One Heart

Nathalie’s POV

“Hey…hey! Look! Did you see that?”

What? Who is that?

“See what?”

And that?

“Her eyes! They moved!” Something moved that sounded like a chair scraping across the floor, followed shortly with the same voice adding, “See? They moved again!”

“Are you sure?” The other voice seemed doubtful in contrast to the optimism in the other.

“Yes I’m sure!” They were excited, that’s for sure. But over someone opening their eyes? What kind of weird ass dream am I having? “Zack, could you go get the doctor? Thanks.”

Zacky is in the dream? That must mean the other voice is Brian’s. But why does he want to get the doctor and why can’t I seem to open my eyes? They feel so heavy…

The same sound happened again before a door opened and closed, leaving the room silent. Something else then took hold of my hand, cupping it gently. “Nat?” The voice whispered to me softly, sounding like they felt if they talked louder, it would break me. “Nat, it is Brian. If you can hear me, squeeze my hand.”

I’m trying… Why can’t I move my hand? I can hear you Brian.

His voice dropped. “You don’t even have to squeeze it, just… just open your eyes okay?”

Sorry, I can’t… they’re too heavy.

His voice was pleading with me now. “I just want to see you look at me again.” He sniffed; it sounded like he was crying. “I’m sorry I shouted at you at the club. I didn’t mean it. If only I hadn’t done that… maybe then you wouldn’t be in hospital right now.”

That would explain why Zacky is getting a doctor. Why won’t my eyes open?!

“I miss you.”

This is pissing me off now. Has someone played a prank on me and super-glued them or something?

“I need you.”

Come on, open!

“I love you.”

FUCKING OPEN!

“Brian?” With some effort I managed to finally get my eyes to open, even if it was only just a small crack that only gave me basic blurred outlines of things, one such being the mess of colours on my left that had spoken earlier. Naturally, the first question I asked followed suit of pretty much anyone else’s who might have been in my position. “Where am I?”

“You’re in hospital love,” he murmured, lightly squeezing my hand. I couldn’t make out his expression but from the tone of his voice I could imagine the sorrow replacing the normal warmth in his eyes, the minimal smile as he tried to fight away the frown. “You had an accident.”

An accident…?

Confusion was my reply so he continued to explain. “When you were driving back home from the club you lost control of the car… went straight through a red light and into the side of a truck.”

“A truck?” It seemed to trigger something in my memory as I remembered driving home; one instant everything was fine then a fierce pain took over… I squeezed my eyes shut to try and blot out my fractured recollection. “Were… were the people in the truck alright?”

“He was fine, a bit shaken up, but fine. You on the other hand…” I felt him shift closer to the bed, the light brush of his hand caressing my cheek causing my eyes to reopen. “I could barely recognise you,” he whispered. “Your face was all bruised and you were bleeding a lot… They wouldn’t even tell me if you would make it or not. I was really worried I would lose you.”

I smiled; only then just realising of the weird thing resting on my top lip and poking my nose. I reached up to take it out, but Brian caught me. “The doctors put that there to help you Nat.”

With each new blink something else became sharper and more defined until finally, my eyesight fully returned. The man next to me looked nothing like the Brian I knew- his clothes looked as if he hadn’t bother to change in a long time, or at least that he had slept in them, but his face looked as if he hadn’t got any sleep in a long time if the dark rings around his eyes were anything to go by. He hadn’t even bothered to do his hair- something he did almost religiously whenever he was anywhere that wasn’t home, or wearing a hat.

“Brian-” I tried to reach out to him but allowed my arm to fall back down onto the bed when a doubtful looking Zacky walked back in with a doctor following shortly after. This look soon changed to surprise as he realised that his best friend wasn’t lying about earlier. However he had no time to voice this as the doctor soon took over and began to examine me, first shining a torch in my eyes- which was fucking annoying; I’ll have you know- before checking the numbers on the beeping machine beside the bed.

“Mrs. Haner, how are you feeling?” He stood at the end of my bed, glancing between the clipboard in his hands and me. “You had a nasty accident. It seems that while you were driving home you experienced a contraction and momentarily lost control of your car resulting in a collision with a truck. You lost a lot of blood and we had to perform quite a few transfusions in order to replace it.”

“Transfusions…?”

“From both the accident and the emergency caesarean we had to perform in direct conjunction with your underlying anaemia caused you to lose a large amount of blood, which we had to replace rather quickly in order to aid your survival.”

None of that medical crap really sunk in as he was explaining it but one word did seem to stick out, causing my maternal instincts to kick into overdrive and the machine next to me to parallel this with an increase in beeps.

“Caesarean? You took my baby from me?” I sat up suddenly, quickly going hysterical. “Where is he? What have you done to him?” Before I could even begin to even try and think rationally tears were streaming done my face. “He died in the accident didn’t he? It’s all my fault, all because I drove home wasn’t it? All because of me and now he won’t-”

“Your son is doing fine,” he quickly interrupted, freezing the tears in the tracks.

I sniffed and allowed my head to fall back onto the pillow. “He’s…he’s fine? Where is he?”

“He’s sleeping down in the nursery right now,” Zacky replied with a smile. “Chloe is watching over him, don’t you worry.”

“Chloe’s with him?”

He nodded. “For the last three days he has not yet had one second when someone was not looking over him.”

“Can I see him?” I asked hopefully, my heart yearning for the child which had opened his eyes to everyone except me.

“Of course, I’ll have a nurse bring him to your room,” the doctor replied. “Or your husband can do it. He has decided to wait until you were awake to name him.”

I rolled my head to the side to look at Brian. “You wanted to wait?”

“I couldn’t make one of the most important decisions without you.” He reached over and pressed his lips to my forehead. “I’ll go get him. He’s absolutely perfect; he even has your blue eyes.”

“But other than that, he is pretty much a mini-Syn,” Zacky added. “I feel sorry for your kid. Didn’t get to ride out life on his mum’s good looks like Rae did.”

Brian scowled, shoving his friend in the shoulder as he walked over to the door, releasing my hand. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Wait.” He stopped in the doorway after letting the doctor through first, turning back to look at me. “I love you.”

He smiled. “I love you too.”