It Never Ends

Carol rubbed John's hand with her thumb and gently reached up to stroke his hair. She hoped she could do something to help him wake up but it didn't seem to work. The peaceful look on his face scared her a bit, could this be what he wanted. To not wake up? Was he fighting to not allow that to happen? She tried to fight back the tears that started to form again in her eyes at the thoughts running through her mind.

"I-I-I'm going to go get some coffee." Carol muttered as she quickly got to her feet and walked out of the room.

She leaned against the door and let out a heavy sigh, this was too much to handle.

--

More minutes continued to pass once Carol left the room. It seemed to be hours but it was only ten minutes. Nurses and the doctor came in to check on John but left with concern and doubt over John being able to overcome this hurtle. It seemed highly unlikely at this point...but John was no quitter. Even though no one knew he was fighting all along to stay alive he was. Then at that moment when Carol opened the door to come back in his fingers began to move.

It really felt like with every moment that passed that things were looking worse. She hated to seem negative, which was why she didn't say anything, but she couldn't help it considering the situation. She really felt like tonight was going to be the night she'd have to say goodbye to her husband. Why else would he not be moving or making any progress at all? There was no clear answer in Elle's mind for it. She really thought this would be over.

"Okay.." Elle said softly, her head turned and Elaine quickly left the room. Elle's attention finally was on John's for more than a few seconds.

"Baby..please..wake up.." Elle whispered as she took Elaine's chair and grabbed his hand that, glad that the side they were on she was holding the hand that had his wedding band on it. "Please, John. I don't know what I'd do without you. Don't leave me." Elle said, starting to choke up again as she squeezed onto his hand. She'd get quiet whenever the doctors and nurses would come to check up on him. Their expressions made her feel a bit hopeless with every passing minute. She didn't hear Carol open the door but she felt John's hand move in her which had her attention. "Johhny..." Elle said somewhat in shock as she looked at the hand in shock. She had to make sure her head wasn't playing games with her and that she wasn't imagining all of this.

Carol had chosen to quietly come in and take the seat next to Elle. She saw his fingers move but thought it wasn't real since she thought she had seen the same thing over the hour. Her hopes were a bit up but just sat there and waited for something else, begging for John to do something else to make it more real.

John's fingers stopped moving after a few seconds. His body seemed to get more life into it as he then moved his hand and after a couple minutes his eyes slowly started to open.

"John." Carol muttered as she stood in shock.

His eyes began to wonder, trying to figure out where he was since his vision was blurry. When everything was finally clear he saw his mom and Elle staring at him. What the? Why was his mom here? Why was he in the...hospital? What the hell had happened to him? His thoughts soon came to a full stop when he tried to take a deep breath but couldn't. John's eyes widened in panic and he put a hand on his throat, the machines starting to beep loudly.

Elle was literally on the edge of her seat when John moved his hand. "Johnny..Johnny.." Elle said, her voice probably getting desperate with each time she said his name. This was the most she had gotten from him all day. She latching onto any/every response. This was a big, or so she thought.

"Carol, he moved...he moved...I swear he did." Elle said, more so trying to convince herself that this was indeed happening.

She then saw his eyes open and looked up at him with so much hope. She stood up and ran her hand down his face, tears forming her eyes. But her moment of relief turned into fear when John's eyes widened. "John! John!" She screamed as she looked at him in horror. "Someone come in here!" She screamed even louder.

Carol got up quickly and ran outside of the room to the hallway.

"Someone help him! Help my son!" Carol screamed desperately.

She watched at nurses and doctors ran into the room to see what the problem was. One of the nurses had to hold Elle back so the doctor could get to John then saw what the problem was. The doctor instructed John to start coughing so he could take the plastic tube out.

John did what he was told and was relieved once the tube was out, allowing him to take small deep breathes. He swallowed hard, feeling weak, as he looked around the room again.

"Water." John choked out, his throat starting to feel dry.

"I'll get that for you Mr. Cena." a nurse said before walking out of the room.

Elle was tired of being held back. Her husband was in pain or something. Why was she being held from him?! She moved away in a huff, not pleased at all, but was too worried about John to really dwell on it. She finally did calm down once the issue was addressed, glad it was only something minor and could be easily fixed.

