Shadow sat down in the empty chair in the corner of Elijah's room. The armrests were covered in plastic sheeting, and there was an apheresis machine to the chair's left. The machine seemed to be gathering dust. Elijah watched him curiously, and Lindsey sat in silence on the other side of the bed.

The chief of haematology walked over, and Shadow glanced at her name badge. '… Your name is Alexandrite? Your parents must have hated you.'

'At least I wasn't named after a silhouette created by the obstruction of a light source.' She raised one eyebrow behind her goggles and mask. 'You can call me Alex.' She passed Shadow a white medical band and said, 'Here you go. You were meant to get one of these earlier.'

Shadow took the band and snapped it onto his wrist while she washed her hands at the nearby sink. 'What? Did you run out of purple ones?'

'Do you have a do-not-resuscitate order?' she shot back.

'No, I just like the colour purple,' Shadow said, and his voice dripped with sarcasm. 'But if it comes with a DNR, then sign me the hell up.'

He heard a faint splutter from behind Alex's mask, and she walked back over, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. 'We need to keep you alive until the end of the week, tough guy.'

'I'm afraid you don't get a choice in the matter.' As she put a tourniquet on and tightened the strap, he said, 'I can't die, no matter what you do to me.'

Alex sat on a stool beside him and leaned over his arm. She held a bevelled needle. 'So I've heard. But what if I drained every drop of blood from your body? What happens then?'

Shadow clenched his left fist as she disinfected the venepuncture site. 'Why don't you go ahead and find out?'

She steadied her hands, and he felt her fingertips on his arm. 'Good grief. We're not going to push you that hard.'

'Why not?'

Her eyes widened. 'We might be on a time crunch, but we're not that cruel.' She slipped the needle beneath his skin at a 30-degree angle, and he dug his claws into his palm.

He heard a sharp hiss, and he shot a glance at Elijah. The boy was hiding behind his pillow once again, watching in silence. Shadow said nothing and turned his attention back to Alex as connected the needle to the blood bag with a thin piece of plastic tubing and loosened the tourniquet.

'And now we let the magic happen,' Alex said, watching the plastic tubing turn crimson as the blood bag began to fill.

Shadow clenched and unclenched his fist, holding the venous cannula in place with his free hand. 'Don't you have y-connectors? Can't you fill two bags at once?'

'Even if that was how it worked … We only use y-connectors so we can swap the one bag out for another faster. And it only takes ten minutes to draw one pint of blood.'

'We're not just drawing one pint of blood, though.' Shadow squeezed his arm, following the plastic tubing with his eyes. He knew from experience that you could bring that ten minutes down to nine, or even eight.

Alex tilted her head slightly, examining him. 'I'm aware. But in case you weren't aware … the average person only donates blood once every 56 days.'

'I'm not average.' Shadow lowered his voice, saying, 'And the kid doesn't have 56 days, does he?'

Alex glanced over her shoulder at Elijah. 'No.'

'What's wrong with him?'

Alex lowered her voice to a whisper. 'Don't you work with his grandfather, Commander Tower?'

'We're colleagues.' Shadow tightened his grip on the armrest. 'We don't discuss our personal lives.'

'So it's just a coincidence that you came here at the same time that the commander's grandson needs life-saving treatment?'

'You can think whatever you want. But the fact that I don't even know what's wrong with him should answer your question.'

'He has leukaemia.' He could barely hear Alex's voice. 'Acute myeloid leukemia. It's one of the deadliest blood cancers. It destroys the bone marrow and prevents it from producing normal blood cells.'

Shadow risked glancing at Elijah. He should have put two and two together sooner. The boy's paleness and severe bruising were telltale signs of leukaemia. 'So you're just … giving him my blood? That's like putting a bandaid over a bullet hole.'

Alex gripped the edge of her stool with both hands, and her goggles fogged up as she spoke. 'Do you understand how desperate his family must be to risk doing something this experimental? They've tried everything else. Chemotherapy. Stem cell transplants. Targeted therapy. Radiation therapy. He's even had bone marrow transplants, and he still relapsed.'

'He's … already had a cancer recurrence?' Shadow took a shallow breath. He wanted to pull the cannula out of his arm and begin pacing around the room, but he couldn't. He began to tap his foot instead. 'What about growth factors?'

'They've already used growth factors in both chemotherapy and monotherapy. Growth factors can cause skin issues and organ damage, and …' Alex's gaze landed on Elijah. She didn't speak for a moment. 'Growth factors are no longer on the table. Look, I'm the head of the haematology department, and my subspecialty is oncology. If there was another solution … I would have already found it.'

