The Tomorrow Trilogy Fanfiction - Forgiveness: Chapter 6
Since it's October, now, I'm giving myself a break to edit pieces to pitch/sell on amazon and to work on non-srs things before diving into NaNoWriMo with an entirely brand new project. If you're reading this particular Tomorrow Trilogy fanfic for the first time, the previous chapters can be found here:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
I stare up at the ceiling to my room. It’s dark, and I can barely see the fuzzy grey expanse above me. I can make out the shape of the light fixture, and that’s about it. Sighing, I close my eyes. Pray for some fucking sleep. First night home for longer than a few hours, and I can’t even rest. My mind won’t fucking let me.
After visiting Mitchel in his cell earlier today, my mind just keeps going back to our conversation. To him questioning whether saving him was a good idea or not. Probably not. The man already betrayed the Empire once. Do I really need to give him another chance to just fucking up and do it again?
But I couldn’t just let him die, either. I don’t get it. I totally don’t. It’s all so completely and utterly confusing. It’s all I can do to stay in my bed, to try and keep my eyes shut, and will myself to rest. To think of something else entirely.
Setting him free’s not the only thing that’s bothering me, though. No, it’s also how we reverted back to our old selves so quickly. It’s like the second Mitchel knew he wasn’t going to die for his crimes, he immediately was himself again. His snarking, smug little attitude returned, as if it had never been fucking gone, in the first place.
But that -- that doesn’t bother me all that much, either. Not really. It means that the man I’ve always known is still there, still plotting something, and still so very, very dangerous. I want him to challenge me. That’s why I kept him alive. So he could help me keep the Empire from further falling apart, from becoming a world without any sort of fucking order. Civil War’s the last thing we fucking need.
No, him being an asshole came to no surprise to me. Me gripping his chin, though? I can still feel the stubble on his chin. The way those light brown eyes glared at me -- how his muscles tensed under my touch. The amount of time I’ve dedicated to just reliving these sensations, well...
I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about how I’m relying on the same man who got me in this mess in the first place. Don’t want to even consider that I might have fucked everything all up all over again, and that the Empire’ll be at war with itself by the end of the week, all because I couldn’t fathom the idea of being alone.
Sighing, I push my blankets aside and throw on a pair of pajama pants over my boxers. I pick a plain white t-shirt off the floor and toss it over my head, tugging it down. As I snatch my glasses from the nightstand, I find myself walking out of my room and down the small hallway to the rest of my living quarters. I need to talk to someone.
Someone who isn’t Mitchel.
***
“What’re you doing here, Savin?” Mari asks, annoyance creeping into her voice. She doesn’t look up from the chart she’s staring at. Doesn’t even hand it over to me like she would if she needed a consult -- and I can tell she does, the way she’s chewing on her lip and furrowing her brow.
“You said that I should stop by the hospital, sometime,” I quip, offering her a shaky smile. I put my hands in my pockets.
“Yeah, as in to work, not lounge around,” Mari mutters, glancing at me.
My smile falters somewhat as I look around the hospital floor. “Looks like you guys aren’t all that busy. How’s trauma been without me?”
“Awful,” Mari says with a sniff. She closes the chart, holding it in front of her. Her eyes soften somewhat as she looks over at me again. “You can’t sleep, can you?”
I shake my head. Better not to answer with words; my voice might crack, and as I follow Mari to one of the nurses’ stations, there are quite a few eyes on the both of us. She seems to sense it, too, and just shakes her head as she walks, shoving her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. “You sure you can’t just throw on a pair of scrubs and head down to trauma?” she asks, glancing at me over her shoulder.
“Mari, you know I can’t --”
“Savin, if you were going to sleep, you wouldn’t have come here,” she says, putting a hand up to stop me from saying anything else. She pulls out a couple of bills from her pocket. “Go buy a pair of scrubs. Go clock in. Do a few hours of work.”
I glance down at the money, frowning at it. She really can’t think I’m really going to take it, can she? Except she doesn’t lower her hand at all, even thrusting her hand forward again and giving me an expectant look. Sighing, I take the money from her and shove it in my pocket. “Surprised I haven’t been fucking fired yet.”
