This story is a sequel to my previous work, To Fight Monsters. You can probably figure out what's going on if you start here, though it's written with the assumption that you're familiar with how the previous one ended. It picks up only a few days later.

Anyway, this story is rated M for some sexual scenes and minor violence. Unlike my previous stories, I don't have the entire thing written already so updates will be much more spaced out and random.

Chapter One: Paralyzed

Yuri Lowell was the strongest, bravest, and coolest man Karol had ever met. The coolest thing part was that being around him made other people strong and brave, too. Or at least, that's what it felt like to Karol. His lanky frame and loose clothes hid his true strength, and that cocky grin and constant sarcasm concealed a heart of gold. In short, Yuri was everything Karol had ever looked up to.

And now he was in the hospital. Karol hesitated outside the door to Yuri's room, building up the courage to enter. All the others had visited so far, but he'd put it off. He claimed he was working on guild stuff, but really the thought of seeing Yuri weak and hospitalized terrified him. He'd put it off for an entire week now, and finally his guilt had overpowered his fear.

One week ago today, he'd been woken up by Rita pounding on his door at the Comet and shouting at him and Judith to wake up, wake up, something's happened. They'd both gone to sleep worried sick about where Yuri might be, so Judith had raced to the door. They didn't have to say it, but they were both desperately hoping this was good news that Yuri had been found. Raven had heard the shouting from his room next door and slunk over, doing a poor job of hiding how worried about Yuri he really was. Rita had news about Yuri, all right. He had been found, but he was also in the hospital on death's door.

When Estelle came by later in the day to confirm that Yuri really was alive and expected to remain so, they'd all breathed a sigh of relief. It had been silly to seriously think some pissant like Timothy Carter could take Yuri down after all they'd been through. That is, until they got the news a couple of days later that Carter had done more damage than they thought.

Karol still remembered Flynn's stony face when he broke the news to the group gathered in Estelle's room at the cast. He didn't remember the words nearly as clearly, because his mind had gone blank and barely took in anything but key facts. Paralyzed. From a bit above his waist all the way to his toes. Chances of ever walking again rounded off to zero.

Flynn and Estelle, of course, stayed at Yuri's side as often as they could. Estelle warned them not to feel obligated to visit him just yet, because he was still on a lot of drugs and probably wouldn't remember the visit within a few hours anyway, but the others all managed to do it. Judith had sat with Yuri during a half-hour window of lucidity two days ago and had a lengthy discussion on the pros of fighting with a spear versus a sword (he'd bluntly changed the topic whenever she tried to ask about his injury and she quickly got the hint that he wasn't ready to talk about it yet). Raven had popped in yesterday for a few minutes to check on him, and had a completely gibberish conversation that Yuri couldn't even remember having a few hours later when Flynn came by. Even Rita had taken time off from science to sit by Estelle's side in the hospital room while Yuri slept. The only other friend who hadn't at least said a quick hello was Repede, and that was because the hospital enforced a strict "no dogs allowed" rule.

He had to stop being a coward, but it was so hard when the man he looked to as his inspiration was the one he needed to be brave for. Karol took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the doorknob. Yuri couldn't be strong right now, so he'd be strong for Yuri. He pushed open the door.

Yuri lay in bed with his eyes closed. Karol felt a small pang of relief, because maybe he could pretend that Yuri was just tired and not actually injured. It wasn't a very convincing illusion, though, because Yuri looked atrocious. He was pale as a corpse and short hair made his head look distorted. Karol knew that beneath the blanket and hospital gown, his torso would be riddled with scars from half-healed burns and lacerations, but the worst of his injuries couldn't be seen other than by what he wasn't doing.

"Uh… hi, Yuri." Karol stood next to the bed, searching for something to say. "I… I'm glad you're alive."

Yuri's right hand stuck out from under the white sheet. Karol's stomach twisted when his eyes grazed over the scarred stump of his index finger. He'd already known Yuri's finger had been cut off, but seeing the remaining hand, along with inflamed abrasions around the wrist from struggling against binds, made Karol's chest ache. Half to keep himself from looking and half from concern that Yuri was cold, Karol gently pushed the hand back under the blanket.

Yuri's eyes shot open and that hand grasped Karol's wrist. "Let go of me, you bastard!"

Karol nearly jumped out of his skin. "Yuri! It's just me!" He pulled his wrist out of Yuri's grip, which was startling easy.

Yuri glared at him for a few seconds until the fury died and he was left with confusion. "Karol?" he croaked.

Karol managed a small smile. "Yeah, that's right. It's me. I came to visit you."

