Never. She’d taken the damn cure because of his stories. All the tales he’d shared with her of the condition of the world. The condition of the people…
Curling his fingers into a fist, he slammed it into the wall.
She’d asked.
Slam.
He’d answered.
Slam.
Mothers bleeding to death.
Slam.
Children starving, fading from malnutrition.
Slam.
Birth rates dropping everywhere.
Slam.
Poverty. Starvation. People knifing each other over fresh water.
The tile cracked, and a sliver of it cut into his hand.
Staring at the shattered pieces, he watched the blood trickle along his clenched fist before the water diluted it into a pink stream. Flipping the switch, he turned the water to hot and faced away from the spray. It threatened to scald him through the numb, but he needed the physical pain. Needed it to ground him.
When he finally shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, it didn’t remotely surprise him to find Oz waiting with a first aid kit.
Sometimes, the doc knew him better than he knew himself. It was really fucking annoying.
“Doc.” He didn’t give a damn about dripping on the carpet as he padded across the room.
“Lobster,” Oz said, as he rose and pointed at the bed. “Sit.”
Arguing would be pointless, so he sat and held his damaged hand out.
“Talk,” the man ordered as he pulled out more slivers of tile with a pair of tweezers. Each yank dragged at him.
“I don’t want to.” Melancholy flooded him. “I don’t want to talk about her like she’s in the past. I don’t want to face the fact that every time we find her again, she’s not the Valda we loved.”
The doctor said nothing, instead, he began to stitch closed the slices in Andreas’ hand.
“She was right there, pushing at me, and I lashed out. Because it’s like talking to a stranger, until it isn’t.” He coughed and shook his head. Tears burned in his eyes, and his throat was scratchy. “I walked in on your moment…”
“She invited you to stay.” Oz spoke quietly, his nimble stitching barely noticeable. Andreas hurt everywhere.
“When have we ever done that?” They all loved her, and they’d all shared her—but their moments were their own. Individually.
Oz shrugged. “Doesn’t mean we can’t.”
No… “It wasn’t her. That woman wasn’t her.”
“Tell me something, Andreas. You know the soul. You did God’s work and walked the Earth. You tended to the sick, the indigent, and the dying. Why?”
“Because people needed someone to give a damn.” Sometimes, he questioned God’s existence. What if their very faith was a cosmic joke? A mental panacea to get through the horror of it all?
“Why did they need you?” The doctor pulled his attention back to him when he pulled a stitch hard and tied it off.
“Because they didn’t have anyone else to care. They needed a confirmation…a moment of peace, and to believe it would be better…” That was what he needed, too. He needed to know they could get her back. “Man, we’ve been doing this for years, and sometimes—she’s so close. She seems just like her, and other times…”
“I know.” Oz sighed. “But she is still her. Sometimes, she’s the her free of the weight of the world on her shoulders—in love with her science, and pursuing her goals.”
“The woman she was before any of us came into her life.” And why was it the coma erased only the parts of her life that involved them? Were they losing more each day she remained in that coma?
“What’s really bothering you, Andreas?” He’d finished and packed away the remaining supplies in the first aid kit. “You took off when she propositioned us, and then when push came to shove, you were ready to pull the plug early.”
Agony ached in his gut, burning holes like it was an ulcer. An ulcer borne of indecision and self-loathing. “Are we doing the right thing?” Even giving voice to the thought made him feel like a traitor. “We all want to save her. We don’t want to let her go. Are we really doing this for her? Or are we doing this for us?” A bunch of selfish pricks anchoring her to a world that may very well kill her the moment they saved her.
“I’m doing it because Valda didn’t give up on anyone. She worked until she collapsed. She worked until her eyes were so red, she couldn’t see. The only time she took breaks was when we lured her out. But if you think, for one moment, if it was one of us in there that she’d give up? Then you didn’t know her, man.”
Oz wasn’t wrong, but it didn’t assuage the churning in Andreas’ gut.
“I’d burn for her,” he said, without reservation or hesitation. “Every time we insert, it feels like a part of me burns away. If that’s happening to us, what’s it doing to her? What if we’re the reason she can never really be her again?”
Rising, Oz slung the pack over his shoulder and lifted his eyebrows. “Knock off the spiritual jujitsu. You’re scared. We’re all fucking scared. Got a better plan to save her? I’m all ears. I can keep her body alive, we can massage her muscles and help reduce atrophy. We can keep her lungs clear so she can breathe. But that machine is the only way I see to open the door for her…and I’ll whittle myself away to do it.”
Shame flooding him, Andreas lowered his head. “What if I’m not enough?”
Daring a glance at the other man, Andreas frowned. Oz grinned and spread his arms wide. “We’re who we are because of the road we took to get here. We were enough to do that, and we were enough for her to love. Now all we gotta do is love her back.”
The doctor gave him faith. “You say that like it’s easy to believe.” Damn, why couldn’t he believe so fiercely?
“I say it like it’s our only choice.” The raw response wedged against his chest and squeezed all the air from Andreas’ lungs. “We fight or we die. So which is it?”
Fight. It wasn’t even a question. Blowing out a breath, he clenched his wounded hand. “I want our girl back.”
“Me too. So let’s do this…preferably before Hatch and Dirk find us crying.” Not an ounce of discomfort reflected in Oz’s voice. Nor did he try to wipe away the tears on his face. Still damp from the shower, Andreas hadn’t even realized he’d been crying.
“Fuck, I miss her. And I hate this goddamn hour.” The hour during which the construct set, because they never knew what they’d find—or if they’d even fit.
“Me too.” Oz glanced at his watch. “We have time for a drink. Grab some pants.”
“Why?” He’d have to change in the Hexagon anyway.
Walking away, the doctor chuckled. “‘Cause your ass isn’t that pretty.”
This time when Andreas laughed, it soothed some of the jagged, broken pieces inside. “I’ll be right there,” he called. When the door in the outer room closed, he turned and knelt.
It had been a long time since he simply prayed, but right now—they needed all the help they could get.
Hatch