She's a Little Bit Country, He's a Little Bit Rock N' Roll

"Guys, quiet! I think she is starting to wake up...her eyes are starting to flutter." I heard whispers around me, but for some reason it was extremely difficult to open my eyes. I heard the voices around me continuously mutter, with a few sniffles thrown in here and there. As my eyes slowly opened, they revealed dim lighting with Brian, Zacky, Pixie, and Jimmy standing around me.

My eyes wandered towards my surroundings. I was hooked up to machines...I was in the hospital. Why was I here? Why does it feel like I've been hit by a Mack truck?

"Wha--what happened?" I asked attempting to sit up, which was a giant mistake as Brian gently pushed me back down into the bed.

"Shh--it's okay hun, just relax, okay? Do you remember anything?" He furrowed his brow.

"I don't...wh--where is Matt?" I began to feel panic rising inside of my chest when I noticed he wasn't by my side. Silence filled the room, and it wasn't comfortable. I began to feel extremely uneasy, and my breathing became disrupted.

"Matt's in...another room." Jimmy practically whispered. I heard a small crack in his voice which signaled that he was lying. He was never the best liar.

"Where is Matt..." I asked again, a more serious tone of voice this time, hoping that it would give me the answers I needed. Brian let out a deep breath and grabbed my hand.

"You both were in a really nasty car crash, Ives..." He had to take a few seconds to compose himself before continuing, "it was a drunk driver who hit Matt's side of the car. They checked to make sure if you and the babies were okay and the twins are fine..but..the impact...it was too strong for him.."

I saw a lone tear creep slowly down Brian's cheek, and began to notice that everyone else in the room was silently weeping. The corners of my eyes began to burn, threatened with tears trying to push their way out. "He didn't make it...did he.."

The uncomfortable silence made itself comfortable in the room once more. My throat began to burn upon the realization that the man that just became my husband was no longer part of this earth. The room stayed silent until Brian recovered some nerve to speak.

"I'm so sorry Ivy..." Tears started to fall from Brian's eyes as he held onto my hand, "I promise there was nothing any of us could do. They tried it all." He shook his head.

"I want to see him now. Take me to him!" I yelled trying to rip the lines and IV off of myself. They all huddled around me and tried to hold me down until I could relax, but I knew it wouldn't happen any time soon.

"I just had him...I just fucking had him!" I screamed, resulting in Jimmy bending down to hold me. We cried together, not caring how ugly we sounded. That's all any one of us could do.

"Someone needs to call my dad..." Brian sniffled.

"I did when we got here...he is on the next flight from his show." Johnny whispered, peaking his head into the door. I looked behind him to see Michelle and Val sitting in the hallway crying.

My heart dropped deep into my stomach and shattered into a million pieces. I was left alone. Our children were going to grow up without a father. My perfect life was stolen away before I had time to appreciate it and there was absolutely nothing I could fucking do about it. I can't bring him back. I can't tell him I love him and hear his raspy voice tell me he loves me more. I couldn't stop the tears from falling as all of these thoughts flooded my mind.

"Just..take me to him.." I spat out.

They looked at each other wearily before Brian nodded towards them, signaling for someone to grab a nurse so they could get me into a wheelchair. As Jimmy pushed me down the hall that lasted forever, we finally stopped in front of a door.

"Ivy you don't have to do this...he wouldn't want you to remember him this way..." Brian bent down on one knee in front of me and wiped away stray tears that would have fallen onto my baby bump.

"I need to see him Bri...please..."I whispered and closed my eyes, hoping that by the time I opened them that I would be placed in front of my beloved. When I opened them, time stopped. Everything around me was still. It was just him and I.

There he was...laying on the table with a sheet covering his body like this was some fucking mystery film. I slowly stood up, making sure the various tubes and wires attached to me were out of the way of me walking up to the table. I took a few deep breaths, silently hoping that this was one of the worst pranks that Jimmy could have conjured. I looked back at the group, who were all looking at the floor silently as I pulled the sheet back to expose the head of the body.

As soon as I saw him, I fucking lost it. I lunged my body onto the cold metal bed, ripping out my IV in the process. Blood dripped down my arm as I held onto him for dear life, screaming until my vocal cords felt like they were going to rip in half.

"Matt...baby please wake up...you have to stay with me! You can't leave me! You can't leave us!" I cried hitting his chest.

I felt a pair of arms wrap around my waist and begin to pull me away from him, whispers of noises that were meant to calm me down but instead altered my reality that much further. I was crying so roughly that breaths only came through my lungs every ten seconds or so.

Jimmy and Brian worked together to get me back into the wheelchair, wiping the blood from my arm and applying pressure to it as I watched Zacky pull the fabric back over Matt's head, wiping away tears of his own.

