Fic: It's Always What You Didn't Say (8/8)
Part 7
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(Before)
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Mark wasn't immune to tiredness. He could feel the weight of almost four sleepless nights on his shoulders. He was aware of just how hungry he was, in fact, he couldn't remember the last time he ate or drank anything.
The offices were empty because everyone had gone home for the night, but Mark continued typing. The code didn't really make much sense to him anymore, and his body felt weak. His eyelids were heavy, and his stomach felt like it was going to start eating itself if Mark didn't feed soon.
He knew he'd have to leave, or he'd completely shut down, but he kept typing. He felt dizzy, and slow, and his heart was racing even though he wasn't doing anything particularly exhausting.
He figured he probably should sleep before he hurt himself, so he closed his eyes.
He thought of Eduardo, standing fragile, and broken in the middle of a cocktail party.
And then everything stopped.
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(After)
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The first thing Mark heard was beeping.
He was in a hospital, that much was clear. He could smell that insanely clean and sanitized hospital smell in the air.
When he opened his eyes, he winced at the brightness of it all. The colour around him was so defined. Mark forgot colours could be that bright. He turned his head slightly and saw a pale Chris, asleep in a chair next to him. His hair was askew, and he looked like it was about to start turning white at any minute.
Mark tried to speak but ended up coughing instead. His throat felt too scratchy, probably because he hadn't spoken in hours.
Still, the noise was enough to wake Chris up. When he saw Mark was awake his eyes widened and he shot up from his seat, practically jumping on top of Mark.
"Jesus Christ, you're alive!" He exclaimed, squeezing Mark tightly.
"Chris," Mark croaked.
Chris pulled away and stared at him with a relieved look. "You have no idea how worried we all were. You're mom got here a few hours ago, she was freaking out. Sean brought her back to your place to rest."
"What happened?" Mark asked.
"What happened? You nearly died of exhaustion, that's what happened. The doctors just barely saved you," Chris said. "And by the way, just because you nearly died, does not mean I'm not mad at you. What the hell were you thinking coding for so long?"
"I- " Mark began. He remembered the letter he knew was sitting in Chris' drawers. The letter of resignation that just needed the perfect moment. He thought of how stressed Chris had been recently, about how worried he'd probably been while Mark was out. "You need to quit your job, Chris."
"What?"
"You're too young to die of stress. And I've seen what happens to the dead. It sucks."
Chris looked at him like he was going insane. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by an enthusiastic squeal coming from the doorway.
"He's awake!" Dustin exclaimed, and then another pair of arms wrapped around Mark. "You're alive!" Dustin exclaimed, far too over-dramatically.
"I am," Mark said.
He found himself smiling at Dustin and Chris' happiness. It felt odd, the way the muscles moved up on his cheeks, even if it was just a small smile. It felt nice too. Like stretching after hours of sitting still.
"Dude, we were so worried about you. Chris was sure you were gonna die, and I told him there was no way you would, because you are not okay with leaving Facebook in the hands of somebody else, and you probably had a back-up plan where you'd, like, built a robot of yourself so you could- "
"Dustin!" Chris interrupted. "Shut the hell up!"
Dustin quieted down, but grinned at Mark anyway. "I'm just glad you're awake."
"We both are," Chris said. "You have no idea how much stress you've given me while you were out." He gave Mark a knowing look that told him Chris had heard what he said. He was quitting soon, and Mark was weirdly happy about it. He felt sad, but it was better than knowing his friend's were wasting away because of him.
"It's true. Chris is totally gonna die of stress someday," Dustin said.
"Thank you, I love having my friend's deaths on my shoulders," Mark joked.
Both Chris and Dustin's smiles and dropped. And, oh yeah. Wardo.
"I didn't mean it like that," Mark amended quickly. "Wardo- "
"We know, Mark," Chris said. He gave Mark a comforting pat on the shoulder, and shared a look with Dustin. "You know what, we're gonna let you rest for a little while," He said.
Dustin ruffled Mark's hair, the way Stella had. "We'll see you late, man," He said, and followed Chris out the door.
Mark felt how wrecked he was. He had just woken up but he needed more sleep. He felt the urge to talk. Not just talk, but talk to Wardo. Wardo who wasn't here. Wardo who he'd never see again.
Suddenly, he felt the loneliness kick in.
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Mark sighed and looked around his hospital room. There was an IV drip hooked up to him for God knows what. His room, like all hospital rooms, was bland and boring. It had one of those generic painting on the wall. A small one of a lighthouse with a blue door.
Mark decided he didn't want to stay there. He still felt a heavy tiredness all over him, and his stomach was kind of making ridiculous noises, but this room reminded him too much of the Other World for him to stay in it, so he walked out instead.
He got up from his bed, a little shakily, and shuffled out of the room slowly, hoping he would run into a doctor who could get him something to eat. He barely got five steps from the room before a nurse found him and stopped him.
"Mr Zuckerberg, you're awake!" She exclaimed dumbly, before gabbing his elbow to help him walk. "Are you alright? Is there anything I can get for you."
"I'm hungry," Mark told her.
"If you go back to your room I can bring you some- "
"No," Mark said firmly.
"I'm sorry?"
"I don't want to be in that room. I want to walk," He said.
"Mr Zuckerberg- "
"Just bring me to the cafeteria," Mark said, stubbornly.
The nurse pursed her lips in annoyance, but nodded and helped him walk down the corridor anyway. Mark got a couple of looks from a few of the doctors but other than that the hospital was pretty hospital-ish.
And then he passed by room 109. The room had a window, and the white shutters were rolled up. Inside, Mark could see the humble, sleeping form of Eduardo. His Eduardo. He was lying flat on his back, with a breathing tube in his nose. There were bandages on his wrists, stained red from blood, and a familiar crease between his brows.
