Susan looked at her watch anxiously as she ran down the flight of stairs from the El. 2:32. She was late. The plane had been only a few minutes late, but she'd gotten held up at her new apartment when the landlady didn't have a key for her. She was a sweet woman, but she was a bit forgetful. Susan hopped off the last step and headed into the ambulance bay, seeing Mark against the wall, smoking.
"Hey, sorry I'm late. Landlady...you don't even want to know."
"It's OK, I'm glad you're here." He inhaled slowly.
"You shouldn't be smoking."
"Why? Am I going to get cancer?" He shot back angrily, but still crushed the cigarette out on the ground with his shoe.
"So, you're not Mr. Happy today?" Susan tried to get him to smile, but failed miserably. "OK, OK, sorry. Come on, don't mope like this."
"Why shouldn't I? Kerry's on my back again, you'd think he'd leave me alone after all I've been through!" Susan had to fight back tears when she heard his mistake. She'd seen a lot of cancer patients while working in Phoenix, and she knew it was a bad sign.
"Watch the pronouns, Mark."
"What?"
"You said he, not she."
"Why can't you leave me alone! It's hard enough...I don't care if I mix up my pronouns, or say tea instead of coffee! I don't care if I'm sick, I don't want to be treated like a child!"
"Mark, nobody wants to do this. Nobody wants for you to have cancer, or to have to remind you about your pronouns, or even to look at you and see you die. You chose not to get treatment, now you...Mark, soon you're not going to be able to do procedures. The hospital board, the chief of staff...no one's going to let you continue to work here. It's getting worse, Mark, and you need to stop pushing away the people who care about you. It's only just begun. You'll be treated more like a child if you throw tantrums. I thought we could have a nice time, meet and talk. I thought that I could come back and be a friend, I thought I wanted to be here for you. But if you're going to blow up at me....I can't see you like this. Try to control it, Mark. I know you can." Susan looked at him sadly and turned to go inside, maybe to see some other friends. She was stopped by the sound of Mark crying behind her. She turned again and faced him, her angry exterior crumbling at the sight of his pain.
"Susan..." He began, but he couldn't finish. He couldn't, or didn't want to, find the words.
"I know. I know." She looked at him for a moment, then, not knowing what else to do, wrapped her arms tightly around her old friend and let him sob against her shoulder. She resisted the urge to tell him it would be OK, knowing it would never be OK for him. It could only get worse from here. He looked up at her, tears in his eyes.
"Thank you."
"I haven't done anything. All I did was yell, and I'm sorry."
"No, I mean for not...crying, and getting all emotional. I told Elizabeth, after we found out, and...I ended up comforting her. It's nice for once to be able to...you know."
"Don't go comparing me to her. I love you, Mark, and I wish you would have been available right now, but I'm in no rush to break up your family, especially with a baby on the way. I know how much little children need a family." The words slipped out, and she immediately stared at her shoes. "God Mark, I'm sorry."
"Let's just call it 'not our day' and forget it, OK?" Mark tried his hardest to avoid the topic.
"If that's what you really want. But I think you should talk to someone about it. Not necessarily me."
"I'm dying, Susan. I don't feel like spending time in therapy. But I...you want to grab some coffee?"
"Don't you ask me out!" she smiled widely, her entire face lighting up. "I'm kidding, Mark, geez! I'd love some coffee."
He grinned as well, jokingly offering her his arm as they crossed the street. But his heart sank as he realized he just might have been asking her out.
"Mark, you're kidding!"
"Nope! She actually *ran* there!"
"15 blocks? In her dress and those shoes...oh man, that must have been great! She was an awful runner anyway. Looked like a..." She struggled to remember what they had compared the old friend to.
"See, now who's having speech problems." Mark looked at her smugly and then grinned.
"Haha, very funny. But it's not that bad, Mark. You haven't replaced a pronoun since...since we were in the ambulance bay. You're doing fine, really."
The aphasia wasn't as bad when he was with Susan, something neither noticed or could have explained. They both felt like it could have been '95 again, and they could have walked back into County and ordered med student Carter around, or said hi to Doug and Carol, or even Bob. They had slipped back into the best friends mode, the divorced man and the woman he asked out without really asking out. They were dancing around their feelings, and it was a dangerous dance. They were whirling around a flaming cauldron and it was about to tip over, and drown one or both in an endless flow of boiling liquid and pain. He wanted to forget it all, his crying fiance, unborn child, failed marriage, failed procedures, unsaved lives and his own unfixable, incurable disease. Because, as time had shown, it came back. And he wouldn't do it again, there was no way. He wouldn't be subjected to surgery and speech therapy just for it to come back and kill him later.
"Susan, I..." He sighed, but continued on. "I want to tell you, if I had known you'd come back...I tried to wait, but it hurt too much. Elizabeth is great, she's pregnant, I know, but...You're you. And it's killing me to choose."
"There is no choice, Mark. She's having your kid. I was stupid and scared, and I didn't call because I didn't know what you would say, or if you would want to speak to me. And I missed out. God, I missed out. But you found someone, and I can at least pretend to be happy about it. Don't make me show you how I really feel, because I don't want to compete for you. Not with her." She didn't want to compete, it was true, but she didn't want to because she didn't want to *have* to compete. She wanted Mark to run back to her, and forget all the things that had happened over the years she had been gone. But she knew it wouldn't happen, and so she wanted to distance herself from the family-to-be as much as possible. Not easy when she was trying to be supportive of Mark.
"You don't mean that, Susan. And I don't know what I want. I mean, I love her, but...I always loved you. I think I even loved you while things were falling apart with Jenn. I might have loved you before then, since I met you. It feels like forever."
"Mark...you're engaged. When is the wedding?"
"It's supposed to be this month, but I put it off. I'm not dealing with it now, I can't."
"Mark, if you don't do it soon..." She couldn't say what came next, but he knew what she was trying to say.
"Maybe that's the point. I was totally ready for this, but...how can I do that? Marry her while I'm dying? So she can be my wife when I die? There's no point."
"The point of marriage is love. And you love her."
"It's funny. The ones I love usually leave me." He stared pointedly at Susan, recalling clearly that day at Union Station.
"Ouch Mark." She said, only half-joking. "I didn't mean to leave you, you know. I didn't know until it was too late. I wanted to stay."
"But you didn't. I know Suzie was the focus, I mean, I realize now. I was hurt then, but now...I guess it all worked out fine, Chloe and Joe are still letting you see her, you got your wish for a happy healthy Suzie, and I'm engaged, about to be a father, and dying. Sounds like a storybook ending to me."
"You've got to be this sarcastic, don't you?"
"It's fun." He tried to smile, but he was still trying to sort out his feelings.
"Mark, you moved on, unlike me. I can't blame you for it."
"But I can blame myself. Susan, now that you're here, all I want is you, and...I don't know what to do."
"Mark, I think I should go."
"Why?"
"Because I can't keep telling you not to go for me. I can't keep supporting your relationship with Elizabeth, especially since I haven't met her. I can't keep your hormones and your feelings in check anymore, because I'm about to go nuts and...plot to break you and Elizabeth up or something. If you want to talk, or hang out, call me." She handed him a slip of paper with her number on it. "And I came back to be here for you. So if you need me...I want to be here for you. I want to be your best friend again. Bye Mark." She stood up and placed some money on the table, walking out the door close to tears. She wanted him so badly, and now that she might not have missed her chance, she was telling him to stay with another woman. *Smooth move, Susan* she sighed, pulling out her own pack of cigarettes from her purse. She looked at the cigarette in her hand, realizing she hadn't smoked in months, maybe even half a year. But it didn't matter. Days like these called for some nicotine.