Chapter 33

Destiny

"Never Say Never"- The Fray

Kyle (POV)

It had been a little over a month since Lori and Declan's wedding they had just came back from their honeymoon in Jamaica two weeks ago. Today was supposed to be my day off but it was three o'clock in the afternoon and I had been paged for surgery. I was in the middle of playing basketball with Declan at the park when I got the page. But I guess that was all a part of being a doctor though.

I received a '199' for Collin, his tumors were getting worse and now there wasn't any option other than surgery or he wouldn't make it through the night. This was his last chance.

I was making a few notes in his chart while Dr. Ford went over the surgery with Julia.

"Dr. Kyle?" he asked to get my attention. His voice was so weak.

I looked up at him. He looked like a ghost, his skin white as snow with deep, dark purple rings under his eyes.

"Am…Am I…going to die?"

His words stunned me. How was I supposed to answer that, he was only a child. Children weren't supposed to be going through this; they shouldn't have to worry about death. It wasn't right.

"Collin…"

"Please Dr. Kyle; you're the only one who ever tells me how bad things really are…" He was pleading with me.

"Collin… I won't say there isn't a chance that you could die…" He looked away from me and out the small window in his room. "Dr. Ford is a very good surgeon, you-"

"Then why is it back?" he had anger in his voice, it was faint but it was there.

Dr. Ford and Julia came back before I had the chance to say anything.

"Collin if you're ready we'll take you down to the O.R.," Dr. Ford said.

Collin and Julia said 'goodbye' and 'I love you' for the second time then we wheeled him through the halls down to the O.R.

I lifted his frail body onto the operating table: he was too weak to do it himself. When I lifted him up I felt like I was lifting my four year old son not an eight year old child.

The nurses continued getting things ready when Dr. Ford and I went to scrub in.

"This isn't right," he grumbled, scrubbing his hands and forearms vigorously. "He shouldn't be on my table about to have his head cut open; he should be outside running around being a normal kid. Living…"

He was right. We both knew the odds of this surgery being a success, which were minimal. I finished scrubbing my hands and dried them with a paper towel.

"You and I both know the likelihood of him making it through this surgery…But he still has hope, and we can't take that away from him…Because it's all he has left."

He nodded. I felt bad for Dr. Ford; he always invested all he had into his patients. It was his strength but it was also his weakness.

We went back into the O.R and the nurses slipped our gloves on and I took my place at the side of Collin's head.

"Okay Collin, Dr. Emerson is going to give you some medicine that will help you sleep. You won't feel a thing, I promise." I looked down at him on the table, then nodded to Dr. Emerson and slowly Collin began to drift off.

Dr. Fords made his first cut and I held the suction. Everything was going well considering the size and condition of the tumor. With tumors you never really know to what extent they are until the patient was cut open. Collin was no exception.

"This is a mess…" Dr. Ford mumbled, when he cut away at the tumor there was just more underneath.

We had been at it for almost four hours now.

"Damn it!" Dr. Fords said breaking the silence that had filed the O.R. "Dr. Trager, he's losing a large amount of blood, I need you to use more suction."

"B.P's dropping," The head scrub nurse alerted us.

"I can't find the source of this bleeding!" he admitted.

The flat line filled the room and a slight panic arose.

"Get the paddles!" He barked moving from the head of his table to Collin's side. "Charge 200…Clear!"

Collin's body flopped but his heart didn't respond.

"Charge 300… Clear!"

The flat line continued.

"Charge 400… Clear!"

No change.

"Come on… Come ON!" Dr. Ford switched to compressions even though they were useless.

He went on for almost an hour before calling it.

"Time of death 19:42."

I stood there unable to move. Unable to speak. Unable to think. I don't know how long we stood there in silence before Dr. Ford came over to me and put his hand on my shoulder and led me to the scrub room.

"Do you work tomorrow?" he asked once we finished scrubbing out. I nodded. "I don't want to see you here till Monday."

I was about to argue but he stopped me.

"When I lost my first patient that I had become invested in, the way you have with Collin, my attending told me that you can't save everyone. I've found truth in that time and time again." He sighed. "I don't want you to blame yourself because I know that is exactly what you'll do because it's what I did. The guilt almost ate me alive. I don't want that to happen to you Kyle because you're the kind of doctor who has the most to offer."

I was standing in the doorway about to leave when he said that.

"How do you deal with it?" I asked not turning to look at him.

"I'm still trying to figure that out…" I could hear the sadness in his voice, the longing for an answer to a question that shouldn't have to be asked.

We left the scrub room, both knowing what we had to do.

"You don't have to do this." He stopped me right outside Collin's old room. "I can do this alone."

