but I don't think I'm coming home

[enabeled]

WHO: ABEL GIDEON and VISITORS
WHERE: Health First Cape Canaveral Hospital
WHEN: 4/21 - 4/30 (specify date & time!)
WHAT: A trial and sentencing may or may not wait in Gideon's future, but his present involves a lengthy hospital stay. Spinal injury, amateur amputation, and a sudden but stubborn loss of appetite will do that.
WARNINGS: Probable references to violence, injury/amputation, cannibalism, and murder/attempted murder.


[ There should be relief, but there isn't -- hardly much. Abel Gideon almost wishes he had not survived his final encounter with the Chesapeake Ripper if it meant enduring what he is enduring now.

But he is glad to be alive, to be away from there. Here he doesn't have to worry about being kidnapped from his hospital room and waking up without his leg; they're taking good care of him. He had lost blood. He had a fever, and couldn't stop sweating. He felt cold almost constantly, and whenever he did sleep he always woke from nightmares shortly after with a jerk, staring with wary eyes at the door. Sometimes the window. Sometimes his remaining leg, feeling it to make sure it still really is there.

They feed him through an IV for the most part, because he refuses to touch any of the meat they try to serve him and has so far had some difficulty keeping anything else down except for the clearly inoffensive: Jello. Banana slices. Leafy salads.

Hannibal Lecter isn't here, but Gideon knows that is not a fact to take for granted. He isn't here now, therefore that fact is only of relief for the time being.

His condition is stabilized, but only physically. He doesn't speak much to the doctors or nurses but refuses psychological evaluation at every opportunity. Gideon is already rendered too vulnerable for his own liking for him to be interested in offering up what's in his head even if he did have reason to still trust psychiatrists. His head is crowded enough as it is, anyway; he spends enough time in there, thinking about Frederick Chilton -- and his own failure, twice, in killing him -- about Will Graham and the complicated baggage therein, about what his future might hold and dozens of other rotating subjects, some rational, some not.

Not much reading gets done, but not much sleeping does, either. Right now all he has is time to kill. ]

Comments

4/21, evening

[iampretty]

[Hans said that he would bring Gideon clothes, and bring him clothes he would. That is, after he finished his lengthy conversation with Kate, where he was starting to get a better hold on the situation. Gideon was dangerous. Chilton was possibly dangerous, definitely obnoxious. The two hated each other and Hans didn't trust either of them.

But Gideon, while dangerous, seemed a perfectly fine person to Hans. Chilton, he continually wanted to punch in the face. So helping out Gideon it was. Who knows, maybe the man could tell him a bit more about Chilton?

Small smile on his face, Hans entered the hospital. He's somehow managing to juggle a tote-bag of clothes as well as this astonishingly gaudy vase of flowers with a pretty damn ugly balloon attached to it. Wisely, there's no 'from Hans' card or any obvious signifier that the ugly assortment was from him.]

Sorry I'm late, [Hans said, as he managed to make his way into the room, closing the door behind him with his foot.] I wanted to pick up a little something to help liven up the room.

[enabeled]

[ When the door opened Gideon was already at attention, his face pale but slightly less sweat-damp now that he was off the floor and had morphine hooked to his veins. Still, a curl of hair clung limply to his forehead, and his robe -- Hannibal Lecter's robe -- rode up uncomfortably around his collar, but he had begun shivering whenever the staff tried to remove it so for now, the robe had stayed on.

His eyes were fixed in the direction of the door, his body tense even recognizing that it was only Hans. He side-eyed the flowers and the balloon skeptically with his briefly narrowed, but then shifted his gaze back to Hans. Gideon shifted slightly up onto his elbows but otherwise didn't move much. ]

Very generous -- draws the eye amongst all the beige. [ His voice was slightly hoarse, so he cleared it. ] Better late than never.

[iampretty]

[Yeah, Hans noticed Gideon side-eying the flowers and balloon. And truth be told, he thought that all of the options lacked class. But it was a not-so-subtle reminder to anyone who came to visit that Gideon wasn't going to be wasting alone in a hospital. He set them down on a nearby table, with a small little smile.

Setting the bag of clothes down on the floor near Gideon's hospital bed, Hans moved one of the chairs closer to the bed, sitting down on it as he started to talk.]

I would ask how you're doing, but I imagine the answer is 'not very good.'

