My Oxygen, by JACmRob

Chapter Nine

They were sitting opposite each other in a deserted hallway. A faint light was filtering in from somewhere, capturing the spot in a strange, ethereal haze. Not light and not dark.

"I don't blame you, you know," Cameron said quietly. He didn't respond.

"What happened to me wasn't your fault, Johnny, and you've got to stop blaming yourself."

"Cameron, I killed you," he said brokenly, looking up at her.

"No," she countered. "I died, because life is a bitch. You didn't kill me."

"I was the one driving that car, Cam," he said. "Not you."

"What happened in the water, Johnny?" she asked abruptly.

He surveyed her. It was time to speak, he knew. Time to own up.

"I was fighting," he said quietly. "I was fighting it, Cameron. But it was so cold, and then…"

"What?" she probed gently.

"And then…I thought—only for the tiniest second—I thought…what's the point?"

His voice cracked.

"And… I guess I… gave up."

He closed his eyes. How could he have given up?

He opened his eyes again, but Cameron was gone. JD rested his head against the wall. Suddenly, there came a scuffing sound from a room off the hallway.

Noiselessly, he stood and padded over to the room. Someone was seated on the edge of the cot. The man had brown hair, but was turned away, concealing his face.

"Tristan?" JD asked hesitantly.

The man looked up.

It was himself.

"You aren't real," JD said instantly.

"What would you know about real?" his doppelganger shot back. JD regarded him warily.

"Why am I seeing you? Why are you here?"

"I know why you're here," said the other JD, in a tone JD didn't recognize on himself. It sounded…menacing. "You deserve to be here. And you know it."

His double stood up, resting his hands on a tray of surgical tools. A scalpel gleamed.

"You're pathetic. Not only do you know how to screw up someone else's life, but you're too pathetic to even live yours. You're weak."

JD's hands clenched into fists.

"Fraud."

"Shut up," he said through gritted teeth.

"Washout."

"Shut up!"

"Murderer…"

"SHUT UP!"

He launched himself across the room at his mirror image, but the form disappeared and he slammed into the wall.

"You can't escape me."

JD whirled round. His double sneered at him from across the room.

"Like I said, pathetic. It's time to man up, JD. Or should I say too late? But what does it matter? Your life wasn't worth anything anyway."

They began to circle each other.

"You killed your sister. You stole her life. You should have died that night, not her. Cameron had plans. Cameron was going to be someone."

The double picked up the scalpel, running it through his fingers.

"Dan was always getting into trouble, but he had plenty of friends. Mom and Dad noticed him. Everyone at school loved him."

The double held the sharp blade up to his face, examining it closely. "Cameron was everyone's star. You heard Mom and Dad. They loved her in a way they never loved you. Cameron knew how to make friends instantly. Cameron had plans."

The double ran his finger across the blade. "And you?" His finger caught, drawing blood. JD flinched, half expecting to feel a burst of pain himself. "Little Johnny. The nobody."

"That isn't true," JD said quietly.

"Let's face it JD." The doppelganger slowly ran the blade across his palm; trickles of blood welled up and coursed down h is arm. "Nobody is missing you."

The other JD pulled the blade even lower, slicing through his forearm at a sickeningly slow pace. Blood was dripping on to his shirt and pants.

"Your friends? Sure, they'll be sad for a while. But eventually, they'll move on like everyone else. Stop thinking of you when they see your favorite show. Stop expecting to see you at work. They'll even forget what you look like. They don't need you to live their lives happily.

"Dan? He's probably relieved that he doesn't have his screwed-up little brother as a burden anymore."

"That isn't true!" JD said again, louder.

"And your parents? Please. They're glad. They hate you. And they should—look what you did to them. If anyone figured you out, it was them. They saw what a worthless piece of shit you—"

"SHUT UP!"

JD flung himself at his doppelganger, ripping the scalpel from his hands and plunging it into the chest of his mirror image.

"I didn't deserve what they did to me and I don't deserve to die!"

He stabbed the body repeatedly, twisting the scalpel into his own heart.

"I—" He punctuated every stab.

"Am—" There was blood on his hands, blood on his clothes, blood everywhere. The crimson stained everything—the walls, the floor, himself.

"Stronger than you!"

JD let go of the mangled corpse and it dropped to the ground. The scarlet pool began to run; trickles of blood splayed outwards on the white linoleum.

And despite it, JD finally felt clean.

Suddenly, the room began spinning. JD felt the strangest sensation, like he wasn't here, yet not there either… Through the dizziness he heard voices.

"You've tried all you can. Someone has to call it."

"Well 'all we can' isn't good enough, damn it! Try it again!"

That voice he recognized. Dr. Cox.

"He's been gone for nearly two hours…"

Carla. She was crying.

"Do it again! Come on JD, breathe, man…"

Turk.

"At this point, even if he was resuscitated, he'd probably have extensive brain damage—"

"I don't care! Now charge the damn paddles!

"One more time. Charging … Clear!"

And then, as swiftly as it had blurred, everything came back into focus again. He was here, he was stable again, alone.

Suddenly it all fell into place.

"I'm not dead. Oh God."

He felt the oxygen draining from his lungs.

JD sprinted into the hallway, barreling into a tall, blonde figure.

"Oh God! Cameron—" He grasped her shoulders. "Cameron, I want to live. I want to live!"

The pieces began to come together.

"That's what you meant—it's up to me! This—this is a hallucination! A test! You're only real to me because you aren't real! It depends—on me. And—and—I'm at Sacred Heart."

His heart was fluttering.

"They've found my body—they're trying to restart my heart!"

"JD," Cameron stated. She grabbed his wrist urgently.

"I know now!" he continued forcefully. "I want to live! You—you were trying to make me realize it all along! To get me to talk about it—to figure it out! And then—and then I beat it! I beat myself!"

"Run."

"What?"

Cameron pulled him into a hug.

"Run," she breathed into his ear. "I love you. Go. Now."

He lingered for a moment and then pulled away from her. He ran down the stairs, through the silent clinic. His heart was thumping in his chest as though it might burst—every beat resounded in his ears as loud as a sonic blast.

He sprinted past the nurse's station and into the waiting room. Everything was blurring again—voices were shouting in his ears, but their words were drowned out by the violent pulsation of his heart—the room was spinning. He grasped the hospital's door—he was drowning in the erratic thumping of his screaming heart, the pounding of blood and neurons—he wrenched it open—

TBC...

A/N: Once again, I take forever to post a new chapter. Inexcusable, I know. I'm just a slow updater. This story, however, is coming to its conclusion. The next chapter will be the last. Thank you to everyone who stuck with this story despite my short-comings regarding updating. This will officially be the first multi-chapter story I complete (yes!!), and I am very proud of myself for sticking with it.

So folks, hang in there for one more chapter! Review!

--JR