Second Chances Ch. 02

Matt's dreams were filled with fire, the fire that killed his family, and the one he had saved those kids from. No, it was not the kids and wife of some faceless distressed husband and father he had saved, it was his own family. His parents, brother, and sisters were alive, he had saved them, they were all around him. He was home, home and surrounded by a loving family again, he would never take them for granted again. Never again would work come first.

It would not hold, however; soon the smoke came again to claim them, the illusion faded and he knew, he had failed again. He had saved countless lives, even some other man from his fate, but it did not matter, he was still alone. He sunk to the ground in despair, overwhelmed by the loss and hopelessness of it all. An eternity of misery passed as he just sat there, lost and alone, hoping for a light in the darkness, a true reason to go on. His blind hope in heroism had led to nothing, for saving other families would not bring his back. He needed something real, something life-changing, someone to save that could save him in return, in short, he needed a miracle.

It was as he thought this that the angel came, she fell from the sky it seemed, descending on him and pinning him to the soft ground. She was magnificent, and he was instantly transfixed by her beauty. She had light brown hair that cascaded over her face and the most beautiful brown eyes he had ever seen. He could have lost himself forever in those beautiful dark brown pools, but as their eyes met she spoke. "Wake up Matt."

She smiled a big beautiful smile as he tried to move her, but could not manage it. He saw her draw a dagger and his heart rate rose as he tried to move, but could not.

"Help me, Matt," the angel said as she, seemingly unwillingly, turned the blade toward herself. "Hurry up and wake Matt, I need your help, please save me."

The knife tip was inches from her stomach when he felt her shudder on him and she dropped the knife. He breathed a sigh of relief, and in that moment the tension seemed to drain out of him, tension he hardly realized he had been feeling. She convulsed for a bit, then collapsed to his chest, and just lay there. Concerned as he was for her, he could not help cherish the feel of her magnificent form on his. He wanted nothing more than to hug her to him, but his arms didn't work. After a while she glided off him, and ascended back to the heavens. Matt thrashed to follow, but still could not move. He fought the dream wanting her back, wanting to help her, to save her, and maybe himself in the process.

He had just lost hope of reaching her, when she reappeared before him, and she kissed him. The kiss was brief, but it overwhelmed him and seemed to set the blood in his veins ablaze. He was so lost in the feeling, he almost missed it when she spoke.

"Thank you Matt, I needed that," the angel said, then she was gone.

The next things he could remember came in bits and pieces. He woke to see a doctor standing near the bed talking to one of the guys from his firehouse. He was groggy, but could hear.

"It's a minor miracle; we don't know what it'll be like when he wakes, but our hopes are high."

Matt tried to reply he was fine, just tired, but panicked to find a tube in his throat that made it hard to speak. He heard the monitors next to him start beeping as he panicked because of the tube, and the doctor turned and saw Matt clawing at it.

He stopped Matt, saying, "You don't want to do that Matt, you'll do serious harm to your throat." He looked at Matt's buddy, "Can you get one of the nurses?" Then looking back at Matt, "My apologies Matt, we should have removed the feeding tube, we just honestly didn't expect you to wake this quickly. You are a unique case, however, so I guess I should not be too surprised. We'll have that out in a few minutes; for now just try to relax, and breathe as normal as possible."

The nurse came in and, as promised, they had the tube out in no time. Matt's throat was sore and he asked for some water. The doctor began asking him questions like his name, Matthew Whitten, his age, 31, and his occupation, firefighter. They then asked if he remembered what happened.

