DREAMS, part ii.

2008

Like clockwork, The Red Menace woke up at the crack of dawn and sat up with a deep and exaggerated stretch. The effects of being a strongman made its presence known with a series of pops and cracks of the knuckles, back, and neck – just another byproduct of being able to lift twice his own weight with one arm, but such was the life as a Super Soldier.

Even though it had been years since he left the Menace Farm to pursue his own rather 'unique' (as he would put it during the rare family gathering) version of villainy, the redhead would always have the inner clock of a farming boy and still rose with the sun. In these recent years, however, rather than start the day to let the chickens out of the coop to peck and forage, or to fill the horse's trough with water, he was tending to his and his rather lazy roommates' dwelling that needed just as much upkeep as a stable. Sometimes if he pretended Voltar was a rather noisy turkey, it could even feel like he was back home.

Wearing his favorite mint-colored pajama set with fruit patterns on it, Red padded his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth and comb his hair into its usual neat part.

It was funny just how clueless the others were. Despite Voltar deciding at some point that cleanliness somehow equated to goodness, and that keeping an unkempt lair was the height of villainy, it would be close to unsanitary if Red didn't maintain his covert morning rituals. Red was fine with being the mediator between 'acceptably evil' and 'unlivable', however. It was the same every day - There would be the picking up the trash or whatever household item Doomageddon decided to shred from the day before, dishes, some sweeping, and the bare minimum of yard maintenance. Then he would put together Doomageddon's unconventional breakfast and a put on a pot of strictly half-caffeinated coffee for the team... Voltar had no business drinking that much caffeine with his size and already intense theatrics, and a higher amount of caffeine could either fuel Frogg's two extreme moods - anxiety or mania - into something even worse. Then, once the chores were done, Red would usually finally relax with his best Doomhound friend and wait for the others to wake up, and then it would be any other normal day with The League of Super Evil. It often involved poorly planned schemes, explosions, and oftentimes certain physical danger (whether intentional or not, Red could never tell)... but he wouldn't have it any other way.

Teeth brushed, hair fixed, and eye mask on to conceal his not-so-sought-after identity, Red cheerily hummed as he strolled into the living room. He paused.

"Frogg?"

It was still somewhat dark and there wasn't a light on, but the strongman instantly detected the familiar silhouette in the room, startling him.

There wasn't a response, and Red went to one of the lamps and flicked it on. Frogg didn't even acknowledge it from where he sat on the couch. Just kept staring ahead. Red noticed that Frogg had not even changed out of his Rent-A-Tux from the previous night's mission. One claw rested and worked around his pale neck, as if he was feeling for something that wasn't there. It wasn't the first time he saw Frogg's claws go to that area - usually when he was anxious, like a quirk. He tried again.

"Frogg... uh, are you okay? You sleep walking?"

Red knew their residential mad scientist could have a rather inconsistent sleeping schedule - sometimes getting hyper fixated on an experiment or task for more than a day at a time with no sleep - and it wasn't entirely unusual to see him passing through in this hour, usually fetching some random ingredient from the kitchen or pulling parts from their appliances to use in his experiments. But this wasn't Frogg in his 'on-a-mission-sorry-can't-talk-right-now' state. Something was wrong.

"Have you been mixing unlabeled chemicals again? I told you to open a window when you do that-"

Red was just about to reach out when he finally saw some movement. Just a perceptible turn of the head, and even behind the goggles that Frogg always wore, he saw the wince. He spoke as if in a daze.

"It worked."

Oh. Of course. The events of last night snapped to Red's attention – of the failed mission at the Superhero's Gala, their return to the lair, and then Red's blabbering ruining a well-kept secret that had lasted years. Even now, Red was just surprised that it went on as long as it did, especially with Voltar's big mouth and impatience. But in the home of the League of Super Evil, it wouldn't exactly be the most eventful thing to ever happen to them (having the dimwitted leader of the intergalactic Gargantuan race mistake Voltar to be his missing wife, for one, might be one of the top contending events), and now Red was embarrassed to realize he had completely forgotten about it upon awakening.

