Your Warmth - The Slug Tale, Prologue Pt II

A light mist was falling in eastern Adratea as Alice McCulloch wandered out of the front door of the open clinic and by extension her home, sipping on a glass of apple juice with a bendy straw in one hand while she held a ham sandwich in the other. The very fine rain felt cool and refreshing after being cooped up in their subterranean accommodations for so long last night and she closed her eyes and breathed in deep the pleasant, earthy smell of the land after a storm.

It fell also on Warren's heated skin and intermingled with the slight sheen of sweat on his well-muscled shoulders and arms, lowering his temperature in the middle of his workout and feeling simply heavenly besides. He paused in the middle of his shadow boxing and sighed, appreciating it alongside his daughter.

Their part of town sat on the edge of the badlands which connected to the entrance of the dungeon and the long mountain pass leading out into the world, so there were few trees and plant life available to blow loose and injure property or people. Warren and his family hadn't needed to wake up to parts of their home missing or anyone hurt, and not even Adratea's Guildhouse right next door had sustained much more damage than a few scattered barrels and a thorough shaking, although the owner hadn't been around to check the whole place out just yet.

He was wearing only a grey tank top and slacks as he practiced sparring with his longtime opponent; a wooden dummy he routinely dragged out for the occasion and was one of Cassie's retired tailoring mannequins reinforced and repurposed for his usual routine. When Alice had been a little girl she'd drawn an ugly face on it for her own amusement and every so often she'd still giggle at it from the sidelines whenever he worked out.

She did that now when Warren reassumed his stance again and let fly with a powerful roundhouse kick, his bare foot connecting so hard against the chin of his wooden friend that its head went flying off its shoulders and down into the road, rolling to a stop beside a rather puzzled sparrow. He completed the motion and then cringed, a hand going to his mouth to hide a wide grin.

"Whoops! That wasn't meant to happen!" He laughed and ran after it, crouching down to pick it up like it was a basketball instead of some poor wooden man's braincase.

"What did he ever do to you?" Alice chided as she came up to meet him in their front yard. It wasn't really a ‘yard' exactly, but they didn't really have a backyard for her dad to do his exercise in so they had to make do.

"Let's not let anyone know that happened." Warren said, stuffing the dummy's head back down on the pole that was meant to be its spine. It stuck for now, but he'd have to tape it up properly later. He was more used to working on flesh and bone instead of stuffing anyway.

"Dad, you're over forty now. You don't fight monsters anymore and you don't go into the dungeon unless it's a big emergency, so why do you need all the hours of practice every day?" Alice asked of him, becoming a little more serious now. It took up a lot of his day along with his full-time career working as a doctor in the clinic, not to mention travelling abroad for all the research and awards he had received over the years, and as he got older she and her mother worried that he would start to run down one day; burn out.

But it had its perks, too. His martial arts training that he'd studied as a young teen had kept him alive in those old days when the Adventurer Guild had explored the newly discovered dungeon and now that he had entered his forth decade of life just as Alice had said he still frequently was mistaken for a thirty-five year old, or even younger. Warren picked the dummy up and held it under one arm as he responded, ready to pack up for the morning now that it had started to rain. "Well, because I enjoy it and it helps to keep you healthy." He told her, looking thoughtful as if he were pondering it himself. "I'd teach you too if you ever got interested in it, Ally girl."

She scrunched her nose up at him because of the offer and the silly name. Her father had kept that offer open to her pretty much as soon as she had started walking and talking, but she didn't like the idea of punching people, even for play. It also seemed like way too much effort on her own part and she tired too easily. She took a bite out of her ham sandwich thoughtfully. "No thanks. I'd prefer it if you taught me how to be a doctor instead." Alice replied as soon as she had swallowed.

That was too bad, but Warren guessed he was lucky enough to have a child who wanted to follow in his footsteps in at least one manner and that was more than what most people could hope for. He nodded, smiling proudly. "I will." He promised. "Soon enough."

Just as they were about to head indoors for lunch (or in Alice's case to continue her lunch) they heard as if from a distance a; "wait! Wait! Hold on!" and looked down the road to see Samantha jogging up to them, red-faced and puffing from the nonstop sprint across town. She caught up to them and came to a halt at last, leaning over a bit to rest her hands on her knees as she gathered her wind back. "Uhn… hi… doctor… Hi Alice… is the clinic busy… right now?" She inquired between breaths.

