by Nicole Field
"I'll do it," Bruce said, looking at Leo. If they figured out a cure in him, it could save Leo as well.
*~*~*
"We'll be monitoring your vitals closely," the doctor assured him. "And we'll be keeping an eye on your liver and kidneys. We honestly have no idea of the long term effects of this drug."
"I understand," Bruce said, hoping he sounded as calm and sure as he'd admired Leo for sounding.
Leo stood at his bedside, holding his hand. When Bruce looked up to him, Leo gave a small inclination of his head. Bruce's cheeks warmed. He let go of Leo's hand, and reached out for the medication.
"How long until we'll know if it worked?" Bruce asked after he'd swallowed the water with it.
The doctor clearly reached for an answer more informative and reassuring than not being sure. "As I said, we'll be keeping an eye on your vitals overnight. Hopefully, within 24 hours we'll have seen changes in your blood work."
Bruce turned to Leo as the doctor excused himself from the room. "You should go home. How many days have you been here now?"
Instead of answering directly, Leo said stubbornly, "I want to be here."
"I don't," Bruce retorted. "I want to be in our shower at home, and a new set of clothes." He glanced towards the chair in the corner of the room. "And it can't be comfortable sleeping in that."
Leo gave a crooked smile. "I'm a superhero, remember?" he said, too flippantly. "I can sleep anywhere."
"Really? Is that why you punched a hole in the wall? Because you were well rested and thinking clearly?" Bruce hadn't known for certain until Leo's reaction confirmed it for him. He refused to look anywhere near the hole, or at Bruce.
"Go home. Get me fresh clothes and sleep." They could talk about the rest of things later. Like what he had overheard.
"But I'll be back first thing in the morning," Leo promised.
"Agreed," Bruce said.
*~*~*
Just shy of midnight, a doctor walked into his room for another of his hourly checks.
"How am I looking?" Bruce asked her.
Unlike the doctors who had come in before her, and especially around the shift change, the doctor didn't look at his chart.
Bruce looked at her curiously as she drew level with his pillows.
"Please." The word was spoken under her breath, just loud enough for Bruce to hear over the ambient sounds of the hospital, even at night. "I have a cure. One that will work against what's been done to you."
Bruce's eyes became bigger as he once again found himself trapped in a hospital bed. His hand shook as reached to press the nurse call button. He fumbled and it fell off the bed, hanging against the side of it and well out of his reach. He cursed.
And yet, the doctor's expression was open, if afraid, and she didn't crowd into him. If anything, she seemed set to fly from the room in case he would scream.
Bruce's fingers grappled again for the call bell, and actually grabbed hold of it this time. He immediately felt safer with the weight of it in his hand.
"Why should I believe you?" He could hear the belligerent tone in his own voice, but couldn't judge himself too harshly for it. This was a hospital, a place of rest, and on top of that it was late enough at night that strange aliens—Kath'lar—should not be randomly walking in. He'd had more than his share of that.
She didn't look towards his hands. Her gaze stayed focused on his and she spoke in even, modulated tones. "Because not all Kath'lar are like those you have met. Some of us had no part in the plans your friend unfolded. We know there is no way home again. We just want… to live."
Her last words were breathy, as though she was almost as scared as him; as though he had the final say as to whether she would live or die. His fingers relaxed around the call bell until he reminded himself that this could be yet another one of the Kath'lar's tricks.
Bruce tried not to hear Leo's devastation at the thought that he'd killed an entire species for the good of humankind, but he simply was not that hard hearted.
"And yet you stood by and did nothing," he censured.
At that, the doctor bowed her head in shame for a moment, but then she met his eyes once more and said, "They were so very sure that they were acting in the best interest of all of us. Have you ever stood back and watched while the few of your kind spoke or acted for the many?"
"It's not the same," Bruce argued weakly.
"Isn't it?" the Kath'lar doctor challenged.
"It doesn't prove you'll be true to your word." He couldn't believe, because if he believed too easily, she could kill him now, while Leo was at their home, and he would have deprived Leo the chance to say goodbye.
