As a doctor, you were accustomed to ensure that when patients failed to breathe or had a shortness of breath, you would take the initiative to return them to normal again. You would, with the speed of lightning and with a surgeon's precision, solve them of their predicament. There was no conscious thought, no hesitance, no awareness of what you were doing until you were finished. To you, it was as if second nature - saving people from the problem of suffocation, to help them breathe once more.
However, then and there as you absorbed the news delivered by Jay Hopkins, you realised how helpless the receiver of your aid was. Your breathing stopped immediately, hitched in your throat, and your mouth turned dry and coarse like sandpaper. You couldn't form a coherent thought let alone a proper sentence and what escaped your mouth was nothing but gibberish. Blinking, stance faltering, still in stubborn disbelief, for once in your professional expertise, it was you that forgot how to breathe.
And no one present in the room could save you.
Stumbling a few steps, blinking several more times to regain your composure, you straightened up and tugged at your shirt, trying to appear businesslike. Jay, still entranced in a bubble of concern, did not stay to wait for your baffled expression and apparent shock to recover. Instead, he had disappeared down the corridor, trying to find Dan's GPS with his phone to seek out his location. Mumbling indiscreet spluttering sentences and ruffling his hair deftly, he bit his lip and continued his fruitless search.
You assessed the situation with cold, sweaty palms.
Firstly, Gaby was dead. Without an inkling of the method and the reason in which she had passed, it left you frustrated with yourself about how easily you had let her slip through your fingers. It was evident that people were baying for her blood, considering she had just turned into a key witness to the case of the series of insurance scams that had skyrocketed a few years back. It was also proof enough when a man had arrived to finish her, and the force he applied on the soft part of her neck indicated anything but a friendly gesture.
Presently, you were not concerned over the court case, for that was not what you were supposed to be worried about, but rather you were more aggravated about the fact that you previously had a lead and shred of information but had disappeared like thin air. Just like with Dan, back to square one.
Speaking of Dan, you thought of him with a slight constriction of throat and a cold sweat breaking out in the lines of your palms, the betrayal of your actual emotions bubbling beneath the surface of your resolve stunned you. But deep inside you, igniting like a fire burning under gasoline, you knew you had to keep it together – for you, or for Dan, or for Jay – you knew with certainty that you had to maintain your composure.
Jay was currently looking at you with concern swimming in his eyes, yet he did not express it, in fear you might lash out in denial. Instead, he continued to explain in a slightly hushed voice, yet the urgency did not decrease in its potency. "I don't know when he left. When I came back, the door was fine. It feels like he left with a sane mind – or, as sane as Dan can get after one of his fits. He isn't answering my calls, or reading my texts, and I can't track his location because his phone is probably off."
"Yes, I understand very well, Jay Hopkins, I do not need you to repeat it." You replied hastily, standing up and waving Jay's offered hand away. "What exactly have you done to search for him besides the obvious tactics? That is what I wish to know."
"Besides what I said earlier, nothing else. I've contacted his family, but they said he never talked to them in... well, ever since he moved to London with me. I've rung his friends, any form of person that is in association with him, but there was nothing. So the last clue I can get is you. What time did he leave you here? What time did he drug you?"
Drug you.
You hadn't the slightest idea that Dan Howell was capable of drugging anyone, let alone a professional in the field like you. You mentally slapped yourself at your idiocy that stemmed from worry, for allowing your guard to fall and not seeing through his act. What Dan would actually do when you visited was to offer to make hot chocolate or coffee, not tea. At the very least, some milk or Ribena. There was no tea.
As Jay proceeded to hurl questions your way, you answered as curtly as possible as you casted a cursory glance around the lounge. Everything was still as it was before, tidied up and neat, devoid of any sign of Dan's depression attacks. His room was also cleaned of the shards of broken glass and his broken self, and the laptop was shut off. It was as if nothing had ever happened.
You sat there, contemplating the possibilities and options at hand. Where could he go? What would a person diagnosed with depression do, immediately after a plummet into macabre darkness?
The only thing you could think of was the only thing you didn't want him to do. It gnawed at your psyche, eliminating all rational thought, and you wanted to scream to release all the chaos in your head. In front of you, Jay stilled.
"This is the first time it's happened in such a large scale. Before, he would normally just hide in his room, where he'd have sources of solace like his music, his books, and the internet. The nicer part of the internet, anyway. But this is totally out of character."
You stopped. Wheels started to turn in your mind. "Repeat that again."
"After his fits, he'd usually be in his room with his music and his books and the internet?" Jay's voice was hesitant, an eyebrow raising, not catching on to your prediction.
"You said 'sources of solace', is that right?"
"Yeah?"
"You... you don't think..." You trailed off, then slowly looked up to meet Jay's eyes which were shrouded with confusion, still not catching on, "You don't think he's at the places I've brought him to before?"
It was a far-fetched conclusion. Who did you think you are, thinking Dan's sources of solace were places you've been with him before? Did you think you weighed a whole lot in his life? All that existed between the both of you, were nothing but a relationship between a doctor and her patient. Nothing else. Nothing you would have allowed and nothing he would have felt, because he didn't feel like that, and nor did you.
Then again, going to those places – the parks, the tours, the dainty coffee shops – it seemed the most plausible, if not at least a clue, of a place for him to be. Not because you thought you carried a lot of importance in his life, but because he appeared to be genuinely happy in those occasions. And maybe by revisiting those places, reliving those memories, it may relieve his dreary and awful thoughts. It was because he had other things occupying his mind – better, happier, more enlightening things in his mind. There were no razor sharp blades of memories that drew blood and tears, but rather something akin to natural dopamine, feeding into his system a sense of purpose and happiness. It was worth a shot.
Upon hearing your suggestion, Jay's eyes lit up. He weighed the possibility of this in his head, then nodded vigorously as though trying to convince himself more than he was trying to reassure you. "It's possible. We have to go now."
Immediately, you got up to your feet, slightly dizzy at first from the drugs, then steadily stood once more. You walked out together with Jay closely at your heels. "There are a total of 8 places we've been to so far. Are we doing all this by ourselves?"
Grimly, Jay nodded. "No one knows about Dan's depression in his social circle besides you and I. He doesn't want to be exposed or give unnecessary and unwanted information away. So yes. We are doing this alone."
