Welcome to the Scrapheap

13.

Alex stared at the wheelchair in the corner of the room.

Going home.

In a few hours he would be stuffed into one of those stupid shiny black cars with the tinted glass and shoved into the real world.

He rubbed his arm absentmindedly, glancing out the window that had been his only connection to outside. The sky was overcast and dim today, endless banks of clouds still and silently grey overhead. Alex could hear the distant rumbling sound of the roads even through the hospital walls.

Going home.

Nothing felt real anymore, especially not that particular concept.

When he wasn't suffocating under a dense fog of exhaustion, he was so empty it hurt. Sometimes he lost time. Sometimes the minutes dragged on excruciatingly, like he was trapped in syrup. He couldn't articulate how much he was suffering and nobody could even know, sometimes literally decreed by law.

The weight was his to lie under, nobody else's. His experiences made that clear.

Jack shouldn't have to carry any more of it. Dr May was nice but she just couldn't understand, wasn't even allowed to. There was nobody else who could come close to understanding, and certainly nobody left he could trust.

Trust didn't happen any more. That was gone.

He couldn't make sense of himself even in the calm, quiet solitude of St Dominic's wearing his turquoise wristband. The world outside... he wasn't ready. Would never be. Which was exactly why he had to leave.

He knew that made no sense but he had to figure it all out somehow. Only he could help himself. Nobody else could know.

Food. Checks. Mindless TV. It blurred.

Like everything. Even the most important things. He wasn't even focused while choosing his prosthetic leg, for god's sake. He just picked the first one the measuring guy recommended.

In a way everything felt like the damaged nerves in his arm. Icy aching. Somehow numb at the same time as painful. Sluggish.

Damaged was a pretty good summary, actually.

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Jack hovered anxiously next to him as a nurse pushed his chair down the quiet hallways.

He couldn't stop himself twitching at every little movement. It was... pretty overwhelming. But Jack was so overjoyed that he was coming home, even he could see that. He could stay calm for her. It was fine. Everything was fine.

Suddenly they were out in the open. The air was warm and still, the dull sunlight trickling down through the cloud cover making him squint. It was a startling shift from the cool, sterilised hospital ambience and the dim artificial lights.

There was nobody around. They were going out the back, presumably the safest exit. He could see the car in the distance, the same stupid shiny black deal that MI6 were so fond of.

And then they were at the car and Jack was guiding him into the dark leather seat. He sat down heavily, exhausted by even that simple transfer.

And then she was next to him and the car was moving. It was so fast, everything was happening so fast. He gripped the door handle to steady himself with his good hand, out of practice with the natural shifting of driving. His crutches slid around in the boot, making him jump. People and buildings flashed past the window.

His hands started to prickle with the beginnings of panic flaring in his mind. Jack must have caught his expression, because she gave him a worried look and put her hand next to his.