Can't Let You Float Away

I shut my eyes gently against the bright lights in the hospital room. This had to be the third migraine in the two days we had been here. My head felt as if someone had taken a bag of cotton balls and inserted them below my sinuses. The phone buzzing on the table caused the pulse in my forehead to begin and I groaned.

"Hello?" Alex answers, grimacing at me, "Yeah, Cass, she's right here. She isn't feeling up to -"

I extend my hand and Alex points to his forehead, indicating that I shouldn't be talking. I shake my head slightly, mustering up all my strength not to scream and take the phone. "Hey, what's up?"

"Just wondering how the little guy is doing." Her voice is loud and I pull my legs further into me.

"He's doing great. Dr. Rose has been in here already this morning. She says that he isn't getting worse and from what she can tell, we were just being precautious parents."

"How much longer?"

I try to remember what Dr. Rose had said, but I was so tired, so gone at that point in the morning that it was hard hearing her and understanding. "One day?" Alex nods. "One day. Tomorrow evening and we're clear."

"That's good! Two of us have come out clean now!" I can hear Delilah in the background, yelling. "Oh God, I have to go, Jamie. Delilah, Rian is watching her and well - I'll call soon."

With a click and without a goodbye to Liam, Cassadee is gone and the silence of the room has returned. So has the shiver I developed last night. Alex hands me his jacket and gives me a concerned stare.

"I'm fine." I smile, trying my best to actually believe it.

Alex rolls his eyes. "You look like you're going to vomit."

"Well at least it doesn't look like I'm going to sneeze." I retort.

He picks Liam up, ignoring my question, and wipes his nose with a paper towel. Liam fidgets, crying and throwing himself around the bed until Alex gives in, letting the snot run down Liam's nose. I'm too tired to scold Liam into holding still and apparently so is Alex. He lays down next to Liam, turning the television on, flickering through the channels until he gets to the news.

"The epidemic is insane. We've never actually seen something like this." A bald man with a full mustache tells the camera.

"Turn it off." I groan.

"We think we're getting somewhere with an antivirus, and then something happens, a mutation, and everyone is right back to square one." He looks at his shoes as if conversing with them, then back to the camera. "All we can do now is stop people from going to work, parks, schools. Stop people from leaving their homes all together if they can help it."

"Alex -" I warn.

"Isn't that excessive?" The reporter asks.

Mustache man suddenly creases his eyebrows as if the question takes a moment to sink in. "Isn't the fact that 73% of the world's population is expected to be infected by the end of the month a little excessive?"

"Damn it, Alex. Turn that off!" I raise my voice, catching both Liam and Alex's attention. Liam juts out his lower lip.

Alex does as he's told and opens his eyes wide at me before picking up Liam and leaving the room, mumbling about finding a vending machine. I take the opportunity to plant myself in the bed, feeling the light cushions beneath my head, and wrapping another blanket around my body. I couldn't tell if the lump that had been in the back of my throat was because I wanted to cry all the time or if it was because migraines made me ache everywhere. I shiver again and pull the sheet over my head, making the lighting somewhat less glaring before dozing off into a sound sleep.

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I wake up in a cold sweat, unable to recall my dreams. It wasn't my choice to wake up, but Alex was yelling about something and my head was pounding so bad that I had to yell back. No sound comes out, just shaking and shut eyes and someone's hand grabbing me, holding me down.

"Jamie! Holy fucking shit. Jamie, don't fucking do this! Liam," his voice is shaking suddenly, "Liam, buddy, go... go sit. Sit down. Jamie!"

I wanted to open my eyes. I wanted to tell Alex I was fine. I wanted to wake up from the nightmare. I wanted Alex to shake me until I did wake up. I wanted so badly not to believe in this.

"What happened?!" Someone new is speaking.

"I... I don't know! I left for maybe ten minutes! I swear it wasn't this bad! Oh my god, please just tell me what this is!"

"We need staff now! Good God." The light is shooting into my eyes again and all I can see is white. The voices feel blurred, becoming noises, instead of languages. I feel like an infant as things fade away.

I try so hard to pull myself back. I reach for Alex, but I can't move. I can't even curl my fingers, can't even feel the pressure of my ring on my hand. I was so lost and the only thing keeping me from floating into that white abyss was Alex's voice, screaming at me and then hurrying back to Liam.

Hold onto Alex. Let him anchor you. Anchor me. Anchor me. Anchor me as I drown out at sea.

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-Alex's POV-

The shaking hadn't stopped. Jamie, of course, had stopped shaking. It was just me now. My hand trembled in Liam's and I stared at the clock on the wall, the second hand unable to stop in its course, no matter how much I wished it would.

"You hurt?" Liam asks, pointing to my hand.

I smile at him the best I can, give up, and decide to kiss the top of his head instead. "No, daddy is okay."

