Today was her Last Sunrise. Steven's mother did not have long to live. When he had first heard Amanda speak her wish, he had offered to ask the nurse about moving the bed closer to the window. Amanda had laughed weakly and squeezed his hand through her pain. Steven now understood it was a phrase from a book – some type of existential vampire romance novel Joey had lent her – that described that one last thing you wished to do. Today they were going to the movies.

Steven felt the limo slow. He flipped his headphones to his neck, thumbed down the volume on the Discman and looked through the tinted glass to the brownstones and the trees that grew from tiny plots of earth in the concrete landscape. The hospice was along a street of residential and commercial buildings, not far from St. Vincent's. Steven glanced to the front and gave a nod to the chauffeur. When the door was opened, Steven stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Steven climbed the few steps into the building and entered the lobby. He walked over the carpeted runner, went directly to the counter and lifted the pen to sign in, just glancing at the attendant, who admitted him with a slight tip of her head toward the main corridor. Steven went to the men's room in the hall. It was large; designed to be fully wheelchair accessible. He stood over a sink and glanced at himself in the mirror. His hair was getting too long for his liking; he needed to decide on a new style and go in for a cut.

Steven pulled a travel size bottle of mouthwash from the pocket of his white windbreaker then rinsed, gargled and spit in the sink. He returned the bottle to his pocket and then scrubbed up, washing nearly to his elbows. Steven operated the door with his sleeve and went back into the corridor.

As he approached Amanda's room, Steven heard Jim Morrison's voice wafting from the room across the hall, above the Queen still faintly playing from the headphones about his neck. He turned to the left, toward the music, and called out as he walked through the open doorway, "The Crystal Ship. You like The Doors, too, Joey?"

Steven saw, as soon as he stepped inside, that Joey was not alone. He had seen visitors come and go from Joey's room in previous visits, but never this one. The kid was standing with his back to Joey, facing the wall, so that even as Steven noticed him, he saw him clearly in profile. The young man's fingertips wiped tears from his eyes.

Steven made some awkward wordless sound and gestured into the hallway, meaning to go. The loud rapping of plastic on laminate drew his attention to the bed. Joey was there, drinking cup held over the surface of the roll-away table; he looked about the same as the last time Steven had seen him. Today he was wearing a paper mask loosely tied over his nose and mouth, presumably to filter the air. The plastic oxygen mask was hanging unused on the far bed-rail.

"He probably means you don't have to leave," the young man said. He straightened and tossed his head, back still to Joey. "He's got pneumonia, again! He's not supposed to talk, much less strain himself to yell at people!" His tone had sharpened, but the volume of his voice remained quiet.

Steven relaxed, slightly, and saw Joey glare at the boy. The fevered flesh about his eyes and the lesions on his cheek and temple had the effect of making his appear intensely green, in contrast, and almost supernatural. Joey dropped the cup quietly to the table, used his other hand to press stop on the small, red radio/cassette boom box and then sank heavily into his bed. Whatever had happened, before Steven's arrival, had weakened him, or else it was just the continuing effects of opportunistic disease.

Freddie Mercury's tinny, headphone-reproduced voice was suddenly clearly audible: There's no time for us...

Steven fumbled with the Discman in his jacket and pressed stop. "I'm taking Mom to the movies today."

"Daniel," Joey rasped, "Steven."

The boy, Daniel, turned about to look at Joey and then turned again. Steven extended his hand automatically, and was then startled; thinking that he had not realized, before, the boy was such a striking example of a human being. When Daniel took his hand to shake it, Steven felt a painful discharge of static electricity.

"I got a shock," Daniel said, withdrawing his hand as quickly as Steven.

"Maybe it was the carpet," Steven said, looking down at the tile.

"Like he said. I'm Daniel." Steven looked up again and saw Daniel was smiling at him. He looked cool, with choppy, pale hair; a little gel and gloss and he could be the new member of Duran Duran.

"Steven. Steven Jewel. My Mother, Amanda, is across the hall. She and Joey have been in the same support group since they came here." Steven turned his head to Joey. He seemed to have been watching their exchange intently. "Last two left from that time?"

Joey nodded.