But in the meantime, he could tell this was the biggest thing to happen to Frogg since… well… since the things that had been sucked right out of the scientist's head.

The super soldier shuffled. He didn't know what to do.

"You've been up all night?"

There was no response again, and he was beginning to get nervous. Frogg might have been still as a statue, but he knew whatever it was going inside the Doktor's head was bad news. Red knew despite how powerful that brain of Frogg's was, it could also be incredibly delicate. He reached out again.

"Don't touch me!" Frogg suddenly snarled, and it was as if he came back to life, jerking away. His face had grown dark. "You- you kept this from me! You let Doomageddon eat me! You still do!"

Red frowned, hurt that his friend had reacted to his hand as if it were a venomous snake. "Frogg-"

"No!" the scientist snapped again, and it was as if the words and the movement was only a reflex, and now his mind was unraveling it and making sense of it all - "Wait, I remember now! That's why I did it, I remember it, it's because- "

And then Frogg's mind was flooded with something that until hours ago was pulled from his consciousness – the first memory he ever wanted to erase - the sound of snarls coming from behind him, hot breath and then the feeling of his ankle being torn open as teeth clamped down. It was a dog, a German Shepherd. And he remembered the fear from it. And then where he was- the Walls around him, and the bangs and the cold… he had always dreamt about the cold…

Frogg suddenly groaned and was putting his claws on his head, tucking his head between his knees, "Ughhh... no, was that always there? Was that real, am I dreaming that too?"

Red's eyes were big as saucers now.

"Frogg, I think you need to go lay down."

It was a stupid to thing to say as the super soldier was watching his teammate – no, his friend – have what was beginning to look like a mental breakdown, but he was really getting scared and knew he had to get Voltar. Voltar would know what to do. But Frogg was still mumbling softly, going on from where his face was tucked away – "No, I didn't get rid of that. I remember that. But-"

In his mind, he was still in between those walls. Frogg's thoughts moved at the speed of light in a place far away, across an entire ocean and in a time long gone.
Driving into Berlin for the first time… he remembered saying it, "Papa, no! I don't want to go!"
"You need to be brave, Archibald," the deep voice was ever so familiar, and young Frogg pleadingly looked to the person driving, and it was his papa. With his strong nose and dark hair and beard, and when his eyes still looked kind and clear but not red from drink, but he could tell papa feared this place too.

"Vater, papa," Frogg whispered in what felt like a breath of clarity, and he was saying it as he sat in the living room of the League of Super Evil's Lair, but now he was on the floor of an apartment in East Berlin and his face hurt and he didn't remember why he was crying, but there was a cat laying on the ground and not moving and all Frogg knew was he had to get to her. "And Kaspar.. did I… did erase that too? Why…?"

From where he watched this scene unfold, Red Menace was slowly backing away with his hands up, as if watching a delicate vase teeter on an edge, scared that too much movement would be the last little push. He called behind him towards the stairs, "Um, Voltar…?"

And now Frogg was in the West, and he remembers the warmth of being hugged by his adoptive parents Hans and Gisela Reinhart for the first time and how nice and safe he felt, and then he was in the kitchen the day he graduated from Polytechnic school… "Glückwunsch Archie, you big nerd!" a little girl with an American accent exclaimed as she grinned and held out a piece of cake to him.

"Lis..Lisbeth?" Frogg murmured.

Then they were laughing together, making snow angels and reading books side by side, and holding hands as they walked through the streets of West Berlin at an hour far too late for children to be out, and Frogg felt so happy with his old friend…

"Oh my God!" Frogg suddenly gasped and sat straight up. Dread filled his stomach.

He was hardly aware that Red was calling for Voltar just behind him and that the little villain was angrily stomping down the stairs now in only his mask and underwear, cursing about the noise. Frogg suddenly shot to his feet, coiled in some pose of action – "Oh my god, Lisbeth! What-what have I done-"

Suddenly he recognized her, the woman who had only been inches in front of him just hours ago… it was Lisbeth Vogel. She was older but it was her, it had to be, he would never forget Lisbeth-! But no, he made himself forget… Somehow, despite it all, despite the sheer impossibility of them ever seeing each other again, she had been right at his fingertips… and he let her go. How could he have erased her from his mind – Frogg's thoughts raced and raced in a panic, he had to do something, and he was beginning to gasp-

SLAP.

