Mindline (The Dreamhealers 2)

by M. C. A. Hogarth

KindlesFlame snorted. "Your talent for understatement has only grown more acute in your absence, I see."

  "Did they really pass me?" he asked, his incredulity making him quiet.

  "Wouldn't you have passed yourself?" KindlesFlame leaned back in his chair, hands casually linked and loose over his chest. "You get a shiny new student resident, fresh out of college where his only work was under supervision. You saddle him with Mediger's—and you have the worst case of it I've ever seen, and you're not even in the environment that caused it anymore—and then you dump him into what you just went through. He makes it through. Not only makes it through, but is cited by colleagues for his actions, and law enforcement for his aid. There's even an attached thank you from Fleet; wet is one of their particular nightmares, and they're very diligent about expressing gratitude to anyone involved in helping them clamp down on it. So. You have a student who manages all that, and you don't think he's earned his passing grade?"

  "But I saved no one," Jahir said softly.

  "It wasn't your job to save their lives," KindlesFlame said. "Unless you're going to switch gears completely and take my degree path. You didn't have a job there, alet, save maybe to minister to the families, and even then there are volunteer chaplains to do that. And yet you made yourself not just useful, but vital... often, apparently, at grave risk to yourself." He tilted his head. "Do you know why you did that, by the way?"

  Jahir said slowly, "I have some notion."

  "Good. That's not something you can leave unexamined." KindlesFlame lifted his brows again. "So. Why wouldn't they have passed you?"

  "A residency is two years," Jahir said. "I feel I am missing a great deal."

  "Maybe you are," KindlesFlame said. "But I think you went through more in a month than most residents are going to go through in those two years. And two years on Selnor apparently wouldn't have agreed with you."

  Jahir touched a hand to the hollow under his cheekbone, self-conscious. "I suppose I am become a touch gaunt."

  "You look like hell," KindlesFlame corrected. "If I'd been your physician, I would have had no choice but to send you packing within a few weeks anyway."

  Jahir looked up at him, startled. "Truly?"

  "Truly. As it is, I want you in my office twice a week for the next few weeks... that is, if you're staying. Are you?"

  "I... I don't know," Jahir confessed, bewildered. "I had assumed I would have to find a new residency and resume my schooling here. If what you say is so, then... I need not?"

  "Not at all. You could kick up your heels until the end of the semester, graduate, and go find someplace to try out your new license."

  "In medical xenopsychology," Jahir said.

  "That is what you've been studying for almost three years," KindlesFlame observed.

  Jahir shuddered. "No. No, I must go back and redo it." He felt the Tam-illee's sudden interest as he finished, "This is wrong for me. You were right, and so was Vasiht'h. I need a life with more balance than what I have just experienced."

  "A hospital job's not going to be a constant illegal drug epidemic, you know."

  "No. I know." He thought of the acuteness of the grief in the crisis care wards, the piercing strength of the emotions, fear and mourning and anxieties thick enough to choke. "But it's still... all intensity and no breath-pause. You told me once that there was virtue in a practice that was mostly headaches and sprained ankles with only occasional emergencies. That was a wisdom I should have embraced."

  "Ah, well. Sometimes we have to learn things the hard way," KindlesFlame said. "I did my time in crisis care, alet. That's how I figured it out." He leaned back. "So am I hearing you want to go clinical?"

  "Yes." Here at last was the relief he'd been waiting to feel since making the decision to leave Selnor. It was sweeter than honey and heady as wine, and it dizzied him.

  "Shouldn't be a problem. If I'm guessing right, you won't have to run the full two years again. The residency for clinical's done here; the university has a series of clinics throughout the city it uses for that purpose, though I'm guessing you won't have to spend the full year there. They'll accept your medical residency evaluation as proof that you have what it takes." KindlesFlame cocked his head. "I'd say maybe a year at most."

  "And… if I wanted to take a minor?" Jahir asked, feeling his way carefully around the aches in his heart.

  "In what?"

  "Pharmacology."

  KindlesFlame said nothing, meeting his eyes. Then, "You sure you're not overreacting?"

