A/N: So this story was originally one fifth of a reincarnation AU I had wanted to write. I started it around Jessica's birthday in 2013, and it's probably the heaviest angst I've ever written. Well, I never finished the story so I guess I can't say that. Umm, proceed with caution? This is actually probably the most ~complete~ of my WIPs but it's still quite fragmented and scattered. I put two A/Ns in the middle of the story to explain some huge breaks, hopefully they're not too invasive.

Warning for major character death. (Yes, I wrote major character death.)

Jessica spends her eighteenth birthday in the hospital. It’s not exactly a new experience for her. In fact, she’s spent six birthdays in the hospital: exactly a third of them. She thinks it’s very likely this will be her last birthday. In fact, given what many doctors have told her, it’s amazing she’s even lived this long.

“You know,” she tells Yoona, “I think it’s rather fitting that we’re born in hospitals and we often die in one too. It’s like we come full circle or something.”

“You talk about death a lot.” Yoona walks slowly towards Jessica’s bed. Jessica is about to help her, but she knows that Yoona needs to learn to be independent, so she just watches her with care, ready to step in if required.

Jessica shrugs. “Death is one of the most important parts of life.”

Yoona manages to get to Jessica’s bed without banging into or tripping over anything, and she takes a seat on the edge, jerking her chin up like see, I can do it by myself. “It’s the end of life.”

“The end is important. It’s like reading a book – people care so much about the ending. Sometimes they even skip over the middle to get to it.”

Yoona purses her lip, her expression somehow very thoughtful even though sunglasses are covering her eyes (or rather, where her eyes used to be). “You shouldn’t compare your life to a book, unnie.”

“What should I compare it to, then?”

“I don’t know.” Yoona pauses. “Something precious. Something significant.”

“What, books aren’t precious and significant?” Jessica jokes, but she has to squeeze out the words. She wasn’t happy when oncology was full and they stuck a girl with eye cancer in her room, but now she almost wants to thank them because it brought Im Yoona into her life.

Less than a month ago, Yoona had her other eye extracted, and she’s already managing her blindness very well, not just physically but mentally. She had broken down a few hours before the surgery, crying in Jessica’s arms about how she didn’t want to be blind, didn’t want to be an invalid, and Jessica had wanted to comfort her so badly but didn’t have any words to give her.

(“At least your cancer will be gone,” she could have said. “At least you’ll get your life back. A life in exchange for an eye – or two – is not such a bad deal, I think. You can live without your eyes, but you can’t live without your heart.”)

Since then, Yoona hasn’t complained or cried even once, and Jessica really admires her for it. Yoona is one of the strongest people she knows; not one of the strongest sick people, but one of the strongest people, period.

Jessica doesn’t think that getting the short end of the health straw – having failing organs or cancer or what-have-you – makes you stronger, per se. People seem to think of them as people with backbones of steel and smiles on their faces all the time, but really they’re just people like any others, just…sicker.

Many of them use humour to deal – whether it’s Hyoyeon joking about how she’s saving money on hair products because chemo took all her hair, or Sooyoung remarking how at least her restricted diet from renal dysfunction has allowed her to keep a fabulous figure – because it’s better to laugh than cry. Not easier, unfortunately, but better. They’ve all cried enough. More than enough.

“What are you thinking about?” Yoona asks softly.

“Nothing.” Jessica reconsiders her answer. “Life. Death. Pain. The usual.”

“You sound like a philosopher. Or a poet.”

Jessica cracks a smile at that. “More like those angst-ridden teenagers on Tumblr.”

“Okay, well I was trying to throw you a bone, but fine, don’t take it.”

“I think you have me mixed up with Hara – she’s the one who needs bones. You could throw me a heart. That would be useful.”

“Unnie.” Yoona’s mouth pulls down at the corners. “I know you don’t like to talk about this, but – you have a lot to live for, you know.”

Jessica thinks of her parents, of Krystal, of Yoona, of Tae—no, she doesn’t want to think about her, not yet, she needs some more time—and she gives a smile that’s small and tired but genuine.

“Yeah, I know.”

“‘It’s not the years in your life, but the life in your years’,” Jessica reads out loud, and then laughs. “This is what they put on birthday cards for all the terminal kids, isn’t it?”

“At least they give us free cake,” Sooyoung says, although she can rarely eat any, unless they were custom made to fit her very specialized diet.

“And we get one of these,” Hyoyeon adds, holding a teddy bear by the tip of its paw. “I mean, I outgrew stuffed animals eight years ago but it’s the thought that counts, I guess.”

