Surprisingly, when he at last had something to occupy most of his time with, it passed by smoothly, more so than Alex himself would have thought. Of course, it helped to have Leonard - the incurable chatterbox that he was - present for some time almost every day, as well. Alex did not know what other tasks the young nurse had around the hospital, but it had taken little time, and absolutely no second thoughts, to convince (or rather extort) the doctors and various responsible personnel, that the guy he was slowly starting to view as a sort of friend, after a fashion, was greatly beneficial to his recovery, especially in the mental department, and even threw in the fact that the mindless rambling of the young intern had in fact been what had woken him up in the first place, just for good measure. The fact that Leonard also did not studiously avoid looking at his face, as most others did, but rather acted as though there was nothing out of the ordinary about the teenager's appearance also helped a whole lot in cheering him up, and sometimes he almost forgot entirely.
Sometimes, when Alex was tired or feeling down, the young nurse simply talked about anything between heaven and earth, filling the otherwise somewhat oppressive silence with his mellow voice, when any other visitors would only add to it. Other times, when the teenager was feeling better, they would hold an actual two-way conversation, often brushing on the subject of football and other sports, Leonard always cheering him on about soon being able to play again, if only in a friendly training match, an one day when Alex was feeling particularly energetic, they had had a heated argument regarding football teams. Leonard was not quite the Chelsea-fan Alex had hoped for when he realized the nurse held an interest in football, and he even feinted a punch in his direction after one particularly annoying comment, which made the physiotherapist also present at the time rather visibly nervous, and she only partially relaxed when neither young man made any further move to actually get physical over their little disagreement. What Alex had not mentioned at the time, was how happy and alive this little episode had made him feel, and that was something that he was liable to keep to himself for quite some time.