Insert Romantic Title Here

“I feel really bad for Katie…” Ray trailed off.

It was early in the morning, too early for any normal human to still be awake. That might be why Ray, Frankie, and Melissa were still well and alive.

Of course, I was also awake, but I’ve been finding out that a lot more interesting conversations take place when I’m sleeping.

What was it about me that made people feel so uncomfortable? If they wanted to talk about me they could surely say it with me fully conscious. And this made me wonder, what else do they talk about while I’m not awake?

“Yeah, so do I,” Frank muttered, most of his voice being blocked by what sounded like a hand being tightly pressed against his lips.

“Finally, everything was going to be okay. Then Gerard had to do something stupid!”

“Do you really think he was drunk?” Melissa spoke up.

This took me by surprise. Melissa until that moment had been silent. As if contemplating a very in depth thought. Obviously it was quite meaningful and complex.

Melissa’s obtuse question seemed to also take Ray and Frank by surprise as well. A stunned silence was filled with their thoughts switching gears and trying to find a suitable answer to the question.

“When we heard him talk… Do you remember…? He spoke… surprisingly well…” You could hear the distance in her voice. It was unnerving how she spoke in that moment. It was like Melissa was completely taken over by something much more than she was before. “It makes me think he was putting on an act.”

“But I saw him drinking. Beer after beer he kept at it.”

“I dunno…”

Silence again. But I could still hear their eyelids fluttering back and forth as their stares fell upon each other. Then, being as paranoid as I am, I thought I felt three pairs of eyes fall on me.

“I wonder what she’s dreaming about…” Ray said, his voice just as far away as Melissa’s had been.

But of course, the answer was that I wasn’t dreaming at all. And I probably wouldn’t even when I was asleep.
-----
I never ended up falling to sleep. Ray and Frank drifted off before Melissa. And Melissa, to my surprise, ended up talking to Gerard.

“We’re all really worried, Gee,” She said quietly. It was barely over a whisper. “Mikey and Kate especially.”

For along the lines of an hour she talking to him about really random things. Sometimes I completely got lost in what she was trying to say that I just gave up. But her consciousness didn’t last as long as mine did.

When I realized it was safe to move from my sleeping position I wasn’t really surprised by seeing the sun peaking up over the horizon.

Melissa had fallen asleep in a very uncomfortable chair that was facing Gerard’s hospital bed.

I shivered at the thought of calling it “Gerard’s” hospital bed. But quickly shook it off and continued to observe the room.

Jackie and Bob were snuggled together on the window seat with Frank next to them with his head leaned up against the wall. Mikey was close to Melissa but he was sleeping. Ray was… missing, surprisingly.

I scanned for Ray again, and contemplated the possibilities for why he could be missing.

This was when I realized that I hadn’t left this room in a day. I haven’t left this hospital in almost, what was it, three days? So I decided to go on a walk. Not just for a break, but so I could look for Ray too. I wonder what he was up to…

On this walk I remembered why I hated hospitals so much. Everything was white. It’s not that I don’t like white, it’s just that too much of it drones out your system. All of the nurses and doctors were rushing around and shouting out orders. It was hard to think over the entire ruckus.

I almost felt like that scene in Garden State. Where he’s on the plane and everything around him is moving at twice the speed, and he’s just watching everything pass him by.

That’s how I felt. I was watching life pass me by. But not just in this regard, in a lot of aspects of my life.

“What do you mean?” I heard a manly shriek coming from out the nearest door. “Amber, that’s ridiculous!”

I turned the corner and saw Ray looking very distressed. He was leaned up against a wall with his cell phone in one hand and the other playing with his hair. Ray took one glance at me and turned away.

“Ray?” I asked slowly coming behind him.

“It’s kind of hard not to!” He yelled into the phone as he took one giant step away from me. “She’s on the bus with me! What do you want me to do drive separately?!”

Ray started pacing back and forth. From the other end of the phone I could hear screeching. It was defiantly Amber. Even though I’d never heard her scream before, she had a voice that was easily recognizable.

“You’re over reacting! She’s my friend! Only my friend!”

More screaming.

What was going on?

“Fine! Fine! See if we come back to London on our break! Good riddance!”

Ray slammed the phone shut and whipped around. His sharp gaze set a strange sensation through my stomach. I knew I was in trouble.

“What happened? Who was that?”

“That was Amber!” He yelled just as loud as before, if not louder. “She’s mad at me for spending too much time with you!”

