Archive of Our Own

“MARK! Mark, please, please respond! Mark! MARK!”

Ba- BUM Ba- bum Ba- BUM Ba bum

He turns to Dr. Paige; the glare off her glasses obscures her eyes. She just stands there, staring in his direction “Dr. Paige, what are you doing?! Of all the times to be incompetent-!”

Like a ragdoll, Dr. Paige falls over. Above him a code blue siren rings deafening in the air, off-line with Mark’s.

“No, no, no no no.”

Ba- BUM Ba- bumBa- BUM Ba bum

He goes to do compressions on her when his wrist flares up in sudden, excruciating pain, he instinctively pushes down harder than he meant to- he hears the distinctive CRACK of bones breaking sharp and quick, a whip across his senses cruel and uncaring. I broke a rib. Oh god I’ve broken a rib. Too loud for a fracture- her lungs could be punctured-

He’s panicking. He must calm down. He is the Chief of Medicine. He must do this right. He must do this perfect. He turns to Ian-

Who drops to the floor upon looking at him. A third code blue rings.

BaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUM

He’s alone. Three people coding and he’s alone. 

“Gabe?”

Mark! Oh, thank god, he’s responsive! The Miracle Defibrillator worked- he ignores the sudden curling the fingers on his right hand do against his will, the horrific pain that shoots up to his elbow- just Dr. Paige and Dr. Ian, Ada must take priority due to her stacking conditions, he goes to her-

“Ignoring me again, huh Gabe?”

What?

BaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUM

No, I’m not! he tries to say. 

“I have to,” is what comes out.

BaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUM

“Of course you do. You really haven’t changed at all.”

He forces his head to turn- he gets just enough to see Mark get up and leave.

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The sound of glass shattering over and over and over strikes his ears nearly as loud as the sirens, every shard stabbing into his heart again and again and again- he ignores it, calls out for Mark, reaches out and grabs his blanket-

which turns black and rotten to his touch. The rot spreads like disease up across Mark’s back, Mark’s neck, Mark’s face, exposing the layers of flesh and muscle and bone and marrow.

BaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUMBaBUMBabumBaBUMBabumBaBUM

Mark turns his flesh-rotted face to Edega. He says but four words:

You’re not good enough

“Gabe?! Gabe! Talk to me!”

He gasps- he gasps again- he gasps again. He smells a scent of paper hinted with ink.

BaBUMBabum Ba- BUMBa- bum, Ba- BUM Ba- bum

Ba- BUM Ba- bum, Ba- BUM Ba- bum, Ba- BUM Ba- bum

“M-Mark…?”

Mark… is still here. He is fine. Edega simply had a nightmare. His chest has the unmistakable feeling of the Rhythm Defibrillator having just completed a successful procedure, if one below the average the intern tends to put out. Before he is able to think much else he is pulled into an unexpected hug. His body tenses at the sudden contact.

“Oh thank god Gabe,” Mark whispers into Edega’s hair. It's awkward, him in his bed and Mark in the chair beside it, but that's how they stay for a while regardless. He pulls away after a moment; the space allows Edega to see that it is nighttime. His attention quickly turns back to Mark as he puts two fingers on his neck, with the result having Mark sigh in relief. “Okay, back to normal - or, closer, I guess.”

“Yes,” Edega agrees, grabbing Mark’s hand and taking it off of him. “The EKG could have told you that much. There is no need for concern, though doubtless you disagree.”

Mark just shakes his head and scoffs. “Gabe, you can’t be serious. Of course I disagree, your heart is in shambles! And, what, you’ve just been having the intern check on you, no one else? Why-”

“The intern is the one who refuses to leave me alone,” Edega interrupts. “I have told them before the same as I am telling you now: I am fine. I simply had a nightmare that caused my heart rate to spike, as nightmares tend to do. I can assure you it will not hinder my recovery.”

Mark takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose.

Frankly, it confuses Edega. Mark’s response. Surely he better than anyone would know that Edega can handle much more than this. Perhaps it has to do with him no longer being a spry young man - age is a large factor when considering health, though he would like to think he were not so old as to need to consider it so closely. He hopes there are no delusions of this being any sort of similar to Mark’s case - he knows once his arm is out of this cast he can go back to working to some degree, unlike his friend.

