Scarecrow and Mrs. King is the registered trademark and copyrighted property of B&E Enterprises/Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Brothers Television. This fiction item is intended for entertainment purposes only. No compensation has been received or will be accepted for this item, and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended or should be implied.

The Energy of Sun Rays

Joe: Out of Time

Joe watched carefully as Jamie came up to the window outside Phillip's ICU room. He'd been uncertain about the twelve-year-old's ability to handle seeing his brother covered in bruises and swathed with bandages from the nose up. The proliferation of monitors, tubes, and other medical equipment surrounding Phillip dwarfed him in size, even though he'd already started his adolescent growth spurt. Joe himself was certainly having trouble handling it, despite being an adult.

But Amanda had felt like it was important to let Jamie see his brother sooner rather than later, particularly since Phillip's condition was still critical. "He needs to see it to understand it," she'd told him. "And he's stronger than you might think. They both are. They've…" she'd trailed off. "They've seen me in some pretty dangerous situations and with some injuries already, and then there was the time you were accused of murder. Both of them understood what was going on during that."

She'd made a good point, despite his hesitation, and now he was glad to see that she'd been right. Jamie's nose pressed up against the window for a long time, and tears began running down his face, but he'd remained as quiet as he'd said he would. Still, the expression on his face was unreadable when he turned away.

The tone of his voice, though, made things perfectly clear. "Is he going to die too?"

"We hope not," said Amanda, "and it's a good sign that he came through the surgery as well as he did."

"How long —" Jamie's voice caught. "How long is he going to be like…like that?"

"We don't know. As long as it takes."

"And will he be normal afterward?"

She took a deep breath, eyes dropping to the floor. They'd already both been told that a stay in a rehabilitation center was going to be required, and that some, if not all, of the damage was probably going to be permanent. It was going to be a long, difficult recovery that likely would not bring Phillip all the way back to what he'd been like before. It was still too early to tell, though, the full extent of the damage or how normal the rest of his childhood might be.

"Mom? You're not answering me."

"It's too early to tell," she answered after a moment.

"Does he…does he know about Grandma?"

Amanda shook her head. Her eyes had become wet and glassy again. "He's been unconscious since the wreck, Jamie. Even if he hadn't been, we wouldn't have told him right away. He needs to focus on getting better."

"Oh. I guess that makes sense. And I guess it's good he's not awake right now. All that stuff's gotta hurt a lot."

"Yeah," she acknowledged. Her voice was rough and choked.

"We're gonna need to be kinda strong for him, too, aren't we?"

"Looks like you're already working on that, son," said Joe. He was impressed at how well Jamie was handling things so far. "You're right. He will need it. So will all of us. But you don't have to do it alone."

Jamie's lips twitched. "Yeah, that's what Carrie said. And Lee said that it wouldn't ever stop hurting completely, but we'll get used to it. I guess he will too, won't he?"

Joe laid a hand on his shoulder. "Yeah, I guess we all will."

They stood there for a long while, watching without speaking, each of them lost in their own thoughts. The only sound was the steady beep-beep-beep of the heart monitor, which was loud enough to be heard outside the window. Another piece of equipment emitted periodic clicks as it cycled through whatever it was doing. Part of him wondered exactly what it was, but another part of him wasn't sure he wanted to know. He'd seen injuries like this while working in Estocia, but somehow, for some reason, this was different.

Of course it was different, he realized as Amanda shifted beside him. This was his son. Their son, their oldest child that they'd made together out of what they'd thought to be a long-term, sustainable love. Even if they had been wrong about its enduring nature, he had still come from something wonderful and amazing. He was a touchstone, a symbol, and one of the best things he had ever had a hand in creating.

He found himself blinking away tears, wishing he'd realized this earlier, when there was still time to be there for his children.

But he would have time, wouldn't he? Jamie was still here, and Phillip wasn't gone. Why was he thinking this way?

Then his awareness sharpened, coming back to the present with a jolt and terminating the line of thought. The one monitor's beeping was becoming faster. Too fast, it sounded like, and he could dimly hear an alarm going off. Behind him, there were running feet, shouting voices, and then a nurse rushed in and pulled a curtain across the window.

"Hey!" he yelled. "Don't do that! We're his family! What's —" he stepped toward the door, even though they'd been asked to stay out in the hall. "Don't cut us off like that!"

One of the nurses stopped him. "Mr. King, please. We're trying to save him. Let us do that."

