta be a lot of his energy!"
Faith winced nearly whimpering, "I'm worried it was all of his energy....what if he didn't make it back inside."
They all felt tears begin to whell up as they knew it couldn't be put past Michael to put out his energy for them. But this time, he put his own ability in danger. Shania held her eyes as she began to cry and Dee asks with shriveled lips sobbing, "Are we gonna go home to a Neverland without Michael?"
They all huddled together in a unison mood and Faith moved her glasses up. They cried together as one knowing the possibility was huge. Michael could be gone out of their lives for good.