http://community.livejournal.com/paradisa/6810623.html

[The strange sensation hits him out of nowhere as he reads, waiting for Izzie to show up...maybe he's just that jittery, that excited to see her. One minute he's reading and the next he gets hit with that feeling, whispering through him and causing the room to shift juuuust enough to be unsettling. He shuts his eyes. His fingers tense on the magazine as his head falls back against the pillow...and keeps falling as he lands flat on his back in bed.]

Oof! Sonufa...

[Straightening, he turns to see if the back of the bed went down without his knowledge...maybe he hit the button on the call switch with his hip again...until he realizes it's not his bed. It's not even Seattle Grace.]

The hell?...

[He gets out of bed hesitantly, checking and confirming that there are no wires, tubes, or leads attached to him any longer. He's still in his hospital gown and confused as hell, too confused to be standing in the middle of some medieval suite in a cotton dress that leaves him bareassed in front of God and everyone. The fact that he's seemingly alone counts for nothing.]

Nurse? Dr. Bailey?!...Izzie?

[Spotting a wardrobe, he walks over and opens it, surprised and yet not to find it filled with clothing, and in his size no less. Stripping off his hospital gown, he tugs on a pair of sweats, still looking around for something that will give him a clue as to what in the blue hell is going on.]

Izzie! ANYONE!!

Probably the worst damn bout of cabin fever I ever had came about when I was waitin’ for my bandages to come off...after my heart transplant. Sounds kinda funny, right? I spend more ‘n a year or two bound to my bed, and it’s when I’m healthy that it finally starts getting to me. Don’t get me wrong, I had my dark moments towards...well, what I *thought* was the end. Signing those DNR orders and all.

Thing is, though...I was sick for damn near five years. In and out of hospitals, up and down from my sickbed...you get a little stir crazy after some time, but after a while it gets to be like something out of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION. The walls of a sickroom got a lot in common with the walls of a prison. First you hate ‘em, then you get used to ‘em...then you get to depend on ‘em.

I fought it, though...long as I could, but eventually I was turning into that poor sick bastard that I loathed and despised. If not for Izzie...I think I’d have reached my breaking point a lot sooner. Might not have even made it to the transplant. Sometimes I hated how she helped me...how great she was at getting me through every day, but more than that making me *want* to get through every day, even if it was hooked to a machine. I didn’t want to be that guy, I didn’t want to sit idly by and watch a machine pump my heart and be okay with it. But I knew I had to do it.

So cabin fever? Not so much...I couldn’t feel trapped and smothered, or even enclosed because there was no hope. No outside, nothing but my room, the machines, and the people that moved in and out of it. After, though...after the transplant, with my stitches ready to come out and the bandages no longer a problem...

Then there was hope again.

And *that’s* when the walls started closing in.

And I’ll tell ya this...I’ve never been happier to deal with a bout of the claustrophobic grouches than I was in the few days before the doc came in and snipped me free. Because nothing cures cabin fever better than not just getting out and getting free...but knowing that you *can*.

Muse: Denny Duquette
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Words: 396

Yes, I sure as hell am impulsive, and most folks like me that way. Granted, it gets me into trouble on occasion, but that ain’t always a bad thing. You get impulsive, you sometimes make some pretty hefty mistakes, and Lord knows I’m more than a little guilty of that. Still, some mistakes are a lot of fun to make...and most of the mistakes I’ve made in my life? I’d make ‘em again if I had the chance, with the exception of those few times when barreling into something balls out got someone hurt. Not always me, though...some of those times I hurt myself? I’d go through again.

Like recently...had another incident with the stairs. Not my heart, mind you...but everything else? Yeah, the old bones weren’t real happy with me for taxing ‘em so early. I got winded after a couple flights, shaky after three...shaky enough that I took a spill. Oh, I’m fine, but that was three days ago and I got a few real good bruises out of the deal.

