His head was pounding.
It was sound that first came back to Jack; not sight. Tinny clinking and the loud whoosh of the air in his lungs gradually worked to lull him out of his sleep, threatening to break the muddy line that separated coherence from nothingness. He tried to stay there, appreciating the numb feeling he got when he wasn't awake enough yet to worry about things. But soon, thoughts did begin to prod at Jack, and he wondered why his senses hadn't returned with them. Breathing certainly felt very difficult.
Wait! He thought. I can't feel my legs! As Jack tried to move, he realized all of him was numb. The vague feel of fabric was on his skin, but other than that his very flesh felt cold and nonexistent. Muted panic coursed weakly through him, and he opened his eyes only to be too dazzled by the light to see where he was. Green spots pockmarked the back of his eyelids. A garbled noise of frustration and pain bubbled up in his throat as he fought through the mire to roll on his side. It took mammoth effort to make his limbs move, and even when they did, they felt leaden and unresponsive. Indeed, it felt like he had been encased in cold tar.
Suddenly, he felt a pressure on his chest and he was on his back again. A brash voice snapped at him from somewhere, sounding far away and very close at the same time, and he could only groan again in response. Setting his wits, he tried again, opening his eyes slowly this time. Blinding light still flooded his vision, but he grit his teeth and tried to keep them open even when they began to burn. This time, there was color to some of the haze, but he squeezed them shut again when barbs of pain began to needle the back of his skull. The clinking sounds had stopped, and now the silence in the room was pressing and worrisome. He had to wake up.
Groaning again, Jack fought to sit up, but again he was forced back down and the voice chastised him a second time, angrier than before. It sounded like someone shouting through a wall.
"... -down! … -it slow..." Jack tried to form a retort, focusing much too hard on speaking than he should have had to. The result was a hoarse growl that sounded like 'oh.' He had actually meant to say 'no,' but his mouth felt like it was full of rocks, and talking around them was near impossible. A whirring sound filled his ears as his weight shifted upward, and he could tell he wasn't laying down all the way anymore.
Finally, Jack opened his eyes, and the color suddenly had edges to it, and they didn't warp and bend like the stunted chaos of a dream. He was sitting up in a bed against the wall of a dim room. His body felt impossibly heavy and numb, and even his lungs were taught and difficult to fill with air. There was a dull pain in his leg, but he knew it would only be worse later. Grudgingly, he shut his eyes again and groaned, trying to shake the fog that seemed to be swamping his mind. A small sound caught his attention and when he looked, there was Sigg, sitting near the foot of the bed.
The surgeon's arms were folded as he stared impassively at Jack, brows knitted in a frown. The fear he remembered was gone from his eyes, and only cold indifference remained. On a rolling table in front of him was a shallow tray and Sigg's pistol, its stout presence sucking what little air Jack could breathe out of the room. He looked away. Out of the corner of his eye he thought he saw Sigg sit a little taller. His outward fear may have been gone, but he could still see the way the feathers on his head twitched, how his chair was nearer to the door, and how he was hunched forward, pent up and ready to run. The inside of the tray was red, that was all Jack saw before he turned his head. He didn't want to look at any of it, including Sigg.
"It isn't loaded," the surgeon said. Jack inwardly recoiled at the loathing in the his voice. It seemed to hang in the air as pause stretched between the two of them, and the man's memory slowly began to return to him. The blood test. His age. The outburst. Gunfire.
"You..." Jack rasped, startled at how hoarse his voice was. "You sot me!" Sigg blinked, and dry anger suddenly washed through Jack along with frustration at how his words still slurred. With some effort, he managed to heave himself into a wobbly sitting position to take a better breath. "You sth-shot me! You shot me in the leg!" Sigg uncrossed his arms, rearing back slightly. In a flash he had produced another syringe, brandishing it almost casually in his right hand.
"This isn't morphine," he said, voice wavering horribly as his eyes pinned. Jack only scoffed, forcing his words past the numbness in his mouth.
"Ah, f-fuck it's not, you spinelesth vulture! You- you wanna kill someone, you finiss- you finish the job! You don' shoot 'em in the leg like a damn boar and then chang' your mind!" Jack roared. It was rare that he cursed, but with all the anger and anesthetic in his body, he honestly couldn't care less. Sigg shot out of his chair, face contorting in an anger he couldn't find words for, and his grip tightened on the syringe.
