Warning for minor character death. But I hope I make up for it with some of the fluff towards the end of the chapter.
Chapter 11:
Sherlock's party turns out even better than I hoped it would. As I wrote the scavenger hunt clues last night, I worried that he might find it childish and unworthy of his time. Fortunately, he tells me it was both adorable and enjoyable. We drink and dine and talk while maintaining the regulated two meters between me, Greg, and Sherlock. If we didn't have additional friends to invite, I'm not sure what we would've done.
Greg stands up to go check on his baking in the oven, and I follow him. He was more than happy to make a dessert for Sherlock's party, indulging in a secret passion of his. However, on such short notice, he had to stick to a relatively simple recipe.
"How does it look?" I ask him as he stares into the oven.
"It'd done," he announces, pulling it out with two big oven mitts. I can smell the cake before I even catch sight of it, and I inhale a deep enough breathe to make my lungs protest. That's how I know a dish is good—I struggle to breath just trying to properly enjoy its scent. Greg places eighteen candles in the cake after it cools and brings it to the table. I light them, since Greg's afraid of fire, and Sherlock demands we skip the song.
Despite Sally and Philip's protests, we forego singing and let him make a wish. "If I blow these candles out, neither of you can eat it," Sherlock tells me and Greg. He's right; if he exhales all over it, it would be off limits for us. Now that I think about it, blowing out candles on food is an unsafe practice for anybody. Millions of bacteria could be transferred. However, Sherlock delegates the job to Sally and she extinguishes them for us.
Greg insists on cutting the cake since he was the one to make it. His lines aren't straight and some of the pieces are twice as big as others, but nobody bothers to comment on that. It's delicious, and that's what really matters. Mike asks Greg for the recipe, and they spend a good ten minutes discussing various aspects of baking. I hear snippets about light versus dark brown sugar, but for the most part I listen to Sherlock.
He's telling Philip, Sally, and James about his plans for living out the rest of his life. But he makes it very clear that these used to be his goals, and that they've changed due to recent circumstances. "John has helped me to see the value of medical treatment," he explains. "Now that I've experienced breathing easier, I'm not sure I could ever go back."
"If it weren't for me, you'd still be huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf," I joke.
"Who's that?" he asks. For a second, I think he's kidding. I begin to laugh, but I barely last a second before I read his expression and realize that he genuinely has no idea what I'm talking about.
"You've never heard of the Big Bag Wolf?" James questions. Four of us stare at each other, mouths agape, because we cannot believe that in eighteen years of life Sherlock has never heard of such an infamous character.
"The villain from the Three Little Pigs?" I try to jog his memory with famous lines from the fairy tale, but nothing works. "Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin?" No reaction. "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down?" Nothing. "You've never heard that story?"
"No. Mycroft wasn't exactly the nursery rhyme type of nurturer. He'd throw me a physics textbook and mutter a 'good evening' before turning out the light," Sherlock explains.
"You've got to be kidding me. Even when you were little?" He nods in affirmation. "Okay, that needs to change. Tonight, we're Skyping and I'm reading you a proper bedtime story."
"Shouldn't one have his last bedtime story long before turning eighteen? It seems rather incorrect to receive the first one on such an occasion."
"No, it seems rather out of place for an adult to be unaware of such well-known stories. Tell me, what else don't you know?"
"How can I tell you that if I don't know?" he asks. I'm about to retort when the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Like an animal sensing a predator, every kid who's ever stayed here can feel when she's coming. Molly. We don't have time to separate or disguise ourselves before she's on top of us.
"What is going on here?" she questions angrily. Reflexively, I take another huge step away from both Sherlock and Greg, as if it'll make up for being out here. None of us is wearing a face mask like we're supposed to when we go around the hospital, but it's too late to fix that now.
Greg is the first one brave enough to speak up, "We're celebrating Sherlock's eighteenth birthday."
"Is that a crime?" Sherlock asks innocently. I can hear the cheekiness in his tone, but I really hope that Molly cannot. Talking back is about the only thing that could make this situation worse. I learned long ago that nothing, absolutely nothing, will appease an angry Molly except for blind obedience. I prepare to go along with whatever she says; however, I am unready for the severity of the punishment she doles out.