[enabeled]

[ Gideon wasn't one to sound ungrateful, and he didn't remark on the gifts except to watch Hans put them on the table. He adjusted slightly more, pushing himself up to a more upright seated position using both his elbows and the button on his bed that inclined the headrest. There wasn't much pain in moving -- not that Gideon was very bothered by pain even on better days -- thanks to the drugs circulating slowly in his system, so even in spite of the tension in his face he managed a faint, strained smile. ]

Well... been better. [ Slowly, he brushed the hair from his face. ] Yet not so bad as I imagine I could be doing were my timing off even slightly. Life's small favors... no point in questioning them.

[iampretty]

[Time. He's talking about time again. First he mentioned it during their conversation over the Network (which confused Hans) and now he's mentioning it now (which is also confusing Hans--in fact, it's the confusion that's only made him notice it in the first place). A small little frown scrunches up on Hans's face--he's not entirely sure whether to file that away as an idiosyncrasy, a product of the pain medication or something else.]

Just what sort of situation where you in back home if it had the potential to get worse than this?

[Because Hans is more than a little bit vain. And the idea of him losing any sort of body part? Pretty damn bad.]

[enabeled]

[ Hans's question gave Gideon cause to look at the shape under the blanket that was his right leg and the absence of a shape that was his lack of a left. He didn't respond immediately, lips pursing slightly before he turns his eyes back up to Hans. ]

Hard to say... but since I do still have one leg, I'd like to keep it that way.

[ Which didn't answer much about Hans's question, but possibly it at least answered enough. ]

Bad situation tends to get worse before it gets better. Assuming getting better was ever an option.

[iampretty]

You've lost a leg, [Hans said, in utter disbelief.] I think that at the moment, it's as worse as it can possibly get.

[Aside from dying, of course. But Gideon was in the hospital now. He was save. He could hardly die here--right?]

[enabeled]

At the moment, yes, you're probably right. Not a state apt to change any time soon, either.

[ He wouldn't mention the paralysis, because he was content with sharing as little information on this situation as possible. He glanced over, expression a little more curious. ]

What compelled you to visit, Hans?

[iampretty]

[The answer? Multiple reasons. To annoy Chilton, to learn more about Gideon, to see if Gideon was worth his time as a potential ally or not, to learn more about just how Gideon lost a leg (because isn't Chilton so awfully smug about it, so smug that he's making puns).

But like Gideon is hearing any of those reasons. Instead, Hans gives a small little smile and answers with,]

Nobody deserves to go through something like you're going through alone.

4/22 (morning)

[heartlessglitch]

[ She insists on lingering, despite protests from the nurses that there are visiting hours and only family members are permitted to stay overnight. It would have been more trouble, except the rent-a-cop security guard valued his life too much to contend with the six-foot-tall, nearly three hundred pound sentient machine keeping watch over Gideon's bedside. She was a quiet presence, rarely interrupting but scrutinizing everything, daring anyone to show incompetence with the mere weight of her unblinking, luminous stare.

She devotes a significant percentage of her computing capacity to monitoring the machines that monitor him, dividing her attention between the setting of the hospital and doing her regular work for Homeland Security remotely. It makes for long stretches of silence. Danger was never really the type to make small talk.

Still, some time after breakfast, she speaks. ]

You have slept very little, Dr. Gideon.

[enabeled]

[ When Danger had stopped by, Gideon had not anticipated her staying; for a duration, perhaps, but overnight had surprised him -- apparently she really had been serious when she had said forgiven.

He is not bothered by her loitering presence, however, and in fact throughout the night when he jolts awake again and reaches in the darkness to feel if his legs are there, it's something of a comfort to know she's still there. He doesn't speak, does nothing to draw more attention to himself or restlessness, but her silent presence is felt until the sun rises enough to bring light back to the room. For now, he does nothing to break the quiet comfort.

Breakfast for Gideon is a plate of sliced fruit, a glass of milk, and a small cup of pills -- he swallows the pills with the milk without compunction, but the food itself he picks at very slowly. Most of it is still uneaten by the time Danger speaks; he leans back against his pillow, glancing over to her.

He speaks, voice a little hoarse but words still collected, enunciated carefully: ]

It's only a touch of insomnia.

[heartlessglitch]

[ She must be intimidating to the hospital staff in this form-- that heavy, armored body, starkly inhuman and alien-- and there is a certain calm strength in the passivity of her metal mask. But underneath that, emotion jumps from wire to wire, electrical impulses carrying ones and zeroes that arrange themselves into concerned and agitated lines of code as she oversees the care of Dr. Abel Gideon.

When he answers her, she watches him, steady and attentive, allowing each carefully formed syllable to be completed before she responds: ]

It is more than simple insomnia.
I do not need to be monitoring your vital signs to be aware of that.

