Start It Up Ch

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Chapter 15: Tragedy. As the guys of 'N Sync played in the pool they heard a car screech to a halt. Justin looked up and saw Libby climb out of her car. She slammed the door and turned out of view without so much as a glance in his direction. He started climbing out of the pool to go and see what was wrong with her but JC grabbed him and dragged him back in the pool to finish the fight they'd started.
I'll go see her later, he thought as JC dunked his head under the water. ~~~~~*~~~~~ Libby collapsed into the chair behind her desk. She was emotionally exhausted; her eyes were red and swollen from the crying she'd done on her drive over from University. Although she felt all she could do was sit there, she looked out of the window and smiled at Justin and JC play fighting in the pool.
"A year! A whole goddam year wasted! Just wasted!" she yelled to the empty room and broke down into tears again.
Clare walked into Libby's office; she'd seen her car pull up and had gone in to find out her friend's exam results.
"Lib, what's up?" Clare asked as she found her crying into her hands.
After 20 minutes of getting no sense from her distraught friend, Libby finally calmed down enough to explain that her results weren't good.
Libby started to cry again, "They said that if my grades don't improve then I'm out! I've got to re-sit my exams next week."
Clare slipped her arms around Libby's shoulders; "I completely bombed out. I had to practically beg them to let me re-sit!" she said starting to sob again but regained control, "What am I gonna do? If I study any more my brain will explode from information overload!"
"Take the week off. Go home, relax. Take a shower. Get something to eat and then go into it slowly, at your own pace!" Clare said rubbing her shoulders.
"But if I take the week off I'm gonna fall even further behind and that'll make thing's worse!"
"Well just take today off. The fan club stuff can wait!"
Libby sighed, "'K. I could do with tryin' to relax a while. Maybe I'll take a walk across the beach."
Clare smiled, "Yeah… now get outta here!" ~~~~~*~~~~~ As Clare looked around Libby's office for the file she needed Justin walked in, his hair wet from the shower and his blue tinted glasses in his hand.
"Where is she? I know she's here, I saw her pull up!" he said confused to find Clare in the office instead of Libby.
"I sent her home." Clare replied as she looked in Libby's desk drawer and a look of confusion crossed her face, "Where has she put that?"
"I wanted to find out her results."
"They're not good." She said still searching, "she's gotta re-sit the exams next week."
"All of them?"
Clare nodded as she opened a small cupboard behind the desk and closed it again when she realised what she was looking for wouldn't be in there.
"What are you looking for?" Justin asked her as he put his tinted glasses on. ~~~~~*~~~~~ Libby pulled up outside the apartment and sat in the drivers' seat. She rested her hands on the steering wheel and her head on the back of the seat. She didn't want to go inside. She didn't want to be here. She wanted to go somewhere and do something. She'd go nuts sitting in that pokey flat all by herself. She needed to unwind and there was only one sure-fire way for her to relax. She started the car engine and was on her way. ~~~~~ The Next Morning ~~~~~ Clare's eyes opened as the shrill ringing of the telephone woke her from her sleep,
"Lo." She said groggily.
"Hi ya. Is Lib there?" Justin's cheerful voice asked from the other end.
"Umm, hang on." Clare said before she crawled out of bed wearing a long 49ers-football top. She knocked on Libby's bedroom door, no reply.
"Lib, you lazy ass, get up!" she called through the door, "Curly is on the phone."
Clare opened the door and peered inside, "Lib?"
The bed was made and not slept in. She walked over to the phone on Libby's bedside and put it to her ear, "Umm… did you see Lib last night?" she asked Justin as she stared into space.
"Nah. Why?"
"It doesn't look like she came home last night." She replied her voice wavering. This was unlike Libby. If she wasn't going to be home she usually called to let her know. Clare had just presumed she'd come in once she had gone to bed.
"I'm coming over and I'll swing by the office on my way to see if she's there." Justin said before he hung up.