“That’s the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever heard!”

It was true. That was shit. Like he had said, we were on a bus together, what could we possibly do about it?

“I know! But what if she’s right! What if I am spending too much time with you?”

“Don’t tell me you’re actually listening to that shit she’s throwing at you! We’re best friends! What are we supposed to do never see each other?”

“I don’t know…”

Ray was defiantly calming down now, he shoulders were dropped and the sharp edge in his eyes was smoothing out.

He leaned up against the wall again and slowly slid down to the floor with both his hands getting lost in his hair.

“What am I gonna do?” He looked up at me with pleading eyes.

I joined him on the hospital floor and looked up at him. Since he was a considerable amount taller than I was he slouched a little bit so we could talk at eye level.

“I don’t know… It’s not your place to apologize. So if you want to get back together than you need to wait for her.”

“Yeah…”

We both starred at the ceiling. I knew it was the same spot because at the exact same time I was thinking it, Ray said it.

“Does that kind of look like a face to you?” He asked. It wasn’t so much a comical question as it was an eerie one. The tone in his voice sent shivers up my spine. I found it a little strange that I was thinking the same thing.

“It does… and it’s scaring the shit out of me. It’s like the devil’s watching you or something.”

“The devil’s eyes…”

I nodded solemnly and got up.

“Wanna go back to the room?” I asked, a sudden hint of desperation blooming in my voice.

“Yeah…”
-----
I bitterly greeted the morning as if it was the day of my death. Nothing but the waking of Gerard could make this a good day. And by what doctors have been saying, I knew more than anyone that those were very slim chances. Just thinking about that caused my stomach to turn.

Minute followed by minute that he didn’t wake up I began to convince myself that he never would.

My eyes barely ever left Gerard’s broken face. But still through all the scars he managed to look just as angelic as when he had the purest smile playing joyfully across his lips.

Tears welled. The thought of him smiling and laughing like normal melted my heart.

I quickly wiped them away before anyone could see. I doubt if they even did. Most of them were talking around Emily.

With I sigh I realized I should join them before my heart overflows with misery and I break down again.
-----
“What!” I jumped in my seat as I felt my pants beginning to vibrate. “Oh…”

I retrieved my phone from my back pocket and snapped it open.

“Hello?”

I moved from the hospital room and into the white hallway.

“It really sucks that I’m the one that keeps having to call… I mean, is it so hard to keep in touch with your own flesh and blood?”

“If only you knew what was happening…” I muttered.

“I think the whole world knows. You guys are all over the news. When did it happen?”

“Three days ago.”

“Katie, I’m so sorry…”

My sister always had a strange knack for calling me at the exact time I needed to talk to someone. It must’ve been that strange “sisterly connection” that people had claimed to have.

“So what happened exactly? We only got the news version, and as you know, that can never be reliable.”

I got into full detail about everything. Since we haven’t talked since I’d found out she was pregnant and I told her the truth about the faulty tabloid, it kind of took a while.

It took so long in fact that I had to call her back on a pay phone because the battery on my phone died.

“That’s some story…” She commented when I finally finished. “So you almost joined the ‘mile-high’ club for Frank, eh?”

I laughed, even though those were very painful times, hearing Sarah say it just added a hint of comedy to the situation.

“I did!”

“I don’t blame you. He IS sexy.”

“HEY!” I heard Thom yell from the background.

“Thom! Have I been on speaker this entire time?” I asked, praying that that wasn’t the truth.

“Uh, yeah. Hey, Katie,” He sheepishly spoke.

Without warning a million doctors rushed past me. They were shouting things at each other. Most of them were talking about some need for sudden surgery while others were calling it a lost cause.

They swept past me and with no hesitation hustled into Gerard’s room.

My heart automatically stopped.
-----
“NO!” I screamed and slammed the phone down on the hook.

My feet couldn’t carry me fast enough to the room. They seemed to be stuck in honey as I attempted to move. Everything that surrounded me came to a halt. The receptionists’ typing ceases, the visitors stopped walking, the second hand on the clock refused to tick another second.

When I finally made it into the room I had to lean on the wall for support. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening. I was still dreaming.

Without realizing it I closed my eyes tightly and prayed that all this chaos would go away. When I opened my eyes I would be back in my Cleveland apartment and Melissa would be on the couch drawing. We would have never have met My Chemical Romance. Frank’s heart wouldn’t be broken. Ray would have stitches in the back of his head. Melissa might not have epilepsy. And Gerard. Gerard wouldn’t be dying.

