- 11 -
The Room of Hidden Things fades while I'm lost in thought, leaving Jim and I standing in a dark, foggy space that defies any sense of direction. Strange blurs tease the edges of my vision, streaming by like pastel warp trails; I suspect that they're memories. Ideas. My mind is an even busier place than I'd realized, if so.
Jim draws back an outstretched arm when I speak, clearly startled. I'm pretty sure he's been trying to touch one of the passing thoughts, and it makes me smile. He smiles back, a little sheepish, before we both go solemn.
"So?" he asks, watching me closely again. "What's the prognosis?" I hesitate too long in answering, and his expression runs a dizzying emotional circuit from anticipation to helplessness into anger and, finally, desperation.
"Don't you dare tell me you can't answer, Bones," he snaps, though it sounds more like a plea than a demand. "Don't you fucking dare."
I fumble for a response, more torn than I've ever been in my far from simple life. The thought-trails whip themselves into a frenzy around us, accelerating into a wall of white light, trapping us at the epicenter. Jim's fists are clenched at his sides, veins and tendons standing out in strain; his color is high from the effort of restraining at least half a dozen impulses that I can see at war in his eyes.
He's angry at me. At himself, too, unless I miss my guess. Afraid; though thankfully for rather than of me. I can tell by the way he's fighting to hold himself back, to stay out of my space; though whether he'd move forward to shake me or embrace me is clearly still a coin toss. And so much more, so many layers. I can't parse it all.
"What are you thinking, Jim?" I ask, and my voice is calm despite the evidence of my own thoughts giving the lie to it all around us. "What are you really thinking?"
I can practically see the flippant response in his expression before something in mine makes him swallow it back. He stares at me for a long moment, fighting against his own ragged breathing, visibly forcing his muscles to relax.
"I'm thinking that I've never been as afraid of anything in my life as I am of losing you," he finally says, his voice almost breaking with strain at the end. "Please, Bones, don't do that to me. Don't make me face something that you couldn't face, yourself."
His answer hits me like a punch in the gut. I realize belatedly that I'm shaking my head, though it's less a negation than a sheer refusal; as though the words are physical objects that I can shake away, brush off. "It's not the same thing, Jim," I eventually manage, my voice faint.
"Why not?" he challenges.
"It just isn't," I snap. I turn sharply away, burying my face in my hands. It muffles my next, plaintive words. "You're so much stronger than I am. You would survive it."
There are no shadows or footfalls in this place to warn me of his approach, making it seem as though he's just suddenly there at my side. One hand smooths over my hair as the other gently tugs at my fingers, pulling my own hands away so he can look me in the eye. I recognize the glint in his immediately; it's the look he gets when he's committed himself to some reckless, brilliant course of action that's sure to terrify and thrill me in equal parts.
"Yeah, I'd survive. But surviving isn't living, and we both know it." He shifts both hands to frame my face. "Don't ask me to live without you, Bones. It won't happen." He's at his most elemental in that moment, bold and intense and too sincere to even mock, flawless in his imperfections; and the next thing I know, my face is tucked against the curve of his neck as I laugh so hard I can barely keep myself upright. It's a genuine laugh, though, with none of the hysteria from earlier, and when I pull away enough to wipe tears of mirth from my eyes, there's a smile playing around his lips as well.
"That was somehow funny?" he asks, bemused.
I shake my head. "No, no; that was..." I brush a kiss over his knuckles, at a loss for an appropriate adjective, and his breath catches. "The fact that I somehow managed to end up with a goddamned Gryffindor after all, though—that is funny."
His expression of baffled relief is priceless. "Still not getting it," he admits.
I squeeze the hand I'm still holding. "I'll explain later. Just add it to the list."
He looks at me with wary hope. "What's the plan, then, Doctor?"
I take a deep breath. "First, I'm going to show you something. Then, we're going to wake up. Both of us."
His eyes clear like sunlight through spring water, and a wide grin breaks over his face. "Damn straight," he says. He tugs at my hand. "Show me." His trust is utter, absolute, and I've never been so terrified or so sure. The cyclone of thoughts surrounding us slows, stills, crystallizes.
This is the right choice. Of course, that means it isn't the easy one.
For this one moment, I don't care.
