A/N: Thanks again for the reviews! Seriously I really enjoy hearing what everyone thinks of the story. I am really putting my heart and soul into this one. And it has been one of the easier ones to keep flowing, especially with all the motivation from those who read it. Take a minute to review and let other's know that you are enjoying it.
Chapter Twelve: You've got to be kidding me.
When I finally reopened my eyes my surroundings had completely changed. I thought for a minute that I still had to be dreaming but yet when I pinched my arm, okay god that was a mistake holy shit that hurt. I rubbed where I had just not two seconds ago pinched as I tried to figure out where I was at. This wasn't the ER, it couldn't be the ER. That familiar sterile smell was gone, the colors of the room where different and there was this eerie white glow to everything. Oh man I had died that's all I could think right now was that I had stopped breathing and had died after I fell asleep. I move around a little getting up from where I had been laying and walked towards the door.
There is something almost pulling me towards that door, almost as if it is beckoning me to walk through it. Doors normally didn't call to me but there was something different about this place. It might have been the white light that was giving off the soft glow making it very calming to be in or it might have been the fact that I had noticed that right now I am no longer having trouble breathing, which is a welcomed relief for me. It scares me a little but I'm sure that where ever, or what ever this place might be that it is okay to be there and I don't feel as if I am in any kind of danger right now.
"You don't want to go through that door yet." I hear a voice say from behind me. My hands start to shake a little as I am afraid to turn around. The voice seems familiar but I'm not sure it's not one that I have heard in a long time.
"Why not?" I ask slowly turning around.
"It's not your time." Well you couldn't get a simpler reply than that.
I turn around to look towards where the voice is coming from but I don't see anyone else in the room right now with me. "And how do you know this?"
"If it was your time I wouldn't be here having this conversation with you, I'd be waiting on the other side of the door for you to open it."
I shrug my shoulders, "okay that makes sense, somewhat." I'm still searching for where that voice might be coming from and who it might just possibly belong to. "But if I'm not supposed to go through the door and it's not my time, then why am I here?" I'm a tad bit confused as to what is going on, and I am thinking that maybe Abby did the morphine after all and it was seriously messing with my mind. "I have got to be dreaming."
"No you're not dreaming you are really here. I watched you pinch yourself, so I know, that you know, that you are awake Anna." The voice says to me again. "You have been chosen one of the many few to be a guardian angel of sorts."
"Now wait just a minute," I say really confused now, "you say it's not my time but that I am to be a guardian angel, angels are people who have died. What do you mean of sorts and just who am I talking to?"
"Well that's the of sorts part." I hear the voice say "nothing is cut and dry."
There's a flash of bright light that I have to shield my eyes from because it hurts so badly, my hand up across my face as I look towards the floor, "can we stop with the theatrics here."
"Sorry." The voice says, "I kind of like that part."
I bring my hand down and come face to face with someone that I would have thought I would never see again after Carter's letter. "Mark?"
"Yeah it's me." I hear him say as he walks a little closer and sits down, "come here sit down we need to talk."
"Okay," I say moving back to the bed, "but you know nothing good ever starts with the phrase we need to talk. Not one that you should use if you want people to talk to you."
"Well don't worry this isn't all that bad, granted I can't say that it's all that good either," He said looking over at me. There's silence in the room for a minute and I don't know if he's waiting for me to say something or if he's formulating what he has to say to me.
"So a guardian angel of sorts, what am I supposed to do, and then what if I don't want to do it." I say looking at him with my head titled to one side.
"All good questions. You really don't have much of a choice in this; see you have to do it." I hear him say "doing this isn't optional. I have to show you something." He puts his hand on my arm and the surroundings change in the blink of an eye.
We are back in the hospital, in the room that I was in, the only time is now Carter, Kerry, Doug, Carol, they are all in there and none of them look happy. I can see tears in Carter's eyes, and I can also see them forming in Doug's eyes. Doug has his arm around Carol holding onto her tightly. I can see the monitor and what is on it actually scares me.
"That's you." Mark says to me, "right now you are dying. What you have to do is going to send you back there and save you from coming up here, the task isn't going to be easy because they are two very stubborn people who don't know love when they see it."
"And I'm supposed to make them see it?"
"You always were bright Anna." He says to me with a smile, "that's exactly what you are supposed to do."
"Okay so I am supposed to get two stubborn people to realize that they are in love with each other and," I pause for a minute, this is rather lame and mushy not the kind of thing I normally go for, "get them to see that they are soul mates and that they belong together."
"Well that's sort of it, but they two are not in love with each other, you see you need to help them find their soul mates. The two people don't belong with each other each one of them belongs with another person. You are to make them see real love. They know what love is, but they don't know what real love is."
I cock my head at him again, "well at least in dying you didn't seem to lose your sense of humor there Mark dear but just who are these two people that I am supposed to guide back to well the right person then?" I ask now wondering just how the hell I was supposed to accomplish this task.
"That one you have to figure out on your own. I can't tell you who you are supposed to help, just that you are supposed to help them."
"What you are giving me this task to help two people realize that they have soul mates and you won't tell me who they are?" I am really confused right now and don't know what to think of this. I'll just ask someone down there to help me figure this one out.
"Ah, there's the catch twenty-two Anna, you can't tell them what you are there to do. Your friends don't get to know about this, they can't help you even if you did tell them. And you are not necessarily looking for soul mates here either Anna. True love comes in many forms you know that. You have felt real love at one point in your life and you need to guide these two people to that feeling which you had."
"What?" I say, "Okay first get out of my head like that, second how am I supposed to do this with out telling them about this and you aren't telling me who it is either?"
"That's where I come in buttercup." I hear another voice say as I spin around to see who was there now.
My mouth falls to the floor when I see who it is, "oh god you have got to be kidding me."
"Nope darling," there's an arm around me, "it's you and me babe we are going to work together and put love back together again."
I look now at Mark my eyes wide, "you're seriously kidding right I am not supposed to work with him of all people, what does he know about love?"
"Hey now there honey I know a lot more than you give me credit for." He says to me, I just shake my head, "what you don't believe me, you and I will have those two back together before you know it and then you can have your ticket through that door.
I totally roll my eyes, "okay but I know he's dead, so just how pray tell do I work with a dead guy," I try to get out of the hold that he has on me, "chill it there rocket, you are not flying with me."
"You'll be able to see him, to talk to him, but no one else will be able too." Mark said, "He's there to help you to guide you and to give you any extra influence that you might need."
"Great, this is just my luck, I have to reunite two couples, with a chauvinistic creep, who I barely know and well rather don't like. Whose going to be around but only I can see him, he can't like pop into my shower or something when I don't want him too can he?"
"Now, now you are taking all the fun out of it."
"Robert!" I say looking over at him, oh this is going to be a horrible working situation but I guess I don't have much of a choice.
"No he can't." Mark said, "Don't worry he's still just a short little man, he's harmless when he's armless."
"Hey now watch it there baldy." I hear Robert punch back as I laugh at the joke, considering John and told me all about the unfortunate accident and all that had happened, at the time I had felt horrible for them, but right now I was beginning to rethink that.
"And how much time do I have to accomplish this?" I ask wondering if there was some deadline.
"As long as it takes." Mark said, "Well within reason. But you suffering on earth for now will be over; I promise you that the treatment that John has suggested will work if you do it, at least for now. Close your eyes Anna, things will look brighter, you'll see."
I did what he told me and looked forward to the promise of the end of my suffering.
