Family Reunion

The day went by in that hospital dreadfully slow. Rose didn't wake up on this sad day, but another event did happen; Adrienne called Billie Joe's cell phone.

"Hello... " Billie Joe said crankily knowing his wife was on the other end.

"Hi Billie... " Adrienne said quietly.

"Hi Billie?" Billie Joe repeated her in the form of a question.

"Yeah that's what I said," Adrienne sighed.

"What do you want?"

"I wanted to call and ask you why I had to find out you got into a car accident over the fucking news!?" Adrienne said with an angry tone.

"Because I'm really mad at you, you don't keep fucking secrets like that!" Billie Joe shouted.

A nurse came over and told Billie Joe to quiet down; he just waved his hand in her face. Tre and Mike sat and listened to Billie Joe's side of the conversation.

"I'm sorry, but you can't even compare that to not telling me about getting in a car crash! Maybe you're mad at me but you still love me!" Adrienne shrieked.

"I do fucking love you...but I just can't believe you knew about Rose and Tre and kept me in the fucking dark!" Billie Joe yelled into the phone.

Tre found it weird when he realized that Billie Joe and Adrienne were having a major fight over him. It actually made him quite uncomfortable. He didn't even know why Adrienne knew, but he didn't care about that so much.

"I didn't know for sure!" Adrienne said.

"Oh, you didn't know for sure?"

"Stop repeating me! Yes I didn't know. All I did was ask, Rose if she was pregnant. The poor girl looked scared shitless Billie. She had that look in her eyes. She didn't say yes to me. All she did was blurt out and ask me if Tre had told me something. I was quite shocked, but then she denied anything was going on! So I wasn't about to go around saying things that might not of been true. That would have been wrong of me, even if I was telling you!" Adrienne sniffled as she felt herself crying more.

"I'm sorry Adie," Billie Joe said as he finally heard the true story.

"I'm sorry too," she said wiping her tears. "Billie?" Adrienne said quietly.

"Yeah babe..." Billie Joe whispered.

"How is everybody doing? I've been worried to shit ever since I watched the news."

"Rose is in a coma," Billie Joe said.

"Oh my god, she is?" Adrienne gasped.

"Yeah, the doctors don't know when she'll wake up. She was thrown out the window when we crashed," Billie said morbidly.

"Oh no..." Adrienne went silent for a minute. "How are the others?"

"They're pretty good; Tre has a broken arm and a dislocated leg. And Mike has a fractured skull and a dislocated shoulder."

"Yeah we're shitacular..." Mike said in the background.

"How are you babe?" Adrienne asked with the most concern for her husband.

"Oh I'm not too bad. I just broke a couple of ribs and one of my wrists. I won't be playing my guitar for awhile," Billie Joe said just as he just realized it.

"Aw, I have to come see you!" Adrienne said.

"Please do..." Billie Joe begged.

"I'm going to drive down right away."

"Adie?" Billie Joe said.

"Yeah?"

"Do the boys know about this yet?"

"No, I didn't want to tell them until I knew you were alright. Would it be okay if I brought them down? Or should they stay at home?" Adrienne asked.

"They can come down. None of us look too gruesome except maybe Rose; but she's still in the intensive care unit," Billie Joe said.

"She looks gruesome?" Adi asked.

"Well I haven't seen her. Tre has, but she flew across the pavement and got skinned from what I hear. So they gave her a skin transplant. I'm sure she'll have some scars," Billie Joe said.

"Oh god, that sounds so painful. I can't even imagine. I bet childbirth is a piece of cake compared to being skinned alive," Adrienne said cringing at the thought. "I got to go get the boys ready babe."

"Okay, we're at the Good Samaritan Hospital," Billie Joe told her.

"Okay, I think I remember where that is. Love you babe," she said and she hung up.

Billie Joe hung up his phone and sighed. He was so relieved that his wife and he had patched up their problems.

"Nurse... " Tre called.

A nurse came running into the room and saw Tre sitting there, "Yes?"