So his heart has a shorter row than it ought to - it’s likely been that way for years, as is the cost for his standards. And this is hardly the first nightmare he’s had that has upset it. Waiting out the pain has worked in the past and, in his estimations, will always work for him in the foreseeable future, barring extenuating circumstances such as an outright heart attack. That one hasn’t happened yet, and that he was conspicuously left out of the group defibrillations, shows the fruitlessness to the worry shown by Mark and the intern. It would only slow him down, and he has been stagnant for long enough already.

He does hope his… grandiose performance of inconsideration hasn't given Dr. Paige and Dr. Ian similar conditions, if he were to admit fault. He is glad Mark seems to finally be free of it, if nothing else. They can not handle it as well as he has proven to be able to do.

Mark sighs in clear exasperation. “You mentioned your EKG. If I saw those readings on anyone else I'd have thought they were dying. You can't just tell me - or the intern! - not to worry when you clearly need more help.”

“And yet here I am, just fine save for a bum arm,” he counters. “The intern is even done with their impromptu procedure; my heart rate is completely regular.”

“That’s not the point and you have to know that.”

“No. What I have to know is why you are so insistent on placing stress on yourself worrying over something so inconsequential, when you have only recently recovered from your condition. You act as though I may as well be pronounced dead right n-”

“What happens when this does kill you, Gabe?!” Mark snaps, eyes enraged behind his glasses, his shout echoing across the room, his face red from, in Edega’s estimations, the sudden spike in adrenaline. 

It takes him aback; filing through his memories he can't recall a single time Mark was ever this… viscerally angry. Making cases for low-priority patients, yelling about politicians cutting hospital funds to line their own pockets - things truly worth being angry over - paled in comparison to the display now. But Edega… can’t help the tilt to his head at the strange question, the overreaction. 

“Then I… die…?” he says, stating the obvious. He coughs into his hand and continues. “I fail to see the purpose of this question.”

Mark just stares at him, gaffawed, his glasses nearly slipping out of his hands. “...You're serious,” he gets out, quiet and incredulous. “Gabe, how can you just say that, after everything we've just been through?”

He reanalyzes the events in his mind. His pressure towards Mark in their younger years caused immense physical strain on his heart, causing his general health to deteriorate. He barely managed to divert the building energy from the Miracle Defibrillator away from Mark, resulting in the healthy heart his friend now has. Mark told him he wanted to catch up, read stories, get drinks, regale each other with the adventures of their lives apart from one another-

Ah. He believes he's found the issue.

“You would mourn my death,” he concludes. Such conclusion is met with a sigh as Mark puts back on his glasses.

“Yes, Gabe-”

“Though not forever.”

Those last words seem to cut all sound from the room; the piercing cicada-calls outside almost seem to ring in Edega’s ears. Mark looks at him, eyes wide and mouth agape. As though Edega has said some profound profanity and not the simple truth of the matter.

“You have friends at the hospital,” Edega clarifies, “and the ones in your book club. You have your teaching job, which you say grants you good coworkers. And I have not been good to you until recently, as anyone can see. Would my death truly upset you so much, when you have so many avenues of companionship? When mine has been so subpar?” He shrugs his shoulders. “There lies the chance you may not even-”

Mark stands before Edega can finish. Before he can think of calling out to him, he leaves.

Checking in on Dr. Edega is like looking at a puzzle and finding out you dropped a piece somewhere: you know exactly what the problem is, but until you find that piece there’s nothing you can do about it.

Ada knows there’s something wrong with Dr. Edega’s heart - of course there was! If Mark’s heart suffered so much from Dr. Edega’s work ethic from nearly a decade ago there’s a chance his heart may be worse off than Mark’s was. But, patient’s right to refuse treatment and all, and Dr. Edega made it clear he wanted no other treatment than to that on his arm. Stubborn old goat, comes to mind as she answers him, ignoring the book obscuring his face as best she can.

“The test results aren’t back yet, no, sir. We do expect to hear back as early as tomorrow, though!”

“...mmph.”

She goes to turn around. “If that’s all you needed, sir, then I’ll be going to check on Logan’s-”

“May I ask you a question before you leave, Ada?”

Hearing him say her name sends a chill up her spine, as it always does - it used to mean that she had done something wrong in his eyes, that it was time to get scolded by the harsh, cold words of Dr. Edega himself. Especially with it being of so high concern that it goes over checking on patients, something Ada does believe has never happened in her years working under Dr. Edega. Even with his even tone and innocent enough sounding request, such things never gave her proper warning of the words he would say next. She suspects that hasn’t changed even now - a person can only change so much.

“Yes? What is it?” she replies, readying herself.

“If I were to die, right now, how do you think you would react?”