"You want to test that theory?" he growled. His voice still shook, but now Jack couldn't tell if it was because of fright or anger. Beneath his own rage, a small twinge of fear made his stomach jump, but he tamped it down.
"I came to you for help." His eyes burned. "I would have given you every credit I had. I begged you." Sigg relaxed his stance a bit, going from enraged to that strange hollow mask he tended to slip into. He seemed to be practiced in appearing emotionless. Jack supposed he had to be.
"And I-" he said, so coldly that it silenced Jack, "warned you! I made it very clear how I work— in and out! No nonsense! You play by my rules! This is my life we're talking about!" Jack balked, mouth falling open for a moment.
"And it's mine!" he howled, launching off the bed a bit too fast. A twinge sped up his leg and his head swam from standing so suddenly. He smacked a hand down on the rolling table for support. The bullet inside the tray rolled to the edge, leaving a threadlike trail of blood. Sigg's pistol clattered to the floor, and the surgeon's eyes flickered to it for a moment before returning to Jack.
"You think you're the only one walking on eggshells in this world?! Every day— every day! I wake up and wonder if I'm going to live to see the sun set again. I could fill a book, no— a hundred books with how many times I've brushed death! I've been set up, shot at, and beaten senseless more times than you could ever dream of! I've been impaled. I've been burned, I've been eaten, I lived through heatstroke, starvation, and hypothermia on multiple occasions. I've been possessed. I've been hunted like a dog and left for dead. My planet has been so razed and warped by time and tyranny that sometimes I wonder if it was ever different! Believe me, Sigg, or crime lord, or whatever the hell you are, you know nothing about what your life is." Jack fell onto the edge of the bed, trembling and exhausted from his tirade, and buried his head in his hands.
"And now, I- I'm seeing horses in the walls." They were both quiet for a long time after that. Sigg sunk into his chair, setting the syringe on the table and pinching his brow. He couldn't keep back a heavyhearted sigh. Jack had fallen completely silent.
"Fifty-eight," he whispered, so quietly that he couldn't hear himself over the lump in his throat. "I'm fifty-eight." The silence that followed was the most suffocating yet. Jack could feel Sigg's eyes on him, but he honestly didn't care. Despite himself, a few angry tears managed to leave his eyes. He could feel them against his palms. Roughly, he swiped them away and settled on staring at his leg instead. There was no cast or casing, but he assumed the wounds had already been stitched; even mended. The lump in his throat refused to budge, though. He still wanted to hang on to at least a sliver of his dignity that hadn't already been lost. Sigg was sitting down, that he could tell, but he kept his eyes trained forward. He didn't want to look at the creature that surely believed he was insane. He didn't know why he was even yelling; it was hopeless.
"You're certain there's no room for error with that machine?" he muttered, glancing at Sigg finally. The surgeon was sitting with his elbows on his knees, hands folded. His face was creased in a contemplative frown, but otherwise still unreadable, if faintly sad. He suddenly rubbed at his neck, wincing in pain, and a wave of hot shame made Jack's stomach turn. He had never, never lashed out at anyone like that.
"No," Sigg said, shaking his head. "No, there's- it's your biological statistics. There's no error. Seven months difference, tops." Jack's heart sank. It wasn't possible.
Sigg was rambling, now; going on about biomarkers and glucose levels, but Jack heard none of it. In his mind, he wasn't sitting in a makeshift exam room tucked away in a slum of a place he had once called Norway; another name that had been swept up in the nameless, wild chaos of Aku's rule. He wasn't in a world where machines could take your blood and turn it into jargon that spat lies. He wasn't in this land of insanity and steel. No, he was in a sea of black and white, falling through a stream that had ripped Jack from his life and— he now realized— his death as well. He wanted to throw up.
"Do you have a test that can tell whether someone is losing their mind?" he whispered. Sigg made an amused 'hn!' sound in the back of his throat, but Jack could hear the poorly-concealed anger that still buzzed in his tone. The sound of feathers drifting on tile and a cabinet opening reached his ears, but he didn't move. Not until he felt claws poke his shirt as Sigg laid a hand on his back. The towering creature grabbed him by the shoulders and looked, really looked, into Jack's eyes, face stony with concentration. Jack squirmed uncomfortably, but the surgeon only tightened his grip. Jack winced at the talons digging through his shirt. Sigg was still poring over his eyes as if they were a puzzle.
