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Need You Now

Chapter 73

The past: Saturday late afternoon, January 16th, 2000

The rest of the holiday season had flown by with little contact from Sam’s family. Well, the majority of the men in her family, that is, since her father, Bo and Tyler adamantly refused to have anything to do with Daryl and thus, Sam, since she refused to spend Christmas with them without her husband. She had managed a little time with the others members of her family when they’d shown up at hers and Daryl’s house after lunch on Christmas, arms full of presents and food. While it was a lovely surprise and Sam was pleased that most of her family had accepted Daryl as one of them, Sam couldn’t get past the wave of sadness that plagued her heart at the absence of the rest of her family; most importantly, her father. It seemed that the sonogram copies she’d made sure to get for her mother had little to no impact on her father as he’d not reached out to Sam since the day she’d told them she was pregnant and getting married. It broke her heart to think that her daughter might live in a world where her grandfather ignored her over a disagreement with his own daughter.

To celebrate the New Year, Sam and Daryl had stayed in, cuddled up on the couch while watching the ball drop. It was the first time in a long time where she hadn’t celebrated the incoming year with fanfare, but she wouldn’t have changed it for the world. Afterward, once the glittering ball had made its descent in the middle of Times Square, Daryl had picked her up and carried her to bed, where they had continued to ring in the New Year making love to one another. Sam was pretty sure that she had no intentions of celebrating that particular holiday in any other manner than being wrapped in Daryl’s arms, and having him buried inside her.

After the joy and cheer of the holiday season faded away, Daryl’s dark mood had returned in full force. Sam had tiptoed around him, careful not to upset him any more than he already was, although she was fairly certain that his bad mood wasn’t caused by her specifically. Although she had asked him on more than one occasion what was wrong, he’d simply shut her out by assuring her that nothing was wrong, which Sam knew was a lie. Without knowing the problem, she was at a loss as what she could do to fix it and simply had to wait it out and see if things improved with time.

Daryl had been spending a lot of time with his brother, which Sam felt was odd since he’d barely spent any time with Merle since they had started dating. While she still felt bad for the rift she felt she’d caused between the brothers in the beginning, Sam wasn’t entirely sure that spending time with Merle was the best thing for Daryl. She was more than aware of the activities Merle Dixon partook in thanks to the report from her brother, and didn’t want Daryl to end up on that same road simply due to his need to please his brother. There was also the fact that the more time Daryl spent with Merle, the worse his mood was when he returned. To Sam, there had to be a correlation there.

Glancing up at the clock, she noticed that Daryl was now almost an hour late. He had left with Merle that morning, allegedly going back up to Atlanta for some type of work that Sam had yet to be clued in to the nature of, but had promised to be home in time to drive her over to Macon for the wedding reception the band was playing at that night. While she was fully capable of driving, he had been worried about her driving home at such a late hour by herself. However, as the clock counted down to the deadline of her departure, Sam was beginning to think that she was going to have to leave without him, despite her promises to not do just that. Sighing, Sam stalked across the room and sank down on the couch, preferring to glare at the clock from the comfort of the leathery furniture instead of standing in the kitchen.

Another half hour later and Sam had to accept the fact that Daryl wasn’t coming home, she just prayed that he had forgotten or gotten tied up, instead of the other possibility of him being hurt or worse. Pushing off the couch, she grabbed her purse and scribbled a quick note to Daryl letting him know that she had to leave without him. There was nothing she could do about Daryl at the moment since there was no way of getting hold of him and she had no clue where he was supposed to be and therefore had no way of contacting local authorities to see if he’d been involved in an accident. Letting the door slam shut behind her, Sam headed towards her car.

By the time the last set was complete, the time was inching its way towards midnight and Sam’s feet were killing her; being five months pregnant and standing on stage in heels, no matter how low they were, wasn’t doing wonders for her present state of comfort. Exhausted, she picked up her guitar case with one hand and held on to her heels with the other. “I had a great time tonight guys. Thanks for letting me play with you.”

“Hey, we’re just glad to have you. They’ve missed you over at Tiny’s, you know?” Ryan hefted his own guitar case on to his shoulder and smiled down from the stage at Sam. Really noticing the dark circles under her eyes for the first time that night, he asked, “You sure you’re okay to drive? We’re staying over at the Holiday Inn, they may have a room.”

While the offer was appealing, Sam declined in favor of driving herself home and seeing if Daryl was there. She had attempted calling the house during their break, but had been greeted by the answering machine instead of her husband. Waving goodbye to the guys in the band, Sam said with a barely stifled yawn, “Y’all have a good night!”

After stowing the guitar in the backseat, Sam tossed her shoes in to the floorboard on the passenger side before easing down in to the driver’s seat. While it was inevitable that she was going to have to trade in her Camaro for something more on the reasonable side, Sam had been putting off doing so for as long as possible, since she really loved her little red sports car. She cranked the car and turned up the radio loudly, both for entertainment on the long drive home and to keep her awake, and pulled out of the parking lot.