The thought that counts. It can’t be easy for the nurses and doctor and other hospital staff either, Jessica thinks. It can’t be easy working in a place where you’re surrounded by people who might not be here the next day. She wonders how they can deal with that, knowing that every time they step out of a room it might be the last time they see the patient in it.

She remembers experiencing a similar loss…

(“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” Jessica chuckles. “Both with weak things in our chests.”

Taeyeon smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She shifts the tube connected to her omnipresent tank of oxygen, the mechanism that gives her air her lungs can’t draw in by themselves. “We really got the short end of the stick, huh?” she muses. “Quite literally.”

Jessica laughs, even though it isn’t really that funny, but she’s gotten very good at laughing at herself. “Don’t guys like small, fragile girls they can take care of?”

Taeyeon snorts. “You’re not fragile, Sica. You may not be able to walk up a full flight of stairs sometimes, but you’re about as fragile as a firecracker.”

“Why thank you. I’ve been compared to an icicle before, but never a firecracker.”

“You’re an odd combination of hot and cold,” Taeyeon concedes, “sort of like a…frozen volcano.”

“A frozen volcano?” Jessica stares at Taeyeon. “What kind of pills have they been giving you?”

Taeyeon rolls her eyes. The doped up from medication joke has gotten old a long time ago around here, because of how often it’s actually true. “Come on, you know what I mean.”

“Sure I do.” Jessica makes sure to put the full force of sarcasm into her voice, and Taeyeon rolls her eyes again, but quirks up at the corner. “I can’t think of what kind of mountain you’d be. One of those little hills that kids toboggan down on Frisbees, maybe.”

“Hey!” Taeyeon cries indignantly.

“Sorry Taeng, does the truth hurt?” Jessica asks with an innocent smile.

Taeyeon makes a face at her, sticking out her tongue, but then she freezes and her breathing grows lax, and she suddenly doubles over wheezing and gasping.

“Taeyeon!” Jessica sprints to press the emergency button beside her bed, and then she skids to a stop beside Taeyeon, dropping to her knees, breathing hard from exertion and fear. “Taeyeon, come on, breathe.” She checks Taeyeon’s oxygen supply frantically, but she doesn’t see anything wrong with it. She doesn’t know what she can do. “Taeyeon—”

“Breathing—isn’t—so—easy,” Taeyeon chokes out.

Jessica is about to start screaming, but then two doctors race into the room, and Jessica says faintly, “Oh thank God, please help my friend,” and ironically, it’s her who passes out instead of Taeyeon.)

A/N: It starts getting really un-cohesive around here. Time skips, jagged transitions, just not a smooth time lol. Also, there’s supposed to be a huge chunk where Tiffany’s character is introduced – she’s a new intern who works at the hospital who at first annoys Jessica with her effervescence and volume and then intrigues her and then… Well. So yeah, try to roll with it?

“Is that your girlfriend?” Tiffany asks, eyes glued to the photo on Jessica’s bedside table.

“Who, Taeyeon?” Jessica stares at Tiffany, who looks expectantly back at her, and then she almost laughs. “No, Taeyeon wasn’t my girlfriend. We were friends. Close friends, but there wasn’t anything like that going on.”

“Oh.” Tiffany looks relieved, and then rather sheepish. “Sorry, I just thought – you look very close—”

“Yeah, we were.” Jessica closes her eyes at the thought of Taeyeon. She always thought that she would be the one to die first (maybe it’s morbid to think about you and your best friend’s deaths all the time, but for Jessica thinking about death is like other people thinking about prom or graduation: an impending and inevitable landmark); she had a worse prognosis and her condition a lower survival rate, but in the end she outlived Taeyeon.

She remembers how hard she cried with Taeyeon’s mom, not holding each other so much as clinging onto each other, desperately seeking support and solace that the other couldn’t give. She remembers Taeyeon’s parents thanking her for “making our daughter’s last days happy,” but more than that, she remembers how they couldn’t hide the why her and not you expression in their eyes.

She wanted to say to them, I don’t know. I don’t know why she died and I lived, I don’t know why our lives are doomed to be so much shorter than everyone else’s, but I lost her too, okay? I lost her too. You lost a daughter, and I lost a sister. We’re all losers here.

“What happened?” Tiffany asks, like they drifted apart after a fight over a crush or something, but then she promptly winces. “Sorry. That was a dumb question.”

