Broken Promises {Brendon Urie}

Chapter 26

~Brendon~

"Sarah?" I called. I scanned every face in the waiting room. "Sarah?"

"Excuse me?" I heard the voice of a young girl say. I spun around and saw her standing there in the waiting room, wearing a Panic! At The Disco shirt. She looked to be about ten, not much older than Rilynn. The shirt nearly swallowed her. "Aren't you Brendon Urie?"

"Yes, I am," I replied. "I'd take the time to get a picture with you, but I'm currently pretty busy."

"If you're looking for Sarah, I know which way she went," the girl said. "I walked past her earlier. She was heading towards the NICU and the nursery. I can take you there if you'd like. And don't worry about signing anything or taking a picture with me. My parents are too busy with my baby brother to worry about me."

"Where are your parents?" I asked. She was so young. She shouldn't have been wandering the halls alone.

"In the NICU," she replied. "My baby brother is really sick. He was just born two weeks ago, but the doctors said he wasn't breathing, so now he's in the NICU waiting to get a new heart."

"You know where Sarah went?" I asked, trying to get the subject off the young girl's brother. She nodded and took my hand, leading me in the direction my wife went. I followed her, realizing then and there that not all of my fans were crazy about grazing my hand during a performance or taking pictures or getting me to sign something for them. There were fans out there, much like this little girl, that didn't really care about any of that. They had more important things on their minds.

She led me down a hall covered with framed pictures of butterflies and flowers and cartoon dinosaurs, sick kids walking up and down it. Some tried to smile at me, a few waved. I realized that most of the teenagers that smiled and waved at me as they limped past with their doctors, or were rolled in wheelchairs, knew who I was. But they didn't try and stop us. They had more to think about than the fact that I was walking past them. The whole area was painted in pastel colors and had things that children enjoyed all over the place. We walked past a large room with sliding glass doors, filled with babies laying in incubators, hooked up to all kinds of monitors and tubes.

"That's the NICU," the little girl explained when she saw me staring. "My baby brother is in there with my mom and dad. See? They're back there." She pointed to where a woman was sitting in a chair next to one of the babies, her faced in her hands. The man standing behind her rubbed her back, trying to comfort her. I felt so bad for the little girl. Her parents were too busy worrying about their baby to realize their daughter had wandered off. "Sarah wouldn't be there, though. I saw her come down here, so I bet she's standing by the nursery looking at all the babies that don't need help like my brother does." She continued to lead me past all the people.

"Hey, Lucy," one of the doctors waved at the little girl I was with while we walked. The girl, Lucy, came to a stop.

"Hello, Doctor Max," she smiled.

"Is little Z doing any better?" he asked.

"I don't think so," she replied. "Mom got upset while Zack's doctors were talking to them, so I went for a walk."

"I see Lucy's taken you hostage," he laughed, looking at me. "I'm Doctor Max Harding, Pediatric surgeon. Lucy's well known in these parts of the hospital. Her little brother, Zack, is in the NICU waiting for a new heart and lungs. Everyone here knows about little Miss Lucy. Are you family or friend?"

"No, I'm here for my daughter," I replied. "My wife and I brought her into the ER earlier. My wife disappeared on me when I went to make a phone call, and Lucy knows where she went."

"I see," he said. "Well, I hope your daughter turns out okay. I'll keep a look out for her and see if there's anything I can do. Good luck finding your wife."

"Thank you," I said.

"Come on, let's go," Lucy said, tugging gently on my hand. "We're almost there." 

She took me the rest of the way to the nursery, where we found Sarah. She was looking at all the babies through the glass, her arms crossed across her chest. Lucy held on to my hand as we approached her. When we reached Sarah, I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She jumped a little and looked up at me. She leaned against me, her head resting on my shoulder. Then she saw Lucy.

"Who's that?" she whispered.

"Her name is Lucy," I explained. "She found me looking for you and offered to show me where you'd run off to. Her brother's in the NICU."

"She reminds me of Rilynn," Sarah whispered.

"Yeah, I thought so too," I replied. "You okay?"

"No, not really," she sighed.

"She'll be okay," I said. "She's strong. She'll pull through. Dallon's on his way. He'll be here really soon. Come on, we should be in the waiting room when he gets here."

"I should go back to my mom and dad," Lucy said. I looked down at her.

"Why don't we take you back?" I asked. "It's the least we could do."

"I'm okay," she said. "I don't need someone to walk me back."

"I insist," I said. "You helped me, so it's the least I could do."

"Since there's no point in arguing, I guess," she shrugged. We walked her back to the NICU and stepped inside. We all put on one of the pink gowns that everyone else was wearing before walking over to Lucy's parents. 

"Lucy!" her dad sighed in relief. "Where did you wander off to this time? We told you to stay by us."

"I took a walk down to the waiting room," she replied. 

"You look like the man from one of Lucy's shirts," he said, furrowing his eyebrows as he looked at me.

"That's Brendon," Lucy said. "He's in Panic! At The Disco. He needed help, so I helped him. Is Zack okay?"

"Lucy, there's something we need to talk to you about," he said. He looked back at me. "I'm sorry about my daughter. You don't have to stay."

"What's wrong? Is it Zack? Is Zack okay?" Lucy questioned.

"Lucy, honey, the doctors don't think Zack is going to make it," her dad explained gently. "He's really sick, remember? They said he's getting sicker and he doesn't have much time left."

"So does that mean they can't fix him?" Lucy asked, her face falling.

"They're saying he doesn't have a good chance," he said. "They're saying it might be time to think about letting him go. He's really sick, Luce, and he's probably in a lot of pain."

Sarah and I saw that as our queue to leave, and we headed back to the waiting room. That family needed to be alone to talk about everything. We understood. We'd been there before. We went back to the waiting room and waited what felt like forever.