The rest of the murky drive was uneventful in a sense.  Lydia zoned out a little too much, something she tried so hard to train herself not to do while driving, but sometimes slipped her mind never the less. 

After Lydia had rushed out of the car to make sure the child was safe, their parents rushed out onto the street, scooping their child into their arms securely.  All while in such a distraught manner, praying their baby was okay.

Lydia continued on down the street seemingly lost in her thoughts as she wondered what she would do in a situation like hers.  

And in all honesty there was nothing she could do.  What was done was done.  Lydia continued to blame herself as if it would change her situation, turn back the clock, make Finn wake up.  

But there was essentially nothing she could do, except, like the doctor said, wait and pray.

Lydia pulled up into the driveway of her home hoping her brother would be sitting, perhaps playing a video game in his room, letting his time pass him as he wasted the minutes playing mindless games.  

"Dylan!? Are you here?" Lydia yelled through the household as she stepped through the doorway, "Dylan?"

"I'm upstairs! Jesus, stop yelling!" Dylan yelled back making Lydia roll her eyes in irony.  

"I need your help with something or more like someone.  I just need your advice."  Lydia crossed her arms knowing exactly what her brother's response would be.

"What is it now! Lydia, I'm not your personal therapist, I'm your younger brother." Lydia could hear the blatant attitude dripping from his voice as she groaned in response.

"Please help me Dyl.  I don't know what to do."  Lydia's voice dropped towards the end making her sentence dreary and dull.  Her heart clenched and suddenly she felt as if the walls were caving in on her again.

She could no longer feel the breathe pulling in and out of her throat and instead was caught in the dark depths of her system, clawing to escape her lungs.  She felt like she couldn't breathe and her lungs were going to burst.  Yet she still stood, calm and still, waiting for Dylan to respond.

She hadn't even realized when Dylan appeared in front of her, worried eyes and eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"Lydia, are you okay? I mean I know what happened to Finn, but did something bad happen?  Did he get worse?" Dylan's eyes suddenly filled with panic, worry evident in his voice.

"No, no, it's just he's not getting any better.  He's still asleep and everyday I feel like there's more of a chance he won't wake up." Lydia gulped the harsh reality setting into her mind.

"I know this is hard and I could never imagine how you feel right now, but all you can do for Finn now is simply just to be there for him." Dylan frowned sympathetically, but Lydia wasn't having it.  After all the amazing advice Dylan had given her in the past why in the most important time she needed it, he told her to simply wait.

"But there has to be something I can do.  Something that can help him instead of hanging by a string of pure hope." Lydia explained looking into Dylan's eyes that were filled with sadness and sympathy.

"You have to wait Lydia.  That's all you can do right now," Dylan sighed.

"You don't understand, Dylan. I can't just sit around hoping for some miracle to  bring him out of this.  I physically can't.  I can't just sit here and wait for him to die!" Lydia bursted, her eyes turning more and more red by the moment.

"He might not die-"

"Might!  That's the key word Dylan!  He might not die, and I can't just sit on that type of possibility." Lydia's voice calmed before a sigh escaped her lips.  She inhaled slowly her eyes closing involuntarily.  

She couldn't imagine a world without Finn and she couldn't bring herself to even fathom the possibility that he might be gone.  That he might never wake up.  That he might not ever get to live again.

"Well, I don't know what you want me to tell you Lydia.  There's nothing else you can do at this point."  Dylan exasperated, throwing his arms up instantly.  "You're not a doctor or even a miracle worker, there's nothing you can do to change this situation."

Dylan's voice faded and a calm silence fell between them as Lydia's breathing slowed.  "You're just going to have to wait."

"Dylan, I told you can't." Lydia's lips puckered, holding in a sob as a tear slipped through her eyelashes, staining her cheeks as it trailed down.

"Why are you so hung up on this?  You and I both know there's nothing you can do or say to make Finn's situation better or make him wake up at all so why are you sitting here yelling at me like I have some sort of magical potion that wakes people from comas?"  Dylan snapped, his cheeks turned a bright read and his fists clenched.

"Why am I so hung up?" Lydia repeated Dylan's words, a sudden surge of anger bursted through her.

"Yes, I honestly don't understand it." Dylan's arms crossed, his face no longer red, but his nose still flaring in irritation. 

"How would you feel if your best friend was in a coma and the doctors didn't know if she'd wake up!" Lydia snapped making Dylan's mouth close instantly.  His jaw ticked with anger at her sudden words and his fist clenched uncontrollably.

"That's not the point Lydia, the point is, are you sure this isn't just about him being your best friend?" Dylan spat, anger still prevalent about Lydia's previous comment.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Lydia spat suddenly becoming defensive.  Her emotional side had always been very prominent in her actions, but she had to admit that she hadn't come in contact with one particular part of herself in a long time.  

Being in love was a foreign feeling to Lydia.  It had been so long since she had last fallen in love and she didn't trust herself to fall back in love again.  Not after last time.

