Title: In the End; Golden Slumbers (Carry that Weight)Rating: PgPairing: JD/Cox (hinted established relationship)Disclaimer: Mine, totally.Warnings: Character death.Summary: Funeral fic. Might be a tear jerker.

The lights in the church were dim, and ominous, but bright enough to bounce shattered reflections off the pristine box of polished wood. Open Casket, I'd never been to a funeral inside a church before. I stood alone in the corner, willingly out casting myself, while my hands fisted angrily inside my pockets. My eyes were downcast and covered by a fringe of curly red, but I could still see everyone else as they piled neatly in to the pews. Some faces were stoic, reserved, while other people sat openly weeping. My own eyes remained dry, but I felt my brow furrow, lips purse into a thin white line.

I clenched my fists tighter, feeling crescents of skin slip under my nails as they dug deeper, deeper, deeper into my palms. My jaw was clenched, teeth grinding together.

A soft hesitant hand touched my arm, and I turned to stare down into reflective pools of pain.

'Dr. C…….Perry…..you should sit down. The funeral…it's about to start." I stared at Carla, her china doll brown eyes filled with opalescent tears that threatened to spill over. My gaze flickered for an instant, eyes searching instinctively for him, but landing forlorn on the open casket. I didn't look back at her, but begrudgingly taking a seat at the very end of the last pew. As far as I could get from the truth.

Death was never a word I considered a threat. As a doctor I'd managed to grow a cold shoulder, an apathetic acceptance, that some people cannot and will not be saved. That everything we do, everything I do is just a stall; delaying the inevitable. But here and now, the word itself was alive. It was visceral, and tangible; something that consumes my senses until I was sure I could taste and feel and smell it everywhere. Something that clung to me and manifested it's self inside me, penetrating my pores, my being. Something……….

I closed my eyes, squeezing tightly, and reached for the flask I'd stashed in my pocket, I hadn't even know I'd owned one, until I'd dug out every thing in my cabinets in a frantic search for a stash of some kind (any kind) of liquor. I hadn't found a drop of anything, but the liquor store was a scuffle and a stumble away. The flask must have been Jordan's. Or his, though I doubted that.

Serendipity.

I almost scoffed at my own thoughts.

No one turned to face me as I unscrewed the cap, and tipped it backwards letting the burn of the alcohol wash out the pungent taste of death. The taste of the liquor was almost as terrible, though; a mixture of vodka, and rum, and whisky, and scotch. I wanted to be drunk. I needed to be.

The preachers voice had become a constant drone during the ceremony, a white noise that drifted from somewhere far away. His words echoed, hollow; something distant, and untouchable. Like a satellite, like a star.

Like Newb….

I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face, and inwardly cursing. The words continued, people, loved ones, friends, rising with heartbroken faces to pay the final respect to the one person who held us all together; bound. I had nothing to say, my voice was lost. I could not will my self to speak. I sat, heart pounding, pounding, pounding like a drum. Or, perhaps, ticking like a clock. Minuets passed. Minuets passed. Time consumed. Time consumed, but it felt like time itself had already run out.

From somewhere within the church a strangled cry was finally released, and I tuned with wide, red rimmed, empty, dry eyes. His mother, I presumed, clutched a crumpled tissue in her shaking hands. Long dark hair fell in front of her beautiful, but aged face. For a brief, flickering second those wide sorrow filled eyes turned to me, and I saw in her a reflection of what was now missing from me.

Him.

I bit my lip, hard enough to break the fragile skin my teeth found there, and quickly averted my gaze. I could not stare at that lost blue. I could not look at her.

And I could not look ahead, because before me lay a truth I could not accept. So my eyes fell, again, downcast, and I stared at my shoes with a new fascination.

I did not look up as the church doors opened, and a new presence hastily strode in. Whoever it was slid down next to me, our thighs brushing, and without looking up I knew who it was. I tried to think of something cutting. A remark, that could bring her over the edge and make more tears fall down that pretty face. But….

But I didn't have it in me. I opened my mouth to speak, because something, something had to be said. Because, perhaps, she would be the only other one to understand. I didn't though, My voice still lost, I did the only thing I could think of. I looked up, caught her big deer eyes, and offered the flask.

A brief, small, almost non-existent smile crossed her tear streaked face. I knew that at any other time she would have made such a big deal out of the gesture, but here, and now she accepted with only a short but loaded glance.