Clare put down the phone and went into her own room. She called Lisa, Jamie, Sara, Jenny and the guys of 'N Sync, no one had seen her since the morning before when she'd gone to collect her results. ~~~~~*~~~~~ By the time a knock came at the door Clare was showered and dressed. She sat dazed in front of the TV, she wasn't watching it but she needed something to try and occupy her mind. She was worried about Libby and couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
JC walked in and wandered over to her, "She's fine, I know it!" he said trying to comfort her as he pulled her into a tight hug.
"JC's right. Maybe she just went out with some friends from Uni. and lost track of time!" Lisa added.
"I've called everyone she knows. No one has seen her. Where the hell can she be?" Clare said worry crossing her face.
Suddenly they were distracted by the local news, "In other news…" they all watched in disbelief as the newsreader told of how the race was on to find the identity of a young woman who had been found early that morning by a man walking his dog.
"The young woman is thought to be in her late teens, early 20's, 5' 6" with green eyes and blonde hair. If this fits the description of any one you know who has gone missing within the last 24 hours please contact the local hospital."
Terror ripped through Clare at the thought that the newsreader had just described her best friend. She jumped to her feet with tears in her eyes; "I'm going to the hospital." She said grabbing the keys to her jeep and heading out the door.
"Clare, that's not Libby!" Lisa shouted as she ran after her.
"We don't know that for sure and I've gotta find out!" she called back. She had a sickening in her stomach, she always had it when something bad had happened or about to happen. She had to follow her instincts and they told her that her best friend was lay in hospital waiting for her. Needing her. By the time she got to the jeep tears had started to slowly trickle down her face. She sat in the drivers' seat and took a couple of deep breaths trying to stop herself sobbing.
"You want me to drive?" she heard a male voice say from the open door.
Clare looked up at JC and nodded slowly as Justin climbed into the back seat. Everyone else had decided to stay at the girls' apartment and wait for them to call. They didn't all want to turn up at the hospital if it wasn't Libby and they knew if it was her that the doctors wouldn't allow too many in with her at the same time. ~~~~~*~~~~~ A nurse showed them to the private room of the mysterious patient. Clare stood in the doorway and gasped at the sight, it was Libby, she didn't want to believe it but as she walked over to the bed, tears flowing down her cheeks, she could see her friend lay motionless in the hospital bed before her. Libby was hooked up to various machines with wires that attached her body with small round pads. She had a tube down her throat, which was attached to the ventilator machine that was helping to regulate her breathing. She had a bandage wrapped around her head, her arm was in a cast and her face was scratched and bruised.
Clare looked down at her friend; she couldn't take in the sight before her. She looked so pale, so motionless. This wasn't Libby. Libby was so full of life. This couldn't be her friend.
Justin walked around the bed, collapsed in one of the chairs and rested his head on the bed as he reached for Libby's hand. "Oh Libby." He gasped with tears in his eyes. Is there someone you know? Loving them so Taking them for granted You may lose them one day Someone takes them away And they don't hear the words You long to say Clare tried to pull herself together. She wiped her eyes and walked over to the younger man before resting her hands on his shoulders and squeezing them slightly as JC returned with a young looking doctor.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Greene and I've been looking after this young lady." He said.
"It's Libby. Her name is Libby Armstrong." Clare said bluntly.
Dr. Greene smiled awkwardly, "Well Libby was found after a nasty climbing accident. She has got a broken arm, a disk out of place in her back, a fractured knee and she's comatised," he paused. "We have put casts on both her arm and leg and linked her up to various machines so we can regulate breathing, keep a check on heart beat and activity's in her brain."
Libby had been bombarded with drugs until her system could take no more. Dr. Greene, the head of ICU, had told her friends that she had a 60% chance of dying from a blood clot they had discovered on her brain when they'd taken her for a cat scan that morning once she'd been admitted.
Clare's heart jumped in her throat. How could this be happening? This was the one person she shared everything with. The one person that didn't judge her on things she said or did. The one person she could turn to when she was worried or scared. The one person who would make it better with a smile. This couldn't be happening to her.
"So how long will she be in this coma?" Justin asked hopeful.
"I'm afraid that's not a question I can answer. We can never tell how long these thing's will last." The doctor replied sympathetically.