It was the sting of Voltar's ungloved palm connecting with his cheek that brought Doktor Frogg back to reality. He was panting when the room came back into focus – Voltar having brought himself to full height standing on the back of the couch to reach up, Red looking terrified standing in his PJs, and Doomageddon glaring up in scrutiny from the strongman's side.

"Get yourself together, man!" Voltar commanded.

Frogg brought a claw to his reddened cheek. At another time, he would have angrily protested, demanding to know why he deserved to be slapped. But he just kept looking wide-eyed at Voltar as his world came into focus. He was even surprised with how evenly it came out – "I have to go."

"I think we broke him, Voltar!" Red bawled.

"What's gotten into you!" Voltar snapped, pushing his helmet close to Frogg's face so the glow of his eyes was just inches away. "It's six in the morning! What is the meaning of this!"

"Six in the morning?" Frogg stammered out. In a series of microseconds Frogg ran over the options – he'd take the V-Mobile… but no, it only went up to twenty-five miles an hour, that'd be too slow to take on the main roads. Would Doomageddon teleport him to the Plaza hotel – no, of course not, the hedonistic beast. There was the bus, but first he'd have to reach the stop, he hates the bus – when does it run again? Every half hour. "I have time! I can make it!"

"Make it to what exactly!" Voltar screeched, but it was too late.

Frogg was out of the door, scrambling and frantic as the sun just began to peak over the skyline of Metrotown. He had to get to her before it was too late – Lisbeth, what has he done?

CHAPTER TEN
This Is Not Happening

Frogg was adrift at sea, floating waves of consciousness. There were faint, slipping memories that said he might have ridden a swell close to awareness, but then he would be pulled into the deep black once more. Distorted, distant sensations ebbed close to his cognition - people speaking urgently around him, of machinery beeping. He thought he might have even heard himself screaming, but then he would slip away again, far down below the surface where nothing existed.

When he did come to, it was a long ride to the top.

Frogg's eyelids were so very heavy, and he just wanted to keep sleeping. He went to roll and pull the blankets of his familiar bed up close to his neck, to get just a few more hours before he would head to the lab at the Free University, but his body would not listen. The sensation that something was wrong did not come quickly at all. It was slow and seeping - the creeping awareness that there were things in his body that did not belong, and others that did but were absent. Frogg groggily moaned, weak and fighting to stay awake, fighting how his eyes resisted his will to open. The world beyond them was blurry and disorienting, but as it came into slow focus, he saw clean white walls and a somewhat familiar-looking stack of machines, their occasional beeps soft.

He was in a hospital.

But... why? It must have been the night his papa had put his hands around his neck, the night he made it over the Berlin Wall, and he must have fallen asleep in his hospital bed after Professor Reinhart came to visit… had everything been a dream? Was any of it real, was Lisbeth ever there... was she real? Nothing made sense, and as he dreamily tried to understand it, Frogg realized something in his face was beginning to throb. He went to examine where his chin hurt so badly, fighting the weight of his arm, it felt as though it could have been tied down by bricks and his movements were that of a drunk person - but his fingers only met air- his... fingers?

When it did hit him, it was as if Frogg had all the strength in the world.

This was no dream.

His eyes shot open, and he became aware of the agonizing symphony in his body. Of every single ache and shooting pain, alarm bells ringing in his head that something was horribly wrong. His terrified eyes went to his hands, but there were only bandages around the slender ends of wrists. When he went to scream, his mouth could not open and it was a muffled wail, and the machines beside him began to sing and beep frantically as his heart rate spiked.

A woman wearing scrubs ran in, and when she tried to push him back into bed while shouting over his terrified sounds - "You've been in an accident, it's alright! You need to calm down!" - he fought back.

No.

No, please, no no,no,no,no.

This is not happening. This cannot not be happening.

