Twisted Minds

Primavera

HOSPITAL - WILL GRAHAM'S ROOM - DAY-

WILL GRAHAM'S EYES Slowly flutter open. He gasps, wincing as he draws air into his rib cage. He takes in his surroundings to find he is... A hospital bed holds him. Glowing monitors flank him. His abdomen is freshly bandaged and stitched.

His eye finds a WALL CLOCK. In his shifting, blurring vision, the numbers sag and drift onto the wall. Will stares a moment -- until the minute hand CLICKS. Time is passing and will continue to pass. This is no fiction of his mind. He gazes over at a Sleeping Caroline, One hand on a small bump and another holding his.

A FIGURE Until now unseen, moves at the foot of Will's hospital bed. A DOCTOR Inspecting Will's chart. He replaces it and turns and smiles, pleased to see Will is conscious.

"How do you feel?" The man's question seems almost alien in its simplicity. "Thirsty." The doctor hands Will the hospital-issue cup next to the bed, and Will drinks slowly through the straw.
The doctor looks to the open door of the ICU; an indistinct shadow indicates someone standing just around the corner.

"Feel well enough for a visitor?" The doctor exits through the door. Though it's still open, Will cannot see out it... until his visitor enters: ABIGAIL HOBBS Pale like Will, in a hospital gown of her own. She stands on the threshold, staring at him. Will stares back and his thoughts and ours are the same – Abigail is alive.

Abigail stands in front of Will's hospital bed, Taking Caroline's Hand. Pillows prop Will up. They look at one another. A reunion neither thought they would ever see. After a moment: "They told me he knew exactly how to cut me. They said it was surgical. He wanted us to live."

"He left us to die."

"But we didn't." Abigail averts her eyes, still looking for rhyme and reason. "He was supposed to take me with him. We were all supposed to leave together. He made a place for us."

"Abigail..."

"Why did you lie to him?" Will has to consider that a moment, then: "The wrong thing being the right thing to do was too ugly a thought."

"He gave you a chance to take it all back, and you just kept lying. No one had to die." An almost-imperceptible wince from Will. "It's hard to grasp what would've happened, could've happened. In some other world... did happen."

"Having a hard enough time dealing with this world. Hope some of the other worlds are easier on me."

"Everything that can happen happens. Has to end well, and it has to end badly. Has to end every way it can. This is the way it ended for us."

"We don't have an ending. He didn't give us one yet. He wants us to find him." An awake Caroline murmurs in her stage of waking up. Strange for Will to hear that, and stranger yet to believe it.

"After everything he's done, you would still go to him?" Abigail quietly nods.

"If everything that can happen happens, you can't really do the wrong thing. You're just doing what you're supposed to do."

EIGHT MONTHS LATER - NORMAN CHAPEL - DAY

The chapel's vast interior rings with the multiple languages of the travelers shuffling about the place. Among the TOURISTS, we find, A heavily Pregnant Caroline, Will, and Abigail as they enter. Abigail gazes up at the apse of the chapel and JESUS PANTOCRATOR -- "Ruler of All," an exquisite Byzantine mosaic.

Saint Andrew is depicted on His one side, Saint Paul on His other. The saints' tempera-painted eyes, their unfettered focus -- like Abigail's -- on their savior. "Even in an enlightened world, we come here to feel closer to God."