All of Jude hurt as the car turned into the hospital's parking lot. He had never imagined that he could hurt more, feel more anxious, than the first day that Mariana and Jesus had driven him here, but he had also never imagined that he could be less in the know. He had no idea why Adam had called and neither did Lena, though they both knew that it wasn't going to be good. She had said that he sounded panicked and that he had just said to come. Jude felt haunted and he refused to think about the fact that it might already be by Connor.
Connor wasn't supposed to die like this. He wasn't supposed to die before Jude had a chance to save him. He wasn't supposed to die when he had promised Jude that he would be there in the morning. He wasn't supposed to die while Jude wasn't there to hold his hand.
The car hadn't completely stopped when Jude threw the door open and took off for the entrance. He heard Lena cry after him to wait, but how could she even to think to ask him that? He skidded through the familiar lobby and didn't even think about the elevator button. He wasn't convinced that he was faster than the elevator on the stairs but he knew that he would actually go insane if he was forced to stand inside of the elevator and watch the floors tick by. He raced up the stairwell, his heart pounding and his breath coming in quick gasps. He knew he wasn't supposed to be running down the hospital but he recognized the faces of the nurses when he reached Connor's floor and he was confident that they knew and that they were going to let him get away with it. He was right; no one admonished him as he turned into Connor's room.
"Adam?"
Jude didn't look to Adam, holding Connor's hand and bending over Connor's bedside, and he definitely didn't dare to look at Connor, lying in the bed, instead, he stared straight ahead at the heart monitor. The little spikes where there, rhythmically going up and down with Connor's still-beating heart. Jude fell to his knees in the doorway. Connor was alive.
Whatever else happened, Connor was still alive.
Adam's strong arm went around Jude's shoulders and he picked Jude up off the floor.
"What happened? Lena said you didn't say anything and I was so scared that he wouldn't be here. What happened? What happened?"
He burst into tears when Adam sat him down in the visitor's chair, peeking out through between his fingers to make sure that Connor's chest was rising and falling with breaths.
"His heart stopped, Jude. It did and they pushed me out of the room and I knew you'd want to be here."
"Is he okay? Is he going to be okay?"
"Breathe, Jude."
He took a stuttering breath.
"His heart stopped. They were able to get it beating again but it wasn't beating normally. They had to shock him to get it beating normally again. Some idiot used the old paddles instead of the newer ones so there are burns on his chest. I know you two like to sit close so be careful with him."
"Why did his heart stop?" Jude whispered.
"Jude, there you are! Adam, what's going on?"
"It's because he's that sick, Jude. This isn't to the point where this is, you know, it but it's not a good sign." Adam rubbed Jude's shoulder. "Sit with him while I go talk to Lena. He's groggy but he's awake. A little."
Jude's hands shook as he crawled onto the bottom of Connor's bed. Connor's eyes half-opened and quickly shut again. He lifted his hand a little and Jude shifted up the bed further to hold onto his hand, glancing over at Connor's chest, wondering just how badly he was hurt now.
"Don't cry," Connor whispered, his fingers squeezing Jude. "I'm still here."
"You did promise," Jude said, using his free hand to wipe at his cheeks. "Don't scare me like that!"
"I didn't mean to, I promise."
"Are you feeling okay?"
"You can probably guess."
Connor closed his eyes again and Jude nervously looked up at the heart monitor but it didn't seem alarmed. The little spikes were still going along just as Jude thought they should. Connor's chest was still rising and falling with his breath. His fingers curled around Jude's, with about as much strength as they normally had.
"How's your chest?"
"I'm only sore if I move."
"Your dad said that they used the wrong kind of thing? He said it could have been avoided."
"Yeah. Dad can … can tell you." Connor opened his eyes again, his gaze locking on Jude. Jude's heart double-thumped in his chest, and he wasn't sure if it was love or nerves this time. Was a near-death experience enough for Connor to confess? Jude glanced toward the door, where Adam and Lena were definitely within earshot. "Jude?"
"What?"
"Do something for me?"
"Anything," Jude promised, as he always would. "What?"
"Don't go anywhere. Stay. I want you here."
"Do you still promise you're going to be here in the morning? You don't want me to stay because you think you're going to … because something's going to happen?"
Connor shook his head. "No. I just want you here."
"I'll be here."
Unable to squish up next to Connor like he normally did, Jude curled up at his feet like a cat, resting his head on Connor's leg, his hand over his head to hold onto Connor. Adam and Lena stepped back into the room, taking seats on either side of the bed. Lena rubbed Connor's shoulder.