He told them he remembered a fire and saving some kids, the rest was fuzzy. The doctor smiled, then explained he had been severely injured in the fire. Between lifting heavy objects out of the way of the trapped family, and falling debris, he had suffered quite a few injuries. The doctor then proceeded to list them off. Matt had broken his left arm, right shoulder, right knee, and his left leg in two places. He had also sustained second degree burns on his hands, forearms, and right leg. Needless to say, he had had to be helped out of the building, and was taken to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, when he was given a sedative to allow them to fix his various injuries without sending him further into shock, he never woke up. They originally thought he had slipped into a coma except that his breathing, heart rate, and brain activity indicated he was more asleep than unconscious. When all attempts to wake him up failed, they just tended to his other injuries and waited for him to wake on his own. That was just over nine weeks ago, and it had looked like he might never wake, until the night before when he suddenly showed signs of waking. Since his injuries were pretty much healed by this point, he was clear to start therapy right away, though it looked to be a good news, bad news situation. The bad news was that the physical therapists expected him to have a difficult road back, due to atrophy, and the trauma suffered to his legs and arms in the fire. The good news was, given he had been in excellent shape before the fire and how well he had healed, a full recovery to at least a normal life was expected, though he might have a slight limp because of the knee damage.

Matt thanked the doctor, and when the doctor was gone he was replaced by Ray, one of Matt's buddies from the firehouse.

"How you feeling Snow?"

Matt smiled and thought to himself, 'you come from Buffalo and get ash in your hair one time and suddenly you're 'snow' to an entire crew'.

"I'm fine Ray," then, before anyone asked anything else Matt asked the top question on his mind since he woke, "did they make it?"

Ray did not ask who Matt meant, he knew what Matt was asking. "Every one of them, the mom and all four kids. You did real good Snow, the marshal and paramedics said that if you hadn't moved that bookcase and held it like you did, the smoke would have gotten the kids and probably the mom long before we got there. You were a hero for weeks Snow, mind you were a complete wreck too, but a hero. Don't ever do something that stupid again Matthew, I mean that."

Matt smiled, "I won't, if they ever let me on a crew again. You heard what the doc said about my knee. I had to, though, Ray, I'm sorry, but when I heard the smoke was going to get them, something in me just snapped." He paused and felt himself tear up, "the smoke is what got them you know; I couldn't let that man we had just saved suffer my fate. I had to try Ray, I had to. I promised him I'd get them out."

Matt was talking about the husband and father of the people Matt had saved. They had saved him first, and he had practically tried to fight the rescue crew after being saved to get to his wife and kids. Matt had had to swear he would get them out in order to convince the man to stay safely outside the building.

"We know Matt, that's why we stayed to help, and came back for you. We knew it was personal. You have to stop losing your head every time smoke inhalation is mentioned, though, Snow, you can't save everyone."

"I don't need to save everyone," Matt thought, as the angel from his dream popped into his mind, her pleas for help still echoing in his mind, "just one more life."

Matt shook it off and asked how everyone else was doing. Ray filled him in on the happenings of the past weeks. The news crews that came, the family coming by every few days, and the fact that they still sent flowers to his room every week. Everyone else at the firehouse was ok, and one of the guys' wives was pregnant. Ray also told him what his family had almost done.

That last point kind of angered Matt a bit, but he also understood. He had kind of turned his back on his extended family after the fire, so he could not expect a ton of warmth from them in return. Realizing what they had decided had meant, Matt smiled.

"So, I have to ask, did you guys go through with it?"

"You mean the pact?"

"Yeah," Matt was curious- since he wasn't in a coma he wasn't sure if his situation strictly qualified.

"We did in fact," Ray said, smiling.

"Really, did she?"

"Well, I wasn't in the room Snow, but she said she was going to do the whole nine yards."

Matt whistled, "You actually found someone willing?"

"You kidding Snow? A hero firefighter that looks like you? I've been beating them off with a stick."

Matt smiled, "Yeah, but how ugly was the one that agreed to fuck a guy in a coma?"

"First off, it was a deep sleep Snow, and second I wouldn't do that to you. She's actually pretty good looking, I think you'd have approved."

"Why don't I believe you?"

"Fine, don't believe me.. see for yourself." Ray passed him his phone, when Matt saw the face on it he almost froze in shock. This was his angel. The hair, the brown eyes, even the smile, they were all there. He realized she had been the thing that woke him. At least now he knew she was real. Her kiss had woken him, like something out of a damn fairy tale.

"What's her name?"

