Chapter Text
Jean didn't know where he was when he woke up. That was always a bad sign. The next bad sign came when he tried to adjust in the strange bed he found himself in and felt pain in no less than five places. Most concerning was the sensation of something pulling at his arm. Upon further investigation, he discovered the IV in his arm and the plastic bracelet around his wrist. Moreau, Jean-Yves H. DOB: 11/09/1987 ADM: 10/04/2007 and a string of numbers he couldn't discern any meaning from.
The room was bright white with harsh fluorescent lights and oppressively sterile, like a strange, inverted Nest. Uncanny, like Josiah Smalls might walk through the door at the far end of the room at any moment. Like Riko could show up at any time to admire his handiwork. What had he done this time? Jean was having a hard time remembering.
It was then that the door opened and an unfamiliar woman walked into the room. He supposed that tracked. Josiah never would've given him this much medication. "Oh!" The nurse's voice was too bright for a place like this, but her volume got Jean's attention through his daze. "You're awake. Good, good." She hit a few buttons on a device she grabbed from her side before reattaching it. "I let your doctor know so he can come by as soon as he can." Jean's gaze followed her to the foot of the bed where she grabbed a clipboard and scanned over a few pages of documents. "My name's Tanya, I'm gonna be one of your nurses. If you hit that blue button on the side of your bed, hit that if you need something and one of us will pop by." Jean glanced over at the button. It was a much more elegant system than Winfield's kitchen timer, and far better than hoping Josiah deigned to show his face.
"I have some questions I have to ask you, and I'm sure you probably have some for me." Jean nodded and the nurse—Tanya—smiled. "First question's mine but you've got next if you want it. Can you confirm your full name and date of birth for me?"
Jean blinked at the overly simplistic question. The answers were written on his wrist and on a whiteboard on the wall, but he complied regardless. "Jean-Yves Moreau. November...ninth, 1987." She nodded and wrote something down.
Jean had so many questions, he didn't know where to start. His stomach was churning and he couldn't tell if it was anxiety or if he was actually nauseous. "I don't..." He didn't know what was going on. It was overwhelming and dizzying. He already didn't have much grip on the present and every unanswered question he posed he had him slipping further.
"Jean-Yves?" An unfamiliar name—technically, legally his own, but so seldom used—the nurse’s unfamiliar voice calling out to him had him turning back to look at her with wide eyes. "You're okay," she said in what was clearly an attempt to soothe him. It didn't work. "I'm going to go through these questions with you before your doctor shows up. Is that okay?"
"Do what you have to do."
"Do you remember anything about what happened?
Jean shook his head, but as he thought about it he got flashes. A run, a walk sign above a crossing, headlights. Strangers and sirens surrounding him. "I was hit? A car?" He didn't remember calling for help. Had someone else found him, called the ambulance that he only slightly recalled. "Who knows I am here?" He was only vaguely aware of where here was. A hospital, sure, but how far had he ended up from the apartment? He glanced over to the window, which was covered, but he could tell that it was still dark out, so maybe no one missed him yet.
“Someone saw it and called it in, paramedics found you on the side of the road." Tanya looked up from her clipboard and Jean avoided her gaze. "You don't have any existing emergency contact information with us. The paramedics found your phone with your wallet, but they think the battery must've fallen out. Is there anyone you want us to call?"
Yes. Jean thought about how much less terrifying this would be if he had someone with him. He thought about his people worrying when they realized they didn't know where he was. "My phone does not work?" He asked weakly, and when she shook her head, he thought about the phone numbers he had memorized. The people he'd ever need to contact were the people he lived with, so he barely used his phone at all. He knew Josiah's number, but that was so obviously unhelpful. Kevin's number came to mind, Kevin was three hours ahead so he could even be awake at... whatever hour this was, and he had Jeremy's number. The problem was that Jean really didn't want to talk to Kevin and didn't know if he wanted the hospital talking to him either. He couldn't be the first to know. Kevin Day was a last resort. He could try and call the Gold Court but he didn't know when the next time anyone would be in there was. As long as he hadn't lost too much time, it was either Saturday night or Sunday morning and he didn't know if any of the coaches worked on Sundays.
“I do not know if anyone would answer right now anyway.”
