Survivin' - [B.C.]

Chapter 26: Sunshine

But most of all, I hated Tracy for dying.

Until I saw her lying in a hospital bed.

========= SURVIVIN' =========

Literally everyone was in that tiny, crowded hospital room. Mr. and Mrs. Cumberbatch, Emily, and Tracy's (presumable) husband (who we didn't see on Christmas because he was with his family.)

The space felt so tight and tense. Tracy looked a mess with all of the hospital gadgets hooked up to her. I wondered if I had looked that pathetic just barely one month prior.

The only two people in the room who were displaying their emotions were Mrs. Cumberbatch and Ben, the latter of whom rushed to his sister's side immediately and grabbed up her frail hand to kiss it. I had previously always been aware that Tracy was older than Ben, much older, but only now did that fact show.

It was only then that the true reality of this situation hit me; Ben's sister was dying, and I was going to have to clean up the mess.

No one had informed me that Tracy was sick. I supposed that it was irrelevant, but it would have been nice to know. You never know how long you have with a person, so you should make the most of it while you can. I was unaware of how little time I would spend with Tracy before her death. If I had, I would've done something different.

When Mrs. Cumberbatch noticed Sophie and I had trailed Ben in here, she hurried over to us and hugged us both individually. I didn't know what she was hugging me for, but I just went along with it.

"Oh, dear, I'm so very sorry you had to come and witness this so early," Mrs. Cumberbatch said to me. I physically felt my face contort into confusion.

"It's... fine," I said.

What- what is she apologizing for???

I have never experienced something like that day before. Not since, either. Everyone was stoic, silent, solemn. But then Ben got to talking, and it was the most amazing thing.

When he started to laugh and reminisce with Tracy about their younger years, the patient herself also joined in smiling and cracking jokes. Then everyone else followed along. There were secrets spilled, hearts opened, and emotions felt that would otherwise be pent up inside the lot of them.

And all of that was because of Benedict Cumberbatch.

He was taking everyone else's burden, taking everyone else's sorrow and pain and storing it away in himself whilst distracting them all from what damage would inevitably ensue. He was doing all of that, meanwhile I'm loathing anyone and anything for bringing me into a hospital.

An hour or so went on of people laughing and indulging in one another's company. Everyone's smiles were so bright. So carefree even in the moment. But when the beeping on the heart monitor started getting slower, all of that changed.

It was a devastating sight.

Tracy, frail and weak but still somehow shining, a puppet strung to life by the tubes of artificial life keeping her awake. Ben, his historically bright and cheerful eyes now gone a dark red and full of watery sorrow, holding his dying sister's hand as he tries to smile for her. As he tries to be strong for her. As he tries to hold her together whilst he, himself, is falling apart.

"H-Hey," Ben barely whispers, placing his free hand on top of hers that he is already holding. "Do you remember our song? The song you used to sing to me every night?" He reaches to cradle her head and gives him some form of leverage to just barely be able to hold her. He starts to sing and act as if their golden-year roles had been switched, although now I suppose the gold had been corroded to bronze.