Author's comment: I have two huge apologies to make now. The first is for not updating for ages, but you're getting kind of used to it now, I suppose. Have to get better on that…. I have had a very mean case of writer's block the past month, but it's starting to ease up now. Though it's not totally gone yet, it's leaving…
The other apology is for this chapter. I don't like it even half as much as all the others together, and I doubt anyone else will either.
But I had to finish it in order to get started on the following. And, I promise – those will be better! I swear….

As usual I'm eternally grateful for all the reviews – everytime I feel bad I go and read them. It always helps – THANK YOU!! J Just wishing I could give you something better than this crap in return…

Thanks for pointing out that I had chosen wrong name for Luka's niece – I fixed that J Got a bit messed up – blame Kalabrarian philosophy for that… ;)

CHAPTER NINE : VISITING HOUR

He looked at himself in the slightly steamed up bathroom mirror. It had been a while since he had had the questionable fortune of seeing himself somewhat clearly; he didn't as many others have a mirror in his locker at County, and every time he had gone inside the bathroom at his own place he had been keeping his head down, both so he could avoid meeting his tired self and because it felt like his all-around headache preferred looking at the floor than at the ceiling.
But as his memory of the house hadn't included where the mirrors were placed he now was staring right into one.

Either Dubravko had given him one of Dragan's shirts by mistake, or he had lost more weight than he had thought. The now very soft blue fabric from too much washing and ironing hung loosely from his shoulders, as if the shirt was at least three sizes too big. There was no way he could have lost that much weight – he'd be a skeleton then. It had to be the wrong shirt.

Still thinking about this possible mix up and what Dragan's reaction to it might be, Luka opened the bathroom door and started limping towards the basement stairs. Slowly but surely, one step after another, tightly holding on to the banister on the wall. The house felt unpleasantly unsteady on its grounds and it was with a deep sigh that he lay down on the bed in the middle of the dark basement room. He could hear the wind outside, surprised at how he hadn't noticed it before – it sounded as if it wanted to break down the walls and get inside the room to freeze him to death.

Slightly sighing and being too tired to do anything than to lay still in the dark he let the sound of the wind be the only thing to fill his head. He was deadly tired. He was supposed to be relaxing and healing, but being here had managed to exhaust him even more. Dubravko was fussing around him as if he was going to take a new overdose any minute, his mother was more upset and rambling than anything he had ever seen her like. One minute she was at the edge of a hysterical fit over what he had done to himself, the next he told him that everything would be fine. He could easily see the fear in their eyes. The cold, black fear that locked out everything else, trying to get first-row seats everywhere. He had seen it so many times – at County, in the war, and in his own mirror. Dubravko and Milena were scared, scared of not being able to handle things in the right way, scared of what was happening. Scared of him.

He had seen it so many times – at County, in the war, and in his own mirror. Dubravko and Milena were scared, scared of not being able to handle things in the right way, scared of what was happening. Scared of him. So they kept up a facade. He had heard Dubravko laugh at the neighbour's worried questions about if he was going to die. Milena tried to be there for him, and to carry on with her own life at the same time. 

His mother also kept up a façade in her own way. She had been talking about every possible subject that came into her mind, anything but her youngest son's addiction or suicide attempt. And, of course, the family was a wonderful subject. There was so much he had missed over the years, she kept reminding him. Before he had been home for even one whole hour she had managed to not so briefly tell him what the family had gone through in the past ten years. He had gotten three nieces, the one more adorable than the other, his best friend Viktor had two children as well. His father had sold a few paintings, but Dragan's farm was doing worse than ever. And the cat had had three kittens. God forbid she'd forget the cat…

Speaking of the cat. The sound of the wind was suddenly not the only sound in the room. A soft 'meow' broke through the wind, making him frown and slowly turn towards where the sound had come from.

A new 'meow', and a bump in the dark. The cat the sound belonged to had apparently been sleeping in one of the chairs in the corner, and had now been woken up by the weather.

The furry animal stepped into the soft moonlight shining in from the small basement window, stretched and yawned with a bitter look on its face, as if it wanted to tell him that all this was his fault. It sat down on the floor, staring at him, its clear blue eyes being the only thing he could see in the dark.
"Don't look at me like that," he muttered and closed his eyes, trying not to care about the two cat eyes staring at him.
The only, but immediate, response he got was a loud meow.
"Hey," he said a bit more irritated and looked right at the cat again. "Some people are trying to sleep here."
Even louder meowing, getting closer. He felt the cat jumping up onto the bed, all along meowing loudly.
It reached him where he lay with his head between two pillows, suddenly it didn't look as bitter anymore, but it seemed almost concerned.
A cat looking concerned? Great, he really was loosing his mind.