"You feeling okay?"
"I will."
"I hope so," Lena said, leaning back in her chair.
Adam and Lena lapsed into a conversation that was more normal – about her job and about Brandon being home. They didn't say anything that Jude didn't already know and he just laid there on top of Connor's blanket, taking delight in every time he felt Connor move under his head. He just needed the assurance that Connor was there. That, after everything, Connor was still here. All he needed was more time. He needed time to talk to the transplant centre and to figure it out. He needed Connor to be here. He needed Connor to never die.
"Ms. Adams," Connor murmured, breaking the silence that they had been sitting in for so long, "can I ask you something?"
Jude's head lifted, looking up so that he could see Connor's face.
"Of course, what is it?"
"I want to keep Jude," Connor whispered. "Tonight, please? Please? That's all I want."
Jude hid his head against Connor's leg, feeling Connor's fingers tangle in his hair. All Connor wanted was him. He knew it; he felt it. All he wanted was Connor too but actually hearing the words made his skin alight with goosebumps.
"Connor –" Adam started but Connor never let him finish.
"Dad, please? I want … Please."
His voice was waning and pathetic and Jude wanted to cry just listening to him. He closed his eyes and clung to Connor's legs, unable to look at Lena or Adam, as they were undoubtedly sharing looks over the two of them, trying to decide what to do with them.
"I'll stay," Jude said. "I don't mind."
"Well, Adam should be the one staying with Connor tonight, that's all," Lena said carefully.
"I can sleep in the chair, I don't mind, I've slept worse places before. I –"
"Oh, Jude," Lena sighed.
"Please," Jude said, and Connor echoed the sentiment.
"Lena and I are going to go down to the cafeteria," Adam said. "Jude, would you like something?"
"No, thank you."
"Jude, you haven't eaten," Lena said. "And you have to eat something. Soup or sandwich?"
"Sandwich," Jude muttered, thinking that at least he would be able to eat it faster. He had absolutely no desire to eat or think or anything, really. He was perfectly happy to just stay, lying on Connor, knowing that Connor was breathing and safe, even though his insides still felt like they were shaking as hard as when Lena received the phone call.
"We'll be back," Adam said.
Jude listened to their footsteps leave the room and then he hid himself more into Connor's leg.
"Jude, look at me," Connor murmured. "Come, talk to me."
Jude forced himself to sit up, crawling so that he was sitting next to Connor's hip. He gathered Connor's hands up in his own. Connor looked and met his eyes for a second and then he closed them tightly.
"What do you want to talk about? Because I'm not so sure that I'm in the mood to talk about anything!"
"It's okay. I'm not dead. I'm right here, just like I told you that I would be."
Jude reached forward to the front of Connor's hospital gown. He felt too forward but he still pulled down the front of Connor's gown, revealing the clear burn bandages that covered the patches of skin where he had been shocked to get his heart back in rhythm. Jude stared at the raw skin for a long time before letting the gown bounce back up. Connor just let him do what he wanted, just watching him with half-dead eyes. Jude took a deep breath and sighed.
"It doesn't look like you were about to be here in the morning."
"I had a moment, before I died."
"Connor –" Tears welled up in Jude's eyes and he took his eyes off of Connor, balling his hands into fists. Connor's hands covered his own and he felt like he was really going to break down now. But he didn't want to do it. He didn't want to do it in front of Connor and especially not when he knew that Adam and Lena were on their way back but he felt the tears coming anyway. "You're not supposed to die."
"I did and I lived. Do you think that means something or do you think that I cheated?"
Jude stared down at the floor, his fingers digging deeper and deeper into his palms.
"Jude? When I died, I … I had a moment."
"What kind of moment?" Jude's mouth moved woodenly and he wasn't sure that he was the one who spoke at all. He wasn't even sure if he wanted to know what Connor was going to say.
"I had a moment where I thought about you and Dad and Mom and Jelly and … I thought that I didn't remember it all perfectly. So, I didn't go."
"So, that's the reason?"
"No. But it's also true."
Connor reached out and grabbed Jude's hand and Jude couldn't help but fall back into his friend, right up against Connor's side.
"You almost died! You seem so relaxed! You can't be relaxed! You almost died!"
"Don't yell at me! The nurses will kick you out."
