fic: The Rhythm of My Footsteps Crossing Flood Lands to Your Door

Title: The Rhythm of My Footsteps Crossing Flood Lands to Your Door
Fandom: Scrubs
Pairing: Canon pairings, hints of Elliot/Carla if you squint
Rating: 15 (non-graphic description of sex)
Warnings: Character death. Seriously. I kill everyone in this fic.
Summary: The Sacred Heart gang does their best to keep the game going for their patients, but it has to end someday, even for them.
Author's Notes: I watched the end of the series finale of Six Feet Under the other day and got inspired to do something similar with the Scrubs characters. It would help to watch that scene first, but it's not necessary.
Disclaimer: I don't own Scrubs.



“Come…on,” Doug grunts as he struggles to heft the three-hundred pound corpse back into the drawer. He would have gotten someone to help, but that would mean explaining how the guy got on the floor in the first place. There was no way he was going to admit to playing bumper gurneys with Mr. Campbell again.

“You could help, you know,” he wheezes as he glares at Mr. Campbell’s frozen body. He manages to get half the stiff onto the metal surface. “Just…a little…more…”

He pushes forward with all his might, crunching on the lollipop in his mouth. The cell phone clipped to his waist rings, blaring a tinny version of the Bond theme into the empty room. He jumps. The body falls off the tray and onto him, knocking him to the floor.

“Damn it,” he wheezes as he tries to shove the corpse off.

And tries.

And tries.

“You guys?” he calls, hoping someone will answer. His cell phone is still ringing a few feet away on the floor, but he can’t reach it. His arm is pinned somewhere under one of the guy’s fat flaps. “You guys, I can’t… breathe.”

He keeps pushing at the body, but his arms are starting to feel numb.

“Anyone?” he calls again.

No one answers. Darkness forms at the corners of his vision.

“Aww, man!” He pushes to no avail. His cell phone stops ringing.

Doug Murphy
1974-2011


*****

“Perry, will you stop being a wuss and just do it already?” Kelso snaps. He grimaces as pain shoots through his abdomen, and his voice softens when he adds, “It’s time, and you know it.”

Perry glances up at him for a moment, and Bob chooses not to notice the way he winces when their eyes meet. He hasn’t looked in a mirror in weeks, but he’s seen plenty of terminal cases in his career. He can imagine what a sight he is right now.

“Will it hurt?” Harrison asks as Perry flicks at the syringe. Bob figures it’s just force of habit, or maybe a stall. It’s not as if a little air is really going to matter anymore.

“No,” Perry replies. His voice is low, steady, but his eyes are glossy and red. “It’s just like falling asleep.”

“It’s a hell of a lot better than dying slowly,” Bob adds. “For christ’s sake, I can’t even wizz anymore.”

Perry cracks a wry smile, and even Harrison laughs a little as he tears up.

“Fair enough,” Perry says as he looks the syringe up to the IV line. “You ready there, Bobbo?”

“Just do it.” He looks up at the two of them and smiles. His skin is so sensitive that it burns, but he does it anyway. “I’m proud of you,” he tells them as Perry depresses the plunger. “Both of you.”

Perry turns around quickly, but Bob sees the way his shoulders slump. “I’ll leave you two alone,” he mutters as he pushes his way towards the door. “I’m sorry.”

Bob knows Perry’s blames himself, even though he gave him the best treatment anyone could hope for. There was nothing he could have done. Bob hopes he’s smart enough to realize that.

“We’re cool, Perry,” he calls after him. He doesn’t know if he heard, but it doesn’t matter. He feels heat traveling up his arm, through his body, and it reminds him of the summer when Harrison was nine. It had been hotter than hell that year, but he’d spent a whole afternoon running alongside the bike that Harrison was just learning to ride—that ridiculous pink monstrosity they’d gotten him for his birthday. Enid had laughed when he’d come home red as a lobster because he’d forgotten sunscreen, and they’d gone out for ice cream that night.

It was probably the best day of his life, now that he thinks about it.

He feels Harrison grasp his hand, and he smiles again. It barely hurts this time. “We’re cool.”

Robert Kelso
1942-2017


*****

Jordan doesn’t like needles much, so she stares at the metal tray next to her while the nurse puts in the IV. The bags of clear liquid resting on it look like water balloons, although they’re not quite that large. She is, after all, a woman in her very, very late fifties. Anything bigger than a C-cup would probably be tacky at this point.

The anesthesiologist comes in and puts an oxygen mask around her head.

“Ok, Miss Sullivan,” he says. “Are we ready?”

Jordan rolls her eyes. She hates people who use the royal we. “On with the show, Doc.”

“All right then. I want you to count backwards from ten, starting…” he glances at the machine she’s hooked up to. “…now”

“Ten… Nine… Eight…”

She goes to sleep.