Shadow tightened his grip on his arm, feeling the cannula dig into his skin. 'But still … You're just going to give him my blood? Transfusions aren't going change the fact that his bone marrow has been torn to shreds.'

'It's because his bone marrow is in "shreds" that he needs your blood. All of his blood counts are critically low, and he's developed complications because of it … anaemia, thrombocytopenia and neutropenia.'

'But why use my blood? I'm not the only person on the planet who has white blood cells. What are blood banks for, if not for this?'

Alex's gaze tightened. 'We've only just started. Our hope is that we can progress from transfusions to a more … radical approach that will address the root issue.' When she moved his hand aside to check the venous cannula, her fingers dug into his forearm. 'I don't know why, but for some reason, I assumed that you wanted to be here. You clearly don't. I'd tell you to take this outside, but you still have another minute –'

'Thirty seconds.' Shadow closed his eyes and exhaled. 'Thirty seconds, tops. I've done this a thousand times. That's why I have my doubts.' Shadow grasped the plastic tube with his left hand, holding it like a red thread. 'My cells don't age, and they can't die. But it's not a question of whether they'll be filtered out of the recipient's bloodstream – it's only a matter of when.'

'Then it's a good thing that you're a durable blood donor.' Alex stood up and removed the cannula from his arm. He took the gauze that she passed him and held it to the puncture wound. 'It doesn't matter how long your cells can survive. Every second counts, and if we keep drawing more blood, then we can keep adding more time to the clock.' She held the plastic tube in her hand and said, 'But honestly … Do you even want to help people? What the hell are you doing here?'

'I don't want to help people – I want to cure them.' Shadow stared at the ground, fighting the urge to pull the cannula out of his arm and walk out of the room. '… Anything less isn't good enough.'

If his blood cells had been able to survive inside a recipient indefinitely, then maybe Maria would have been able to live a full life in spite of her immunocompromised state. But Maria's parents had wanted her cured or wanted her home, but Gerald could do neither. Even so, if his blood had been more potent, then Shadow could still have fought on her behalf as long as she'd lived – not as the weapon GUN had wanted, but as the cure he'd been created to be.

But each new transfusion he'd given Maria had forced him to confront the fact that the previous transfusion had failed. He had failed. Yet she had still taken his hands and reassured him every time, with a smile that shone like the sun. Bright lights always cast dark shadows, and he was still walking beneath her shadow to this very day.

Don't be sad, Shadow! If nothing else, this means I'll always have a piece of you no matter where I go!

But she had gone where he would never be able to follow, taking countless pieces of him with her … and leaving him to pick up the rest on his own.

'Shadow?'

He blinked several times. 'I'm sorry.'

'We can't cure everyone, you know. But we need to keep them alive long enough to try.'

'But what then?' He hesitated. 'What if you're just … delaying the inevitable and giving them false hope?'

'Hope isn't a bad thing. People need it in order to keep on going. It doesn't matter whether that hope is real or false. In the end, does it even matter whether that hope was artificial?'

Shadow sat in silence as she snapped the IV cannula off of the blood bag, sealing it shut, and removed the plastic tubing. '… Are you kicking me out?'

'No. Why?'

'You're disconnecting the equipment after only one round.'

Alex set the plastic tubing aside and heaved a dramatic sigh. 'I have to perform a transfusion for Elijah, and this is the first time we're giving him your blood. I have to monitor him closely for adverse reactions at the outset, so I'll need a bit of time before we resume. I can't babysit you both at once.'

'I was created before you started attending medical school,' Shadow muttered.

'I think you were created before I was even born,' Alex said pointedly.

'I can't tell what you look like beneath all that protective equipment.'

'And I can't tell whether GUN sent you here because they were feeling generous or because they got sick of your attitude.' Before he could retort, Alex spun on her heel and wheeled the IV stand over to Elijah's bed, hanging a saline bag on one of the empty hooks. Shadow slumped into his chair and closed his eyes. 'All right, kiddo –'

'No!' Elijah's protest was muffled. Shadow reluctantly opened one eye and saw that the boy had buried his head beneath a pillow. Lindsey stood beside him, twisting her hands together. She looked traumatised.

'Elijah,' Alex said. 'Look at me, please.' She was using the type of melodic voice that you deployed when dealing with small children, and it made Shadow want to claw at his ears. 'I've already disinfected your arm, I just have to put the needle in –'

'I don't wanna!'

Shadow's ears twitched. Ever since he'd arrived at the hospital, it felt like he'd been hit by one thing by another, as though he was standing beneath a falling shower of debris, except the debris hitting him with full force wasn't tangible – it was the memories of his past. And now, every beep, footstep and spoken word felt like it was drilling into his skull.

