Hello, everyone. I want to thank you all keeping up with this story and for your continued support. I really appreciate it when readers find enjoyment in my writing. Anyway, here's chapter fifteen.

Lunar Eclipse

Chapter Fifteen

"He performed CPR until the nurse returned with more doctors and equipment. They loaded Akiteru onto a gurney and took him away after that. Seeing him so limp... the doctor pounding on his chest as he just lay there like a rag doll... it would have been easier if they'd just cut my heart out of my body while I was still awake..." Amaya paused, choking back emotion.

"Anyway... the nurse stayed behind and asked me all sorts of questions about whether or not Akiteru had taken anything before he passed out, if he was on any medications, if he had any lasting medical conditions... I told her no." Amaya turned to Ukai, "I've never given him anything, and he tells me about all his doctors' appointments. I would have known if he'd been prescribed anything, right?"

Ukai looked at her with pity. They both knew she was grasping at straws, looking for some sort of justification during the worst night of her life. She and Ukai both knew that Akiteru was a twenty-two-year-old in his final year of college. He wasn't even home for most of the year, and when he was, he was working. Sure, he was close enough to be home every once in a while for Tsukishima's games, but Ukai figured that someone like Akiteru probably only spent holidays and the occasional weekend at home. Besides, while Ukai himself had never been to college, he knew plenty of his high school buddies who had, and they kept him updated on the kinds of things they got into. As much as Ukai hated to admit it, it wasn't a difficult leap from "well-off college kid" to "drugs."

"Amaya, Akiteru's in college. Just because you don't know what he does when he isn't home doesn't mean he doesn't... experiment. But if he did do something to himself that we don't know about, the doctors will find it." Sugawara chimed in.

"Of course, Mrs. Tsukishima. Akiteru will be fine." Ukai turned to look at the two boys, and immediately wished he hadn't. Sugawara looked guilty and worn, clearly strained by the fear he had expressed earlier in the school gym, and it wasn't like Ukai could blame him. Amaya's account fit with the symptoms.

Yamaguchi was a different story. He was trembling, trying everything he could to avoid Amaya's gaze. It was understandable - he'd known the Tsukishima family for years and it was probably agony seeing someone who was like a second mother to him suffer so much. Combine that agony with his concern for both Tsukishima and Akiteru's well-being, and Ukai had a recipe for a laundry list of emotional problems. As Ukai watched Yamaguchi, Amaya seemed to notice him as well.

"Oh, Tadashi, honey, please don't," her voice displayed a patience and gentleness that completely belied her situation. She sniffled a bit as she spoke, and her voice was still weak from tears and exhaustion, "You need to have faith, right? Faith that Kei and Akiteru will be okay. They're strong boys; you know that. They're going to be okay."

Ukai knew that Amaya was saying it more to herself than to Yamaguchi, and he had a feeling that Yamaguchi probably knew that, too. There seemed to be a sort of silent understanding between them, as if somewhere, they both acknowledged that the words they were saying were empty promises meant only for temporary comfort. In the midst of tragedy, the hollow meaning of an empty promise was somehow enough to carry them.

When Yamaguchi finally held Amaya's gaze, he knew it was a mistake. Making eye contact was the key to unleashing the waterworks, and as she tried to comfort him he immediately started to cry. As he did so, Amaya guided him down onto the chair with her and pulled him into her arms. They remained like that for a couple minutes before they were interrupted by the opening of a door. All four of them turned to see a doctor standing in the doorway.

He looked out among the waiting room. For the first time, the group noticed that the man and the woman from earlier seemed to have disappeared.

"Amaya Tsukishima?" he called. Amaya released Yamaguchi and stood nervously from her chair.

"Yes?" Her voice was meek.

"Are you the mother of Akiteru Tsukishima?"

"Y-Yes... I am."

"Could you come with me into the hall, please?" She shakily crossed the room to the doctor without looking at the terrified and expectant faces of her companions behind her.

The doctor guided her into a secluded section of the hall, far away from the typical hustle and bustle of the busy hospital. The left wall was lined with three or four ottoman-style upholstered stools. The doctor stopped near the stools and gestured to one as Amaya stopped beside him.

"Please, take a seat." Amaya sat down on one of the stools as the doctor sat down next to her. He shifted his positioning, angling himself toward Amaya, and propped himself up on his elbows.

"Mrs. Tsukishima," he began, obviously choosing his words carefully, "My name is Dr. Murakami. I'm the physician in charge of your son Akiteru's care. Has anyone told you what's going on?" Amaya shook her head, only momentarily breaking eye contact.

"No, nothing. Is Akiteru okay?"

"Mrs. Tsukishima... our tests revealed that Akiteru's condition was caused by an overdose on what are called benzodiazepines. Do you know what that means?"

