"Are you sure?" Milo asked for the hundredth time since he found out the procedure would be taking place the next day. He and Lucy-Jane were walking into the hospital, fingers interlocked as she basically dragged him in there.
"Yes I am sure," Lucy-Jane replied for the hundredth time. "Come on Milo, we're already here. When are you going to stop asking me?"
"Till you get on that table and I have to hold your hand while they stick the big scary needle in your back," Milo said. "And yes I am going in because you are a baby when it comes to needles so I don't know why you're volunteering to do this."
"I am not a baby," Lucy-Jane told him. "And it's for a good cause. So I can get over my fears to help someone else."
"And this is why you're a better person than me," Milo said, stopping in his tracks. He held onto her hand tightly so she would have to walk over to him when he refused to budge.
"Milo," Lucy-Jane said exasperated. Milo got a grin on his face as he wrapped his arms around her. "We're in the middle of the hospital," she giggled when dropped his head into the crook of her neck and kissed it softly.
"It's perfect. You're perfect," Milo said raising his head. He kissed her lips in a soft touch.
"What's gotten into you?" Lucy-Jane asked him.
"Marry me," Milo said. It wasn't how he'd thought it was going to go down, but it slipped out before he could stop it. Because what he said was true, this and she was perfect. The hospital where they both worked, with the woman he loved. Who was going to save people despite her fears, which he loved about her. She had morals and stuck by them no matter who tried to change them.
"Milo what are you talking about?" Lucy-Jane asked, thinking he was joking around. "Come on we're going to be late."
"Lucille-Jane Williams," Milo said sternly, trying not to smile when she crinkled her nose at Lucille. "Lucy-Jane, Luce," he said her name multiple times. "Marry me? Marry me. Be with me forever until we're old and pruney. Be my family. Marry me."
Lucy-Jane, for a rare moment in her life, was speechless. She tried to see if he was kidding, if this was a joke and he was just messing with her. But the look on his face, there was no amusement in it. Just clear, confident knowledge of what he wanted. And it was her. "Yes," Lucy-Jane said and then laughed. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled him into a kiss. "Yes yes yes I will marry you," she said once she broke it off. Around them a small group of people who had been watching and hearing started to clap and congratulate them.
"I don't have a ring for you," Milo confessed.
"You know I don't wear rings," Lucy-Jane replied, blushing slightly but smiling wide with happiness. "You're serious?"
Milo laughed and took her hand to keep moving down the hall. "Of course I'm serious. I want to spend every single moment of my life with you and beyond," he led her down a hall that was not the right one and knocked on the door. Hearing nothing, he opened it and pulled her in, locking it behind her.
"Milo we're going to be late," Lucy-Jane laughed, seeing the on-call room empty. His hands were already dipping under her shirt, his palms spreading over her skin, sliding up slowly and taking her shirt with them.
"What's a couple more minutes? Tracy can wait and we just got engaged," Milo whispered and kissed her. That was enough for Lucy-Jane whose hands went to his belt and started to undo the latching while pushing him back towards the bed.
They were more than a couple minutes late.
"I can't believe you talked her into it," Alan muttered as he got into the patient bed. He'd been officially admitted early that morning as a patient, having been told the transplant was going to happen. He thought it had been Virgil until Scott let it slip that their brother was at Tracy Industries in a meeting that would take the rest of the day. "I said no."
"Well you really don't get a say Sprout," Scott said sitting at the edge. Hospitals made him nervous. He'd been five when his mom had died in one. Now at thirty, there was little he remembered of her from memory, but a soft warmth that he felt when he thought of her. Once again he sent up a small prayer to keep an eye on his little brother. "Not when dad is involved anyway. You know he always gets his way. Besides, she volunteered for it."
"Yeah well of course she wasn't going to say no," Alan grumbled. "They won't even let me see her."
"Here's in a quick in and out procedure," Scott said. "That's what the nurse said. She'll be out after a quick check-up and be done before you're even done. And when everything goes smoothly, we'll be on a plan back to the island where you'll get the R&R your doctor prescribed."
