Chapter Text
Seeing Zed surrounded by various machines and medical gadgets had immediately put John on edge. It wasn’t the first time he’d visited her in the hospital, but it was his first time seeing her like this. She had a standard IV in her arm, as well as an additional tube atop her right hand. From the looks of it, that one was for painkillers.
John had gotten to work right away, pulling a spell book out of his duffel bag and turning to one of the bookmarked pages. It didn’t take him very long to determine that she was trapped in her own subconsciousness. There was no medical reason for her to have not woken up yet. Something else was stopping her. Something that John suspected was of the magical variety.
Chas’s brief interruption had lost him some time, but the exorcist found a spell that just might wake Zed up. He held her non-IV’d hand and squeezed it gently as he recited the incantation. When he didn’t get a response, he repeated the spell and squeezed Zed’s hand a bit tighter. Magic was all about intention, and John intended to wake her up. That was only step one, of course, but nothing else would work if she remained unconscious.
“Zed,” he said in a quiet tone. “If you can hear me, I need you to wake up. I know a way to help you, but it won’t work unless you’re awake.”
Her face twitched, just slightly.
“Yes, yes. That’s very good, love. You’re almost there,” John encouraged. “Just open your eyes, yeah? I know you can do it.”
Her hand squeezed his. Her face twitched again. A breath or two passed; her eyelids fluttered.
“That’s it, love. You’re very nearly there now. All you have to do is open your eyes.”
Slowly but surely, Zed’s dark eyes blinked open. Her gaze roamed almost blankly around the room for a few beats before settling on John. The exorcist was surprised to see unshed tears welled up, threatening to spill at any moment.
“You’re here,” she croaked out, coughing a bit.
John grinned. “Where else would I be?”
Zed smiled back at him, the expression so genuine and soft that it made him a little uncomfortable. Or vulnerable, maybe. That was probably a better description of his current feelings.
She glanced down and noticed his hand threaded with hers. He quickly withdrew it, busying himself with collecting the spell book off of her hospital bed and returning it to his bag.
“The lost spirit—were you able to send it on to the afterlife?” Zed asked, her eyes widening slightly.
John nodded and pressed his lips into a thin line. “Aye, I was. Had to burn the whole place down in the process, though.”
“Damn,” Zed breathed. “What about the demons from my vision? Did they ever show up?”
“Afraid not, love. I’m sure they’ll turn up eventually, though.” John paused for a moment, then continued in what he hoped was an appropriately serious tone. “As you can probably tell, you’ve been prepped for an emergency surgery.”
Zed furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, then took another look around the room. “What? Why? I thought I was just admitted for a migraine.”
“You were,” John confirmed. “But the doctors did another scan and determined that your brain tumor has been…steadily growing over the past several months. They believe that this may be their last chance to safely remove it.”
Zed appeared to take a moment to process this new information before responding. “You told them that I don’t want it, right?”
“I asked them to give me a few minutes to decide,” John said hesitantly. “As far as they know, I’m the closest thing you have to next of kin, so that’s the only reason I’m allowed in here right now at all.”
“What’s there to decide?” Zed asked, an incredulous look on her face. “You can’t seriously be considering—“
“It’s not the worst possible outcome, love,” he quickly interrupted. “You’d go back to being normal.”
Zed scowled. “I’ve never been normal.”
“I know it’s not ideal—believe me, I know—but the tumor is only going to grow and your symptoms are only gonna get worse with time,” John tried to reason with her.
“No,” Zed shook her head. “You know I can’t give up my visions, John. You know what they mean to me.”
The exorcist let out a long sigh and shoved his hands in his trench coat pockets. “You don’t need them, love. You’re plenty useful without ‘em.”
Zed shot him a withering look.
“I just mean—you have worth outside of them,” he amended. “Don’t let your powers define you.”
“Uh-huh. Right. As if that isn’t exactly what you do,” Zed scoffed harshly.
“Aye, you got me there. But you’re a much better person than me, Zed. You have a life—a real, honest life. Don’t give that up for me.”
“It’s not about—“
“Not outright, maybe. But you can’t deny that I’ve only made things harder for you,” John said, dropping his gaze to the thin hospital blankets draped over Zed’s legs.
“My visions have nothing to do with you,” she protested, a hint of anger in her voice. “I had them before I met you and I’ll still have them after you’re—“ she cut herself off. “They happen randomly, no matter who I’m around. I can control the ones I see when I touch certain objects, but otherwise, they just…happen.”
The exorcist allowed a resigned shrug, despite his disagreements with Zed’s decision. “Fine. Even if that’s true, it doesn’t change the fact that there is a tumor in your brain, Zed. And the longer you leave it there, the bigger it’s gonna get. And I think we both know how that one ends.”
