Billie stood attentively at the foot of the small hospital bed, waiting. Nobody in the room realized she was there, of course; even if they had been physically able to see her, their eyes were all trained on the tiny body lying in the bed. He couldn't see her, either, as his eyes were closed, too weak to flutter open even a crack.
She waited. Minutes passed, counted by the number of slow, ragged breaths drawn by both patient and his family. Then a moment arrived where the only breath drawn was by the adults in the room. The blonde woman holding the child's hand let out a tiny wail that seemed to shock even her as it broke the silence. Billie stepped forward.
"Hello, Jack."
The small boy now standing beside the bed gazed up at her, looking less surprised than an outside observer would ever expect. Then again, people were rarely surprised to meet their reaper. No matter how unexpected the actual death, the body somehow knows to expect what comes next. "How do you know my name?" Jack asked.
"Oh, I know all about you," Billie said with a small smile. "Been waiting for you for a while. You hung in there pretty well, little man. Strong stuff."
Jack nodded solemnly. For all that his age could be counted on the fingers of one hand, he'd spent more of his life in hospitals than out. He knew that many of the faces he'd seen in pediatric oncology wards had come and gone quickly, and even if none of the grownups around him had wanted to explain why that was, he'd understood more than they knew.
Glancing down at his body, Jack beamed happily. "Is this what I get to wear to heaven?" He was clothed in a Spiderman costume, one of many superhero outfits that he'd worn when he'd needed to feel tough throughout his treatments. His family and friends had encouraged the coping tactic, providing him with costumes that ranged from Iron Man to Superman, but Spiderman was his favorite. This and his Batman costume were the ones he wore most often.
"Yep," Billie agreed. "That's pretty lucky, isn't it? I saw you wearing that one when you went around visiting the other kids here. You told them all how –"
"Tough things make you stronger," Jack finished with her, deepening his words into the "superhero voice" he used when he played his characters.
"You'd know," Billie finished. She should have taken Jack's hand by now, helped him cross over, but she couldn't help standing there and spending a few minutes admiring the boy. Reaping children was one of the hardest parts of her job, though she would never be described as sentimental. Kids like Jack made her work both harder and easier. It was hard because, surely, if anybody was going to stick around and make this little world a little better just by living in it, Jack was one. It was easier because he'd had it so rough in his few short years, and yet he had come through with so much spirit left that she felt herself more at peace just talking to him. She'd watched him go up to hospital beds in his costumes, putting his tiny hand in their tiny hands, and make them smile while his parents waited in the doorway. That was all his idea, not theirs; Jack drew comfort from being a comfort.
"So, you ready to come with me now?" It wasn't a question she usually asked, just because there was really no alternative. Sure, there was the occasional soul that resisted, even those that chose to stick around and haunt their former life, but those were the exceptions, and she counted it as a point of professional pride that she had very few of those to her record.
Jack looked around the room at the tired, distraught faces of his family members. This was always a cruel moment, but dying had a way of putting things in perspective for folks on this side of things. The sadness of the survivors was revealed as the temporary agony that it was, and the dead could see that healing would come with time, and perhaps a reunion in some heaven somewhere. Jack examined his mother's and father's faces, solemnly capturing every detail in his memories.
"It's not fair, though," he said then, turning to look at the rest of the room. Billie was surprised; it was a common sentiment, but she hadn't expected it from him. He gestured around the hospital room at the tables and chairs, which were stacked with boxes. "The 'Wish Ladies' came this morning, and they brought all these Lego sets. They're all still in the packages."
"You wanted to have a chance to build your sets before you left?" Billie said, cocking her head. "I can't promise that there will be Legos where you're going, but I'm pretty sure that you'll be happy, anyway. I don't get many complaints."
"No, it's not that. Mom and Dad won't have me to help them put the buildings together. They try, but they need me to tell them how. Now they'll have to do them without me."
Billie felt her heart soften a fraction. She wasn't often moved to emotion by her assignments, and she would never admit it to anyone who asked, but there were times…she crammed the tender feelings back into a corner of her mind, where they could wait to be processed until after she'd done her duty by this boy.
"Your mom and dad know that you'd have stayed to help if you could. I think they'll probably give these sets to your friends here at this hospital and the other hospitals where you've been. That way they can all build them and feel a little better. That sound fine?"
Jack grinned, thinking of the boys and girls he'd met in the various wards, as well as those he'd come to know through letters and emails. His story had spread farther than he could believe, and now he had friends all over the world. These piles of toys that had been meant to cheer him up would now do even more good that had been the original goal. That satisfied the little boy well.
"Then I think I'm ready," he said. "How will we go? Do you have a Batmobile? If you're a hero, you need a hero car."
"There's only one hero in this room," Billie murmured, "and I think he's going somewhere where he'll have all the wonderful things heroes have coming to them." She took his little hand in hers, and the two of them walked out of the hospital and into a bright light that washed away everything that no longer mattered.