Chapter 55: If you are the healer
"You look better."
Char was watching him contently, so Vlad just scowled and stopped his fingers from prying at the mostly-healed-but-still-visible rash under his nose.
"It itches and I look like I somehow survived the bubonic plague. Also, did I say it itches?"
The look his almost-friend gave him was unimpressed, and, frankly, unconcerned with his attempt at hostility. The fact that she'd leave the clinic tomorrow certainly was helping her mood.
Vlad did not share such luck.
Char rolled her eyes and pushed her pear over: she didn't like them, but Vlad did.
"I said better, not good. You don't have to wear bandages anymore, you don't look like you want to throw yourself out the window at the first opportunity, and you told me you were actually doing things in your free time."
Which was, of course, almost all the time.
Vlad still considered not accepting the pear, just to be petty and mean and perhaps a bit shattered that people Char everyone but him were moving on with their lives and he was still here.
April 26th.
1987.
In a couple of weeks...
Almost three years since Jack the accident.
Vlad bit into his second pear rather moodily.
He was almost done with his thesis, he'd started going back to Bianco's collection – avoiding the whispering book's corner – and talking to the translators, who'd seemed especially relieved to see him... walking, at least: he didn't look healthy, but he was there and alive as far as they knew, so. He'd gone with Char the last three days – and they were planning to go again, after lunch – to the rehabilitation room, to work on not looking like an underfed wraith anymore.
He was actually practicing with his powers – form, shape manipulation? Vlad wasn't certain what to call the constructs of pink ecto-energy, but they worked a bit like the cold fire, and he'd started distracting himself with those when he couldn't fall asleep – in the evening, and not just getting rid of the excess energy in fear of a relapse.
He hated to admit it, but Char was right: he was doing things, and he didn't mope on his bed all day, and even if he wasn't happy or optimistic, he...
"we don't know how long Malcolm has left Vlasdilav"
If Vlad wanted out of here before his dad gave in, he needed to do better than that.
hopeless and yet
trying to fool himself into believing into acting into attempting a better outcome even though it would amount to nothing
like everything else
Vlad stood up, threw the pear's core in his empty plate which he picked up, and went on his way to the disposal table. His neck cracked slightly, making Char wince – well, Vlad hadn't done any physical exercise in three years, give or take, so it wasn't exactly surprising, and no, convulsing on his bed as he went into cardiac arrest did not count – and he tilted his head towards the rehabilitation room:
"Coming?"
Char eyed him for an instant, as if there was something she ought to say but didn't quite know what – then she shrugged:
"Alright... I'll help you with your exercises, though. Wouldn't want you to break something the moment I leave the clinic because you don't know how to use your muscles."
Vlad elected to ignore the clenching in his chest at his almost-friend's words.