Disclaimer: Don't own Scrubs. God, I wish I did.

Warnings: Angst, Swears. You've been warned, and perhaps excited?

I appreciated your being interested by my summary. Keep reading! Srsly!

Posted: 11:00 PM on January 26th, 2008.


And no one had gone to check in on JD in a long time.

Alexander Arthur Parker was a perfectly healthy young man in his early twenties, soldiering through his third year of college, with a beautiful, white smile and attractive sandy blond hair. He was muscular, but lanky. He had a gorgeous girlfriend named Emily who brought him to the hospital just yesterday—after his seizure.

Alexander Parker was a young man, healthy and bright, who just happened to have a malignant tumor growing in his brain.

"Shit…" he whispered, curled against the wall of his room, and then he screamed. "Fuck!"

Sobs wracked his infected body, bursting from him uncontrollably.

And he had no control anymore.


"Alright, Mr. Parker, we're going to get a surgical consult in here right away to talk to you about your options for treatment. I know this great surgeon who'll take awesome care of you, okay?"

It had only been fifteen minutes, but the blood was already drying on the floor.


His life was over. There was absolutely no denying. His spry body would deteriorate, and all function would be lost, and he would die away like an insect or a flower. He would fucking wilt, for God's sake. What he was supposed to do, what he was destined for, was to grow up and live by the sea and have a beautiful family and write novels, or be a high-powered CEO in a big city, or run a law firm. What the hell was he doing here?

What the hell was he doing here?

Alex spread himself out on the floor, feeling the cold tile press against his hot skin. His fingers were just barely touching the blood.


The symptoms of a brain tumor include headaches, seizures, nausea, vomiting, muscle weakness, loss of vision and hearing, and behavioral or cognitive problems

behavioral or cognitive—


JD entered the room with a clipboard. Alexander Arthur Parker, 21 years old, Caucasian male. The report was back from radiology.

JD winced, flipping through the chart once or twice. He hated delivering terrible news, especially to someone so young. In the height of his years, Alex's life would be snatched from him by a malignant, uncontrollable force.

The kid was sitting on the table in a hospital gown still, and when the doctor entered, he gave a small smile.

"It's a little hard to move," he said softly. "Is that bad?"

JD smiled back, face softening into a sympathetic expression.

He had to tell this bright, handsome kid that he had brain cancer.

What would he say?


"Dr. Cox, would you go check on Bambi's new patient? I heard some crashing from in there, and when I looked in, he looked pretty bad."

"Carla, the kid just figured out he has a brain tumor. If we give him a little while and just send him on down to Dr. Whoever is Running the Psych Ward These Days, so he can get the crazy out before he kicks the bucket."

His voice sounded weary. Carla left him alone.


Alex didn't know why he did it.

He just knew it felt good to do it, to let go.

Maybe he just wanted some control back.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­


"Baby, have you seen JD? He wanted me to come see a patient of his about his brain tumor. Man, I haven't seen him in like an hour."

"No, but I did see that his patient looked like he was having trouble. You should go and see him. Room N4-64."

Turk rolled his eyes, hardly able to keep the smile off of his face. "Woman, you run me ragged, you know?"

She grinned back, and they leaned over the counter for a kiss. "I know," she said. "Now get going."


"A brain tumor?"

"I'm afraid so. We can provide several treatments here at Sacred Heart, but they will only extend your life for so long."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Mr. Parker, without treatment I'd give you less than a month, but with treatment, the most we can give you is a year. This tumor is relatively developed in your brain."

"A year?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry."

Alex clenched his fists in his lap. "You're sorry. Look at you. You got to go through college, get your degree. You're healthy—you're not dying, are you? You don't have to say goodbye to your girlfriend and your family, and see the looks on their faces as you deteriorate. Oh, god. You can't appreciate that. You can't be sorry."

