Title: Immer Allein
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Weiss Kreuz characters.
Author's Notes: This fic takes place after Glühen. I'm bored, so this is the product of such boredom. By the way, "Bren" seems to be most writers' choice for Schuldich's real name, so I'm also using it. I'm not sure if someone just made it up and it just caught on, or if it's actually stated somewhere in the series of Weiss Kreuz that that's our favorite German's given name. Oh, well. It works. R&R!
"Hello," greeted the raven-haired stranger in a deep, velvety voice. Through his glasses his measured the frail frame before his amber eyes…
The patient was sitting on the bed in a cheep, crisp-white nightgown. Radiant summer locks fell around his downcast face, as he uneasily held his pale hands between his knees. He was shivering – but not from cold, at least, not any mortal cold. The cold forced his body and heart to shiver at that instant was something that he felt inwardly, not externally.
And the source of such a bitter frost was his visitor.
"How are you doing today, Bren?" the stranger went on to say with fake concern. "I trust that your doctors are treating you well." This conversation was a daily ritual now – a tradition that had started about a year ago.
"They are," Bren answered apathetically, still shivering. How could one man carry such a frozen heart?
"And that you've been cooperating with them, hmm…," the visitor went on.
"Yes, naturally."
The stranger nodded in approval and pushed his sliding glasses up to the bridge of his nose. Pulling up a card-table chair from the corner, he seated himself right in front of the quiet patient. After a long pause of distinct silence, the visitor asked professionally, "And have you recalled how you ended up in this particular hospital?"
Bren shook his head negatively, and offered up meekly, "The police told me that I had been caught in the crossfire of a drive-by."
The visitor again nodded. "And do you recall why you were in the street at the time of the drive-by?"
"No, sir," the second answered respectively, the other man's frost chilling his soul. "All I know is that I was there, yet I shouldn't have been."
The stranger nodded automatically. His questions were always the same – dull, unemotional, and unrelated to the real reason he was there. Then, on perfect cue, he whispered, "And, Bren -?"
"Yes?" mouthed the patient.
"- Bren, do you remember me?"
Blue eyes gazed up from the waterfall of cascading rich, red locks, as the patient tried to wrack his brain for the stranger's face. He had been asked this question every day for forty-five days now. Yet, he still couldn't…
"I – I don't – I can't…," stammered the invalid, shaking his head ever so slightly. "I'm sorry," he added. "I just don't know you."
"Well, we shall just have to wish for better luck tomorrow," sighed the visitor, standing up and turning on his heel. The hospital door clicked shut behind him, leaving the confused patient all alone.
"Damn, who is that guy?" whispered the invalid, throwing his legs up over the side of the bed and sinking down into the pillows. "Why… why can't I remember him…?"
His thin hand gently stroked his injured head, as he sighed.
"Ich bin immer allein."
And deep inside the back of his head, he could hear the stranger's voice thinking the same.
Fin.
I am always alone German
A/N's: Yes, the patient was Schu, and the visitor was Craw-chan. R&R!