chosehumanity | A Hospital, Bristol, Wednesday Morning

They had moved Mitchell to a different ward overnight. For study, they'd said. He knew this wasn't a good thing, that this could only end badly, and that he was looking forward to spending the rest of his unlife being prodded at by researchers at the rate he was going.

He stared up at the ceiling, ticking away the hours in his head. He felt so weak, like he hadn't in decades, strung out and empty and nearly unable to move. He could hear the heart monitor, the doctors and nurses moving about, and the sound of Josie's wheelchair coming closer.

He redirected his gaze. "My body can't make new blood," he explained, as he saw her eyes land on the blood bag attached to his cot. "I need--" He trailed off. Best not to mention that. Not after what Jack had asked the other night. "And this isn't helping."

Josie	"George and Kate let me in on what happened," Josie explained. She got up out of her wheelchair, so she could stand at his side, lean at his bed. He still looked so young, she could scarcely comprehend it. And pale. "I don't understand. I thought you were Vampire Employee of the Month."
Mitchell	"I had a change of heart." He smiled at her, or tried to. It came out wan, wary, fond.
Josie	"There is another option," she started.
Mitchell	"You're not the first one to offer," Mitchell muttered, shutting his eyes. "I told Kate no, I'm telling you, no. There isn't."
Josie	She sighed. Carefully, she sat down on the edge of his bed, quirking a smile. "Just hear me out," Josie said. "My condition... Well, let's just say it wouldn't be worth me starting any long books." She patted his leg. "In fact, think of it like... organ donation."
Mitchell	No. "Every time I do it, the gap between me and humanity gets wider," Mitchell murmured, his chest rumbling with the effort. No. He remembered. He remembered too much. Especially here, on his own, stuck in his own head, all of their faces.
Josie	She stood up. "And if you don't stop Herrick," she said, sternly, "Who will?"
Mitchell	Always such stubbornness. So cocksure, so certain she knew what was best, what the right thing to do was. He'd always loved that about her, he'd known that most of the time, she was right, in her tiny, mortal way, grasping things he couldn't anymore. "You saved me once already," Mitchell whispered, "So let me save you too."
Josie	"Death isn't always the unwelcome guest you think it is," Josie said, and there was a kindness in her eyes, that infernal something that had once led to her picking an old murderer up by his bootstraps and pushed him into the light. "Besides, there comes a time when you can feel the party winding down around you," she added. The bed dipped under her weight again, and this time she shuffled closer. "But oh, my love, what happens to you?"
Mitchell	"I'll live," he said, and reached up to brush a stray strand of hair away from her face. He could see the lines from here, etched all over her, like history.
Josie	"Yes," she said, and stretched her legs out on the bed, pressing her head to his chest. "Endlessly."
	He pressed a kiss to her temple, and fought his rebelling muscles until he managed to slip an arm around her, bringing her close. "I'm tired," she whispered into his chest. "And I was thinking... about the first time I saw you. My god, my knees were like spaghetti." This story, this story that wasn't real, and that was real, the story of their second meeting, the one that didn't come covered in blood and lies and Herrick, the story he'd wanted his life to be then, still wanted to be now. "You sat there with your cigarette, trying to look all sophisticated," he murmured back, laughing softly. "And I spent ten minutes lighting the wrong end," she whispered. "You made me so nervous..."

The nurses found her twenty minutes later, her body slumped back in her wheelchair. She had a quiet smile on her face, a content one, as if the coming and going of life had been the best she'd ever wished for. A little like a secret, and a great deal like happiness.

Dead of natural causes, her chart would read; she was a dying woman, and no one would ever think to check the contents of her veins.

Mitchell sat up on the edge of his bed, and cried.

[[ nfb, OOC-okay, and taken from Being Human 1x06. Warning: character death. open to anyone in bristol who might want to find them after, before the nurses come in ]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Does as it says on the tin.

Jack ... had gone home the day before. Briefly, and with his mind everywhere except where it was supposed to be, but he'd made the effort. Staying in the hospital had gotten too hard in a hundred ways, and the frustration of not doing anything had ground him down even more.

Sebastien had been kind enough not to ask questions.

He was back by Wednesday afternoon. The first thing he noticed wasn't anything in particular about Josie (other than that it was sweet, in a geriatric way, that someone had wheeled her in); it was that Mitchell was sitting up.

And seemed to be crying, or about to. And that made him look at Josie again, and --

Don't assume. He knew that.

"I'm back, he said, a forced friendliness in his voice. "How are things here?"

Mitchell looked up, and it felt like slow motion; he didn't really see Jack, seemed to be looking at a patch of wall behind his head. "She--" he started, and licked instinctively at his lips, chasing the last of it away.

It didn't last long, but until Jack pulled himself together, he looked horrified at the implication. He liked Josie, little as he knew her, and if she was gone --

Could that possibly be what Mitchell meant? Mitchell, who had turned down Kate, who was young and healthy and would have recovered with little more than a hamburger and a good nap?

"I don't understand." It was almost a whine.

"She didn't have much more than a week to live," Mitchell said. He sounded shellshocked. "And she wouldn't-- she called it 'organ donation'. She wanted me to make things--"

He did cry that time, noiseless and soft.

Jack never dealt well with crying, but commenting on that seemed -- worse than useless. Cruel.

Really, anything he said might feel cruel. Salt in a wound. He disagreed with Josie's choice, but he couldn't deny it was hers to make, and she'd saved at least one life doing it.

"What did she want you to do?" he asked, as gently as he could manage through his own shock.

"She wanted me to stop Herrick." That, at least, was simple. Mitchell stared down at his hands. "I don't even know if that's possible."

"It has to be." Ah, there was Jack's backbone, though he couldn't cover the still-shocked dullness in his eyes. "I don't think you'll want to live with yourself if it isn't."

"I can try to fight him," Mitchell said. Dully, he noticed the nurses slipping back into the general area. "I don't know what good it'll do, but I will."

"A plan would help," Jack suggested, since that was his main lesson from the chair ninjas experience. He watched the nurses assemble, and slipped into a chair against the wall where he wouldn't be much noticed. "But that's for later, isn't it."

Idem dito.

It's sad that work has ruined my brain to the extent that I can only respond "Indiana department of environmental management?"

And then add that I just spent more time than was strictly comfortable at the volume he speaks, explaining FH to New Boy. Who plays XBox Live games and engaged me in a conversation about how people who write horrible sitcoms with mass appeal are actually fairly brilliant because they can create something that entertains the masses of Stupid People despite not being entertained by it themselves. I am alternately appalled and intrigued by the premise.

PS. No dammit Mitchell because the Josie thing was just too sweet to dammit.

Edited 2010-11-17 14:39 (UTC)

*WIBBLE* This bit always kills me. *sniff*

A Hospital, Bristol, Wednesday Morning

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