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Chapter 199

At first, time had seemed to stand still. But days passed, and before Claire knew it, a week had gone by.

She was supposed to have gone back to Tampa, back to work, back to her life. But instead, she remained in Des Moines by Nick’s side, her life revolving only around him.

Dr. Somers had been understanding as always when she’d called him to request time off work, and Laureen had offered to help cover her shifts. It was all she could really do to help from Florida, she’d told Claire over the phone. She had sent a card and her love to Nick, and it now sat with the many others that had been pouring in ever since word of Nick’s accident had gotten out.

Brian and Kevin had arrived on the Tuesday following the crash, and a press release had gone out Tuesday night. Since then, Claire had caught glimpses of news coverage of Nick’s condition, and the cards and flowers had started coming in mass. Nick’s ICU cubicle now looked less like a hospital room and more like a florist’s shop.

The first to arrive had been beautiful arrangements sent by Leighanne and Kristin, and Brian’s mother had had flowers delivered on behalf of the Littrell family in Kentucky. In the following days, Nick had received even more bouquets, including a sweet-smelling bundle of lavender roses and freesia from his old girlfriend Veronica and a cheerful mix of tropical flowers with a card attached that read,

To our favorite patient,

Hope you’re not giving those Iowa nurses too much grief.
Wishing you a speedy recovery!

Love,
The 5th Floor Nursing Staff at TGH

Oddly enough, of them all, Claire had found that one the most touching, and wondered which of the oncology nurses back in Tampa had arranged to send it. She knew that doctors and nurses, as a rule, weren’t supposed to get too close to patients, but it was different with oncology; in their job, it was hard not to get to know someone on a more personal level. Still, it was a testament to the effect Nick had on people that they had bothered to have flowers delivered to him in Des Moines.

People all over the world were offering their well-wishes and prayers, but visitors to the hospital were kept to a minimum. Only Claire, the guys, and, most recently, Nick’s family were allowed in and out of the ICU. That was a great plenty for Nick, who was still hooked to a ventilator and IV lines that took care of his nourishment, fluid intake, anxiety, and pain. He barely managed to stay awake when someone was in the room with him, but it was just as well. With the breathing tube, he couldn’t talk, and Claire was sure that was frustrating.

“Hang in there,” she would tell him as he drifted off, her slow-healing hands smoothing back his hair. “You’ll get better soon, and this will all be over.”

It was the hope she herself was clinging to.

Nick was under the care of Dr. Renck, a pulmonologist with a lilting Portuguese accent and a warm bedside manner. Claire found her both approachable and honest, and she had been wonderful at keeping them updated on his condition. She knew, for instance, that while Nick’s lung function was gradually improving, Dr. Renck was still concerned about his ability to breathe without the help of the ventilator.

“He’s in a difficult situation,” the physician had told her, “because while his lungs can’t yet support respiration on their own, there are side effects and complications that can arise from being on a ventilator – pneumonia, collapsed lungs, irreversible damage to the respiratory system. Nick certainly can’t afford that. I’d like to start weaning him from the ventilator as soon as possible. Generally, we don’t like to keep patients on them for more than two weeks. If he can’t be weaned by then, we’ll have to do a tracheotomy.”

At her words, Claire had a sudden vision of Christopher Reeve, with a trach tube coming out of a hole in his neck, able to speak only in short spurts that were interrupted by the hiss of the ventilator forcing air directly into his windpipe. She hated the thought of Nick in that state, though not as much as his mother did. Jane Carter, whom Claire had tried to avoid ever since she’d stormed into the hospital three days late to be Nick’s advocate, protested the idea of a tracheotomy adamantly.

“Absolutely not,” Claire heard her telling Dr. Renck outside Nick’s cubicle. “What would it do to his voice? He’s a singer; he can’t have a tube hanging out of his throat!”

Claire found it hard to think about Nick’s singing career when he was struggling just to breathe.

Thankfully, as the days passed, Dr. Renck decreased Nick’s dosage of sedatives, and he was able to make his own decisions. No trake, he scribbled on a piece of paper for Claire to see. Want all the tubes gone!

And so, as his second week in the ICU loomed, they began the task of trying to get him off the ventilator. A respiratory therapist named Kristy started coming daily to do breathing exercises with Nick, and Dr. Renck progressively lowered the pressure of the ventilator, forcing his lungs to do some of the work. It wasn’t easy, though; with broken ribs, the breathing exercises were painful. Claire hated to see Nick struggling and in pain, but she pushed him anyway, knowing he needed the encouragement to keep trying.

“We’re gonna get through this together, Nick. I love you,” she would say when there were no other words of comfort to offer him. And the corners of his mouth would turn up around the ventilator hose, and he would form the sign for “love” with his hand, his thumb, index finger, and pinky pointing upwards. He’d hold it up, then gesture to her, and in her mind, she could hear his voice whispering, “I love you too.”

After everything they’d been through, Nick and Claire had come full circle. They’d met in a hospital, exchanged their first “I love you”s in a hospital, and now, as Nick fought for breath in a hospital bed once again, they could finally say those words to each other once more.

If we can just get over this hurdle, thought Claire, we can have a future together. The future we always planned on…

She’d had her doubts before, but she was doubtful no longer. Nick was the one she loved, the one she wanted to be with. The one she couldn’t bear to live without. She knew that now, and it killed her to think she’d wasted so much time questioning it. She’d made so many mistakes, but it wasn’t too late to fix them, if only Nick would get better.

