AN: Thanks for the review. I hope you are still enjoying the story…
This chapter might be a little sad.
"There is neither heaven nor earth, only snow, falling incessantly."
Chapter 4
"Has he called yet?"
Carla sighed and softly stroked Turk over his bald head, which the surgeon had placed on the counter of the Nurses' station.
"Not yet, Turk. But don't worry, it's probably nothing." She soothed, trying to get some kind of reassuring tone in her voice even though she didn't feel it herself. Turk smiled unhappily just as Elliot came up to them and placed one of her patient's charts on the counter.
"Any news yet?" She asked, frowning slightly.
"No." Carla and Turk said in unison. Turk got up and fiddled with his scrubs, looking as miserable as Carla had ever seen him. She turned her attention back to Elliot.
"Elliot? Did you notice, you know, anything unusual about JD when he left?" She asked politely, observing Elliot's brow furrow in thought.
"Well, he seemed kind of nervous about something when he came out of the examination room."
"And before that? Did he mention having any kind of appointment before he started at the clinic?"
"No, Carla, nothing. You think I wouldn't mention something important like that?" Elliot said, looking insulted.
"No of course not-" Carla began, feeling she had just lost control of the conversation.
"He just seemed like his normal self. A bit tired maybe and a little unhappy he was just about to start his clinic duty, but nothing unusual." Elliot said with a shrug, then she stopped and frowned slightly.
"But he was in there with that patient for the longest time…" She mused softly, making Carla strain to catch what she said. "Now I think about it, I found that strange. And after he came out he was a bit agitated, but I thought he just needed a break from the work stress."
"I bet I would have noticed immediately if something was wrong!" Turk said, taking a deep breathe and puffing up his chest. "I can read him like a book!"
"I'm sure you can, honey." Carla said soothingly.
"Well, you weren't there, were you, Turk!" Elliot pointed out, annoyed. "You all pretend like I don't know JD at all! I'm telling you, he just looked a little tired and nervous."
Turk opened his mouth to say something but stopped as if he suddenly realized something.
"Tapes!"
Carla and Elliot just looked at him in confusion for a few seconds.
"There's a security camera in the lobby! We can just look at the tape! I'm telling you, if something was wrong… I'll be able to spot it immediately." Turk grinned like a proud little kid.
"That's not even that bad of an idea…" Carla mused.
---
The man grabbed his steering wheel a little tighter. The kid had been innocent, and he had practically pushed him to his death. He had called for him in the forest, but as he had expected, there had been no answer.
He looked out onto the snowy road, dazed. He felt strange.
The kid had been innocent. He just left him to there die. The sudden realization hit him hard. Why had he left? Everything seemed like a dream… a bad nightmare.
His body began shaking. Oh god, how had he allowed such a thing to happen? He was a hypocrite. He was no better than any other criminal, he felt disgusted with himself.
He had sworn to himself this would never happen. Had sworn this kind of thing never happened. The world was easy; Innocent and guilty people.
He had thought he had been the innocent person, getting revenge on the guilty person. But now he was a guilty person who had killed an innocent person.
He deserved no better than any other criminal.
He could have called the police…. No, the kid was dead. It didn't matter. He just had to make sure that it couldn't be traced back to him…to his family. His family had been through enough, they didn't need him to only make things worse.
No.
He gripped his steering wheel if only to make the shaking stop, to make this horrible feeling stop consuming him. But he knew it would not stop. It would be there forever. He couldn't live with that.
He wouldn't live with that. He looked up, through the snow, and saw a truck passing a car in the other driving lane, slowly coming his way in the opposite direction.
He deserved no better than any other guilty person.
With sudden deliberation, the man steered to the left.
The headlights of the truck illuminated the inside of the car, the snowflakes casting shadows on the man's face.
---
Dr. Cox's hands were visibly clenched around his steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. It was crazy driving in this kind of weather. Turning on the car lights had only caused the snowflakes to be more brightly illuminated instead of creating more visibility. At least the freeway was coming up in a few moments, which meant the road would be more visible because of all the ploughing that was being done there.
He almost whished he had stayed back at the hospital, but then Carla and Ghandi would have completely obsessed over little newbie's fate, and certainly Carla would have given him hell for not going out looking for him. Frankly, he could not wait to find Newbie.