Jude shut his eyes. He didn't have anything that he really could say to that. Connor had almost died. Of course, Jude shouldn't be yelling at him. Of course, the nurses should kick him out if he was being a jerk. But, Jude just didn't feel that Connor cared that he had almost died. Jude cared. Jude wanted to cry at the mere thought of it because losing Connor, especially so close to losing Callie, was going to be the end of him. As nice as Stef and Lena were, they just didn't feel like family. They weren't cemented in the way that Callie had always been and in the way that Connor had become. He couldn't lose his best friend. He couldn't lose the first person he had ever loved. He couldn't lose Connor before he knew whether or not he could save him.
"Jude, I –"
"Jude, come here, for a moment, please. Come eat with me."
Well, Jude knew that he was in no place to deny Lena. He squeezed Connor's hand and then pushed himself upright, following Lena into the waiting room that he wasn't familiar with. She put a sandwich in his hand and Jude forced himself to unwrap it, taking a bite, and thinking that it tasted of nothing but sand paper. Lena didn't say anything, just watched, as he finished the first bite. When he was done chewing, he finally looked back at her.
"Is this the part where you tell me I'll see Connor tomorrow and then you take me home?"
"No. Adam and I agreed. He just wants Connor to be happy now and you being here is what's going to make him happy now. I'll go home and pack a bag for you. Stef will pick you up in the morning and take you to the transplant centre so try and get as much sleep as you can tonight.
"Thank you."
Lena rubbed his shoulders. "How are you feeling?"
"I knew, kind of, that it would be bad but watching it happen makes me keep realizing that I don't really know anything at all. This can't happen, Lena. He doesn't deserve that. No one deserves that but I really can't watch it happen to him."
"Oh, Jude."
Lena hugged him but Jude just couldn't take the sympathy. His whole life had been about being tough, being stronger than the things that happened to him. He'd gotten good at it. He'd always been a little bitter about life with Nic, but who wouldn't be bitter about a life that like? He'd kept his head down, done what he'd supposed to do, and everything about his life had crumbled. He had let Connor in and left himself vulnerable and all there was no was pain. And he couldn't handle the fact that he couldn't handle it. He pushed Lena's arms away and set his jaw. Nothing was going to happen to Connor. Jude was going to the transplant centre and he'd get good news and Connor would get a kidney and he would win the fight over his cancer and everything was going to be fine. It wasn't fine now but it would be fine.
He finished off his sandwich quickly before scampering back to Connor's room, not really letting Lena get another word in edgewise. Connor was staring forward, watching a movie play on the TV.
"What are we watching?"
"A stupid, dramatic, made for TV movie."
"Why are we watching it if you think it's stupid?" Jude asked, lowering himself onto the end of the bed.
"Because I've never seen it before."
"Where's your dad?"
"Just taking a walk outside. Nurse Mac said he was looking cagey. Which is true. Dad gets restless just sitting."
"Yeah, I've noticed that," Jude said. "I understand that."
"You never seem that restless."
Jude shrugged and reclined on the bed, making sure that he didn't squish Connor. Like it had earlier, Connor's hand drifted down to gently play with Jude's hair. Jude watched the movie, trying to pay more attention to it than the way that Connor's simple, repetitive touch was raising goosebumps on his arms and making his head spin. He only got threw a few minutes of the crappy on-screen dialogue before Connor's closeness was making his emotions come back in too much force for Jude to handle it. Lying there, letting the silence and the stillness rule the two of them, was too much for Jude. He sat up, dislodging Connor's hand.
"You're right. This movie is stupid."
"Jude?"
"What?"
"Will you read to me?"
Jude would do anything for him and reading was a simple request. He grabbed his copy of To Kill A Mockingbird and settled in next to Connor, but not before asking at least twice if they way they were sitting was bothering Connor's burns. Connor had to assure him at least three times that he was fine before Jude would even open the book to where they left off.
"Start the page before this one, Jude?"
Jude turned back because it was a book and it was that easy.
If you have a song that reminds you of The Island Of Misfit Toys and would like it to be on the playlist, send it in and let me know! I'd love to hear your playlist suggestions. This week's songs are: Believe In Dreams by Flyleaf; and When I Go by Over The Rhine.
So, on tumblr I'm: we are all of legend now (with dashes between every word). If you want to find my replies to anon reviews, add backslash tagged backslash anon dash replies. If you want to see anything I post about The Island Of Misfit Toys, go to my tumblr URL and add backslash tagged backslash the dash island dash of dash misfit dash toys. Punctuation is spelled out due to Fanfiction's restrictions. If you're having any trouble accessing the tumblr content please send me a pm and I can format it for you in a different way.
~TLL~