Chapter Eight: A Dose of Reality

Flynn sat in his office, finishing lunch with Estelle. She happily told him about Rita's scientific breakthroughs, which neither of them properly understood, but her enthusiasm for Rita's work was endearing. Lunch with Estelle had become a habit for them, because Rita so often worked through lunch and neither of them wanted to eat alone.

"Also," Estelle said as she wrapped up her discussion of Rita, "Karol and the others left yesterday afternoon. They went to say goodbye to Yuri first, though. I think he's pretty sad to see them go."

"Yes, I imagine he would be." Flynn had noticed Yuri's dower mood when he visited last night. As much as Yuri had insisted Karol and Judith get back to work in Dahngrest, his good mood from the past few days after his birthday had noticeably declined with the reality of being left behind. Still, it wasn't completely hopeless. Every time he visited he still found Yuri in his chair rather than lying in bed. The day before yesterday, Yuri hadn't even been in his room and Flynn had to wait fifteen minutes for him to show up, because he'd been off exploring and chatting with other patients. "He said it's only for a little while and that he intends to rejoin them on missions as soon as possible."

Estelle frowned and wiped her mouth as she finished the last bite of her sandwich. "Does he mean go with them on foot the way he used to, or from the chair?"

"I'm not really sure. He claims he fully intends to walk again, but even if he manages that I doubt he would have nearly the strength or agility to fight the way he used to. And if he means going in a chair… I don't see how that would work. I would worry about him going into fights."

"I'm afraid he's going to get hurt trying to do things he used to be able to."

"For now, I suppose we should be grateful he's under watch in the hospital and not left to his own devices." As much as Yuri hated staying in the hospital, it really was best for him. He was making progress every day and even if his paralysis hadn't improved, he was gradually strengthening his upper body and learning how to navigate in a chair.

"What about Zagi? Are you going to have him executed?"

Flynn slowly pushed his finished plate to the side. "I'm… not sure. For now we've moved him to a secure prison." As obvious as Zagi's crimes were, they couldn't ignore that fact that Estell head made an agreement with him that Yuri Lowell would be the one to fight him to the death. Executing him without giving him the fight he'd been promised was unethical. Surely no one would protest, but getting away with breaking the rules didn't excuse you for doing it. You didn't get to pick and choose which people deserved justice.

"Does Zagi know what happened to Yuri?"

"We've told him, but I'm not sure he understands." When Zagi had gone on yet another temper tantrum about wanting to fight Yuri, Flynn had curtly explained that Yuri had been permanently injured and was not physically capable of fulfilling his side of the bargain. Zagi had simply shouted about lying and wanting to see Yuri and in general being more in denial about the permanence of Yuri's injury than Yuri was himself.

After a knock on the door, Teller stepped in holding a folder. "Sorry to interrupt, Commandant. Do you have a minute?"

"No, it's fine, please come in." He always had time for Carter's prosecutor.

"I thought I would let you know I spoke with Yuri Lowell this morning." She placed her folder on his desk. "He gave me a complete witness statement. It's nothing you haven't already told me, but it was good to hear myself. I wrote it down and had him sign it, so this will be the official story taken to court."

Flynn opened the folder and scanned the document. He found it hard to swallow while reading, because Teller's neat handwriting wrote down every detail as an impersonal report. He closed the folder before he could read too much more. "Thank you."

"He told you everything without protest?" Estelle looked up with a smile.

Teller nodded. "Yes. He seemed slightly hesitant but spoke without me needing to encourage him." She picked up her folder again and glanced over the report. "Everything he said corroborates the statement you already gave, Commandant, as well as the medical reports. I don't think there will be any problem proving what happened in the catacombs."

"What about the other murders?" Flynn asked.

Teller's confidence slipped. "Well… that's a little more difficult. Our case is as solid as it's going to be. We've done everything we can."

"Hopefully it will be enough."

Teller took her file, bid them both farewell, and left. Estelle left a few minutes later, clearing the plates and letting Flynn get back to work. Flynn found it so difficult to concentrate on work lately. In the past, his job always had his undivided attention, but now his attention was constantly split between work on the hospital. Worrying about Yuri ate up his time and it was hard to focus on banal reports when his mind insisted on daydreaming about worst-case scenarios. More than once, Sodia came in to give him something and found him staring pensively at the wall. After a month of this, she knew perfectly well that it was Yuri causing him distraction, but they'd argued enough about how detrimental to his productivity his relationship with Yuri was in the first week that she didn't bring it up.

