Disclaimer: Of course, I know that I don't own any of the characters and ideas from ATWT.
He had decided to put an end to it all, and he would do it tonight. His life had become meaningless, there was nothing left to live for. During the past few weeks the path that lay ahead of him had become clearer and clearer. Nothing in the world could stop him now and he was determined to get it over with quickly.
Anyway, this was what should have happened three months ago when his car got stuck on the railroad tracks and he hadn't been able to get out of his car in time before it was hit by the train approaching at full speed. If Reid had had his way, his life would have ended that day, back at Memorial, right after the accident, to give somebody else the chance to go on living.
He still remembered every second of that fateful afternoon, the insufferable pain in his entire body, horror and grief in Luke's eyes –and then – Luke's silent tears accompanying the acceptance of what then had seemed inevitable.
Reid had been surprised at how easy it was for himself to accept the fact that he was about to die. Sure, there had been a feeling of regret that he wouldn't have more time with Luke, but all in all it had been easy to let go, knowing that with his final breath he was able to safe a patient's life.
He remembered Luke's lips on his the instant before everything went blank – and that should have been the end of Reid Oliver.
Well, in a way it had been, and today he really wished it had ended that day for the essence of what had been Reid Oliver was lost, never to be retrieved.
When he had first opened his eyes again – two days after the accident, he actually thought that everything was going to be okay again. Luke had been so incredibly happy, although, of course, the death of Chris Hughes had been a shock to him. Instead of passing away and giving Chris life, Reid had been miraculously brought back to life and Chris had died.
And there had been more bad news in store for Reid. When it had become clear that although he was in a coma, he had a slight chance of surviving, they performed an emergency surgery on him to stop the internal bleeding and thus had managed to save his life.
Being alive, however, came at a very high price for Reid. After two weeks full of all kinds of examinations and Luke hardly ever leaving his bedside in spite of the fact that Reid was asleep most of the time, he had received the doctors' diagnosis – or verdict rather: Due to the serious and unfixable damage the accident had done to the sinews and muscles in his right arm and hand, he wouldn't be able to perform a surgery ever again. Due to the immense impact of the train the moment it hit his car, the right arm which had been still in the middle of a futile attempt to loosen the seatbelt, had been crushed between the two seats. Arm and hand were still able to fulfill their most basic functions, but only in a very clumsy way which meant that handling a scalpel was no longer an option unless he wanted to run the risk of seriously damaging a patient's brain.
His first reaction to the news had been denial. In endless conversations with Luke he had gone on and on about how the doctors must be wrong and that they would only have to wait another two weeks for him to recover more fully and by sheer willpower he would have brought his arm back to its full function. Today, he remembered the pained expression on Luke's face, the brown eyes full of pity, fear and later, despair.
When at one point Luke tried to contradict Reid and told him that he had better face the fact that he would never be able to operate on anyone again, Reid had completely freaked out and banned Luke from his hospital room for three full days although a tearful Luke begged him to let him back in. In the end it had been Bob Hughes, who couldn't stand it to witness how much Luke, who still came to the hospital every day, suffered, who persuaded Reid to allow Luke to come back.
During the next few days Luke kept his mouth shut when Reid talked about his complete recovery although the pain in the young man's eyes spoke volumes.
And then the acceptance of what could no longer be denied had overcome Reid and shattered his world; his whole life went to pieces. Being one of the world's most brilliant neurosurgeons was what made his identity. This was what he had worked for all his life, had poured all his energy into and the only thing he had ever lived for since enrolling as a student of medicine at Harvard. Saving lives, healing people from conditions most of his colleagues considered hopeless and being damn good at it – that was what gave his existence meaning and purpose.
Once he had fully taken in the fact that all this was no longer to be part of his life, he practically died inside. The most important moments of his life were flashing in front of his inner eye. The day he got the letter of acceptance from Harvard Med School, his first successful surgery, several patients he had been able to heal although their cases had seemed hopeless, the first patient he had lost, the day he had been granted his new neuro wing in Oakdale… To him this was worse than dying. For days he just lay in his hospital bed, trying to shun off the world.
Luke sat by his bed all the time, delivering speech after speech on how Reid would find something else to do with his life, how there were so many options for them and how everything that mattered was that Reid was still alive and that they were together, but all the response he ever got was Reid's empty stare at the ceiling. "You can still work as a doctor!" Luke said for what must have been the 30th time. "Maybe even become chief of staff still, if you…" And that was when Reid couldn't take it any longer. "Can't you just shut the fuck up!" he yelled at Luke, who flinched as if being beaten. "Being a neurosurgeon is my life! There is nothing else I want to do! Do you get that? And now just get out and leave me alone, for god's sake!"
Luke didn't say anything, but Reid could see his eyes filling with tears when he stood up and slowly walked towards the door. Before leaving the room, he turned around and gave Reid a pleading look, but the cold rejection with which he met in the older man's eyes made him leave the room without another word.