Dear Jeremy and Evan Hansen-Heere | Step Brother AU

Prologue (How Heidi and Paul met)

"Hey, I'm here for Jeremy... Heere, could you lead me to his room?" Paul asked one of the nurses. 

"Actually, I do. I'm working on him, I was just about to head over there." She said. "Right this--" Michael ran over next to Paul.

"S-Sorry, I had to get something out of my car." He said, out of breath. The nurse nodded.

"Right, well, follow me." She said. She lead Paul and Michael to the hospital room. Jeremy was laying down silently, his eyes closed and his hands resting on his stomach. "So he's in a coma, it shouldn't last too much longer, but it won't be less than a week." She said. She looked at his medical chart. "Do you know how this happened? There's no sign of struggle, there's no marks on his head that imply that he was hit, it doesn't look like he should be as bad as he is."

"I honestly don't know." Paul said. Michael put down Jeremy's bookbag, next to his gurney. 

"He took a Japanese computer pill, it implanted in his brain where it resided... resode? Resided for a few months. He got it out, but it resulted in what seemed to be a short circuit in his mind." Michael said. The nurse looked at Paul with a questioning look.

"It's strange, another patient said something like that." She opened a curtain, showing a short guy with a full body cast.

"Oh, hey Rich." Michael said. "Did you ever get that mountain dew red?" He asked, uneasy. 

"Yeah. Collin got it to me." Rich said coldly. Michael nodded.

"Good thing you could count on him for that, at least."

"It was a lot of prying." Michael nodded.

"Yeah." He said. 

"Anyway, it's called a SQUIP. It's a grey, oblong pill, quantum nano technology CPU. The quantum computer in the pill travelled through his blood until it implanted in his brain and told him what to do." Rich said, his lisp shining through. Michael nodded.

"It spread to some of our school too, mostly the people in the school play." Michael said. "That's why there was suddenly a surplus of people at your hospital." Michael said. He seemed uncharacteristically mad. Michael sat down next to his player 2, holding his hand as tears slowly shed from his eyes.

"We should leave them alone." The nurse said. She lead Paul to the hall and shut the door. "Sorry."

"It's fine. They were always closer than we were. He's probably gonna be surprised that I even showed up." Paul said. "I'm his dad, we're not very close." The nurse laughed.

"I understand that. I'm not as close with my son as I'd like to be. I work far too much. But I just want to give him the life that he deserves." She said caringly. "Oh, I never introduced myself. I'm Heidi Hansen." She said, holding out her hands. "We're probably gonna be seeing each other more often." Paul smiled.

"I'll be looking forward to it." Paul realised what he said. "Not that I look forward to seeing my son in the hospital, I just mean that I'm looking forward to seeing you. Like--"

"Don't worry, I understand what you mean."