Note-OMG, final chapter! Thanks to all my amazing, lovely reviewers who have loyally seen me through this story, and thank you to Bill Gates for inventing Microsoft and Spellcheck. Quick reminder: I know nothing about JD's illness than what I can find on the internet, so most of it is improvised, and don't hate me for it. Please read the following A/N; it's important! Warning: even more immense fluff than last time. Yes, it is apparently possible.
Song-Air Traffic Control, by Louis XIV. Yep, I know I've used them before, but they are that good! I really recommend this song especially.
The monitors are still beeping when I wake up. The room is glazed in shadow from the settling night. My chest is like a straightjacket on my broken lungs, and oxygen presses against my face from the mask, flooding my face. I have no trouble remembering where I am, or anything that happened beforehand. Slowly, trying not to disturb anything, I sit up, and take the mask off my face. He sits there, his face halved perfectly by shadow, highlighting his features. He looks like a different man; weary and tired. He looks older. He smiles softly, the fatigue written into every crease it creates.
"Hey" he mutters. The sound echoes around the room.
"Hey" I reply. My voice splinters. "How long was I out?"
"I don't know" he says, shaking his head. "I gave up trying to keep up after a while"
"Were you in here the whole time?"
He nods, almost apologetically. "I couldn't just leave you. I didn't sleep either. Imagine if I woke up and you weren't…" he trails off. I laugh slightly.
"Now who's being the girl?"
He laughs quietly as well. It seems like an old, inside joke from ages ago, girl's names. Ask me a year ago, and I'd say that was the one part that would never change.
"Your posse were here for a while, trying to get in. I think they're in the doctor's lounge now. Carla brought me coffee at one point" he mumbles, looking at the ceiling, as if he can see them through it. I nod slowly. He continues:
"I'm sorry I couldn't take you to St. Peregrine's. I freaked. I don't trust you with those doctors…"
I cut him off. "It's ok. I think I prefer being here, anyway"
Silence falls as we look at each other. I hear, far away, the slight tapping of rain on a window, like a distant memory.
"Do you remember when I met you?" he whispers, his voice as soft as an ashen breeze.
"Clear as yesterday. How could I forget? Why?"
He sighs.
"I don't know. I just keep thinking about it…you were so young; high-up on your new job…now, you're just sort of…falling, like a leaf from a tree"
I nod. "Every time the world goes round"
Then there is pure, perfect silence. I stare at him, studying his face. He looks different. He looks calmer than I've ever seen him before. Then he suddenly gets up, as if he's remembered something important, anxiety etched like age into his face. This strikes me as odd. Perry Cox, anxious? That can't be right.
"Where are you going?" I ask quickly, barely concealing the panic in my voice.
"Carla, Elliot, Turk…" he says. My eyes widen at the use of their real names. "I promise I'd get them when you woke up"
"Don't go!" I cry out, as he lays his hand on the door handle. He stops, stiffens. "Please. I need you here"
He pauses for a moment, contemplating. Then he releases his grip on the door, and sits back down on the small chair.
"You're right" he murmurs, fumbling around in his pocket. "I'd never forgive myself. I'll page them instead"
"You don't have to do that" I smile. He looks at me, confused. "I don't need people clustering around me. I want to go peacefully, not surrounded by crying and yelling"
His hard face softens, and he smiles, pretending to mock me.
"You're kidding, right? I'd have thought you always wanted the big party. What, no Appletini bar and gospel choir singing about you being a player?"
I laugh, shaking my head. "God no. I'm saving that for the funeral!"
Quietly, amongst the fractures beeps of the machines, we laugh together, the sound filling every lonely crack of my being. For the first time together, I feel completely safe, even though I know I'm not.
"Speaking of the funeral, what happened to that will I wrote?" I ask nonchalantly.
"What, that piece of crap?" he says, a bit of familiar sarcasm passing through his voice. "That's not what you really think of me, is it?"
"Admittedly my views have changed a little recently" I shrug. "Why, what were you hoping to get?"
He grins sadly, flashing stainless white teeth. "Nothing. I don't need anything"
Silence falls again. Once upon a time there was a man who wanted everything, and the only thing he wanted he didn't know he wanted. When everything was taken away from him, he realized that everything meant nothing, and that the thing he didn't know he wanted was the only thing he needed.