Elle sat back down, letting out an exasperated sigh as she ran a hand through her hair pretty much exhausted.

Carol let out a sigh of relief, her hand on her chest as she saw John start to calm down. She couldn't speak for a few moments, the whole thing scared her and she needed to calm down herself. When the nurse came back with the water Carol took the cup from her and handed it to John.

"Here you go honey." Carol said with a slight timid voice, worried that something else might happen.

John didn't say anything as he took the cup of water and drank it. Once he was done with it Carol took the empty cup. He looked around the room again in attempt to process everything that was going on.

"What am I doing here?" John finally asked.

It seemed like the worst of it was over, or so Elle hoped. She was relieved that John was awake and that what just happened wasn't anything major. She didn't take her eyes off of John though, afraid that if she did, something would happen again. He was awake, breathing, and the worst was behind them. It had to be. What more could happen?

She looked at John somewhat in shock by the question. He didn't remember? She looked at Carol a bit confused before looking back at John. "You drank a large amount of alcohol before taking a bunch of pills. You got rushed here cause your mother found you lying on the floor. They had to pump your stomach. And...the doctors believe this was a suicide attempt." Elle said softly.

It was honestly all a blur, he didn't remember much but did know one thing for sure. He did not want to kill himself. Mixing pills and alchohol wasn't smart in the slightest but he wouldn't try to escape his problems like that. John wanted to be a good example for his kids and choosing that way as a way out wasn't something he supported or wanted his kids to think was the only way out.

"I didn't want to kill myself." John said.

"Then why the hell did you almost do that John? I know you're going through a lot but you have to think before you do things." Carol said, she didn't want to come off as mean but she was hurt by what John did and could have done.

"I'm sorry...I wasn't thinking." John muttered as he looked down.

When John finally spoke, she didn't say anything right away. She wanted to believe him, she really did. She truly wanted to believe that he didn't want to kill himself, that it was just a mistake. But who takes that many pills after drinking that large amount of alcohol if they didn't want something bad to happen? It honestly made no sense to her, especially since John was a smart guy.

She just shook her head as she leaned back and sunk down in her seat and remained silent.

John looked over at Elle. He could read off her face how disappointed and sad she was. It killed him to see that look on her face and killed him even more to know it was because of him that she was feeling that way. Maybe he deep down was trying to kill himself, now that he thought about it. John was so tired of hurting other people so maybe the doctors were right and that even scared him a bit, knowing he could have died. He swallowed hard then opened his mouth to speak.

"Elle...please say something." John said.

She was upset, confused, and bunch of other emotions. She was done with crying, tired of asking herself questions that couldn't be answered. Elle was just emotionally drained. She didn't even look at him when he spoke, cause at this point she had no words, nothing could express how she felt during all of this and how she was feeling nothing.

"I have nothing to say." Elle said.

John sighed then was going to say something else when his mom put a hand on his arm.

"I think you should leave it alone for right now. She's been through a lot." Carol said.

He shook his head, he really just wanted to talk to her. John wanted to be what he had always been in the past, the knight and shining armour. The guy she would run to and share everything even if it made her look vulnerable. Why wouldn't she allow him to be that now? Maybe because right now he was the vulnerable one, more so than Elle. There probably wasn't much more he could take before he would think to hurt himself again.

There really was nothing that could be said. This changed everything, whether either of them wanted to acknowledge it or not. She still didn't believe that none of this was unintentional and because of that, guess you can say she felt just a little betrayed. Betrayed because of this "accident" that he says it was, she could've lost him and their family would've been destroyed. Maybe even a bit of bitterness towards him could even be said was there was as well because even though John had a tube down his throat and almost died, who really had to deal with the consequences of his actions? She and his mother did. John didn't have to deal with the panic that they felt for a majority of the night, the fact that they both had to contemplate possibly burying him and saying their last goodbye, or what they'd have to tell the kids. None of that. Accident or not, that decision he made affected them in the worst way because he was either careless or really did want it all to end.

"Going to get some coffee." Elle said, standing up and walking out of the room. She honestly thought full on relief would now come now that John was awake and breathing, but it didn't. Another disappointment for the night.

