It was an odd collection of people outside the operating theatre at Tokyo
Hospital. A novelist, a singer, a tourist and a schoolgirl all sat together
on a bench in silence. The air between them was thick you could carve it
with a knife.
Artemis' surf-watch beeped, signalling the fourth hour they'd been sitting there but nobody took any notice. To all of them it felt like they'd been sitting there for four weeks.
The doors to the operating theatre burst open and Lily was rushed past them on a bed before any of them got a chance to see her.
"Move your arse!" Joan yelled at no one in particular, breaking the cone of silence that had imprisoned the company for four hours.
Artemis and Shuichi didn't need telling twice. They got to their feet but Yuki grabbed Shuichi's arm to stop him. The two teens gave chase to the disappearing bed and patient, knocking passing people over like bowling pins.
"No running in the hospital!" a nurse cried after them angrily.
"Screw you!" Artemis had never been good with taking orders.
"Yuki let me go!" Shuichi whined at his lover.
"They won't let you in to see her now," Yuki muttered and let go of Shuichi's arm. "She's alive now, that's all we need to know."
The vocalist gazed longingly down the hall and after a second of thought he decided that Yuki was right. With a sigh he sat back on the bench and sniffed.
"Don't even think about crying," Yuki warned. He'd gone four hours without a cigarette so it wasn't the right time to rub him the wrong way.
"I'd cry if I were you, ya know. It's a bloody sad case, poor kid."
The two men looked up and saw a tall woman in green surgical clothes pulling a pair of rubber gloves off of her hands. Shuichi got a sick feeling in his stomach as he realised that the red liquid on her gloves was Lily's blood.
The woman yawned and flung the used gloves in the bin before rubbing her thin face.
"Can we speak to Lily's doctor please nurse?" Shuichi asked timidly.
"I am the doctor you frigging idiot!" Dr Sullivan snarled viciously. "I'm the one who's been draining the blood out her lungs for four bloody hours if the blood on my clothes didn't give it away already!"
With a yelp Shuichi grabbed onto Yuki's arm and shook with fear. Yuki however seemed unfazed.
"Sorry, sorry," she said running her hand through her short red hair. "I just really hate it when people assume that there's no such thing as female doctors, and I've been on for five, so please excuse me if I'm a bit short."
"Five hours?" Yuki scoffed with an air of supremacy. "That's nothing."
"No," Dr Sullivan said slowly like she was talking to an impatient child. "Not five hours, five days. One of the other doctors in this department is off on holidays, so instead of hiring a fill in the board of directors decided that someone here could just take over his shifts as well as their own."
"You must be very dedicated Doctor," Shuichi tried to boost his popularity while still holding onto Yuki.
"I drew the short straw," she grunted.
A nurse scurried up the hall towards them with a clipboard and an energy drink in her hands.
"Dr Sullivan," she said passing the can over, "Mr Penrose is back again. He had his knee operated on by Dr Ayanami a month ago but says it's still giving him trouble."
"Thanks Katori kun..I mean san!" Dr Sullivan said shaking her head in frustration and tucked the clipboard under her arm. She drank more then half the can of caffeine filled liquid before letting out a long sigh.
"Ahh, beautiful sweet nectar of the Gods," she sighed and then remembered the two men in her company.
"Come on you two," she said. "I need a word with both of you while you're here. I'll fix Mr Penrose's little red wagon on the way to my office."
"Fine, I'll see you at home," Yuki said in Shuichi's general direction.
Dr Sullivan whirled around and glared at the exiting novelist.
"You stay!" she commanded. "You brought her in, you know the most. Now come with me and bring your toy."
"Toy?" Shuichi said with an indignant expression.
"I can't imagine that he's the bitch," the doctor said rolling her eyes and the three made their way through the disinfected labyrinth of white with Shuichi sulking along behind.
They came to a hall of curtains and after a quick look down at the clipboard Dr Sullivan pulled one of them aside with great haste.
"Mr Penrose?" she asked the old man sitting on the bed with a walking stick in hand.
"Oh yes doctor! How are you? Sorry to trouble you but my knee is.."
"Yea yea," the young woman said impatiently. "Stand up and turn around."
With a considerable amount of grunting the old man obeyed and lent on his walking stick. Dr Sullivan handed her clipboard to Yuki and pulled her foot all the way back.
Mr Penrose gasped and there was a click. The old conger straightened up and turned around with more grace then a ballerina.
"Thankyou, doctor! Thankyou!" he cried and beamed at the three of them before carrying his stick down the hall.
Yuki and Shuichi didn't know what to say. Is this what doctors learnt during their long years of medical school? Obviously you didn't need high scores to practice medicine, just a gold medal in kickboxing.
"Ta," Dr Sullivan said and took her clipboard back.
