John hushes her, promises it gets better. Joan looks back at him and, for the first time, wonders what the hell she’s even doing with him. An hour ago, she’d been convinced that she loved him and now she can barely make herself believe she likes him. It’s absurd but all she can think about is Seth. She can’t possibly know Seth wouldn’t have hurt her as John has just done but she half thinks it regardless. Perhaps to further torture herself with things she can’t ever have.]
When Joan clicks Seth’s new heart into place, there’s a long moment where absolutely nothing happens and Joan is terrified nothing will.
The clockwork heart sits slanted in the open cavity, connected to the relevant valves and uncharacteristically still. Joan’s own heart is working twice as hard as though to compensate for Seth’s lack. She swallows past the fear lodged in her throat and clenches her hands so tightly that she leaves marks.
The silence drags on and on and on.
They’re readying the paddles when the mechanical heart shifts. The nurse holding the paddles pauses and the room holds its breath. Another moment passes and then the heart twitches, shudders and begins, slowly at first, to beat.
They wait another five minutes to be sure but the heart becomes more confident the longer they wait. Soon it’s throbbing away steadily with a fait whirring sound that is oddly reminiscent of a train running along steal tracks.
Joan exhales, closing her eyes in a long blink even as she raises her blood-coated hands and gets back to work.
[Joan is on an island in Greece when she gets the news.
She’s only just turned nineteen and despite having been overseas for several months now, she’s still celebrating the fact that high school is finally over. The whole world is open to her now and university can wait a year –Joan has other commitments to uphold.
She’s half sleeping on a red beach in Santorini when her phone buzzes. Viber flashes up and Joan scoops it up, pressing it to her ear as she answers.
“Hey mum,” she greets, mellow and happy, “How are you?”
The response is muffled by anguish and tears. All Joan hears is Seth’s name.
“Mum, mum, calm down,” Joan urges, sitting up and waving a ‘not now’ gesture towards the friends travelling with her, “Take a breath, okay? What happened to Seth?”
The story comes out in ruptured fragments. Seth’s girlfriend Hailey, whom Seth had been dating for years now, had died suddenly of an aneurism. The grief had felled Seth easily, further scarring his already damaged heart. Through the quick work of skilled doctors, they’d managed to salvage the organ but… only just. They likely wouldn’t be able to perform such a feat again.
Seth was still in hospital, screaming at walls and utterly inconsolable.
Abruptly, Joan forgot all about her trip. Disregarded the fact that she had the next five months booked and payed for. That her friends were counting on her to help cover the cost of day trips they’d been planning. That her mother kept insisting she stay, enjoy the rest of her vacation. None of those trivialities mattered.
She was on the next available flight home.]
Joan is sitting by Seth’s beside when he wakes, half-heartedly pretending to read a book.
He lets out a startled gasp when he wakes. Joan reaches over to grab his hand before he can raise it to his chest. The look on his face tugs at her own heart painfully, so consumed with pain is the expression.
Going without a heart for nearly a week isn’t consequence free –there’s a backlog of emotion insisting it be felt. There’s a reason no one has survived a heart transplant after waiting more than a fortnight, after all.
“Seth,” Joan manages, voice only just audible over Seth’s dry sobs for air, “Calm down. It’s alright. Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
Seth clenches his eyes shut and shudders, biting his lip so hard that blood runs down his chin. Joan isn’t entirely sure he can hear her, but she continues whispering platitudes regardless.
[The last time Joan saw Seth in a hospital bed, he threw a bunch of flowers at her head.
He was swearing quite violently as he did so but Joan didn’t pay that any attention. She knew him, knew him to his core. Seeing through the theatrics was easy.
Seth’s eyes were puffy, his skin oddly pale. He looked half starved, half mad. He was terrified and determined to hide it.
Joan walked right up to him, hopped up onto the hospital bed beside him, and pulled him into a hug. Seth fought, clawed at her like a wild thing. Lashed out at her with his nails and his elbows and his tongue. Poured venom into her ears until he was physically exhausted by it. Then he broke down and cried.
“I’m cursed,” he sobbed into her collarbone, “Everyone I love is doomed to die. Why does everyone leave me?”
“You have me,” Joan reminds him gently, “My parents. Your friends. Countless others who love you and who are right here, should you ever be inclined to look.”
“It’s not the same,” Seth returned, painfully honest, “I’m never falling in love again.”
Joan is overtaken with a ridiculous urge to kiss him. Push him into the sheets, heal his spirit with her hands, prove him wrong. And it is then (not flying back last minute from Europe or breaking down on the plane or even seeing him in the hospital bed for the first time) that she realizes she loves him.
Rather, she realizes she’s always loved him. It’s like she’s looking at herself in a mirror for the first time and discovering that her eyes are brown. It changes how she sees herself, how she sees the world, and yet it changes absolutely nothing. Her eyes were always brown. She simply didn’t know it.
