Finding Forever

by Lori C. Hawkins

  Alec enveloped Peter’s good hand in both of his and tenderly kissed it. He repeated, “You’re going to be all right,” as if saying it again would make it so.

  Suddenly, an alarm went off. Alec inhaled sharply and bolted in panic to look for a nurse.

  “Nurse, please, an alarm is going off in here!” Alec exclaimed as he frantically waved to the nurse at the monitoring station.

  The woman at the monitoring station calmly got up and came to Peter’s bedside. Glancing at the monitor, she said, “No worries, dear, it’s his oxygen monitor.” At the same time that she fiddled with the sensor clipped on Peter’s finger, she said to him, “Give us a deep breath, love. Peter, can you hear me? Try and take a breath. I know it hurts, but you have to try.”

  With a faint moan, Peter complied, and within a few breaths, the insistent beep of the monitor stopped. Meanwhile, Alec had turned white as a sheet and sat down heavily in a nearby chair.

  Alec supposed that he looked as bad as he felt when he became vaguely aware of the nurse checking on him. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton as he heard her ask, “Are you all right there?” When he felt a hand pushing at the back of his neck, he jerked and smacked the hand away.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” Alec said, looking a little wild-eyed. “You startled me,” he explained as he watched the woman rub the spot where the smack had made its mark.

  He was about to apologize again when he heard a faint, “Psst.” When Alec heard it again, he jerked his head toward the sound and saw Peter feebly beckoning to him.

  Within two steps, Alec was at Peter’s bedside. “You’re awake,” Alec said with a very wet smile.

  Peter caressed Alec’s face and wiped away the tears that streaked it with a thumb. “Sssh,” he said, trying to return Alec’s smile. Alec covered Peter’s hand in his and pressed into the caress with a kiss.

  The nurse quietly appeared next to Alec and slid a chair behind him. “I can let you stay just a little longer, dear,” she said as she handed him a box of tissues and left the room.

  “Hi, gorgeous,” Alec said with a sniffle. “You gave us quite a scare today.”

  Peter looked at Alec with heavily sedated eyes and soundlessly mouthed, Sorry.

  Alec wiped his nose with a tissue and stared at Peter wordlessly until he started to cry again. “I’m sorry about everything. I… I… just don’t know what I’d do without you,” he choked out before his words ended in a little hiccup of a sob.

  “Sssh,” Peter said again, and he ran his thumb along Alec’s chin before tapping him on the nose with his forefinger.

  “Yeah, I love you too,” said Alec, wiping his eyes. A soft rap on the glass wall at the front of the room interrupted them. It was the nurse, and she indicated that it was time to leave by pointing at her watch.

  “They want me to leave so you can get some rest,” Alec told Peter in a hushed voice.

  Peter fluttered his eyelids to signal that he understood; then, slowly raising his hand to his mouth, he kissed two fingers and touched them to Alec’s lips. Alec accepted the kiss by catching Peter’s hand. “Sleep tight. I’ll see you tomorrow, love,” Alec whispered. He continued to hold Peter’s hand until the sedatives took him into sleep again.

  When Alec stepped out of the lift from intensive care, he felt as wrung out as a wet dishrag and was in a daze when Gareth rushed over.

  “How is he doing?” he asked.

  “Weak, very weak. They have him heavily sedated. I was only able to spend a few minutes with him,” Alec answered brokenly.

  Alec gratefully accepted the hug that Gareth gave him, but it was of fleeting comfort as his friend pulled away and quickly switched to business mode. “Whilst you were with Peter, I made a few calls. I shifted your appointments to next week at least, called the theater to let them know you can’t make this week’s performance, and I told your Aunt Jo what happened. I suppose she’ll think of something to tell your parents,” Gareth recited in a voice thick with emotion.

  As Alec numbly started to walk toward the exit of the hospital, Gareth trailed after him and continued to talk. “Ian is getting off work soon, so I can ask him to come ’round with the car to give you a ride home. But seeing as you haven’t eaten all day, I suggest we get something to eat before we drop you off.”

  “Yeah, fine, thanks, whatever you think is best,” Alec said, not really listening and feeling utterly lost.

