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Chapter Nineteen

Brian


Margo was crazy.

She was crazy, and her plan was the most insanely ridiculous, risky, impossible plan that I'd ever heard in my entire life (a life that includes the planning of Nick, by the way).

I couldn't believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. I was shocked. Just the thought of attempting to pull it off made my palms sweat.

Margo was still explaining the rationale behind her idea when Leighanne came back into the room, her glasses framing her eyes as she stared down at a sheath of papers in her hands. She looked up at me as she walked into the room, and I could see in her eyes that she had bad news. She sighed and held out the papers, "You had limited legal rights as the guardian, most major life altering events defaulted to the parental unit, with you only designated to handle immediate situations in which they were unreachable." I took them from her hand and turned them over to a spot that she'd circled with a pen she now had tucked into the loose ponytail at the back of her neck, "And your term as legal guardian clearly only stood during on tour situations until January 28, 1998."

I frowned down at the papers.

My heart rate increased with every word I read from the contract that confirmed the words Leighanne had spoken.

Margo was staring at me, her eyes wide.

My eyes met hers.

She licked her lips, "So...?"

I knew she was asking if we were gonna follow through with her crazy-ass plan. My mouth went dry at the thought of it. There were so many things that could go wrong with it, so many things that could happen that we'd never forgive ourselves for... and only one of the many possible scenarios that could come of the plan was the one that we wanted.

But it was also the only plan that either of us had come up with.

Leighanne looked between the two of us. "Y'all came up with a plan?" she asked, eyebrow raised.

I put down the papers. "Well... Margo did," I said.

Leighanne looked at her. "How can I help?"

Margo took a deep breath. "You can push the gurney."

Leighanne nodded, "What gurney?" And Margo explained the whole thing again. And by the time she finished, Leighanne's eyes were nervous, too, but she also set her jaw with determination. "Let's do this."



So it was with sweaty palms that I pushed myself out of the wheel chair as Margo struggled into it. I kept glancing back at the doorway, at the hall, at the nurse's station that we could clearly see from the room. My mouth was dry with anxiety as I worried about us gettin' caught. I helped Margo sit and took hold of the handles of the chair and pushed her forward. We hovered at the door, looking up and down the hall to spot any oncoming intercepting nurses, but found none.

Leighanne followed, covering us from behind as I pushed Margo down the hall as quickly as possible, into the elevator and she pressed the right floor number for the ICU.

I closed my eyes as the elevator climbed through the floors, my foot wiggling with nerves. Leighanne slid her hand over mine on the wheelchair's handles and I opened my eyes and looked into hers. "Are you okay?" she asked me quietly.

"I just... can't stand the idea of losing him," I whispered. Leighanne nodded. She slid closer to me, her arm slipping around my shoulders and she lay her head on my upper arm and squeezed me as best she could at that angle. "I can't picture a world without him in it."

"Hopefully you won't have to," Leighanne said.

I looked into her eyes. "Do you really think that this is going to work?" I asked her.

I heard Margo shift in the seat to look up to see Leighanne's response.

Leighanne took a deep breath, "You know Nick and I have had our differences and everything, but... in the end of everything, at the very end of it all, he's always been... faithful."

I nodded.

"And I don't think this is any different," she said.

"But enough to risk a life on it?" I asked.

Leighanne's voice shook ever so slightly, "You mean to say, Brian Littrell, that I believe in Nick more than you do?" she raised her eyebrow. "Impossible."

"It's not a matter of believing in him," I replied, "As much as questioning the science of this whole endeavor."

Margo's voice was thick, "I'm tellin' yall, all I had to do was be in the same place as my paused self and boom, just like that, I woke up. One second I was standing there talking to Nick and he was looking up on the monitor where I might've moved to and I reached down to touch the bed to see if it was still warm to guage how long ago I'd moved and the second my hand touched the spot, I was laying on my back in the bed, just woken up from the coma."

The elevator doors opened and we pushed Margo into the hallway and moved toward the ICU ward, glancing every way in anticipation of getting caught.

When we got into the ward, we hovered near the door, pretending to take extra time at the hand washing station, listening to the voices of the nurses, waiting for them to go and do their muscle therapy with the patients. The moment their footsteps faded from the station, we moved forward.

My hands shook as I pushed Margo into Nick's room. We gathered around his bed. Jane's purse was on a chair in the corner. She must've gone to get a drink or a snack or something, I thought, and I looked at Leighanne with nervous eyes.

Leighanne looked at me, then at Margo. She took a deep breath, then turned to Nick and grabbed his hand. "Hey," she said quietly to him. "Listen; if you can hear me, Nick, you need to help us make this work... and forgive us if it doesn't."

Margo reached up and put her hand on Nick's leg. I hovered there staring at him, my heart aching because I realized that, if this didn't work this would be the last chance I had to speak to him. My palms sweat. I didn't know what I wanted to say. My mouth felt glued together. Part of me wanted to call this whole bit off, not to take the risk, to try to find some other way to stop Jane, but with so few hours left to fight her (less than twelve by this point), I didn't know what else to do.

"Show'em up, buddy," I muttered. "You got this."

Leighanne squeezed Nick's hand.

Margo stood up weakly, her knees shaking, and moved to whisper into Nick's ear. I watched her mouth move, but I couldn't hear what she had to say. When she finished, she looked at Leighanne and I.

"Are we gonna do this?" she asked as she settled into the chair.

I nodded.

Leighanne stepped forward, her hand reaching out to the wires and tubes that connected Nick to the machines.

But I grabbed her and pulled her back.

"No," I said, stopping her. I took a deep breath that shook as it traveled into my lungs. "Let me do it."

She stepped back and allowed me to shuffle between her and the bed. I stared down at Nick's face, peaceful aside from the garish tubes going down his throat. His eye lashes looked so soft, the dimples at the corner of his mouth just barely visible even without a smile on his face...

"It's gonna be okay, buddy," I promised.

And with a shaking hand... I disconnected Nick from the machines that were keeping him alive.