Jude felt overdressed. He knew it was important for him to look grown-up, put together, and not like the dirty street kid he was when he went in front of the judge this morning, but that knowledge didn't help him when he was so used to jeans and hoodies that anything else made him feel naked. He picked at the buttons on his coat and looked at the kitchen clock. Five minutes. Stef had said that they would be leaving in five more minutes. It was an eternity, or so it felt like to the butterflies in his stomach.
"Jude, are you ready?" Lena called.
"Yes!" Jude shouted back.
He left the kitchen, feeling the bagel he had force fed himself first thing this morning turn to stone. He stood at the bottom of the stairs while Lena pulled her shoes on and Stef flipped through the piles of paperwork that they had managed to accrue.
"Okay, Karen is going to meet us there and hopefully we'll have our answer sooner than later," Stef said. She looked up from the paperwork to Jude. "Dr. Yang and Dr. Meyer are both going to be there. Remember, Jude, if this happens, it's going to be happening quickly. Are you ready?"
Jude nodded. "Yeah. Happening quickly will be the good part … Except, don't forget Connor's birthday cupcake."
"We won't," Lena promised, her arm around his shoulders. "Okay, let's go."
Right. Let's go.
(-.-)
Connor opened his eyes, his gaze being drawn toward the window, as he always did when he first woke up in the morning. The sky was light, a few clouds against the clear blue sky, and he wished to go outside. He wanted to experience and not just remember the difference between morning and night air – or just any air that wasn't hospital air, always tainted with the slight smell of medicine, no matter what anyone did.
"Happy birthday, Connor!"
"Thanks, Dad."
He didn't feel like it was his birthday. Birthdays were hard to feel but today didn't feel like a day to celebrate. He felt sore and achy, like he'd been beaten with a bat while he slept, but it was better than sharp, stabbing pain. But he hurt, his mind was cloudy, and he definitely didn't think that he felt like today was a day for celebrating anything. It felt like every other day that he had spent in the hospital. Birthdays were supposed to be different. But there would really be nothing different today.
"Is Jude here?"
"No, not yet. It's still pretty early. Here, I brought you something."
Connor tried not to watch his hand shake as he reached out to take the paper that Adam was offering him. No, not paper, photos. He turned them toward himself and tried not to cry.
"This is when we brought Jelly home?" Connor guessed.
"Her first day."
Tears started rolling down Connor's cheeks as he stared at his cat, being held by his mom, and he was never going to see Jelly again. He was sometimes unsure of an afterlife, though he knew it made him feel better to believe in it, even so, he might never see his mother again either. And when he died, if there was nowhere that his mother was waiting for him, then he would cease to exist, and his father would look at pictures of him and feel like he did now, looking at pictures of his mother, and Connor wouldn't care. He couldn't imagine that it would be better to be dead and not care.
"And I brought the movie for you and Jude, later," Adam said, but Connor had to interrupt.
"Dad?"
"What?"
"I'm going to miss you."
"Oh, Connor," Adam murmured, taking a seat on the edge of his hospital bed. "I'm going to miss you too."
(-.-)
There were so many people here that Judge Hawken wanted to talk to that Jude wondered how long it was really going to take. He had promised Connor he would get to the hospital room early, even though it might have been stupid for him to promise that since, clearly, Jude had underestimated what, exactly, was going on this morning. Connor would probably forgive him, if the news was good and Jude could tell him. If not, Jude would just let Connor be mad that he had been too late. He wasn't about to tell Connor that he had failed. He would hardly be able to tell himself if he failed.
It was hard to sit there and watch people give statements about him. They talked about Connor and his medical history a little bit but, mostly, it was all about Jude. It was about his health, his mental wellbeing, where he had been, what his life was like before, what his life was like now. They had him so picked apart that Jude wondered how they had gotten to know so much. He felt exposed, like a frog in a biology lab and he had to dig his hands into his pockets to keep himself grounded. It didn't matter what they wanted to do or say, not if it meant that Connor got to live. And it wasn't like they were saying anything bad … Nothing that sounded bad to Jude's ears, anyway. Who knew how Judge Hawken was weighing things? Jude hated that he couldn't get a good grasp on what was going through anyone's mind.
Stef rubbed his shoulder and Jude looked over for her, trying to take comfort in the way that she nodded so assuredly at him.
Dr. Yang left the stand and Judge Hawken overlooked the small crowd of people gathered there.
"If it's all right with Jude's guardians, I'd like to speak with him alone in my chambers," she said.
"We're fine with it," Lena said.
So, Jude stood and edged his way over Stef, following the Judge's billowing black robes into the other room.
(-.-)
"Dad … Dad, I want to go home."
"Connor –"
"I know," Connor interrupted. "But, I'm not getting better. I'm not."
A tear glinted in the corner of Adam's eye and Connor hated to see Adam cry. He hated to be reminded that he was the pain.
"I want my cat. I want my bed. I want to be home and comfortable and in my own bed. I want more pictures of Mom and I … I don't want to die here but I'm going to die."
Adam gave a little nod before he shook his head. He sorted through the pictures until he found the one that he was apparently looking for and he turned the picture around to Connor.