  The next morning, Alec’s doorbell jarred him awake, and it took him a moment to realize where he was. Bleary-eyed, he shuffled down the hall to answer the door.

  “Gareth. What are you doing here?” Alec said, squinting into the daylight.

  “Good morning. I thought I’d come by bring you some breakfast,” Gareth announced as he handed Alec a paper sack. “Did you sleep in your clothes last night?” Gareth asked when he noticed Alec’s rumpled appearance.

  Alec yawned and ran a hand through his mussed-up hair. “Yeah, I fell asleep on the sofa,” he admitted. “Come on in.”

  “The accident is all over the news,” Gareth remarked as he followed Alec into the kitchen.

  “They say that it was a three-story plunge when that scaffold collapsed. Peter’s lucky to be alive.”

  The remark sent a chill through Alec. “That’s something I don’t want to think about,” he replied as he peered inside the sack that Gareth brought. Alec fished out a cup of coffee and gratefully took a sip. “I’m going over to the hospital after I get cleaned up. I don’t have any appointments today, do I?” Alec asked, feeling a bit foggy.

  “No, I moved them to at least next week,” Gareth answered patiently.

  “Yeah, right. You told me that yesterday.”

  “Before I go, do you have anything that needs doing? How are you fixed for food?”

  Alec put his coffee down and audibly exhaled, suddenly feeling overwhelmed. “God, I dunno. Maybe you should just poke around in the fridge and see if I need anything. Here, take this in case you need it,” Alec said and handed Gareth an extra key from a hook beside the kitchen door.

  “Will do, and make sure you eat before you go,” Gareth instructed as he watched Alec go into the bathroom.

  When Alec arrived at the intensive care unit, he found a petite young woman sitting at the monitors.

  “I’m here to see Peter Leavesley. How is he doing?”

  The young woman looked at her notes and answered, “Well, he had a quiet night, but he started running a temperature this morning.”

  “A temperature? You mean he has a fever. It that serious?” Alec asked apprehensively.

  “Not necessarily. Fever is very common with injuries of this sort.”

  Alec felt a sinking feeling grip his gut again. “Can I still see him?”

  “Yes, but we may ask you to leave if he becomes too ill.”

  This latest development was nearly Alec’s undoing, and he needed to pause at the door to Peter’s room to compose himself before going in. Alec’s first look at Peter was shocking; by all appearances, he had taken a turn for the worse. Peter’s hair clung limply to his damp forehead, his eyes were vacant and glassy from fever, and the pillow he clutched to his chest to ease the pain of his broken ribs made him look small and lost.

  “Hi, beautiful,” Alec said cheerfully. “How are you feeling today?”

  “Hurts,” Peter whispered listlessly.

  Alec placed a soft kiss on Peter’s clammy forehead. “It’ll be better soon. I promise,” he said gently. “Your accident has made you famous, Gareth says…. ” Alec stopped talking when he noticed silent tears rolling down Peter’s face.

  “Oh dear. What is it, love? Are you in pain? Do you want me to call someone?” Alec asked softly as he dabbed at Peter’s tears with a tissue.

  “It hurts, everything hurts,” Peter said piteously. “I feel absolutely wretched,” he sobbed weakly. “Oh God, I’m going to be sick!” he gasped. He just managed to grab the emesis tray on his bed table before he vomited into it. Alec held him unti
l the heaving stopped and rang the call bell after he lowered Peter back onto the bed.

  The nurse, a blond-haired young man with a close-cropped beard, appeared shortly. Alec looked up from wiping Peter’s perspiration-soaked face and explained in a concerned voice, “He’s just been sicking up, and he says he’s in pain.”

  “It’s the fever,” the young man said matter-of-factly. “We’ll see if some ice and a cool cloth would make him more comfortable. He’s not due for another pain injection for a while yet. Let me check with his doctor to see if we can give him another dose ahead of schedule.”

  The young man left with the soiled tray and came back with a cup of crushed ice and a wet cloth. “We’ve paged the doctor about getting you more pain relief, okay? Hang in there, yeah?” he said to his patient. Pointing to the ice, he instructed Alec, “Just give him a little bit at a time. It should help.”

