The air stank with a clinical sterility that could only be found in hospitals. Above the silence of a room intended for people who simply haven't realized they're dead yet, the regular drip of an IV sounded every five seconds. As he watched the next drop of medicine condense, an acute feeling of dread rose within his chest – judging by the amount of fluid left in the plastic bag, his medically-induced auditory Chinese water torture wasn't going to end any time soon.

As if to confirm his unvoiced annoyances, two seconds later another sharp ping rang out. He managed to battle back his flinching reflex until it was nothing more than an unnaturally rapid blink. Another drop condensed as he counted down the seconds before it too fell, filling the void with unwanted noise.

Over and over again his response worsened until he was giving a full-bodied flinch every five seconds.

He had promised himself that he would remain by her side through the whole process, but this resolution didn't stop him from dreading each sharp sound rending the carefully constructed silence. Every time he jumped, his back grated against the coarse polyester of his chair, only intensifying the desire to be anywhere but in his current predicament.

Forcing his attention away from the painfully measured medicine administration process, he found his eyes tracing the worn grooves of her face. This change of attention did little to calm his already dangerously frazzled nerves, instead unraveling them all the more.

She had aged so rapidly in the past few months that he had to remind himself over and over again that yes, the husk of a woman lying in the bed was the same one who used to mutter to herself as she worked animatedly about the house. Yet while his eyes continued to confirm what he knew to be true, his psyche rallied against it.

The woman lying in the bed was a stranger; why was he still here, torturing himself for her sake?

Because he was clinging to hope; clinging to reminders; clinging to love.

Clinging to stupidity.

She may no longer have the capacity to remember, but he certainly did and it was those memories that brought him back time and time again. He would watch over her, he would protect her, because at this point it was all he could do. Her memory loss had robbed him of the chance to be anything beyond an odd man named Alvin who kept visiting her.

For now that would be enough, but someday…someday…

Responding to an impulse that he had long ago lost the ability to control, his fists tightened until his knuckles turned white. Someday – it was the singular word that kept him going and dragged him out of bed in the morning. Now his life might have been a living hell, but if he kept at it than surely someday…someday…

Someday what?

He could never quite grasp the end of that sentence.

"But I promise…"

He hadn't planned on speaking aloud, but hearing the unmistakable quaver in his own voice only made him tighten his knuckles more. There wasn't time to be weak; he had learned over the years that the world wouldn't allow for that.

"Alfred," A voice suddenly sounded from behind him, "The treatment is done. You can go home now."

Even though he knew who would be standing there, he still turned to look. The young woman stared at him, her face a mask of professional indifference. Despite himself, he had to smile at that – she was trying so hard to approach this whole situation like a good doctor should. He mentally gave her a few points for that one.

"Well I'm glad to hear that Doctor Isla. However, you know that I no longer go by the name of 'Alfred'. It's just plain ol' Alvin now."

"And I've insisted time and time again that you stop using my title of 'doctor'. I believe the two of us have known one another long enough to warrant that."

"Aw cut me some slack Doctor. I'm just showing you the proper respect for all those years you spent with your nose shoved into medical books. It would be downright shameful for me to refer to you without your title, especially in your own hospital."

"We both know that's not what you're doing at all."

And with that singular sentence any pretenses of amicability they were both presenting fell away. Alvin stood purposefully from his chair at the bed side and swiftly closed the gap between them. His height allowed him to tower over her, his shadow easily swallowing her thin frame; he narrowed his eyes, killing any remaining traces of good humor that may have been left. As expected, the look of confidence that had been creeping into her eyes was replaced with terror.

"Then what exactly is it that I'm doing…Doctor?"

"Y-You're," She began, her voice shaking as her terrified eyes locked with his own, "Mocking me. Making fun of me. T-Trying to get under my skin."

Well, he had to commend her for managing to find her voice even if her body was visibly shaking. It would seem that she had known him long enough that his baser intimidation tactics weren't quite enough anymore. He would have to up the ante.

Instead of responding, he let the silence linger as he held her gaze. The already chill atmosphere of the room turned icy the longer the two of them remained locked in their silent power struggle. A moment later, Isla averted her eyes and her entire body seemed to slump in on itself. Alvin couldn't stop a smile from twisting its way onto his lips as he backed away and returned to his position at the bedside, his mannerisms instantly swinging back into their usual easy gait.