Her love was all she could offer him at this point, though. The rest was up to Nick.

***

Sometimes to Nick, it seemed like Claire was the only thing keeping him going.

Every time she told him that she loved him, he got the same rush, one that had nothing to do with pain meds. And every time he opened his eyes and found her by his side, he remembered the reason he had to live. She was his reason. The realization that, after all this time, he’d finally gotten her back gave him the strength he needed to push through the pain and do everything the doctors, nurses, and therapists asked him to.

Other than Claire’s presence, everything about his current situation sucked, and it was hard not to get depressed. For over a week, he’d lain in a hospital bed, forced to lie propped up, even though it killed his ribs to do so. Even if it didn’t hurt to move, he couldn’t for all of the tubes and wires. He was pretty sure every single function of his body was being measured, and it seemed like every part was connected to some kind of device. Tubes snaked every which way from beneath his hospital gown, some carrying fluids in, others draining them. He hadn’t been able to get a good enough look at himself to know how many there were or what all they did, but he was probably the only one who didn’t. There was no privacy in the ICU. If it hadn’t been his first time, he would have been embarrassed, but by now, he knew that humiliation was pointless, a waste of precious energy.

Still, he couldn’t be confident and upbeat like Claire either. She kept telling him he was going to make it through this – actually, everyone told him that – but the truth was, he was scared.

For nine days, a machine had breathed for him. Now he was told that if he wasn’t ready to come off the ventilator in five more, he would be given a trach tube instead. That, Nick vowed, was not going to happen. No way in hell. He was going to get himself off the vent. He was determined to; he wanted to more than anything. But his lungs were crapping out on him.

They’d collapsed with the impact of his chest against the steering wheel of the car, he’d been told. He remembered nothing of the crash himself; he didn’t even remember driving with Claire. His last memory was of flying to Des Moines to see her; he didn’t recall getting there, nor driving in the car he had apparently rented, the car he had crashed. Claire had filled him in on the rest.

Apparently the car had caught fire after the crash. There was proof of that in the healing burns on his torso and Claire’s gauze-wrapped hands. Smoke inhalation had further damaged his lungs, which were already scarred from cancer and BOOP. They all said he was lucky even to be alive. “You weren’t breathing when I first checked you,” Claire had told him, a few days after he’d first awoken in the hospital. He found out later from Brian that she had given him mouth-to-mouth until the ambulance came.

Too bad I wasn’t awake to enjoy it , he’d written to her on the notepad they now kept by his bed, attempting to make light of it. She had grinned and made some kind of crack at him in return, but looking into her eyes, he could tell how scared she had been at the time. It scared him too, to think how close he had come to dying. If he’d been alone in the car, he probably would have died before the EMTs had gotten there. Claire had saved his life.

But now he was relying on the ventilator, and without it, he wouldn’t be in much better shape. As much as he wanted to be rid of it, it terrified him to think that if it was turned off, his lungs might fail him. Twice in his life, he’d experienced the fright of truly not being able to breathe, and those were the two instances that had put him in the predicament he was in now. He didn’t want there to be a third time.

That was why, when Kristy came in on the tenth day and said, “We’re going to do a little breathing trial, without the vent,” his first reaction was panic.

“Don’t worry,” Kristy assured him. “All I’m going to do is unplug the hose that hooks the ventilator to your endotracheal tube… the breathing tube in your throat. That stays in place for now. We’ll see how you do breathing on your own through the tube, without the help of the vent. If you don’t tolerate it well, I can just hook you right back up to the vent. With me so far?”

Nick nodded, but the pressure was mounting in his chest.

“We’ll try it for five minutes at first, and if you do okay, we’ll keep going. If you can breathe on your own for an hour or so, then Dr. Renck will probably want to extubate you – take the tube out,” Kristy explained.

Nick’s heart lifted; that was what he wanted. He nodded to show that he understood, and that he was ready, and as Kristy and one of the nurses got him ready for the trial, he tried to prepare himself.

Lord, please give me the strength to do this…

***

Claire walked in just as they were setting Nick up for his breathing trial. “Can I stay?” she asked, after his therapist, Kristy, explained what she was about to do.

Kristy and Liane, his nurse, exchanged glances, and Kristy said, “I don’t see why not, as long as it’s okay with Nick.” All three women looked to Nick, who nodded and raised his hand to form the “okay” sign.

Claire smirked; he was getting pretty good at the whole sign language thing. Which was funny because, with her scorched hands, she couldn’t do many hand signals at all, so she talked, and he signed or wrote, and somehow, it worked. She always had an idea of what he was thinking or trying to say.

Right now, for instance, she could see the uncertainty in his eyes. He was nervous about coming off the ventilator, even if he was trying not to show it.

“You’re gonna do fine, Nick,” she told him, sitting down beside him and taking his hand. “You can do this.”

On his opposite side, Kristy said, “Okay, Nick, I’m going to disconnect the vent now. Once I do, it’s going to get harder for you to breathe; it will feel a little like breathing through a straw at first. Take as deep of breaths as you can, and if you need to cough, cough. That will help clear your lungs and make it easier.”