I expected her to cough, or for those big deer eyes to impossibly widened at the taste, but she did neither; just took a long drink, and gave back the empty container.

I caught her gaze again, and blue eyes reflected something more than just pain, something akin to silent comfort, but it only lasted for a second before the blue oceans grew a stormy grey.

I looked away.

As the funeral ended, people began to shuffle forward to pay last respects. I watched silently as each person stepped forward, some leaving personal effects, some touching or even kissing him for one last time. I stayed rooted in my spot until the line grew short, and almost non-existent. Finally, from beside me Barbie stood, her pale cold hand wrapping around my wrist and tugging me upwards with her. She averted her gaze, and tried to drag me. I felt drained, almost willing to let her.

But my feet stayed firmly planted. She turned and looked at me sadly, and then with a broken voice she whispered, "Please."

I didn't move, she cleared her throat. "For him, for yourself. Please." She looked uncertain when I didn't move, almost frightened like it was just another day at the hospital, but it wasn't, and I understood, and my feet shuffled forward eventually.

I stood before the casket but behind her, our hands had somehow clasped, and I knew things were going to be different between us now. I couldn't fathom how, but something had shifted and an understanding had been reached. Loss can do that to people. It can change them.

But not completely. Barbie walked closer, until she was leaning directly over him, and our hands unclasped. I wasn't sure if I was relieved or distraught. I realized it didn't matter. I closed my eyes, and ran my hand through my hair, before twining them behind my head and sighing. I was exhausted, so much so, and in so many ways.

I heard her whisper in a tiny, helpless, little girl voice. "I know you didn't really believe in God. I'm not even sure if I do, but.." Her voice broke there, and I knew she was openly crying now. My eyes opened to gaze at her. For a second I could pretend she was crying over a lover, that it was her who had lost everything, and perhaps she had. Maybe I was right in thinking she was the only one who could understand.

"But, I hope that. I don't even know what I hope. Just…wherever you are, what ever happens next…I really miss you now, and….." She trailed off, unclasping her necklace and dropping into the casket. She turned to me for a brief second, before she leaned forward, and brushed a broken kiss against his lips, before whispering a soft and hesitant," Goodbye"

I closed my eyes again, and heard the shuffle of clothes, and a door slamming shut with unbelievable swiftness, and then suddenly. My legs began to move on their own accord. Forward, forward, forward until the metal bars stabbed into my thighs.

And then I opened my eyes.

There he was. His body resting, within the confinements of it's wooden tomb, where it now would lay forever. Vibrant blue eyes were now covered by pallid lids for eternity, while beautifully long and dark lashes rested against pale cheeks. His thin long finger were clasped together over his chest, the thick veins that protruded were no longer pumping blood. His heart was silenced, his lungs devoid of breath, but surely he wasn't dead. Surely that voice would speak again.

People always say the dead look like their sleeping. He, he just looked dead, and that made bile rise in my throat, and a swift wave of sickness wash over me.

I stood there for what felt like a lifetime, willing those electric eyes to open. And then they never did.

So I turned, in what felt like my final defeat, and I unfisted my hands in what felt like surrender. I walked out, heart heavier than I'd ever admit, and made my slow soul churning trek back to my car. Always, always, always, ignoring the urge to look back.

There were no more words spoken. There were no more words left. None that could be said. We watched with somber eyes as the casket lowered, deeper, deeper, deeper into the ground.

And I continued to watch transfixed as dirt was piled higher, higher, higher, and I willed unspoken truths to become the only fact, the only prayer that I know. I watched until the others disappeared, until the streaks of daylight faded, leaving a blanket of stars that enveloped me, but gave no warmth.

I watched until the words over came me, and the reality crashed down in a cataclysmic rush of singing salty rain. Like a baptism, to wash me of my sins, but some things can't be cleansed, and some wounds will never heal. I stayed until my own tears finally appeared and were washed away with every heartbeat under the cold icy spray.

I watched until my knees finally crumpled, and I crashed down onto the damp earth; the truth ringing like a song inside my head.

The prayer went unanswered, but I'd never believed in God, and reality had turned against me annihilating the only truth I'd ever known. And now, finally broken, and bare; crumpled against the damp and muddy ground of a freshly filled grave, the only remaining truth became an evident and unbearable curse that I breathed in from beneath me.

JD was dead.