Oh that I had, the wing of a dove, to rest on me
This is not new to me
As I sit in this boat
But I'm so cold my bones, will freeze
And there's nought through the haze
I've been waiting so long
But my hour has gone away
August 3, 2013
Chris sat in one of the stiff waiting room chairs, studying the bland portrait of the hospital's founder for what have must been the twentieth time. The smell of hand sanitizer was burning up his nostrils and his back was starting to ache. He'd read all the magazines, seen the entire loop of videos on cholesterol management, and remembered that he was shit at solitaire.
He tapped his foot against the floor. One of the nurses at her desk gave him a dirty look.
He stopped.
Time was running all funny for him; he would look at the clock and see that only seconds had past, and then blink a few hours away.
There was a brisk clicking noise coming from the hallway. Chris turned his head and saw her, Rebecca.
She'd grown her hair out from the last time they had seen each other, the shaggy boy's cut traded for blunt bangs and a pony tail. She still didn't look a day over eighteen to him though; Chris didn't think he could ever see Rebecca as anything but.
He got up to shake her hand.
"Thanks so much for coming."
"Anything for an old friend," she said in reply, her smile matching the one on her name tag.
Dr. Rebecca Chambers, MD. Trauma Care.
"Sorry that it took me so long to get up here; before I found you, I weaseled my way into a huddle with the operation team."
"How's he doing?"
Rebecca shrugged a single shoulder. Her expression wasn't promising.
"He'll live. As for his expected quality of life... they took a lot of his face off. There was a pretty big mass of infected tissue. They cauterized what they could, but some of it just had to go. Same for the one eye. And he's got some bad lacerations on his lips... he somehow managed to tear the sutures out while he was under..."
"Sutures?" Chris asked. He hadn't heard anything about sutures. Rebecca looked uncomfortable.
"Yeah... they had to do some work real close to the mouth, so they intubated him through the nose and sewed his lips shut to prevent any accidental ingestion of infected tissue."
Chris knew it was necessary, knew it was in Piers' best interest, but he couldn't shake the feeling that the floor was about to fall out from under him. Rebecca took note of his expression.
"Why don't we take a break; go get something to eat? You look exhausted."
Chris nodded, slow and careful. He felt pretty nauseated, but he wanted to get out of the stifling waiting room.
"Here, follow me. We can get the doctor's food, not those weird eggs."
Chris worked on a hamburger while Rebecca downed a giant cup of coffee. They were hiding up in some sort of employee lounge which they were doubtlessly not allowed in, Chris not being an employee at all, and Rebecca working for another hospital. The chairs were pretty damn soft though, and it smelled like some sort of almond air freshener instead of purell.
"So, once he wakes up, we can get him to sign you on as his primary physician, right?"
"In theory, yes. As long as he agrees."
Rebecca got up to get more coffee. Chris bounced a nervous foot against the leg of the table. He wondered how Piers was going to feel when he woke up. Rebecca hadn't seemed terribly optimistic about it.
She returned to the table, cup refilled.
"Didn't get a lot of sleep recently?" he asked.
"Hm? Oh, the coffee. No, I'm fine."
It was obviously a lie. Chris didn't press the issue further.
"Hey, thanks for coming up here. I know I haven't seen you in years, and to just call you out of the blue..."
Rebecca smiled.
"It's fine, I owed you one."
"What do you mean?"
"You killed Wesker." She tapped her fingernails against the edge of the table. "When we used to be in STARS—God, it feels like a lifetime ago—Wesker came up to me one day, and he looked at me through those stupid fucking sunglasses. I was so freaked out; I was only eighteen after all. And he looks me up and down and says, 'I hope you are aware that you have only been placed on this team because of your appearance, and do not expect to have any role in combat.' And then he walked away. Just like that." Rebecca shook her head. "I thought he was talking about Irons being a creep; turns out Wesker had a bunch of pictures of me in his desk. Did you ever hear about that? It was after STARS disbanded, I found out."
Chris made a look of disgust, scowled a little bit.
"I'm glad that son of a bitch is dead."
"I hope he cried and screamed." She grinned. "Like a little girl."
"He screamed alright."
"Good. He deserved it."
They fell silent for a few minutes. Chris ate slowly; he didn't want to push it. He probably should have still been under observation too, but he'd badgered the doctors into officially discharging him as soon as they were certain he wasn't infected. Not that he had left the hospital since, but it was nice to get out of the fucking gown.
"So, uh... what have you been up to since '98?" Chris asked her.
"Medical school took up a couple years, then there was the residency and everything..." Rebecca looked down at the table and played around with her discarded sugar packets.
Chris looked at the plain band on her left ring finger.
"I didn't know you got married."
"Hm? No, I didn't."
She didn't make eye contact with him. Chris decided to not press the issue.
"When do you think he's going to wake up?" he asked instead.
"They're keeping him under for a while... they cauterized a good deal of his face, rather than try to remove the infectious tissue. It was too risky. He's got a really high risk of secondary infection now, though. They moved him to the burn ward."
Chris jumped up from his chair.
"Is that where he is now?"
Rebecca nodded.
"You can't go in that unit now though; not when you just got released yourself."
Chris grit his teeth.
"What am I supposed to do then? Sit on my hands and wait to see if he's okay?"
"Why don't you call your sister, go get some sleep in a real bed?"
Chris shrugged.
"Yeah, I probably should. I just don't want to leave, you know? What if something happens?"
"Chris, they'll call you. Sitting here and worrying isn't going to do anything."
She was right, as much as he didn't want to face it.
Leaving the hospital though—it felt like he was abandoning Piers.
When Piers woke up for the second time, everything was blinding white and numb.
Like snow.
Like he was buried in it.