Yuri's hand shot out again, grabbing the front of Karol's shirt. "What are you doing here?!"

"Ah! I - I just came to say hi!" Yuri's weakened grip clutched Karol's shirt, and Karol didn't know what to do or if he should pry Yuri off.

"You have to get out of here! He might come back any second." Yuri panted, out of breath, and his arm shook just from the exertion of gripping Karol's shirt.

"Er, who might come back?"

"Carter!" Yuri snapped. "Run, Karol. Leave me and get out of here."

Understanding bloomed, and Karol gently eased Yuri off his shirt. "Yuri, Carter is in jail. You're in the hospital."

"Flynn," Yuri gasped as Karol laid his hand back on the bed. "Where's Flynn?"

"Uh, I think he's a work. Flynn is fine, Yuri. Don't you remember? Flynn carried you out of the catacombs a week ago." Karol suppressed a shudder as he watched him. Yuri was technically awake, but it wasn't his Yuri who stared back.

"Yeah…" Yuri mumbled. "That's right… hospital… sure."

"Yeah, now you remember!" Did this mean Yuri was coming into lucidity?

Whether it did or not didn't matter, because Yuri closed his eyes again. After almost a minute of silence, Karol whispered, "Yuri? Uh… are you still awake?" He wasn't sure what answer he hoped to get, but Yuri didn't reply.

Karol hesitated for another thirty seconds, and then rushed out the door. He was in such a daze, he didn't even see Estelle until he crashed into her halfway down the corridor.

"Oh! Hello, Karol."

Karol quickly embraced her. "H-hey, Estelle."

Estelle's smile dropped and she hugged him back. "This is your first time visiting him, isn't it?"

Karol mutely nodded.

"Is he… really bad today?"

Karol nodded again.

"It varies, Karol. Sometimes he's almost his old self. You just got unlucky."

"I guess… I really miss Yuri."

"I know, but he's going to be ok. We just need to give him time."

"Ok. I trust him. It's just really scary seeing him like this."

"You don't have to come back until he's better. I'll tell him you came to visit and you can come back when he's in his right mind again."

"Yeah… ok." He felt like a terrible friend, but he wasn't sure if he could handle seeing Yuri like that again. "He's asleep now, I think. Don't wake him up."

"I won't."

Estelle, braver than him, continued on to Yuri's room while Karol left the hospital. It had still only been a week, he told himself. Really, they were just lucky to have Yuri alive. Yuri would be back to his old self in no time.

The doctors called it "paraplegia". Yuri couldn't be assed with medical terminology and stuck with a much simpler description: hell.

There were 32 black specks on the white ceiling of the hospital room. Yuri knew this because for two weeks he'd done nothing but stare at it. Every few hours the nurses carefully rolled him onto his side and he was able to count the floorboards instead (50 rows of narrow wooden slats), and if was on his left side he could make out the sky through the window across the room. Sometimes the sky was blue, sometimes it was stormy grey, and sometimes snow drifted by. If he was really lucky, he might see a bird, which was typically the most excitement he got all day.

Presently, Yuri was on his back and glaring at speck number 24. He was in a bad mood, but the last time he remembered being in a good mood had been about three weeks ago, when he'd been happily walking home and anticipating a fun night with Flynn. Then that pathetic excuse for a detective, Trout, had shown up and pitched the wild idea of luring Carter out using Yuri as bait and everything just went downhill. He'd spent two awful days gagged and bound in the catacombs below the castle, which culminated in a knife to his back that nearly killed him. He should probably be grateful just to be alive, but it was hard to feel thankful for his condition when it left him lying uselessly in bed with no hint of sensation from the bottom of his rib cage down.

What time was it, anyway? He craned his neck to look out the window, which gave him a great view of fuck-all. Today the sky was stormy and grey, but the dim light meant the sun was going down. Of course, this close to the winter solstice, the sun went down pretty early.

The door to his hospital room opened and a nurse entered. Yuri couldn't help feeling disappointed, because he'd been hoping it would be Estelle or Judy or literally anyone else but an endless barrage of yellow-dressed nurses. It wasn't that he had anything but respect for the people who dedicated their lives to caring for others, he just would appreciate them more if they weren't constantly poking and prodding him. The only time Yuri ever wanted to hear the word 'insert' used to describe something being done to him was if the person doing the inserting was Flynn the thing being inserted was his penis. Catheters Yuri could happily do without.

"Good evening, Yuri." This one was Cecilia, Yuri thought. He'd seen so many nurses in the past two weeks it was hard to remember them all, but Cecilia was usually pretty good. She didn't talk down to him, which was more than could be said for most of the others. "How are you feeling today?"

