Rebirth – Chapter 10: Only To See
-Notes-
Merry-2004: Thank you, thank you! I get an equal thrill when I see my 'review' alert messages.
Kaliska Vanka: Wuh…? I'm confused, who isn't dead? Did I confuse you? Or…did I confuse me? Um…anyway, thank you!
Agent182: Poor dudes, no one understands. Dun worry, though, things will happen. :D
Bell Pie: Another reader? --carves a notch into her block--I'm glad that you like it, hope I don't make the tension too annoying. :P I'm shocked that I haven't gotten any pointless flames yet. Does this mean that people are actually paying attention to warnings nowadays? That is so cool. Thanks!
Anway, this is not a short chapter. Enjoy.
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Jigsaw was dead.
Dead.
…It took some time for that to sink in for Adam as he lay facing the gray ceiling. In all of his glory, in all of his purpose, and in all of his self-righteous torment bullshit, he'd died just moments after his last little parlor trick. In one, big, graceless, far from noble 'heap', and Detective Palmer had put it. Adam couldn't help but allow himself a small, sadistic inward smirk just at that fact. After what he put him through—and especially the things he did to Lawrence—he deserved no better. But even so…it was hardly a victory.
So they had beaten a sick, dying, pathetic man. It hadn't even been them who'd done it. It had been some disease, some aimless factor they had no control over to begin with. Some fucking win. He supposed it wasn't the time to gloat anyway, though. Just to be grateful that he had indeed died before he had a chance to do any more harm than he already had. Who knows? He could've been after Lawrence in the very next instant. Adam shivered briefly in the wonder of that thought. But still…those words… "In the drain of that bathtub…" …
…Why?
Why would it matter?
He shook himself again to try and rid his head of these thoughts. He could hardly stand thinking about it…stuck alone in this pitiful room without a single familiar face or caring soul. It was…well, it was a lot like his apartment. Even still, he would rather have been there than here. At least in his apartment he could smoke.
Adam had never really been one for hospitals. He hated them, in fact. Bad memories came flooding back to him about being small and frightened—just six years old, specifically—bleeding profusely from a nail wound inflicted by a friend. His mother had been with him then, he remembered that much. To tell him it would be alright, to hold him while he cried like the toddler he was at the time. This was far worse, but he was older now. He should be able to face this without someone holding his hand. He lived his life alone, he'd learned to deal with that. He never could stick with a girl, never could find a roommate who would tolerate him and his weird, "creepy voyeur profession" as one girlfriend had dubbed it, or that he would even trust to stay out of his darkroom and not ruin his photos before they were developed. No. Everything about Adam said, "I'm desperately lonely, stay away".
He sighed and sank down into his bed a little more. When had he become so melodramatic? His life had never been that bad, had it? Well…until now, he was reminded. Things had really gone down hill.
Right now all he wanted was to see Lawrence again, who, for all he knew, was dying in a coma somewhere. Or having bled to death during surgery, but no one had bothered to tell him because 'Dr. Gordon wasn't his concern anymore'. He snorted in resentment. They had no idea what they'd had to go through, or how much it might help if they could just…talk about it. See each other. See the results of what they'd struggled for. Maybe know and assure themselves that they would be okay, for his own sake, at the very least. Gee, that was all too damn much to ask, wasn't it?
Then again…it wasn't as if…he didn't know where Lawrence was.
He thought for a while before easing himself into a sitting position, mindful of his immobile arm. Yeah. Room 204…Whether or not those detectives had intended him to hear it, he had indeed heard it. Lawrence was in room 204. 204. So…what was he waiting for? At this thought, he sat up further, clumsily slinking a leg over the edge of the bed to touch the cold floor beneath. It was—he took an upward look at the clock—passed nine already…would someone be watching him? Maybe…well he was willing to take the chance. No one would tell him anything if he continued to sit here, and if he just saw Lawrence…maybe he could put his mind at ease. Just see him, was all. That was all. Why couldn't they understand that?