It was an odd question to ask after such an entrance and Warren seemed somewhat perplexed, but he ignored it and answered the question anyway. "Not really. I thought we'd be busy after the weather we had last night but just about nobody had come in with injuries after the storm. There's even less injured coming out of the dungeon, too. It's a relief that no one was hurt but it does make it pretty boring around here today." He told her, shrugging.

"Why? What's wrong, Sam?" Alice asked her from her father's side. They knew each other from school and were friends, although not especially close friends, but there wasn't any dark animosity there unlike some other girls from around town that she knew.

Samantha straightened up after a while to look at them both properly but then she abruptly blushed when she laid eyes on Warren. She had expected to find him in his doctor's coat and glasses, maybe working behind the desk in his office, but not standing around barefoot and glistening from exertion in the misty rain, his taut, well-cultivated muscles visible for all to see. She felt her heart rate quicken in her chest for completely embarrassing reasons also. "There… there's been a bad accident in west Adratea." She mumbled, forcing herself to look at Alice instead. "Over at the inn."

"The inn? Is Mieus okay?" Warren asked. If something had happened to her then that would explain why nobody had come around to check on the Guildhouse just yet, although he sincerely hoped she was alright. They had history together, even if it was from many years ago.

The young girl shook her head. "No, she's fine. It's my uncle. He's had a nasty fall and my mom thinks his leg might be broken." She said.

"The creepy innkeeper?" Alice butted in, sticking out her tongue a little.

"He's not creepy, he's just-" Sam started to say, perhaps in defense of one of the few people willing to trust her with proper adult tasks, but then looked back at Warren who had put the dummy down again to fold his arms and she realized now probably wasn't the best time. "Well, anyway. Mom sent me over here to let you know they'll be bringing him over in a stretcher soon, so you'll need to be ready."

Warren seemed to mull this information over in his head and then he nodded, switching his good cheer out for the moment. "Alright, thanks for the heads-up, Samantha. How was he like after the fall? Did he seem lucid?" He asked.

"Lucid?" Samantha echoed. She had never really heard that word before.

"Like, was he awake and able to communicate properly?" He clarified further. He wasn't aware of the circumstances of the accident just yet, but he needed to know if he was going to be dealing with head trauma or not.

Sam looked back and forth between the two of them, fidgeting. "I don't know. He said some things to us but I'm not sure if they made any sense or not. He did have blood on his face and clothes, though." She explained to him, almost certain that it wasn't going to be enough.

But Warren was satisfied with that kind of answer and passed his training buddy to Alice to hold. It wasn't very heavy, so she managed it fine. "I'll try to do what I can for him, then. Let me just go upstairs to shower real quick and put on something a little more professional." He joked, hoping it would calm her down somewhat. He dealt with broken bones all the time and there was no need to sweat anything extra until he met it, face to face.

Alice took Samantha by the arm with all the delicacy of a young lady that was significantly bigger and stronger than she was, but was attempting to be soothing and gentle. "Come inside with us and have some water. Or juice. You can wait for everyone else to show up in there." She offered kindly. After all that running around at such short notice her friend was bound to be parched and a glass of water cooled by the cavernous clinic's lower temperatures would be wonderful on her dry throat.

"That'd be great. Thank you, it shouldn't be long." Samantha agreed in relief.

Warren didn't even wait to get indoors before he was pulling off his sweaty tank top and wiping his brow with the back of his forearm. His daughter didn't even bat an eyelid at him, but Samantha was painfully torn between staring straight at him and tearing herself away. She already knew it was incredibly childish and weird to have a crush on someone old enough to be her dad, and indeed he was the parent of someone she already knew, but she couldn't help it. He was too handsome and good-looking to help and she could only hope that no one would find out about it, ever.

"Ally, go shake Cassie out of whatever she's doing and ask her to come meet me in the ward. The operating room's going to need to be prepped with everything I'll need to set a bone; maybe more. Not sure yet." Warren directed as the two girls followed him inside.

"Ugh, she's out. She's gone to the forge to help Trina with the flooding problem." She responded with a touch of frustration, hoping that she wouldn't have to go all the way out into the middle of town to bring her mother back again. As for her aunt Trina, well, she'd always hated that ‘aunt' moniker and had drilled it out of her niece whenever possible.

