Hey! I've been busy over the holidays but here's the next chapter ^^

SonoSvegliato - Ahh! Hello again! ^^ So glad to see you again! Hope your holidays went well :) Thank you so much for your kind words!

Zeivira - Holy crap, Argentina?! That's awesome! - And yeah he's like a writer's lovable punching bag T.T poor bb.

The floors are linoleum. Speckled. Polished to a shine. The heart monitor beeps. It is steady. Steady. Steady like the drip of the IV. 10.8 mg dexamethasone. 1.1 g vancomycin. 2 g ceftriazone. Gil is a picture in a textbook. That's what Ludwig tells himself. Figure 3b. 26-year-old male, Caucasian, infected with S pneumoniae. Bacterial meningitis.

His chances of survival are 75 percent. That's pretty high.

What about the other 25 percent?

The wall of machines beeps their rhythm. Gil's chest rises and falls. Steady. He is lost in the white sheets. In the wires and tubes. His is a picture in a textbook. He is Mom in the ICU. His heart beat is increasing. She's seizing. He's seizing. They're administering medication. He's a picture in a textbook. The machine is a wall. Everything is okay. It's okay. Okay?

Dr. Braginski asks him to leave. Ludwig stands outside the room. He hears the nurses and doctors shouting and a strange feeling wells up in the back of his throat. This is routine. 50 mg of phenobarbital. Was it 50 mg? Was it phenobarbital? He heads towards the elevator. He waits. He watches the little black box count down the floors. It's stuck at 4, then 3, then 2. The elevator stops and steel doors open to reveal his father, still in scrubs, a half-undone surgical mask hanging from his neck.

"Ludwig?" His father looks surprised.

"Are you here to see Gil?"

"What? No, I'm headed back to my office."

"Did you get my message?"

"No, I was in surgery all morning. Routine coronary bypass. What did Gilbert do?"

Ludwig furrows his brows. He can see the wrinkles around his father's green eyes.

"Dad," Ludwig says. He catches the elevator doors as they start to shut.

"What?"

"Gilbert has meningitis. He's in the ICU. I had to leave because he started seizing."

"Oh."

His father's eyes are blank. Ludwig squints harder as he tries to read his father's expression.

"I heard classes start next week. You should head home, get some lunch. Rest up," his father says, as he exits the elevator. "You look terrible."

Ludwig grabs his father's arm. "Where are you going?"

"To my office."

"Your office is on the first floor."

"Go home."

Ludwig watches his father's back. The feeling of hardness in throat wavers and his eyes are hot with tears and he tells himself to take the stairs. Don't cry. Be a man. Men don't cry. Dr. Folkert Beilschmidt, world-class heart surgeon, did not cry – or rather – he only cried when he thought others could not see. Ludwig, however, is not entirely aware of this latter fact. Instead, Ludwig believes his father is a man with steady hands and a steadier mind. Ludwig believes that his father is impenetrable. Ludwig believes that it must be freeing to be like father.

Dr. Folkert Beilschmidt is headed towards the ICU at Abbot and he just saw his son, somewhere between a nudge and a flick from tears in a place that did not need more tears. What is the likelihood that things will go wrong? 41 percent after the seizures? It's Gilbert. Round it up to 50 percent. But 50 percent is good. He's seen worse odds. Gilbert was always at odds with something. Usually someone. That someone was usually him.

"Dr. Beilschmidt." A tall man in his late twenties with pale hair that looked more gray than blonde, and deep blue eyes that looked more violet than blue, walks up to him. "I didn't know you had any surgeries scheduled here."

"I don't. I'm here to see my son."

"Oh, you mean Gil?"

Folkert watches the young doctor tap his clipboard and his nerves. "Yes, Dr. Braginski. Gilbert."

"Call me Ivan. We're comrades, right?"

Folkert shudders. There was something unsettling about the way Ivan's tongue lingered on the word comrade. "I don't have time for this. If you know what room he's in, tell me." He pauses and glances at Ivan's clipboard again. "Who is his doctor anyways?"

Ivan smiles and meets Folkert in the eyes for just a moment too long. He sets the clipboard down to his side without looking and says, "Mr. Gilbert Beilschmidt. Room 203. He's resting currently. You may go see him if you wish."

Folkert feels his jaw clench. He's only a resident. Why is he so smug? He glares at Ivan and starts to walk away.

"Folkert," Ivan says. "I will take good care of him. We were classmates after all."

He stops and turns around. "I trust that you will." He pauses, then says, "Also, please call me Dr. Beilschmidt."

"Dr. Beilschmidt, really, I will. I don't hold any grudges. I only ever wanted to be comrades with him." Ivan gives a sincere, yet off-kilter smile and says, "I still wish to befriend him, though I do wish we could have seen each other under better circumstances."

"That's good to hear. Have a nice day, Dr. Braginski."

