Chapter Ten: Trial and Tribulation

Yuri let a knight push him into the courtroom. All eyes were on him, and knowing that everyone looked at him with pity didn't make him feel any better. He wasn't really a person in their eyes - he was the tragic victim. He'd agreed to play along if it would help condemn Carter, but that didn't mean he liked it.

The witness stand itself had two steps up to a chair behind a podium, but when they got there, the knight paused, not sure what to do. Yuri wasn't sure, either, because he hadn't brought his transfer board and getting up those steps in the first place would be a pain.

The judge looked down at him, saw the problem, and said, "Oh. I guess you'll have to just sit there."

Good job making sure the courtroom was accessible, guys, really. It wasn't like they had any idea a person in a wheelchair was coming or anything. It really wasn't a big deal that he couldn't sit in the actual witness stand, but it was the principle of the thing. He didn't like having awkward accommodations because the world wasn't set up for people like him and wasn't prepared to deal with him.

The knight turned his chair to face the court and left. He spotted Flynn sitting in the front row of the audience and met his eyes. Flynn gave him a tight, apologetic smile, and Yuri sighed. Better get this over with. His eyes moved on, and then landed on Carter sitting at a table only a few yards away. He smiled when Yuri met his eyes and gave a little wave. Despite his best efforts, Yuri's heart skipped a beat and a shiver ran down his spine (at least, partially down his spine). He hadn't seen Carter since the catacombs, and looking at that face again stirred up a lot of feelings he would like to keep buried.

That bastard. That bastard. How dare he sit there with a casual smile and wave at Yuri like they shared some private joke? That scum of a human had managed to make Yuri more miserable than anyone else in his life and was the reason he hadn't had a single day without some form of pain in over six weeks. The persistent ache in his back that he had mostly learned to ignore flared to the forefront as Carter's smile put him in mind of the exact moment the knife sank into him. He found himself rubbing his thumb against the scarred stump where his finger would have been and his breathing came a little faster. After talking over his feelings with Estelle, he'd let himself believe he was over it. Facing Carter in person made him realize one thing: he was not.

"Mr. Lowell?"

He snapped his head away from Carter and saw Teller standing in front of him. "Sorry, what were you saying?" The prosecutor's forehead wrinkled in the slightest hint of a frown, and Yuri would have kicked himself if he could kick for getting distracted so early. He needed to appear credible.

Teller repeated herself. "I asked if you could please state your name and your relationship to the defendant."

'Defendant', what a stupid term. It made him sound so innocent, when in reality his hands were so bloody it was a surprise they weren't dripping on the floor. "Ah, right. Name's Yuri Lowell, and my relationship is…" Victim. That's what he was supposed to say. He was the victim in this case - at least, the only victim still alive to testify. He hated thinking of himself as a victim, though, but he forced himself to say it. "I was one of his victims." There'd been a pause before he said it. Did that matter?

"Please tell the jury what happened from the night you disappeared to the arrest of Timothy Carter."

"Right. Ok, well I went with Trout because we had a plan to lure Carter out. We were going to use me as bait so Trout could direct the knights to catch him." He wasn't sure where to look while he spoke. He tried to look at Carter, but the bastard's smile unnerved him and his eyes drifted to Flynn. The story of letting himself get captured was humiliating and he'd rather no one else knew, but he had to tell the whole truth if he wanted Carter to hang so he stared at Flynn and pretended he was talking just to him. "Trout lied, though. He never intended to send in backup because-"

"Objection." Mr. Dunn stood up and cut Yuri off. Yuri scowled at him as Dunn said, "Your Honour, the witness is speculating on Mr. Trout's motives."

"That's the truth!" Yuri protested. "He told me he was going to send backup and then he didn't. That asshole told me himself he wanted me to-"

"Sustained," the judge said, giving Yuri an annoyed look. Yuri would have kept protesting, but he caught Flynn's wince and tiny shake of his head to tell Yuri to drop it.

