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The old hospital walls were crumbling down, and Kayla wished they would go ahead and crumble right down. The walls held memories from her life that she would prefer to forget, and she knew, as she headed down the hall towards her father's room, that another bad memory was about to be made.
She'd been here ten days after her high school graduation when her uncle Bobby had died of a sudden heart attack.
She'd been here on her father Sam's fiftieth birthday, when her first child, a baby boy she'd named Leslie after her late grandmother, had been stillborn.
She'd been here four weeks after that when her grandfather had died of a massive stroke.
A somewhat blissful two years followed, in which Kayla and Todd's two living children had been born. Her daughter Samantha and her son Jesse had been born exactly eighteen months apart from each other. Though Kayla remembered how happy those two years were, even those memories were tainted. Dean hadn't been able to attend Jesse's birth due to having what he thought was the flu.
A week later, under the guise of getting Dean to come with her to a checkup for newborn Jesse, Kayla had tricked him into getting a complete work up. A few days later, Dean had officially begun a three year long battle with pancreatic cancer.
A year after Dean's diagnosis came the worst of all of Kayla's bad memories. Samantha had been three and Jesse one, about to turn two, when Kayla got the call. Her sister Mary had been planning to come home for the summer of her first year in college. Jess had come to check on Kayla that morning, and even offered to let Kayla come with her and Sam, but Kayla was busy with two sick coughing and sneezing kids. Jess had stayed for an hour to help put the kids down for a nap, then pushed Kayla to lay down and take her own nap. Kayla, for once, had decided not to fight her mother and laid down. She remembered thinking it was strange when her mother leaned over and kissed her cheek, but Kayla had been so close to drifting off to sleep that she hadn't opened her eyes. Six hours later, she'd gotten the call from a distraught Dean.
The brakes had failed on Sam's car, and he'd lost control and driven off a steep bridge.
Kayla and Todd had haphazardly thrown both kids into their car seats and raced to drop them off at Todd's parents. The first thing Kayla noticed when she walked through the doors of the hospital was Dean's tear streaked face.
Kayla had spent the next three days waiting on her father to wake up. Todd alternated his time between sitting with her and giving his aging parents a break in taking care of the kids. It was the end of the third day when Sam had woken up and Kayla had delivered the hardest news of her life.
Mary and Jess were both dead.
Dean, who'd been living in Bobby's house ever since he'd died, discreetly moved in with Sam the night he went home. He'd told Sam he was staying until he got back on his feet, and just never went back home. But Dean was getting sicker, and Kayla had driven him back three times a week to the same hospital where her uncle, grandfather, child, mother, and sister had all died so that he would get his treatments. Dean had passed silently one day, falling asleep after the nurse started his chemotherapy treatment and never waking up.
Kayla had come back two weeks later, after Dean's funeral and trying multiple times to get her father to come live with her and Todd. Sam refused, and one day she found out why. Sam's neighbor, Ms. Betty, had called 911 after seeing Sam's garage flooded with what looked like smoke. The police had found Sam locked in his car, inside the garage, with the exhaust running.
She had spent the night in the hospital with Sam, letting him recover before ripping into him for what he'd done. The psychiatrist had warned her to be patient, that being angry with Sam might force him farther over the edge. Kayla didn't care. She'd told her father that next morning that he had two choice. Be admitted to the psychiatric wing of the hospital or move in with her.
After that, Kayla had stopped having to visit the hospital so much. She'd been back a few years later when Todd's parents had been killed in a house fire, and once or twice when the kids had received various injuries or illnesses she couldn't deal with at home. But living with Kayla seemed to have given Sam a new lease on life. While Todd worked full time as a pediatrician with his own private practice, Kayla had gotten her PhD and become a licensed psychologist, specializing in helping children that had been abused. Sam had made Kayla getting her license happen by being the one who took care of Samantha and Jesse the majority of the time.
But at the moment, all that was in the past. Kayla walked to the admission desk and asked what room Sam was in. She'd been across town, with a patient, when Todd had called to tell her that she needed to get to the hospital fast. She found Sam in a bed, already admitted and in a hospital gown, wrapped up in a blanket. Todd and twenty-four year old Jesse stood above him, while twenty-five year old newlywed and new mother Samantha sat on the bed next to him. Six week old Bonnie was squirming in Sam's arms, fighting sleep.
Kayla stood at the door and took a close look at her father. A lump formed in her throat. It was time. She'd known it from the tone of Todd's call. If it didn't happen now, it would be soon. Sam was pale, had lost an enormous amount of weight, and though he wouldn't admit it, he was in constant pain. He refused the dosage of pain medication the doctor had given him, only taking enough to be able to function and actually enjoy seeing Bonnie. At the beginning of Samantha's pregnancy, Sam had been diagnosed with the same cancer that had killed Dean years earlier, only the disease had worked much quicker in Sam than Dean. He'd told Kayla he only hoped to live long enough to see his great grandchild.
