Ride

Chapter 7- How is She?

Chapter 7- How is She?

Lightning McQueen was going insane. It had been quarter to ten when he called Sally's number and five past ten when he got off the phone with her. What time was it now? Ten past one in the morning. Shouldn't they be here by now? he wondered. If the others had left right away (and why wouldn't they?), then they most definitely would be here by now, he decided. What was taking them so long?

You know what else should've happened by now? The doctors should've come out and told him what was going on! Once he got off the phone with Sally, he'd begged the receptionist to be able to see Fudge or at least know what was going on. However, he couldn't see her because she was still in surgery and the doctors wouldn't talk to anybody but family. He argued that she was his sister until he was crying too hard to speak and had to slip away from the reception desk. How long did surgery take? As a racer, he'd become familiar with lots of medical procedures on both himself and other racers. Yet none of them had ever taken this long!

Then again, none of them had ever been this serious.

Even so, there wasn't an awful lot for him to do- or rather, an awful lot he wanted to do- except pace back and forth impatiently, which did nothing to calm his nerves.

A young, kind nurse approached him at one point. "Mr. McQueen?"

"Ye- Yeah?" God! It was so hard to talk. He glanced up expectantly. A nurse! She must have news about Fudge!

Only the words that came out of her mouth had nothing to do with Fudge. They were, "Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee? Oil?"

Lightning shook his hood, trying to hide his disappointment as he managed to choke out the words, "No thanks." He felt much too sick to have a drink. Besides, he couldn't think about having a drink. Or anything else. How could he?! His mind was racing. Where were his friends? He needed them here! How was Fudge? Was she going to be okay? What if she wasn't? This was all his fault.

To make matters worse, at one point, a set of doors burst open and one of the doctors appeared, breathlessly calling out for help. It sounded like they were close to losing a patient. Was it Fudge?

That prompted several doctors to rush into the room and for Lightning's tears to start up again. Cars and humans still fixed their eyes on him. Sometimes, he felt like screaming at them, "STOP STARING AT ME!" However, most of the time, he didn't care at all. He had bigger things to worry about. This was it. She was gone. Fudge was dead. It was all his fault.

It was then that Doc's words when Lightning had wanted to take Fudge out racing for the first time came to him.

"If somethin' happened to her- and it will; if you were to keep takin' her, it would only be a matter of time- I would never be able to forgive myself and neither would you."

He was right about every single part of that statement. Of course, in the past, there had been several bumps and bruises along the way, but this was the first serious incident that had occurred. Now, it seemed like Fudge was dead and whether she really was or not, Lightning knew he'd never be able to forgive himself for this!

He was still crying his eyes out when he caught sight of his friends bursting through the hospital doors. Oh, God! This was it. His heart rate shot up. At first, he'd been kind of relieved that Sally had told them the bad news and not him, but now, he didn't know what to expect, as to how they would treat him. What were they gonna say? What were they gonna do? Would they be mad at him? Probably.

Luigi and Guido, it seemed, couldn't even wait for Sheriff to open the door. They practically shoved him out of the way and flung it open themselves with such tremendous force. Then the two of them raced up to the reception, ignoring both Sheriff and hospital staff reminding them of the speed limit. Neither of them even seemed to hear in their state.