  Alec lifted a chip of ice on a spoon to Peter’s lips, but Peter turned his head away like a toddler refusing his food.

  “No, don’t want it. Gonna be sick again,” he moaned.

  “Peter, open your mouth, hon. It’s just a little ice, it’ll make you feel better, I promise. Do it for me, please?” Alec cajoled.

  Peter eventually gave in, but he kept his eyes shut as Alec dropped the morsel of ice into his mouth. While Peter sucked on the ice, Alec began to sponge him with the cool cloth.

  “The news on TV reported that you fell three stories. Do you remember what happened?” Alec asked as he began to gently press the comforting cloth over Peter’s face and neck.

  “Not exactly. I only remember hanging from my safety harness until I blacked out. I was lucky,” he answered almost inaudibly.

  “We were both lucky,” Alec said quietly, pausing to feed Peter another bit of ice.

  A little later, the nurse came back into the room. “Fasten your safety belt and get ready to fly, mate. Dr. Marsden says we can give you your next dose of pain medication now,” he announced. “This should help you to breathe easier too.”

  When the drug hit his system, Peter let out a sigh and started to drift away. Alec stroked his fever-dampened hair and murmured, “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

  Peter looked at Alec with half-closed eyes and asked, “How was Christmas lunch?”

  Alec looked down at his hands. “It was horrid. I missed you. Peter, I’ve been an idiot,” he told him, but when Alec looked up, Peter had already fallen asleep.

  Alec had been watching over Peter for a while when Dr. Marsden quietly appeared next to him. “Ah, very good, Peter’s asleep,” she whispered. “We’ll let him rest. Meanwhile, do you have any questions for me?” she asked Alec.

  “Is Peter going to be all right? He’s not doing very well at all today with this fever,” Alec fretted.

  “The fever is a natural reaction of his body to his injuries, and all we can do is to try to keep his temperature down. We won’t know if he has an infection for another forty-eight hours, but we have him on antibiotics as a precaution. Otherwise, all his tests show that he’s doing well under the circumstances.”

  Alec scrubbed his face with hands and said dejectedly, “It breaks my heart to see him like this.”

  “It takes time, Mr. Bannerman. Be patient. We’ll have him home to you soon,” Dr. Marsden said in her most reassuring voice.

  ALEC continued to sit with Peter until he was asked to leave because it was time to give Peter some required care. Alec waited nervously in the visitors’ lounge until the nurse who had tended to Peter earlier in the morning came to speak with him.

  “You look as if you could do with a break. We’ll be with Peter for a while. Why don’t you go get something to eat? We have a restaurant as well as a canteen on the second floor,” he suggested. “We’ll let your partner know where you’ve gone. I’m sure he’d like you to look after yourself,” he added kindly.

  Alec nodded. “Well, I could do with a cup of tea, I suppose,” he told the nurse, and he left for the hospital canteen.

  Alec was still feeling quite out of sorts from his morning visit with Peter, and the smell of canteen cookery put him off, so he went instead to the café he’d seen on the first floor, where he sat down with what appeared to be a passable cup of coffee and switched on his mobile to check for messages. A missed call from Gareth was the first message in the queue, and Alec returned it right away.

  “How’s Peter doing?” Gareth asked with a voice full of concern.

  Alec sighed. “Peter’s having a rough morning. They had to give him a shot for pain. He was asleep when I left. I’m on a break because they needed to work on him.”

  “Work on him? Is he all right?”

  “Yeah, they just need to do some routine things with him while he’s hooked up to all that equipment,” Alec said wearily.

  “It would do you good to take a couple of hours’ break. Why don’t I come collect you and we’ll get some lunch?” Gareth offered.

  “Thanks, but I… I don’t know if I’d be very good company. Besides, I don’t want to leave Peter for too long.”

  “I could come over there. We can get something to eat in their canteen,” Gareth countered.

  Alec was too exhausted to put up any more resistance, but idea of eating in the canteen made him queasy. “They actually have restaurant on the second floor. I suppose we could go there,” he finally said.

  At lunch, Alec picked at his food self-consciously as he felt Gareth watching his every move.

  “So, how are you, Alec?” Gareth asked with a delicate cough.