"If you die tonight, your lover will tear this ward apart looking for the reason. He has ties to the U.S. military, to the government. If you don't believe I want to save you, believe none of us want to earn his wrath."
Bruce winced at the word 'lover', because that wasn't what Leo was. And yet everything else she had said was right. His fingers finally relaxed from the call bell, letting it fall back against the wall.
"This… cure… How did you get it?"
The doctor hesitated. Bruce could see a battle in her gaze as to how much truth she would tell. Then, as though she felt the weight of his eyes upon her, she sighed, then said, "I was one of the scientists who helped design the strain passed from the genetically altered dog, to you. I understand the poison, and so I understand how to counteract it. I was wrong. Your kind have fair claim to your world. It is not your fault that we could not keep our own."
"And you are sure?" Fear entered Bruce's gaze again, although he tried to stifle it. "You are sure it will work, even with the medication I am currently on?" He had consented to being a guinea pig enough already. He didn't know he could trust to anything less than certainty again.
"Your human medication will not interfere with this. Within twelve hours, you will be on your feet again. After one last overnight observation, they should permit you to go home. I have access to the labs in this building and have already replaced their medication with this. When they believe that their medication is what saved you, they'll send the right thing out to other hospitals to be able to heal everyone else who's been afflicted."
Her answers tied everything off so neatly. Too neatly. It might have been the chemical receptors that were trying so hard to break him down, but he couldn't see a flaw in any of what she had presented him.
"And if I die," he said, holding her eyes. "I will have time to let Leo know what happened before I'm gone."
"You will not die." There was no fear in the doctor's eyes, nothing other than certainty behind her words.
It was that which decided Bruce. "I'll take it," he said, closing his eyes in a sort of fatalism as he accepted her cure.
Chapter Sixteen
At some point after the Kath'lar doctor left, Bruce fell asleep. He had no idea how much time had passed, only that the light coming in through the single window in the hospital room had shifted.
He rolled over and saw once again the hole in the wall that hadn't been fixed. And then he realized: it didn't hurt to roll over. His body didn't feel like it had been drained of all energy. The idea of sitting up and pushing the bed covers off him wasn't too much for him. The thought of actually eating the hospital lunch they'd brought into him even sounded appealing.
He was testing the theory when Leo walked into the room. On his shoulder was a backpack presumably filled with the clothes.
Seeing Bruce sitting upright, his bare feet almost touching the hospital floor, Leo dropped the backpack and strode to his side.
"This isn't a miracle," Bruce said quickly, holding the hand without a sandwich up. He wasn't sure if the motion was aimed to ward Leo off or to stop him from getting his hopes up too quickly.
"What do you mean this isn't a miracle?" Leo demanded. "You're sitting up. The medication worked!"
"It's not the medication," Bruce said. Then he amended, "It's not the medication you think it is."
&n
bsp; Leo looked at Bruce strangely. "I think you'd better explain what you mean," he said.
"First, there's something else we need to talk about." Bruce's jaw jutted out. He wasn't going to be cowed in this conversation because he was the one in the hospital bed and gown. He put the sandwich down and faced his best friend squarely. He'd stood up to Leo before, lots of times, and would do so again. He just hoped that Leo was still willing to listen to him.
Leo lowered his eyebrows doubtfully. "Something more important than how you're sitting up and eating right now?" he asked.
"Much," Bruce agreed quietly. "Leo, I heard the conversation between you and the doctor outside my room yesterday."
For a moment, Leo's expression slackened. Then it went flat, and Bruce knew that Leo was already assembling his counter arguments.
"I'm worried about you," he started. "First you punch a hole in a hospital wall then the doctor tells you that. Leo, I really want you to seriously consider how this Kath'lar virus might be effecting you."
"It's made me stronger," Leo said, lowering his chin and looking down his nose at Bruce. "That's not a bad thing."
