Chapter Text
“Where’d all the time go?
It’s starting to fly
See how the hands go
And you know I get so forgetful
When I look into your eyes”
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The Graduation ceremony brightens the main hall of the Senate House, only for a moment does Neil wonder if it would be similar to Weltons graduation. His moment of speculation is interrupted by his name being called, the journey to the stage and his handshake from the dean of Medicine. When the moment for pictures surpasses and his seat is taken again, he can only hope he looks fulfilled with his life like the other medical graduates. The rest of the evening passes like a fog would roll over the lake outside his apartment window. It's a blur as his parents congratulate him, his mother’s eyes illustrating a mourning of his happiness. His fathers eyes are hard and unreadable for once in his life, no longer the disappointment that followed him around the world.
His first breath of fresh air is his aunt's old apartment a day later as the trip from Cambridge bid farewell to his parents, who undoubtedly will not call or visit him again for the rest of his life after last night's confessions. His aunt, the only family who understood the crippling weight of a parents expectations and will to live through them, and maybe the only reason he’s lasted the past five years without repeating his actions from his youth. The lavish green, blues and reds of the apartment now belonging in his name bring a piece of comfort to his ever lightening chest which flows from his fathers burden. The velvet green armchair supporting his body sags under his weight as he reminds himself that he genuinely does enjoy saving people if only because the Emergency and pediatric route he followed is much more exciting than the oncology studies his father wished for him to pursue. Someday he wonders what would happen if he had the courage to stand up to his father before he was sent away from his childhood and friends. Not that he hasn’t got many here mind him.
It’s a week later when he rouses from his new freedom and takes his first plunge into doctoring with a Dr instead of a Mr at the start of his name, and he’ll deny it till his dying breath but the Accident and Emergency Unit of King College Hospital brings feels like home almost as much as a stage did when he was seventeen and full of technicolour dreams and love.
Those feelings are gone now stolen from his heart with the heat of his friendship with the dead poet society and the pining he felt for one Todd Anderson. Who wasn’t a coward like he was after all and surpassed the great Walt Whitman with his writing, in the end Neil could only feel respect for his choices as jealousy had no place next to Todd.
It was a sunday when he remembered that the pining for one Todd Anderson still resided in his chest. A patient brought into majors while he was on shift had the same dark blonde honeycomb hair and crystalline blue eyes, however his irish accent broke Neil out of his stupor before he made a fool of himself in front of the other doctors. His return home followed the same journey he had been making for the past few months. When he was younger he thought that maybe just maybe once he finished medical school and escaped from his fathers grasp he’d become the actor he once believed he was. Now he knew that playing the part belonged in the past with the taste of honey suckles that grew outside his grandparents house and the warm hugs of his childhood best friend. These days the jasmine that grows outside his bedroom window and the sandalwood that his aunt left behind fills his life. The sandalwood he keeps buying to remind him of the most maternal figure in his life, much like why he chose England over the wall of Harvard and why he chose Cambridge especially. For the only man he’s ever seen close enough to a father, who even ranked over his own father, a hard man who lived vicariously through his son after throwing his life away in his twenties.
When he found himself alive at the sweet age of 17 he vowed that if he ever had children he would never become his father.
Neil’s life came to a head six months after his graduation, he’s on night shift tonight wandering in the doctors entrance after a cold walk from Denmark Hill station. By the look of the snow lining the streets, he was in for a long night.
“Hey Neil!” a voice called from a cubicle on otherside of the ward. His navy scrubs swished with his movement to the source of the voice. A senior nurse stood outside a curtained room on the quiet side of the ward. “Hi Sammi, what cha’ need?” his reply caused some ruffling inside the room, he paid no mind focusing on the gentle nurse. She turned back to him resting a warm hand on his shoulder and leading him to the equipment he would need. “There's a bunch of Americans in there,” she pauses and her next phrase comes like an afterthought though the pair knew it wasn't “Your age actually. They need stitches and some assessment, you good with that,” Sammi had been bugging Neil about his friends from America and as much as he insisted there was nobody left she wouldn’t believe it.
Nodding with a smile he squeezed Sammi’s hand before pushing the suture cart towards the hospital bay awaiting him. Grabbing his coat on the way with his stethoscope he waves to a few of the staff in the hospital. He opens the curtains, turning around to push it close and nudge the tortoiseshell wire frames up his nose. “Hi, I’m doctor Neil Perry, I heard you needed some help,” he finally turns towards the others in the room and stops short, one glove mid being pulled on. His mouth stays open for a moment before closing. He takes a deep breath and pulls a smile on, which is obviously offset by the pure panic in his eyes. “Excuse me for just a moment,” and Neil manages to slip behind the curtain partition without embarrassing himself. He mumbles under his breath for a moment before stepping away into a hallway next to the cubicle. Breathing deeply Neil stares at the wall in front of him blankly contemplating what he could have done to deserve this, it takes but a second for the answer to hit him then he’s pulling himself together. Time to put on the best performance he ever has, even better than Puck. Stepping back into the room his smile doesn’t look as forced as it did before, the men in the room. Once teenage boys when Neil knew them. Charlie Dalton and Todd Anderson were sharing the hospital bed leaning their backs against the wall behind them, on the same side of the room Steven Meeks sat on a plastic chair. “Ahh sorry about that,” so much for his best performance, the awkward smile he’d developed in the past five years appeared on his face. The young men just nodded. “So, what can I help you with?” Neil kept his awkward smile adjusting the gloves on his hands. Meeks piped up first, “Todd might have a concussion and Charlie has a couple of cuts on his face,” Charlie nodded in turn as the nurses' haphazard bandages were starting to come loose. “Okay, Charlie, can you wait as I assess Todd?” Neil’s voice was soft and his eyes were kind.
Todd catalogues the new expressions Neil Perry had collected in his time away. They all knew he wasn’t dead courtesy of Neil's last visit the night before they thought he shipped out to military school, apparently ‘he didn’t’ Todd scowls at his brain's comment, but with the change in him he couldn’t help but think he might as well be. The smile from before was new obviously from years of awkward reactions and the new expression was one of a doctor which Todd supposed Neil now. Suddenly the boy he once loved stood in front of him, a man, “Alright Todd, I’m going to check where you hit your head and your pupil reaction, that okay?” Neil didn’t look like the scrawny teen they once knew. His hair longer in the front parted in the middle so his bangs hung either side of his face, which was covered in more freckles than it ever had been. Neil’s shoulders had filled out and broadened and now he definitely had a few inches on Todd.
When it was Charlie’s turn, he had the same concentrated look from their English homework back in welton. It felt like too soon when he left the room to help someone else.