When 6:00 rolled around, he'd somehow managed to get the majority of his work done. He put what was left in a folder to take home and made his way to the hospital. His smile was still on his face when he entered Yuri's room, but it dimmed when he found Yuri lying in bed and staring at the window. "Hi, Yuri. Are you feeling all right?"

He looked over and forced a smile. "Hey. I'm all right."

"Are you sure? You look kind of down." He sat by the side of the bed and tried not to feel like they were taking a step backward. This wasn't the same as the beginning, because Yuri was wearing his own clothes and sitting propped up by pillows.

Yuri shrugged one shoulder. "Just kind of sore today. You know what's bullshit? My legs hurt."

Flynn straightened up. "You can feel them? That's great!"

Yuri shook his head. "Nope. Still can't feel them, they just ache. Ghost pain or something."

Flynn's excitement drooped. "Phantom pain, you mean." He'd heard of that. People with amputated limbs often felt pain from a limb they no longer had. It certainly didn't indicate any nerves were working again, since it happened even when those nerves no longer existed.

"Whatever it's called, it's bullshit."

"Is there nothing your doctor can do?"

Yuri shook his head. "I've had so many lemon gels today I can't get the taste out of my mouth and it still hurts."

Flynn frowned because there wasn't anything he could suggest. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine. I talked to your lawyer today."

"Yes, she told me. Did it go ok?"

"Yeah, no problem."

Flynn wondered if Yuri's grumpy mood was in part inspired by having to go over everything again. "Thank you for that. It will really help."

"It'd better."

"Did you do anything else today?" It was nice now that Yuri could get out of bed. He actually had things to do during the day and wasn't so constantly bored. Of course, this meant his interested in the minutiae of Flynn's job had noticeably waned, but Flynn didn't mind.

"Rehab. Fell on my ass more than a few times trying to transfer without a board. Stretches and exercise - the usual. Malcolm started walking today."

"Who?"

Yuri jerked his thumb at the door. "You know, the guy across the hall. The one who doesn't speak but glares judgmentally at everyone who passes."

"Oh, right. The one who doesn't like me." He was a bit hurt by this, because he'd been told the man was a knight injured on the field. As the commandant, he couldn't help but feel responsible for sending him into the situation that caused his injury, even if indirectly through a captain, and wondered if Malcolm resented him for that reason.

"He doesn't like anybody. I'm not even sure if he likes me and he's the closest thing to a friend I have in here. Anyway, I saw him shuffling around with a walker today. He's improving a lot."

"Good for him." He spoke carefully, because although Yuri said it with a slight smile and casual air, Flynn noticed a tense tone underneath. Envy, perhaps, that his buddy was progressing and getting out of his chair while Yuri still couldn't, and probably never would.

Yuri was about to speak when his leg kicked. Flynn leaned back in surprise while Yuri growled and grabbed his knee, pressing it into the mattress. "Stay still, dammit!"

Flynn grimaced. "More spasms?"

"They give me this thing in the morning that's supposed to make them go away but it's wearing off too early." He gripped both his legs for almost a minute until the spasms subsided. "This is such bullshit. My legs ache, but I can't actually feel them. They move, but I can't actually control them. I'm just so sick of this." He pulled back and slammed his fist into the mattress while turning his head away, closing his eyes, and letting out a deep breath through clenched teeth.

Flynn waited for him to move, noticing a fragile mood when he saw one.

After a moment and a few deep breaths, Yuri shook his head and crossed his arms. "Sorry. I'm just… in a bad mood today."

"It's ok. Do you want to talk about it?"

Yuri's frown said he very much didn't, but he still remembered Estelle's lecture about rejecting help so he sighed, leaned against the pillow and muttered, "I just really want to stand up. I'm frustrated, that's all."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Yuri looked up with that cocky grin of his. "Yeah, keep visiting. Every time I look at your ugly mug I feel better about my haircut."

Flynn smiled with a slight shake of his head. "I enjoy seeing you every day, too, Yuri."


Rehab was exhausting. The simple act of going about his day wore him out, and that was without spending the entire day transferring in and out of his chair for practice, stretching his muscles (which meant someone else grabbed his legs and stretched them for him), and getting lessons on such simple topics like how to dress himself and how to take care of bathroom issues without a nurse. These were all useful things to know, but frustrating to learn. Besides, this was all temporary knowledge because he wouldn't need it once he healed properly.

In the evening a few days before Carter's trial, Yuri lay on his back in bed, taking a well-earned rest. The muscles in his arms were gradually building up again, thanks in part to working out with the dumbbell Karol had given him whenever he had time to spare, but his legs got progressively skinnier. There wasn't anything he could do about the muscles wasting away, and he imagined ending up looking like a bird with a big muscular body and scrawny stick-legs. Flynn had left a few hours ago, and it was almost time for lights out. He was tired, but not quite ready to go to sleep yet. It was only ten at night, and he was trying to get back to his old self who rarely hit the hay before midnight.

Right on cue, the door opened and a nurse entered, signalling bed time. Yuri looked to a door and suppressed a groan. Fantastic, his old friend Grandma Smiley was on shift tonight. She looked about as happy to see him as she would to suck on a lemon. "Good evening, Mr. Lowell."

He rolled back and forth for a couple of seconds, building up momentum before struggling upright. "Hey. Are you the one that's going to help me tonight? What a treat." The downside of wearing real clothes and not a hospital gown was that he had to change into and out of pyjamas twice a day. Well, the nurses insisted he did. He claimed he'd be happy lounging in sweats all day but they had something about 'laundry' and 'hygiene'. Wearing the same clothes day in and day out had never bothered him while travelling, but apparently it was a big deal. He supposed that was what he got for staying at a fancy noble hospital. The real problem was that he was still working on getting dressed by himself, which meant he still had to deal with some nurse he probably didn't like coming in every night and every morning to help him put his underwear on.

"Indeed, Mr. Lowell. A treat. Here are your sleeping clothes." His dresser was tiny and also on the other side of the room, so ultimately not very useful, but it did mean that he didn't have to keep everything in a bag. Still, the nurses were in it much more often than he was. Smiley handed him his clothes and without a word he switched shirts. He liked shirts; they were easy to put on. The trouble came when he unbuttoned his pants and then had to lie down. He was slowly getting better at this, but he still go stuck when he got the waistband to mid-thigh. Smiley let him thrash in the bed for almost a minute before stepping in to help him pull the pants the rest of the way off.

"Gee, thanks."

"It's important that you do as much as you can by yourself."

Yuri didn't believe she had his best interests in mind for one second. While she pulled them off, he fantasized about all the things he wanted to say to her when she no longer had control over his life. Things were certainly much better for him than when he'd been completely motionless on his back, but it would still be alarmingly easy for someone to screw him over. It probably wasn't smart to antagonize the person who controlled his medication.

Before putting his sweat pants on, Grandma Smiley emptied the catheter bag on his leg. While she did, it occurred to Yuri that he hadn't actually gone to the bathroom in over a month. It was a weird thing to miss, but in some ways these little things were even more disheartening than the major loss of mobility. Everyone in the world, from kings to peasants, felt that sweet release when you finally pissed after holding it for a while - except for him. Being about to feel and control his bladder would go a long way to helping him feel normal again.

That taken care of, he struggled into his sweatpants and then manoeuvred his legs under the blanket.

"Give me your arm."

He glared at her suspiciously. "What for?"

"Blood sample." She produced a syringe, and Yuri slowly lifted his arm, suppressing a sigh. He couldn't wait to get out of the hospital so people would stop poking and prodding him all day.

The needle punctured his forearm with a slight sting. "Oh, dear." Yuri had only heard that level of sarcastic 'distress' from himself. "I missed the vein." She twisted the needle still in his arm, sending a shock of pain radiating out.

Yuri winced. "Are you doing this on purpose?"

"I would never." She twisted the syringe a few more times until she finally found the vein, while gripping his wrist tight with her other hand to keep him from jerking away. Blood steadily filled the clear glass tube while his arm still throbbed from her attempt to find his vein with the delicacy of a blindfolded bull. When the syringe was full, she slipped it out and said, "There. Don't be so fussy."

"I wouldn't be 'fussy' if you knew how to do your job. I'll let you know when I want someone to impersonate a vampire, shall I?" She had done that on purpose, he was sure of it.

"Stop complaining and go to sleep."

"I'm staying up a bit later. Leave the light on for now."

"I'm not coming back to get it later."

"Then I'll turn it off myself." He crossed his arms and met her eyes with defiance. "I am capable of that, you know." It certainly wasn't a walk in the park to cross the room and get the light, but he was getting better at transferring every day and could handle getting from bed to chair and back with only minor difficulty.

"And what will you do if you fall? You still can't manage floor transfers. Lights out time is lights out." She turned away and walk to the door.

"Hey!" Yuri grabbed the bars of the headrest and pulled himself up. "What the hell is your problem with me!?"

She hesitated and turned back before flipping off the light. "What do you mean, Mr. Lowell?"

"Don't give me that. It's been obvious since day one you hate my guts. You could at least do me the favour of telling me why."

Smiley stared at him for a moment, and then marched up to the side of the bed. "Very well, Mr. Lowell. To be perfectly blunt, you don't belong here."

He raised in eyebrow. "An injured person doesn't belong at a hospital? That's a new one."

"This is a hospital in the royal quarter, intended to serve the health needs of people of rank and status. We treat ill nobility and return them to health so that they can continue their service to the empire. We are not intended as a nursing home for hopeless cases, and especially not for low-class Imperial deserters. That Flynn Scifo may think he deserves the treatment of a noble now since he was given the title of commandant, but I don't know where he got the idea he can expect a prestigious establishment like ours to look after his… his concubine."

"His what?" So many things she'd said were offensive, he didn't even know where to start. He didn't care if she looked down on him for being part of the Union or because he wasn't rich, but implying that nobles in general did 'service to the empire' and thus deserved better treatment was such a load of shit, and insulting Flynn by implying he just kept Yuri around for the sex was inexcusable. "I don't care if you don't like me, but Flynn is the best thing to happen to this empire in decades."

Smiley just rolled her eyes, not dignifying it with a response. "Ultimately, what matters is that I have other, far more important, patients to treat who have a place in our empire and actually have a chance of recovering."

"What's that supposed to mean? If I was actively dying, I feel like I'd be aware of that."

Smiley crossed her arms and looked down her nose at him. Damn, it would be great to stand up so he could be even with her. "You may have scraped through the acute stage - thanks entirely to the generosity of Lady Estellise - but it seems a waste to me to spend so much time and resources on you when in all likelihood you'll die soon anyway."

In the midst of his anger, a trickle of dread managed to emerge. Grandma Smiley might be a bitch, but she knew a lot more about medicine than he did. "Oh yeah?" He kept his voice cocky, unwilling to let her know he was worried. "What from? And don't say neglect from having terrible nurses - I already know that's a problem for me."

"Kidney failure. Urinary tract infections. Intestinal obstruction. Blood clots in your legs. Pressure ulcers. Increased risk of pneumonia. I assure you the possible causes are numerous and letting you believe you're in the clear because you didn't immediately die of blood loss and shock is irresponsible. I suppose if you stay in the commandant's favour and he lets you live out of his pocket you might survive a while with adequate medical intervention, if you're all right with being a constant burden on one of the busiest and most influential men in the empire."

Yuri's lip curled. "I don't have intention of living out of Flynn's pocket."

Smiley held up her hands. "That's not my concern. Do you know why you never see other people on the street with injuries like yours? Because they're dead. People who can't afford hundreds of thousands of gald per year in medical expenses do not survive. Will you be able to afford it once the commandant tires of you?"

No, he definitely couldn't afford hundreds of thousands of gald per year. Brave Vesperia made enough to get by, but only the highest members of the most influential guilds would be able to afford something like that. He'd been so focused on recovering that he hadn't put much thought into the financial side of this, but he wasn't actually sure how much money all the medications he was taking cost. He was familiar with average medications like cure bottles and poison bottles, but how did that compare to bottles with highly specialized medicine, like the muscle relaxer he had to take to keep his legs from jerking all over the place? Where would he even buy that once he was out of the hospital? Between Estelle and Flynn, they could afford these expenses with little difficulty, but the thought of mooching off them for the rest of his life made him feel sick.

"Maybe this is cruel," she didn't sound like she cared at all, "but it's about time someone gave you a dose of reality. If you haven't regained any movement or sensation at this point, the possibility of that happening eventually is next to zero. Even if you were a noble worth investing in, the best we would be able to do is help you eke out a living, likely in the care of a family member. As it stands, I hope you have a plan for where you're going to finance your medical expenses once the commandant realizes your paralysis makes you quite undesirable as a sexual partner." She turned away with a huff. At the door, she stopped to turn off the light. "I am a professional and I will do my job to keep you alive, but I'm not going to console you with false promises or encourage unrealistic goals that will inevitably lead to disappointment. It's about time you stopped acting like all you broke is your leg. Goodnight, Mr. Lowell." The light went off and the door slammed shut.

