Nobody paid much attention to the short, portly man walking purposefully down the hallways of the hospital, even as he was greeting anyone and everyone that he encountered on his way to his destination. "How ya doing?" he called out jovially to everyone that he met. "I'm just fine, thank you," he replied, even when no one had actually asked him how he was. No one even cared that he was carrying a big backpack, and that whatever was in said backpack was making an awful lot of noise.
Orenthal "Gibby" Gibson had not always been this type of guy. After spending most of his childhood and adolescence in Seattle, he had decided to move to Los Angeles to start a new life, or so he said. After a few incidents with some unsavoury characters that he would as soon want to forget, Gibby became involved in the illegal narcotics trade. He was recruited as a drug dealer by some kind of mysterious group or cartel or something like that, and soon he was selling thousands of dollars' worth of drugs to people in need of a quick fix.
Gibby had then been thrust deep into the heart of Hollywood to sell "quality Mexican" to young starlets and the like after the old dealer had been rounded up by the cops after people began noticing him (a right old man by Hollywood standards) loitering around the homes of the rich and famous. After the old dealer had been nabbed, the leaders of the cartel decided that a younger man such as Gibby would have much more success blending in to the environment to which they were sending him, and it had proved to be a good gamble.
Gibby had made and cultivated good relationships with his clientele, but there were always some customers that he preferred over others. One of those "preferred customers" of his was Miley Ray Stewart, the former Hannah Montana.
Gibby finally found the room where Miley was confined, and he pushed open the door without knocking. "Either I just got very lucky," he said in greeting, "or your family doesn't even care about you anymore."
"Shut up, Gibson," Miley replied. "I called you over as soon as they were all gone. All right, now let's see what you've got."
Gibby shrugged off the pack from his shoulders, laid it down on one of the chairs, and opened it. He took out a bunch of bananas and placed them on the bedside table. "What the hell is that for?" Miley asked.
"It's fruit," Gibby replied as he revealed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from underneath the bananas. "Fruit's mandatory on a hospital visit. You should be watching TV more often."
"Thanks but no thanks," Miley said. "Everything on the TV right now is about the crash. And thanks for the smokes, man. You are a lifesaver!"
"Oh, wait. There's more." Gibby dug deeper into his pack and brought out a small cylinder wrapped in foil labelled COOKIE DOUGH. "I got this from your apartment just like you asked me," he said. "I don't want to know whatever's inside that thing. I didn't look, and therefore I am not curious."
"Yeah, right," Miley muttered, putting away the "cookie dough."
"And I also got you this," Gibby said, pulling out a big square package wrapped in brown paper from his bag. "How did that even fit in there?" Miley asked, but Gibby didn't bother to reply to that. Instead, he said, "It's something to keep you entertained while you're here."
"Is this what I think it is?" Miley asked, shaking the package. "In more ways than one," Gibby replied.
Finally, Gibby took one more item from his bag. "This is what you've been wanting from me ever since you got back," he said. It was a large, plastic box with what appeared to be brownies.
"How many in there?" Miley asked. "Enough to last until they cure glaucoma," Gibby replied. "Anyway, that should be all that you need from me. If you need any more, you know where to find me."
"Thanks, Gibby," Miley replied. "You're a real friend."
It was already midnight, and yet Miley Stewart still could not command her body to sleep. Her family and friends had come back just as soon as Gibby had gone out of her room, although none of them seemed to have noticed that she had had a visitor in the interim.
Miley's friend Lilly Truscott had stayed behind after the others had left to return to their homes so she could help Miley catch up with what had happened to the rest of the world after the crash of Flight 4892. As it turned out, nothing very important had happened in the intervening period, only that Germany had won the FIFA World Cup, and on their way to the trophy, they had absolutely demolished Brazil 7-1 in the semifinals.
Lilly had fallen asleep a long time ago, and her loud snoring was only part of the problem why Miley couldn't sleep. The main reason for that was that every time she closed her eyes, the final events of Flight 4892 kept playing over and over in her mind's eye. It was an almost never-ending cycle that eventually ended up with her not having fallen asleep even when it was already midnight and beyond that. Once she saw that it was already a few minutes past midnight, Miley decided that there was only one solution to her problem now.
Miley sat up on the bed and swung her legs over to the floor. The tiles felt cold to her feet, but she had no choice but to carry on because if she wanted to sleep, she had to do what she was planning to do. The catheter had long since been removed once she woke up, but she was still hooked up to the IV drip, so she had to take it along with her. Luckily, it was on a movable stand designed especially for moments like this, so all she had to do was take the IV along with her, and she was out of the room.
The hospital hallways were dim, with lights on only at alternating intervals. Apparently even hospitals could find ways of being cheap, Miley thought to herself. But they certainly didn't turn off the air conditioning, because she could feel the absolutely freezing wind running up and down her back and backside, because the hospital gown that she was wearing was the type that was tied off at the back only with a few strings.
Miley found an emergency exit near her room. She looked around to make sure no one was around, and then she opened the door and slipped into the emergency stairs. She sat down on the cold concrete floor and took out the pack of cigarettes that Gibby had hidden underneath the bananas, shook out a stick and lit it with the accompanying lighter. Miley stuck the cigarette in her mouth, leaned back her head, and took a deep breath. She felt the familiar rush of nicotine flooding her system, and she sighed, blowing smoke high into the air.