He stubbornly placed the other foot to the ground and pushed himself up to his feet a little wobbly. His ankle hurt, but he imagined it nothing in compared to his cellmate's pain. As he regained his bearings, he rubbed his sore arm once and headed unsuredly for the door, ignoring the haunting feeling that he should be looking over his shoulder. The door opened with a soft click, revealing a placid scene over the dimly lit hallways, toned down for the patients in the rooms adjacent to his own to get some sleep. It was quiet, obviously without the hustle and clamor of the emergency ward. As he slipped out of his room, he looked around in a small tremor of dizziness before closing the door behind him. Okay…now…what room was he in anyway?
He turned back around a moment and scanned his eyes over the white door, feeling his hands around the surface as though sure he would miss something otherwise. Printed simply on the door at eye level was the number 116. Alright. 116. So the 200 level must be somewhat close by. He tried not to jump as he heard voices coming from down the other end of the calm hallways, whipping around again in the opposite direction with a quivering sigh. Better get a move on before someone caught up with him. He made a casual pace down the hallway, craning his head back to try and see the signs leading him towards the correct room. But where was he? First floor, second floor…third floor? Did this hospital have a third floor?
He kept careful watch on the room numbers that he passed. 119, 121, alright, he was getting closer. As he approached the rooms set higher into the 100 zone, he came to an elevator. So…200s, second floor. He was probably on the first. With this assumption, he took one last look all around him and prodded the arrow panel next to the door. With a dull 'cling', the doors shuffled apart, and he stepped inside. There was a small moment of worry as the doors closed, leaving him in the elevator a good distance from his stationed room. Would they be waiting for him when he exited? He wondered what exactly they could do…post a guard to watch him? He quickly dismissed this apprehension with the rationalizing that there was nothing signifigant they could in fact do. He was a man, not a child. It was his body, he couldn't be punished for what he did with it. Right.
The door opened, and the floor in front of him was much different than the one he had just departed. People were pushing about, all busied with some task, and out of some incredible luck, no one even looked to his direction, save some elderly patient who only spared a passing glance. Maybe he would actually get away with this after all. He glanced over to his side and caught the numbers 206 posted up outside the first door on the right. After a minute of debate, he turned awkwardly around and stumbled down the hallway behind him. 202…204. He stopped and rubbed his neck, staring at the numbers in contemplation. Was Lawrence really in here? He could've misheard. Or the cops could've been wrong. Oh Hell, if he'd come this far…he reached out and turned the handle with another look around, leading himself into the room cautiously. The gentle whir of machinery made it to his ears instantly as he walked in, eyes adjusting to the dull lighting when compared to the bright ones just outside.
On the bed was a sight that was both hard to bare and the most releiving scene that Adam could picture. It actually was Lawrence, and in whatever condidtion, alive. The machinery measuring his vitals gave an occasional click, and Adam watched in muted awe at the shallow dip that his chest made every now and then. Breathing, living, real-as-the-floor-beneath-his-feet Lawrence…He could cry.
But he wouldn't. God damnit, what was with the emotional head trips? He quietly shut the door behind him as he stepped in, both trying his best not to disturb Lawrence and hoping dearly that he would wake up all at once. Slowly taking the seat next to his bed, Adam swallowed hard and looked him over. He was pale. And weak. Just like the last time Adam had seen him. So where was he now? In a coma? Dying? Did he lose too much blood, did he pick up some kind of infection? What was wrong? Adam bit down on his lip and rubbed a hand over his head, digging his fingers into his hair and pulling at it slightly. Seeing Lawrence did give him small peace, but it also gave him more frustration. "Shit man…" he murmured in a rather pathetic tone, staring at him painfully. He reached out a shaking hand and placed it on that of Lawrence, unsure of what else to do.
He reveled in the fact that the hand was warm with blood. Warmth meant life. This man…how could his life have been compared with this man? Lawrence had a job, he had esteem, a wife, a daughter, a family, a life… Adam had…a camera. To think that this was the man who had risked his life and well-being for him. He could've shot him right off if it would mean that his wife and daughter would be safe. But instead, he chose to save him. He put so much on the line for a worthless, low-life stranger. One that he had the right to a personal vendetta with, none the less. All Adam had done was bitch and moan about his own problems. Poor, poor, selfish pathetic Adam. And Lawrence, who was dying because of him. He lowered his head to rest it on the guard rail of the bed, heaving a sorrowful sigh.