"Can I see Rose now? I miss seeing her beautiful face," Tre said.

"I don't see why not. She got out of surgery about an hour ago and she's all bandaged up."

"Thank you, do you think you could take me down there?" Tre asked.

"She's not actually down there anymore. She's been wheeled into her own room to recover," the nurse said.

Billie Joe stood up ready to follow the nurse who was going to wheel Tre. "I want to come too!" Mike said.

"Alright, I'll go get a nurse and another wheelchair. I think you should stay off your feet for a few days," the nurse said to Mike before leaving Tre and going off to find another nurse.

"I'm so nervous to see her man. I mean I know she's going to look battered up, and I'll still think she's just as beautiful. But I'm really scared to see her like that," Tre said after the nurse left the room.

"Yeah it'll be okay, her scars will heal with time," Mike said and Billie Joe agreed. Neither of them could fathom how serious Rose had been injured.

The nurse and another returned with an extra wheelchair for Mike. The two nurses carefully helped Mike into the wheelchair before wheeling them off out of the room. Billie Joe walked behind them slowly. He was the only one that had been able to just walk away after the accident.

They were taken back to that dreadfully slow elevator and a nurse pressed on the 5th floor. "So what room is she in?" Tre asked.

"Room 551," a nurse answered quietly.

The elevator opened slowly and Mike's wheelchair was pushed out first. "Come on...hurry please," Tre said as the other nurse wheeled him out at no great speed.

"I'm sorry sir, we can't run in here it is against the rules and regulations," the nurse said to Tre.

"Hmm fine... " Tre said.

They walked past different numbered doors and Tre was so anxious he was saying them aloud, "511, 521, 531, 541... the next one...there 551."

The two nurses wheeled Mike and Tre into the room and stopped them at the end of a bed that was surrounded by a closed curtain. Billie Joe stood there anxiously waiting for the curtain to open.

One of the two nurses pulled the curtain back and there lay Rose, almost completely bandaged from head to toe, with plastic tubes attaching her to different monitoring machines everywhere. She was still unable to wake from her indefinite slumber.

Billie Joe looked at his cousin and his jaw dropped to the floor. "Oh my god..." is all he managed to say.

"Fuck..." Mike gasped.

Tre was silent as he looked at her he signaled to the nurse to push him up closer beside the bed. He slowly lifted his right unbroken arm up and placed it on top of her scraped hand. It was not only her hand that was visibly scraped, but her face as well.

"Hi Rose..." Tre said talking to her seemingly lifeless body.

Billie Joe felt himself starting to cry. Before this past week she had been a stranger to him; but now he was finding he quite loved her and it hurt him to see her like this. "Somebody should call her mom..." Billie Joe said, putting himself in her mother's shoes.

"No..." Tre said.

"No..?" Billie Joe asked.

"She has a beautiful loving daughter here. And she just gave that all away over nothing at all. She doesn't deserve to know... " Tre said.

"But Tre... she is still Rose's mother," Mike said.

"I don't care!" Tre shouted and he started breaking down. "Oh god Rose... you're just so beautiful... " he said hysterically.

All that could be heard in the room was the sound of Rose's heart monitoring machine, beeping again and again in a hypnotic entrancing rhythm.

Billie Joe felt as someone else walked into the room; he turned around to his wife and sons standing quietly in the doorway. Adrienne's eyes had only been on Rose too but as soon as Billie Joe looked at her her eyes returned the glance.

Billie Joe slowly walked over to Adrienne and the boys, he knelt down beside Joey and Jakob and they gave there father a loving hug. Billie Joe squealed slightly as they pressed themselves against his broken ribs.

"Sorry daddy," the boys said simultaneously.

"That's okay," Billie Joe said and he stood up to look at Adie. She smiled at him lovingly and with concern she kissed him softly on the lips. "I'm sorry..." she repeated. "I love you... "

"I love you too," Billie Joe said and they all turned around and slowly started walking back over to Rose's bedside.

Billie Joe put his hand on Tre's shoulder and Adrienne sighed. "My god, this is terrible."