Riding the Elevator. [Lise]

[Eleanor Jansen]

Eleanor based her life on facts. She had blonde hair. Her foot was size seven. You were supposed to eat two fruit and five vegetables a day. Cancer was almost incurable. Kate had cancer. And the Jansen family were insane.

Kate’s diagnosis had struck them all. It was one evening when Kate and Jesse were in the bath together at ages two and four that Sara had first noticed the line of blue bruises that were blooming across her young daughters back. It was she, as a mother that had pressured her husband into taking Kate to see a doctor. It was she that had sat in the waiting room while Brian was out on call. And again, it was Sara who had put her career of law on hold, burying it into the depths of her mind so she could become a stay at home mum and take care of her sick baby. But it was both of them that had taken the news with wide and tearful eyes in the Doctor Leiberman’s office. And it had been Brian who was the first one to speak. Brian who had taken a step back in the fleeting decision moments in time and had not evolved his world completely around Kate but rather around all three of his children. Even so when he sought not to fault his wife in her tragic world where Kate was the centre and core like a bomb, he looked for equality. Brian was a firefighter and avid amateur astronomer. He looked to the stars for peace and a peek at the world above where torment did not riddle his every thought. For Brian the skies were his escape a reminder that there was something larger and more powerful at work, something that would set things right in the end. For Sara there was no escape.

She lived and breathed cancer. Surrounded by it, tormented by it, consumed by it. She was not the living for the living did not set a place for death at the dinner table nor were she dead, but hovering between both realms just like her daughter Kate. However, what she did not know was Kate’s view on the matter, which although everything evolved around, was not widely heard nor widely acknowledged. It seemed like Eleanor had never been asked about her donation, Kate had never been asked her opinion. To Kate it seemed as though everyone was constantly on edge. Waiting for another relapse, waiting for another dreaded phone call saying her test results had come back with bad news, just waiting to continue life again without her. Kate knew she would die one day. She had come to terms with that and although she was not ready she was tired of the waiting. She was tired of the fighting and the sheer exhaustion of her body. She was tired full stop.

Kate was Eleanor’s other half. Their relationship went beyond donation and bloodlines, it went beyond what the doctors scribbled in their medical files, it went beyond their parent’s decisions and the choices made in their apparent best interest. Kate and Eleanor were more than just sisters, more than just best friends they were two halves of a whole, an incomplete person without the other. When they were younger Brian used to comment on the way they fitted together, their hands holding or their bodies spooning, snuggled on the couch, blonde hair tangled. They were tied together, brought together for a deeper reason than bone marrow and blood and cancer. It was their closeness that brought Eleanor clarity, and it was their closeness that made Eleanor loose track of who she really was. Where did Kate stop and Eleanor begin? Where did her responsibility stop and her life start? When would the time could that Eleanor would wake up one morning and know who she was without once referring to her sister?

Eleanor was on break, her first break she had actually taken in the four days she had been working at St Mungo’s. Eleanor was on a break and trying to block out the sounds of chatter coming from each floor as the doors of the elevator opened and closed. Eleanor was on a break and sitting on the floor of the elevator in the corner. If it weren’t for her hospital uniform she could have easily been mistaken for a patient lost of the Spell Damage floor.

Curling her toes in her shoes Eleanor pushed herself into the corner of the elevator. She knew she looked crazy and maybe she was but in a hospital there was simply no escape. Where ever one turned there were reminders of death, of sickness, or mortality. A Healer leaning wearily against a wall after a tiring fight, a sobbing mother wrapped in the arms of an equally distressed but more subdued father. Screaming and crying, whispered illusions about improvement and shattered hope consumed the corridors. Getting better to some was like a dream, so faint, so fragile that you could only whisper it in fear of it breaking. Eleanor needed that break but without a place to actually go and not really knowing this part of town she had chosen the elevator for seclusion.

As the doors opened for the fifth time already Eleanor bounced her clipboard on her knees but didn’t look up. She’d already experienced the raised eyebrows of a couple, a single mother and a punk looking teen with an ear of holes. She’d also been ignored by two Healers deeply immersed in conversation, and quite frankly she didn’t care.

Eleanor was on a break and sitting in an elevator.
Eleanor was on a break, sitting in an elevator bored as hell.

[Basil Etheridge]

Being a healer could be an emotionally exhausting experience: having people rely on you, having their very lives be pinned upon you. It was the reason why so many of the healers around the hospital looked absolutely fried. It could absolutely grate on a person, work upon them day upon day, eroding them until they could scarce remember why they had decided to become a healer in the first place. It was also the reason why so many of the trainees seemed chipper. The years had yet to make them forget. And to make matters worse, most were entirely naive to what the job really meant.

