Greetings readers of fic! After a long week without internet access (stupid campus), I bring you chapter 13.
Lawyers: Our client does not own Scrubs or Dead Like Me, nor is she gaining any profit by writing this story. Don't sue her.
Chapter 13
When I woke up the next morning, I could feel the puppy still sleeping on my stomach and a couple of post-its stuck to my forehead. I could hear someone moving around in the kitchen, probably making breakfast. With a sleepy groan, I opened my eyes and pulled the post-its from the forehead. I quickly flipped through them, there were only two, before sighing in relief.
Dr. Cox was safe for another day.
By now the puppy had woken up with all my shifting around, and after giving me an annoyed look, he hopped off of me and padded into the kitchen.
"Yeesh, sorry for waking you, your Majesty," I muttered as I too got up and headed into the kitchen.
Dan was standing by the stove making pancakes and bacon again. He didn't acknowledge me as I poured some dog food into a bowl for the puppy, nor did he throw me a glance when I walked up beside him to the sink and filled up another bowl, this time with water, for the puppy standing by my feet.
Finally, after a long moment of silence, I leaned against the fridge and said, "Good morning."
Dan glanced over his shoulder at me for a second before returning his attention to making breakfast.
"Morning," was all he said.
"I won't be able to stay for breakfast," I told him. "I want to get dressed real quick and head down to the hospital to check on Dr. Cox."
"Okay," Dan said as he finished the last of the breakfast and turned off the stove. "I'll be heading out early too. I got some stuff to do."
"Like what?" I asked curiously.
"Well, the usual job-related stuff," Dan said. "I also want to sign Rex up for obedience training and I need to get a hotel room too."
"Oh good," I heard Carla say and quickly folded up the post-its and hid them in one hand as her and Turk came out of their room.
Dan dished out the food for Carla and Turk, but left the plate he had gotten out for me empty since I was leaving early. They both sat down and began digging in.
Carla paused in eating and looked at both Dan and I, "Aren't you two eating?"
"We're leaving early, no time for breakfast," Dan said as he walked around the apartment and gathered up what he needed.
Carla threw me a disapproving look, so I raised my defensively and said, "I'll grab breakfast at the hospital, okay?"
She nodded before going back to eating and I walked over to Dan just as he was attaching a lease to Rex's collar.
"Obedience school?" I asked. "Really, Dan, for a dog we're not keeping?"
"So he'll be trained for his new owners," Dan supplied lamely, unable to come up with a better excuse.
"Don't waste your time; I'm putting up a 'free to good home' sign at the hospital today," I said. "And his name isn't Rex."
"Aww, come on," Dan said, pouting. I raised an eyebrow at him, not buying his act for a second. He dropped the pout and rolled his eyes at me, "If you got your own house, you could keep him."
"Can't afford it, remember?" I said, before I turned away from him and headed to my room to get dressed for the day. Behind me I could hear the front door opening and closing as Dan left with the dog. I shook my head, sighing, then got dressed in record speed. I gave a quick wave to Carla and Turk before I was out the door and on my way to the hospital.
After writing up a quick notice about the free puppy and sticking it up on the bulletin board, I managed to get a copy of today's newspaper as well as yesterday's newspaper to take up with me to Dr. Cox's room. Jordan wasn't in the room yet when I got there, which wasn't surprising considering it was so early in the morning, and because I didn't have to worry about my shift or my reaps for a while, I was able to take the time to sit down in the chair next to his bed and cut out some obits; after checking up on him of course.
A quick look at his chart told me that there had been no improvements. If anything, he had gotten worse. His temperature had risen to a dangerous level again during the night and they had to work to bring it down. He also still hadn't regained consciousness since yesterday. It didn't look good, and despite the lack of a post-it, I was worried. I didn't know how much longer he could last like this.
I checked his temperature. It was 101 degrees Fahrenheit, which was low considering how high it had been, but it still wasn't good. I scribbled the information on his chart before plopping down in the chair by his bed and opening up yesterday's newspaper. Not having scissors, I was forced to rip out the different obituaries, and with each obit I ripped out, I would look up at my mentor; keeping an eye out for any changes, good or bad.
That occupied me until it was time to clock in to my shift for the day as well as take care of my reaps. They were both located in the same room and happened at just about the same time which was nice because it was super convenient. I had enough time to check up on two of my patients before I had to go collect the two souls; one was at eight AM, the other was at eight twenty-two.