“It kind of was, yeah,” Jessica agrees, without any malice. “It’s alright. Sometimes I forget how the hospital is practically its own world. I mean, losing a best friend for people like you usually doesn’t involve death, I would think.”

“People like me,” Tiffany repeats softly. Jessica thinks that it probably wasn’t the best wording to use. “I may be healthy, Jessica, but that doesn’t mean I’m a stranger to loss.”

Jessica looks at her for a long moment, deciding that she might need to revaluate this bubbly medical intern. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says.

“I’m sorry for yours too,” Tiffany replies softly, and Jessica nods, accepting the condolence, feeling like she hasn’t heard one so simple and yet sincere in a long time.

“I’m not good for you.” Jessica turns her face away. “My heart – it’s broken.”

Tiffany frowns. “It’s not broken. It just needs to work harder than most people’s, that’s all.” She smiles, and Jessica wonders why she even tried resisting. “Your heart isn’t weak, Jessi. It has to work so hard that other hearts would have given up by now, but yours is still going. I think that makes it strong, not weak. And definitely not broken.”

Jessica’s heart starts pounding, and she presses a hand against her chest, trying to calm it because it can’t handle that level of activity. She can feel her breathing getting quicker and shallower already, and Tiffany’s paling, her eyes widening in alarm, hand reaching for the emergency call button when Jessica finally manages to get her heart under control.

It’s getting increasingly hard to do that around Tiffany these days, in a way that has nothing to do with her illness.

“I’m alright,” Jessica gasps. “It’s okay.”

Tiffany doesn’t say anything. Her face is white as a sheet, and her eyes are dark with the shadow of anxiety. Jessica takes her hand and runs her thumb soothingly over Tiffany’s knuckles.

“I’m fine, Tiff. Really.” Jessica gives a reassuring smile. “That happens a lot, you know. There’s no point calling a doctor in and taking them away from a patient they can actually save.”

“Jessi…” She feels a stab of guilt at Tiffany’s expression, like she’s barely holding in tears, but there’s no point in sugar-coating the truth. Jessica’s going to die; there’s no way around that and no reason to dance around it. She wants Tiffany to accept it as soon as possible so she won’t be too upset when it happens. She doesn’t want to break Tiffany’s heart, because one broken heart between the two of them is more than enough already.

“There’s still a chance,” Tiffany insists. “You’re on the transplant list. People get saved all the time.”

“Yeah, but people die all the time too.” Jessica looks away from Tiffany’s face, a face that would have broken her heart if it weren’t broken already. “People die every day waiting for organs that never come, or come too late. You know that.”

“I know that,” Tiffany agrees in a low voice, “but those people were always just statistics to me, just numbers in a medical textbook, but you—” She shakes her head, her voice cracking.

Jessica swallows. “You’re a doctor. Every life is supposed to matter to you.”

“Every life has value to me,” Tiffany says, eyes straight on Jessica’s, “but no life is as valuable as yours.”

Jessica can’t breathe. She feels like her lungs are malfunctioning along with her heart, because there’s plenty of air in this room and yet she can’t seem to draw any of it in. She wonders if this is what Taeyeon felt like all the time, and then she stops wondering and just drowns in Tiffany’s gaze. “Tiffany—”

“I like the way you say my name,” Tiffany says softly. “It sounds different from the way everyone else says it.”

“Because I say Tiffany and not Tippany.”

Tiffany shakes her head slowly. “You know that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?” Jessica whispers, as if speaking in a regular volume would shatter this—whatever it is that this is.

“I mean…” Tiffany, bright, outspoken Tiffany, looks at a loss for words for the first time since Jessica’s met her. “I like you a lot, Jessica.”

“I like you too,” Jessica says, almost tripping over her tongue.

Tiffany, unexpectedly, laughs. “I have to admit, I didn’t expect this after our first impressions of each other.”

“I’m sure you always found my acerbic wit and cool charm irresistible deep down.”

“For sure,” Tiffany says solemnly. “Just like how you never minded how loud I am and how I’m ‘disgustingly cheerful in the morning’?”

“Um.” Jessica clears . “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

Tiffany laughs, and leans forward to press her smile against Jessica’s mouth.

A/N: I originally wanted to make YoonYul the side couple, but that, er, didn’t really happen. There’s just this one scene with them hahaaa.

