Chapter 5:

Questionnaire

"Doc, you have any idea what's going on with him?" Daisy asked anxiously when Mario left the room. She and Toadette were the only ones there this time.

"He's sick because he's sad!" Toadette insisted. "You should've seen him, Mr. Doctor! You did, actually! You saw how broken he was the last time he was in here!"

Mario swallowed. She was right. What was happening was not strictly medical or physical. He was ill with despair.

Suddenly, there were some screams down the hallway. "Move it or lose it!" came a gruff voice Mario never expected to hear in his hospital. Bowser came trampling down the hallway.

Toadette gasped, "What's the matter?"

"What? I'm not allowed to visit Green-Mario?" Bowser rumbled.

"Bowser!" Daisy growled herself. "You're causing chaos!"

"That's what I do," Bowser shrugged. "It's not my fault those little shroom heads still can't take the fact that I'm not going to be trying to take over their little kingdom!" He slid his claw across his chin. "Then again… with Mario gone and unable to thwart any plans…"

"That's cruel, Bowser!" Toadette cried.

"I used to be cruel!"

"You were just poorly influenced." The little girl put a hand on his knee, for that's all she could reach. "We know that wasn't you."

Bowser blinked down at her.

"Let out your grief in a less risky place, okay, Mr. Bowser?"

It always made Mario crack up to hear the little polite mushroom girl call the King Koopa, who had been a threat to the Mushroom Kingdom for years, "Mr. Bowser." But Mario was able to hold it together while Bowser growled and stalked out of the hospital the way he had come.

"He's just as sad as the rest of us, you know," little Toadette told Daisy.

"Hard to believe with how he's acting."

Mario would have liked to say it's not much different than how she normally acted, just less scary due to her not being a spikey, fire-breathing koopa. But that would have made her just as scary as Bowser any day.

"It's been more than a month…" Daisy was mumbling now. "We need to get on with our lives…"

"How can you say that, Princess Daisy?" Toadette's eyes filled with tears. "He was such a big part of everyone's life… And Luigi…"

"That's how I can say it! Luigi! Look at him!" The princess was nearly shouting, gesturing wildly into the room, narrowly missing the doctor's face with her hand. "I hate seeing him like that! It's what I've been trying to prevent since I met him!"

Mario looked back in at his brother. Luigi was groaning, shaking his head back and forth. Under the sheets, his legs were moving, twitching as if he was trying to get away.

Daisy noticed it too. "The nightmares haven't stopped. Knowing Weegie, they've probably gotten worse." She turned now to Mario, a pleading look in her eyes. "You can help him, can't you? Maybe give him some sort of medicine to stop the nightmares?"

"That kind of medicine doesn't exist," Mario shook his head. "But he can stay in the hospital until he recovers from his recent illness. In the meantime…" This is something he had been planning since he was taken from Delfino Island. "…I'm going to have to ask you folks some questions. You, the other princess, the two mushroom kids, and anyone else who has had contact with Luigi… and his brother."

"Mario? Why?"

"Because that hero is connected to all of you. For me to know how to help Luigi, I need to learn what I can about him." That was half-true. Knowing about a patient certainly helped you care for him or her accordingly, but he already knew his brother's needs. Now, he was going to find out who was right: that voice, who was slowly gaining his belief… or him, who was starting to seem like a cheery, unrealistic optimist.

.

Mario set up a place in the cafeteria to talk to them. He started with Daisy, since she was already there. "Mario… was a hero to everyone… Did he ever save you directly?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered guardedly. "He did."

"Hm," he replied, urging her with his eyes to continue.

"What?" She growled. "Yeah. He saved me. He's a hero after all. It's his job." She was very curt and blunt in her reply.

"So you expected no less from him? Ever stop to think how he felt?"

"Look, I don't pretend to know what was ever going through that man's mind. Most of the time, I didn't care enough to worry about it. He seemed happy enough, and I had more important things to worry about."

"Running a kingdom?"

"Well, sure… that. But mainly Luigi." She narrowed her eyes. "You know, your patient. The one that everyone tends to forget? Even your stupid nurses couldn't even do anything to take care of him without his stupid file!" Her temper was rising. "Do you know how sick he is, Doctor? You probably couldn't understand anyway…"

Mario gritted his teeth. "That's what I'm trying to do, Princess. I'm understanding these brothers by talking to their friends."

"Well, get on with it then!"

"Luigi obviously means a lot to you… for you to consider him your number one priority."

"Of course he does!"

Mario steeled himself to ask the next question. It almost made him sick thinking of that one, simple word: "Why?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why," Mario refrained from taking a deep breath, "would he, the younger, lesser-known brother, mean so much to you?" Even with all of his doubts toward his friends and family, Mario hated asking that question. When his brother was so down on himself about how he did not deserve the princess's affections, he had been resolute in showing him otherwise. But he had never really known Daisy's side. As wrong as Luigi was about his fallacies, he was right when he related being the weaker brother… the less renowned…

Daisy's eyes flared, similarly to how she looked when Mario had unknowingly disappointed his brother in some way. "How dare you?!"