"Hey… you," he said, slowly reaching out towards the cat, suddenly realizing that he had forgotten its name. Natalia had named her at some point – a slightly ridiculous name on a very ridiculous cat. They had never gotten along, he and whatever-her-name-was. But now she suddenly seemed to have forgotten all about how he always had been too busy to interact with her back in her days as a kitten. Or maybe she just felt sorry for him, just as everyone else did.
"You don't even like me, remember," he added with a tired smile when the cat came closer and started tramping around, searching for a nice place to sleep in the bed.
As a reply the cat laid down next to him, its warm body pressed tight against his hurting leg. Its loud purring made it clear that it was very pleased with its newfound sleeping space.
He smiled at the furry creature, sleeping next to him like a little ball of yarn.
"Well, if you insist," he said and laid back, actually quite pleased with the company, even if it was of a nameless cat.

***

Late night became morning, but it wasn't the sound of Dubravko and Natalia having their daily argument or Dragan loudly slamming the kitchen door on his way to the refrigerator, nor was it the long and loud reading of his rights he received from their mother for making enough noise to wake up half of the village and, more importantly, Luka, that woke him. It was the sound of a tiny voice next to him that pulled him away from the wonderful land of sleep.

His first thought was that the nameless cat somehow had started talking, but then he heard that the voice belonged to a little girl.
"Jasna…?" he murmured, trying to open his eyes to see to whom he was talking to. Or, who was talking to him, more likely. Before he managed to do so he heard the voice again.

"Hi," the voice said, sounding quite persistent to get some kind of answer.

Finally he managed to open his eyes, but he still couldn't see her. He blinked a few times to clear his sight, with no progress success.
"What…?" he murmured, realizing that he probably only scared her the way he sounded.
But apparently the girl wasn't scared of his hoarse and worn out voice.
"Hi," she said a third time, seeming very surprised that anyone could be so out of it
Realizing that he was searching for her in the ceiling he turned around.

A pair of squirrel-like eyes met him. The eyes belonged to a small girl, barely tall enough to look over the side of the bed.
"Hi…" he said tiredly, somehow managing to smile at her.
"Why are you asleep?" she asked, looking just as innocent and clueless as any girl her age. What was her name? Sanja? Kaja? No, those were the twins. The twins with the raven black hair and Dubravko's ears, according to their informative grandmother. This girl had to be more than two years old – maybe four or five. Janica it was.
"I'm not feeling so well," he answered, trying to focus his eyes on her and the huge toy rabbit she was dragging along.
"Are you ill?"
"Something like that…"

She was quiet for a while, apparently thinking about it. Then she started to climb up on the bed, with very little success.
"Janica…" he began, trying to stop her. He didn't dare to pick her up because he didn't think his hands would be steady enough, and the velvet rabbit that was almost as big as her wasn't very helpful.
With a stubbornness she must have inherited from Natalia she somehow made it, climbed over him and finally sat next to him. She didn't see how he took a deep breath to calm down the pain her climbing over him had caused. Her attention was turned towards the sleeping yarn.
"You have Mačka here," she burst out happily and threw herself over the sleeping animal. Apparently the cat was used to this rather violent treatment, and didn't make any attempt to escape. Luka smiled at the sight of Janica, still in a pink pyjamas and a red bathrobe that was a bit too big for her. She held the cat in a tight grip against her chest in a way that had to be very uncomfortable if you were used to sleeping in corners 22 hours of the day. That cat, his mother's baby, was a rather lazy creature.
"What's her name?" he asked, slightly nodding at the cat, which apparently had fallen asleep again despite Janica's rather brusque caresses.
"I already told you. Mačka," she said in her light voice, apparently thinking that he was unforgivably slow today.
"Right…" he smiled, suddenly remembering what he always had found so ridiculous about the cat's name. Mačka, the cat…
"She is very pretty," he said, gently caressing the white fur on Mačka's belly with his index finger.
"Mom says she likes me," Janica said proudly.
"I'm sure she does," Luka smiled, trying not to sound too tired, although the room had gotten a lot blurrier during the past minutes. He couldn't really separate the velvet rabbit from the pillow it was laying on.
"You don't talk like dad does," Janica suddenly said, looking right at him.
"I don't…?" he asked, rather surprised at this unexpected statement.
"No."
"Do you mean that I use different words?"
"No."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Then what do you mean?"
"It doesn't sound the same."
"No?" he asked with a smile.
"It sounds funny when you say it."
"It does?", he said with a laugh, both at her way of telling him that he didn't pronounce words like Dubravko did and at the look on her face when he started laughing.
"Why are you laughing?" she asked.
"Sorry," he said.
She seemed to accept his apology.
"You are weird."
He chuckled again.
"You think?"
She nodded.
"Where do you live?" she asked.
"In America," he said. "Do you know it?
She nodded again.
"It's that big land across the water where they have big houses."
He chuckled.
"Something like that."
"Dragan says Americans are extortionists," Janica said, sounding serious.
"I'm sure he does," Luka smiled. At least one person in this family hadn't changed.
"Are you an extortionist?" she asked and made him laugh once more. It was fully apparent that Janica didn't have the slightest idea of what the word "extortionist" meant.
"No," he smiled. "And neither are the Americans I know."
"Are you American?"
"No, I'm Croatian, just like you. I'm your dad's brother," he added.
"Are you Dragan's brother too?"
"Yes. I have two brothers."
"I have two sisters," she said.
"Yes, I know."
"But they are just babies," she said, sounding bored. "They can't play."
He smiled.
"You'll just have to wait a while. Then you will have lots of fun together."
"Hmm," she muttered, looking down on Mačka.