The sad look the nurse gave him made him want to scream. "You could leave a message, or if you decide you want to try in a few hours just let someone know.”
“What is wrong with me?"
"Well I'm not your doctor so I can't technically diagnose you,” she started. "But she's gonna get some tests ordered once she gets a look at you and we'll go from there.”
That wasn't the answer Jean was looking for, but it was the best he was going to get for now. He nodded and she looked back down to her clipboard to ask more questions, but Jean was starting to find the whole process tedious. Yes, he was in pain. No, he wasn't hungry. No, he didn't want anything. The only question that got his full attention was if she could change his bandages. He hadn't yet taken a chance to look at himself beyond that cursory glance at his arm, but now that he thought about it, he could feel adhesive on his skin.
“It is your job," Jean replied. This was what she was supposed to be doing and who was he to stop her? He didn't have the energy to be opposed to it anyway. Apparently that was an unsatisfactory answer though, because his nurse made no move to do anything. “It is fine."
Jean was used to this. He'd lost track of how many times he'd been patched up by Josiah or Kevin or himself or Winfield or any of Trojan nurses. If he had ever been squeamish, he'd been forced to get over it quickly. The biggest novelty in this case was the gentleness of this nurse’s hands. Jean often found himself watching this part from outside himself, as he did now. It was like he was floating above his own body as she pulled open the hospital gown and started working on a set of bandages at his side. Her mouth was moving like she was talking him through it, but he wasn't listening. A few words here and there slipped through the fog, barely enough for him to figure out that he'd gotten scraped up on the pavement and some broken glass had cut his shoulder up. If he thought really hard about it, he could almost remember getting stitches when he got here, before he fell asleep. Even if he didn’t remember it, the new stitch marks on his skin stood out enough against the old jagged scars of the past to tell a story. Tanya’s eyes were lingering on the old scars from the shoulder where she worked down to his wrist, but he didn’t care.
“I need to look at your knee, if that’s okay,” Tanya said as she finished up. It was startling enough to pull Jean from his stupor. What was wrong with his knee? Knee injuries had awful implications for his career and in turn, his life.
“Why?” He asked sharply, turning his head so fast that it made him dizzy.
“You got hit pretty hard,” she said apologetically. “Dr. Torres is going to come take a look at it but I’m going to check it for swelling.”
“Fine.” Jean hated the sound of that. It didn’t hurt as bad as other knee injuries, but he assumed he was being treated for pain right now. He didn’t look as she pulled his blanket back further and examined him. She prodded him in a few places, which had him wincing, though if she noticed, she was kind enough not to mention it.
“That’s all I need from you right now Jean-Yves, thank you,” she said as she stood. “Let us know if you need anything, Dr. Torres should be in soon.” Jean nodded lazily and his nurse was out the door.
The solitude was immediately enveloping him and he couldn’t help but be transported back to the basement of Castle Evermore. All of the Nest had its dark corners, but often the nurses’ office felt darker than that, probably due to the isolation he often felt there. Jean forced himself to breathe but it was ragged and irregular. The room around him somehow felt much too big and at the same time incredibly small like it was closing in around him. Another concrete room, another box he was trapped in, and he couldn’t just sit here. He bit his lip, fighting twinges of pain as he moved in his bed, letting his legs hang over the side. In this moment, he felt that there was nothing he needed more than to get up, if for no other reason than to prove to himself that he could. As soon as he put weight on it, he felt his knee start to give and he quickly scrambled to grab the bed to support himself.
“I wouldn’t try that,” said a voice from behind him and Jean flinched violently. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Do you need to get somewhere?” Jean needed to get out of this place, but he lied and said he'd been trying to get to the bathroom instead.
By the time he’d been helped back to his bed, he was exhausted, but he forced himself to look up at the woman standing above him who'd introduced herself as his doctor, at least until her shift ended. “How are you feeling?" She asked and Jean just laughed at her. How did she think he was doing? He was here, he was alone, he was hurt but he didn't know how badly yet. As he laughed, he brought a hand up to his side and winced. Something there hurt and he knew from experience that it was his ribs, and the look the doctor gave him confirmed it.
