Merry Christmas, Doctor Carter

Even in Death

The two stepped into an apartment building, but only Dennis kept going while John stood in the doorway, floored. Resentful. While he bounced from his grandparents' mansion to Kerry Weaver's basement, Dennis stayed right where he used to be as if nothing happened. Probably in the same apartment room, too. He could only assume.

When Dennis realised that he was alone, he retraced his steps to head back to him. "You coming?"

"Yeah, it's just-" John looked around himself, thinking and panicking. This place, all these stairs; he'd either have a heart attack from just being here or from walking up four flights. He could have voiced his bitter opinions but decided to keep his mouth shut - at least until they got to his apartment - and instead told him, "I forgot this building didn't have an elevator."

"Yeah. The landlord didn't want to have it retrofitted or something like that," Taking notice of the look of dread on John's face, he asked, "What's up? Are you having second thoughts?"

"No. I want- we need to talk about this. But I think it only fair to say that you may have to carry me the rest of the way," His words were met with a chuckle. As ridiculous as it sounded, he wished he were joking. "No, seriously. I hope your upper body strength is up to snuff."

"Are you alright? I mean, honestly?"

"I'd rather not get into that now," he said. Accepting the inevitable, John sighed and motioned to the stairs. "Let's just..."

"Yeah. Okay."

********************

Huffing and puffing, John trailed behind. He could feel his heart battering his chest, screaming at him to knock it off. Even after years of taking better care of himself, his heart remained weak. He wasn't sure if it would ever be the same again.

They came to a stop, arriving at Dennis' apartment. As soon as he opened the door, sure enough, it was the same one he occupied before. The same pale-green walls, the same hardwood floor, the same view... Nothing had changed. In fact, it seemed that Dennis had been here a while.

"You've been, um," For a moment, John's eyes hung on an image he never thought he'd see again, causing his words to trail off. It was from that one time they'd gone to the beach. He got sunburned that day, but he'd been so lost in thought that he barely noticed or cared. Too busy having fun, for once. After coming back to reality, he continued with what he was saying. "You've been living here? How long?"

"Almost two years now. I kept up with payments and all that in the meantime. Figured I needed somewhere to stay in case I ever came back."

"Wait, wait," As John plopped himself down on the sofa, he asked, "Two years? You've been here for two years?"

"Since I saw you and your other friends leave my dad's house."

Mindlessly falling back against the cushions, John pulled a face of shock. "You were there?"

Dennis sat across from him and nodded. "Across the street. He and I talked, I told him everything... You must've been a detective in a past life. He said you thought I was alive."

"You were there and you didn't say anything? Didn't stop me?"

"I was terrified. I didn't know what to say."

An infinitesimal fraction of him expected to be glad he was right, so he could go back into work the next day and rub it everyone's face, but in the end, he just felt angry. Queasy, even. Either from stress or from his heart acting up. He couldn't tell.