"No." Her voice shook harder the more she tried to answer the doctor. Trying to distract herself from her fear, she once more began to play with her car keys.

"Benzodiazepines are a very potent class of sleeping pills. They aren't typically prescribed anymore because they're dangerous and addictive, but a few doctors will still do so in certain circumstances. Most people assume that sleeping pills are only prescribed as a sleep aid, but they can also be prescribed in smaller doses to treat anxiety, since their primary function is to slow the central nervous system into relaxation. Are you with me so far?"

"Yes... Yes, of course."

"... We found a... high dosage of this drug in your son's bloodstream."

"H-high? How high?" she shouted as she began to panic, "Where is my baby?" The doctor stopped for a moment, hanging his head. When he continued, his voice took on a much more solemn turn.

"Sometimes... if a person takes too many sleeping pills... it'll slow their nervous system to the point that their organs, primarily their heart and lungs, will stop working." Amaya simply sat and stared at the doctor in front of her, barely processing the words he was saying. Realizing he wasn't going to receive a response, Dr. Murakami continued.

"Ma'am, as you know, your son didn't have a pulse when you found him in the waiting room."

"No..."

"We did everything we could to bring him back, but the drug had already completely shut down his nervous system. His heart was too far gone. It wouldn't restart."

"NO!"

"Mrs. Tsukishima, I'm very sorry... but Akiteru died."

"N-No! No, you're lying to me!" The doctor tried to take Amaya's hand in a gesture of comfort, but she stood and pulled it away from his reach, still shouting, "You're lying to me! Where's my little boy? Let me see him! Let me see Akiteru!"

Doctor Murakami stood, seemingly oblivious to the violence of Amaya's outburst and gestured down the hall.

"If you would follow me, Mrs. Tsukishima, I will take you to see your son."

Dr. Murakami stopped outside a door labeled "Morgue".

Amaya wasn't sure how she even made it this far. She hadn't been able to feel anything except the burning hole in her chest since her time in the hallway with the doctor. Everything outside of her direct line of sight faded away like the scorched edges of an old photograph. Her brain was clearly on autopilot. Her son couldn't be here. This was a morgue. Her son was with the doctors.

"He's right through here." Dr. Murakami said, shattering her silence as he opened the door and entered in front of her.

When Amaya entered the morgue the only sight she saw was a metal table and a body covered in a white sheet laying atop it. She tried to force away the idea that the bodily outline she saw was her son. It wasn't until minutes later that her mind would fill in the rest of the blanks in the room - the sterile tile floor, dozens of shiny metal cabinets, and tables with various sharpened instruments. Right now, she only had eyes for the white sheet and the figure beneath it.

The doctor stayed near the room's entrance as Amaya approached the table, giving her space to mourn. The mortician, who had been previously alerted about Amaya's visit, stood still near the table. When Amaya approached, he very carefully lifted the sheet at Akiteru's head, revealing the young man's lifeless body a little at a time. He stopped at his waist and folded back the sheet. Once he was finished, he silently stepped away and stood with Dr. Murakami. Amaya was now effectively alone with her dead son.

Suddenly her limbs felt like lead, every ounce of her body's weight magnified by ten. It was like being hit in the chest by a linebacker, but Amaya didn't back down. She needed to do this. Akiteru was her little baby boy and he deserved this. He deserved to feel the warmth of his mother's love one last time - even if she knew he could never actually feel it. She hoped that somewhere, her last moments with his earthly shell would reach him. She was caught in this tiny impenetrable bubble, containing nothing more than herself and the body of her son in front of her. The rest of the world ceased to exist more than two feet from her person. It fell away, crumbling into dust. She could see nothing more than the little boy she nursed, unmoving in front of her very eyes.

Amaya observed the pallor of his skin and counted each tiny blue vein in his eyelids. She zoned in on his hair and began to count them, too, taking notice of every individual flaw - each touch of grey, each split end. Amaya imprinted onto her mind every aspect of the child she would never see again. She took his hand and caressed it, squeezed it. For the first time, she felt the chilling cold of his skin, and the reality of his death began to set in.

The time she had left with him had run out. She would no longer wake up to see his smiling face at the breakfast table. She would no longer receive phone calls in the middle of the night before an important exam. She could no longer hold onto the hope that some day, he would throw open the front door with a lovely young woman in his arms and give the announcement that Amaya had always wanted to hear, that he was finally going to give her a grandchild. She also realized - Kei could never forgive him. It was too late.

"Oh, god..."

Amaya was crying before she knew it. It was her sudden realization that her two favorite boys would never make peace that unlocked the final door holding back her tears.

"Oh god, oh god, oh god..." Amaya moaned over and over. She kissed Akiteru's face and hands and stroked his hair, struggling to breathe through the enormous weight crushing her chest.

