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.
He flinched and almost pulled it back instinctively, before catching himself. He forced an approximation of a half smile and turned away before she could look too closely. He couldn't break down in front of her again.
And then was struck with a bolt of recognition as they turned onto his street. He could- he could see his house.
It had been so long.
Too long.
Fear buzzed more insistently, feeling like static fizzing out from his fingertips. Alex swallowed painfully, squeezing them into fists and clenching his teeth until the prickling passed. He just had to calm down.
The car pulled to a stop on the drive.
Jack paused before opening her door. There was a click as the boot opened and she took out his crutches with a clatter. Another wave of panic crackled through him before he could clamp down on his emotions.
And then he was hauling himself upright, leaning heavily on the crutches and trying not to list to his left, only empty space where bone and muscle should be. The car pulled away with a rumble and he nearly lost his balance again, his mind reeling with the speed of it all.
Jack was standing by his side, ready to support him before he fell. He shook his head slightly, taking the weight off his only foot and adjusting it with a barely concealed wince. She understood and backed away but he could sense her readiness.
Alex took a hesitant and wobbly step forwards.
Push down on the crutches, lift the foot, put it back down, repeat. Simple. It was simple. His shoulders ached, his messed up arm was twinging like hell, but he just had to breathe through it. He'd walked- if you could call the one-legged hobble he could manage "walking"- further in PT. This was simple.
And then he was standing in the hallway.
He stared at his house with empty eyes. It was his leg all over again. He wanted to feel something, anything, but there was only a cold void and a sense of wrongness in his chest. He was home but everything was wrong about the scenario. His brain couldn't reconcile this place, his place of normality and safety, with his current state. One legged. Broken. It felt like he would never leave the hospital, but he had.
He just didn't know what to do next.
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He was running through a forest. Branches snagged at his limbs, his hair. His lungs burned. Suddenly he was flung towards the ground. Brambles were climbing up his leg, the sharp stab of thorns digging into his skin. They gripped tighter, curling around his chest, squeezing his ribcage.
A figure loomed over him, a hood low over their head. They pulled it back to reveal the face of one of his kidnappers, the one who had done most of the tortures. He never even knew his name but instantly he recoiled, the bitter taste of fear thick on his tongue and in his throat.
The man laughed mockingly. His features twisted and shifted. Now he was... Herod Sayle?
He blinked, and he changed again. Now it was Dr Grief standing there.
They changed again and again, faster and faster, each one bringing worse memories than the last. Alexei Sarov. Damien Cray. Julia Rothman. Nikolei Drevin. Winston Yu. McCain. Julius. Yassen.
All of them had tried to hurt him. Most of them had tried to kill him.
He had killed most of them.
The figure was his torturer again. He closed his eyes, begging it to end, to go away.
Pain exploded in his leg, exactly the way it had on that last day. It couldn't be happening. He couldn't lose it twice. This wasn't real.
Alex's eyes shot open. He was soaked in sweat, trembling all over, a scream on his lips.
It was the third one that night.
He struggled to an upright position, putting his head in his hands. He forced air into and out of his lungs, trying to keep it slow and steady even as his heart threatened to pound right out of his chest.
He looked over at the blinking digital clock sitting by his bed that read 4:38. Even before his 'accident' he knew the routine.
Lie awake for hours, drift into a realm of nightmares that blurred his memories together into one horrifying mixture, wake up gasping, screaming, retching, then look at the clock to see sleep had lasted barely a few hours.
Normally he would give up at this point. Go to the kitchen, get something in his stomach and a drink of water, and wait until morning. Maybe watch the sun rise, or read.
He didn't even have that luxury any more. Nothing was "simple" any more. No matter how he tried to simplify the unnavigable mess his life had become, how convincingly he lied. He couldn't even get out of bed without someone there to hold the crutches, without someone there to make sure he could drag himself to the kitchen table without collapsing.
In a few hours, Jack would come in and he would pretend to still be sleeping. He would pretend he had gotten some rest. He would pretend he hadn't bitten his tongue every night for the week he'd been home, to hold back the screams, until the iron tang of blood mingled with the sour adrenaline that already filled his mouth. He would pretend he was fine, he was doing okay, the worst had passed. He had to be okay, for Jack.
Alex swallowed and rubbed his face, even now hating the sensation of the scar against his palm.
He didn't know how long he stayed in that position, face buried in his hands, sat half upright with his right leg bent, but eventually his sensitive ears picked up the sounds of Jack getting out of bed. He lay back down hurriedly, pulling his discarded duvet off the floor and imitating sleep. He knew this routine.
It was a few moments before his door opened and she brightened the lights. They were already on, just dimly. He hadn't been able to sleep without the lights on since his first ever assignment. Not that he could really call what he did at night sleep any more.
"Morning, Alex," she said softly. She didn't even speak the same around him since the 'accident'. That gentle, careful tone of voice people use when they don't know how to handle someone as fragile as him. "Big day today, huh?"
He frowned for a split second before he could wipe it off his face. What big day?