"Fifty-eight," he said. "You're sure." Jack blinked in surprise, and nodded eagerly. The smallest wisp of hope lit in his chest. until he evidently surmised the situation. "Memories, people, birthdays- all of it?" the surgeon pressed. Jack frowned and dipped his head again in a nod. There was something in the surgeon's tone he didn't like.
"I've been here for over thirty years already," he said edgily. Sigg's face remained impassive. "Judging by how you're taking this, I would assume you've been here for less." Sigg suddenly let go of Jack's shoulders and tossed something at him, and he started as the speckled medical gown hit his face. It was like Sigg hadn't even heard his concealed question.
"Here," the surgeon said. "You'll need this. You should be able to walk on your leg now." Jack blinked, Sigg's avoidance to answer him forgotten. The tone of the surgeon's voice shocked him; it had turned uncharacteristically grave. His face was no longer contorted in anger, or even confusion, but it had slipped back into that strange, empty expression. For some reason, that was all the more unsettling to Jack.
"Where are we going?" he said warily, making a wobbly attempt at standing. True to Sigg's word, there was only a dull ache in his leg, and the longer he stood, the more the pain ebbed. His head was pounding a little less now too. The anesthesia must have been wearing off.
"We're trying something else," the surgeon said, rummaging through a drawer. "I don't think an eye test is what you need." He fetched the biblical binder of patient files from the drawer. Jack had forgotten about it. He suddenly stumbled and grabbed at the bed railing, steadying himself. As he frowned at his uncooperative legs, the grip of his gun suddenly appeared in front of him. He looked up to see Sigg handing him his pistol— surely unloaded— and the surgeon shrugged, offering a half-smile. The weird feeling in Jack's gut only got worse when he holstered the gun, and it worsened when Sigg led him out another door. Through another dark haunt.
As the two of them walked in silence, Jack realized with a twist in his stomach that he was dreadfully scared. There had been something in Sigg's voice and eyes just then that was almost mournful; it made Jack feel like the surgeon knew something he didn't. He wrung the gown that was in his hands, thoughts about what Sigg had in mind swirling in his head like an young storm. What was he hoping to find? Or worse— confirm? By the din of his voice earlier, Jack knew with a sinking feeling that the surgeon still didn't believe him about his age. So what else, then? The barrage of questions and the growing unease at what was to come only made Jack regret this visit all the more as they passed more closed doors.
When the two of them had left the infirmary, Jack had felt sick. By the time they reached the imaging room, he felt like he couldn't breathe.
A/N: Uh, yeah, not liking this one much.. I just hope this chapter is still ok despite me only revising it and not completely rewriting it. Actually I cut out an entire flashback bit I'm going to be using it for a oneshot spin-off after this is complete. I really wish I hadn't have pulled the whole gunshot thing into this. I kinda pulled that plotline out of my a$$ honestly because I thought it would be more realistic that Sigg would have been scared out of his wits by Jack. I was rereading the first draft and it was a lot better in my opinion, so I tried to work in some of it here, but I still bloody hated writing this chapter. Listening to Fantasia on Christmas Carols helped a little tho
watch?v=wdxZhmylG-I (Vaughan Williams is life)
If you're thinking I forgot about the fact Jack's arms got filleted by Sigg or that /two gunshots/ is seeming less severe than they should, don't worry. :) There's a very good reason for this. I wanted to have Sigg tell Jack off about how he made him do /something/ but I COULDN'T because of the same reason ugh. It's going to be brought to light in that spin-off though don't worry :)
The next few chapters are probably going to be shorter just because there are more stopping points and it's (thankfully) going to be moving a little faster now. It should have two more with an epilogue, unless I make one tiny-ish one in the middle. Idk, it'll all come down to how I feel about the pacing, but the next one should be out relatively quickly. (Can you believe I drafted this monster all the way back in June, oof) I've been looking forward to the next one for a while so it should be out a lot sooner I promise.