Revamped entry #3. Please review!
The doctor was surprisingly young with a fox face and a slight accent in his words. Will didn't trust him.
He examined Jake with cold, clinical indifference that seemed on the verge of insulting to Will. Jake was his brother and there was something seriously wrong with him. He hadn't stopped coughing up blood and Will's shirt and hands were stained with the coppery liquid. He looked like something out of one of Jake's stories, a murderer with the blood of his victims still fresh upon his hands.
Not that Will had read many of Jake's stories, his brother was far to secretive and eager for appreciation to bare his soul to the one person he looked up to. Jake wrote for himself, it was personal and intensive and Will had never really been allowed to breach the wall of Jake's fantasies. The doctor turned away from his patient but wouldn't look at Will.
"I'm sorry, I can do nothing for him. He is too far along."
"Along in what?" Will whispered, he had to find a cure, he had to know what was wrong. He had to save his brother.
"Death."
Will had thought briefly about Jake's death when he had first called the doctor, but it was a huge leap from suspicion to knowledge. If he had been completely honest with himself he might have realized that he had been half-expecting the answer.
"He, I- He can't be- He's all the family I have left." There was something stuck in his throat. It hurt to breathe, and he suddenly wondered if he and Jake could die together.
"If you had called me sooner, I might have been able to help." The doctor rubbed his forehead and began to pack up his things.
"He wasn't sick!" Will nearly shouted at the man. Frustration, helplessness, these were emotions that he had not felt in a long time, not since Lotte's death.
"Did you notice anything? Shortness of breath, was he easily tired?"
"No. I don't... I don't think so." he felt like he was going throw up, He hadn't really been attentive to Jake. He hadn't really even thought about him getting sick. But a man couldn't just die overnight. Had he really missed the signs?
The doctor looked at him for a long uncomfortable moment. "What?" Will snapped, suddenly feeling very old and very tired. The other man looked away becoming brisk once more. "Nothing. I'd give him about a week or maybe less."
"Is there nothing I can do?" Will asked weakly, glancing at his brother's writhing form, and then away, he couldn't bare to see him like that.
"If there is, it is beyond my skills, you can ride to Stuttgart and find a doctor at the university. It is a day's ride to the west." The doctor picked up his hat. Throughout the entire conversation, he had not once looked Will in the eye. Will felt anger start to rise. The man had just told him that his brother was going to die.
He shook his head of the anger and tried to focus on saving his brother. "Can Jake travel?"
"It would be highly inadvisable."
Will could make the journey alone, probably in less than the alloted day, but he couldn't leave Jakob alone like this. "Can you stay with Jake?"
The doctors eyes grew hard. "No."
There was a groan from the bed on the other side of the room. Will, distracted from the doctor turned to his brother. "Jake?" He asked, his voice soft.
The doctor slipped out the door silently, rubbing his head again.
"Will?" It was weak, but at least he recognized his brother.
Will felt tears burn behind his calm mask. "I'm here."
Jakes gaze shifted away, over Will's shoulder. "I'm-I'm so sorry."
He readjusted his grip on Jake's cold hand. "For what?" Will asked anxiously.
"Lotte...She's here Will, She's right behind you.."
Jake stared up at his dead sister. Will was still there, holding his hand so hard it hurt. He could hear his brother's soft sob as he mentioned their sister, gut he was fading fast into the background.
Lotte was talking but he couldn't hear her. Their mother was also there, but she was a vague shadow in the gloom compared to his brightly shining sister.
He reached out to try and stroke her cheek, but couldn't quite reach. "So beautiful."
Lotte became angry, she was growing more and more substantial, he could see them clearly now, his mother with a light hand upon Will's shoulder, his father with an arm around her shoulders. He wanted to join them, to be a family again. He could feel Lotte's skin under his fingers now, he soft skin unbreached by age. He could hear them no, through a soft ringing in his ears,
"Jacob! It's not your time, go back Jacob, go! Don't leave Will. He doesn't deserve that!"
"Yes, he does... Wilhelm Grimm, you'd be so proud Lotte. He looks just like Papa." Will was shaking his shoulder, trying to bring him into the land of the living, but here, here there was no pain, no guilt. He could have stayed here forever with his family.
"Stop it Jakey." her voice was older now, her youth was fading and she was turning into the woman she would have been if he hadn't bought those stupid magic beans.
"I'm so sorry Lotte..." He whispered.
"Please Jacob, go back, go back for-for me." She had tears on her cheeks, trembling on her lashes in little multicolored jewels. He smiled sleepily, but nodded. He would go back for a little bit, but only for Lotte.
Please review!