"Doctor you just,"
"All in a days work," she said to Shuichi's stunned face. "Now lets head over to my office quickly, I have to do open heart surgery in half an hour."
**********************************************
A white shining light shone in Artemis' eyes and he could hear a sweet voice in his ear. He felt himself lifting and he wondered what the afterlife was going to offer him.
"Snap out of it you dipstick!" the sweet voice now resembled an nail being run down an iron sheet and the dazzling whiteness from the ceiling lights disappeared as he was pulled to his feet. The feeling of bliss that had filled him moments before now felt more like the time he'd accidentally mistook soy sauce for cola.
"If this is what waking up next to you is like you're never going to get banged," he grunted as Joan's angry and worn face glared at him.
"You can talk," Joan grumbled as Artemis rubbed the bump on the head Joan had ever so graciously given him. "I don't exactly see you having to beat a crowd of girls away from you with a stick."
"What just happened?" he asked when he couldn't come up with a good comeback.
"The nurses locked the door after you very colourfully demanded that they let you see Lily," Joan said angrily. "So when you couldn't pick the lock with my hairpin you hurled yourself at the door, thus causing some kind of minor concussion."
"Oh, now I remember," Artemis said dully as the temporally lost memory came back to him. "Do you want to try climbing in through the window?"
"What's the point?" the tall girl asked picking her backpack up off of the floor. "There's no way we're going to get in there and even if we did climb up twenty odd stories, Lily wont wake up. She's got drugs coming out her eyeballs remember?"
Artemis' green eyes filled with surprise and awe.
"You know, you really are quite smart, despite what Lily says."
"What does Lily say?" Joan demanded to know, shocked that Lily didn't see her as the goddess she thought she was.
"Never mind, it's getting late," Artemis decided that he was too tired to stir Joan. "I'm going back to my hotel."
"Why don't you get your stuff and come and stay with me?" Joan offered. "That way you can save your spending money."
"Cool, thanks," Artemis beamed at the idea of sponging off somebody else. Like all business men, he never let an opportunity pass him by and when he got back home he could tell his brother that he'd shacked up with a girl.
Of course a few minor details might be overlooked and a few more might be created in the retelling.
The two tired teens walked through the halls of death and disease, following the exit signs that would lead them to where Joan's limousine was waiting.
A few minutes later a nurse walked with a purpose to Lily's room. She unlocked the door and opened it slowly, as not to wake the sleeping girl.
"Stay as long as you want," she whispered sympathetically to the man behind her. "No one is really allowed to visit yet but I understand how much little girls mean to their Dads."
**********************************************
"Do you guys want something to drink?" Dr Sullivan asked as she pulled her fifth energy drink out of the fridge. Yuki didn't say anything as he absorbed the decor of the room. Dr Sullivan's "office" as she called it was nothing more than a broom closet- literally. The place stank of old cleaning products and Yuki was positive that somewhere a sponge was rotting.
In the far corner she had mini fridge cram packed with energy drinks and chocolate and her desk was really just a TV dinner table with some papers on it. Above their head a single light globe swung too and fro on its cord, casting shadows in all directions.
On one side of the "desk" Yuki sat on collapsible chair and Shuichi sat two feet lower, on a upside down bucket. Dr Sullivan pulled back her swivel chair on the other side and cracked open her can.
"Ok gents how long ago did you adopt Lily? You need not be shy with sharing all of the details, unlike some I'm all for same sex adoption."
Shuichi's jaw dropped to the floor and Yuki turned on the doctor like a cut snake.
"You think that we're that brat's parents?" he yelled. Why did woman constantly think that he and Lily were related? And to think that he would ever let someone like Shuichi raise a kid, the whole idea was just stupid!
"You're not?" Dr Sullivan asked dully. She was too tired to be embarrassed.
"Damn right!"
"We're just babysitting her at the moment," Shuichi explained quickly, pulling his jaw back up. "Her father is, uh, out of town."
"I see," the doctor said pushing her glasses up her nose. "So what do you know about Lily's condition?"
"Um, well she has asthma, and there's something to do with scarring," Shuichi squeezed his eyes tight with thought.
"Ha! You silly little man!" Dr Sullivan chuckled. She always did find people's ignorance amusing. "You're on the tip of the ice burg. See for yourself."
She picked Lily's file off the top of her fridge and stood up to face a box on the wall. She flicked a switch next to it and the box flickered a few times before turning off.
Dr Sullivan cursed and gave Yuki a look out of the corner of her eye. He stood up, moved his head around the light bulb and thumped the side of the X-ray box. It turned back on and stayed on.
"Cheers," she said brightly as he sat back down.
"Pardon me for asking doctor but, why is everything in your office.."
"Budget cuts," she said simply to the singer and gave him a weak smile. She pulled out a piece of plastic and stuck it on the box.
