Safe, at last. He had started to wonder if he'd ever experience this feeling again. That, and the simple pleasure of a good night's sleep in his own bed. His body still ached, but with rest his injuries would heal. His mind and spirit were another matter. The perversion of his work festered in him like a diseased organ, eating away at his well-being day after day. Everything he did was carried out with the intention of helping people. Yet time and again someone tried to twist his work to cause harm, against his power. That was a wound unlike any other.
It was when he lay down in the dark, where no one could see him, and no one would hurt him, that the barriers he built finally crumpled. He survived imprisonment by walling himself off from his feelings. Now that his mind was unoccupied all the buried emotions flooded to the surface.
His friends endured such terrible danger to find him. Try as he might to soothe himself with the knowledge that Julia survived, guilt ate at him all the same. His research had been used to threaten and hurt her, and could have easily killed her. She needn't have been in that position at all, if it weren't for him. She had come so close to dying, just like Dr. Quinlan. They all might have died for his work.
Fear grabbed him, and he shook uncontrollably. He clutched the blankets to his chest, breathing hard, but could do nothing to stop his trembling. He'd come so close to giving up hope that anyone would detect his signal. If it had been much longer, Clegg would have taken control of both the rabies and the cure. All his research, designed to stop future pain, would instead be unleashed to inflict terror.
"No," he cried out loud, even now protesting the idea of hurting others, as he had wanted to protest Clegg's plans every day.
He flinched reflexively, expecting a beating, and his legs spasmed in an attempt to escape. His foot hit something soft, eliciting an animal yelp of pain.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He reached to the end of the bed and soothed his kicked puppy. Soft fur and a curious nose poking at his face chased away the waking nightmare.
"Why don't we go for a nice walk, you and I?" Clear our minds. It's not so late as all that."
He let the puppy take it's time sniffing into all the corners. Every moment under Clegg's control had been a push-pull, one of them always trying to speed things up, the other to slow down. Time became a precious commodity always slipping away between his fingers, and yet also a burden he had to simultaneously cling to and endure. Minutes came to be counted by how much pain he could take rather than the movements on a clock. Watching his puppy mosey along was the first he truly felt he no longer needed to hurry, nor delay. Something inside him unclenched, letting the pain he tightly held slowly dribble out. He wouldn't find a vaccine to cure his sorrows, but perhaps he didn't need one. Healing could be found gradually in something as simple as the steps taken while walking a dog, and in the daily acts that made life worth living. He could take all the time he needed to heal, and he could start when he was ready.