Interestingly enough, it was an old married couple, and while they weren't exactly thrilled about being dead, they didn't find any fault in me.
"I blame you," the old woman with the white curly hair said to her balding, white-haired husband.
"How is this my fault?" he asked incredulously.
"You're always at that germy lodge with your buddies," she said. "You're disgusting! You probably brought the plague right into our house."
"What about you and all those other biddies you're with? You could have caught it from one of them and then given it to me," he said. "I blame you!"
"For your information, my friends and I keep our houses very clean!" she protested. "There's no way any of us gave it to you."
"Clean?" he said, laughing. "I'm surprised we weren't poisoned by all that anti-bacterial spray you use."
"There's no such thing as too much anti-bacterial spray," she said stubbornly.
"Three cans a day is too much!" he snapped.
"I do not use that much," she said indignantly.
"Regardless of who spread what," I said, stepping in between them, "it's time for you both to move on."
"We'll move on when we're good and ready, Mr. Grim Reaper," the old man said, poking me in the chest.
"Move on like this?" his wife asked in disbelief as she gestured at her hospital gown. "Don't tell me I'm going to be spending all of eternity with my caboose showing for all to see."
"I'm sure you get to change once you walk through the light," I reassured her.
"You mean you don't know what's beyond the light?" the old man asked, giving me a belittling look. "What kind of grim reaper are you?"
"Not a very good one," his wife supplied.
"That's for sure," he agreed.
Hey, since when is it 'pick on Death' day?
It seemed a little weird to me that I was actually offended that someone thought I was bad at being a grim reaper. I retreated a few steps back, like a dog with its tail between its legs. The elderly couple gave me a synchronized dirty look before turning back to each other.
"Can you believe this guy?" the old woman said, pointing over at me with her thumb.
"What I can't believe is that I died at the same time as you," the old man said. "Where's the break?"
It's funny how truthful people become once they're dead.
"For your information, Mr. Dramatic, I died twenty-one minutes before you," the old woman pointed out.
"Yeah, and they were the most peaceful twenty-one minutes of my life," he said with a smile.
The entrance to an old fashioned theater appeared in lights and written up where the title of a play or movie would usually be was 'The Afterlife or Something Like It.'
The old man eyed the theater before turning to his wife and saying, "The theater? This is your doing, isn't it woman?"
"Oh please," she said, rolling her eyes. "You never took me anywhere while we were alive. The least you could do is take me to at least one show now that we're dead." before he could protest, she hooked her arm around his and screeched, "Now walk me in like a gentleman!"
Grumbling under his breath, he walked her through the doors of the theater and then they were gone.
"Thank God!" I breathed.
Starting out the day with those two made the rest of the day look pretty good in comparison. Granted, two people threw up on me and one of my patients went into respiratory failure, but I had an extra backup pair of scrubs and we managed to get my patient breathing again, so it wasn't that bad. In between answering pages, setting a broken leg, and generally running around to deal with all the chaos, I was checking up on Dr. Cox more frequently than any of my other patients.
Jordan stopped by at one point to check on him and get an update, but it was only for a brief moment. She left with the excuse that she wasn't some helpless housewife who needed to stay by his bedside for hours on end and that she did still have work to do and a son to take care of. I bet she was just afraid of looking vulnerable and wanted to keep up her 'ice bitch' image. Maybe I should find some time to go talk to her about it...
'She'll kill you' I reminded myself.
Right, better not. I could send an intern to do it though. Now where's Keith...
"Johnny!" I suddenly heard Dan call out. I looked over to see him running to me from down the hall. "I'm so glad I've found you!"
"You could have had someone page me," I pointed out.
"No time!" Dan said before shoving a post-it into my hand. "I missed one of your post-its. It must have fallen off your head when you were sleeping and then stuck to my shoe when I left the apartment this morning."
I glanced down at the post-it and mumbled, "Are you sure? The glue on these things aren't that strong."
That's when I actually got a good look at the thing.
J. L. Koton
Burger King
78 Marlen St
E.T.D. 1:22PM
I blanched, "Dan, this is in twenty minutes! Why would I even be given something outside of the hospital when you're here?"
"Yes, yes, it's all very confusing and inconvenient, but if you don't leave now, you'll miss him," Dan said as he started pushing me towards the elevator.
"Wait!" I exclaimed. "I still need to clock out, put my charts away, and grab some of my stuff from my locker."
"I'll grab your stuff from your locker, you take care of the other stuff, and I'll meet you at the entrance," Dan said quickly.
"Okay."
