Angst, on the run, medical setting, medical coma, falsely accused, guilt, left behind, vague fictional politics
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It helped that the hospital was bigger than she expected. A polite nod or smile at other nurses and doctors let her pass without question. But Kit’s heart was in her throat. Even in scrubs, a stolen clipboard in her hands, she felt like it was painfully obvious she wasn’t an actual employee.
The announcement over the PA system only added to her increasing panic. They knew she was missing. They knew she had run away. But no one turned to her and pointed her out, no one was running through the halls with body armor clad security in tow. They would be tightening security at the exits, but that was a future problem.
Kit wasn’t trying to leave the building, not yet.
Not alone.
(She hoped.)
They slunk toward the ICU. Part of them hoped Reggie hadn’t been badly injured, but they knew with the state they had been in…xe probably was. (If xe wasn’t dead already, a particularly cruel thought mused.) Turning the corner to the ICU suite showed her both what she wanted and didn’t want to see.
There was a guard clearly stationed outside one of the rooms. Reggie had to be there. Her anxiety ticked up at the sight; she would have to distract them or lie to them or offer them something enticing enough to let her in -
A soft snore echoed down the quiet hallway. The guard was slumped over in their seat, chin resting on their chest. Asleep. Kit’s heart still raced as she approached, as quiet as she could be in her borrowed, slightly too big shoes. They didn’t stir as she peaked through the sliding doors.
Reggie.
Wrapped in tubes and wires - a ventilator, heart monitors, more - xe didn’t stir as the doors slid open and shut. She quickly crouched next to xir bed; hands hesitantly hovering before tapping xir shoulder.
“Reggie. Reggie wake up. It’s me. Please…”
Xe didn’t respond.
Kit looked around, finding xir chart at the foot of the bed. She wasn’t a doctor, but she had spent enough time with Reggie to know bad news from good news. And Reggie’s chart was all bad news.
Kit’s eyes followed the squiggle of the heart monitor, the beat slow but steady. Xe was alive.
Barely.
For now.
Their heart sank in their chest. They had no idea how to help xir. They didn’t think they could help xir; Kit wasn’t a doctor. And based on Reggie’s condition, it wouldn’t matter if she was the world’s best doctor.
Xe was dying.
And there was nothing she could do to help.
A shrill beep and crackle of static made them jump out of their skin. Heart racing, adrenaline high, she quickly located the source: the lone guard’s radio.
(They were still snoring. Still asleep.)
Kit slipped out of the room, the icy quiet of the ICU sharply contrasted by the garbled voice on the radio. She eyed the guard, took a breath, and reached out. The radio unclipped from their uniform and she turned the volume dial down.
“Reyes go with McCullen; the feds want an escort from Fort Smith.”
“Don’t get why they want so much security. Xe’s a fucking vegetable.”
“It’s gotta be all for show. They wanna tell the public they cornered xir in the hospital and xe were combative. More satisfying than saying the serial killer of the century got offed accidentally by a semi with bald tires.”
“Don’t ask questions just do what the boys in black tell you. We’ve got two agencies breathing down our necks.”
“Two? I know the FBI’s on it, but - “
“ASP is too.”
“ASP? That waste of tax dollars?”
“Yeah, yeah. Something about that kid xe kidnapped being a ‘specialized’ person of interest.”
“Thought they died in the crash, poor thing.”
“Guess they want the body for research if nobody claims ‘em. Doubt anybody will based on the BOLO responses so far.”
“Quit yapping and get up to the Fort. The sooner the country’s specialist agents get here the sooner they get the heck out of here.”
The radio went silent. Kit still held it clenched tight in her hands. She couldn’t stay. She couldn’t do anything to help Reggie and now she couldn’t even stay beside xir to try and clear xir name -
(She could stay. She could stay and end up in someone else’s lab just like Chris said she would - )
Kit’s breath hitched, tears hot as she looked through the glass doors. Reggie breathed, xir heart beat, and nothing changed.
She didn’t want to leave xir behind.
(She knew how it felt to be left behind.)
She didn’t want to abandon them.
(She knew how it felt to be abandoned.)
She didn’t want to leave them for dead.
