Sorry I didn't reply to the reviews last chapter, thank you to those who sent them.
14. Pulling Through
They swept in to A&E, a mere twenty minutes latter, (Blossom had carried the snivelling and confused MJ, Butch once again dragging Eddy.) They thundered up to the desk.
"Excuse me," Blossom asked, trying to hide the desperation in her voice, "have you seen a young boy with ginger hair and a stab wound brought in by a blue hedgehog?"
"We're his parents," added Eddy.
"And it's an emergency!" squeaked Bubbles.
"Ah yes," said the receptionist, "I'm afraid he went straight into surgery. You should take a seat."
The shell shocked group did. Blossom held MJ tightly on her lap, as she sniffled quietly. The rest of them twitched nervously. Eddy squeezed Blossom's free hand, but from the look on his face, he needed the support as much as she did.
Presently Sonic appeared in the corridor, some of the webbing that had earlier been restraining him was still hanging off. They all looked at him for some response, but the look on his face told it all. He withdrew eye contact very quickly.
"I'll… speak to you lot latter," he said solemnly, and then walked out. Blossom sighed, MJ quaked.
"You lot can go too," Blossom whispered. "We've taken enough of your honeymoon," she said to Bubbles and Boomer.
"Hey," said Boomer before Bubbles could, "we'll be here for you for as long as it takes. Okay?"
Blossom could only manage a nod, but Bubbles looked at Boomer presently surprised.
"I knew I'd married you for good reasons," she whispered to him. They shared a brief hug, while Butch gave his brother a knowing wink.
Shortly afterwards the sullenness returned. There was nothing to do but wait.
As Katharine thundered across the sky, Brick swept the last of the blood off his scythe. He felt that Him had got the point. But he still had plenty of problems.
He glanced at the bottle of black liquid. He assumed drinking it would return his powers, but something held him back. Nothing huge, just a feeling. So he stashed it away, and turned to his other problem. The hourglass. He had to see something soon, or he was going to have to do his job. And this one would be worse than his brother's unborn daughter.
"Girls!" They all jumped and turned round.
"Hi Professor," Buttercup spoke for the rest. He walked quickly round to them (he wasn't really capable of running any more.)
"I came as soon as I could," he said, "they should keep a room reserved for us here! How bad is it?"
"It's okayish," Blossom said, but she was gesturing with her eyes to MJ. The Professor guessed that she didn't wanther to know that it was critical.
"Anyway, I've got this for MJ," he said, bringing out a syringe, "it should tone down her spider tendencies until we work out a cure."
"We better do that now," Blossom was pleased to have something else to think about. "Give us you're arm MJ. This won't have any side affects will it?"
"It won'," the Professor said. He put it in. Everyone watched, all of them were equally grateful for a distraction. MJ winced in pain, and then relaxed. Everything seemed normal.
Suddenly, she went wide eyed. Then she started screaming at something no else could see:
"NO! NOT YOU! YOU ONLYAPPEAR WHEN PEOPLE DIE!"
Edward sat up. The room he was in was mainly dark with some bright lights in the centre, and full of surgeons. They were operating on… him? Edward looked down at his body on the table in front of him.
"Ooo, this doesn't look good," he murmured. "Another one of these dreams again." He looked around a bit more. The heart monitor machine in the corner showed thathis beats per minute were slowly dropping, but their was no panic in the surgeons' voices. They looked tense, but they kept trying to do their normal job, in an atmosphere of calm.
"Nothing like on the tele," he commented, before glancing round some more. Suddenly, he noticed someone standing right next to his, who wasn't a member of medical staff. He wore a dark cloak, and had a huge scythe, but was other wise a normal person. He was also looking at Edward.
"Hi kid," he said kindly, "you want to be a racing driver, do you?"
"Yeah," said Edward, he looked at his body. "Not much chance of that now."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm a mutant, so they won't let me, and I'm dead. That's why you're here, isn't it." He surprised himself with his calmness.
"Well don't worry about it," the cloaked strange said, "you wouldn't have made it anyway if you gave up that easily."
"What?"
"It's like all things in life. If you want to reach the top, you have to work dammed hard and not let things like serious injuries and not being allowed to get in your way. That doesn't mean you should walk over people to get there, but don't let anything walk over you. Even death."
"Pah," Edward muttered, "what would you know about motor racing… or life for that matter?"
The cloaked figure sighed, and opened the cloak a bit. Edward glanced at the overalls underneath, and then clicked.
"Your Roland Ratze…" he began in awe.
"Please just call me Roland," Roland smiled. "And I think you can be a racing driver. You've got determination."
"Is that important?" Edward asked.Roland nodded.
"Determination can substitute for talent, up to a point. Now lets get you back in your body, okay?" He picked Edward up and placed him on the table. Edward began to side into his body like you slide into a sleeping bag, but he stopped halfway through.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"I'm just taking interest in a friend's family," Roland said. "And the rest is up to him now," he muttered as Edward's spirit returned to where it belonged.
It wasn't far now, Brick thought. He only had to get to the end of the corridor, into the operating theatre, and do the job. But it had been hard enough walking past Blossom and co to do it. Now it was harder, because MJ was shouting at him.
"PLEASE DON'T TAKE MY BROTHER" she begged. Brick turned round and stared in her pink tearful eyes. They reminded him of her mother's.
"Listen MJ, I have no choice!" he said, "its nobodies fault, these things happen." He hadn't even managed to convince himself, and MJ, who'd broken free of her mother's grip, was scrabbling along the floor after him.
"Nooo," she whimpered, "Please don't take him!" tears were streaming down her face. Eddy had ran forward and he picked up MJ, while The Professor tried to work out how his shot could have got this reaction.
"It's okay MJ, you're just seeing things," her father said soothingly, but MJ tried to struggle free again.
"PLEASE," she sobbed, still staring at Brick, as Eddy tried to drag her back. Brick sighed, and withdrew the hourglass. He showed it to MJ.
"Look MJ, it's not my choice. When all the sand in the glass reaches the bottom, the persons whose name is on it dies. And I'm afraid; the name on it is Edward Pa…"
He stopped dead. The name on it was indeed Edward Panner. But it was written upside down. Brick paused. He flipped the hourglass, and Edwards's life had years to run…
"Thank you, THANK YOU!" called MJ, as Eddy finally returned with her to her seat. She was still following something invisible that was leaving round the corner. He sat down on her fathers lap, bubbling like the happy MJ of old. They all stared at her.
"What's got into you?" asked Buttercup. MJ turned to the aunt that not so long ago she'd been trying to eat.
"It's okay now. Edward's going to be fine," she had complete confidence.
"Err, I'm not so sure," Blossom said quietly to MJ, but it didn't shake her.
"He's fine. Brick fixed it."
The silence was absolutely deafening. It was eventually broken by the sound of doctors leaving the theatre at the end of the corridor, all looking overjoyed. Blossom stood up.
"Back in a minute," she said distractedly, and she hurried off in the direction MJ had been looking as she'd thanked Brick.
"Blossom wait…" Eddy began, but Butch stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"Let her go," he said quietly, "she needs this."
Okay, thanks for reading. Please Review, ask questions etc, and this time I'll try to reply. The next chapter is the last chapter, but I have another story to start almost immediately. Thanks.