He was hardly aware that two other people had rushed into the hospital room. It was Professor Reinhart and Gisela, and they helped push him back into bed. The poor boy was in a frenzied panic, fighting back like he had not been in a medically induced coma for several days and grievously wounded. He wanted to tear at the odd devices connected to his body - the IV sticking in his arm, the discomfort of a catheter, and whatever prevented his mouth from opening - but he did not have any fingers to do so. And the pain... it was unbearable.

"It's alright Archibald!" Gisela was frantically repeating over and over again, and she was holding one of his forearms down, "Don't be scared, you're okay, everything is okay!"

The Professor was doing the same, putting weight onto a kicking leg - not enough to hurt him, only to keep Archibald from injuring himself in his thrashing - and trying to calm the distraught twelve-year-old, but he seemed scared, too. "It's okay, calm down, it's okay-"

Frogg's writhing weakened as the trauma his body faced caught up to his senses. He gave up, exhausted and hurting so terribly. Trembling all over, tears streaming down his face, his muffled screams quieted into despaired sobs as the truth really set in. It was real, this was all very real…

His hands…

Gisela was stroking his hair to comfort him, and Professor Reinhart firmly held at his shoulder, and they were telling him not to be afraid and that it was alright, but it wasn't at all. There was nothing alright about what was happening.

Frogg just cried harder.

The hospital staff were so unbelievably kind and sympathetic to Frogg. What had happened to him was a tragedy, especially for such a young boy. But when two solid weeks passed of the boy keening so loudly that it disturbed other recovering patients on the trauma floor, their sympathy dwindled. One time in the middle of night, at close to three in the morning, a nurse impatiently stepped into Frogg's room. From where she stood in the doorway, her shadow fell over the boy who was curled into a tight ball in his hospital bed.

"Archibald. I know that you're frightened but stop this now." Her voice was soft yet firm. "You are not our only patient, and they need their rest too. Be considerate of others and stop it."

He had been bawling so hard he was choking on his hiccups, and after crying for two weeks, he was not shedding any more tears from his stinging, aching eyes - it was as if he were all out. His chest and stomach were sore from it, throat raw, and Frogg squeezed his eyes shut to try and stifle it. He couldn't do it. His broken voice rose into noises of anguish and the nurse sighed impatiently before closing the door to mute his cries.

None of them understood.

His life was over. He was a freak, and he'd never be able to build or create again.

And all the while as the adults looked over him and helped him recover, they told him that he was going to be okay. That everything was alright. They could not have been more wrong, and Frogg resented it with every fiber of his being. The worst was when everyone would croon about how lucky he was. There was nothing lucky about what happened.

The first time his doctor had visited Frogg in his hospital room, the Reinhart's also sitting in on the conversation, he gave Frogg a description of events and it was one of the words the man had used - lucky.

It was the security guard at Humboldt - Mister Arthur - who had found Frogg. Had he not been passing by the Science Department at that time and heard Frogg's screams, he would not have been reached in time. Three minutes. That was the amount of time that Frogg's heart stopped beating from his blood loss, so that a paramedic performed CPR as he was rushed to the closest hospital to be revived from clinical death - his abused sternum could still feel it, as if he had been bludgeoned repeatedly by a sledgehammer there.

In his accident, the turbine of the laser had taken his hands clean off at both wrists and shredded them, and there was no hope of reattachment as the limbs could not be recovered. When he had passed out, Frogg had landed right on his face, shattering part of his chin into splinters and there were several fractures along his jaw so it had to be wired shut. There was no saving a section of bone from his chin, and though a part of his face was only slightly asymmetrical from where the doctors removed its shards, the scar left from the invasive surgery was ugly and a shock to the eyes.

And this was supposed to make Frogg feel… lucky?

Death would have been better than what his life was to become now. It would never be the same, it was ruined. How was he supposed to be an engineer with no hands? His dream of being a scientist one day who could create and build and experiment, the opportunities and ideas limitless - gone.

Everything Frogg had worked so hard for was all gone. Now everything was a degrading, infantilizing challenge. He could not feed himself without hands, or bathe himself, or dress himself... he was reduced to the helplessness of an infant. He would stubbornly resist when he had to eat and anyone offered to help, and when his catheter had been removed and Professor Reinhart asked if he needed help using the restroom for the first time, Frogg angrily refused through his tears and struggled by himself. He was humiliated.