Liam is quiet, swinging his legs off the chair. "Mommy hurt?"

My breath catches in my throat. I clear it with a cough. "Mommy will be okay. She's just... she has... she's got a cold."

Liam puts his head against my arm and shut my eyes, letting the guilt flood in again. Damn it, where was Jack? I had called twenty minutes ago and he said he was in the car. I had to see Jamie. I had to talk to a doctor. I had to have some closure, some hope that this wasn't what it seemed to be.

Right on cue, Jack opens the door. He is out of breath and Liam is off the chair and on Jack's leg in a matter of seconds. My best friend, with his skunk hair and his stupid pants sagging, holding a two year old in his arms and looking an awful lot like he could be a good dad someday. It frightened me sometimes, to say the least. And then I wondered how terrified Jack must be when he thinks the same of me.

"She awake?"

I shrug. "No one has been up here to tell me anything. Jack, it was... it was bad. I've never seen anything like it."

The quiet between us is rare. It's awkward and filling the room. We both know what this could be. And we both know the odds are not in our favor this time around.

"Go check on her. Liam and I will stay here , play with some blocks, maybe plow threw syringes." I shoot him a look and he gives me a half smile.

"Thanks, Jack." I finally manage, lingering in the doorway.

"You'd do the same for me." He adds, giving me a wave, a sign to get going.

I nod and run down the hallway toward the elevator. I needed to get to the lobby with the receptionist. I needed to ask her where they were taking a T-13 patients and whether or not Jamie Lane was occupying a bed on that floor. My sneakers pad against the tile and I nearly slip twice, but I carry on. It must be years before the elevator blinks my number, opening its great metallic doors and revealing a large circular desk.

"Hi." I stumble over words, eager to be done with this already, to have an answer.

The receptionist is older. I can't tell if her hair is blonde or white. "Hi there, can I help you?"

"Jamie Lane. I need to know about Jamie Lane." I watch as she types something into her computer, then glances back at me.

"Brother?" She looks skeptically at me and I wonder if a picture of Jamie has been pulled up on her screen. In which case, I couldn't say brother. There was no way we would pass for it.

I quickly try to remember every hospital movie I'd ever seen. Were fiances allowed in the room? Were they considered immediate enough or was there just a few months in the way of that word? I take a deep breath.

"She might be under Jamie Gaskarth, if you can't find her. Lane is her maiden name. I'm her husband. We were just married last week and I don't know if the paperwork has gone through and whatnot." Years of dealing with the music industry had prepared me to lie under any circumstance and I was caught off guard by how convincing I sounded.

"No, she's under Lane." The receptionist continues to stare at me. "Mr. Gaskarth, do you have any idea of why she's admitted?"

"I have... I have a feeling." I choke back my worst fears. "Just please tell me the room. I don't care if I get sick or if I have to wear a bubble suit or if I have to be given 37 shots before being on the floor. I just need to see her."

"Room 211." She hands me a slip of paper, pink with a red stamp of numbers across it. "Good luck."

I crumple the paper into my pocket, my proof that I was admitted to the forbidden floor. My feet are carrying me again, up stairs because the elevator is too slow. My heart is hammering. Sweat rolls down my neck. But none of it is from exhaustion.I realize it all comes straight from the purity of terror as I find myself in a hallway, deadly silent with bags over doors.

I count the odd numbers to my right. 201. 203. 205. 207. 209. 211. I shut my eyes, slipping beneath the bag and turning the knob, preparing to see her as I had just an hour again, withering in pain in the bed, shaking with her eyes behind her head, her teeth locked in position. I do something I hadn't done almost my entire life. I pray as the door knob slips and falls open.

I open my eyes and breathe, finally, as she comes into sight. She looks just like she does when i find her after a long day. He hair is a mess around her face and her cheeks are flushed. She lays so still that you can see her chest rise and fall with her lungs. For a moment, I have to restrain myself from wrapping her in my arms, like I do before bed. I walk closer, carefully pressing my lips to her cheek, cold as ice. As I pull my face up from hers, I see it. Scrawled across a note taped to a monitor. What little breath I had gotten back was quickly escaping.

"No." I whisper, taking the note off the monitor. I shake my head and say it again, as if it is the only word left in the world to say. And in a way, it is. "No, please."

Bright red marker in a crisp white sheet of paper.

'T- 13 VERIFIED'

The note drops from my hand to the floor. I remember once when I was younger, back when I lived in England, and I had once seen a bunch of older boys killing a bird. They dissected it, slowly, relishing in the pain the bird was receiving. And I sat and watched, unable to say anything, frozen in fear. That blue bird, staring at me with dead eyes, asking me why I wasn't better.

I had never felt more fear than I had in that moment.

Until now.