I’d give up this entire thing, just so he could go on living. I wished this whole thing had never happened, just so he could keep breathing.

Someone jerked past me; forcing my eyes to open and unwillingly pulling me back into a deranged reality.

This was actually happening. Mikey was in hysterics with a silently crying Melissa comforting him. All the others were doing the same while they bawled into each other’s arms.

“GERARD!” My voice cracked from the escaping despair. The tears felt like newly formed streams about to make permanent settlements on my red cheeks.

Everyone momentarily broke away from their sobbing to stare at me.

Ray broke from Frank’s embrace and stumbled towards me. He outstretched his hands and buried my face in his chest, so I could avoid seeing the terrible sight.

“What’s going on?” I whimpered into his muscular frame.

“There’s been a complication… Something with his heart…”

The doctors were beckoning commands to us. Things like, ‘you need to leave’, stuck out in particular.

A nurse was rushed into the room so she could usher us out.

The others gladly left, I could imagine why. There was need for an unexpected surgery, and there was no time to get him to an operation room. So, unless they wanted to see Gerard sliced open, they heeded to the nurse’s command.

I cringed at the thought of him being opened up.

But I didn’t care. I wanted to stay with Gerard. This could be his last moments, and if I wasn’t with him, I knew I would soon follow in his footsteps.

“No!” I yelled at the nurse and shoved her hands away from me.

I shoved past the doctors and made it to Gerard’s side.

“No! Gerard, you can’t die! I won’t let you!” My hand automatically reached for his hand and I brought it to my mouth and gently kissed it. “I won’t let you go!”

“Ger her out of here!” One of the doctors yelled back to the nurse.

My streams turned to rivers as I watched Gerard lose any ounce of color that he had let. Sweat droplets were forming around his brow and his chest was heaving from an attempt to get any oxygen.

The presence of two new male nurses was announced by the “whooshing” of the rooms’ doors.

They each took one of my arms and tried to pull me back from Gerard.

“No!” I yelled in their faces. “Let go of me!”

Gerard’s hand dropped lifelessly off the bed and dangled in the air. I didn’t want to let him go. I wasn’t going to let him go.

“I love him! Please! Let me go!”

I struggled with all my might. I kicked at the air and jerked my head around. Nothing mattered now, except him. I needed to be by him.

“We’re loosing him!”

One of the doctors gave Gerard an electric shock and his body jumped. Nothing worked. The heart monitor was still telling us that he was almost gone.

My strength disappeared. All my limbs fell weak in the muscular arms’ of the nurses. Brown covered my eyes with my drooped head.

“I love him…” I whispered to the floor. “I love him.”

The men began taking me out of the room when a sudden burst of energy forced me to break free from the men. I knew this would be my last shot at this. If I didn’t do it know I’d probably never do it.

I sprinted back to Gerard’s side.

Without thinking I took his pale face into my hands and stared directly at it.

“I know you can hear me!” I screamed at him. “You have to hear me!”

The doctors didn’t try to stop me from making my last romantic gesture to the only one that would ever carry my heart.

“I love you! Gerard, I love you!”

My tears dropped onto his cheeks. They looked like diamonds compared to the dull sweat that was forming around the sides of his delicate face.

“I’ve always loved you! And I always will!”

I leaned my head forward making out foreheads touch. Slowly I inhaled his sent for the last time.

“ ‘I am yours. My entire being, heart and soul.’ I can’t say how much I love you, but I do. I. Love. You,” I whispered gently into his ear.

My eyes shut tight.

Any moment now…

That’s when I heard the final, long, beep. That’s when I knew it was the end.
-----
Finally the doctors managed to pull me away from the lifeless Gerard. I lifelessly hung from the grasp as they dragged me across the hall to the rest of my friends.

Did they know that Gerard was…?

Even though they made sure I was standing when they let go of me, right when they left I fell to the ground.

This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening!

“Gerard!” I cried out, as if he could hear me, as if it could bring him back. But nothing could.

I closed my eyes and brought my knees close to my chest.

“Gerard…” I whispered so carefully that no one else could have possibly heard it but me.

Mikey couldn’t take this anymore. I heard his light footsteps tap against the tile floor as he ran away from this dramatic scene.

Melissa chased after him while Jackie just sobbed into Bob’s shoulder and Frank and Ray came down to my eye level.

They didn’t need to say anything for me to know that they were there for me. It was enough just having them being there. Having them be close. That was all the comfort I would accept right now.