John watched Elle as she walked out of the room. It was hard to see that, it felt like she was walking out on him and their life together. Then again that must have been what she felt like when he did what he did. He couldn't imagine what type of impact that would have caused on everyone and he was really beating himself up for doing something so stupid. He turned to his mom and she wasn't even looking at him. She looked just as drained as Elle did before she left.

"Mom?" John asked.

Carol sighed and just shook her head. She wasn't in the mood to talk at the moment, her mind was just blank at the moment and she was exhausted.

"Just get some rest John." Carol said.

Elle found her way to the hospital cafeteria. She got herself a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table. She took a small sip of the beverage, the hot liquid pretty much burning her throat as it made his way down. The warmness actually felt kind of good. She had been feeling sort of cold for most of the night, it was a welcome changed.

She set the cup down and leaned back in her seat a little. She stared blankly out the window that was nearby. This was calming in some eerie way. She wasn't too sure when or if she'd go back into John's room, as of now it would be better to just not deal with what was going on in there.

John let out a defeated sigh. He couldn't imagine what either Elle or his mother were going through and what he did was selfish. While he was too busy trying to comfort himself and make the pain go away for himself he caused more pain than needed to others. Elle had gone through so much already before he ended up in the hospital so him deciding to make her battle more pain was unfair. John sunk down in the bed and looked around for a bit before he closed his eyes before falling asleep.

When she saw John fast asleep Carol leaned back in her seat. She was starting to feel exhausted from the events of the day and rubbed her eyes. After grabbing her jacket off the seat next to her she put it behind her head to act as a pillow then fell asleep.

Elle stayed in the cafeteria for a little over an hour. It felt good just to step away from everything and just not think, which was what she needed. She got up and headed back to John's room. Honestly, she wanted to go home and not back in there, but only stayed because Carol was still there. She walked into the room and noticed that both John and Carol were sleep. She grabbed a chair, bringing it over to the window on the opposite side of the room and curled up a little, hoping that sleep would come easily due to her exhaustion.

John had woken up when he heard the door open. He saw Elle walk in but didn't saything as she curled up on the chair. He's never felt so guilty before over something in his life and he knew that feeling wasn't going to go away for a while. This wasn't just some little thing he could say sorry for then it would be over, it was going to take a lot before anyone could forgive him for this. He held back a sigh so he wouldn't disturb anyone then closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

If it wasn't for how tired and warn out she was from the entire night, she was almost positive she wouldn't have been able to fall asleep. It was the exhaustion that had her in a heavy sleep, that was it. Anything else wouldn't have had her passed out like she did now. She didn't know just how much her body needed the rest, cause she slept pretty much soundly for the rest of the night. Her eyes opened and she looked around the room, before looking at the clock. It was still early a little after eight when she had awoken, she stretched her legs out in the chair she was in and stood up, to walk around the room a little bit.

Carol was first to wake up after Elle then moaned as she stretched her arms. She hadn't slept in a hospital chair for a long time so she wasn't used to the achy feeling she would feel in her neck after it. After moving her neck around for a bit Carol stood up to her feet and shook the feeling off.

"Morning sweetie." Carol said to Elle.

"Hey Carol." Elle said. She knew Carol couldn't have been too comfortable sleeping on that chair. "It's been a rough night, maybe we should go back to the house for a little bit. Clean up, maybe you can even get some more rest at the house." Elle offered.

Carol nodded. That was a good idea and she definitely could use more rest. John was alive and sleeping well without any problems so she was sure he would okay for a couple hours without her. It didn't stop her worrying but she was hopeful that nothing else was going to happen from now on.

"Yeah, it would be good to get out of here for a little bit." Carol said.

She walked over to John then kissed him on his forehead before she grabbed her jacket and put it on.

Elle gathered her things and walked over to the door, waiting for Carol. It was probably obvious how distant she was, but she didn't know how else to be. She waited for Carol before walking out of the room.

Tension was so thick in the room, that was an obvious fact and Carol could feel it. She understood how Elle felt, she felt the same but to a lesser degree. John had hurt them both but she didn't want to completely abandon him. It wasn't what he needed right now and it wasn't going to help him in the future if he felt like he had no one to lean on. She just hoped John was serious about not wanting to do this again and that they could move on even though it was going to be long and hard to do so.