"It's been nothing but tests since getting here," Elliot complains to Niel. The latter is in his last hour of work just before the weekend when Elliot summoned him up to talk. At least this is an acceptable way to run the clock out faster.

"First they took a sample of my piss," Elliot continues, "then they took some blood, and then they took even more blood because they screwed something up!"

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience," Niel says as a blameless apology.

"Eh, I'll be happy when I'm home. I just have to wait until they finally find nothing wrong with me." If there's one thing that's stayed a constant during his time here, it's his disbelief that he needs to be here in the first place. "Bit of an off-topic, but do you watch a lot of videos online?"

"Sometimes."

"My son showed me a video one time of some chemist guy extracting something out of his own piss to make artificial sweetener. I was like, 'What the hell?' He even tasted some to compare it to real sugar!"

That's... mildly gross, but also mildly interesting. Chemistry has never really crossed Niel's mind before.

"I think he also made some kind of medicine, too. These tests the doctors have been doing reminded me of the piss chemist, as my son calls him."

Niel sits somewhat uncomfortably as he listens to the ramblings about a man who boiled his pee for science, and he wonders if Reed has seen these videos, too. If not, then judging by the strange videos he watches, they seem right up his alley. Their daily 15 minutes come to an end, so Niel returns downstairs to resume his ever-shortening list of things he might be able to do.

Much to his lack of shock, everything that can be done has already been done, so he decides to look for Reed instead to kill what little time is left. He finds Reed eating a bagel alone in the cafeteria.

"It won't be long until we have supper," Niel comments as he pulls up a chair.

"It's not even four yet," Reed counter-argues.

"Almost."

"Almost." It's not hard to tell from Reed's voice that he's counting down the seconds. "You talk to that patient again?"

"Yeah. He told me about some kind of strange chemistry video."

Reed's ears perk up. "Really? What videos?"

"I'll tell you later when you're not eating. It's a bit gross."

"Alright, then."

He's more interested than Niel predicted. Suddenly, Reed's report card pops into his head. In a sea of subjects he cares little for, Reed enjoyed chemistry.

"Have you thought about a career path?" Niel asks, mimicking what he hears from their guardians. Because of this, Reed isn't very enthused.

"Not you, too..." he groans. "No, I haven't. Nothing interests me, and I'm not smart enough for the high-paying jobs."

Reed may not be entirely incorrect as he doesn't have the best marks in school, but he did do well in science, and he did enjoy chemistry. And after doing so much volunteer work here in the hospital...

"Why not be a doctor or a nurse?" Niel suggests.

"I wouldn't be good at it," Reed says, immediately putting the idea and himself down. "There's so much you need to know. Medicine, diseases, human anatomy, I wouldn't be able to remember it all."

"You've done a lot of volunteer work here and you liked chemistry in your science class."

"Volunteering here doesn't get you any good doctoring experience, it's just that med schools like the look of it."

Reed didn't deny the chemistry part. "Which means that you've got a good shot at getting into med school. You just need to be taught how to be a doctor, like anyone else."

"Nah. I know my limits," Reed says as he dejectedly shakes his head. "I'll figure something out eventually."

And with that, Reed has shut the conversation down. After much impatient waiting, the clock finally strikes four and they're allowed to leave. On his way over to sign out, he hears what he thinks is Rosa talking in the hall about something important, so he hugs the corner nearby to eavesdrop. Based on the voices, it sounds like she's with one other woman.

"You've been looking really tired lately. Is everything okay?" the other nurse asks.

"I've just been feeling burnt out. Could use a vacation," Rosa says.

"I think we all could."

Niel sighs as he knows why Rosa is feeling this way. It hurts more because he doesn't know how to help her.

That night, Niel lies in bed unable to sleep. Despite his attempts to let go and rest, his mind is still fixated on work. Rosa, Elliot, and now Reed. What can he do to help them? Feeling no more sleepy than when he first laid down, he stands up and opens the window, letting the cooler night air blow across his body and into his room.

Rosa's feelings are coming from the stress surrounding Liam, and while saying she's burning out is a convenient way of explaining how she feels without exposing herself, Niel also believes it's not a lie. Elliot is still convinced that he doesn't need to be here despite the signs pointing to the opposite, and Reed is putting himself down again. Neither believe or want to believe what he says.

