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It started as a normal shift; as normal as it could be, at least.
Jotaro stood out amongst his peers, even through adolescence. He was labeled as a delinquent, as a boy that was always “harsh” and “unwelcoming”. He never broadcasted his emotions to the outside world, and when he did it was often depicted incorrectly, as if the wires got crossed somewhere along the way. Over time, he’d learned to accept it for what it was. He’d learned to bury any hint of softness and retreated within himself as he upheld the facade that others had bestowed upon him.
It was almost ironic that he’d pursued a profession in healthcare. Even now, the stern expression that’d become etched onto his face often intimidated patients and staff alike, and he’d grown accustomed to the general shift in demeanor upon entering a room.
He’d been lucky enough to switch to the night shift. No strained interactions with concerned patients and parents, no small talk to sit through. His job had been reduced to checking vitals, making midnight rounds, and occasionally escorting patients to the O.R.
It was simple. Peaceful.
But tonight, his main concern was you.
You’d been admitted prior to the start of his shift, and he was given a brief patient history as he swapped places with the nurse formerly assigned to your case. A sympathetic part of him reeled as he looked over your chart; you’d clearly been through a lot. No one could tell him what had happened upon arrival, either, but even so, the dim lighting seemed to accentuate every cut, scrape, and bruise painted across your body.
He wasn’t incapable of feeling those emotions, contrary to popular belief. It’d happened before, just as it happened now; he saw himself in your place. He saw his friends in your place. He saw everything he fought so hard to maintain as he observed your tattered frame.
He somehow managed to choke down those bitter feelings, tucking it all away with the rest of the emotions he’d buried over the years. It’d be better that way, or at least that’s what he’d tell himself in situations like these.
The biggest mistake Jotaro made was allowing himself to open up to you.
You’d regained consciousness as he was shifting the blankets aside to check the placement of the central line that’d been affixed to your inner thigh upon admission, and he braced himself for the incoming disgruntled reaction he’d come to know so well.
But there was something different about you.
Instead, you talked freely with the man; no nervousness, no forced smiles, no meaningless conversation for the sake of being polite. You stared up at him with a doe-like gaze, without an ounce of terror looming behind it. It felt as though you could peer into the depths of his soul; as if you, and you alone, could simply reach out and touch the soft boy who had been hidden away for all of those years. Around you, he felt the bark begin to soften, the stone begin to crumble.
You’d asked him what drove him to become a nurse. In the four years he’d worked here, no one had ever thought to ask him a question such as that, and though the answer brought up tainted memories of the past, he felt his lips curl up into a faint smile, something that nearly felt foreign to him.
“You know, I wanted to be a marine biologist,” he said.
That much was true, but he didn’t know how much more he’d be able to tell you. He didn’t know how much you’d understand in your sedated state, or even how much you actually wanted to hear, and he certainly didn’t want you to put together the wrong pieces of a broken puzzle, especially while you were struggling enough on your own.
How was he supposed to tell you about the horrifying truths of this world? You were practically sitting on death’s doorstep.
How was he supposed to tell you about Kakyoin, about Avdol? It wasn’t his place.
He’d have to skip the fine details.
“My mother was sick for a while when I was younger, and I remember doing everything I could to help her. That’s when I knew.”
You seemed satisfied enough with that answer, and for what felt like the first time in god knows how long, he received a genuine smile in response. That seraphic smile would forever stay etched into the back of his mind, that much he was sure of.
There was one more thing that stood out to Jotaro in that moment; a simple phrase muttered under your breath.
“You’re beautiful,” you mumbled.
Beautiful.
A three syllable word placed in a short sentence that took up a fraction of a second in his twelve hour shift.
A word that was always used to refer to his lovers but never used to describe someone like him. A word that kissed the tips of his ears and sent a velvety warmth through his cheeks as it fell effortlessly from your lips.
Of course he’d try to shrug it off, telling you to get more rest as he hung antibiotics and pushed fluids, but that word rang through his ears for hours, and relentlessly tugged at his heart.
Jotaro responded to the call light seven hours into his shift.
He wasn’t exactly sure of what to expect upon his arrival, but his breath hitched as he caught your gaze. Your eyes, once filled with nothing but gentleness and compassion, had grown red and puffy around the edges, mirroring that of his mother’s as she nearly succumbed to the grips of fate.
His heart sank as your bottom lip trembled ever so slightly, and his legs nearly buckled beneath his weight as he heard your voice begin to break.
“I’m dying,” you said shakily.
“You’re not dying,” he attempted to reassure you.
“I’m alone-” you swallowed back tears as they flooded your vision, and you would no longer keep your eyes on his. “I’m dying, and I'm all alone.”
Jotaro had always found the human body truly fascinating. Able to withstand some of the worst damage imaginable, yet, still so fragile. Able to recognize when something is seriously wrong, before one’s brain even has a chance to dwell on it. They say people close to death have a way of knowing when it’ll come, and though he didn’t want to believe it, he’d encountered that occurrence far too many times to consider it a mere coincidence.
The worst part of it all was that Jotaro remained powerless in all of it. He could push pain medicine to make you more comfortable, he could push pressors to raise your steadily declining blood pressure; he’d do everything in his power given the chance, but none of it would matter. You were running out of time, you knew it as well as he did.
He found himself instinctively grabbing your hand, and though the ice in your fingertips coated his veins with a deep sense of unease, he plastered on the bravest face he could manage.
“You’re not alone,” he told you. “I won’t leave you alone.”
The last few hours seemed to pass in the blink of an eye.
You’d peered up at him with a peaceful resignation, a tenderness that seemed painfully familiar to Jotaro by now. He’d sat vigilantly at your bedside, and his fingers remained interlaced with yours even through your final moments, as the two of you exchanged life stories.
He finally told you about Kakyoin, and he told you about Avdol. He told you about his mother, and how much you reminded him of her. He told you about his daughter, about how she was so young, yet so mature for her age, and how he feared he’d been turning into his father.
The soft morning light filtered through drawn shades and cast a cool shadow over your weary face, and he found it harder to remain composed by the second.
Your voice had lowered to just above a whisper as you expressed your gratitude for his kindness, and his heart broke at every labored breath, until you finally took your last.
The silence that followed was deafening, and for the first time since his return from Egypt, he allowed tears to drop as bullets beneath him. His shoulders shook, his chest heaved, and his throat felt as if it was going to close in on itself as he was crushed by the weight of another innocent life lost.
He knew it’d only be a matter of time before the code team would arrive, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to face the rush of it all. He wiped the tears from his eyes as he gently released your hand from his grasp to place it delicately across your chest.
His ears perked up at the bustling sound emanating from the hall, and he knew this was it; he’d once again been forced to leave, just as he’d left his friends in Egypt, just as he’d left his mother at home, and it tore him apart. Commanding Star Platinum to utilize The World, he leaned forward to place a gentle kiss on your forehead before stepping out of sight.
While Jotaro tried to remain detached from the situation over the coming weeks, there was one truth that remained unspoken. You had become another face imprinted into the depths of his memory, another name scribbled across the surface of his weakened heart. You would not be forgotten, even if it killed him to remember.