Planes- Part VI

JO
Sephy's gone. It's just me and Tom. There are other people here, I can hear them. They're dead too.
I'm dead.
I think of my mother, my poor mother, and try and block out the screams of the others. They must be on different planes... I can't see them.
Sephy, where are you?

MIKE
I haven't moved for three hours.
Sephy's heartbeat is steady, she's breathing well, but she won't wake up.
"Doctor Mason...?"
I remove my head from my hands and turn to the door.
"What."
"Mrs Downing on floor two, ward fifty- six is asking for you."
I breathe out slowly.
"Tell her I'm busy and send Suzy down, okay?"
Nurse Green stays there, frowning at me. I give him a glare and he hurries off.
"Sephy..."
I know she can hear me.
"Sephy, we're going to find the man who hijacked the airplane."

JO
Tom hasn't spoken for a long time. He's crying, but not much- I think he's cried himself out. I hate seeing men cry. It breaks my heart.
"I was going to propose to my girlfriend. She was pregnant with my child."
He speaks for the first time since Sephy disappeared, and then falls into another lapse of broken sobs.
"I'm so, so sorry."
I quit my pacing and sit down next to him.
"The only person that ever mattered to me was my mum. My dad was hit by a car before I was born. My sister was adopted, I never knew her."
I swallow back a lump in my throat. What I say stops Tom mid- cry.
"Really?"
I nod. He puts an arm around my shoulder.
"What about Sephy?"
"Sephy was like a sister to me. She was the only person who put up with my anger and all my other problems."
I laugh and sniff, and only then do I realise that I am crying. Which is a rarity for me.
"You speak of her as if she is gone forever."
"She is! She has... Moved on!" I wave my hands about frantically, practically screaming.
"You don't know that."

MIKE
It's well after dark. The hospital is quiet, and filled with only long- term patients. And Sephy is one of them.
I've only moved to buy a sandwich and go to the toilet- but in that time I forced Nurse Green to watch over her. I know we have all the technology to keep her under surveillance but it's just not the same. I have to be by her side.
My eyes are heavy and I stifle a yawn. I'm about to curl up in my chair when I hear movement. I shoot up.
"Seph!"
Her eyes are open. She blinks and her eyes adjust to the light.
"Jo?!"
She tries to sit up.
"Woah, babe. You'll break your stitches. Be careful!"
"Mike, where is Jo?"
No hello, no where am I. Just where is Jo.
I frown and step forward, brushing a stray strand of black hair behind her ear.
"She's gone, Seph. The madman on the airplane killed her."
"She's not gone! I need to get back, tell her I'm ok, tell her what happened..."
She squeezes her eyes shut and holds her breath.
"Back where, Seph?"
I stroke my finger down her nose, which always makes her smile. She doesn't even open her eyes.
"Sephy?!"
"Jo said we were in a plane."
"A plane? Yes, you were on a plane. You can't go back to the plane, the madman blew the engine up."
She shakes her head and her brow furrows.
"No, no. As in a plane, a big white blank plane of nothingness after death."
I laugh.
"Sephy, I think being almost- dead has messed up your head."
"No!"
She clamps her mouth shut, and no matter how hard I try, she doesn't reply.