"No, I want to be there," I said opening the door.

"Julia… There were some complications with Collin's surgery," Dr. Ford said calmly as we took our seats in the empty chairs in the room.

"Complications?" Worry coated her voice.

"Collin's body has been through so much it just couldn't handle another surgery…His heart began to fail from the stress…" He didn't go into detail about how he almost bled out on the table. "I'm so sorry…We did all we could."

I noticed how Dr. Ford lingered away from the phrase 'he didn't make it.' Instead he used words that implied that.

She didn't say anything she just cried. I placed a hand on her shoulder and felt the sobs shake through her body.

"I'm sorry…" I would say every so often.

Eventually she asked us to leave saying she wanted to be alone. Dr. Ford told me to go home so I went to the locker room to get my things.

I changed out of my scrubs and into the street clothes I had came here in. Jeans and a white t-shirt under a black sweater.

When I got home Amanda and Brice weren't there. Just a note on the counter saying she was dropping him off at my parents and would be home soon. Brice was staying the night there, and then tomorrow night we were all going to celebrate his fourth birthday together.

I sighed and went out to the balcony. I was a little glad they weren't home; it gave me a chance to be alone with my thoughts.

It was times like this that I wished Adam were still alive. He was the only one who ever really thought the way I did or even viewed the world the way I did. Even Jessi didn't always understand things in the same why I did.

How was I supposed to help people but also keep my family safe? Would I have even been able to save Collin? Or was his cancer too far advanced?

I was torn between saving stranger's lives and protecting my own family. Then again who was I to play god, if it was their time and I had done everything I medically could, wasn't that enough?

"Kyle?" I heard Amanda call but I didn't answer, I knew she would find me.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked but I didn't turn to look at her.

"Kyle, what's wrong?" She placed her hand on my cheek and forced me to look at her.

"Please tell me what's wrong." I noticed the change in her heart beat, it was more anxious now.

"It's nothing."

"Kyle don't do this, we aren't 17 anymore, don't keep things from me." Her voice was stern.

To be honest I didn't really understand why I didn't just tell her. I guess part of me didn't want to mix my work life with my family life.

"I…I lost a patient today…He was only eight…I guess it just got to me." I clenched my jaw a little; my eyes darted away from her.

"I'm sorry…" She had no reason to be sorry but I knew what she meant.

I engulfed her in my arms, having her close seemed to calm me. "If anything were to happen to you or Brice-"

"Nothing will happen to us, we're fine." She mumbled into my chest.

I stretched my neck down to her and touched my lips to hers. She locked her lips to mine and her hands traveled through my hair. Suddenly my thoughts were only focused on her, nothing else mattered. I was able to take myself away from anything that plagued my mind with worry or doubt. The only thing that mattered was what was happening in this very minute.

I pulled her close as we fumbled back into the apartment. We were almost to the bedroom and her legs were locked around my waist. She managed to slip of my sweater and I was working on her blouse. We were at the edge of the bed when I set her down and she pulled me with her.

She laid in my arms after, both our hearts still a flutter.

"Are you okay?" I asked kissing her bare shoulder.

"I'm fine, why?" she asked, twisting in my arms.

"Well it's just the first time since the accident…I wanted to make sure you were okay."

She smiled. "Well than I'm wonderful." She giggled, pressing her lips lightly to mine.

She fell asleep shortly after, she looked so beautiful. I stared up at the ceiling for the longest time. There was a crisp breeze flowing through the window, the cool air glided over my skin and it felt good. Amanda must have felt it too because her shiver and clinging closer to me gave her away. I held her a little closer for a minute and kissed the top of her head.

Soon enough my eyes began to droop and sleep over took me.

I found myself in the reoccurring nightmare I had been having for the past few weeks. But this time it was a little different.

My hands were firmly clasped around his neck. It was the night I…The night Cassidy…Died. But this time when I realized what I was doing it wasn't Foss's voice that brought me to this realization.

"Dr. Kyle?" My hands dropped and Cassidy's body fell limp just as always.

"Collin," I found myself walking toward him, he was standing on the back porch. I knelt down in front of him. "What are doing here, Collin? You shouldn't be out here."

He looked different, the color was back in his face and his eyes were bright again. They didn't have the ominous haze of death in them.

"Are you okay, Collin?" I placed my hands on his shoulders.

"Look after them, Dr. Kyle."

"Who?" I looked him straight in the eyes.

He didn't say anything he just shrugged off my hands and walked away.

"Who? Collin?" I called after him but he was gone.

I felt my body jolt and I shot up in bed. I noticed that the bed was empty only a note on Amanda's pillow.

Meeting my Mom for lunch. Didn't want to wake you!

Love,

Amanda

I got up and got ready for the day, throwing on a light grey long sleeve waffle shirt and a pair of jeans.

I decided on going to see Nicole, she was my best bet at trying to decipher this dream. I pulled into the driveway and noticed that Stephen's car was gone, but Nicole's was still here.

I found her in her office going over a few papers.

"Do you have a minute?" I asked lingering in the doorway.

"Oh Kyle! I didn't realize you were here." She laughed slightly but her smile faded when she detected a sign of anxiety in my face. "Take a seat."

"I can't seem to shake the dream," I told her.

"Which one?" she asked. There were only two dreams that were ever reoccurring in my life.

"The one with Cassidy," I admitted, my hands nervously clutched my knees.

"I thought that one stopped,"

"It's back, but last night was it was different, a little more cryptic."

"Wait, how long has this dream been back?" she asked, trying to gather everything.

"They started up again a few weeks ago."

"And they were still the same as before, up until last night?" she inquired.

"Yes, yesterday at work I lost a patient, a little boy." I explained. "And in the nightmare he was the one who called out to me, not Foss."

"Did anything else happen that was different?"

"I was asking him if he was okay, and he told me to 'look after them' I have no idea what he was talking about."

"Well usually it isn't as simple as what a person is saying in a dream. Usually the person will represent something in your subconscious that you aren't aware of. Something you're worried about or confused about." She went on, "Dreams are so complex to interpret that sometime we drive ourselves a little crazy trying to figure them out."

"We already figured out why I was having the dream about Cassidy," I said. "But why is my dead patient there?"

"Well Cassidy was just a representation of you're subconscious trying get you to come to terms with what you had done. What was your relationship like with this patient?" She started to make notes; I guess it was out of habit.

"He was an eight year old boy named Collin, he had cancer. His mom was a single mom working two jobs to pay for his medical bills. I paid a little more attention to him because I felt bad for him. His dad wasn't around he was going through chemo treatments and his mom wasn't always able to make it to his treatments." I scanned over my own words trying to find a reason.

"Well Kyle, sometimes dreams are just dreams no matter how complex or irritating they are. Maybe Collin was there because your subconscious was telling you to let go, it sound like you became pretty invested in this case."

"But what could he have meant by 'look after them'?" I asked.

"Who knows—It could have been anything from, your family to his Mom, to the whole world."

The world, is that what he meant? To look after the world? That I was supposed to save everyone?

"What if he did mean the world?" I was a little afraid of the answer.

"You have to remember that you weren't talking to Collin, you were talking to yourself in some sense," She reminded me.

"Like holographic memory…" I thought aloud.

"Right, it's not actually Collin, it's you."

"Josh still believes that I cured Andy…What if I did?"

"Kyle what you're inferring is too big for one person to handle…you can't save everyone and even if you could it's not right to play god. Latnok has already tried that and we've seen how that went."

"But what if these people are my patients for a reason? What if they're 'sent' to me and I'm supposed to heal them?"

"Kyle this is all assuming that you can heal people. So let's say you did heal Andy look at the toll it took on your body, you almost shut down completely." Her voice cracked a little.

"What if that's what I'm meant for?" She got a little teary eyed.

"But what about you?" she countered. "What about your family? I don't believe that is what you're meant for Kyle, not healing in that sense. Not to the point were you are the one who needs to be saved. If you were meant for healing in that sense I think it would be a waist of an extraordinary man." She had moved to the seat next to me and placed one hand on my cheek forcing me to look at her.

"I think that you're supposed to touch lives and lead them in a better direction. With your mind, your intelligence you could find cures to cancer or AIDS, you could end world hunger." she smiled weakly. "When you came here you brought our family closer together, Kyle that is how you've 'healed' our lives. You brought friendship into Declan's life, something he had never truly experienced. You brought love into Amanda's life, something she will never be able to give up. And you became a father to a boy who was left with no one." I hugged Nicole for a long time, hoping she was right.

AN: So I feel like this chapter deserves a little explaining, especially about the end conversation with Nicole. The other day I was reading an interview with the writer/co-producer of Kyle XY, Julie Plec. She addressed many unanswered questions about Kyle XY the last one she address was 'how does it end?' from the answer she gave I created this conversation with Nicole. Basically she said that Kyle was to be in some sense the next Gandhi, Mother Teresa or even Bill Clinton. In that he would salve conflicts, end hunger problems, create energy sources that wouldn't harm the environment. But over all he would let his pureness, or goodness affect those around him.

From this I have interpreted that Kyle is supposed to use his gifts and his intelligence to help people all over the world by being somewhat of a spiritual leader or someone that humanity could aspire to be.