"Mr. Lowell," Teller said, "please continue your story relating only direct facts without speculating on others' motives."

Yuri took a moment to smother his frustration before starting again. He'd barely started and already he kept screwing up. Dammit, this was why he preferred to take care of monsters with a sword on the field. Justice was all well and good, but when it got bogged down with technicalities and formalities that could make someone Yuri knew was a monster look innocent, something was wrong. "Yeah, ok. Anyway, the pure facts are that Trout told me he was going to send in back-up as soon as Carter appeared. Carter and I got into a fight, and mysteriously the back-up never appeared. I can't imagine why." Flynn gave him another look, which was shared by Teller this time, making it clear he was toeing a dangerous line next to giving the defence another objection. He struggled to reel in the irritated sarcasm.

"Carter overpowered me. He smothered me with a rag soaked in some kind of drug. I'm not a scientist so I can't tell you what it was but it smelled a lot like ether. Next thing I knew, I woke up in a dark passage with my ankles and wrists tied and a gag in my mouth." Memories surged, making him feel sick. It was impossible to talk about this without thinking about it, and impossible to think about it without remembered pain and fear raising their ugly heads. The memories of how sore and powerless he'd felt exacerbated his present aches, bad enough that the urge to stretch his sore leg muscles nearly overwhelmed him. They weren't really sore, he reminded himself. They physically can't feel pain; it was all in his head. Dammit, he'd gone silent again and everyone was waiting for him to continue.

"Sorry. Anyway, I lay down there for a little while. I don't know how long. Then Carter came down, and without saying a word to me he grabbed my arm, pulled me to my knees, and pressed my hands against a block of wood. Then he cut my finger off." He held up his right hand and his gaze drifted to the stump. He didn't think about it too often, because honestly it was the limb he was least concerned with losing, but he still found it weird to look at his hand and see his finger just… stop. "After that, he pushed me over and beat me up. I don't know how long that lasted but eventually he left and I passed out."

He dropped his head and searched for Flynn again, but on the way there his vision landed on Carter again and he found himself trapped by his smile. Yuri had intended to glare but couldn't muster the venom and instead he just clenched his left hand around the armrest and tried to speak calmly and clearly while meeting Carter's eyes. "He came back a lot after that. I couldn't tell what day it was or how long anything lasted so I have no idea on that. At least three separate times he sat around burning me with his cigar."

Carter met his eyes now, but he hadn't back then. Yuri remembered trying to glare at him or swear at him through the gag, but every time he was ignored. How could you be defiant toward someone who never paid any attention to your attempts at defiance? His only option had been to lie there and feel his skin sear while being grateful for the gag because it gave his teeth something to clamp on without hurting his tongue. It had been an endless period of pain and burning…

"Mr. Lowell, could you please continue?"

Damn! He'd zoned out again! The faded burn scars had stopped hurting ages ago but he swore he could feel them again. How long had he been lost in thought? Carter looked amused so he tore his eyes away and fond Flynn, who watched him with concern. Flynn was counting on him to provide the best testimony the prosecution had and he kept screwing up. He had to get through this and give the jury concrete evidence that Carter was a monster.

"He cut me with his knife a lot," he said quickly. His heart sped up as he tried to shuffle the disorganized memories into a coherent story without letting it overwhelm him. "I was down there for about two days and it was a cycle of burning, cutting, and beating. Sometimes they were combined. On the first day he left over a dozen second-degree burns all over my back and then slashed it up with his knife, deep enough to hurt but not enough to bleed to death. I still lost a lot of blood and had barely any water and on the last day he grabbed my hair and cut it right off. After that he kicked me black and blue - hard enough to crack my ribs, I'm sure. When Flynn showed up, he picked me up so I could stand and talked to Flynn a bit. I don't remember what they said, but then he stabbed me in the back. I fell to the ground and passed out and that's the last thing I remember before I woke up in the hospital, where I realized I couldn't feel my legs anymore."