'Elijah,' Lindsey coaxed. Her voice was fraying from strain. 'You've done this plenty of times before.'

'Yeah, hundreds! Thousands! And I hate it!'

'Elijah –'

Shadow swore under his breath, heaved himself to his feet, and strode over. 'Enough, damn it!' He sat on the edge of Elijah's bed, and Elijah shrank back. 'Don't give me that look. Stop whining and get over yourself.'

Lindsey flinched, and Alex frantically shook her head, slicing a hand across her neck. Shadow ignored them both.

'But …' Elijah held out his arm. His inner elbow was severely bruised, and his veins were laced with puncture marks. 'But … it hurts.'

'So?' Shadow tapped the inside of his own arm, and said, 'You don't hear me complaining about it.'

Elijah frowned. 'It's not the same –'

'Isn't it? I still feel pain like anyone else.' Shadow narrowed his eyes. 'You're one of the Towers, aren't you? Your grandfather is a military commander and an expert mech pilot. He gave you your eyes … Didn't he give you any of his courage?'

'Maybe it went missing. Like how you lost your shoes.'

'I didn't –' Shadow broke off and exhaled. 'Never mind.'

'There's a lot of stuff wrong with me.' Elijah looked down at his hands, and his voice wavered. 'If I wasn't sick, do you think I'd be braver?'

Shadow paused. Then he kicked Alex in the ankle and put one hand behind his back, pointing towards Elijah's arm. 'The bravest person I ever knew was even sicker than you are.'

'Who were they?'

'… She was a bit older than you. Some days, she couldn't see, walk, or think straight.' Out of the corner of his eye, Shadow saw Alex edging closer to Elijah, hiding a needle behind her back. 'But one day, she came face to face with the leader of the Black Arms.'

'Did she punch him?'

Shadow bit the inside of his mouth, suppressing his reaction. 'No. She didn't know how to fight, but she confronted him anyway. She stood up to him and refused to back down. She wasn't scared of aliens.' He raised an eyebrow. 'And she wasn't scared of needles, either.'

Alex inserted the needle into Elijah's arm, and he winced, looking down in surprise. Alex took up another length of tubing, connecting it to the cannula, priming it with saline and connecting it to the blood bag. Elijah watched the blood flowing into his arm, and when he spoke again, he had the same small voice Shadow had heard when he'd first walked into the room. 'Is this going to make me better?'

'No. It's going to make you less sick.'

'… Did she win?'

'Who?'

'The girl in the story.'

Shadow got off the bed and crossed his arms over his chest. 'In a way.'

'Did she ever get better?'

'She …' Shadow fell silent, and he slowly raised one hand to his throat. He couldn't speak. He physically couldn't speak. Every time he tried, it felt like his airways were blocked.

'Shadow?' Alex turned to him, and her gaze flickered behind her goggles. 'Do you need to sit down?'

Shadow shook his head, and his hand fell from his throat to his chest, over his heart. He could feel pain like anyone else – but unlike everyone else, he would have to feel that pain forever. Some illnesses couldn't be cured. And some wounds would never heal.

Shadow turned and walked out of the room, letting the door fall shut beside him. He leaned against the wall of the corridor outside and buried his face in his hands.

No matter what happens, I'll always be by your side.

A thought passed through his mind, and it was so fleeting that it almost slipped through his fingers. It was the reason why he had left the last photograph he had of Maria behind on the Ark. It was the ugly, twisted wish that Maria's ghost would just leave him in peace.

'Shadow?'

Shadow lowered his hands, but he didn't look up. He recognised Iain's voice, but he'd been so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't registered the sound of his cane. 'What?'

'The multi-disciplinary team meeting is about to start. Are you ready to leave?'

Shadow pushed off the wall and walked off without a word.

Iain fell into step beside him. 'Is everything all right?'

When Shadow spoke, his voice was flat and mechanical. 'He's fine. He hasn't had an adverse reaction yet.'

'I wasn't asking about the commander's grandson.'

Shadow crossed his arms over his chest, as though he was barring himself from physically falling apart. '... Do I have to interact with the patients?'

'Most people would find this confronting. You're not lesser for it, you know.'

'It's not that.' Shadow dug his fingers into his arms. 'Why can't you just hook me up to an apheresis machine in an empty room and leave me alone?'

Iain shrugged. 'We could. But is that really what you want?'

'I just want to fulfil my obligations and be done with this. I don't want to help people. I don't even know if I want to cure people – the only reason I'm here is because I was given another chance to try.'