Not because he was worried. To be honest he was almost giddy with excitement; newbie would get hell from him. He really wanted to know how the kid was going to talk himself out of this one. He probably had one of his silly daydreams and pranced outside following his imaginary magical unicorn. Or maybe the stress and all the girl's names had finally made him snap and finally realize that he really was the girl Dr. Cox had always told him he was. He growled in anger. He was going to have a field day with this.
Ah. The freeway. Newbie's new apartment was some way off from downtown and the hospital, but at least it was accessible by the main road, which made it a little easier to navigate in this weather.
Dr. Cox listened to the faint guitar strumming that floated up from his radio, after which a radio report came on telling whatever listener out there about the heavy snowfall and the problems it causing with local traffic. It proceeded to tell of certain local car accidents and which roads to steer clear off.
"And we have report of a wrong way driver causing an accident on the 510, blocking off the main road. And now we continue our music with-"
Dr. Cox cursed and shut the radio off in frustration. This was going to cost some time! He just wanted to go home… If the 510 was blocked he had to get off the freeway here and take the other highway to the north and get off again at the second junction towards the lower suburbs. One Barbie undoubtedly took many times when she had that silly fellowship at the North County University Medical Centre.
Now he was thinking about Barbie, why in god's name would he do that to himself? He gripped the steering wheel a little bit tighter. If Barbie had paid a little more attention or had stopped newbie in the first place, he himself wouldn't be driving towards that girl's home in the middle of a snow storm after a long shift at this very moment.
He cursed some more because it made him feel better. Then he almost caused an accident himself when his pager went off, giving him a near heart attack. He fought to get his car back under control and peered through the heavy snowfall as his right hand found it's way to his belt and struggled with the clasp of the pager to get it off.
Finally he raised the pager to eye level and he cast a quick glance at it, hoping it was some news from Carla or Ghandi, or even Barbie, that they had found JD asleep in the on call room or something.
He read the message.
He reread the message.
He swerved passed a braking car, nearly hitting it, cursing excessively at himself because he hadn't been paying attention to the road. The cursing didn't make him feel any better this time.
Well, at least he was already on the right highway, a small part of his brain, that wasn't filled with fury or sickening worry, silently observed.
---
"Jeez, Elliot! Just look at him!" Turk exclaimed, holding his hand up in the air as if to enlarge his already loud statement.
Elliot looked confused. "He looks a little nervous, so what?" She said, defensively.
"It looks like he is screaming with his eyes!"
Carla cast a sceptical glance at Turk. "How can you see that?"
"It's obvious! And I've never seen him so agitated… and look," Turk pointed at the monitor. "He keeps casting looks at this guy."
They looked at the guy on the TV screen, standing at the entrance hall.
Suddenly, Carla gasped.
"I remember that guy!" She elbowed Turk "You know that guy!" She looked impatiently at him and Elliot, who both just stared blankly back at her.
"He was on TV a few days ago, he was that guy who got released from prison after he had been in there for four years! But he was innocent! Don't you remember?"
Elliot frowned and Turk still had a empty look on his face.
"You really don't know, do you? They found the guy that really did it, he admitted to all the charges and this man was released. He did this whole speech about the injustice of the justice system that they just incarcerate innocent people and what not."
Elliot swallowed. "You don't think he really did it after all, do you?" She whispered.
They all looked at each other.
---
"Come on, Newbie, you think you can stay here forever?"
"..'s warm, snugly…"
"The hospital doesn't pay you to lie around all day."
"…justafew more minut's…"
"Get off your ass, Pricella, you've got work to do!"
My eyes flew open and I immediately regretted the decision as the bright light bore into my brain, making my head hurt and my eyes water. I felt sick to my stomach, but more importantly, I realized I wasn't lying in bed in the on call room. I was lying in the snow, looking up at the stormy sky. When I turned my gaze to my lower extremities I noticed I had partly snowed over. How long had I been lying there?
Everything hurt. And I had the sneaking suspicion that everything that wasn't hurting was just because it was too numb from the cold to feel anything. Strange how the snow had felt so warm and safe. Even now, it wasn't an entirely uncomfortable thought to just let the cold seep into my bones and to let the numbness take the pain away.
I'd once read that falling asleep in the snow was the most peaceful way to go if you simply didn't want to go on anymore.
I made a silent observation about how strange it seemed that my thoughts came so easily and peacefully and that I had still not made any attempt to get up. Now that I thought about it, the visualisation of movement already seemed unbearable. I turned my head, a movement that was slowly and carefully performed, yet still made my vision swim and my stomach turn.