"Thank you," Teller said. "Are you positive of the identity of the person who did this to you?"

Yuri took a moment to answer because talking through everything that had happened left him breathless and rattled. Muscles ached, long-healed injuries throbbed, his leg spasmed, and he tried to calm down enough to answer. The entire court was watching him fight back a panic attack; he couldn't lose his cool now. Pull yourself together, Yuri. That was six weeks ago. You're over it. "Yeah," he said breathlessly. "I saw his face clearly. It was definitely Carter."

"Thank you. That's all."

She went back to her table and Yuri looked around, about to ask if he could go, when Dunn stood and approached him. Oh, right, he still had to talk to the asshole who was defending a serial killer.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Lowell."

"Yo." He just hoped this went by fast.

"Mr. Lowell, you said you saw his face clearly. Was he not wearing a mask of any sort?"

"Nope."

"Did he give any indication that he planned to let you leave alive?"

"Nah. He told me himself he planned to torture and murder me."

"Did he ever say that he was responsible for the other murders attributed to the Heartbreaker?"

Yuri glared at Carter. "No, but I know he was responsible."

"Objection," Dunn said quickly. "That's speculation again."

"Sustained," the judge nodded. To Yuri, he said, "Only answer things you witnessed yourself."

Yuri scowled but caught Flynn's look and didn't argue. "Fine. No, he didn't."

"He didn't think he had anything to lose from telling someone he planned to kill, but he didn't mention it?"

"Well, it's not like he-"

"Yes or no answers, please, Mr. Lowell."

Yuri glared at Dunn, trying to think of a clever answer that wouldn't get him interrupted and also wouldn't make Carter look any more innocent. When he was limited to 'yes' or 'no', he didn't have much choice. "No. He didn't say anything."

"You stated earlier that the defendant burned your back with his cigar and then cut it with his knife. However, doesn't the medical report from your doctor state that the burns partially closed the wounds because they happened immediately after?"

Yuri frowned. Wait… that did sound right. All the times Carter attacked him blurred together and he'd messed up the details. "Uh… yeah, actually, I guess that's right. Sorry about that."

"How much water were you given to drink in the two and a half day period you were in the defendant's custody?"

Yuri would never understand how a person could turn the reality of 'being imprisoned and tortured by a serial killer' into something ad vague and mild as 'being in the defendant's custody' and say it with such a straight face. "One lousy cup."

"Are you aware that dehydration and blood loss can cloud the mind and make recollections hazy?"

He saw immediately what Dunn was implying, but already knew that if he went past a one word answer Dunn would object and threaten his credibility even further. "…Yes."

"Is it true that you were arrested seven years ago for throwing rocks at a mansion on Windsor Street?"

"Huh?" He barely even remembered that incident and couldn't imagine why Dunn was bringing it up now. He'd only been fifteen at the time - they couldn't possibly hold it against him now. "Yeah, why?"

"What was the reason you gave to the Knights for your actions?"

"Uh…" he thought back, struggling to remember. It was hard to concentrate when his back burned like a match had been lit in his spine and all his muscles ached. Every time his chair jerked from his spasming leg it broke his concentration. "It was something about not liking the people who live there."

"According to the official form, it was 'I don't like nobles'. Is that correct?"

"Yeah, that sounds about right."

"Do you have an existing bias against Timothy Carter due to his noble birth?"

"What? No."

"You just said you dislike nobles."

"One of my best friends is the princess."

"That may be, but do you have a record of taking criminal action against an innocent noble due to a prejudice against the upper classes?"

"I was only fifteen; of course I did dumb shit!"

"Yes or no, please."

Yuri rolled his eyes heavily. "Yes, I do."

"Would you ever stretch or exaggerate the truth in order to make a noble appear more guilty than he is?"

"No!"

"There's no need to shout, Mr. Lowell."

This twisted son of a bitch… Yuri willed him to stand a little closer so his spasming leg would 'accidentally' kick him.

