Chapter 90: The Light

She starts to get a sinking feeling in her stomach and looks down to see that she isn't pregnant anymore. Matter of fact, she is still clothed and under the covers of her bed. She wakes up, her head starting to pound as she tries to clear the sleep from her eyes.

Getting up from the bed she finds some aspirin and gulps down a glass of water with two of them. She returns to the bathroom and looks in the mirror. Doubting herself she looks at the shower and then back at her reflection. Yep, not pregnant, and alone.

Her eyes look a little sunken in because she feels dehydrated as she inspects herself in the mirror again. Looking like she has a hangover she decides to stay up and get some fluids in her as she makes her way to the kitchen, she notices something. There's a small package that wasn't there earlier sitting on the kitchen counter.

It's blue and has a ribbon around it. She checks it to find a note. It says, "Sis, this was in your mailbox. I came by earlier and noticed your door was unlocked. You must have forgot to lock it after I left yesterday. Please be more careful."

"What the hell?" She says out loud to herself as she inspects the package, opening it carefully. The only thing that was keeping the wrapping on was the ribbon so once that came off it fell open, then she sees where it came from.

Babies Galore. Now things were finally coming together. She carefully opens the box and when she looks inside, she starts to cry. Everything that had happened to her all came crashing down suddenly. Inside was a baby pacifier, and an invoice. It had Ben's name on it. He had ordered it the day of their accident and it must have been back ordered because it just arrived now.

She falls to the floor clutching the pacifier in her hand and curls up into a ball. The tears don't seem to stop, and time stands still. Minutes turn into hours as she lay holding an artifact of her past in the palm of her hand. Eventually she looks up and sees Ben standing there. "Get up. You can't do this."

He holds his hands out and she accepts his help as he picks her up. Their eyes meet as he holds her, and she puts her hands on his chest. "Cold." She looks down at her hands and mumbles.

"What?"

"You are. You're so very cold."

"Yes, baby I'm dead. You can't keep doing this to me. I need to move on. You must let me go. I'm so sorry for leaving you in the first place but I'm not supposed to be here anymore."

"I can't. I need you and I will always need you."

"Baby. I must go. I have been feeling something for a while now. The longer I'm here the weaker I am getting. I'm afraid if I don't leave now, I may be stuck here for eternity or worse I might disappear for good." The look in his eyes tells Samantha he's scared and is telling her the truth.

She stops crying and puts the pacifier back in the box, throwing it in the garbage. With her head held high she tries to pretend she is fine for Ben's sake. "There. I am over it. Now I'm over you. I will always love you, but I will move on. I most likely will never be with another man as long as I live but I will move on, I promise you. So please leave, I don't need you anymore." She says with a brave face.

Hoping he believes her act she turns to leave the room, but he stops her. His hand grabs onto her arm and makes her face him. "Samantha, this is for the best. I need you to move on to someone who can give you what you need so badly. You deserve a beautiful family with little children running around and a man who loves you more than anything on this earth."

"Love of mine, you told me once that I was Your Forever. Well, you're mine and you always will be. There will never be a family with children and a loving man because it was already ripped from me brutally, but I can't hold onto you either. You must go. It's what's right. Just know I will always love you, no matter what." She starts to tear up but sucks in a deep breath and fights them back.

She pauses, "Someday, I will follow you into the dark. Till then, remember me wherever you go." She kisses him and then they both feel the sense that it has ended.

He turns away from her and responds, "Until then." As it reaches her ears he disappears into thin air. She sees it suddenly get lighter outside and the storm stops. The sun starts to shine brighter then she has ever seen before, and she finally feels at peace. For some reason she feels a weight off her shoulders, but she's absolutely lost.

For the next week she talks to Kelly and Aaron on the phone, but other than that she doesn't do much besides drink and read. Occasionally, she grabs a bite to eat or drink something other than wine. Most of the time, she stays drunk, so she doesn't feel the incredible sense of emptiness that she felt when Ben left.

During this time, she doesn't dream or even think about Jonathan. All she does is exist, and barely at that. Her head the whole time feels like she's in a cloud as she floats from room to room and when she stops reading, she starts to cry. So, she always makes sure that she isn't allowed to think about anything except for her stories.

