Meghan: Don't fear the Reaper

“I-I don’t understand.” She tried to draw her robe closer around her narrow shoulders, voice shaking with age and fatigue, “You said it was gone.”

“It was.” The doctor said softly, “But it came back.”

“But…But you said that the medicine would get it all?” The statement was both accusatory and desperately questioning. The doctor flinched a little in response, the tension in her shoulders so small it would only have been noticeable to someone who knew her.

“Nothing is guaranteed.” She tried to be kind, but there was no kindness in what she had to say, “You had excellent chances, but sometimes it just isn’t enough. I’m sorry.”

She fled the woman’s questions in a cloud of distracting medical terms, just wanting to be gone, away from the death and on to someone who still had a chance. Where she was needed.

She pulled her long hair back in a tie with a heavy sigh. Almost at the end of her shift, she always found that those last few hours just seemed to crawl by. God she would kill for a cup of—

“Rough day?” The rich creamy voice slid across her skin like velvet and she turned to see a man holding two cups of steaming coffee.

With a smile that could melt diamonds, he offered her one, the smell of cinnamon making her deliciously dizzy.

Ignoring the offered cup, she growled low in the back of her throat, “What are you doing here?”

“’Thank you’ is a more traditional reply.”

“Get the fuck away from me D.”

He chuckled warmly, the sound making a group of passing nurses glance over and nearly swoon, “As if I could leave you alone.”

“Try. Try hard.”

She spun on her heel and walked in the other direction, but he followed, sipping his coffee without spilling a drop. Scowling blackly, she stormed into the elevator and pushed the fourth floor button impatiently. The only other person with them in the elevator was one of the general secretaries. He eyed the angry doctor nervously, like she was going to pull out a shotgun and blast away the hospital in a fit of rage.

“Don’t worry about her,” D said soothingly, clapping the man on the shoulder, “Her Uncle just died, she’s a little upset.”

She whirled on D, glaring at him with a question in her eyes.

He held up his coffees in defense, “Kidding! I was kidding, God, you take things too personally.”

She snatched a drink from his hand as the elevator doors dinged open, and left him behind.

“Oh, you just take my paltry offering and run, is that it?” He said, still only a pace behind her. She stopped and turned around, fast enough to crash into him but he danced back easily.

“I have patients D. Right now, people who need me. This is not the time to talk.”

“I will not leave unless we talk; you have avoided me long enough.”

She sucked in a breathe and blew it out, “Meet me after my shift tonight, we can talk then.”

“Good.”

Before she could blink he grabbed the collar of her lab coat and slammed her against the wall. It didn’t hurt, not really, but it blew the breathe out of her lungs and her heart raced in surprise and fear.

“We will talk little one. We have let you run free long enough.” He twirled a piece of hair that escaped her ponytail between his fingers, “Don’t even think of running.”

And then he was walking down the hall, calling back over his shoulder, “Enjoy the coffee.”

She pulled her clothes straight with shaking fingers, and raised the cup to her lips.

Delicious.

“Who was that delicious little bonbon you were talking to earlier today?”

After his year in culinary school, the only thing Chris had picked up was the irritating tendency to refer to things he liked by food names. Now he was surviving his residency on nothing but ramen and the occasional meals she brought him. She was convinced he would die of malnutrition any day now, all she had to do was stop feeding him.

Now she half laughed-half sobbed at his calling D a bonbon, “I really don’t think he’s your type.”

“Really?” Chris pursed his lips, “Sad. Ah well, his loss.” They walked out of the glass doors of the hospital’s entrance.

“See you tomorrow.” Chris said as he walked off to where his car was parked, shoulders hunched against the cold.

“See you.” She said aimlessly. She wrapped her scarf snuggly around her neck and stared up at the stars. She knew that when she got home he would be there; she just wanted to be free a little longer.

Her keys clattered as she dropped them into the bowl next to the door. She looked around her apartment, not seeing any signs of him. She walked cautiously down the hall and into the living room, still not seeing anything that would indicate whether he had been here. Of course that didn’t mean anything.