(She had been left for dead so many times and revived alone and cold and scared so, so many times - )
The guard snoring on the chair twitched and shifted, then stilled once more.
had a dream that i had a medical emergency in my sleep last night & was put in a medical coma at the hospital
so the first part of the dream i was having this adventure with my friends where collectively we had the power to teleport to different places.
but i felt it couldnt be real so it switched to me in a bed & a mental projection of my sister was telling me "youre right, this isnt real. you never woke up last night. they took u to a hospital. ur getting heart surgery under a medical coma."
for the rest of the dream i was trying to stay calm while entertaining myself with dream stuff, while being able to hear & feel the surgeons operating on me but not see them. at one point they decided my fake heart valve wasnt good enough so they cordoned off the whole area of my heart & put in one with a different material structure.
finally i heard the surgeons say "oh noo!!!! it didnt like that!!!! why didnt it like that?" and i said to myself _i guess im goin to heaven..._ and then....
i woke up.
makes me wonder if that actually all happened and then i died & then 16 billion years passed & the universe crunched & re-big banged (reset) and then in this universe i didnt have the medical emergency so i woke up this morning right where i left off????
It's Mother's Day, Satoru just has to make it sentimental, but he'll need a lot of love and help from his only ally.
Giving a gift in the Gojo clan was intimidating.
They already had everything they wanted.
But Satoru Gojo was always up for a challenge and even though he may not pull it together on time, he was determined to give his mother the best gift ever.
“C’mon Aguri you’ve gotta help me or I’ll die!” the boy whined as he tugged the older girl’s arm.
She was exhausted and the young sorcerer was more than two hands full. Sometimes, she wished to have had a twin to consume in the womb like the great king of curses. Alas, she was simply just the lonely fifth child of a lowly Gojo clan concubine. Something nobody ever brought up, not to spare the girl but because it was such old gossip it became boring to even acknowledge her existence. Satoru, at his young age, had always felt bad for Aguri.
“Satoru, your father would kill me if he even saw you with an empty measuring cup in your hand,” Aguri rolled her eyes and shrugged the young boy off.
“If you don’t teach me how to cook…” he thinks, sometimes of the dumbest things ever. “ I will tell my father you called me Satoru and not ‘Young Master Gojo’” The boy smiles menacingly before wiggling his brows.
“You traitor, you wouldn’t!”
“Oh, but I would Aguri, I definitely would,” he laughs at Aguri’s appalled expression.
“You’re such a brat Satoru,” her mood lightens. “What’s this for anyway?”
“It’s for Mama,” the boy says simply as he looks at the trail ahead of him.
The two had gone for a walk to the river just before the boy wanted to play, Satoru always found himself enamored by the motion of the water and the small fish that inhabited it. He loved to watch the rice fish scatter when he threw a stone into the water. In moments like this, the adults realized that Satoru was still a child, something the elders hated to admit.
“Fine, I’ll help you,” the young woman finally gave in. “How about we pick some flowers for her too? Make a bouquet and a drawing for her to hold close. What do you think, Satoru?”
Aguri watched his face as the gears turned in his head. He glanced at her, his body full of uncertainty and nervousness. Would those really be good gifts for mama? He thought, and a puddle of nausea pulled at the bottom of his stomach. The boy was always unsure, never ready, mouth always stumbling when asked a question, fingers fiddling when in training, feet shifting during tests. Satoru wished he could fly under the radar, he desired to be placed in the back, something that would never be fulfilled.
“Y-yeah? That would be cool,” the boy blushed as he pushed forward on the way back home.
“What sort of answer is that? Are you being honest, Satoru?” she stopped in her tracks, waiting for him to answer.
Satoru noticed the loss of footsteps behind him, his six eyes tingling uncontrollably at the lack of company. The boy always tried his best to use it on their hikes. He turned around, blue eyes downturned in thought.
“Mama makes me nervous sometimes. I was just going to eat with her a-and you, and just go to training or something. I wouldn’t know what to say if I gave her those things,” the boy fidgeted with the strap of his satchel. His eyes searched the ground for nothing in particular, making the woman crouch down to him.
“You know you don’t have to say anything at all if you wanted, she’ll be happy just sitting in silence with you,” Aguri smiles.