"What's your locker number and combination?" he asked as he headed to the stairs.
"It's number forty-seven and the combination is two, fifteen, and five," I said, then asked, "Why are you taking the stairs? The elevator is right here."
"The stairs will be quicker," he explained. "I'll see you in a few minutes!"
He disappeared down the stairs and I stepped into the elevator and took it down to the second floor where the Nurses' Station was located. I put my charts away and clocked out with the excuse that I was grabbing lunch. I sent a quick page to all of my interns to look after my patients while I was out, and then I was off to the front entrance. Dan was already there with the keys to my scooter and my hairmet.
"Are you coming with me?" I asked as I grabbed my keys and hairmet.
"What, you need me to hold your hand?" he asked condescendingly.
"No," I huffed.
"Then hurry up and go, you have fifteen minutes!" he said, pushing me towards Sasha.
I looked at my watch and squawked. One-ten? More like twelve minutes. I locked the hairmet onto my head and raced the rest of the way over to Sasha. Thankfully, the Janitor didn't mess with her, and she started without any problems at all. I sped out of the parking lot at speeds that weren't safe for anyone alive.
Fortunately for me though, I'm dead.
When I finally reached the Burger King on Marlen street, it was almost one-thirty. I missed it, so now I had to find the body of this Koton person. I parked Sasha in the Burger King parking lot and set my hairmet onto her seat.
I searched the outside of the Burger King first, but Koton was nowhere to be seen, so I went into the Burger King, hoping to find the person in there. Maybe it was a worker. However, there was no dead body in sight, not even in either bathroom. That's right, not even in the Lady's room.
You'd think if one of the co-workers died in the back somewhere, there'd be some sort of commotion among the other workers, but I didn't hear anything out of the ordinary. However, I wasn't about to leave without checking all of the building, so I snuck into the Employees Only room and searched around there. Still though, there was nothing.
"Sir, you can't be back here."
I jumped about a foot in the air, surprised that someone actually saw me. As I have said before, while on the job, I'm just another face in the crowd, even if there's not much of a crowd. I have the choice of whether or not I want to interact with the people around me, and yet the girl before me could see me as clear as day.
"Sorry, I got lost. Uh, where's the bathroom?" I asked meekly.
After the Burger King worker lead me out of the back rooms, I could see from the suspicious looks the other workers threw me that I wasn't wanted there, and felt it was in my best interest to leave. After circling the building one last time without any luck, I decided I better head back to the hospital and tell Dan what happened.
In the plague division it was unheard of for a reap to not show up for their due date. It happened a few times in other divisions, like external influence, but in the plague division, it just wasn't possible for someone so critically ill to not show up for their date of death.
By the time I got back to Sacred Heart, it was two O'clock in the afternoon. I didn't see Dan right away, so I decided to stop off at the locker rooms first to put away my keys and hairmet. Stopping in front of my locker, I turned the lock...
'Two right, fifteen left, five right...'
..and when I pulled open the door, sitting there in my locker was a small cake. I paled at the sight of it, and my knees felt week. There was a short message on it written in red frosting that read:
JD
I'm on the roof.
Dan
He must have put it in there when he grabbed my stuff from my locker, but did that mean that he planned out this whole thing, or did it just work in his favor?
I'm on the roof.
What did that even mean? Was he really on the roof, or...
'Hey, Grandma's on the roof, and we can't get her down, but we'll keep you posted.'
Not knowing what else to do, I ran as fast as I could up to the roof of the hospital. I was in mission mode and ignored everything and everyone around me. When I finally reached the top, I slammed the door open and looked around wildly as I stepped out onto the roof. I didn't have to look far to see Dan standing by the ledge, staring out at the view of the town.
Having heard the door open, he glanced over his shoulder at me then said lightly, "Hey, Joey. I see you got my message."
"Dan, what's going on?" I asked as I walked over to him. "That Koton person never showed up, and when have you ever heard that happening in our division?"
"There is no J. L. Koton," Dan sighed. "I made him up to keep you busy for a little bit."
"Why would you need to do that?" I asked suspiciously. "I'm plenty busy here at the hospital, and another thing, what's with the cake?"
"You know what the cake is for," Dan muttered, running his hands through his hair.
"No, I'm not quite sure I do," I said irritably.
"I'm leaving Joey!" he snapped, glaring at me, but then his gaze softened and he smiled. "I'm moving on up; being promoted."
