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Chapter Thirteen

Nick


I would've kissed her there in the middle of the intersection. That had kinda been my intention, really, but I dunno... After having my big revelation and everything I got kinda stupid and awkward and instead of leaping forward and sweeping her into a kiss that would've left her socks knocked off I got all tongue-tied and stumbled along after her through the city toward the hospital, silence surrounding us other than the sounds of each other's foot falls.

I tried to picture life there in a paused world, just me and Margo. We could have it all, really, virtually anything that we wanted. Food, water, shelter. We could travel - at least within the continental area (I had no idea if a plane could work given the paused air currents and shit and besides that there wasn't no way in hell I was gonna drive that). The entire world was literally ours for the taking.

Maybe, I thought, it wouldn't be such a terrible thing if we couldn't figure out how to unpause ourselves. Maybe, really, this was better than being unpaused anyways. There was nobody here to hurt us, nothing to tear us apart.

It occurred to me that I'd be okay - I didn't really care where I ended up, as long as Margo was there. As long as we ended up together, the world could be paused, unpaused, or not even there.

I didn't need it.

But I could see the determination and the slight fearful excitement that danced around the edges of Margo's eyes. I knew she wanted to be unpaused, she wanted the other world. She wanted everything going again, everyone moving. She wanted the life she'd been ripped out of back.

So I was gonna do everything I could possibly do to help her get it back.

"So," I said slowly as we walked, "What do you do? You know, for, like, a living or whatever?"

Margo looked up from her concentration on the street. This was a) the first time that I'd spoken in a really long time, and b) the first real question I'd asked her outright about herself. I realized I had about a gazillion more I wanted to know, too, just bubbling under the surface, waiting to be asked.

"I just finished school when everything happened," Margo replied.

"High school?" I asked astounded.

Margo laughed, "College," she replied. "That was years ago though."

"What'd you study?" I asked, relieved and also impressed. I was in love with a smart girl.

"Psychology."

"Ironic," I said.

"Is it?" she asked.

"Given that we're wandering around... well, here," I waved my arms around the city, "While in another world we're like, in comas or something. I think that's ironic, yes?"

Margo laughed, "True."

"What would a psychologist say about all this?" I asked.

Margo hummed thoughtfully, "Well, probably that one of the two of our subconcious minds were making this entire thing up. Including the other person." She eyed me and we stopped walking, facing each other as her words sank in between us. Both of us were wondering. The air was thick with wondering.

"Well I'm definitely the real one," she said.

"All the imaginary girls say that," I said, smirking.

Margo laughed.

I realized we were standing in front of the hospital and that the ER's flourescent lights were bathing Margo and I in brilliant white light. We were standing a few feet away from the ambulance bay and there were people frozen in place in the middle of unloading the patient from the back, surgeons in their blue scrubs rushing across the lot, faces paused in wild shouts of distress, forever caught in the height of their adrenaline.

Okay so this - the hospital ER - was definitely the weirdest part I'd seen. Unlike the city streets where the people were kinda far between and mostly bundled up against the rain, the people in the ER were busy responding and running and shouting, expressions of panic and worry and fear and pain stuck on their faces, tears caught mid-cheek, spatters of blood floating in the air.

It was hypnotizing, seeing all the people like his, wondering how many of them would be gone if we managed to unpause the world. I lingered in the center of the forray, wondering what it was like for them, the paused people. Could they see us? Hear us? Were they feeling things, like pain, or were they like a mirage or a prop that was there just for me and Margo to see and nothing more?

"Nick... c'mon," Margo called from the door.

I quickly trotted after her and she led the way down a long hall, pausing at the corner to read the directional sign. We hung a left. "What are we looking for?" I asked.

"Directions," she said.

"It's not like there's gonna be a sign that says Margo's Paused Self is This Way," I said.

"No but the nurse's stations will have computers loaded with hospital records and if we can access those we can find out if I'm even here by looking up my name."

I swear, the woman was brilliant.

We walked down several long hallways - these were populated with way happier faces than those in the ER. We passed people in the hallway - both patients and not. At the end of the hallway, we passed several open doors and saw a man in a walker standing by a huge square desk with a pot of flowers on the counter. He was sniffing them.

"There we go," Margo said, running around the desk. She carefully pulled the mouse and keyboard out of the paused hands of a nurse sitting behind the counter. She started typing and I looked around and studied the hallway as she muttered to herself and the keyboard clicked. When she hit enter, there was a long pause and I turned around to make sure everything was ok when she let out a hoot.

"Oh my God, Nick, there I am!" she shouted, "Margo Hunt, room ICU-8."

"I like the number eight," I rambled. "Eight's my lucky number, you know. There's a ton of eights in my life, you know. Like I was born in 1980 on day 28 of January... My phone number, that has a ton of eights, and every address I've ever lived in has at least one eight in i, and I liked being eighteen and twenty eight. I'll have to let you know about thirty-eight," I said with a laugh. I paused. "If I live that long," I said.

Margo stared at me. I thought for sure she thought I was metal until she said, "God, Nick, I'm scared now that the moment's here."

"It's gona be okay," I said.

"How do you know?" she asked, "What if it doesn't work? What if it does?"

"Because I won't leave your side until I know for sure that you made it okay."

Margo smiled, "Promise?" she asked.

I crossed my heart. "I swear to it," I replied.




Brian

I waited until Leighanne was asleep, leaning back in her chair, her mouth opened wide and eyes searching the backs of her eye lids in REM sleep. Then I began the execution of my plan to see Nick. I just had to pray that my knees would be able to hold me up this time.

I foisted myself to the edge of the bed and swung my legs over, pushing myself to my feet. I held onto the mattress with all my strength to keep from falling down, and I shuffled slowly across the room to the wall and, bracing myself against the door, peeked out into the hallway.

I couldn't let the nurse catch me or I'd get some hell for my escape plan, so I peeked down the hallway both ways and spotted the nurse going in with the machines for vitals. She was four doors away from mine and I backed in for a second, did a quick calculation of how long that gave me (approximately thirty minutes) and then I moved as fast as I could across the hallway to the far wall and shuffled my way slowly toward the elevator.

Normally, I could've gotten to and from Nick's room faster than it was gonna take her to get through two patients and then find my room, but I mean I was moving slow and stealth as I could. If the nurses caught me, I was gonna get the express ticket back to my room.

I only just managed to duck into the elevator when the nurse came back into the hallway.

My palm slammed on the button for the ICU floor and the door closed just before she walked by it. I closed my eyes and held onto the handle that lined the wall as if for dear life as the elevator moved up.

See, I needed to find out exactly what Nick's condition was. His life depended on me, and I needed to know what I was up against. I needed to know his condition so that I could find the legal loophole that would allow Jane's authority on the matter to be overthrown. Because, whatever Kevin said about Nick's brain and about what he thought about Nick's ability to recover from all this, I wasn't ready to believe Nick wasn't in there yet. It wouldn't be the first time that Kevin had exaggerated something. I just knew that Nick was gonna get through this - he had to.

I had to tell him I was sorry.

And he couldn't die thinking that nobody loved him because he was wrong.

I loved him.

He meant the world to me.

He was my very best friend.

He was the little brother I never had.

I'd been the kid's legal guardian for more than half his life, for pity sake.

Holy shit, I thought. That's it.

The legal loophole.