[ A slight pause, before she goes on: ]

It is not necessary for you to be cavalier with me, Doctor.

[enabeled]

[ Cavalier is his natural state of being; the wry and impassive mask he wears innately over the passionate emotions that otherwise churn beneath the surface, always repressed until the boiling point.

But restraint or not, it doesn't change nor hide obvious visual indicators such as the pallor to his face, the sweat shining on his forehead, and his breathing -- while mostly even -- does not maintain his usual rhythm.

He says softly, his voice exposing a slight unevenness: ]

How would you prefer I be with you, Danger? How-- [ And a pause. ] is any person supposed to be when they've suffered loss of limb and very nearly--

[ He cuts himself off when he feels a shudder threaten to ripple in his voice, lips pressed tightly together, forehead dampening, and he doesn't look at her once he begins speaking again. ]

What's there to be gained?

[heartlessglitch]

[ The details-- the little tells-- don't escape her meticulous attention. Sensors and systems aside, she has come to know this man in small ways. She recognizes the faint unsteadiness of his voice, the way his lips purse when he pauses. The emotions that run through her cables are muddled, yet potent. Worry. Frustration. Loathing for his attacker-- identified to her by Chilton as Hannibal Lecter.

At length, she answers with the mechanical hum of her voice low, quiet: ]

I only wish for you to be honest with me.
I feel unable to properly assess and assist you when I cannot gauge accurately what your needs are.

[ She rises, organic in her movements when she comes to stand by his bedside. ]

I understand what is medically wrong.
But your emotional status is difficult for me to decipher.

[enabeled]

[ There's a subtle clench to his jaw as she comes nearer, a slow swallow, but his eyes remain directed forward and down in silent defiance. He isn't a man who ever breaks deliberately, it's always abrupt, always overwhelmingly impulsive. The motions of hiding vulnerability are likewise not deliberate, however deliberately he may prefer avoiding it.

Finally he says in that same quiet, uncertain tone: ]

That makes two of us. Don't know what's to tell... when even I have yet to understand how I'm feeling. Or not feeling. There is an absence of something where there once was more... yet in its place, something else I can't identify.

[heartlessglitch]

[ She watches him with that same blatant stare, noting the way his own eyes remain pointedly ahead and uncertain what emotion that observation makes her feel. There is no answer, for a handful of long moments. Danger is, perhaps, the last person to help another understand their feelings-- her own still continue to frustrate her, defying her attempts to categorize and quantify. Her ability to feel at all is still young, still growing. Even her capacity to comfort is limited by what others have shown her.

At length, she carefully reaches for the hand nearest to her, closing smooth metal fingers around his with precision-- firm, but not forceful. Leaning slightly, she lifts hand towards herself, pressing a cool, metallic kiss to his knuckles. Mimicry, of a gesture he'd once offered her.

Quietly, in return: ]

Perhaps it would be more appropriate if I were to stop pressing you to answer me.
I am sorry, Doctor.

[enabeled]

[ It's when Danger takes his hand that Gideon finally looks at her, gaze resting upon her stoic blue features before it drifts to their hands. His fingers curl gently against hers and he breathes in and out slowly in a resigned, nearly guilty sort of way.

On the one hand, he recognizes the mimicry in the gesture, he understands it very well. On the other hand, he isn't sure how it makes him feel. A kiss is still a kiss, a gesture of affection she's extending for reasons he cannot know entirely. So this is forgiveness? Had he killed Chilton back then, would she be here now?

He ponders the question, but doesn't voice it. ]

I don't think it does any good for either of us to dwell on the subject -- better that for now, we simply be. Bad enough we had to part on such uncertain terms in the first place.

4/29, evening

[selfequipped]

[Kate doesn't come right away. The direct contradiction between Frederick and Abel's correspondence unsettled her, especially following the information she gathered in the room. There was too much. It was overwhelming, and the overwhelming nature of it told her one thing: she needed to go against her (worse) urges and step away.

It's that reason why someone has mentally involved as her takes over a week to arrive, but arrive she does. Uncertain as to whether she should bring anything, she ultimately decides on nothing. Everything about her is understated for this meeting, from her clothing to her appearance. Kate doesn't want to stand out. She can't afford to, and she doesn't want to disrupt the procedures within the hospital.

When she reaches his room, her knuckles hit against the door frame to announce her presence, but she doesn't step in. She waits in place, watching him with knit eyebrows.

Kate doesn't know what happened. She doesn't know who the Ripper is.