Warren said something only very mildly profane under his breath, mindful of the presence of the children even though they would have argued they were young teens now, but then he felt a rather brilliant idea take hold. He stopped and turned back to Alice and Samantha, one foot on the stone stairs leading up and deeper into the cave they called their home. "Don't worry, that's not a setback. Alice?"

"Yeah?" Alice asked, setting her empty glass of juice on the table nearby and arranging the roughly handled punching bag she'd carried with her just right to make it seem like he was in the middle of a juice break.

He smiled once more. "I said I'd teach you how to be a good doctor a few minutes ago, didn't I? Ready to start those lessons today?" Warren asked. "I'm going to need an assistant. Do you want to give it a shot?"

His daughter stood there dumbfounded for a moment or two. A nurse and an orderly was all she had ever been in the clinic, along with using her remarkably powerful white magic to heal the sick whenever Warren was too tired or run down to rely on his own powers. That seemed to be happening more frequently in the last few years, although she and Cassie hadn't been able to tell if it was because his magic was weakening or if he was just content to rely on Alice's younger, brighter, stronger spark instead.

But of course she'd take it. Of course. It had always been her dream to care for the frail and less fortunate, just like she had once been, and to help people like the doctors and white mages of Adratea had helped her to live this far. Just like her dad did.

So… prep work in the operating room… although it would be the examination room instead. She already knew where everything was; it was merely a matter of getting everything present, accounted for, and sterile.

Samantha patted Alice on the back. She had no idea what was going on but she figured it might help, and likewise Alice beamed widely and nodded, her green eyes sparkling.

"Sure. I'll try my best."

†††

The rest of the day felt disjointed and a little surreal. Mieus and Mara managed to get Ravendor to the clinic easily enough where Warren was already waiting for them, and not long afterwards Hyacinth showed up as furious as a banshee, dragging a limping, frankly bewildered Magi along behind her.

A fight eventually broke out between Hyacinth and Mieus, but when she realized she was getting nowhere with her wild accusations that she'd let Ravendor hurt himself Hyacinth turned the brunt of her anger towards Samantha until the other girl cried. Mieus, upon realizing that she had to put a stop to this tirade slapped Hyacinth across the back of the head, making her cry too.

Warren and Alice were away from all this and busy with their patient in the examination room, but not even the thick stone walls could completely muffle out the shouting and the crying. Alice rolled her eyes as she leaned forward to set the splint, unsurprised. Hyacinth was like that all the time when she wasn't trying to be the perfectly lovely, spoiled princess that she thought she was. She was also a callous bully and Alice didn't like her much, but she wasn't about to say that out loud while the rest of her family was nearby.

But when it came to Hyacinth's father his injuries weren't so bad. He had a multitude of bruises and scrapes and a slight concussion, followed by an oblique tibia fracture that was going to require a lot of bed rest and a cast. She was working on that part right now, doing the whole thing by herself for the first time while Warren stood by to assist her carefully and interject if she made a mistake. He knew that she was still way too young for college or med school but she was already pretty damn competent even without the credentials or formal training. Honestly, he couldn't be more proud.

Once Ravendor was patched up and attended to he was moved out to the ward to rest, about as far away from the waiting room as Warren could push it considering the level of noise the other five people in the clinic were making. The physician was just grateful there were no other inpatients recovering from injuries or surgery to be bothered by his guests.

But one thing that concerned Warren as everyone came into the ward to check on the innkeeper again. Ravendor hadn't seemed to have awoken yet from his fall, even though a good amount of time had passed since the injury. He wasn't quite sure why. They hadn't needed to sedate him to realign his broken leg and for all intents and purposes he should have come to and started complaining about all the pain he would experience a while ago. He hadn't hit his head that hard.

However, at some point in the middle of Magi and Mara talking to each other over his bedside and Mieus sitting beside him holding his hand Warren noticed the older man furrow his brow, slightly turn his head away from them and begin to snore very softly. Warren smiled. Hah, he wasn't unconscious at all; he was just asleep. That was a relief.

In truth Ravendor hadn't been sleeping very well for a long time now. It felt like it had been a few weeks to a month at least, so while he probably would have found it embarrassing to lapse into a long daytime nap right after injuring himself in a fall it probably just felt good to be able to sleep fitfully again, with no interruptions.

