April 5, 1994

Three messages.

One from Krist, one from Dave, and one from Patty.

Each one contained something different, — some discrepancies in detail or sentiment, — but all of them worked together to send me into a panic.

The first one was Krist's. His voice was choked as he delivered the first blow, thick with tears. "Anastasia," he said, "you've gotta get over to Virginia Mason. It's Kurt... Something awful's happened."

The second one was Patty's. She wasn't anywhere near as audibly hysterical as Krist had been, — in fact, she sounded more bewildered than anything else. "Hey," she started. "I'm on my way to the hospital. Eric told me Kurt's there? Said something about smack... something else about a gun..."

The final one came from Dave. To my surprise, his was the calmest, — his usual excited speech had been slowed, coming out flat and oddly emotionless. "Hey, Ana. Just wanted to let you know that I'm over here at Virginia Mason Medical... I'm saving you a seat in the waiting room. Get back to me when you can."

With the end of that message, the automated system informed me that I had no more voicemails. I didn't even bother to return the phone to its holder before reaching for my coat and shoes. Pulling my keys from my pocket, I rushed to close and lock the door before racing down the stairs, not even considering the elevator.

As I raced down those steep steps, I could hear my blood rushing in my ears. Almost automatically, I found myself sending out prayers to something that I had never previously thought to exist.

Please, God, I thought as I struggled not to trip over my own feet. Please, please, please don't let him be dead.

I reached the bottom of the last flight of stairs and rushed out the door. The humid air threatened to smother me as I gulped greedy mouthfuls of it, unlocking my car with shaking hands.

As soon as I managed to do so, I flung the driver side door open, tearing out of the apartment complex parking lot without bothering to buckle my seatbelt.

On autopilot, I managed to follow the roads to Virginia Mason Hospital, despite the fact that I hadn't had any need to go there in well over a year.

All the while, thoughts rushed through my mind with the all-consuming ferocity of a hurricane.

None of it made any sense, and I didn't want it to. One thought in particular repeated like a broken record.

I saw him last week, I thought to myself, and he was fine.

Well, maybe not quite fine. But he had seemed better than he had the previous few times, somewhat close to clear-headed. Coherent enough to make plans, dropping hints at what might happen in the near future...

I swallowed hard, tightening both hands around the steering wheel.

I shouldn't have believed him, shouldn't have gone back to trusting him so blindly.

Hell, he had done a series of terribly stupid things over the course of the past few months, — warning signs, as was becoming apparent.

Escaping rehab. Pushing away most of the people who cared about him. Buying a gun.

My stomach dropped at that thought.

Oh, fuck.

The gun.

I tried to keep my breathing steady, maintaining my death grip on the wheel as I made a too-sharp turn.

Patty had said something about a gun. I struggled to remember if she had said anything specific, but nothing came to me.

I found it even harder to breathe as a frightening possibility occurred to me: she might not have even known.

I swallowed hard, desperately attempting to ward away any threat of tears or vomit.

For a moment, I tried to reason with myself, — this whole thing could just be some majorly fucked-up game of telephone. Maybe things weren't really as dire as they seemed, — some things might have gotten twisted along the way.

Maybe his stomach was getting to him again, and everyone was assuming the worst. Maybe it was all a false alarm, a godawful joke.

No, some voice in the back of my mind said. It's all too real. You should have seen this coming, Anastasia. Why didn't you see it coming?

I tried to push all thoughts out of my head as the hospital came into the view through the fog.

I pulled into the parking lot, making my way into the closest open spot that I could find.

I parked hastily, jerked the keys from the ignition, and threw the door open once again, stepping back out into the rain.

The automatic doors opened. The lobby greeted with me with lukewarm air and an odor that smelled clean and stale all at once, some sickening mixture of chicken soup and cleaning fluids.

The older woman stationed behind the front desk lifted her head as I staggered to a halt in front of her. She raised her eyebrows, eyeing me appraisingly. "May I help you?"

