Chapter 12
There are moments in your life that you are always aware are coming but, somehow, you never really understand that they are actually going to happen. Things that are just too horrible to comprehend so your brain just doesn’t allow it to feel like a reality until it actually is reality.
It’s a fact of life that everybody dies, Gideon Prewett knows this. He knows this. And, somehow, he isn’t prepared for those words to come out of Dr. McGonagall’s mouth.
Brain dead.
Brain death is the same thing as death from somebody’s heart stopping.
He is dead, Gideon. I’m so sorry.
Dead? That makes no sense. He and Fabian came into this world together, two bodies but one complex, intertwined soul.
Fabian can’t be dead because if Fabian is dead, surely Gideon would have also died at the same time. Gideon has never existed without Fabian, that’s not even possible.
Is it?
“Mr. Prewett,” Dr. McGonnagal is speaking directly to Gideon now and he hasn’t heard a word she’s said.
“I’m sorry, can you say that again?” Gideon says, trying to shake himself back to reality.
“I believe your parents and sister are leaving the final call up to you,” the kind doctor says with a glance at Gideon’s mom and dad and his older sister, all of whom nod their heads. “Would you be willing to donate Fabian’s organs? They would help save the lives of people who are relying on an organ transplant to survive.”
Gideon’s head is spinning. He doesn’t know what the right answer is, he and Fabian had never discussed this possibility. They’d never discussed death before at all. Because, for both of them, they’d never considered the possibility that either of them could outlive the other.
“Umm,” Gideon swallows thickly around the emotion in his throat. “Umm, you’re sure there’s no way you can save him?”
“No, I’m sorry. Brain death is the same thing as being without a heartbeat,” McGonagall reminds him. “He is already dead. There is nothing we can do. If there were something we could do, I wouldn’t be asking you about organ donation, I promise.”
Gideon nods and clasps his hands tightly together in his lap squeezing them between his thighs, bowing his head as the tears come up to the surface again. He thinks and gives himself a moment to breathe evenly. In through his nose, out through his mouth, over and over…
“Okay,” he finally says after a long stretch of silence. “Okay, yes. You can use his organs. Just… just please… please make sure you give his heart to somebody who will take care of it. His heart is so big and so full of love, I’d hate for that to go to waste.”
“Of course, Mr. Prewett,” the kind doctor says, placing a hand on his shoulder now. “We’ll take good care of him.”
Karl Olofsson was only eighteen years old when he immigrated from Sweden to the United States to live with his boyfriend. They’d only known each other for less than a year and, looking back, it was a pretty reckless and dangerous decision on Karl’s part, but it did turn out for the best.
Karl and Jason have been together nearly 19 years now and they’ve built a beautiful life for themselves here in the States. They’ve got a dog and a set of 2-year-old twins.
Karl began studying to become a nurse as soon as he received his permanent residence status in the US and he has rarely regretted that decision. The shifts can be long and grueling but they’re often rewarding and you get to really make a difference in somebody’s day.
Karl was a baby RN when he first met Remus Lupin. Remus Lupin was a college student with a laundry list of health problems caused by an infection at birth and a related meningitis infection a little over a year later. He struggles with epilepsy, cognitive deficits, spasticity in his limbs, hearing loss, and heart damage, just to name a few things.
This man, who was so young when Karl met him, only eighteen-years-old, struggled daily with his health and fought harder than just about any of his other patients, from what Karl could see. Remus, despite his pain and the challenges he faces, has never once, ever, been anything but perfectly polite.
Being a critical care nurse in the Cardiac ICU means that Karl works with a lot of middle-aged and older people who tend to be… difficult, at the best of times. And when it’s not the patients being difficult, it’s the families. But Remus is different. Not only has this man, who faces much more pain and daily challenges than 99% of his patients, only ever been perfectly polite and kind, he’s also got the most amazing support system Karl has ever witnessed.
As far as Karl knows, Remus’ parents died when he was a teenager but that has left him with no shortage of family. His found family, Remus calls it. They are always here, rallying around Remus when he’s critically ill, never leaving him alone without one of them here, not even for a second, and they’re always ready to be hands on when learning about caring for Remus’ needs.
He’d never seen a partner demand to learn how to change a diaper before he met Sirius Black. Usually, the patients' families are all too happy to leave those kinds of tasks to the nurses. Not Sirius, though. He insists on being as hands on with Remus’ care as the ICU staff will allow him to be and, through the years, the staff have allowed him to become more and more hands on. They trust that Sirius knows what he’s doing because he has proven himself.
Karl has cared for Remus dozens of times in this particular CICU ward over the past decade and he knows how sick Remus is, but nothing could have prepared him for when Remus came in last July after suffering a cardiac arrest at work. Karl watched on in horror, his arms around Remus’ spouse as Remus coded a second time but was thankfully resuscitated.
The day that Karl had to watch Remus receive a tracheostomy at the bedside while he was awake and struggling to breathe already, is one of the top worst days of his career. He’d gone home that night and cried for hours in Jason’s arms, remembering the look of fear and panic on Remus’ face as he’d suffocated, and he had nightmares for weeks and months even after Remus was released from the CICU.
