Written in 59 minutes. Fixed the format (well changed it lol)

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I said remember this feeling
I passed the pictures around
Of all the years that we stood there on the sidelines
Wishing for right now

April 2009

Emily stripped the scrub cap from her head, letting her messy brown hair fall to her shoulders. She’d  chopped it off a few months earlier, exhausted from a long day at work, an even longer night with a toddler and a newborn on her own with Nikolas in London for another trip. She didn’t have the patience for a hair dryer to tame it after a much needed hot shower, so she’d reached for the nearest scissors and hacked at it.

“You did everything you could.”

Emily shook her head, shoved her hands through her hair, letting her fingers link at the nape of her neck and rest there. “Do you really think that’s going to comfort the parents in the waiting room?” she wanted to know. She tipped her head back. “Why did I think being a pediatric surgeon was a good idea?”

Patrick Drake leaned against the metal sink, folding his arms. “We save more than we lose, Em. You think it gets easier because my patients are usually older? You knew it was a long shot. That’s why you called me in.”

“I know. I know.” She exhaled slowly, staring out into the operating room where nurses were cleaning up, and one of the residents was carefully stitching the chest of the five-year-old they’d lost on the table. Tears burned hot in her eyes. “He’s Cam’s age, you know?”

“You can’t do that. Em.” He touched her shoulder. “You can’t do that. The next kid might be Spencer’s age. The one last week was Lila’s. You need a break. A long one.”

“Maybe you’re right. Nikolas wants to take Spencer to Greece this summer, you know, to see the island.” She rubbed her bare arms. “Lila will be old enough for a flight.”

“Well, I was talking about tomorrow, but—” Patrick followed her out the hallway and down the hallway to the hub of the surgery floor. Emily had retrieved her beeper and was flicking through her pages. “Anything good?”

“No. Just a call from my mother, but it’s the when you’ve got time code,” Emily told her. She stopped at the counter, flicked through the other charts but Patrick stopped her from plucking a new one. “What?”

“You’ve got time. Go call your mom, go home, see your kids—”

Emily pursed her lips. “Why are you being so friendly? Why are you interfering with my life? What’s wrong? Did you and Robin have another fight, because I don’t—”

Patrick rolled his eyes, walked in the other direction. “Fine, don’t call your mom. Jump off a cliff. I don’t care.”

“That’s more like it,” she called after him, but he had a point, and maybe her mother would have something to perk her up.

—

For the last two years, Elizabeth had reported to the hospital five days a week, splitting her hours between the family clinic where she worked as a licensed family counselor, the free clinic on the first floor where she saw urgent cases, and the meetings she ran for sexual assault survivors. She went to the pediatrics floor regularly for Cameron and Jake, to catch up with Emily when the fifth-year resident had time—

The one area of the hospital she avoided like the plague was the tenth floor and the ICU.

Though it had been almost six years since the summer she’d spent recovering from the pulmonary embolism, it was impossible to completely shed the way it felt to be on the floor, to see the clear walls of the patient rooms, being on display while her reputation had been shredded in tabloids and to anyone who listened—

The floor looked the same — the hub for the nurses and doctors, the waiting room, and the three hallways that branched out from the hub, each with lined with patient rooms whose residents were clearly visible.

Monica was in the waiting room, rising to her feet, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso. “You came so quickly—oh. I didn’t—you have Cameron—” She furrowed her brow. “But not Jake. So you didn’t come from daycare. What’s wrong?”

Cameron, at the sound of his grandmother’s voice, lifted his head from his father’s shoulder. “Gammy. Hi.”

“Hey there, sweetheart.” Monica stroked Cameron’s curls, her fingerstips sliding across his forehead. “He has a fever?”

“A cold,” Jason clarified. “It’s—it’s fine. We were on our way home, but we can’t take him to daycare—”

“No, of course not. I’m—” Monica took a deep breath. “I just—I was ready, and then I saw Cameron—”

“Why don’t I take him?” Elizabeth suggested, holding her hands out. “We’ll go sit over there, and you can talk to your mom—”

“Your patient—”

“I have a little while, and I’ll call Bobbie if we need to.”