“Dr. Renck ordered your dosage of pain meds to be upped,” added Liane, “so you should be able to take deep breaths without too much pain from your ribs. You can give me a thumbs down if it hurts too much.”

Nick nodded again and gave the thumbs up. Claire squeezed his hand. She watched, feeling anxious, as Kristy unplugged the thick hose of the ventilator, leaving only a thin, clear tube sticking out of Nick’s mouth. She imagined it would feel like breathing through a straw, with that down his airway.

Almost immediately, Nick started to cough, and Liane leaned over him with a suction tube, not unlike the ones Claire used in her job, to clear the breathing tube.

“That’s good, Nick; cough,” Kristy coached him, while Claire hung back, watching in trepidation. “Now try and take a deep breath for me. A good, deep breath…”

Claire could see him trying; racked with coughs, his chest heaved, and he gasped and choked, bearing down on her hand. The raw skin beneath the gauze on her palms screamed out in searing agony, but it hurt her almost more to see Nick fighting for breath. As the coughing finally subsided, he began to wheeze, breathing in short, rapid gasps that hissed out through the tube in his throat.

“That’s it... that’s it…” Kristy murmured, her voice encouraging. “Don’t panic, Nick, just relax and breathe… relax and breathe…”

But he couldn’t relax. His grip on Claire’s hand was frantic, and it was obvious he was struggling. A fine sweat had broken out on his forehead, and his hand was clammy.

“He’s diaphoretic, and his sats are dropping,” Claire heard Liane say in a low voice. She looked away from Nick long enough to check his monitor and saw that his oxygen saturation level had fallen to 88%. Her eyes darted to Kristy, wondering what the therapist was going to do.

Kristy was watching the monitor carefully. “If he drops below 85, we’ll have to put him back on the vent. But give him a minute and see if he can bring it back up.”

“C’mon, Nick,” Claire said quietly, rubbing his forearm, trying to calm him down. “You can do it. Suck and blow, baby; move that air.”

He seemed to relax a little, but his sats continued to fall. “He’s tachycardic… BP’s up,” Liane said to Kristy when the level was at 86, making note of the numbers on Nick’s chart. As she did, Claire saw the oxygen level drop to 85.

“Alright…” Kristy looked disappointed. “I’m re-connecting the vent. Suction…” Liane moved to suction out the breathing tube again, and Kristy said, “Hang on, Nick, we’re gonna get you hooked back up. Keep breathing; you’re doing fine.”

Within a minute or so, the ventilator hose had been reattached, and its mechanical hiss resumed, pumping air into Nick’s tired lungs. Claire watched his rigid body relax against the pillows, felt his grip on her hand loosen. She ran her thumb over his knuckles, feeling them recede back into his flesh.

“That was a good try, Nick,” said Kristy, patting him on the shoulder. “I’m going to have you rest on the vent for the rest of the day, and we can try again tomorrow, alright?”

Nick gave a short nod and closed his eyes, looking thoroughly exhausted. His face was pale and clammy, and when Kristy packed up her equipment and left, Claire asked Liane for a wet washcloth. “Oh, I can do that, hon,” she said when Claire took the damp cloth and started to sponge the perspiration from his forehead, but Claire shook her head.

“It’s alright; I’ve got it,” she insisted.

The nurse nodded, made one last note on Nick’s chart, and left the cubicle.

“I’m sorry,” Claire said softly when they were alone, wiping Nick’s brow in slow, gentle strokes. “I know you were trying. I guess it’s just going to take more time than we thought. You’ll do better the next time.”

Nick didn’t respond to her at all; his eyes were still closed, but she knew he hadn’t drifted off to sleep that easily. He was still awake… just disappointed. She could tell, and she felt bad for him, knowing how frustrated he had to be.

“I love you,” she offered, out of any other encouraging things to say. Standing up, she leaned over him and planted a kiss on his forehead. She could taste the salt of his sweat, feel the coolness of his damp skin.

As she backed away, his eyebrows furrowed, and she caught sight of a single tear seeping out from beneath his lashes.

It was enough to break her heart.

***

After what had happened without the ventilator, Nick was nervous to try again the next day. Sedated, he’d slept comfortably the rest of the past day and was not thrilled about being roused in the morning to repeat the breathing trial. Foggy though his mind was, he would never forget the sheer desperation he’d felt as he fought for air, the panic of feeling like he was suffocating, which was exactly how he’d felt when they had unplugged the vent. He never wanted to experience that again.

But with Kristy and Claire’s encouragement and the threat of a tracheotomy still on his mind, he tried again anyway.

This time, he was more prepared for what to expect, and although he still coughed when the vent was disconnected, jolting his ribs painfully, he was able to relax and focus on taking deep breaths, moving air in and out of his lungs slowly through the tube. At first, each breath took all the effort and concentration he could muster, and his chest ached as his shattered ribs were forced to expand.

But eventually, he adjusted, and the breathing became easier. He still felt short of breath, but not as he had yesterday, and his sat level was much better.

“You’re doing great, Nick,” said Kristy with a smile. “I want to see you breathe on your own, without the vent, for another hour. If you can do that, I think you’ll be ready to extubate.”

An hour. He could do it, he thought.

