6

Notes: Hi! This is Chapter 4 of "Airplanes & Hospitals." I have to reiterate how much I enjoy reading your reactions to this story. All of the swearing, the threats…I love it! I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much. I'm writing this as I go along, but please know that there is more to come as soon as life permits. Thank you again! (Also, I've noticed that sometimes there appears a number at the very top of the page and I have no idea why—please pay no attention to it if you see it.)

Disclaimer: I'm so fed up with the writers of ER that if I owned the show I would have fired all of them by now and done all the writing myself. And where would Ray and Neela be? They would be TOGETHER and HAPPY, a seemingly foreign concept to aforementioned writers. Needless to say, I don't own ER. (Sorry for the angry outburst…)

Neela watched in horror as Jamail collapsed to the ground just a few feet from the goal. It first struck her that perhaps he was playing some sort of trick, waiting for her to come close so he could tackle her like he used to when he was younger. But he wouldn't joke like that now, would he? Neela's heart quickened with fear as she began running toward her brother, not caring if he tackled her as long as he was okay.

"Jamail?" she said uncertainly as she reached him, not knowing whether to expect an answer or not. Not receiving one, Neela's first reaction was to panic, tears surging in her eyes. She had saved countless lives as a doctor—always calm and collected—but nothing compared to seeing someone she loved helplessly lying on the ground. Just as Neela's brain seemed to kick into gear, however, Jamail's eyes fluttered open almost hesitantly.

Seeing Neela's tear-stained eyes and her body hovering over his, Jamail instantly sat up despite the enormous throbbing headache he now had. He winced as he felt the dizziness return. Bloody hell.

"Jamail, are you okay?! What happened?" Neela's features were twisted with a mixture of relief and concern as she peered at her brother with a slightly doctor-like gaze.

"Umm…I think I may be dehydrated..." Jamail voiced the first thought that came to his mind; it was the most convincing diagnosis he could come up with. He just hoped Neela wouldn't ask too many questions.

"Are you sure? You've been drinking water pretty regularly…and we haven't been playing for that long." Neela's words seemed to brush past Jamail; he was busy trying to figure out how to deceive his sister. Why does she have to be a doctor?

"My throat's kind of dry…I think if I just have a drink I'll feel better. Could you bring me my water bottle, Neela?" Jamail's next tactic was to stall for time in order to contemplate what to do next. Although Neela didn't look convinced, she wasn't about to delay getting him a drink by asking more questions; they would have to wait.

"Yeah, I'll go get it from the car. I'll be back in a second, okay?" Feeling anxious about leaving her brother alone even for the slightest period of time after what had just happened, Neela ran as fast as she could to the parking lot to get his water. Jamail absently ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath.

This wasn't supposed to happen while I was here—what am I going to tell her now? She's going to want to take me to the hospital…and after all the tests and all the scans, she'll find out…

Neela sprinted back to where Jamail was sitting on the grass, his water bottle in hand. Reassured that he now had what he had asked for, Neela began her informal examination by picking up her questions from where she had left off. "Jamail, did you feel dizzy or nauseous just before you collapsed? Any head or neck pain?"

"Look Neela, I'm fine now. That water really helped…just give me a few minutes and I'll be up again, okay?" Jamail's voice was calm, fighting not to betray the fear in his heart that he would black out again.

"You can't be sure that it was dehydration, Jamail. The only way we can know what happened is if you answer my questions—did you feel dizzy or nauseous, and do you have any pain?" Neela had had plenty of patients come into the ER and deny that anything was wrong with them, but she didn't think her brother would be one of them.

Feeling reluctant to give away too much information, Jamail told her a small portion of the truth. "Yeah, I felt dizzy just before I collapsed, but that doesn't mean anything. Doesn't everyone feel dizzy before they black out?" Neela was about to answer when Jamail cut her off.

"Listen, it's no big deal. Let's just go home, and if you want, I'll rest on the couch for the rest of the night okay?" Jamail was relying on Neela's motherly instincts to pull him out of this one; maybe if he had some soup…

"What's with this 'no big deal' crap? Is Ray rubbing off on you, too? This is ridiculous, Jamail; you just collapsed in the middle of a soccer match…if you won't answer my questions, then maybe you'll answer someone else's—I'm taking you to the hospital." Neela looked at Jamail with eyes that seemed to echo her determination to find out what was wrong.

"No, no you're not, Neela. I'm not going to the hospital." Jamail dared to return her gaze with an equally defiant one of his own. If she could be stubborn, so could he.

"Yes, you are. They're just going to run some tests and…" Jamail cut his sister off for the second time that day; he usually wasn't this impatient. Neela felt like she was talking to a brick wall.

"I don't need any tests done. LET'S JUST GO HOME." He slowly got up off the grass and took a moment to steady himself before beginning to walk toward Neela's car.

Neela felt the anger rise up into her body as she watched him walk away. "Damn it, Jamail! Why won't you let me help you?"

Jamail stopped and turned to look at his sister, his eyes reflecting a deep well of pain at the newfound realization that there was no way around the truth. Jamail had vowed before coming to Chicago that he wouldn't tell her what he was going through—she didn't need to know. He would visit his sister just like any other brother would, and they would have a good time simply spending a few days together. All he wanted was for Neela to be happy, and telling her the truth would only serve to cause her pain. But circumstances had changed all of that, and Jamail was at a point in time where he didn't know how much longer he could hide the truth.

