Chapter 35: I did forget my holy song

After the spleen incident, Vlad found himself worrying about what would happen if the doctors somehow noticed he had a whole spleen again – despite having lost about a fifth of it in the most gruesome way, by coughing it up. They shouldn't notice, of course: it wasn't like they could see its exact state without opening him up again, and physical check-ups might seem a bit odd but not alarming, especially as he doubted they'd jump to "healing powers" as a hypothesis.

Still.

Vlad spent the day trying and failing to work on his business course, always coming back to the same doubts – and to the realization that somewhere in the clinic lay a medical file with his name and a lot of abnormal results in it.

He'd known that, obviously, but it had been some abstract knowledge, not something that could potentially turn problematic.

At dinner, Vlad convinced himself that the file wouldn't help anyone already involved in figuring out that their patient was dead and faking it: after all, they had already seen it all, they'd lived and tried to work through it, it wasn't anything new. Their suspicions and conclusions wouldn't change just with the existence of a medical file they'd themselves written.

Later – when if he left the clinic – was a different subject, and then Vlad might want to hide, if not the facts of his agony predicament, at least some of the data. His levels of ectoplasm contamination, how strongly it had bonded with his body. Make it seem less grave. For the most part, people remembered events, feelings, impressions, not numbers. He couldn't make it all go away – someone would always remember, someone might see the file and notice something was missing – but he could go and pretend the symptoms had come from milder problems something that wasn't death and an inability to rest in peace, violent and painful and absolutely horrible to live through, yes, but not suspicious.

Vlad, before anything else, was a scientist. He knew exactly how crippling wrong data could be.

"Jack these calculations aren't right"

Changing some parts of his medical files could mean stopping any new eyes from making connections where others had been too busy trying to keep him breathing to notice.

It wasn't, however, a priority. That could wait until the day he got his life back, out of here.

tampering with scientific data even if it was unlikely to be used as such

made his innards twitch

something that shouldn't ever be done something that scientists didn't do something dishonest something crippling and dangerous

"Jack these calculations aren't right"

something that could blow up in someone's face

a flash of green

pain death acidic breath against his skin

but it was that or risking discovery being exposed allowing the possibility of others finding out

Vlad didn't have much of a life only painful days and bloody dental forceps and scissors hidden in the walls friends gone and hopes buried yet it could be so much worse

Bianco and his organization could know and want to get rid of him Ziad wouldn't try to help June would hate him for her injury his parents his sister might think he was

it was what little was left of his life or honesty

and at that point

Vlad could only tear off what little remained of his wishes and principles as a scientist

For now...

For now, he only needed to see what was in that file. To make sure of the doctors' suspicions, of what knowledge Bianco was getting back, of how far lost they thought him.

Yes, maybe it was time for another intangible nightly expedition through the clinic. He didn't practice intangibility much, as it was, and perhaps it was time to change that.

The shifting between human a mask of normality and ghost was almost under control – except for the leftovers, but he could turn fast enough, now, and it almost always followed his conscious decisions, which was something. Intangibility, on the other hand... Vlad had needed it to check his spleen three days ago, true, but apart from that...

He only used it to get the tools in and out of the wall.

to phase the blood out of the scissors of the forceps

to hide a dozen torn fangs behind the sink

the bits of pointed ears he dealt with differently he'd found a solution to get rid of those

Vlad started practicing with ectoplasmic fire in his hands last week pink and cold and only burning what he wished it to

he'd only put fire to the bathroom's tiles once and anyway there wasn't much to keep the fire going

it left almost no ashes behind either

then he'd thrown up his dinner and half the blood in his body and no one had noticed the small heap of ash in the trash and the missing towel and they'd forgotten all about the smoke alarm going off when Vlad had bloodied Ziad's uniform before falling over and almost braining himself on the sink

he wondered if that would have done him in

he doubted it

He should practice more – but he had to be prudent.

Wandering around the clinic wasn't the best idea, at least not until he had a better grasp on intangibility. If his powers betrayed him, if he overdid it and got sick outside of his room...

Vlad couldn't keep getting caught out of his room without the staff getting suspicious. They'd think... They'd think the ghost him only him no one else but they couldn't know had come back, that it was using him again. They'd be wary and cautious, and Vlad... Vlad wouldn't have an explanation for that – or at least not one that didn't end up with security getting tighter, or even worse, the truth.

So, getting out and looking for his medical file wasn't yet on the table, but.

Practicing in order to get there...

He'd get back to training his ectoplasmic fire later.

Now that he'd realized about the file, it wouldn't get out of his head – not unless he did something about it. He'd been unable to focus all day, and it would just continue happening, but if he could trust himself to get out and not get caught, then traipsing through the clinic would be a possibility.

It might even be nice to see more than the same two rooms every day.

...Vlad, at this point, needed to find out what they'd written in that medical file. He needed the data, to better understand what was happening to him. To know how much they had guessed, how much of it was wrong in a good way in a way that prevented discovery and how much in a bad way what wasn't true but might be even worse if they thought it to be reality.

To know what the doctors expected of his health, what wouldn't surprise them and what might be cause for concern and suspicion.