Claire stayed with him for the hour, and the guys came and went. The more they talked to him, the more he yearned to be rid of the breathing tube so that he could talk back. It was a hassle to have to write everything down or try and communicate with only his head and hands. Thankfully, he had Claire, Brian, and AJ to do enough talking for all of them.

Howie was quieter about everything, but at least he was calm. Kevin was so uptight and paranoid that he made Nick nervous with all his questioning and checking. And his family… just the thought of them being there exhausted Nick. They meant well, but all of the bickering between his siblings and Bob and Jane, whom he hadn’t seen together in years, drove him nuts. He was glad they’d chosen to stay away today; the thought of his neurotic mother hovering over him was more than he could bear. If the breathing tube didn’t suffocate him, Jane Carter surely would.

“How you doin’, Nick?” Kristy asked, when an hour had passed. “Think you’re ready to have that tube gone?”

Nick nodded as vigorously as he could, hoping that would get the point across. His throat itched to be rid of the tube; his lungs were aching to breathe freely.

“Okay,” Kristy smiled. “Let me call Dr. Renck.”

When Dr. Renck came in, they raised the head of Nick’s bed all the way, so that he was sitting upright. “I’m going to ask you to take a deep breath, Nick,” Dr. Renck instructed when she was gloved up and ready, “and when I say to, blow it out as hard as you can, like you’re blowing out birthday candles.”

“Practice for the big 3-0 in another month,” Claire chimed in from the background, flashing Nick an impish grin.

He just pointed at her, narrowing his eyes into a look that said, Won’t be long, and you’ll be thirty too.

Dr. Renck smiled. “Perfect then. So you blow out your candles, and I’ll pull out the tube. It won’t be a nice feeling, but I promise I’ll pull fast.”

Nick nodded; he remembered the feeling of being extubated and wasn’t looking forward to it, especially with broken ribs. But it would be worth it, he reminded himself, once the tube was out.

As the doctor counted to three, Claire offered her arm for him to squeeze, and he sucked in the deepest breath he could get. “Blow,” ordered Dr. Renck, and he blew out with all of his strength, squeezing the pain from his chest into Claire’s forearm. He gagged and choked as the long tube came up his throat, and once it was out, he started coughing, pressing his hands to his chest in a vain attempt to cushion his tender ribcage.

“Doin’ great, Nick,” said Kristy, putting an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. “Just breathe.”

He sucked in the oxygen, and after a minute or so, the urge to gag and cough was gone, and he could breathe more easily. He slumped back against his pillows and took a few deep breaths. Dr. Renck came forward with her stethoscope and listened to his lungs as he inhaled and exhaled. “How are you feeling, Nick?” she asked when she’d taken the stethoscope out of her ears, watching him closely.

Nick was still trying to decide how he felt. There was a dull ache in his chest, and his throat felt scratchy and sore, but he’d certainly felt worse. “Okay,” he rasped, his voice barely audible. It hurt to try and speak.

Dr. Renck nodded. “Good. Don’t try to do much more talking; your throat is irritated from the tube. You’ll probably be hoarse for a few days, but it will get better after that. Some ice chips will help the soreness a little for now. Liane?”

His nurse appeared with a small cup of ice chips, which she handed to Claire. “Some ice cream would be better, right?” Claire teased with a smile, perching on the edge of Nick’s bed. She gently lifted the oxygen mask. “Open up.” Nick opened his mouth, and she placed an ice chip on his tongue. He sucked slowly, savoring the cold relief as it slid down his sore throat.

“When Nick feels ready, he can start with liquids and soft foods,” said the doctor, “but he’ll be on a restricted diet for at least a few days. Your digestive system needs time to adjust to solid food again,” she added, speaking directly to Nick now.

He suppressed a smirk, knowing that this was the subtle way of telling him that after being fed through an IV for ten days, an ice cream sundae would give him diarrhea the likes of which he’d never seen before. But that was okay with him… he didn’t feel like eating anything now, not even ice cream. He still felt slightly queasy from the tube being pulled out, and his throat burned too badly to swallow much anyway.

After awhile, his room cleared out, and he and Claire found themselves alone. He had been waiting days to talk to her, but his throat was too sore to say much. Claire didn’t seem to mind. She fed him another ice chip, and as he took it off her fingertip, she leaned forward and caught his lips with hers. The kiss was brief, but intensified by the chill of the ice and the contrasting heat of her mouth against his. It was a shock to his system, and when she pulled away, replacing the oxygen mask over his mouth, he could only stare at her.

“Sorry,” she said impishly. “I’ve been wanting to do that for days, but there was always a freaking tube in the way.” She winked playfully.

Pulling the mask away from his face again, he smiled. He cleared his throat, wincing at the pain, and, with difficulty, managed to whisper, “You took my breath away.”

“Take my breath away…” she sang, off-key as always.

He cringed behind the mask and shook his head. “Don’t sing.”

Claire grinned widely. “Sorry. One of us had to, and I didn’t think you’d be up to it.”

He opened his mouth to rasp a reply, but she reached out and held the oxygen mask firmly in place. “Don’t. Rest that voice of yours; you know I can talk enough for both of us,” she said good-naturedly. Then, as a mischievous gleam lit up her eyes, she started singing, “Don’t speak… I know what you’re saying… so please stop explaining… don’t tell me ‘cause it hurts…”

Nick’s groan was muffled by the oxygen mask. His ribs twinged, and his throat was on fire, but what hurt more than anything now were his ears.