Justin grasped Libby's hand tightly as the doctor left the room. Why had she gone climbing alone? She knew she was supposed to have a spotter. Why couldn't I tell her how I feel, maybe she wouldn't be lay here then.
As Clare listened to the steady hiss from the ducks, the sharp clunk-puff… clunk-puff of the ventilator she walked over to the small window and looked outside. It was a beautiful sunny day, the sky was clear of clouds and a bright blue colour; she smiled as she remembered back to the day that she met Libby. ~~~~~FLASHBACK~~~~~ It was a sunny day in the summer of 1991 back in Britain. Libby's twin brothers were hangin' out with her own two brothers and they had gone along on the orders of their mothers. The four boys had to occupy the two girls while they went shopping.
As Clare's brothers Ian, then 18, and Lee, then 16, played football with Libby's brothers Jamie and Neil, both 17, she'd been left to keep the younger girl occupied. They had sat on the grass as the sun blared down on them, watching the boy's kick the ball around in silence. Libby had taken a ball along with her and after a while Clare had suggested a game of catch.
As they threw the ball to each other they talked about little things like school, friends and their brothers before they were separated as it turned time to go home.
Since that day they often went along with their brothers so they could play together and soon became the good friends that they had turned out to be. They grew up together from that moment on and they were inseparable. ~~~~~~END OF FLASHBACK~~~~~~

Clare was brought back from her memory as JC walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned on him and smiled.
"You okay." He asked her as he rested his head on the top of hers.
"Yeah. I was just remembering back to when I first met her," Clare replied, "she was so sweet and innocent back then but I soon changed that…" she let out a short laugh, "she's such a great person. She's like the sister that I never had. She can't be taken from me… I need her too much!" tears began to trickle down her face.
"If I know Libby she won't be lay here for too long, nothing can keep her down." They all heard a voice say from the doorway.
Everyone shot around to see Lyn Harless stood looking back at them. "I rang the flat and Lisa told me you were checkin' out the hospital so I came straight over."
She walked over to her son and took his free hand in her own, "How you doin'?"
Justin shrugged, "I'm okay I guess."
"She'll get through it and she'll be giving you hell again… you'll see." the elder woman said hoping she was gonna be right. She turned to Clare who had tears flowing freely down her face. "How you holdin' up?"
"I just wish it was me lay there not her, she shouldn't be going through this!" she replied, her eyes welling up with tears again.
"Come on you, let's get you some coffee."
Lyn put her arm around Clare and pulled her gently away from JC before they left the room.

~~~~~*~~~~~ Libby lay in the hospital bed; she could hear muffled voice and could work out who was with her. She couldn't open her eyes and she couldn't feel her body or move it. What was happening? Where was she? Why couldn't she see? Suddenly it hit her; she had been climbing… ~~~~~FLASHBACK~~~~~ She'd been stretching to connect herself to the next hook but overstretched and lost her footing. In an instant she was shaken to the core by a sensation of incredible speed. The hook she was attached to had become dislodged from the rock. She saw more than she could comprehend, her mind straining to keep up with her external velocity. The wind blew through her ears she was falling freely toward the rocks below her. She'd seemed to fall forever before she was suddenly jolted by the waist, she felt like her body had been snapped in two. She'd stopped falling. She felt fear and relief all at once.
Then, just when she thought she'd gone though the worst, she began to fall again, a second hook becoming dislodged from the rock.
The ocean was rushing towards her as swiftly as she was towards it. She was jolted again and was soon bouncing up and down at the end of the rope.
She realised then that she was going to crash into the wall of the cliff with incredible force. As the ocean crashed onto the rocks beneath her sweeping feet, she tried desperately to raise both her arms to brace for the impact. Two things stopped her. First, the jolt had done a number on her spine, and her central nervous system was having a hard time communicating with the nerves in her arms. Her arms were coming up all right, but too slowly. Second, the jolt had also sent her spinning. One moment she was facing the wall, the next the ocean. In horror, she realised she might hit the wall with the back of her skull, she struggled to stop herself but she was helpless.
