Dreaming Of You

Chapter 22

"Raychel?" He looked at me shocked before slowly getting on his knees to get to my eye level. "How? When?"

"Easy big guy." I smiled at him as I placed my hand on his arm. "One question at a time."

He gently pulled me into a firm hug. Like he was trying not to break me and making sure I was real at the same time.

I hugged him back as best as I could "Don't worry, I'm real."

"Why did no one call me?" He asked as he pulled back from the hug.

"I asked them not to, or well sort of, speaking was painful at first. I heard you were on tour in Europe. Didn't want you to drop everything." I told him with a sigh " I know you love those tours."

"I do but you are my best friend, I would have liked to know you were okay."

"You mean okay for someone who missed 2 years of her life, is stuck in a wheelchair for the foreseeable future and probably has a shitload of bills to worry about now?"

"Would it be better if I told you that you don't have to worry about that last part?" Joe questioned.

"What are you getting at?"

"Your medical bills are already fully covered."

I shot him a glare "Don't tell me you paid for them."

"Actually, my bosses did." Joe shrugged.

"The McMahons? Why?" I frowned, confused about why they would do that. "Not that I'm ungrateful but that's awfully kind considering they never met me before the coma."

"I imagine they must have their reasons but your mom sure seemed glad about it." He told me.

"I can imagine." I nodded slowly before looking back at Joe. "Mind taking me to see them? To Stephanie to be more specific."

"Course." Joe got up "We can go look for her right away."

"Good, I want to thank her. I know she visited me a few times during my coma."

"Your mom told you about that?" He asked as he started to push my wheelchair.

"Yeah, but I heard it for myself as well. I heard everyone. Not entire conversations but my brain picked up on fragments which it used in my dreams."

"What did you dream about?"

I decided on a half truth " About this place actually, I actually became a wrestler in my dream."

"You? A wrestler?"

"Yeah, weird huh?"

"A little, but dreams often are." Joe answered.

"I also heard that you are getting married." I looked over my shoulder at him.

"Yeah I am. Did you pick up that part in your dreams or did your mom and Evy tell you."

"A little of both." I said truthfully before pointing ahead of us "Isn't that her over there?"

"It is." Joe confirmed as we went over to her "Steph, someone would like to meet you."

"I'm Raychel, good to finally meet you Mrs. McMahon." I smiled up at her.

"Raychel, I am so glad to see you are okay. And please call me Stephanie." Stephanie smiled back.

"Well Stephanie, I wanted to thank you. For everything. I wanted to thank everyone." I told her sincerely. "I know how many of you came to visit me in the hospital and how often everyone did just to support Joe. None of you outside of Joe's cousins knew me and yet you all were there at some point. You had his back when I couldn't. You lightened the load for my mom by paying for the medical bills. You all made me feel like I was never alone."

"I'm just glad I was able to help. How is your recovery going?"

"Well, I can control most muscles in my arms and keep my back straight, my legs are still numb. They have to carry my full weight but aren't exactly used to it anymore, it will take a lot of time and physical therapy before I get my movement back completely. Talking is a lot easier now but my throat gets still sore at the end of the day. It seems like the road to recovery is a long one but I'll live and the doctor who treated me is quite confident that I can get back to a 100% eventually. Besides physical therapy I eventually also need exercise to gain some muscle."

"If I can ever help in any way, let me know." Stephanie told me "Anything at all"

"You've done more than enough Stephanie. But I will visit often so if there is ever anything I will keep it in mind."

"Good now you should probably go meet some of the people here, I'm sure they would like to know how you are doing."

-

Stephanie was right about other people being happy about knowing how I was doing. It seemed like everyone was relieved to hear that I had woken up.

It was quite uncommon to wake up after such a long time and getting away with it as well as I had. Especially considering a blood poisoning, or sepsis, had gotten me there.

Apparently somehow bacteria had entered my bloodstream and, in an attempt, to focus all energy to fighting off those bacteria, I had shut down. My brain had made me go in that coma so that my immune system could be the focus point.

A sepsis is a pretty life-threatening thing so why my brain did that was pretty obvious, to give myself a fighting chance. What dr. Wayne hadn't been able to explain though was why I hadn't woken up once I had been treated and gotten healthy again. His guess was that it was something psychological but he couldn't be sure. It was quite the mystery.

Honestly, I had been very lucky so it was no surprise that everyone was so relieved even though they had not known me before the coma.

After a while though all the attention became a little much so I excused myself and started to look for a place where I could get some peace and quiet, even if it was just for a moment.

My head could sometimes feel a little blurry and in those moments, I just needed some quiet to gather my thoughts.

My thoughts got interrupted by someone speaking to me suddenly. It was a guy who looked to be older than joe, but younger than Matt would have been. The thought of Matt saddened me which was apparently noticeable.

"Are you okay? You seem sad, lost almost." The man asked, he had this calming aura around him.

"I'm fine, just need a second to gather my thoughts. Who knew brains could become such a mess after a coma."

"Ah so you must be Raychel. From what I gather you have been through quite a lot." Unlike with everyone else I had talked to I didn't see pity in his eyes. For the first time it seemed like someone didn't take pity. Instead, he looked almost understanding, like he had gone through many trials in his life as well. "Would you like to talk about it?"

"Actually, that would be nice." I answered honestly. Understanding instead of pity could be just what I needed. I smiled as he sat down and inquired to his name "Nice to meet you..."

With a smile he held out his hand to me as he introduced himself with an all too familiar first name "I'm Matt, Matt Hardy."