"I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, Ms. Hino, but your grandfather's condition is…not good. He is deteriorating."
The senior physician coughed softly and shifted from foot to foot, feeling uncomfortably like a naughty child under the intense gaze of his patient's granddaughter. Those dark violet orbs seemed to burn into the very depths of his soul.
"Tell me." Her voice was eerily calm.
"Despite our best efforts, he has lapsed into a coma. And you already know about his heart. He is a very old man, and has been failing for some time, Ms. Hino. Sometimes the aged simply get to a point where they no longer want to live." The doctor glanced regretfully back at the door to Room 301.
"What about surgery?"
He shook his head. "If he were stronger, perhaps. But as weak as he is now, he'd never survive it. I'm very sorry. We have done everything we can to make him comfortable. He is breathing on his own and he does not appear to be in any pain, but I believe you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that his time is slipping away. I fear it's only a matter of days."
The doctor waited for the flinch, the denials and the tears, but they never came. The curiously self-possessed young woman simply stared him down, though the color did drain from her cheeks, leaving her looking like a beautiful but bloodless wax doll. "I see. Thank you, Doctor Fumio."
Although he had done everything medically possible for the old priest, the doctor was left with the sense his performance had been wanting. Somehow he should have done something more. Beads of sweat broke on his forehead, leaving him clammy and damp. "If you like," he offered awkwardly, "I can call your fa…er…the senator. I'm sure he can make arrangements."
"Thank you, no," Rei answered grimly, her lips tightening. "I will see to matters and return as soon as possible. Good day, doctor." She bowed and turned away, gliding with preternatural quiet past the nurse's station.
The physician slumped against the counter of the nurse's station, mopping his brow and wondering if his ulcer was about to act up. He popped an antacid tablet, hoping it would calm the churning in his stomach. Notifying families that someone was dying was the worst. This had been worse still.
One young nurse, brand new to the ward and swiftly becoming a particular favorite of the male patients and interns due to her buxom good looks, peered down the hall after Rei, shaking her head in disgust. "Unbelievable. Not a single tear shed. Like the news never touched her. I swear, I believe it's a mercy her grandfather is comatose and doesn't have to know how she reacted, because that Hino girl is the coldest, most unfeeling person I have ever seen."
The nurse's voice was carrying, but a slight stiffening of a regal spine was the only sign that the target of the nurse's bile-filled words had overheard them. They couldn't see the tears that stung and left her eyes bright with pain.
The doctor turned to peer in disbelief, while the Head Nurse harrumphed and eyeballed her newest charge with sudden distaste. "Nurse Chika, your name may mean wisdom, but I begin to doubt that you possess much of it, nor compassion or professionalism. Though you've been here not a week, you speak of what you clearly do not know, and that makes me question your fitness to be on this ward."
The nurse went white at the rebuke by the head of her department. "I…I just…"
Her supervisor continued, cutting off her stuttering attempts to explain. "As a matter of fact, that cold young woman whom you so casually condemned gave up her college education to care for her grandfather when he fell sick. Since he has been hospitalized she has been single-handedly running his temple, and spending nearly every other available minute here. Does that sound like a woman who does not care about her grandfather's wellbeing?"
"No," answered a much chastened Nurse Chika in a tiny, subdued squeak. "I'm sorry."
Just then one of the patient buzzers went off. Nurse Chika, her cheeks now flaming in embarrassment, fled to see to it. The Head Nurse harrumphed and picked up the telephone which had started jangling insistently. Evidently whatever she heard displeased her, for she hopped to her feet, grabbed a clipboard and took off at a brisk trot. An earnest young intern waved to garner Doctor Fumio's attention for a consult and, hearing the details, he set off with him.
And in all the sudden rush of activity, not even in a city of dark haired, dark eyed people, did anyone notice the azure-eyed, blond man in the lab coat stealthily entering Room 301 and shutting the door behind him.
Jadeite thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his recently appropriated white jacket, and stared down at the small, wizened figure in the bed. One small part of his mind was fixed on holding the illusion he'd cast, that the door to the private hospital room was still wide open, misty morning light filtering from it out into the hallway. The rest of his attention, though, was fixed on the figure of the diminutive patient.
The old man's face was well lined, a lived-in, worn face that bore the deeply carved marks of many years of both joy and pain. Against the crisp white sheets, his thin, tissue-like skin seemed, to Jadeite's eyes, to be an unhealthy grey color. On one bony fingertip was clipped a sensor, constantly monitoring his hemoglobin. Thin rubber tubing wrapped around his ears and across his face to the prongs of a nasal cannula, delivering additional precious oxygen. Jadeite, could hear the faint, nearly inaudible hiss of the gas. The only other sound in the room was the steady beep of the heart monitor.
"So you're the reason Rei disappears every day and comes back looking like she's been chewed up and spat out, but won't talk about it." Jadeite winced. Even to his ears, his voice was loud in the quiet room.
He tried again, more softly. "I don't even know why I'm here, but I felt like I had to come. So I hope you don't mind. If Rei knew I was here, though, she'd probably smack me with her broom and then light my head on fire."
There was, of course, no answer to that. Jadeite plunged on, words spilling out of him in a sudden gush.
