As Veld and Vincent pushed through the double doors of the medical wing, Veld spotted trouble ahead.
"Vince? Incoming."
Down the hall, Max stopped pacing and homed in on Vincent. "You! It's about time you got here!"
Vincent winced, approaching with caution. "I'm sorry. I...had to talk to to someone first."
"I hope it was an anger management counselor, you jerk!"
"Max," said Veld, drawing on the last of his patience, "what are you doing out here?"
"They won't let me in. I'm not family." Crossing her arms, she shot Vincent another dirty look. "He wants to see you. He's asking what he did wrong. I don't know if you hit him too hard or what, but he's got it all backward. He blames himself."
"Oh, gods. Veld-"
"Steady, Vince." Veld put a hand on Vincent's arm. "That's normal for Nero. We'll talk to him."
"Veld, I want to see him!" Max slipped in front of Veld as he reached for the door between them and Nero. "Please? He's gotta be scared, it's all strangers in there and people messing with his respirator."
"Let me check with the doctors first," said Veld, gently moving her out of his way. "You stay right here. We'll call you when they say it's okay."
"You'd better." Turning to Vincent, she tilted her head back to look up into his face. "I know you didn't mean it, Valentine. Just...don't do it again."
"I won't. That's a promise."
"I'll hold you to that!" she said as he followed Veld into Nero's room.
A doctor was sitting with Nero, both of them perched on the edge of the bed. Vincent recognized the red hair and prosthetic hand: Shalua. She looked up only briefly at his entry, an unmistakable frown creasing her features.
"Reeve informs me you're banned from the training arena," she said stiffly. "Both of you."
Standing, she stepped back to allow Vincent further into the room. Nero sat with an oxygen mask pressed over his nose and mouth with both hands, a fine purple mist coating the inside of the transparent plastic. Only a simple square of duct tape just below his ribs marked where the shadow blade had slit his suit.
"Nero…" Vincent began, but found himself out of words. Turning to Shalua, he asked: "Is he alright?"
"Fine," Nero rasped wetly from behind the mask. The fit of coughing that followed rather ruined his insistence.
"Slowly," Shalua told him, lifting a hand as if to touch his arm, but never actually connecting. "Make it last."
Nero nodded, visibly forcing himself to take slow, deep breaths. Wait. Nero was breathing without his respirator. Clearly there was dark mako mixed with the oxygen but where…?
"He'll be alright," Shalua said more gently. "We had to get creative while his respirator's being repaired. Fortunately, we were able to borrow some dark mako from the laboratories."
Vincent nodded dumbly, not knowing what to say or do. He would have liked to hug Nero, but knew that wouldn't help. He wished Veld were here, but he was out in the hall, restraining Max.
"I'll let you talk." Turning, Shalua glided from the room, offering a parting remark before she left: "Don't upset him."
It was a little late for that. Nero looked up with him the same hopeful, apologetic look as a puppy. If Nero had known sunlight all his life, if he had known the love of family, Vincent could have folded him in his arms and said in gesture what he could not say in words. But Nero would not understand, and he'd have to try to explain, to translate, as best he could.
"What," Nero rasped, the word taking far too much effort, "did I do?"
"You didn't do anything," Vincent said miserably, sitting down beside him. "That was my fault. Please know that I would never intentionally hurt you. I know that probably sounds rich right now…"
"No," he wheezed. "It's okay. Weiss broke my arm twice and my leg once by accident when we were kids."
Vincent winced, but even anger and sorrow couldn't drown the shame and regret weighing him down.
"It… it wasn't an accident," Vincent began. "It… I…" Dammit, why were words so hard? Taking a deep breath, Vincent tried to think how he could possibly explain. Nero was strangely naive despite having grown up in Deepground. He spoke of atrocities the way others might comment on the weather. Ordinarily, Vincent had to couch his story in euphemisms, talk around the grisly details. Nero, however, wouldn't need to be spared the ugliness of it all. Veld's words echoed in his mind:
iMaybe he has something you need./i
"When I was younger, something...happened to me," Vincent began. "I was shot. Point-blank. I should have died, but I didn't. I don't remember a lot of what happened after that. When I woke up…" Gods, he'd never spoken of this to anyone, not even Veld. "When I woke up, I wasn't in a hospital, or even in a rehab ward. I was in a lab. For years. I don't know how many. It felt like a lifetime. I was cut open and stitched back together more times than I can count. All I really remember is the pain, the pain and the ianger/i... That anger...it took on a mind of its own; became its own person. I became that guy to survive, because there would come a day when they cut me up and they iwouldn't/i put me back together and I wasn't going to let that happen."
