Chapter Text
It was the droplets of blood on the floor that made Charlotte panic when she first let herself into Caine's apartment. In her defense, she wasn't good in a crisis; once, when she and her sister had been only children, their cousin had been babysitting them. It had been the only time she and Katie could really be kids, and she'd cherished those days. But that particular day… there had been an accident, and Katie had ended up falling into their front door when they were sliding around in their stockings on the oak floors.
All Charlotte remembered was the blood on Katie's hand when she had drawn it back from her head, bright red and gleaming in the lights, and the gut-churning panic at the sight.
Their cousin had calmly picked Katie up and taken her to the bathroom to clean her head, calmly answering Katie's trembling question of whether she would need stitches.
All the while, Charlotte had run around in circles throughout the house looking for her phone book, desperate to find the number that would get her in touch with her mother.
Katie remembered it with humor; she found it funny to recall the sight of Charlotte running back and forth past the bathroom doorway crying out, ‘Where's my phonebook?!’ in the midst of her own fears while their cousin cleaned her up.
In the end, Katie had been fine; her head had glanced the doorknob, but she hadn't even needed stitches.
Charlotte remembered this incident as the time she had truly failed in her mother's eyes. No matter that she had eventually found the phone book and called to let her know what had happened.
Her mother had simply berated her for allowing it to happen in the first place. Told her she was a shame to the family for not taking charge of the situation.
‘You must be more responsible, Charlotte.’
Mother hadn't tried to comfort her following the incident.
‘I have to sit with your sister. If she has a concussion because of what happened, she could die from it.’
Their cousin was never asked to babysit them again.
Charlotte was never allowed to watch Katie by herself again.
‘You're just not responsible enough yet, dear. Maybe when you're older.’
She'd never be older enough. That was her reality, and it always would be.
So here she was, the far side of thirty and panicking about the blood on the floor.
“Caine?!”
His voice drifted down from the hallway, cheerful as ever. “Bafroom!”
She frowned at the muffled consonant, but calmed knowing he was at least conscious. “Are you- are you decent in there?” She was prepared to help him, but not if it meant being flashed by accident.
“I'm always defent, Ragafa,” he retorted, affronted. “Family friendly, remember?”
“No, I meant– never mind. Are you dressed?”
“Yef!”
She heaved a sigh of relief and approached the doorway, keeping a hand up in case it turned out he wasn't wearing pants. That had happened before. Peering in, she saw he was seated on the closed toilet seat and holding a red-stained towel to his mouth; he waved cheerily to her.
“H'lo, Ragafa!” Then he winced, just a little.
She didn't bother correcting him on his point of address; he still didn't understand their human names, and no matter how often they repeated them, it did no good. “What happened?” She walked forward to get a better look, kneeling down to see. “Here, move the towel for me, would you?”
Please, God, don't let there be a lot of blood.
There wasn't. A lot of it had already soaked into the towel and crusted on his bottom lip. She frowned, unable to see any physical damage on the outside of his mouth.
“What did you do?”
He shrugged. “Tripped over my feet. Landed on the wall.” He frowned, waving the rag around idly. “It was very hard, landing that way. Who knew walls could be like that?”
She stared at him. “That… is generally how walls worked in the Circus, too, Caine.”
“Well, yes, but I could program them not to be in there! Here, everything is so…” he flapped a hand idly. “Permanent.”
Charlotte grinned. “Yeah. Things are like that here. If you want to change something, it takes time and money– sometimes plenty of both.”
“Ah, yes, time! Gangle's clock was thirty seconds off the universal time, so I fixed it for her. And money… I have been given proper instruction of its use by Pomni after…” He trailed off. Flushed red when he thought about it. His coming home drunk a while ago was the stuff of legends, as had the hangover he'd woken up with. He'd thought he was dying.
‘Why would humans willingly drink something that makes it feel like your internal mechanisms are going to turn off?!’
He hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since.
His lower lip was swollen, clearly bitten through from when he'd landed, and Charlotte winced a little when she realized the bleeding wasn't stopping.
“You're going to need stitches.”
He stared at her. “What are… stitches?”
She hid another wince. She'd heard Monica describe Caine as a thirty year old man with the mind of a five year old, and it wasn't a bad moniker. None of them had had to try and introduce him to any aspect of the human way of repairing wounds yet; though as accident prone as he was, maybe it was something they should have done awhile back.
“Promise me,” she said sternly, “that you're not going to freak out.”
Generally that turn of phrase was what not to say to someone unfamiliar with a new experience, but Caine was not your typical someone. He merely frowned at her.
“Freaking out is not in my programming.”
Blatantly untrue, but she would let it slide. “C'mon,” she said, and stood up to lend him a hand. “We need to get you to Statcare.”
*****
She texted the group chat to let them all know what had happened, and watched the responses come in almost immediately. Most of them were simply a thumbs-up emoji and an ‘OK’ by Grant, but Emily left a little more:
‘Hope u feel bettr soon, Caine’
He beamed through the towel pressed into his mouth when she passed the message on. “Gangle has alfays been a sweet girl.”