All Frogg was capable of was bawling in his loss, and he just used his elbow to repeatedly push the button he was supposed to press when things hurt too much. The morphine was the only thing that brought some sort of relief from his suffering, dulling his physical pain and anguish- taking his mind to some hazy place where he could not feel a thing. He wished he could stay there forever.

When the doctor arrived one day holding something in his hands, Frogg was curled into a little ball. Even if no one was there to see him, he would hold his mutilated wrists close to his body or tucked beneath his skinny biceps, ashamed of his appearance. He would draw his face close to his chest trying to hide his unsightly looking chin, and he kept his back turned from the doctor as the doctor entered. Frogg did not like this man even if he had been nothing but kind. He was just so upset and angry, and anyone who got too close became a product of it.

"Archibald, your prosthetics are ready. You will begin your physical therapy now."

When the doctor stepped closer to show him, the boy peeked over his shoulder. He held something flesh-colored that was supposed to resemble human hands and it was an offensive sight, and Frogg whipped a forearm out so they were sent to the floor.

"No! I want the real thing!"

By now the wire forcing his jaws closed had been removed and he could speak more freely again, though it hardly made a difference- he had become close to mute in his sorrow and his outburst was unexpected. When he had lashed out, it hurt the recently amputated areas of his wrists so he had to blink back tears of pain, and he hunkered back down into his ball.

"Now, there is no need to be stubborn. These will help you be able to function normally."

Normal did sound very enticing. Frogg, even though he wanted to be left alone and did not want to, was scowling when he looked at the prosthetics again. They were dinky things made from plastic. Something in the fact that they tried to look like actual hands made it more offensive, like a cruel taunt.

"Will you try? Give me an arm."

It took a moment for Frogg to hesitantly hold one of his stumps out. He hated having them where someone could see, but he loathed seeing it himself even more - the ugly stitches of where skin had been pulled together in ways that were unnatural, the jarring appearance of an incomplete arm. The doctor began the process of placing them on, and the boy noted with disgust the difference between what he was missing and what was now on the end of his wrist. His father had told him once many years ago that he had 'pianists fingers' - they had been long and slender before and moved with precision despite the clumsiness of the rest of his body. The fingers on this prosthetic were shorter and thick. He hated it.

When Frogg tried to move something, nothing happened. Maybe if he concentrated harder… he focused entirely on one of the fake index fingers to no avail.

"Nothing's happening!" Frogg cried. "I can't move it!"

He was too focused on the prosthetic he did not notice the look of confusion written on his doctor's face, and then the man reached out to demonstrate. "See – the 'fingers' are malleable, the thumb less so, so you can use it as a guide. You shape the pieces to create the desired hand position like so…"

Frogg watched this demonstration in shock. The short appendages moved when force was applied, the doctor shaping the prosthetic hand so it grasped an invisible cup. It was nauseating to the small scientist, like watching someone work with a clay figure, except it was fake skin and bone and it was wrong.

"You mean… it's not a machine?"

"Of course not," the doctor chuckled, mistaking Frogg for having a grand sense of imagination. "This isn't a science fiction novel. Such things don't exist."

The twelve-year old's chest constricted in both hurt pride and painful recollection, seeing in his memory the cat Kaspar celebrating her newly built prosthetic in happy laps around Archibald's old room before disaster struck – from a time that felt was decades ago to the young boy. "Yes they do! I've seen it and made it, it exists, that's what I want! Not this!"

"Now Archibald-"

"I hate it! Get it off me!"

He flung his wrist in an attempt to discard the offending prosthetic and the doctor caught his arm, removing the device with care. Just like the night staff who were tired of his wailing and crying in the late hours, this man was losing his patience, too. It was hard to help someone who did not want to be helped. He left the prosthetics on one of the chairs near his bed and sighed on his way out, "Well, this is the best you're getting, so I suggest you make use of it."

Frogg glared at the man's back as he left. No one understood.