Basil, however, had no illusions about what sort of profession he had chosen. His parents were both Muggle doctors, and he had seen the stress upon them both day after day when they come home. When his letter from Hogwarts had come so many years before, the first thing his father had said upon learning that Muggles were surrounded on all sides by a world of magic they could not see was that with such a gift he might be able to help so many people. It gave Basil an awesome feeling of importance, but also of responsibility, and from his first days at the school for wizards, he had been resolved to make healing his life's work.

Year upon year, he had volunteered in the infirmary to glean what knowledge he could from Madame Pomfrey, and as soon as he had graduated he had begun applying for their trainee program at Mungo's, only to be rejected countless times. But Basil was as confident in his dreams as he was in everything else, and he had persevered, finally getting what he had hoped for just a few months ago. So now, here he was at Mungo's, strangely out of place as one of the oldest trainees. He hadn't made any friends yet, but he had smiled at a lot of people, and in his own mind, that was an achievement in and of itself.

Not enough people smiled these days.

And so with his usual grin upon his face, he made his way to the lift, anxious to nip up to the tearoom for a cup of joe. Pressing the button, the doors opened, revealing a witch sitting upon the floor. For a moment he thought perhaps she was an escapee from spell damage, as sometimes they managed to get out of their rooms and ended up in the strangest of places. But then he noticed her clipboard and upon closer inspection once he was standing next to where she sat, he realized he had seen her before around the hospital.

Always the outgoing sort and anxious for a good laugh, he smirked down at her, drawing his lime green robes tightly around his body.

"Are you trying to look up my robes?

[Eleanor Jansen]

Smiles looked out of place in hospitals. They were like the flowers that families cluttered patient’s rooms with; too bright, too cheery, reminders of what they were missing out on the outside, back in the real world. Eleanor hated people bringing her gifts when she was hospitalised. She loved visitors, loved the occasional box of chocolates but bring her an oversized teddy bear or ‘get well soon’ balloon and watch the strained smile bleed across her face. Eleanor had been hospitalised too many times to count; her medical file was so worn to pieces, too full that it was falling apart from use and time. However, it hadn’t taken long for people to stop with the unnecessary presents that were sent to her room to brighten the white, or perhaps it was the nurses who watched the young girl tear the flowers to pieces that with held the gifts from her. As she got older Eleanor preferred the white room. She wasn’t sick. She didn’t need these gifts; she didn’t need these indulgences. There was almost no reason for Eleanor to be in the hospital, dressed in a gown, left to rot in the bed. Almost no reason. If you ignored the very root of her existence.

There was, however, something Eleanor hated more that than reminders as to what she was missing out on when she was locked inside those white walls, and that was sympathy. Futures weren’t built on sympathy, world hunger wasn’t solved on sympathy, nothing was truly accomplished from sympathy. It was a wasted emotion, an emotion spared for the lazy, the people who could do nothing but say with false lips, lying mouths, ‘I’m so terribly sorry, I really do sympathise.’ Eleanor hated sympathy and she hated people who pretended that they knew what you were going through. In truth people were just too scared on the inside and Eleanor didn’t blame them but give them a day in her shoes and see what they had to say for themselves.

After her hate for sympathy and the lazy but sympathetic, came the self-pitying. No one would ever have guessed from spending days, weeks or even years with Eleanor about what boiled beneath her skin. Sure, she talked, sure, she listened and responded but when it came down to it there was just too must in her head to allow her lips to form words. But don’t be alluded. Eleanor was not a hateful person, quite the opposite. She’d just seen too much wrong in the world from an early age to ignore I as it swelled and churned around her like an ocean, an invisible ocean that took a lot of courage for people to see.

Eleanor, however, did not hate smiles. She was under the supervision and direction of Carrie Martin for gods sakes. How could anyone remotely annoyed by any gleam of happiness survive within her fifty metre radius? The girl lived and breathed smiles, laughs, the very essence that made life good. Or at least that was the skin she showed to the world.

The door closed with a ping, feet close by shuffled and then the first voice that had addressed her in last twenty minutes stirred her from her thoughts. Eleanor had to blink. She raised her chin to the elder man definitely, questioningly. Yes, he was talking to her. And he was also questioning her. About looking up his robe.

Hello, did she look like Benjamin Jones?

Eleanor smiled and raised her eyebrow.

“And if I was?” She teased.

He looked old enough to be a Healer but the familiarity about his face told her different. She’d seen fleeting images of him around the hospital but also at orientation and the first address of the Chief. He was a trainee, she was almost sure of it.

From her spot on the floor she extended a hand to him, her smile never faltering.

“Eleanor Jansen.”