She had forgotten what love felt like and she couldn't go off to try and figure it out now.  Not in a time like this.  Not when her best friend was laying in a hospital bed with his life hanging by one measly beeping machine.  It would be selfish of her to go off and try to figure out her heart and her feelings when all she should be doing was taking care of her friend and making sure he'd make it through the night. 

At least that's what she thought.

"Nothing, Lydia.  It means nothing.  I just don't understand why you're so worked up.  I know he's very important to you and I understand the seriousness of the situation completely it just seems like there's something more.  But it's nothing, forget it."  Dylan sat back down in his original seat, twiddling his thumbs as he seemed to think.

There was a long pause before he continued, "So did you think you helped Finn at all before the, well, you know?" Dylan asked trying desperately to change the subject and reverse what he had said before.

"I thought I was, but I don't know." Lydia sighed before speaking thinking about Finn's actions before he was shot.  He definitely smiled a lot Lydia thought, but he smiled as much as he normally did.  But maybe that was why Lydia couldn't pick up on his suicidal thoughts.

"What do you mean?" Dylan's eyebrows furrowed in confusion before he crossed his arms stepping closer to Lydia.

"He just doesn't seem totally there, you know?" Lydia sighed, tears brimming her eyes.  "I just want him to be happy."

"Look Lydia, depression doesn't just go away. Even if he wakes up, he most likely will still feel depressed." A frown etched on Dylan's face as a sigh escaped his lips. "Finn's been through a lot of shit that caused his depression and could cause him to have some sort of PTSD. I wouldn't be surprised if he has nightmares for the rest of his life."

"I know, but I've been trying so hard to get him to see the brighter side of things an-and to realize that he's not meaningless and his life isn't something he can just throw away," there was a long pause before she continued. "I'm just not totally sure it's working." Lydia cried, tears brimming her eyes and her lip quivering rapidly.

"Have you read the book 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl?" Dylan suddenly looked up, eyes sympathetic, trying so desperately to get Lydia to think logically about an emotional situation that left her distraught for once.

"No, but what does that have to do with this?" Lydia shook her head after raising it out of her hands, tears trailing down her eyes already.

"Well there's this quote in it, 'not every case of depression is to be traced back to a feeling of meaninglessness, nor does suicide.' But then he goes on to say, 'it may well be that an individual's impulse to take his life would have been overcome had he been aware of some meaning and purpose worth living for."

"So you're saying that it may not be because he think's his life is meaningless?" Lydia's silent tears slowed as the gears in her brain started to turn in confusion.

"Well, yes and no. What I'm saying is yes, it may not be because he thinks his life is meaningless.  But if he does think his life is meaningless, which I think is a very high possibility, then I think what you need to do is find that one reason he continued to live and then use that and build off of it to show him more reasons why he should live his life to the fullest."  Dylan sighed, crossing his arms before leaning back on the chair he was perched on.  "Honestly, Lydia you've been going about this all wrong.  You've been showing him all the reasons you love to live, you haven't been showing him any reason why he should."

"But I thought he was getting somewhere.  He's not fully there, but I really did feel like what I was showing him was working." Lydia exasperated as Dylan scoffed in irritation.

"You may have showed him happiness enough to make him not want to kill himself, but staying alive and being happy are two totally different things Lydia!" Dylan cried, irritation laced in his voice.

"So what am I supposed to do?  Do you know how bad I feel already?" Lydia screeched, standing abruptly from her seat.  "Do you know the amount of times I've stayed up every night this month pleading to god to just put me out of my misery and wake Finn up.  Do you know just how much I miss him?  Do you know that I've cried every day this month, there hasn't been one moment that tears hadn't stained my face!" Lydia cried, tears already spilling down her cheeks.  

"I know he's your best friend and this is obviously very hard for you, but why are you acting like this?  Acting like it's the end of the fucking world and that this whole situation rests on your back when it doesn't Lydia!"

"Because I love him, Dylan!"

Lydia's feature slowly spread from their hardened state as her body relaxed in sudden realization.  She loved him and she had finally admitted it.  She loved him and she suddenly realized that she always had.  

She loved him and she never told him.  

And now it may have been too late.

Lydia turned trying to hide her tears from her brother's agitated face.  Dylan's face paled in realization and his furrowed eyebrows slowly separated as an expression of guilt slowly graced his face.

"I love him," Lydia whispered, not fully believing what had just stumbled from her lips moments ago.

"Yeah,  I kind of already knew that."  Dylan scoffed, a small chuckle escaping his lips.  The frown lines around his mouth were no longer etched into his face and his eyebrows seized to be furrowed.  He didn't look agitated or irritated at all anymore, rather content and slightly cocking, if you ask Lydia.

"So what do I do now?" Lydia's voice was shaky as she gulped down a sob because she had let herself cry out one too many times that afternoon.

"You wait and you pray."