One day Kelly stops by when she feels that something is wrong with Samantha. She knocks on the door repeatedly and Samantha doesn't answer so she gets her spare keys out and opens the door. The mail had piled up in the box, so Kelly collected it all and brought it in.

When she steps into the hallway, she smells something and looks around for the source. She ends up in the kitchen and finds the gas stove left on. Panicked, she opens the kitchen windows and then runs to find Samantha.

She finds her laying on her bed passed out. Kelly checks her pulse to make sure she's still alive and then quickly opens all the windows in the bedroom, then she calls 911 as she tries to wake Samantha up.

Having no luck, she talks to the operator on the phone and tells them Samantha's address and what happened. Scared, Kelly holds onto Samantha for dear life. Hearing the sirens in the distance, she hesitantly leaves Samantha's side to wave down the ambulance.

Kelly finally sees the lights as it rounds the corner and speeds to Samantha's driveway. She hurries them inside and watches as they bring in their equipment to try and revive her. Having no luck waking her, they call it in and let dispatch know that they are bringing her in.

Watching, she feels a sense of dread when they couldn't wake her up after several attempts. She tries to hold herself together as she watches her little sister's life hang in the balance. The crew gets Samantha on a gurney and loads her into the ambulance as Kelly stands there. She finds out what hospital they are taking her to, locks up the house and follows them.

She is directed to the main entrance of the E.R. and she walks in a trance as she calls Joel and notifies him what happened. A few minutes later he shows up and finds her sitting in the waiting room. "What the hell happened?"

Kelly stands up and runs to him, "She tried to kill herself. They said if I would have got there five minutes later it would have been too late. As it is they don't know when she will wake up." She starts to cry as Joel holds her tenderly.

"Baby, it's going to be o.k. Remember just a couple months ago we thought she would never wake up from that coma and she did. Now we just must wait for her to wake up again. Can you tell me why she did it?"

"She couldn't handle the death of Ben. She kept saying he was haunting her for weeks and then he finally went into the light just before she did this. She wanted to follow him I guess, and she had gotten mixed up with a younger guy who had lied to her, so she cut him out of her life right at the same time. She just couldn't handle it all, just too much in a short time after losing Ben and the baby."

"Damn. I'm sorry baby." He rubs her back and sits with her while they wait for any news.

"I don't know if I should call Jonathan or not? I am going to call Aaron in a few minutes, but I don't know how to tell him. I think they were starting to get intimate again before all this happened."

"Oh, yeah that's a hard one. If I was Aaron, I would want to know right away. Specially if I had feelings for her, but it must be hard hearing it from you. Maybe you better let me call. I know he still harbors resentment towards you."

"Thank you so much honey. I honestly didn't know how to handle that." He squeezes her gently and kisses her lovingly on the lips.

"I will always try to be here for you. I love you and no matter what has happened in the past, we will get through this."

Kelly hands Joel her phone and he makes the call to Aaron. Within minutes he comes running into the waiting area. His eyes are red, and Kelly can tell he's been crying. He has such a soft heart; she feels bad that she hurt him so much before.

He looks at Kelly and gives her a hug. "I'm so sorry. I rushed over as soon as Joel called me. I just talked to her yesterday. I thought she was doing fine. How did she do it and do they know if she will wake up?"

Kelly struggles to tell him, "She turned the stove on and blew out the pilot light. They don't know for sure. All they know is she's breathing on her own."

"I can't believe this nightmare never ends. First, she almost dies in a car accident and now she tries to kill herself. Did you have any idea she was still depressed?"

Kelly looks at Aaron, "Before this no, she covered it up really well. But this morning I had this bad feeling and that's when I went over to check on her. When she didn't answer I grabbed my spare key and found her on the bed. All I knew was that she was breathing and unconscious after I shut off the gas and opened the windows."

"I just can't believe this. Samantha and I had just started to get closer again. But when she broke up with Jonathan, I guess that was the last straw for her. She had said to me the last several days she felt a weight had been lifted from her shoulders as she believed Ben finally went to the light."

"I know, she told me that too. I was hoping things would start to look up for her." Kelly starts to cry as Joel brings her to his chest and holds her. He motions to Aaron to take a seat by them and wait for news.