"How serious is your injury Mr. Lowell?"

He switched topics fast, jumping between lines of question faster than Yuri could analyze what he was aiming at. "What, like on a scale of one to ten, with one being totally healthy and ten being dead?"

"Not quite," Dunn said with a charismatic smile. "I see you're in a wheelchair, which you attribute to your treatment at Carter's hands. How were you injured?"

"His knife severed my spinal cord."

"I see. Now, according to your medical file, your injury is classified as a T8 complete. Is that correct?"

"Yes."

"Can you explain to the jury, please, what T8 complete means?"

What did the specifics of his injury even have to do with Carter's guilt? He glanced to the jury and explained as quickly as possible. "Right below my eight vertebra - the little bones in your spine - my spinal cord was totally severed. Now I can't move or feel anything below that point."

"Are you aware that in recorded medical history, there are no other cases of a complete spinal lesion resulting solely from a knife wound?"

"Uh… no. I don't know anything about medical history." What was he supposed to say? Carter stabbed him and now his spine was completely severed. Maybe it was rare, but that was just the kind of improbable bad luck he was accustomed to.

"Is it possible that your injury was caused by events after the defendant stabbed you, such as treatment by the hospital?"

"No."

"It's not even possible, considering how unprecedented an injury of this degree from this type of wound is?"

He struggled to find an answer but couldn't. "Well… I guess it's possible, but it's also theoretically possible for you to get laid but that doesn't mean it's ever going to actually happen." Dunn gave him a dirty look, with gave Yuri a flicker of satisfaction. Dunn was trying to make it look like Carter wasn't even wholly to blame for crippling him, and insulting him was the least of what Yuri would like to do. His leg spasmed again and Yuri suppressed the urge to swear.

"If your injury is as complete as you claim, why is your leg moving?" Dunn asked, glancing down.

"It does that."

"I thought you couldn't move your legs at all?"

"I'm not doing it on purpose; it's just spasming." He could see the skeptical looks on the jury's faces and wanted to throttle someone. Yes, it was actually possible for his legs to spasm involuntarily without him having any motor control. It was a legitimate medical thing he had prescription for. "I take medicine to suppress the muscle spasms. Ask the doctor."

"Why isn't it working on your right leg today?"

Shit, he'd walked right into this one. Dunn had no idea what the answer was going to be, but once Yuri said it, he was going to make one defence attorney very happy. He couldn't even lie, because surely someone would double-check with the hospital and if he got caught lying, everything he'd said about what a bastard Carter was would be thrown out. Every person in the room stared at him, waiting for an answer, and he looked to the back wall to say, "I cut my calf with a knife."

Dunn seemed confused. "Was it an accident?"

Yuri turned his head a bit and scowled. "No."

"You… cut yourself with a knife on purpose? Is that correct?"

"…Yeah."

Yuri could already see the gears turning in Dunn's mind and he avoided looking at Flynn or Teller, not wanting to see their horrified gazes.

"Was there a medical necessity for cutting yourself?"

"No." Nobody understood how important it was to try anything to test sensation, and certainly Dunn and the jury weren't even trying.

"Have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness that would impair your judgement?"

"No." He couldn't keep the anger out of his voice now.

"Have you ever been tested?"

"Well… no." He spotted Flynn in the corner of his eye but couldn't bring himself to look at him, certain he'd see disappointment.

Dunn surveyed him for a long moment, and then said, "No further questions, Your Honour."

Flynn had said Yuri was their star witness, but he'd sure done a good job of screwing this one up. Teller had a chance to try to salvage his testimony, but the damage had been done. Carter was pleading guilty to attempted murder, after all. He didn't need to try to poke holes in that part of the story. What he needed to do was keep the jury from feeling sorry for Yuri and he'd done an admirable job of making Yuri look like some mentally ill, noble-hating idiot who didn't even remember what had happened and just wanted to see Carter go down. Teller didn't even touch the stabbing himself issue, because for all she knew, the more she asked the more incriminating he'd look. She tried to make the point that things said at age fifteen couldn't be held against him now, and that he was close friends with a couple members of the upper class so he couldn't be completely prejudiced. But Dunn was right that his memories of imprisonment were fuzzy and nothing she could say could undo the unfriendly and agitated attitude he'd shown.

