Count down

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Glitch wasn't entirely ready for this, but he didn't think he ever was going to be. You didn't get ready for someone doing a reinstalling transplant of your brain back into your head when you couldn't even actually remember having it taken out in the first place.

They had him dressed in a loose, open necked and shapeless shirt with similarly matched trousers, the theory being that he'd feel more comfortable and relaxed in calming clothes. And he knew that Wyatt and DG were outside the door, well, Wyatt, DG had been pale and struggling and she might have gone now that he was walking into the surgery and being helped to lie down.

"Just lie down, Ambrose, and we'll get you nicely under. You won't feel anything."

He lay down, a nurse looked at him with warm eyes as she stroked his forehead and hair, checking for signs of trouble along the zip. The doctor nodded, white lights being turned on and the mask over his lower face.

Glitch felt his heart start racing.

"All right now, Ambrose. Just count back from a hundred, ninety-nine-"

Glitch remembered nothing more. Certainly not flipping to his feet and off the table and definitely not barreling out of the surgery doors, through the waiting area and out of the hospital entirely at a flat sprint that he never would have credited himself as being able to do.

Comments

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And outside in the waiting room, Cain sits in silence with DG, ready to go through the motions of some serious waiting and worrying.

And then all of a sudden, jolting them both from their tense, entirely too imaginative trains of thought, a Glitch-shaped blur rushes by.

And then medical staff. The entire waiting room is enveloped by the commotion, and before he knows what he's doing, Cain tells DG he's got it, and he's up off the chair at a dead run.

Where would he be going? Outside, that's for sure, nearest exit he could find.

He'll just follow the faces tense or slack-jawed with shock, they'll show him right.

And then he's outside, spotting the head of dark curls up ahead.

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Glitch just runs. No thought, he's not even online, just moving with old instinct that he was forced to deny whenever it was he was last in there.

He was just running. He wasn't as enduring as Cain, he was already slowing from his flat out bolt and loping, ungainly gait, but he really moves once he bolts.

Still not aware as he bolts into a walled off garden by planting a foot in the iron wrought gate, a bare foot on the wall and vaulting over the top. The gate swings open as he kicks off it, unlocked.

Inside, he slows, stumbling.

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Son of a--

He did not just flip himself over a wall.

He shakes his head, setting himself up for the leap, putting some extra fire power into the last few long strides.

One, two, three - he pushes off the ground, catching hold of the edge of the wall up top, and pulls himself up by his arms.

He's nowhere near as agile as the former advisor, but he's still got some aces up his sleeve. Swinging his legs over, he hits the ground in a low crouch, his knees popping from the impact, soft though it is.

"Glitch?"

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Glitch is sitting in a corner, back to a hedge and eyes wide, unseeing and black with fear. But he doesn't scramble backwards, doesn't flinch and doesn't try to flee as he registers Cain's presence.

He does blink.

He's also trembling.

He's terrifed by whatever happened.

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It should be a sanctuary, this place, where people come to get some fresh air and sunshine. Not a hiding place.

He makes his way over, crouching beside Glitch and shrugs out of his long coat. Maybe it isn't cold outside, but Glitch is trembling, and something must be done about that, even if it's just an excuse to touch.

"What happened, Sweetheart? Why did you take off like that?"

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He presses back again, further, deeper, and looks down with another slow blink.

But he's mouthing words.

He's counting. Backwards. He never gets further than ninety-five before he starts again from a hundred.

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Damn it. Damn it to Hell. Ambrose, pleading for his life, for more, and that slimy, sadistic bastard looking down on him, encouraging him to...

"Glitch. Snap out of it." He drapes his coat over Glitch's shoulders, not caring one bit about the leafy branches getting in the way.

"You're huddled up in the hospital garden. You're going to be okay."

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One step at a time. Baby steps. No counting down, Cain will make sure of that.

He nods, squeezing Glitch's hand briefly before letting go, placing it instead just below his shoulder blades. He'll take the coat, too, draping it over one arm as they move back inside.

"You'll be fine. And I'm not twitchy. I think you're reading your own tendency for twitchiness in my impatience with lengthy rhetoric."

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Walking back in, Glicth can't help but notice the funny looks, startled and bemused and frightened as he walks through the hallways to the theatre again.

He nods in reply to Wyatt, but he can't find words. He doesn't have them. His mouth is dry.

The doctor is standing outside the door with the nurses and DG. Glitch looks down to his barefeet sheepishly. "I glitched. Sorry."

A nurse takes his hand and leads him back inside. "Thank you for bringing him back, Officer Cain."

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Cain nods, asking for a word with one of the nurses. "It was counting down backwards. If you could try something else this time, we'd all be grateful."