There were other things about his accident he realized would impact his life other than his physical imperfections - no, physical disfigurements sounded more accurate - that he did not anticipate. Things that filled his mind with numbing fear.

This occurred to him when the Professor was spending time with him in his hospital room. Hans had a copy of an English newspaper draped across his lap and open to the weekly crossword puzzle.

Though by now he was fluent, Frogg used to complete puzzles such as these to help him when he was still learning the language. Now the professor was using it to keep Frogg occupied in a hospital room that provided little to no stimulation. Initially, he had insisted that Frogg try to use his prosthetics to write the answers as practice, but it did not take long at all until the twelve-year-old became too frustrated from the attempt and threw the pen across the room. It was clear that they would never be suited for precise movements like writing, the kind of precision that he needed to continue working in a lab or his workshop.

The professor had remained calm during his outburst, fetched the thrown pen, and then offered to write the answers himself as Frogg seethed in his frustration. In fact, the Reinhart's seemed like the only people who had patience for him lately.

"Alright, Arch. Three letters - it's Edgar Allan what?"

Frogg rolled his eyes. "Poe."

He heard the pen scribbling against the newspaper. He could not help his horrible attitude. He wanted to feel guilty being so sour to his Professor but could only care about what his sad life was to become.

"Okay. Number 7 down, starts with R, five letters- an ancient object."

He had to think for a second, but when Frogg answered 'Relic', the sound of the pen confirmed his guess. The professor continued, "Oh, this should be no problem. Mass per volume. Ends with Y."

Of course it was no problem, this was a question that any ten-year old in grade school should be able to answer. And yet, Frogg could not find the word. He frowned. Why was it escaping him? The professor was waiting expectantly.

"You know, the one," Frogg began, "It's, it's uh…"

And he was gesticulating in a way that was like muscle memory - if he had hands, he would have written out the simple, almost child-like formula in the air - to him it was similar to how a toddler might try to match shaped blocks to holes so they fit through it was so easy, and he understood what it was but could not find the words, in fact did he know it all?

"The answer is density."

The professor said it before he had time to remember. Of course, Frogg thought. How could that of all things escape him? Just weeks ago he had been working on a part of a laser that he created with the use of quantum mathematics. So how could he possibly forget something so simple?

Then it hit him.

"Oh, no…" it came out as a whisper.

"What is it?"

"Am I… am I going to be stupid?"

Frogg's mind raced to one of his sessions with his doctor – a session in which the doctor spoke to the boy and his guardians of how clinical death can affect cognition for someone who has been resuscitate, and his tone was that of concern as he circled images produced by the MRI scans that Frogg had to undergo… but Frogg had not looked or listened in his misery. Now he wished more than ever he had paid attention.

"You had a major accident. When your heart stopped, your brain didn't get oxygen for three minutes, of course it's going to take some time for things to go back to normal," the professor quietly offered in a way that was honest, yet soft. "Don't let this get to you. You'll be back to normal in no time."

But Frogg felt sick to his stomach, and even if the professor was trying to be discreet, he was aware of the skeptical glances cast his way.

"Archibald, you have a visitor," a nurse announced as she rapped on the open door of his hospital room.

It was probably the professor or Gisela. Between the two of them, Frogg had been in almost constant company ever since the day of his accident. He was expecting them to return any moment with some home cooked food for him rather than the mediocre meals the hospital offered, but he was not any more appreciative of it. When you don't have hands to help you eat, it was impossible to enjoy, and it was just another reminder of how his life was never going to be the same again.

By now he was only in the hospital for physical therapy, or whatever the staff liked to call him fighting subpar prosthetics. He had been laying on his side, wrists tucked away, and eyes pointed to the window where the limbs of a tree were just beyond, but he barely saw a thing beyond the glass. He was stuck in his own head. He was not crying, but seething. He only seemed capable of these two emotions, miserable in each one. He no longer even had the comfort of morphine to ease his mental torment at this point, and he did not look to see who was entering his hospital room.

"...Archie?"

Frogg's eyes shot wide open. No. Please, not her.