“I’m blind, Yul.” Yoona’s voice cracks. “I’m blind and recovering from cancer and my own mom didn’t want anything to do with me. But you – you’re cut out for so much more. You can have a bright future, you can find someone great—”

“I already did,” Yuri says fiercely. “I already found someone great, and I’m looking at her right now.” She takes Yoona’s hand and puts it on her chest. “I know you can’t see me, Yoona, but can’t you see how much I love you?”

Yoona shakes her head, finally breaking down into sobs: the kind of quiet, full-bodied crying that comes from pain no medication would be able to treat. Yuri pulls Yoona into her arms and holds her tight, not seeming to care how Yoona’s soaking her shirt with tears.

“I can be your eyes,” Yuri whispers against Yoona’s hair. “I’ll take care of you.”

“I don’t want to be a burden,” Yoona breathes, like a secret she hasn’t dared lift off her chest. “Especially not to you.”

“You’ll never be a burden.” Yuri tightens her arms, a secure circle around Yoona, an impenetrable fortress. “You’ll never be a burden, and you’ll never be a mistake.”

Yoona’s stopped crying, but tears are still sliding down her cheeks. She looks beautiful and fragile, and she flinches when Yuri slips off her sunglasses and stays tense and stiff when Yuri kisses both of her sunken eyelids.

“Please don’t feel like you have to hide from me,” Yuri whispers. “Not now, not ever.”

“Jessi,” Tiffany whispers, brushing the backs of her fingers against Jessica’s cheek. They almost feel like they burn, and Jessica wonders if it’s because Tiffany’s so warm or because she’s so cold.

Tiffany blinks hard and turns her face away, but not before Jessica sees the moisture in her eyes.

“Babo, I’m the one who’s dying here.” Jessica manages a weak smile. “Shouldn’t I be crying?”

Tiffany draws in a ragged breath, the sound choked and half-broken, and the tiny smile slips off Jessica’s face.

“You’re not going to die,” Tiffany says fiercely, dipping her head to kiss Jessica, who feels the wet brush of her lashes and drowns in all the things in her kiss. “You’re not going to die,” she repeats, her voice quiet but firm, sounding so convinced that Jessica almost believes her.

“I don’t want to die.” It’s the most she can offer. “I’m still fighting, Tiff. I promise.”

Tiffany nods, face pale and pinched like she’s the one who’s sick, and slips into bed with Jessica, presses close to her and breathes against her. Jessica can hear her heart beating evenly and steadily, strong enough for both of them.

Jessica think that it’s ironic how dying taught her to really live. She doesn’t take anything for granted anymore. She’s outlived people with much better prognoses than her, she’s seen patients discharged and patients taken to the morgue, she’s watched sunrises and sunsets (but more sunsets) wondering if it’s the last one she’ll ever see.

She’s fallen in love for the first time in her life, and she’s still falling even now, falling into Tiffany’s eyes and smile and kiss, and she doesn’t know when she’ll hit the ground and how hard the impact will be.

“You kiss so hard,” Tiffany murmurs against Jessica’s mouth, her breathing uneven. “I can’t even keep up with you sometimes.”

Jessica has never had much energy, not even during that period after her second surgery when her heart finally seemed fine, and it’s amusing to think that she could beat Tiffany in stamina of all things.

“Should I slow down?” Jessica asks. She doesn’t want to take things slowly, can’t afford to take things slowly, because time is one thing that they don’t have. She worries sometimes that she’s hurting Tiffany with how fiercely she kisses her, but—she doesn’t know how many more times she’ll get to kiss her, if any at all, and she has to treasure every kiss, every touch, every moment that she can have, knowing that it might be the last.

It’s not an enviable attitude to have regarding life, but she thinks that it’s not the worst either. So many people waste their lives on trivial or downright harmful things, but she’s learned to appreciate everything, from the sight of the stars to the lime Jell-O she gets served on rare occasions, because she doesn’t have much of her life to waste.

“It’s okay,” Tiffany tells her, taking her hand and lacing their fingers together. “I don’t mind.”

She still has so much to live for.

“Mom says that after unnie dies, she’s going to turn into an angel,” Krystal tells Tiffany solemnly. “In Heaven they’ll give her a nice, healthy heart, and she won’t be sick anymore.”

“I’m sure that Jessica would make an amazing angel,” Tiffany says softly, her voice thick, “and she would watch over you and your parents.”

“Can angels visit earth?” Krystal asks with childish innocence. “I want to see unnie again. I don’t want her to go away forever.”

“I don’t know, Krystal.” Tiffany sounds lost and sad, and Jessica aches to hear her usually bright voice diminished like that. “I don’t want her to go either.”

