There's a Hole in my Bucket (List), Dear Donna.

Filled for an awesome prompt at the suitsmeme on LJ, a heaven for writers like me who are simply too lazy to come up with their own prompts. Hehehe *smiles lazily*

As I've said before, if you review and then directly send me a prompt over PM I WILL fill it ASAP, as opposed to you writing an epic prompt on LJ and waiting fruitless months for a poor hapless writer like me to stumble across said epic prompt and then further months for said writer to fill :D I will endeavour to post at least one chapter of the fill within the fortnight, particularly as I only have 19 days left of full time education! *dances happily* And then exams. -.-

So I wrote this at one in the morning so my usually OCD-level editing is somewhat hindered by the copious quantities of Red Bull and sugar I have ingested today. Mike would be so very proud :D

Please review. One shrivels when one's secret passion is not recognized. Also, reviews are my crack.

Do not own. Will rob a bank in order to own, but unfortunately said bank remains unrobbed due to copious amounts of coursework due in. If I did own, the boys would be getting it on and we'd know the whole damn can opener secret already.

Chapter 1:

It was perhaps the worst part of a doctor's job. To have to sit across from another human being, look soberly into their eyes and gently inform them that they were going to die. Dr Helen Ellis had fulfilled her childhood dream of being a doctor. She had endured long hours of med school, counted out her dwindling funds in order to scrape over the tuition line, seen conditions which would have made weaker stomachs turn violently and remained stoic throughout, never hesitating in her bid to serve the Hippocratic Oath with an ironclad resolve. Bu t when a kid, albeit one whose notes claim he is twenty-five, but aesthetically verging on pre-pubescent, walks into her treatment room with a bright smile and the proverbial mischievous glint in his eye, Dr. Ellis was shaken for what felt like the very first time. It isn't the look of a man –boy- with Stage Three stomach cancer, with one parent and a grandparent already lost to the ravages of the disease. It's the look of a man with his whole future stretching out ahead of him, wide, boundless and free. Dr Ellis almost feels as if she is holding a metaphorical pair of scissors in one hand and the endless flowing ribbon of Michael James Ross' future in the other.

And it breaks her heart.

It takes Mike at least a week to accept it. He feels as if he is floating through whatever life he has left, mindlessly filing briefs, proofing papers and researching clientele until he wakes up the Tuesday after the Appointment, and it hits him that he'll be filing briefs in the hospice unless he does something about it. And so he lies there, at fuck past two in the morning with those randy pigeons he swears he'll get around to castrating one day honking through the open window, when it hits him. He doesn't have the luxury of 'One Day' any more. It is literally now or never. And so, at one-minute-past-fuck-past-two in the morning Michael Ross rolls over, falls out of bed, reaches out to his nightstand, draws out an unused notepad and a well-chewed biro and begins to write a list.

So... whaddya think? I know it's extremely short but I'm thinking of this as a sort of teaser to the main event :D I think we can all see where this is going :L

If you haven't already I suggest you guys read a book called 'Before I Die'. I can't remember who it's by, but it's about this girl called Tess who is dying and writes this amazing list of everything she wanted to do, and somehow all of them happen to her in the last three months she has left. It's an absolutely beautiful book and made me cry, particularly at the end, which I hope to do for at least one of you guys at least once in this story.

Review please, and I do hate to blackmail but this story cannot grow without a good foundation with which to build on. I'd also like some good ideas to put on the List, so PM or review with ideas :L

That is of course to say, REVIEW!