Look After You

Chapter 14

The ride to the hospital was one of the worst car rides of Xander's life. It was quiet the whole time except for the sounds of Theo's sobbing. He had held his little brother close to him the whole ride and the younger boy pressed his face to Xander's shirt. By the time they finally parked he had a large wet spot where his tears had landed the whole time.

Xander had done everything in his power to hold his tears at bay for Theo's sake and so far he was doing a decent job of it. Once they parked though, Beckett took the key out of the ignition and they all stepped out of the car.

"Hands?" Theo asked, holding his hand out to Xander. Xander smiles sadly and grabs his little brother's hand as they head into the hospital. He wasn't sure if Theo knew what had actually happened to his mom and Xander was kind of hoping not. He was young and Theo deserved to keep his innocence for as long as humanly possible. The rest of them had lost it at such a young age and Xander didn't want the same thing to happen to Theo.

"Take a seat. I'm going to go up to the counter and ask if we can go in," Beckett tells them. Xander wanted to protest and tell him no becauase he wanted to hear what was going on with his mom, but he didn't want to cause anymore stress than what they already had. So instead he just nods his head and the four of them take their seats while Beckett goes up to the counter.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" He asks Rae.

She shrugs. Rae always had a thick layer of mascara applied to her lashes, but today that layer was a smeared mess that had been ruined by what Xander could only assume was tears. He didn't blame her for crying he probably would have to if he was at the house when they found their mom in her room like that. "I really hope so, Xander."

Theo puffs his lip out and looks up at her with red eyes. "But momma has to be okay. I don't want mommy to leave us," he says. Rae leans over and wraps her arm around him.

"Don't worry about it, Theo. It's gonna be okay. I promise it's all going to be okay."

Truth be told Rae and the rest of them had no clue if she was going to be okay or not. Lauren was constantly pumping drugs into her body and they could only image what drug it was this time that nearly killed her.

This also wasn't the first time they had been in this situation. Two years ago Xander could remember getting pulled out of school when he was twelve. All he was told was that his brother had called with a family emergency and when he walked out to the car he found out that his mom had almost choked to death in her sleep because of a heroin overdose and had to be taken to the hospital.

Beckett walks back over at them and sits in an empty seat next to Jeremy. "So she's getting her stomach pumped right now. They said she hasn't woke up yet though and she still isn't.... She's not stable yet, so they don't know what's going to happen," he says.

There had been times where Lauren had screamed at her kids and said things that were downright horrible, but in the end she loved every single one of them. She didn't ever mean to yell, but the drugs and alchol always made her angry. But after every outburst she had, she would soon apologize right after. So in the end all of her kids still loved her deeply and none wanted to lose her. Out of her and their father, she was by far a better parent than he ever was. They had Beckett who was a parent figure for them, but he was only twenty one and could only do so much for them.

"She's gonna die?" Theo gasps, eyes wide.

"No, she's gonna be okay. Just close your eyes for now and get some sleep, bud. We'll wake you up when we go back to see her," Beckett says softly. He was scared what would happen to Theo if she did end up passing a way. It would probably scar the poor kid for life.