"You three are putting each other in great danger just by being out here. I expect this from Sherlock, but not from you, John. I thought you knew better than that. To your rooms, immediately. And you, Mr. Holmes, shall be placed in isolation so you cannot further endanger your peers."
"What? You can't—" I start. Sending Sherlock to isolation is so beyond unfair that I can't even find the words to protest.
"Yes, I can, John Watson. Now do as I say or I will have you all restrained until you can learn to behave." Her tone leaves no room for argument, and the three of us file out of the room in two-meter intervals. I don't even manage to say goodbye to James and Mike.
I hang my head the entire trek back, not wanting to look up and see Greg or Sherlock marching along with me. When I get to the room, I flop down on the bed and bury my face in the pillow. No tears come. Though I feel like crying, my body cannot muster the energy to force them from my eyes. Eventually, I roll over and my gaze falls on Harry's lung drawing. That drawing has kept me company through countless rough days, but now it feels like it's mocking me. If this is what it takes to achieve healthy lungs, then I don't want them. Staying away from my friends is a price I'm no longer willing to pay. I want to be able to read things over their shoulder, high-five them when they're hyped, and hug them when they're sad. People don't stop to think how crucial physical contact is to any relationship—romantic or platonic—until they're barred from it.
I'm angry at cystic fibrosis, at Molly, at the universe itself for the cruel fate it's assigned me. Rage boils inside me until I can practically hear the blood pounding in my head. But it's not just in my head; it's coming from across the hall. The code alarm is blaring, alerting the hospital staff to a patient in urgent need of help.
"Code blue! Code blue!" I hear the shouts and the stampeding feet, and my heart leaps into my throat. I dash to my door and open it just wide enough to see where the stream of personnel is leading: Greg's room. All rational thought abandons me, and I follow the frantic noise and scramble into his doorway.
He probably just messed up his monitoring again. That's the hopeful thought that my brain offers, but it's soon silenced by the sights and sounds of doctors working to resuscitate Greg. His lungs must've just completely given up, providing his heart with zero percent of the oxygen it requires to keep functioning. I watch, paralyzed with fear, as they perform CPR. The sheer violence of it makes me want to throw up and pass out all at once.
Suddenly, there's a hand on my wrist wrenching me away from the doorway. I try to fight against it, but whoever it is is far stronger than I am, and they easily drag me away and back to my own room. "You don't need to watch," Molly's voice tells me. I know it's her even though I haven't the strength to look up at her face. She holds me while I cry into her shoulder, listening to several rounds of, "Clear! Shocking." They try three times before they fall silent. I'm too far away to hear the whispered announcement of the time of death, but I know it's there. I know they stop trying after so long.
Greg is dead.
~0~
I hear the commotion from down the hallway and it fills me with a sick sense of dread. I don't need to hear his name to know that it's Greg. I can tell from the direction the noise is coming from. Did I somehow cause this? Did my carelessness result in the death of an innocent boy?
I recall the conversation I overheard between Greg and his mother not too long ago. Greg was planning to go to university abroad, to widen his horizons. Now he'll never get to do that. Now he'll never get to do anything.
I cannot let this happen again. I have to get out of here, so I grab my bag and start packing everything important. If I run now and never look back I can live out the rest of my life the way I planned; unattached and free. And if I live like that, no more lives will be lost beyond my own. I look both ways before leaving my room to make sure I won't be followed and sneak out down the hallway. I don't use the main exit—that would be obvious—instead using back corridors and low-traffic areas.
I should've known that he would inevitably follow me, but I'm so preoccupied in getting away that I don't notice the footsteps shadowing my own until I'm outside. I turn around and find John standing two meters away, staring at me with those stupidly endearing blue eyes.
"What are you doing out here?" I ask him.
"I could ask you the same thing," he counters coyly. "But I don't have to. You're running away." The statement is delivered without a hint of doubt, and I know I'm screwed.
"Yeah. So what?"
"I don't want you to go." The bluntness of that statement catches me off guard; I'm used to slipping away without anyone caring except for those who are paid to keep me in one place. The fact of the matter is I don't want to go either, but I have to.
