C'est La Mort

In the midst of the familiar haze of cinnamon incense and burning marijuana that inhabited those rooms which Nemo frequented, a needle pierced the blue-green network buried deep within the cradle of his arm; the flip-side of his elbow. Several inches north, the leather of a belt that he had acquired from the cluttered floor of his companion’s bedroom – It has to be hers. I want it to be hers. I just do. - stood out in stark contrast against his fare skin, made pale by his last bottle of vodka. With trembling fingers he clutched at the belt’s latch in an uncoordinated attempt to free his arm from its grip. And from his vein he withdrew the spent syringe.

“McDonald?”

The toxins struck far sooner than he had anticipated. Thus, he overwhelmed by a brief bout of anxiety as he began to nod, for he had not yet achieved his final goal. I have to… I have… He crawled with desperation across the threshold of his guest room. “MmmDonald,” He slurred as he stumbled to his feet. Normal, Nemo reminded himself of the terms of agreement of his farewell, and with haste he righted his stance and proceeded as steadily as was achievable in such a state, down the stairs. Jack was not to know of his nearing death. Of this he had promised himself.

“Wu-“ Nemo dragged his tongue across his chilled lips, which would be tinted blue by his body’s dropping temperature before long. “Wuzzup, Mickie D?!” He collapsed beside Jack upon the sofa in a deceptively casual manner as he struggled to breathe. Just… this last conversation. Then I’ll sleep. Just… His head fell. With an abrupt jolt he pulled it upward once more. Hang on… Just gotta… Just one more thing.

He had yet to leave his note.

Jack sat downstairs on the couch, some cheesy survival show playing on the television as background while she scrawled out field report notes. This whole 'Now Jack is an Auror while Poe gets to frolic with the Jarveys all day long' thing was really wearing her down. She looked like she hadn't slept in days and her face even looked a bit thinner, bags gathering under her eyes from sleep deprivation. Even now, it was late. Poe liked to be crazy, but his bedtimes varied. His crazy antics sometimes knocked him out early.

That was what she had assumed, so she had managed to do her work serenely, Elliot as his usual Irish Wolfhound self snoring and rumbling in his sleep on her feet. Fred had run off with Weasel, probably to hunt, and Jack had not seen them in awhile. It did not matter. She drank another sip of hot chocolate, ignoring the cravings of a late night snack.

She thought she heard Poe call her but she waved it off as sleep deprivation, before her suspicions were confirmed by creaking stairs. She glanced up and then continued working on her notes. Poe entered and she looked up at him. "Wow. You look about as bad as I do. Told you my job wasn't a picnic." She grinned and continued writing until he collapsed next to her, causing her quill to skid across the page. "Ah, c'mon, Poe!"

She looked over at him, to see his head slump, before it snapped up. She began to fold her page up. "Poe, are you tired or something?" But a strange feeling entered her being, one that wasn't hers. A finality, a weariness. Jack's heartbeat began to pick up speed. "Poe. What's wrong? What's happened?"

“A fu-uh” he crumbled deeper within the sofa as his chest gave a violent spasm. A convusion which he disguised as a yawn as he rested his head atop Jack’s shoulder playfully. “-cking unicorn happened,” Nemo lied on the topic of their swapped jobs with another lick of his cracking lips. It occurred within a recess of his mind which had not yet been poisoned by lethal injection that little time remained before sleep stole him at last. “I didn’t” – breathe – “even know they existed 'til today.”

He dragged his heavy eyes in the direction of Jack’s face, glancing upward from his position against her side. And from his dying chest genuine laughter did flutter, however pained, “You have a” – breathe – “ch” – a shorter word – “coco mustache.” A worn smile flitted across Nemo's face, for he was content, despite his struggle. Not that such sufforing held any meaning to the lad; he had never desired a blissful end, anyhow. He would die experiencing the mortal bite of pain or he would not die at all.