He immediately scrambled to pull the blankets close to his face, but could not do so without hands. For the first time, he regretted not practicing with the prosthetics that he hated so much, the ones that laid near his bed, but it was too late to try and put them on. He was aware that Lisbeth was circling the hospital bed so that he would be forced to look at her, and all she probably wanted was to hug him but he couldn't do it.

"Archie, are you okay? Mr. Reinhart said you had an accident, I hadn't heard from you for so long and I was so worried!"

But he turned just in time, putting his back to her and curling up to hide his chin. His eyes were welling with tears. He was humiliated.

"D-Don't look at me.."

There was a long pause. He did not have to be able to see Lisbeth to detect her confusion.

"Why not?"

"Don't look at me, I'm- Im ruined, I'm a freak!"

"I don't care what you look like…"

And there was the soft padding of her footsteps as she tried to circle around again, but Frogg just turned once more so she would not be able to take a good look. By now, the tears were streaming down his cheeks and his voice was breaking when he spoke, and of all the things to be ashamed of, he also hated that she was hearing him really cry for the first time, too.

"Just go away!"

"Please? Let me stay, you know I don't think you're a freak, even if you don't have hands you're still my-"

"Go away!"

And he began sobbing. He wanted to care about how he was treating his only friend and the girl he was infatuated with for close to three years, but he couldn't. He hated everything, he hated what he had become, and he hated that he would not have been so tired and distracted that cursed day if she had not kept him up so late. He was only half aware of a rustling sound like she was going through her school bag, and her dejected, whispered 'goodbye'. Several minutes later when he was certain that he was all alone, Frogg cautiously peered through wet eyes to see what she left behind.

It was stupid that it made him cry even harder. Lisbeth had left him a pack of Pop Tarts - it was their bad inside joke from so long ago. For the first time, Frogg reached over with one of his stumps and fumbled with the prosthetics sitting next to his bed. It was frustrating to the point that he would have shed tears if he wasn't already crying - he had to balance the things between his severed wrists and they were still terribly sensitive so that any small touch made pain radiate through his bones, and he had to use a knee for leverage and even his mouth like an animal - but he managed to pull one on. It took close to ten minutes, but the mock plastic fingers assisted in putting the next one on.

It took much effort and in the end he used his teeth to tear into the package's foil, but Frogg pulled one of the unnaturally colored Pop-Tarts out and bit into it solemnly, sniffling. It gave him a taste of when things were better - of times of him and Lisbeth exploring West Berlin, the joy of getting his first degree, watching the Wall come down... times when he already thought the worst parts of his life were long over. He could not have been more wrong.

Frogg thought he would have been relieved to leave the hospital, the place where he found himself after three traumatic life events. It was an overcast, dreary day when he left to go back home. He had his head leaned against the window as he sat in the car's backseat, and his eyes were vacantly pointing out at the people who walked on the slushy sidewalks, but it was as if he did not truly see a thing. Gisela was behind the wheel and occasionally saying something to him, something to keep his mind busy or to make him feel better, but he heard none of it.

When they arrived home, Frogg solemnly stood in the foyer while Gisela helped untie his shoelaces - without his hands, he was practically reduced to being taken care of like a toddler and the prosthetics given to him were packed away. He was waiting for some sort of relief to hit him, to experience the comfort of being home again, but it never came. Gisela was now setting their things down and busily moving around him.

"Are you hungry? I can make Kartoffelpuffer, your favorite. Or order some pizza, we can put a movie on for you too so you can just relax-"

But when she turned to where Archibald should have been, she only got a short glimpse of him disappearing up the stairs into his room.

Frogg did not bother with trying to change his clothes or take his socks off when he climbed into bed. He was just so very tired. It was the kind of exhaustion that no amount of restful sleep could cure, and he closed his eyes. He wanted to drift away, to go to sleep and never wake up to what his life had become.

A/N: This chapter is far overdue! It's always unfortunate when the real-world manages to impede a consistent update schedule haha also, despite much of this fic being completed, I noticed a couple little plot holes that I thought I would patch up before posting and it's taken a bit longer than I anticipated to do so. Again, I appreciate any readers that may still be following along with my self-indulgent story and if you have time to throw me a review it is always appreciated! Cheers! - Scrambles