"Then why does your words sound different?"
At first he didn't understand what she meant, but then he understood that they were back to the pronunciation discussion.
"I haven't spoken Croatian for a long time," he explained. "I moved away long before you were born."
She looked closely at him, still with Mačka in her arms.
"Why did you do that?"
He sighed deeply.
"Something… Something sad happened, and I felt that I didn't want to stay…" his voice trailed off, and he tried not to let it show.
"Did somebody die?"
He smiled sadly.
"Yes. Somebody died…"
"Who?" Janica asked in her tiny voice.
"… I had a girl, about your age. And a boy, a bit younger than Sanja and Kaja…"
Should he tell her this? Probably not. She was just four or five years old, probably five as she spoke quite well – but, of course, she had talkative parents from whom she had gotten that skill. Well, whatever her age, she needn't worry about these things.
"They died?"
"Yes."
"Did their mom die too?"
Luka just nodded, not knowing if she was just guessing or if she knew.
"Then they are with their mom," she said. "They are not alone. And God is there too, so he can keep an eye on them."
He couldn't help but to be touched by her words. Who needs a shrink when there are five year olds…
"Yes, you're right…" he said slowly and tried to smile at her. But it was getting harder to keep up this conversation, no matter how much he enjoyed it. His sight had only gotten blurrier, he could barely see Janica clearly anymore. Instead he was seeing shadows he knew shouldn't be there and felt an unpleasant taste of metal in his mouth. The headache was coming back as well. He slightly changed his position in the bed in an attempt to stop it, but it only made the pain worsen.
Janica had to get out of there, he couldn't let her see…

"Janica…-" he began. "You…-"
He couldn't get any further, and he could see that he was scaring her. It really didn't improve the way he felt.
Suddenly he heard steps in the stairs and Natalia's voice.
"Janica! Janica…!"
At the sound of her mother's voice Janica looked up from Mačka's fur, on which she apparently had been doing some sort of thickness-check the past minutes.
"Mama!" she answered, her answer speeding up Natalia's steps and making her come inside the room. When she saw Janica sitting there with Mačka and Luka she just shook her head.
"Janica, come here! Leave Uncle Luka alone!" She snapped her fingers and pointed at the door.
"Go upstairs! Migom, immediately!"
Janica let go of Mačka and climbed over Luka again, almost making him scream when her foot touched his ill leg when she slid down to the floor. She waved at him before disappearing upstairs.

Natalia sighed.
"Luka, I'm sorry. I was feeding the twins and arguing with your stubborn brother at the same time – she just disappeared."
Luka just raised his hand.

"It's OK…" he said, slurring the words a bit. Suddenly he realized that he had said it in English.
Natalia smiled.
"Luka, you're home. You don't have to speak English to me."
He smiled and tried to form the sentence in their mother tongue, but to his consternation he wasn't able to do it. He couldn't say "It's OK" in Croatian. He couldn't remember how to form the words, he couldn't get them out. He knew how they were supposed to sound, but was completely unable to say them.

The room was darkening despite the morning sun. The walls moved towards him, falling in, waking a claustrophobia he never had known he suffered from. He started breathing heavily, trying to use every trick he had ever taught his patients.