"I'm ordering X-rays for your ribs and your wrist. I need to take a look at your knee before I order more tests for it,” she said. His ribs didn't hurt enough to be broken, he thought. She made his way over to the side of his bed and he didn't resist as she maneuvered his leg. “Any past injuries I need to know about?"
Jean didn't have the time or the memory to go through all of his past injuries, so he just stuck with the most relevant of the most recent set. "Three fractured ribs, sprained LCL," he said and he braced himself against the memory of Riko's unrelenting racquet.
“Okay, well those injuries can make repeat injuries more likely," she said as she pushed on Jean's leg in a particularly painful way. She must have noted Jean's discomfort because she muttered something to herself Jean couldn't quite make out. “When did those happen?"
“Spring. This year." It was only six months ago, though in some ways it felt like a lifetime.
Dr. Torres looked at him like she was waiting for him to elaborate something. When he didn't, she asked. “Which one?”
"All of it.” Her eyes went wide at Jean's response before she turned back to her work.
"Does it hurt when I do this?" Jean couldn't quite tell what she was doing, but it did hurt. He was hesitant to admit a weakness, but after a moment he said yes. “I'm worried you sprained it again," she said as she set his leg down gently. “I'd like an MRI to see how bad it is, especially since it's not your first one." Jean was unfamiliar with the test she was ordering, but he doesn't feel he was in a position to argue or ask questions. He would do what was required of him. “If you don't need anything else, I can go get those tests ordered then. It might be a few hours though so feel free to get some sleep." She must've taken Jean's blank stare to mean he didn't need anything, seeing as she turned towards the door.
As soon as she started walking, Jean could feel the darkness creeping over him, the cold waves lapping at the shores of his heart. Isolation, unfamiliarity, fear, and hopelessness all threatened to consume him. He needed someone, anyone with him. He was beginning to think he'd settle for Kevin at this point, but as he tried to recite the number in his head, he found he was missing a digit.
Jean didn't believe in miracles but he needed one. He didn't believe in miracles but there was no one here to believe for him. If there were miracles, he wondered if he'd used up his allotment getting out of the Nest. “Doctor," he called so quietly it was almost a wonder in itself that she heard him. "What is the name of the hospital?" He didn't know why he was asking, maybe to try and get some sense of where he was, though he didn't know of any hospitals by the apartment.
Dr. Torres stopped and turned to look at him. "St. John's." Jean didn't remember which saint that was anymore, only that he'd been named for him, or at least named adjacently. He hoped it was a good one.
"Catholic then?" He asked and the doctor nodded. Now that he said it, he noticed a few holy symbols in the room. "Do you... Believe?" He hated how awkward it sounded coming from him, childish, even.
"I do." She took a step back into the room, looking down at the necklace he wore. "Do you?"
Jean didn't meet her gaze, instead looking straight ahead. "I think I did once." Jean thought of mornings spent in pews, sunlight pouring in through stained glass, the music that filled his ears. He used to wonder how his parents did it, how they'd hurt him and his sister then walk into a church to hear about forgiveness, how they'd be told about mercy and continue to kill. It was the kind of question that would only cause trouble, so he never asked. Instead he prayed for things to get better. Elodie used to pray for a dragon to save the both of them. Neither prayer worked no matter how many times they prayed it. He'd prayed for his suffering in the Nest to end and it has taken five years. So if there was a god, he didn't seem to be paying much attention to Jean.
“I have a friend who does, but she…doesn't know I'm here.” He didn't know what Renee would tell him now. Maybe she'd tell him that the fact that he was still alive was the miracle. Jean would've preferred not to get hit at all. She would tell him that he wasn't alone, even if he felt that way, that even from South Carolina she'd be with him as long as she wanted him to be. She'd tell him he had people here too, people who cared about him. It would get better if he let it.
“We have a chaplain, do you want me to—"
“No." Jean didn't even let her finish the question. The last thing he wanted in here was another stranger. It was the same reason he'd turned down the translator they offered. "I do not know what I want, I just—” he needed something.
“I go up to pray at the end of all my shifts. I will say one for you if you'd like.” Jean looked at her for a long moment before nodding. Maybe it would work if someone else—someone better—tried it. Dr. Torres gave Jean another gentle smile, and when she left, the darkness didn't feel quite as dark.