He smirked. "If I was feeling properly I wouldn't be here."

"Still nothing from your legs, then?"

"Nope."

"Well… don't give up hope yet. It's only been two weeks. Some sensation may still come back up to a year or two later."

"Yeah, that's right." Cecilia had told him that the day they met, and Yuri refused to let it out of his mind. The doctor kept telling him it was hopeless and that he was more likely to see snow in Mantaic than to walk again, but Yuri had never been one to respect authority and he wasn't going to start now. He couldn't wait to see the look on that doctor's face when he walked out of the hospital.

"Are you hungry?"

Yuri looked to the long tube and funnel in her hands and suppressed a groan. "I guess so." This was a prime example of insertions he would gladly put behind him. He wasn't allowed to sit up because there was a brace on his back to keep his spine straight and they were feeding him liquids until he got his strength back anyway. To get around the problem of trying to eat while flat on his back, they just shoved a rubber tube down his throat.

"Open up."

Yuri opened his mouth and closed his eyes. Rubber hit the back of his throat and he swallowed, suppressing a gag at the taste. After two weeks of this, he knew the routine, but that didn't mean he liked it. While Cecilia poured some brownish mixture Yuri didn't bother identifying down his throat, he daydreamed about all the meals he would rather be having. He pictured himself in the kitchen at the Comet, bustling around, chopping vegetables, flipping omelettes. There wasn't a thing he couldn't make if he had the right ingredients, and then he'd serve it up to all his friends. They'd all sit around a table, laughing and talking, and when they finished Yuri would jump to his feet and carry all the dishes to the sink to wash.

"All done."

Back in reality, he was still stuck lying in bed. Being able to wiggle his toes, much less walk around and cook in a proper kitchen, was still a distant dream. Cecilia pulled the tube from his throat and set it on the bedside table. "Tasty?"

"Mmm, rubber."

"Your favourite."

"You know it. When can I have real food?"

She smiled sympathetically. "We'll probably take the brace off in two more weeks. You'll be able to sit up properly then."

Two whole weeks. Well, he'd managed two so far, although he'd spent most of the first unconscious or in a drug-addled daze. He just hoped he didn't die of boredom before he got to eat meat again.

Cecilia pulled his blanket aside and pushed his gown up to his waist. Yuri had never been shy or particularly shameful about nudity, but there was just something that bothered him about how blase all the nurses were when it came to handling his privates, like his body was just some public property they dealt with during their job. The fact that he could only tell she was touching him by sight and that as far as he could feel it might as well be someone else's thigh certainly didn't help with the feeling that his body wasn't entirely his anymore.

To ignore these feelings, he put his head back and did his best to ignore what she was doing. Liquid went in via tube and came out through another, and it was actually a small benefit that he couldn't feel anything down there. He didn't know what it would feel like to have a catheter shoved into his penis or a bag of pee strapped to his thigh, but it probably wouldn't be pleasant.

"So, did any of your friends come visit today?" Cecilia wrote a note on her clipboard. Yuri didn't know exactly what she was recording, but it had something to do with his piss and he had long ago decided he didn't care about the answer.

"Nah. Estelle was here yesterday. Can't expect them to sit in my room every single day." Judith had been in the day before that, and Raven before that.

The only ones he hadn't seen were Karol and Rita. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He had hazy memories of them standing over his bed at some point during the first week and a half when he'd been so high on pain killers and sedatives it was all he could do to stay somewhere near conscious. Estelle said they'd both been shaken by seeing him in that state and hadn't wanted to come back until he was himself again. Yuri could understand that, to a point. Karol really looked up to him, so seeing him frail and woozy in the hospital must have really rattled him. Still, Yuri had been perfectly coherent for five days now and they still hadn't shown up to visit.

"The commandant will probably be by soon, though, right?"

"Yeah, probably." Flynn showed up at 6:10 every day without fail, and spent fifty minutes with him until visiting hours ended at seven.

"It's so sweet of him to visit so often. You know he was here every day even when you were unconscious?"

"Yeah, I know." He actually wished Flynn would stop coming so often. Yuri felt shitty enough without the added guilt of worrying he was keeping Flynn away from his work.

"I know some of the older doctors and nurses here don't approve, but don't listen to them. I'm going to shift you onto your side now."

"Alright. And yeah, I don't make a habit of listening to doctors." Yuri was aware that Flynn had given an interview after he'd been kidnapped, but so far nobody had shown him a copy of the actual article Angie Klapp produced. This probably meant it was horrendously sappy and guaranteed to annoy him. He wouldn't mind so many people knowing about his and Flynn's relationship if they didn't have to be so nosey about it. People he'd never met felt comfortable talking to him about his love life, and it was getting on his nerves. His relationship with Flynn and his medical issues accounted for approximately ninety percent of all conversations with nurses.