My sobbing stopped, but that didn’t mean the tears did. I never thought anyone could cry as much as I was right now.

Gerard… was gone.

“What’s going on?” I heard one of the doctors exclaim from the room. “This isn’t possible!”

I shot up, Ray and Frank followed.

A tiny glimmer of hope sparked in my heart, thus sparking the tears to stop and my energy to burst through the roof.

I looked back at Frank and Ray who were just as surprised and hopeful as I was. They urged me forward.

We trudged in the room.

Emily’s eyes were wide, a single tear dripped down her pale cheek. Something in her blue eyes was telling us that this was something almost impossible. But it was actually happening.

Gerard’s heart monitor… It was beeping. It was beeping a steady, strong rhythm. It was coming back to life. He was coming back to life.

My mouth fell to the floor. I shoved past the doctors and fell to my knees by his side. Was he going to wake up? Would I finally get to stare into his eyes?

“How is this even possible?” One of the doctors flipped through some of Gerard’s charts on his bed while another checked the machines.

“His heart is s-stronger,” She stammered.

“No fever,” Another commented.

“It’s a miracle…” One of the doctors fell back into a chair while the others left the room without another word.

“Gerard?” I pleaded, hoping that he would wake up.

His chest rose and fell.

Suddenly a great cough escaped him and his eyes weakly fluttered open. Their lids were still heavy, but they were open.

He was alive.

The doctor rose from his chair and took Gerard’s breathing tube out. He said a few things that I couldn’t catch. I was too busy making sure all of this was real. Then the doctor left us alone.

Ray and Frank were completely awestricken with silence. Frank’s eyes lightly glimmered as a smile spread wide across his face. Ray’s jaw was agape, but the expression on his face was obviously joyous.

My own jaw was shaking. So were my hands.

Gerard’s eyes were fluttering around the room; he was still trying to make sense of what just happened. His silence was making me nervous. And the longer he didn’t speak, the more worried I became.

His head tilted towards the guys.

“Where’s… Katie?” He asked, his voice very feeble and quiet.

Ray merely pointed over to me.

Gerard’s tired head leaned over to the other side. His black hair fell over one of his eyes.

When our eyes met I could feel all the blood drain from my cheeks. His angel eyes shimmered from the newly forming tears, while mine just started up again.

I moved the pieces of hair from his eyes. They closed at my touch. A slight smile spread across his pale lips.

“You…” He began. “You almost killed me,” He laughed.

My hand dropped.

“No!” I gulped. “You fell and that car! It was an accident!”

His tiny snicker erupted into a hallow roar of laughter.

“No…” Gerard smiled. God, it felt amazing to see that smile. “Not like that…”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how people say that when they die, they see a bright light?”

I shuddered. It was bizarre to thing that Gerard had actually experienced death. But I nodded anyway, my eyes keeping locked with his.

“Well that’s not exactly the case.” His nose wrinkled, then another smile emerged. “It’s a lot better than that… It was you.”

I starred at him, slightly confused.

“You came to take me away. It’s like the last thing I wanted to see, before I left this place, was you.”

Ray and Frank moved closer to hear clearly what Gerard was saying.

“I heard you talking.” He giggled. “You said my name a lot.”

My cheeks turned bright red, which made him laugh even more.

“It’s nice to know you heard…” I told him sheepishly.

“It was nice to hear.” The smile disappeared. “You looked beautiful. I thought it was an angel. Ha, but you were too nice to be one. No, it was actually your eyes that told me. No one else could have such starlit eyes. Especially now,” He joked at my welling tears.

I half-laughed and quickly wiped them away.

There was silence; I could tell Gerard was contemplating something.

“Death comes in the form you want it…” He whispered.
-----
Throughout the rest of the week Gerard regained his strength. His bruises healed, and the doctors said that his bones were healing up beautifully.

Mikey was overjoyed when he came back to find Gerard awake and smiling in his bed. And Melissa was just as gleeful. It seemed like nothing had changed. Or, if they had, it was for the better.

Gerard had gotten to talk to Emily a lot. She was really pleased and a little more giddy than usual whenever they did.

“She’s really good for conversation,” He told me once. “She’s always got something to say.”

I laughed when he said this, considering I’d thought the exact same thing.

We all became really close with Emily. Her mom was a different story, but whenever Emily translated she seemed… pretty nice.

