Living on Love

Ten

"Mr. McCormick and Miss Butera?"

Ariana's head snapped up. "That's us."

"Malcolm still isn't awake, but his vitals are fine. I'd like to talk to you about it in my office if you don't mind."

"When can we see him?"

"As soon as we're done. I just want to give you a brief on what to expect."

Ariana sniffled and held Mac's hand as they followed the doctor to an office and sat on a couch while the doctor took a seat in a chair in front of them.

"I'm Dr. Shelby Wilder. I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances. I just want to give you a little forewarning before I take you in to see Malcolm."

"Is everything okay with him?" Mac asked.

"Like I said, his vitals are fine. But he's still not awake. He's on a ventilator to help him breathe. He's on several monitors to keep track of his brain activity and vitals. We've got him on a feeding tube. There's no spinal injuries. The left side of his face is pretty bruised, that's probably where he was hit the worst on his fall. He has several bruises on his body. He had some bleeding in the brain but we've got a shunt and it's draining really well. There's no internal bleeding anywhere else that we can see but we're going to keep checking him so there will be several scans throughout the day to make sure there isn't any."

"So he's just a vegetable," Ariana said.

"No. don't think of it like that. He's currently in a coma but he does have brain activity. He was breathing on his own but we put him on the breathing machine to ensure that he doesn't stop breathing."

"Will he come out of the coma?"

"That's something I can't say yes or no to. All coma patients are different."

"Can we see him? I just want my baby..."

"Absolutely. You can kiss him, but to ensure that no further injuries happen we'd like you to keep from holding him. Hold his hand, but I don't think it would be safe to pick him up at this point."

"You're telling me I can't hold my own fuc-"

"Babe," Mac said. "If we move him we can cause spinal injury. He's weak right now. He fell down stairs. She's a doctor. She knows what's best."

"I'm sorry about the circumstances, Miss Butera," Dr. Wilder said. "We just don't want any farther injury to happen."

Ariana sniffled. "Fine. I just wanna see my son."

"Of course. Right this way."

They were led out of the office and down the hallway before Dr. Wilder stopped at a door. "Before we go in, it's going to look a lot more scary that it is. Just remember that if you take away the machines he's just sleeping," she said.

The door opened and Mac led Ariana into the room after Dr. Wilder. He immediately stood in front of her and blocked her view before turning around to look at her. "Hold on. Don't look at him yet."

"Why? What's wrong?" Ariana asked.

"I just wanna brace you. Remember in Steel Magnolias how Shelby is hooked up to all this monitors and wires?"

"Yeah."

"That's what it looks like. He's just small so it looks worse."

"Does he look okay?"

"He looks peaceful past the tubes. Are you ready to see him?"

Ariana nodded and Mac moved out of the way to let her see Malcolm.

Ariana stared for a few seconds, more tears collecting in her eyes and falling down her cheeks. She walked to the bed slowly and ran her fingers through Malcolm's hair, kissing his head lightly. "Malcolm... it's Mommy," she whispered.

"I'll leave you two alone," Dr. Wilder said quietly before leaving.

"He's gotta be scared..."

"He doesn't know what's going on, babe. He's sleeping," Mac said.

"He's just a baby. He shouldn't be going through this. This is my fault."

"No it's not. It's not anybody's fault. It was an accident."

"We should have put up a baby gate so he couldn't get down there."

"And chances are he would have climbed it and still gotten hurt. It's not anyone's fault. Accidents happen, Ari."

"This was a preventable accident. We've never childproofed the house."

"We taught our kids right from wrong, and half of the child proofing would have been Ariana proofing too."

"It's not time for jokes," she snapped. "Our son is in a coma, Malcolm. It's not fair."

"It's not. But he's gonna be fine."

"How do you know that?"

"Because he's part you."

------------------------------------------------------

"How is he?" Liz asked as she sat next to Ariana.

"They say he's okay, but he's in a coma..." she said, watching Stella eat. "That's not okay to me."

"Jesus..."

"Yeah. You don't mind staying the night to stay with her do you? I just needed to feed her."

"I'll stay as long as you need me to."

"Are you sure? You don't have your clothes with you."

"It's fine. I can wash these with that big ass pile of laundry you have going on."

"If you're sure."

"I am. We'll be fine. She doesn't even know there's anything going on. I'll call if I can't handle her."

"No you won't. You never do."

"I can always handle her. We'll be fine. Stella's in good hands, just focus on Junior for now."

"I feel so bad... I feel like it's my fault."

"Ari, he fell. Kids fall all the time."

"Most kids don't fall down the stairs."

"Lafayette pushes you down the stairs daily."

"She's a dog."

"And you're accident prone. Junior gets it from you. You get it from Ed."

"Oh god, I need to call him and let him know what happened."

"Then call him. How's Joan doing?"

Ariana shrugged. "Okay. She's nervous. Doesn't know if she wants to find out whether the baby is a girl or a boy."

"Is it weird? I feel like it would be weird if my mom got pregnant."

"It would be highly alarming if your mother got pregnant, considering she had a hysterectomy after George was born."

"Yeah. There's that."