Arms glided around her waist and a warm cheek rested against hers, “Miss me?” his deep voice rumbled in her head.

She sighed and leaned against his chest, “No.”

“Hmmmm” he hummed and slid his fingers through hers, “Somehow I doubt that.”

She sighed and stepped away, “You wanted to talk, so talk.”

He caught her hand and twirled her around facing him, “So direct, aren’t you? Where’s the fun in that?”

She glared up at him as he slid a hand around her waist, “Stop it.”

“Why? You know how I love to dance.” He stepped and glided elaborately as she followed flawlessly. He chuckled as they moved, “After all, we’ve been dancing for years.”

She twisted out of his grip, “And years is long enough. I’ve given enough, let me go!”

Like before, he was on her in a blink of an eye; he snatched at her clothes, ripping, tearing. She cried out and raised her hands to try to ward him off but he was everywhere at once, yanking her scarf, stripping off her coat and shredding her shirt. She fell face down against the couch, only her pants and a few scraps of shirt left. She tried to rise on her arms but he gripped a fistful of her hair and held her down.

His movements turned gentle as he peeled away the last of her shirt.

“There you are.” He purred, fingers caressing a tattoo that swirled across her back. The flesh surged under his fingers as she tried to rise, screams strangling in her throat as he forced her down.

“You are marked.” His voice grew cold as he pressed a hand over the mark in her skin, “You are one of mine of your own free will, calling to me yourself to bring you where you are today. And you think that now that you got what you wanted you can just forget your debts? You can carve this mark from your skin, you can run as far as you want to, but I will collect. So I’m going to ask you again, and for the last time; are you ready to talk?”

She made a muffled sound and he raised her head from the couch pillows, “Yes.” She choked out.

He released her hair and she slid off the couch to sit on the floor, looking dazed. He got up and gently draped a blanket around her before settling comfortably on the couch.

She clutched the blanket around her shoulders and looked up into his eyes, “So how does this work?”

“You performed the ritual when you were a grad student; you had to have read about the strings attached.”

“I did,” She shrugged, “I just…”

“Thought you could get out of them like every other stupid mortal out there.”

“I didn’t think it would work.” She said sadly, “Some of my friends tried it; nothing.

“I was waiting for just the right little thing to come along,” he said smiling, “the ritual only works when I want it to.”

“So I’m yours now?”

“Darling, you were always mine, just now we’re not going to bicker about it.” His eyes gleamed, “Right?”

“Right.”

He stood up from the couch and stretched, “All right, now that it’s all clear, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She scrambled to her feet, “Tomorrow? What’s going to happen tomorrow? What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to kill people.”

Her lips moved wordlessly for a few seconds before she spoke, “Kill? But—but I’m a doctor, we save people, we don’t—“

“Save?” He laughed uproariously, “The main part of a doctor’s job is killing people. You save them and you kill them, you can’t be naïve enough not to know that.”

She still gaped at him in wordless horror and he laughed again.

“See you tomorrow. If you see me standing by a patient, you know what to do.”

“I can’t kill—“

“You don’t have to; you just have to not save them.” He slid his hand under her blanket and caressed her tattoo, “And remember, we promised not to use words like ‘can’t’ and ‘won’t’ anymore.”

He picked his coat up off of a chair and strode down the hall, “Bye love. See you tomorrow.”

“D—“She said, but he was already gone. She ran down the hall and threw open the door to see him walking down the street.

She ran after him screaming, “D!” He kept walking. “D! Death!”

He stopped and turned around, smiling, “I was wondering when you’d finally start calling me by my real name.” he said as she panted in front of him.

“Death, how…How can I do this?”

“You can and you must.” He kissed her on the forehead, “Besides, you don’t really have a choice. Now get back inside before you catch cold.”

And he was gone, not walking away, just gone.

“See you tomorrow.” She said softly as she turned back to her apartment, wrapping the blanket tighter against the cold.

"All say, 'How hard it is that we have to die' - a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live." ~Mark Twain

-Meghan