“No,” he suddenly protested. “I want her to know I love her so… I trust you, let’s pick some flowers an-and get some tools for drawing and…” the boy goes on and on as he skips toward the Gojo estate. Aguri simply giggles and encourages his excitement. They picked random colorful flowers along the path and placed them in the boy’s satchel. The two took advantage of the freedom and playfulness they had alone before being back home. They were more like siblings than the siblings they had.
The duo glanced at each other as they reached the garden entrance to the estate, they straightened out their appearance, posture stiffening in the name of sophistication. The Gojo clan was big on looks, although they valued power way more.
They walked toward the mansion smoothly, the cool air from the river slipping from their skin and clothes and into the wind. It isn’t long before they meet the entrance to the home.
“Okay, young master Gojo, many of the elders and fighters have a meeting with the Kamo and Zenin clans today, so they are away from the mansion. That means we have until sundown to prepare your gifts,” They both walk to Satoru’s quarters swiftly.
“Will that be enough time?”
“We’ll make it enough,” Aguri winks before returning to her calm demeanor. “You need to worry about washing up, something I am sure you can do yourself, and then meet me in the kitchen. You remember where it is, right?”
“Yup-“ Satoru stutters as he fixes himself when a man walks by. “Yes, Miss Aguri,” he bows before the woman and takes off into his bedroom.
As the woman skids off to prepare the kitchen, Satoru gets ready for a bath. He takes off his satchel and gathers the flowers from their trip to place them on his desk. The sun shined bright through the window and fortunately for the young boy, he had a vase hidden behind a stack of blankets near the wall. He was quick to fill the vase with water from the tub in his en suite bathroom and careful to place it on his desk so he wouldn’t slip later that night for a bathroom break from his sleep, not that that’s happened before.
He placed the flowers in the vase beautifully, Satoru had an eye for decoration, if he wasn’t a Gojo maybe he’d be something creative like a painter. Remembering that he left the faucet running, he quickly prepared himself to jump in and as he thought of what to draw for his mom, he nibbled at his bottom lip, stomach full of nervousness.
In the kitchen, Aguri was fast with her movements and grateful for the absence of staff. She quietly gathered the ingredients for Satoru and his mom’s favorite meal, something she had learned years ago from the previous caretaker.
Working for the Gojo clan wasn’t easy. When she first came to the main house as a teen she was bitter toward the conditions her cousin —six times removed—was living in. She always resented the family, but his wife, her aunt, was a sweet lady from the Kamo clan, a daughter they could do without, and, Satoru was just a child. She couldn’t even force herself to hate him. So, instead, she just did what she was told, with no feelings attached. Until she witnessed the nasty abuse the boy and his mother received, and that’s when the girl decided she’d always be on their side. And she promised Satoru’s mom that she’d always be there for him.
“Aguri? Are you here?” The boy whispers as he enters the kitchen in his usual white attire.
“Yes, Satoru, everyone is gone!” The young woman whispers back and smiles at the way his head pops out from the wall. “I’ve already gathered everything, okay? Just pass me the ingredients as we go, and you’ll learn just how she likes it! This is exciting.”
Satoru nods as he comes closer. The young sorcerer was tall the only thing out of his reach was anything farther than the third shelf, so he watched Aguri carefully and without struggle.
The woman was practiced in her movements, unsurprisingly, and she knew the recipe by heart by now. She instructed Satoru professionally as if she were the head chef of an upscale restaurant, something that would seemingly always stay a dream.
“You’re so cool, Aguri. I wish I could cook,” Satoru hmph’d as he passed her some pre-diced vegetables.
“Thanks ‘Toru,” there was that nickname that made the boy blush. Aguri was important to him, she was more family than his father and siblings and he enjoyed when they could be this comfortable. “Your mama’s going to love this gift, but I think she loves anything you do.”
“I don’t know ‘Guri, she’s usually so picky,” he pouts and backs away from the sizzling pot.
“No, trust me, she’s going to love it,” Aguri smiled at him and quickly moved on to the next big pot. It would take her some time to make three portions of the meal, but it was worth it.