“I know,” she said in a quieter tone. “I guess I just thought… I thought I’d have more time to decide.”
John stole a glance back up at her. She had a somber expression on her face, as if resigned to her fate.
“There might be something I can do to help,” he admitted. “It won’t halt the tumor‘s growth, but it could temporarily dampen the symptoms of it.”
“Meaning?”
The exorcist pursed his lips and looked away again. “It’ll stop your migraines. Prevent you from having another episode like this. Take away the pain, for the most part.”
“But?” Zed prompted. “What’s the catch?”
“As I said, it won’t stop the tumor from growing. And it’ll probably only work for a few weeks at a time.”
“What is it? A spell?”
“Ah, not quite.” John scratched at the back of his neck. “It’s a… Well, it’s a potion of sorts. Meant for ailments of all kinds, really.”
“A magical painkiller,” Zed mused, chuckling a bit. “How come you haven’t mentioned it before now?”
“The ingredients are rather difficult to obtain, for one thing,” the exorcist responded. “And it does have the unfortunate potential side effect of immediate death after consumption.”
Zed stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“Yeah… Doesn’t always work well on humans. I’ll admit that I’ve been too apprehensive to give it a go myself.”
“So that’s a bust, then,” Zed frowned.
“I mean, there’s a fifty-fifty chance, I reckon. Might make your life a bit longer or a whole lot shorter. I’m not saying you should take it, but it is an option to consider.”
“And what are my other options?”
That was the question John was fearing she’d ask. He didn’t have any other tricks up his sleeves—minus begging to whatever deity would bother listening. And he wasn’t above doing that, if there really weren’t any other viable options.
“Aside from going through with the surgery? You’ll just have to manage it as you’ve been doing. I could probably find you some non-magical painkillers, but aside from that? You’ll just have to deal,” John said, not wanting to meet her gaze.
“It’ll kill me if I don’t get it removed, won’t it?” Zed asked, though John knew the question was rhetorical. “How long would I have, if I leave it?”
John blew out a breath. “You’ll have to ask the doctors that one, love. Preferably when I’m not in the room.”
“John—“
“It’s your life, Zed,” he said, not wanting to hear whatever excuse she came up with. “I’m not gonna force you to go through with the surgery, but I’m not gonna stand here and watch you die, either.”
Zed’s expression darkened. “That’s not fair and you know it.”
“Nothing in this world is fair, love. If it was, Astra’d still be here and I’d be trapped in hell.”
He didn’t even bother with one of his careless grins. He didn’t do these kinds of conversations. He looked death in the face frequently enough as it was; watching a demon kill an innocent stranger was bad enough—watching a friend die a slow and painful death that was completely preventable? That was madness.
“Detective Corrigan is in the waiting room,” John continued when Zed didn’t reply to his previous comment. “Chas told ‘im I had a plan to save you, which was a bit of a bluff on my part, I’ll admit. I was counting on you agreeing to the surgery, but seeing as that doesn’t appear to be on the table anymore, it looks like you’ll have to give him the bad news.”
“You are such an asshole,” Zed glared at him.
He shrugged. “Not the worst thing I’ve been called.” He patted his coat’s inner pocket for a pack of cigarettes, then remembered he was in a hospital. “I need a smoke,” he announced flatly. “I’ll send Jim in on my way out.”
He started toward the door—which he’d locked with a temporary protection spell—but paused mid-step when Zed’s breath hitched.
“I had a vision before I passed out,” she said haltingly, as if just recalling this information. “Three actually, I think.”
John turned back to look at the brunette. Zed’s dark eyes were filled with a sudden fear that he hadn’t anticipated.
“Go on,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“For the first one, I was in a church,” Zed began, tone growing a bit distant. “Then I was in the mill house. There was blood all over the floor and walls, and the furniture had been moved. It looked like there’d been some kind of altercation.”
“Aye? What happened in the third vision?”
The brunette gulped, eyes locking on John’s. “You were dead. I walked in your bedroom, and you were just…” she trailed off and shook her head. “It looked like something attacked you.”
“A demon?” the exorcist guessed aloud.
“Something with very sharp claws, at the least,” Zed answered. Then, “Please be careful, John. I know you’re…upset, but I think something’s after you. You can’t let your guard down.”
John scoffed. “Haven’t done that in a long time, love. It’s a mistake you don’t make twice.”
“I’m being serious,” Zed said.
“So am I,” John replied, grinning sharply. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
He waved away the protection spell on the door and pulled it open. A part of him felt the tiniest bit bad for treating Zed so harshly, but she needed to hear it. John Constantine did not sugarcoat things. And besides, Zed was a big girl. She could handle the truth.