Disclaimer: I still do not own the obvious characters, and it is still not in your best interest to sue me, as I still have nothing that would count for anything.
A/N: Woot! It wasn't six months between chapters! Go me! Yeah…anyway. Enjoy the chapter! And reviews will be rewarded with imaginary cookies!
Everything in the world has a routine. Every person, every group of people, every town, city, and country, even the world itself has a routine. Any minor disruption in the standard events of the day leaves people confused and upset. And it changes them. For better or for worse, it doesn't matter. A disrupted routine will undoubtedly result in altered lives. Unless, of course, that person is already dead.
There was a young man that afternoon that changed several lives by simply crossing the street. He was a fairly average looking man in his mid-twenties with light brown, slightly messy hair and a very scrawny body. The only thing particularly abnormal about him was the seemingly calm look on his face, which, if looked at for more than a glance, revealed itself to be intense fear and hopelessness. The world was moving fairly normally until a sudden, unexpected thud echoed throughout the streets. Simultaneously, a woman's scream pierced the cold, quiet air. The world stopped for a moment, and a period of nothing and everything ensued. Another scream, and the world resumed. People began to flock towards the screaming woman and the silent man.
"What happened?" someone asked the panicked woman. Through her sobs and panicked noises, she managed to force out an answer.
"He…he walked out. In front of me and…and…and I couldn't stop and…" The rest was incomprehensible. Comments and commands were issued from the surrounding crowds
"Someone call 911!" Phones were pulled from pockets and the three numbers dialed.
"Who is he?" Shrugs. No one knew.
"Is he alive?" Someone rushed over to take his pulse. The verdict? Yes, the man was still alive. This caused a fresh wave of obligation to help to sweep through the crowd. Someone administered first aid while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. The others talked amongst themselves, speculating who the man was and why he had walked out into the middle of New York City traffic. Most of them knew why, but would not say. They stood anxiously, some leaving, and some new people joining the group until the sharp, obnoxious whine of the ambulance pulsed in their ears. The cacophony brought a sigh of relief to the gathered masses, and they went about their business. The half-dead man in the road was no longer their concern. Only a few stuck around to translate the woman's panicked story into English for the paramedics as they loaded the body into the truck. Someone offered the woman a drink and a ride home, and gradually, the stage cleared and all that was left was an eerie puddle of blood and black track marks leading up to it. Eventually, all of it would fade into the cold, cruel asphalt of the street.
Collins knew something was wrong when he saw Liz walking towards him. Her shoulders were slumped and her tearstained face carried a fearful look. And she was alone. She looked up weakly at Collins in search of some answer.
"Hi, Collins. Anything new?" Collins shook his head.
"Not really. Roger's still asleep, but he keeps muttering things like, 'Mark's an asshole.'" Liz winced. "Speaking of which, where is Mark? I thought you went to get him." Liz's head dropped.
"I don't know where he is." She whispered. A perplexed look crossed Collins' face.
"What do you mean?" Liz hesitated. "Come on, Liz. What happened? Wasn't he at the loft?" She nodded. "So? Where'd he go?" More hesitation, and the entire story came pouring out in the epitome of a run-on sentence.
"I went back to the loft and Mark was sitting in the corner of his room and I think he was asleep but I'm not sure, but I woke him up and asked him if he wanted to come here or clean up the loft because of all the blood and he said clean up the blood but then we realized that we couldn't because it was Roger's infected blood and then he realized that he had already touched Roger's blood and there was a cut on his hand, so he got scared, and so did I, but I tried to convince him to get out of the house so he wouldn't become like Roger, so we went for a walk and I was so engrossed in trying to talk to him that I didn't realize where we were going until we got to the Williamsburg Bridge-"
"Oh god…"
"-And he was about to jump but I talked him out of it and then he walked away and told me not to follow him." She was crying now, and Collins pulled her in for a hug.
"I'm sure he's alright. He probably just went for a walk to calm down, and he'll be back-" He was cut off by the sound of a siren outside of the emergency room doors followed by the voice of the EMT explaining the situation to the nurses on hand.
"What happened?"
"He walked into the middle of traffic. Suicide attempt, we think."
"Where?"
"Broome Street, near Williamsburg Bridge."
"Who is he?"
"We don't know." The nurses rolled the stretcher past Collins and Liz, and from under the splotchy sheet, they caught a glimpse of an all-too-familiar scarf, tainted with blood and dirt. As the stretcher was rolled off down the hall, Liz tried to run after it, but Collins caught her arm and held her back.