He opened his eyes, propping himself up on his elbows. Jack was busying herself with his crutches, humming under her breath in one of her attempts to lighten the mood. She must be tired, keeping up the positive image, but Alex had far less energy for an emotion he wasn't even sure he could feel anymore.
When he didn't respond (something she was used to) she tossed him a shirt which he caught before he conciously registered it. "You know. Your, uh, your leg's coming today."
That was... news. He really hadn't been very present during his last briefing. It was pretty likely he completely missed the date. Hell, he couldn't remember what the damn thing looked like beyond it was grey and designed for performance over aesthetics.
She gave him another sad smile. "I know this has been... the worst thing. I just hope this gives you back some freedom." She looked like she wanted to say more, but she kept whatever it was silent. She forced a cheery note back into her voice. "Anyway, get yourself ready. I'll make some pancakes, if you want that? Both kinds." Another one of those attempts at positivity.
And then she was gone.
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Alex's hands were sweaty against the practice bars. He wanted badly to wipe them, but that would mean letting go. Hell no. He was clinging so tight that his whole hands were white, let alone his knuckles.
He shuffled his right foot forwards, unwilling to put weight on the unfamiliar contraption strapped to his stump that he was supposed to call his leg.
"Try not to shuffle," Daniel immediately warned. He raised his eyebrows in disbelief, which prompted a chuckle from the physical therapist. "I'm pretty sure that's the most emotion I've ever seen you express," he observed dryly.
Alex winced internally. Years of pretending to be someone else had conditioned keeping his face impassive into him. Besides, he barely felt things that weren't panic or cold emptiness in the first place. Literally the only other display of emotion to be expected from him would be a panic attack. He was realising how depressing that was.
He shakily lifted his left leg and quickly set it back down a few inches in front of where it had been. It was a tiny step- but at the same time it was the first in a long time.
He felt a weird little flicker in his chest. He could learn to walk again. Perhaps things really wouldn't be this awful forever.
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It was funny, how quickly that flicker could go out.
The minute he got home and collapsed back on the sofa he permanently inhabited unless he was in bed or at physio, it was as if everything that PT helped him support came crashing down. It was the same sensation as that first breakdown in the hospital- his sense of self and sanity crumbling around him; collapsing in as his memories tore his mind to shreds from the inside out like a thousand spiralling blades.
His leg and arm blazed like the injuries were fresh but this time he couldn't pass out to wake up weeks later. The plastic and metal and carbon of his really quite nice prosthetic morphed into a hideous wiry machine which melted into his hands as he struggled to tear it off, his whole body shaking with remembered pain and fear.
Jack must have heard his panting or his uncontained whimpers or the clatter as the prosthetic fell from his hand because then she was there, and he could see in her face that she saw what was in his.
"It's happening again, isn't it," she muttered almost to herself, her half-British accent falling away into her original American drawl from the stress. "Alex, you're still in there, I know you are. Listen to my voice, don't let it take you over, you're okay, I'm here now." Her voice sounded far away, like from... under the water...
Now he was underwater too.
Visions of all the times he had nearly drowned swallowed the others, bringing back all the sensations he had repressed.
He was cold, there was pressure all around him, no light, no air, no oxygen. Can't breathe. Can't keep his lungs from inhaling any longer. Can't breathe-
"Honey, you're hyperventilating, you need to slow your breathing." Jack could barely keep her voice calm now, something was wrong, but he couldn't, he couldn't breathe, not even for her. His lungs burned and he couldn't tell if it was remembered or real. Maybe he had been drowning this whole time and she was the illusion. Reality had slipped away and raw terror was all that was left.
He drew his three-and-a-half remaining limbs into himself, burying his head deep in the trembling ball, hiding from everything, rocking slowly. His arms, folded across his chest, heaved with the motions of his accelerated breathing. His racing pulse rushed loudly in his head.
Jack was still there, somewhere outside the bubble of himself, trying to reassure him with words that couldn't get past the screaming in his head.
She shouldn't have seen him like this twice.
She'll know. She'll know now. She'll know that you are anything but okay and you'll have failed. You'll have failed to protect her from the reality of it like you failed to protect yourself.
But he couldn't bring himself to care.
It was surprising he'd lasted a whole week, really.
He could hide the mild panic attacks. They were so constant that it was just a matter of staying still so couldn't tremble and saying "I'm fine".
He could hide the nightmares. She knew they happened, but she never needed to know their extent.
But he couldn't hide this any more.
Before, he could duck into a bathroom or his bedroom or 'go out' to find a quiet garden to cry. Before, he could hide physically and mentally. Before, he could do things himself.
Even with his new prosthetic (that he had no idea how to feel about yet), he could only barely walk across a room even with some support. He could walk but he couldn't run, couldn't run from his demons, and they had hunted him down.
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Yeek! I'm so sorry for the wait. I hope the extra large chapter made up for it.
Writer's block and then overcoming really do be like
*do nothing* *do nothing* *write a sentence then delete it three days later* *do nothing* *do nothing* *open then close the app fifteen times* *do nothing* *write 2700 words in 45 minutes in a frenzied fever* *what the fuck*
As always, votes appreciated, feedback appreciated even more. I will say "ah thanks mate :')" very emotionally out loud and confuse my family
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