But one day Emily became strangely weaker than normal. Her voice meek and frail. The bags under her eyes seemed to double in size and she would have long episodes of continuously terrible coughing. At any moment I though one of her lungs would give out from it all.

“It’s nice to know someone who’s died,” She said one Tuesday afternoon. With a laugh she pointed to Gerard. “At least it wasn’t bad, right?”

Gerard shrugged. “Not totally.”

“So I’m not that worried…”

We sat in silence for a moment. I couldn’t imagine getting through this without Emily. And even though we were leaving Germany as soon as Gerard was better, it was strange that we would never see her again.

“I wonder how it will come for me,” She questioned bluntly. “You know, ‘death comes in the form you want it’.”

“It think it all depends,” Gerard spoke. “How do you want it to come?”

Emily tilted her head to one side.

“Music.”

Everyone looked at her, very confused.

“I’ve always loved music. And I want it to be the last thing I see… well, hear, before I die. It’d be nice.”

“How do you want it to come?” Frank asked Melissa.

“I didn’t know this was a group discussion,” She smartly remarked.

“I’m trying to make it one.”

“Oh… Well… I’m not really sure.”

“I bet you can think of something,” Mikey teased her.

“Fine, I want Mikey to kill me!” She laughed. “What about you?” Melissa gestured to Jackie. “What do you want to kill you?”

Jackie sat in thought for a moment.

“I’ve always like parades. I used to play in the marching band in high school. So I always wanted to be in one during a parade.”

“So you want death to come for you in the form of a parade?” Bob teased her.

“Shut up!” She whacked his forehead.

“A black parade…” Gerard trailed off.

“That sounds fucking amazing,” Emily commented. “Welcome to the black parade!” She held out her arms as if to welcome us to her deathbed. “I can see it now!”

We all laughed at her animated expression.

“So can I…” Gerard said with all the seriousness in the world playing on his brow.
-----
One of Emily’s coughing fits woke me up that night.

She was violently jerking up in her bed. Her face was red from lack of oxygen.

“Are you okay?” I asked, rushing to her side.

Emily collapsed back onto her pillow.

“W-water?” She asked.

Her voice was inhumanly hoarse. Besides that I could hear the life slowly draining from her words. It was coming to a close.

“Of course,” I nodded and headed off to get her water.

When I returned I found everyone was gathered around Emily. She was smiling at the time but it faded quickly when she erupted into another fit of coughs.

They all turned to look at me when I entered with Emily’s water.

“Thanks,” She muttered.

I started to hand her the bottle when I figured that she wasn’t strong enough to hold it. I pursed my lips and asked Mikey to get me a straw. He quickly obliged and returned with a straw within seconds.

“Here.”

I held the water just in front of her mouth and she leaned her head forward to sip the beverage through the straw.

“Ugh,” She sighed leaning her head back on her pillow. “I hate being so-so weak.”

No one had anyway to respond to this. So Emily merely spoke up again.

“Could someone go get my mom?”

That was when it finally sank in that Emily was going to die.

“Shouldn’t we do anything? Like get a doctor?” Frank pleaded. “We can’t just let you die.”

“Trust me,” She said her voice far away and her eyes starring up at the ceiling. “There’s nothing anyone can do now.”

Ray took the opportunity and went to get Emily’s mom.

When he brought her in she was practically in tears. Ray had his hand around her shoulder and helped her into the room. She had a tissue close to her nose so she could blow it at any given time.

Emily and her mom had a quick conversation in German that no one understood. But her mom couldn’t take talking to her daughter for too long, so she sat in the corner and waited for it to all be over.

We went through, one by one, saying things of comfort to Emily. She took almost none of them, because she knew they weren’t being said in all honesty. They were things like “Everything’s going to be okay.” But she was too smart to believe us.

It was Gerard that gave her his full honesty.

“Emily, everything is going to change. I didn’t exactly die all the way, so I can’t tell you what happens after whatever it is takes you away, but I can tell you that if you die with pain, it can only get better. So, hang in there.”

She smiled one last smile at him and closed her eyes

Emily tilted her head up at the ceiling.

We starred at her in silence.

“Gerard,” She spoke again, her eyes still closed and her smile still in full. “I can hear the music.”

-~-~-~-~
I'd like to give credit to "Frank Is Fun-Sized" for the idea of the conversation at the beginning! You didn't even know I had writer's block but you helped me with getting this chapter started! So a million thank you's for that!

And to the rest of you.... Gah, nevermind. I love you all! Thanks for reading! XD