"How can you sound like that? So accepting? Just normal?"

Steven was only aware of the acceptance Daniel questioned because others had brought attention to it before. Steven never saw his own feelings or behavior as unusual, but he knew that he frequently received invitations to speak at various charitable or activist events. He was neither an emotional basket case nor an extreme militant and people seemed to think this meant he could persuade others to help their cause.

Steven took a deep breath and tried to smile as he answered Daniel, "By the time you are arranging for hospice care, you pretty much know there won't be a cure, not for them. I certainly went through expressing denial and anger, but it did not help my mother, or anyone. The best I can do for her is arranging treatment and making her last days comfortable. Otherwise, I can do what I can to keep others from suffering the same." Steven glanced to Joey, "I'll probably still cry like a baby, when it happens."

Joey laughed, though it really did not sound healthy; Steven could hear the fluid in his chest. "Man, this sucks," he wheezed.

"You still say it is cruel?" Daniel asked, leaning across the roll-away. It seemed to Steven this must be continuation of their conversation before he arrived. "To ease my pain? To offer me comfort by telling me things will get better? That we can find a new medicine, do research, or something?"

Steven saw Joey glare at Daniel again: eyes green and harsh. He was angry. "The difference–!" Joey broke off, gasping for breath and reached quickly for the mask hanging on the bed-rail. Steven went quickly to the far side of the bed and checked the line and oxygen supply.

Daniel reached out to help Joey fit the mask, but Joey pushed Daniel's hands from his face with his left hand, as he fit the mask himself with the right. The oxygen was flowing to the mask and Steven listened to Joey struggle to breathe. Joey extended the fingers of his left hand toward Daniel. Steven watched as Daniel's brow furrowed, then, after several seconds, Daniel grasped Joey's hand and held it.

Steven stooped just slightly and looked Joey in the eyes. "Can you signal me what level pain you feel and if you want the nurse?"

Joey held up his right hand. Five. Plus two. So, seven. They used a scale from zero to ten here.

"Nurse?"

Joey shook his head a bit. He closed his eyes. Steven could still hear his rasping breaths.

"There is someone who tells you everything will be OK? That Joey can get better? That we'll find a cure?"

Daniel did not answer immediately. Steven noticed, as Daniel leaned over the roll-away, that the name-patch on his Army shirt read Ripley; it must have been Joey's shirt, originally. "I don't want him to go," Daniel whispered.

"Joey's dying," Steven said softly. "I'm sure he can hear us and will make some signal to correct me, if I am wrong." Steven touched Joey's brow. He felt hot and there was only a short fuzz of hair on his head. Steven had seen old photos; Joey's hair had been quite long before the illness and treatments. He'd probably been sick of hearing people call him Hippie. "I think he wants you to know that the difference between the comforting words provided in a hospice and the comforting words someone has been telling you is that anyone telling you that Joey is going to get better is lying to at least one person."

"It's cruel!"

"I think, and maybe Joey thinks the same, that it is even crueler to give you false hope. Daniel, he is dying. Joey wants us – everyone – to keep searching for a cure, but he knows it will all be too late for him. It is too late. Joey is at peace with death, but it does not seem he is at peace with you living on misled and full of false hope."

"He says it's cruel to give me this false comfort, but this hurts more."

"But later, the other way would hurt at least as much, probably more."

"I don't want him to go," Daniel said again, weeping as he held Joey's hand. "It's not fair!"

"But, that is the way it is, and nothing short of miracle can help them now."

"I'll pray!" Daniel insisted. "Then I'll pray!"

Steven folded his arms against his chest and looked away, toward the door. Praying was the one thing he had not been able to do, when his mother had need. Oh, he had tried; said the words aloud. Steven could just not bring himself to feel any actual faith that there was a power there to hear, or that any such power would help his mother because he called upon it. He had wanted to be able to do it, for her, but his parents had not instilled much religious faith in him. Now, he felt, in this respect, it was too late for him.

Steven wasn't even sure there was a Devil, and many people who didn't have much fear of God did seem to believe in a Devil.

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Edit 3/19/2016 I split some scenes into separate chapters and added additional media for the soundtrack. I plan on adding some more scenes when I write them.