Niel's mind drifts to the roof. He's thought about sitting up there and stargazing back when he went snooping through the storage facility but never did so. Sitting up there now and pondering his next course of action sounds nice, but he needs to use his Dust to make it up there. He doesn't want to use his Dust. He's still terrified of himself.

A flash of white in the corner of his mind's eye spins him around sharply—he swears he saw the Warden's Key illuminate just now. The pendant lays dormant on his nightstand. Niel approaches for a better look, and he confirms he is just seeing things. If he touched it, would it light up again? Curiosity brings his hand close to the glass, but nerves pull it back. The bulb is halfway full. Without the strength to use his power, he'll become encumbered in only a few weeks, possibly even sooner. Then he'll have no choice but to. When will this fear go away?

>>>>>>

Niel wants to try talking to Rosa again in the hopes something about her situation will become clearer to him. However, she's a busy woman, and he's only a volunteer. Finding the time isn't the problem, though—because of her role in the hospital, he doesn't want to get in her way. This results in him constantly being within eyeshot of her, but never approaching in the hopes that she'll take the initiative. After two hours of trying, it becomes clear that this isn't working.

He focuses on his duties, instead. Luck is bountiful today as there are several menial tasks for him to pass the time with. As he's passing through the waiting area en route to deliver supplies, he finds a nurse making contact with an elderly patient. The patient isn't speaking, at least not verbally. It appears that the patient is deaf and that the nurse doesn't have any means of communicating. Niel is unsure of what to do. From his place in the background, he looks around for some way to help, and that help finds him, too. He and Illia exchange concerned glances from across the room. She knows she can help, but she's afraid to. Niel gives her a reassuring nod and she finds the courage to step in.

Illia approaches and introduces herself, much to the relief of the nurse. Though Illia is unable to speak herself, the situation is thankfully not dire as the patient was just looking for the washroom. With this problem sorted, Illia looks back at Niel with pride on her face, and Niel can't help but give a small but genuine smile at her effort. This makes her smile even more.

Illia stepped out of her comfort zone to communicate. Niel realizes that to talk to Rosa, he should, too. After finishing up with his ever-dwindling duties, he seeks out Rosa once again and finds her strolling through the halls, and with a breath to steady himself, he approaches.

"Nurse Rosa, do you have a minute?" Niel asks as he walks with her.

"I do. What's up?"

Off to a good start. "You look really tired today. Did something new happen between you and Liam?"

Some of this is a lie. Rosa is masking her fatigue well, but Niel already knows that she's burning out. Rosa stops in her tracks.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"...No, nothing happened. It's just been more of the same."

"And that's where it hurts the most, right?"

"...Yeah." Her low spirits are plainly visible on her face now.

"Is there anything I can do to help you?"

"Do you have a love potion?"

Niel doesn't know what that is, but he knows it's not something in his possession. "No."

Rosa sighs. "I've always thought it was fate how we were brought together as kids. Now it feels childish to have believed it in the first place..."

Niel's heard about fate several times before, but he doesn't fully understand what it is, or if it even exists. 'A terrible fate', 'don't believe in fate', 'sealed our fate', 'it feels childish to believe'... What should he believe?

"I'm sorry, I have a patient to see," Rosa says, breaking the silence before she leaves. Niel doesn't even get a chance to say goodbye.

>>>>>>

Rosa is too busy to talk today, though it likely doesn't matter much since Niel is clueless about how to help her. If only he knew more about romantic feelings. If only he knew more about feelings in general. He still can't identify what half of his emotions even are. Niel gets word from Reginald that Elliot wants to talk to him again, so he makes his way back upstairs.

"How are you today, Mr. Torres?" Niel asks.

"I've been better, but I've been worse," Elliot responds as he lowers the volume of the room's TV with a remote. "They've finally put me on dialysis now."

"Dialysis?"

"Your kidneys clean your blood. Since mine aren't working well enough, apparently, they use a machine to clean it every other day to give my kidneys a break."

An interesting series of thoughts come to mind about Niel's own biology. Since his Dust is bloodborne, do his kidneys ignore it when filtering his blood? Are his kidneys modified to do so, or are they even his in the first place? And if he wanted to be rid of his Dust, could he have a machine siphon the power out of his veins?

Niel snaps back to Elliot's ramblings. "—even necessary? I'm not unhealthy. What do you think?"

"I think what the doctors say is worth listening to," Niel hastily states as a knee-jerk reaction. He missed what the question was about, so hopefully this answer makes sense and doesn't offend.

Elliot grumbles. "Perhaps... My children certainly agree."

"His old are your children?" Niel inquires to keep the conversation alive.

"My daughter is in her late twenties, and my son's in his early thirties. I keep telling him he should find someone to marry, like his sister did, but he's more interested in his career than anything else."

Romance and career—Rosa and Reed pop into his mind. Maybe Niel can glean some kind of hint from Elliot to help them.

"Are you married, Mr. Torres?"

"I was, once upon a time. We had one too many disputes, so we ended up splitting."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Nah, don't be. It wasn't a very happy marriage, anyway. Despite what you've seen, I've been feeling a lot better since. What IS unfortunate is that I'm no longer the sexy man I used to be. I was THE lady's man back in my heyday! But now, dating at this age is harder than landing a proper job nowadays."

"I know very little about dating." This isn't something Niel would say normally, but he's hoping this will entice Elliot to share his stories. He feels a sense of untrustworthiness from himself for manipulating the conversation like this.

"Dating is all about finding a spark. See, looks will draw someone in, but if you share nothing in common, or don't find them interesting, then nothing will come from it. Once you do, though, it's all about communication."

Communication. Is that not what he recommended Rosa do, to communicate her feelings to Liam?

"What if I met someone like that, but I didn't like them back?"

"Then that'll be a hard pill to swallow, but they'll have to move on."

"And, how would they do that if they're struggling to?"

"Hmm... It's not something everyone will find easy to do, but putting distance between yourself and the person you're trying to move on from helps. If you have something to keep yourself busy with, even better. In fact, when I was your age, I..."

Elliot then starts telling stories of his days as a romantic young man. While they're at minimum entertaining, they don't hold much in the way of useful information. Niel is unable to ask any more questions as these stories take up the remainder of their time together.

>>>>>>

Despite his fatigue, Niel can't sleep in on Thursday morning due to his weekly session with Medova. They've since graduated from just talking about stressors, and now they're practicing how to better handle them.

The fear of disassociation still lingers, so to help prevent more attacks, Medova teaches him various grounding techniques. Some are familiar as she's already taught a couple to him, but there are more worth going over, and it doesn't hurt to cover the previous ones again. Box breathing has already been used with positive results, but it required external help for him to remember it. Niel realizes he talked himself into a corner, so he finally admits to Medova the night after the large attack when Illia came to his rescue. Surprisingly to him, Medova isn't upset that this revelation came two weeks late, and instead uses it to convey of the efficacy of reaching out to the people around him for help.

Alongside box breathing, Niel is taught the 54321 method. Focus on five things he can see, four he can touch, three he can hear, two he can smell, and one he can taste. By isolating and invoking all of his senses, he can refocus his mind on the present—effective for when he feels his consciousness slipping or for when he becomes overwhelmed by the environment around him. Medova mentions how focusing on sound is particularly potent, both positively and negatively, and while he doesn't bring it up, Niel thinks about Illia's frequent use of her kalimba and how they both find it soothing.

Disassociation is only part of the problem; the memories of the lab are another. While he's more equipped to handle dealing with his stress, the root cause still needs addressing. Thus, Medova encourages him to not only speak of the lab but also how the memories make him feel about himself. One such feeling is his strongest one: his seemingly insurmountable guilt. Her goal is to shift his belief that he's a monster and aggressor to a survivor—that he's not the one at fault, the lab is. To assist with this goal and the new grounding techniques, Medova tasks him with the homework of keeping a journal and encourages him to write down his thoughts at the end of each day and when potent feelings of stress or self-loathing surface.

There's still some time before the session ends, so Medova reinforces what she's taught today, plus how important it is to maintain a proper sleep schedule. Niel admits how he's been sleeping in more and more, and she confirms that oversleeping is harmful to both the body and mind. With how much he's shared, Niel is tempted for a moment to talk more about his guilt, but he stops himself before he even begins. Self-positivity doesn't form in less than an hour, and the lab's incessant whispers are eager to remind him of how low he truly is. Instead, he decides to ask a question that's been on his mind recently. With the mentions of fate he's heard from the various people he's met, what does Medova think is correct?

"When something bad happens, people say they don't believe in fate and try to make things better. But when things are going well, they say that it must be fate. Which one is it?" Niel asks. His tone is somewhat sullen.

