Author's note: I've had the concept of an AU where Henrik was actually permanently injured after being hit by all that rubble in my head for a while - I think it's an interesting concept, because honestly, I think Henrik would cope alright with the injury itself. He's a very practical person like that, I think he'd decide he just had to get on with life. (Well, so long as he could still perform surgery. He revolves so much of his identity around being a surgeon - to such a point that it's kind of unhealthy, tbh - that I think he would take it very, very badly if he were thrown into a situation where he couldn't do it anymore. :( Which is why I didn't write that, because we don't really need more disability-as-tragedy stories out there in the world but that is exactly how Henrik would react in that situation.)

But what I think he wouldn't cope very well with would be the personal repercussions. Having to go through physiotherapy, dealing with people treating him differently, etc... I think he'd find all of that incredibly difficult. But I don't know if I'll ever get 'round to writing a proper fic about that.

However, the thought of Henrik struggling to cope with people seeing him differently and ending up talking to Jac about it was too good an idea for me to not write it. So here you go - I just wrote the scene by itself. Make up your own context for the rest of the 'verse if you'd like. Honestly, I don't even think this is particularly good, but if I keep dwelling on its quality I'll just never get it posted so. If it sucks, I apologise.

This is a lot less depressing, and thus a lot less triggering, than my usual fare. I think the only thing I need to warn for is a couple of mentions of suicidality (in a sarcastic manner, because this is Jac and Henrik we're talking about, sarcasm and dark humour is like the only coping mechanism either of them know). There are also some references to Jac's brain tumour storyline, if anyone would rather avoid that. And one very brief implied reference to Henrik's abuse storyline, but it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing.

I've deliberately been vague about the exact circumstances of Henrik's injury, so it's up to you to decide what you picture it being. The point in this fic, after all, is that it's not the injury that matters, it's the way Henrik's colleagues have been treating him as a result. So that's why I didn't state it. I did have to set out some idea of what had happened to him to make the story work, though: so the only thing for certain is that he's in a wheelchair, with low chances of a full recovery. Maybe it's the result of physical damage to his legs, maybe an incomplete spinal cord injury that's left him paralysed below the waist, maybe it's something else, who knows. You can make up your own mind on that one.

(Speaking of things I left vague, the reason why Jac went down to the basement in the first place is up to you.)

Also, this is set at some vague point a few months after Henrik's injury, but soon enough that he's back at work sooner than he should be (though easing himself into it by returning as CEO before jumping back into surgery). I don't know, I didn't really think about the timeframe here, I just messed around and did what I wanted lol.

Evidently, he was wrong to think he was unlikely to be found in the basement.

Really, that might be his fault, he supposes; he's had enough encounters here when he was seeking solitude, he probably ought to have figured out by now that the universe isn't going to let him find any privacy in this damned hospital.

But his other usual strategy for finding peace and quiet has been ruled out, because the only way up to the hospital roof happens to be the bloody stairs, and he was not particularly interested in tipping his wheelchair over while trying to get up onto the roof – he could very well end up stuck there until someone found him, and that would be rather counterproductive to his desire to get away from people pitying him.

So he took the lift down to the basement instead, and found an abandoned storage room to hide away in while he tried to get himself together. His plan has clearly not worked out as well as he hoped, because he's pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of the door swinging open.

He looks up to see who's there, and recognises Jac immediately.

"What on Earth are you doing here?" he asks her.

In a move that frustrates but doesn't surprise him, she doesn't answer. "Same question, back at you. Why are you here?"

"Well, the only way up to the roof is the stairs, and I needed somewhere to escape from all the pity."

"That bad?"

"Yeah," Henrik sighs. In his frustration, he finds himself tightly gripping his hands around the push rails on his chair. "The way everyone's been treating me, you'd think I'd just been diagnosed with a terminal illness or something." He pauses, wonders if that was the wrong thing to say to Jac of all people, given her own circumstances. "Sorry."

"No offence taken."

Henrik relaxes his grip on the push rails. "I was talking to Nurse Fletcher, before I came down here. And the way he was looking at me… it was one pitying look too many. I could tell I was practically a different person, in his eyes. And if one more person had looked at me like that, I would probably have just screamed. Possibly threatened to fire them."

"Yeah, can't say I'd blame you."

"You know, you're one of the few people I've talked to all day who's just treated me the same as you always did. Everyone else just seems to… it's as if they think I'm somehow less competent, but they don't want to admit it because they also think they have to walk on eggshells around me."

