Notes: Er, I apologize for the ellipse abuse in the quotes here. I took it pretty much straight from the game and they use a whole lot of them in the text.

Disclaimer: Trauma Center, its characters, and everything else it encompasses do not belong to me.

Redemption

His English wasn't strong, but he had a passing grasp. Heather was a good teacher.

He'd learned special phrases for if he was ever out and alone, even though nobody—not Emilio and Heather, not the rest of the world—expected that nor wanted it just yet. "Where is the bathroom?" and "My name is Emilio Juarez" and "I do not speak English well": those were things he learned with Heather.

And then there were other things, words and phrases from when he'd been in the hands of Delphi. He hadn't asked Heather what they meant until they'd been close for months, and even then she hesitated; but she translated them, because he insisted on knowing.

"You are the first of mankind's sins."

"Man created swords to kill, and was in turn killed by swords."

"Kyriaki, the invisible blades."

"There is no redemption for mankind's sins but disease."

For the most part, Emilio didn't believe those words. Delphi had raised him, but it hadn't held him so completely that he took on their ideals. It was all delusion, mad beliefs they thought justified the pain they caused others. None of it was true.

Still, the English echoed in his head as Emilio fell asleep at night to dream of suffering and anguish, in himself and the other children marked as sinners and all the faceless others he knew had also been hurt by GUILT.

That was when the man and woman came in: worried, but kind. Benevolent. They stood over him and the sensations faded, in himself and in others. Instead of causing suffering, they healed it. From the first time he slept after the rescue he saw them and knew they battled against everything Delphi stood for.

For a long time he wasn't sure if they were real or not, and he said nothing to them to Heather. They were one of his few secrets from her, something Emilio wasn't sure he could tell yet. Until he was seventeen, the man and the woman existed only in his dreams.

Then he met Doctor Stiles and Angie Thompson, and immediately he knew them from his dreams.

"…Heather, I've met these people before…They both appear in the nightmare I always have…But, in my dream, they're very kind…They save me from my suffering…"

For once he was able to put names to the faces, and he was thankful. And those same people were going to help him again now. He still needed a donor, but he had hope.

"There is no redemption for mankind's sins but disease," whispered a voice in his dreams, but Emilio hoped and held onto his hope until the news of a donor finally arrived.

Doctor Stiles and his nurse had saved him again.

Returning to Elysium had been a welcome rest after the past weeks. It was entirely too little time before he once again felt the same pains still familiar to him three years later.

"Kyriaki, the invisible blades."

Heather was affected too, he saw, and that stabbed into his heart more than the disease in his body.

I am myself, he tried to tell himself amidst the pain. I will take this disease if it means Heather will not.

"H-Heather…Treat first…Treat her…before me…! I…had GUILT…already. I have...'antibody.' Heather…say so… Doctor…hurry! Heather…operate first! Help…Heather…Doctor!"

Heather. Heather was like a sister. I do not want her to die, he repeated over and over through the pain. No matter what my own fate is, I do not want Heather to suffer like this.

He could see the doctor operating on Heather. Good.

The pain was increasing. More. More.

Heather was safe, he heard. Emilio was in the doctor's hands now.

Everything hurt. The pain was unbearable.

"Man created swords to kill, and was in turn killed by swords."

Would he live? Would he die?

It didn't seem to matter as much now that Heather was safe.

"You are the first of mankind's sins."

Emilio had his own sin, one thrust upon him for as long as he could remember. The "invisible blades" within him before his rescue had caused pain and suffering to many people. Too many. No matter the reason he had helped to bring about that suffering, and that was his sin.

He wanted to live. To see Heather alive and well; to thank Doctor Stiles and Nurse Thompson again; to simply live in defiance of the past.

But if he should die, maybe that would help to dull the invisible blades even just a little bit. And that was the best redemption he could ask for.