Plus I got a real chewing out from my physical therapist...Julie. She wasn’t happy with me at all. Yeah, I got a real tongue lashing from her when she came down to get me for my next session...seemed kinda surprised, me trying to tackle that so early on, but I got the usual tirade about taking on more than I could handle and screwin’ myself royally.

But under the bluster...I think she was kinda impressed. Maybe proud of her newest charge.

Besides...she’s real damn cute when she’s huffy.

Yep...sometimes it really does pay not to think things all the way through...

Muse: Denny Duquette
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Words: 284

Hell, all people got themselves some weakness or another…asking a man to pick one’s like askin’ him to walk up to a haystack and pick his favorite piece of straw. But, I guess in the end we all got one chink in our armor bigger ‘n the rest, right?

I guess mine would have to be my predilection towards being liked. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t the type to be starved for affection, or too concerned with another person’s opinion…it’s all about me liking other people. I wanna be a guy they can admire…appreciate…befriend. I want to be a person that other people will allow into their lives, and I want to leave a positive mark on them. It’s important to me that I have that ability…that permission to be a part of people, not win their favor. Hell, I meet a man thinks it’s a good idea to jump off a cliff and he trusts me ‘nough to get close to pull him to safety, he could hate me the rest of his born days for ruining his good time. But the dumb son of a bitch’d be alive, wouldn’t he?

It’s not acceptance I crave…it’s influence. A chance to leave my mark.

I guess…my biggest weakness is my desire to be remembered, and remembered well.

And believe me, you don’t have to be on your deathbed to want that.

Muse: Denny Duquette
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Words: 232

( Now that dream was gone…and so was the man he used to be. )

Muse: Denny Duquette
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Words: 457

He hadn’t known Preston Burke from Adam when he was first admitted to Seattle Grace because of heart trouble. The funny little episodes he was having of lightheadedness and arrhythmia were nothing...just a few too many late nights, overworking himself to the point of exhaustion. Still, his co-worker, Jesse, conned him into checking it out.

When Burke walked into the room after his exam instead of the ER doctor on call, Denny didn’t think much of it...just found himself in a rather good-natured argument about the latest baseball scores as he was examined a second time.

The next visit, Preston asked about his latest work with aquatic ecosystems and got him going for nearly an hour. He forgot he was nervous, and he stopped thinking about the fact he was seeing a cardio thoracic surgeon for a little dizziness and funny flutter in his chest.

By the fourth visit, as they started running all the tests, he started striking up the conversations and jokes instead of Burke. His gratitude knew no bounds when the other man obliged him willingly, talking and chattering to keep the fear...the truth at bay.

Above all else, however, when the truth finally did come, Preston gave it to Denny without any window dressing...straight, solid, and real.

It was different by that point, though...because Denny had stopped relying on the kindness of a stranger to make him forget what he was doing there.

By that point, he was relying less on a stranger and more on a friend to deal out bad news with respect.

And the fact that he didn’t disappoint Denny in the least only solidified that bond...one that he was sure would end up saving his life.

Muse: Denny Duquette
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Words: 289

( What I`ll do to get what I want all depends on exactly what I want. )

Muse: Denny Duquette
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Words: 529

If I could do just one thing right now, and not pay any sorta price for it? Right this very second?

I’d run a marathon.

Yeah, you heard me right...call it cornball and kinda weak if you want, right now that’s my deepest, darkest secret fantasy. The one that’d make my doctors shriek in horror and my nurses panic as they tried to chase me down with pills and shots and IV’s and all that nonsense.

A couple weeks ago, I was lying in bed with a battery pumping my heart for me. I had cold hands, pasty skin, and not enough breath to run this great big carcass of mine without an oxygen tube nearby. Now? I have this brand spanking new heart and about half as many tubes hooked up to me as I used to...maybe ten instead of twenty. I can actually take a leak all by myself now. And I get to go outside seein’ as how I ain’t hooked up to drains on my wounds no more...I’m doin’ so good I get ‘bout an hour or so each day to sit out on the patio. You got any idea how good it feels just to sit and feel the breeze on your skin, to breathe air that isn’t choked with chemicals?