Sam finally noticed Kayla standing in the doorway and smiled. Todd saw her too, and ushered Jesse, Samantha, and Bonnie out of the room.
"Come on, guys, let's let your mom and grandpa talk."
As everyone headed out into the waiting room, Todd grasped Kayla's shoulder and whispered in her ear, "I'm right out here when you need me."
Kayla, who was finding it impossible to talk without crying, nodded. Todd squeezed her shoulder to comfort her and walked out.
"Come here, Bug. Sit with me."
Kayla couldn't help but laugh. "I'm fifty-two. I haven't been 'Bug' in thirty years."
"You'll always be my Bug."
As she moved to sit next to her father, she asked, "Why do you call me that?"
"I never told you?"
The truth was that Sam had told her the story, several times, but she hoped that keeping her father talking would keep him with her longer. It was an effort on Sam's part, but Kayla needed to hear him speak. Sam swallowed hard.
"When you were a baby, and we'd put you on the floor to play, you always made a noise like a cricket when you were happy. Dean said you sounded like a bug, and it stuck."
"Dean named me that?" Kayla asked. "That I didn't know."
Sam nodded. "Yep. He loved you so much."
"I miss him. I miss him bad. Especially right now." Kayla said, then immediately felt guilty when she noticed the pained look in Sam's eyes.
Sam reached over and took Kayla's hand, and she immediately took that hand and put it to her cheek. Sam used what little energy he had left to pat Kayla's tear stained cheek.
"I'm sorry. I tried. I just can't fight anymore."
"I know, Daddy." Kayla said. "It's okay."
"My girl." Sam smiled again. "Thank you."
"For what?" Kayla asked.
"Making me stay alive." Sam answered. "I thought that life couldn't be good anymore after your mother and sister died. You helped me see that it could only get better." Sam groaned a little in pain, and an alarmed Kayla started to run for a doctor. Sam squeezed her hand and refused. "No. No doctors. Just us."
"Okay, Daddy. Just us." Kayla promised.
"When I was younger, I always dreamed of seeing my grandkids. Seeing my grandchildren's children was something I never thought possible. I couldn't have done that without you, Bug."
"My pleasure."
"I need you to promise me some things." Sam said.
"What?"
"I want you to sell our old house. The one we lived in with Mommy and Mary." Sam said. "I already put it in your and Todd's name years ago. I thought about doing it, but I just couldn't. Samantha and Jesse are out of college, so I want you to start a college account for Bonnie with whatever you get for it."
"I will, Daddy."
"I want you to either sell or rent out Bobby and your grandpa's house too." Sam said. "They're gone. We don't need to let it just stand until it rots."
Attempting to infuse whatever humor she could into the situation, Kayla grinned. "You afraid Bobby's gonna kick your ass in heaven?"
Sam managed as close to a laugh as he could get. "I'd like to see him try."
"Is that all?"
"No. One more thing. Look in my pants pocket."
Kayla got Sam's belongings bag and pulled out the sweatpants he'd apparently been wearing when he was admitted. She dug in each pocket until she came across something shiny and metal. When she pulled it out, she gasped.
"The keys to Dean's car?"
Sam nodded. "He wanted you to have it whenever I died. I just don't think he thought it would take this long."
"Daddy?" Kayla asked. "What's wrong?"
"It's time to go, Kayla bug. Daddy's got to go home now."
She wanted to rage, scream, fight, beg, and demand that Sam not leave her. But that wasn't fair to him. He'd fought this vicious cancer as hard as he could, and he was finally worn down. Kayla could see the years of worry, fatigue, happiness, disappointment, regret, and heartache all rolled up into one on Sam's face. It was time for him to rest now, so Kayla could only think of one thing to say.
"Tell Mommy and Mary I said I love 'em."
"I will." Sam promised. He held up his hand and Kayla held hers to his. "I love you so much, Bug."
"I love you too, Daddy. Go on, it's okay. I'll be fine."
Sam smiled, nodded faintly, then breathed out…and didn't breathe back in. For a few moments, Kayla couldn't process what had just happened. She knew Sam was dead, but the possibility that he wouldn't wake up and tell her that he didn't care if she was fifty-two or not, she was going to eat breakfast before going to work just didn't seem real to her. The code team ran in, defibrillators at the ready, but Kayla simply shook her head. When the reality slowly sifted into her brain, Kayla stood up on wobbly legs and walked over to her father, leaned down, and kissed his cheek tenderly. The sun was just starting to go down, so Kayla whispered the last words she'd ever speak to her father before burying him, then walked into the waiting room to collapse in Todd's arms sobbing.
"Good night, Daddy."