"Everything's going to be super-okay."
Doctor James Foxter smiled tenderly to her daughter. She smiled back at him, a tooth missing, something usual in 7 year old kids like her.
"I know, daddy. I'm not scared", she said. "Know why? Because you promised"
The little girl gripped two fingers of his dad with her right hand, the IV already in place. Even if she had been seriously ill half of her short lifespan, Ellie never lost joy, neither hope. She was the one who gave him hope, not the other way around. She was the one who was going to be operated, but he was the one scared.
"Mom would be proud" he said, struggking to hold tears back; Ellie couldn't see him like that. He had promised her everything was going to be right. Super. "See you in a few hours, right?"
"Right"
He leaned over the operating table to put a kiss on her forehead, putting a golden lock back into the cap. Ellie barely smiled, dozy. The first aneasthesics dose was already kicking in. While a nurse helped him to put his gloves on, he heard the anaesthesist reciting the readings from the machines.
They were ready.
James Foxter took a deep breath in and lift the mask up to his face.
"James?"
Several hours later, somebody was knocking at his office. He couldn't recognize the voice. He didn't care. He didn't care anymore.
He still hasn't got rid of his scrubs and robes. His whole body shoke with his sobs, his face was a puddle of sweat and tears. He was the living image of despair itself.
"James, please! Open the door! It wasn't your fault, you knew it could end like that..."
He recalled he had left the operating room to collapse on his knees in the corridor, deserted at that time of night. The next thing he could remember was being sat down on his office's carpet, back leaning on his desk. It had to be a nightmare. Or at least, it seemed as irreal as one. But pain was real. It gnawed at his entrils, it didn't let him breathe.
"James, please!"
She didn't feel any pain, Dr. Foxter. She left peacefully, the nurse had said, the same one who helped him to put his gloves on, while the crew switched off the monitors and the deafening flatline tone stopped filling the operating room.
Gone.
She was gone. Now, he was alone. But the worst thing was that he failed her. He failed her only daughter.
The knocking at the door intensified. James Foxter raised the gun. It trembled in his hand when the end of the barrel dig into his scrubs, just over the heart. He felt it hammering madly against the cold steel, like if it were trying to run away from what was going to happen. Blood rushed and thumped in his ears, all over his body. That's not fair, he said to himself, the heart of my little girl won't beat anymore. and it's my fault. I couldn't save her.
The doctor raised his gaze to the ceiling, to heaven. Tears ran down his cheeks. He closed his eyes.
"I promised you, my dear" he sobbed. "I promised you... and I failed you"
He shot.