"Judy, and before you ask, no, you can't talk to her. For one because it's kind of against the rules, then again you weren't supposed to live if the pact was in effect so whatever, but mostly because she quit this week and left town. Something about a new job in San Francisco. I did good though, yeah?"

"Yeah Ray, you did great." Matt said, determined to recover and find Judy if he had to scour all of San Francisco door to door. He owed her his life, and he was pretty sure if his dream was right that she somehow needed his help as much as he had needed hers, if not more so.

The next morning during his first session of therapy he discovered it was a good thing he had such great motivation for recovery, because the doctor was right, he did have a long road in front of him. While it was truly miraculous that he had sustained no brain damage from his over two-month incapacitation, his body had nonetheless suffered much trauma in the fire. Compounding his issues further was the fact that he had been bed-ridden for all that time, and while the medical staff had done its best to combat atrophy and sores, they had not been able to prevent minor amounts of both. Regardless, his physical therapist had high hopes for his recovery, if he promised to work hard at it.

In the coming weeks, some of his family from Buffalo came to see him, glad he was awake. They had feared the worst when he was not waking. It was a brief visit for them, and some of them tried to convince him to come back to Buffalo. He politely refused, both because it had too many demons for him after losing his family there, and because he was determined to find the mysterious Judy.

His family was not the only one to come see him in the early weeks of his recovery. Once word had spread of his 'miracle' the news made a return visit as did the Apfels, the family he had saved. The latter came to say thank you. Matt did not like the attention and was glad when the publicity faded, but it made him realize he really needed to send a thank you of his own to the woman he could not stop thinking about.

After constantly asking Ray about it for a few weeks, Ray finally had a nurse that had been friends with Judy come see him. Matt recognized her as a nurse that often worked the night shift in his former wing of the facility.

"Eileen, right?" Matt said as she came in dressed in regular clothes.

"Yes, you have a good memory. I only visited your room a few times."

"Not really," Matt said, embarrassed, "Ray told me to expect a nurse named Eileen sometime in the next few days. I only recognized you as a nurse from the wing I was in before."

"Still, it does you credit that you remember me at all. How are you feeling these days? A few of us are curious how you are doing since you left us."

"Pretty good all told, Stacy my PT is pushing me pretty hard, but I'm glad, I want to be back on my feet as soon as I can."

"That's good, and Stacy is one of our best; as you say she's hard, but she gets results." Then, after a pause, it seemed she decided to get to business, "Ray says you are determined to get a hold of Judy. Can I ask why?"

"Because I can't get her out of my head," he thought to himself, but actually said, "She saved my life, whether she thinks so or not, she did. So, I'd just like to thank her."

"No, you don't," Eileen said smiling at him.

"I really do want to thank her."

"Oh, I have no doubt of that Matt. However, you said you 'just' wanted to thank her. Which is false, you don't want to just do that. I can tell when a girl has gotten under a guy's skin, and though I have no clue how Judy managed it, she seems to have gotten under yours. It's ok, though, ordinarily I tell someone making this request to go fuck himself, but I have a good feeling about you. I have to admit, like your friend Ray, I'm intrigued to see what would happen if you two were to ever meet." She took out a pad of paper and pen and scribbled down something, then ripping off the top piece she handed it to him. "This is her email, she knows I gave this to you, but I can't guarantee she'll answer. I will say that you should be careful with her, Matt. Judy has been through a lot, and almost all of it is a man's fault."

Matt smiled, taking the paper, "Thanks Eileen, and for the record, I've been through a bit myself."

Eileen smiled and nodded before she left the room. When she was gone, Matt grabbed the small laptop Ray had brought from Matt's apartment, opened it, and pondered what he wanted to say. In the end, he decided to keep it fairly simple and to the point. Eileen was right, no sense in coming on too strong and scaring her.

Dear Judy,

My name is Matt Whitten. In case you do not remember me, I am the firefighter in San Diego that was in the strange coma at the hospice center you formerly worked at.

Though we have never formally met, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for what you did for me. I had hoped to be able to say thank you in person or over the phone, but I understand your reluctance given the circumstances. As I said, I think you may have saved my life with what you did, so you have my deepest thanks.