  He had not intended candor, but he said, "No," because the Tam-illee had earned that much of him: no evasions, no denials. "But I was always good at the chemistry. And…" Inspiration, sluggish but functioning again, provided the second reason. "…I may have cause to need a working knowledge of soporifics."

  "Soporifics," KindlesFlame repeated.

  "My roommate made a study of dream therapy," Jahir said. "Perhaps the two of us might embark upon the application of his results."

  KindlesFlame barked a laugh, slapped his knee. "Excellent! Your Glaseah, yes? Armin and I were talking about the chances of the two of you finally figuring things out."

  "Armin?" Jahir asked, mystified.

  "Professor Palland," the foxine said, grinning. "He's your friend's major professor. And yes, we've been discussing the two of you since before you left. So, is this your plan then? The two of you graduate and go into practice together?"

  "I think so," Jahir said, because they had never discussed it, had they? That they would remain together, certainly, but to work together? He had not even told Vasiht'h of his own change in plans, and yet… and yet… "I am certain."

  "Excellent," KindlesFlame repeated. "Now this is a course of action I can get behind. But first," he held up a finger. "You need to recuperate. Fall semester's already started but I think we can get you in. You can take a couple of lecture classes, just to keep from getting bored. But nothing more strenuous. And I was serious about you seeing me twice a week until I'm sure you're back to normal. Is that understood?"

  "Clearly," Jahir said, sheepish.

  "Good. Let's see if we can get Lasa on the line. She might not be the best choice for your faculty advisor if you're going clinical instead of medical, but if she's not up to it she'll give us some options for someone new. We'll work out a schedule and get you back on track."

  Jahir nodded. And added, "You were not serious, I hope. About my being lauded."

  KindlesFlame arched a brow. "You haven't been watching the news."

  "No," Jahir said, fighting a sudden anxiety. "I have not, nor do I wish to. Pray tell me I have not been on it."

  "Not broadly, no," the foxine said. "In the medical and law enforcement communities?" He smiled a little. "Sorry, alet. You can't control what other people make of your behavior. Like it or not you made a splash."

  "God and Lady," he murmured. Resigned, he said, "So long as I need not be exposed to it."

  "No one's going to rub your face in it," the foxine said. "But don't be surprised if people in the profession recognize you. For now, at least, until the next big emergency. Which…" A grin, "won't be your responsibility. Now, enough about your new, and painfully earned fame. Let's see if we can get you set up… and then you're for the clinic with me, where I can do a proper work-up and see what in all Iley's hell Selnor did to your system."

  Chapter 23

  Vasiht'h had not been on campus an hour before his data tablet popped up with a message: What are you doing here?

  He didn't need to check the tag for a message that blunt. He answered, It's a long story, and waited, standing beneath a tree and smelling the familiar scent of Seersana moving out of a sun-burnt summer and into autumn. Since fall semester had already started, it must have been a hot summer to linger in the air that way. He was glad: the heat on Seersana had a different quality than Selnor's, and he was savoring the difference and what it meant about where he was.

  When he looked down at his tablet few moments later, he found t
he expected reply: Meet me at the gazebo.

  Vasiht'h packed the tablet and headed toward the apartments where he'd spent most of his graduate career. Half an hour later he pushed open the door on the enclosed gazebo where the quadmates had feted so many successful semesters and found Lucrezia stirring sangria, a plate of partially chopped fruit alongside.

  "Come squeeze," she said. "And tell me what in battlehells you're doing back so soon." She looked up over the pitcher. "Don't tell me he sent you away."

  "No," Vasiht'h said. "No, it's nothing like that." He obediently took a knife to the fruits that needed cutting and started squeezing them into the pitcher while she stirred. "We're here to finish school. The residency on Selnor didn't work out for him."

  Luci flicked her ears back. "I can't imagine him failing at anything."

  "He didn't," Vasiht'h said. "He just ran into some obstacles that even he couldn't surmount." Remembering her field of study, he said, "You know about Mediger's Syndrome?"

  "Oh, hells." Luci's ears flattened completely. "Selnor… that's over halfway down the scale on the heavy side. And he had problems here…" She trailed off, then shook her head. "That must have been rough."