Jordan Sullivan
1967-2026


*****

“Jackie boy!” Perry exclaims as he claps his arms around his son. They don’t see each other much now that Jack’s away at med school, and Perry pushes him back to arm’s length so he can get a look at him. God, he’s grown. “How the heck are you?”

“Good, Dad,” he says. He has his mothers smile; it looks mocking even when it’s genuine. Perry’s missed that about him. “I didn’t think you’d be able to come now that you’re the big guy at the hospital.”

“Ah,” Perry mutters as he waves his hand dismissively. “That cesspool can manage itself for a little while. Besides, it’s not every day the Red Wings are in town, eh there, kiddo?”

“No,” Jack agrees, grinning as he passes him a ticket.

They don’t talk as they make their way to their section. When they reach the seats, Jack tosses down his coat and tells Perry that he’s going to go get a couple of beers.

“Make it quick,” Perry tells him. “Game’s starting.”

Perry settles into his seat as he watches the face-off. The home team gets control of the puck immediately, and he groans out a long boo. He hasn’t been all that enthused about much of anything since Jordan died, but he gets mad enough when they score—on the first play, for god sake—that he stands up to hurl a few choice insults.

He doesn’t remember falling, and he doesn’t hurt, surprisingly. He’s conscious long enough to think that that’s actually a pretty bad sign and to see Jack dropping the beers and rushing over to him.

“Dad? Dad, you all right? Dad?!”

He doesn’t answer.

Percival Cox
1960-2030


*****

“Are you coming to bed?” a woman’s voice whines from the bedroom.

“Yeah,” echoes a male voice. “What’s the hold up?”

“Be cool,” Todd calls from the bathroom as he tosses back a couple of little blue pills that he likes to call his lifesavers. “The Todd is worth waiting for.”

As if to back up that statement, he darts back into the bedroom, flexing and posing as he makes his way over to the bed. He’s older now, sure, but he still looks damn good for his age. He makes sure of it.

“Yeah he is,” the man agrees as his eyes drift down to the bulge in the Todd’s banana hammock.

The woman smiles seductively. “Come here, big dog.”

Todd smiles back and leaps onto the bed.

It’s a wild night, all right: the dude’s lying on his back with the chick on top of him, and the Todd is taking her from behind. He feels a weird stabbing pain in his arm, but he ignores it. He keeps thrusting, harder and harder, enjoying the way his heart is hammering in his ears. When he comes, he feels a spasm inside himself that he’s never felt before.

“That was weird,” he mutters as he falls back onto a pile of pillows. He shrugs, then grins and raises both hands. “Threesome five!” he exclaims.

He’s unconscious before their palms even make contact with his.

Todd Quinlan
1972-2031


*****

J.D. has a ritual now that he’s retired (well, he’s not really retired, but he is in private practice. Compared to being Chief of Medicine, it’s a cake walk. He mostly just gives referrals). Every Saturday morning, he packs a sandwich and takes Steven down to the dog park, where he sits on a bench and has lunch at precisely 11am.

That’s the best part about getting old, he thinks. You get to eat obscenely early and no one says anything about it.

People do give him some strange looks when he yells at Steven to stop chasing the birds, but he doesn’t care. Let them think he has dementia. Really, he’s just happy with a nice day and a turkey on wheat.

He’s barely a bite in when he hears a loud bang from across the pond. He wouldn’t know gunfire from a car backfiring, but his concern is automatic. He tosses down his sandwich and runs toward the noise without thinking about it.

When he sees a woman lying on the ground, bleeding, he wastes no time whipping off his shirt and pressing it to the wound on her chest.

“Call 911,” he yells to a man standing a few yards away. He’s so engrossed in the feeling of saving someone—a thrill he hasn’t experienced in years—that he never even notices that the man is still holding a gun.

The last thing he feels is the woman’s heart beating strong under his hands.

Jonathan Michael Dorian
1975-2037


*****

“Mush,” Janitor yells to the sled dogs. “Mush!”

He closes his eyes, feels the icy air flowing fast over his skin. He is cold. He is, very, very cold, and it doesn’t matter.

He’s always wanted to see Alaska. Now that he’s here, he doesn’t particularly want to leave. What is there to go back to, anyway?

When the dogs tire, he rolls off of the sled and sets Bingo down on the ice. “Run along now!” he tells him as he lets himself recline in the snow. It’s so white everywhere—so sparkly and unblemished and clean looking. It’s everything he could ever hope for.

He ignores the burn of the cold and lets himself drift off to sleep.

Janitor
1960-2038


*****

Turk lays awake, staring at the tiles on the ceiling with the eye he can still see out of. His diabetes has gotten worse, and he hasn’t slept through the night since J.D. died.