Miley was halfway through her first cigarette and was blowing smoke rings up at the ceiling when the emergency exit door opened, and a familiar mop of bright red hair popped in. "Miley! I didn't know you smoked," the redhead said.
"You never asked me in the first place, Ron," Miley replied.
Ron Weasley went into the stairwell and sat down beside Miley. "Is there any more where that came from?" he asked, indicating the cigarette.
"Just opened it myself," Miley replied, holding out the pack. Ron took out a stick, which he lit with Miley's lighter. "Ah, that feels good," he muttered as soon as he took a drag. "Thanks for this one, mate."
"No problem, man," Miley replied. "Hey, Ron?"
"Yes?"
"What was it like for you? The crash, I mean?"
"Right, the crash," Ron muttered. Smoke poured out from his nostrils as he pondered the question. "Well, it was definitely scary, there's no denying that," he finally replied. "I definitely thought I was going to die when it happened."
"Tell me about it," Miley said. "What about Beck, though? Did you see what happened to him? I mean, I've heard the rumors, but do you know what really happened?"
"Are you kidding me?" Ron asked in reply. "Once you see something like that, you can't un-see it. You can wish, you can forget, but sometimes it pops just right back in there in your mind's eye, and before you know it, it's already morning, and you haven't even slept a wink."
"So you're saying that it's true? Beck doesn't have half a head anymore?"
"You're better off not knowing the whole truth, Miles. Believe me on that."
Right at that moment, the emergency exit door opened once again, and this time two people, a man and a woman, went in. "Oh, sweet niblets!" Miley exclaimed. "What is this, a smoker's convention?"
"Don't blame me," Erwin Sikowitz said. "Ron's the one who texted us about the smokes."
"Guilty as charged," Ron said, raising his hands in mock surrender.
"So, are you guys talking about anything in particular or are you just smoking in private?" Annabeth Chase asked, but not before Miley had already distributed more cigarettes among them.
"We were just talking about the crash, actually," Ron replied. "And Beck, of course."
"It's such a shame about Beck," Sikowitz said. "I've known that kid ever since he joined Cash. You could say that I was his mentor while he was still moving up the ranks, or something like that. He was a fast learner: teach him anything one time, and he'll know it till kingdom come. Actually, a few weeks ago, he told me that he was actually planning to finally make the move from the cabin to the cockpit."
"Knowing him, I think he would have made a pretty damned fine pilot," Ron said. "Such a shame that he had to go the way he went."
"Look, Ron, I know you said to me that I'm better off not knowing, but I really want to know," Miley said. "So please, will you tell me?"
Ron, Sikowitz, and Annabeth looked at each other, as if trying to get a consensus of opinion. Finally, Sikowitz was the one to make the first move. "When you turned on the FASTEN SEATBELTS sign, Miles, we all followed," he said. "But then, when the plane went a little bit lower, Ginny—Ron's sister, if you remember her—saw that this baby or little kid or whatever had slipped out of her seat, and so she unbuckled and helped the kid get back. Then the angle of descent got steeper, and Ginny realized that she wouldn't be able to get back to her seat now, so Beck, always the guy that helps out, got out of his seat and against all odds managed to get Ginny back safe. And then, just before he could sit down… crash." Sikowitz slapped his palm on the back of his other hand for emphasis.
"We had a hard time getting the passengers to evacuate because they didn't want to go down the aisle where Beck went down," Ron added. "Annabeth and I were there when the paramedics finally pulled him out of the wreck. They'd already covered his body for the purposes of decency, but you could tell that the top of his head was just gone. During the crash, I remember clearly seeing some of the debris flying towards him, and then he was down. I thought I even saw his brain for a moment." Ron took a long drag from his cigarette, hoping that the tar and nicotine could help him force down the bile creeping up his throat.
"Jade was there when they finally brought Beck to the morgue," Annabeth said. "She was absolutely hysterical from crying. It took ten guys just to finally pry her away from the body. God, it was such a sad and sorry sight. Even I feel like crying when I remember it."
"Oh, God," Miley muttered. "It's all my fault. I shouldn't have flown while I was still recovering from that hangover."
"Hey, Miley," Ron said, "if there's one thing that we know is true, it's that you're not at fault for this. Beck would have told you to stop blaming yourself for it, for him, for all the others that died. You had no way of knowing that that was what was going to happen when you made the decision to land, and there is nothing you could do to change that. Besides, when you think about it, maybe it was Beck's time. He was a good person. And you know what they say about good people: they're too good for this world."
"Maybe," Miley muttered, but her soul still felt heavy with the guilt of being at least part of the reason why 48 people were no longer alive. Eventually all of them fell silent, with only the occasional breath from dragging a cigarette breaking the silence. One by one, they slipped out of the emergency exit, with Miley being the last to come out, with gum in her mouth to disguise the nicotine in her breath, and her IV stand still dragging along behind her.
Lilly was still sound asleep when Miley got back to her room. Miley carefully hid the cigarettes and lighter from view, slipped back into bed, and closed her eyes in one last attempt to finally fall asleep. This time, when she closed her eyes, she saw the crash as it happened from with the cabin, and the last thing that she remembered seeing was a large jagged piece of metal flying towards her before she finally fell into blissful sleep.
A/N: As always, if you want to say anything about the story, leave a review!
GR