...Must Come to an End.
As Seth lay prostrate on the floor, praying that it would not be Skylar that came walking through the front door, hundreds of miles away in New York, a drama of a different nature was drawing to its natural conclusion. Flint had woken up that morning in the knowledge that his mother would only be on the cruise ship for two more days; it would dock in Miami on Sunday, and then she would be on the first flight north to visit her favourite daughter-in-law… She called Izzy that so often that Flint had begun to wonder if he had a secret brother somewhere that he did not know about, who was married to a really awful woman…
Said daughter-in-law was now beginning to think that nature was conspiring against her and that she was doomed; that the child she was carrying was obviously a demon, and was determined out of spite to subject her to giving birth with her mother-in-law at her bedside in the delivery room. Such thoughts had seen her giving birth in her dreams the night before to the strains of the title music from The Omen, alone until Mrs Wilson had hacked through the door of the delivery room with an axe and a demented expression on her face; she had then announced her presence in the style of Johnny in The Shining…
She had told Flint all about it that Friday morning, and he had immediately paled, seeing the exact same image in his own mind; then he had scolded himself, because she wasn't all that bad… "I think that we can blame the nightmares on the combination of raw Carolina Reaper chillies and pineapple pudding last night," he stated, "neither of which seem to have done the trick. You still aren't in labour, or showing any sign of it!"
"Unfortunately not, which brings me to the Castor Oil next," replied his wife, shuddering at the thought, knowing full well exactly what else that would bring; it was worth it however to avoid having Mrs Wilson there when she gave birth. "Then, if we are still no nearer the big event tonight, I will go to the hospital and beg and plead to be induced…"
Flint nodded, then said casually, "I still think that we could have tried some vigorous…" He stopped as he heard the sound of something dripping onto the floor. "Is that what I think it is?"
"It is, thankfully, so the walk you were about to suggest we have is no longer necessary," Izzy teased, knowing that a walk was the last thing he had been about to suggest they try.
Flint laughed as she began to, the calmly stood up and kissed his wife on the cheek. "I shall go and fetch the mop whilst you call the hospital. I actually feel remarkably relaxed right now, because this is child number two, and also because the fact your waters have just broken means that we can avoid having my mother at the hospital with us!" He glanced at his watch, and his smile grew broader. "What is even better, clever wife of mine, is that a certain cruise ship has just departed its final port of call, which means she can't hop on a plane there, and there is no way they will airlift her off just so she could get here sooner…"
Izzy shook her head as her husband positively skipped away to fetch the mop and bucket, then composed herself to call the hospital and let them know she was on her way in…
This time, Izzy's labour was not quite as fast as she would have wished it to be, and it was only as the clock passed 4pm that the moment finally approached. Her own mother had arrived about an hour earlier, knowing that the coast was clear, and that had allowed Flint to go and get a coffee; whilst he did so, he called Beats, and let him know that the time had come. He had considered calling his best friend earlier, but he knew that he was engaged on a major project at the moment, and was being put under pressure to get things finished before the original deadline…
Beats was delighted for them both, of course, and offered to pop in to the hospital on his way home, but Flint declined, as he had his mother-in-law there already, and her husband was also coming along once he had finished work for the day. "Okay, but keep me filled in the moment you have any news; it is vitally important that Uncle Beats is introduced to his new niece or nephew as early as possible, so that they can get used to my constant presence in their life…"
Flint had laughed at that, then after drinking his coffee, had headed back in. Within the hour he found himself panting alongside his wife, one hand holding hers tightly, the other put to use in mopping her brow. The nurse was confident that it would only be a matter of minutes now before he saw his second child for the first time… And yet, deep inside, he felt that something was wrong somewhere, for one of his bird brothers. He had sensed it once before, the day that Beats had been hurt in the fight with Mr Gilbert… Then Izzy felt another big contraction, and those feelings were set aside, as he had to give his wife his full and undivided attention…
Back in Westerville, Skylar's drive home had ended up taking him ten minutes less than normal; in doing so, he had broken no speed limits, nor had he run any stop lights. He had just been lucky in that all of the latter had been at green or changed to it as he approached, allowing him to stay just below the speed limit all the way home. He had however slowed down as he turned into his own street, just in case Seth was watching out of the window. Speeding up to the front door, slamming on the brakes at the last second was hardly the way to show his friend that he felt he was still able to take care of himself.
