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Notes: Hi! This is Chapter 8 of "Airplanes & Hospitals." Sorry it's taken me a while to update, but I hope you enjoy reading this chapter. I very much appreciate all the reviews from last chapter and the chapters before that—you rock (you know who you are)! There may be an epilogue...
Disclaimer: I do not own ER.
Previously on "Airplanes & Hospitals": The ER staff is at Ray's show when Jamail collapses; everyone finds out that he has a brain tumor. They take him to the hospital where he falls into a coma. Ray's anxiety attacks return, preventing him from providing Neela the comfort he knows she needs. Chuny finds Jamail's letters and gives them to Ray, who reads the one addressed to him. (For the content of the letter, please see Chapter 7.)
As his eyes traveled down the letter in his hand, Ray looked up to find that a smile was slowly spreading across his face. The warm and mischievous nature of Jay's character had spilled onto the very sheet of paper Ray was now holding, and he couldn't help but feel that it was contagious. It was as if in a split second all of the agony, pain, and regret in Ray's soul had been wiped away, only to reveal a beast that was breathing newfound life into his formerly withered and limp body.
Stay strong for her, okay? Jay was counting on him—on Ray—to be Neela's guiding light in a time when all she could see was death and darkness around her. He was counting on Ray to show her that for every life that is taken, another is made. He was counting on Ray to be the one to say, "It's going to be okay" when Jay couldn't do it himself, and Ray would be damned if he was going to let his own fears, his own anxieties, get in the way of him doing just that. For Jay…for Josh…for Neela…he would be there.
As Ray stepped out of the lounge and began walking toward the ICU, he somehow felt certain that his anxiety attack of just ten minutes ago was to be his last.
O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O
Neela was hunched over in her chair next to Jamail's bed, her eyes glued to his face and her hand clutching his, her thumb stroking the smooth skin resting under her own. She had been sitting like this for hours, her own mind unaware of time or space; she would sit here until he opened his eyes. Not even the click of the door or the sound of Ray's familiar footsteps caused her to stir.
Ray slowly walked toward Jamail and gingerly sat on a corner of the hospital bed just inches away from Neela's chair. He could see she had been crying, her eyes reflecting the restless state of her mind and the pain deep within her soul.
"How's he doing?"
She couldn't bring herself to look into Ray's bright green eyes; she knew that he was probably in as much pain as she was in, but she just didn't have the strength to see it staring her dead in the face. Keeping her gaze fixed on Jamail, Neela suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to talk.
"I was 13 when he was born and all I could think was, 'What could we possibly ever have in common?' And then, there in that hospital room, I held him in my arms and it was as if he was telling me, 'It doesn't matter if we have anything in common or not—you're my sister. Period.'"
Neela's eyes narrowed as an unwelcome memory flooded her thoughts. "I was babysitting him one night when my parents were out. He was 3 years old, and we were just sitting on the couch watching some Disney movie and eating my secret stash of Skittles I kept in the sock drawer. Right when he popped in a red one he started laughing, and in no time it was stuck in his airway..." Neela paused to wipe away the tear that had found its way onto her cheek.
"He was turning blue before my head was straight enough to give him abdominal thrusts...the Skittle flew out on the fourth try but...I was so frightened, Ray, it was as if the world was spinning and it was my fault."
"See but I knew what to do and now...I feel so helpless. The fear is there but the ability to do something about it isn't, and it's killing me. And all I can do is keep thinking, 'I should have done something, maybe if I had gone home...or if I had brought Jamail here with me, or..."
Ray couldn't take seeing Neela torture herself like this. He had done it to himself too many times to let her make his mistake all over again. When he spoke, it was with the wisdom of a person who had seen a brother die young because of a disease that neither he nor Josh nor anyone else could have prevented.
"Josh and I were playing football one day in the backyard. He had been feeling better lately and we hadn't really hung out that week, so we figured it would be okay. Everything was fine until about thirty minutes into it—I threw a long one and Josh ran to catch it. He stopped right at the base of where the football was about to fall, and the tip of the football dug right into the pit of his stomach, knocking the air out of lungs. He couldn't breathe for almost a minute. It was one of the most frightening experiences of my life." It was Ray's turn to pause as more and more images flashed through his mind.
"He was fine after a few minutes, but my dad...he had never yelled at me so badly as he did that day. And he started saying things like, 'If you were more careful, maybe he would've been better by now,' and all this crap that made me feel like it really was my fault. That feeling didn't go away until a few days ago." Ray's voice held a hint of warmth as he whispered the last sentence.