Movement. "…Huh…Who's…?"
He almost fell over from the shock of hearing the husky voice above him and the twitch of the hand underneath his own, springing back up into a sitting position. Lawrence lay with his eyes open, tiredness clouding his vision as he blinked repeatedly at the man in his room.
Adam immediately raised up over him. "Jeez, man, you need a nurse or something? Uh, hang on, pal, I'll-" he made a move to turn, but the hand he had been touching now encircled his wrist momentarily.
"Adam?" he uttered in seeming disbelief.
The two stared at each other in a mixture of confusion and excitement, eyes locked upon one another as though they were sure that one would vanish.
"Adam!" Lawrence suddenly cried, reaching up his arms quickly and snatching him by the shoulders to pull him down into a friendly hug before he had a chance to protest.
Adam squawked in surprise as he was grabbed, awkwardly shifting his injured arm. "Y-yeah! It's me…" he choked out, muffled somewhat over Lawrence's shoulder. He tensed at first, but had to give in, clutching back at Lawerence with his good arm tightly. In times when comfort was needed, there was no substitute for genuine human affection. What did it matter where it came from?
"What are you doing here? They wouldn't let me see you, I don't understand. Are…are you okay?" Lawrence started.
Adam pulled back slowly, sitting again in his chair and trying to stutter out an explanation. "Fuck man…" he scratched the side of his face. "You're not the one who should be asking that…"
Lawrence pushed himself up with a wince as he studied Adam over. "The hell I'm not. That wound could've gotten infected—let me take a look at your shoulder—what happened to your head, w-why do you have a bandage—?"
"Jesus, Lawrence, I'm fine." He held a hand to his chest, and incredulous huff of breath jetting out his nose. "Do you have any damn clue what I thought was happening to you? Fuck, no one would tell me anything. I-I was…"
"I'll live, Adam." Lawrence decreed, holding up a hand a ways to silence him.
"Yeah. Okay. Sure." Adam shook his head, grinding the heel of his palm into his forhead with exsasperation. They both sat in another moment of mere staring.
"…You really are a sight for sore eyes…" Lawrence said, unable to stop grinning like an idiot.
Adam thought about the way he must have looked, and decided to take that statement as a grave compliment. "Uh…you…too." He replied. "But…so you're okay then? You're gonna be fine, right?"
"I already told you, yeah." Lawrence nodded. "Relax. Your jittering makes me nervous, you know."
"I'm sorry."
"It was a joke."
"Ha ha." Adam made an attempt at a sarcastic laugh, but it came out high-pitched and uncomfortably stiff.
Lawrence adjusted his pillow and paused, again looking Adam over. "Come here." He ordered, holding out his hand a little.
"Come where?"
"Let me see your head."
"…You're fucking nuts. A doctor already fixed it."
"What butcher did that? Just let me see it, I won't hurt you."
Adam cocked an eyebrow, opening his mouth to decline.
"It's a little habit I picked up, alright? You know, treating the injured. …Just humor me." He extended his hand again in a beckoning motion.
Adam gave a confused sort of shrug and moved closer, bowing his head down a little so that Lawrence could examine him.
Lawrence gingerly touched the area near the bandage, finding traces of blood still there. "Wonderful. Bang up job they did here." He said bitterly as he wiped some of it up with the side of his thumb.
Adam felt a dull thrum of pain as the fingers touched his bruised area, drawing up the memory of skull hitting tile. "Good to know these guys know what they're doing…"
"How did this happen?" his tone took on a more gentle approach, along with the clear, distant wander of concentration. He lifted the corners of the bandage, pushing it aside for the moment.
"I um…" Adam bit back a grunt as the feeling of pressure against his wound intensified. "Slipped."
"Mm hm…Does this hurt?" he pressed down cautiously, and Adam shivered. "Most of the damage is internal…this was a concussion, didn't they give you more than a damn bandaid?" Lawrence growled.
