Title: Things Missed
Fandom: The Dead Zone (TV series)
Characters: Walt and Sarah Bannerman, and Johnny Smith (sort of)
Timeframe: Second Season's Plague
Disclaimer: There's a long list starting with Stephen King, but none of those people are me.
Notes: ...ended up at Wikipedia during a "come as you aren't challenge", looking at movie titles...
In the day or so he'd been unconscious, they hadn't left him alone. One of them had been at his side since he had collapsed after infecting himself with the virus to get a vision on purpose, gotten the answer, and if Walt thought about that one more time he was going to break something. Probably over Johnny's unconscious head, no matter how grateful he was for the crisis to be over.
This was day two, and the nurses had long since stopped trying to get them to leave. Day two... but it felt like forever. They'd been taking shifts, himself, Bruce, and Sarah, because none of them wanted the man in question to wake, when he did eventually, alone and confused.
Presently, Walt was studying the note pad Sarah had been doodling on when he'd relieved her. Movie titles?
The one that stuck out at him was Apollo 13, but even more interesting were the inclusion of Titanic and The Sixth Sense. The latter seemed a bit odd to list, considering what their lives had turned into. Thinking about it, he added a few. Independence Day, Men In Black, Mr. Holland's Opus, and Saving Private Ryan. Oh, and Episode One.
Hands on his shoulders distracted him, and he leaned into them. "How's JJ doing?"
"Sleeping," she answered after setting a cup of coffee on the roll-away table. "Bruce is with him." Then she chuckled. "Hadn't thought of those. Add Tarzan. JJ liked that one."
"What were you making a list of movies for?" Walt asked after adding the animated movie to the list.
"Johnny. Bruce mentioned getting him caught up on things he missed in popular culture weeks ago, and it's the first time in months that I've... needed a distraction, or been bored enough to think about it."
Walt frowned and glanced up at her. "Pop culture?"
"Apparently, he's been catching up on Seinfeld and The X-Files via Bruce's tapes."
Walt blinked and looked at the man on the hospital bed in front of them. "Oh."
"Add Notting Hill, too. That was good."
"Next you'll be telling me that A Bug's Life should be on the list, too. And Balto."
Sarah chuckled as she dragged a chair over and sat down. "That's the idea."
"That Thing You Do?" Walt asked her after reading what was already on it in her handwriting. At her momentary silence, he glanced at his wife to find her staring at him. "What?"
She nodded to Johnny. "Sometimes I manage to forget how long it was that he was in that coma, you know? He'd wanted to see Apollo 13 for a week or so, and then... well. You know what happened then."
Walk frowned in thought, thinking back... "Was that, that week?"
"It came out a week or so after. I think."
Walt nodded slowly, knowing what she meant. Little things like entertainment had very suddenly taken a back seat and seemed unimportant in the wake of the accident. Put that way, it suddenly made sense what the list of movies was. He added another.
"Sabrina?"
"We shared our first kiss that night," Walt reminded her. "And the movie was good. Why keep it to ourselves?"
Sarah smiled at him, appreciative of the reminder. "Good point."
"And really... Titanic?"
"He missed it."
"Ah."
Sarah watched as Walt wrote down another, then smacked him playfully on the shoulder when she saw what it was. "We are not telling him about that one!"
"Why not? You think Nathan Lane in drag is a bit much?"
"Yes!"
They spent the next hour discussing movie trivia between themselves while Johnny slept on, oblivious. Lethal Weapon 4 eventually ended up on the list.
Fini
(A/N: The movie with Nathan Lane in drag would be The Birdcage.)