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It’s been five days since Chloe Yasuda died; it’s been five days since Lucas has last slept.
No one has slept much, no one who is not currently lying in a hospital bed that is, but he hasn’t slept a single second. He can’t close his eyes without seeing himself running Chloe’s code, without hearing Mika ask him to take care of his sister.
He’s been staying in the intern house that he used to live in, in Mika’s room. Jules has been sleeping with Simone in hers– she certainly needs Simone more than he does right now.
Many times during the nights he hears Jules crying one room over. He tells himself he won’t feel as guilty, won’t feel as tortured and will be able to sleep once she does and the crying stops. But the crying always stops eventually, or at least pauses, and Lucas still can’t sleep.
It isn’t hard to hide that he isn’t sleeping, not at first. The days are spent working, the evenings are spent visiting Mika– if she lets them– and trying to console her family. He’s more jittery than usual, and a little slower on the uptake, but he knows their whole intern class is being given swaths of grace at the moment. No one is going to call him on him being another step further behind than usual, and all of his friends are just as busy with trying to tread water as he is. He’s not at his best right now, but no one is and no one expects him to be.
It’s when his short term memory completely cuts out on him that people start to worry.
“Hey, can you look at me for a good second?” his aunt asks, and Lucas doesn’t even remember what he just forgot, just that he didn’t remember something and that his aunt is looking at him like he grew a second head.
“What?” he ends up asking dumbly, feeling his hands starting to sweat more and more.
“Look at me,” she repeats, and it’s in one ear and out the other– her face seems a little blurry and in the half second it takes for him to notice that, he becomes unsure of where he is and why his aunt is looking at him like that.
“Dr. Adams, a word please,” she says after clearing her throat, and then he’s being dragged out of one overwhelmingly fluorescent white room and into another. He squints, and then only half the lighting in the room remains– did he turn a light out? Did Aunt Amelia? He hasn’t moved but he can’t remember her moving either.
“You’re disoriented and you’re sensitive to light,” she tells him, and he knows the words should have a coherent meaning to him but they just don’t. He stares at her, feeling more and more like he’s floating with every blink, until a sudden pressure against his neck snaps him back down to Earth, “Your pulse is way too fast.”
He tries to say something– he’s not sure what he’s trying to say. Whatever it is comes out garbled, or at least it sounds that way to his ears.
“Lucas, honey, when’s the last time that you slept?”
Sleep– not sleeping. That rings a bell.
Chloe he says, or tries to say, he’s not sure if it comes out right. Either way, there’s a panicked look on Aunt Amelia’s face and by the time he processes it he’s confused again, wondering if something bad happened.
He stares at the ceiling, trying to remember how he got there. He’s laying down now, not exactly sure when that happened. Every time he blinks it feels like the world has reset itself, like he’s a video game character dropped into a new level. The room looks the same, though, so either all of the rooms are identical, or he hasn’t moved to a new one at all.
Simone rushes in, a look on her face that he doesn’t recognize, and he feels like there’s something he’s supposed to be remembering but his mind comes up blank.
“You idiot,” she whispers, arms folded over her chest, tears in her eyes, “Why didn’t you say anything?”
She’s mad, he’s able to put together that much. But she’s also crying, and that makes him feel like he’s really messed something big up.
“I-I…” he starts, tongue fumbling uncomfortably in his mouth, “I’m not…?”
“Baby, you can’t even talk,” she says worriedly, and then she’s right next to him, her hand on his shoulder, “You’re so tired you can’t even put together a sentence– how did I not notice? I’m sorry, baby. It’s going to be okay.”
“Okay?” he parrots back, tears rising in his own eyes and he isn’t even sure why.
“Mhmm,” she nods, leaning forward to kiss his cheek, “Don’t cry, baby, it’s okay.”
“Okay,” he says again, reaching out his hand to try and touch her face and missing wildly.
“Oh Lucas,” she coos sadly, “You need to talk to me, okay? You need to tell me when something isn’t right, even when things are… complicated. You always need to tell me.”
He stares at her, unable to follow the conversation but in awe of her. If he could close his eyes and only see her he could sleep for days.
“We’re going to get you home– Kwan’s going to come help me get you to the car and then we’re going to go home. I’ve got some medicine for you to take once we get there, okay? Then we’re going to rest; does that sound good?”
He nods his head, not sure of what she’s said but knowing whatever it is, he’ll agree to it if it makes her happy.
“I love you– that’s why I need you not to hide these things from me, alright?”
Those three words mean something– he knows that. He opens his mouth, trying to return them but his mouth is too dry and he sputters and coughs.
“It’s okay, baby, I already know,” she shushes him, “Don’t try and talk if it’s too hard. We’ll go home and you’ll sleep and then you’ll feel so much better, I promise.”
He looks at her, and he tries to smile. He knows her, and he knows that tone of voice, dazed as he is.
“Can he even walk?” a new voice in the room asks, a familiar voice, actually. Someone whose voice he hears enough for it not to worry him.
“Yeah, I think it’s more a question of making sure he knows where he’s going, keeping him from walking into walls and all that,” Simone sighs, “Help me get him up slowly, though. He’s disoriented and I don’t want to freak him out.”
“Alright Lucas,” the new voice– the male voice– says tiredly, “Your girlfriend and I are going to get you home. Think it’s time for you to take a break.”
Lucas goes from being horizontal to being upright with his feet on the floor too quickly for him to process, and for a moment he feels dizzy and overwhelmed and scared, worried he’s somehow slipped from one reality to another, but then Simone’s voice is warm and gentle in his ear again, and it doesn’t matter what the words she’s using are, because he knows that she’s there and that she’ll keep him safe until he feels normal.
There’s a car ride, and then there’s water and a pill in his mouth that she’s asking him to pretty please swallow, and then he’s laying down again, this time in a bed he knows and with warm blankets tucked around him.
Simone is curled up into his side, her hand on his chest and when he closes his eyes he doesn’t see Chloe– he doesn’t see anything, drifting away– and all he can hear is Simone singing to him, nice and low.
When he wakes up, it’s dark outside, and Simone rocks him right back to sleep.