Troublemakers

"Papà," I sniffled as I took his hand between both of my own.

We had arrived about an hour ago and it had been hell to get to the hospital. When I arrived I couldn't even look at my mother, because I knew I would burst into a fit of tears. Luckily my mother understands me better than anyone in the world, so she didn't push, just stood from my father's bedside and left us alone. Niall seemed to get the hint, because he went after my mother briefly asking if she needed a coffee or something.

My father lied on the hospital bed as the monitor beeped faintly in the background, his eyes shut and his skin ashen. I chocked back a sob at the sight of him my anger and sorrow suffocating my airways. Death had a firm grip on him and I felt as if there was nothing I could do to chase him away. After all, how do you fight someone you can't even see or hit.

When my father had the Pacemaker installed I was terrified that it would randomly stop working, or someone would bring a magnet to close to him and cause him to have a heart attack. Even though malfunctions rarely happened, they weren't unheard of and I was the paranoid type. I begged my father to ask the doctor for other options and they all laughed me off. My father had been having frequent heart issues, and they were so sure this would solve all of his problems. As I held onto his cold hand I cursed that doctor seven ways to Sunday, because I was right and he was wrong, and this was all his fault.

"Papà, you listen here," I breathed, my bottom lip trembling as I fought with my emotions, "You're going to be fine. You're going to pull through this like you do every time and we're going to be okay."

When my father's fingers didn't even so much as twitch I gripped onto his hand harder. "Dammit Daddy, don't leave me."

I buried my face into his arm and gripped his hand like I had all my life, heart-wrenching sobs falling past my lips. I kept telling myself that I needed to be strong for my mother, but my father was always the one who was strong for all of us. I was weak, and he was the one who lifted me up.

I'm weak.

A knock at the door made me push myself up from the bed and wipe the tears from my face quickly. It swung open to reveal who I assumed to be his doctor and nurses. The all smiled at me sympathetically, the nurses immediately busying themselves with the two machines my father was currently connected to. The doctor began to talk to me, but I couldn't bring myself to pay much attention to him, my hopelessness clutching onto me tightly. I guess he realized that I wasn't hearing a word he said, because he instructed my mother to come into the room and began to discuss my father's condition with her.

Niall came in with a bottle of water and pulled me out of my chair and into his arms. I bawled his shirt into my hands and hid my face in his chest as he tucked my head under his chin. I watched as they wheeled my father out of the room, Niall rubbing my back soothingly as my mother watched defeatedly. Everything was blurring together and I was having trouble keeping up. We were sitting in the waiting room, my mother explaining the surgical procedure to me, but the only words that I remember hearing were his heart may not start back up again. They lingered in the air around us, taunting me specifically because they knew that I was the weakest link.

Then my mother was asleep and Niall was asking me if I needed anything.

Time glitched and I briefly remember more of my family arriving. My uncle, my cousin Bert, my Nonna, my aunties. Everyone had this sympathetic or terrified look in their eyes and I could feel their darkness swallowing me.

Next thing I know I'm being woke up, because the doctor was coming to speak to my mother. My throat was tightening from all of the anxiety stealing the air, my hands shaking even though Niall was gripping them both tightly.

And just like that my world stopped.

My mother covered her face with her hand and let out the most morose sound I have ever heard in my life. My uncle rushed by her side, my Nonna bursting into tears, and suddenly I was sure that I was dreaming. This was not really my life, but a sick cruel joke. I shook my head back and forth with disbelief as Niall tried to pull me into him. My father was gone. I wanted someone to pinch me, dump cold water on me- anything to get me out of this nightmare, but no one ever did.

I couldn't remember when I had started crying, or if I had ever stopped. Crying in your sleep is a very possible thing, you know? The tears just seemed to fall nonstop, the emptiness in my chest chilling me to the bone. No matter how tightly Niall held onto me I just stayed cold, empty.

He was gone, Death won, and as I wrenched my hands from Niall's I couldn't stop myself from shoving him and running away. Logically or illogically, my brain was telling me it was all his fault. If he would've just stopped all of the fucking bickering with Louis we would've made it here in time for me to save him. As I ran out into the Seattle starlight my thoughts flickered as fast as my feet, but the blame never stopped being pointed in there direction. If it wasn't for those stupid boys I wouldn't have even been so far away in the first place. I would have been by my father's side and he would still be here.

He should've still been there, but my Papà was gone.