The two Gojo’s fall into a comfortable silence with the occasional childish back and forth. Neither can help themselves in the stillness of the house. There’s no one here, most of the staff are in their quarters by now. It was the best time for this they both concluded. Just being together without the watchful and strict eyes of the elders was freeing. Although it wasn’t unusual for Aguri to be here around this time as a caretaker, she was always on the clock.
Aguri’s living quarters were also relatively close to Satoru’s which is how they got so close. Late-night snacks and a few sneaky card games were enough to get a seven-year-old Satoru to warm up to the girl who was simply six years his senior. Like every child he was impressionable, and Aguri was honored to be the “good influence.”
But Satoru was also a good child, a little bit of a rascal, but he was obedient, not that he had much of a choice. Going against the rules meant punishment for the whole clan. A fact only spoken of in letters between Aguri and one of her siblings, something kept sandwiched between time away from the boy's eyes. Now that Satoru was entering his preteen years, as his thirteenth birthday would be in early December, the topic hadn’t graced the pages of a paper since just as the letters slowly stopped coming.
“That smells so good,” Satoru squeals. “You’re right, mama’s gonna be so happy! Can I tell her I made it?”
“Of course you can,” she gestures for him to come closer. “How about you mix the sauce a little, and we can finish up.”
Satoru smiles and nods eagerly before stepping in front of the stove. Aguri observes him cautiously, not wanting him to hurt himself. She helps him mix it evenly and hums when it's consistent with the meal's expectations.
“Alright, let’s plate the food.”
“Will you eat with us?”
“Do you want me to? I made enough for three,” Aguri smiles.
“Then you’ll eat with us,” Satoru decides.
She instructs him to grab the three plates she had already placed on a counter across the room. She turns everything on the stovetop down and grabs another pair of gloves just in case. Satoru quietly helps her plate the food into three dishes while she turns everything off and cleans up, and when they’re finished, she grabs a tray and a familiar-looking container she had set out earlier to cool.
“Drinks in the fridge ‘Toru!” he nods and runs to retrieve them.
Aguri sets everything on the tray and waits for Satoru to come bobbling back. He tugged his lip frustratedly, the only options always being water or alcohol and he could only have one. It’s unfortunate that Aguri didn’t make tea but Satoru wasn’t bothered and simply grabbed three water bottles. He slowly closes the refrigerator when he hears Aguri call for him and quickens his movements to rush back to her.
They silently walk towards Satoru’s mother’s quarters, the boy bumbling with anxiety and eagerness. He stops just at the large brown doors before looking back at the girl.
“It’s okay, you can do it c’mon, open the door, and I’ll go first,” Aguri speaks softly, her voice full of care and warmth and Satoru nods and follows her directions.
Aguri enters the room first, the change in air chafing her skin as she sets the tray on a table near the wall.
“Come on ‘Toru, don’t leave us waiting,” she calls out as she smiles at his mother. She places the plates around the square table right next to the bed, one chair adjacent to the head and the other adjacent to the foot while a third faces it. Aguri opens the small container quietly, listening for Satoru’s entrance.
His feet were soft and nervous on the ground as he walked in. He gulped as his eyes set on his mother in all her beauty, her face was full of color today, and she looked like she was sleeping more than dying. The beeping machine tracking her heartbeat, among other things, was taunting. Satoru hated the sound, but he loved his mom, so he could bear it. And he would, as long as she was still here, and even though Satoru had lost hope over the last couple of months, she was still here, and he’d be right next to her for as long as she stayed.
To Aguri, Satoru was still a young child, and to his mother, he would always be her baby. Satoru couldn’t disprove either of those things. At this moment, he felt like both. He felt so small.
He walked towards her bed, the vase of flowers he acquired on the way to her room now placed on a table near the door and a quick drawing of a water iris with a short poem etched into the left side of the paper under his arm.
A spoonful of your love is enough for me to live through infinite lifetimes.
A hug,
A kiss,
A laugh,
A tear,
A smile,
A sigh…
As simple as it seems, it’s enough.
“Happy Mother’s Day, mama,” the boy smiles, tears gathering in his eyes as Aguri holds out her arms to embrace him, a gesture he easily recognizes.
And as they all enjoyed this moment together, they never thought of a future where a love like this didn’t exist. But if they had, maybe they would have been better prepared.
If you're reading this, I hope you've enjoyed it, and thank you for reading.