  "Yes." He licked lemon juice off his fingers. It tasted like Jahir's rue, which made him both not want to taste it and to keep licking it to figure out how that worked, would work from now on.

  "So you're back to stay?" she said, interrupting his thoughts.

  Vasiht'h shook himself. "Until we're done. I don't know what we're doing after school, but… whatever it is, we're doing it together."

  She put her spoon down. He felt her gaze on his face and tried not to let it heat his cheeks as he started on the pineapple. He dropped the resulting chunks into the sangria and then faced her, squaring his shoulders, head lowered.

  "You're afraid I'm jealous," she said, eyes wide. "Oh no. No, arii. Never that." A swift hug, intense if not Harat-Shariin typical. "Never. The two of you were meant to be together. Anyone with a half-folded brain could see that."

  Vasiht'h managed a smile. "Before either of us, apparently."

  She snorted. "That's how it usually goes." Sniffing the results of their labors, she pushed the tray away and fetched two glasses. "Have the two of you got a place to stay? You can use our couch if you need it."

  "We might take you up on that. I'm supposed to be looking for an apartment, but I just got here. As you apparently noticed. How did you…?"

  "You forget I can see your location," Luci said, handing him a glass. "I'm done with classes for the day, so it was my time to check mail." She smiled. "Anyway. You and Prince Handsome come by tonight, ah? Even if you don't need the place to bunk down. We'll have a quadmate meeting, just like old days."

  "The old days of all… what, two, three months ago?" Vasiht'h said, laughing.

  "Feels like ages," she answered, mouth quirking. She had a sip of her own and finished, "It's too bad you can't have your old place back."

  Vasiht'h considered the sunlit highlights in the wine. "No. It's all right." He smiled a little. "It might only have been a few months, but things aren't the same. Living in the same place… I think that would have been a bad try at pretending nothing's happened when so much has."

  She was looking at him again with a very peculiar expression. He said, "What?"

  "You're right. You're different." She reached out and drew a fruit-scented finger down his nose. "Very different."

  He restrained the urge to lick her finger and rubbed at his muzzle, smiling. "I'm still me, arii."

  "You're still you, yes, but… different." She nodded. "I'm glad to see it. I like the difference." She leaned over and hugged him, holding her glass out of the way. "So you'll come to the quadmate meeting? I'll send you the time when I talk to everyone."

  "Yes," Vasiht'h said. "And… Luci, thank you."

  She chuckled. "For what? Getting you drunk before sending you off to your beloved?"

  "For being you. And being here." He lifted the cup and drank off the entirety of it before setting it down. "And for trying to get me drunk before sending me off to my very non-sexual relationship."

  "I could pour you the whole pitcher?" she said, grinning.

  "Wouldn't be enough for me to want to hop into bed with anything." Vasiht'h laughed. "And it wouldn't be enough for you to prove you're stereotypical Harat-Shariin."

  She chuckled. "I know. And that's why I'm going to say 'thank you' too. For never trying to make me be that. You know, the two of you did more for me with that talk and the nap on your couch than any therapist ever has since?"

  He looked up at her sharply.

  "It's true," she said. She lifted her cup. "Here's to things working out the way they should."

  He refilled his glass just so he could tap it against hers.

  Vasiht'h found Jahir sitting on a bench on one of the walkways leading to Tea and Cinnamon. The Eldritch had his hands folded in his lap and was leaning back, watching the shadows of leaves moving as the breeze sighed through the trees: this, Vasiht'h knew from the mindline, where the endless changing patterns intersected with the warm sun and cool air and made a meditation out of approaching autumn. Beneath it ran a trickle of ease at the familiarity of the sight, of students passing, of the taste of the air in his—their—mouths. Vasiht'h padded to him and sat beside the bench's end, wrapping his tail over his feet and looking up at the branches too.

  There was a new thing in the mindline, then. A sense of frailty. Of the erosion of bone sockets, grinding, of taxed muscles and heart. Chagrin, bittersweet on the tongue, seasoned with a receding fear of what might have been. An Eldritch, who'd expected to long outlive everyone around him, to remain the sole unchangeable element in a world doomed to ephemerality, now held in cupped mental hands the waters of mortality, had looked into them and seen his own face... and that awareness had a soundtrack, of the healers-assist from Mercy refusing him a second try at the wet victims, of Vasiht'h's frightened exclamations, of KindlesFlame's lecture on how poorly he'd fared on Selnor.