"Wardo," Mark said, coming to a complete halt. The nurse looked inside.
"Yes, Mr Saverin was brought in here a couple of days ago."
"Why is he still here?" Mark asked.
"Mr Zuckerberg, I'm afraid- "
"He killed himself. Why is he lying in a hospital bed wired to machines?"
"Mr Zuckerberg- " The nurse tried again. Mark ignored her. He tried to pull away to walk inside Eduardo's room, but he was weak and she held onto his arm tightly.
"I'll take it from here, Miranda, if that's okay with you," A familiar voice said to the nurse.
When Mark turned around he saw the nurse walking away, and none other than Stella standing in front of him, with a doctor's coat on, and a manila file under her arm. The ID tag pinned to the coat said Jane Doe.
"Stella?" Mark asked.
She smirked. It looked strange now that it wasn't just a shadow in her eyes. "How's it going, Zuck?"
"How did you ... " Mark trailed off.
Stella put and arm around his shoulders and walked him up to the window of Wardo's room, looking inside thoughtfully. "Remember when I said it pays to have connections?" She began. "Well, there's something you don't know about me." She paused for dramatic effect and peered at him from the corner of her eye. She looked like she was enjoying this way too much. "I'm PIC, Zuck."
"What?"
"I was undercover. I'd been ignoring my duties for a while when I met you. You see, sometimes the methods of the people in charge are kind of ... depressing. People are just trying to escape the pain of their horrible lives, it seems wrong to punish some one for being miserable. So after a while, I started ignoring my duties as a PIC, and hid amongst the dead. I wanted to do something good for these people, so I decided to find the most miserable person in the Other World, and try to make their life a little better."
She looked at Eduardo's sleeping form. "That's how I met him," She said.
Mark swallowed. "If you were a PIC, than why didn't you just help me?" He asked. It didn't come out as angry as he wanted it to.
Stella gave him an insulted scowl. "I did help you. I found you a way out, didn't I? Yvette was an old friend, I always knew where I was going. I just had to keep my cover or else they'd reassign me, and I wouldn't be able to help Eduardo anymore."
She turned to face Mark again. Her eyes were intense, and so full of life. It overwhelmed Mark a little bit.
"So why are you here?" He asked, bitterly. She had wasted all this time. He could have been here, alive, and instead he was stuck down there for weeks because she didn't want to blow her cover. He was stuck realizing he was in love with Eduardo only to lose him again, all because of her.
Stella smirked. "I promised he'd come back to you."
"He died," Mark stated. This wasn't funny. His heart was racing, and it hurt, and he already felt so tired. He couldn't take this.
"Yes, well, as you know the PIC are very inefficient. Sometimes files get mixed up, and Eduardo can't die if they don't have his file," She said wryly. Mark's eyes darted to the folder under her arm. There was a photograph peaking out of the corner. A lot of red, (blood, probably), and a tuft of dark, poofy hair. Mark met her eyes again with a questioning look.
"I found him after you left, and he looked even more miserable than when I'd first met him. You know, when we ran into you for the first time, I thought you were gonna ruin my plan to cheer him up, but you ended up doing the opposite. He was a little more human every day he was with you. Anyway, I didn't want all that work to go to waste, so I decided screw my cover! and I asked him, once and for all what it would take to make him happy."
She looked inside the room with a fond look in her eyes. "I said to him, 'Eduardo Saverin, what do you want?'"
"And what did he say?" Mark asked. His throat felt dry, and his heart was hammering violently against his ribcage. All this anticipation was making him sick, and delirious. He didn't want to hope, too afraid that something would go wrong. He'd lost Eduardo twice now, he couldn't survive another. But maybe it wasn't another. Maybe this was something else. If he just dared to accept it.
Stella smiled at him. "Why don't you go ask him yourself? He'll be waking up in about a minute."
Mark gaped at her. "Stella, how did you … "
"Well, let's just say that black-hole in my car didn't lead to somewhere quite as ambiguous as I'd made it out to be," She grinned.
"I don't know what to say," Mark told her, honestly.
"You don't have to," She said. "Just remember, it pays to have connections."
Mark couldn't find it in him to be annoyed at the nickname anymore because ...
Eduardo.
Eduardo.
Eduardo was alive! He came back! He was going to be living, and breathing, and loving Mark all over again. They hadn't lost their chance, and that was the only thought Mark could focus on right now. He felt light-headed, and like his stomach was about to drop.
"Well don't stand there freaking out about it, go to him!" Stella urged. She pushed him towards the door of Eduardo's room, with as much force as she could.
Mark tripped inside, nearly falling over himself. He looked out the window, but Stella had disappeared. When he turned back to face Eduardo, he saw him sitting up in his bed, awake and alive, watching Mark with a puzzled expression.
"Wardo," Mark panted out with relief.
"Mark?" Eduardo said, like he couldn't quite believe Mark was there. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it and gave Mark a once over, finally noticing the hospital gown and the lack of shoes. "I just had the weirdest dream. You were in it, and you had died from exhaustion. And we were- "
"I love you," Mark blurted out before Wardo could finish.
Eduardo's eyes widened by a fraction, and then his face got taken over by the happiest look Mark had ever seen. His eyes were sparkling with hope, and love, and delight, and a bunch of other positive things. His cheeks spread out into a wide smile, all red and flustered; All teeth-bearing, and crinkly eyed. It was that goofy Wardo smile that Mark had missed so much; That Mark was so afraid he'd never get to see again, and now it was here, right in front of him.
And it was the most perfect thing Mark had ever seen.
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(Fin)
A/N - This was muuuuch longer than I expected. Props to you if you made it through that. Thanks for reading.