Chapter Text
You scrubbed angrily, the harsh soap stinging your raw skin as you ground your teeth together. Of course, you’d been wearing surgical gloves, but latex wasn’t going to separate you from the disgusting cling of guilt. The smell of antiseptic and the general hospital made your head spin and you clung to the edge of the deep metal sink, eyes shut tightly as the water continued to run. Your ears still rung with the sound of the whine of a heart monitor flat-lining.
You were so out of it that you didn’t notice the tap squeaking shut, the shower of pressurized water trickling to a gurgling stop. Nobody else had been in the decontamination room with you, and nobody had entered. You only opened your eyes at the sound of your name.
“Keith,” you acknowledged stiffly, turning around and confirming the presence of the person the faint voice belonged to. He cocked his head to the side, his deep-set eyes surveying your bent over form wearily. He looked just as you remembered. His wild dark hair was impeccably messy and his faded red jacket hung over his skeletal frame. The almost hot aura that surrounded him didn’t seem to affect you as much as it had before, quelling down into a tolerable itch on your skin.
“You know that there was nothing you could have done,” he said, quietly.
“Fuck that!” you spat acridly, turning back around to stare down into the sink. The sheen of water at the bottom reflected back up at you, showing you a worn and tired face that you could hardly call your own. You heard Keith take a couple of steps, his feet soundless against the floor. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw his tall figure lean against the sink, his gaze focused to the back wall as you kept glaring down at your reflection.
“I don’t believe in that,” you continued, speaking down at yourself viscerally. Your voice reverberated up through the small, empty room, giving it an ethereal echo. “I don’t believe in fate, or souls—God or spirituality—none of that stupid bullshit.” You waved at him absent-mindedly, your voice heavy with sarcastic joy. “And yet, you’re here.”
“That’s how it turned out, yeah.”
“Don’t tell me God actually exists.” You peeled your eyes away from the basin, tiredly peering at him. He shrugged again.
“Whatever you think goes, really. It’s not my place to say, and to be honest, I don’t know. But I’m telling you, you couldn’t have done anything to save that little girl.”
“What did I just say, Keith!?” you hissed, clenching your fingers around the cold metal edge of the sink. “I don’t believe that. I could have—no, I should have done better. I swore an oath to do no harm. If I weren’t so fucking pathetic, I could’ve—” You choked up and quit talking, tearing your gaze away from his dark eyes to the sink again, inhaling shakily so that you wouldn’t start to cry.
“If people were just good at their fucking jobs, there’d be no pointless deaths,” you murmured bitterly. Your mother’s smile flashed before your eyes and you let go of the sink, turning around and leaning on it as Keith was. His arms were crossed and you saw him turn his face away from you, directing his gaze to the ceiling as you stared down at your feet.
“Where’s the winged one?” you asked tiredly, after Keith took on a lengthy silence. You hadn’t noticed in the operating room, too occupied with work, but the lanky guardian angel was nowhere to be seen. Even his cool presence was absent, leaving a bit of a void you’d never expected to experience. Keith let out a soft breath, his body feeling so unnaturally warm through your clothes, but not unbearable.
“Lance can’t materialize on Earth for that long. His soul belongs in Heaven, like humans belong on Earth. Angels really only ever watch from above. It’s rare for any of them to touch down on mortal planes, much less become visible to their wards. It takes a huge toll on them.”
You checked your watch, surprised to see the large numbers wink at you. Time didn’t mean much to you unless it was presented in the form of a deadline, and sunlight never shone inside the OR anyways. “It’s really late. I guess I let time get away from me.”
“You were in surgery for almost twelve hours. You’re not tired?”
You shrugged. He sounded mildly surprised, but your life had been this way ever since you’d dedicated yourself to your career. You were constantly passed around in a ménage à trois of sleeplessness and overachievement. It was just what you lived with. It was the only way to live if you were to save lives and do your fucking job; but apparently, you still weren’t good enough. Your fingers clenched your bloodstained scrubs yet again, the bruised face of the young female patient still scorched into your mind. Her name had been Dakota. Dakota was now sleeping in the morgue instead of at home with her parents.
“I was watching you the whole time.”
Keith’s voice pulled you out of the dizzying downwards spiral and you re-opened your eyes, listening to his smooth tenor. Dakota’s toothless grin faded away.