How did I get back to Edonia?
He tried to speak, but his throat was so dry. He couldn't force any air through it, or it might just crumble into dust. And he wanted to move, but his body wouldn't cooperate with his mind; nothing was responding. His right eye wouldn't fucking open, it felt like when he was five and had pink eye. The lid glued down to his face. He couldn't even move his head.
What the fuck is going on...
With his usable left eye, he looked down to his torso.
His chest was swathed in bandages, big strips of cloth and little metal bits holding them together. His arms... he could feel both of them, but only one was there. His left arm was stuck with a needle into the wrist and another in the crook of his elbow. There was a strange force being exerted against his left nostril. He looked down and saw a tube that trailed up his chest, presumably into his nose. There was some oatmeal colored goop running through it.
Rational thought. He needed to think.
Where was he?
Bandages, the whiteness, bright lights meant a hospital or a laboratory... whether or not he was in enemy territory was yet to be discovered. And, if he was, was he strong enough to escape?
He tried to wiggle his left arm. Nothing. It was restrained to the rail of the bed. He winced—or would have. But his face was so stiff, he could barely move his lips. He tried anyway, and closed his mouth around slick plastic.
He was on a ventilator. He had a feeding tube in. And he was alone, possibly in hostile territory: enemies of the BSAA trying to keep him alive to extract information from him... using him as a human guinea pig... the possibilities were endless. Where was the last place he had been?
China.
Neo-Umbrella.
He was in one of their fucking labs; he had to get out, had to get out before they killed him, before the tried to extort information from him... and what if Chris was there too?
Focus, Piers. Focus.
He couldn't do anything if his hands—hand—was tied. Piers pulled away from the bed rail. There was a slight noise from the bed rail, but his hand didn't budge. He tried to growl, but he couldn't make any noise. A rush of pressurized oxygen pushed down his throat.
He tugged again, harder this time.
A face appeared in his peripheral vision. He shifted his weight against the back of his bed in surprise.
"Mister Nivans, can you hear me?" the face asked. He couldn't make out their age or gender; all that was visible was dark skin surrounding brown eyes. The rest of their face was covered with a light blue surgical mask from the chin up, and a blue cap covering their hair and forehead.
"Mister Nivans, could you blink for me if you can hear me?"
The voice was a woman, young, maybe? He couldn't tell. Her voice was muffled through the mask.
He opened and closed his left eye.
"Wonderful. I'm glad you can hear me. I'd like to ask you some questions. Blink once for 'yes' and twice for 'no.' Is that alright?"
He wondered if this was when they would try to extract information from him. He blinked once. Maybe he could tell who they were by the questions.
"Do you know where you are, Mr. Nivans?"
Two blinks.
"You're in the hospital. In Washington DC. This is a burn center. My name is Laura, and I'm a nurse. Do you know why you're here?"
Two blinks.
"You were infected with a unique strain of Chrysalid Virus. You received a full body blood transfusion and had infected tissue removed from your face and torso by cauterization—or burning. We had to remove your right arm and eye. Over the next few weeks, we will begin removing the scar tissue and being cosmetic restoration—skin grafts and plastic surgeries."
She paused for a moment, let it sink in.
He was so numb.
"The first person listed on your HIPPA form—those are your contacts—is a Mr. Chris Redfield. Would you like us to contact him and let him know you've woken up?"
Was the woman lying? Did it matter?
Chris. Chris was alive.
He blinked once.
"Alright, so I've got... Cheerios, Lucky Charms, and pepperoni Hot Pockets. Take your pick." His sister was rummaging through her efficiency sized kitchen, shaking empty boxes and tossing them into the trashcan.
"Do you have any milk?" he asked. It was always a good idea to make sure of these things with Claire.
"Uh..." She ducked her head into the refrigerator. "Not that I would recommend drinking."
"Hot Pockets."
Chris threw himself down on Claire's couch. She was his sister after all, it wasn't like he expected her to be the most vigilant grocery shopper in the world. He was irritated though, for reasons that weren't her fault. Her disorganization was just exacerbating it.
Claire lived in a shoebox sized studio apartment in Alexandria, a stone's throw away from her consultant gig for Terrasave. She had second hand furniture with no discernible decorative scheme, two lamps which didn't work, and a collection of workout videos stacked against the television that threatened to collapse at any moment, flooding the room with "Taekwondo's Greatest Hits!" volumes one through God only knew.
Claire popped open the door to the toaster over, fumbling with the cellophane wrappers.
"Hey, I think these might be freezer burnt."
"It's fine."
She shrugged.
"Whatever you say. We could get something."
"I'm not really feeling up to it, Claire."
"Suit yourself."
She vaulted over the back of the couch, sliding down next to him.
"You wanna talk about it?" she asked.
"Nope."
"Didn't think so."
She sat her feet down on top of the coffee table, and sighed.
"Are you going to be okay, Chris?"
He paused for a moment, considered what to say. Sure, he could tell her the truth, that without Piers, he wasn't entirely sure how well he could handle things. But he had made Claire suffer enough.
"Yeah. I'll be okay."
They sat in silence, as she furrowed her forehead, like she was assessing the truthfulness of his statement. It was almost physically painful to him, the awkward distance between them.
"Do you want to watch a game or something?" he asked her, trying to break the tension.
Claire reached for the remote.
"Yeah, it's Sunday night, isn't it?"
The TV flickered to life with a static buzz. Football lights beamed onto miniature players, chasing a speck sized ball.
He smiled in spite of himself. Nostalgia.
Chris leaned back and thought about the first weekend he and Piers had spent together.
He navigates, when I've lost my way
He reminds me, to lift my eyes
Oh that I had, the wing of a dove, to rest on me