Chapter Text
Two weeks passed since the day Childe was bursted in the hospital doors with a stretcher to get him to the emergency room. He himself thought that he's totally fine by now, but the hospital staff kept harbingers a little more than normal patients to be fully sure they were healed.
Good thing Childe was grateful for was that the wound didn't ache like the early days anymore and he could sit by himself on the bed or even walk around the hospital, although nurses asked him not to move around so much.
In his second week, when he was cleared to walk short distances.
His Nurse, Morozova accompanied him down the hallway beside him, carefully watching his steps. He walked a little funny to her, not in his formal clothes but in a long hospital gown, Tartaglia noticed her stare, feeling like a baby that was learning to walk…. Which was embarrassing.
“You don’t walk like medical staff,” he said lightly. Trying to joke.
“And you don’t walk like a patient,” she replied.
Fair.
This morning he didn't move from the bed after Nurse Morozova changed his bandage again. Just laid on the white mattress, letting his thoughts spin around his mind until a solution or perhaps any clue pops up to him.
Childe had enough experience in the Fatui to know who's a liar or not. Or who to trust.
And somehow, he was suspicious of this transferred nurse. and he didn't have enough reason why yet.
Does Fatui transfer their healers so easily? Or perhaps he didn't just injure his side and something is also wrong with his head.
He just knew something very well during his hospitalization. That nurse Morozova was careful with her words, just like a good liar…
“Eastern Snezhnaya…”
He rolled the words around in his head like a coin.
He knew that border towns had a specific way of speaking since they were close to Mondstadt…He’d fought beside soldiers from those regions.Bled with them. Even drank with them.
Morozova didn’t sound like that. Well, maybe a little bit of Mondstadt accent. Her accent sat in a natural way as if it had been practiced until it offended no one.
That was the strike one.
The second thing was her change.
He remembered how at first, she was distant and ice-cold. Wasn't how nurses' attitudes are. But recently, she has been warm. Like she was trying to fix a mistake. Being Talkative. And almost… human.
Was she scared? Of revealing too much?
Perhaps.
Or HE was just overthinking all of this, but no matter how much he kept putting everything together. It didn’t sculpt any right shape of truth.
Childe groaned and looked at his bandaged arm, he started opening and closing his fist, he used to think very better during a battle, not on a bed.
But still… he started to think again, letting out a hum.
Strike two.
Then, there was the last thing he was getting suspicious about…
Despite her calm poster and gentle hands that bandaged his wound , her face while writing the chart down was …tense, almost as if she was ready whenever he suddenly jumped out of the bed and attacked her.
Is that a sign of fear?...
Or maybe experience of training.
Strike three.
Yesterday he gave a shot to test her while she was replacing his bandage.
“Did you ever regret working in Fatui?...I'm sure it's a lot of stress.” he said.
Nurse paused to think,
“Why should I? The stress here is no different from normal hospitals for me.” She answered, looking at him innocently.
Too safe.
He turned his head slightly, staring at the faint reflection of the window in the glass panel beside his bed. Remembering that moment made him groan tiredly.
If she were just a spy, she would avoid him. Or completely opposite, would try to ask more questions to get information, nowadays he was the one asking a lot.
If she were an assassin, he’d already be dead.
…Or she’d been.
“You’re not here for the Fatui,” he murmured under his breath.
“And you’re definitely not here for me.”
Which meant…
“Are you here for something bigger? Or I bumped my head somewhere I can’t remember…”
What fascinated him wasn’t the lie itself.
It was her discipline of work,being this careful and never trying to charm him. Whatever she was into. Either she was very good at playing. Or he was committing her mismistakenly.
“Yeah,
Someone had trained her well.”
Childe closed his eyes, taking a moment to think before a grin spread slowly across his face.
Oh、 this was fun.
Much more fun than chasing enemies or catching liars guilty handed. And the fact that he didn't fight in any battle in a week made him more eager to play this game with Morozova, just to see the end. For someone like him to always be on mission… even the hospital was a kind of battle ground.
He just needed to be sure if this transferred nurse wouldn't be a problem for their organisation.
…
[Name] used the identity Ellin Morozova.
But most people here at work only called her by her surname, Ellin felt … like a distant aunt's name you barely see. She remembered how the first time her colleague, a senior nurse, actually called her by that name.
“Ellin? Your name sounds beautiful, what does it mean?” She asked lightly, but hearing that name actually from someone made [name] freeze for a moment.
“It’s from Mondstadt— I’m half Mondstadt…it means a shining light.” She answered quietly.
And that was all. The senior looked fascinated. She was one of the few staff who looked like anything but the Fatui hospital nurse due to her kind personality. [Name] assumed that she survived in this environment enough to be kind with others.
She kept her hair the same every day.
Brown curls gathered into short pigtails. Glasses resting lightly on her nose.