Yuri sat still once she left, mind racing a mile a minute. He didn't want to believe what she'd said, but it didn't sound like she was lying, either. How was he going to afford all this? He tried to do some quick math. He'd need, at the very least, a few apple gels a day to keep pain at a manageable level, and there were a few others he took daily that must be at least two or three hundred a bottle… That alone would be over three hundred thousand gald a year, and that was just the base level if he stayed healthy and didn't need treatment for any of those secondary conditions she'd mentioned. Karol had promised him he'd still get money from Brave Vesperia, but it wouldn't be nearly enough to cover everything. He really was going to need to rely on Flynn or Estelle buying things for him for the rest of his life if he wanted a decent way to live.

He slowly sank back down in bed. Slowly, because it wasn't a simple task and required him to reach under the blanket and wiggle his legs around. He folded his arms under his head and stared at the ceiling, deep in thought. What was he going to do with his life if this really was permanent? He couldn't be a burden on Flynn forever. Of course Flynn would pay any fee without hesitation, but he shouldn't have to. He squeezed his eyes tight. He had to recover, because he simply couldn't live like this.


Somehow, Yuri managed to fall into a restless sleep and woke up hours later in a dark room. Well, it wasn't a dark room; it was his hospital room, the same room he'd been stuck in for a month and a half. He had never hated a room more and he still had no idea when his release date was. It was like being in jail, except with more physical pain.

Something squeaked outside his room, accompanied by the drone of wheels skirting over wood. Before waking up, Yuri had been having some sort of bad dream. He couldn't remember it clearly beyond a vague sense of darkness and silence, but he was eager for a distraction to push those thoughts away. From the sound of it, someone was rolling around in the hall, and that seemed like a good idea. He grabbed the brass bars by his head and pulled himself upright, and then grabbed the chair and the board. Within a minute, he'd shuffled over the wooden bridge and into the chair. After adjusting his legs, he rolled to the door. He was starting to get the hang of this wheelchair thing, which was hard to celebrate because this wasn't something he wanted to get used to.

At the door, he braced himself with one hand, leaned forward to turn the knob, and then pushed forward to kick the door open with his feet. He didn't bother closing the door, because that would just make his life more difficult on the way back in. In the hall, he spotted Malcolm rolling around a corner and hurried to catch up. His wheels trundled over the smooth wooden floors, but he was faster than Malcolm because he had both arms to push himself with.

"Hey."

Around the corner, Malcolm looked over his shoulder, smiled, and waved.

"Where're you going?"

He shrugged one shoulder and spun his hand in a circle.

"Just around?" He pulled up next to him as Malcolm nodded. This must be a sight, he thought. A midnight wheelchair blockade in the hallway. "I had the same idea. We should get moving, though. Nurse Smiley will be around any time now to send us back to our rooms."

Malcolm nodded and shuddered, and then gestured forward. He led the way, Yuri pacing himself to keep from rolling ahead. He was admittedly a little envious that Malcolm was getting movement back in his leg, but his arm was still mostly useless and the inability to talk might infuriate Yuri even more than not walking. They kept going until they reached an empty room, the bed sitting neatly made and waiting for someone to fall ill. It took some tricky manoeuvring, but Yuri managed to twist around and reach the doorknob with one hand and push himself forward with the other without crashing into the door frame and pulled the door shut behind them.

"Great. Now we don't have to deal with her breathing down our necks." He rolled into the middle of the room and spun in a circle. He was still new at this, so pulling off fancy manoeuvres made him proud. "Do you know when you're getting out of here?"

Malcolm shrugged one shoulder.

"I don't either. I'm so ready to go home, though. I don't know how much longer I can deal with nurses and hospital food and being constantly monitored." His voice was flippant to hide the worry underneath. Everything Smiley had said haunted him, and he wondered just how well he'd fare once he left the hospital. The list of possible deadly complications hung at the back of his mind and it was starting to look like gaining any kind of movement below his injury would be the exception rather than the rule. "Hey, how long did it take after you were injured to start getting feeling back in your paralyzed half?"