"Now you're just spouting nonsense. I've got no reason to rile up the woman who holds so many lives in the palms of her hands. If anything doesn't it make more sense if I try to butter you up and get on your good side?"

This time it was the doctor's turn to make no response as she also made her way to the bedside and quickly tended to the removal of the IV. Alvin watched the process, carefully tracing her movements. Even though her body was still visibly shaking with an odd cocktail of dark emotions, her hands were sure and steady as she went about her work. On the surface, she was a doctor through and through.

When she left to dispose of the IV, Alvin stood once more and stared at the shrunken woman in the bed. Her face looked peaceful enough as she slept on blissfully unaware of the precarious silent struggle that had taken place in her room that night. Brought about by some long-buried emotion, a sigh managed to escape Alvin's lips. He gently took the withered hand of the woman into his own and gave it a reassuring squeeze, childishly hoping that somehow she would feel it and know that Alfred was still there for her.

"I'll come back soon mom, so just get some sleep for now, alright?"

The midnight train out of the city was unsurprisingly sparsely populated, the first car containing a gaggle of clearly inebriated teenagers and the second car containing a singular young couple with a child sleeping in the mother's arms. Under normal circumstances, he would have resigned himself to relative solitude, but tonight he needed to be completely alone. With this purpose driving his steps, he made his way into the third car and found it to be deserted.

It was only when he sat down in a window seat and rested his chin in his palm that his entire body began to shake violently; apparently his body was far more willing to own up to his nosocomephobia than his mind was. He allowed his eyes to close and willed his body to be still, forcing himself to concentrate on the slow lullaby of motion that was the train flying over the tracks.

Gradually his breathing slowed and the shaking stopped as he began to carefully seal away the myriad of dark memories that had been stirred up by his visit to the hospital. He mentally shoved each into the farthest confines of his mind, refusing to linger on any singular memory longer than necessary. The whole process took less than a handful of minutes – he had become skilled at this particular mental exercise after doing it an untold number of times – before everything was once more carefully locked away.

It was easy and painless.

Yes, easy and painless.

Until he reached his oldest memory of a hospital, the very one that had sparked his fear in the first place. His thoughts lingered for just a second too long and suddenly the memory exploded in his hands. He was six years old again as he peered at his mother tied to a series of machines that he had only ever seen used on television shows when someone was going to die. The image of his mother blurred precariously as he grasped at the starched linens of the hospital bed. His grip tightened as he used all the power in his six year old body to try to clamber into the bed.

He knew what was coming next; it was a memory so of course it always ended the same. In a moment there would be hands grabbing him and dragging him away as he screamed and cried to be returned to a woman that he was fully convinced was going to die and leave him forever. After that, he would be spun around to face-

BAM!

Despite himself, he jumped slightly at the unexpectedly sharp sound that reverberated through the previously silent train car. His eyes immediately turned to the door that connected car three with car four and just as he expected, he found the perpetrator staring guiltily at him, her face coloring bright red with shame. Above the otherwise silence of the train car, he could hear the blaring sound of some hyper-popular song bleeding from the headphones resting over her ears.

This just wasn't his day.

Oops.

She hadn't meant to slam the door open with enough force to wake the dead; sometimes she just forgot her own strength. Especially when she was excited and saying she was currently walking on cloud nine would have been putting it lightly. Of course, her spirits were dampened a bit by the angry glare the singular occupant of the train car gave her at her reminiscent-of-an-elephant entrance. For a moment her shame led her to consider turning around and running to another car, leaving the man to whatever he was doing before she showed up.

Until she remembered that she was riding public transportation and she could sit wherever she damn well pleased.

Confident in this knowledge, she gave a quick only half-way apologetic bow and smile to the disgruntled man in a business suit before flouncing over to her own window seat. As she turned her attention to the world flying by outside, she tried her best to prevent both her mind and attention from wandering to the bag she had flung onto the seat next to her. Yet despite her best efforts, her fingers kept playing with the zipper, causing it to chime over and over again; she could even hear it over the music currently being pumped into her ears by her MP3 player. Trying once more to fight off the impulse, she pushed the music to its maximum volume.