Natalia took a few steps towards the bed and sat down at his bedside.
"Luka…?"
"I can't," he said desperately, still in English.
"What do you mean?" she asked gently.
"I can't say it…!" he said, panicking. This was one of the most frightening things he had ever experienced, being completely unable to speak his own language. He could understand what Natalia said, but replying was impossible.

First he had lost his English at the airport, now he was loosing grip of his own language. When Janica had said that it sounded funny when he spoke he had only laughed – after being away for so long that was just what you had to expect. Sure he had tried to keep the language living while in Chicago, but it was difficult when you had no one to use it with. It was not weird, he had known all along that it eventually would happen. But not like this. It felt as if a thick glass wall was rising in front of him – he could see life behind it but was unable to participate in it. What if he never got the words back? He would not be able to speak to his own mother without a translator.

"Ssh… " He heard Natalia say, taking his hand. "Just calm down …"

But he couldn't. The walls were falling in; pictures and voices once again filling his head. Everything seemed to melt together: the bed, the walls, the room, only leaving a surreal feeling of fog and darkness. Glass walls rose and crashed all around him, lights blinked, shifting colours and shades in a speed that, if they had been sprinters, would have gotten them into the books of sport history that his father kept in the living room.

Through the thick fog he heard somebody call out his name over and over again, but he couldn't answer. The words wouldn't come out and the room was spinning. The sounds inside his head became louder, and suddenly he saw shadows rising­­­ in front of him. The sight made his mind clear up, or maybe clear up wasn't a fair description of what was happening.
Suddenly the unbearable pain disappeared, and he felt a gust of a soft wind wipe away the fear and panic. He became still, calmer than ever before. From far away he could hear voices, upset, screaming. But it didn't affect him, he didn't care. He never wanted to leave this state, having this soft wind blowing, not being in any pain…

The wind ruffled his hair, wiped away the cold sweat from his forehead. It was a wonderful feeling, almost as drugging as the pills. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice in the wind, coming closer. The voice whispered his name, gently, and in a tone he had heard every day what seemed like a lifetime ago.
He realized who it was, and a smile spread across his face.

"Danijela…" he whispered and reached out with his hand, not believing what he was hearing.
"Yes," he heard her say, and just a moment later she stepped out of the shadows and sat down next to him – if it was on the bed in the basement or not he couldn't tell. Everything except her face and voice was gone. It wasn't blurry, just gone. A total emptiness surrounded them, and she took his hand. He could feel her touch, similar to the caresses on his forehead. It hadn't been the wind, he happily realized.
"It was you…" he said, trying to smile like he used to smile at her. But it had been 12 years and apparently he hadn't smiled like that for a long time, because he couldn't. This realization devastated him. Never had it been so obvious that he wasn't the man he once had been.
"Yes," she said, still with the same smile "it was me."
"Thank you…" he said in a weak voice, squeezing her hand.
"Don't speak," she said and caressed his forehead again, making him quiet. Her voice sounded the same, but still it didn't. It sounded as if it came from somewhere far away even though she was sitting next to him.
"I don't have much time on my hands. Marko has just learned to walk, and he is tumbling around, just like Jasna used to… But I wanted to see you. I had to stop you."
He frowned, feeling the need to interrupt her.
"Why…?"
She smiled.
"It's not time for you yet," she said simply.
"It wasn't time for you either," he protested, but she just smiled.
"Yes, it was. Somehow…"
"No!" he said, managing to make himself heard. This was great; they met for the first time in ten years and spent their time arguing.
"I want to come with you…" he added in a weaker voice, leaning back. "Please…"
"It's impossible," she said gently.
"But I miss you so…" he said in a thick voice. "I love you…. I can't live without you…"
"Yes, you can," she said, still caressing his forehead.
"No…" He shook his head, feeling the desperation grow. He wanted to go with her; he never wanted her to leave again. Suddenly he understood why she didn't want him to come with her.
"I didn't mean it," he said desperately. "None of those women meant anything to me, I promise you… I love you, only you… Please, please…"
"I know, Luka. I know."
"Please let me come with you… I want to see them, I want to tell them that I love them…"
"They know," she said calmly, seeming distant.
"But…-"
"You have to be happy, Luka," she continued, her voice sounding as if she was standing in the middle of a great church, preaching something he didn't want to hear.
"I can't."
"Yes, you can. I can't stand to see you like this. You can't keep living in what has been, nor think about what could have been. You need to live in what is and what will be."
"I would be happy with you."
"No, you wouldn't be. You are not meant to be here yet, and therefore you could never be happy here. You must go back to what you have."
"I don't have anything," he protested. "The only thing I have is you."
"No, Luka. You have to open your eyes. Open your eyes and see what you have."
"I don't…"
"Let her in, Luka. Let her help you."
He frowned again.
"But…-"
She turned around and sighed, as if she had looked at a clock on the wall and realized that she had already spent too much time down here.
"Luka, my time is up. I have to go back. They need me."
He shook his head, panicking again.
"No! Danijela, please, stay…! I have to talk to you, I have to tell you…"
She put a finger on her lips, and as if it had been his lips she sealed, he became quiet.
"I have to go back," she said.
"I have to leave."
She leaned forward, stroked his hair and gently kissed his forehead.
"I have to leave…"
He sat up in what he now after all realized was the bed, and reached out towards her.
"No, please, don't…!"
She shook her head; the dark curls surrounding her unusually pale face. She rose from his bedside, blew him a kiss and faded back into the shadows that quickly swallowed her.
Broken and defeated he laid back, for the first time surrounded by a deep, crushing silence.

