A/N:: When I heard the song, The Doctor's Wife by The Clockwork Quartet, I immeaditely thought of Jin and his backstory from ToT. It fit too much. So naturally I wrote a songfic about it.
I do not own Harvest Moon or any of its characters nor do I own The Doctor's Wife.
"Jin, please you need to eat something. You've been hunched over that paperwork for hours now." She placed a frail hand on Jin's shoulder, "And you wonder why your eyesight is so bad."
Jin gave her a soft smile before turning his chair around to face his newly-wed wife. "My eyesight is not that bad." he said, removing his glasses, "And I shall eat later. Right now, I need to make sure everything is in place. If I make even one mistake-"
"Yes yes, I know. One mistake could mean your entire career. Oh Jin, you just became a certified doctor and already you're working yourself to death." Her soft giggle filled the room, "Always so dedicated. That's why I married you."
He grabbed her hand and held it, smiling up at her, "Many said you were crazy for marrying me. That I would only make you worry too much. But still you stayed with me. It's why I can't see myself with anyone else."
She returned his smile, "It's funny how the doctor can barely take care of his own health." She giggled again. "Anyways, let me put your food in the oven. If you don't eat it in an hour, I'm tossing it." She threatened before kissing his cheek and heading off into their kitchen. Jin watched her leave before turning back to his work. I can't focus on my health… Because I have to worry about your health. He thought to himself as he looked over his wife's patient records. You had health problems since childhood. Other doctors say you're living on borrowed time. Please don't let that be true. Then there was a crash and he ran to the kitchen to see what had happened. There his wife laid on the floor, taking fast shallow breaths. He ran to her side, asking what was wrong with panic in his voice. The only thing she could say though was "Jin… I'm sorry… I dropped your food."
He lifted the frail woman into his arms and brought her to bed. Her eyes looked frantically all around, like a darkness was closing in on her. "Darling. Don't worry. Everything will be okay. I promise you." He said, clutching her tightly as he tried to stop her from shaking. And she whispered, "Don't let me go, my darling. Hold me safely 'til the morning. Promise, when the lights are fading, you'll save me."
Monday the twenty-sixth of March
The patient's passing seizures are becoming more pronounced by the day
The underlying cause
Seems to be some slow progressive decay
If I don't find a cure
I fear my patient must surely fade away
But I swear
I'll apply my science
To the cause
Brooking no defiance
I'll deliver her from this malady
She'll dance again
And I'll never forget when we first were courting
And she faced me, and her eyes were gleaming
In the moonlight, and she spoke so sweetly
Jin had used every resource he had to discover what was wrong with his wife. But there was no one who could tell him the cause of her sudden symptoms. It were like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Not being able to stand his colleagues' looks of pity accompanied by helpless words, Jin looked for other sources of help. But still there was nothing. This mysterious illness had his wife by throat and refused to let her go. But he couldn't give up on her. He used everything in his medical knowledge to keep her alive. At first, it just seemed like a bad case of the flu but even Jin couldn't trick himself that it was just that simple. At night he could hear her whisper in fear, "Don't let me go, my darling. Hold me safely 'til the morning. Promise, when the lights are fading, you'll save me."
Tuesday the seventeenth of May
A worrying symptom has reared its head this week
She's been bedbound for a month
And now the patient is no longer able to speak
She tries to utter sounds
But the grip of the illness is strong and the patient is weak
On the bed, in a cold sweat
Like a corpse, but she'll live yet
When I find the cure, I can surely promise
She'll laugh again
As she did on our wedding day
When we danced, and laughed the world away
Even now I can hear her say
New symptoms seemed to appear everyday. At first it was high fevers, then boils, then seizures. Her body couldn't fight off this mysterious illness for too long. After all, she always had a weak immune system. The clock seemed to tick away as Jin poured over medical textbooks and pamphlets in hopes for an answer. All the signs seemed to point towards her eventual end but he refused to believe it. He sought out his grandmother but even Irene in all her old wisdom couldn't help him.
"Jin, you saw her records. Doctors believed she should have died a long time ago." She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder as he sat hunched over in his chair, "I know your pride is at risk her but sometimes there's nothing we can do."
"It's not just my pride at risk, Grandmother." He looked up at the woman, eyes wide with fear, "This is my wife we are talking about. Why does no one understand that? I can't let her go."
That night he came to her, and held her close to him again as another seizure racked her cold body. She gasped at sounds she couldn't form and tears rolled down her cheeks. Her eyes were sunken in and she looked almost skeletal, nothing like the woman he once knew. He swore to her again and again that he would find a way to help her. And he could have sworn she whispered, "Don't let me go, my darling. Hold me safely 'til the morning. Promise, when the lights are fading, you'll save me."
Sunday the twenty-third of June
The patient no longer responds to stimuli of any kind
She's now my only charge
I clothe her and feed her, and nightly I read by her side
For though she's paralysed
I know that inside there must still be a functioning mind
Neatly laid on the bedsheet
I can still hear her fading heart-beat
I'll keep her stable and continue my research
She'll smile again
And I must bring her back to me
In her eyes I can see the gleam
In my mind I can hear her pleading
Many tried to convince Jin to let her go, that he was wasting his own life away by her side. But how could he let himself believe his first love, his wife was dying? He shone a flashlight in her eyes but they didn't dilate. She couldn't move any longer as she laid in the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her mind seemed to be gone, but Jin refused to believe that. When he held her hand, she would squeeze it in response. That had to count for something, right? Instead, every night Jin would continue his research, pouring his eyes over books and the like in hopes for a cure to his wife's mysterious illness. Things that he would never consider doing to any patient in order to save their life were starting to seem really appealing. His medical license could be compromised if he chose to do these things.
But this was his wife. And that changed things. In retrospect, Jin now understood why doctors weren't allowed to operate on their loved ones. But it was much too late for that now. Not when in his mind's eye, he could still hear her whispering, "Don't let me go, my darling. Hold me safely 'til the morning. Promise, when the lights are fading, you'll save me."
Tuesday the eighteenth of July
My latest apparatus is the only thing that's keeping her alive
I had to stop her heart
The mechanical replacement will ensure the other organs will survive
Her body is destroyed
But what nature has neglected the fruit of modern science shall provide
And I've broken every code of practice
But for my love I'd shift the planet's axis
She'll return to me when she's been repaired
She'll live again
And I swear I can see the gleam
In her eyes amidst the new machines
And at night I can hear her whisper
His wife found herself depending on a machine to keep her alive. Her heart had failed despite everything Jin tried so he turned to a mechanical heart to keep her functioning, however little function she still had. The term "borrowed time" seemed even more apparent but still Jin hung on. He now lived in secrecy, devoting his life to keeping his wife alive. People sought him out, wondering to where he had gone. Even family members were ignored, their calls going to a full answering machine. "You'll live again." he promised her, even though it seemed to fall on deaf ears. He prayed to the Goddess every night, even though he wasn't that much of a religious man. A cure seemed impossible for him to find, so he needed the help of the Harvest Goddess. "Please Goddess, she's all I have left. Don't let me lose her."
But in the end, her time was up. And in the middle of the night, the machines failed her and she faded away into the darkness. All of his hardwork was for naught. It took a while for him to heal and believe in himself as a doctor again. Irene convinced him to move back to the place of his childhood. That island. She told him to open up a clinic there. No longer he spoke of his wife. Not a soul outside of Irene knew of his pain since then. He couldn't admit that sometimes he could still hear her whisper at night, "Don't let me go, my darling. Hold me safely 'til the morning. Promise, when the lights are fading, you'll save me. You'll save me."