"This is killing her. I heard what the doctor said, and it's killing her. I just hope you know how much she cares for you, old man. There's only one other person on this planet she cares for as deeply. And no…" He dropped into a bedside chair, raking his hands through tumbled locks of dark gold. "…I'm not so egotistical to think that includes me."
The young man let out a bitter bark of laughter, staring out the window, his blue-green gaze stark, pain-filled. "I'm being allowed to stay on sufferance. A trial basis to see if I can retain my heart and soul. Apparently she doesn't remember that I gave her the former a lifetime ago and she's had it ever since. Hell…even when I didn't remember her, I was drawn to her. Those haunting, blue-violet eyes…"
His voice trailed off as he glanced back at the too still figure in the bed. It seemed so wrong to see him reduced to such.
"I remember you too. You were strong and full of life. Always smiling and laughing and flirting with the pretty girls at the temple. There's one nurse here you'd love." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial male whisper and he held both hands out over his chest expressively. "Built like a brick…well, you know."
"Of course, you'd probably not like her so much if you knew what she said about Rei."
Jadeite grimaced. "I know it was just ignorant words, but it still made my blood boil to hear it. I'm pretty sure it would have pissed you right off too. After all, nobody messes with your precious grandbaby, right?"
"Even though she was scarcely more than a child, I wanted her as a woman. I don't know for sure, but I might have even tried to take her, except I knew enough to keep my fingers off Rei while you were around. And you were always around, guarding her even when she didn't know it. I bet if you'd had the first clue what I was up to back then, you'd have killed me. Or at least tried."
"Even if she could take care of herself…and Ares knows she can do that in spades…nobody was allowed to hurt your precious girl. Especially not the sneaky sonofabitch who was also ruining the reputation of your temple with his little plots and intrigues. I always wondered if you suspected me like she did."
Jadeite let out a gusty sigh of self-disgust. "Well…you'd have been right to. I was a first class bastard. Then, anyway. I'm still shocked Rei didn't take me out this time around, since she's more than got the power now. I'd say she was mellowing, except that I know better." A wry grin twisted his lips and he rubbed a spot just above his eyes, remembering the sting of enchanted holy parchment and the flash of violet-eyed fire. "She got her licks in, though. And an extra one or two for you, I think, even though she said it was for messing up your collection of scrolls."
"Anyway, for whatever it's worth, I'm truly sorry. I can't tell you how sorry. Not for having feelings for Rei…I'm only human, after all and she's a goddess in her own right…but for the pain I put you both through. Not that I got away unscathed. I can't even stand to look at a crystal these days. Spending nearly a decade in solitary confinement gives a man a lot of time to think where he went wrong, you know? But at least it broke the web of a spell I was trapped in before I died. I'm not the same man I was then. And thank Gaia for that."
The younger man's voice was thick now with emotion. "I wasn't lying when I said I loved Rei. I still do. I just don't know exactly how she feels about me. She used to love me once, before everything fell apart. Even though I don't deserve it, maybe, if I'm lucky and the gods are kind, she will again."
He stroked the little priest's atrophied arm, careful not to dislodge the IV that poked from his crepe-thin skin or to disturb any of the electronic leads that strung out from the old man's sunken chest to various pieces of medical equipment.
"If we ever have a son, I'd want to name him after you. Isn't it funny? I say that and I don't even recall what your name is. But I think Rei'd like that. And if we were to have a girl, I'd try to protect her like you did Rei…thanks for that, by the way. And she'd wrap me around her little finger, looking up at me with her mother's purple pansy eyes. But I'm sure you know what that's like."
"She's nigh on invincible when she's doing her flaming warrior goddess routine, but when she's quiet, lets herself be vulnerable, it's those burning eyes that get you every single time," he breathed. "Especially when she cries."
A sudden sweat broke out on Jadeite's forehead. It was taking a lot of energy to keep up the illusion now, and he could feel his power wavering. There was no way he could keep it up indefinitely. "I have to go now," he said.
He reached down and, carefully avoiding the leads trailing from it, took the old man's hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. The heart meter blipped on, its rhythm unbroken. "I don't know if you can hear me or not, but if you can, I can promise you this much. No matter what happens, I'll take care of Rei. To the best of my abilities and for the rest of my life, however long it may be. This I swear to you. And she will always, always be loved."
Wistfully he added, "For both your sakes, I just wish you could be there to see it…"
And then, with one final squeeze of the elder Hino's hand, insubstantial as a shadow, Jadeite slipped from the old priest's room and disappeared into the maze of hospital corridors.
Perhaps ten minutes later several alarms from within the room began to shriek signifying the loss of crucial vital signs. The nearest nurse darted into the room with a crash cart, expecting to have to declare a Code Blue. She was hoping against hope to save the man, as it might be the only apology she could offer his grandchild for her earlier slander.
Thirty seconds later her outraged shriek rang throughout the ward and she burst from the room, holding in one hand a number of electrical wires and electrodes that had previously been attached to her patient, and rubbing her well-pinched posterior with the other. But Nurse Chika had critical news to report.
Against all odds the perv…er…patient in Room 301 had awakened and definitely appeared to be on the road toward a complete recovery. Evidently he'd decided he had something to live for.
(Author's Note: A little look backward, set sometime between 'Coffee Klatsch' and 'Justice'. Jadeite had a few things that needed he needed to say.)
