Anno Domini
"After Death"
By Authress
The stage must be set before this story begins…
What would have happened if Dr. Andrew Brown had chosen not to wake Colin from his slumber, if he had not used his miracles and saved the life of Colin Hart. What if this choice was a matter of life and death- in this case, a matter of death for Amy's precious boyfriend? How would the citizens of Everwood deal with this tragic loss and how would guilt, loss, regret and pain take its toll?
She wore gray. It wasn't her fault. She didn't own anything black, and it had never occurred to her that she might need something so tragically dark for a distressing day as this one. Everyone else was silent, some with tears streaming down their faces. All Amy could do was turn away. They had asked her to do a eulogy, but her father declined for her. Secretly, she was glad. Strong as she tried to be sometimes, Amy knew that she could not stand up in front of everyone and say good-bye. A eulogy was so final, so ultimate, so- deathly.
Bright hadn't come. Of course, she thought. You never know who your real friends are until something like this happens.
Standing in the back, she spotted Dr. Brown. The great Doctor Brown. She didn't know what to think. She had been sure, so sure, that she was truly blessed when her father told her about the new doctor moving into town. This is it, she had thought. So naïve. She didn't know what she expected, after all- for him to give up the reason he moved to Everwood, to get away from it all, the hospitals, the long hours, the blood. She could understand it, but still a little part of her cried indignantly, it isn't fair! But life hadn't been fair to Amy lately.
That last day at that stupid Independence Day Picnic. The last time she had seen him conscious, breathing, so alive. When the Harts first told her about what the doctors had told them, she didn't breathe for about an hour, which worried her parents even more. Amy couldn't count the number of times she had hit herself and cried, what if… It was a cry of the past, and now she had just resorted to staring blankly into space and trying to forget about it all.
And Ephram, right there next to his father- what could she say about him? As gentle and patient as he had been for all this time, how could she not blame him, at least just a little? She hated herself for thinking it, but if only he had tried harder to convince his father to take a risk and perform the surgery, she might have Colin by her side at that exact moment. If only. The lament that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
\*/
Bright sat at home, staring at this television, not really caring what Stephen and Trishelle were up to on Real World. Colin's funeral was being held, and he couldn't bear to pick himself up and show his respects- hell, to show his respect to his best friend, who he happened to have killed. Unknowingly and guiltily, yes, but he felt like a murderer nonetheless.
Damn, I don't even have the nerves to do the right thing and confess that I had been driving. That I was the one, not Colin, who caused the accident. To apologize and say he wished it was him who was lying in the coffin, not Colin.
He really did wish death upon himself. They all think that I'm just being my usual preoccupied self, and I don't give two shits about him, but they cannot even begin to imagine how much I hate myself. Not even Amy can possibly be going through so much pain, so much anger, and this amount of self-loathing. Hi I'm Bright, and I've killed my best friend.
\*/
You stupid son of a bitch. If it weren't for his own godammed fear of failure and his lack of aggressiveness, a 16-year-old boy would still be alive right now and he wouldn't be on the brink of losing it all over again, just like when he lost Julia. Hell, you owe to me to give him whatever miracles you've got up your sleeve! The words reverberated in his head. Who knew such a self-centered comment could be the one that really hit it home. I owed it to this town to save Colin, and I didn't do it, he thought hopelessly.
He noticed Amy staring at him strangely, and also (surprisingly) without hate. She just looked so sad. Sadder than anyone he'd ever seen in his entire life. He couldn't even look at her anymore. To think of all the lives he'd destroyed by saying that simple phrase, "I can't do it." Saying sorry would not even come close to being enough.
He held out his hands in front of him, and for a fleeting moment wished that he did not have the power to perform "miracles", that he didn't have those magical hands that could heal blindness and restore life to those near death. He wished he didn't have the power to do such glorious things, but then he stopped-
The truth was, he wished he had used that power…
To be continued…