“Don’t think they can fire the Emperor, Savin,” Mari says, placing her own hands in her pockets. She glances around the nurses’ station and moves in close to me, lowering her voice. “You haven’t been on the fucking roster since you became Emperor, anyway. Any work you do here is moonlight work, and you know it, so go help out. There was a MVA just an hour or two ago. At least one patient is still waiting for surgery.”
“If they’re waiting, then their case isn’t that bad, and --”
“When was the last time you did surgery?”
I clamp my mouth shut, my fingers twitching at the very question. I hang my head, pursing my lips together. Bite back a response about how I’m still the best, even if I might be out of practice. I can’t even tell her when I last performed surgery. “I’ll...go see if they need help,” I said quietly, heading towards one of the scrubs machines.
Mari stops me, one hand on my arm before she pulls me close to her, wrapping her arms around me tightly. “It’ll help clear your head, okay?” she whispers into my shoulder. “Might even help you sleep.”
I nod, not knowing what else to say. “Thanks,” I murmur as I pull away from her. “I’ll see if it does.”
Mari smiles up at me. That same, warm smile I fell in love with over a decade ago. She picks her chart back up, studying its contents as I give myself a small shake. It feels weird as I pick up a pair of scrubs and change in the hospital’s locker room. Thankfully I had a pair of contacts in my locker still, as wearing glasses while doing surgery is a pain in the fucking ass.
When I’m done changing, I find that I feel different. Right, for the first time in who knows how long. Mitchel is free to annoy the ever living shit out of me. The hospital staff still welcomes me as I walk into the trauma center and take a look around. Mari’s smile from earlier. The Empire, for the time being, is still holding on to its last shred of hope.
And so am I, I realize as I take hold of a scalpel in who knows how fucking long. The knife fits perfectly in my gloved hand, completing me in a way that only Jazz really could -- at least, as complete as I’ll ever be, without him.
Except as I slip into my old surgical routines, my shoulders relax. My mind settles. I may have made a mistake letting Mitchel free. I know that now. But it’s a mistake I’m willing to own, and a mistake I’m willing to correct, in whatever way I can. The Empire won’t fall apart. Mitchel doesn’t want that any more than I do -- he just wants to see it move towards a better path, just like I do.
He’ll challenge me. But I need that. He’ll be an asshole, but I think I need that, too. No matter how I look at things, I keep coming back to one, simple truth:
I need Mitchel.
I’m just not sure how much.
Next Chapter
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5
I stare up at the ceiling to my room. It’s dark, and I can barely see the fuzzy grey expanse above me. I can make out the shape of the light fixture, and that’s about it. Sighing, I close my eyes. Pray for some fucking sleep. First night home for longer than a few hours, and I can’t even rest. My mind won’t fucking let me.
After visiting Mitchel in his cell earlier today, my mind just keeps going back to our conversation. To him questioning whether saving him was a good idea or not. Probably not. The man already betrayed the Empire once. Do I really need to give him another chance to just fucking up and do it again?
But I couldn’t just let him die, either. I don’t get it. I totally don’t. It’s all so completely and utterly confusing. It’s all I can do to stay in my bed, to try and keep my eyes shut, and will myself to rest. To think of something else entirely.
Setting him free’s not the only thing that’s bothering me, though. No, it’s also how we reverted back to our old selves so quickly. It’s like the second Mitchel knew he wasn’t going to die for his crimes, he immediately was himself again. His snarking, smug little attitude returned, as if it had never been fucking gone, in the first place.
But that -- that doesn’t bother me all that much, either. Not really. It means that the man I’ve always known is still there, still plotting something, and still so very, very dangerous. I want him to challenge me. That’s why I kept him alive. So he could help me keep the Empire from further falling apart, from becoming a world without any sort of fucking order. Civil War’s the last thing we fucking need.
No, him being an asshole came to no surprise to me. Me gripping his chin, though? I can still feel the stubble on his chin. The way those light brown eyes glared at me -- how his muscles tensed under my touch. The amount of time I’ve dedicated to just reliving these sensations, well...
I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about how I’m relying on the same man who got me in this mess in the first place. Don’t want to even consider that I might have fucked everything all up all over again, and that the Empire’ll be at war with itself by the end of the week, all because I couldn’t fathom the idea of being alone.
Sighing, I push my blankets aside and throw on a pair of pajama pants over my boxers. I pick a plain white t-shirt off the floor and toss it over my head, tugging it down. As I snatch my glasses from the nightstand, I find myself walking out of my room and down the small hallway to the rest of my living quarters. I need to talk to someone.