Nero nodded, as if this was a perfectly sensible thing to do. Maybe it was. Vincent had no idea.
"We had a lot of guys like that," Nero gasped, a brief fit of coughing accompanying the statement. "It happens."
"I'm not going to let it happen again," Vincent promised him. "That guy...I call him 'Mask', he's a nasty son of a bitch. He kept me alive then, but I'd be lying if I said I was glad he's still in the back of my mind. He's going to stay there, believe me. He's the one who hurt you. I don't ever want to hurt you."
Nero nodded. "So...it was an accident."
"Sort of," Vincent agreed, caught between grateful and heartbroken that Nero was taking this so well. Fathers didn't go around arbitrarily stabbing their children; not even absentee fathers who hadn't even known they were fathers until a week ago.
"It's okay." The lift of his cheekbones hinted at the smile behind the mask. Despite himself, Vincent smiled back. He still felt horrible but...lighter, somehow.
"Think you could handle some more company?"
Nero nodded and Vincent turned to the open door. Veld appeared in the entryway, Max pushing past him to rush toward Nero. Vincent made a grab for her, but momentum carried her past his reach and into Nero's arms.
"Oh my gods!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck. "Are you okay? What the hell were you two playing at?"
Nero, one hand holding the oxygen mask to his face, the other awkwardly holding Max, glanced from his father to the woman in his arms and back again. The look on his face might have been comical if he hadn't been stabbed less than an hour ago.
"I'm okay," he stammered. Veld stepped in to rescue him about then, gently drawing Max out of Nero's personal bubble.
"Glad you're alright, kid."
Veld pulled Max aside. "What did I tell you about the grabbing, Max?"
"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, but...what about Vincent putting holes in Nero? You gonna address that?"
"He already did," Vincent said. "Thoroughly."
"Then are you guys done playing 'mine is bigger than yours,' or is this gonna be a weekly thing? I'll have to clear my schedule so I can keep an eye on Nero."
Vincent opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He met Nero's glance, and for once they both looked equally chagrined. Veld had backed away, as smooth and silent as only a Turk could be, letting Nero and Vincent take the heat.
Nero looked from Vincent to Max and back again a second time, completely at a loss. If he'd been following her at all before, she'd lost him.
"It was an accident?" he wheezed. "It won't happen again. We got kicked out of the simulator."
"Good! Ugh, men." She raised her voice. "Shalua knows exactly what I'm talking about!"
A snicker sounded from around the corner. Max turned back to Nero.
"I'm really glad you're all right. Are they going to be able to fix the respirator?"
"I hope so. Dr. Shalua said I've got about three hours worth of dark mako. She told me it was your idea to use the sample we took the other day. Thanks for donating it."
"No prob, buddy, I'm just glad we had it. I'm gonna wait right here with you until it's fixed."
"Wait a second," said Vincent. "When, exactly, did you go someplace where there's dark mako?"
Max shrugged. "Couple days ago. He showed me the cave because I said we could use the stuff to make something to treat his hands. Means we need more now, though."
"If we're going to run short, I could go to the cave and get more," said Vincent. "I've been there. I'll need something to carry it back in. Maybe Shalua can help with that."
"Dr. Shalua said I should stay here, otherwise I would have gone myself," Nero explained. "It'd be tricky with this thing, though." He tapped the oxygen tank with one hand. "You don't have to. I'll be okay for a while yet."
"Nero," Vincent said patiently, "keeping you breathing is a priority. It's the very least I can do."
"Can you find it on your own, or should I open a tunnel?"
"I can do it," Vincent assured him. He iwould/i do this, dammit. "Just give me a bucket. It'll be good practice. You stay here and rest."
"Okay."
"I'll come with you. That way we can bring back twice as much." Max gave him that look, the one that said he would cross her at his own peril.
Sometimes he did the smart thing. Like now. He gave in.
"All right, let's grab a couple of clean buckets and get going."
Buckets were easy enough to find: They raided the janitor's closet. Armed with two large plastic pails, Vincent looked for a shadow dark enough to work with. Finally he simply returned to the closet.