There was little traffic once she turned on to highway 18 from highway 75, as she made her way out of Macon; the late night hour generally bringing out only the night shift workers and insomniacs. She idly changed the channels, looking for something a little peppier than country music in hopes that a more upbeat tune would rejuvenate her a bit. Settling on a station that was playing retro songs from the 80’s, she yawned loudly and strummed her fingers on the steering wheel along to the beat. For about thirty miles, she did really well with driving, seemingly more awake than she was when she left the reception, but was clearly wrong when the startling sound of her car swerving off the roadway, on to the gravel shoulder, caused Sam to over calculate when she jerked the wheel sharply towards the left.

Her heart beat wildly in her chest as she tried to gain control of her car, only managing to do so a half second before her line of sight was blinded by the high beams of an oncoming car. Sam’s own screams matched the level of music blaring out of the speakers before being joined by the bone chilling sound of metal crunching against metal as the vehicle rammed in to the headlight on the driver’s side of the Camaro and skidded up the quarter panel, the vehicles tearing apart just shy of the side mirror on Sam’s car, but only because she was now barreling down an embankment; the force of the full sized truck forcing her off the roadway.



Sunday afternoon was in full swing by the time Lindy Collins pulled in to the parking lot at the Coliseum Medical Center in Macon, where she had worked in Labor and Delivery for the past ten years. Grabbing her obligatory travel mug full of much needed caffeine, she headed through the main entrance and made her way to the Family Ties Birthing Center to begin the overtime shift she had picked up at the last minute, opting to go to the early morning services at church and skip the rest of family day in order to help out a good friend who had scored tickets to a concert out of town. Slipping around the counter, by passing the nurse who was just heading out, she sat down her purse and coffee. She was picking up the pile of folders to start going over files of incoming patients, when the senior nightshift nurse appeared at her side with a frown marring her face. Sitting down the paperwork in her hand, Lindy asked, “What’s wrong, Meredith?”

“We have a patient in from Collins, that’s where you’re from, right?” Meredith held out the folder in her hand and continued, “We’re having a hard time getting hold of anyone at the numbers listed on her file and thought you might be able to help.”

“Sure, let me see.” Lindy took the folder and flipped it open to inspect the information inside, figuring that if she didn’t know who the woman was then she could easily call Bo and have him do some digging. Glancing down, her heart sank when she saw the name on the paperwork. Lindy pushed back the chair and stood up, heading towards the room listed while talking over her shoulder.“She’s my sister-in-law. What happened?”

“Car wreck. Came in a couple of hours ago.” Meredith reached out and grabbed hold of Lindy’s shoulder to slow her down. “Linds, it was bad. Apparently it took rescue workers a while to get to her and who knows how long she was trapped in the car before then. The officer that came in with her said she was hit nearly head on by a truck, a drunk driver.”

“How bad are we talking?” Lindy paused and looked back inside the folder, finally paying attention to what was documented inside. Pressing a hand to her mouth, she held back the tears that burned in her eyes. “Oh my god.” Locating one of the phones in the hallway, she left Meredith behind and headed to it quickly, lifting the receiver and getting an outside line to call her family. Thankfully, everyone had just started trickling in to Jim and Donna’s house for lunch after church, so someone was there to answer her desperate call. Once she had finished explaining the situation, Lindy added, “Find Daryl. The Macon police have tried and so has the hospital, but he’s not answering the phone. Do what you have to, Bo…Sam’s gonna need him.”

After hanging up with Bo, Lindy headed down the hallway towards the room where Sam was assigned to. Pushing open the door, she found the room dimly lit with the only light coming in through the barely cracked blinds. Hesitantly, she slipped in the room and eased a hip on to Sam’s bed, reaching out to take hold of her hand. Glancing over at the machine that monitored her vitals, she was relieved to find them at a healthy state and turned her attention back to Sam, who was now staring up at her with tears in her eyes. “Hey baby girl, I’m so sorry.” Lindy choked out, her own tears finally releasing to fall over her pale blonde lashes on to her cheeks.

“Where’s Daryl?” Sam managed to get out between sobs, as she clung tightly to her sister-in-law, who was crying nearly as earnestly as she was. “I need...I need to tell him. He needs to know that I…I lost our baby.”

Notes

Comments

@aphishinthec


Wow! Thank you so much. Glad you enjoyed it again. :)

Serenity Serenity
12/1/16

I binge read this too over thanksgiving weekend and literally could not put it down. I was a constant reader when the updates were regular, but sadly am the worst at remembering to review. Excellent story to binge read!!

aphishinthec aphishinthec
12/1/16

@Tripper


Squee! Glad you liked it just as much the second time around. :)

Serenity Serenity
11/28/16

So, I may have just gorged myself on this story and read it all over again in a few days. This is one of my very favourite stories of all time. So freakin' good. Thanks again for this wicked story!

Tripper Tripper
11/25/16

@Lunabelle4


Thank you so much!

Serenity Serenity
11/14/16