"This," she said like a TV chef, "is a healthy set of lungs."
The two men nodded to show their understanding.
"And this," she continued placing a second X-ray on the screen. "Is Lily's lungs."
**********************************************
The respirator breathing and the clock ticking were all that made noise in the hospital ward. Occasionally a nurse would patter by in slip on shoes or someone would be wheeled past on their bed, but that was all.
Lily's brown hair was darkened with sweet and the mask over her face would repeatedly cloud up as the machine helped her to breathe. Lights from the city buildings threw strips of light across the room and in a chair beside the bed Ryuichi sat in a chair, singing softly and stroking his daughter's face with his fingertips.
"I've been charmed by your eyes from far away; wake up and wait for me. Call out and break the night's barricade; the crowd comes out of the reflection."
Nine years. This was the first time in nine years that he'd been able to touch her smooth face. Nine years since he'd been alone with her. Nine years since he left her alone, to be pushed around by abrasive family members and to let her life go by in a hospital ward. He'd been hiding for nine years.
"(there's no way out) if you plan to endure the impact (until it collapses) a projected lie."
Lily whimpered and Ryuichi pulled his hand away. Her brow wrinkled with pain and her chest rose off the bed.
"Shh baby, shh," he said soothingly and placed his hand on her forehead. "Daddy's here, I wont let anything hurt you."
He coaxed her in his calm voice and Lily once more fell into dreams.
As the machines around them beeped and sighed, Ryuichi found himself think back. Back to a time that he wished he could forget.
********************************************** 13 years ago
A woman with long fair hair walked into a hospital room barefooted wearing a hospital gown holding a book in hand.
In the middle of the room a man wearing a faded T-shirt and a red headband sat, hunched over an incubator like a scientist striving to create scientific history.
"You've been sitting there for three days y'know," Christina said softly from the door.
"She's held on this long," the man said without turning around. "Just a little while longer and she'll be in the clear."
Christina's face crumbled slightly with sadness and walked over to her boyfriend. He sat up straight making the chair creak and she sat down on his lap, wrapping her arm around his neck.
"You need to get some rest Ryuichi," she said softly. "You haven't slept at all have you?"
"I can't leave her alone, not even for a minute," he let his head fall onto her chest and his voice softened. "Not even something really strong could move ah, what do you Americans say? Running beasts?"
"Wild Horses," Christina said stroking his knotty hair. "But I heard the nurses talking before, and they said that the Matron was going to get you to leave. So I don't think Wild Horses are necessary."
"She'll have to kill me first," Ryuichi grunted.
Christina gave up trying, Ryuichi was as stubborn as a mule when it came to people he loved. After they'd first met he left over three hundred messages on her answering machine a day asking her to call. He had made so many calls by the end of the first week that the Phone Company had cut his phone cord. That was about the same time he'd started writing letters (delivered through the mail slot personally because he couldn't afford stamps).
Christina looked over to the little human in the incubator and wondered how she could even be alive. She was no bigger than a football, but by some miracle she was fighting, fighting of the army that attacked the very fibres of her lungs. Without a hope and without a name, their daughter fought on.
"Do you want me to read to you for a while?" she asked kissing Ryuichi on the head. It would be good if she could divert his attention for just a little while.
"Yea, that would be nice," he said with not really caring if she did or didn't. His eyes remained transfixed on the little heart beating in the incubator.
Christina opened the paperback in her hand, on the cover was a portrait of the poet and across the top was written: "William Blake. Selected poetry."
She opened the faded paperback and pulled her bookmark out.
"I went to the Garden of Love, And I saw what I had never seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And Thou shalt not writ over the door; So I turn'd to the Garden of Love That so many sweet flowers bore,
And I saw that it was filled with graves, And tomb stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys & desires."
Christina pulled her head out of the book and mentally groaned.
'Way to go!' she thought. 'Pick a poem about tomb stones, loss of love and binded desires! Real appropriate for the situation!'
"Chris, I really love you and I know you love your literature, but," Ryuichi lifted his tired face and gave a sheepish smile. "I didn't understand a word of that. I'm too dumb."
"You're not dumb," Christina frowned and thumped him on the head lightly with her book. "Nobody understands Blake the first time round. It takes years to understand what poets are on about and you're meant to find its meaning for yourself. What I might think is right could be completely different to what you think is right, but that doesn't make either of us wrong."
"Oh right," Ryuichi said with a nod.
"You didn't understand that either did you?"
"Nuh," Ryuichi admitted.
Christina picked up the book once and turned to another page. Perhaps she should start Ryuichi off on something that wasn't so deep, perhaps Mother Goose's collection of Rhyming words or something. That is after all, where we all started.
