Author's note: No, the title for this chapter isn't another blatant Buffy rip off, I just kind of liked how it sounded in the ext so I put it up there. The original title for this chapter was supposed to be "Release". This is kind of a filler chapter for the story, just pretty much two scenes that played out a little long.
Frenchy: Yeah I guess so, but hey, if a marine swung at me, I probably would just run away and throw stuff at him from a distance. And I should talk too, I wore it in a party once, and some really blurry things happened. Hey, I can do good endings, well, I can if I wanted too, but I don't want to. I'm confused.
Tek: What can I say? It's better than "Le Club" from Celine Dion's video. How old is James Marsters? I'm downloading season 7 off of KazaA right now. Evil.
Ksim: Well, scary can be nice. I think.
Schulyer: Uh, ecstasy is…something that turns off the nerve branches in your brain to disrupt the electrical impulses that prohibit any ethical/mental restrictions over amoral, physically inclined actions, leading to various bodily instabilities like excessive sweating, cramps, chewing, and dehydration. It could also rearrange the brain's branch work such that there are parts that could be left undeveloped (such as memory) and create entirely new ones. (Though I doubt you could generate ice or manipulate fire with them) Prolonged use could lead to fatal heart illnesses and malfunctions. Now be a good girl and don't try any. (Wow, that's from the top of my head!)
Linda: Thanks.
Chapter 8: "Weight of the World"
It was a few hours after Chris' outbreak that he found himself along with his wife and Rebecca, discussing the problem once again. "Normally…ecstasy wouldn't have this kind of effect from one dosage." The doctor explained, in a way trying to calm Chris down before he march right up to Mark's house and kill him there. "What if he's lying?" he asked. "This isn't normal, what if she got an O.D.?" he followed, innately panicking at his child's current state. "If it was, I doubt that she'd be in a hospital." Rebecca replied. "…" She felt the guilt of all her words as she spoke in that dark, cold room. One of the biggest problems that doctors faced wasn't just the difficulty of saving lives, it was losing them, it was telling somebody that the person they loved wasn't there anymore.
"…This…thing, this virus, from what I can discern, the vaccine that we gave you, Jill, it didn't eradicate the parasite, it… made it… recessive."
"It what!?" Jill cried in disbelief. "Are you telling me that…that thing became…"
"That thing is still in you. It had…a back up that we… weren't able to see. It turned into a gene."
"Oh my God." Jill whispered. "But…that's impossible, how…?" Chris stammered, talking for his wife in the process. "That thing…it survives by turning another person into itself…and since Jill didn't…since she got the vaccine, it was pushed so far back that it decided to cling to her…DNA instead. It's…it's impossible, I know, but from your blood samples…this thing had some sort of back-up system that it adhered to if it somebody tries to purge it." She had to explain it. She didn't want to, but she needed to. She had to tell them about the physiological anomalies, the biochemical complexities of it all. The pain it would cause them. It was her job to do so.
"You must have made a… mistake." Chris said grimly.
"Like I haven't heard that before…Chris, I checked it over, and over, and over again, do you think I enjoy… bringing people bad news?"
"Why not? Gets you money…" he responded.
"Excuse me?" Rebecca asked in a shocked voice, causing Jill to give her husband a sharp glance.
"…Nothing…" He stammered, rubbing the back of his head.
"How dare you… think that I'd do all this to get some money off of you!?"
"…" It was the first time that either of them managed to make Rebecca act like this.
"I am spending time, away from the people I love, just to try and make everything, anything, at least sane, and you tell me… that all I want is your money!?"
"…" Neither of them could find a proper reaction, only that they wished this wasn't happening.
"How could you…?" Rebecca accused weakly, her voice was trembling now.
"…Becky…" Jill tried to calm her down, stepping forward a bit as she did.
"This isn't just a job!" she yelled, somewhat out of the blue, her voice cutting through the sudden silence. "Well if you did your job right then my daughter wouldn't be dying in the first place!" Chris snapped back, unable to control his very own emotions. There were other factors, time, causality, of course none of them mattered. All that mattered was human emotion. "Oh God." Chris thought to himself as he saw his friend's further pained expression. Emotion was destroying all of them. "Rebecca, I'm sorry." He apologized, but his words fell on deaf ears. The doctor was far away now. Her stare, her mind, her breath.