  An apology, then, wordless and humble. It filtered to Vasiht'h and became impression. I thought I was the only one with the right to fear. But I can die here easily, too.

  It was a gift. Vasiht'h felt no need to embarrass either of them with remonstrations. He accepted it in the spirit it was offered, and gave back a warm acceptance, and made words out of it. /I think we've both learned a great deal./

  /Yes./ Jahir sighed and smiled at him, such a vulnerable, lopsided smile to be formed from such a miniscule lift of a corner of that mouth. "Healer KindlesFlame has put me straight about a great many things."

  The mindline embellished that with trailing sparks. Vasiht'h glanced at him. "That feels promising."

  "The residency," Jahir said. "They terminated it because they passed me. And wanted me gone before I ground myself to powder, a fate KindlesFlame tells me I narrowly avoided."

  Vasiht'h paused, stunned. "Then... you're done."

  "I would be," Jahir agreed. "If I wanted to embark on the career I am now licensed for. But I thought... perhaps... "

  The mindline was leading the words, and catching them Vasiht'h jumped. "You want to? Really?"

  "Your dream therapy works," Jahir said. "And it requires esper practitioners. You are studying to become one such. I could be another. It seems a sensible course of action, if... you are well with it?"

  "It's what I've wanted since I saw you," Vasiht'h said, and didn't know that was true until he'd said it aloud.

  Jahir closed his eyes, bowing his head. Vasiht'h couldn't see his face past the fall of light hair, but he could feel the smile, small and bright and open.

  "I will be back in school, then, this semester," Jahir continued. "KindlesFlame is arranging it. The semester is not so far advanced that I cannot catch up with a few lectures, which is all he will permit me to do until I am healthy again."

  "A very sensible man, Healer KindlesFlame." Vasiht'h didn't try to suppress his glee, knowing it would escape
him into the mindline anyway. It felt like the wind in his fur while running.

  "And you?" Jahir said. "Why do you taste... smell... no, taste... like wine?"

  "Because Luci was plying me with sangria," Vasiht'h answered, amused.

  "She wanted the story out of you."

  "I think she just wanted me to have an excuse to tell it if I wanted to," Vasiht'h said. "She's invited us to stay on her couch until we figure out where to live. Which is good, since I admit I haven't gotten much done on that count yet."

  "I have not paid you for all you've done yet—"

  "Later," Vasiht'h said. "There's time for that later. Would you like to go to Tea and Cinnamon? Luci's invited us to a quadmate meeting later, if you'd like to go—"

  Welcome, like the warmth of a hearth after cold. "Yes," Jahir said. "I would."

  "So we have some time between now and then. We could go look for apartments after we eat."

  "We could," Jahir said.

  Vasiht'h eyed him, head tilted, feeling the hesitation like a precipice. "But?"

  "But I would very much like to see the children."

  Vasiht'h smiled. "Me too. We can eat later."

  Jahir nodded, and reached over, hand up. Vasiht'h slipped his into it, and the mindline expanded, bringing with it his friend's quiet happiness. There was nothing of winter in it: no numbness, no shock, no pain or distance. Here was the thing he'd been waiting for... all wrapped up in the offer of a single touch.

  I'm here. I'm willing to be known.

  Vasiht'h squeezed, gentle, and let go.

  I'm here. I'm willing to let us grow.

  Together they set out for the children's hospital, beneath familiar trees.

  Chapter 24

  When they arrived, the children were away with Berquist for the conclusion of several medical tests, but the two of them had been gone so briefly their credentials were still logged with the hospital, and they had no trouble being admitted to the proper floor. They were even recognized—or at least Vasiht'h was. The healers-assist had become accustomed to the Glaseah coming and going alone, and needed a moment to realize that Jahir had returned with him this time. The fourth time someone glanced at him, paused and hid their expression behind the rigorous facades cultivated by medical personnel on every world and in every time, Jahir suppressed a sigh and felt a flush of sympathy from the mindline.