She had self-control…she had self-control…she had self-control…

…Looking just one more time wouldn't hurt, right?

"Of course it wouldn't!" She muttered excitedly to herself before turning her attention from the admittedly uninteresting scenery outside and practically ripping apart her bag to get at the contents inside. Within moments she held a stack of papers in her hands, the corners already bent and wearing from her constant man-handling. Excitement still driving her every action, she allowed the papers to fall into her lap as her eyes began to trace the letters typed at the top of the first page.

First Year Student Welcome Packet

She couldn't even make it past the first sentence without a huge grin breaking out onto her face and her legs swinging out happily, carelessly kicking the seat in front of her like the excitable child she was. However, she knew the best was yet to come as she allowed her eyes to wander from the top of the page to the bottom. He grin spread comically wide as she read aloud the three words that had been her goal for so long.

"Pre-Med Student Track."

The taste of the words on her tongue coupled with the knowledge that they were undeniably, one-hundred percent true only made her smile all the brighter. All the hard work she had put into this point was worth it for this singular packet of papers.

And now, he would…

She couldn't even bring herself to finish the thought as she hugged the papers to her chest and hummed tunelessly along with the sugary pop song playing in her ears.

"Agria! Agria! Agria!" She called excitedly as she burst through the apartment door, ran into her friend's bedroom and began excitedly jumping on her bed. All the while she kept making a series of noises that were somewhere between a giddy school girl and a screeching monkey.

"What the hell is wrong with you Leia?" sounded the disgruntled but clearly awake voice of Agria as she turned to look at the lunatic that had suddenly entered her room, "Shouldn't you be bothering someone who actually cares?"

"You know that you care, don't even pretend. Besides, I have awesome news that I just have to share!"

"Let me guess – you went to your first day of orientation today and it went just so sparkly sparkle spectacular."

"Yeah, it was really awesome! But…how did you know that?"

"Because you haven't been able to shut up about how excited you are since the first day you moved in. Now quit jumping on my bed, you're making me sick!"

As she spoke, Agria gave Leia a too powerful to be playful shove off the bed. For a precarious moment, Leia pin-wheeled her arms, trying to regain her suddenly lost balance. Luckily for her, years of martial arts training kicked in and a moment later she was once more standing assuredly on the bed, a confident grin crossing her features. Of course her smile immediately withered as Agria chose that very moment to steal the packet of papers from her hands.

"Hey, what are you doing!?" Leia squawked as she made a swipe for the stolen goods and nearly toppled onto Agria, "You can't just take things without permission!"

"What's so great about these itty-bitty pieces of paper? I could tear the thing in two in one second!" Agria said as she flipped through the pages, her less than high opinion of Leia's excitement clearly written across her face.

"Don't you dare!" Leia responded as she swiped the proof of her hard work back, "Besides it's not the papers themselves that are the important part. What's important is what they represent!"

"Ah yes, your opportunity to stay at Judykins' side for the rest of your life. Oooh and maybe if you're lucky your life will suddenly become like a cliché medical drama and the good doctor will sweep his head-nurse off her feet and they'll ride into the sunset together on a white steed right the hell out of nowhere."

"Y-You know that's not it! They represent my chance to finally become a nurse, something we both know I've been dreaming of since childhood."

"So you have absolutely no intention of taking up Dr. Mathis' on his offer to be a nurse at his clinic once you graduate?"

"W-Well if he's offering I'm not going to say no. Besides, it would be a great opportunity for me to repay him for how he's helped me and cared for me all these years."

"And I'm sure the fact that Judykin's is graduating soon and has made it clear that he intends to go back to work at his father's clinic has nooooo impact on your decision."

"Of course not!"

But even Leia could tell that she had answered the question a little too quickly and a little too vehemently for it to reflect any sort of truth. She watched as Agria's smile reached wicked proportions; she didn't even have to vocally mock Leia – that damn smile spoke louder than words ever would. Leia felt her cheeks coloring with embarrassment as she tried vainly to battle away the image of her childhood friend Jude that was suddenly stubbornly dominating her every thought.