But looking at this man, looking at his condition, she thinks whoever he is, he's lucky not to know her.]

[enabeled]

[ He's not asleep, but he barely moves to acknowledge her for a good few moments -- propped up in a slight sitting up position, Gideon's attention is out the window even though there's not much to be seen from out it. Beneath the thin white hospital blankets the lump of his right leg is evident in particular contrast to the lack of an adjoining lump to the left.

Finally he turns his head, eyes resting cautiously on Kate. There's something present in the look that was not there either of the other times the two of them had seen each other, something restless beneath the surface of calm.

When he speaks, his voice is addled with the slightest of morphine slurs: ]

Ms. Bishop. So lovely to see you again.

[selfequipped]

[The slur is immediately noted, and Kate appreciates the fact that he's likely not in too much pain. He may be someone who harms others, but she grasps that he's not in one piece. Chilton's words from the memory she gained ring through whenever she thinks of Gideon, about how he wouldn't be able to put himself back together.

What is it like to be him, she wonders? Then again, some distant part of her can guess. She's been unmade before. She's had a piece of her identity stripped away, deconstructed in a brief, but violent act that reminded her of how utterly fragile and weak she happened to be. Everything she's done since then has been a reflection of that event, and while she embraces her duty that she's taken on as a result, it unsettles her, too.

And frustrates her.

She doesn't know the whole story, but she knows the different paths a person can take. His is, in some ways, just as logical as hers, even if she doesn't connect with that logic. Causing people pain is low on her list of things she enjoys.

(Even if she does regularly punch criminals in the mouth. But it's not something she seeks, surely—)

Kate steps in after a moment, moving toward a seat that's closer to the window and settling in it after a moment, hands folded in her lap.]

Have you had many visitors?

[enabeled]

[ His eyes are focused, pale blue and severe despite any presence of drugs in his system -- it seems not to have gone to his head much, so to speak. At his sides his hands clench and unclench in idle but rhythmic motions that might seem restless if they seemed particularly intentional, bunching and unbunching fistfuls of sheet, and his forehead is damp with a misting of sweat.

Still, his expression barely changes except for his eyebrows to lift in consideration, to tighten at the corners. ]

That depends on if you consider two to be "many." Not that I mind the quiet -- actually sort of relieving. [ He manages to make even that sincere statement sound dismissive. ] So what is it that brings you by?

[selfequipped]

[Two. That means that people weren't curious, either; they weren't wondering what his relationship to Dr. Chilton happened to be. Kate wondered if that kind of behavior could extend elsewhere. People registered because it was easier, because it made sense. Couldn't that be said to be the same here?

Or perhaps her own additional knowledge was to her favor?]

I'm here to talk to you about why I was able to find you that day. [She studies his features.] And why you went about what you happened to do. This won't be for an official statement. I won't be able to testify because I shouldn't have been acting as a vigilante. [But—it's not spoken, so she breathes in and breathes out.] Dr. Chilton is tied to a great many people here, and I saw everything that you did. [Everything.] Without the use of surveillance equipment.

[enabeled]

[ His eyebrows quirk slightly, although it's the extent of his expression change; Gideon certainly does not appear surprised to hear what she says. Maybe he's even been expecting this conversation... if not from Kate, then from someone. ]

Why you were able to find me is a question better answered yourself, I'd think. But Heropa's not a terribly big city either, is it? [ He blinks slowly, inscrutably. ] Saw it all, hm? Sorry about that. Had I known I had an audience... well, I'd still have done it.

I owed it to him.

[selfequipped]

You owed it to him. [She echoes that sentiment partly because she needs to mull it over. He owed it to him. Her lips purse and she says little else, at least immediately, on that line of thought. She intends to ask him why he owed it to him, but she wants to give her piece of information first.]

They gave me psychometry. I was able to process some information in that room. Combined with a good memory ... [Perfect memory. She doesn't say that, though.]

You can understand why I'd like more blanks filled. Your conversation with him had a lot of information, but despite being a hero, I've not decided a side. [He turned Chilton into the victim, after all.

But was he the victim first? And could she really blame him if he was?]

[enabeled]

I did.

[ He smiles faintly, but plainly; no sense in hiding the truth, or what he believes to be the truth. Chilton had earned every stitch and slice, as far as Gideon is concerned. ]

That's surprisingly diplomatic, given your occupation. Isn't exactly a case of 'innocent until proven guilty,' now is it? ... Just what is it you want to know, in specific? A lot I could say... and plenty I might not feel like saying. It all depends on the blanks in question.