"The modest Rose puts thorn: The humble Sheep, a threat'ning horn: While the Lily white shall in Love delight, Nor a thorn nor a sin her beauty bright."
"That's nice," Ryuichi mumbled. "I actually got that."
"And you got it on the first time around too," Christina was happy to see that he had been listening even though he way still looking at the baby on the respirator.
"Y'know," she said after a minute.
"Hmmm?"
"If she's as stubborn as you, I think she'll pull through."
Ryuichi looked up at her. It was well know to everyone from Tohma to the man who ran the milkbar down the road that he was the dreamer and the hoper and Chris was the logical and realist one. She'd never been too confident about their daughter's survival and had prepared for the worst. Yet here she was, willing to support the underdog.
"Yea, Lily is going to be ok," he agreed and rested his head on his girlfriend's chest.
In a matter of moments he was asleep.
**********************************************
"Well it's not pollen," Dr Sullivan said holding a thick texta in her hand. "The last time I was outside Noahs Ark was floating down the street."
The novelist, singer and doctor were writing up a brain storm chart on Butcher's paper with all the things that could be upsetting Lily's health.
"Stress do you think? She's had a lot of school work to catch up on lately and I think her social life's been a bit rocky too," Shuichi suggested.
"Maybe," Dr Sullivan said after a few seconds, "but that wouldn't be enough to get her this bad."
She wrote his idea down on the paper all the same though, just to make him feel important.
"Pollution?" Shuichi said. "Tokyo does have a lot of smog, and once Fujisaki told me Lily went out to get some fresh air."
"I don't think so," Dr Sullivan said tapping the texta against her lip. "That would have caused a cough here and there when she first arrived, but her lungs should have adapted to it by now."
Shuichi looked up at the X-ray and his stomach churned. No matter how many times he looked at Lily's X-ray he never got used to it.
The two organs had long white scars covering them like they'd been used as a bear's toy. It was hard to spot a piece of lung that wasn't damaged in some way.
"Now to be honest with you I'm actually really surprised this happened."
Both men turned to the doctor who was on her tenth energy drink.
"Sure these lungs aren't exactly the healthiest I've ever seen, but I've been looking over Lily's old medical records and I've got to say that she's really improved from when she had problems as an infant."
She pushed some files off of her TV tray and opened up a manilla folder.
"It says here that her doctor even took her off her pain killers about six months ago, and no doctor would suggest doing that unless they were really confident about it. So there had to have been a constant irritant to make her go back to her pain killers."
"She never said anything about anything," Shuichi said softly. "It's like she doesn't trust me at all. I'm sorry I can't help you any more."
"Don't be ashamed of yourself Shindo san," Dr Sullivan said softly. "I think it's because she trusts you that she never told you anything."
Shuichi lifted his weary head in surprise to see the foreign doctor smiling at him.
"I see it all too often in this line of work. People won't share their medical secrets or tell their worries to the people closest to them, even if it means that they're putting themselves in danger. It's hard for them to admit that they have a weakness, even to someone they're close to."
"But why?" Shuichi asked desperately, he could feel tears coming on. "I would have understood."
"Well maybe," Dr Sullivan said softly. "She didn't want to be seen as weak or different by somebody that she loved."
Shuichi's head shot up and the drops of water flew into the air. Dr Sullivan just smiled and didn't say anything more, she didn't have to know the full facts to know that she was right.
"Do not despair any more Shindo san, all she wants is for you to be there for her, that's all."
Shuichi nodded and whipped the remaining salt water away from his eyes. He was going to be there for Lily, no matter what.
There was a beep and Dr Sullivan started to gather up all the papers on her tray into one big pile.
"Sorry guys, the clock's ticking and if I don't go now my patient's heart won't be if you get my gist."
Both men stood to leave and Yuki stared to fiddle with his lighter. His cravings were driving him crazy to the point where shoving a whole box of cigarettes in his mouth and lighting it sounded good.
Dr Sullivan gasped and both men stopped.
"Hey you!" she pointed at Yuki wide eyed. "You haven't been smoking around Lily have you? Please tell me that you're not that stupid."
His silence spoke for him.
**********************************************
Hikaru: Ok, Ok, Ok. I know that I've been slack with my up loads, but it's not like I've been watching the dust collect on my monitor or anything. I've been tied down with school and my part time job to what seems like an illegal extent. The work sure comes thick and fast in Year Eleven and these past two weeks I haven't been able to even think about this fic with all the assignments I've been given and the constant Literature essays.
Well, with that said I have to publicly apologise to Shiroi Hikaru, whom was kind enough to e-mail me and I did promise to finish this chapter earlier. Gomen nasai! Please be my reviewer till it's finished!
I was in a real hurry to get this up, so if the grammar is terrible, well, too bad.
Later,
Hikaru.
