Who Will Save the Hero Now?

         At the door to a room in a private hospital, stood a woman looking into it. In the room was an unconscious, heavily-bandaged man on his deathbed. Deciding to be there for the savior of their damaged planet, she came in. As she got closer, the man's unsteady breathing was drowned out by the heart rate monitor. Sweat constantly poured out of his pores, a sign of his constant fight against whatever ailed him. The sight of the man sickened her, not because she hated him, but because it pained her to see the hero of the entire planet dying alone in an unknown hospital. The woman sat down in the chair beside the bed intent on being there for the man's final moments. She stayed for a few minutes, just taking in the sight of the man on the bed. She desperately hoped that he would get better, but she knew it was nothing but a wish, one that was futile. The silence was deafening to the woman so she decided to fill it.
         "Earth has definitely seen better days, hasn't it Doctor? To think that we have destroyed our own planet so much. But you were always there to save it from itself. There will be generations because of you."
         "You know, Doctor... In the short time I've known you, you have brought forth miracle upon miracle that I had never thought possible. I have seen those you have helped, the joy on their faces. Those that live, they get to see their family, their friends. But you don't have that privilege, it was stripped from you before you could save yourself. They live on because you have given what little time you had left to save them." Whispered the woman, a tear falling down her cheek.
         "It has always been a doctor's job to heal, and to nurture back to health those who come in wounded. It was you, it was always you who did this. You did what no one else could, in a time everyone needed it. You had the personal strength, and courage, to come forth and share your gift with a world that desperately needed help."
         "In the short time I've been here I've learned that, more often than not, it is in the fleeting moments where a simple act of kindness gains the power to become something truly timeless. When you bandaged a crying Nigerian child after seeing their village razed. When you held tight the one person who had never felt warmth. When you clasped the hand of a paralytic who could no longer even feel your touch. Those deeds... those deeds made you the hero you are today, the one all look up to. The difference between a normal doctor and you has always been the warmth you carry within your heart. And no one, not a single person among us, knows how we can ever repay you for such kindness."
         "I saw you, you did those things, not because it was what they needed right then and there, but because it was what they needed to remember to have hope for the future. The safety of returning home. The comfort of companionship one last time. The recognition of self worth in this frozen, heartless, and cruel world."
         "You have given so much and asked for so little. They all ask the same thing, 'Where is the doctor?'. Time and time again they have asked and you have answered. You were always there to save a life when others would have called it a suicide mission. But they have never asked 'How is the doctor?' have they? It is a question I have never asked either, have I. I never got to tell you how thankful I was. You breathed life into my otherwise lifeless body. Because of you I can stand, I can walk, I can actually see my mother again, I can hold her hand." The woman starts crying as she says this, gasping for breath between her tears.
         "Doctor, I know you cannot hear me... I know you cannot see me... but I hope, in this fleeting moment, that I can do something for you that will last a lifetime." Said the woman, before leaning in and giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek.