Work Text:
We stayed at the inn for the full month. I… I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t… I had no idea that Letho had been there and no idea who he had handed me over to. The shadows were different, but there were two of them again and I braced myself for pain.
I wasn’t ready for what they did. There was water and I… At first it didn’t touch my face. There was water but I wasn’t drowning, and I couldn’t muster the energy to do something about the water that wasn’t killing me.
Then one of the shadows got a cloth. I could feel it on my skin. A wet cloth. And I knew what they… The other shadow filled a cup and poured it and I…
“Damn it, Geralt.” One of the shadows reared back and the wet cloth disappeared.
“Calm down. We’re giving you a bath. Gods know you need it.” The other shadow tried to hold me down, tried to restrain me. I couldn’t go back, not to the table, not to the water torture.
I broke Lambert’s nose that day. Bit and scratched and bruised Eskel until he finally knocked me out to keep me from hurting myself.
They washed me and put me in bed. To their surprise, all my wounds were healing thanks to copious amounts of Swallow and much careful suturing and bandaging.
Lambert went out then. To track down Letho. To find more information about what had happened. Or maybe just to get away from me.
Eskel stayed. Fed me broth I couldn’t keep down. Kept me warm when I wouldn’t stop shaking. Changed my many dressings. Reminded me slowly, slowly, that Geralt still existed and that he was me.
They never shamed me. But as I became more aware, I… I’d been so weak. I told them everything.
“They are dead,” Lambert said. “Letho did a thorough job.”
He’d gone up to the fortress outside Tancarville and seen the destruction for himself.
“You’ve nothing to be ashamed of,” Eskel said.
But I was. With time, I remembered everything. What had happened that winter and who I’d been before. And I couldn’t help but be ashamed. The Geralt they knew wasn’t this one, this wraith-thin creature that could barely hold a spoon.
“You’d do it for me,” they both said when they helped me eat, wash, or use the chamber pot. “It’s not the first time. Won’t be the last.”
Won’t be the last. I had a future, back then. It took a while to get used to the thought. For so long my life had been an endless stream of torture. It was strange to realise that now there was a future. When you know you’re dying, at least you don’t have to worry about your future. There’s a sweetness in that.
I was so weak.
“It’s normal that you need more time,” they said when they caught me once again when I fell trying to walk across the room.
And I questioned what was normal about this.
When the month was up, I could eat and sit and walk short distances.
“It’s normal that you need more time,” Eskel told me as he lifted me into the saddle after I tried and failed to mount by myself.
And I questioned how many needs I could continue to ask them to fulfil.
They found a quiet place in the woods where we could stay for a while.
“It’s normal that you need more time,” Lambert said when he knocked the sword from my limp hand once again.
And I questioned how much more time they would give me.
Lambert left to make money on the path. Eskel decided that for me and him, the season was over. He would bring me back to Kaer Morhen.
It was early summer when we arrived.
“It’s normal that you need more time,” Vesemir told me after he’d heard what had happened.
And for the first time, I didn’t question that I would have it. That they’d be there to support me despite everything.
I went down to the lake. Alone. I did not want witnesses. I walked into the warm water. It lapped at my ankles. My knees. My hips. My stomach. My shoulders. And I didn’t panic. Then I took a deep breath and lowered my face into the lake.
I jerked up again immediately. Too much. Too fresh.
“It’s normal that you need more time,” I told myself.
It’s normal…