Charlotte sighed, hiding a smile. “I'm sure she'll appreciate the sentiment, but make sure you refer to her as a young woman, and not a girl. Remember our talks about proper terms?”
“Oh yef. Like Zooble and their pronouns.” he nodded sagely. “My apologief, Gangle!”
He still behaved like they would be able to hear him anywhere. Charlotte made a mental note to talk to her about it if he happened to mention it again and apologize.
They made it to Statcare without incident, though he still became easily distracted by the sights and smells of the city. Today the sky was grey and overcast; he was mesmerized by the sight of a skyscraper disappearing up into a low-hanging cloud.
“But it's remarkable! To think you've created something that can literally reach the sky like that!”
In some ways his endless energy was draining; in others it was infectious, like a kid on Christmas.
“Yeah, engineering has really sorted itself out in the last century or so. We found out the best way to make metal and keep it strong and we haven't gone back since.”
Charlotte filled out the necessary paperwork when they reached the building and talked to the receptionist. Caine watched her do it like a hawk watched its prey, unblinking and cataloging every scratch of the pen. For the most part the questions were fairly straightforward and answers were ones they had all come together to come up with, but she faltered at the questionnaire of what– if any– allergies or medical conditions he had.
“Uh, Caine? Care to take a look at this and tell me if anything seems suspect to you?”
He didn't take very long to read over the list and luckily didn't say he had any of them, but still seemed highly fascinated with the list of medical terms. “Humans have a lot of physical ailments, don't they?”
She smiled weakly, glad it was loud enough in the waiting room no one overheard him. “Well, that's life. Lots of ailments.”
The wait for a doctor didn't take long in the grand scheme of things, which was a blessing; Caine was close to climbing the walls, and his attention span was basically nonexistent. The wound in his mouth was still bleeding, and the towel was growing more and more red the longer they waited, but finally his name was called and they were led to one of the several back rooms.
They waited. Again. Caine looked around at the posters and pictures spread around the room posturing various medical conditions, fascinated and amazed. Horrified by the picture of a lung blackened by decades of smoking. Amazed by the article about open heart transplants. By the time the doctor came in he was antsy and pacing the room while Charlotte watched him in a tired way, unable to understand how he wasn't exhausted yet.
The doctor poked and prodded, asking questions intermittently as he looked at the wound. Charlotte answered those, too leery of allowing Caine free reign answering questions of his background. (All of the Circus troupe were listed as his emergency contacts, and allowed to help with any medical emergencies that could arise.)
“Did he take anything before he fell?”
Charlotte frowned, thinking about it. “I… don't know actually. It all happened before I got there. Caine?”
He shook his head, unable to speak through the doctor's fingers, but he looked vaguely offended by the suggestion.
“Well. It looks like you'll definitely need stitches to keep it from reopening, but no more than four or five. I'll be back in a minute.”
Caine watched his coat disappear around the edge of the doorway before turning her direction. There was a new level of wariness in his gaze that made her sit on edge, and she dreaded the question she knew he was about to ask. “Ragatha, what are stitches?”
Here it came. She braced herself, took a deep breath, and spoke: “You know how you could always just snap your fingers in the Circus and we could be fixed like that? It doesn't work like that here. When there's a wound that can't stay closed by itself or by bandages, the next step is to… sew it shut.”
He blinked, mismatched eyes widening in a comically horrified way. “That- that's barbaric!”
She winced uncomfortably. “Well, it's either that or we bleed over everything.”
“But- but why should it take so long for a tear to close?! Isn't that something that should be healed immediately?”
“That's the million dollar question, isn't it? The macroverse--this world– is a lot more complicated than that, Caine. Wounds can take a long time to heal. Limbs can't be replaced. It's what makes life precious, the knowledge that it can be damaged or cut short.”
He sat on that one for a long time, head tilted at an angle until he finally nodded. “So it was like knowing there was a chance one day everything could shut down and destroy the Circus. We would never know when it could happen, but the possibility was always there.”
Now it was her turn to stare, the thought too horrifying to put into words. “Was that a… a possibility?”
“Of course.” The instantaneous response did not help her nerves. “Any time a machine sits too long abandoned the chances of terminal shutdown goes up exponentially. One of my main goals was to distract the players within the Circus from this fact– something I seemed to have succeeded at rather well, if your reaction is anything to go by.”
And he had had to sit with that knowledge all by himself. For years. Knowing his own mortality– such as it had been– hinged on something completely out of his control, along with his reluctant charges.
It had taken them all too long to realize he didn't do things out of malice. He operated with a wildly inaccurate sense of what humans did or didn't want, but his instinct was to protect them rather than harm.
The Abstract remained a sore spot for him. Their codes continued to sit in the computer as far as Charlotte knew, and they likely always would. None of them ever brought it up with him, because the one time any of them had tried had… not gone well.
She didn’t know what to say, and luckily she was saved from trying because the doctor returned only a moment or two after, followed by a nurse. She felt mildly guilty seeing the way Caine straightened and warily eyed the disinfectant and needle; she could have explained to him what was going to happen before but she’d been afraid he would refuse to come, and it was with this chewing at her stomach that she stood from her seat and approached his left side. “Do you want to hold my hand?”