Whiteness as far as I could see, covering the land far and wide.
Maybe I was dead already. Maybe it had been snowing for days, years even. Maybe snow was all that remained until the very end.
A faint smile played on my lips. This didn't seem that bad an end. It was unspeakably beautiful even.
I watched the snow fall.
After a few minutes of this I felt myself grow more and more tired, however, sleep seemed still at bay and I felt myself thinking that the end, this Ultimate Ending, this waiting was endless. It left me time to think about things.
Ah! Maybe that was it. They always said that your life flashes before your eyes before you die. Well, maybe death was waiting for me to do just that.
My brow furrowed in silent contemplation as I tried my best to recall certain memories. To be honest, everything seemed kind of fuzzy. Where to start?
Wait, hadn't I been hallucinating about a hospital?
Yes. I was doctor. That was it.
Memories poured over me and I lay there blinking away the snowflakes. I found myself grinning with the silly bits and frowning with the serious ones. And still they came, tumbling over each other in their haste to reach my consciousness. They flash passed so fast I almost have not time to let them sink in-
I am eight and I am making a drawing for Santa, which he takes with a big laugh and tells me which is very nicely done. I smile in happiness and proceed to pull his beard down and discover he is an imposter-
I am twenty-four , fighting for the TV remote with Turk. He wins and I pout as he makes me watch my first Gilmore Girls episode, which strangely I like-
Turk. I remember Turk.
I am six, getting ready for school and making my own lunch, which my mom forgets to make because she was still asleep-
I wish she had paid more attention to me.
I am nineteen, Turk and I find Rowdy at a garage sale. We take him home with us and wash him. We always wanted a puppy-
I am twenty-five and I start my first day at Sacred Heart hospital and I meet Elliot. I smirk at Turk's fallen face when Elliot tells us she's medical intern and not a surgical-
That's when I met Dr. Cox.
I am sixteen, I am at a party at a friend's house. I share my first kiss with Sarah Briggs while standing outside under the moonlight. Someone pukes in the bushes behind us-
I am twenty-eight, I drive Sasha for the first time-
I am twelve, I discover that I want to be a doctor-
I am thirty, Dr. Cox says thank you and calls me by my name-
I am five, I scream for my daddy after I scrape my knee-
I am twenty-nine, Turk and me are laughing at something-
I am fourteen, yelling at my brother-
I am thirty-one, lying in a field of snow, waiting for whatever comes next.
God. I miss everybody already.
"You gonna leave me, vanilla bear?"
I turned my head and saw Turk sitting in the snow, looking absolutely miserable.
"I…I'm sorry." I mumbled, which cost me a lot of energy to pull off. Then I remembered Turk wasn't really there anyway. Carla showed up behind him, and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You know, we're going to miss you." She said, and then kneeled to stroke my hair softly. I blinked a few times, trying to think her away before I would give in and start crying, making a complete fool of myself. Then suddenly, there was only snow where she had been standing. I sighed sadly when I realised I wouldn't have made a fool of myself anyway, because I was talking to my own hallucinations.
"She's right. I am going to miss you."
"…You're not real." I managed to point out, as I refocused on Turk, who was still sitting in the snow.
"Yeah…" Turk smiled apologetically and got up. He stared at me uncertainly.
"I better leave you to it then…" He walked away, but before he disappeared from view he turned and gave me a small wave. I felt my heart clench as I watched him turn.
"Remember! At the milkshake pool on the Lesbian cloud! You better be waiting for me…" And with that, he was gone.
My breathing came in laboured gasps. God, this hurt. This would have been so much easier if my brain just let me pass on in peace without hammering these hallucination on me, trying to get me to get up. I briefly wondered what my last thought was going to be, and felt like it was probably about the fact that I couldn't blame my brain for trying. That's survival instinct for you…
Silence as the snow fell heavily, falling on my face and melting away with each of my shorter and shorter desperate gasps for air. Somewhere in the distance, some kind of rumbling. Probably the storm on it's way to cover me up, erasing any trace that I was here. I let myself start to drift, away from the hurt.
"JD?"
God. Just leave me in peace already. I blinked hazily and saw a figure standing a few meters away, a figure strangely resembling Dr. Cox.
"….goaway….you're an hallucination…" I muttered faintly, the sentence taking the last bit of my energy with it. I felt my consciousness slipping and I let my eyes flutter closed.