***

I wanted you to know
That I love the way you laugh
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away…


The next day, life seemed a thousand percent better to Nick. He’d been moved to a private room on a different floor, and as the sun streamed in through the slats of the mini-blinds on his window, made even brighter by their reflection against the snow-covered ground, the cheerful sound of Claire’s laughter bounced off the walls.

“… so I had to call down to the front desk and ask for a couple of gallon-sized Ziploc bags and big rubber bands. Twenty minutes later,” she giggled, “one of the bellboys shows up in his fancy-pants uniform, carrying a whole box of Ziploc and a handful of rubber bands and looking at me like I’m insane. So I somehow manage to get the bags over my hands and hold them on with rubber bands… but then I have to actually take a shower with my big blob hands.”

“Blob hands?” Nick repeated, chuckling hoarsely.

“Well… they seemed kinda squishy and slimy at the time, especially once I got the shower going,” shrugged Claire. “So anyway… I’m trying to squirt shampoo out of one of those teeny little hotel bottles, and the bottle keeps sliding out of my hands, and once I actually do manage to get some shampoo out, it starts running right off the plastic… It was a miracle I managed to get anything on my body at all. So, yeah, until my hands are healed, I’m on, like, the once-every-three-days shower plan.”

“What day is it now?”

Claire grinned. “Day three.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Ew. Don’t come too close,” he joked.

“Aww, c’mon, I don’t smell too bad.” She raised her arm and sniffed her armpit exaggeratedly. “Well… maybe I take that back…”

“Gross, Ren,” Nick rasped, making a face.

She beamed. “Aww, Stumpy, you love me and you know it.”

He couldn’t deny it. He did love her, especially when she was so full of life and laughter. She’d been extra cheerful ever since yesterday, when he’d come off the ventilator. He supposed they had both taken that as a sign that he was finally out of danger and on the mend. His road to recovery wouldn’t necessarily be easy – it never was – but at least he was on his way.

Their fun was interrupted by a knock on his door. They exchanged glances, and Claire’s voice rang out, “Come in!” The door opened, and in came a large man dressed in green scrubs. He was carrying a large, plastic bag, the kind emergency rooms used to hold patients’ clothes and other belongings. In it was something big, long and thin.

“Hi, Mr. Carter. I’m Drew, from the ER,” the nurse introduced himself. “The firefighters from the scene of your accident brought this in last week, and we thought you might like to have it, or at least see it.”

Nick and Claire both watched, curious, as he opened the bag and pulled out what was inside. At first, Nick didn’t even recognize the charred hunk of metal. Then, with a jolt, he realized it was his C-Leg.

The prosthesis’s titanium pylon, strong enough to have supported his weight over billions of steps, was mangled and twisted. Its socket was blackened and misshapen; it looked as if parts of it had actually melted, the heat molding it into an unidentifiable shape. It was hard to believe it had once been a perfect cast of his stump.

So this was what had happened to his leg in the fiery crash, he realized, staring at it in awe. Subconsciously, he had noticed the absence of his prosthesis, but hadn’t yet questioned it. Until today, he hadn’t been able to leave his bed, so there had been no need for it. Now he understood why he hadn’t even seen it in his room.

“Oh my God…” Claire was the first to speak. As she, too, realized what she was looking at, her bandaged hand went to her mouth in shock.

The nurse, Drew, gave a grim smile. “That’s pretty much what we said in the ER. The guys who brought it in said it was completely jammed under the dashboard when they went to recover it from your car. The fire damaged it, obviously, but they think the impact of the crash is what bent it all up in the first place.” He shook his head and added, “I guess you could consider yourself lucky. I mean, if that had been your real leg, the crush injuries would have been massive. Excuse my candor, but… if that had been your real leg, you might have ended up losing it anyway.”

Nick’s stomach turned over at the thought of having to go through the amputation of his leg all over again. But before he could really even wrap his mind around that possibility, Claire shook her head and said, “Forget losing a leg. If that had been your real leg, Nick, you’d be dead right now.”

He turned to look at her, startled by that grim statement.

“You were stuck in a burning car, Nick,” she spoke bluntly. “The only reason I managed to get you out was because I took your leg off. If that had been your actual leg, I never would have been able to pull you out. You would have been wedged in. The flames probably would have killed you before the fire trucks and ambulance got there.”

Drew nodded and added, “Like I said, man… you’re a lucky guy.”

Lucky… lucky to have lost his leg. It seemed ludicrous, and yet, if what they were saying was true, they were right. He was lucky.

His eyes drifted down to the lump made by his stump beneath the covers, a sight he had awoken to and loathed every morning of the last five-and-a-half years of his life. Had the remnants of his severed leg, the stump he hated, really helped save his life? It was an incredible thought, one he wasn’t quite sure how to process yet.

“Do you, um… do you want to hold onto this, or should I have it thrown out?” asked Drew awkwardly, and Nick looked up to see him holding up the mangled prosthesis.

Nick thought the first inclination of any normal person would be to throw the thing out; obviously, it was useless now. But, strangely enough, he felt a lump of emotion rise in his throat as he looked upon the sad remnants of his C-Leg. That robotic leg had been his lifeline; it had literally given him his life back. Without it, he never would have left his house. He would never have walked again, never jogged or danced or played football with the guys. He owed a lot to that hunk of titanium, and deep down, he didn’t want to part with it.

