4,846 cases

death's song

"Doctor, you might want to take a seat."

He's been doing the job long enough to have seen and almost got used to having to see the reactions of victims' loved ones through the glass walls of autopsy when he's pulled back the sheet and revealed their worst nightmare.

(However, that still doesn't stop the twinge of pain he gets inside his chest every single time he has to do it.)

"Your test results came back. There's no easy way to tell you this, but I'm afraid you have cancer. Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, to be exact."

He's witnessed it all. Some break down almost immediately, the impact of what's there on that table in front of him hitting them like a ton of bricks. Others just stand there numbly, tears streaking their cheeks whilst they try to comprehend it all.

He manages to surprise himself by feeling oddly, eerily calm. The doctor in front of him is watching him, waiting, but he knows exactly what this means. After a few seconds, bites back a bitter laugh at the irony of it. The Medical Examiner with cancer. He studied it throughout medical school, and has had to perform a handful of autopsies on homicide victims with various different forms and stages of the disease, but he certainly didn't expect it to creep up on him.

He makes a living from dealing with death on a daily basis, and yet it is absolutely fine that this could quite possibly result in his own.