Save Me from the Dark (A John Gage 'Emergency!' love story Fanfiction)

Chapter 54

Scarlett really didn't like hospitals. No, that was an understatement, she loathed them. Straight, deep to the core loathed them. Truly, they hadn't ever been high on her list of favorite places, but now? Now, it was like entering into the physical embodiment of hell to even set foot inside one, even though months had passed.

Months. It had been months since Johnny had passed, since the funeral, since the fight with Roy. Months since Scarlett's life had been shattered into pieces. It never got any easier, not really.

Stuffing her hands into the pockets of her hoodie, Scarlett made her way through the ER to where she guessed Dixie would be. It hadn't been long before they'd made up, the woman seemed to always find a way to appear and always seemed to know everything, and Scarlett could only hold a grudge for so long. They weren't the best of friends by any means, but even so, the older woman gave her a kind shoulder to cry on. Something she'd definitely appreciated.

Sure enough, Scarlett wasn't surprised to see Dixie sat at the nurse's desk, scribbling in charts. Was that what those were? She wasn't sure, but regardless, the frown she wore indicated she most definitely wasn't having a good time with it.

"Hey Dix," Scarlett said, internally hoping that she wasn't interupting. "What's up?"

The nurse stopped writing and looked up, the frown slowly pulling up into a smile that suited the woman a lot better.

"Hey yourself," She replied, placing her pen down with a sigh. "Been a busy day so far but I'm not going to bore you with the details. But how are you? You had an appointment today, didn't you? How'd that go?"

"Alright, I guess. Just normal stuff, I assume, for the pregnancy," Scarlett replied, though truth be told, she hadn't really been paying attention. Nor was she too in the know on what was normal either. ER stuff sure, given her love of Grey's, and House, and all back in her time, but the casual stuff... That was all kinda boring.

"I see. Well, least that's going alright. Even if I hear there's nothing progressing between you and Roy," Dixie responded, even though she knew it was still a sore subject for Scarlett. The two had stayed as far away from each other as humanly possible since the funeral, and it made Dixie sad. Especially since she knew Johnny would have loved to see Roy involved and even made godfather of the child if Johnny was still alive.

Scarlett didn't reply to Dixie's comment, just looking away, not wishing to say something she would regret by offending Dixie, who she knew was still friends with Roy. Thankfully, Dixie understood the silence, and cleared her throat.

"Well, I better get back to my paperwork, as much as I rather not, so I'll let you go. Don't be a stranger though, dear, " Dixie said with a final smile before allowing Scarlett to leave.

After leaving the hospital, Scarlett went to the cemetery where they had placed Johnny. It was somewhere she had spent time frequently over the months, almost as much as their, now her, house. After all, it was where her heart lay.

Approaching the headstone that was Johnny's, she just looked down at it, sadly. Normally she might cry, but months had passed, and she had run out of tears. Now all that remained was the heart wrenching longing to have Johnny back, and the unbearable sadness of him being gone.

"Johnny... I wish you were here. I can't do this without you. I can't keep trying to live a life with you not in it," She said, for what seemed the hundredth time, and she meant it. She was crumbling over the pain of him not being in her arms. "I just want you back and would do anything for you to be back."

Laying on the ground on his grave, she imagined that she could just sink into the earth, and be taken away to wherever he was, to be reunited in her arms... Or even that he would pop out of the grave, zombified by some type of unearthly magic, and return to her. Anything that could bring him back, or give her to him. Anything, and at any cost.

But there was nothing. She was stuck on this worthless planet, miserable and alone, with people who cared only out of friendship to Johnny, or who didn't at all and treated her like a child. She was sick of it, and all it did was make her miss him that much more. After all, he would understand. He always understood.

But he wasn't here. She was all alone, and she was growing tired of it. Sickened by everything as long as Johnny wasn't around, sickened by everyone for not being Johnny. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Because Johnny was gone, and she couldn't live without him. She didn't want to live without him. None of it mattered. None of it would ever matter.

Standing, not even bothering to wipe the dirt from her clothes, she once again stared down at the headstone. They hadn't even been given the opportunity to marry. When she died, it wouldn't even be Johnny's surname on her own headstone. Something so simple, and something she wouldn't even be alive for since she would have to be gone, but something that mattered so much, as it was proof of the life she would have had with Johnny, now but a memory and destroyed hope.

After a final long look at the grave, Scarlett decided to return to their home, probably to just lay in bed and hope that she could suddenly stop living, though that alone had never seemed to work very well. Who knew though, maybe today would be different, though she doubted it. She would just end up falling asleep only to wake up to another boring miserable day without Johnny.