"You look so much like her, you know. I wish she was here now. She'd know what to do with you, what to say. She might even have a kidney you could have and I … I'm so sorry that she's not here."
Connor gasped for a breath. "You … You're a good dad. I wouldn't want anyone else."
It made Adam smile and Connor was glad that he'd said it. After all of the fighting that they had done, all of the arguments they'd had, and all of the times that Connor had been snippy, it wasn't enough to just assume that Adam knew. Connor wasn't going to grow up. He wasn't going to get to the age where sons got to tell their fathers all that they had learnt.
"You're the best son," Adam said. "I've known you for sixteen years and every second has been worth it."
"There's … something about me you should know," Connor whispered, thinking of Jude, thinking about how people always talked about wanting to die with no secrets, and there was one thing that he had never been able to tell his father.
"Can I say something first?" Adam asked, taking Connor's hand in his own. Connor nodded. "I have known you for sixteen years and I see things that you might think that I missed. So, I just want to say that if you want to tell me this because you need to say it, then I'm all ears, but you don't feel like it's something you want to say, don't worry about it. If you being sick has taught me anything, it's just that I need to love and support you, and I do. You are my son and that's the beginning and end of everything. I love you."
Connor hadn't been expecting his father to say that at all. He reached his hand up wiping at his eyes and trying not to make it obvious, though his father was making no movement to wipe his own tears away.
"I'm so proud of you," Adam said. "For the man that you are and for how long you've been trying to fight this. I know you're in a lot of pain and I know this hasn't been easy."
"It's getting harder," Connor confessed. "I don't know … I don't know how much longer I can …"
"I know." Adam's grip on his hand became almost a little too tight. "Believe me, I know. I think about it all the time."
(-.-)
Jude felt like he hadn't done very well when he was one on one with Judge Hawken. He had tripped over his words and he didn't think that he had ever figured out how to explain himself properly and he was worried that she would turn him down because he had spent so long just trying to figure out the best way to answer things. She might think that he was inept and too stupid to really be making this decision.
He returned to his seat between Stef and Lena. He couldn't help himself; he grabbed onto both of their hands. He knew that everyone else had been talked to and that, now, all that was left was the decision and he was suddenly so scared. It had been easy to be hopeful when the day wasn't here, when the decision wasn't real, but, now, looking at Judge Hawken's face, he felt the hope disappear. Her decision was real. Her decision was final. Once she opened her mouth, it was all over.
"I have carefully listened to all of our witnesses and I have weighed their testimonies and I have come to a decision."
Jude couldn't breathe.
(-.-)
"It gets worse," Connor confessed, "but it doesn't get better and I can't … I don't know how to …"
"I was hoping for your birthday," Adam said. "I was hoping that we would get one more birthday together and we have. If you want to go home, I'll talk to Dr. Meyer tomorrow and we'll do that and, then, if it's too much, you can go. It's okay, Connor, if it hurts too much and you have to go. It's not giving up. You can go and be with your mom and I know she'll take care of you."
There was no use in pretending that he wasn't crying now. Connor let the tears roll. There was always so much between he and Adam that had always been unspoken assumptions and it was hard to air them out now. He was going to die and Adam was telling him not to feel guilty about it when he did.
"I miss Mom," Connor admitted, "but you don't think she'd be mad if I wanted to stay with you for a little longer, would she?"
"Oh, no, of course not."
Then, Adam was hugging him tightly and Connor just clung to his father, crying into his shoulder. He was in pain and he was ready to die but he wasn't ready to stop living. He wasn't ready to give up what he had and the people he loved. He wasn't ready to leave behind trees and Jelly and Jude and Adam or even school, the mundane things too, because he had no idea what was coming next. It could be great; it could be awful. It would never be what he had here and he was in love with what he had here.
"I love you, Dad."
"I love you too, Connor."
(-.-)
Jude stared down at the bright pink cupcake box in his lap, trying not to pick at it. The inside of the car was silent; no one had even turned on the radio. His insides felt mixed up and he couldn't even get his head to produce one coherent thought. He just looked at the cupcake box, everything that Connor was weighing on his mind.
"You've been quiet, Jude," Stef said, and he felt like she shouldn't have broken the silence. There had been something nice about it; there had been something nice in knowing that he wasn't about to be asked how he felt, except that was going to happen now. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not yet."
"We're going to have to talk about it soon," Stef said. "We just want to know what you're feeling, make sure that you're okay with what happened."
Okay. It wasn't enough of a word. "Disbelief."
That was as close as he could get right now. He wasn't sure how to explain himself any better. Luckily, they were in the hospital parking lot now, finding a space. Jude unbuckled his seatbelt and slid out his door.
"Hold on, Jude, we're coming with you."
Jude barely heard Lena's words. Connor was close. Connor was already so close and he couldn't slow down now. He made it through the hospital doors, not even thinking of how far Stef and Lena were behind him. He just needed to get to Connor.
He just needed to see his best friend.
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: Be Still by The Fray; and Summer by Benjamin Francis Leftwich.
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.
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