Chapter Text
THE SUN BURNS my retinas as I stare out the hospital window at the snow surrounding Toronto General Hospital. There are these massive, marble-sized snowflakes drifting down from the heavens to the slushy tundra surrounding the ground floor. It's freezing cold out, I can tell from how quickly I had to yank my hand back when I had it set against the glass initially.
I had been a world away in an Australian hospital before this. Britain still existed in the sense of geography, but the choir of bombs falling made it borderline inhabitable. Australia was the closest Commonwealth to the island that they'd recovered us from.
I’m in Canada now because four years stuck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean somehow wasn't long enough to wait out the war. They brought us to Australia, more bombs fell, and we were escorted by plane to England's last resort.
Canada is fine, I suppose. I haven't seen a ton of it, still being bound to the hospital and all. There's a bad gash on my chest from the spear, but malnutrition was the main concern.
The thing with the human body is that it's excessively counterintuitive. There's such a thing as 'refeeding syndrome'. The lack of specific nutrients causes your metabolism to stop burning carbs and start metabolizing fat. This uses fewer resources. But, when a significant amount of food is suddenly reintroduced, the body switches back, and the cells demand these nutrients to function. If there is not enough, too much will be pulled from the blood. If that happens, a coma or seizure, or some other medical emergency could follow.
My doctor's solution to this was a tube that ran through my nose, down my esophagus, and into my stomach. The insertion was awful.
At the moment, I, notably, am not in my hospital room. I am down the hall, sitting in one of those plush sofa-type chairs (often allocated to families waiting to receive terrible news about their loved ones' condition). Across from me, the nurse who's supposed to be helping me walk tries and fails to beat the coffee maker into submission.
My room is not very far from here, maybe ten feet. I'm confined to one of those little two bed rooms off the side of the main wing where the rest of the boys are. Wound monitoring or something similar, I'm quite sure they just ran out of space in the main ward. The bedroom has this pungent odor of bleach and hydrogen peroxide, and some god awful detergent. Probably Tide. I've always hated Tide.
We are about three floors up, maybe four; it's been a long time since I've had to count heights in anything other than the likelihood of my demise upon impact. The snow wouldn't make a great cushion, I think. It's at least a foot high now. I'd want at least two.
I’ve caught myself thinking about death more and more lately. I believe seeing so much of it does that to you. Often, I wish it had been me instead of Piggy or Simon. Even if I did die now, I doubt it would make up for it.
There's a loud buzzer from the nurses station and I'm pulled from my thoughts. The buzzing is the signal for a staff change over, I've learned. Which means I am back to my room. The nurse takes my arm gently, giving me a professional little smile. Though I doubt either of us are happy to be here, I smile back.
Normally after my walk, I would be given a wheelchair and sent off to group therapy. We would sit in a circle and talk about our feelings, and then I would get lunch through my tube and a book to read. This does not happen today. Today a large, friendly looking man in a lab coat approaches me the moment I sit back on my bed again.
He introduces himself as Doctor Montgomery and asks me if I'd go on a stroll with him through the ward. I'm absolutely exhausted, and I'd much rather sleep. I say yes, there isn't much of a choice to be had. He helps me into my wheelchair.
“What sort of doctor are you?” I ask him as I'm pushed down the halls. Despite the grim setting, some poor soul has gone through the effort of decorating for Christmas. My eyes trail the tinsel lining the walls as we walk.
Doctor Montgomery looks down at me through tortoiseshell glasses.
“Well- I'm a psychologist. That's like a brain doctor”
He talks down to me. Like he would a child, like I'm not going on seventeen. Most people do.
I frown.
“I thought Doctor Jenson was my psychologist”
“He is. Him and I work together”
“So why do you want to talk to me, then?”
Dr. Montgomery cringes slightly. It’s the sort of look grown ups give you when they are about to tell you you must do something that you really, really don't want to do.
“You know Jack Merridew, don't you?”
If I weren't so tired I probably would have panicked, or cried. But dozing off in my wheelchair, I nodded.
Dr. Montgomery nodded too, seemingly a little reassured by the fact that I hadn't freaked out.
“Good…uh, we're gonna be trying something new with you two. You're making fine progress, Ralph, but he's not”
I scowl. I very much couldn't care less about how Jack is feeling. He continues:
“Oftentimes, people who have been through traumatic events together develop a sort of bond. We see it a lot in cases of Combat stress reaction in war vets”
“Sorry- ‘vets’?”
“Soldiers. A lot of soldiers do better in recovery when placed together. We believe you two would benefit from Co-Habitation.”
He says these big words slowly, just to be certain that I understand him. Obviously, I am not the one failing to recover, but this concept makes sense in the primitive, animalistic sort of way.
The lion's enclosure is placed next to the gazelle's enclosure in the zoo. The lion throws himself at the bars of his cage to try to reach the gazelle. The zookeeper moves the lion into the gazelle's enclosure. The lion stops, problem solved. Aside from the gazelle being eaten, that is.
There wasn't much to the conversation after that. I was told Jack would be joining me sometime later today and was sent back to my room to lay down. I spent the majority of my last hours alive reading and watching the snow fall.
Just after the sun had set, I turned over onto my left and saw the flash of bright red hair in my doorway.