In the end, he didn't even wait for a knight to wheel him out of the room. As soon as he was dismissed he grabbed the rims and got out of there as fast as he could, going even faster when he had to pass the table only feet away from Carter. He was certain he caught a whiff of cigar smoke as he rolled past and his heart skipped a beat from that awful stench. He rolled into the empty hall, stopped next to the wall, and slammed his fist against it while taking deep breaths.

He heard the door open and close and footsteps follow him. It had better not be Sodia coming to take him back to the hospital because he didn't want to talk to her. Instead, familiar hands rested on his shoulders. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine."

"It isn't your fault," Flynn said. "We should have given you more time. I realized this was a mistake as soon as I saw you looking at Carter."

"I'm the one who screwed up. Don't blame yourself."

Flynn walked around to face him and then crouched so they could be eye-to-eye, the way he'd bend over to talk to a small child. "Sodia told me what happened to your leg. Are you sure you're ok?"

"I told you, I'm fine." Don't punch Flynn in the jaw, he reminded himself. He wasn't really mad at Flynn, he was just annoyed at how Flynn had to crouch so they could talk but he also got annoyed when people talked down at him and forced him to crane his neck. He was just angry in general and Flynn was a convenient face that he was used to punching when angry.

Flynn saw the frustration on his face but didn't comment on it. "You did that best you could. I'm not upset, and I'm proud of you for going over everything in front of the court like that. I know it was hard."

Oh, good, Flynn was proud of him, like a little kid getting a star on an assignment. He should probably just stop talking to Flynn, because there was nothing anyone could say to him he wouldn't somehow find irritating. "I'm going back to the hospital."

"I'll walk with you."

"It's fine. You have stuff to do." He pushed away from the wall and started to head for the door.

Flynn quickly joined him. "It's ok. I already testified so I'm not needed again today. I'll walk you back."

He didn't trust Yuri to make it on his own. Yuri was irritated, but as soon as he reached the exit he realized Flynn was right. He'd forgotten that he couldn't get out of this building without someone carrying him down the stairs. Flynn lowered him down each step carefully, every drop sending a thump - thump through his spine that made his back hurt.

When they reached the ground, Flynn let Yuri take the lead on the way back to the hospital. Flynn walked slowly, easily keeping pace with Yuri's tired arms struggling through the snow. After a long silence, Flynn asked, "So… can you tell me why you stabbed yourself?"

Yuri scowled. He'd already realized able-bodied people would never understand how worth it that experiment had been, but given that this was Flynn, he might as well try. "I though an incredibly painful stimulus would be enough. I just wanted to feel something."

"But if it had work, all you would have felt was pain."

"Yeah, but at least that's something." The good thing about being waist-level with Flynn was that it was easier to ignore the worried look on his face.

"Just… please don't do something like that again. You could have been seriously hurt."

"Yeah, sure." He agreed because he already knew it was pointless so there was no need to try again. The principle of doing anything it took for any glimmer of hope remained sound.

They kept walking, silent once more. Yuri didn't feel like talking about highlights from the trial and all the ways he'd screwed up kept playing through his mind. Interlacing all of it was Carter's damned smile and the knowledge that even six weeks later he was probably going to have nightmares about getting tortured again tonight.

There was another thing that this trip out of the hospital had made clear: the world was not set up for people in wheelchairs. The streets were rough and not cleared of snow enough, there were stairs and steps in more places than he'd ever noticed, and everyone he passed had to pause and stare with fascination.

"I hate this," he grumbled when the hospital was just ahead.