As timing goes, it’s laughingly terrible.
“I’m sorry, Seth,” is all she says, the only thing that seems honest. He isn’t wrong, in a way. Bad luck does have a habit of stalking him. “I’m so very, very sorry.”
Seth doesn’t say anything further, the heart monitor attached to his chest slow and slightly erratic. The next day, Joan lodges applications to what feels like all the universities in Australia.
She’s accepted into every single one.]
“They’re not letting me go.”
Joan pops an apple slice into her open mouth and nods understandingly as she chews.
“Doctors are finicky like that,” she says mildly, “Always insist on looking after the welfare of their patient. It’s appalling.”
Seth’s answering expression conveys quite adequately that he doesn’t appreciate being patronised. Joan smiles and eats another apple slice. Seth huffs unhappily.
“It’ll only be another couple of days,” Joan assures him, “They just want to be sure you’re okay. We all want to be sure you’re okay. How’s your new heart faring, by the way? Any discomfort?”
“Is that a nice way of asking me whether I plan to have a breakdown and cut it out?”
[‘What are you doing?’
‘Don’t watch. Dear God, don’t watch. Joan-]
“No,” Joan chokes back, fighting to keep her voice level and not succeeding very well at all.
Seth’s eyes soften and he reaches out to grasp her hand tightly, turning it within his own until her fingers are pressed against his pulse. Firm, strong, steady.
“I’ll get there,” he promises gently, “I wasn’t… well. Having a whole and undamaged heart puts things into perspective. I should have had a transplant years ago. Then it wouldn’t have gotten so bad.”
The two of them had had some rather impressive shouting matches centred on that very point. Hearts were an important part of Aboriginal culture, as many believed it linked them directly to the land. Seth had been unwilling to relinquish what was left of his heritage and yet a heart as damaged as his was destined to give up eventually.
The pressures of work, friends and life in general wore it away bit by bit until every feeling Seth had was displaced or incomplete or missing or wrong. Having a heart like that was worse than having bipolar disorder.
Worse, in some ways, th
an having no heart at all.
[When Seth moves out of the apartment he and Hailey had been sharing, Joan is there to lend a hand.
His new place isn’t far and since Hailey’s family claims the majority of her things, there isn’t a whole lot to move so only a few trips are required and most of it is pretty easy to carry. The hardest thing to relocate is the furniture.
They’re carrying a table sideways up three flights of stairs when they bump into one of Seth’s new neighbours. The guy immediately offers to help and, between the three of them, they make it to Seth’s floor in no time.
“Cheers,” Seth thanks him, leaning against the wall and smiling tiredly. Despite how awful he still looks, his smile takes Joan’s breath away. She pointedly doesn’t stare.
“No worries,” the guy returns easily, “I’m Matt, by the way.”
“Seth.”
“Nice to meet ya,” Matt greets, grinning, “This your girl?”
“Joan,” Seth introduces her, “My sister in all but blood.”
Joan shakes Matt’s hand amicably, her eyes carefully downcast. She keeps her expression neutral as the two men talk, determined to hide how devastated she is. It isn’t a surprise but hearing Seth refer to her as a sister wrenches at her insides regardless.]
It’s another three days before the hospital finally lets Seth go. Joan is shackled at work and so it’s her mother that escorts him home. Joan, instead, spends a productive day worrying herself sick.
She’s heading towards his place seconds after she clocks out, barely even conscious of what she’s doing. By the time she gets there, it’s far too late for Seth to be accepting company. She goes up to his apartment anyway.
The lights are on, streaming a yellow bar from underneath the door, and so Joan knocks and, when prompted, enters.
Seth is in the living room, pacing back and forth in a short, restless motion. For all his eagerness to be out of hospital, he looks utterly rudderless. He barely acknowledges Joan at all when she greets him.
Joan hasn’t any words left, has used them all up. The blood on the carpet has turned a faded red and Joan suddenly doesn’t want to be here. If she hadn’t come by, hadn’t wanted to check on Seth after he’d been passed over for that promotion at work, hadn’t thought to swing by...
[‘What are you doing?’
‘Don’t watch. Dear God, don’t watch. Joan-]
Well. It doesn’t even bare thinking of.
“Seth–”
“Why are you here?”
Joan swallows her words back, hesitates.
“I was worried about you.” She says at last.
“No,” Seth disavows, cuttingly, “Why are you here? In my life? What do you even…what you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you,” Joan manages. The thing of it is; she’s telling the absolute truth. She might hope for things (or at least the small part of her that doesn’t recognise ‘impossible’ even when it’s hit over the head with it) but she stopped wanting years ago. Knows better than most what lays along that particular path.
