The Long Term Plan (With Short Term Fixes)

XXXI

"We're there. We're there. We're nearly there."

Cole had somehow gotten it in his head that repetition would cure his aching anxieties about failing to reach the hospital in time. In and out of consciousness, Evangeline lay almost completely still on her back across the bench.

The bright lights of the hospital building nearly blinded him. Sirens wailed nearby. He took a corner too fast, but how could he help himself? They were nearly there.

He had seen that other car, it barreling towards them, from a mile away. Its brights had borne straight through him. Evangeline was asleep, or unconscious maybe, and as the car drew nearer to them, he glanced towards her. It was then that he noticed the dampening car seat, and the overbearing smell of rust emanating from the apex of her thighs. She stirred and adjusted herself, revealing to him an outpouring of what could only be blood, but she only sighed, failing to awake.

He drew in a sharp breath and accelerated, unbuckling himself and bracing for the impact as the mirroring car followed suit. In the instant before the end, he locked eyes with the driver and spat. Flipping on the cruise control at a speed of seventy three, he sighed as well, and then apologized to Evangeline, whether she could hear him or not.

He flung his seat flat backwards and dove passed it on top of her still body. The car swerved right and he winced in anticipation before the other car hit their side. It had swerved left to hit them: it had been ordered to do so.

Cole wrapped his arms and legs over and around her as the other car continued to drive them off the road. He hissed, next groaning as he felt the blunt force on his head, forcing his eyes not to roll back on the impact. He had managed to open the other door with his foot and the lot of them tumbled out, onto the road, in a shower of shards.

His vision was red; there was blood everywhere, but they were so close. The sirens got louder. Evangeline's eyelids fluttered and she coughed, blood spilling over her lips. A shard of glass was wedged between them, likely only an inch or two into her shoulder, farther into his breast. He threw her off of the shard and of him, onto the pavement so she lay beside him, chest heaving as she awoke.

"Cole!" she croaked. "Cole... I can't feel it. I can't!"

"It's not your fault." He smirked, brushing aside her hair.

"I can't feel it! I can't!"

"Evangeline, it's alright. You're..." Blood had soaked the insides of her thighs. "You're going to be fine."

"Well... well what about you?"

"Me?" he only laughed. "Who am I? Where are we?"

"You're Cole Boeck and... and we're safe. The hospital is right over there... just around the corner. We can make it..."

"Evangeline, look at me."

She was barely conscious, but sure enough, the blood from his head injuries, and the shards in his chest would be evidence enough even to the common man; Cole was going to die.

"You can't," she begged him. "No one understands me like you. You can't go and leave me here."

"Evan!" he yelled. "Face it, will you? It's over!"

"No." She slowly sat up, shaking her head. "Not before I tell you how sorry I am."

"You're here. I know—" Blood squirted from his mouth as he coughed, subsequently exhaling for the last time.

"Cole, c'mon. Can you stand? Cole? They're twins! They're twins! I... agh... I have twins and-and one of them— Cole? Cole! Oh, God!"

Agony raped her body as a screech tore its way up her throat. She collapsed, her stomach wrenching. She scratched new wounds onto her burning skin, through her torn clothes, and writhed until hands clamped down over her limbs, and the pain of a labor and her injuries drove her into deep unconsciousness.

The hallways closed like fists around Noah's chest as he was led to a consultation room, still on the first floor of the hospital. The nurse left him and soon the door opened again.

"Jacob?"

"Noah," Jacob whispered. The blood on him had since dried. "She's—"

"I want the doctor," he stated.

"They believed it would be easier if I just told you, to prevent any lawsuits resulting from possible violent reactions.

"Can't I just read the chart?"

"No," Courtney closed the door faster than she'd opened it and slipped in.

"You too, huh? Well, at least you're a doctor." Noah crossed his arms. "When can I see her?"

"Technically, you can see her now."

"Well, great."

Jacob scratched the back of his neck, picking off dried blood. "From the observational balcony."

"Why is she in the OR?"

Courtney answered the phone. "She's out? Room 228?"

Noah had gone, out the door and to the nearest elevator. He'd reached the room just as they pushed her into it, followed by another smaller bed covered in a clear case.

"How is she?" he cried. "Will someone just tell me what's going on?"

He hardly registered the explanation.

With the fifteen foot fall, she had fractured the three vertebrae of the thoracolumbar junction, temporarily paralyzing her from the waist down, and causing her body to prematurely induce labor.

The car had hit her at a speed of eighty two miles and hour, and if it weren't for Cole, who had shielded her body with his, she would have died upon impact because she hadn't been belted in. Instead, she'd lost one of the babies, unable to feel the pain from the paralysis, but they had been able to birth the second: a four pound boy.

The accident had, however, worsened her neurological damage, especially of the sciatic nerve and her spinal cord, and if she ever awoke from her current state of coma, it was medically predicted she'd suffer from paraplegia and retrograde amnesia. As of late, she'd been placed on a ventilator and fitted with a feeding tube and excretory catheters.

In all works except physical, Evangeline Stahl was dead.