Yet it was Claire who first said, “Keep it.”

He turned his head, and she was looking at him, her eyes blazing with devilishness. “You think?” he croaked.

“Yeah! Hell yeah! Come on, how cool is that for a souvenir? You gotta keep it; it’s awesome and bizarre, and it comes with a good story. You can’t beat that. You can show it to your children someday. And in the meantime, you can use it as a decorative sculpture or something… mount it on your wall; I dunno…”

Nick shook his head, grinning. “You are weird, you know that?” he told her. But secretly, he was pleased.

Drew put the leg back into its bag and stowed it away in the room with them. Before he left, he said to Nick, “Hey, it’s good to see you awake and talking, and… well, breathing. You gave us quite a scare.” His eyes shifted to Claire, and when Nick looked at her, he found her gazing back at the nurse, a crooked smile on her face.

“I don’t think I got a chance to thank you,” she told him, “for everything you did. For not giving up. So thank you… thank you so much.”

“Thanks,” Nick echoed, but the conversation had left him confused. He had no idea what he was thanking this person for.

When Drew left his room, he turned to Claire and asked, “Did he work on me in the ER or something?”

“Work on you??” she repeated, smiling the same, lopsided smile, and he got the impression that his question had been naïve. “Nick, that man did CPR on you for at least half an hour. He kept you alive, until they could get your heart beating again.”

“What??” Nick’s reaction was stunned disbelief. At first, he didn’t think he’d understood her correctly; despite all the accounts of the accident he had heard, no one had told him this. “My heart stopped beating?”

At Claire’s grim nod, his mouth fell open, his mind going into warp speed. His heart had stopped. Never before had he come so close to death, and to think, he hadn’t even known. He hadn’t been conscious, and thus, had had no reason to be frightened, but now, the knowledge was disturbing.

“They told me it stopped in the ambulance, on your way here. When I came into the room, they had already been doing CPR for an hour. They were about to stop, but they kept going for me… so that I could have a chance to say goodbye…” Her voice shook on the last few words, and he looked up at her to find tears sparkling in the corners of her eyes.

Something about the sadness of those blue eyes jolted his memory, and all of a sudden, in his own mind’s eye, Nick saw her reaching up to him from the dark depths of the sea, beckoning to him and calling his name.

“You were in the room?” he asked faintly, trying to sort through this new revelation, and Claire nodded wordlessly. “You were talking to me,” he added, and this time, it was not a question. “You said…” Looking down, he thought back to the dreamlike picture in his mind. “You said not to leave you. Something like, you needed me, you couldn’t live without me. And you told me you loved me.”

He lifted his head and found Claire staring at him, her eyes round and huge. Her mouth fell open, but it took a few seconds for her to speak. “How… how did you know that?” she whispered finally.

His eyes locked with hers. “I heard you.”

She didn’t speak. Her hand moved to cover her mouth, and the tears that had filled her eyes began to trickle out. As they streamed silently down her cheeks, Nick recounted, “It was like a dream… I was in the water, in the ocean, and I was drowning. I kept trying to make it to the surface, and I was almost there, but then I heard your voice. I… I looked down, and you were there… floating in the water, below me. Only you weren’t drowning. You were just hovering there, like a… a mermaid or something, and you were reaching up to me. I didn’t want to go back to you at first, ‘cause I knew I would drown. But you were calling to me… I could hear you calling to me… and you sounded so desperate, I had to swim back. So I let myself sink… and you grabbed my hand… and then…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “That’s all I remember. I’d forgotten it until now.”

Claire’s face was a mess of tears. “Oh god… Nick…” she managed to say, her voice thick with emotion, and before he knew it, she had risen from her chair and climbed onto the bed beside him, moving close to his side. Careful not to jostle him, she hugged him around the neck and buried her face in his shoulder, and there she cried, letting out her emotion until he could feel the moisture of her tears seeping through his hospital gown.

“Shh… it’s okay,” he whispered, running his hand up and down her back, not knowing what else to do or say or think. He was in an emotional whirlwind himself, completely blown away by what he’d learned. “I’m okay now,” he assured her. “You saved me, Claire. I heard you, and you saved me.”


Because I’m broken when I’m lonesome
And I don’t feel right when you’re gone away…


***

By the next morning, Nick was ready to try eating actual food again. Of course, in typical hospital fashion, they started him out on jell-o.

Claire arrived by herself early that morning, just in time for the orderly to bring his breakfast tray. As the orderly set the tray out on Nick’s bedside table, she bent and kissed his cheek, murmuring her good morning into his ear in a way that only could have been more sensual if she’d said it from beneath the covers of his bed.

As it was, Nick was the only one in a bed, and he was starting to get restless.

“I can’t wait to get out of here,” he muttered, swinging the moveable table that held his breakfast closer to him.

“Any idea when that will be?” Claire asked. “I mean, has Dr. Renck said anything about discharging you?”

Nick shrugged. “Not yet. Hopefully it’ll be soon. I am getting better and all…” That was the truth; he felt loads better than he had in the ICU. His ribs were still painful, but at least it was easier to breathe. He was still on oxygen, but had traded the obtrusive mask for a thin nasal canula. And yesterday afternoon, he had even gotten out of bed and hobbled a lap around the room with the help of a walker. It had been an exhausting and painful feat, but maybe today, after another day’s rest and recovery, he would be able to try the hallway. He was surprised to find that he actually looked forward to the challenge.