"Not on its own," Bruce agreed. "But what about the rage that's coming with it. The uncontrollable violence? We've had more arguments over the last two weeks than we've had in the last ten years."
Leo shrugged. His jaw was set mulishly. "I know you're worried—" he said, but Bruce cut him off.
"I'm more than worried. I really care about you." Bruce made himself maintain eye contact with Leo as he said that. He'd never cared about another person not genetically related to himself like he cared about Leo. And he wasn't sure how he felt about that yet, but that was another matter. "I don't like what this is doing to you. We can't get through two conversations without having a fight!" he said, hardly able to put it more succinctly than that. Was it his fault they were fighting? Leo's? The Kath'lar virus? "That's not like us!"
"You don't like that I'm really a guy now, is that it?" Leo crossed his arms across his chest and took a step back from Bruce.
"I don't like the guy you're becoming." Bruce shook his head and waved a hand in front of him. "Sometimes you're fine, but this outward aggression? Is it all because of what you'd been through?"
Bruce didn't know what he'd do if Leo maintained that all of his changes were due to his lived experiences. He didn't, though. Bruce let out a quiet sigh of relief.
"People who go on testosterone change as well," Leo said. "It's different hormones. That's what's meant to happen."
"But you're not on testosterone." Bruce tried to give the reminder gently. "Testosterone is a known hormone replacement therapy. A known quantity. It's side effects are documented and people on it keep an eye on their liver and kidney functions accordingly. We know almost nothing about what the Kath'lar have pumped into you. Into us," Bruce stressed.
"You're a bigot. I can't believe this. After all these years."
"Leo…" Bruce started.
Leo's gaze slashed across to him. "I thought you were happy for me. I thought you were happy that I finally had a body that expressed how I felt on the inside."
"I do. I just… I'm not 100% comfortable with how you came across it. If you were to go on testosterone injections…"
"I'm unemployed," reminded Leo, as if Bruce didn't remember that. "I have no health cover. Do you have any idea how expensive trans medication is in this country? And that's not even considering the waiting periods!" Leo uncrossed his arms, throwing his hands in the air and turning away from Bruce. "I can't believe this!"
Experimentally, Bruce stood up from the bed. The linoleum of the floor was cold, but not so much that it dissuaded him from following Leo across the room. "I know how much looking like this means to you," Bruce said, not breaching the space between them with physical contact, but Leo half turned to look at him when he heard Bruce's voice coming from right behind him. Bruce held that eye contact a moment, before continuing with, "I just don't want to see you in a hospital bed just like this one."
Bruce was pretty sure that knocked a lot of the wind out of Leo's sails. His gaze darted away from Bruce.
"I've gotta go for a walk," he said. "Your clothes are in there," he added, shortly.
"Thank you," Bruce said.
Leo nodded once then turned away. He didn't look back at Bruce before he stepped out of the room and out of sight.
*~*~*
Bruce was in the bathroom, changing into some of the clothes Leo had brought him after having had a shower when a nurse rapped on the other side of the locked door.
After making sure he was decent, Bruce unlocked and opened the door to a nurse's disapproving look.
"I don't think I need to remind you, Mr. Paulson, that until yesterday you had been bedridden for the better part of three days." Her lips pressed together before she bundled him back into his bed. She checked over his charts, his vitals, and seemed almost disappointed that there wasn't a way she could further rebuke him. "I'll be sending a doctor in," she said instead, and left with the severe warning, "Don't get out of bed again."
Bruce thought he'd better listen to her. She actually looked pretty scary.
Obediently, he made his way back to the bed. Grudgingly, the nurse who'd come by had to admit there wasn't any signs of Bruce worsening his condition from his excursion into the bathroom. Bruce made sure not to give any expression that could be construed as smug. That wasn't very hard. Between the ongoing pain of the recent gunshot wound, the dog bite, and the conversation between him and Leo, Bruce wasn't exactly feeling smug.
