It's Understandable: A Tronnor AU

41. Okay / Song for Joel

The waiting room was horrifically quiet. Horrifically empty, save a cluster of teenagers in the corner, but that wasn't much: they barely spoke above whispers. And, atop the surrounding silence, that was an uneasy sound as it was. Like a wasp buzzing in an abandoned asylum.

Therefore Laurelle tried her hardest to block it all out: the murmurs, her own thoughts. She had her elbows on her knees—her face in her hands—and was still. Having been drinking at a friend's, her head was abuzz and her palms felt like they were sweating; she removed them from her cheeks and realized it was just the tears she hadn't known she was crying.

She couldn't believe this was happening. Her son—her loved, seventeen year old baby—was in a state of bodily stability that she did not want to measure at that time. She was a wreck about the thought of losing him. It made her restless, and bleary, and anxious as she was alone.

Eventually Shaun caught wind of the accident from an ER nurse, and got permission to leave his post and comfort his wife. All the way to her, he could feel that she needed him. So he came—burst, rather—out of the elevator and walked so briskly to Laurelle that it reminded her more of the tragedy at hand. "Shaun." She could only say his name, glad he was there.

Shaun slowed then. In softer movements, he lowered himself into the chair next to Laurelle and put an arm around her shoulders. "What did the doctors say?" He asked tentatively.

"They..." Laurelle wiped tear tracks astray on her cheeks. "They haven't said anything yet. I-I don't know what's going on. I don't..."

A hand on the back of her head, Shaun adopted the most solacing tone he could manage. "Hush now." He crooned. "Our ER staff is the best in the state, you know that. Some of them are even our friends. There's people who know Troye in there—professionals who will do everything in their willpower to save a life. They'll take good care of him. He'll be okay."

Laurelle sniffed. "Jesus Christ, I hope so. After all he's been through getting better, I don't to lose him just when..."

And that's when Connor appeared.

Still with his phone in his hand—fresh from Laurelle's call—he seemed forever utterly alarmed from the news. His wet eyes searched for familiarity in a way so amok that Laurelle wanted to cry for a second subject. She stood to meet him, and then he immediately located her tear stained face.

And his immediately contorted to match it. Liquid of a hellish salinity trickled from his eyes like hot torrents of discomposure, of which Connor tried harshly to rid himself. Approaching the Mellets, he swiped at his face furiously, trying not to snatch all the limelight from their worry about their son. "How...how...how is he?" He tried to be nothing but sympathetic—calm in a respectfully mournful way—but instead he asphyxiated on his own weepy dolor. Try as he might, he couldn't keep his cool; he was so afraid of losing his rock.

In so many words, through endless tears, he accidentally stammered this aloud. "Are we going to lose him?" He cried. "I don't want to lose him."

"Oh, sweetie. I know. I know."

On an achingly personal level, Laurelle understood. Tearfully, she wrapped the sobbing teenager up in her empathetic embrace; she tried to let him know he wasn't alone in this. She gathered up into her arms proof that she wasn't alone in feeling the ruthful way she did.