I was speechless. I couldn't believe that this moment had finally come. Dan had always been there, ever since 1902, and despite him being over three hundred years old, I felt like he'd never leave. With all the reaps that had been going on lately, it never even crossed my mind that he might be going soon. Suddenly Dan didn't seem so immortal. He was dieing again and I was losing my brother.
"I've reached my quota, Joey," he said quietly. "I already got my death certificate in order, so you don't have to worry about that. If anyone asks, I died in a fiery car explosion, so there's nothing left of my body. You can hold a memorial for a cremation urn if you want to keep up appearances, but I don't care either way."
It was so much to take in at once, and then something suddenly occurred to me.
"Who?" was all I managed to ask.
Dan pulled a red post-it out of his pocket, and stared down at it, hesitant to look at me.
"I got a red post-it for the occasion," he said absentmindedly.
"Who is it, Dan?" I asked forcefully.
He sighed and slowly held out the post-it to me. I snatched it out of his hand, looked down at it and-
"Oh God."
P. C. Cox
Sacred Heart Hospital
Room 312
E.T.D. 2: 40PM
My eyes shot down to my watch. It was two-sixteen... I still had time.
"I'm sorry, Joey."
I wasn't listening; my entire focus was on Dr. Cox. I was already speeding down the stairs before Dan could say another word. All the reaper logic that I had learned over the last century had flown out the window, and the only thing going through my mind was that if I could save Dr. Cox, Dan wouldn't have to leave and Dr. Cox wouldn't have to take his place as reaper. It was a win/win situation!
When I finally reached his room, it was two-nineteen. My heart was pounding. I raced to his bedside as the machines he was hooked up to started sending off alarms. He wasn't getting enough oxygen despite the respirator, his lungs were failing. His skin was already turning a light shade of blue and he was going into shock.
Suddenly all around me, doctors and nurses swarmed into the room. They were shouting out symptoms and asking me for orders.
"The respirator's not working," I said, falling into doctor-mode. "We need to suction out his lungs."
We got to work inserting an in-line suction catheter and cleared his lungs and airways as best we could of the mucus and whatever else the plague was coating it with. When that was done, we put him on humidified oxygen to help with his hypoxia, but still, it didn't help.
"His BP rate is dropping."
"Get a crash cart in here!" I shouted.
Nothing was working. His lungs were so infected, so clogged that nothing was getting through.
He flatlined and I felt a block of ice form in my stomach.
"Start chest compressions," I said to one intern. "Where's that crash cart!"
"I got it right here!" Carla shouted as she wheeled the cart into the room. She looked professionally calm and composed, but I could see the fear in her eyes.
I charged up the defibrillator and the intern doing the chest compressions stepped aside. Bringing the paddles down, I shouted, "Clear!" and a shock ran through his body. Dr. Cox arched up from the bed for a brief second before falling limp. My gaze shot over to the heart monitor to see no change. I charged the paddles again, this time at a higher setting, and brought them down onto his chest. He arched up as the shock ran through him, then fell limp against the bed once again.
I couldn't give up. I refused to give up, and I kept at it with the defibrillator, periodically raising the setting of the charge.
"C'mon," I whispered, charging the paddles again. "You have a son, you have an ex-wife. You have so many people here; you better not leave you stubborn bastard!"
I brought the paddles down again.
"Dr. Dorian..." one of the interns began hesitantly.
"No!" I shouted refusing to hear anything she had to say.
I charged the paddles once more, but before I could connect them with Dr. Cox's chest, a hand grabbed my wrist and spun me around.
It was Carla, and she stared at me with tears in her eyes, "Bambi..."
"No, Carla," I protested. "I can still bring him back."
"He's asystolic," she said mournfully, revealing to me the cold truth of the situation. "He's been asystolic for the past fifteen minutes."
No, no... I hadn't realized how much time had passed. Even if I did somehow, by some miracle, bring him back, the brain damage would be too extensive. He'd never be the same again. It wouldn't be fair of me to force him into a life like that. My gaze traveled over to my mentor's limp form. He had burns on his chest, he was as pale as a ghost, and he had a blue tint to his skin. I set the paddles back on the cart and rested one hand on the cooling flesh of his arm.
"Joey."
I looked over to see Dan standing in the doorway of the room. Nobody else seemed to see or hear him.
He smiled sadly at me as he said in a stern, brotherly voice, "Call it."
"Time of death," I said sighing as I glanced at the clock on the wall, "Two forty-two PM."
As the words left my mouth, Dan disappeared, and in his place stood Dr. Cox.
;.;
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