She didn’t really need glasses but it would cover her face better.
The kind of face people forgot the moment they looked away. That was the whole point.
A nurse.
Nothing more.
…
Days passed, and Tartaglia, who was now suspicious of her, never missed making a casual conversation.
Once he started with something like…
“You always come in at the same time.”
Respina paused mid-check, then nodded. “Routine helps recovery.”
“Or control,” he replied casually.
She smiled small, polite.
“Most patients prefer predictability.”
“And you?” he asked. “What do you prefer?”
She wished she could sigh at that moment, but she just adjusted her glasses.
“Patients who listen.”
That made him laugh.
“Guess we’re both disappointed.”
And somehow, Tartaglia wasn't the only suspicious person in this conversation…
[Name] already knew how dangerous the Eleventh could be. But deep down she feared that these questions meant to know more. Was he suspicious? It could be…
His condition improved faster than expected.
Too fast, some of the doctors said.
[Name] but knew better that he had so much potential as a young harbinger among others, but the faster he left these doors, the faster she could focus on her mission without being feared by his watching eyes.
This afternoon, he was sitting on the tilt-up bed while the nurse was noting his condition on the chart, he tried to raise his bandaged arm up above his head.
“Don’t push yourself,” [name] said, already stepping closer. “You’re healing, not invincible.”
“Careful,” Childe said lightly. “You’re starting to sound worried.”
“I’m doing my job.”
“Mhm.” He tilted his head. “You say that a lot.”
She met his gaze, unbothered. “It’s still true.”
For some reason, that answer satisfied him.
She reached to finish her notes. Childe tilted his head to peek a glance.
“You read charts like you’re checking for traps,” he remarked.
She didn’t look up from her clipboard. “…when you're hospitalized, your whole situation would depend on these charts, you know.” She paused to correct her too casual tone “Old habit”
“From nursing?” he asked
She hesitated…just long enough to be human.
“…From life.”
It was her first time saying the truth. That was also the first time he didn’t push.
Silence settled between them before a very familiar sound and a gentle tapping on the window broke the silence.
“Oh,” [name] stepped closer to the window to look. “It's raining…” she murmured.
She glanced at him, silently telling him he can also take a look. Childe stood up slowly and stopped near the window, overlooking the city.
She hesitated before asking, and didn't look away from the raining sky.
“I saw a mother yesterday, came to visit her soldier son,” she paused. “It made me wonder if…your family knows you're here?...”
Because it's been two weeks and no one came to visit him. She read on his information that he has a big family, and couldn't help her but to ask him, even though it might be too casual.
Childe paused. “I don't usually tell them,” he glanced at her. “They already know how dangerous the Fatui life is, I don't want to worry them sick for something I can handle myself.”
He answered honestly. She also glanced back at him to meet his eyes, such a foolish reason that she actually understood very well…suddenly missed her own sister.
“I see,” she only said, because asking again would be too casual and she didn't want that. “that's risky…” She looked back to the city behind the window.
He shrugged. “That's the whole life of a harbinger.”
…
Surprisingly, that was their last proper conversation. Because not so long after that rainy day…
Some Fatui guards came to escort him once the discharge papers were signed. The doctors were finally reassured that the harbinger was fully recovered, the wound wasn't deep anymore and just a scar that hunted only if someone grabbed his side too tight.
That's how [name] realized that soon he will be leaving.
Childe didn’t care about any ceremony or congrats.
Just the slow, unfamiliar feeling of freedom settling back into his limbs as he stepped through the hospital doors made him feel alive.
The air outside was colder than he expected. Maybe because he got used to the warm atmosphere of the hospital.
He was no longer in the funny gown but his usual outfit. It felt like a fresh feeling.
He rolled his shoulders once, testing them. Strength was back. Balance too. Whatever damage the Delusion had done, it had been paid for. Great.
“Try not to come back,” one of the doctors muttered half-jokingly.
Childe turned around and smiled, “No promises.”
He started walking.
One step.
Then another.
And then…without knowing why. he stopped for a moment. As if something tugged at him to look back.
Childe turned.
The hospital rose behind him, glass and white stone reflecting a pale sky. Rows of windows stared back, identical and impersonal.
On the third floor, near the corner window
A figure stood still.
Brown curls tied back in a low pigtail. Glasses catching the light. A familiar silhouette framed by sterile white walls.
She didn’t wave or smile…
Just looked at him. Before giving him a nod.
Childe held her gaze.
Something unspoken passed between them…acknowledgment, perhaps. A warning.
Or goodbye.
Then he turned away.
Behind the glass, [name] remained still until his figure disappeared into the crowd beside the fatui guards.
Only then did she exhale. Now she could finally focus on her mission without the fear of interruption.
Once she stepped back to nurse offices.
She took out her communication device and messaged a familiar account.
“The ground is clear, I’ll check the place soon”