Christmas
A Little Piece of Heaven
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Dreams do come true - oh, yes, he believes they do. But then, he thinks about it in depth and realised nightmares are dreams too.
Nightmares do come true, too - oh, yes, they definitely do.
It's like a tidal wave.
"Mr. Halstead?"
Washing over him ferociously, sweeping through his blood, claiming him in desperate surges as he jerks awake, hadn't realised he'd fallen asleep.
A doctor he doesn't recognise stands in front of him, breathless. And for a minute, his own breath catches as he tries to orient himself, tries to relax and dismiss the spiral thoughts of why this man is in a panic - a thought that's holding him hostage but they circle his mind in a wide, destructive path, over and over and over.
No. No. No. She can't be.
"I'm so sorry. But your brother told me to come get you. Your wife is out of surgery now."
"She did well." The doctor in charge smiles at him as he hovers outside the recovery room.
So, this is how they talk to families of patients, as if it's the patient's accomplishment and not the surgeon's.
"She's breathing on her own, responding appropriately to stimuli, and they'll start to bring her down from the pain meds shortly."
Jay nods, and brings a hand to the right of his face. "Her - her face?"
The doctor's face is set and another doctor, he thinks that's the plastic surgeon, interrupts, "When we got in, we were able to see that the damage was less than we had previously thought. It did require some plating -"
Jay flinches at the word.
Plating.
"- but I have high hopes for the reconstruction. Obviously there's some cosmetic choices she can take down the road ..."
There's that phrase again - down the road. He can't think like that, so he chooses denial instead.
Denial of today's surgery and denial of the most recent procedure before this.
The abortion.
Nausea climbs his throat, the sense of violation cloying, angering, frightening.
Her white face floats in front of him and he pushes down this latest betrayal, concentrates on the way the beveled cloth felt in his hands when he read the letters of his son's name.
J. A. C.
Thinks of the unfinished 'K'.
Thinks of his unfinished son.
Thinks of his mother's thick sturdy fingers pausing, tucking in the needle, folding it up.
This is all Adam's fault, he's tainted everything that's beautiful, everything he treasures.
It's also something different entirely, and he's not at all sure he's ready to face it.
YOU ARE READING
Christmas
FanfictionIn the wake of a terrible travesty, Jay Halstead and Erin Lindsay are forced to drift apart. What is the ultimate betrayal? A strategy they've both mastered. One that took years to perfect; to ignore and to pretend. So they wouldn't have to think or...