“But I don’t like seeing unnie sick.” Her little sister is too young to have such deep melancholy in her voice. Jessica wishes that she could protect Krystal from her illness, and more importantly, from her death. “I want her to have a good heart.”

“She does have a good heart.” Tiffany’s voice is quiet but firm. “She has one of the best hearts I know. I just wish that it’s as healthy as it is good.”

“Why did God give unnie a bad heart?” Krystal asks. “Why do people who steal and kill get good hearts and unnie gets a bad one?”

The indignant anger in Krystal’s voice stuns Jessica. She didn’t think that her sister thought so deeply into her illness, that Krystal asked questions that she herself had asked once upon a time, when she wondered why me constantly and bitterly.

She doesn’t wonder why anymore. She just wonders when and hopes that she has more time left in her, because she isn’t ready to leave this world yet. She has things to do and places to see and people to love, and even though she thinks that she would need more than a normal lifetime to get what she wants from her life, right now she’ll just take a few more years.

It’s amazing how death makes you appreciate life.

“I can’t live without my heart.” Jessica takes Tiffany’s hand and presses it to her chest, feeling her heart speed up, her breath hitch, in a way that has nothing to do with her sickness and everything to do with Tiffany. “I know it’s not exactly the best out there, but. It belongs to you.”

“Jessi,” Tiffany breathes, and her eyes are so soft, so bright, the kind of eyes you could get lost in and never want to come out of. “You know my heart belongs to you too.”

“After I die—”

Tiffany makes a small, pained sound. “Jessi, please don’t—”

“You have to listen to me,” Jessica says firmly. “After I die, I don’t want you to mourn me for too long. I want you to find someone else. I want you to be happy.”

Tiffany stares at her. “I don’t want anyone else. I just want you.”

“I wish I could give it to you.”

Jessica lazily twirls a lock of Tiffany’s hair around her finger. “Give what to me?”

“My heart,” Tiffany says in a clear, resolute voice. “I wish there was some way I could give it to you.”

“I already know it belongs to me.” Jessica presses her lips to Tiffany’s, but Tiffany doesn’t kiss her back, lips lax and unresponsive. “Tiff, come on, don’t be like that.”

“Like what?” Tiffany asks quietly. “Like how I know you’re going to die and I hate how I can’t do anything about it?”

Jessica flinches a little, not at the reminder of her health, but at the frustrated, despaired helplessness in Tiffany’s voice. “I’m not dead yet,” she says, the best reassurance she can give, and when she kisses Tiffany again, Tiffany makes a sound like a choked sob against and kisses her back heatedly, fiercely, desperately, like this is the last time she’ll ever get to do so.

Jessica is left breathless and dizzy by the time Tiffany draws away from her. She can feel her heart beating erratically, pulsing like a drum against her rib cage, strong for once. “Everyone has to die some time. It’s just – my time is a little sooner.”

Tiffany says nothing. Her eyes are dry but dull, like the usual light in them has been extinguished. Abruptly, Jessica feels a flash of fear. If this is how Tiffany is reacting now, just talking about her death, how will she deal with it when it actually happens? What if—

No. Tiffany is one of the strongest people she knows. She wouldn’t—she would be devastated, of course, but she wouldn’t do anything rash. She wouldn’t hurt herself.

“Promise me,” Jessica blurts out. “Promise me that afterwards, you wouldn’t—”

“You’re asking for a lot of promises from me, Jessi,” Tiffany says lightly. “I didn’t know you were so demanding.”

Jessica isn’t going to fall for her nonchalance. “Tiffany, I’m serious.”

Tiffany sighs and takes Jessica’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “I’m not going to off myself or anything after—afterwards. That’s what you meant, right?”

Jessica bites her lip to hide how it’s quivering, but then she feels like her whole body starts shaking, although she knows the trembles are all internal. “You have to live,” she whispers, her voice cracking, joining the quake. “You have to.”

“Jessi…” Then they’re kissing again, bodies pressed so closely together that it’s impossible to tell where one of them ends and the other begins.

Tiffany’s eyes are wet. “That’s how I feel. Only you can make me promise to live, and I can’t – I can’t—”

Jessica gives a soft, sad smile. “I could promise you that, but it would only be an empty promise.”

The doctor’s face is lined and kind, but there’s a kind of grave sadness in his eyes that makes her think he must have seen a lot more death than life.

“How are you feeling, Ms. Jung?”

Jessica clears . feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls and her eyelids are almost too heavy to lift, but somehow she manages to croak, “Fine.”