The revelation of his near-death experience had given him a fresh outlook on life, and that morning, he had awoken in better spirits than ever. He was going to get through this, just as Claire had been telling him, and when it was over, he would go on with his life… with her in it. He wasn’t sure what the future held for their relationship, but never had it been more clear to him how much he loved her. She was his one… his soul mate… and someday, when the time was right, he was going to make her his wife. He was sure of it this time, and if she wasn’t, then somehow, he was going to make her see that they were meant to be together.

But the hospital didn’t seem the best place to discuss their relationship, and so he held off, trying to concentrate on the more immediate future and the task of healing.

“You’re getting lots better,” Claire agreed with him cheerfully, and she perched on the edge of his bed as reached to uncover his breakfast tray. Sure enough, there was a bowl of red jell-o jiggling up at him.

He groaned. “It’s not even green jell-o. Why couldn’t it be green?”

Claire laughed. “What, you don’t like cherry? Who doesn’t like cherry? Besides, red is way more romantic.”

“Romantic?” He wrinkled his nose. “Who said anything about being romantic? We’re in a hospital. And it’s… jell-o.”

“Hey, Stumpy, with us… even a hospital can be romantic. Where were we when you told me you loved me for the first time, huh?”

Nick chuckled, wincing as the motion jarred his ribs. She had him there. “A hospital,” he admitted grudgingly.

“See?” She beamed. But then her smile faded, and her face turned serious. “Listen… before you dig into that jell-o, I want to tell you something. I’ve said it before, but… I want to say it again, now, and I want you to know that I really mean it. I really, truly do.”

He gazed at her, mystified by this preface. “Okay…” he said slowly. “So… say it. What is it?”

“I love you.”

That was all she said, and his first instinct was to laugh. Why all the build up? She’d been saying that to him for two weeks.

“Well, I love you too,” he replied.

He expected her to smile, but instead, she gave him a long and penetrating look. “Do you really?” she asked. “I mean, after everything I’ve put you through, all the pain and the baggage I’ve caused you, do you really still love me? Enough to want to be with me again?”

Nick frowned, confused by her questions. Why would she ask such a thing? Didn’t she know? “Yeah,” he said emphatically. “Of course I do. I always have. I never stopped loving you, Claire; I thought you knew that.”

“But… with our break-up and then Jamie and all of that…”

“I still love you,” Nick interrupted her. “I loved you even through all of that. Can’t say I was always happy with you…” He paused to shoot her an impish smirk. “… but I always loved you.”

Finally, she smiled, and he could see relief in her eyes. “I always loved you too,” she said, a wistful expression softening her features. “I don’t know if I was in denial or just kidding myself, but after I left you, and even when I was with Jamie, I always knew in the back of my mind that I still loved you. A part of me always regretted leaving you. I just… I would never let myself go back to you.” She frowned, looking away. “I guess I was being stubborn… but I just kept thinking that we had broken up for a reason, that it never would have worked out. Our lives were too different.”

Nick nodded, but he wondered what she was getting at. Why were they having this conversation again, about why they’d broken up? He didn’t want to hear about that. He wanted to focus on their future, not the failures in their past.

“But now I know that it doesn’t matter. It never mattered,” she stressed, looking him directly in the eye again. Her next words came pouring out in a rush that he didn’t dare interrupt. “When you love someone, you make it work. You compromise; you sacrifice if you have to. That’s what love is all about… two lives, two souls, merging into one. My life totally changed when I married Jamie… and even though it didn’t work out, I don’t regret everything about it. I wouldn’t have Caitlin and Delaine without him. My life has changed because of them. And I’ve changed too. I’m different now; I’m not the same person I was when I was with you. I’m older now, and wiser. Much wiser. And less selfish. And I think that, if we were to try it again now, we could make it work this time.”

Nick nodded again, his heartbeat accelerating. “I want us to try.”

She smiled, and a strange look glossed over her eyes. “Good.”

A moment passed between them, in which neither of them spoke. Then Claire seemed to snap out of it and said, “You better eat that jell-o now.”

Nick blinked, shrugged, and picked up his spoon. There was something going on with her, he thought as he dug in. She was acting weird. But it was too early to try and figure out what it could be now. He’d work on that later, once he had some brain food in him. Yeah… jell-o… the breakfast of champions.

It may not have been his favorite, but the first bite of gelatin was surprisingly good – sweet on his tongue, cool and soothing as it slid down his sore throat. Eager for more, he plunged his spoon back into the bowl. It sank easily through the red jell-o, but this time, it hit something hard, something solid, in the center of the bowl. His brow furrowing in bewilderment, he leaned forward, tipping the bowl towards him.

There was something stuck in the middle of his jell-o. It was dark and squarish, but through the dark red gelatin, he couldn’t tell what it was. It didn’t look like a cockroach or anything, but… what could it be?

“There’s something in my jell-o,” he said flatly to Claire, tipping the bowl to show her.

“Hm… weird. You better dig it out and find out what it is before you eat the rest.”