P.S: Thanks to animelyrics.com for the Sleepless Beauty translation and the poems are from 'William Blake Selected Poetry' published by Penguin.
Artemis' surf-watch beeped, signalling the fourth hour they'd been sitting there but nobody took any notice. To all of them it felt like they'd been sitting there for four weeks.
The doors to the operating theatre burst open and Lily was rushed past them on a bed before any of them got a chance to see her.
"Move your arse!" Joan yelled at no one in particular, breaking the cone of silence that had imprisoned the company for four hours.
Artemis and Shuichi didn't need telling twice. They got to their feet but Yuki grabbed Shuichi's arm to stop him. The two teens gave chase to the disappearing bed and patient, knocking passing people over like bowling pins.
"No running in the hospital!" a nurse cried after them angrily.
"Screw you!" Artemis had never been good with taking orders.
"Yuki let me go!" Shuichi whined at his lover.
"They won't let you in to see her now," Yuki muttered and let go of Shuichi's arm. "She's alive now, that's all we need to know."
The vocalist gazed longingly down the hall and after a second of thought he decided that Yuki was right. With a sigh he sat back on the bench and sniffed.
"Don't even think about crying," Yuki warned. He'd gone four hours without a cigarette so it wasn't the right time to rub him the wrong way.
"I'd cry if I were you, ya know. It's a bloody sad case, poor kid."
The two men looked up and saw a tall woman in green surgical clothes pulling a pair of rubber gloves off of her hands. Shuichi got a sick feeling in his stomach as he realised that the red liquid on her gloves was Lily's blood.
The woman yawned and flung the used gloves in the bin before rubbing her thin face.
"Can we speak to Lily's doctor please nurse?" Shuichi asked timidly.
"I am the doctor you frigging idiot!" Dr Sullivan snarled viciously. "I'm the one who's been draining the blood out her lungs for four bloody hours if the blood on my clothes didn't give it away already!"
With a yelp Shuichi grabbed onto Yuki's arm and shook with fear. Yuki however seemed unfazed.
"Sorry, sorry," she said running her hand through her short red hair. "I just really hate it when people assume that there's no such thing as female doctors, and I've been on for five, so please excuse me if I'm a bit short."
"Five hours?" Yuki scoffed with an air of supremacy. "That's nothing."
"No," Dr Sullivan said slowly like she was talking to an impatient child. "Not five hours, five days. One of the other doctors in this department is off on holidays, so instead of hiring a fill in the board of directors decided that someone here could just take over his shifts as well as their own."
"You must be very dedicated Doctor," Shuichi tried to boost his popularity while still holding onto Yuki.
"I drew the short straw," she grunted.
A nurse scurried up the hall towards them with a clipboard and an energy drink in her hands.
"Dr Sullivan," she said passing the can over, "Mr Penrose is back again. He had his knee operated on by Dr Ayanami a month ago but says it's still giving him trouble."
"Thanks Katori kun..I mean san!" Dr Sullivan said shaking her head in frustration and tucked the clipboard under her arm. She drank more then half the can of caffeine filled liquid before letting out a long sigh.
"Ahh, beautiful sweet nectar of the Gods," she sighed and then remembered the two men in her company.
"Come on you two," she said. "I need a word with both of you while you're here. I'll fix Mr Penrose's little red wagon on the way to my office."
"Fine, I'll see you at home," Yuki said in Shuichi's general direction.
Dr Sullivan whirled around and glared at the exiting novelist.
"You stay!" she commanded. "You brought her in, you know the most. Now come with me and bring your toy."
"Toy?" Shuichi said with an indignant expression.
"I can't imagine that he's the bitch," the doctor said rolling her eyes and the three made their way through the disinfected labyrinth of white with Shuichi sulking along behind.
They came to a hall of curtains and after a quick look down at the clipboard Dr Sullivan pulled one of them aside with great haste.
"Mr Penrose?" she asked the old man sitting on the bed with a walking stick in hand.
"Oh yes doctor! How are you? Sorry to trouble you but my knee is.."
"Yea yea," the young woman said impatiently. "Stand up and turn around."
With a considerable amount of grunting the old man obeyed and lent on his walking stick. Dr Sullivan handed her clipboard to Yuki and pulled her foot all the way back.
Mr Penrose gasped and there was a click. The old conger straightened up and turned around with more grace then a ballerina.
"Thankyou, doctor! Thankyou!" he cried and beamed at the three of them before carrying his stick down the hall.
Yuki and Shuichi didn't know what to say. Is this what doctors learnt during their long years of medical school? Obviously you didn't need high scores to practice medicine, just a gold medal in kickboxing.
"Ta," Dr Sullivan said and took her clipboard back.
"Doctor you just,"
"All in a days work," she said to Shuichi's stunned face. "Now lets head over to my office quickly, I have to do open heart surgery in half an hour."