"I don't know…most of this stuff was done before I woke up." He closed his eyes against the soft ache beginning in the back of his head.
"They let you sleep with this? Do you know how dangerous that could've been?" he continued to test out the vulnerablility of various places around the initial crack.
"I flipped out. I don't think they had a choice." He smirked weakly. He didn't really know what Lawrence was searching for in his incessant prodding, but the pain was lessening. The feeling had faded from careful pushing to a more sort of light stroking along the bruised skin, a sensation that was growing to be somewhat pleasant, and so he did not pull away.
"They really could've done better here." He muttered still, taking the bandage again and securing the medical tape back onto the lightly scarring wound with expert hands.
Adam drew back, giving him a calculating look. "Seriously man. You don't have to be a doctor right now. You know that, huh?"
He thought for a moment before indignantly refusing. "I would've done it much better."
"…Forget about it, okay? Don't stress over it." Adam tried, touching the back of his head for himself. He dropped his hand back into his lap and looked down. "Um…did you get to talk to your family? Are they…okay?"
Lawrence perked up slightly, a wave of happiness lighting on his features. "They're just fine. Thank you." He nodded.
"Good." Adam smiled to himself, eyes still downward.
"What about you, Adam? Isn't there someone wondering where you were?" Lawrence asked curiously.
He looked back up at that question, his mouth falling open a little. "Um…well no, no not really." He paused, almost as though he'd surprised himself with that answer.
Lawrence seemed also to be taken back by that. "You don't have parents? Siblings? Friends?"
"Well sure, but I mean, I don't talk to them…much. Not hearing from me for at least a couple of days is pretty standard for them." He admitted.
Lawrence could hardly picture it. "You mean there isn't anyone that you…see every day?"
Adam thought for a second. "Nope. Guess not."
He didn't understand how Adam could be so unphased about that. How could he live his life so entirely alone? Considering his job, he could see where there was no social outlet there. But to think that he spent his whole life that way…He supposed it was no wonder that Adam was so untrusting, so seclusive. Was that to say that he had spent a day in his own personal hell being tortured and shot and jerked around, and no one had even noticed his absence? And would he just go back from this into the same, wretched loneliness? Or…was it possible he really wanted to live that way? "Well…I just…I'd be worried about you, if I knew you. I thought that someone might…ah…just…nevermind."
Adam observed the expression on Lawrence's face and felt a tingle of shame. So just now he was beginning to grasp the true pettiness of Adam's life, wasn't he? Maybe he hadn't believed it before. He felt as though he'd thrown all of his shortcomings in Lawrence's face in that one instant and said, 'Here, look at the bullshit nothing you risked your neck for. Worth it?'.
"…I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up something like that." Lawrence said.
"Like what?" Adam feigned ignorance, dismissing the stinging pain he felt when faced with his own reality for not the first time. "Some people are loners, I guess. No big deal."
"So then you consider yourself a loner?"
Adam shrugged hesitantly. "Sure. I must be. Never really got along with people."
"…Hm." Lawrence trailed off in thought.
Adam leaned back in his chair at that, again rubbing his bad arm in a sort of nervous habit. "So I guess you…you heard about Jigsaw." He stated it, hoping that Lawrence would simply agree—that he knew and he wouldn't have to be the one explaining it.
Lawrence said nothing for what seemed to be a very long time. Maybe he really hadn't heard about it. But weren't the police supposed to have talked to him about this already? If they hadn't, he'd just given him a disturbing riddle that he most certainly didn't need. As he returned his gaze, however, he found no trace of surprises on his face. Instead, Lawrence's eyes were drawn solemnly away, a hand absently rubbing at his wrist. "…Adam, I'm so sorry." He said quietly.
Adam glanced around. "…uh…wh-what? What, why? What do you mean?"
Lawrence gave him a funny sort of look that he couldn't quite make out. Something along the lines of 'you're killing me'. He didn't like it.
"I…" Lawrence stopped to clear his throat, bringing his eyes up to Adam's with regret that was palpable.
"What?" Adam twitched under that stare.
Lawrence looked at the clock. "I left you there…with him."
