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crossnmyhart · 10 years ago

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The Light || Flashback Para

Tagging → Joe Hart, Lauren Zizes and family Time Frame → March 9,2012 Location → UNC Hospital General Notes → Lauren's perspective has been shared previously, but Joe's perspective on this early morning changed everything about his life from that moment forward. How did he regain faith in a God he had been mostly out of touch with for years? Why is he so overprotective of Lauren?

She couldn't call for help. She was alone, and injured. She told me several times that she needed to go... and I kept her at my place. I kept coming back for more, luring her back to my bed... He sniffled and placed his hand over his knee to stop it from shaking. D placed a hand over his hand and offered him a gentle smile. It wasn't returned. Not because he didn't want to. He just couldn't.

She was driving home alone from my house. I hadn't picked her up. I should have backed off when she said that she needed to go. if she hadn't been out at the time she was out there, she would be at home, in bed, asleep... not... here. He shivered. The waiting room was cold. He wondered if she was cold, where she was? If she could feel anything at all? Was she afraid? Was she cognitive? Mo checked her mobile and said, "It's been a while since someone has addressed us."

"She's probably still in surgery," D said. Joe leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. He wasn't crying as much as earlier, but his head was throbbing like mad, now. She got hit, is what the witness said. She didn't "crash." She didn't "have an accident." Someone hit her with theirs, and didn't even check to see if she was alright. They just left her there, where she might have died... She still could. A witness called for help. Her car was destroyed. He'd taught her how to drive in it. An imaginary flash of how terrifying it might have been for her when the other vehicle colliding with her made him jump in his seat... He put his fist up to his mouth, holding back the gag that was trying to hit him.

I wasn't even really worried, at first. I called just to pick with her about not calling when she got home, because she always likes to know when I get in safely... and someone else answered. An officer. She was unconscious and had been rushed to the hospital. Someone had hit her car. They wanted to know if I had any way of contacting her family... I am her family, the closest she has, here. And, it was nothing that I could have done or nothing that she did... but she was still hurt and I couldn't protect her. Joe's fists with clenched and he bit into his lip extremely hard. He had not felt such fear and anxiety since he was a boy and even then, deep breaths and tai chi generally straightened him right out.

I don't even know if D could understand me through the crying. I couldn't seem to get hold of myself. I was speaking clearly, I think, but saying too much. I wasn't getting to the point. I couldn't just say it. "Lo left late and with the weather and it being slick, she took too long to tell me she made it home, so I called her and the police answered..."

He was calm, but concerned. "Joe-Boy... is she alive?" Not 'Is she dead?' Joe appreciated that a lot more, later. "Yeah, right now, she is. I gotta go to the hospital. I'm the only family she has here and she's alone and her roommate probably thinks that she slept over tonight..."

"Stay there! Rosie and I will pick you up and we'll call Dot, in case the hospital hasn't, yet. You just hang tight. Here, you can talk to your mother while we head that way..." Mo reached across Joe's lap and touched her husband, "Maybe you should take him for a walk?"

"I'm not going nowhere," Joe said, trembling.

"Just do your mom this one favor, Joe-Boy?" She asked. "I don't want you to sit here and torture yourself. Movement may help you unwind, even just a little," she asked. He got up and walked around the waiting room. He wasn't going anywhere until they knew something. He'd sat down for their benefit, anyway. The wait on his parents to arrive at his home was terrible. He was pacing, crying, holding his head, worrying, really losing his shit, to be honest. Staying on the phone with Mo wasn't helping, so he said he had to get off of it. "God, help me. Help me, help me, help me..." He went to wash his face, just to have something to do. His heart was beating too fast. He couldn't remember a time when he was more worked up and he had been high strung as hell in his youth. Truth be told, he was pretty sure that he should have been given something to help him with that, but his folks were always against such methods of medication.

When word finally came back that she was stable, he didn't feel much better. He was glad that she was alive, but she was attached to machines and she was not waking up. They weren't sure for how long she would be in that condition. What if she never woke up? What if she was gone to him forever and the last time he had spent with her had been him letting her leave in the middle of the night while it was rainy outside, instead of staying in, or bringing her home, or just letting her leave at a decent time, in the first place, when she initially told him she needed to? "Why does God do these things?" He muttered.

Rocio and John looked at each other. John put a hand on Joe's shoulder, "Come on, Joe-Boy. We've gotten news, now lets go for that walk. We don't want Dollybird to wake up and see you like this."

Rocio smiled and hugged her son, "I will stay near Lauren’s room and I assure you that I’ll alert y'all if anything happens." She cupped his face and kissed him. Then she gave John a kiss and the squeeze of support on his hand before her two men walked off.

Never again. I am never going to be so careless again. I'm going to do everything in my power to keep her safe. God, please, let her wake up.. Joe looked up, just noticing where they were going, "D, I don't feel like.."

"Well, Son. You asked why God does these things. Why don't we go inside and you can ask him about it." Joe sighed and entered the hospital chapel with his father, one portion annoyed, one portion terrified. He'd been silently calling out all night long, but of course, no answer. What if going in there just made it worse? Sometimes, he thought that maybe God hated him. He found, after denouncing Him, that he still found himself believing.. whether or not he agreed with various interpretations. And, he was concluding that He hated him. God hates me.