They passed through the decontamination area, and Iain gestured to Shadow's personal belongings with his cane. Shadow took his shoes out of the tub and began putting his equipment back on.

'I'm afraid that the doors in this hospital aren't terribly soundproof. I heard you talking to Elijah when I came to get you.' Shadow tensed, but Iain continued. 'Dr Alexandrite has a lot of experience working with young children. You didn't have to intervene … so why did you?''

Shadow shrugged on his jacket and zipped it up. 'The kid's whining was giving me a migraine.'

'… Are you even capable of getting headaches?'

Shadow tightened his wrist guards to their tightest notches and said, 'If you were eavesdropping, then you would have heard me say that I can feel pain like anyone else.'

They passed through the double doors, rentering the crowded, bustling corridors outside the cancer care ward, and continued to walk.

'Yet you keep going out of your way to help others despite the pain it causes you,' Iain said. 'For someone who says they don't want to help people, your actions certainly say otherwise.'

They drew to a halt outside the door of one of the hospital's conference rooms. Shadow gazed at the door with an air of resignation. 'Is there a point to this?'

'To what?'

'The meeting.'

Of course not. It's half an hour of your life that you'll never get back, spent listening to people pontificating about issues they have absolutely no experience with, knowing full well they'll never have to take any responsibility for any decisions that they make.' Iain pushed the door open with his cane. 'But you deserve to know what you're getting yourself into.'

Iain walked inside, and Shadow followed him. Nearly every chair at the conference table was filled, and halogen lights cast a stark glow over the attendees. If it weren't for their white coats and blue uniforms, you could be forgiven for thinking that it was just another meeting at GUN's headquarters. He allowed himself a bitter smirk.

'It appears as though we're fashionably late,' Iain said. 'Apologies, everyone.'

Shadow stepped out from behind him, and you could hear a pin drop in the resulting silence.

'… Director,' one of the doctors said. 'Have you seen Dr. Alexandrite? She's supposed to be the MDT Coordinator for this meeting –'

'She's busy doing her job.' With a flash, Shadow appeared at the other end of the table and yanked a printout of the meeting agenda from the doctor's hands. 'But at this rate, she'll have time to finish her entire shift and still get here before any of you say anything noteworthy.'

'Can you give that back –'

Shadow materialised the Chaos Emerald in one hand and said, 'Shut up.' The room turned green, and he flipped the pages one after the other, scanning through the patient cases. Names. Faces. Illnesses.

Leukemia. Lymphoma. Multiple myeloma. Anemia. Hemophilia. Sickle cell disease.

Shadow turned the last page and exhaled. He'd learned what he wanted to know, and he let time resume. He glared at the doctor and slapped the printout back into his open hand. Then he saw the doctor's name badge. He leaned forward. '… You're the head of the Human Research Ethics Committee?' A shocked laugh escaped his lips. 'There's nothing ethical about what we're doing. Why the hell are you here?'

The doctor bristled, and he said, 'That's exactly why I'm here … It's my job to make sure we don't cross lines that weren't meant to be crossed.'

Shadow slammed his fist down on the table. 'The damn line was already crossed more than 50 years ago, and there's nothing you can do about it. If you're so afraid to play God, then you shouldn't have chosen a profession that requires you to do so. Stop grandstanding and get over yourself.'

'But there are still risks!' one of the other doctors protested.

Shadow appeared beside her, and she nearly flew out of her chair. 'Risks to your patients? Or to your reputations?'

'All of the parties who agreed to join the clinical trial have signed waivers, but it still –'

Shadow grabbed her chair and spun her around to face him. 'Are you kidding me? You're exposing children to hybridised alien DNA, and your primary concern is whether you'll be held legally liable if something goes wrong?'

She was shaking in her seat, but she was also willing to look him in the eyes. 'If we face legal repercussions, then we can't continue to practice medicine – and what will happen to our patients then?'

Shadow reluctantly let her go and stepped back. 'What did the waivers entail?'

'All participants taking part in a clinical trial have to sign a waiver acknowledging the risks.' Iain had taken a seat while Shadow had made his way around the room. He either wanted to give Shadow enough rope to hang himself with, or he hadn't seen fit to interject until now. 'In this case, they also had to agree to be monitored by GUN for safety risks.'

'Safety risks? If it were possible for Black Doom to use a disease-ridden child as a vessel, then he would have done so already.' But Shadow looked away briefly, and his mind raced.

