Chapter 21: One More Moment

July 20th, 1999

Lita had placed the letter in her mailbox along with her forward request. She quickly stuffed both pieces of paper into the box's slot then scrambled out of her apartment door. Problem with what she had done was as she stuffed both into the box at the same time, the forward request was under her letter to Dan. The note curled and missed the box slit falling to the floor. Because she was in a hurry, she failed to notice the forward notice not getting inserted into the box. Shortly after she hailed a cab to the train station, another tenant walked out into the mailbox area with a bike. The bike's rear tire managed to get the notice stuck to it dragging it out of the building behind him. Once he got to ground level, he started riding causing the notice to get caught in the wind and was blown away.

Stepping off the train, a much older woman was standing outside watching as she did, "Lita!" "Grandma!" She ran towards the woman with her bags, dropped them beside the car, and very gently hugged her.

They walked into the Hospice. Many a sick and elderly person sitting in wheelchairs and walking with IV stands, oxygen bottles on carts, and other medical paraphernalia milled the hallways. Lita clenched her hand and brought it to her chest as she saw how miserable all of them were. Inside the administration office Lita and her grandmother sat as they talked about what was inevitably going to happen.

The two arrived at the cancer treatment center across town. The reason Lita's grandfather was not in with them at the Hospice was due to him getting his first treatment of chemotherapy. They waited patiently in the waiting area as the procedure and post observation took place. Her grandfather walked out of the treatment center and saw the two of them there. Lita stood up and ran up to him to hug, but she stopped short. She noticed that his eyes were yellow. Jaundice caused by bile blockage; the cancer affecting his liver. It scared her.

The days started to run long. While washing dishes in the kitchen, her grandfather sat at the kitchen table, asleep; the result of the chemo draining his body of energy. She stopped what she was doing and went to check on him. He woke up with a start and looked surprised to his granddaughter. Lita assisted by helping him out of his chair and headed toward the bedroom.

Lita was stripping her grandfather's bed and found a lot of hair all over the sheets and pillow case. The treatments started attacking his hair follicles.

Lita sat at the kitchen table and attempted to write Dan a letter. She kept starting to write, but would soon after crumple the paper up and throw it in the garbage can. The can was beginning to overflow with crumpled papers. She became so frustrated, she dropped her pen and put her head on the table. She covered her head with her arms began to sob uncontrollably.

Another month had passed. Lita checked the mailbox every day, and found nothing from Dan. All that came instead were bills from medical doctors and late payments bills.

Lita's grandmother sat at the kitchen table and worked on all of the bills and medical forms that needed to be sorted out. The old woman was beginning to be overwhelmed as she started to cry.

Lita and her grandmother walked toward the house with a number of bags of groceries. Lita suddenly heard a thump behind her and saw a tomato roll past her. She turned to find her grandmother collapsed on the walkway to the house. She proceeded to drop her bag and ran up to her. She had just had a heart attack.

Dressed in black, Lita and her grandfather stood before a wake, Lita's grandmother lying in a casket. Her grandfather was now using a walker, his body now losing muscle mass and his hair now completely gone. He walked to the head of the casket, then fell to his knees in tears. Lita knelt down beside him to help him up, but he then collapsed completely.

Another month had passed and the leaves on the trees were starting to turn colors. Lita had checked the mailbox at her grandparent's house and found more notices. Because of what happened, she started opening the letters herself. Her apartment in Tokyo had just been vacated due to lapse in rent. She tried to figure out what to do going through the files in the house, but there was nothing she could do to stop what had happened. All of her possessions, all of her clothes, all of her cooking equipment - gone.

October 10th, 1999

It's almost been 4 years since she last saw him. She paced outside of the Hospice and looked to the moon above as she thought to herself. It was a hard decision. In her hand was a clipboard the doctors wanted her to look over. She looked above as though she was trying to get an answer to a question, but one wasn't coming. She looked back to the clipboard and read the title for it again, "No Resuscitation Order". On one line was her grandfather's signature. They needed next of kin to sign as well; for her to sign.

"Dan," Lita asked, "what do I do? I-I don't know what to do." She heard a door open behind her, "Ms. Kino?" She turned to find a nurse standing in the doorway looking to her. She spoke softly to her, "He's regained consciousness." Without thinking twice she ran into the building and ran toward the room almost knocking other Hospice staff over as she ran by. She ran into the room and stopped halfway between the bed and the door. Nurses and Doctors were surrounding the bed checking everything over as she stood there. Lita's grandfather looked over and saw her standing there.

He looked to be a shell of his former self. His yellow eyes peered to her, "Lita."

"Everyone," Lita addressed the staff, "I'd like a moment alone with him."