"I'm here to see..." I stopped myself quickly, remembering who I was talking about.

He wasn't just any other patient, one of several hundred nobodies.

He wasn't just a friend, father, lover, as so many of the other people languishing in those crisp white beds might have been.

He was somebody, just like I had always figured he wanted to be. The name that I was about to speak was likely in the mouth of a million other people, — people he'd never met, who felt like they knew him all the same.

I lowered my voice as I finished the sentence, leaning closer to the woman. "Kurt Cobain."

The women's brow lowered as the rest of her face dropped. She eyed me coldly, as though I were wasting her time, and she was waiting for me to say 'sike.'

When I didn't recant my statement, she opened her mouth again, letting her dismay slip into he space between us. "You have got to be kidding me."

I shook my head, shaking droplets of water from my hair onto the desk. "I promise you, I'm not," I insisted. "I'm Anastasia Truehart. His phot—" Once again, I stopped myself mid-sentence.

Kurt's photographer. That's how I'd introduced myself for years.

But I was more than that. Here, in the lobby of the hospital that he might've been dying in, I figured I had nothing to lose in saying as much.

"Kurt's very close friend," I corrected myself.

The woman continued frowning up at me. Clearly, she wasn't buying it.

"Could you prove that to me?" she asked. "Well, even if you could, it wouldn't matter. I can't disclose patient information to anyone but family, ma'am. Especially on the rare occasion that the patient is a public figure. Christ almighty, you fanatics will stop at absolutely nothing, will you?"

Heat rushed to my face as my mouth fell open. I wanted to inform her that I was not a fanatic of any sort, and, even if I wasn't technically family,  I was close enough to it.

What else would you call someone who had tried desperately to help another person battle his demons?

Someone who was there for every bump in the road he had experienced over the past four years?

Someone who held his baby daughter when he wasn't even allowed to, vowing to protect her even if he couldn't?

Someone who had known every version of him, — the artist, the friend, the father, the humanly flawed man? 

Of course, it wasn't like those words would change her mind. But if she was the only one there to hear them, I had to put them out there now. Before he was gone.

As it would turn out, I didn't have to.

"Anastasia?"

I turned around at the sound of the hoarse but familiar voice, feeling some of the tension dissipate as I took in the towering figure beside me.

Krist clapped a large hand over my shoulder, nodding at the receptionist. "Excuse my sister," he said politely. "I had been looking for her."

The woman gave a noncommittal hum, still fixing me with a suspicious glare. In spite of this, Krist steered me away from the desk, towards the elevator.

He pressed the button, allowing the machine to open for us with a flat chime. Silently, I followed him inside.

Krist punched in a floor number, and I felt the familiar flip of my stomach as we began to rise towards the next level.

We waited wordlessly for the most part as we bypassed several floors. Just before the door opened, however, he offered me one tidbit of information.

"He's in the ICU," he said. "Dave just got there about thirty minutes ago. As soon as I saw him, he told me to go wait for you."

His last words shocked me. "I... I, um, didn't tell him I was coming," I stammered.

He shook his head. "Doesn't matter," he replied. "He knew you'd be here. We know you, Anastasia."

I swallowed the building lump in my throat, nodding.

The doors reopened with a whoosh, greeting us with cold air and the sight of blinding white walls. Unlike the lobby, the smell of the intensive care unit was completely chemical, — strong enough to churn the stomach on its own, but even more so when you considered just what that smell might be concealing.

I followed Krist off the elevator, trying desperately to keep my footing. With every step I took, I was more and more tempted to just crumble to my knees, too afraid of what might await me to even attempt facing it.

Krist led me to a row of plastic blue chairs, their backs pushed up against the wall. Several people sat on them, most with their heads down.

As soon as we stopped, however, one of those heads shot up.

