A Smile on His Face

An Adventure Time Oneshot

Hello, this is my first time writing an Adventure Time Fanfic. So it it basically an idea buzzing through my head as I watched Ghost Fly. There is probably some stuff going on in the real world when Jake's heart stopped.

Reviews are appreciated and Adventure Time doesn't belong to me!

"A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down."

Robert Benchley

"If his brain doesn't get any oxygen for the next minute, he'll lose it!" Doctor Princess shouted with the voice that could be heard across the Candy Kingdom Hospital ER. Her head was buzzing with countless thoughts of what to do and what not to do. And certainly panicking her head off was clearly on the top of the not to do list. But why shouldn't she be panicking? The magic dog was rushed to the hospital only with the running legs of his brother, only heaven knew how much time his brain was in blackout. Not to mention that only she and Nurse Pound Cake available at the graveyard shift. Some more helping hands would be really appreciated at this time of event.

"I got the defibrillator and the heart monitor!" Yelled Nurse Pound cake as she rushed to the room, pushing a metal trolley of the named devices. "But I think that it won't start a heart that stopped..." She reasoned to the doctor.

"He's not dead yet!" the doctor replied while sticking the sensors to Jake's body and gestured her assistant to keep monitoring his heart. "I still somehow feel that he's still fighting! It is worth a shot!" With that she took the defibrillator and set it up. "Come on Jake! I know that you can hear me!"

With that, the doctor shocked the dog in an attempt to bring him back to life Frankenstein-style. She tried to understand what the boy and his game console were explaining earlier. The dog was critically punched on the heart so that he could fight a ghost fly that terrorize the tree house. Not that she already comprehended the situation but this is the Land of Ooo. Any weird and unlikely stuff can happen and you just ignored it and pretended that it was normal. Still, bringing someone back to life is nearly impossible, but it was that tiny glimpse in the face of impossibility that made the entire point of being a doctor. Doctor Princess still believed in it and she didn't plan to hear anyone say otherwise today.

"I still didn't get any pulse!" Nurse Pound cake said without leaving her eyes to the heart monitor. And with that the doctor added the power and shocked Jake once more.

"Still didn't have any!"

"Come on Jake! You don't want to leave your brother alone in this world, do you?"

Finn could only watch the horrors through the creak on the hospital door. Not that he wasn't allowed to enter, but the boy decided that it was best for him to stay outside. He never could stand hospitals and people that were struggling for their lives in it. He couldn't get a grip to this kind of emergency. It was not like someone was in danger of facing the blades of marauders, or fighting a radioactive bear. It was something that he couldn't understand, and couldn't handle.

He felt that he couldn't be the hero for this one, and he didn't like it one bit.

The boy was silently crying as he sat on a chair in the waiting hall. BMO was on his side, appeared to do the exact same thing. He still couldn't figure out what was happening. The boy adventurer didn't remember anything after he was possessed by the fly, and he couldn't believe what BMO had said earlier. How could a tiny game console kill an all-out powerful magical dog like Jake? Not to mention that Finn and Jake were always getting punched in daily basis and they were still alive and kicking. All he remembered that he was running as fast as his legs could carry him and his knocked out companion to the Candy Kingdom Hospital. Still, it didn't answer the question on why Jake was dead. BMO might have learned a lethal skill, or that the dog was trying to kill himself, which was really unlikely. Whatever the reason was, the boy would have to ask Jake later for clarification.

If he survived this.

"I got something doctor!" The yells from nurse Pound Cake reached the waiting room. "I got 20 beats per minute!"

"Give him the adrenaline shot!" Doctor Princess ordered her assistant.

Finn couldn't bear the shouts anymore, so he closed the muff on his head. How could doctors be able to have lives balancing on their hands? How could they withstand of seeing countless death every day in the hospital?