A short while later, when his friends and family had become tired of hanging out in the ward and had moved back into the waiting room again he stirred awake just long enough to notice Warren standing beside his bed. He was dressed smartly now in his doctor's coat, vest and glasses while holding a clipboard and pen in his hands – a far cry from the sweaty shirt and slacks Sam had seen him in earlier. He could have been writing something down, but Ravendor was still too firmly in the clutches of disoriented grogginess to process much more than the notion that he was aching so very badly all over his body and that Warren hummed annoyingly to himself while he jotted down notes.

That humming stopped abruptly when someone else pulled back the dividing curtain in that part of the ward and let themselves in, causing Warren to turn away from his bedside and address the new visitor. They spoke briefly. The new voice was female, but it didn't sound at all like his wife or his child and Ravendor wasn't quite there enough to make out any words except for the occasional distant, dreamlike snippets of conversation. It went something like; "Mieus said," "I'm really sure," "very sick" and "arrangements. Just in case."

All of it might have worried him normally but he was far too tired to care. He was also kind of vaguely curious about the big white thing resting on top of the grey covers at the foot of his bed, but he was already asleep again by the time Warren turned back to him to continue checking his progress, saw that there was no change, and then left to find himself both a clean syringe and a fresh cup of coffee.

†††

Ravendor slept uninterrupted for another hour or two until he finally woke in the mid-afternoon of his own volition, rising as though from an unexpected yet satisfying nap and groaning quietly over how even simple movements were happy to cause him pain. He couldn't quite remember what had forced him into unconsciousness, or really anything that had come after asking Mieus to hold the ladder for him when he'd climbed up to the roof to check the damages of the inn. He certainly had no idea why he was now on the other side of town and aching in a clinic bed, but he could hazard an educated guess.

His clothes were folded up neatly on a chair beside him, leaving him in only the white pajama-like dressings of an inpatient of the clinic, and he was hooked up by the left arm to an IV stand nearby. As for one of his legs it was encased from the knee downwards in a fresh, sturdy cast. Wonderful.

"Ungh…" He said out loud, holding his head in one of his hands. He thought he might have dreamed something about that cast but it was too foggy to be sure, and in any case he couldn't remember.

Cassie McCulloch looked up from the bit of sewing she had been doing on a pair of Alice's pants to kill time, sitting on the edge of an empty ward bed across from Ravendor, one leg folded underneath her and the other on the ground as she worked. She seemed a little surprised but not by much; her husband had asked her if she would be okay with hanging around the ward until his patient woke up on his own. "Oh, hello." She said, setting her sewing down on the blankets beside her.

Ravendor glanced at her briefly before resuming nursing the vengeful pain in his skull. "Uh… Cassie, wasn't it?" He asked, trying to remember. It felt like a good long time since he had spoken with her last since he hardly ever visited the shooting range out the back of the forge anymore – a fact that he regretted in earnest from time to time. He didn't even want to think about how rusty his aim must have become by now.

Cassie hopped off her spot on the bed and stood, straightening her skirts. "That's right. Good to see there's nothing wrong with your memory at least. Stay right there, I'll go dig Warren up for you." She told him, smiling at his expected expression at being told to ‘stay' anywhere at this point. She headed for the doctor's office, figuring that if Warren was anywhere at this time of day he would be trying to catch up on his paperwork, or working on something or other in the pathology lab nearby.

Before she could zip off however Ravendor called out to her in time. "Please, wait a moment." He said.

Obediently she stopped, looking back at him, her long wavy blonde hair falling across her shoulders. "What's the matter?" She replied.

"I merely wish to ask the standard fare." He answered, coming to his senses as the last few dregs of sleepy numbness peeled away, leaving him almost defenseless against the pains in his leg and head and all over his body. "I am aware of where I am, so you needn't answer me that, but what happened to me? Where is my wife, and lastly, if you will permit me to be a bother…"

Cassie smiled sweetly, though a little knowingly. "Do you need something to put your leg back under?"

"Amongst other things, if you would be so kind." He winced. The painkillers he had been taking privately would have worn off long ago and he could certainly feel it now. He had more at home but that wasn't going to help him very much if that cast meant what he thought it did.

Warren's wife just nodded as though she were humoring him. "I'll see what I can do. You just sit there and relax for a while. Don't try to run off." She chuckled. "You wouldn't get very far."