He wondered whether it was too early to try calling him when it came onto midday and Leo still hadn't come back. He hadn't exactly said how long he needed for his walk. Bruce didn't want to crowd him when he was likely already feeling hemmed in. Leo had been right about a couple of things. Bruce hadn't thought about how hard and expensive hormone replacement therapy might be for him in his situation. Maybe he'd been too quick to judge.
And yet he kept on coming back to what the doctor had said the day before: Leo's body was breaking down. Not as fast as Bruce's, but it was happening just the same. It wasn't a case of whether he could get other medication that would continue to make him look on the outside the way he felt inside. It was that he needed a cure for something that was about to make him very sick.
For the first time in three days, Bruce felt confined by the four walls of the hospital room. When he came to the doorway of his room, a nurse from a nearby station permitted him to take a slow stroll of the circular corridor, but that didn't help. He needed to see Leo. Bruce needed to know he was okay.
He was back in his room again when a doctor came by on his rounds. Just as the Kath'lar scientist from the night before had promised, the doctor who later came to him advised that they wanted to keep him in just for one more night for observation. "But if things stay as they are, I can't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to go home tomorrow morning."
He paused, looking around at the empty room and the backpack on the floor.
"Is your friend coming back to see you?" he asked.
"I hope so," Bruce murmured.
Chapter Seventeen
When Bruce finally saw Leo standing in the door frame once again, he almost thought all his wishing had caused him to return. Leo looked haggard, or maybe it was just the look in his eyes. Otherwise, he was still the outwardly perfect superhero.
Bruce felt his heart seem to expand in his chest. He didn't know what to say; standing up and reaching out to touch him seemed like it would be unwelcome.
In the end, he just settled on a fond, "You're back." The smile that curved his lips was small but hopeful.
"I'm back." There was almost no inflection in Leo's voice, but he did come into the room, for which Bruce was infinitely grateful. He didn't say anything until he pulled up the chair next to Bruce's bed and sat down. "So. This cure."
Bruce exhaled in relief. "Leo, I'm so glad that you're willing to see—"
"Willing t
o hear," Leo said, back to interrupting Bruce again. Bruce found he didn't mind. "Willing to listen to what you have to say. You said before that the cure that worked so well wasn't the one I expected."
He had said that, hadn't he? "Yes…" Bruce murmured.
"Don't evade me now, Bruce," Leo told him. "This is one chance. One chance for me to hear you and the doctors out."
Bruce inclined his head. He wouldn't vacillate then. "I had a visitor. From the Kath'lar."
Leo abruptly stood up, sending his chair flying backwards behind him. "You…!" Leo cut his roar off, realizing belatedly that they were not alone in the hospital. His blazing gaze didn't move from Bruce's, though. "You what?" he demanded with quiet intensity.
Bruce licked his lips, then lifted his chin. "As you can see, I'm fine. Better than fine. A Kath'lar scientist came in to offer me a cure because the human devised one wouldn't work. As you can see, the scientist told the truth."
"For how long?" Leo swore. His hand ran through his hair, ruffling it carelessly. He turned away from Bruce as though he couldn't bear to look at him. "Jesus, Bruce. You just let this Kath'lar put more poison into you without even questioning it?"
"I questioned it." Bruce's eyes flashed his annoyance. "I told her that if I were to die, I would tell you first what had happened so you would know who had done it."
"So they put it on a delay," Leo growled.
"There wasn't time for that," Bruce said. "She put into my IV exactly what she'd brought before I told her that."
"The delay was part of the original medication. Of course they wouldn't put something in you that would kill you immediately and trace back to them. This is what you wanted to put into me?"
"Yes!" Bruce finally lost his temper too. "I did. Because even the doctors here know that whatever's in your system right now isn't going to stay stable for long before it starts attacking you from the inside. Isn't it worth something to trust in order to fend off that certainty?"
The two men stared at each other for a long while. Bruce refused to be the one to look away first. In the last several days, he had been shot at, kidnapped, hospitalized twice, and now been treated like he was a moron by the man who was meant to be his best friend. Leo might have become a superhero, but Bruce wasn't someone to just push over either.