Adam felt as though a hand had gripped at his organs, squashing his lungs and making his breath hitch. He wasn't prepared for the sudden memory those words invoked—the madness-inducing memory of witnessing that dead corpse pull itself off the floor in some gruesome, macabre joke as he himself lay trapped and bleeding. Lawrence wasn't there anymore. He was alone. Alone, in that room, with that thing. He couldn't surpress a murmur of nasuea as he thought about it.
"Believe me, if I would've known for a second—" Lawrence piped up, trying to pull Adam out of his flashback. "—or if I would've thought that…I mean I…I should've suspected something, I know I should've."
"S-stop, it's not your…fault…" Adam shook his head and looked up at him again. "You had to go, I know…"
"You begged me to stay." Lawrence reminded.
"I was fucking out of my head for a second, okay? If you didn't go, wh-who knows, that fucker would've locked us both in there and maybe no one would've found us." He moved a little closer to the bed, resting his hands on the railing.
Lawrence fiddled for a moment with the tag on his wrist, breathing a sigh. "I don't know why, but…I feel somehow responsible. Maybe…there was something else I could've done. There had to be. There had to be another option."
"What the hell does it matter?—look," he reached a hand over to stop Lawrence's obnoxious fidgeting. "We made it out alive, right? Isn't that what matters? Who cares how? …Fuck, man."
"I…I-I know, y-you're right, I just…I'm still sorry." He placed his hand onto Adam's, which was currently sitting on his wrist.
Adam stared at the hand gripping his, responding with his own grip. "Hey, I'm…sorry too. For what it's worth."
The two met each other's eyes momentarily. Eyes that conveyed both pain and good nature at once, and also, a small hint of confusion. Neither was really certain why the other would be apologizing, but both very convinced that they themselves had wronged that other.
Just as Lawrence was about to speak, the door opened, grabbing both of their attention at once as they turned, frozen.
In the doorway stood a young nurse with longish brown hair, staring at them blatantly with a very befuddled look on her face.
It was almost comical, in a sense, the way the three of them simply stood, sat, and lay respectively like deer in headlights. At last Lawrence cleared his throat loudly and took charge of the situation. "Can I help you?"
The nurse gave a puzzled glance at Adam and stammered for words. "I-I was just coming to check in on you, Mr. Gordon." She enlightened.
"Well I'm just fine, thanks. Goodnight." He replied irritably.
"Oh…Uh…visiting hours are over. I'm afraid your friend will have to go home." She informed, pointing a finger at Adam.
Lawrence looked between them, somewhat incredulous. "He's a patient here."
"…Well then he'll have to go to his room." She paused, then nodded.
"What's your name?" Lawrence asked, stopping Adam as he made a move to stand.
She blinked, not understanding. "Lisa."
"Alright, Lisa. And you know who I am, right? The name Lawrence Gordon isn't familiar to you?" he raised an eyebrow.
Again she hesitated. "Um, yes, Dr. Gordon, of course. B-but—"
"Then just get back to your shift, will you? Adam is under my care. I'll have you know that you're interfering in a very dire discussion about my patient's health, and if you don't want to be written up for it, I suggest you don't let the door hit your ass on the way out." Lawrence warned.
The nurse practically jumped, stuttering a mouthful of sincere apologies as she backed out of the room.
Adam looked to the door and then back at Lawrence with a disbelieving laugh. "Man, you really put the fear of God into her."
"The new nurses are easy to scare off. They don't have the confidence yet. Lucky for us." He shrugged.
"Is she gonna tell someone?"
"Maybe. I don't know." Lawrence waited a moment, watching the door.
"Think I should get out of here?" Adam gestured over a shoulder.
"…I wouldn't mind the company if you stayed." Lawrence admitted.
Adam had to empathize. He didn't want to go back to his deserted room alone again. "Neither would I."
Lawrence nodded again and took another look at the clock. "…It's good to see you, Adam."
"Yeah. Think you said that already." Adam pointed out sardonically.
Lawrence chuckled and lay back. "Anything worth saying once is worth saying again, I guess."
Adam couldn't help but smile in agreement. "…Well in that case…s'good to see you too."
