Warning! Angst ahead. Like, serious angst. I don't know where this came from. It just...came out.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.
He didn't want to do it.
He didn't want to be the one to deliver the news.
It seemed almost unfair to be sharing this with his patient...of all the things they shared over the years, for this to be the last one? It wasn't right.
And then to go tell the family? The family that was as much his as his natural family...
He felt like going in the on-call room and pouting; to go tear up Franklin's old lab (even though Franklin wasn't there anymore), to punch a wall, to go do something, go somewhere. Anywhere but here.
Times like this, he hated his job. He never got used to this part of the job. He figured he never would.
It wasn't fair.
But yet…would he want anyone else to give the news? After all, they had experienced countless stories and adventures over the years. Letting anyone else deliver the news just felt wrong. As much as he wanted to give this to someone else who could be objective and unattached, he could not.
He could not bear to part with the chart, gripped so hard in his hands that his knuckles were white.
When he approached the Nurses' Station to try to find someone else to give the news, the words died in his throat.
He was stuck. He didn't have the strength to do this.
He didn't know what to do.
And because of the damn doctor-patient confidentiality clause, he couldn't go get advice from his mentor. He wished he could. He wanted to.
He wanted a lot of things.
He needed to do this though.
Taking a deep breath, he turned into the room, and prepared to give the hardest news of his life.
"JD? We need to talk…"
And as Jack Cox opened the chart, stepping further in the room, a single tear slid down his face and landed in the middle of the page, effectively smearing the words he so desperately wished he didn't have to say.