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Chapter Fifteen

Nick


Margo and I held hands going up the stairs. We laced our fingers together in a knot. "So when we do this, when we unpause everything," she was saying, "How do I find you on the other side?"

"I'm easy enough to find," I said, "I'm a fricking Backstreet Boy."

Margo laughed.

"But I'll come find you anyways. I know you're here. I'll come to get you right after I wake up."

"Okay." She squeezed my hand.

We had reached the top of the stairs and we were lingering in the stairwell. I took her other hand in mine and we stood there staring at each other for a long moment.

"What if... what if you wake up and you don't remember me?" she asked.

"How could I forget you?" I asked romantically.

"Because you're in a coma," she said pragmatically.

"I'm not gonna forget you," I replied.

"What if I forget you?" she asked.

"Then I'll spend the rest of my life reminding you of me," I said.

Margo laughed, "Are you always this adorable?" she asked.

I nodded, "Always. Everyday."

She took a deep breath. "Okay look, I just -- I gotta say this. Just in case you do forget me or I forget you or we can't find each other or - or something else happens that neither of us is thinking of -- I just want you to know that the last... however long you've been here 'cos I have no idea how long it's been now... it's been the best time of my paused life."

I nodded. "Me, too."

Margo bit her lips.

"C'mon, let's go unpause you," I said.

"Wait."

"What?"

"There's one last thing I need to say to you before we do this. Just in case."

"What's that?"

Margo pulled me in and our mouths connected and I swear to fuck, even though I thought it was just something people said to be like poetic and shit, I saw fireworks. I'd never felt a mouth so perfectly shaped to fit my own as hers was, or a kiss so soft and so sexy or so... soo...

She pulled away before I'd had enough.

"If you want more where that came from," she said slowly (I did, I really really really really really did), "Then you'll have to come find me."

I nodded.

She opened the door of the stair well and we were in a long hallway. We walked down it until we found a door labelled ICU and we pushed in through several doors, following signs to the ward until we found ourselves in a big half-moon shaped ward, a high nurses station in the center overlooking twelve rooms with wide windows. Each of the rooms had occupied beds - well except for one in the far corner, where a team of surgeons were paused in the middle of pushing a gurney through the door. Margo and I walked slowly around the moon shape until we found ICU-8. She reached for the door.

"Wait," I said before she could push it open.

She looked at me.

I stared into her eyes, really memorizing them. I wanted to burn them into my memory. I didn't want to wake up and forget her.

"Yeah?" she asked.

I pulled the paper and crayon out of my pocket, "Can you write down how we got here? I gotta get back to the tour bus to find myself, too, so I can wake up, yanno?"

"Oh. Yeah. Right." Margo grabbed the paper and the crayon and leaned against the door to write it down.

I stepped around her into the room. There was just an empty bed. All the machines were all around. I looked about. "Here," Margo said, coming in behind me. She held out the paper to me. "It's kind of a crappy map, but it's the best I could do given I only have one color of crayon and I'm not a cartographer."

I took the paper.

Margo was staring at the bed. "Where am I?" she asked.

"I dunno," I said.

She stepped towards the bed carefully. "But the computer said I'd be here."

"Maybe they took you somewhere to like get a test done or something?" I suggested.

Margo touched the sheets.

I turned and looked out at the nurse's station, "Maybe they moved your room or something this morning," I suggested, "Maybe we should go check the computer in this station and see if it's been changed or something." I grabbed the door and pulled it open again and walked across the ward to the station, climbed the steps up into it and sat in an empty chair. "What was your last name again, Margo?" I asked.

She hadn't followed me out of the room.

"Margo!" I called, but she couldn't hear me through the closed door.

In the window, I could see she'd climbed up on the bed and laid down.

I got up and went back over and pulled the door open, "Margo," I said, "I'm trying to see where they took you. What's your last name again? Was it Hunt or Hunter?"

She didn't move.

"Margo?"

Still nothing.

I walked over to the bed and grabbed her hand. It moved under my touch, but not the way it should. It moved the way Brian's body had moved when he was paused and I pulled him out of the car, like I was moving an action figure, not a living person. My stomach churned. Moments before, this hand had grabbed my hand, moments before that hand had pulled me into her kiss.

"Margo?" I said, urgency soaking my voice. "Margo?"

I looked up at her face. Her eyes were wide open, her mouth slightly agape, as if she were surprised...

"MARGO?" I grabbed onto her hand.

Then, as I watched, very slowly, the expression melted from her face, her eyes closed, her mouth shut, and her body went limp. She was gone.

It was a strange feeling because even though I'd expected something like this, I hadn't been ready. I felt like she'd died. I felt like I'd lost her. I found tears filling my eyes and my stomach churning in disbelief, and a gutteral moan broke out of me. "Please," I choked, "Please... just be unpaused, don't be actually gone, okay?" I begged. "Our story's only just starting," I told her, pressing her hand against my face. "I want more of you. I want all of you. I wanna give you all of me. So you have to be okay, okay?"

My hands shook as I put her hand down. I took a deep breath. "Okay," I whispered. "Okay." My stomach hurt from emotion. I swallowed. "Okay. I'm gonna... gonna go find me... I'm gonna go back to the bus and try to unpause me too so I can get back here to you, okay? Just... just wait here. Don't go anywhere. I'll find you, Margo. I'll be right back. Really soon. I'm gonna hurry. You aren't alone, okay? If you can hear me, you aren't alone. I'm here... I'm right here." I put my hand on her heart. "I'll be right back. I swear it."