He breathed once more, the regularly involuntary action having become one which required conscious thought and an agonizing effort, and the expelled air did echo throughout his blackening mind. The slow thud of his heart, too was audible within his ears as alcohol and narcotics fought alongside one another in a shared, mutinous battle against his being. “What ‘bout you? How's” his head lolled until his brow was all that supported him against Jack’s arm. And from beneath the cover of his ever-rebellious hair he concluded his question, “being an auror?” I just… wanna sleep. Just …. Just let me hear…. Wait-wait… just… one more laugh.

“You been”, a haggard breath was muffed by the sleeve of his companion’s shirt,“kicking Martin’s ass?”

Sleep…

G’bye, Jack. You’ll be fine. Please...

One more laugh.

Poe rested against her and yawned, crediting his strange tired spirit to one of the unicorn's in her department, but it seemed off to Jack still. She stared at him and listened to the fragmented way he spoke. In her own chest, a series of emotions that were not her and tangled there, and she was desperately trying to sort them out, rearrange them, and make some sort of sense of them. He seemed to be having trouble breathing and she sorted out an emotion of resignation.

That wasn't good. It couldn't mean-

He pointed out her cocoa mustache and she wiped it away with her arm, and she felt a brief moment of happiness before pain took a hold of her. She felt her eyes widen as the emotions began to become her own, owing to the ability she still had no idea she even possessed. Empathy hurt the most when the people you cared about were dying before you.

She struggled to control the pain herself, trying to simultaneously harness it to understand it and throw it off to focus all of her attentions on her roommate. He dropped his head and asked her how being an Auror was, and then asked about Martin. Despite her pain and fear, Jack let out a tiny smile, before a spike of pain, suffering, and surrender to death struck deep inside her.

"Oh, Poe," she breathed. "You've gone back to where we began." Her voice was quite, small, and trembling. She put her arms under his head, cradling them as she herself began to tremble. "Poe. I need you here. I need you."

Not with the laughter to which he had so longed to drift to sleep was Nemo bid goodbye, but the paralyzing notion that Jack had discovered what he had done. “No,” He croaked as the façade that he'd strewn across his person for Jack's sake was washed from his hypothermic flesh with desperate tears.

“No, no, no, no,” Nemo sobbed as his companion gathered him in her arms. Beneath the weight of death his consciousness wavered, dipping his head downward and weighing heavily upon his damp lids. “You,” He gasped with the complaints of his depleted lungs. “-weren’t s’posed to know…” He nodded, drifting from Jack’s arms towards a distant nonexistence - before shivering to life once more. “I just wanted,” he shakily inhaled the fibers of Jack’s sleeve during his attempt to explain, “- s'posed to be happy." He sighed through pale-blue lips as he cried, “You...” And he fell limp within Jack's hold.

He began to speak, tears gathering and Jack shook, trying to hold back her own- how was it he could do that?! She blinked them back and spoke over his protests, pleasing with him for an answer on what he had done and how to counteract it. His words were fragmented and tore her internally apart. There was no denying their companionship was strong, that they needed each other, but he was leaving her. "You can't leave me!" Jack cried out, but his head sunk.

Jack burst into motion, letting him fall softly onto the couch as she burst over it, pointed her wand out and screaming, "Accio mobile!" She ran for her potions cabinet and began shoving aside potions, her mobile landing in her lap. She searched with one hand as she dialed the main healers number, desperate. "Edwin. Apparate to my house immediately. It's Nemo Omara," she cringed at having to say the name Poe so hated. "Yes, another attempt. I don't know what it was just- please, Edwin."

She hung up and her hands fell upon an anecdote for poisons. She had seen no physical infliction so she had to assume it was alcohol, drugs, or a poison that had taken a hold on her friend. She tripped over to him and tipped the drink into his mouth, moving his head to see that it trickled into his throat. She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing he was going to be angry with her. "Please, Poe. Please understand. I'm too selfish to let you go."