"…Becky, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" He had to make things right. He knew that pushing more and more people away would only make things harder for all of them.
"Please leave me alone." The doctor said softly, commandingly still, she couldn't look at the faces of the two people she fought alongside with for so many times. All she looked at were their shirts and hands. "…Becky…" Jill tried to get closer to their friend, but Rebecca stepped back just as she stepped forward. "I think you should be with your daughter now." She said, still not wanting to look them in the eye. "…We're sorry." Jill said, tugging at her husband's arm.
"…" Rebecca pulled out a chair and sat, it was in front of the very same microscope that she discovered the virus in. "These things don't lie." She told herself as she heard the door shut to a close. Rebecca rested her face on her hands, something she found herself doing a lot of times now.
Lisa stood outside; she avoided having to look at Jill and Chris as they exited the laboratory. It was already midnight, with all of them tired, some more so than others. With all the joys of marriage, the prospect of living life with somebody you truly love, there are bound to be fears that creep along. Lisa has already seen her fear firsthand. She wouldn't be able to take it, if her future child or husband would ever be struck down by disease. She's seen so many times, the tears, the awkward silences, for her, it was almost a nightmare.
"…Excuse me…Mrs. Oliviera?" Lisa cautiously entered. "I'm sorry…is this a bad time?" she asked, feeling the weight of the world inside the room. She's never seen the young doctor like that before, beaten emotionally. "You…uh, have an emergency c-section in prenatal…" she said, although she didn't want to have to disturb Rebecca for that, she could call somebody else, but Rebecca was the one who was most sought after.
"…" No response. Rebecca didn't move a muscle, as she just silently sat, her face down on her hands.
"Mrs. Oliviera?" she asked again, feeling as though she was communicating with somebody who lost to the deep end of misery.
"…" Silence.
"Miss Becky?" Still no reply. That was the name she asked to be called by he coworkers, and it was a name she always responded cheerfully too. It's just that when things go frantic in an ER, people tend to go for protocol and address their superiors like they would in the military.
Lisa bit her lower lip as she began to hear soft sobbing come from the doctor. At that very moment, a hundred questions ran through Lisa's mind, but she knew that she wouldn't get any answers. She was just a nurse. "…Do… you want me to lock the door?" Lisa asked, feeling for the doctor whom she knew has had a very rough time, especially since she could hear the shouting from outside. Rebecca simply nodded, but didn't bother to turn around, as she once again heard the soft click, and rusty closing of the door. Left alone, unwanted.
"You had no right to do that." Jill scolded her husband as they reached home, after three hours of staying with Heart in absolute silence. They needed to rest. He and Jill were still in the driveway, right in front of their porch. Chris switched the engine of the car off, and looked at her wife, clearly overridden with problems. "…I didn't mean to." He said, tired of all the commotion that he already witnessed that extremely long day. All he waned now was a hot shower, and possibly an hour's rest before he goes back to the hospital to check on Heart.
"Well it still came out of your mouth. Rebecca's trying her best to help us and…"
"…She promised us that it was over."
"…She couldn't have seen it and you can't blame her for that…" Jill protested, feeling sorry for her friend, even though she felt the truth in her husband's words.
"Why are you defending her? If she just did her job then we wouldn't have to go through all of this!"
"And if you did yours then…!"
"…What?"
"…Let's get inside. It's starting to rain…" she said, and it did. The loud crackling already began to envelope the night, while sporadic drops of rain started to fall.
"Jill…"
"It's nothing, okay?" she immediately responded, trying not to get into any more fights that night.
"How can this be nothing? What do you mean…? I'm not a good parent?" It was his voice, child-like, that made his words seem to pierce through Jill's being. Unfortunately, she couldn't help herself.