“Yeah…” He rammed his spoon back into the bowl, using it like a jackhammer to break the smooth gelatin up into little, jiggly bits. He still couldn’t tell what the unidentified foreign object in his breakfast was, but when he got it on his spoon and lifted it up for closer inspection, he realized it was a piece of cereal. A piece of Cracklin’ Oat Bran, the cereal that looked like a square-shaped ring. The cereal that…

He froze, the memory hitting him like a pillow to the face.


She gasped and burst out laughing. “Nick!” she cried breathlessly, laughing uncontrollably. Nick only smiled sheepishly and admired his own creativity. He’d sliced an egg three-quarters of the way through its middle, hollowed out the powdery yellow-gray yolk, and in its place, set a single piece of Cracklin’ Oat Bran. As her laughter died, Claire plucked the square-shaped cereal loop out of its egg encasement and held it up. It sort of resembled a ring, only thick and square-ish… and made of bran… But she got the point. Smiling, she set down the bottom of the egg “box” and slipped the cereal onto the ring finger of her left hand. It only went halfway before getting stuck, and she giggled again.

“Sorry,” Nick said, offering her a shrug.

“No… no, it’s… it’s perfect,” she replied, grinning over at him. “You are so cute!”

He flashed her a toothy Crest smile. “Nah, I’m just cheesy. I wanted you to have a ring.”

“And now I do. And what a beautiful, crackling, oat-branny ring it is.” She held her left hand up and turned it this way and that, as if the ring were sparkling in the light.


Slowly, Nick turned his head to stare at Claire, as he was met with understanding.

She had been watching him carefully, and now her cheeks were pink, and her bottom lip, red from her chewing on it, quivered ever so slightly. Yet her blue eyes shone with unwavering intensity. “That night, Nick,” she said shakily, “when I almost lost you… I realized again how short life is. How fragile. We’ve both been given second chances. We can’t afford to waste them.”

Nick nodded in agreement, but he couldn’t speak; he had no words. He let her keep talking, just waiting to hear what she would say. Did this mean what he thought it might mean?

“I know I said I wanted to take things slow… but I don’t anymore. I know what I want now… and that’s you, Nick. I love you, and you love me, so why waste our time? Let’s just… go for it. Carpe diem. Seize the day. Marry me, Stumpy.”

Nick practically choked, an unexpected burst of laughter exploding from his chest. His ribs seared, but this time, he didn’t to feel the pain. “I’m sorry… what did you say?” he asked in disbelief. “Did you just say-”

“I said marry me.”

He stared, his heart thudding against those fragile ribs. “Are you serious? You’re… for real?” He didn’t want to find out this was all just her idea of a joke, yet somehow, deep down, he knew it wasn’t. He knew this was just her, just Claire, taking it upon herself to be spontaneous, seize the day, as she said, and propose to him.

“I am totally for real, Nick. I want to marry you. Will you marry me?” She raised her eyebrows, looking uncertain for a moment, as if she actually thought he might say no.

Again, Nick laughed, laughed at the mere thought of turning her down. “Claire…” he said, looking her in the eyes, seeing her as he had in the moment he’d first popped the question to her. No, not a question. Just a “marry me.” Exactly as she’d said it to him.

A grin split across his face, and his answer tumbled out effortlessly. “Hell yeah, I’ll marry you, Ren.”

Now it was her turn to laugh. The sound filled him with warmth, soothing his aching chest. She leaned forward to kiss him deeply, though the kiss was broken by her giggling. As she pulled back from him, she reached into the pocket of her jeans and emerged with a long braid of yellow and red yarn. “This goes with your engagement ring,” she giggled, holding up the long yarn chain.

He had one identical to it back in Florida, one that held his own piece of cereal. She had made it for him, after braiding herself a chain to hold the cereal “ring” he’d first given her.

Now his eyes dropped to the piece of cereal still sitting in the bottom of his spoon, and just as he started to wonder, before he could even begin to ask, Claire said, “Yes, it’s the same one. It’s the one you gave me.”

Nick’s eyes returned to her face in surprise, stunned that she had kept it, that she had saved such a stupid token all these years, even after their engagement had fallen apart, even while she’d been married to Jamie. If there was no other proof of her lasting love for him, that was it.

“It’s your turn to wear it now,” she said. “At least until we get back to Florida.” And she wiped the bits of red jell-o off the piece of cereal, strung it onto the braid of yarn, and tied the necklace together around his neck. It was a sign of his love for her that he didn’t protest, just slipped the cereal pendant underneath the neck of his hospital gown and let it rest against his chest, right next to his heart.

“I love you,” Claire whispered, her lips caressing his neck. “I can’t wait to be your bride. I don’t want to wait.”

His arms came around her, and he gingerly pulled her close, ignoring the pressure on his ribs. It was a good kind of pressure, holding her near him. “I can’t wait to make you my bride,” he whispered back; then, unable to resist, he added a teasing, “finally.”

She grinned and bobbed her head up and down. “Yeah… finally.”


The worst is over now
And we can breathe again
I wanna hold you high
You steal my pain away

There’s so much left to learn
And no one left to fight
I wanna hold you high
And steal your pain

‘Cause I’m broken when I’m open
And I don’t feel like I am strong enough
‘Cause I’m broken when I’m lonesome
And I don’t feel right when you’re gone away

- “Broken” by Seether


***