Edwin appeared and Jack looked up, hysterics beginning to take hold of her. Her eyes swam and he stared for a moment, finding this completely new. He hurried over and she got a handle on herself, saying, "I gave him a basic poison anecdote." Edwin stepped over Poe and placed his hand on his chest, going silent. Jack didn't know what he was finding out, but Edwin lifted his wand and began casting spells, and Jack was not about to interrupt him.

Alas, in the creation of his own demise, Nemo had been successful. In a motionless array of tangled limbs, his body laid lifeless, despite the ghost of sorrow that remained and thrived in the form of glistening tears as they rolled from his eyes. “Satus pectus pectoris!” Edwin commanded his wand and Nemo’s still heart simultaneously. An order to which Nemo responded with no more than a jolt of his chest, induced by the force of the spell casted. For defiant he was, even in death. “Satus pectus pectoris!” Edwin flattened his palm against his patient’s chest for a second time. “I can’t get a pulse,” He informed Jack as his tactics changed.

“Ostendo nex,” He spoke aloud the incantation that would aid him in the identification of Nemo’s cause of death. “Liquor and narcotics,” the spell confirmed the possibility that Nemo’s physical symptoms had already presented. But in Ewdin’s search for an answer he made a discovery most shocking. Despite his experience as a healer, he could not deny that he had been startled upon learning the amount of narcotics that Nemo had ingested. He balked, before snapping quickly to work once more, “Satus pectus pectoris!” Nemo’s body jumped upward, but presented no pulse. Thus, Edwin drew nearer to Nemo and began in an attempt to repair his poisoned heart, “Renovo.”

“I still can’t get a pulse!”

“Satus pectus pectoris!”

The last tear that Nemo had cried did fall from his parted lids. And on his lips, it died.

Satus pectus pectoris - starts a heartbeat
Ostendo Nex - identifies a toxin
Renovo - organ repair

(Using my Kindle so it might be horrid.)

Edwin was here and Jack had to trust him once again. He had bailed her out time and time again and he had also saved both Poe and Vito before. He was someone Jack HAD to trust. He had proved his trustworthiness to her before and, in Jack's deepest thoughts, she only had the choice of trusting him. If she could not bring herself to trust Edwin now then she had no hope for her friend.

She HAD to believe in Edwin.

He began to cast some Healing spells and Jack felt a lift of hope. He had to know what was wrong to being Healing it and wasn't that the hardest part? Jack watched nervously and waited. Edwin's discovery sped Jack's heartbeat but she waited. This was often how these things worked. Edwin identified the problem and Jack nodded. It would start working any second now.

But it didn't.

Poe's body jumped and anaconda rushed forward, crouching above her friend on the sofa, grabbing one of his hands and holding his face. "Poe! Please, Poe! You survived your childhood, you can survive the demons in your head. If you can't, what chance do I have? I need you. Your department needs you. Sunny will need you! Just give me a pulse and I'll get rid of the demons. Please, Poe!"

“Satus pectus pectoris!” Beneath Jack, Nemo's shoulders quaked as he was made the target of another bolt of energy. But much in the likeness of Edwin's previous attempts to revive the man, his vital organs did not stir. With gradually declining determination, the healer cast another spell, "Renovo." Five minutes, he noted as the most probable outcome of the evening's events became clear. He has only a minute left.

"Jack," Edwin began with mild hesitance. "Time of death..." He continued with a solemn nod towards his watch, which ticked merrily on in spite of their misfortune,"Twelve-O-three AM."

Jack remained where she was, tense and poised, simply waiting the time when her friend revived and she could begin fixing everything again. He would be mad. He would resent her for it. He was not one to bate, but a feeling of that sort might arise. His feelings that had spread to her were still there but they were shrinking, shrinking, shrinking...

And then Edwin spoke.

For a moment, all was silent. She stared down at Poe and then shook her head. "No. Uh-uh. Not yet-" Edwin began to protest, claiming there was nothing he could do. She turned, a crazed look in her eyes. In a dangerous whisper she said "I can still feel him. His emotion lingers. Try again." There was a silence and she roared "TRY AGAIN!"