“The operation was a success. Your new heart—”

“My what?”

“Your new heart,” he repeats. “You just woke up from a heart transplant.”

“A new heart?” She feels like she’s not processing the words. “Where did it come from?”

Well, that’s a stupid question. Her heart could only have come from another person. A person whose body is cooling now in the morgue – or maybe it’s being sewn up, hiding the gaping cavities where organs have been taken to grant others life.

She’s hoped for so long for a new heart, and she’s never really thought about it this way. That for her to gain one, someone would have to lose one. That for her to live, someone had to die. It’s a sobering thought, but the grief throb it brings can’t overtake the fierce, bright joy spreading inside her. She’s alive. She has a new heart. A healthy heart. She’s going to live.

She can’t wait to tell Tiffany.

Jessica doesn’t understand why the doctor is giving her such a grim, sympathetic look. It’s like he’s telling her she’s going to die instead of live. “Is there…something wrong with my transplant?” she asks hesitantly. “Are there complications?”

She feels fine, but then again, she felt fine right before she almost died. Feeling fine isn’t telling.

“Your transplant went very well, Ms. Jung. Your donor was a very good match. I believe this heart will last you for a very long time.”

“You said three very’s there, so what’s the problem?”

He hesitates. “I think you should concern yourself with your recovery first and foremost.”

The more that he’s avoiding the topic, the more anxious she’s getting. The news must be terrible if he’s so intent on withholding it from her.

She gives him a narrow-eyed look. “Doctor—”

“Your family is waiting for you. They’re very anxious. I’m sure they would love to see that you’re well.”

That distracts her. Her parents and Krystal must be worried out of their minds. She can talk to the doctor later.

“Unnie!” Krystal looks like she’s restraining herself from jumping on Jessica. It makes Jessica smile. “Unnie, you’re okay!”

“Yes, Krys.” Jessica smiles. “I’m okay.”

Her mom is openly crying. “Sooyeon,” she keeps saying. “Sooyeon.”

Her dad reaches towards her, his hand hovering a few inches away from her shoulder, like he isn’t sure she’s strong enough for the contact.

“I’m not made of glass, Dad, I can’t run laps right now, but you can touch me.”

He puts a shaking arm around her shoulders, so lightly that she barely feels it, and then his eyes are misting over too and he turns away, making a choked sound.

“Mom, Dad, come on, you’re going to make me feel like I’m dying.”

“Don’t say that,” her mom whispers. “You’re alive, honey. You’re alive and well, and you’re going to stay that way.”

Jessica puts her hand over her chest again. She can’t seem to stop doing it, can’t seem to stop marvelling over the little miracle inside her chest. “Thanks to—whoever gave me this. I know there’s doctor-patient confidentiality and all, but I want to ask the doctors who my donor was, and maybe we can contact their family or something. I know a lot of them don’t want that, but I just – it feels like something I should do, you know?”

Her parents’ expressions freeze, like she just announced she wants to become an idol or something. What’s going on?

“Sooyeon, honey,” her dad starts, stopping at a sharp look from his wife.

“Why don’t you just worry about getting better first, and then we’ll do all that later?” she says smoothly. “There are a lot of potential complications in the recovery process. You’re going to have to take a lot of medicine and—”

“So, more drugs,” Jessica paraphrases. “Don’t worry, Mom, I’m used to them. I was worried about getting cut off, but hey, welcome new drugs!”

Her mom smiles, but her eyes are still wet and the smile freezes on her lips.

“Come on, Mom, I’m fine.”

Sure, she’s lying in a hospital bed just having had her chest split open, but this is probably the healthiest she’s been in years. Well, not probably. For most of her life, she’s been fighting death, and just when she thought she had lost, the battle had taken a new turn. For once, the odds seem to be in her favour.

Krystal, who has been keeping quiet for a record amount of time, pipes up again. “Unnie, does this mean Fany unnie is going to be an angel now?”

Jessica stares at her. “What?”

“Mommy said after your heart broke, you were going to go to heaven. But Fany unnie gave you her heart, so does this mean she’s going to go to heaven instead?”

Jessica keeps staring at her little sister; innocent, eight-year-old Krystal, who wouldn’t lie to her, who wouldn’t keep the truth from her to protect her like her parents would.

Her mom gives a high, breathy laugh. “Oh, your sister has been full of stories lately. About heaven and angels and – maybe I should have read a different genre of bedtime stories to her.”