A moment of silence passes as Dr. Edega’s words linger in the air, hanging over her like a guillotine ready to fall. What sort of question is that?

He makes a faint shooing motion with his casted arm, strangely casual in contrast to the bombshell he just dropped on her. “There is no suicidal ideation,” he says, as though that clarifies anything. “This is simply a hypothetical.”

One I really, really don’t like thinking about, she wanted to say, but the words don’t come out. Images of Dr. Edega’s body still and lifeless, his cold nature turned cold corpse, come to her unbidden at this cruel “hypothetical.” Never seeing him behind his desk taking on so much paperwork it makes Ada’s eyes hurt just thinking about all the words to read, never seeing him walk down the hall with his clipboard strangely close to his face, never seeing him begrudgingly let Ian take pictures of him in silly Halloween costumes every year - he is routine, a man of patterns despite his drive for innovation. Thinking of the routine getting broken due to him passing is… more stressful than she'd thought it would be.

Granted, the routine doesn't really bring comfort to her, per se - too cold for something like that, and she’s always preferred it on the hotter side - but it's … him. And she’d like to say she’s gotten fairly used to this man by now - especially now, with so much finally put behind them. She swallows, thinking how close this hypothetical got to becoming true not even two days ago.

“I’d… miss you,” she ends up saying. “Sir,” she remembers to add.

That garners a rare bit of silence from Dr. Edega. “Truly?” he eventually says. “After everything I’ve done to you, you would miss me?”

“Yes,” she answers easily.

“Why? And for how long, would you approximate?”

What the hell questions are these, she wants to shout. She takes a breath to calm herself; maybe she was foolish to think she was so used to him, if he can still take her off guard like this. “Dr Edega, may I ask why you are so curious about this topic?”

It takes a moment for him to respond. “It came up when speaking with Mark,” he says quietly, his voice losing some of that metallic sheen she’s known it for for years. “The conversation did not end well.”

Wonder why. She shakes off the thought as she hears him idly flip a page back and forth between his fingers.

“Is even the thought of it truly so terrible?” he asks without looking back at her, head slightly tilted as his thumb fiddled with the edge of the book. “That someone like me would not be mourned for, at least for long? It only seems the logical conclusion to my actions.”

She does her best to hold back from sighing too harshly, instead pausing to think about the question asked of her. “It… gives a certain implication,” she starts. “That the person doesn’t care enough to mourn. That all it takes is a few mistakes for it all to just… go away.”

“I’ve committed some rather large mistakes, Ada-”

“And you’ve made some rather large actions to try to make up for it!” She loses her battle and heaves out a sigh. She’s realizing, now that she’s having another proper conversation with Dr. Edega, that it isn’t just his work ethic he can be rather dense about. “You of all people would know how lucky you are getting away with just your arm receiving damage from the amount of shock you took - do you really think that doesn’t mean anything? That Mark would just overlook that?”

“...Anyone else would have done-”

“I didn’t,” she interrupts. “Ian didn’t.”

“...”

…Maybe a more direct approach is needed for him. 

“Dr. Edega, we are… hardly what I’d call ‘close.’ To be frank, I wouldn’t call you my friend at all.”

The remark causes Dr. Edega to scoff. “A fair assessment of our relationship,” he says after a bit.

“But,” she keeps going, “even I was offended with what you said! Of course I was! Of course I’d give a damn if you died sir, I know you! At least a little, after all this time! Hell, I’d probably send a prayer to that ratty politician if he were to pass on, and I can’t stand him! Wouldn’t you?”

A pause. “I suppose I… would find it to be unfortunate, yes.”

“Then imagine how Mark would feel if his friend passed away.”

The thumb messing with the book twitches to a sudden stop. Ada hears him take a breath in and out - before she can ask him if he feels alright he puts up his casted arm, and she stops.

“Thank you, Ada,” he says quietly after a moment. “You’ve been a great help…” and he hesitates, before adding on, “as always.”

And that - well. That made her feel good.

“Of course, sir. I’ll see you later.”

Mark hears a knock on the door shake him out of the book he was reading. The silence that follows the knock leaves him confused.

“Hello?” he calls out. If it were Ada or Ian they’d likely announce themselves and then come in, checking his general health before asking him to return to his room to properly check vitals. And he hasn’t really gotten close with anyone else in the hospital as of yet - which means the only option left was-

“Mark?” Gabe’s voice is muffled, as though he’s only being as loud as needed to be heard through the door. “May I come in?”