Rocio slipped into the hospital room. The sight of Lauren in that condition made her sad. She had a head injury. That frightened her, but... God works miracles. "Well, we have a mess in front of us, don't we?" Rocio asked and went to the sink to get a wet towel. She returned and wiped some of the sweat off of Lauren's face, then sat by her side and took her hand. She mentored so many young women from her church and she wished that she could do that with Lauren; there just always seemed to be some disconnect. Either, she said the wrong thing, or prejudged, or just came across as fake as it felt for her to pretend that the relationship that Lauren and Joe had was ideal for her son, but... "I should start to clean it up by first saying that I'm sorry. I get the feeling that you think that I don't like you. That's not at all true."

She kissed Lauren's hand, "I don't like the things that you and Joe-Boy do. I don't approve of his lifestyle choices and while I have no control over them, its very hard as a mother and as someone who cares for you both to be silent about things that I don't agree with. I have been working on it, fortunately... so... we'll have to see how well I'm doing when you come to. The truth is, even though I've always wanted my boy to find a good girl and get married and give me grandchildren, I have always thought inside of a box for what kind of woman she should be and we both know that you are not inside of that box... But, I tell you the truth: you are the only woman that I can realistically ever see Joseph with, ever again."

The woman's eyes filled with tears. "You make him a happy man, which is what all mothers want. I was afraid, because you were so different than me, that you might take him from me... pull him further away... that he might distance himself from me because of you." She stroked Lauren's cheek. "But, you've been a pleasant addition to our lives, and to this family. And even if it seems at times that I don't like you, ask Joe and Johnny, it seems as times that I don't like them, either. But I love them, and I love you, and I need you to wake up... because my baby boy needs you!" She sobbed and lowered her head to pray, while she held Lauren's hand.

The chapel made him nervous. It had been a little while since he had last been inside of a Catholic building and the imagery of sad angels and a crucified Christ was unsettling him. John seemed unmoved, but he was likely trying to be strong, for his son. "Would you like to go to the altar?" John asked.

"No... Yes..." Joe glanced around and held up his hands to his father, "I want to go by myself." John nodded and found a spot in the pews to sit while Joe went to altar. This is silly. The last thing that I need is to get my hopes up again by turning to this... to You... He wiped a hand down his face. Every time I call out to You; it's a like a wicked joke. I have failed every time I have come to You. But, I can't help myself from trying to trust You... and I get let down, over and over. And maybe, it's been me. Maybe I was letting You down, so that You wouldn't answer me or help me... But, please... I promise You, if You will, this one time fix it, I'll come back. I'll believe. If Lauren can wake up and recover and I can continue to live with her, I will live for You. I'll do it for real, this time.

Tears fell from his face and he quickly wiped them, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. This isn't a bargain. It isn't a negotiation. I know that You're not like that. So, just please bring her back to me, just for the sake of being good. Lauren is a wonderful person. You've let her hurt enough and she's lived through it all and she's found love and a family and she deserves to be able to enjoy it, doesn't she?? Aren't you God?" John, worriedly approached his son. "Aren't You all powerful and aren't You supposed to be good? She's good. Why would You take her and leave me here?" John knelt by Joe and touched him on the back. "Please, just... let her live. I will do right by her, by You... I'll do everything."

"Joe..." John offered and squeezed his shoulder. "You've said how you feel, now... just believe." He helped him up and Joe felt like a he was walking through a dream. Everything was surreal. When he came back to the room, he sat silently, by her side, trying to recall what he would have done in the past when something upset him... but nothing had ever upset him to this degree. He didn't have any frame of reference. He tried to drown out the conversations around him. His parents and her aunts trying to keep each other encouraged... Her father making excuses for why her mother wasn't going to even bother to come (AKA the last fucking straw with those people.) Joe didn't care if they had anything to do with her, at all. All that mattered is that she wake up.

He picked up her hand and began talking quietly to her, "They are driving me crazy. I wish that they would all just freeze. Not leave, because I really don't know how I will handle if the worse happens if I'm alone, but I just want time to kinda stop... kind alike it does when we're together? When there's people everywhere, but you're the only person there, to me.." He started crying again, "That's embarrassing. Your dad made it in... he's seen me cry. Imagine me asking a man for your hand in marriage after he's seen me like this." He wiped his face and caressed her hand, "I don't know... maybe this will count in my favor..." He silenced himself when his mother came over to pray again. She was praying in Spanish, which was soothing, because nobody else really had to be stirred up by any of her words. Most of them couldn't understand them. She did it sporadically, returned to Lauren's side to pray. Going over to encourage the family... doing ministry work to keep herself pulled together.

It several was hours later, but eventually, her eyes opened. They didn't mean to make so much noise in excitement, but they had been waiting a long time and all of them had some degree of worry. Especially Joe. She was going to take months to mend and her recovery would be painful, but as Mo had just said in Spanish, "God gave us our miracle." And, for the first time in a long time, Joe trusted Him again.

#ooc: FINALLY #itwchallenge #February Sweeps: The Light #intotheworld rp #joe hart rp #lauren zizes rp #paras #flashback para

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