Disclaimer: I don't own Scrubs.
It Ends TonightChapter Three
Kim takes my hand and rests it on the coffee table. Ha—coffee table. Who called it that? Does anyone actually eat coffee in front of the television now that we have industrial sized donuts and microwavable hot chocolate?
"I need to tell you something."
Her hands are cold. Reluctantly, I look up at her. I notice that the tension in the air is as thick as pancake batter; suddenly it feels as if we never really knew each other at all. We're strangers in a strange place we've never been before. The spacious, white walls of Elliot's new house suddenly seem like the walls of the hospital, and here we are again, meeting each other again as if we only knew each other in different lives.
When I look up at her, though, I realize that she's looking at our hands. The wedding band is back on, I notice with a start. Why . . . why would she do that? I thought she decided not to wear it anymore.
It's so shiny and innocent, a single diamond, winking in the slight sun coming in from daybreak. I'm looking at our hands now, too. The way they're touching without actually feeling. And just how normal it feels to hold her hand—there's no spark, no epiphany, no loves that shoots to the moon and back.
Maybe we were never really in love. But we did share something beautiful that was never coming back.
"Yeah?" I ask quietly.
She clears her throat. "Uh, JD . . . "
Kim's expression is pained, focused so hard on our hands that it looks for a moment as if she isn't even breathing. There's a tremor in her touch, a shakiness in her voice that I've never heard before. She looks desperate and guilty and sad when she finally raises her head to stare me in the face.
"I wish . . . so much . . . that . . . "
I move to hug her but she shakes her head, tears springing to her eyes. "No, JD, we can't," she says firmly. I'm not sure who she's angry at, though. Me? Or herself?
"Oh. Sorry," I say softly. It's different now that we aren't going to be parents, I guess. Maybe she never really liked me at all.
When darkness turns to light
It ends tonight
It ends tonight
Just a little insight won't make this right
It's too late to fight
It ends tonight
"No," Kim says again, "I'm sorry." Then she awkwardly leans in closer to me and puts a hand on my shoulder, as if she's afraid to touch it.
"Why?" I ask. What reason did she have to be sorry?
"I . . . I wasn't straight with you."
"What?" I suddenly imagine lesbian Kim and lesbian Molly and lesbian Carla coming in for a three-way kiss. Then they all mash into each other, receive violent concussions and pass out cold. See? I never get to the good part. "You're . . . well, okay . . . "
"No, stupid! I mean, I wasn't honest with you," she clarifies, fidgeting. She takes her hand off my shoulder and starts fiddling with her wedding band, twisting it this way and that as if it's too uncomfortable to be on her finger. I don't ask her about it—turns out I didn't need to.
"I wish more than anything, JD, that you were the father," Kim bursts out, fat tears suddenly rolling down her cheeks and plopping into her lap. A shudder of remorse runs up her spine and she gasps a bit, saying, "It's just not fair!"
I gawk at her. "Kim . . . we'll be okay. Let's just start where we left off. Before the baby. You know, a third date?" I ask lightly, trying to cheer her up. I grab her a tissue from Elliot's table and hand it to her.
She ignores the gesture, crying hysterically, "No, we can't 'start where we left off'! That's the thing, JD. There . . . there should never have been a start. Oh, God," she moans. "Oh, God . . . I can't . . . I'm sorry."
"What?" I press her, panic welling in my chest. "What's wrong?"
"JD, I never had a miscarriage."
The room chills and my blood runs cold. My head feels numb and dizzy and elated all at once. Then comes the disbelief—babies didn't come back from miscarrying. So that means . . . there never had been one? Kim lied to me?
I thought she loved me.
"Wait . . . but that would mean that our baby—"
"My baby." She lets out a sob, her face red and blotchy. "Mine and . . . my ex-husband's."
It ends when darkness turns to light
It ends tonight
It ends tonight
Just a little insight won't make this right
It's too late to fight
It ends tonight
"JD?"
Blackberries. Elliot left the blackberries she was washing in her kitchen sink.
Kim sobs.
"JD, I'm sorry. I was stupid. I thought . . . oh, God, look at this mess. I'm marrying him again. It's the only way for the baby to . . . have a normal life."
I nod numbly, staring at a painting on Elliot's wall. It's of a little girl in a garden. She looks a bit like . . . Kim and me. Big eyes brown eyes, blonde hair, a little hat on her head. The child that would have been ours.
"Look at me," she demands, frenzy in her voice. She grabs my hand again, clutching to it violently as if it were her last lifeline. Then she's hugging me harder than I've ever been hugged before, shaking in my arms, muttering words I can't even hear through the warble of her sobbing.
"Say something," she asks me. "Please."
It's too much, but I comply. Before I can even think, the words have escaped: "Do you love him?"
Now we're drowning in that pancake-batter-tension. She slackens in my arms, whispering, "I don't know. Maybe. Probably not. I mean . . . " Her breath hitches, rattling from her crying. "I wish it were really you. You'd be a good father, JD. I know you would be. This sucks," she declares outright.
Finally I gain enough use of my arms to hug her back.
"I'm going home tonight," she whispers, "but remember that I will love you as one of my best friends for as long as I live."
It ends tonight
Tonight, insight
When darkness turns to light
Elliot sets the grocery bags down on the counter, regarding my stiffened position. I've been sitting here staring at the blank television for hours. Once she's finished putting her frozen goods away, she sits down silently beside me and stares as I stare.
"She told you," she says grimly.
My head turns slightly to look at her through the corner of my eye. She has tears in her eyes and she's politely not staring at me as my eyes fill with tears.
I'm not even mad that Elliot knows. Maybe she knew before I did—women were just like that, always telling each other everything. "Yes," I admit, feeling myself start to quiver with the effort of not crying.
Then I can't stop. Noiseless tears of devastation and betrayal fall down my cheeks. Who am I mad at? Kim, for lying to me? The bastard who impregnated her? The baby itself? Or me, for being so naive and stupid in thinking that everything would be okay?
"I'm so sorry," she says, her voice raw and sincere. She leans in and hugs me in the same way Kim did earlier. Except this time I'm the one who needs support, not Kim. I cry on her shoulder, reddening with the humiliation of it all, right from the second Kim said the words "JD, I'm pregnant" to the moment I'm living in.
"It was our baby," I say, my voice strained. "And she . . . "
"I know," she says soothingly, "I know. It hurts."
I sigh, shuddering heavily. "Why does it feel like everything's falling apart?"
Elliot waited for a while before she replied. "Maybe . . . maybe because you have to start new. Maybe it's time to rebuild." She pulls away from the hug, giving me a small, watery smile. "Maybe this means that you have to move on."
I nod. "I guess I'll try."
It ends tonight
End.
I'd write more, but the next eppie of Scrubs season six is starting in less than THREE MINUTES!! AHHHH! Okay, okay, SHUT UP, time to UPDATE! (Soooo not talking to myself over here). LESS THAN TWO MINUTES! CRAAAAP!