"…I always told you, be careful of her, warn her about things, don't let her go out late at nights…and what do you do? Nothing. Nothing! You let her…" She lets it out, but stops her words from coming out before they could do more damage.
"…So you think it's my fault?" he asked her, in practically the same expression that Rebecca had earlier on. Words hurt.
"I didn't say that…" she objected, even though she knew that it was what exactly came from out of her mouth. "Jill…!" He knew what she meant. "This isn't my fault."
"Go ahead, tell yourself that." Jill bitterly commented, giving up all hopes of ending the night in a civilized way. "Don't you think that she'd do all that because of all the restrictions you put on her?" Chris asked accusingly. "…" Jill looked at him, shocked at his sudden state of thinking. "So it's my fault that I want to protect my daughter? I'm sorry, but I must have forgotten that I had a degree in psychology, and you didn't, because you seem to be acting like…"
"Like what? God knows I'm not as smart as you! God knows I didn't ace all my exams, but hell, I never thought that being a dean's lister had anything to do with being a good parent."
"Well it does have just a little something to do with logic, don't you think!?"
"I tried to give her a life that you and I wanted her to have! You told me, after all the horrors that we saw, you told me that you'd want our baby to live in a world where she wouldn't have to be scared! This is the world we were talking about!"
"A world with drugs? A world with…murderers and rapists? A world…a world so full of shit, that when morning comes, you can't tell up from down?"
"It's the world we fought for."
"I never realized how much it wasn't worth it. What kind of a world supports people who kill for a living? Make drugs that…ruin lives…!?"
"…So what, you plan on putting her in a box because you're too afraid that the world isn't a nice, happy place for her to live in?"
"It isn't. It's a sick, sad world where people hurt other people because they have nothing better to do! It's a sick world where people hurt people because they like to…"
"That doesn't give you the right to deprive her of her childhood!"
"I am not depriving her of her childhood! I am giving her one! I am protecting her from-"
"You can't! Jill…we can't, okay? If we do, then, all she'll grow up with, is the knowledge that the world isn't a place she'd want to live in. That's horrible."
"…" Jill's face faltered. She was in the verge of tears.
"Jill…a legacy, it's…it's a gift. Leaving a legacy means that… we make sure…we make sure that the world we leave behind, is a world better than the one we are living in right now." His voice trembled as he uttered those words. Words his father told him, words his grandfather told his father. "Is this the legacy you want to leave Heart behind? Because that would just mean that we failed as parents…we failed as people."
"…" Jill began to cry, as she let out all her exhaustion, anger, pain. For Chris it was painful as well, seeing your only daughter unmoving in a hospital bed, and having to watch your wife cry. It was hell. Once again, Chris held her in his embrace, and for the first time in a long time, he began to cry. The world was in pain, and half of the world living in it didn't care.
They spent another half and hour inside their pitch black BMW, finding the strength within each other in absolute silence. They needed it. Rivulets of rain slid down the car windows, casting shadows over their faces, mimicking tears that have already run out. She needed to rest. She had to. Chris would be back in the hospital by thirty minutes. Both of them needed the time alone. "I'm really apologizing when I get back…" Chris thought, feeling sorry for Rebecca, and humiliated with himself for his actions earlier on. Everything poured into his mind, the way he lashed out at Rebecca, how he attacked Mark. What would have his daughter thought?
"…Jill, I'm going back to the hospital. You stay here, rest for the night." Chris whispered, to which Jill submitted, feeling like she couldn't go on another minute.
"I'm sorry for how I acted Jill…I love you."
"I love you too."
Author's note: "Legacy – To make sure that the world we leave behind is better than the one we are living in right now." Something my theology professor told me, I like the line so much, it stuck on me like bad cheese, and I was compelled to use it. Kind of a sappy chapter "Oh I love you!" Belch. Well, as usual, this is just ten chapters, so a few more and it'll all be over. Sanity will once again reign, and maybe somebody might get shocked again. (I'll make the ending a little more obvious) And where's mark? Why didn't he make an appearance? Did something bad happen to him? Suicide maybe? Was he run over by a burning truck just after he realized how much love could do for the world? I am sick. Help me.