"Goodbye, Dr. Beilschmidt."

Folkert sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. The relationship between their families had always been strained and Gilbert's treatment of Ivan in childhood and adolescence had made things worse.

He finds Room 203 and shuts the door behind him as he enters. He stops when he sees the machines he was so used to seeing and the pale, too-still figure that could not have been his son but is clearly his son. He walks up rests his hands on the rough, plastic bed guards. He watches Gil's chest rise and fall, then at the IVs in his arms. He reaches for his son's hand. The coldness is shocking but he holds his hand there. He looks over at Gilbert again. Gilbert's eyes flutter and open to reveal those familiar irises. Light blue with a horizontal spray of a deep brown that boarded on red. Terrifying. Familiar.

"Beautiful."

Folkert and a young woman with long, white hair sat in a shaded spot by Lake Michigan. It was still early autumn and they were both still young and she still went by Miss Fredrica Wilhem, or simply, Freddie.

"You're just saying that. You really don't think my eyes are scary? My grandmother used to tell me I had the devil's eyes," Freddie said as she brought her face closer to Folkert. He could feel her breath against his skin. The heat from her body brought redness to his cheeks.

"No." Folkert turned his attention from the lake to face her. "Plus, you have heterochromia. It's due to an inconsistent distribution of melanin in your irises. The devil has nothing to do with it."

Freddie raised an eyebrow and laughed. "Charming."

Folkert started to pull at the grass and wondered if the geese could do a better job than he did. "Sorry. I'll try better next time."

"You're ridiculous." Freddie turned to face him and her smile soften. "But don't ever chance." She leaned closer and brushed her lips against his and said, "I love you," then pulled back before they met.

Folkert stared back at her with his mouth slightly open. Freddie reached over and stuck a finger in his mouth. His eyes widened. Freddie fell back into the grass and started to laugh. "You look like an idiot. Oh god." She wiped her eyes. "I didn't know you could look like that." She turned her head towards him and saw the edges of his jaw tense. She rested the back of her hand against his arm. "Lighten up, will ya?"

A man jogged past them on the concrete path between the trees and the water. His feet were loud and rhythmic against the pavement.

Freddie grabbed his wrist. "Hey, come on. I was just messing with you." She turned to her side and slid her fingers between his. "I really meant it. I do love you."

Folkert turned to look at her and a smile split onto his face. He grabbed a fistful of loose grass and dumped it on her head. They wrestled in the grass. When they stopped, they laid down next to each other and looked up at the leaves, just barely colored by the early dregs of autumn.

"You know, I'm technically Freddie the second. The first one was my onkle. He let my mom keep my flute, Ol' Fritz. He was a great flautist, my mom said he was one of the best in Germany." Freddie squinted at the light between the leaves. "It's a shame he never saw the end to the war, but you know, my mom always said he put his life and soul into his music." She turned to her side and rested her head on Folket's chest. "I think he left his spirit in that flute. I can feel it."

"You're crazy. Do you really believe those things? The dead are just dead. That is all."

"Am I dead?" Gilbert squints at the figure besides his bed. The lights are overwhelming. The man is cloaked in blue. He is looming.

"No. You're in the hospital. You're very sick."

"Then why is it so bright?" Gilbert shuts his eyes. His head hurts. Why does it hurt?

"Oh, sorry Gil." Folkert shuts the light off. "Is that better?"

Gil opens his eyes. His heads still hurt. It still feels bright. "How do you know my name?"

Folkert furrows his brows. He is about to respond when Gil smiles and says, "You must be the grim reaper. Why are you all blue?"

A nervousness tightens around Folkert's throat. "No, I'm not. You don't recognize me?" Of course he doesn't. Look at him.

"Oh." Gil shuts his eyes and his smile disappears. "That's unfortunate. Go away."

The lines of Folkert's mouth thin and widen into a grimace. He didn't need to be here. He leaves the room and walks to his office. He shuts the door and rests his face in his hands. He wonders, for a moment, if the devil really lays in those eyes.

History, herstory, ourstory! [aka Interesting things I learned while not-writing]

- Frederick the Great (Frederick Wilhelm II) was interested in philosophy and language. As a ruler, he wrote flute sonatas and letters to Voltaire. His father was a Calvinist and disapproved of these "frivolous" activities. He sent Frederick to military school to correct this behavior. To say Frederick the Great had a strained father-son relationship is an understatement. This was briefly addressed in the manga, but I thought I'd bring it up again.

- Bach developed fugues titled "The Musical Offerings" based off of Frederick the Great's composition.

- After the fall of the Roman Empire, Germanic tribes started to expand westward. Slavic (Russian) tribes expanded to lands abandoned by Germanic tribes. The western Slavic tribes (Wends) had a habit of raiding their neighbors, which resulted in 400 years of constant warfare and tense relations.

- Catherine the Great was actually German and arranged the murder of her incompetent husband.