"Where's the bastard that did this..."

"He fled on foot after running into you...the police are out looking for him as we speak." Jimmy mumbled.

"What am I going to do without him...what are our babies going to do..."

"Ivy I know this is...God this is so fucking hard to fathom...we have to stick together, though. None of us are going anywhere, we promise. You will never be alone and neither will the boys." Brian rubbed the back of my neck during his assurance speech.

I didn't want to talk to anyone or be surrounded by them. I just wanted to cry and lay with my husband. I wanted him to wake up and tell me he was playing a cruel joke. I wanted a miracle. I wanted to be with him.

How could fate do this to me? To all of us. Matt didn't deserve this ending and neither did we.

"We need to get her out of here." Johnny frowned.

"Zacky go get a nurse to put in a new IV." Brian whispered.

"I can hear you. I don't want it. Just leave me alone." I said staring at the wall as they wheeled me back down the hall to my room. When we arrived, I climbed into bed and threw every blanket provided over myself to attempt to form some sort of blanket cocoon to keep myself from the outside world.

I heard small whispers around the room, but didn't care enough to pay any attention to them.

"Ivy, sweetheart, one of us has to stay with you here tonight. Who would you like it to be?" Jimmy asked patiently.

I pulled the blankets away from my face and looked around the room. "Why don't you all go home and leave me here to die, how does that sound?" I spat, not knowing that I even had that tone of voice in me.

"Ivy...I know you're in a lot of pain right now but there is no getting out of this one...we need to know who you want to stay with you so we can make plans." He rubbed small circles against my back.

"I don't care...Brian..whatever.." I mumbled.

Brian threw everyone a quick head nod to signal that everything would be taken care of as the nurse entered the room to reconnect my IV. Everyone left the room slowly as though they were now carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. I watched as Zacky helped Val and Michelle off of the hallway floor, putting his jacket around them and escorting them down the hall as everyone held each other.

The new IV burned, but I didn't mind it. The pain filled the part of me that I wanted it to. I was numb to everything else going on around me. All I wanted was an escape. I wanted to leave this place and be with the love of my life. I wanted to see that gorgeous smile with those deep dimples. I wanted to hear his laugh when I told one of my corny jokes. I wanted to argue over what we were going to name the boys like we have been for the last two months.

I closed my eyes and allowed more silent tears to fall. I noticed that I was beginning to shake. Brian reached over to hold my hand.

"The nurse is going to give you something to help you sleep soon, Ivy. You need as much rest as you can get after the trauma your body has been through. You need to keep those little boys in good shape." He continued to stroke my hair.

"He left me Brian...what am I supposed to do..." I was finally able to look into Brian's eyes, noticing the pain in them reflecting mine.

"I am afraid I don't have the answers to everything. I do know a few things, though. I will always be around to help you and to take care of you. I will make sure that nothing ever happens to you or those boys. You are the family's precious cargo, now. We won't let anything happen to you." He whispered.

"I won't be able to go home...I can't....it will remind me too much of him." I cried.

"Shhh...honey, I know..." He started to cry with me once more before the nurse came in and prepared the liquid she would eventually push into my line and help me sleep.

"Can you rate your pain level on a scale of one to ten for me, Mrs. Scott?"

"Sanders...it's Mrs. Sanders...physically it's around a three...mentally...a thousand." I sniffled.

"I'm going to give you a muscle relaxer as well. Don't worry, it will be safe for the little ones, and it's only mild. It's just going to stay ahead of the muscle tension you would eventually feel from the strain of the crash." As she continued to prepare the medicine, Brian continued.

"I know it's hard to imagine a life without him...you've lost your husband and I've lost my best friend...my brother...but we have a new beginning approaching and I know we need it. That man left no box unchecked when he decided to build a life with you, and I promise you that everything will be okay. It will hurt. It will hurt for days, weeks, and onto years, but we will always have each other to lean on through that hurt."

The nurse released the ice cold liquid into the IV line and I felt it flow through my veins.

"I'm going to the only place where I can see him ever again, Brian. Anything you want me to pass on if I go through his path?"

"Tell him that I love him, and that I will keep the promise I made to him forever."

Everything began to slip away as I fell into the darkness, hoping to meet the love of my life among the eerie silence of a dream vision.

Notes

For all those who didn't encounter this story when I first wrote it on my old account eight years ago, please do not get discouraged about the ending. Matt WILL still be appearing in the sequel actively. I know it isn't a happy ending now, but I assure you, the sequel will tie up any and every loose end that this tale did not. Don't hate me! Thank you so much for sticking around until the end of this. With everything that has happened in my life during the last couple of years, I feel very proud to have finished this. I can't wait to begin the sequel soon!

xxoo,
Leagh