Chapter 11: Awakening

Monday, November 12th, 2007

David and I were sound asleep when the shrill ring of the phone startled me awake. “What?” I answered. Nice, huh? It was Lucy.

“She’s awake!” she shouted.

I gave a big whoop that startled David, and I jumped out of bed. “We’ll all be right there. Have you called Nathan?”

"That's my next call," Lucy answered. "Don't let on that I called you first."

“No sweat sister,” I hung up and jumped on David, kissing him soundly. “Sam is awake! Get up! We’ve gotta get to the hospital.”

I was coming out of the room and nearly crashed into Stephanie.

“What the hell is going on in there?” she asked.

“Sam’s awake!” I shouted and Stephanie and I hugged and were jumping up and down. “I’ve gotta call the driver, you go get dressed!”

“You too, Goddess,” she called over her shoulder. I looked down to see I was just wearing a T-shirt. As I dialed the phone, I went to Diva, and knelt by her head. “Mommy’s awake, sweetie,” I crooned to her. She looked at me like she didn’t believe me. “I promise. She’s coming home soon.” Diva’s great pink tongue swept the side of my face and I laughed and hugged her neck. I didn’t see David standing in the doorway behind me.

Finally, the phone on the other end was ringing. “Hello?” a groggy voice said.

“I’m so sorry to wake you, but we need the car, and you have the keys. Our friend is awake!” I was babbling, but I didn’t care.

“OK, that’s great news! I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said, before disconnecting.

Stephanie had coffee going, and David and I were gathering thermoses and travel mugs. We got two pots done and packaged by the time the car arrived. Presenting the driver with one of the travel mugs, we thanked him profusely, and got into the car.

Soon we were all in the waiting room at the hospital, listening to Richie tell the story about walking into her room and seeing her awake. Steph, Lucy, and I were holding hands, and crying tears of joy. David was ribbing Jon about being asleep when his woman woke up, and he took it well. I wasn’t going to say anything – I’d already aggravated him enough over the past several days, and he was just now starting to not look at me with anger in his eyes.

Sam’s doctor came into the waiting room, and told us that she was being moved to a private room. Thank god. Now we could all visit her at the same time. We gathered our stuff and went upstairs to wait in the new wing. Once Sam was settled, we all trooped in there, and gathered around her chattering and touching her and generally being pains in the ass. When we looked at the clock, and saw it was coming up on 10am, I remembered we hadn’t told the board that sam was awake! I yawned and said, "Ah, hell. I almost forgot. Someone needs to get on the forum and share the good news!"

David came with me out to the waiting room to send an update to the girls. He’s been really funny, never quite letting me out of his sight. I think this is far more serious than either of us realize. Nothing like a traumatic experience, even one experienced second-hand, to put things into perspective, ya know? We were sitting on yet another uncomfortable sofa, and he had his arm around my shoulder. I tilted my head back and he sipped from my lips, and traced my cheekbone with his hand.

“God, I’m just so glad this is over,” I said. David knew what I meant and he agreed.

“This isn’t the way I wanted to spend our days together,” he said, “but I’ve gotta say, I think I know you better now than I would have if I had just been able to come to Boston for a visit.” He kissed me again. “You are amazing.”

I blushed at his words. “No, just a fiercely loyal friend.”

“Who doesn’t take any shit from anyone,” David said, chuckling.

“And why should I?” I retorted.

David laughed now. “Hang on there, baby, don’t get your temper up at me.” He dropped another kiss on my lips. “I think that’s fantastic that you don’t let people walk all over you.” He smiled at me. “I heard you with Diva this morning,” he said.

“You did?” I asked, playing dumb.

“Yeah; that was really sweet,” he said.

I shrugged. “She’s more Sam’s family than we are, and I thought she had the right to know. Speaking of Diva…” I trailed off, and the look on my face had David chuckling.

“Uh-oh. What are you plotting?” he asked.

“Do you suppose they let dogs-who-are-family come and visit? I know some hospitals do a dog-as-love-therapy thing. D’ya think they’d do that here?”

“You are too much,” he said. “Know what? If they don’t, I’ll bet you can get them to change their minds.”

“Let’s find out,” I said.

We went in search of the nurse on Sam’s floor. She looked to be in her early 50’s and looked a lot like my Mom. I hoped that meant that she’d have the same sympathetic nature.

“Excuse me,” I said to her, with David right behind me.

“Can I help you?” the nurse, Rosemarie, asked.

“I hope so,” I started. I explained what David and I wanted to do, and the nurse smiled.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Rosemarie said. “We do have quite a few patients who would enjoy that.”

David warned her, “This dog is enormous.”

“But a big baby,” I hastened to add, and elbowed him roughly in the ribs. I turned to glare at him, and he stuck his tongue out at me. “She is extremely well behaved, and is missing her mom something awful. She’s gonna be pretty excited, but Sam can keep her in line.”

“Bring her by after lunch,” Rosemarie said, laughing at us. “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

That evening, we were in fine spirits. Stephanie made this out of this world triple layer chocolate cake that I swear just looking at it, I’ve gained three pounds. We celebrated Sam’s recovery, the baby, the tour, hell, anything we could think of. We were all getting a bit silly, and it didn’t help that we’d gotten up at 2am and had gone non-stop. Finally, I decided I need to get cleaned up and get some sleep if I hoped to be a normal person the next day. David winked at the others, and followed me into the bedroom.

Stephanie called out, “Try to keep it down in there!” and I flipped her off over my head. She was right, though, I think we really felt like celebrating. By tacit agreement, we didn’t even hint at being intimate this week; it just didn’t seem right with Sam unconscious like that. But, now that everything was OK, the ban was lifted so to speak. At least, that’s where my thoughts were running. I wasn’t alone.

I went into Sam’s bathroom, and started the shower. David started stripping off his clothes. By the time the room had filled with steam, we were under the hot spray, arms locked around each other. He had me pressed up against the cool tile, and was kissing me with a hunger I hadn’t experienced before. He pressed into me, and I looped a leg around his waist, anchoring him to me. He grabbed my breast roughly and kneaded, and I moaned into his mouth. I reached down to grab him, and he broke the kiss, gasping.

“You’ve gotta not do that, darlin’,” he rasped, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’m trying to keep a little control, here.”

I chuckled. “Don’t do that on my account,” I said, drawing him to me.

David growled and checked to make sure I was ready for him, and moaned when he found me wet and waiting. With a hard thrust, he pushed into me and stilled, savoring the feel of me around him. He kissed me again, matching the thrust of his tongue with that of his hips, and I was soon panting and holding on to him for dear life. The leg I was standing on started to shake as I felt the orgasm building. I could feel David’s arms tightening around me as he pounded into me. I started falling over the edge, and David swallowed my cry. He sped his motions, riding the waves until he too was drowning.

With little kisses and nips, David helped me come back down to Earth, though I was quite happy floating around in the atmosphere. He washed my hair and I did the same for him. We washed each other, our hands slippery with soap, then stepped out of the shower and wrapped each other in big, fluffy towels. As we combed out our hair in the mirror, and brushed our teeth side by side, we shared a smile. This was nice. Really nice. A gal could get used to this.

When we were dry, we dressed again in our nightclothes, and climbed into bed, exhausted from the day. Nestled like spoons, his hand across my chest, lightly cupping my breast, we fell asleep.