Someone who isn’t Mitchel.
***
“What’re you doing here, Savin?” Mari asks, annoyance creeping into her voice. She doesn’t look up from the chart she’s staring at. Doesn’t even hand it over to me like she would if she needed a consult -- and I can tell she does, the way she’s chewing on her lip and furrowing her brow.
“You said that I should stop by the hospital, sometime,” I quip, offering her a shaky smile. I put my hands in my pockets.
“Yeah, as in to work, not lounge around,” Mari mutters, glancing at me.
My smile falters somewhat as I look around the hospital floor. “Looks like you guys aren’t all that busy. How’s trauma been without me?”
“Awful,” Mari says with a sniff. She closes the chart, holding it in front of her. Her eyes soften somewhat as she looks over at me again. “You can’t sleep, can you?”
I shake my head. Better not to answer with words; my voice might crack, and as I follow Mari to one of the nurses’ stations, there are quite a few eyes on the both of us. She seems to sense it, too, and just shakes her head as she walks, shoving her hands in the pockets of her lab coat. “You sure you can’t just throw on a pair of scrubs and head down to trauma?” she asks, glancing at me over her shoulder.
“Mari, you know I can’t --”
“Savin, if you were going to sleep, you wouldn’t have come here,” she says, putting a hand up to stop me from saying anything else. She pulls out a couple of bills from her pocket. “Go buy a pair of scrubs. Go clock in. Do a few hours of work.”
I glance down at the money, frowning at it. She really can’t think I’m really going to take it, can she? Except she doesn’t lower her hand at all, even thrusting her hand forward again and giving me an expectant look. Sighing, I take the money from her and shove it in my pocket. “Surprised I haven’t been fucking fired yet.”
“Don’t think they can fire the Emperor, Savin,” Mari says, placing her own hands in her pockets. She glances around the nurses’ station and moves in close to me, lowering her voice. “You haven’t been on the fucking roster since you became Emperor, anyway. Any work you do here is moonlight work, and you know it, so go help out. There was a MVA just an hour or two ago. At least one patient is still waiting for surgery.”
“If they’re waiting, then their case isn’t that bad, and --”
“When was the last time you did surgery?”
I clamp my mouth shut, my fingers twitching at the very question. I hang my head, pursing my lips together. Bite back a response about how I’m still the best, even if I might be out of practice. I can’t even tell her when I last performed surgery. “I’ll...go see if they need help,” I said quietly, heading towards one of the scrubs machines.
Mari stops me, one hand on my arm before she pulls me close to her, wrapping her arms around me tightly. “It’ll help clear your head, okay?” she whispers into my shoulder. “Might even help you sleep.”
I nod, not knowing what else to say. “Thanks,” I murmur as I pull away from her. “I’ll see if it does.”
Mari smiles up at me. That same, warm smile I fell in love with over a decade ago. She picks her chart back up, studying its contents as I give myself a small shake. It feels weird as I pick up a pair of scrubs and change in the hospital’s locker room. Thankfully I had a pair of contacts in my locker still, as wearing glasses while doing surgery is a pain in the fucking ass.
When I’m done changing, I find that I feel different. Right, for the first time in who knows how long. Mitchel is free to annoy the ever living shit out of me. The hospital staff still welcomes me as I walk into the trauma center and take a look around. Mari’s smile from earlier. The Empire, for the time being, is still holding on to its last shred of hope.
And so am I, I realize as I take hold of a scalpel in who knows how fucking long. The knife fits perfectly in my gloved hand, completing me in a way that only Jazz really could -- at least, as complete as I’ll ever be, without him.
Except as I slip into my old surgical routines, my shoulders relax. My mind settles. I may have made a mistake letting Mitchel free. I know that now. But it’s a mistake I’m willing to own, and a mistake I’m willing to correct, in whatever way I can. The Empire won’t fall apart. Mitchel doesn’t want that any more than I do -- he just wants to see it move towards a better path, just like I do.
He’ll challenge me. But I need that. He’ll be an asshole, but I think I need that, too. No matter how I look at things, I keep coming back to one, simple truth:
I need Mitchel.
I’m just not sure how much.
Next Chapter