"Get off my bed," Agria said before she flopped back into a lying position and turned her back on Leia, clearly indicating that this was the end of their conversation, "You're infecting it with your disgustingly lovey-dovey stench."

"Yeah, yeah, sorry."

As she spoke, Leia climbed down from the bed and headed towards the door, her steps noticeably more deflated than before. She tried to battle back Agria's words by clinging tighter to the papers in her hand, but the sides only cut into her skin, making her palms sting.

"By the way, you have to clean my blankets tomorrow."

"Huh?" Leia responded to the unexpected sound of Agria's voice, "Why's that?"

"Because you're an idiot who doesn't even bother to take off her shoes before coming in here and pouncing on my bed."

Confusedly, Leia looked down at her feet and found to her surprise that she was still wearing her shoes. Apparently in her excitement she had forgotten to take them off at the door. A small smile broke out onto her face as she bent down and took them off far later than propriety dictated.

"Fine," She said as she righted herself with her shoes in hand, "But I'm going to use the floral tropical detergent that you just love oh so much."

Leia didn't wait around to hear Agria's reaction to that, although she was pretty sure it was somewhere along the lines of 'like hell you will!' with perhaps a bit of 'not if you want to keep living!' thrown in for good measure. A giggle escaped Leia's lips as she ran into her own bedroom and locked the door behind her – it was better not to tempt the fates by giving Agria an opportunity for revenge. Confident that a lock would be good enough to hold her friend back, she made her way to bed, flopping down without even bothering to change into pajamas.

For several seconds, she simply stared at the blank ceiling above her and listened to the unfamiliar sounds that she still couldn't quite bring herself to get used to. True she had only been living in Agria's apartment for about a week at this point, but she had thought that the sounds might have started transitioning from frightening noises in the night to comforting music of home. Instead, the longer she stared at the unnaturally blank ceiling, the more she found herself longing for the familiar.

Her mind began to play a game of opposites, comparing everything she was experiencing now to everything she knew was back at home for her. The busy bustle of living next to the train station contrasted with the quite of sparsely populated suburbia; the whine of air conditioning contrasted to the tireless whirring of a box fan because her home still lacked proper air conditioning; the blank ceiling contrasted to her bedroom at home where both her ceilings and walls were covered with a series of painted stars and swirls. The longer she lingered on these differences, the more her smile withered until she was left with nothing but a bitter frown.

For the first time, she felt the ache of homesickness. It crashed over her like a shockingly cold wave and for a moment she couldn't breathe as the memory swallowed her whole. She grappled desperately for something, anything, to bring her back to reality. A gasp escaped her lips as pain bit into her palms, her eyes snapping open in response.

It was her acceptance packet.

For a moment, Jude's face flashed behind her eyes. He was smiling as he gave her a brief and awkward hug before he boarded the train that would lead him thousands of miles away from her to study medicine in the city. Most likely he still didn't know that she nearly broke down sobbing as she watched the train depart the station. It had been nearly three years since that day and in those two years she had not spoken to him once. She made attempts, but he never bothered to respond to her; even during summer vacations he chose to stay in the city pursing one internship or another.

If she was being completely honest, Leia would have to admit that she was far lonelier now that she was living in Agria's apartment even though, geographically speaking, she was far closer to Jude.

"No," She mumbled aloud in an attempt to psyche herself up, "I can't give up. I promised myself that I won't go back home until I'm a nurse. I can't give up before I've even started!"

For years now, she had been waiting, planning, and anticipating this moment. She had imagined this playing out so many ways but none of her playacting was able to measure up to even half of how fantastic it had actually been.

This. This was it.

This was the beginning of the beautiful dream.

Nodding her head resolutely, she opened the packet and began to read it for what must have been the thousandth time in that day alone, mouthing the words as her eyes scanned the page. By the time she reached the section detailing meal plans, her eyes were beginning to droop with long-overdue sleep; by the time she reached the section detailing the class registration process, her eyes slid close and she rolled onto her side. By the time her lips began to form the already memorized words detailing academic advisers, she finally lost the last shreds of her consciousness.

Even in sleep, her hands and heart continued to cling to the proof that she had finally, finally made it.