She was gone for only a short period of time in which he laid back against his pillows again and waited, wondering over what the hell had gone wrong and how much Mieus was going to screech at him the next time he saw her again. When Cassie returned she had brought Warren by her side and was carrying some blessed relief in the form of water and some tablets for his pain. They likely were not going to be as strong as the stuff he was used to by now, but it would certainly be better than nothing at all.

After he had quietly thanked her for the medicine and swallowed them without complaint Warren spoke up at last, smiling in a friendly, if professional way and adjusting his glasses as he looked down at the innkeeper from across town. "Hey there. Cassie here says you're a little rattled but more or less holding together, at least in the upstairs department. Is there any chance you remember what happened earlier?" He asked, trying to keep the conversation lighthearted if he could.

Ravendor looked back at him from the hospital bed, his tone of voice utterly neutral. "No." He said simply and then asked again; "Where is Mieus?"

"She and Hyacinth are next door checking out the Guildhouse for damages after that storm. They'll be back soon. They just got sick of sitting around in here for ages listening to you snore." Warren explained.

The older man seemed indignant, especially with Cassie holding a hand over her mouth to hide a giggle. "What? I don't sn-" He began.

"The Magemeres were here earlier as well, but they went home a few hours ago. They said they would be back later tonight when the blood test results are finalized." Warren interrupted before they could go off tangent, pausing for a moment to check the saline bag on the IV stand before he continued, turning back to his patient again. "They're very grateful, Ravendor. Samantha says that if you hadn't shoved her away in time she might have ended up in that bed across from yours with a broken leg too, or worse."

He had no reason to accept or decline that praise because he honestly could not remember a thing about the accident, but something the doctor had said sent a decidedly cold feeling down his spine. "B-Blood test?" He echoed. He was usually quite skilled at masking his various emotions behind his words, but not this time. There was kind of a dull terror to the way he said that, not a fresh fear as though it were a sudden danger he suddenly had to cope with, but something familiar.

Warren looked like he was about to say something but he took his own wife by the hand instead, getting her attention. "Sorry Cass, but this visit is probably gonna turn doctor/patient confidential soon. Do you think you could give us some time to chat alone?" He informed her, asking her permission first. She was an amazing woman, a fine partner and kind enough to help out as a nurse whenever she had spare time, but Warren had known his patient for many years and knew that Ravendor wasn't going to talk to him with other people around.

Cassie didn't really need to be nudged anyway. She strode over to the bed she'd been sitting on and smoothed out all the wrinkles her derriere had made earlier, gathering her sewing up into her arms. "Not a problem. I'll be upstairs with Alice if you need us, Warren. I'm guessing Ravendor's going to be staying with us so I'll try to make enough dinner for everyone. We're having bouillabaisse tonight. You can eat that, right?" She asked of their patient.

"It sounds delightful." The ex-gunman said miserably, not out of distaste but more of the notion he obviously wasn't going home tonight. He also never felt less hungry in his life and worried over the odds of his ability to keep everything down so as not to insult his host.

Satisfied with that Cassie pecked Warren on the cheek as she left, the footfalls of her shoes echoing in the empty clinic until eventually she was gone. Just the two of them now, Warren sighed and pulled out an empty chair beside the bed and turned it around, sitting down and leaning against it in such a way that he had the back of the seat to rest his arms on. "Look," he said in a much less cheerful tone, closing his eyes, "I'm going to level with you now and cut out all the extraneous stuff, so do me a favor and be utterly forthright with me from now on. We're friends and you trust me, don't you?

"Well…" The dark-haired man started to say, intending some evasive remark, but then he felt a gentle, perennial ache that he was all too used to in his left shoulder. When he was a lot younger it had only bothered him in the cold winter months, but it was spring now and in his old age it preferred to linger far longer than it used to. He reached over and massaged that spot close to his collarbone almost unconsciously, grimacing. Another ache to go with all the rest, he guessed, but the motion didn't go unseen by his friend whose dark grey eyes had been trained to notice and analyze every little thing wrong.

Ravendor stopped what he was doing when he realized Warren was staring at him and dropped his hands back into his lap. "Yes, Warren. I do indeed, and few else." He admitted, defeated.

