Break

Chapter 4

Shayne and Courtney settle into silence, again, Courtney feeling the exhaustion in every part of her body but, more importantly, feeling his hand never leaving hers. There's a careful knock on the door a few minutes later, before it opens and her Dad sticks his head back in.

"Okay if I come back in?" he asks.

"Yeah," Courtney mumbles, tiredly, eyes moving to watch him shift into the room and take the other chair, on the opposite side of her bed to Shayne.

"I take it Shayne is now within the COVID rules for who can visit?" Kenn asks, a hint of teasing to his tone.

"Definitely," Courtney answers, stronger, before her voice turns quieter, "I think I need to rest for a bit, though..."

"Of course, Court," her Dad tells her, "and you can only have two visitors at a time, so I might head off in a little while so your Mum can see you, is that okay?"

"Yeah," she mumbles, voice clearly approaching sleep, "but Shayne stays?"

"Shayne stays," Kenn agrees, glancing up to see Shayne nodding, too. They all know he isn't leaving her side.

"Where's your mask gone, Shayne?" Kenn asks, a moment later. Shayne feels himself blush, but Courtney grips his hands tighter, clearly doing what she can to stop him from reaching for it.

"I want to see his face," Courtney answers, in a low murmur. Kenn doesn't ask any further.

She soon falls into a careful sleep. Shayne can immediately tell it's different to the coma, though: her hand remains tangled with his, and she shifts and moves occasionally as she rests.

"Your name was the second word she said when she woke up," Kenn tells him, when it's clear she is soundly asleep, "and the only reason she said 'Dad' first was to get my attention and ask where you were."

"I don't want to get in the way of anyone else seeing her, but-" Shayne starts, before Kenn quickly holds up a hand to stop him.

"Shayne, anyone close enough to visit Courtney knows how important you two are to each other. I wholeheartedly believe the reason she's been so alert the last few days and the reason she tried so hard to wake up this morning was you. I've been begging the nurses to let you visit since she first got into her own room here, and I ended up convincing them by telling them that I knew you two, even though you weren't together, are in love with each other, and I swear sometimes you can read her mind, and if anyone could get through to her and bring my daughter back, it would be you," Kenn tells him, pausing for a moment, "and Shayne, I've seen how hard this has been for you. And I care about you too, you know that."

"Thank you, Kenn," Shayne tells him, knowing his cheeks are flushed with embarrassment, "I'm just glad she woke up, but I want these tests to happen to make sure everything's..."

Before Kenn leaves, Shayne agrees with him that he'll text Ian, but for now, they won't say anything publicly – they'll wait for the tests, whenever those will be. He pulls out his phone and pulls up his texts with Ian as soon as Kenn leaves, typing and backspacing messages with one hand until he settles on something he's okay with.

"Hi, Ian. This info for Smosh internally only, not public yet. She's awake, and she seems almost normal, just tired and sore. Waiting on them to do a heap of testing to make sure, but... some big positives this morning," he sends.

He isn't surprised when he almost immediately receives a string of exclamation marks and hearts and crying faces and happy emojis in response.

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Ian can barely stop himself from bursting out into the office and screaming the news at everyone the second he sees Shayne's text. Instead – after sending Shayne a line of emojis that he knows he will understand –, he opens his email and creates a meeting invite to the whole-of-Smosh email list for one minute away, types out 'main office' in the location, and hits send. He steps out of his office, then, everyone gradually turning to look at him as people move out of their own spaces in the editing and other rooms to the main office.