I watched as Dave rose to his feet, pulling the hood of his jacket off from over his head. Cautiously, he stepped towards me, as if he were approaching a wounded animal.

As his dark eyes met mine, he offered me the weakest smile I had ever seen from him, all too insincere. "Hey," he said quietly.

Rather than greeting him in return, I found myself falling forward, throwing my arms around him as I choked on a sob. He caught me, arms wrapping around my waist.

"Ana," he murmured to me. "Hey, Anastasia. It's okay. We're all here together."

I pulled away, sniffing as my gaze meet his. Before I could even consider what they meant, a barrage of words slipped from my mouth, — endless inquiries that barely even made sense to me.

"Patty," I started. "Patty called me, —is she here? Courtney... is she on a plane back? Donald, Wendy... Frances! Who has Frances?"

"Ana, listen to me." Dave's hands slid from my back to my shoulders, which he held onto tightly. "Patty called me, too. She's at Kurt and Courtney's place. As for Courtney... Well, no one I've talked to has heard from her, so, as far I know, she's not even in Washington. And don't worry, — Wendy still has the baby. Patty told me that she and Frances were on their way over there... and I might take you that way if you ever calm down."

I shook my head, struggling to register his response. "Kurt and Courtney's?" I asked. "Wasn't he there when... Aren't the cops there? Did he..." A flash of metal appeared in my mind, stopping me cold.

"The gun," I gasped. "Oh, shit, Dave, — the gun! What did Kurt do with the gun?"

"Anastasia!" Before I knew it, Dave wasn't holding onto me anymore. Krist had my back pressed against his chest, holding me still as Dave looked on helplessly. He leaned down, muttering into my ear.

"Be quiet," he told me, traces of tears still in his voice. "They're gonna call security on us if we aren't careful. Besides, we aren't the best people to be making a scene. Understand?"

I nodded. With that, he released me.

Dave took another step forward, taking my hand. "Why don't you sit down?" he asked gently. "I'll tell you everything I know, alright?"

I nodded again. Dave helped me lower myself into one of the blue chairs before taking a seat beside me.

"There." He took my hand once more, before tipping his chin up at Krist. "Wanna go get her some water?"

Krist nodded before sauntering off.

Dave turned to look at me. "Right." He cleared his throat before lowering his voice. "Ana, Kurt didn't do anything with that gun. It was there, — which scared the shit out of everybody, — but they didn't find anything... on him."

I blinked. "You mean... he didn't shoot?"

Dave shook his head. "Nope. No wound." He paused, seeming to consider something. He opened his mouth again.

"Of course, that doesn't mean he wasn't planning anything. Just seems like the drugs got to him before he could go through with any plans he might have had."

My blood ran cold again. "The drugs," I echoed. "Heroin, right? He overdosed?"

"Yeah." Dave sighed, squeezing my hand as his eyes moved towards the floor. "Yeah, he did."

"But he's going to be okay, right?" The words were just slipping from my mouth now, — meaningless word vomit. "They found him in time..."

Dave's eyes lifted back towards me. "He's in critical condition, Anastasia. That's all I know."

"Oh." The tears welled back up in my eyes. "Of course," I choked out.

Dave's expression softened as he released my hand. "Don't cry, Ana," he said softly. "We don't really know anything. These things can turn on a dime."

I wiped at my eyes, breathing faltering. "Yeah," I agreed. "That's the scary thing, isn't it?"

Without another word, Dave threw an arm around my shoulders, pulling me back towards him as my tears began flowing freely.

Around this time, Krist returned with a small paper cup full of water. With a sigh, he settled into the open seat on my other side, abandoning the cup on the linoleum as he returned his hand to my shoulder.

And so I sat in silence in that hospital waiting room, the cold seeping into my bones despite the warmth of two of my closest friends on either side of me.

I closed my eyes, trying desperately to escape to somewhere else, — anywhere but this fucking nightmare of a place.

That's how I ended up back at the very beginning.