He tries for Carla and Isabella’s sake. They’re still here, and he knows he should be there for them. But a part of him died when the police came to tell him about J.D., and nothing ever replaced it. He barely eats. He’s lost his foot and most of his sight because of the blood sugar problems that’s caused him. He can’t help it; he just doesn’t have an appetite anymore.

He listens to Carla stirring in bed next to him and waits. He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for until he hears it.

“What’s up Brown Bear?” says a voice from across the room. Even without the use of the nickname, he’d recognize it.

“Vanilla Bear?” he asks, his voice high with surprise.

“Who else?” J.D. teases as he steps out from the shadows. His hair is brown instead of gray, and his skin is smooth. “Come on, buddy. We gots to be hittin’ the road.”

“I can’t…” he trails off, starts again. “You can’t…”

“It’s time,” J.D. tells him, and he flashes that hundred-watt smile of his. “I missed you, amigo.”

“I missed you too.”

“Turk?” he hears Carla’s sleepy voice mumble from next to him. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing, baby,” he assures as he leans over and kisses her on the forehead. “J.D. and I will be right back.”

He slips out of bed and walks for the first time in over a year.

Christopher Duncan Turk
1976-2039


*****

Keith is reclining in his La-Z-boy chair, flipping through channels while he waits for the game to start. A thousand channels and there’s nothing good on.

He glances down to see that the piles of wrapping paper from earlier are still strewn around the Christmas tree and sighs.

“Hey, Magnus,” he calls as he stands up from the chair.

“Hmm?” his grandson says from behind him.

“What do you say you and I clean this stuff up before grandma sees what a mess it is?”

“Ok,” he agrees, and he dives into the pile of paper and starts eagerly shoving it into a garbage bag.

Keith laughs at his tenacity and leans down slowly to pick up a few of the pieces himself. His back isn’t what it used to be, and he gets dizzy if he bends too quickly.

“Did you like the socks, Grandpa?” Magnus asks.

“Sure did,” Keith replies, but it doesn’t come out that way. Magnus looks frightened.

“Grandpa, what’s wrong with your face?”

Keith reaches up to run a hand along his cheek. His muscles are contorted, and he can’t feel it.

“Call 911,” he tries to say. It sounds distorted and he never makes it past the first syllable.

He doesn’t feel himself hit the floor, but he does feel Magnus’s hand on his arm, squeezing. He thinks of his wife, of the day they met, and of his children and grandchildren, and he feels…not alone. He would smile if he could.

Keith Dudemeister
1981-2053


*****

“I miss him,” Carla says as she looks at the photograph hanging on the wall in the living room she shares with Elliot. In the picture, Turk is wearing his green scrubs and grinning cockily at whoever is behind the camera. He’s got one arm slung around a basketball and one propped casually against the side of the hospital, and he looks happy. Alive.

“Me too,” Elliot tells her. She puts a hand on Carla’s shoulder, and Carla jumps a little.

“Jeez, you’re cold!”

Elliot shrugs. “They say that happens when you get old.”

“Yeah, except you’ve always been cold,” Carla replies with a small smile. Elliot’s the only one aside from Izzie that can make her smile anymore, and sometimes even Izzie can’t because she looks so much like her father sometimes that it brings tears to Carla’s eyes. She’s done her best to keep active since he passed away, but it hasn’t been easy. Elliot’s been there the whole time, giving her things to do and someone to fret over. Carla’s grateful for that.

She lays a hand on top of Elliot’s for a moment and then squeezes as she stands. “I think I’ll go to bed now.”

“Ok,” Elliot murmurs. “Don’t forget your pulls. I left them on the counter.”

Carla nods and tosses them back, and Elliot adds, “Get some rest. Maybe we can go to spinning class in the morning.”

“Sure,” Carla agrees. She doesn’t turn on the light in the bedroom, just closes the door and feels her way to the bed automatically. She falls asleep almost as soon as her head hits the pillow.

She doesn’t dream much anymore, but tonight she imagines that she’s in the hospital, at the nurses’ station with Dr. Cox and Dr. Kelso, talking like old times. And then Turk wanders over, bragging about his surgery and chest bumping J.D. They look at her.

“Ven con nosotros,” Turk says, grinning.

“Si,” Carla replies, smiling back. She’s been waiting.

Carla Espinosa
1970-2057


*****

Elliot hears a knock on the door and rises with effort to answer it.

“Oh, hey, Chris,” she says as she opens it to find an older man holding his hat in his hands.

“Hey, Elliot,” he replies, blushing. “You, uh…up for it?”

She’s been sleeping with him for almost a year because there’s nothing else to do around the retirement community now that Carla isn’t around. He still turns red every time he comes by.

“Not today,” she tells him. “I’ve got some things I need to get ready for the kids.”