"Here's what I know so far." The physician began, procuring the wooden clipboard that Ravendor very, very faintly recalled him scribbling on earlier, though he could not remember exactly when. "Samantha maintains that both you and she were working on the roof of the inn for some reason when she noticed you were beginning to experience a blackout and you stumbled off the edge of the building. You hit your head and smashed the main bone in your lower leg on impact, but it rained a lot the night before and the ground was soft and pliant, so you didn't snap your neck. Lucky, huh?"

"Do not talk to me about luck." Ravendor responded haggardly, waving a hand impatiently at him. "Please continue."

"The prognosis looks good. You'll be in that cast for a few months and if you treat it well and take it easy you'll be walking again in no time." Warren laughed sheepishly at the expression his friend gave him upon those words. "Yeah I know, I said ‘months', but you won't be trapped in bed forever. You could get a wheelchair or crutches and eventually hobble around like Magi until the bone mends. There's a chance you might need a cane afterwards, but we won't know until the cast comes off."

"I am not an invalid." Ravendor stated rather obstinately, frowning. "I may have seen half a century in my time but I am not an invalid, damn it."

Warren patted him reassuringly on the back. "I know. That's not what I'm implying." He responded.

"There are still so many things left for me to do." The older man continued in a rough voice. "I swore I would return home someday and see my father buried."

"You can still do that." Warren chimed in, not trying to reason with him but just attempting to stay in the conversation and let him know he was listening. "I guess. Kind of morbid though…"

"I want to be there when my daughter is finally wed. I wanted to be the one to give her away."

"Well, you will be unless she elopes." The doctor added, attempting some kind of tasteless humor to snap Ravendor out of his funk, or at least distract him, but he was ignored.

Ravendor crossed his arms but instead of the usual stoic way it looked it seemed more like he was holding himself instead, and it was all too starkly apparent just how thin his arms had become. Warren had noticed it when he'd drawn blood from him earlier but this – this was worse somehow. "I wanted to be around to hold my grandchildren when they arrived. I know I would be a poor excuse for a grandfather, yet I still had hope."

This time Warren didn't say anything. He didn't really know what to say, all he had was this slowly sinking feeling inside as the innkeeper turned and looked at his physician friend for the first time since he had admitted his trust in him earlier. It was an intense, meaningful stare; he almost looked angry but at the same time very close to falling apart. "So, tell me, Warren. Without the extraneous bullshite… this blood test. Am I dying?"

Warren turned the answer over in his mind for a few moments, and then said it anyway. "I don't know. I'm not sure yet." He confessed.

Ravendor nodded slowly at his reply, but it was a muted action. It might not have been the answer he wanted to hear and he decided to inspect the far wall of the clinic rather than experience the open, raw honesty of Warren's face again. "Ah. I see. Who told you? How did you find out about any of this?"

"Mara did, but she only knew because Mieus felt lost and helpless about the whole situation and confided in her. I received the go-ahead from her to perform a complete blood culture and toxicology report on you while you were unconscious. Don't blame her or resent her for it, Ravendor. She loves you and is worried about you. Everyone is. Uh, worried about you, that is."

"Its lung cancer, isn't it?" Ravendor continued fretfully, hearing Warren and his words but he was too wrapped up in his own fears and anxieties to respond in kind. He spread his hands out in front of himself, incredulous. "I knew it. I have not touched a cigarette in fourteen years and three months and yet I knew someday it would return to bite me in the arse! This cannot happen now… I… I… we have only just managed to put our family back together, Warren. I cannot bear the thought of losing Mieus again and Hyacinth has suffered enough over the loss of a parent. I just… can't…"

"Shit." He said at last, sitting in his clinic bed with his broken leg that felt like the least of his worries now as he brought both his hands up to cover his face. "Shitshitshitfuckingbuggeringshite…" He moaned.

When he started to cry quietly, more like weeping if anything except for the telltale hitching breaths and the trembling of shoulders Warren didn't make a big deal out of it. He sat through it instead, offering no condolences nor any more advice or words of encouragement. It was awkward, but his friend didn't need any of that and almost certainly would have lashed out at him if he tried. Knowing the older man like he did, silently refusing to acknowledge this abrupt breakdown was probably the kindest thing he could do, so Warren let him cry.

Warren sat in silence for a minute or two but looked up and glanced over at the entrance to the ward when he heard the echo of someone approach with hesitant, dainty footsteps. Ravendor heard it too; reaching for the pocket he usually kept a clean handkerchief in before remembering his change of clothes once more and stopped, resorting to wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve instead. He coughed lightly to clear his throat, following Warren's gaze also.

