CEM: The Moments In Between

The Black Dawn

Life isn’t always fun and games. Sometimes bad things happen to good people.

Avi had rescued Rayne from certain death. They were home resting, ramping up for yet another tour. This one longer than any other ever before. Everything seemed normal until it wasn’t.

Shelly Keller

THE BLACK DAWN
Rayne woke up in a place she hoped to never find herself again after a loss of consciousness. Hell, for that matter, she hoped she’d never lose consciousness again, especially after any kind of an accident. The last thing she could remember clearly was falling in the river, screaming Avi’s name and hearing the terror in his voice as he cried hers. She had a vague recollection of him crying begging her not to leave him. As if she could ever do that. She never wanted to be without him, never again.

She tried to stay calm, but her fear was mounting. She didn’t know what was going on, she was alone and in a hospital, her hip and side hurt like hell. If she moved, wait! She could still move. What had happened? Was it all just a dream? Where was Avi? How long was she out for this time? She could move. Could she talk, eat, run? Was she whole? Her eyes shot open in a panic and a scream escaped her lips before she could stop it. She had so much to lose, had built a life around that beautiful human being. They had already come through so much. She wanted Avi and she wanted to run. How she loved to run. She loved Avi more. Why was she in the hospital again? Another scream escaped her. She didn’t even know why she was screaming.

Avi came rushing into her room. His eyes wide with fear and panic. He slid as he rushed through the door and lost his balance but kept moving until he stumbled his way to her bed side. He didn’t try to hush her scream. He didn’t coo at her like most would have. He just took her hand with one of his, looked into her eyes and placed his other hand on the side of her face. He leaned over her and pressed his forehead to hers and whispered something she couldn’t hear.

He couldn’t hide the tears of relief that rolled down his face. She was alive. Nothing was broken. Bruised and battered, but not broken. She would run again, hold his hand again, kiss him and make love to him again. He was relieved. His Love was alive. Awake and screaming for God knows why, but she was alive.

Avi beat the nurses to her room by a full half a minute. By the time they arrived, Avi and Rayne were forehead to forehead whispering to each other. Kevin and Mike Kaplan weren’t far behind him. Her arms wound around him and pulled him onto the bed with her. She locked his lips in a deep and passionate kiss. Normally he would balk at such a powerful display of their affection when others were around, but at that moment he just didn’t care. She was alive and he could still feel her warm lips upon his, give her all of his love and watch the light in her beautiful eyes.

One of the nurses grabbed their phone and raised it to take a picture of Avi Kaplan Kissing the hell out of a woman in a hospital bed. Kevin slapped the phone out of her hand and turned a very ugly angry glare at her. Her phone clattered to the floor. Kevin hoped it was broken. He turned and look at the small crowd that had gathered and dropped the same glare on each of them. No one else reached for their phones.

The heart rate monitor attached to Rayne picked up its rhythm while her heart began to beat faster and faster as their kiss lingered on. The alarm on the monitor when off and the head nurse pushed through the door clearing the interns and other nurses out of her way.

“Off with you now. Off you go. You don’t need to be here. Don’t you have your own patients to tend to?” She asked in a shrill English accent. To Kevin it was like a scene out of a movie. She looked like a movie head nurse. Short and stocky, her greying hair up in a neat bun atop her head. Her cheeks were soft, round and rosy. She was altogether very traditionally matronly in a warm and friendly way.

“Excuse me. Excuse me.” She said to Mike and Kevin and she push pasted them. She stopped dead in her tracks momentarily as the scene in Rayne’s hospital room unfolded before her. Rayne had pulled Avi half way into the bed with her. Half his chest lay over hers. Her hands were in his hair when they weren’t on his back and under his lose shirt or on his face. All of which happened in the span of a few moments. Their kiss was wildly passionate, filled with love and desire.