A doctor approached her and spoke frankly, "Ms. Kino, we're trying to stabilize his condition, it would be best if you..." Lita grabbed the doctor by the arm and twisted it behind his back, voice becoming more stern, "I said I want a moment! Get OUT!" The other doctor in the room as well as the nurses stopped what they were doing and hurried out of the room. After the others had gone, Lita released the doctor, him stumbling out of the room quickly. She closed the door behind them. The adrenaline rushing through her made her breathe unevenly as she rested against the door for a moment. She wanted so badly to cry, but she held back.

"Lightning Bug?" Lita's eyes opened as she heard her grandfather called out. She turned and started walking toward him. She grabbed a chair and dragged it next to the bed to talk to him. She sat as he began, him weakly reaching over to hold her hand, "Lita, I can't…" he started coughing, covering his mouth with his other hand. Lita held her gasped breath until he finished. He cleared his throat again, and looked back to her, "Lita, I want you to do something for me."

She didn't miss a beat, "Anything grandpa. Tell me and I'll do it."

The old man looked saddened. She suddenly realized what he was about to ask, "I want you to sign it."

She put her hand to her mouth, her eyes beginning to glass over, "No…"

"Lita, I can't take it anymore. It was because of your grandmother that I decided to attempt treatment. Lita," he attempted to tighten his grip the best he could, "I'm just hurting you by being alive; attempting to stay that way just hurts us both. I have made my peace." "Grandpa," she looked at him intensely, trying to remember the days she spent with both her grandparents. Remembering a younger and healthier version of the both of them. Losing her grandmother left a pain in her heart, but what the man before her was requesting was not an act of weakness, but an act of mercy. "Grandpa, I don't know if I can. I don't wanna give up on you!"

"You never have," a tear streaked down his face as he massaged the young girl's hand with his thumb, "and you won't by doing so. Please, Lita." The one time in her life. This had to be the one time in her life where she could keep a family member alive, but she knew it was futile. His skin was pitted and frail, his breathing labored, around his eyes red. She looked to him and knew keeping him alive was a selfish feeling on her part. She couldn't stand to think about losing both her grandparents in one month's time. Losing her grandmother was hard enough, but she knew why; her grandmother's heart was so frail and was breaking knowing the man she had loved almost her whole life was dying slowly before her. That heartbreak ending with a truly stopped heart.

The 18-year-old Lita was losing it all - She lost her apartment, her belongings, her ability to go to school, her dreams, and now what little family she has left is asking her to give him up. It was the hardest decision she ever made. She looked around the room and saw the heart monitors beeping, the oxygen monitors flashing numbers across their screens. He was hooked up to wires and tubes all injecting fluids in and taking readings out. The soft noises of medical equipment beeped and hummed giving a hard reality of the situation. She knew this was no way to live. Against her emotions, she looked again to the clipboard on her lap. She took the pen from the clip and signed her name.

Just as she finished, she heard him speak, "Thank you. I'll always love you, my little… lightning…" his grip loosened from her other hand and went limp. The heart monitor started beeping at flatline.

Lita backed out of the room with both of her hands over her mouth and nose, tears rolling down her cheeks as medical staff started rushing toward the room. After the nurses ran passed her and into the room, she turned and started running away to the front of the building. She never looked back.

"I see," DyTyllio had been listening to Lita's story. The woman had her eyes closed, tears again rolling down her face. DyTyllio reached to his other end table and grabbed a box of tissues, pointing the top of the box toward her, "You feel as though you may have done him a disservice."

She opened her eyes and looked to the short disfigured man, him still holding the tissue box toward her. She took a tissue and started blotting her eyes, performing small gasps in her speech , "I just wi-ish I had more ti-ime!"

DyTyllio sighed and he placed the box between them then looked out the window, "Ah, yes. One more moment. People in this life don't appreciate it very much until it's gone. It's what makes people like us so special," Lita looked to the old man beside her on the bed as he continued, "You had a great tragedy in your life even before this one. When this one came, you knew you had to spend as much time as possible with the people you love. The fact you had your grandfather's life in your hands, you could have had one more moment, but you knew that last moment would have had been one of pain."

Lita was starting to calm down as she heard his words, small amounts of regret in them as he spoke, "I almost had my last moment be telling Master Jeremy how the world had beauty he was blind to. The small amount of humanity he had left was seeing he wished to have a whole different moment with one he considered his best friend. He cared for me before his heartbreak, and again soon after he tried to destroy the world. He spent the rest of his days making sure that one moment wouldn't be spoiled. Your grandfather had the best moment he could have; seeing the strong heart of his granddaughter be beside him and bravely tell him goodbye."