"It worked before," he told Max, who just shook her head.
He focused on the shadows, fixing the idea of a tunnel firmly in mind. The darkness opened, and he stepped into it, Max following closely behind him.
"So...you and Nero, huh?" Vincent asked as the blackness closed around them. Max appeared to be following at his elbow of her own accord, so he didn't bother to remind her to stay close. Nero was the foremost thing on his mind right now, and it was easy to picture the mako cavern; the drawings and scribblings on the wall.
"He's a nice guy," Max said, all cool nonchalance. "Veld thought he needed a friend, and I volunteered to be his ambassador to the outside world."
"I heard you two went swimming."
The blackness opened, dim purple light seeming bright as day by comparison. Without another word, they filled their buckets and headed back through the tunnel of nothing to Nero's hospital room.
"I didn't know you could do this too," Max observed. "It a dark mako thing?"
"Something like that."
To her credit, Max did not push, and walked the rest of the way in silence.
Vincent brought them both back to the closet without mishap, and hurried back to Nero's room with the mako.
"Shalua? We've got about four gallons here, I hope that's enough to hold him until the respirator is fixed."
"That should do it," said Shalua. "They should be done before he runs out. Now that they've seen how his particular model works, they should be able to duplicate it, so he can have a couple of spares on hand."
"Can you let me know if any of the mako is left?" said Max. "I still want the labs to work up that skin treatment for him."
"Will do," said Shalua. "Now let's clear the room, hmm? Nero needs to rest. No excitement while he's breathing through that cobbled-together mask."
"I'll just stay here in the corner." Max sat on the single visitor's chair, arms and legs crossed, daring anybody to try to remove her. "I won't be in the way."
"And you?" Shalua eyed Vincent.
"Um." He backed up against the wall. "How's this?"
Shalua's single eye narrowed in a way that made Vincent think of Veld in full-on Chief mode. "I want to talk to you."
He swallowed nervously. "Can it wait?"
"No."
"Okay then. I'll um...I'll be right back."
Reluctantly, Vincent followed Shalua out into the hall, mentally bracing himself for a well-deserved chew-out. For a moment she simply stared at him, not scowling necessarily, but certainly unhappy. He watched, bemused, as her expression softened slightly into something more sad than angry.
"Vincent, you don't have to tell me what happened in the training simulator."
He blinked, having not expected that.
"However, I want you to talk to somebody about it. Not Veld, not Reeve, not Tseng, but someone who knows how to help you."
"I...what?" Vincent stammered, expecting that even less.
"I think you should talk to a therapist," Shalua repeated in more specific terms. "Trying to manage on your own clearly isn't working."
"I'm fine. Mask won't attack again."
"Vincent. You istabbed your son/i."
"I thought you said there was no way to know for sure if he was my son?" Vincent grumbled, hiding behind petulance.
"I saw him without his respirator," Shalua replied calmly. "Inconclusive tests aside, I'm sure I don't know who else he could belong to. He's the spitting image of you."
Vincent had nothing to say to that.
"I can't in good conscience release Nero without knowing you are going to actively take steps to prevent this from happening again," Shalua said, her tone almost pleading.
"It won't," Vincent swore.
"Can you promise me?"
"Yes," he said with a nod. "I promise."
Shalua just looked at him and shook her head. "What I want you to promise me is that you will get help. Talk to an impartial third party. You've been wrestling with your demons for years. It isn't fair or right to try to do it all on your own. There's no shame in asking for help."
Vincent studied the floor as he thought about it. In his day, only the crazies had needed medical treatment. However, his day was more than thirty years gone. Turks had always helped one another through hard times, and while Veld had certainly done so, perhaps it wasn't fair to expect him to deal with Vincent's drama single-handed. Vincent could see the sense in having Nero speak to a counselor. If nothing else, it would be another person he could learn to trust and ask about the outside world. He thought about Gigas, Galian, and Mask, all ghosting through the recesses of his mind. He shuddered at the distant rattle of chains and the incoherent babble of curses and taunts.
Yeah, no. They were so not doing that again.
"Okay," Vincent agreed with a reluctant nod. He didn't have to like it, he just had to do it. Nero deserved that much. "I promise. I'll see someone."
Shalua visibly relaxed, a small smile blossoming across her face. "Thank you. I can give you some names of a few counselors I think you'd get along well with if you want."
Vincent nodded. "Please."