“I’m here, baby, but I’m kind of in the way. I’m going to get a cup of coffee and then I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Yes, okay,” Ava said.

A few minutes later, the nurse was leaving as he walked in with his coffee. Ava was awake and in a reclining position.

“I remember stuff,” Ava said. “Can we talk?”

“Absolutely,” Hunt said, then put the coffee aside and sat down on the side of her bed. “You talk. I’ll listen.”

“There was a fight in the ER. Did I dream that?”

Hunt remembered the doctor telling them not to lead her memories, but if she was asking, he could answer.

“No. That happened,” he said.

She nodded, then put a hand on her chest. “My chest hurts. It hurts to take a deep breath. Why am I here?”

“What do you think happened?” Hunt asked.

“That I got hit by something. Is that right?”

“Yes. That’s right. But you’re healing, and you’re going to be fine.”

Ava nodded. “I thought it was something like that,” she said, then closed her eyes.

Hunt thought she was going back to sleep when she suddenly opened her eyes and clutched his hand.

“I need to ask you something and then tell you something.”

“Okay,” Hunt said.

“Did I die?”

Hunt was shocked by the question. “Why would you ask that, honey?”

“Because I was in light…and colors in hues I’ve never seen, and there was a voice within the light that told me I’d come too soon. The voice said I could stay or I could go back, but I had to be the one to decide. And then I saw two visions within the light. In the first one, I was standing at the threshold of what I would call heaven. And it was so beautiful and the voice was pure love and I didn’t want to leave.”

Hunt shuddered. Hearing how close he’d come to losing her was frightening.

“Then the light shifted, and I saw another vision. I think I was in this room but I was looking down. I could see a woman in a bed. I saw two people standing by the bed crying. They were my parents. I saw a man holding the woman’s hand but I couldn’t see his face, and I came closer. Then I was beside the man and I saw it was you. There were tears on your cheeks, and then I saw the woman in the bed was me, and I was thinking over and over that I didn’t want to die. I wanted you.”

Hunt swallowed past the lump in his throat and held onto her hand, but she kept talking.