“Death reapers spend most of their time between Earth and in the spirit world, guiding souls, so I’m able to materialize more easily than Lance can. The spirit world is just a parallel Earth, anyways. The two are bound much more closely. It’s not like Heaven, which is tethered far beyond mortals’ reach.”
“…did Dakota—that girl—did she have a good soul?” you asked quietly, the information about these whole other worlds going over your head. The scientist in you should’ve rejoiced. You were making breakthroughs in the true nature of the universe; and yet, all you could think about was how poor Dakota had thanked you so sweetly for being her doctor and working so hard for her. Your hands still felt the slick tissues of her tiny heart, the way they kept warm even after it had long stopped beating.
“Wasn’t my job,” Keith replied, succinctly. “One of my superiors came by to guide her. Shiro doesn’t want you to worry, but I think you will anyways. You seem the type.” He was studying your face, but you ignored his gaze, still staring down at your stiff hands. Dakota’s had been so small in comparison. Everything about her had been small, except for her giant, beaming grin.
“It was supposed to be a simple kidney transplant,” you whispered hoarsely. Normally, you would never have dreamt to share your insecurities with anybody. You had very few friends, most of whom you still considered competition, so you didn’t ever talk about any recorded deaths with them to uphold your image as the perfect model student. Something about Keith lowered your guard. Maybe it was the fact that he pretty much dealt with dead people for a living (if he was even considered ‘alive’), but your mouth moved without your brain’s volition, the hot tears in your eyes taking up most of your attention.
“It wasn’t even anything difficult. I’ve done hundreds of those before in labs. I’ve assisted in so many, too. Never had any complications. She was what, eight? And she just died... I did everything right, but she still died—”
“—like your mother. Isn’t that what you were thinking?”
Your head snapped up, the tears hitting the floor as you stared at his side profile. He scratched his head almost disinterestedly, and you felt your heart rate rise as fear pumped through your body.
“How did you know that?” you whispered, your voice trembling dangerously.
“Do you know why I’m here?” he asked, ignoring your question after a moment’s thought. You bit on your lip, but sensed that you wouldn’t be getting any answers your way, and complied reluctantly.
“You said that you want me to die, right?”
Keith scowled disapprovingly. “No. Lance is making a big deal out of it, but I’m going to tell you straight. You have a tarnished soul. It does not want to be on this Earth at this time in your body. Mortals are subject to the will of the soul, and there’s nothing we can do about it, either.”
“So how do I fix it? Dying? Doesn’t sound legit.” You were skeptical and sneered, shaking your head. Keith didn’t seem to be affected, continuing smoothly.
“What your soul needs is re-guidance to a different history. It needs to be reborn. Reincarnation appears to you as death, but in actuality, it’s just being born again into a different life. Souls and human minds have to be in harmony, or else you’ll end up with bad people that act like they don’t have souls at all.”
The warning in his tone was unmistakable. You thought about all those bad people on the news, in the books and in the pages of history, and wondered if they too had overstayed their soul’s welcome. Keith was very convincing in his flat, no-bullshit tone. You nearly nodded along, but you caught yourself with the memory of Lance’s sad smile.
“But Lance said I’d lose everything that makes me me. My past, my personality, my—well, everything. Being reborn… I’d have no more memories. It’d be a completely different life, even with this… soul thing. Is that right?”
“Well… yes.” Keith sighed again, finally turning his head to look at you. His violet blue eyes were endlessly deep, and you felt like he’d captivated you in a spell, locking you in a bubble of frozen time. Your fingers uncurled and the tears kept rolling down your cheeks, but you were silent as he spoke.
“Being reborn doesn’t mean rewinding time. It means restarting it. You get a new body. A new world to be around. You might be reborn thirty years from now, or sucked into a kid that took its first breath a second ago. You get that?”
“Yeah,” you muttered. It made sense, but you couldn’t help but feel like you should be resisting him; Lance’s genuine talks with you had cut you more deeply than you’d thought. You didn’t think you could leave behind your life and history. Though you didn’t have the love of many, you couldn’t just up and die on your few friends, leaving them behind forever. You knew first-hand what it felt like to wake up and never be able to see the smile of somebody again. Your mother, too—could you bear to forget about her for eternity?
“[Name].”
Keith regained your attention and you saw him lean closer to you, taking a step so that he stood square to your chest. His arms rested by his sides, thumbs tucked into his pockets, and he spoke very seriously. The overhead fluorescent lights gave his young face gaunt shadows, and you shivered.
