Title: Testing the Strong Ones

By: KK

Based on: Degrassi: The Next Generation

Summary: People are forced to deal with JT's death, and for some, the pressure's proving to be too much. Jumps from a lot of people's points of view. Based loosely on Testing the Strong Ones, by Copeland.

Chapter 1-Its Testing the Strong Ones

The air was warm, rays of sun shining from the cloudless sky, a slight wind making it a perfect day. Nearly everyone was out walking it seemed, everyone taking in the good weather while it lasted, laughing, happy.

It was like they were mocking her.

Liberty sighed, her eyes burning with tears she wouldn't shed, couldn't shed. All she could do was stare at all the people going about their business like nothing had happened. Like he hadn't died. Didn't any of them care? He hadn't done anything to deserve any of this. He was such a good person, had done so much good in his short life. There was so much more he could have done if he'd just lived. What he could have been. What they could have been.

At that thought her will broke, the tears slipping down her cheeks as her lip quivered, and she immediately averted her gaze, staring at the her hands tightly clasped. They were shaking, she realized distantly, remembering them covered with his blood. She'd tried so hard to help him, but just when he needed her, when he needed her help, her brain had quit. She couldn't think, she was petrified, could only scream for help, hadn't thought of anyway to help him. Save him.

Toby had told her what him and JT had been talking about, why he'd left. He was going after her. Maybe it was best he didn't get the chance. Liberty had seen Mia at the memorial, sobbing, holding Isabelle tightly. Like she'd die if it weren't for that little girl. Liberty regretted her decision to give up her baby boy more at that moment then she ever had before, craving some sort of comfort right now. Craving some piece of JT. As she cried, she knew it was still the best decision. He had a better life than she could have ever given him. She hadn't told anyone, but she'd been checking up on him periodically, and had made sure he had a good family.

She had been zoning, not noticing her hands were clenched into fists, her nails biting into her palms. She blinked and felt the pain, then loosed her grip, seeing small crescents of blood in indentions. She stared, feeling the warmth of the blood, but it was nothing compared to his. All over her hands, warm and sticky. She still imagined the smelled it everywhere, no matter how many showers she took, no matter how much she scrubbed. It wouldn't go away. That sickly-sweet, metallic smell.

She smelled it in her sleep, dreaming of long white corridors and the smell of disinfectant. She remembered everything about that night in her dreams, up until she found out he was dead. After that it was a blur. She remembered Toby finally managing to tell her in a cracking voice exactly what the doctor had said. How he had died. His voice had invaded her fog, then her body had quit on her. From others, she'd learned she was zombie like after that, but she had no recollection of any of it.

She pushed herself up from her seat by the window and wiped her face as she went, ignoring curious and concerned looks from other patrons at the small café near JT's home. They used to come here all the time, when they were dating. They'd fought her, broke up, made up, made promises, broken them, so much here. She could hardly stand the memories.

So why did she keep coming back?

She didn't know, she didn't think she'd ever know. It hurt so bad just to think of him, but it hurt more that she might someday forget him. Forget that he had always done what was best for her, always put her needs before his own. He had been there, loving her, even when she pushed him away; no matter how bad she treated him he never left her, just looked at her with that smile, and everything was okay.

She still believed, deep down, that he would somehow come back and make this okay, too, that he would find a way to still be there. He would find a way, because he knew she needed him. She always had. She needed him as bad as she loved him, and as she looked at the faces walking around, glancing curiously at the distraught girl, she was hit by his absence. She was hit, for the first time, by the fact that he wasn't one of these people walking down the road. He never would be again. He would never again smile at her, making a bad joke just to cheer her up, not matter what she did or said to him.

He would never get to see his Day Care idea be implemented. He wouldn't get to graduate. He would never see how much he meant to the whole school, how his life, and death, affected them. He never got to talk to his son. Now there was absolutely no way he ever would. He could have done so much more…

Liberty caught sight of herself in the reflection and froze, staring at her dead eyes. Her hands were bloody, and she smelled it on her clothes, hands, in her hair; she tasted it in her mouth. She saw his eyes staring at her, begging, shocked, pained, trying to say so much when his body wouldn't let him speak. She stumbled from the window, from him, and forward, running to her home. Sobbing, she avoided him as he stood at every corner, staring at her, a question in his dead, flinty eyes. He reached out with a bloody hand and she pulled away, running to her house and through the door, slamming it behind her and leaning against it as her body shook, slowly sliding to the floor.

"Goddamn you, JT." She whispered in a choked voice as she buried her head in her arms, glad no one else was home. She couldn't face anyone else right then.