"We're ready for you Alan," a resident at the hospital said after he appeared at the doorway. There was a bed beside him, and Alan figured that was the one he was going to be moved with. Since Milo had to recues himself, and Dr. Speeges still needed help, the resident had been pulled in. Alan wasn't sure if he liked the guy yet. "The donor marrow has been extracted. You'll be glad to do know the donor is doing just fine," the resident assured him as Alan walked over and changed beds.
"See Al, everything is fine," Scott said walking by his brother's bedside.
"Stop saying that. You're driving me crazy," Alan told his brother with a grin. "Is John down yet?"
"Yeah. He's on the island with Gordo and Tin-Tin. They're running the family business till we get back and then he'll stay stateside until you can be operational again."
"Good, the family business doesn't need to stop running because they're a man down. After all, you can't put a pause on saving people." Alan told him, using Lucy-Jane's words. They stopped at a set of double doors and Scott stepped back since it was as far as he was going to go.
"See ya soon Sprout," Scott said.
"See ya soon Scottie," Alan called as he was pushed away.
Everything would have gone off fine if Milo hadn't forgotten to shut his computer before heading out to a quick work thing at the hospital. Which had turned into him attending a lecture that took about four hours even though he was supposed to be on leave and resting with Lucy-Jane.
He should have known something was wrong when he opened the door and saw it was mostly dark despite the kitchen counter light. "Hey Luce," Milo said, shaking himself off. Water droplets splattered the wooden floor. "Do you have a kettle going? I'm frozen through to the bone. It started raining on my walk back and I am so soaked. And they have the air conditioning blasting at the entrance, like always." He hung up his things and walked to the kitchen to see Lucy-Jane reading pages she had laid out over the counter. "I don't think we're going out tonight, the B is probably going to flood with an inch of water and you still haven't gotten a new set of rain boots. 5Happiness is delivering through the rain, I almost got hit by their bike delivery kid." He was pulling out the kettle and filling it with water for tea.
When she didn't respond, he knew something was wrong. He set down the kettle, shut the water and turned around. "Luce? Earth to Luce," he said jokingly walking over. He leaned slightly and saw the papers she was looking out, the printouts from his computer. "Fuck," he let out.
"Fuck? That's all you got to say for yourself?" Lucy-Jane asked angrily as she looked up. "What the fuck is this Milo? How long have you known? Years?"
"No Lucy it's nothing like that," he argued, not seeing how he could spin this positively. "What were you doing in my computer anyway?" he asked and immediately regretted the question.
"You left it on, you ass," Lucy-Jane shouted at him. "Milo have you been researching me? Why do you have copies of all of these? Why have you been hiding this?"
"I wasn't researching you," Milo said. "And I shouldn't even have access to this. I was just-just," he said trying to figure out what to say.
"Milo what is this?" Lucy-Jane asked again, punctuating every word. She got up and shoved the papers into him. "What is this?" she yelled.
"Fine okay? It's you. It's your papers. Crystal Williams isn't your mother," Milo snapped, hating being shouted at. "For god sakes Lucy-Jane, the woman is put in as colored and you almost as white as paper. She was an alcoholic and a drug user it's amazing she made it to term. How the fuck do you think you could have ever been her kid?"
"Because my birth certificate says so!" Lucy-Jane yelled at him. "What the fuck makes you think I'm not? You know genetics as well as I do. Come on doctor, explain to me how melanin works."
"This is so beyond that! Even as an EMT you know better than that!"
"Oh so are you saying that I'm not as smart as you? That I don't know as much as you do because of my work?"
"No! Where did you even get that from?"
"Oh so now I'm just pulling things out of my ass? Yeah well Milo tell me this. If Crystal Williams isn't my mother then who is? Hmm? WHO IS?"