He thanks her for her time, and tips his hat, then returns to DG's side.

Still looking at the doors Glitch disappeared behind.

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They get Glitch settling into the table, the nurse petting his hair while the doctor sets everything up again.

"Okay, Ambrose, everything's going to be fine. Just close your eyes, relax, and recite the periodic table for me, okay?"

"Sure," he mumbles. "Um-"

And then he's out.

There's the sound of a zip being undone, too loud in the room.

Surgery will be a while.

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It is a while, and a long while at that, but both DG and Cain remains in the waiting room, the obligatory trips to the bathroom, fetching coffee and other such things excluded.

It isn't long before Cain stands up and starts pacing, as if expecting Glitch to come bounding out of there again. It's not that he doesn't trust Glitch, it's the doctors he doesn't have faith in. Common sense tells him they didn't know, but it still stings. This entire ordeal is traumatic enough for him to--

"You're wearing down the floor, Mister Cain," DG points out, helpful as always.

He doesn't reply. He sets his jaw, glancing at her, at the door, and he turns away his eyes. "I'll get us some coffee. Don't go anywhere."

DG salutes him, smiling bravely. She's not the kind of girl to run at the first sign of trouble. She's never been that kind of girl.

So much for first impressions and a cynical mindset, but he'll never forget his first impression of Glitch.

Two, big, unfathomably dark brown eyes on the outside looking in. He hopes they'll never change for the worse.

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

Unsurprisingly, Glitch does not walk out. The nurse comes out, hours later and smiles at them both. If she has timed this or just fluked having them both is hard to say. "Princess, Officer, Advisor Ambrose is settled in his room. The sedation will be wearing off soon, but so far to appears that everything is going smoothly.

"I can take you down to his room if you would like to come and see him?"

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By that time, brave and persevering though she may be, DG has fallen asleep in her chair curled up like something very small and not at all as long-limbed.

Even Cain, the great Tin Man of old, has managed to doze off for a minute. Just a few more minutes, Ma...

But he stirs at the sound of Glitch's voice, and goes to his bedside again. "Hey." He takes his hand. "It's over, Glitch. I hear you're going to be just fine."

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He blinks slowly, breath a touch laboured before he seems to remember how to do it fine on his own.

"Wyatt? The surgery's done? I'm okay?"

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He could laugh. He feels like laughing, and he could, and he is; a low series of chuckles full of mirth and relief and sheer delight that his friend's okay.

"Yeah. The nurse said you might be a bit wobbly for the next few days, with your brain getting reacquainted and all. Otherwise, you're fine. Everything went well."

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"Thank Ozma."

He relaxed into the pillow, tongue running over his lip. "I'm parched. Is there water? Have you been here all the time? What time is it?"

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He reaches for the pitcher of room temperature water and pours Glitch half a glass, handing it to him.

"Small sips. There's apple too, if you feel like. DG's orders."

He glances back at the sleeping princess, a smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth. "It's early morning, day after. We've been here all the time."

He doesn't say anything about the wedding remark. Yet.

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I'd love an apple. I'm famished. I couldn't eat before the operation, the operation." He takes small sips of water.

"You two are too much. You both stayed all night? In those chairs?"

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"I know." He nods, blue eyes looking up, no hat to shield them from view.

"It was just a good excuse to."

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Glitch blinks, hints of understanding in his gaze and he nods, just the once. "You don't have to have excuses, y'know."

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"It never got old." He shrugs. "DG rolled her eyes every time, but you just beamed in recognition."

He smiles, rubbing at the back of his neck, and looks down. He isn't sure what's being said here, but it makes something a hint too warm wrap around his spine.

"I liked that."

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"It reminded me. After so much time, it was nice to remember sometimes. It'll be nice to remember more."

He settles back into the pillows, feeling nothing digging into the back of his head. "I like it too."

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"Yeah."

What else is there to say? It will be nice to have Glitch being more of a misnomer than before. It is nice already, watching him settle somehow, as if he's already regaining his footing, as it were.

He needs...something he can't quite figure out. Coffee might be good. Air even better.

"Listen, I'm gonna go see if I can't get myself a decent cup of something, let you get some rest before the night watch comes scolding me for keeping one of their most important patients up all night." He even smiles just a little bit. It's easier now it's over.

[amicably-absent.livejournal.com]

Glitch seems to be aware of the fact something isn't right. There's a tension he can feel, he's aware of and parts of his shattered mind are starting to pull together into something he recognises and almost knows.

But then he decides he has to be wrong.

"Sure thing. I'll probably still be awake, I feel plenty rested now."