Finn never could understand death anyway. Why should someone die? All these years he saw countless of people he loved passed away. Like his adoptive mom and dad, Margaret and Joshua. He always had questions buzzing inside his head. Could someone cheat death? Was there any way for people to stay alive forever? Why should he die? He actually had the chance of meeting Death by the person himself, but he never had the guts to ask.

Jake was the only one remaining of the only family he had ever owned. Sure he could be really annoying and obnoxious and stupid from times to times, but Finn would never have him in any other way. He always tried to protect him from all cause of threats, though sometimes Jake himself was the one who kept putting him in danger, even to the point of life and death situation. But the boy adventurer always knew that whenever Jake was around, he would come out from any trouble, eventually.

Unlike Finn, Jake understood death. He somehow knew a lot for a laid-back dog that ate ice cream and played video games all the time. And what made him different from other people was that Jake never seemed to be scared of death. He stared Death in the face and Death blinked. He believed in premonition, message of deaths inside seemingly random dreams. He believed that after we die, everyone would travel to another realm of existence. Despite his crazed nature, the dog was really thoughtful and ethical.

Finn took off his bear hat and wiped some of his tears with it. The hat, the witness of the countless fights he and Jake had with monsters and witches. The silent witness of the dungeons they had finished, the treasures they had looted, the lands and realms they had scaled, the interesting people they met along the way. The hat heard every bitter argument Finn had with Jake, every time they both crossed each other's nerves and fought. Every time Finn felt a slight difference between him and Jake, the hat knew. And in retrospect, every dispute he had with the dog all these years was clearly childish, nonsense in fact. So he knew better than to keep remembering them.

As Jake taught him once, that if you kept driving in reverse, you wouldn't go to anywhere new…

Deep down, the hero blamed himself for everything. If he hadn't tried to get to the magazine, if he had resisted to the fly's obvious trap, if he hadn't been overshadowed by that wrecked creature, He could stop whatever that made Jake die. He could be the hero like he used to and none of this would happen.

Maybe in fact, Finn was never once the hero.

Looking back, he might never was. Everybody in Ooo thought that Finn was the real superman of the land. Everybody went to him if they had trouble with the Ice King or some Badlands ruffians. Everybody knew Finn and Jake, a hero and his sidekick. But what everybody didn't know—or failed to comprehend—was that Finn was only a guy that was good with swords. But Jake, Jake could do anything. The dog was the one who was really powerful. Jake could singlehandedly solve every problem that Finn faced all these years, and he would do it without breaking a sweat if he had to. He'll just turn really big and problem solved. Finn wasn't sure how many times Jake actually saved him from the trouble he caused by himself. And he wasn't sure how many times Jake assisted him when saving Ooo, or more likely, how many times Finn assisted Jake when saving Ooo. Jake was the real hero of Ooo, not him.

Which know made the boy wonder. Why Jake never minded of being the sidekick? Why the dog never had problem with him taking all the fame, glory, titles, and princesses. For the princess part, that was somehow logical because he already had a girlfriend and five kids, but for the others? Jake never tried to take as much spotlight as Finn did. In fact, he never took anything as Finn did. When Finn was elected to be the goblin king, Jake didn't mind being the queen. Or when Joshua made a dungeon for the boy, he never question why there was no special dungeon made for him, and he never was jealous of Finn being the one who handle the family sword. It was Jake's family sword and Finn, the adopted son, who was chosen to wield it. But not even once Jake ever questioned it.

Or maybe Jake was only trying to make Finn feel that he was loved.

It made sense. Before they met, Finn was alone in this world. Nobody loved him. He was never belonged to anyone. The only biological family he knew was being a real jerk to him. Jake might think that he was the luckier ones with a real family and a warm house to sleep in, so he tried to share it with the only person he knew that needed it most, the boy in the bear hat. Jake never asked why his father seemed to prefer the adopted son more, well because that he already felt that he was loved, and it was Finn that needed more. Jake knew this, and Joshua knew this. So if anybody asked who would expense all the trouble of giving an adopted boy all the love and spotlight he needed and expecting nothing in return, just so that the boy could finally live as he was loved. Finn could finally answer:

Jake would.

