Moonlightaholics

POV: Polly, Sarah’s nurse
Disclaimer: I don’t own Moonlight or it’s characters, I just play with them.

Watching you sleep all day is making me tired. You know, the kind of wearyness that comes from a day spent with unfulfilling and useless things. Sorry, but to care for you is not really something to look forward to. I watch you all day, there’s not much else to do. Sure, I change the IV, I control the monitors, I clean your room. But other than that the eight hours of my shift go by with reading, sometimes even loud, thinking and watching.

While Gina and Sue treat you like a museum exhibit when it’s their turn, I talk to you while cleaning up and making the bed. I sometimes imagine that you can hear me. I can’t know of course, but I like to think that you are more than just a beautiful body in an overstuffed bed. It would be really hard to cope with the fact that I spend my life caring for a corpse. So I make myself believe that you are a human being. Well, not really human, but you know what I mean.

I still remember the day I came here first. My predecessor, Barbara, was leaving the job and was introducing me to Mr. Kostan. After grilling me about my motives and former employments, staring at me with an intensity that made the hair on my neck stand up, he gave his approval. After that Barbara showed me around, in a hurry, like she wanted to leave as soon as possible. I couldn’t understand it then, it seemed to be the job of a lifetime. You know, no hard work, no patients screaming from pain or anguish or plain crazyness, no nervous or condescending relatives to deal with, no body fluids to take care of, no smell. You are the most antiseptic and immaculate patient a nurse could wish for.

But there isn’t much I can do for you. You don’t need me, really. It’s just to appease Mr. Kostan that I sit around and watch you. I could do everything I really DO in less than two hours. The rest of the time I get paid for nonsense, for Mr. Kostan’s paranoia.

Now I sometimes understand why Barbara loathed this job. It doesn’t make a person proud to care for you. It’s not something you can bitch about in the coffee room to your coworkers. I cannot even tell anybody who’m I’m working for, at least no details. Mr. Kostan was very clear about that.

You have everything a girl of your social class could wish for: Stunning beauty with creamy skin and flowing red curls, a brownstone house, an adoring and filthy rich husband, a staff who takes care of you and your house, and youth. You don’t have to do anything, no sorrows, no burden. I wonder if what you have now is so much different from what you would have had if you had lived your life as John Whitley’s daughter. The only thing that would have changed with time would have been beauty and youth leaving you. But all in all, the dinner parties and society events would have summed up to the same meaningless existence that you have now. We are not so different in that respect.

Of course, you wouldn’t have had Josef Kostan. That probably would have been better for him and for you. But isn’t eternal love something we all wish for? I have gotten kind of fond of him. I feel some protective streak when he is around, more than I have for you. He is a real gentleman, with old eyes in a young body. When he comes here in irregular intervals to watch you sleep and tell you his secrets, he is always so sad and introspective. I guess he is different when he is home in L.A.

Would you listen to him this intently if you were awake? Wouldn’t you both have hurt each other in the last 50 years with acrid words and thoughtless mistakes? Maybe by now you both would have moved on to somebody else, someplace else. The way it is now, you both are stuck with each other, you by your useless body, he by his tremendous guilt.

The fairy tale doesn’t tell if love could persist after Sleeping Beauty woke up. They just live happily ever after. Of course, that’s not real. And then again, why bother waking up? Maybe that’s why you stay like this, frozen in time. It’s easier this way, isn’t it?

You lie there, motionless, emotionless, but maybe you can hear everything I say. I hope not. There is no need to hurt you more than you already have been hurt. I don’t envy you, I don’t pity you, but somehow you pulled me into your world of static lifeless existence. I hate it. It’s easier this way, but I hate myself for choosing this life over caring for old and sick people. Maybe I should ask Mr. Kostan to let me go. But then again, you don’t even have that choice.

I hate you.

Nice piece, francis! I hadn't seen this one before.

Lucky

Thanks, Lucky. That's one of the (few) perks of reposting something.

Wow francis!

When you mentioned your dark Paula fic, in a comment to my story, I had a hankering to read it...I searched but couldn't find it for some reason...

Wow, dark is right...It's so fascinating to read your take on Paula...you and I have such different versions. I can totally see this viewpoint though...

Poor Josef...I think he needs a hug.

Thanks for re-posting this over here. I enjoyed it imensely.

Thank you, greenleaf.

This is one of my favorite stories of yours. This is such an interesting perspective and you can see how someone trained to care for sick people could feel guilt for taking the "easy" way. But taking care of Sarah is physically easy but to always look at a body that is in the prime of life but not having a life and not having a death to release her from.

Thank you, cassy. There's so much different ways of having a difficult life, it's not fair to compare, not even yourself, to others.

Wow.

That was very powerful. I never thought about Polly's perpective outside of that she kept the secret and did her job. Josef trusted her.

But she had a lot of time to think about the situation and came to some interesting conclusions.

I still feel sorry for Sara and want her to wake up.

Fabulous story, Francis!

Thank you, jen. Having time to think can be hard if you have such hard things to think about.

Francis, this is such a powerful story. I read it quite a while ago, on another site, and I've never forgotten it.

You did a wonderful job of transcribing Paula's thoughts. I completely understand why she feels the way she does. Caring for Sarah may have appeared to have been a dream job, but it gives Paula no sense of accomplishment.

The way it is now, you both are stuck with each other, you by your useless body, he by his tremendous guilt.

Paula seems to be stuck right there with them.

Thank you!

Thank you, marigold. It makes me happy that you got the heart of the story.

Holy smokes Francis this is powerful! In a circumstance like this it is always easy to feel sorry for the patient, but one never thinks about the healthcare providers who have to give up so much of themselves and their lives. This is great insight those individuals. Well done!

Francis, I've never commented on this story here, although I think I have elsewhere. It chills me to the bone, it really does. Paula seems to be such a warm person when we see her in the episode, but there is obviously a lot lurking behind that warm exterior. You can see her affection for Josef, her protectiveness of him. But I can imagine that year after year of taking care of a beautiful statue, a perfect woman in suspended animation, would begin to feel like imprisonment of a terrible sort. And even worse, it's a self-imposed imprisonment. I can imagine Paula wishing she had the strength to break away, but feeling stuck in a position she hates out of inertia and a sad sort of loyalty... Sarah's limbo has spread out to capture Josef, and all the nurses who care for her over the years. And it seemingly has no end.

What a stark, dark, tragic picture you've painted here. Very powerful!

Thank you so much. What a great literate intelligent bunch of readers you are! You got exactly what I was going for. I translated Josef's situation to the caretakers around her, because it would be similar for them.