You know what I did yesterday? I stopped to smell the roses...you heard me. There’s a little rose bush just outside the patio entrance, weak little thing...but it had blooms, and you can bet your ass I stopped to smell ‘em.

Now there’s a lot more interesting stuff I could be wishing for...wild and dangerous things I could go after if there were no repercussions to worry about...hell, I’m getting married soon as I’m well.

But that’s the large and small of it, really...I’m getting married to the most beautiful, intelligent, sweet-natured woman in the whole damn world, I got a working heart of my very own...and pretty soon, I’m gonna be hale and healthy again. I got Izzie coming to see me in a couple hours, and right now I got the fresh air filling my lungs...what else could I possibly want in the whole world?

For the waiting to be over...to be me, completely, whole and free again.

So if I had my way? Right this very second...I’d run me a marathon.

Muse: Denny Duquette
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Words: 401

( I think over time, I lost religion and got just that...faith. )

Muse: Denny Duquette
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Words: 579

1) What is one thing you have learned from your past?

He was watching her again.

It was just plain ridiculous how delicious it felt to just *watch* Izzie walk past his room, but goddamn if it wasn’t as wicked and wonderful as sneaking out to see KISS play in concert when he was sixteen. Back then, he’d been smoking in the boy’s room, feeling up girls on Lover’s Lane...and letting it all slip by completely unnoticed.

Now he was leering at pretty blonde interns and couldn’t believe his good luck.

So much of his past was spent taking simple, insignificant, glorious pleasures for granted, and now he was chained to his hospital bed by tubes and wires, marveling at the fact apple juice could taste so good sipped out of a wine glass with Izzie smiling at him, or that Scrabble was probably the greatest game ever invented when he was waiting for her to use a quasi-dirty word, or what a rebellious charge it was to watch her petite little frame whiz back and forth outside the halls in a blur of delicate, surgical blue and labcoat white limbs, and know that she’d be in later to see him.

She’d be there to keep him company and take care of her patient, and reward him with those moments that lived in her eyes between flirtatious jokes ...those stolen seconds when he was healthy and strong again, when she saw the man and not the ruined heart.

In those moments, he could almost feel his pulse beating in his veins with the steady, sure, life-giving rhythm he’d never appreciated before he got sick.

He’d learned what a large part of life the small things really were...and right now, the smallest thing wasn’t only the largest part of his life...

...she was swiftly becoming one of the most important.


2) Describe a dream that you've had. How did the dream make you feel?

Me? I dream about everything your average red-blooded transplant candidate dreams about...big money, new hearts, and various other indulgences which are more than a little on the X-rated side, so bein’ that I’m a gentleman I won’t go there.

All right, you want the truth? Bein’ stuck in this goddamn hospital, there’s only one dream I ever have anymore. Keeps me awake a lotta nights...I know, bad thing to do, lose rest when your own heart can’t even support your body, but I can’t help it. It’s like the Grim Reaper’s tapping on my shoulder with that damn scythe, and I just can’t ignore him anymore.

I dream about an operating room...sorta outside my own body, watching myself on the table with Dr. Burke opening my chest up to fix something that’s wrong...I don’t know what he’s fixing, but I know there’s blood *everywhere.* Weird thing is, it’s not gushing out or anything, it’s...seeping. Like the life dribbling away from me each passing day, my blood is trickling out of every opening the surgeons have hacked into my body.

I finally realize it’s on the floor and spreading outward at the same time I realize the surgeons working on me ain’t actually doing anything. A cut here, an organ shoved to the side there...all they’re doing is cutting away at me while my life slowly slides out of me.

I always wake up with Dr. Burke’s voice in my ears, pronouncing the time of death...and wondering just how much longer it’s gonna be before that voice in my head becomes a reality.