"And they won't admit they think that either, because they probably assume the phrase 'walking on eggshells' would hurt your feelings. 'Poor thing, he may never walk on eggshells again,'" Jac comments sarcastically.

"I can't say I'd be surprised if they did. I didn't—I knew I'd received plenty of dearly unwanted pity after I was injured, but people had reason to pity me then. So I thought, by the time I went back to work… I thought it would be better. That it would be different, if they saw me at work again. That they'd see the same CEO they always saw. But everyone still just seems to see that man hauled up in a hospital bed. What the hell do I have to do to make them see me again?"

If Jac thinks what some part of Henrik is thinking – that he's lying to himself by pretending 'Henrik Hanssen, CEO' is him and not just who he wants people to see – she doesn't mention it.

"I suppose it was naive of me to expect people's perceptions of me not to change. But is this really all they can see? Because I hated the weeks I spent in hospital enough without that being all people think of when they look at me."

"You weren't naive," Jac says, genuinely. "Well, expecting people's perceptions not to change might be. Expecting to be respected isn't."

Henrik looks away. "I thought that being here would be an escape. One place where I was in control. Where I didn't have to feel… weak, or like someone's patient. But I still feel like all I am is a medical case."

"I'm sorry."

"The reason I came back in the first place is because I'm sick of being a patient. I am so sick of being poked and prodded and examined. The first weeks were the worst, being stuck in hospital, all the examinations, the scans… but this is hardly any better. There's physiotherapy, occupational therapy, medical check-ups… I feel like I'm someone's science experiment."

It hits him, then, right in the middle of talking, that Jac knows what this is like. That she's been here herself. She spent a year suffering the physical aftermath of a shooting that was all his fault. Henrik may feel like somebody's science experiment, but Jac was one.

He looks away, ashamed of himself for not taking that into consideration sooner. "Sorry," he mutters. "If I'm bringing up any bad memories…"

"It's fine. Luckily for you, I haven't copyrighted the experience of suffering an injury at the hands of a particularly murderous member of staff. Yet."

The fact that she doesn't deny he's bringing up bad memories doesn't go amiss to Henrik. "How on Earth did you cope?" he mutters softly.

"I ignored them, that's how."

Henrik isn't convinced she's telling the truth, but he doesn't say that. "Easier said than done," he comments, instead. "You know what they've said. Chances are I won't walk again, not to any meaningful extent, not for much more than maybe a few steps. And even if I do, I'm going to have to use crutches, a walker, something to keep me upright – so the pity won't stop just because I'm out of a wheelchair."

Jac nods.

Henrik goes quiet for a moment. Eventually, he speaks up again. "Is this just how it's going to be now, then? The staring – God, the staring – the pitying looks, the knowing people don't take me as seriously as they used to? And I… look, if I never walk again, fine. I can cope with that. I've still got surgery, I'll be alright." (He refuses to think too hard about the fact that his only metric for quality of life is based in his work – about the fact that he would be very much not alright if his injuries had been more severe and he couldn't operate anymore.) "But if I have to deal with this for the rest of my life… well, I might as well just off myself now," he remarks sardonically.

"Don't. They'll miss the point, they'll just blame the chair."

Henrik lets out an – albeit bitter – laugh at that. "That they would."

The room falls quiet for a while after that. Jac busies herself by checking something on her phone.

It's about the only moment of peace Henrik has had all day, one of the few moments that things have felt the same as they were before all of this. (And the rest of those moments have only been when he's alone in his office, filing paperwork or replying to emails, able to almost ignore the pain burning up and down his legs or the fact that he can't get up and pace the room to help him think anymore. Even the people who have treated him the same, he's found himself scrutinising their reactions at every moment, searching for some well-hidden sense of pity that he's convinced must be in there somewhere.

It's not healthy for him; he is aware of that. But he had one too many people pity him after the shooting, then after everything with John, and then, God forbid, when the truth came out about the things that happened to him at boarding school… and it makes it difficult to trust even the people who aren't treating him any differently. He can't help but feel that they're being too normal, can't help but feel that they secretly see him as different, as weak now.

But with Jac… with Jac, it feels different. Safer. He trusts her to truthfully, honestly see him as the same person as she did before. As many things – her friend, her colleague, her boss – but certainly not as a medical case for her to solve.

Perhaps, he supposes, that's because he knows she's been in this position too.)

