#ripcalebknight

13.38 -

Cal: •raises hand•

Charlie: Yes Cal?

Cal: I have some information. It’s my brother, he can’t dance.

Ethan: Thank you Cal, that’s sensitive as always.

It’s funny the things that go through your head as you’re dying.

The finality of it hits Cal and he feels a sudden realisation of complete clarity. So this is what it’s like mixed with the roaring screaming of nerve endings and his heart stuttering and fluttering in his chest as he feels himself choking on his own blood. He hadn’t seen this coming. He honestly hadn’t.

He’d spent much of his 33 years wondering if people knew on the day they died, if on some level they felt something different, something afoot. Ellison’s boots disappear and Cal lies in a puddle of rainwater and his own disappearing blood. He tries to think. No they don’t know. He didn’t. Nothing amiss today. Your regular Thursday shift work, no evidence jumped out at him proclaiming this would be his last day on earth. He knows it is though. He can feel it in each laboured breath, in the copper on his tounge, sliding down his throat. His chest rattles. Pneumothorax. He’s pretty sure the knife pierced his lung, if not the first time then definitely the second.

‘Please don’t let Ethan find me’ he thinks. ‘Please’. ‘Oh Ethan. I’m so sorry’ he thinks. ‘I’m so sorry I can’t be here to look after you Nibbles, forgive me.’

And suddenly he lets himself shake and give into the pain because it’s more than he’s felt in his whole life and he knows he’s in shock and doesn’t even know the worst of it. It’s heroic he supposes. Could have been a worse death, but he’s suddenly very aware he’s never going to turn 34. Never going to tease his brother again, never treat another patient, drink another pint, see another sunrise. This is it for Caleb Knight. Oh god this is it. And Ethan…oh poor Ethan, he’s going to be left all alone, and what about when he gets ill? What about then, who looks out for him then?

Cal tries as hard as he can to roll himself over but everything’s starting to go dark now, the edge of his vision begins to fade. He tries to think of the last thing he said to Ethan, right before he sent him off to Alicia, was it something memorable? Or something stupid? It’s disappearing, everything’s disappearing.

He wishes he wasn’t alone. Wishes his brother was with him right now and it’s selfish and it’s pathetic maybe but Cal needs him more than he’s ever needed anyone in his life and he wants his brother. His phone lies opposite and where he’s lying he can see it swallowed up by rainy puddles in the night. It lights up green. ‘Ethan’.

Cal can’t make his arm move, he can’t make anything move. He wills it, tries so hard but he’s lost too much blood, too much time. The hospital looks so different from down here he thinks. And then he’s back with his mom, pushing Ethan’s buggy over the hill by their house, ‘sing to him Caleb, sing to your brother…’ and he’s holding Matilda, he’s rocking her, kissing her sweet baby forehead, under her chin and making her smile. He can feel the wind in his hair as he holds Emilie as she dies overlooking the beach, ‘and Cal and I will be doddery old men by then, Cal’s on his fourth wife…but we come back every year and we look out at the sea and we say ‘here’s to you mum’. Then Ethan, Ethan at 2, Ethan at 15 all silly horn rimmed glasses and stammer, ‘leave me alone Caleb’, Ethan at 22 in med school, Ethan angry ‘what are you doing here?’ ‘I’m the locum’, Ethan hurt ‘who looks out for me Caleb’, Ethan punching him ‘it’s about you Cal, it’s always about you.’ Ethan fighting for him ‘nobody touches my brother…’ Rock paper scissors, and Ethan’s stupid decision to always go with scissors. The look in his little brother’s eyes when he fixes you with that gaze ‘i’m always going to look at you and think ‘yeah that’s my brother’. ‘Yeah and you’ve got me for life Nibbles’.

He has, he always will.

A tear makes its way down Cal’s cheek. Ok. He thinks. Ok Caleb.

He’s not a religious man. He doesn’t know if there’s anything else out there. He’s a realist, a cynic even and he’s not making it here. He’s a doctor too and that part knows the grevious nature of the wounds. He feels his life leaving him. Suddenly there’s movement and the sky that was beginning to be swallowed up in black gives way to blurry shapes. Someone is shouting, moving, it’s blurry, just shapes and blur but he likes to think it’s Ethan. Ethan coming to hold him.

‘It’s ok Nibbles’ he tries to say but nothing comes out but a garbled moan and what he imagines to be a fair amount of blood. ‘It’s ok, I’m ok.’ Someone grabs his hand. Someone holds it in their own, there are hands on him, the blurs stretch in and out, infinite and colourful even in their fade and Cal thinks it’s almost the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Maybe it’s Ethan, maybe it’s Emilie or his Mom, but they are beautiful and as his eyes close for the final time he has one thought on his mind. ‘My safety net’s here’.

Charlie keeps pressure on the horrific mess that is Cal’s chest, next to him Connie’s on her knees in the rain both of them frantic, staring at the young man in horror bleeding out before them.

‘Keep those eyes open Cal’ Charlie shouts, ‘come on Cal stay with us’.

Cal’s too far gone though, he looks up at Charlie like he’s not seeing him, or seeing someone else and when his eyes close there’s a ghost of a smile on his face as his chest stops moving. Charlie’s seen it all working at Holby he’s lost people young and old, brutally, and slowly. This one feels the most wrong.

Somewhere nearby in a puddle Cal’s phone is ringing. Charlie can just make out the word ‘Nibbles’ on the screen.

One more episode of their relationship. Not enough rage icons in the world for me to sum up my feelings on this.

Predictions -

Ethan doing a speech at the funeral, I can see him being angry that Cal died protecting him as well as guilty as hell. He’ll probably rage a bit at Cal making everything ‘all about him’ purely because he’s so unbelievably sad. He’ll probably mention the Nibbles nickname.

Those balloons will be some sort of Cal memorial thing with everyone writing their attempts to ‘be more Cal’ on a balloon and letting them go.

Charlie will give Ethan some sage advice about how he needs to ‘say goodbye’ from the promo when he struggles to go to the funeral and face it.

Ethan pushing Alicia away probably saying something along the lines of ‘I wasn’t with him when he was dying, he died alone because I was with you...’

The rest of the team spending approximately one episode sad before moving on to inane other dramas.

Upset, on the edge Ethan. Who will probably do the whole ‘I need to be back at work to distract me’ even though it’s too soon,staring at Cal’s locker, at where Cal died and at his Cal tattoo.