Dr. Andrew Brown does not want to be a doctor. Not today, not now, when he cut through flesh and bone and gray matter for nine hours and Colin flatlined twice, but the second time he bled out, they couldn't stop it, couldn't bring him back.

He'd gotten into the medical field like so many other naive, optimistic chumps who wanted to help others; as a resident, he was bright and confident and wanting to believe that he could change the world. For years he'd been able to look death square in the eye, unflinching, to study it objectively without being afraid. To cheat it. To never let it get the best of him. And that had helped him to become the great Dr. Brown they'd featured on all those news stories and the articles in Time magazine, when he operated on that New York senator with a malignant tumor in the frontal lobe, when he'd separated those Siamese twins attached at the head, sharing one brain. He knew all the risks, and he took them anyway.

Even when he stood over a patient during the most complicated of surgeries, uncertainty clouding his mind like a poison, his hands never shook. He was proudest of this, his ability to keep whatever doubt he had inside, to smother it into nonexistance. He believed in the steadiness of his fingers almost as much as--and sometimes more than--his ability as a surgeon.

But then Julia died. And when Andy looked into the eyes of his patients, right before they dropped off into a drug-induced sleep and he made the first incision, he saw death and it had hit a little too close to home, so that he was not the surgeon he was before, he was reluctant and hesitating. For years he'd beaten death, but every person who'd gone under his knife and never woken up again had left him disillusioned with the idea that he was some kind of god, and losing Julia had shoved everything into perspective for him. It was a rude awakening, to say the least. Death would not be cheated, or robbed. He'd saved so many lives, but his wife was gone.

And now, so is Colin.

Andy used to believe in the power of God. He'd heard it so many times at Julia's funeral--that God must have needed her in heaven, that God was taking good care of her, and so many more empty sayings that he'd clung to because he needed that faith to keep him warm at night. But he can't help thinking, now, that Death really is having the last laugh. Cheating him, for a change; cheating Everwood.

Maybe God just doesn't do miracles anymore.

Dr. Brown does not want to be a doctor right at this moment, when he's standing in front of Colin's family, in front of the Abbotts, and they can see the defeat in his eyes but they're still hopeful, they're going to make him say it anyway. He searches out Ephram, standing alone, near the back. Ephram knows instantly.

"Oh, God," he says softly.

And then they look at him with disbelief, with despair, because they don't want it to be true. He shakes his head.

"Colin's gone."

He's never depended more on his gift and ability as a surgeon in his entire life, and it has never failed him so miserably before.

It's almost like losing Julia all over again.

~~~

Hey, guys. Well, this is my first Everwood fic, and I'm not too sure if it makes any sense. I don't even really know where it came from, but hopefully you enjoyed it. And if you didn't, I really, really understand. Because I'm not too happy with that ending, either. Thanks for reading, though! :) Please review, too, if you've got some time. Bye,

-Lauren