Cecilia carefully rolled him into his side. It was important that he not spend more than a few hours lying in one position, which he knew because every doctor and every nurse for the first few days after he'd been coherent had pounded it into his skull every time they moved him. Dr. Burke had explained it with a lengthy description of something called a pressure ulcer and a textbook regurgitation of how they formed and how long they took to heal. What really stuck with him was Cecilia's story of treating a man in a wheelchair who didn't pay enough attention to shifting his weight so that his entire rear end rotted away, right down to the bone. Yuri still didn't know what a pressure ulcer was or why exactly rolling him onto his side was going to help, but preventing his ass from rotting off seemed like a worthy cause.

"The Knights were doing some training exercises outside Zaphias this morning when they got attacked by monsters."

As soon as Cecilia learned Yuri was interested in fighting, she supplied him with updates on what the Knights were up to and if any mercenary guilds were in the area. Yuri appreciated the effort, although really it just made him grumpy thinking about all those people getting their blood pumping fighting monsters while he was stuck in bed. "Were there any serious casualties?"

"No deaths as far as I know, but a handful of injuries. One man was brought here, actually. He had to have his leg amputated."

"Poor bastard." At least he still had one working leg, Yuri thought bitterly. He didn't have either of them.

"Do you need anything else?"

"I'm thirsty." He hadn't had an actual drink since the time Carter ungagged him long enough to shove a cup of water at his face. That encounter had ended with Yuri's hair getting chopped off, so it was far from a fond memory.

She patted his shoulder. "Sorry. You can't drink if you can't sit up. I can get you more ice chips if you want to wet your mouth."

"Nah, don't bother." Anyone who said sucking on ice chips was as satisfying as a nice glass of water was a fiendish liar who needed a punch to the face. Of course, what he really wanted was for someone to reach into his back, shove the severed ends of his spinal cord together, and force them to make up their differences and start communicating again. He didn't know much about medicine or surgery, but apparently that wasn't plausible.

"Ok. Someone will be by later when it's bedtime, but give a shout if you need anything before that. Bye."

"Yeah. Bye." He watched her leave, and then he was left alone again. Why did they insist on calling lights-out 'bedtime'? He hadn't left this bed in weeks. His life was nothing but an endless stream of bedtime, and if the doctors had their way it would only be replaced by chair-time. Like hell he was going to push himself around in a wheelchair. He was going to stand up and kick every person who ever told him to just accept what happened learn to adapt.

Until then, he was stuck here. Stuck staring at the walls and ceiling with nothing to distract him but the constant ache in his back that lemon gels could dim but never fully extinguish. Stuck staring at his legs and desperately urging them to move, dammit, if only a tiny twitch. Stuck with feeding tubes and catheters and sponge baths because he was as helpless as an infant.

Yuri's life had taken a lot of turns over the years. Some had been pretty great, like meeting Estelle and starting a guild with Karol and Judy, while others had been pretty shitty, like when he dropped out of the Knights and was left direction-less and Flynn-less for a few years. Through all the downs, though, none had ever filled him with as much frustration and barely withheld despair as this one. Only the stubborn determination that he was going to walk out of this hospital kept him from sinking into depression and until that happened he was stuck hating everything. He hated the 32 specks on the ceiling, he hated the feeding tube, he hated all the nurses with their cheery smiles and meaningless platitudes, he hated his stupid fucking legs for not listening to him anymore, and above all he hated Timothy Carter with such burning passion it could heat the lower quarter for the rest of the winter.

In general, he hated his current life. There was no possible way he was going to go through the rest of his life like this. He had to figure out how to walk again. If he let himself believe for just one minute that he really was going to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, he'd flip a table. Wait, he couldn't even do that because he stuck in bed.

Fuck everything.

Flynn arrived at the hospital at 6:08 on the dot. This gave him two minutes to stomp snow off his boots, say hello to the receptionist (her name was Sylvie and he'd talked to her quite frequently over the past couple of weeks) and make his way through the halls so he reached Yuri's room at precisely 6:10. He didn't want Yuri to think he'd forgotten about him.

"Hi," he said as he entered and closed the door behind him.

"Yo."

Yuri was awake, which was nice. Sometimes he was asleep when Flynn visited, which was frustrating because they had such limited time to be together and Flynn would rather spend it interacting than watching him sleep. He would never fault Yuri for it, of course. Yuri wouldn't nap during the day unless he needed it, and his body was under a lot of stress trying to heal as best it could.