“What Lance didn’t mention is the effects of the tarnishing soul onto others. Your soul needs energy. All do. A healthy one gets it from its host’s life force, being merged and all, but yours isn’t compatible with your body. It never was. It takes life from others. Steals energy from the weaker souls around you. It might fight stronger souls, but if their host is weak, their soul is weak… and it can easily become detached from its host. Souls can tarnish and fall into depravity, but becoming detached means that the host has died, or will be dead very soon. A mortal can’t live without a soul.”
“Wait…”
Keith’s hinting tone was not missed and you couldn’t help but clamp your hands over your mouth in horror. The taste of rust burnt in the back of your throat as you began to shake your head, silently pleading for him to stop. Disregarding you, Keith let out a small breath.
“There was nothing you could have done for them both,” he replied stately, understanding that you had figured it out. Despite the emotionless tone, he looked sad, his eyes sorrowful as they looked down on you.
“I killed them?!” you gasped, feeling as if your lungs had ceased to work. You backed away from Keith until you hit a wall, sharp pain radiating from your back. You ignored it, unable to think of anything but your mother’s dead face, Dakota’s dead face—
“I’m sorry, [Name].”
“No. No, no!” You began to laugh, hysterically so, covering your eyes as your shoulders shook. “No, they died because of incompatible organs a-and agglutination. Their bodies failed. Not because some fucking soul thing inside of me is eating theirs; not because of some stupid shit like that. It’s because of their cells a-and real shit. It can’t be my fault—”
“It isn’t your fault,” Keith insisted, interrupting you. You felt him walk towards you, but refused to look, afraid of what you’d see on his face. Keith’s hand landed lightly on your shoulder. “It’s not your fault, but I have to be very honest with you. This will keep happening to people around you. Your soul is one of the strongest I’ve seen, but that means it puts a lot of others at risk. With your profession, in a hospital surrounded by sickly people—”
“I am a doctor!” you shrilled. “Medicine saves lives! Chemicals and drugs and shit! A damn soul is not going to suddenly stop penicillin from working! Something like that… it’s not just—!”
Despite your screaming outburst, Keith was calm, the other hand forced down on your other shoulder to lean you back against the wall. He grounded you as your words became incomprehensible, tears blurring everything away, from your sight to your mind. Had they really all died because of you, or whatever your soul had done? Had you accidentally stolen the lives of other people that you’d merely walked past? Keith said that it wasn’t your fault, but surely, that had to be murder.
Twenty years ago, your mother died from a faulty kidney transplant. The failure had been caused by a cancer in the first place—it was unpreventable due to her genetics, you knew—but doctors claimed that she was on the road to recovery. Everybody was getting ready to have a congratulatory party. It lined up with your birthday, and festivity was through the roof. Your mother never failed to smile in that hospital bed, and always reassured you that she’d bake your favourite cake for your birthday. Mommy’d be out of the hospital to play dollhouse and dress-up with you again before you knew it.
She died the day before your birthday.
You had vowed then that you would become the world’s greatest surgeon; nobody would die because of mistakes. God forbid they be yours. Idiocy and human error was not going to end any innocent lives on your watch. You had promised yourself that you’d do everything in your power to save lives. You had promised yourself to sacrifice everything for perfection. People still died, as was the nature of things, but that wasn’t your fault. Medicine was too far behind, or the patient had been too late in administrating care. All you had to do was get better.
Had you been wrong all along?
“Lance is sentimental, but he’s right in doing his job. Angels fight to keep souls with their mortals for as long as possible. But I am telling you now, not as a reaper, but as a friend—when a tarnished soul falls into depravity, you will never be the same. You will never be able to do good. Everything changes. Time will tell when yours does. After a soul goes into depravity… if yours does… I won’t be able to help you. And I want to.”
Your head bowed forwards, your hair grazing his chest. Keith didn’t move to hug you, nor did you want him to. His grip on your shoulders was enough to steady you. You focused on steadying your breathing instead. Strength had always been one of your fortitudes, and a decision like this would require a lot of that.
“Keith.” You cleared your throat, lifting your head. “Hey, I’m uh, asking you to do me a solid here. No takebacks or anything.” Despite the light-hearted tone you tried to embody to fight off your real emotions, your voice shook, and tears still welled in your eyes. He looked surprised to see you calm all of the sudden, his fingers twitching on your shoulders as you reached up and grasped his forearm. Your grip tightened around his warm skin as you smiled wearily.
“Please kill me.”