Mieus Belmont stopped in her tracks when she saw that both Warren and his patient were present and had noticed her. She nearly seemed uncertain, she certainly wasn't smiling, and her hand came up to gently touch her breast as she stood there. "Thank gods." She whispered to herself under her breath and then raised her voice. "Darling?"

"Darling." He said back in affirmation, smiling despite the guilt and hoping fervently that she hadn't seen him cry. There was a good chance she'd tease him forever about it if she found out, and even though he'd lost his mobility and possibly his health he bloody-mindedly was sure he was going to hold onto his dignity until the very end.

But she didn't care about that right now. She rushed over to her husband's bedside and pulled him into the tightest hug she could muster without it looking like an outward attack, wrapping her arms about his bruised midsection and squeezing until it must have hurt at least a little, but he did not complain and hugged her back just as tightly. "You stubborn old fool, you never listen to a word I say! You're not young anymore and you're definitely not invincible, so don't you ever try to scare me like that again!" She threatened, trying her hardest not to cry either.

"Oh kitten, I am so sorry for how I have treated you. I don't understand what is wrong with me." He half-murmured into the still very plush and ample bosom that she'd pressed his head against. Warren nearly had to mask a small chuckle at the saccharine nickname, but he was ignored. Still, it was seemingly the first time he was willing to bring voice to the maladies he'd been keeping secret from his family up until now so that was a good first step for anybody, really.

They were both caught off guard when Hyacinth caught up with her mother and pulled the curtain aside even further, shouting "Daddy!" in a panicked tone and forced herself between them, grabbing her father without much thought for grace and half-climbing onto the bed to reach him, bumping his cast in the process.

Then she punched him in the gut. Not too hard to hurt very much, but enough to take the wind out of his sails for a moment. "You're so cruel, Dad!" She wailed. "You're not supposed to die until you're ancient and raving and we can put you down like a normal person! I mean sure I want your inheritance someday, but not yet! Not yet…"

He managed to slip a cannulated arm around her back. "Princess…" He said with a smile, and no small measure of guilt.

Hyacinth looked up at him with watery eyes. "I'm serious. You're the only one who can do my nails perfectly. Mum can't get it right." She told him.

Mieus looked like she was about to roll her eyes and pout at that comment but instead they hugged again, this time all three of them.

"So here's what I want you to do." Warren spoke up, sitting up straight in his chair and taking his best pen out of his pocket again, setting ink to paper. It wasn't friendly suggestions or advice like their discussion before; this time it was strictly a doctor's orders. "I'm still missing a lot of information concerning Ravendor's recent physical state. You haven't visited the clinic as a patient for a few years, actually. Have you been seeing someone else?"

Ravendor thought about the medicine he had obtained a short while ago when he'd returned to St. Germain to meet up with a few old friends and business associates. They hadn't really been ‘prescribed' as much as ‘acquired via alternate channels' but he wasn't about to start telling his physician that. "I may have." He chose to say instead.

"I'm devastated and I think we need counseling." Warren replied casually, not even looking up from what he was writing and earning himself a quick snigger from Mieus which made the corner of his mouth quirk up a bit, but then he remembered his seriousness and cleared his throat again. "Well then. It's good to see you're awake and everything is mentally accounted for except maybe an hour of missing time. That's okay, it can happen with accidents like those and you'll likely remember it anyway at your own pace."

"But what we're going to do right here and now, Ravendor, is that I'm going to sit here patiently and you're going to tell me every last little detail about what has been bothering you these last few months." Warren said. "I don't care how inconsequential or unrelated or embarrassing they are. If it's something you don't want your family to hear they can move back to the waiting room until we're done, but you're going to tell me everything. If you want me to analyze your test results with one hundred percent accuracy and give you the right diagnosis you'll need to tell me every little thing you can."

The innkeeper absently rubbed at his left shoulder again as he thought about it, but he didn't have to dwell on the decision for very long. He nodded his consent. "I have already put those dearest to me through enough suffering. I can only hope they will forgive me in time for such cowardice." He replied, taking his wife gently by the hand. That alone seemed to give him enough resolve.

"I will tell you everything I know." Ravendor said.