Black Doom had tried to use Shadow's blood against him in White Space. What's more, Maria had been brought there from a point in the timeline just before the Ark Disaster. It was highly probable that Shadow's blood would still have been flowing in her veins at that point, and the time dilation of White Space would have ensured that her body remained static.

If Black Doom had been capable of weaponising a child tainted by Shadow's blood, then surely he would have done so already. Surely …

Shadow held one hand to his head. He felt sick.

What if Black Doom only spared Maria so that Shadow would do whatever it took in order to save her? If Shadow hadn't claimed the Doom Powers in order to save Maria's life … would Black Doom have attempted to twist Maria into a twisted image of his ideal warrior instead?

Shadow shook his head violently and steadied himself against the table. 'Despite GUN's concerns, Black Doom is still dead. The only type of risk we should be concerned about is adverse reactions.' He looked up in disbelief. '… But how did you get participants to join the clinical trial? If you're all still this concerned, then these kids' parents must be terrified. Why on earth would people agree to undertake something with this level of risk?'

'Because they're desperate,' one of the paediatricians said. 'They've either tried everything else, or they can't afford to try anything at all.'

'What do you mean?'

'Many of the families who agreed to join the program don't have health insurance. They can't afford regular treatment … But clinical trials are paid for by the institution that runs them.'

Shadow's head began to hurt. His breath was little more than a rasp.

For someone like him, health insurance wasn't even a consideration. He could heal from any injury, and he could never die. But if things were different, then he would get employer-sponsored health insurance from working at GUN, just like all the other people who worked there. In the United Federation, health insurance was tied to your place of employment … And based on what Rouge had told him, the healthcare system itself was a nightmare to navigate.

Shadow's voice began to shake. 'So you're telling me that people aren't just doing this program because they've tried everything else … but also because this is the only thing that they can afford to try?'

The silence in the room was deafening, and Shadow stepped back, hitting his shoulders against a blank whiteboard.

Project Shadow had originally been funded by GUN. Gerald had been a genius, but he had also needed GUN's aid in order to create a cure for his granddaughter. No matter how much you cared about someone … without money and resources, even the most industrious hands were always tied.

'It's been over fifty years,' Shadow whispered. 'How has so little changed?'

The door swung open, and Alex walked in. 'Sorry I'm late. I had to wait for a supervising physician who could take over for me.' She looked around at the stricken faces of the doctors sitting at the table. 'Shadow, what did you do?'

'I did nothing. No one did anything, for that matter – we've been going around in circles while these kids are dying.' Shadow turned and braced his hands against the table, looking down its length at the attendees. 'I may have time for this, but you don't – and your patients definitely don't – so listen up.'

Shadow held a hand to his chest, and his voice came out in a low growl. 'Even if you drain me dry or cut me into pieces, there's nothing you can do that would ever kill me. And you only have me for one week. After that, I have to resume active duties at GUN. And based on what you're saying, it's going to be a miracle if we make it to the end of the week without either GUN or your hospital's board of directors pulling the plug on the program.'

He turned on his heel and walked out, cutting a sharp glare over his shoulder. 'So spare me the details, damn it. Do your worst. Just make the time count, or this will all have been for nothing.'

Alex sprinted after him, letting the door fall shut behind her. 'Shadow –'

'I'm not going to take back what I said.'

'I'm not asking you to.' He could finally see her face now that she wasn't wearing her protective equipment. Her brow was creased, and her fists were clenched. '… I understand your frustration. But there's only so much Iain or any of us can do to circumvent bureaucracy, even when lives are at stake. Isn't GUN the same, in a way?'

Shadow looked up. A TV was broadcasting the afternoon news, looping footage from Abraham's press conference. His hand began to twitch. 'Alex. Can I leave the premises if I go through decontamination after I come back?'

'… Yes. Regardless, I don't know what on earth you think we could do to stop you. But one of Elijah's supervising physicians is expecting you –'

He raised the emerald, staring at Abraham's face through its facets. 'I'll only be a few minutes. Chaos Control!'

Alex's shocked expression dissolved in front of his eyes.

Shadow landed in Abraham's office with a slam, and the commander nearly jumped out of his chair.

Abraham didn't even get the chance to speak before Shadow blasted forward, crashing onto the man's desk feet first. Shadow hauled Abraham out of his chair by the collar of his uniform, forcing him to stand, and the air crackled with an electrical charge.

Abraham gritted his teeth, choking, and slammed his hands down on Shadow's wrists with enough force to break anyone else's bones. 'You have comms for a reason, Shadow.'

Shadow only tightened his grip, and his voice was razor-sharp. 'And I have reason to believe that you haven't been entirely transparent with me. So start talking. Now.'