She hit the uneven surface with her right side and felt an immediate pain shoot throughout her whole body. Her arm took the brunt of the impact. As she twisted around her head snapped back and she hit again, the right side of her head suffered a substantial blow. The pure agony that swept through her body right then was unbearable, but she had no choice but to go through it, she had shattered her arm. Bone went into nerve and set her blood to burning. She had screamed intentionally hoping to gain some attention but there was no one around to hear her. Tears poured over her cheeks, she pleaded and swore at God to send her to the land of blackout.
She hung there, writhing, for maybe 15 minutes before she started to get a hold of herself. She had to remain calm she told herself. She was hurt. She had broken her arm, and no doubt she had a concussion; she could feel the blood dripping over the side of her head. But she was alive. She had survived the fall.
Suddenly she couldn't hear the wind. She couldn't feel her body. She could see nothing. ~~~~~~END OF FLASHBACK~~~~~~

The ECG monitor started to beep frantically.
"What's happening?" Justin panicked as he shot onto his feet.
JC ran out of the room to fetch a nurse.
"It just started beeping." Justin heard JC telling the nurse as they returned.
"It's nothing to worry about boys, just a little brain activity. It's a good sigh." She reassured them with a smile as she pressed a button on the machine causing it to stop making the disruptive noise.

~~~~~*~~~~~ Clare sat on the grass with a coffee in her hand and looked up at the sky.
"It's beautiful!" she said to Lyn as she sat down beside her, "You know if Lib were awake right now she'd be complaining about being cooped up inside on a day like this."
"She loves to be outside." Lyn said with a fond smile.
Clare looked down at the grass and pulled a few blades from the soil, "She's gonna get through this, she's got to."
As tears began to escape the young woman's eyes Lyn wrapped her arms around her, "Let it out, let it all out." She said rubbing her arm.
"I'm supposed to be the strong one. The one who holds it all together." She said drying her eyes.
"But who's gonna be strong for you?"
"Who cares about me. She's my best friend and she needs me but I can't do a damn thing, all I can do is sit and wait." The tears running down her face again. ~~~~~*~~~~~ Blips of light chased each other silently across the screen on the monitor above the young woman's bed. The peaks and trough's of their spikey green wakes seemed to become less frequent as Clare watched them. There was no cause for panic, yet; but equally there was nothing to give rise to optimism.
At regular intervals the young houseman appeared from his office and padded around the private rooms, glancing routinely at the patients, their charts, their drips and monitors, his white coat rustling softly, his rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the tiled floor.
Clare gazed at her friend as she sat alone in the room with her, the others had gone home and they had all agreed to do shifts sitting with Libby.
"Why d'ya go climbing alone?" Clare whispered. "I miss you." she paused. "I never actually told you how much you mean to me, funny but we never really needed words we both just knew. Seeing you like this has made me think about all the things we've done and not done, all the thing's we should try, all the thing's I want to say just so you know. My heart is breaking right now…" the tears started again. "All the times you put your arms around me and said I was your best friend, all the times you'd smile at me when I was in a bad mood, you'd always bring a smile to my face. Libby I never asked you to do anything for me before but I'm gonna ask you to do something for me now… open your eyes, tell me you're gonna be okay… please." She sighed heavily. "I love you so much, I want you to be okay…" Clare looked up to the ceiling, "Please God let her come out of this. I love her too much to let you take her from me just yet, leave her here with me for longer. I promise I'll look after her, please just leave her with me, don't take her yet." ~~~~~ A Couple of Hours Later ~~~~~ Justin walked into the hospital drained. His eyes were red, he'd been crying. He looked over at the bed to see Clare's head resting on the bed Libby lay in, she'd fallen asleep, she looked so peaceful but he had to wake her, it was time for him to sit with Libby. He gently shook Clare from her sleep. She rubbed her eyes and looked up at him.
"Time to go home and sleep." Justin said softly.
"Is it that time already?" she asked sleepily.
He nodded.
Clare looked at Libby as she stood up, "Talk to her. It might help."