  Alec gave him a long look before answering. “I’m fine,” he said.

  When Gareth seemed unconvinced, Alec started to nervously play with his glass of water. He rotated the glass a couple of more times between his hands before he spoke again. “Well, I guess I’m not really fine. I’m very tired and I’m very, very frightened,” Alec answered, his voice trailing off in a quiver but he cleared his throat and went on. “I’ve never seen Peter so helpless before. He’s usually so steady, so strong, but this morning he was actually sobbing in pain. I’m usually the one who needs looking after. When I worked late, he made sure I ate.” Interjecting a small laugh, he added, “When we partied, he made sure I got to bed. My life doesn’t run without him.”

  At that moment, it dawned on Alec that Peter had become part of him. “I’m going to do it,” Alec said as if he was talking to himself. “I’m going to tell my parents about us. I just hope Peter will have me back.”

  “He will. He will,” Gareth assured him. “You know that Ian and I stand with you if things get difficult with your family.”

  “I never doubted that. Thanks,” Alec said with an appreciative smile.

  Gareth let out a deep breath and checked his watch. “I’d better go back to the office. I’m meeting with a new client. After the meeting, my diary is clear, just give me a call if you need anything,” Gareth said as they got up from the table and headed toward the lifts.

  BACK up in the intensive care unit, Alec stopped at the desk to let them know he was back. The nurse who reminded him of his mum was manning the desk again.

  “Did you have a nice lunch, dear?” she asked.

  “It was all right. A friend met me in the restaurant downstairs. May I go in to see Peter now?”

  “Well, dear, he’s had a rather hard morning, hasn’t he? It’s best if we can keep him as quiet as possible. I can let you have five minutes with him.”

  Alec gave a quick nod to show that he understood and headed for Peter’s room. To his relief, Peter appeared to be sound asleep, and his color had improved from a few hours ago. He looked far more comfortable now that they had bathed him and changed his perspiration-soaked hospital gown. Alec entered the room as quietly as possible, but when he reached the bedside, Peter gave a little cough and opened his eyes.

  “Hey, babe. How are you feeling?” Alec cooed as he stroked Peter’s cheek with the back of his hand.

  “I still feel like puking, but if I
keep perfectly still, it’s better,” he replied in a barely audible voice.

  “They don’t want me to stay long,” Alec murmured as he gave Peter a kiss on the top of his head.

  Peter closed his eyes and stuck out his hand for Alec to take. “That’s fine. I really feel like crap. I just want to sleep.”

  Alec kissed the back of Peter’s hand. “All right, sweetie, I’ll see you tomorrow. Love you,” he told Peter. Gently tucking the hand back under the covers, Alec quietly left the room.

  ALEC collected his car from the hospital car park and spent the rest of the afternoon driving around aimlessly. He wrestled with how to tell his parents that he was gay and that he had found the man of his dreams. He ended up halfway to Bristol before turning back; it was early evening when he was back in his flat.

  Heaving a sigh, he took off his jacket and decided that he might feel better after a shower. A few minutes later, he came out of the bathroom, dressed only in a towel and with his hair still dripping, to find Gareth and Ian standing in the front hall.

  “Alec, you’re home! I’m sorry, we should have rung the doorbell first,” Ian said as he set down an armload of groceries.

  “Oh, no, no. Not a problem. I should have phoned to let you know I’d be home early. You wouldn’t have had to come all the way over here,” Alec said apologetically.

  “I take it Peter’s doing better if you’re home early,” Gareth asked hopefully.

  Alec rubbed his temples and scrunched his eyes shut against the headache that had taken hold. “No, he was actually having a very rough day, and they wouldn’t let me stay with him.” Now that Gareth and Ian were here, Alec was glad to have some company. “Well, since you’re here, why don’t you two stay for dinner? We’ll order some pizza.”

  Ian and Gareth nodded enthusiastically at the suggestion, and the three of them were soon in the living room eating pizza and sharing a bottle of red wine. They watched a DVD as they ate their dinner, and by the time they were done, they were into the second movie of the night. As the evening progressed, everyone became more relaxed. Alec stretched out on the sofa, while Gareth sat on the floor with Ian’s head in his lap.