Nonetheless, he alighted from his car just a little faster than usual, taking a deep breath as he did so. The air was sweet, scented by the blooming flowers in the garden. The sun was shining from a cloudless sky, and yet the heat and humidity were just perfect. As he walked up to his front door, his feet crunching on the gravel, he felt so content that he began to whistle, choosing the tune of Oh, What a Beautiful Morning! from Oklahoma! It was not the morning, and the state was wrong, but for a moment Skylar felt as if all of his cares had vanished…
He stepped into the hallway, and placed his keys in their usual spot on the hall table; he had no jacket to hang up, just his briefcase to set down. It was only as he did so that he realised that something in the house was off, some part of the routine life that he was used to had altered. He thought about it for mere seconds before he realised that what was missing was a shouted greeting from Seth; normally he shouted out hello, waiting for Skylar to respond so that he knew that it was his friend. The house was however totally silent, so he decided that Seth had to have dozed off, something that he had started to do these days with an almost alarming regularity…
He headed down the hallway in the direction of the kitchen, and that was when he heard the noise; one that had been there before, but was increasing in volume as he walked down the corridor. It was a drumming sound, as if something was being hit of the ground with a regularity that was almost like a beat. He wondered what on earth it could be, and he hoped that one of the kitchen appliances had not failed, not when they were so new. He glanced into the lounge as he passed, and saw no sign of Seth. He wondered then if he had been feeling tired when Mrs Carmichael had needed to go, and he had asked her to take him to his room so he could settle down on the bed for a nap. He decided he would go and check, then come back and see if he could work out where that incessant noise was coming from. He walked past the open kitchen door, heading for the room that his friend now called home, hardly glancing in.
He was barely two feet past the door when his brain registered what it had just seen momentarily in the kitchen as he walked past…
Seth had heard his friend come in, his heart sinking as he realised that it was indeed Skylar that had arrived home. Julia would have called out to him, as would Thad or Mrs Carmichael; only his best friend came in and did not speak, waiting for him to do so. He heard his footsteps approaching and wondered just how bad it would be… He realised as he waited that his whole body was now shaking with the strangest of vibrations; his feet, stuck on the end of his useless legs, were drumming on the wooden floor, his leather shoes amplifying the rhythm. He tried to speak, but only the same strangled sound as before came out. Looking about, he saw that Wes had now moved out of the line of sight from the hallway, and he suspected that in a moment he would cease to be visible at all. He could feel his life ebbing away in any case; he felt so tired, and all he wanted to do was close his eyes, and just drift away forever…
And then he heard it; the steady footfalls had paused, and the been replaced by fast ones, and then Skylar was there, standing in front of him…
Skylar sprinted into the kitchen the moment that his brain realised he had just seen the bottom of the wheels of Seth's chair, meaning it had to be tilted on its side. The sight that greeted him was enough to make his blood freeze in his veins. The drumming noise was his best friend's leather shoe heels, clattering on the floor as his legs fitted. His whole body was in spasm. Worst of all, his face was a horrible shade of purple, and his lips were going blue; he was choking on something….
"Oh God! Seth! Okay, I'm here, it'll be okay now!" he heard himself scream out as he flung himself down onto the floor beside his friend. He grabbed his hand, which only served to transfer the vibrations to his own body. He let go, getting on his knees instead and pulling Seth's head up into his lap. He could see that he had focused his eyes upon him, but the sparkle was going, as the sparks of life faded. Seth's breathing was rasping and slow, the only sound he seemed able to make strangled sobs. "Okay, so we are going to get whatever is stuck in your throat out, and then we can get you breathing properly again, and that should help stop the fitting. I need you to work with me as much as you can, Seth. I need you to stay with me, and keep your eyes open for me too…"
The immediate issue was that Seth's jaw was vibrating rapidly, and that was making it hard for Skylar to prise open. His teeth were grinding together, and even when he managed to separate them, it was only a tiny amount, barely enough to let the sound out. Skylar knew that the Heimlich Manoeuvre was called for and he desperately tried to recall how he performed it on someone lying down. He had to straddle Seth's hips, and then place the heel of his hand against his upper abdomen….
It was not at all easy to roll Seth onto his back, using his suit jacket as a pillow for his head, and even less easy to straddle his hips, given how his body was bucking, but somehow he managed it. As he did, he realised to his horror that the vibrations were slowing, as was Seth's breathing. He had to act fast… He made a fist, then started the process, one that every Dalton boy of his generation had been taught, pleading that it would work. He could hear Seth's breaths becoming gasps, that horrific rattling noise making him shiver. He did it again, and again, faster and harder… and then he realised that Seth's mouth wasn't opening; if it stayed closed, there would be no way of getting the blockage out, even if he did dislodge it. He leant forward, and pulled as hard as he dared on Seth's lower jaw; this time, with the vibrations almost stopped, it came open. He repeated the procedure of the Heimlich, and this time he saw the obstruction move out of his friend's throat. He lurched forward to pull it clear, seeing it was a wedge of bread as he flung it to one side…
He looked up then, straight into Seth's eyes, so dull now, but they acknowledged the contact…
In a rough, raspy voice, his best friend uttered two words, slowly and with difficulty…
"Sunny…Sky…"
And then his breathing stopped altogether…
As the drama had unfolded, a sad figure had of course been surveying all that went on from his vantage point behind the door. Seth knew that Wes was there, but naturally, Skylar did not. As Wes had watched him make his valiant efforts to stop his friend from choking, he had inwardly praised his determination and attitude, so proud of the skills that the young man was displaying. At the same time, he knew that those efforts were futile; Seth's name was down in the book, and he was present so that he could take him away in just a few more minutes. That knowledge made him weep for the man who would carry on living. He wondered briefly if it would have been kinder for him to have broken all the rules and allowed Skylar to see him; then he would have been aware of exactly what was going on…
Then again, after the event, people would have been curious as to why Skylar had made no attempt to save the life of his best friend; those people being medical professionals and even the police, given that it would be classified as a sudden death. Worst of all, Julia would not have comprehended why he had just stood by, and she could arrive home at any moment, that much Wes was certain of. Whatever he had done, Skylar would have suffered one way or another, and the dice had already been cast; there was no going back, not now.