JD didn't respond. He'd seen this before, but that didn't make it any less difficult. The patient was right, anyway. He couldn't appreciate the feeling. Instead, he'd wait it out, then get the kid a therapist to help him cope.

"Alright, Mr. Parker," he said gently, "we're going to get a surgical consult in here right away to talk to you about your options for treatment. I know this great surgeon who'll take awesome care of you, okay?"

Alex stood up quickly, apparently having shaken off the muscle weakness he'd been experiencing. "Stop trying to be my friend!" he screamed, beginning to pace the room angrily. JD stood still, watching him warily. This was much more rare, this violent movement.

He did recognize that this was a textbook symptom, however. The tumor must be inhibiting something in his brain, causing behavioral or cognitive problems. It wasn't the patient speaking; it was his tumor.

"I'm sick of you. I'm sick of this fucking room. I need someone who knows me, who knows what I'm going through. I don't need you to be my God."

The young man picked up the vase of flowers that sat on his table.

"You can't be my God!"

When Alexander Parker began to stalk toward him, JD felt a spike of terror. This was a bad situation. He thought of turning away and fleeing, going to get help, but he couldn't move except to tremble spinelessly. His eyes were glued to the crazed patient before him.

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

For some reason, JD couldn't focus. His mind was screaming something about Sanford and Sons, and bits of an undeveloped fantasy sequence about Alex pointing a gun at his head that would burst with a flag that read "Boom!" His inner voice sounded hysterical, absolutely petrified—exactly how he felt. It was so spastic and panicked and nonsensical that he couldn't do anything but whisper another "I'm sorry."

It was a bad mistake.


Turk found that when he panicked, his mind divided into two sections. One section he felt: it was the one that was blubbering and shaking and screaming, pumped on adrenaline, ready to vomit. The other was totally subconscious. It was the doctor-layer, programmed into him through several years of school and experience. It took over his actions while the rest of him was frantic, and he didn't even know.

In under a minute, he had several doctors and a security guard in room N4-64, checking his best friend's pulse and hefting the near-catatonic Alexander Parker onto a gurney and restraining him, just in case. He was using medical terms with frightening stoicism.

Only when everyone was gone did he break down, unable to bear the weight of his hysteria. Carla ran into the room and knelt next to him as he sat on the floor, sobbing.

"Baby, what happened?" she cried, pulling him into a desperate, confused hug. They held onto each other as if they would be swept away if they let go.

There were chipped pieces of a vase on the floor, and the carnations and daisies that used to rest inside were now lying limp in a mix of water and blood. There was blood all over the floor. The room looked trashed. From what Turk could tell, the patient had hit JD over the head with the vase, and when the doctor fell, he hit his head on the corner of the counter. Maybe the kid kept going, kept hitting Turk's best friend with his fists, with anything he could get his hands on. In any case, he thought he heard the other doctors say something about a pulse—a tiny one.

He clung onto that flutter of his buddy's heart, reaching toward that light of hope in the darkness of the room.


Dr. Cox found Turk, Carla, and Elliot sitting in the hallway.

"I pronounced him. Time of death was 2:51 PM."

The clock on the wall read 2:58.

The three friends had been clutching at each other's hands since 2:10, when Elliot got wind of the situation and raced down to the ER. Now, they grabbed hold even harder, squeezing as if the sheer force of it would end their suffering. Carla began to weep, bending over to hide her face.

Dr. Cox watched them for a moment, some emotion boiling deep within him. He could not handle it. He could not handle it.

He walked away, hands shoved in his pockets, ready to wash his hands of Sacred Heart forever. If Newbie was gone, what hope was there left for the hellhole?

He passed the Janitor on his way out. Jumpsuit looked lost, sad.

Something superficial told Perry Cox he should be surprised.

Deep down, though, he wondered how anyone could feel any other way.


I apologize if you had issues with sequence... But it really shouldn't be that hard to figure out after another quick readthrough.

Tell me how I did! Seriously. Do it.