Author's Note: Set after the events of the movie and directly before Make Life Worthwhile.
When she first heard Eddie was in the hospital, Jessica hadn't wanted to go. She had no desire to see her friend bruised and broken, lying in a bed, unable to move. The fact that it was stairs - the Eddie Valiant she knew did backflips, slipped on banana peels, dropped cannonballs on his head and came out of it without so much as a scratch in veritable Toon fashion - how could stairs break him this badly?
But at Roger's insistence, she'd gone.
Jessica sat in the room perhaps longer than was necessary. Tubes stuck out his arm, his nose. Whenever the nurses entered to rotate him, he moaned in pain, and Dolores fled the room, unable to hear it without wanting to do something - anything - to help. But there wasn't anything to be done.
No - there was something.
The Rabbit exited the hospital without a glance backward, left Roger comforting Dolores, and, as soon as she was far enough away to know that she wouldn't be followed, ran - never mind that she didn't look ladylike or seductive right now; this was more important - through the tunnel to Toontown, down the street, to the place where color and black-and-white Toons mixed.
No, she didn't expect to find it easily. In fact, she'd only seen it once before, thirty years prior - and then quite by accident as she tried to escape the town she had, at the time, hated. It wasn't as though she hadn't searched for it every now and again during the past years, but she suspected that it remained hidden unless it was needed.
She brushed through Toon trees without mouths, without hopes, without dreams, and saw it - Snow White's wishing well - ivory and twisted vines with pure white flowers gleaming despite their age. For a Toon construct, it looked almost real - not as much as some of the settings and characters drawn these days, but still very close.
The last time she was here, she wished to be free, and in time, her wish was granted.
This time she had another wish, much more important than her earlier one, and the simple fact that the well appeared meant...perhaps it might be granted.
Jessica reached into her purse and, instead of pulling out a copper penny, pulled out a shiny silver quarter. She brought it to her lips, as she had with the penny, kissed it, then dropped it into the well.
I wish that he would be free.
Hours must have passed before she returned to the hospital, but for once in her life Jessica was not aware of the time. Everything looked the same - Roger was still comforting Dolores, although this time he appeared much more haggard. She met his eyes but said nothing before slipping back inside the hospital, through the waiting room, and back to Eddie's room.
His eyes closed tight, his brow wrinkled, his eyebrows raised in an expression that she couldn't mimic. He coughed once, twice, lips parted, and she reached over to touch his hand, stroking in painted circles on the back. He calmed.
She watched him struggle to breathe and sang.
"We'll meet again,
Don't know where,
Don't know when,
But I know we'll meet again,
Some sunny day.
"Keep smiling through,
Just like you always do,
Til the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away."