Once upon a time, there was a man who died, and the world went on without him.
"What if things had been different?" I ask.
"How so?"
What if you'd never come back? What if I'd never told you? What if I'd never been ill?
"I don't know"
What if the butterfly had landed somewhere else? Then where would we be right now?
"What do you think death is like?"
My unexpected question stiffens his face. "I honestly couldn't tell you, Newbie"
"Me neither. I mean, you'd think that getting closer would help you understand, but it really doesn't. I guess I just hope it's quick. Quick, and easy, and painless"
"And then what after that?" he asks, as if looking for reassurance.
I take in a long, shuddering breath as I consider my answer. "I don't know. I like the idea of reincarnation…but, right now, I'm hoping for big fluffy clouds and bright lights. You know…Seattle…"
He laughs slightly at the memory. I laugh inwardly at my own. See you at the milkshake pool on the lesbian cloud, Turk.
"I dunno. I guess when your life's on the line, you have to grab hold of whatever little bit of hope you possibly can. Otherwise you might just waste away"
I realize I'm saying that line out load. Usually, I'd be saying it in my head, along with a corny daydream. I look towards him, searching for confusion, or anxiety, or even scorn in his face. But instead, it's a picture of clear, pure understanding.
"What do you think heaven is like?" he asks.
"Personally, I don't care, as long as it's happy"
That's a lie. I hope heaven is a few weeks ago. I hope heaven is Perry Cox, washing my hair in a perfect act of selflessness. That moment when I was filled with a full, ideal happiness. That's what I hope heaven is.
Then he says something I didn't expect in a million years.
"Reckon I'll get in, Newbie?"
I smile. I don't even need to think about the answer. It comes immediately.
"Definitely"
I wake up in blackness. The blanket is smothering me, and panic sets in, choking me, squeezing at my chest. I cry out, but the noise is strangled and quiet.
"Per-Perry…" I squeak. The darkness is compressing. I look over to the chair, and I can't see it for shadow. I can't see anything. God, is this it? This can't be it…
"JD?" comes a voice from the shadow. Then a blazing light is switched on, and he is standing by the door, terror penciled on his face. I breathe heavily in relief.
"You're still here…thank God…" I whisper. He rests his hand over his chest.
"I thought something had happened" he breathes.
"What happened?"
"You passed out while we were talking. You've been asleep"
"How long?"
"About eight hours"
"Eight hours?" I say in disbelief. Unfortunately, that sparks a cough. He stands by patiently until I've finished before he answers.
"Yeah. Your fan club went home, but some keep trying to get in here to gawk at you. I went to get coffee at one point and when I got back there were some interns surrounding you, gossiping"
"I bet you handed their asses to them" I smile.
"You bet I did"
My chest hurts. My head hurts. My bones hurt. It'll be over soon. I can tell. I think he can too. Is that a glimmer of sadness in his eye?
"Newbie?"
"Yeah?"
"Will we be ok?"
I smile. "Sure we will. Don't worry. It takes more than a terminal illness to finish off John D-"
Then the coughing starts again. The surviving colour in the room swirls in a huge whirlpool, and I fall back onto the mattress. I feel dizzy. I'm suffocating. I feel blood rising in my throat, can taste it in my mouth. Then another oxygen mask is pressed to my face, and suddenly I'm surrounded by doctors, yelling. They compress around me, until he is blocked from my view.
"Per…" I try to desperately call out, but it comes out as a strangled murmur, thick with the blood in my throat. "Per…ry…"
"I'm right here, Newbie" comes a voice by my ear. He pushes his way through the crowd until he is by my side, and lays a cool hand on my forehead. All these voice, buzzing almost as electrically as the machines, means I can barely hear anything.
"…Running out of oxygen!" someone yells, and the words cut through me. Oxygen. The fuel of my body is running low. Suddenly, I'm scared. I don't want to die.
"Perry…" I call out, but someone pushes in front of him, and he's gone from my view. I try to relax, but all the voice are cutting in, breaking up my thoughts. I can't hear you, Perry, can you see me? Can you? My vision's clouding over. Where…where did the lights go? Wait, Perry, wait for me! I'll come through, Perry, I promise. I'm coming in…I'm coming in…Perry…
"JD!"