[Basil Etheridge]

Basil placed a contemplative finger to his chin, tapping it there a few times as if he was deliberating over his answer. He had always been a lighthearted boy, which was well and good when he was a gangy kid bopping around in his burgundy Gryffindor robes. But as an adult, it had prevented him from being taken seriously by most who subscribed to the "happiness indicates a lack of understanding or lack of care about the world" school of thought. The way he grinned through every interview was undoubtedly what had kept him out of Mungo's for so long, and where some might have been tempted to sacrifice themselves to win the post, Basil simply remembered his father's words of wisdon.

Nothing is worth losing yourself for

And so he had persevered, came back month after month for an interview, through his hat into the proverbial ring time and time again until they had cried uncle. Secretly, Basil suspected that he had just worn them down enough for a temporary surrender. He was fairly certain most around him hoped that he'd buckle under the everyday pressures of healing and quit. But so far, Basil thought the healing game was the easiest in the world.

"It'll cost you a sickle" he smirked in reply.

The witch was gorgeous. Far too pretty, he believed, to ever be interested in himself. The handsome former-Quidditch hero had always believed he would forever be a bachelor. His days at Hogwarts had convinced him of that well enough. Sure, his role as captain of the Quidditch team had afforded him many admirers, but actual girlfriends . . . things never worked out that way. He had his share of dates, a Sunday afternoon rendez-vous at Madame Puttifoots, the odd picnic at the lakeside. He had a fair amount of crushes on pretty witches that were fun to spend time with, kissed a few, gone a bit further with one or two. But the inevitable would always come. They would grow bored of tooling around on the arm of the Gryffindor. Handsome and genle and popular as he was, they would always find someone else.

No one liked nice guys. Not for very long. Sure they were great mates, but the excitement lay in the aloof Ravenclaws, the unattainable and oft cruel Slytherin boys. Even his housemates who had been larger daredevils, witches seeming to like a sense of danger. Apart from the hapless Hufflepuffs, no one had fewer long term relationships than Basil.

And so with an easy smile that could only come from the certainty that the witch before him would never possibly be interested in anything more, he took her hand and shook it.

"Basil Etheridge. Nice to meet you."

Eyeing her where she sat for a moment, he arched a brow. "There are better places to hide you know. Healer Blankenship sleeps in the closet. Maybe you could borrow it. He must see patients sometimes."

[Eleanor Jansen]

To Eleanor Ryan was a walking memory. He was more than the boy with the shaggy blonde hair and the thoughtful eyes, he was more than the warm arms that pulled her closer to him, he was more than the words he slipped to her like secrets, small treasures within themselves. He was once her next door neighbour, her best friend, her first kiss and the boy she lost her virginity to. But to the Eleanor who had moved out without a goodbye, with no words left to say to the boy that clouded her everything, he was a memory, something that belonged to the little girl with honey waves for hair and the big smile, swimming in her green hospital gown. Along time ago a lost girl called Eleanor had been looking for something and she’d sworn she’d found it in Ryan. But that little girl had grown up and now feeling suffocated by everyone that had been dominate in her last life she’d played chicken, taking the easy route out and leaving everything to rot in her wake.

Ryan hadn’t called for two weeks and neither had her mother. Brian, her father however has popped in to visit briefly bringing with him a wide smile, news of work, Kate and the best wishes of her mother. Eleanor knew well enough that these ‘best wishes’ were merely something her father had made up on the spot to get the smile he so loved out of his daughter, to erase the look of disappointment from her eyes and to humour him she had smiled. And she had tried.

This was Eleanor trying to live her own life. She still went to the hospital to donate blood and play harvest for Kate. She was still there for her sister but she needed something she could call her own, something that she could be proud of not because fate or chance decided it but because she truly worked for it, earned it. And now there was this issue of the kidney the doctor had explained on her last visit. After all the fighting, all the battles, all the blood and the marrow and the cells it all came down this to break it or make it. And Eleanor, although she would never have admitted it, was petrified. And torn. She wanted to run away, shying away from the moment that decided all the true heroes, that tested your character beyond measure but she couldn’t do that to Kate. She couldn’t back away now and leave her to fight this on her own, even if every bone in her body told her to; her heart wouldn’t let her. Eleanor would never be completely her own person when her heart simply wasn’t hers.

“I’ll have to write you an IOU then.”

She teased watching him with dark eyes and an easy smile. He had amazing cheekbones, was the first thing she thought, mentally laughing at her observation. And when he offered her that smile she couldn’t help but return it. He couldn’t have looked more different from Ryan. Ryan, the body with the brooding eyes, the hair the colour of sand and the broad shoulders. He shuffled like he carried the burden of the world and smiled so unexpectedly. He was Ryan, comfortable Ryan, steady Ryan, the boy that had always just been there, the friend that had always been there. And here was this boy that smiled like it was the most natural thing in the world, like breathing.

