Warnings: hospital, angst, different chapter lengths, can be quite depressing.

Additional information: Based on my real life and worries. I don't know anyone with the disease that Lukas has, but I have known quite a few people who died in hospital wards - and quite a few people who survived. All the things that Mathias tells Lukas are true.


For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah, 29:11


1:1

"...Huh?"

It wasn't even a whisper - more of a wheeze. Lukas could barely feel his own limbs, and the head felt dizzy and heavy. Completely empty too. There was not a single thought...

The smell. It hit him in a few seconds - resin and old chemicals, plastic bags and... marble?

Slowly, very slowly, it was coming back to him. The world seemed to gain colour again. It was all white and seafoam green now, with muted silvery highlights of bed frames.

"B-bed." Lukas voiced out, desperately trying to put his thoughts in order, his voice still nothing more than unsteady, quiet whisper. "Bett. S-smell. Drugs… Drugstore… S-seafoam gre...green."

Hopeless. Lukas never was the one to say a thing out loud, but now, all he wanted was to hear his voice as he knew it, emotionless and steady, sorting out the facts. He wasn't expecting the raspy and weird mixture of sounds, almost if someone had a hand over his throat, choking him every time he tried to force out a single word. Or his brain, maybe. Maybe it was all in his brain, and everything inside was broken, and it was the reason he couldn't breathe and felt like falling out of it again, and the reason he was floating deep in the sea of green without a submarine to get him back to surface…

"Mister Thomassen, have you woken up?"

The female voice wasn't loud or deep, but it hit Lukas like a wave, urging him to do something - so he did. He closed his eyes. Opened them again. Shuffled around a bit, carefully placing himself. Slowly creeped one of his hands up to the edge of the thin blanket covering him - and finally peeled the thin fabric down.

There she was - formerly a shadow on the fabric separating him from the world, now a young light-haired woman staring him right in the eye. She was sort of... blurry.

"So you have. Can you speak?"

In sharp, surprisingly easy movements, Lukas turned his head right. Then left. Then right again. The back of his neck hurt slightly.

"Oh. I see. Must be the anaesthetic. But don't worry, I'm sure you'll be able to freely speak again in a minute, I'll ask you some questions and you answer them when the medicine wears off, hmm? I'm Doctor Faroe, nice to meet you, Mister Thomassen… is it okay if I call you Lukas? Just nod."

Lukas nodded.

"Great! Then, um, do you remember anything that happened to you? What's the last thing you remember?"

To be completely honest, Lukas couldn't remember anything in particular. But he still tried to concentrate. Still, the last thing he recalled seemed to be completely unrelated to him lying in the hospital ward.

"...Going… to school. With my brother. Emil."

Dr. Faeroe breathed in sharply, then sighed. Her eyes, large and blue with a greenish tint - very pretty, Lukas couldn't help but notice - peered at his face with compassion and guilt. "Yes, you were going to school. But… I'm sorry, Lukas… then you were hit by a car."

Lukas gasped involuntarily. Surely… it was nothing too bad…

"Don't worry. It doesn't seem like you have any serious injuries. You have sprained some of your muscles, particularly in both of your legs, but we have already fixed that. You are actually quite lucky, to come out from an accident like that practically unscathed."

"So… I'm going home soon?"

"No. I'm sorry, Lukas… It's highly probable you're not going home anytime soon. I have some very, very bad news for you."

The boy felt all the air in his lungs jump out. He whispered, to nobody in particular,

"...What?"

"Lukas, it seems that during the crash, the stress you experienced activated a strange genetic disorder that affects your nervous system and hematopoiesis. We're not quite sure what it is, but it's almost certain you have it, and according to your blood tests and a bone marrow sample… Lukas, we've diagnosed a heavy form of aplastic anemia."

"Aplastic anemia?"

"It is a terrible disease. It affected your bloodstream, Lukas, weakening it considerably. There is this one way to cure you: bone marrow transplant. It has to come from your sibling, though, or from a well-matched donor. If we let the condition develop, it might have very serious consequences just in a couple of months."

"So you need…"

"Yes. We're currently looking for donors, and putting you on drugs that will slow down the course of your disease. Unfortunately, search for donors from your family proved fruitless. Your brother, Emil, can't be your donor, so we will scan all the databases in USA and abroad. I'm quite sure we will find someone suitable..."

All noise went out all of a sudden. Everything became so simple. Lukas felt stupid, so stupid - only in the morning he had been worrying about his unfinished social studies essay and the lack of money for lunch, and all these worries felt so damn small compared to a single fact that was not spoken out loud, but was hanging right there in the air. A couple of months. No donor in sight. RhB-.

I will die in two months.

"Lukas?"

The voice, the one that sounded so nice and caring before, felt fake. This woman, Doctor Faroe, she knew how thin his chances were, knew it much better than he did. And still, she desperately tried to make him think that he would be fine. He would survive, and live better than he lived before… if they found a person with the same blood group as him, the same antigens and all that, and a donor. And Doctor Faroe knew. And still, she was making him think his chances were 75% when they were 10%. No, even less.

"Leave me alone." The words flew out on their own, monotonous and cold. "You're lying."

"Lukas?"

"If I am going to die, just say so."

"You're not going to die, and…"

"I know my blood group." It wasn't Lukas who was speaking; it was his fear and frustration. "Third minus. About one point five percent of world population. It seemed so cool when they told me how rare it was. Now I feel like I have been cursed." He remembered it all. How Mom had showed Emil and him the blood group test results. Third minus in his case. First minus in Emil's. How happy they had been then, for no reason in particular...

"Don't say that, Lukas. First minus suits you too."

"Five point four percent. Seven percent in total. And that's not counting all the antigens that must be aligned. And that's not counting all the side effects. My mother is a nurse. I know this by heart. Would you believe in your survival if you were me? I certainly don't. If I still have hope, you should search for a donor. Not tell me how great I'm going to be."

"Lukas, it's…"

"Don't call me Lukas. Leave me alone." Why did it have to hurt so much? It wasn't anything at all. He had known Doctor Faroe for a few minutes. But this way she looked at him, mixing surprise and fake calmness with courage of a wild animal tamer, made him hate her. Hate her so much.

So much he would happily hit her in the face, if only the muscles in his arms would give way.

"Well." The warm emotions in Doctor Faroe's eyes suddenly disappeared. "I rarely meet a patient like you, Mister Thomassen, but if you insist I will happily call you by your surname. And of course, if you don't wish to speak to me, I will leave you alone. You can choose to speak only to people who don't annoy you - and I assure you that you won't meet many people like that. Now please excuse me, I have other patients to attend." She sharply rose up, with waves of honey blonde hair falling over her shoulders like a mane, and swiftly walked out.