"But what's going —" he cut himself off in horror. There was a new noise now, another one that he'd heard in Estocia more than once. One he'd hoped he never had to hear again: a loud buzzing as electrical paddles were charging. A nurse was already placing them, one on Phillip's upper chest and the other on a diagonal from it, nearer his abdomen.

"Clear!" shouted another nurse. There was a loud thunk, and then the beeping resumed. But it was erratic, wrong, and it accelerated even as the doctor who'd spoken with them earlier came running into the room. He skidded slightly as he came to a stop.

The defibrillator finished its next charge cycle. "Clear!"

Another thunk. Another series of erratic beeps that began to accelerate.

Amanda was beside Joe, her hands to her mouth and tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Damn you, don't give up!" shouted the doctor. Joe remembered that he was named Dawson. "There was no thoracic damage, nothing —" he cut himself off. "Where's that EKG? Why the hell is he arresting?"

The nurses kept working, adjusting things, charging the defibrillator again and again. Something wrapped around Joe's waist and hung on, hard, and he looked down to see Jamie's face buried in his chest. He put his arms around his younger son and held on tight. Jamie shouldn't be here. Jamie shouldn't have to see something like this happening. Hell, none of them should have to be here, but Jamie especially.

Yet there was no way to get him out of there, no way to do anything except hang on. Amanda was keening softly under her breath. Joe freed one of his arms and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling her close. It wasn't enough. It wasn't anywhere near enough. But it was all he could do as they watched the horrific scene unfold in front of them.

Another charge. Another thunk. Another spate of erratic, accelerating heartbeats. A nurse had a syringe and was pushing something into one of the IV lines. Joe craned his neck, peering at the syringe's label, and was just able to make out the word epinephrine. Why? Phillip's heartbeat was accelerating, not slowing down. Then he saw that his chest was fluttering, too, and that Phillip seemed to be struggling to breathe despite being on a ventilator.

Next to the nurse, the doctor was calling out information he didn't understand, something about hidden thoracic damage and checking for evidence of any blows to the chest. Then he was demanding another look at the CT scans, saying something about the medulla. Joe frowned. Wasn't that a part of the brain?

They set off the defibrillator again, and this time the beeps continued their erratic rhythm instead of accelerating. It seemed to be a good sign, but Phillip was still fighting to breathe. A faint tinge of blood appeared around his lips, and his chest had developed a pink flush.

There was so much motion, so much activity, so many conflicting sights, that he couldn't tell if his son was improving or not. The only indicator was another of the nurses, swearing through tears. "Come on, come on. Don't do this. You're too young."

The heart monitor sounded again. "Defib again, stat!"

Another buzz, another thunk, but this time there was no erratic rhythm afterward, just a steady tone. The medical team kept working, kept fighting, kept demanding that Phillip fight his way through whatever was going on. But nothing happened, and the pink flush on his chest slowly spread up his neck to his face. His fingers began turning the same color.

"No," whispered Amanda. It would've been a scream, but she didn't seem to be able to summon enough volume. Two more of the nurses had started crying.

"No, damn it!" shouted Dawson, his voice angry and anguished at the same time. "Not this one, too!"

But the nurse at the head of the bed, the one who'd begun crying first, shook her head slowly. Dawson turned away, sweeping his hands across a nearby table and sending its contents crashing to the floor.

"No," whispered Amanda again, and she fell to her knees. "Not Phillip. Not my son, too. Dear God, anything but this!" Her voice had risen to a shriek. "Why are you giving up on him so quickly?"

"Ma'am," said one of the other nurses. "It's been twenty-eight minutes."

In Joe's arms, Jamie had turned around, and now he began to shake, too. Joe caught him, forcing himself to stay steady, knowing that that was what was needed. Inside, though, he was screaming the same words as Amanda: not Phillip. Not his son. Not this. Anything but this. He was too young. They needed more time with him. Parents weren't supposed to have to bury their children!

The head nurse took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. We have to call it."

Amanda's shrieks rose to screams, joined by Jamie as he broke free from Joe, running down the hall toward the exit. He knew he should follow, but his feet felt as if they were made out of lead. They only allowed him two steps, bringing him next to a wall. He cried out at the sudden, sharp, searing pain in his knuckles but barely noticed that the wall suddenly had a new hole in it. It wouldn't take any time at all to fix it, he knew, but there was no more time. He'd run out of that, run out of chances, run out of everything that mattered.

How in the world was he supposed to go on from here?

Author's Note: Special thanks go out to SAC for a medical review of this chapter, as well as some useful suggestions.