A Doctor's impression (or Old eyes)
AN: Again, slightly different and written in post migraine stupor. Feedback wanted, please!
The boy was old; he was just waiting for his body to realize it and catch up.
His movements were careful, each action economical as possible performed with such precision because it hurt to move so he did it as efficiently as possible. Lethal precision.
When he stretched his breath became a little too controlled – if I hadn't be trained to look for such signs I would never have noticed – he was controlling the shortness of breath caused by the spasms of pain that racking his body.
His recovery was steady but lacked the... enthusiasm he had displayed in his first (of many) visits to Dom's. Something during his latest escapades had broken something inside him, not just the superficial injuries of broken bones and the like. The strange apathy reminded me of my great uncles' stories of soldiers who pleaded not to go back to the field were they would be forced to face the horrors of war once more.
I pause and look more closely at the adolescent who cannot be, it clear conscience, be called a child (a child would never had to endure such injuries). He's performing well at the moment: playing the restless teen yearning to be released from the confining hospital for the benefit of his friend. But this performance is what it is; only an act.
I've seen his face when he was too tired to keep up any façade, seen the ancient eyes of a warrior, a soldier, a … I can't bare to think of it, dare to believe that the mighty have fallen so far to resort to this injustice. But the way the name of his employers is wrapped in secrecy combined with his scared body tell the grisly, unpalatable truth.
As I watch him interact with his friend, his only friend (I noticed that as well during his stays - was isolation a move one his part or a forced decision) I find myself wondering how many people's lives has this old-eyed manling ended, how much blood is on this unofficial government sanctioned assassin's hands or whatever title they've bestowed on him. Then I shake myself; it is not my place to judge because I have never been forced into combat, seen what those eyes have seen, I don't know the full story.
But I do know the number of times the nurses have pleaded to give the poor boy sedatives as he writhes in the grip of some terrible nightmare and I have to refuse as I am bound by the strict instructions his employers give for their weapon. I know that his actions have their own punishment and I know it worse that any sentence the courts may give.
So I help him any way I can: dispensing the small amount of painkillers he is allowed often, allowing him visitors much earlier than I normally would to distract him, I try to pull him from the grim apathy that occasionally overwhelms him and give him as much privacy as I can when tears run down his face. I learned to value the brief moments of happiness or amusement that he enjoys and I try to accept his eyes as those of a veteran who despite everything hasn't quite given up.
I learned to care for him, my patient, the child spy.
And because I care for him I will never mention the awful day when the grim-faced soldiers called me to treat him; when his whole body was bloody, tears streamed down his face, a twist of gore covered wire clenched in his hand. When there was no intelligence in those blue eyes, just feral instinct, I sent the nurses and the guards away and spent the better part of 6 hours talking his sanity down from his mental cliff. Glad of the little psychology I had been taught I used slow movements to avoid alarming him or make him categorize me as a threat, my constant murmuring helped him keep track of my position as well as being a constant link to the real world. How I managed to take his makeshift weapon out of his hands and get him into his bed I'll never know. But when he broke and shattered, when I held his hand giving vital human contact, I felt I had paid back a small portion of what our county owed him.
But I hope I'll never see eyes that old again.