He smiles and nods as he turns to go. “Have a good day, then.”

“Later,” she calls as she closes the door. She goes back to the dining room table, where she’s laid out all the photographs that used to be on the wall.

That was new to her, having photographs displayed. There were never any in her house when she was growing up, except for the family portrait that hung over the fireplace. She hadn’t been born when it was painted, and her parents never got another one done after. She hadn’t thought much about having pictures around, but Carla had insisted that they hang them when they’d moved in together.

Now, they’re everything to her. She looks at them every day.

The Polaroid they’d found when they’d helped Paige clean out Perry’s apartment, the one where Perry’s chuckling at something Ben said as he glances down at a patient’s chart. Jordan’s in the background, trying to scowl but looking amused all the same.

The picture of J.D. before he became Nancy-no-chin, dressed in his two-tone scrubs, smiling optimistically, innocently, and leaning against the nurse’s station counter. It had taken her a few years after his death to be able to look at it without thinking that that was what got him killed, but now she smiles back when she sees it. It’s how she likes to remember him.

The photo of her and Carla from Turk and Carla’s wedding. They both look so fresh-faced, so radiant that she wonders how they ever could have been self conscious about themselves.

The print of Turk and Carla grinning at the camera and standing with Izzie all decked out in her PhD robes. She’d done her dissertation on Afro-Latino ritual practices; they’d been proud..

The Sacred Heart staff picture from 2005, with Todd shirtless and flexing and everyone else looking bored and restless, but young.

With the exception of Izzie, they are all dead now. The photographs are what she has left.

She tucks them carefully into four padded envelopes as “Transatlanticism” drifts from the radio in the corner. Something about Death Cab for Cutie being on an oldies station is so strange, she thinks as she seals the packages. The largest is addressed to Izzie, who never stopped visiting after her mother died and who loves Elliot in spite of the fact that she’s still conservative and kind of racist. Elliot hopes she’ll like the ones of her parents. The other three, smaller, she addresses to Jack, Jenny, and Sam. Sam was never very close to his father, but she thinks he should have the photo of him anyway.

“Going out to mail a few things,” she calls to the homecare nurse they send by a couple times a week. By homecare nurse, they actually mean babysitter, but she doesn’t mind so much. It’s good company, and, although she is a little senile these days, she knows how to say the right things to get them to loosen up on the supervision. Her youth gave her plenty of practice at hiding the crazy.

She drops the packages in the mailbox and then walks a little ways to the lake behind the property. Residents aren’t allowed back there for safety reasons, but she goes at least a couple of times a week. It’s so quiet, and she likes the sounds the water makes.

She stares out at it for a few moments before she leans down, slowly, to grasp at a fist-sized stone. Her fingers are willowy and thin, covered in transparent skin, but they have enough strength left in them to heft the rock. She slides it into her coat pocket, repeats the process a few more times. Her hands start to bruise, but she doesn’t care.

She kicks off her slip-ons and walks to the shore. The water is cold, and she smiles when she feels it lap against her calves. It’s refreshing, and she’s surprisingly calm as she lets herself wade in farther. It’s up to her thighs, then to her hips, then to her torso, and she feels the weight of the rocks pulling at her. She glances around quickly to make sure there are no rowers around—why would there be?—and then leans forward until she’s falling. The water covers her head and swirls her hair around her face so that everything looks silvery-gold and blue.

She smiles and doesn’t try to hold her breath.

Elliot Reid
1977-2059


*****

Every morning before he has a doctor’s appointment, Ted prays that something is wrong with him. Cancer. Heart disease. AIDS. Anything, as long as it’s nice and fatal.

“Looks like a clean bill of health there, Mr. Buckland,” says the private practice doctor, grinning at him. “For someone pushing ninety, you’re doing great.”

“Awwww,” he whines as he kicks his heel back onto the base of the table he’s sitting on. “Owwww.”

“Careful there,” the doctor cautions as he helps him down. “Just keep taking care of yourself, and you’ll be just fine.”

“That’s exactly what I was afraid of,” Ted mutters as he gets into his car. It takes a couple of times to get the engine to start because it’s ancient, but it eventually turns. “Float On” comes blaring over the oldies station, and he groans. The Worthless Peons covered that once. He doesn’t like to think about it.

He reaches down to change the station as he drives out of the lot. The knob comes off in his hand. “Damn!”

He’s too busy fiddling with the radio to notice that he’s coasted out into the street. A pickup truck hits the driver’s side of his car at nearly full speed, spinning it so many times that he is dizzy by the time it stops. He feels a sharp pain in his side for a moment, and then there’s just numbness.

He rests his head against the airbag and smiles. “Finally,” he murmurs as he closes his eyes.

Theodore Buckland
1969-2059


*****



Sorry that was so depressing. Feedback is appreciated.