"At first," Henrik speaks up again, "I wished I could just skip to the part where the adjustment was over and done with and I could get on with my life. I thought it was just the early days I couldn't cope with, that getting used to it would be the problem. I thought, you know – 'if I spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair, I can deal with that, it's learning to adjust to not being able to use my legs that's going to be the hard part.'"

"Mm."

"But as it turns out, the rosy-coloured part where I get on with my life? People still see me as just as weak as I was when I was struggling to wash or dress myself." Henrik pushes himself up slightly, shifting position to sit further back in his chair. "I mean, it's – I know it's really still early days. I'm not even technically supposed to be back at work this soon. It took me a lot of convincing a lot of people to make anyone believe I was ready to come back to work in even a management capacity."

"But you did it anyway."

"I had to," Henrik admits.

Jac nods, and Henrik knows it's in understanding. "I get it."

And that makes Henrik realise he hasn't asked her how she's doing in this entire conversation. Suddenly, he can't help but feel guilty for complaining at length to her about his problems, when they're far less significant than hers. Jac has a fucking brain tumour, her treatment might not work, she could die. The tumour could blind her, render her unable to carry on as a surgeon; and Henrik is all too aware that the thought of being unable to perform surgery is just as much of a worst case scenario to Jac as it is to him.

Henrik is alright. He has no life-threatening health issues, his career as a surgeon is not at risk. He's fine. The worst problems he really has at the moment are his dislike for physiotherapy, struggling to get around places with narrow doors or corridors, and a few people patronising him.

He studies Jac for a moment, attempts to figure out whether he should ask her about her own wellbeing, or if perhaps she feels better not talking about it.

Finally, he gives up and just asks her outright. "Are you alright?" (And he knows she isn't, but this is another one of the games they play; their way of gauging whether the other one is even in any mood to admit any vulnerability.)

Jac shakes her head.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," Jac assures him. "I'd rather think about anything else."

"I see," Henrik acknowledges her. Then he honours her request by quickly changing the subject back. "Everyone keeps expressing how sorry they are about my injuries. But… losing any meaningful use of my legs has not been a walk in the park – if you'll pardon the wordplay – but I don't think it's the worst part of all this. I'm not even convinced I'd say it's close. The pain, maybe, yeah, and enduring physiotherapy – that's a close second." (He sees Jac smirk at the last part.) "But the worst part is other people."

"It usually is."

Henrik nods: he can't disagree with that. "But no one tells you how sorry they are about that, do they? I mean, somehow I don't think it was coping with other people's reactions they had in mind when they offered me counselling. People tell me they're sorry I'm in a wheelchair, they don't tell me they're sorry that that wheelchair is all most people can see when they look at me now. People expect me to be upset because I can't walk, so how on Earth can I explain to them that what bothers me far more is their patronising stares?"

(What he doesn't mention is the days when it is hard. The days when all he wants to do is scream and yell in his frustration at how difficult things suddenly are now. The days when the pain is too much, and he wants to just curl up in his bed and cry. The days when one thing leads to another – when even just the smallest things, like the effort it takes getting in and out of the shower, are reminders of what happened, what he let happen, and then that in turn is a reminder of Fredrik because what isn't a reminder of Fredrik anymore.

He doesn't mention any of that, because he can't. All he'd be doing is making himself seem even weaker.)

"Well, if sorry's what you need to hear, then I'm sorry. That people are being dickheads."

"Thank you," Henrik tells her genuinely. He pauses for a moment, then says: "Do you think they're ever going to – well, to get over it? Because I don't know if I can take a lifetime of being 'that doctor in the wheelchair'."

"Probably," Jac answers. "They'll have to eventually. Give them enough time, they'll be forced to get used to it."

"I hope so."

"They will. There's only so long you can pity someone. I managed to make my reputation come back from a year of being in and out of a coma, yours will come back from this. They may even be more intimidated by you than they were before, because now you can 'accidentally' run over their feet if they annoy you," Jac teases.

Henrik can't help but chuckle at that mental image. "Now there's a thought."

"Trust me. By the time you're back in theatre, they're going to have no choice but to recognise that you're the same person you always were. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a job to be doing. And I understand the temptation to hide down here, but you should probably get back to yours at some point too."

"Yes, I probably should," Henrik nods. He watches as Jac leaves the room. He'll give himself another five minutes, he decides, and then he'll return to his office.

He can't, after all, avoid his colleagues forever.