He finds it strange, Gabe asking for permission to enter a place that was once so readily theirs. He remembers how they would sneak behind supervisors’ backs so that they could have a moment’s peace undisturbed, back when the concept of such a thing was within Gabe’s realm of knowledge. How they’d eventually filled the room with plants, written all over the blackboards, wore out the couch cushions so that they sagged in just the right way for the both of them. This room isn’t just his. It never could be. So he answers out a yes, curt yet not unfriendly.

The door creaks slowly open, and Gabe walks in, the book he gave him tucked awkwardly under his arm. He sits down wordlessly on the couch a ways away from him, on a part that Mark knows to be lumpy and raised in a way that makes it quite uncomfortable to sit on. Gabe leans back despite that, however, taut as a bow as he takes out the book under his arm.

“I’ve just finished it,” he says, fiddling with the cover, opening and closing it between his index and middle fingers, “and I enjoyed it. I even reread portions of it that particularly grabbed my interest.”

…

“...I do see merit in the doctor’s actions, as much as I suspect you have already concluded. But the monster’s reactions… I struggled to truly empathize with, until recently.”

Mark quirks an eyebrow at that. “Oh?” he finally says. “I gave you that book not that long ago - what changed?”

Gabe closes the book with his thumb and rubs it across the edge. “A rather enlightening conversation,” he says simply. 

Mark doesn’t respond, letting the quiet speak for him.

“...Mark, I…” He stops for a moment before looking Mark in the eye. “I am sorry. My words were needlessly callous and inconsiderate of you.” 

Mark scoffs. It wasn’t the only thing Gabe had done. ‘You act as though I may as well be pronounced dead’. Putting that image back into his head, as though it hasn't been haunting his dreams as of late. Where the nightmares of old, of Edega’s cold, uncaring voice talking of excuses and failure grabbed hold of his lungs and filled them with an inky, inescapable pressure were replaced with his unending, unyielding quiet body. Where the innumerable judgemental eyes became a glossy, unseeing two. His heart may be better now, can awaken from these nightmares in no need of medications to stop the beating beating beating of his heart rate, but it didn’t hurt any less. It didn't make seeing Gabe, frustrated and cold and bored and alive just like he remembered all those years ago, any less of a panacea to his heart as that damned Miracle was.

But more than anything was the gall to say that he might not care. That after everything, none of it mattered. As if Mark could ever let go of Gabe.

In the end, however, that stupid, foolish part of himself makes a smile dance on the edge of his lips. This is… a very Gabe apology. He couldn’t ask for anything better; he knew better. He allows the quiet in the room to sit for a moment more; he watches as Gabe’s gaze is unsure where to land, until he settles for the space between them on the couch. Mark snakes his hand to that space and pats his hand; in a manner rare for Gabe, he hesitantly scoots closer- a little closer- a little closer still, until he is settled in the comfortable recess of the sunken couch cushion.

“If you really want to apologize,” he says, “you could get your heart actually checked out by your very qualified doctors.” He… puts a hand on Gabe’s shoulder; he tenses at the contact, but doesn’t remove it, doesn’t run away from it. “No more midnight scares.”

Gabe has nerve enough to open his mouth to protest, evident in the furrow in his brow - “Even if you don’t need it,” he interrupts, “then, just… do it for my peace of mind. Please.”

Gabe takes a moment, before he sighs and nods, slow and unsure but there nonetheless. “Fine. I shall revoke my accommodation. Anything else?”

And oh, isn't that tempting. With the free license he wants to ask so many questions, some as old as trees and others young as flower buds, all of them ingrained into his heart. Did you miss me? Will your arm heal completely? What did I mean to you? What happens when you get better? Will you really go right back to working yourself to the bone?

Can't you see you've done enough?

“...Let me think on that,” he says instead.

“...If you say so.”

Gabe leans back once more on the couch, this time settling into the recess and truly relaxing his body as he opens back up the lent book. Mark takes this moment of distraction to really look at his friend - to see the dark circles, the unshaven stubble, the subtle gray hairs, spindly fingers turning a page in a book found on an ever-so-slightly bouncing leg. Just as much nothing like the Gabe he always remembered as he is the Gabe he always knew - a duality Mark is learning to live with, to remember how to live with.

He sees a slight smile stretch the side of Gabe's mouth, presumably upon reaching one of those parts he liked - Mark couldn’t guess which part that is. The book isn’t exactly known for its joyous nature, and yet it brings as much to Gabe regardless. Mark can relate.