After a few long minutes, Amaya stopped mumbling. She leaned over Akiteru's face and planted one final kiss on his left cheek, the same place she always kissed him before he left for school in the morning, every morning of his childhood. Having given him the last show of affection he would ever receive from her, Amaya leaned into his ear and, with her voice cracking and tears streaming down her face, whispered her parting words.

"Akiteru... Mommy loves you, baby. I love you so much more than you could ever have known."

Slowly, Amaya backed away from her son's lifeless form. As much as every cell in her body wailed in protest, she knew in her heart that she couldn't stay in the morgue forever. She would have to swallow her grief and move on. Kei was still here. She knew she couldn't fall apart when she had another son who needed her so very desperately.

When the mortician saw Amaya begin to slowly back away from the table, he silently returned and covered Akiteru once again with the white sheet.

Seeing Akiteru's face disappear behind the sheet became the last straw. Amaya fell to her knees.

She started screaming. Not simply crying. Not yelling. Not even wailing.

Screaming.

When she had tired herself out, Amaya collapsed onto the floor of the Miyagi General Hospital morgue and trembled. She felt the frigid agony of her grief pierce her very bones, leaving her no room for anything more. She knew she needed to find the strength to stand, to break away from this grief and be the mother that Kei needed in his darkest hour, but that energy, that strength, simply wasn't there. Her spirit was broken.

Dr. Murakami knew he needed to say something to her. It was his job as a doctor of this hospital to not only deliver the relative the news of their loved one's death, but to help them take it, and Amaya Tsukishima was not taking it well. He'd heard through the grapevine (that is to say, he had an old medical school buddy currently working in emergency trauma) that this same woman had another son currently in trauma surgery after he'd gotten caught in that shooting over at the Family Mart a few hours ago. He couldn't imagine what was going through this woman's head. He'd never had a family himself (and now that he was quickly approaching his fiftieth birthday, he felt that it was too late), but he knew how fierce and protective his sister was over her kids, and picturing his kid sister going through something like that with her little girls was a horror his mind could definitely do without.

The mortician had covered Akiteru's body, took it away, and left to attend to his other duties, leaving Dr. Murakami alone with this grieving mother. But what was he supposed to say? As much as he'd told people of their loved ones' deaths before, he'd never come face-to-face with a woman in this position. How do you tell a woman who's just lost one son that everything will be okay, when an hour from now a separate doctor could come in and tell her that she's just lost another one? Whatever he was going to tell her, he needed to do it fast, because he was still on the clock.

Dr. Murakami approached Amaya as she lay huddled on the floor of the morgue and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. She flinched for a quick second, shot up from the floor, and made surprised eye contact with the doctor kneeling beside her.

Now. He needed to say it now. But what would he say? I'm sorry for your loss? Meaningless. I feel your pain? A lie. I'll keep you in my prayers? If she isn't religious, that could turn into a disaster. What if he just gave her some simple reassurance instead? It was the only comfort he felt he could honestly give.

"I just wanted to say, if it helps, that most people who take their own lives with sleeping pills, take the whole bottle - to make sure it works. The amount we found in Akiteru's blood was high, but it wasn't anywhere close to that much. It makes it much more likely that this was an accident, that he just mistimed his doses." He scrutinized Amaya's face as he spoke, watching closely for any sign that he was saying the wrong thing. She seemed blank, so he continued.

"Look... I didn't know him, but I'm sure Akiteru was a strong kid. I thought it might help you to know that he didn't do this to himself on purpose."

Without warning, Amaya flung her arms around the doctor's neck and sobbed heavily into his shoulder. Whispering harshly and struggling to breathe through her sorrow, she told him something incredibly personal.

"The last thing I told him... was that I loved him." Dr. Murakami gently lifted Amaya from his shoulder.

"Look, Mrs. Tsukishima, I have to go back and do my job now, but I want you to know that I believe you're going to get through this, okay?" Amaya nodded, sniffling.

"Thank-you." Dr. Murakami left the morgue, and Amaya very soon followed, realizing that the next thing she had to do was break the news to Sugawara, Yamaguchi, Ukai... and her husband.

And that does it for chapter fifteen. By the way, for anyone wondering why I put the random man and woman in the waiting room in the story, only to have them disappear in the next chapter, I wanted to make sure that Akiteru wasn't alone in the room when he died. I specifically wanted him to die in front of other people, and I wanted those other people to completely miss it, because I wanted to illustrate how easily death can happen. They had no reason to interfere because to them, Akiteru just looked like another kid falling asleep in a waiting room. They had no reason to suspect that anything was wrong until Amaya came back and started yelling. I wanted to show that fear.

Anyway, thank you all for reading, and remember that any constructive criticism is always appreciated :)