"Josh was still kneeling on the ground when my dad finally walked off into the house. He just looked at me with the widest grin I've ever seen and said, 'Nice throw.'" A weak smile not unlike that of his brother spread across Ray's face at the image of Josh grinning from ear to ear. He turned to Neela and with an invisible strength said, "It's not your fault, Neela. There's nothing you could've done."
For the first time since Ray had come into the room, Neela looked up into his warm and compassionate eyes and seemed to fall deeper into the web of love he had engulfed her in. She knew he was right—it wasn't her fault. But that didn't make the pain go away.
Still looking into his eyes she whispered, "He's my little brother, Ray." Silent tears poured down her face.
Ray whispered back, "I know." Ray slowly moved his hand and placed it gently on top of Neela's, his thumb caressing her skin just as Neela's other hand was stroking Jamail's. It was precisely at this moment that the monitor began beeping loudly. Jamail's heart had stopped beating.
O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O
"Jamail!" Neela burst out at the sound of the monitor and the flat line on the screen. Ray was on top of the bed and doing CPR within seconds, his eyes shifting back and forth between the monitor and Neela. His heart was racing, but he knew this wasn't an anxiety attack—it was the beating of a heart filled with pain and concern, but more importantly, it was the beating of a heart that knew its purpose in the weeks to come.
The ICU nurse had rushed in to take over doing CPR just as Neela's state worsened. Ray managed to catch her just as she collapsed onto the floor in sobs, her hands covering her face—just as Jay said they would. All he could do was sit on the floor with her, his arms encasing her small body as if in a cocoon and his cheek resting on top of her head. A tiny tear escaped his eye and somehow found its way onto Neela's cheek.
Thirty minutes later, no progress had been made. The ICU nurses were taking turns performing CPR, but when it seemed that nothing more could be done, the doctor looked at Neela and quietly said, "We're going to stop now." As the chest compressions stopped the monitor was promptly disconnected, silencing the loud beeping that had drowned out the sound of Neela's sobs. Ray moved to cradle her head in his arms as she collapsed into him. Jay's words rang through his ears: The only thing you can do is hold her. He would do just that.
O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O
It was 5 am and Ray was sitting in the chair previously occupied by Neela just a few hours earlier. He had taken Neela to the doctor's lounge, where he stayed with her until she fell asleep on the couch in her own state of weariness. She had wanted to stay in the room until they took Jamail away, but the thought of Neela sobbing any more than she already had worried Ray; she would make herself sick. He had taken advantage of her exhaustion to convince her to go to the doctor's lounge, himself surprised that she actually listened.
After placing a blanket over her curled up body Ray had come to Jay's room, where he was still lying on the bed but without the many wires and monitors looming over him. Ray was sitting with Jay's stuff in his lap, the letter in his back pocket. He had come to say goodbye.
"...I'm glad that the last song you heard was something by The Clash—no sad violin music, right?" Ray let out a weak chuckle at the memory of Jay's face when his band began the first few notes of 'Stay Free.'
"You're something, man, you know that? I've never met someone so young and so well-rounded at the same time. Neela's really proud of you." He paused just long enough to catch the breath he had somehow lost.
"You remember when you asked me if I believe in heaven? And you said that if you do, then there's this hope that someday you'll see your loved ones again..."
He cleared his throat before beginning again. "My brother died when he was 14 and I never thought that I'd be the same person again. I never thought that maybe someday, I would be able to hug him again and tell him that I loved him, but you made me realize that no one ever really dies. Not if we don't let them. In trying to forget Josh, I had let him die within me; now, he's alive again. Just as you'll always be alive—in Neela, in your parents, in your friends, and in me."
Ray turned his thoughts to Neela as he said, "Neela will be fine, I promise. I'll take care of her—you'll kick my ass if I don't, right?" He laughed at their conversation of a few nights ago. "I'll keep your 'don't-mess-with-my-sister-I'm-a-black-belt' speech in mind." His face turned serious again. "I know we're gonna be okay."
As he rose from his chair and took one last look at Jay's youthful face, he said, "Look for Josh when you get up there. I think you guys would be friends." He smiled at the thought of Josh and Jay arguing about which Clash album was the all-time best one.
Ray walked slowly to the door and turned around before opening it. Remembering Jay's letter and the last words he wrote before signing his name, Ray said softly, "I'll be seeing you."