**********************************************
A white shining light shone in Artemis' eyes and he could hear a sweet voice in his ear. He felt himself lifting and he wondered what the afterlife was going to offer him.
"Snap out of it you dipstick!" the sweet voice now resembled an nail being run down an iron sheet and the dazzling whiteness from the ceiling lights disappeared as he was pulled to his feet. The feeling of bliss that had filled him moments before now felt more like the time he'd accidentally mistook soy sauce for cola.
"If this is what waking up next to you is like you're never going to get banged," he grunted as Joan's angry and worn face glared at him.
"You can talk," Joan grumbled as Artemis rubbed the bump on the head Joan had ever so graciously given him. "I don't exactly see you having to beat a crowd of girls away from you with a stick."
"What just happened?" he asked when he couldn't come up with a good comeback.
"The nurses locked the door after you very colourfully demanded that they let you see Lily," Joan said angrily. "So when you couldn't pick the lock with my hairpin you hurled yourself at the door, thus causing some kind of minor concussion."
"Oh, now I remember," Artemis said dully as the temporally lost memory came back to him. "Do you want to try climbing in through the window?"
"What's the point?" the tall girl asked picking her backpack up off of the floor. "There's no way we're going to get in there and even if we did climb up twenty odd stories, Lily wont wake up. She's got drugs coming out her eyeballs remember?"
Artemis' green eyes filled with surprise and awe.
"You know, you really are quite smart, despite what Lily says."
"What does Lily say?" Joan demanded to know, shocked that Lily didn't see her as the goddess she thought she was.
"Never mind, it's getting late," Artemis decided that he was too tired to stir Joan. "I'm going back to my hotel."
"Why don't you get your stuff and come and stay with me?" Joan offered. "That way you can save your spending money."
"Cool, thanks," Artemis beamed at the idea of sponging off somebody else. Like all business men, he never let an opportunity pass him by and when he got back home he could tell his brother that he'd shacked up with a girl.
Of course a few minor details might be overlooked and a few more might be created in the retelling.
The two tired teens walked through the halls of death and disease, following the exit signs that would lead them to where Joan's limousine was waiting.
A few minutes later a nurse walked with a purpose to Lily's room. She unlocked the door and opened it slowly, as not to wake the sleeping girl.
"Stay as long as you want," she whispered sympathetically to the man behind her. "No one is really allowed to visit yet but I understand how much little girls mean to their Dads."
**********************************************
"Do you guys want something to drink?" Dr Sullivan asked as she pulled her fifth energy drink out of the fridge. Yuki didn't say anything as he absorbed the decor of the room. Dr Sullivan's "office" as she called it was nothing more than a broom closet- literally. The place stank of old cleaning products and Yuki was positive that somewhere a sponge was rotting.
In the far corner she had mini fridge cram packed with energy drinks and chocolate and her desk was really just a TV dinner table with some papers on it. Above their head a single light globe swung too and fro on its cord, casting shadows in all directions.
On one side of the "desk" Yuki sat on collapsible chair and Shuichi sat two feet lower, on a upside down bucket. Dr Sullivan pulled back her swivel chair on the other side and cracked open her can.
"Ok gents how long ago did you adopt Lily? You need not be shy with sharing all of the details, unlike some I'm all for same sex adoption."
Shuichi's jaw dropped to the floor and Yuki turned on the doctor like a cut snake.
"You think that we're that brat's parents?" he yelled. Why did woman constantly think that he and Lily were related? And to think that he would ever let someone like Shuichi raise a kid, the whole idea was just stupid!
"You're not?" Dr Sullivan asked dully. She was too tired to be embarrassed.
"Damn right!"
"We're just babysitting her at the moment," Shuichi explained quickly, pulling his jaw back up. "Her father is, uh, out of town."
"I see," the doctor said pushing her glasses up her nose. "So what do you know about Lily's condition?"
"Um, well she has asthma, and there's something to do with scarring," Shuichi squeezed his eyes tight with thought.
"Ha! You silly little man!" Dr Sullivan chuckled. She always did find people's ignorance amusing. "You're on the tip of the ice burg. See for yourself."
She picked Lily's file off the top of her fridge and stood up to face a box on the wall. She flicked a switch next to it and the box flickered a few times before turning off.
Dr Sullivan cursed and gave Yuki a look out of the corner of her eye. He stood up, moved his head around the light bulb and thumped the side of the X-ray box. It turned back on and stayed on.
"Cheers," she said brightly as he sat back down.
"Pardon me for asking doctor but, why is everything in your office.."
"Budget cuts," she said simply to the singer and gave him a weak smile. She pulled out a piece of plastic and stuck it on the box.
"This," she said like a TV chef, "is a healthy set of lungs."
The two men nodded to show their understanding.
