If I can't have you

Levi woke up dazed and confused. The last thing that he remembered was being in his basement room but now he appeared to be in a room of total darkness. He began to panic, his mind almost immediately going to the worst conclusions. He'd been kidnapped he knew it. What for he didn't know. His family weren't well off and it certainly wasn't his connection to the Kims. They were nearly bankrupt after all. While he was panicking, he noticed the room start to come into focus with a few details starting to make themselves known. He saw the outline of a large vase of flowers, that he was sure would be hideous in daylight. There was faint voices coming from outside his room, accompanied by the sound of squealing shoes and the creak of machines being moved around. Rolling his head, he saw a person curled up like a cat in a chair near him, hand limply on the bed, almost as if they had been holding his hand before they had fallen asleep. It took him a few seconds to realise that the human shape was his mother and that he was lying in a hospital bed. He felt the panic start to creep up on him and the heart monitor next to him started to beep louder and louder until it became a screaming in his ears. His mother woke with a jolt, panic in her eyes as she saw her son seemingly having a panic attack in front of her. She sat there for a few seconds, blinking owlishly at him for a few seconds before what was happening in front of her seemed to register with her and she leapt to her feet. Reaching over his head with one hand and running the other through his sweaty curls in a soothing motion she hit the call button and a few seconds later, the door was flung open and light came bursting into the room. Being forced to blink a few times to allow his eyes to adjust to the new situation forced his confusion to increase even further and his breathing began to quicken even more. He began to claw at his chest trying to scrape off the seemingly tightening feeling of his chest at the risk of pulling out some of his IV lines that were snaking into his skin. The nurses fluttered at him, mouths moving but Levi couldn't make out what they were saying. Perhaps they were telling him to calm down, perhaps to stop what he was doing or he would end up doing more damage. Either way he didn't know what they were saying, the sound of his own heartbeat thudding in his ears accompanied by the harsh sounds of his breathing. The nurses must have managed to insert something into his IV line in the panic to sedate him as the next thing that he knew, his eyes were starting to droop and his body was starting to become heavy. And he let himself slip back into the darkness.

The next time that he woke, it was to his mother gently running her fingers through his hair and was quietly humming a tune to herself. Levi vaguely recognised the tune as one that his mother used to sing to him when he had had a nightmare and hadn't wanted to be left alone for fear of the nightmare coming back. He blinked sluggishly for a few minutes just watching his mother be lost in her own little world before she turned to look at him and found him to be awake. He watched as her face brightened and her smile gave him comfort. He managed to croak out, "What happened Mum? Why am I here? When can I see Nico? Is Nico okay? Has he had another seizure?" His onslaught of questions was only stopped by his need to draw in breath and his mother saw the opportunity for preventing another bombardment of questions and jumped in before he could open his mouth again. "Nico is absolutely fine, sweetie. You'll have to take my word for it but his mother stopped by while you were asleep to give me an update while you were asleep. You, on the other hand, have given your poor old mother a full head of grey hair after what you've put me through in the last 24 hours. You collapsed last night right while I was bringing you a cup of tea to have a good old chin wag and you had to go and collapse on me. Now before you get into your doctor mindset, the doctors here have already been running some tests and there is still some tests that need to come back but they say that the most likely cause of you collapsing was actually stress. I don't know how many times I've had to tell you over the last few months to take care of yourself. Nico hasn't been the only important one here."

Levi just nodded, feeling embarrassment rise up through his cheeks. He'd never meant to upset his mother. She was the one person in the world that he could not stand to see cry and had in fact always burst into tears whenever he had seen his mother cry. He started to twist the thin blanket in his hands, trying to think of a way to tell his mother of what he had been planning. He'd ran through almost every option in his head when he felt his mother place her hands on top of his twisting ones and gently grabbed hold of his chin and tugged his head up so that he was looking at her in the eyes. "Tell me sweetie. What's going on in that pretty little head that's making you so worried?"

Levi was silent for a few seconds before the dam broke and it all came flooding out, "Bailey came to me yesterday to say that they were going to do a load of fundraising to help pay for Nico's treatment. But I don't think it's going to be enough. I spent all day thinking and the only thing that came to mind was Dr Altman telling me a story about how she married so a guy could use her insurance. I think I may need to marry Nico."

I can't believe that I've actually managed to hit 2k reads. I never thought that that number of people would want to read my story. So in honour I will do a Q&A in the next few weeks if you guys would do wish. Drop any questions in the comments