Title: Sine iusititia, confusio. (Without order, Chaos)
Author: Thorne of Acre.
Pairings: Past Nick/Juliette. Eventual Nick/Renard.
Summary: Five years is a long time. A lot of changes can happen in five years. So will Nick be able to cope on waking up from a coma, after five years?
Warnings: Contains mentions of head injury, coma, and trauma. Also Minor character (Juliette) dies. So if the former might act as a trigger to you or if the latter puts you off, please don't read this.
Author's Note: This is a work in progress. Updates would be somewhat regular, hopefully. Feedback is always appreciated.
Sine iusititia, confusio
If the sky should mingle with the earth and the sea with the sky, the Sun and Erebus, light and shade, earth and heaven, then the four constituent elements of the universe would fight - hot and dry, cold and wet. All things would be finally confounded into the Chaos of old, when the world did not yet know the mind of God. When Queen Justice is absent in hiding, a similar confusion reigns in earthly things.
Prologue.
Day was approaching.
The sky was a soft orange, the first rays of the sun filtering through the clouds and driving the swirling fog away. It was still early, the morning crowd of commuters and cars not having invaded the streets yet, the city quiet and peaceful, as if waiting for something to happen, for its inhabitants to realize that another day had dawned and for life to restart itself.
But for the figure leaning against the glass walls on the 22nd floor of the hospital, the day seemed to hold no promise.
Renard was tired. Completely drained.
Running meetings with councils, human ones as captain through the day, and wesen ones as regnant at night, for the whole past week was taking its toll on the man.
That was why, after another gruelling seven hours of politics and diplomatic bullshit; he had chosen to retreat here, instead of going to his cold empty house.
To Nick's room.
His refuge. Sanctuary.
If he closed his eyes and really concentrated, he could feel the faint thrum of Nick's presence in his mind. An awareness which he had always considered a burden: to be able to feel the thoughts and pains of his all those he reigned over, which had conversely become such a necessity to him now.
A lifeline, grounding him to reality, for the past five years.
Five years, devoid of Nick's voice, his presence, his touch, his brief smile, his intelligent eyes.
It had been five long years since the blast, five years of watching Nick lay there, within reach, yet so very far away.
The initial months had been full of hope; he had spent almost all his free time in Nick's room, hoping, praying, wishing for him to wake up from the coma. After six months of sitting by his bedside, clutching his hand, jerking into alertness at the slightest hitch of breathe; the notion of his ever doing so had become a distant possibility.
After a year, it had almost faded away.
The doctors had wanted to pull the plug, to stop the machines and let him starve, die; after two years.
Renard had steeled his heart into signing the no objection letter. He had even almost done it.
Almost.
Until that night, the one before the day he would have given the doctors the go ahead to remove Nick from life support, Renard had sat and stared at Nick's sleeping face for several hours, committing it to memory, afraid he wouldn't be able to do so again.
That was when, mind consumed of thoughts and memories of the times they had spent together, Nick oblivious of who and what he was to Renard, yet enough for the older man, who was happy only to be near his soul mate, his companion, and want nothing more; that Renard had felt the pulse of Nick's presence in his mind.
It had been faint, barely present, fluttering weakly.
It had been the most beautiful thing Renard had felt in his entire life.
He had clung to it like a dying man clings to his last breathe, which Nick had technically speaking been to Renard.
His last chance at an actual life, real happiness.
Battling the insistent doctors had been difficult but he had pulled a lot of favours from a lot of people, and had managed to get Nick a small room right at the topmost floor of the hospital. He had paid for the facilities personally when the period of time of waiting had been officially over and the city had decided to halt the funds.
Hope had been a constant companion after that, the presence in his mind forming a solid foundation for it, but months had passed again. Nothing had happened.
No miraculous awakenings, no sudden realizations, nothing.
Now, five years later, Renard had almost given up. But still he couldn't bear the thought of letting Nick go. Of feeling the familiar presence slip away from his mind.
It was all he had left.
He came here always when the outside world became too hostile, too cold and empty to bear.
Just sitting beside the sleeping form, talking to him about things, telling him all that he had never told him when he was awake, wishing he had told him, apologizing to him over and over and over, until there were no more words, no more tears left; Renard felt just a little more alive after such meetings.
A little more like a person and a little less like a machine.
Not many things could make Sean Renard, Police Captain of Portland city, surrender and admit defeat. But five agonizing, tormenting, distressing years had. They had left him broken, desperate; a shell of the man he once was. Watching Nick always be so near to touch and still remain so out of reach, like some damned apple of Eden, Renard had almost completely given up on hope.
That was why Renard was not a little surprise when, on turning around to face the bed, he realized that the grey open eyes didn't have their usual blank expression in them.
~tbc.