"And this," she continued placing a second X-ray on the screen. "Is Lily's lungs."
**********************************************
The respirator breathing and the clock ticking were all that made noise in the hospital ward. Occasionally a nurse would patter by in slip on shoes or someone would be wheeled past on their bed, but that was all.
Lily's brown hair was darkened with sweet and the mask over her face would repeatedly cloud up as the machine helped her to breathe. Lights from the city buildings threw strips of light across the room and in a chair beside the bed Ryuichi sat in a chair, singing softly and stroking his daughter's face with his fingertips.
"I've been charmed by your eyes from far away; wake up and wait for me. Call out and break the night's barricade; the crowd comes out of the reflection."
Nine years. This was the first time in nine years that he'd been able to touch her smooth face. Nine years since he'd been alone with her. Nine years since he left her alone, to be pushed around by abrasive family members and to let her life go by in a hospital ward. He'd been hiding for nine years.
"(there's no way out) if you plan to endure the impact (until it collapses) a projected lie."
Lily whimpered and Ryuichi pulled his hand away. Her brow wrinkled with pain and her chest rose off the bed.
"Shh baby, shh," he said soothingly and placed his hand on her forehead. "Daddy's here, I wont let anything hurt you."
He coaxed her in his calm voice and Lily once more fell into dreams.
As the machines around them beeped and sighed, Ryuichi found himself think back. Back to a time that he wished he could forget.
********************************************** 13 years ago
A woman with long fair hair walked into a hospital room barefooted wearing a hospital gown holding a book in hand.
In the middle of the room a man wearing a faded T-shirt and a red headband sat, hunched over an incubator like a scientist striving to create scientific history.
"You've been sitting there for three days y'know," Christina said softly from the door.
"She's held on this long," the man said without turning around. "Just a little while longer and she'll be in the clear."
Christina's face crumbled slightly with sadness and walked over to her boyfriend. He sat up straight making the chair creak and she sat down on his lap, wrapping her arm around his neck.
"You need to get some rest Ryuichi," she said softly. "You haven't slept at all have you?"
"I can't leave her alone, not even for a minute," he let his head fall onto her chest and his voice softened. "Not even something really strong could move ah, what do you Americans say? Running beasts?"
"Wild Horses," Christina said stroking his knotty hair. "But I heard the nurses talking before, and they said that the Matron was going to get you to leave. So I don't think Wild Horses are necessary."
"She'll have to kill me first," Ryuichi grunted.
Christina gave up trying, Ryuichi was as stubborn as a mule when it came to people he loved. After they'd first met he left over three hundred messages on her answering machine a day asking her to call. He had made so many calls by the end of the first week that the Phone Company had cut his phone cord. That was about the same time he'd started writing letters (delivered through the mail slot personally because he couldn't afford stamps).
Christina looked over to the little human in the incubator and wondered how she could even be alive. She was no bigger than a football, but by some miracle she was fighting, fighting of the army that attacked the very fibres of her lungs. Without a hope and without a name, their daughter fought on.
"Do you want me to read to you for a while?" she asked kissing Ryuichi on the head. It would be good if she could divert his attention for just a little while.
"Yea, that would be nice," he said with not really caring if she did or didn't. His eyes remained transfixed on the little heart beating in the incubator.
Christina opened the paperback in her hand, on the cover was a portrait of the poet and across the top was written: "William Blake. Selected poetry."
She opened the faded paperback and pulled her bookmark out.
"I went to the Garden of Love, And I saw what I had never seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And Thou shalt not writ over the door; So I turn'd to the Garden of Love That so many sweet flowers bore,
And I saw that it was filled with graves, And tomb stones where flowers should be: And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briars my joys & desires."
Christina pulled her head out of the book and mentally groaned.
'Way to go!' she thought. 'Pick a poem about tomb stones, loss of love and binded desires! Real appropriate for the situation!'
"Chris, I really love you and I know you love your literature, but," Ryuichi lifted his tired face and gave a sheepish smile. "I didn't understand a word of that. I'm too dumb."
"You're not dumb," Christina frowned and thumped him on the head lightly with her book. "Nobody understands Blake the first time round. It takes years to understand what poets are on about and you're meant to find its meaning for yourself. What I might think is right could be completely different to what you think is right, but that doesn't make either of us wrong."
"Oh right," Ryuichi said with a nod.
"You didn't understand that either did you?"
"Nuh," Ryuichi admitted.
Christina picked up the book once and turned to another page. Perhaps she should start Ryuichi off on something that wasn't so deep, perhaps Mother Goose's collection of Rhyming words or something. That is after all, where we all started.
"The modest Rose puts thorn: The humble Sheep, a threat'ning horn: While the Lily white shall in Love delight, Nor a thorn nor a sin her beauty bright."
"That's nice," Ryuichi mumbled. "I actually got that."
"And you got it on the first time around too," Christina was happy to see that he had been listening even though he way still looking at the baby on the respirator.
"Y'know," she said after a minute.
"Hmmm?"
"If she's as stubborn as you, I think she'll pull through."
Ryuichi looked up at her. It was well know to everyone from Tohma to the man who ran the milkbar down the road that he was the dreamer and the hoper and Chris was the logical and realist one. She'd never been too confident about their daughter's survival and had prepared for the worst. Yet here she was, willing to support the underdog.
"Yea, Lily is going to be ok," he agreed and rested his head on his girlfriend's chest.
In a matter of moments he was asleep.
**********************************************
"Well it's not pollen," Dr Sullivan said holding a thick texta in her hand. "The last time I was outside Noahs Ark was floating down the street."
The novelist, singer and doctor were writing up a brain storm chart on Butcher's paper with all the things that could be upsetting Lily's health.
"Stress do you think? She's had a lot of school work to catch up on lately and I think her social life's been a bit rocky too," Shuichi suggested.
"Maybe," Dr Sullivan said after a few seconds, "but that wouldn't be enough to get her this bad."
She wrote his idea down on the paper all the same though, just to make him feel important.
"Pollution?" Shuichi said. "Tokyo does have a lot of smog, and once Fujisaki told me Lily went out to get some fresh air."
"I don't think so," Dr Sullivan said tapping the texta against her lip. "That would have caused a cough here and there when she first arrived, but her lungs should have adapted to it by now."
Shuichi looked up at the X-ray and his stomach churned. No matter how many times he looked at Lily's X-ray he never got used to it.
The two organs had long white scars covering them like they'd been used as a bear's toy. It was hard to spot a piece of lung that wasn't damaged in some way.
"Now to be honest with you I'm actually really surprised this happened."
Both men turned to the doctor who was on her tenth energy drink.
"Sure these lungs aren't exactly the healthiest I've ever seen, but I've been looking over Lily's old medical records and I've got to say that she's really improved from when she had problems as an infant."
She pushed some files off of her TV tray and opened up a manilla folder.
"It says here that her doctor even took her off her pain killers about six months ago, and no doctor would suggest doing that unless they were really confident about it. So there had to have been a constant irritant to make her go back to her pain killers."
"She never said anything about anything," Shuichi said softly. "It's like she doesn't trust me at all. I'm sorry I can't help you any more."
"Don't be ashamed of yourself Shindo san," Dr Sullivan said softly. "I think it's because she trusts you that she never told you anything."
Shuichi lifted his weary head in surprise to see the foreign doctor smiling at him.
"I see it all too often in this line of work. People won't share their medical secrets or tell their worries to the people closest to them, even if it means that they're putting themselves in danger. It's hard for them to admit that they have a weakness, even to someone they're close to."
"But why?" Shuichi asked desperately, he could feel tears coming on. "I would have understood."
"Well maybe," Dr Sullivan said softly. "She didn't want to be seen as weak or different by somebody that she loved."
Shuichi's head shot up and the drops of water flew into the air. Dr Sullivan just smiled and didn't say anything more, she didn't have to know the full facts to know that she was right.
"Do not despair any more Shindo san, all she wants is for you to be there for her, that's all."
Shuichi nodded and whipped the remaining salt water away from his eyes. He was going to be there for Lily, no matter what.
There was a beep and Dr Sullivan started to gather up all the papers on her tray into one big pile.
"Sorry guys, the clock's ticking and if I don't go now my patient's heart won't be if you get my gist."
Both men stood to leave and Yuki stared to fiddle with his lighter. His cravings were driving him crazy to the point where shoving a whole box of cigarettes in his mouth and lighting it sounded good.
Dr Sullivan gasped and both men stopped.
"Hey you!" she pointed at Yuki wide eyed. "You haven't been smoking around Lily have you? Please tell me that you're not that stupid."
His silence spoke for him.
**********************************************
Hikaru: Ok, Ok, Ok. I know that I've been slack with my up loads, but it's not like I've been watching the dust collect on my monitor or anything. I've been tied down with school and my part time job to what seems like an illegal extent. The work sure comes thick and fast in Year Eleven and these past two weeks I haven't been able to even think about this fic with all the assignments I've been given and the constant Literature essays.
Well, with that said I have to publicly apologise to Shiroi Hikaru, whom was kind enough to e-mail me and I did promise to finish this chapter earlier. Gomen nasai! Please be my reviewer till it's finished!
I was in a real hurry to get this up, so if the grammar is terrible, well, too bad.
Later,
Hikaru.
P.S: Thanks to animelyrics.com for the Sleepless Beauty translation and the poems are from 'William Blake Selected Poetry' published by Penguin.