Her dad says nothing, but the look in his eyes says it all.

“Krystal,” Jessica says slowly. “What happened to Tiffany?”

Her mom opens , but Jessica shoots a hard look at her. Her dad shakes his head, his lips pinched, his eyes dark, and she subsides. Jessica feels a terrible, cold weight in her stomach. Or maybe it’s in her chest. Maybe it’s her new heart, which is from “a very good match.”

“It was raining really hard, unnie,” Krystal says sadly. “I think the heavens were crying for you. You were supposed to go there, but Mommy said it wasn’t your time yet, and Tiffany unnie went instead. The doctors said she wanted her heart to go to you and—”

Jessica can’t bear to hear anymore. She realizes that she’s shaking her head desperately, feeling cold and breathless for the first time after her surgery, a feeling that’s as familiar as it is alien. The pain in her chest is very much the same, although it’s because her heart is breaking in another way.

“Sooyeon.” Her mom sounds alarmed. There’s a beeping sound in her ears, and she wonders if it’s because her sanity is cracking along with her heart, but then she realizes it’s her heart monitor. Her pulse is going off the charts. “Sooyeon, honey, calm down.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” her dad murmurs. “There was a storm and a terrible car accident. Tiffany, she—she didn’t make it.”

“No,” Jessica whispers. “No. No, no, NO!!!”

She wants to rocket off the bed and tear out of the room, wants to run until she could leave this all behind her, the terrible words that just left her dad’s mouth and the pitying looks in her parents’ eyes – the same look the doctor had, he must have known, Tiffany works at the hospital, no, she worked, past tense, because she’s, she’s—

Jessica wants to scream. She wants to cry. She wants to pretend this isn’t happening, wants to go back to before, when the heart inside her chest was weak and failing, and this one still belonged to the girl she loves.

She wants Tiffany.

She wants Tiffany to call out “Jessi!” in that husky voice, with that radiant smile. She wants Tiffany to put her arms around her and hold her close. She wants Tiffany to tell her this is all a nightmare, and Jessica can just close her eyes and when she opens them again, Tiffany will be there by her side, and it’s okay if she doesn’t have a new, healthy heart, it’s okay, because she needs Tiffany more than she needs a new heart.

She wants Tiffany.

Distantly, she can hear her mom yelling and her sister crying, and then she feels a sharp prick in the inside of her elbow and she knows no more.

“Jessi?”

That voice sounds awfully like Tiffany.

“Jessi? Jessica, wake up.”

It must be Tiffany. It must be.

“Come on.” A warm laugh. “I know you love sleeping, but it’s really time to open your eyes.”

Jessica’s eyelids feel like they weigh a ton, but she manages to lift them. The strain is worth it when she sees that heartbreaking – no, heart-mending smile. “Hey, Tiff,” she croaks. “I just had this terrible nightmare.”

“Yeah?” Tiffany brushes Jessica’s bangs away from her forehead and presses her lips there. She smells like Tiffany, like strawberries and lotion, with a hint of antiseptic and hospital sterility. “Poor Jessi. What was it about?”

“You d—” Jessica hesitates. She knows it was just a nightmare, but she finds herself incapable of finishing her sentence. “I got a new heart.”

Tiffany’s face lights up. “You did?”

Jessica smiles at Tiffany’s happiness at the news, her despair lifting. Tiffany has always been like the sun breaking through her thunderclouds. “Yeah, but I-I didn’t want it.”

Tiffany’s forehead creases. “Why not?”

“Because I liked it better where it was.”

“You mean, here?”

And suddenly Jessica notices that Tiffany’s wearing a hospital gown, just like her. Maybe the hospital staff members are having another one of their costume parties.

Tiffany undoes the ribbons at the back of her neck – Jessica doesn’t know if she has enough energy for this, but she isn’t going to complain – tugging her gown down to expose her chest. And the gaping hole in it.

A horrified breath escapes Jessica. Tiffany’s chest is literally split open, ribs pulled apart to reveal an empty space where her heart should have been.

Tiffany prods Jessica’s chest with a finger. “I told you, Jessi. My heart belongs to you. Take care of it, okay? Remember what you promised me.”

Jessica wakes up screaming.

The scar starts right beneath her collarbones and runs down along her chest. It’s still dark and angry, but she knows it’ll fade with time and become a faint, pink line.

She wonders if the scars on her heart will fade any time soon.

Her heart. Tiffany’s heart.

“You know my heart belongs to you too.”

Oh how literally true that was now. How terribly, devastatingly true.