***

Everything was quiet, but suddenly a light lit up somewhere in front of him. It shone through his closed eyelids, disturbing his dreamless sleep. In attempt to lock it out he squeezed his eyes tighter together, but the light only became stronger and he had to open them, just enough to see if there was someone who would shut the damn lamp.

He opened his eyes.

He saw white, square tiles. The ceiling was tiled with clear white, square tiles. Hospital-white. Trying to figure out where the hell he was he took a deep breath, but before his mind started working, his nose did. Despite Croatia being a republic he coughed for King and Country as the smell of the room reached his system. Dear God, where was he? A morgue? If that was the case, then the cleaning routines here seemed to be dramatically different from the American ones.

"So you are awake," he suddenly heard a voice. A very familiar voice this time too, but not the one he might have expected.

He slowly turned his head towards the place where the voice came from. A few seconds later he looked right into his father's eyes.
"Hi…" he said with a weak smile, realizing that he sounded almost like Janica earlier.
"Hi yourself," Tito answered with a smile. He was sitting on a chair next to the bed.
Luka looked around, amazed and confused by the sudden change of surroundings and company.
"How…? Where…?" were the only things he managed to get out. But his father understood.
"You're at the hospital."
"In Zagreb…?"
Tito shook his head.
"No, at the local clinic. Doric didn't think it was necessary to move you."
Luka smiled slightly when his father mentioned the chief of the clinic. For some reason no one ever called Dmitri Doric by his first name. Few even knew he, as most people did, had one.
"But how are you here…?"
"Dubravko called me. Or," Tito added with a wide smile – "actually, Natalia called me but I heard your brother loud and clear in the background. You know how he gets."

They both chuckled, but soon Luka started coughing again. He tried to move a little, only to realize that everything hurt again. Out of pure desperation he slowly sat up in the bed, thinking that it might help.
Surprise, surprise – it didn't.
As he was about to lay back again he felt that something was in the way. He frowned and slowly reached out with his hand towards the disturbing element, and fished up Janica's velvet rabbit. He frowned even more as he looked at it. Tito smiled again.
"She has been taking very good care of you," he said.
"Is she here…?"
Tito nodded at the window out to the corridor. Luka turned his gaze towards it and saw Dubravko, Natalia and Janica outside.
"They have been very worried about you. They might not show it in a way you appreciate, but they still are." Tito said.
"Mmm," Luka murmured, barely listening. He closed his eyes again, not being able to keep them open. He was so tired… The sound of his father's voice was very calming, lulling him to sleep. But he didn't want to fall asleep, not now. There was so much he wanted to say, so much to tell… He suddenly felt like when he was still in med school and his father had been the only one who had listened to his descriptions of the cases he saw and the most fascinating conditions with genuine interest. Dubravko and their mother could barely stand the sight of blood, and Dragan was always doing something else. But Tito had always been listening. They had been down in the basement bedroom. Tito had been painting and Luka had been arranging objects or cleaning brushes while talking about something his attendings had been discussing. Those were the days… Now he couldn't remember when he last had been fascinated by a medical case.

But he wanted to say something.

"I saw Danijela," he finally said.
Tito smiled.
"I hope you greeted her from me."
Luka smiled a bit and laid back, handing the rabbit to Tito before falling asleep.
"Give this to Janica…. I think she needs it more than I do."
But Tito didn't take the rabbit out to the corridor to his granddaughter. Instead he placed the rabbit back on Luka's pillow.
"I'm not so sure of that," he said with a smile.

He was still sitting there half an hour later, smiling at his youngest son, when a nurse opened the door.
"Visiting hour is over, sir."