Beside You

She looked like a broken doll. So pale and fragile as porcelain, a million machines surrounding her, even more tubes going to and coming from her body. Around her head there was a giant white bandage, you could already tell that some hair was missing. Her leg was also bandaged up, covered by a cast, the rest of her body was hidden under the sheet.

They weren’t allowed to go inside, only stare at her through the big window. Nurses checked on her regularly, but nothing changed. Maddie was in a coma and no one knew when she was going to wake up. It could be hours, days, weeks, months, years. There was a possibility she might never wake up, but that was not something anyone was thinking about. Madison Staal was a fighter and she would come through. It was only a matter of time.

.

.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
.

.

“AH! Oh my God, I hate you, Eric!” Madison screeched. In a matter of seconds she and Eric, who’d slung her over his shoulder, were covered from head to toe with water that came from a hose that Jared was holding with a giant grin on his face. It was in the middle of summer and the brothers agreed that their sister needed some cooling down.

When Eric finally let her down, she gave the two dark looks and stomped off into the house to get changed. She really wasn’t in the position to get mad though, because it was only payback for the pranks she’d pulled on them lately.

“What happened to you?” Henry asked with a chuckle, especially when his dripping wet daughter only gave him a look and stomped upstairs into her room.

“Are they ever going to stop, Dad?” Madison asked just when she had reached the top of the stairs.

“Probably not, I’m sorry, baby girl,” Henry shook his head, his 13 year old daughter let out a huff that was worthy of the teenager she now was. Sometimes he was worried that four older brothers were a little too much to take for his little girl, but usually she was at an even match with the boys.
.

.
“Maddie?”

“Go away,” Madison grumbled, rolling over and away from her youngest older brother.

“Oh, come on, don’t be like that,” he sighed and contemplated inflicting a tickle attack on her, but didn’t because he needed her not to be grumpy with him, too. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“What,” she spoke into her pillow, but he could tell she was interested.

“Well, the weather’s supposed to be good tonight and tomorrow, so I thought we could get out the tent and camp?”

Camping was something they’d done almost every year so far and something that Madison really enjoyed, too. The last few years, with everyone so busy with hockey and gone all the time, the most that they had done was to put up the tent in the backyard and sleep outside for a few days and that was what Jared was aiming at this time, too.

“Really?” She rolled over and looked at him hopefully. Everyone had noticed that Madison was a teenager in puberty now and so far this summer she hadn’t gotten along as well with her brothers as she used to. You never knew when she could take a joke or when she would flip out at the slightest chirp. Eric and Marc didn’t live at home anymore, so it was easy for them to avoid hanging out too much with the moody teen, but it was harder for Jordan and Jared. There had been a lot of fights with the older of the two so far and even Jared had tried to steer clear of his sister a little.

“Sure,” he grinned at her and was relieved when his sister grinned back at him happily. He held out his hand for her and helped her off the bed.

“You get the tent from the attic, I’ll get the sleeping bags and food,” Maddie decided and the two scurried off to prepare their camp site.

.

.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
.

.

After Linda and Henry had gone in to see Maddie for a few minutes each, Eric was the next one to go. They were only allowed in one by one and only for a few minutes at a time, but at least they were allowed to go in at all.

Madison’s hand was cold in Eric’s when he picked it up. She always had cold hands (and feet, that she liked to stick under her unsuspecting victim’s thigh when they were watching TV), but this was a different kind of cold. Her hand wasn’t only cold, it was also lifeless in his. Eric let out a deep sigh.

“Hi, baby girl,” he said quietly, watching her motionless face. The doctor’s had said it might help if they talked to her, but it would be a while until she woke up from the coma. It would take as long as her body needed to heal itself, they’d said, so no one knew how long exactly it was going to be until Madison opened her brown eyes again. Eric sure hoped it would be soon.

None of the Staals were attending the All Star weekend obviously. It was a shame, Eric was the hometown captain, but everyone understood that right now this was where he needed to be. The brothers’ phones were filled with messages from their teammates and friends, offering support and wishing Maddie a quick and full recovery. Three NHL teams were involved with this and the only Staal girl had made friends with a lot of teammates, WAGs and other family members. Everyone was worried.

“I hope you know that we’re not going to let you on top of a horse after this,” Eric blurted and then shook his head, knowing that would never happen. If Maddie wanted to ride after this, she would, no matter what they said. “You really scared us, Mads, everyone’s so worried about you.” He let out another deep sigh and lightly kissed her knuckles. There was no answer, just like he knew there wouldn’t be.

“I love you, Madison, please wake up soon,” he told her when he got up to leave and kissed what little of her forehead the bandages revealed.

.