"Would you like me to push you?"

"No, not this. Just… everything. I hate living like this."

Flynn hung his head. "I know. I'm so sorry."

"Don't apologize; it's not like this is your fault. I'm pissed at myself for screwing up the testimony because I want to see Carter punished as much as possible."

"I'm sure justice will prevail." Flynn had such confidence that the system would work out in the end, but Yuri couldn't share his optimism. He'd seen too many noble monsters skirt charges to rest assured that the man responsible for putting him in this chair would get his just deserts.

"There's got to be something someone can do. They can't expect me to live like this forever."

"Stay positive. I know you'll find a way to be happy."

He noticed that, while encouraging, Flynn didn't exactly agree that there must be a cure somewhere.

Flynn followed him into the hospital and back to his room, where the blood on the floor had already been cleaned. Yuri went straight for bed and transferred over, relishing the chance to lie down and let his aching muscles rest.

Flynn sat on the side of the bed and held his hand. "I'm sorry today didn't go over well."

"It's not your fault."

"Is there anything else you need? I should probably get back."

"Nah, don't worry about me. I know how much the Knighthood struggles without you there to be competent."

Flynn squeezed his hand, kissed Yuri briefly on the lips, and then left. Once he was gone, Yuri closed his eyes and thought for a long time. Today had made it clear he could not possibly go the rest of his life like this. He just couldn't. He would do anything short of harming someone else to get his legs back, no matter what the risk.

After an hour of considering his life and his options, he crawled out of bed again with that thought in mind. He made his way down the hall to Dr. Burke's office and knocked. He wasn't usually one to bother knocking, but opening doors was such a pain in the ass it was just easier to let someone else get it.

"Oh, Mr. Lowell," Burke said. "Is there something you need?"

Burke returned to his desk and Yuri rolled up, pushing a chair out of the way so he could sit in front of it. "I want you to fix my spine."

Burke frowned. "As I've explained, the technology to repair a severed spinal cord simply does not exist."

"Have you even tried? Or did you just look and say 'I don't know how to do it; guess he's stuck that way'? There's got to be something you can try." Burke didn't answer, but Yuri caught a hint of hesitation on his face. "You know something, don't you? Tell me."

The doctor tapped his fingers on his desk. "It is true that there are some suggested surgical cures. Several have been proposed and tested with varying degrees of success."

"Success?" His heart leapt.

"The validity of the success is debatable and never on a case as severe as yours. The basic idea of the surgery is simply to cut open the back, break open the vertebrae to gain access to the spinal cord, and attempt to manually reconnect it."

Yuri nodded. That sounded like a solid plan to him. Shouldn't Burke have tried that in the first place? If the problem was his spinal cord getting severed, putting it back together was the obvious solution. "Why haven't you tried that?"

"As I said, success of the technique is debatable and it is a highly delicate procedure. Cases of success are anecdotal, or experimented upon rabbits instead of humans. The chance for something to go wrong, though, is high and could easily result in death."

"But there's a chance of recovery?"

"If the surgery goes without a hitch, there's a chance that some function might return."

Without even thinking about it, Yuri said, "Sign me up."

"Are you sure? I've never performed this surgery myself and I have no idea if it will actually work."

"You're a doctor at the most prestigious hospital in Zaphias. If anyone can do it, I'm sure you can." He was a bit peeved that no one had mentioned the existence of this surgery to him before, but the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel made him too happy to care. "Besides, just think of the papers you can write if this works. You'll be known all over the world as the first doctor to fix an injury like this."

Burke sat up and straightened his glasses with a slight smile. "Hm, well, yes, I suppose…"

"Look, it's simple. I'm a patient who wants a surgery, and you're a doctor who wants recognition for your work. There shouldn't be any holdups here."

"Well… if you consent to the possible risks, then all right. We'll do it tomorrow."

Yuri couldn't help grinning. "Sounds good." Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he was going to stand up.