Chapter 52: It means I'm broken and lame

The communal area wasn't so bad at lunch, when there was someone you could talk to, even if it was only one word here and there. At least Vlad had someone to distract him from the evergrowing knowledge of what he was of what the other patients had suffered of the culprits of the facts of the truth that he was the same.

Still no fevers – or nothing worse than a few hours every other week, not so bad – and Vlad had tentatively started working on his thesis once more. He hadn't gone back to the library since... he wasn't sure how long, actually, but it wasn't like he was staying all alone: he still spoke to Ziad and the female agent he'd met in the communal area, almost every day.

That had to count for something, right?

Ziad seemed pleased enough with Vlad's social efforts that he wasn't pushing for more as he used to, only mentioning the library's translators now and again. Not that Vlad was unwilling to go back – there was so much to learn about ghosts and the occult, and all of it was just there, on the fifth floor – but he had to finish that business thesis first, or at least get to the point where he'd only have to check it for spelling and cohesion a few times over.

nothing to do with what Vlad didn't want to know about himself

about victims and tales of horrors about witness accounts of ghosts destroying people and their lives through history about Jack and Maddie's theses on the shelves too

if ghosts were sentient

why how could they do the things they did to their victims stealing hurting using them leaving burns screams tears and haunted eyes

he hadn't meant to and yet

June wasn't here anymore

"N°12?"

Vlad started – but it was only the agent-patient, her fork suspended in the air and her eyes on him, unimpressed.

They'd been talking about something, hadn't they?

He didn't remember.

"I... You could call me by my name, you know?"

The woman gave him an amused look and resumed eating.

"I would, if you'd ever told me what it is. And while we're at it, I'm Char. Charlene, I mean, but don't call me that, it's too girly."

Embarrassed, Vlad realized he'd never asked.

"Oh. Sorry. I'm Vlad. Vlad Masters. Char, so?"

"Yes?"

"I..."

...didn't know what to ask or say at all.

Char looked well enough, he realized: her ectoplasmic rash seemed mostly healed, though a bit green around the edges still. It had been a serious injury, then: those rashes took up to two weeks to disappear with proper care, usually, but Char had been here – had come back, since he'd seen her injured and in the clinic before – for nearly as long and it wasn't yet gone.

A ghost had probably targeted her with all their power, not just grazed her in passing.

Char took pity on him.

"So, what happened to your face? I mean, the bandages, not... Everything else. You didn't have those the other time I saw you. What was it, a few months ago?"

Vlad stared into his plate, more bothered by the sauce than the question itself lie – there was no way he could try and get the rest of it with those bandages on his face.

Time to move on, then; dessert was banana bread, much easier to eat when your head was covered in fabric and healing salves. Vlad put aside his plate and broke a small amount of banana bread to occupy his hands and focus and not linger too long on Char's question on everything that came with it and the woman couldn't know about.

"November, I think? And I have sores and gashes all over my face, best to cover that up. I... Back when I first got ill, I had rashes like you, and a lot of... infected pimples, some even looked like slabs of harder, glowing skin. It went away after a time, and it wasn't... as bad as right now."

There had been other issues, though. The heart attacks, for example.

The agent hesitated for a couple of seconds:

"Did you... You said infection, so I guess some ectoplasm got in your blood? That's my problem, I got hurt a while back on the job, and the skin broke allowing ectoplasm to seep in. Since then, I've had high allergic reactions to ectoplasmic energy and ectoplasm itself, whenever I get a rash it's worse and lasts longer than it should."

Char pointed absent-mindedly at her shoulder, like someone so used to that reality it barely even mattered anymore – of course, it was a lie, a surface reaction. Vlad knew exactly what it felt like, to be weak and hurt and unable to get better, he understood the resignation and how it could become a force of habit – he just couldn't speak of it so easily yet.

He wondered how long this had been going on, for the woman to be able to do just that.

Vlad didn't think they were friends – not long enough for that, and it wasn't like he could confide in her about his problems, ghostly or otherwise he couldn't even do that with Ziad or Bianco and Jack and Maddie weren't there at all – but she did sit with him whenever he came out to eat in the communal area.

She was the only one who had come and talked to him, no matter how poorly Vlad had taken it the first time around.

"Was it the case last time too? Your shoulder was bandaged, back then."

If it was him being asked, Vlad wouldn't expect an answer: he didn't think he'd be willing to talk about his health in details, not even with if it was someone closer to him.

Honestly, he was already surprised that he'd said so much about the bandages – though, they were difficult to ignore.

Char shrugged – winced, too.

"I work for this organization, so. Got thrown in a wall by a specter that kept throwing tantrums in the middle of the night, screaming and thrashing everything, and god forbid someone unfortunate walk by... I was lucky, too: nothing broken, just a lot of contusions and a few rashes where the ghost touched me. I've had worse."

Vlad opened his mouth – and said nothing.

He didn't know what Char had had to live through because of ghosts so far, and that, too, he could sympathize with: despite the sores and the bandages, he'd had worse.

he'd died after all

more than once

Char didn't ask to know more in exchange, didn't try to pry and figure out the freak guy who had spent close to three years in the clinic. They weren't that close – and perhaps, she could tell, too, that he wouldn't speak. Perhaps she could respect that.