That was something Lita never considered. A look of shock came to her face as she looked at the man again. It was what Dan couldn't bare to see; the reason why he yelled at her after fighting the Draugr and nearly losing her life. He saw it too many times in his lives in both the Silver Millenium and during the events of the 3rd Tokyo mission. He didn't want those moments to be the last. He wanted one more moment. If those were the moments he had of her, he'd feel his whole life had lost all meaning. His previous remaining moments were all ones of failure.

"I have but one question for you, my dear," Lita looked to the man who was now turned to her, "Will you need one more moment?"

"Man, what's taking her so long?" Eduardo, Dan, and the Whittingtons sat in the waiting area as they waited for Lita to finish. Eduardo was getting antsy, "I mean, Egon called us a half an hour ago; we're gonna get yelled at!"

"Relax, Eddie," Dan was feeling a lot of distress from the other side of the building, "Whatever's going on, she'll be done soon." As if on cue, Lita walked into the waiting area slowly. Eduardo piped up immediately, "'Bout time!" He quickly stood up and started walking out of the waiting area toward the elevators. Dan, Cindy, and Scotty got up from their chairs much slower than Eduardo and approached Lita.

Dan put his hands onto Lita's shoulders and looked at her in the eyes. He noticed the red rings around her eyes, "Are you gonna be okay?" All Lita did was wrap her arms around him and hold him close. He rested his hand on her head as she buried her head onto his shoulder. He looked to the Whittingtons, "Can you wait by the truck?" Cindy nodded her head and instructed Scotty to follow. After they left the waiting area, the two of them stood in silence. It was becoming clear to him what had transpired, "I know, my little Lightning Bug."

Lita's eyes shot open wide and she quickly pulled away. She looked into the man's eyes and found that his eyes were just as glassed over as her's. Because of how upset she was, he saw everything. He felt every feeling, he heard every conversation, he knew every little detail. All he had was painful understanding in his eyes. Tears formed in her eyes again as she wrapped her arms around him even tighter than before, "I'm sorry, Dan! I wanted to tell you! Please don't be mad at me! I didn't want you to worry! I didn't know what to do!"

"You've been holding this in for years," Dan said as he gently cradled her in his arms, "You felt like you gave up on him. You didn't," he pulled her away to look at her again, "He asked you to do something that was extremely difficult to do, and you honored him. If he saw what you had been and what you were to become, there's no doubt he'd be proud of you," He drew her in again, "Don't you ever think your family being hurt and in need of care is something I will ever be mad at you over."

"It's not just that," she said, "I thought you abandoned me! When I didn't get your letters…" Dan suddenly knew the other half of it. His returned letters… "I was so angry at you afterwards. I never tried to find you afterwards because… Because I hated you!" He immediately let go of her and backed up. Lita looked up as he abruptly moved and looked at his face. He was mortified. He was beginning to hyperventilate, "No. Lita, no!"

"Dan, I didn't know what was happening!" The very night her grandfather had passed away was the same night Dan wondered why Lita hadn't wrote to him. They both believed the same thing: they had been abandoned. With their link, Dan may have been picking up on her stress of the situation. Neither one of them knew outright. Dan began backing out of the room shaking his head. Even hearing she hated him was too much for him. He turned and started to walk when Lita ran out and grabbed him by the hand, "No, Dan!" He stopped as she pleaded with him, "Please, give me one more moment!"

Dan knew what she was asking. DyTyllio's words echoed in his mind, the words being given to him through the link with her. She was terrified of how he took her feelings, "I didn't want to tell you what happened because I know the same thing happened to you. I didn't want you to upend your life for me. I was so afraid to write to you before that because… because…" She never finished her sentence. Dan spun on his heels and proceeded to hold her tight. She returned it in kind. Tears were in his eyes, "My god, Lita, why have we been crying so much?"

"We were apart too long," she said softly, "We haven't spoken for so long, we were afraid of each other. We can't do this again."

DyTyllio had stepped out of his room and was watching what was going on in the hospital hallway. He watched as the two Ghostbusters held onto each other. He felt the pain the two of them felt, but also the love. It was bittersweet, but it was still love, "Sometimes all you need," the short man said to himself, "is just one more moment." With that, the man walked into his room and closed the door behind him.

Shortly after, DyTyllio crawled into his bed, grabbed a notepad, and wrote a note. He opened the nightstand drawer that had his Game Boy in it and pulled out a worn down and dusty old notebook. He placed the note inside and placed it back into the drawer. He looked back to the door to his room and sighed. He proceeded to pull the covers over him and went to sleep. The image in his mind of the two young Ghostbusters slowly dissolved into an image of Jeremy and Cindy Whittington. It was the moment he wished to hold onto. An image he helped create. An image that made him happy. When DyTyllio had gone to sleep, it would be the last time he would do so.