He sensed then that it was almost the moment, and silently he left his spot and approached the scene, coming up behind an increasingly desperate Skylar. The sound of Seth's life ebbing away was obvious to Wes, having seen so many deaths now as a collector of souls, but it was not of course to the young man attempting the impossible….
Then he pulled out the obstruction, and Wes shook his head at the irony that the same thing that had caused Seth's first major attack was now to be part of the cause of his death; a piece of bread, the so called staff of life. He moved again, round Skylar, who was not even aware that he was in the room. On hearing those two words from Seth, Wes gently grasped Seth's hands, ready to pull him free from his mortal body and release his soul finally from all of his pain…
At that exact moment, in a hospital room in New York, a new life emerged into the world. With one final push, Isadora Wilson delivered her second child into the world, the sound of their crying rending the air. Flint was joyous, but then something felt wrong again, as if a great tragedy had happened elsewhere. He suddenly had a vision of his mother, on the day of his grandfather's funeral when he was thirteen years old, telling someone that as he had passed away, a distant cousin of hers, much younger, had given birth to a child. "As they say, as one soul enters the world, another leaves it…"
He glanced down then at his newborn child, as the nurse prepared them to be placed safely in their mother's arms, and he wondered why he had suddenly felt that; whose soul had just left… His blood suddenly ran cold in his veins, but he instantly dismissed that thought; he was so much better now than he had been in a very long time…
"Flint, darling, I know that this is quite an event, but you seem to be even more overwhelmed by it all than I ever imagined," came Izzy's voice, breaking through his thoughts. "So if you could possibly come back to us, you might like to come and greet your daughter properly."
Flint suddenly burst into a huge grin at that. "A daughter! Oh, I am so pleased! Not that I wouldn't have been pleased if she had been a he, but well, one of each is much better."
Izzy smiled, shaking her head just a little as the nurse rolled her eyes. "I have a feeling that your mother might regard two as a poor number to stop at, but I am more than content to."
"My mother will never mention us having children again, my love, when we tell her what we have agreed to do."
"Yes, it is a beautiful name; not one that I ever imagined your mother having, but still… Let's hope that this younger version of Amelia Wilson is a little more like her grandfather…."
In Westerville, time had stopped, at least for Skylar Willetts. In his head echoed those two words, the nickname he had been given by his dying cousin all of those years ago, repeated now by his best friend as he too was taken from him. He had frozen momentarily, all the effort he had just expended having left him tired and shattered. Rationally, he knew that it was over, that he had felt a draught, but in the circumstances, such rational thoughts did not win out…
"Seth! No, no, NO! Come on, Seth, breathe! Please breathe… Come on! BREATHE!" he screamed, ignoring the fact that the light was fading in the eyes that now stared at him glassily.