"Neela, I'm sick."

O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O

After eight hours of patients with nothing but diarrhea and broken limbs, Ray was ready to go home. He was sitting idly in the doctor's lounge, coffee cup in hand and his mind wandering through the crevices of his life. He had not had occasion to actually absorb everything that had happened in the past few days, and as a result, his mind was now busy attempting to do just that in the amount of down time he had.

Ray had not had a panic attack since last night, a miracle since they had begun to occur every few hours since Jay came to visit. He wasn't surprised at their cessation, however. His talk with Neela had somehow repaired the ten years of self-delusion and ignorance that he had been carrying around in his soul, and he was more than grateful for it. She had understood that he needed to tell someone about this in order for his heart to stop aching endlessly at the mere mention of a sibling, be it by a patient or a friend. Neela had cared enough to be persistent, to refuse to take 'no' for an answer—she hadn't let him continue his howling that night, and the act of walking through his door was all it took to set him down the path of recovery. But perhaps most importantly, it set him down this path with Neela by his side.

Ray couldn't describe the feeling of knowing that someone would be there for him in the most troubled times of his life, the times when he had to deal with things that were beyond his capability to handle. He had never had that before. Thinking about all of his girlfriends over the past few years—well, maybe 'female acquaintances' was a better description—Ray couldn't help but sense that if any of them had witnessed his ordeal last night, they would have run out of the door without a glance over their shoulder. But Neela had stuck around. She had stuck around because she was his best friend, something that he had taken for granted up until that moment. And now they were taking that friendship to a new level, one whose foundation was so strong that he didn't feel even the slightest quiver of a doubt or apprehension about the future. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but it was wonderful.

Thinking about Josh caused Ray's thoughts to turn to his mother, a woman whom he had tried to comfort at a time when he himself couldn't be comforted. It had been so long since he had said Josh's name in her presence…in fact, it had been a while since he had actually even talked to his mother. I should call her.

Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, Ray proceeded to dial the number he had tucked in the back of his mind for so long but rarely used. He was surprised at how easily his fingers remembered the keys. Three rings later the aged voice of his mother resonated through the line.

"Hello?"

Ray felt the air catch in his throat. He suddenly didn't know what to say. "Uh hi, mom? It's Ray."

Mrs. Barnett couldn't believe her ears. "Ray? Oh my goodness, how are you?" Only a mother could know the feeling of hearing her child's voice after so long.

"I'm fine, mom—how are you?" He just needed to know she was okay; the rest would come later.

"Well I'm grading papers at the moment, so I'm a little bit frustrated, but other than that I'm doing just fine." Her quaint laugh hit Ray's heart like an arrow. He didn't realize how much he had missed hearing it.

"Good." What do I say now?

"So what's the news with you? Are you still in that band with Brett?" Mrs. Barnett could never forget her son's high school friend—the one who would occasionally get Ray into trouble—but she knew how close they were and she loved Brett because of it.

"Yeah, I am. We're actually playing a show two days from now. It's a small gig, but it should be fun." Ray was glad she had taken over asking the questions; he had never been one to have lengthy conversations with his parents.

"That's wonderful. How's work? Are you still in the ER?" The last time Ray had called her, he was in his last year of medical school and was still contemplating whether he wanted to work in the ER or not.

"I'm now an official ER doctor, mom, yeah." He couldn't help but smile at the pride in her voice boom through the line as she responded to his declaration.

"Oh Ray, I'm so happy for you. And what about a girlfriend? Do you have a girlfriend?" She was certain he did, but that wasn't her question and Ray knew it. Mrs. Barnett's conception of a girlfriend was very different from Ray's—or at least until now. When she said 'girlfriend,' she meant 'serious girlfriend.'

"Umm…yeah, I do." Ray didn't have to think too long about this one. Even though he and Neela had only recently begun to take things further, he felt certain that what they had was 'serious.' He just didn't know how to explain that to anyone else. Ray steadied himself for the onslaught of questions he knew would follow.

"No! Really? What's her name?" He laughed at the girlish excitement she exuded on the line.

"Her name's Neela. She's…we're roommates and we sort of…" Ray didn't know how to end his sentence; how was he to express the friendship that had turned into something else almost overnight?

"Ah, I understand—you were friends first and then…wow, Ray, I'm really proud of you. I don't think you've ever had a girlfriend that truly was a 'friend,' you always just tended to pay attention to the 'girl' part." There was that laugh again.

"Yeah, I think…I think this is different from all those other times, mom…she's different." Ray was suddenly struck with an overwhelming feeling that Mrs. Barnett needed to meet Neela to understand just how beautifully different she was.

As if to read his mind Mrs. Barnett quickly added, "Well, I hope to meet her someday."

"You will." Ray said with a slight air of certainty, taking his mother by surprise.

Ray's eyes turned to his watch as he realized that he had been on break for more than an hour. Crap. "Umm, mom? I have to go, I'm at work…"

"Oh okay, sweetie…it's so nice to hear your voice, Ray. Please come and visit me so I can tell you how nice it is to see your face, too! And bring Neela."

Ray laughed. "Okay, I will. I'll talk to you later, mom. Bye."

Josh had brought Ray and Neela together, and now, he had brought Ray and his mother together. Life—and death—never ceased to amaze him.