"Let me go! It's Mark! And they don't even know who he is! Let me go! Let me go see him!"
"They won't let you in to see him now, Liz. Come sit down. We'll inquire about in a little bit." Liz nodded submissively. Collins appeared to be the voice of reason, but in reality, he was just as distressed as the rest of them. What if Mark had gotten infected? And there were thousands of other possibilities of things that could happen. What if some of them did?
"It's all my fault." Liz said sullenly as they made their way toward the place where Roger was imprisoned. "If I had followed him, it wouldn't have happened."
"You don't know that. You couldn't have stopped him, and who knows what he would have done to you in that state of mind if you had disobeyed him. Mark can be violent and aggressive when he needs to be." Outside of Roger's room, they noticed as they approached, stood Joanne, Maureen, and Angel.
"Roger finally woke up and realized were there. He yelled at us to get out." Maureen explained. "Where's Mark?" Liz looked pleadingly at Collins.
"He's…uh…down the hall," was Collins' hesitant reply. Maureen looked confused.
"What's he doing there? Let's go get him." Liz flinched.
"I don't think we can do that, Mo." Collins answered.
"Why not?"
"We just can't, Maureen. Let it go." Liz snapped, a little bit harsher than she meant to. Maureen pouted and shot Liz and Collins an "I want to know what happened to my Marky" look. Awkward silence engulfed the pristine hallway. Collins and Angel engaged themselves in a session of whispering and nodding, and when they had finished, Collins stood up and started walking in the direction of where they had last seen Mark, asking Liz to come with him.
Upon arriving back in the entranceway of the emergency room, Collins asked the person who looked most like she was in charge,
"There was a young man brought in a little while ago. We think he's a friend of ours. Can we go see him?"
"You mean that unidentified chap?" the nurse replied. "I'll check. He's probably still with the doctors. Got hit hard, that one. They say it was a suicide attempt." The tactless nurse waddled away in the direction they had seen Mark's stretcher go earlier, muttering something incomprehensible about suicidal bums and the state of the world. Liz and Collins waited anxiously for her return, and finally, they heard the heavy footfalls of the insensitive nurse returning.
"Yeah, he's still in there with the doctors. They're trying to get him to live, though I'm not sure why. The bum. Suicide is a sin. He's on his way to hell." Liz looked ready to attack the nurse, but Collins held her arm and muttered,
"You're a writer. Use your words." And she did.
"You inconsiderate, worthless, self-righteous bitch! Just because you get paid more money than us because you sit at a desk and get fatter all day and watch people with serious injuries go by does not give you the right to say that my boyfriend is on his way to hell or call him a bum. You have no idea what any of us go through. You sit here at this fucking desk all fucking day and you are completely oblivious to the current situation. Ignorance is not bliss, asshole. Take a look around you. The world is not as fucking perfect as you seem to think, and we are not scum tainting the face of your beloved planet. Open your eyes, bitch."
"And you'll be joining your boyfriend in the underworld," the nurse replied. Liz laughed bitterly.
"Don't wait for me; I'll see you there." With that, Liz seized Collins' arm and stomped off in the same direction they had seen the nurse go in. They had no idea where exactly Mark was, so they stood in the hall, Liz pacing and Collins playing with the buttons on his coat. Their time perception was skewed by the anxiety, so to them, it seemed hours before the doctors finally emerged from a room towards the end of the hall. Liz rushed over to them.
"Who is in that room? The guy who walked into traffic?" The doctors, perplexed, nodded. "He's my boyfriend. His name is Mark Cohen. Is he all right? Can I go see him? Is he going to live?" One of the doctors smiled patronizingly and said,
"Ma'am, please, calm down. Yes, that room is the young man- Mark, you called him? - that got hit by a car. You may go see him, but it might not be in your best interest. It's not a particularly lovely sight. As for him living, we don't know yet. We give him a 50/50 chance. We'll let you know when we get some more information." Liz nodded slightly in thanks, and went as quickly as possible into Mark's room. The doctors were right; it wasn't a pretty sight. Mark lay, still unconscious, on a blindingly white-covered bed, and another sheet covered his partially mangled body. His head and arms were covered with gauze slowly turning red as the blood stained and spread through the flimsy white fabric. But he was alive. His breaths were short and ragged, but he was breathing. Liz sat down in a chair next to him and let her tears dilute the blood staining the gauze.
"I'll follow you this time, Mark."