Within the Script (A Stanathan Fanfiction)

Chapter Fourteen: On the Bed

Eight days passed and Stana still sat in his room, having fallen asleep in one of the two chairs near his bed while Molly sat across from her on the opposite side of Nathan's bed. Since then, he had suffered two seizures, his heart had stopped once and his vitals had gone for a rollercoaster ride, now currently rising. After the first seizure, Stana was spending the night at the hospital, only returning home to shower every day and eat when she felt like it was possible to eat. She had been there six days, a total of one hundred forty hours in the hospital, about four at home or in the car between places. Molly had been there for an hour or two at a time, leaving and coming back at least twice a day, more like three or four times after Nathan's cardiac episode four days ago.

It was strange to Stana and Molly how much their worlds had come to a halt when Nathan was so close to death nearly every minute. Whether she was in the hospital or not, Stana was thinking of Nathan. It was impossible for her to focus on anything else. This was getting to the point where it was ridiculous. Married women went home at night when their husband were in the hospital, so why couldn't she? And Molly certainly tried to stay away from the hospital, but something in her kept pulling her back. It was like not knowing whether he was alive or dead seemed worse to both women than missing out on their lives and dropping everything to be there.

Then again, to Molly, it was almost as though her father was on the table. To Stana, the man on the table was someone she spent fourteen hours with every week day for eight months out of the year for six years, plus the time she spent with him when the crew would go out for drinks or she and Nathan would go for a movie or run lines or just simply chat through text or something stupid like that. She probably spent more time with him than most married people spent with each other. He was kind of a central point in her life and he was suddenly close to being gone for good. She couldn't imagine just suddenly loosing that relationship. It would be... detrimental to say the least.

While Molly sat, watching Nathan as he slept, thinking about different things here and there, picking up her phone, scrolling twitter, talking to people and trying to get her mind off the world, Stana slept soundly beside him, balled up in a chair as she dreamt of a world where all was fine and Nathan was awake. So many things could go wrong in a moment's notice that even in her dream world, the wide awake Nathan Fillion was one who never seemed to survive

It was always the same. Nathan and Stana would be walking and talking, perfectly content. She would view the images from an onlooker's point of view as the two of them rounded a Los Angeles street corner and began down a dark path. Suddenly, Stana would pull out a bat from out of no where and begin beating Nathan to a pulp. She never woke up until the final blow came and his skull was suddenly a concave structure.

This time, when her body pulsed up and a deep gasp came over her, she managed to wind herself. For a moment, her realities crossed and she was still in her dream, searching her hands for blood and the floor for Nathan's body. When she found him laying in the hospital bed, it took a while longer for her to snap entirely out of it. Finally she heard Molly's voice questioning, "Stana? Are you alright? What happened?"

"Nothing," Stana said, out of breath. "Nothing, just- just a nightmare."

As the older of the two women struggled to catch her breath, the younger studied her. "When was the last time you were home?"

"This morning," Stana said breathlessly. She hadn't exactly been honest about where she was sleeping at night. Molly had been suspicious, but she certainly didn't want to seem disrespectful by trying to tell this woman what she was doing was insane. She knew Stana, and she liked her fairly well, but they weren't all that close. The people Stana was close to weren't the people around enough to notice she didn't seem to ever leave Nathan's side either. And if she was lying about how often she was going home, there wasn't anything anyone could tell her that she didn't already know.

Stana then pulled Molly out of her thoughts by asking, "How is he? Any changes?"

"None," Molly answered. Stana pulled in her lips for a moment, trying to wake herself up a bit more as she watched Nathan. Something about the way he was laying, the way he was sleeping just didn't look right. Even taking away the hospital added stuff, Stana had seen the man sleep and this- this was different. His hands had always been cold, but that feeling was amplified now as they didn't warm up at all. He never was the blushing type, but the extra pale coating over his body was frightening. Even his lips seemed shades lighter, his arms less toned, his breathing less full as his chest moved less often. He was so weak. It was obvious by every aspect of his being. He was so, so weak.

When Molly left and it got late enough that she knew no one would walk in and misread the signals that she was giving, Stana took the man's hand in hers and attempted to warm up his finger tips. They seemed like ice. He felt more chilled than usual. Still, according to the monitor, she had nothing to worry about. Eventually, his skin thawed.

While she watched him, she slowly drifted the chair closer and closer to his bed, eventually stationing herself right beside him as she watched his chest rise and fall. Her thoughts continued to flow through memory after memory of him, praying she would get the opportunity to make more. At some point, her free hand drifted up to his cheek, stroking his skin patiently as she watched him. He didn't react one bit. Foolishly, her heart had given her the hope that he might respond to her touch, but he didn't. The longer she held to him, the more she prayed he would wake up.

Eventually, she fell asleep again, her hand still bound to his as she rested her head on the side of his bed. As she slept, for the first time in days, not a single dream was formed in her mind. Instead she simply rested in a bizarre peace. For the first time, she was entirely calm. Something made her calm, and for once, a horrific dream wasn't what woke her from her rest. This time, the tender caress of a soft, innocent movement woke her. Her eyes drifted open as she rested, and the first sight she saw was that of Nathan's thumb softly gliding circles over the side of their intertwined fingers.