“My heart. I wish there was some way I could give it to you.”

She never wanted it this way. Never. She wanted – wants – to live, yes, but not at the expense of Tiffany’s life. Never.

“Promise me that no matter what happens, you’ll try your hardest to live.”

Jessica puts her hand on her chest and feels her new heart, the one that came with a price she would never have paid, beat steadily and evenly underneath her palm. She knows a lot of transplant patients have immediate complications because of their immune systems rejecting the new organ, but her body didn’t have any adverse reactions to her new heart.

It’s as if her body’s accepted it as its own right away.

“I’m so sorry, unnie,” Yoona finally says the words Jessica’s been expecting for the whole conversation. “I know how much you love her. And how much she loves you.”

Jessica doesn’t miss her use of the present tense. Yoona has always understood her. Just because Tiffany’s gone now doesn’t mean Jessica’s love for her is gone as well.

The latter part of the sentence, however, weighs heavily on her. “How much she loves me?”

“Tiffany unnie may have passed on, but her heart lives on through you. In you. I think her love lives on too.”

Jessica can’t speak for a very long moment.

She misses Tiffany.

Even though she’s always preferred sunsets, she’s discovered the beauty of sunrises. The wash of colours over the horizon seems to settle into her skin and seep right into her, filling her with warmth and something like peace. The world comes alive then, and she finds herself grateful for the gift of life, grateful for the beautiful sights that she’s still able to see.

She still loves to sleep, especially since the only place she can see Tiffany now is in her dreams, but her bed no longer calls to her like it used to. The outdoors draws her in now, the fresh air and sunlight and grass damp with dew beneath her bare legs.

She misses Tiffany.

Her parents are still concerned about her, but they know that she isn’t going to do something rash, they know that she’s going to live her life well, not just for herself but for Tiffany too. They urge her to go to group therapy, and she tells them that she isn’t ready yet but she will be one day, and she knows that they hold her to her word. She’s always kept her promises.

Krystal asks her if Tiffany is an angel now, and she tells Krystal that Tiffany must be, that she’s probably watching over them right now. Jessica hopes that wherever she is, Tiffany’s at peace now. She hopes to join her one day, but she knows that Tiffany wouldn’t want that day to come anytime soon.

She misses Tiffany.

She misses her when she sees pink, whether it’s a piece of clothing in a storefront window or a tub of strawberry ice cream. She misses her when she returns to the hospital for her check-ups, when she sees Yoona and Yuri walking hand-in-hand, when she reads Krystal another story about angels.

She misses her so much she aches with her yearning, but she heals with it too. With each beat of her heart, she’s healing.

She misses Tiffany.

“Jessica.”

She shifts her weight awkwardly from foot to foot, but she doesn’t avoid eye contact with the people who look at her. She promised her parents and herself that she would go to support group with a positive attitude, and although that’s not her forte, she’s trying.

“I had a heart transplant nine months ago. My-my girlfriend died in a car accident and I received her heart.”

She can practically taste the sympathy in the air. It’s genuine sympathy, not merely pity, and she doesn’t cringe away from it.

“It’s been…it was very hard at first. I think I’m finally getting better now.” Half a smile flickers across her face. “That’s part of why I’m here anyway.”

Applause rings around the circle, and Jessica sits down, tugging down the hem of her shirt. The girl sitting beside her smiles at her. She looks around Jessica’s age, with short hair dyed bubble-gum pink. She has a lovely eye smile.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Sunny. Double lung.”

“That’s an interesting last name.”

Sunny laughs. “I usually just use Lee though.”

Jessica holds out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Sunny Double Lung Lee.”

Sunny shakes her hand. Her nails are painted in a rainbow spectrum of colours, and her grip is firm. “You too, Jessica.”

Jessica sits back in her chair and tries to remember the names of the people around her – fellow recipients of new life, fellow survivors – as they introduce themselves. She breathes, brain and nerve and bounding heart, and feels grateful to be alive.

A/N: The “She misses Tiffany…” passage was inspired by a passage from The Boy Who Died A Lot, by starcrossedgirl. The “brain and nerve and bounding heart” line was taken from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. There were definitely parts of this (like Yoona and Taeyeon) that were inspired by The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. The general plot was inspired by Laura's Heart, the third story of How Do I Love Thee by Lurlene McDaniel.

This is a little outline of 3/5th of the story so you can tell how angsty it is lmao. This is the 4th one, and this is the 5th and final one, so they do have a happy ending!