And Finn was happy with that, and that was when he knew that Jake was always smiling when the boy was happy. And it paid off, the whole Ooo adored and loved him, and he had a family that loved him even more.

The boy woke up from his train of thoughts as he felt a nudge on his shoulder. He opened his teary eyes and looked at Doctor Princess that had a smile on her face. As much as Finn wanted to smile too, he felt that there was not enough information to deduce that a miracle had happened.

"Finn, why don't you go inside?" The doctor said with a soothing voice that made Finn felt a glimpse of hope in the face of impossibility. With that, everything was silent. He stopped sobbing into his hat and placed it on its rightful place. Finn stood up from the chair and followed the doctor to the emergency room, along with BMO that was really silent all this time.

There he saw Jake, the yellow lump that was really pale when Finn first dropped him into the hospital. Nurse Pound Cake was seen on the other side of the bed, writing something important in her clipboard. Though that nobody had mentioned it, Finn could somehow deduce that Jake was okay, or would be okay. The lack of commotion inside the room, the smiling nurse and doctor, were some of the things the boy noticed. But what really assured him was the smile on Jake's face.

After all these years of being and growing up with Jake, he knew almost every expression of the dog. Even his regular smile had at least twelve meanings. And this one somehow implied sincere happiness. As if he tried to say that something was already done. Maybe it was that he already beat the fly. Or maybe it was something much deeper. Still, the question remained. Why did he choose to smile on this exact event, his struggle of life and death?

Like Finn thought before, Jake never was scared of dying. He waltzed past death while making mocking gestures at him. That's why he tried to live to the fullest, so when that time came, he knew that he already find his purpose in life.

And if it was just to make Finn smile, he clearly did that. Effectively.

"He was a fighter Finn," Doctor Princess stated with a sigh as she looked at the boy who was now wearing a weak smile. "You should know that…"

"The heart rate already reached more than 100 beats; I think that he would be okay, though it would take some time for him to be conscious." Nurse Pound Cake added as she dispatched the heart monitor from Jake's body. "But with that with the amount of time the brain spent without any oxygen, I'm not sure how damaged are the cells."

"Well, we can run the scans tomorrow when the ward opens, but I'm sure that he will be fine…" The doctor replied optimistically as she putted a hand on Finn's back.

"Yeah, he is a fighter. He is the hero of Ooo…" Finn finally answered with a sigh. "I don't know how much I should thank you both… for what you have done…"

"Well, we are doctors, it is what we do…" the doctor motioned Finn to go to his brother, which Finn did. "Come on Nurse Pundcake, we should clean this place up."

BMO gestured a lift and Finn picked the console up and placed him on the bed with Jake. He looked so normal for a person that was just dead a moment ago. But it was not the first time he faced death, and surely won't be the last. And Finn should know that the time would eventually come and he should be ready for anything. But the boy was glad that it was certainly not today.

And with the last sentence of thought, Finn broke another tear from his eyes, wishing that Jake would eventually wake up. He doesn't care if he had to wait forever, he won't leave his side until that. After that, Finn would do everything to make Jake smile. The boy would once again be the hero.

Because it was what the dog did for the boy's entire life.

"BMO?" Finn's heard a voice that was so familiar. That casually obnoxious voice ringed and surprised the boy in blue. He still couldn't believe that he heard the voice.

"Jake, I miss you bro!" Finn and BMO assaulted Jake with enormous hugs and tears of joy, and the dog returned the hug. "Don't ever leave me again!"

"Good job BMO, you bought me back!"

"Yes… Yaay BMO… BMO was so… good…" BMO stated somewhat uncharacteristically, but nobody minded. Even the doctor and the nurse sighed in relieve. Finn was not sure how to express his feelings at the moment, but he did know that everybody smiled.

And the hero was back.

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