Eleanor found happiness contagious, it was something she loved about working with Carrie, that girl always seemed to be beaming like the sun, challenging it to see who was brighter, who could smile wider. In her house there wasn’t much to smile about and if you flashed the occasional grin you found yourself swamped in guilt, questioning and doubting yourself. What reason was there to be happy? What reason was there to smile?

“A closet? Well that is original but I’m not sleeping, more hiding.”

She shook her head with a grin. Hiding from things she couldn’t hide from any more. The truth, the guilt, reality and herself. There were some things you couldn’t escape.

[Basil Etheridge]

Basil had never been one for hiding, not in a figurative or a literal sense. He was unapologetic about the person he was, and true to the Gryffindor lion-hearted ways, never shied away from a challenge or hardship. He faced his life with an optimism and sure resolve that made his easy going nature not a facade created to make him more likable or win him popularity. His happiness was bona fide as was his confidence.

But that didn't mean that he didn't seek out solace from time to time. Despite the fact that he was a people person by nature, there were always thoughts that needed quiet attention, matters that necessitated some form of soul searching that could not be done in the presence of others. At Hogwarts, he had often stolen away beside the lake to ponder this or that, spending an hour or so, skimming stones across the mirrored surface of the water, sometimes even speaking to himself, letting out whatever was plaguing him so that once he returned to his common room, happy-go-lucky Basil had returned.

As a man, he had taken the blows of constant rejection by fashioning himself a bastion in his parents' home where he still, embarrassingly enough, resided. After coming home to have to tell his folks that once again he had been disappointed with a no, he would retreat to the confines of their unfinished basement, where he had assembled his sanctuary. There was a small box that served as a seat, and a photo album from his days at Hogwarts. With the aid of his wand light, he would study page after page, reminding himself of the warm glow of the school that had been much more than a second home. These times allowed him to rekindle the flames that fueled his fire to become a healer come hell or high water. And by the time he reached the end of the album and the image of he and his mates tossing their caps in the air, he was prepared to give the proccess another go.

At the hospital, he had forged yet another of these sacred spaces, but from the looks of things the witch on the floor needed it more than him and so he was prepared to share.

"Sorry. I don't take IOUS. So you best stand up and quick your peeping . . . and if you do, I'll show you a much nicer hiding spot, Eleanor."

His eyes sparkled with a promise of an unknown something and he offered her his hand to help her stand.

"What do you say?"

[Eleanor Jansen]

“Elle. Only my mother calls me Eleanor.”

Sara was the woman with the best intentions. Mother of three, she had given up her job as a lawyer when Kate had been first diagnosed. In her mind that could wait, everything could wait until Kate was well enough ton continue. Life simply wasn’t able to proceed when Kate wasn’t able to move with it. It wasn’t even an option and so everything, Sara’s job, all other priorities and Eleanor’s life were put on hold sinking below into darkness as Cancer pushed its way into the door.

Sara was a woman of balance, determination, made of the best traits in the most deadly combination. She strived for excellence in everything she pursued and anything less than perfect was a failure in her mind, a black mark on the pristine world she had created. For Sara life wasn’t about living any more, it was about scraping every minute of every day and gathering every ounce of fight into the on raging battle. Her daughter needed her. And Sara would answer. To every beck and call of Kate’s Sara would answer because one day, she knew Kate just simply wouldn’t be there any more. By no means was Kate spoilt but the amount of time and energy Sara poured into her eldest daughter, the baby that had never grown up in her mind, outweighed both her children doubled and combined. Time and time again Eleanor tried to reason with herself. She didn’t hate her mother, she didn’t. What Eleanor hated was the Cancer and the Knowing. The Cancer swarmed their lives and brought borrowed time to the Jansen family through the form of a third child, an unwanted child except as a hero. And Eleanor knew that. It was those two things combined with the guilt games Sara played on her as a child and well into her twenties that drove her insane, into a world where Eleanor was convinced that they were on opposing side of the field both after the same thing, the same goal. Kate to be healthy again.

But she hadn’t called. Not once in the week she had been working and the added week she’d been living away from home. Not a single solitary phone call. Not one. Nothing.

Knowing.

Eleanor blinked and caught his hand with her own, using it to pull herself steadily to her feet. For a moment her hand lingered on his, grasped together, skin touching. She thought instantly of Kate and how their hands fitted together like two halves. Instantly she released Basil’s hand.

“And I say yes, as long as you’re up to it.”

She smiled teasingly, her back pressed against the wall of the elevator.