He found himself beginning CPR, another thing that Dalton had trained them all in, desperately pressing down in the right place in the right way, making those chest compressions, counting them in his head, then placing his lips firmly over Seth's, not caring about the saliva and crumbs of bread, trying to bring breath back to his friend's lungs. Then he returned to the compressions, on a repeating cycle, desperately trying to bring life back into the body of his best friend. He had to try, he had to, even if it meant that he had to continue watching Seth suffer. The fact was that he was nowhere near ready to say goodbye to him; there was still so much that he needed to say…
Julia Willetts had only been a little concerned when Edith Carmichael had called her to say that she needed to leave Seth alone so that she could go to her dentist to have a tooth repaired urgently. She knew that her patient was at the stage now were the technical term for his care was 'end of life', but on his last visit just two days ago, Dr Hayden McLeod had seen no reason for there to be concern. Nonetheless she had cut short her time with the obstetrician and had made haste out to her car, albeit with a slight delay thanks to a chatty colleague. She had left in good time, but had not factored in the slight traffic snarl up…
She was still unconcerned as she drove the last few yards towards home. Skylar would have arrived home a good half an hour before her, and she could picture the two of them as she neared the turning, Skylar telling Seth all about his day, making jokes and probably doing quite accurate impressions of one or two of his more amusing colleagues for his best friend's benefit, as they always made him smile and chuckle. In so many ways, the two of them were like the old married couple that she hoped she and Skylar would one day be…
She was relieved on pulling up the driveway to discover that her husband's car was in its usual spot, and she pulled hers up beside it, then sat for a moment, gathering her thoughts. She had a secret from him now, thanks to the child growing inside her, who had been turned a certain way when the ultrasound was being taken, and thus gave the game away as to what she was having… She would not tell Skylar as he was adamant that he did not wish to know the sex beforehand, but she had an inkling that he would be very pleased indeed, and that the issue of a name for their first born child was instantly resolved…
Suddenly she shivered, feeling a chill come over her. She looked up at the house, and decided that she had been sitting in the car too long. She clambered out, locking the door behind her, then headed up the steps, letting herself in the front door…
Skylar did not hear his wife's car draw up, nor her placing her key in the lock, nor her call of greeting as she came in. He was barely in the real world at all anymore, his mind elsewhere. He had tried, and tried, and tried, but to no avail. Seth remained limp and lifeless, his skin cooling, and he knew in his heart and head that it was pointless to carry on any longer. He had been in the book, and no amount of begging or pleading would bring him back to this world.
He had felt the draught, he knew he had. He had known the moment that the angel that had been assigned to take Seth's soul to heaven had either arrived or left, taking his best friend to somewhere that he would no longer be in constant pain, placing him in a new body that was younger and healthy, equipped with the wings that he deserved….
But it was still so unfair, and it left him feeling empty and so alone. He gave up on his efforts to bring Seth back to life, and instead sat on the floor, cradling the body of his best friend gently in his arms. He wiped his face clean with the sleeve of his shirt, then tidied his hair back into some semblance of its usual style. Seth had always been so particular about his appearance…
It was that thought that finally broke him, that made him start to sob, to bend over his best friend and howl, letting out all of the grief, pain and anguish that was inside him. He cursed himself for not being at home; not that he could have saved him had he been, but at least so that he could have held his hand for a little longer than he had done.
He cried that his best friend's final moments had not been peaceful as he would have wanted, but filled with trauma, and probably fear, because who would not have been afraid in those circumstances?
And yes, he wept for himself too, and for the other Warblers, that loyal band of brothers, for all of whom this would be a tragedy…
Julia placed her purse and keys on the hall table, and that was when she heard it; the low keening noise that was coming from somewhere in the house. She knew at once what it meant, and she felt guilt that she had not been there, that he had been left on his own. She hastened down the hallway, and found herself standing in the doorway to her kitchen, surveying a scene that would have been pitiful to any observer. Her husband was clutching Seth in his arms, rocking back and forth, wailing as he did so…
Julia felt her own eyes begin to fill with tears for both of them, but she knew that she had to take a breath, and place her professional duties first. She walked forward then knelt down beside her husband. If he sensed her presence then he said nothing. She gently stretched out her hand and placed it on her husband's arm, and then he looked at her, his face soaked with tears, amongst other things…
"He was choking, and I tried, and I tried, but I was too late… I was too late, and I couldn't save him… I should have been here! I let him down…" said Skylar sadly, before his voice cracked and he began to sob again…
Whilst he had been speaking, Julia had discretely placed a finger on Seth's neck, knowing that there would be no pulse, but doing things by the book in any case. "I will need to call Hayden and let him know," she said quietly. "I have to make things official… I am so sorry, my love…"
Skylar did not acknowledge his wife's words, once more locked away in his grief, rocking back and forth once more, keening in such a way that Julia's heart was broken for him. She got up, and headed back out to the hall to fetch her phone. She would call Hayden, and then more importantly, to inform Thad. She had a feeling that she was going to need back up in dealing with her grief stricken husband…
The first call was the easy one for Julia to make. Her professional training came into play, and once she managed to get through to Hayden she was able to make her call as clear and concise as possible, giving him just the facts as she knew them. He listened, then told her that he would send an ambulance to collect Seth, and would come out himself to ensure that the necessary processes were carried out correctly.
The second call had to be made as well, but it was a much harder one. There would be more emotion in it, and she knew that her words would set off a tsunami of grief and loss. Thad however would be a walk in the park compared to the call that someone would eventually have to make to the Carmichaels. She was not up to that herself at the moment, as she knew that the grief and heartbreak that the lady of that household would feel would be overwhelming. Worse, she would blame herself for the situation, even though she would know like everyone else that even if she had been in the house, there would have been nothing she could have done to have stopped it…
With a sigh, Julia went to make that second call…