“Do you ever wish…” Seth stops, pauses. Visibly regathers his thoughts, “If you could, would you trade your brother’s life for mine?”
“No,” Joan replies uncertainly, taken aback by the question.
“I would,” Seth confesses softly, “He wouldn’t have screwed up his life as badly as I’ve screwed up mine.”
Times like this, Joan would trade everything she has to see the world through Seth’s eyes. His vision must be made entirely of fractured glass, so inaccurately does he perceive what Joan considers uncomplicated reality.
“Your life isn’t worth less than anyone else’s,” Joan tells him, taking a step forward before she tempers herself, “Why do you insist on punishing yourself?”
Seth lets out a laugh so bitter it’s like drinking vinegar. Joan flinches away from it despite herself.
“Punishing myself?” Seth echoes bitterly, “I killed my family. My best friend. There isn’t a punishment adequate enough to sate me.”
“Seth,” Joan whispers, “You were a teenager. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I distracted them,” Seth argues back, “I was fooling around in the back. Dad turned around to yell, lost control. The roads were wet, he couldn’t stop us from drifting. Moments later, they were dead. All of them were dead. Why not me? Why take them and not me when it was my fault?”
Ben laughs as he runs to the car, waving over his head and not able to escape the rain despite his efforts. Seth lingers, manners holding him still while his parents make their assurances to Joan’s own. Promises to keep in touch are exchanged and solemn oaths to document the trip sworn. Seth’s father unfurls an umbrella and, exchanging a final farewell, they leave.
Joan pushes herself onto her tiptoes to peer over her mother’s shoulder and watches them go. Seth, catching sight of her, grins. Joan directs her gaze to the car at once, trying to pretend she’d been looking at her brother who is, she sees, already busy entertaining the toddler in the car. He’s never like that with her.
Seth climbs into the car and his parents follow after him, the umbrella disappearing in the process. They leave.
Joan isn’t watching them go.
Joan is pulling Seth into an embrace before she even realises she’s moved. Seth collapses against her, hands tight on her waist, eyes buried in her sweat stained shirt.
“It was my fault,” he repeats again, voice muffled, “How can you stand to touch me?”
“Seth,” Joan breathes back, “You were a teenager. It wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you.”
Seth trembles against her and Joan bites her lip. Seth has never dealt well with medication and had started to ramble soon after being admitted into hospital the first time. She’s heard this speech before, though Seth clearly doesn’t remember. Her parents had cried the whole way through. Joan had reacted by taking an impromptu tour through the hospital.
None of them had ever blamed him, not even in the worst moments. It was hard to blame someone that had lost so much, never mind for something they’d done unintentionally. Joan had been that annoying child in the backseat herself more than once. That didn’t mean she was to blame if her parents got a speeding ticket.
Fleetingly, Joan considered telling him that. In the end, she decided not to. Clearly, this confession was important to Seth –a milestone he needed to make. Devaluing it by telling him he’d made it before –countless times –wouldn’t do him any good.
“Sorry,” Seth half laughed eventually, pulling back and wiping his eyes, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“It’s probably your new heart,” Joan says reassuringly, letting her hands linger on his forearms. “You’re emotions are going to be all over the place for a few days at least. You’ll spend most of it feeling like an emotional teenage girl. But things’ll settle down after that.”
“I hope so,” Seth quipped thickly, managing a smile, “This is a hell of a heart you’ve built me, Joan.”
“I’m glad you took it,” Joan admits, “I was scared you wouldn’t.”
“I’m glad I did as well,” Seth confides softly, “It’s perfect. I feel… overwhelmed and yet, better than I have in a long time. Like I’ve been colour-blind and now suddenly… the world is filled with rainbows. It’s amazing. You’re amazing. I don’t deserve you.”
Joan doesn’t speak. Seth is looking right at her, eyes brown and earnest and full of gratitude. Joan knows she should look away (her eyes have always betrayed her) but she feels utterly held captive there. Seth blinks, expression turning puzzled as he lifts a careful hand to his chest.
Joan clears her throat, ready to ask him if something is wrong… but then Seth’s expression clears and he leans down and presses his lips against hers.
It’s the chastest kiss Joan has ever had. It lasts barely a second and, when it’s over, Joan doesn’t quite believe it’s happened at all.
“How didn’t I s
ee this?” Seth wonders, brushing a dark thumb along her cheek, “It’s so obvious now.”
“Sorry,” Joan croaks, taken by an unfathomable need to apologise for… something. She’s not entirely sure what.
“Me too,” Seth returns. Then he kisses her again, more firmly.
This time, Joan kisses him back.
Seth wipes fog away from the mirror and regards himself curiously. There’s something that’s changed in his reflection, something indefinable. His eyes, perhaps? They’re still brown, still so dark they’re almost black but there’s… a quality there. As if something has shifted.