However, just as the flashbacks were fading, Karl showed up again to work one morning to find Remus’ name on his patient sheet for that day. His heart sank. When he walked into the room, the atmosphere was different than all of the other times Karl had cared for Remus.
Usually his friends and family are optimistic and doing their best to keep an upbeat attitude but now the feeling of dread was thick in the air. Remus looked far sicker than he had the last time he saw him and Sirius was obviously struggling, his eyes bloodshot and his hands shaking.
Karl would obviously never say this out loud, but he’s seen a lot of patients die and Remus looked for several weeks like a patient that was definitely going to die. Remus was in the CICU for nine weeks during that stint and every time Karl had a day off, he was terrified that he’d come into work for his next shift to find that Remus had died and Karl hadn’t been here to help his lovely family through such a painful experience.
He thanked a God he didn’t even believe in every single time he came back into work and Remus’ name was still on his patient list.
Thankfully, Remus made a recovery from his two infections but, the nature of his heart failure and his damaged lungs, meant that his health was still very precarious. Still, Karl was so overjoyed when he got to be a part of the team that readied Remus for his ambulance ride home.
Karl sincerely hoped the only time he’d ever see Remus Lupin back in the CICU for an extended stay would be after he receives the heart transplant he’s been desperately in need of. So, when Dr. Dearborn pulled Karl to the side today mentioning Remus’ name, he felt fear grow in his heart. Did he die at home? Did he get brought to the hospital but was too ill to help beyond just making him comfortable?
But no, that wasn’t it at all. Dr. Dearborn explained that Remus would be getting his heart transplant that day and that Karl better ready him a room for when the likely eight or nine hour surgery ends.
“Better make it the biggest room, you know the whole gangs gonna be here for this,” Dr. Dearborn says in parting and Karl feels hope flare in his chest. Maybe something would finally go well for Remus Lupin. God knows he deserves it.
Caradoc Dearborn preps to perform the surgery he’s anticipated the most in his entire medical career. He knows doctors shouldn’t have favorites but he’s only human and it’s hard to not care deeply about Remus Lupin. Keeping a professional distance is difficult when working with somebody so young, somebody much younger than the usual patient he sees at least.
He knows that the frail, weak man would only have a few more months left at most were he to not receive this transplant and he also knows that this transplant just may not be enough. But he has to try. He’s never wanted to help a patient survive more than he’s wanted to help Remus Lupin.
When the team is assembled and all the staff are scrubbed in, the donor ready in the OR next door, and Remus is under sedation Caradoc finally begins the surgery, making the beginning of the incision over the healed scar he’d created only six months prior.
The next several hours were going to be so very, very long.
The walk to the OR doors was the longest walk of Gideon’s life. He walked beside Fabian, holding his twin’s hand the entire way.
He doesn’t look up at any of the faces of the people lining the walls as Fabian’s bed is wheeled slowly down the hall. Gideon knows that if he did look he’d see the faces of doctors, nurses, other hospital staff, friends of Fabian’s, some of his family. But he can’t look up because he doesn’t want to see their looks of pity.
He can’t look up because he doesn’t ever want to stop looking at Fabian’s face, the exact copy of his own. Soon, Gideon will be the only person in the world with this face and he can’t stand the thought of that.
When the transport team of doctors stop outside of the OR doors, Gideon leans down and kisses his brother on the forehead and squeezes his hand as tight as he can.
“I love you, Fabian,” Gideon whispers quietly, so only his brother can hear. “I’m sorry I’m not with you yet. One day. You’re going to help so many people Fab but I’m going to miss you so much.”
Gideon really doesn’t know what he says after that because now he’s crying and he’s stepping away from Fabian’s bed and being pulled into the strong, sure arms of his dad.
His dad all but carries him out to the car and then they’re driving home and pulling into the driveway.
Gideon can’t think of anything else beside Fabian.
Fabian’s laugh and his smile and his quick wit.
Fabian’s kindness and tender heart and the love he always gives out freely, asking nothing in return.
Fabian’s motorcycle. The wreckage that now sits in a rented storage unit because Gideon can’t just give Martha away to the scrapyard. Fabian loved Martha, even if she, ultimately, was what led Fabian to his death.
Fabian’s body, beaten and destroyed by the pavement he smashed into. The way his head caved in on one side when the doctor’s had to remove his skull.
The way Fabian had looked when they’d wheeled him down that long, eerily silent hallway to the OR doors.
Gideon is sobbing, great heaving sobs that wrack his shoulders and chest. His dad is holding him close and eventually his mom is coaxing him to take the sedatives Dr. McGonagall prescribed for him.
He takes them gratefully, gulping the water greedily. Begging for relief, for reprieve from this horrible nightmare.
He drifts off quickly and the next morning he learns that Fabian’s organs and tissues are on their way to helping nearly twenty different people.
For many days after, Gideon continues to take the sedatives and he sleeps his days away, content only when unconscious, miserable when awake. He doesn’t know how he’s ever going to move on with his life.