Godspeed

Chapter 22

The doctor rose and moved toward the decanter of spirits at the opposite end of the room. He poured himself a glass and drank deeply from it before speaking again. "Schuyler, take them upstairs." He gestured toward Penn and Marielle, who was weeping, softly but still loud enough to be distinctly heard.

"What can I do, Quinn, anything?"

"You can take them upstairs, as I asked," Quinn replied evenly, his eyes warning Schuyler off as he considered making an approach.

"Penn," Schuyler said, and Penn obeyed, offering his arm to lead Marielle away. "If you change your mind," Schuyler offered, his expression at once hopeful that Quinn might, but certain he would not.

Assuming that 'them' included me, I made my way toward the door, Lilibet in tow. She did not go along easily, but kept turning back in the direction of her new communication device. This did not escape Quinn's notice.

"I shall get it finished and back to you directly, Lilibet, my word upon it."

That was all it took to satisfy the girl and she fell in step with the others as we moved toward the exit.

As I was about to shut the door behind us, I noticed Quinn's eyes staring out blankly ahead of him, in my direction, and he seemed to consider, for a moment, speaking.

Since he did not, I took the liberty of doing so. "If there is anything you require of me, Doctor Godspeed, you have but to ask."

He opened his mouth but no words issued forth. His lips opened and closed several times, and then he merely nodded before taking another long draw from his drink.

Finally I could bear it no longer, the thought of him carrying and battling such an all-consuming grief alone. I had to know exactly what he was fighting; I had to know exactly what was wrong with Jib.

"Doctor," I approached him again, in slow, stunted steps.

"His organs are failing," he declared, before tilting his head back and draining his glass empty. "It will not be long now."

I was a little startled that, given this fact, he had left the boy's bedside at all. As if able to read my mind, or at the very least correctly gauge my reaction and the accompanying emotions, he spoke again. "I had no choice but to leave him tonight. You see, officially I was never his physician, and so in his waning hours, when none of my experimentation... " He spoke the last word as if doing so left a bitter taste in his mouth; clearly he hated the word and the darkness it implied. "…could further aid him, then the palliative care offered by standard, licensed physicians was called for."

I realized too that having other doctors care for Jib in his final days would protect Quinn, his work, and his other patients, myself included. I thought about what Jib’s parents must be going through, knowing that he was their only child, and how much it must have pained Quinn to be unable to help them.

"I will return, when it is safe. If…" He slumped heavily down into his desk chair, holding his head in his hands. "If the boy asks for me."

I approached him cautiously, aching to touch him, to console him, to offer him the solace that only the embrace of love, truly and purely felt, can give. Yet the moment my hand got within a hair's breadth of touching him, he seemed to know it; he bolted upright, looking at me with blood red blue eyes and a complexion the color of ash.

"Please," he whispered, much more kindly than he would have done, I imagined, if I were anyone else. "Leave me."

I did as he asked, but doing so took strength and a power of determination I did not know that I was capable of.