Jason gently transferred their son into Elizabeth’s arms, not releasing his grip until he was satisfied, but then watched them cross over to the side of the waiting room and settle in one of the chairs.

“Just a cold?” Monica said gently, and he looked back at his mother, at her worried expression.

“There’s a little more, but it can wait. You—” He looked past her, from one hallway to the next. “You said Alan was here.”

“He is. He was admitted last night,” Monica said, then pursed her lips. “And then Tony and I had a conversation where it became clear that it wasn’t the first time Alan had seen a doctor.”

Jason frowned. “Tony’s—he’s a neurosurgeon—is it a tumor, or—”

“He was hiding it from me, so he put all his testing through Tony’s service.” Monica shook her head. “It’s—it’s his heart. God.” She closed her eyes, tilted her head up. “It’s his heart, and he wouldn’t tell me. This is what I do. This is who I am—and I can’t even be furious at him when we’re in the same room because there’s not enough time to be angry—”

Not enough time. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”

Monica stopped, pressed her lips together, clearly fighting to calm herself. “Last night, he couldn’t catch his breath. Couldn’t breathe. He had no choice, but to tell me. It’s heart failure. To put it bluntly. ”

“Heart failure,” Jason repeated. “Okay. What do we do? What—the treatment. What’s the—” He stopped when his mother looked away. Not enough time. “Mom.”

“He’s had heart problems for years, but we’ve managed it through medication, health, diet — he wanted to stay healthy especially now. Especially with—” She turned away, took another breath to steady herself. “With the grandchildren coming, and how…he didn’t want to take it for granted. This second chance for our kids to be with us. You, AJ, and Emily. We have holidays and birthdays and weekly dinners, he promised me he was doing everything—”

“But he didn’t tell you he was getting sicker,” Jason said, trying to sort through the jumble of words, the whiplash of her emotions. “You knew he was sick, but he got worse without telling you.”

“I—yes. Yes. His kidneys—they’re not doing well. And his blood pressure—I don’t have to tell you how serious hypertension is. I’m sorry, I’m not—I had it all planned. The way I would tell you, and then I saw Cameron, and he’s sick, and Cameron won’t remember him. He won’t. Jake and Lila and Spencer and Michael and Morgan—”

Jason pulled his mother into his arms, finding Elizabeth’s eyes across the room. He could see the tears glistening on her cheeks. She wasn’t close enough to hear everything, but it wouldn’t take much to see what was going on.

He rubbed his mother’s back, then pulled back. “Okay. One step at a time. Okay?” He knew people at this hospital. Elizabeth knew people. They’d get Alan’s chart explained to them. It wasn’t fair to expect Monica to do it all. Bobbie.  “Did you call Emily and AJ?”

“AJ and Carly took the boys to New York. It’s spring break and there were meetings at the—” Monica scrubbed the tears from her eyes. “We have to call them. I don’t know how long. I can’t think straight.”

“You don’t have to. Emily?”

“She was in surgery, but I left a message—”

“Okay. I’m going to call Bobbie,” Jason told her. “And I’ll call Carly.” He was already pulling his phone from his pocket. “I’m going to call Justus, too. Maybe he and Tamika can pick up Jake—” But Cameron needed more than that. Treatments and prescriptions picked up from the pharmacy—

One step at a time. “Let me make a few calls, and then we’ll get Alan’s chart, and Tony. Tony can talk to us. You shouldn’t have to.”

“I—”

“Telling people,” Jason said slowly, “having to repeat it over and over again to the people who matter, it’s the hardest part. Having to relive it. Come on. Come sit with Elizabeth and Cameron while I make the calls. And then we’ll go talk to Ala—to Dad,” he said. It had never become comfortable, these labels he’d rejected for Alan and Monica all those years ago, and he had to think about it, had to use the words deliberately.

Even after all this time, all the ways they’d worked hard to rebuild their family, and the ways Alan and Monica had helped Jason build his own — it had never become second nature. He thought it might, eventually. With time.

And now time was running out.

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