He grasped her fingers so tightly it was almost painful, but he made no sound at all; the nurse, nametag displaying the moniker Aasha, kept a steady eye on them both in between orders from the doctor as they disinfected the wound– the sting enough to make Caine flinch in surprise– and then began the actual stitching. Charlotte watched his pupils constrict more the longer it went, his grip tightened, and beads of sweat appeared along his hairline, but he didn’t move at all; she suspected he was unable to being so freaked out. Then finally it was done and Doctor Bryant nodded in satisfaction as he stood.
“Give it a week and then we can take them out. Make sure to rinse your mouth out with salt water to take care of any bacteria that could cause infection and stay on top of the pain and swelling by taking ibuprofen. Any questions?”
There could be innumerable ones if Caine was curious enough, but he merely shook his head this time and continued to remain frozen where he sat. Charlotte looked him up and down for another moment before turning to the doctor again. “No, I think we’ll be fine. Thank you.”
The doctor left with a quick goodbye, but Aasha remained behind; Caine immediately sagged to the side and laid out on the table, far too pale for Charlotte’s liking. Now that the initial crisis was past she wanted to get him home. “Are you ready to head home now, then, Caine?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Not gonna. I feel funny.”
That… didn’t sound good. “What? Why are you–?”
Aasha waved a hand, stopping her mid sentence with a small smile as she focused on Caine. “It's all right, sweetheart. You just watch the ceiling and focus on counting to a hundred. I'll be back, all right? I'm going to find you a cup of water.”
The door shut softly behind her, and Caine frowned after her. “Why is the nice human getting me water? Am I thirsty?”
“It's… most likely because you said you feel funny. You know how Monica needs to count when she gets panicked? It's like that. It helps you feel grounded.”
Since leaving the Circus, their mental scars had left physical leftovers; the first time Monica had had a panic attack, it was Alex who talked her through it with their quiet, no-nonsense voice and patience, but it had freaked Caine out like nothing else had yet.
‘She's dying! Oh my God, she's grey, she can't breathe!’
It had been Emily who had drawn him aside and distracted him. ‘It's all right, Caine. She needs some quiet to calm down, but she'll be okay. Alex has got her.’
He looked distinctly unimpressed in the moment now, but he was willing to indulge her. “Hmph. Not sure why I need it, but I guess I'll indulge her.”
Aasha returned in no time and had him drink it in small sips, watching the tremors of his hands slowly cease and the color return to his face. Charlotte sat by and clutched her hands in her lap, trying not to think about the blood shining wet on Katie’s hand and her panicked screaming when she had seen it. When Caine seemed steadier, he sat up and said he was going to try and stand.
Charlotte fretted. “Are you sure? If you need more time, we can always wait a little longer–”
“Nonsense, my dear! I’ve waited five minutes and thirty-eight seconds. That should be plenty of time for my system to reboot. See?”
Aasha edged her way closer to his side, unobtrusively positioning herself as he slid off the table. He seemed steady enough as his feet hit the floor, which lowered her own stress, but then he took a step forward and he stopped. Frowned in confusion before finally nodding in realization.
“Oh, wait. Yes, I believe this was a mistake after all. I think I'm going to–”
And then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell over without a sound.
Charlotte sped over to catch him before he could hit the floor. “Oh my god! Caine–”
Aasha had caught him on his other side, utterly unflappable, and sighed. “I thought that was going to happen.” She must have seen the panic in Charlotte’s eyes over his head, because her expression softened into a more gentle look. “He’ll be all right, sweetheart. Just stood up too soon.”
She swallowed, the effort painful against her dry throat. “Does, uh, does this happen o-often, then?”
“Oh yes, and much more often than you’d think. I just had a young man in here last week who gave blood, and he wasn’t bothered by it as long as he wasn’t paying attention to the IV; as soon as he stood up, he very calmly told us, ‘I need to lay down now’ before he passed out. It’s your body’s nervous system going into overdrive, essentially, but it doesn’t take very long before you're up and moving again– ah, see? He’s already coming around.”
Indeed he was. Charlotte waited anxiously by his side as his eyelids fluttered open and he stared blankly up at the ceiling. “I… appear to have rebooted. Did I miss anything important?”
Charlotte winced inwardly at the phrasing but the nurse didn’t seem put off by it. “Nothing, really. Just be a little slower when you stand up, okay?”
The wait this time lasted longer; he seemed content to wait, humming under his breath and kicking his feet together in the interim. The tune sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it… oh. Mary Poppins. Finally the color returned to his face and he didn’t shake at all, and Aasha gave the go ahead to stand once more.
He beamed at Charlotte when he was successful this time, so proud of himself she couldn’t help but smile with him. “Can we go home now? Kinger found a new documentary about bees to watch.”
So resilient. She caught a glimpse of Aasha’s smile as she bid them goodbye, and then they walked through the busier lobby and onto the sidewalk outside. The sun had started to come out and it had warmed up a little more; she looked over at Caine and smiled, feeling much calmer now that everything was okay.
“C'mon, then,” she told him. “We'll stop and get some ice cream on the way home. I think we've earned it.”