𝘀𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗻'𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹 ༄ 𝗷. 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗻

𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚢-𝚘𝚗𝚎

𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚢-𝚘𝚗𝚎. 𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝚊𝚐𝚊𝚒𝚗

Bhavika had thrown back the covers of her hospital bed and was studying her legs intensely.

There were jagged scars starting at her knees and curving to the midpoint of her thigh. She ran her hand over the scar, feeling the raised edges of the incisions.

"Lieutenant Patel are you ready to move into the wheelchair?' The nurse asked her and unfolded the device.

"Uh, yes. I guess so." The nurse came around her bed and rolled the wheelchair next to it.

The nurse grabbed her legs and pulled them to the edge of the bed, before hoisting her up and helping her into the wheelchair. She was rolled down to a different floor and met her physical therapist.

"Lieutenant Patel." He held out his hand. "Dr. Louis Jacobson."

"Nice to meet you. You can call me Bhavika." She shook his hand.

"Alright Bhavika we will start simple today. I'll see you at least three times a week for the next few months. We'll change your schedule as you progress."

"Got it. What are we doing today?" She asked him.

"We need to strengthen your muscles again. You haven't walked in five years and while you were asleep your legs were re-healing. It's going to be a long process but we will see you walking again."

She just nodded, he helped her through some exercises that were trying to strengthen her glutes, hip flexors, quads and calves. She swore she had never been in so much pain before. It was nearly excruciating, but it was the first real movement she had done in the four days she had been awake already. He wasn't even trying to baby her it was a nice change of pace.

"You are doing an excellent job Bhavika. You can say no to this but I want to try and stand with you." She was shocked it was only the first day.

"You think I can? It's only the first day."

"I think we will try for a few seconds but I just want yo to be come reacquainted with the feeling again." Dr. Jacobson said and helped her into the wheelchair again.

He rolled her over to the barre and placed her in front of it, "Okay I want you to grab onto these barres and pull yourself up. Plant both feet on the ground."

Bhavika followed his instructions and manually placed her feet onto the ground and grabbed the barres with both hands. She changed her grip and began pulling herself up slowly. She bore all of her weight into the barres, pain was shooting down her legs as the sensation of standing overcame her. She must have stood a second too long because not even a moment later her legs had crumbled underneath her and she was laying on the floor.

Bhavika began to sob.

"I can't do it." She was degrading herself and Dr. Jacobson sat her up.

"Bhavika that was the first time you stood on both legs in five years. They will be weak for a while, you can't say you're a failure after only one session."

"I bet you've had patients that stood longer than I have on their first session." She sniffled and looked at the doctor.

"Yes, but they didn't break both of their legs. Your injuries are by far some of the worst I've started to rehabilitate. But the one thing that all of my patients have had in common is not believing in themselves." She wiped the tears from her face.

"Really?"

"Yes, you should ask your doctor about that." He smirked and looked over her head. "Look here she comes now."

"Dr. Ikeda." He greeted her.

"Louis, I hope you aren't torturing my patient." She teased.

"Not as much as I did you." They both helped Bhavika into her wheelchair.

"Thank you Dr. Jacobson." Bhavika smiled and Lahela began rolling her out of the room and back to her own hospital room. She was helped into bed and Lahela returned with a clipboard.

"May I ask how it went?" She flipped open her yellow notepad.

"We worked on strengthening the muscles in my legs again and I stood for approximately 1.2 seconds." Bhavika laughed at her own joke.

"That's good. My first time with Jacobson I stood for .7 seconds." She laughed and wrote it down in her notes.

"Why were you working with Jacobson?" Bhavika asked.

"Oh. Umm...I was a dancer before I was a doctor. Long story short, I shattered my patella and had to retire. Worst four years of my life."

"I can't remember four years of my life." Bhavika muttered under her breath.

"We've both had our problems and just like me you'll figure things out, even if they aren't what you originally planned." She looked up again and smiled. "I've set you up with a therapist, she will come once a week starting next week. We are trying to figure out how to retrieve the memories you've lost."

"Thank you. You've been a great help Dr. Ikeda." Bhavika thanked the woman.

"I'm just doing my job." Lahela nodded and exited the room.

Bhavika picked up the TV remote and flicked mindlessly through channels. Shalene entered the room bearing gifts.

"Ooo! What do you have there?"

"Natasha and Athena couldn't make it so they gave me the items you requested." Shalene said and place a sketchbook and graphite pencils in front of her. "I brought you some clothing from your house. I was thinking you could wear those instead, but I'm not actually sure if you can. Oh! How did physical therapy go?"

"It went good. I stood for like a second." Bhavika a said and cracked open the new sketchbook. She opened the tin of pencils and grabbed one.

Seeing her sister becoming engrossed in her new items, Shalene grabbed her purse. "I'm going to go to the store do you want anything?"

"No I'm good." Bhavika said never looking up from the preliminary sketches of her drawing.

"I'll be back soon." Shalene nodded and left the room.

With the TV as background noise, Bhavika went along sketching a random person from her mind. She defined the jawline of the man coming to life on her page. The light scratching of her pencil on paper echoed through the empty room. She drew the eyes, mouth and nose before adding the hair to the man's head. She studied the sketch intently, something didn't look right but how could it she had made this man up in her mind. She defined more features on his face and pulled out some inking pens and went to work on the inking process. The pen glided over the pencil scratches and made clearer lines that she could actually make out. She found some colored pencils at the bottom with a plethora of colors. She chose blonde for the hair and gravitated towards green for his eyes. Bhavika shaded, erased and layered everything she could put her pencils on. Bhavika felt some comfort in the face of her made up character. She looked at the drawing one more time before deciding it was good and closed the sketchbook.

Unbeknownst to her the drawing in the sketchbook was of one Jake Seresin.