Malcolm thought for a moment and then held out his hand and waved it back and forth. "Mm… uh…" His brow furrowed with concentration. "N-number… uh… two?" He nodded and held up two fingers.

Yuri sat up a little straighter. "Hey, you're getting speech back! That's great." And also infuriating, because he was improving and Yuri was not. "So, two what? Days? Weeks?"

"Uh!" he nodded at 'weeks'.

"Two weeks, huh? Not a lot, right? It came back kind of slowly?" Malcolm nodded along as he spoke to confirm. "Was it like when you get that tingling in your foot after you sit on it for a while?"

Malcolm nodded again.

"Well… good for you." Within two weeks of being injured, he'd started to get feeling back. Yuri had been injured for… about six weeks now, he thought, and he'd regained a fat lot of nothing. It wasn't fair. He reminded himself that Malcolm's injury was different from his, and maybe head injuries were less permanent than slicing through the spinal cord. Thinking that didn't make him feel any better.

"Mm?" He looked to Yuri's legs questioningly.

Yuri rolled his eyes and grabbed his knees. "No, I still can't feel anything. The only improvement since I got here is that my back is in slightly less constant pain." He suppressed a growl of frustration. "It's not improving and I'm starting to think it never will. I want to do things the way I used to, but I just… I can't, and it's the most frustrating thing in the world."

Malcolm nodded in sympathy.

"You get it, don't you? The others… they want to understand, but they don't. Nobody whose body is functioning properly can really understand how indescribably frustrating this is." He gripped the rims of his wheels and jerked back and forth, rocking a few inches forward and back. The jerky movement nearly sent him off balance, but he was getting better and staying upright. "This is it. This is my limit of moving. I'm dependant on people I hate, moving anywhere is a complicated effort of dragging myself around with my arms, I can't even piss by myself, and I just - I hate it!"

He took a few deep breaths. He didn't like complaining to Flynn or Estelle because they just gave him sympathetic looks and told him things would get better with time. Well, it was starting to look like things wouldn't get better and he didn't want their well-meaning platitudes. "I hate feeling so useless. I hate the way healthy people look at me with pity. I hate how exhausting it is to try to move my legs even though I achieve no actual movement. I hate all of it." It was easier to vent to Malcolm than anyone else. Unlike his friends who loved him but didn't understand, someone going through a similar injury understood what he was talking about so much more. He didn't have to feel self-conscious about admitting he was so angry it exhausted him to contain it all, because he was certain Malcolm felt the same way.

"What am I supposed to do if this doesn't get better? They can't really expect me to go the rest of my life in a wheelchair. That's just…" He shook his head in disgust. "That's not me. I can't live like this." Why couldn't any doctors do anything? It was their job to fix things like this. There had to be something they could do, and whatever that something was, he would take it. He had no interest in spending the rest of his life sitting down and waiting for something on that list of complications to kill him. He couldn't do this; he wouldn't do this.

He rested his elbows on the arm rests and buried his head in his hands. "You've been doing this for almost four months. How do you stand it? I've only been in the hospital for a month and a half and I'm ready to strangle everybody."

Malcolm shrugged.

"Don't tell me to be patient. I'm sick of this crap. I want to move." He smashed his fist into his knee, desperate to feel any hint of sensation. "I know you get it - you were a knight. People like us aren't meant to lie around in the hospital for months."

Malcolm rolled closer and silently rested his hand on Yuri's shoulder with a slow nod.

He sighed heavily. "Sorry for rambling so much. I guess it's not really fair for me to go on a rant when you can't interrupt."

A shrug indicated Malcolm didn't seem to mind.

"I really am happy for you, you know. It's great that you're getting better."

Malcolm nodded and grinned and gestured at Yuri.

Yuri shook his head with a scowl. "Thanks for the enthusiasm, but… it's starting to look like recovery isn't a very realistic goal." The weight of reality threatened to crush him. Imagining a world where he never stood up again terrified him, but he fought the dread off by assuring himself everything would be ok. Even if he didn't walk again, that didn't mean he couldn't go back to living the way he used to. He'd just have to use ramps instead of stairs from now on. He could do this. After all, wasn't he gradually getting better in rehab?

He glanced to the door. "We should probably head back. I'm getting tired and Grandma Smiley is probably going to make her rounds soon. If she doesn't see us in bed she'll be more pissed than I feel like dealing with."