A/N: So, this is is no way a continuation of 'The Only Exception', because then the ending of it would be ruined. Not that Katie and James get together at the end of T.O.E., but you'd know whether or not they do or do not...did that make sense?
And so I don't know exactly how to do this hundred themes thing- is it a multi-chapter thing or what? So I decided to do just a oneshot, under the theme, "Heaven". Here you go, enjoy.
The nursing home is cold, sterile, and unwelcoming. Truth be told, it feels like more like a hospital for the dying than an assisted-care home. The sounds of the older, farther gone patients' wailing in the night is a constant reminder that his mind could go any moment, and there will be no more memories.
Memories of her.
Even now he can't think of her, though it's been ten years since she'd left him. He scoffs a little at the thought. Left me, he thinks. More like, 'was taken away'.
His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of moaning, and looks beside himself to see an elderly woman, leaning down so far into her food that her nose is touching her mashed potatoes. She cries out, mumbling something unintelligible afterwards, before one of the staff members wheels her from the dining room. He recognizes her as the woman in the room next to him, also known as the Midnight Wailer.
He sighs. He knows he has no right to judge her; she can't help her Alzheimer's disease any more than he can help his, or the ever-present ache in his chest. She's so far gone that she can't even remember how to interact with people, and he dreads the day that he's reduced to the same state of frenzied, unknowing panic.
"Mr. Diamond?" he suddenly hears. He turns to the side in his wheelchair again, trying to spot the person calling him. A thin, African-American staff member is leaning over, trying to get his attention, talking to him as a person would to a child. He nearly rolls his eyes at this; he's not even gotten it bad yet, in fact can still remember quite a lot.
"Mr. Diamond?" she asks again, and James nods his head to show that he's listening. He hopes that she doesn't want to ask for his autograph; he'd become the Richard Gere of the later twenty-first century, and faculty members are constantly asking for his signature, rambling about their mothers who were 'big fans'.
"Yes?" he asks, looking back out the window he's been gazing through. He likes to do that quite a lot, just stare out of the glass and think.
She squats farther down beside his chair, putting a hand on his arm. He jerks it away. "Mr. Diamond, it's time for your meds." She hands him two plastic cups, one with several multi-colored pills, the other containing tap water. He takes the big pills all at once, knowing that they aren't doing a bit of good inside his weakening body, and gulps down the water. The dark nurse smiles at him sweetly, before standing and walking to the medicine counter.
James turns back to the window, and suddenly a memory flashes in his mind, one he didn't even know he had. He chuckles at it, realizing that the star of his recollection is once again his wife.
His late wife.
He shoves that thought away; it's too painful to consider, though it's been ten years. Instead he tries to focus on the memory, trying to summon more details, anything that will keep him from spiraling into a blank existence.
"James?" someone asks from beside him, and he's delighted to see that it's her, but she doesn't look the same as she had at the time of her death; she's sixteen years old, her face glowing with youth and promise, even though those years are long gone. He knows inside of himself that this hallucination can't be helping the slowly crumbling state of his mind, but he welcomes it all the same.
"Katie," he breathes. The word stings his throat, a lump forming at the base and causing him to strain his vocal chords with the effort to hold back tears. He smiles at the (ghost? is it a ghost?) vision before him, the lovely woman he fell in love with at nineteen years old. Of course, she was then barely more than a girl, but if any sixteen year old was close to being a woman, it was his Katie.
The young doppelganger of his late wife giggles lightly. "Yes, it's me, you simple moron." Ah, now there's that sarcasm he's missed so much in the last decade.
He starts to speak to the vision, but it's wavering. The girl's smile fades, and in seconds nothing is there but Carmen Strauss, the white-headed woman with lung cancer. And just like that, his joy is replaced with immense sorrow. Carmen is staring out the window, like he is, but there's peaceful oblivion on her face, and in that moment he wishes desperately for that sweet escape; anything's better than this all-consuming grief.
No, a voice in his head, which he recognizes as Katie, says. You can't hope for that. You mustn't.
The only hope he has for this woman is spurned by his sudden noticing of the Bible in her lap; hopefully she can still hold onto her faith through the darkness.
A sudden thought strikes him, though it can't be too odd, considering he just talked to someone who wasn't there.
I wonder what Katie's doing in heaven?
The thought shocks him, for some odd reason. Although he and Katie had been faithful Christians all of their lives, he's never really contemplated this; all he's ever been able to think about is that she was taken away from him, and that it wasn't fair. But, yes, he supposes she must be in heaven. After all, she was one of the most amazing, good, faithful people on earth.
Another memory hits him this time, but he's had this one
presented to him many times. It's the moment of the birth of their first and only child, Natalynn Grace. How beautiful she'd been, until she'd died at the young age of sixteen, of leukemia. A fresh hole tears at his worn heart; will the painful memories ever stop coming?
He knows just as absolutely as he does about Katie that Natalynn is in heaven with her mother, and they may even be watching him now. The thought sends a quick tremor through him, and he misses them more than ever. He longs for Katie, and also for Natalynn. He remembers how his daughter had looked so much like her mother; sparkling brown eyes, dark hair, and that slight under bite that he adored on Katie.