.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
.

.

“Eric.”

It was in the middle of the night and Eric was very disgruntled to have his precious sleep disturbed. He had just fallen asleep, at least it felt like that. Whoever was trying to wake him, he just wanted them to go away, which he told them, too.

“Go away,” he grumbled and pushed his face into the pillow.

“Please, Eric,” the voice pleaded and now, a little more awake, he could tell it was his little sister.

“Mads, go back to bed,” he told her tiredly.

“I can’t sleep,” she said in a small voice. “I had a bad dream, can I sleep here?”

Eric pushed out a deep sigh, but he knew he couldn’t reject his sister’s request, so he only scooted over and held up the sheets. Maddie was quick to climb into his bed and curled up next to him.

“Thank you,” she whispered, her missing front teeth leaving her with a bit of a lisp.

“It’s okay,” Eric said quietly and rubbed her back a little bit until she fell asleep again. Madison could be quite the handful during day time, but she rarely disturbed anyone in the night, so she must have been really scared after that bad dream. It was probably Marc’s fault for telling a scary story earlier.

.
The next morning Maddie and Eric woke up early, even before it was time to get up to help out on the sod farm.

“Look, this one’s really loose, too,” Maddie told her oldest brother and showed him the tooth she would most likely find another weird technique to lose soon. The last one Jared had helped to pull by tying a piece of string around it and running away with the end of it. “Then I’m gonna get another dollar from the tooth fairy.”

Eric let out a small laugh, of course the dollar was the most important part of this to Maddie. She did look pretty adorable with all her missing teeth though, even he had to admit that.

“Abby’s got a loose tooth, too, but I don’t think it’ll come out soon, it doesn’t feel right yet,” Maddie shrugged and closed her mouth. “Do you have any?”

“No,” Eric laughed. “I already lost all my teeth, now I have the permanent ones you’ll grow in a little bit.”

“Too bad, I think you’d look funny with a missing tooth,” she thought aloud and Eric just continued to laugh, knowing there was a possibility she’d get to see that because hockey players frequently lost teeth.

“There you are!” Linda suddenly stood in the door, a relieved smile on her face. At the same time as making sure that her sons were up to help their father on the sod farm, she always checked on Maddie as well, only to find the little girl’s bed empty this morning.

“Hi, Mommy,” Madison smiled brightly and waved, making her mother and brother laugh.

“She had a bad dream,” Eric told his Mom and climbed over his sister to get out of bed. “You gonna stay here?” he asked with raised eyebrows when the girl pulled the sheets up to her chin and snuggled into his pillow the moment he left the bed.

“Uh huh,” Maddie hummed and closed her eyes. Eric snorted, everyone else was up and ready to go to work but little princess Maddie would catch another nap before getting up, that was so her.

.

.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
.

.

One by one every family member, including grand parents and a few aunts, uncles and cousins, had come to sit with their little princess for a few minutes. If Madison had been awake, she would have loved to have all her loved ones around her like this, but it rings true that tragedies bring everyone together.

“I’m kinda mad at you, you know,” Abby pretended to pout when she had her minutes with her best friend. “Now we’re not going to have your kick-ass birthday party! That’s just not right!”

January 29th was going to be a very sad, very hard day for everyone involved. Abby remembered well how they had planned everything together the past months and now Madison wasn’t even going to be awake to have the party. It just wasn’t fair.

“I’m really scared,” Abby whispered then, no longer able to keep her emotions in check. “It was the scariest thing to see you fall and now you’re like this and I’m scared things won’t ever be the same, but they have to be! I can’t lose you! You have to wake up and be just fine and make fun of us for being so silly!” A few tears rolled down the teenager’s cheeks as she held her best friend’s hand tightly in hers.

“I almost killed Jordan when he got here. I don’t really remember what I said, but Marc says I basically cursed him out...” Abby pursed her lips, completely sure that if Maddie had been awake, she would have laughed. “But he deserved it. No one says something like that to my best friend and lives to tell about it. I wish I had punched him and given him a shiner, that would have been awesome. Go back to Pittsburgh, the guys ask where he got the shiner and he has to admit a girl hit him like that. They’d have a ball.”

Abby drew in a deep breath. “You better wake up soon, missy, it’s going to be boring without you. The only good thing is that I’m excused from school, so I don’t have to write the exams right now. But that doesn’t mean you won’t have to write them eventually, Abigail. Stupid Mrs. Maurer. Like I give a shit about the exams right now.”

A small knock on the door signaled the end of her time. “I miss you, Mads. I hope you wake up really, really soon and that you’re going to be just fine.” Abby stood up and leaned over to kiss Maddie’s temple. “I love you.”