Hopefully, fulfilling the terms of the pact did not get you into any trouble. My friend Ray said you left town pretty quick after, and that day you helped me was your last day. I cannot help feel like I messed up your life somehow, if I did, I sincerely apologize. Ray did say he thought he had heard you had a new job you had to leave town for, hopefully that is true, and if so, I hope that your new job is going well. I would love to hear back from you since my days are basically PT and little else until I can get back on my feet. I understand if you do not want to, though, at least I can feel better knowing I thanked my angel for saving me.

Matt

Matt reread it a few times then, satisfied he didn't sound too crazy, sent the email. He just had to hope she would write him back sometime. He turned off the laptop and put it away, to remove the temptation to check for new mail constantly. To take his mind off it he did some of the exercises Stacy had assigned him until it was time for his next session. When he was done, he was so exhausted he collapsed and napped for a few hours. Later that night he checked his email and was disappointed that there was no response.

It was the same story the next day and the day after, and the day after. By the fourth day he began to accept that she was not interested in writing back to him. He woke that morning and as a matter of habit checked his email to find that he had one new message and it was from Judy. He opened it and read it,

Matt,

I definitely remember you, and Eileen did mention something about giving you my email. I apologize for the delay in my response, work at my new job has been crazy, but more on that later. As to your thank you, I was glad to help any way I could. I ordinarily would have never agreed to that in a million years. I still do not know what made me do it, other than you seemed like a good man. I will not deny the fact that I was quitting and leaving town anyway helped sway my decision in your favor. On that point, as you can tell from my previous statement you had little to do with me moving to San Francisco. As Ray told you, I did, in fact, get a new job here, once again, though, more on that later.

To be honest, I have no idea why I'm telling you this except that Ray or Eileen might have mentioned it already, that and I do not want a good man like you blaming yourself for something someone else caused. I digress, however; the reason I had to move has to do with my ex-husband taking a wrecking ball to my life when he cheated on me with some airhead, got said airhead pregnant, then drained our bank accounts and maxed out our credit cards supporting said airhead. Since I divorced the moron I have spent the past few years trying to rebuild my life, this move was just another necessary step in the process.

But enough about my ex and the mess he made, you asked about my job, and if you could not tell from my previous statements, I love it. It pays enough that I no longer need to work nights. Though my nights are now, unfortunately, free of cute sleeping hero firemen, much to my sister's annoyance I might add, I am enjoying not being constantly sleep deprived and being able to focus on the kids that come into the office. I'm also living with my sister, which is nice, since we haven't gotten to talk as much as I'd have liked to the past few years. There's also a bit of tension of course, but that's bound to happen anytime siblings spend as much time around each other as we do now, but so far so good.

Enough about me, though, how goes your recovery? Who is your PT? Do they expect you to be able to go back to active duty soon? Have you had many visitors since you woke, besides the camera crew that came the other day? Finally, and I must admit I'm really curious about this one, you called me your 'angel' in your message, why?

Hope to hear back from you soon,

Judy

Matt reread the message a few times, especially the part about her ex. Matt remembered Ray had mentioned something about her being married before, and he definitely remembered Eileen's warning that Judy had been through a lot, but he had not expected it to be that bad. The guy sounded like a first-class idiot, if for no other reason than he cheated on someone as beautiful and amazing as Judy.

"Amazing, Matt? You've never met her; one email and you're sure she's this amazing woman you can't imagine anyone ever cheating on, get a grip on yourself, man," Matt mumbled to himself. Truthfully, she could have been hiding some deep ridiculous secret. Even so, cheating on a spouse was just wrong in his book, especially the way this guy did it. When you cheat on your wife enough to get someone else pregnant, while you are supposedly trying to get said wife pregnant, that's a lot of cheating. The guy was clearly a scumbag.

Stacy interrupted his reflection on Judy and her ex, reminding him it was time for therapy. After another grueling session, Matt immediately opened his laptop to respond to Judy's message, having been using it as a distraction from the pain of the workout. He led off with the question of hers that was clearly the most on his mind.