There is a hand suddenly placed on his shoulder, and he looks into the world-weary eyes of his best friend, his brother, Kendall Knight.
He realizes then how much he and Katie looked alike, and it sends even more pain searing up his chest. Kendall is also in a wheelchair, and in an even worse state than James; he has colon cancer, and it's spreading throughout his body now. It kills him to see his best friend being eaten up by this disease, but he knows that there's no way he can stop it. James suddenly realizes without much surprise that he and Kendall are alone in the dining room.
Whenever they are together now, James knows that they both think of the same thing: the missing half of the quartet, the other two men who'd made up the foursome of brothers.
Logan was the first to go.
At eighty-two, he had passed peacefully in his sleep, at home in his bed, next to his wife. Logan had become a surgeon in his later life, and was praised for his contributions to modern medicine. Logan had fathered two sons, John and Stephen, and a little girl named Alexis. They're in their sixties now, and the thought makes James blanch; they are fifteen years younger than Katie when she…never mind, he thinks, not wanting to think of his deceased wife again.
Carlos had gone next, drifting on to the next life after having a stroke. His death was one of the darkest periods of time on earth, James would wager. His best friend, the sunniest, happiest, wackiest person on earth couldn't be dead. The world had mourned Carlos Garcia, and that was the way it should've been.
But James can't forget: Logan wasn't the first to go; no matter how much a sick part of him wishes he were.
Katie was the first.
He looks into Kendall's wrinkled, tired face and wonders where the years have gone. Kendall has two children, Lacey and Madeline, who come to see him every so often. In fact, everyone's children come every once in awhile to check up on them, including Carlos's eight girls. James nearly chuckles when he remembers how proud Carlos was of his 'little ladies', as he'd called them.
But Kendall doesn't react with very much joy at his children visiting; he's almost like James, too tired to care very much anymore, since Jo died two years ago. That was before they were put in this damned home, before Kendall had been diagnosed with his cancer and James with his Alzheimer's.
"James?" Kendall asks, and once again James marvels at how different he sounds in his old age. It's not a good thing, though; his friend's voice gets weaker with each day, becoming feeble as he wastes more and more energy on fighting the cancer that will inevitably consume him.
"Yeah, Kendall?" James asks, looking at the man beside him.
Kendall places a hand firmly on James's shoulder again, looking out into the courtyard. "You miss her, don't you?"
James thinks this question is ridiculous; of course he misses his wife, who died of a brain aneurysm ten years ago. But he doesn't voice his opinion, merely nods.
"Do you miss Jo?" James asks him, and knows instantly that he shouldn't have said the name. Kendall's face crumples, and his eyes shine with unshed tears.
"Yes," he says, looking down at his free hand, which is toying with a spot on the wheelchair's arm where stuffing is leaking out. He looks up at James suddenly, fierce hope evident on his face. "You think they're waiting for us, don't you?"
His best friend's question makes a lump form in his throat again, and he doesn't say anything.
"I mean," Kendall begins. "They wouldn't just-" he swallows- "just go to heaven and forget about us, would they?"
James swallows back the obstruction in his esophagus. "I think that they went to heaven." He pauses, contemplating. "But, you know, I think they'll wait for us. At least, they won't go off and forget about us." A tear slips down Kendall's cheek slowly.
James knows that Kendall feels as lonely as he does; all they have are each other and a few visits from the children of the four families. But nothing can replace their wives or brothers.
He is suddenly hit with another memory, of he and Katie at the beach one day. James thinks it must've been soon after he'd told her he loved her (and boy, he sure didn't forget that one). They'd had a long, deep discussion about death and dying, contrasting dramatically with their surroundings. The beach had been empty, no one in sight, but it still felt slightly odd to talk about such things in the soft sand.
He remembers how Katie explained that when they got to heaven, she hoped that they remembered each other, and now James can't help but wish desperately for the same thing. They'd talked about all of this calmly, not seeing death in the next thirty, forty, maybe fifty years. It's crazy how it all catches up to you, James thinks.
James and Kendall attend the nursing home chapel every Sunday night, bringing their own Bibles. He's proud that Hollywood didn't take his faith away from him, that he didn't let the flashing lights and autographs make him forget what he came from. James realizes that it's bitterly ironic that he's now forgetting things about himself, when there is no glitz and glamour to distract him.
Kendall speaks up again, another tear slipping down his cheek, pulling James out of his reverie. "I bet Carlos and Logan will wait, too." He nods to himself, smiling slightly. "And…and Mom, too." He pauses, drawing in a shaky, rattling breath. "Don't you- don't you think so?" He wipes at his tired eyes, sniffing slightly. "I think they'll remember us, don't you?" His voice is desperately, pleading for answers that James doesn't know.
"Yeah," James tells him. "Katie promised me that she would remember me."
Kendall leans back in his chair, looking back out the window. The sun is setting, and it makes his face look younger, James thinks. "Yeah," he says softly. "Yeah, I think they will." Kendall stops talking, more tears trailing down his wrinkled face.
James imitates his companion and closes his eyes, willing himself not to stare out into the courtyard and become glassy-eyed and catatonic, to not become a Carmen Strauss. But most importantly, he prays in his head to God, asking that his wife and family will remember himself and his best friend, and wait for the two to join them in paradise.
*cried when writing this*