"Even if I stay, I'll be put in isolation. I might as well be a thousand miles away with how much you'll see me," I explain. The thought of being so close yet so far from John is unbearable. Now that we've experienced being just a little bit closer, the notion of forcing a greater distance between us makes me sick.
"We can convince Molly to lift your suspension," John states.
"No, we can't. You know we can't. She's intransigent. No matter what we do or say, she won't change her mind."
"Fine. But you are not leaving me without one more date."
"John, that's no way to ask someone out," I joke.
"Nothing about our relationship has been normal up to this point, I don't see why we should start now. Can we walk to the park to go see the lights?"
His request seems reasonable, but I think about the cold winter air around us and the fact that neither of us has a lung function above forty percent. "We should take a cab," I suggest. "Neither of us should be walking that far."
"I want to walk." It's not a counter-suggestion, but a demand. If there's one thing I've learned about John Watson, it's that his mind cannot be changed once it is made up. I once thought that I was the most stubborn person I knew, and then he convinced me to complete my treatment regimen, something I'd been determined to have no part in. We are walking to the park whether I agree to or not.
"At least bring oxygen," I relent. John nods and disappears back into the hospital. He returns with portable oxygen for both of us, and we set off towards the park. We tell no one where we're going, and the freedom is intoxicating. For once in my life, I don't have Mycroft or overbearing nurses looking over my every move to ensure I don't endanger my own life.
"I'll bet you've broken more rules since you've met me than in all years prior combined," I say once we're about a third of the way there. The lights are becoming more distinct in the distance, and I understand why John has always found them so alluring. The beckon me like a homing beacon.
"You're absolutely right. You're a terrible influence. I should turn around and leave you right now," he says with mock seriousness.
"You dragged me along on this adventure. If we get caught, I will not hesitate to throw all the blame on you."
"They'll just think you're lying to save your own hide."
"Darn, you're right. Was this your plan all along? To act like a well-behaved goody two shoes to gain their trust, fall in love with a ruffian like me, then pull off the stunt of a lifetime and let me take the fall for it? I must admit, it's a clever plan. I would never have the patience to pull it off."
I expect to hear his snarky retort, but instead I feel a sharp, cold pain in the side of my head. "Hey!" I shout, shaking snow from my hair. "What was that for?"
"Being a twat," John answers, already preparing another snowball from a nearby drift. This time, I manage to protect my face with my arms, and John laughs as he packs another handful. I bend down and grab more snow to get him back, but he nails me before I even get a chance to throw mine. While he's busy building another snowball, I finally get in a shot. My aim is off, and I only hit his shoulder, but it's enough of a victory for me. All this excitement is—literally—taking my breath away.
After taking another hit, I scramble towards the portable oxygen and take a few minutes to breathe with the supplement. Fortunately, John is kind enough not to throw more snowballs at me while I'm refueling. That's a line neither of us would ever cross.
Once I'm good to go, we continue our walk until we reach the park. Now that the lights are in full view, we both stop to admire them. It's not a Christmas display, but it's beautiful nonetheless. An abstract statue of randomly coiled metal rods sits dotted with little white lights which make it glow angelically. I squint and try to decipher if it's supposed to be a certain shape, but there is absolutely no order to it. However, there is infinite beauty in the chaos of twisted limbs and random orientation. A typical couple would stand and hold hands to admire it, but John and I are not allowed such an intimate luxury. Instead, I find a branch on the ground that's about two meters long, and we hold to opposite ends of that. It's not ideal, but it's all we've got.
"They're everything I hoped they would be," John whispers. I can't imagine what it's like for him to finally see these lights in person after dreaming about them from a distance for years.
"Why did you never ask your parents to take you here?" I ask. If he wanted to see them so badly, it doesn't make sense why he hadn't. It's a pretty simple request, one that parents of a sick kid would grant without hesitation.
"I feared that seeing them in person would make them less magical. Maybe they were only special because they were unattainable and mysterious," he explains.
"So why did you want to see them tonight? Aren't they less special now?"
"No. Now they're special because I saw them with you."
