Dr. Andrews made his rounds about half an hour later. "I heard someone was awake." He glanced over Darius. "I have to say, you do look a lot better than when you first came in." That was true. He had gotten quite a bit of color back, although because of his fair skin tone, he was always a lot paler, but this was a good sign.

"I just want to check your hand." He said as he put some gloves on. "When he's released, which may be today, the bandage on his hand needs to be changed once a day, or whenever he showers." He said. "Probably for two weeks until his next follow up."

I stood up so I would be able to hear him better. I stood on the right side of the bed, putting one hand on Darius's head and the other on his arm. Dr. Andrews carefully removed the bandage on his left hand. "It's still a bit swollen, which is to be expected, and that should go down within the next couple days. It is pinkening up, which is a very good sign." He put a fresh bandage on his fingers before wrapping it again. "In about three weeks, he needs to start therapy with it."

He looked over to me. "We will release him to you, I understand that you have had first aid training." First aid training was one of the required courses back at the academy in District 2, and it had been a year long course. "We will also be sending him home with antibiotics and some pain medication." Darius looked at me and pointed to the dry erase board, so I handed him that and the marker.

"What is it?" Dr. Andrews asked. I looked at what he wrote and sighed. I shouldn't be so surprised by this.

"He doesn't want the pain meds."

Dr. Andrews sighed. "They will make you more comfortable Darius." But Darius just shook his head. "Very well." He sighed. "But the antibiotics are not optional." Darius nodded to that. "You understand?" Darius nodded again.

"Since he is weak still, he will need to use the wheelchair as much as possible, and to also give the ligaments and muscles in his legs a chance to rest, so for the first week, he doesn't need to be walking." He said. "Though starting next week, he can gradually start walking on his own." Dr. Andrews looked down at the chart. "His weight is another issue, and one that especially concerns me. We need to get him to start gaining weight to get back up to his average weight."

"When he is recovered from his physical injuries, I want to discuss something that we are doing for the former avoxes to get their voices back." He looked at Darius. "It does involve a prosthetic, and months of speech therapy, but we have seen pretty good results. I'll talk more about that to you later." He looked over to me. "I'll go and get the discharge papers for you."

When he came back with the papers, he also brought a back a bag with medical gauze, wraps and such as well as his antibiotics and a packet of info that I would need to help him. I sighed the papers and turned back to Darius when Dr. Andrews left the room. The only thing was to get him dressed, and Purnia had brought me some clothes for him an hour ago. I held out a hand to help him to get to a sitting position on the bed with his legs hanging over the side of the bed.

Getting the pants on was hard, but manageable. I got the shirt out of the bag, and undid the snaps of his hospital gown and got that off of him, which was easy since Dr. Andrews had undid the IV that he was on before he left. I was both surprised and not surprised to see how scarred he was. He watched me closely before I helped him to get his shirt on carefully.

It was disheartening to have to see him like that, all injured and scarred, especially since I saw him last year, and he didn't look like that. I probably had my thoughts written on my face, because he took my hand as if he wanted to pull me down beside him, so I took the hint and sat down. He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me closer to him. I rested my head on his shoulder, in turn, he hissed my head. I glanced up at him after a few minutes. "Are you ready to go?"

He kissed me and then nodded. I helped him to stand and to the wheelchair. I wheeled him out to the car and got him in. I had to go to the grocery store, before heading home, it probably would have been faster to leave him in the car and then go and get what I needed, but I wasn't willing to have him out of my sights just yet. So instead, I got one of the grocery store's wheelchairs with a basket on it, and helped him into that, and did my shopping that way. I had a list of things the doctor said that would be good for him to eat to help him gain weight, like soft foods such as rice, pudding, mashed potatoes applesauce, soups, etc. I kept the trip short, so I got what we needed, and got out.

Once at home, I got him out and into the house. Purnia had agreed to keep Hera another night so I could focus on getting Darius settled in tonight. I wheeled him in and then shut the door behind me, as I had already brought the bags in already. I went and put the groceries up before going back to him. "Would you like to get cleaned up now?" I asked. He nodded to that. How this was going to work, I didn't know. Darius held up the dry erase board. 'How are we doing this?'

"Uhm, bath?" I shrugged. "Shower is out of the question since you can't stand up long enough." I shook my head. "I guess bath." I knew he wasn't too fond of baths, but I have had managed to talk him into those before. I wheeled him into the bathroom and then helped him to get cleaned up, and he did look so much better, what didn't help was being able to slightly see his ribs.

I had given him a pair of pajama bottoms and I offered him a shirt, but he didn't want it.

It was starting to be around suppertime around that time, and I looked over the list of foods again to figure out what to feed him tonight. I had to figure out what to do here, and eventually just settled on feeding him some mashed potatoes and a milkshake for tonight. After he ate, I got him settled on the couch as it was only 7pm. I turned the TV on for him. "I'll be right back." I murmured. "I'm just going to go get a shower real quick."

He nodded and I went to the bathroom and got my shower and then dressed in a pair of sleep shorts and a tank top. I squeezed the excess water from my hair before noticing the supply bag the doctor had sent home. I should probably get that taken care of for him. I walked back to the living room. "Can I check out your hand?" He nodded and held it out. I gently unraveled it and cleaned around it like the doctor had shown me. "Sorry." I murmured as he flinched a bit and grimaced. He shook his head.

They had told me that three of his fingers had been cut off and one of them had been partially cut as well as removed the fingernail of his thumb. I then put more gauze on his fingers and then rewrapped his hand. "That's not too tight is it?" I murmured gently and his shook his head. I remembered the antibiotics and got one of the syringes out (that he was to take by mouth). I stood up and went to the kitchen to get him some water and threw the old bandages in the trash. I handed him the syringe and water.

He took them and then took his medicine and ten a sip of water, before setting the cup aside and writing something on his board and showed it to me. 'Thanks, for everything, you didn't have to.'

"Of course I do. Darius, I'm doing it because I love you. And quite frankly, the past 16 months have been way too long. Which, by the way, isn't going to happen again." I told him, taking a seat beside him. Before I came here, when we got together, we hadn't been apart for more than a week, and even then, that was hard at times, especially when an infection of a wound he got a year and half ago and hadn't known he was allergic to penicillin, and they gave it to him. He was at the Capitol in the hospital for a week.

He leaned over and kissed me. Now this, I had missed, him, his touch, and the closeness. After a few moments, I looked at him. "Anything in particular you want to watch?"

He took his marker and wrote something and the held it up. 'Horror movie?' He gave me that old cheeky smile, he knew how much I hated horror movies, but those were his favorite. With that smile, I knew that he was slowly starting to come back to the man that he was. I leaned gently against him. "Oh, alright." I reached for the remote. Going through a list of titles, I kept going until he pointed at one. 'Nightmare on Elm Street.' Of course.

After the movie was over, it was bedtime, I helped him from the couch to the chair, and then from the chair to the bed. I got him settled before going back around to my side, that was to his right. I got under the covers and cut the lamp off, though it wasn't long before he tugged me over to him, so I scooted closer and rested my head on his shoulder, as he draped his arm over my shoulder.