"You didn't answer the question."

"Luigi offers so much more than his brother ever did, Doctor!"

Mario was taken aback.

"Luigi is kind-hearted, gentle-souled, and his brother barely deserved it!" She was on the brink of tears. "And yet Luigi felt like he was the unworthy one!" She took a deep breath. Next, she spoke rather quietly and calmly. "Mario did his part to build Luigi up. That was the best I've ever seen him. That's how I'll remember him." She looked up, as if looking up to the Overthere. "If you could, Mario… do this last thing for Luigi. Let him find happiness despite your death. He needs you now more than ever, because he's lost you." The tears threatened to fall, but they stayed there in the crest of her eyes, giving a more dramatic look to them.

Daisy never liked him that much. Mario was aware of that. But to listen to her speak about him in such a way… to give him the benefit of the doubt… Daisy, the one who was always harsh to him. Maybe she was the key to proving that they cared. She didn't say a thing about Mario being a hero. She specifically said she'd remember him for how he was with Luigi… how much he cared about his brother.

He couldn't help but smile. "Thank you, princess. That clears up quite a few things," he told her, truly grateful. Take that. He mentally told the voice.

.

He saved his next interview for the following day. Princess Peach had come to visit Luigi, so Mario talked with her while Luigi slept. "Mario meant a lot to you, didn't he?"

She nodded. "Yes. He meant a lot to me. He meant a lot to my kingdom. He was our hero."

Mario winced inwardly.

"Take that," the voice retorted.

Mario tried to ignore it as he asked, "And you? What did you do for him?"

She looked up, puzzled. "What do you mean?

"Surely a hero deserves some sort of… compensation? …for his trouble."

"I never figured he needed much more compensation than gratitude and the occasional cake. He was always happy to do it. He had such a good heart. He was more than thrilled to protect me and my kingdom."

Before the latest battle, Mario would have agreed. He never knew how much he really hated his life. Sure, he enjoyed it sometimes. And he certainly enjoyed the cake. And, of course, all the attention that his fame granted him. But it exhausted him. He never noticed that until now. So as much as he thought he should agree with Peach, he knew she was wrong… He wasn't thrilled to do it. It was just his job.

"So… he was just there as a protector… a soldier against anything that would come to threaten you?"

Peach furrowed her brow. "No, that's not what I meant."

"A tool for you to take advantage of. No need to worry when you were captured. No need to fight back or even build up some sort of guard to protect yourself. Because Mario would take care of it."

Her face moved into what he figured was anger, though he had never really seen Peach get angry before. "Now just a minute! That's not how it was at all!"

"You're a princess. Your people worry about you. Your chancellor would be a nervous wreck. But you always felt safe because Mario was there."

"Yes, I did feel safe because I knew he would protect me. Is that so wrong?"

An uncomfortable silence followed.

Here was Peach, someone Mario thought he loved, and all the time, she had been using him. "Using you to protect her and her kingdom…" the voice said. "Giving you no more than thanks and cake to reward you… Leaving you wanting more…"

Mario couldn't deny it. Why can't I deny it? Why can't I argue it? Is she really right? Have I misread my relationship with Peach that badly?

"You're better off with Pauline. Forget the princess. She's always been way out of your reach."

.

The mushroom children were next. They were sitting together on a bench outside, away from the despair of the hospital… Luigi's negative zone. Toad had gotten them ice cream cones. Mario took a seat on a bench across from them.

"Figured you'd come eventually…" Toad mumbled. "I hear you've been asking questions about Master Mario."

"Mind answering some?" Mario asked.

"Do I have a choice?"

Mario chuckled. "You didn't know him as well as the others, I believe?"

"We may not have been as close with him, sure. But he's done a lot for us. I won't deny that he was just as much a friend and hero to us as to the kingdom."

Mario noted that he said "friend and hero," so his hopes were high for Toad. He turned to Toadette. "And you?"

"Toad speaks for both of us."

Mario nodded. "But you seem to have a closer relationship to Luigi than you did with Mario… maybe even a closer relationship than the brothers—"

"No way!" Toadette gasped. "No one was as close as Master Mario and Master Luigi!"

Mario tilted his head. "He didn't express anything to you he wouldn't tell his brother? Jealousies? Disappointments?"

"Luigi was never jealous of Mario…" Toadette insisted.

"He often compared himself to his brother, didn't he?"

"Yeah, but in a way that he wanted to be just like him because he looked up to him." Toadette shook her head. "He would never be jealous of Mario. Master Luigi's not that kind of person."

Mario's pride was a bit injured that she didn't call him "Master" Mario as she called Luigi "Master Luigi" in that particular line. "And what about how much he needed Mario?"

"He needed him very much," Toadette agreed. "But that's something anyone could see. He never stated it himself."

Mario turned to Toad, who shrugged. "Didn't say anything to me either," the kid expressed.

.

The last interview would have been with Bowser, but the Koopa King had made himself busy in his castle and couldn't be disturbed. He wouldn't have had much good to say about him anyway, and Mario's real goal was to prove the voice wrong.

And yet he believed that, slowly but surely… he was proving her right.