"LUCY TRACY," Milo shouted at her. The shock on her face was evident and it caused their argument to pause momentarily. He lowered his voice and started again. "Lucy Tracy, mother of Alan Tracy. She died at the same time you were born, uterine wall rupture from your placentas. Why do you think you have such a high match with Alan Tracy when family relatives are supposed to be the best donors?"
"N-no," Lucy-Jane said, taking a small step back. "You're lying. Alan and I were born on different days."
"Minutes apart. Alan was barely born on the 12th, 11:56 pm. You two are twelve minutes apart, born at the same hospital, on the same year. You two look alike for god's sake Lucy-Jane! Your blond hair, nose shape, eyes. You two have similar mannerism and your medical history is similar," Milo listed off.
"So you have been researching me," Lucy-Jane said quietly.
"No! No no no," Milo said, desperate for her to listen. "The day we were making pancakes, when you were talking there were too many coincidences. I had to look it up, prove myself wrong. And then I didn't and Jeff Tracy confirmed-" he stopped, halting himself and hating himself.
"Jeff Tracy...you spoke to Jeff Tracy about this!?" Lucy-Jane said, her voice rising slightly. "Are you two making life decisions without me? Deciding my life for me?"
"He didn't want to tell you!" Milo told her. "He told me that he came here knowing it was you. That you are the spitting image of his wife, besides the whole heterochromia thing. Did he say anything to Luce? Did he? Because in the hall I know what I heard and he did not want to tell you, or his sons," the hurt look on her face was tearing him inside.
"Who would want a system-kid right?" Lucy-Jane said bitterly. "God I can't even get my own father to-no I don't have a father. I have no one," she said looking at him straightly. "You've known for two days and you didn't tell me? I had a right to know. I HAD A RIGHT TO KNOW THAT I WAS SAVING MY OWN BROTHER'S LIFE," she shouted at him. "Am I that horrible that you lied to me? What else haven't you told me?" She was quiet for a moment, and Milo was at lost for words. "Is that why you asked me to marry you?" Lucy-Jane asked so quietly. "Did you ask me to marry you because you found out Jeff Tracy was my biological father? Did he offer you money to hush me up, keep me out of their way?"
"What Lucy no!" Milo said, so desperate and confused as to how they had reached this point. "Lucy no! I love you," he said walking over to her. "I love you so much that there are moments when I look at you that I forget how to breathe because I can't believe that you are mine. I love you Lucy-Jane and that is the only reason I asked you to marry me." She looked away from him, unresponsive. He felt punched in the gut, not knowing what to do, how to fix it.
Milo dropped his head onto the top of hers and hugged her, pressing his face against her hair, grasping onto her. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Lucy I'm so sorry. Please don't do this, don't do this to me," his voice shook. "I was selfish, I know that. But I was afraid that if you knew, I would lose you. You would get this family, and you wouldn't need to be in my family anymore. Lucy-Jane you are my family, you are my everything and I -I did not want to lose you to them."
"Milo," Lucy-Jane's voice was soft that Milo took a step back to look at her, hopeful. There were tears brimming in her eyes. "That wasn't your choice to make," she said, her voice wavering. She stepped away from him and headed towards the door, scooping up her jacket and bag from the floor.
"Lucy no don't go," Milo said following her. "Stay here. It's raining, I-I'll go," he stammered, wanting her to stay here in their house. In their place with their life.
"I'm sorry I can't. I can't stay here. I'm going to Lauren's," she told him, slipping her coat on. "Don't follow me Milo," she said seriously and walked out, leaving the doctor to stand alone in the small hall of his apartment. Outside, thunder and lightning flashed and rang through the sky. The mixture of color and sound shocked him into life and he moved quickly, picking up the papers from the floor and from the counter, stuffing them into an envelope he found on the desk. He slid on his rain jacket and shoes, stuffing the envelope into his pockets and headed out the door as he pulled out his cell phone.
This was not going to end like this.
A/N: Aaaah now (mostly) everyone knows. Will someone let me know what they thought of this fight? I'm not really good at fights, so I hope it was kind of believable.
Any love is appreciated. Keep being aweseome!