Her Legacy

XXIX. Nuclear

"Ever wonder why people are so determined to reach for white picket fences, supposed normalcy, a nuclear family? Well, try growing up without one." Chuck Eddy

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Chapter XXIX – Nuclear

"Ow," I moaned, though my throat was blocked, filled with a tube that was pumping my lungs for me. As soon as I realised that I could breathe by myself, I began to cough and struggle against it.

People fluttered around me as the tube was hurriedly removed from my throat. The air that subsequently filled my lungs burned my throat on the way down. I coughed and spluttered as I tried to get my breathing normal. A tube was immediately then put across my face, taped to my cheeks, as I breathed the oxygen through my nose.

"It's alright, Sara," said a voice I didn't recognise. "You'll be feeling quite out of it for a few minutes, just calm your breathing."

"Sara," another voice whimpered. That was Mom. Mom was here.

"Mom!" I sobbed, suddenly bursting into tears. I felt like I couldn't control my emotions as the sobs came over me.

I blinked, my vision quickly clearing. I was in a small hospital room with monitors and wires connected to and coming out of me every which way. An annoying beeping sound was monitoring my heart rate, which explained the pinching of the clip on my index finger.

As I regained my coherency, I began to feel a dull ache in my abdomen. I remembered everything. I had been stabbed. I had been stabbed. Lex had stabbed me. Lex had deliberately plunged a blade into me to kill me. And my dad ...

"Daddy!" I cried out, anxiously searching the room for him, but Mom and I were alone with the nurse. Dad wasn't here, and neither was Shea.

"No, baby, it's Mom," Mom calmed me, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

I focused on her face, and saw how terrible she looked, which was hard for someone as pretty as my mom. Her eyes were red and swollen and her cheeks were streaked with tears. Her hair looked like it hadn't been brushed in days, and her clothes were wrinkled from being slept in.

"I'll go get the doctor," the nurse told my mom.

Mom cradled my face in her hands and she cried. "It's perfectly normal to cry after anaesthesia," she assured me. "Oh, baby, you scared me to death. I don't know what I'd do without you. Do you know what happened to you?"

I did. I knew exactly what happened to me. I wasn't exactly sure how I was feeling about it at that moment, but I knew what had happened. But I wondered if Mom did. I hadn't hallucinated my dad, had I? He had been there. I was sure! What's more is, I was certain I'd met him before. I remembered where I had first placed him. I had seen him, talked to him even, at my seventh-grade science fair. He had been there, too.

But ... but wouldn't he be here? Wouldn't Shea be here?

I decided to play dumb to find out what she knew. "No, what happened?" I rasped.

"Oh, honey," Mom sighed, "I knew, I knew they were dangerous. But the look on Shea's face ..." she trailed off, shaking her head. "You were taken from Charlotte by one of them, a man with a grudge against your ... your daddy. He brought you back to Providence and attacked you. Shea managed to find you and he got you to the hospital in time. You needed a transfusion because of the blood you lost, and you're now missing your spleen, but you should make a full recovery with a scar for your troubles. I'm grateful for him, despite everything. I think it's helped me to understand the connection. How he was while you were in surgery, I've never seen anything like it. I was terrified to lose you, but Shea ... he was dying."