Despite being a therapist, philosophy isn't a particular strength of Medova's. It won't stop her from trying to give the best answer she can.

"I think the meaning and purpose of fate is up to each person. Some use it as a driving force, while others see it as validation. Its existence is subjective, but that means its meaning is, too. There's no right answer. Therefore, from your own beliefs and experiences, it's up to you to decide what it means to you."

Niel was hoping for a straightforward answer, but he supposes this explains some of what he's heard, too. Time is up for their session today.

>>>>>>

His efforts with Rosa haven't been going well. Niel still can't find a way to help her in any capacity, and now he feels himself becoming increasingly emotionally numb. He has his work cut out for him, and so does Medova in turn. The journal she tasked him with keeping is still empty.

It's not just Rosa who has her troubles, but also Elliot and Reed. Out of them all, it seems like Elliot is the least of concern. While he wants to leave, it also sounds like he's been receiving the treatment he needs. Niel's efforts with Rosa have caused her to emotionally shut him out for the time being, so he decides to shift his focus to Reed and try to get him to think about his future.

Niel scouts around the hospital in search of Reed while pretending to look busy, but he learns from Reginald that Reed's busy—and unlike Niel—for real. At least he found something to pass the time with. Talking with Reed isn't a pressing matter since there will be plenty of time to do so when they get home, so for now, Niel answers Elliot's call.

"How's everything been?" Elliot asks once Niel sits by his bed.

"I'm doing fine."

A look of concern or consideration washes over the elder man's face—Niel can't tell which one it is.

"Say, do you happen to know how many bones are in the human hand?"

An odd question. "Not off of the top of my head, no."

"Well, it has to be a handful, right?"

Elliot erupts into a bellyful laughter and Niel is left scratching his head. A handful...? ...Oooh, he understands now. It's such a dumb, Reed-esque joke that Niel can't help but crack a faint, fleeting smile. Elliot takes this positive reception and cracks a few more jokes of similar calibre, drawing out Niel's grin bit by bit.

"Ha ha ha! Feel a little better now?" Elliot asks, humoured. He's certainly getting a kick out of Niel's reaction, even after his smile fades.

"I... suppose so."

"Take this as a lesson, son: there may not always be a time or a place for details, but if something's got you down, be honest about it."

That's quite the lesson.

"So, how are you feeling?"

"Being honest, I'm barely holding on. Don't have too much time left here."

"You don't mean..."

"Hm? Oh, no! I'm not dying, sorry. I'm finally gonna get out of here. Though, my ex-wife would probably love to hear that I'm dead..."

This turns into yet more love-centred storytime. Niel wants to ask Elliot what he meant by him getting out of here, plus he wants to hear what he has to say about career paths, but he doesn't want to be rude and interrupt him. His earliest chance to ask comes when most of their time has been burned through, so Niel has to pick which question to ask. He was just talking about when his daughter was in school, so Niel can build off of that.

"How did your daughter choose what career she wanted?"

"Ah, worried about what you want to be? She did what I recommend now: do something you enjoy. Jobs are a lot more tolerable when you don't hate what you're doing. Sure, high-paying jobs are nice, but a job you can wake up in the morning and not kick yourself over is even better."

Finally, a straight answer. This is good information for Reed. Unfortunately, their time has run out again so Niel has to leave. Before he walks out for the last time before the weekend, Elliot stops him to say one more thing.

"I wanted to talk to that green-haired NP at first, but she seemed busy so I didn't want to be a bother," Elliot begins. "Then you showed up with my food, and you kept coming back to keep an old man like me company. Thank you for being such a good listener, Niel."

"You're welcome, Mr. Torres."

Niel steps out of the room, and he contemplates the conversation as he rejoins the rest of the hospital. Elliot initially wanted to talk to Rosa? She must've been one of the first staff members he met if he had to guess. His thoughts shift to Reed when they return home that afternoon. He still isn't sure what else he can say to convince Reed to think about his future, but he's positive that something in the medical field would be up his alley. Maybe nursing like Rosa, or perhaps chemistry like in those videos he enjoys watching.

* * *

Reed turns on his phone and lays in bed after an eventful day. There's a video he's been meaning to watch all week, so he searches it up and presses play. What he heard about it sounds crazy, but he quickly learns that it's all true.

"Oh my god, he does actually boil his own pee.