Justin nodded as he watched Clare gazing at her friend. There was pain in her eyes he could see it but he didn't know what to say or do to even begin making it better. He couldn't make himself feel any better so what use would his words be to Clare.
She bent down and kissed Libby's forehead, "Night. I'll see you in the morning."
She forced a smile to Justin before she left.
He sat down on the chair and looked solemnly at the girl lay in the bed. He didn't recognise her anymore. There wasn't a time when she wouldn't have a smile for him, even when he was being awkward and doing everything in his power to aggravate her.
But she wouldn't smile for him tonight and he didn't know how long it would be before he saw it again but he hoped it'd be soon. He wanted to shake her to wake her up, he wanted her eyes to open and see her smile again. He wanted to tell her how he felt about her and for her to tell him she was gonna be okay, he needed to hear her voice.
As he watched her, his mind wandered. ~~~~~FLASHBACK~~~~~ He had been at the fan club taking a shower after a basketball game. He had taken the soap in his hands and had washed himself as usual. Once he was dry he realised his skin was a peculiar colour. He returned to the shower and cleaned up again. Still he was an almost orange colour. It wasn't until his fifth shower that he realised it was the soap that was tinging his body. Previously he and Libby had been getting each other back for practical jokes. It suddenly dawned on him that Libby had switched the soap before he took his shower. He raced out of the changing room to find everyone stood waiting for him to show himself, his skin bright orange. Everyone had doubled over laughing and after he'd taken 5 more shower's he returned to his usual colour. It wasn't long before he could laugh about it but he got her back, like he always had. ~~~~~~END OF FLASHBACK~~~~~~

He smiled to himself, she was always the practical joker and almost getting as good at it as him.

~~~~~*~~~~~ Clare sat on the couch in their apartment, she flicked on the TV, the apartment seemed empty without Libby around and the silence was driving her crazy. She remembered back to when they first moved to Orlando. ~~~~~FLASHBACK~~~~~ They walked into the apartment and Libby had dropped a box of her belongings on the floor in the sitting area before running into the bedroom's to choose the one she wanted. Clare laughed as Libby ran around their home exploring it. She was like an excited teenager who had just been given permission to drive her dad's car after getting her permit.
"Woo-how! This bedroom is definitely mine." She'd heard her friend call.
She walked into the bedroom to find Libby lay on the bed with her arms and legs spread across it looking up at the mirror above her on the ceiling.
Clare laughed as her friend proceeded to make an angel shape on the blankets beneath her.
"This is so cool!" she said getting to her knees and began to bounce up and down, "I'm gonna like it here, I know it!" ~~~~~~END OF FLASHBACK~~~~~~

Clare sat and smiled to herself as she remembered Libby's face, it was lit up like a Christmas tree, she was smiling from ear to ear, full of excitement and energy, she always had been.
Clare was suddenly brought back to her place in time by a knock on the front door. It was JC.
"How you doin'?" he asked as he followed her into the kitchen where she'd gone to get a drink of water.
"I wish people would stop asking me that! I'm not the one lay in hospital dying!" she spat back angrily. She slammed the glass down and sighed, raising her hand across her eyes, trying to stop the tears that were starting again. She couldn't stop crying the thought of loosing her best friend was like someone had threatened to cut off her air supply.
JC walked over and wrapped his arms around her.
Clare took the comfort of his arms, closed her eyes and let the tears fall for the hundredth time that day. "What will I do without her?" she whispered.
Suddenly she pushed JC away and made her way into the sitting area shouting in frustration, "She's my back bone. I can't imagine my life without her. I don't want to! I need her too much to let her go!" her legs collapsed under her and she landed in a heap in the middle of the floor sobbing.
JC walked over to comfort her. He sat on the floor and put his legs either side of her before pulling her gently toward him so she could cry into his chest. He'd never seen her like this; she'd always been the strong one, the one that held it all together. He wanted to make everything better by holding her; to take away her pain, fix everything so she wouldn't hurt anymore but he knew it was impossible. All he could do was be there to comfort her.

Chapter 16: Tragedy. Back