"How was your day?" Flynn sat in the chair next to Yuri's bed. Yuri was on his side, but luckily he faced the door so Flynn didn't have to move the chair around. He always felt self-conscious standing or walking around Yuri, like he was flaunting the fact that he could still use his legs. It was eternally frustrating that he simply couldn't do anything. He was the commandant, one of the most powerful men in the world. He was smart, he was strong, he had helped take down Alexei and was credited with saving the world. And yet now, when the person he loved needed it the most, he was useless.

"Same as always. Do you think you could get me something to drink?"

Flynn frowned. "You know you're not supposed to drink anything. You'd choke trying to get it down."

"I'll lift my neck and chest enough that I won't."

"You can't lift your chest. That's what the back brace is for. You need to keep your spine straight."

"Please, Flynn, I'm so thirsty."

Flynn hesitated, because it wasn't often he saw such a pleading look in Yuri's eyes. Of course, there was a good chance Yuri was purposefully trying to appeal to Flynn's inability to see him in pain, and he wasn't going to cave to Yuri's manipulation. "I'm sorry, Yuri. If the nurses say you can't, I won't go against their orders."

Yuri groaned in frustration. "What good are you, then?"

"Sorry." Yuri sulked and Flynn's eyes flicked over his body. It was still so weird to think he was paralyzed. Yuri's lower body looked fine; it seemed like he should be able to move it. "Have you noticed any sensation returning at all?"

Yuri's sulk turned into a scowl. "Nope."

"If your eyes were closed and I touched your foot, would you notice?"

Yuri shrugged one shoulder. "Dunno. Probably not."

"Here, let me try. Close your eyes."

"It's not going to work." He still closed his eyes.

Flynn walked to the foot of the bed and carefully pulled Yuri's blanket up to his knees. Was there really a point in being gentle if Yuri couldn't feel the blanket? For that matter, was there a point to the blanket if Yuri couldn't feel cold? As silent as he could so as not to give Yuri any auditory hints, he grabbed Yuri's foot and squeezed. He looked to Yuri's face, waiting expectantly for any kind of reaction. Even if Yuri couldn't feel gentle tapping or interpret exact movements, surely he could tell when someone was grabbing him. Not being able to feel the texture of Flynn's hand pressing into his sock didn't mean he couldn't tell roughly that something was happening to his legs, and if he had that amount of sensation it meant there was something there to work with and maybe grow into proper feeling again.

"So are you going to do anything or what?"

Flynn's hope died. So much for that theory. "I… well, I already was."

Yuri opened his eyes and saw Flynn gripping his foot. "Oh."

Flynn fell back into his chair. "I'm so sorry, Yuri."

"What are you apologizing for?"

"I should have gotten there sooner. I should have caught Carter before he had a chance to do this to you."

Yuri rolled his eyes. "It's not your fault. Carter's the only one to blame, and Trout for being a jackass, and myself for being an idiot. I don't blame you at all."

Hearing that Yuri didn't blame him made Flynn feel better, but he still carried a small amount of guilt. "I'm going to make sure Carter gets the death sentence."

"I'll be glad to see him hang," Yuri said with an uncharacteristic venom. "Don't you dare let him go to the noose before they let me out of bed. I want to be there."

Flynn nodded tersely. After all Yuri had been through, he deserved at least that. "I'll do that. His execution won't be for quite a while. I still need to interrogate him and his trial isn't for at least a month." In any case, the trial couldn't take place before Yuri was mobile, because he was an important witness and they needed him to be able to testify. He hadn't told Yuri that yet, because Yuri had enough on his plate without worrying about what to say or how to present himself before the court in a wheelchair.

"Haven't you interrogated him yet? It's been a couple of weeks."

Flynn frowned. "Leblanc's been talking to him, but he refuses to take responsibility for any of the murders. I don't think he's keen on me having him executed according to the law."

"That bastard," Yuri seethed, muscles tensing. Only the muscles in his upper-body, of course.

Flynn tried to divert the topic, because Yuri was supposed to be resting and getting fired up wasn't good for relaxation. "Don't worry. We'll get him."

"What about Zagi? Is he dead yet?"

"No. It's kind of a messy topic, actually. He's throwing a fit because you were supposed to fight him and I'm not sure what exactly to do. It is true that we made a deal with him, and his advice did help in identifying Carter."

"He's a murderer."

"But that doesn't mean we can kill him just because we want to. That's what makes us different from him." For now Zagi was still in the castle dungeons, until Flynn figured out if it was morally and legally acceptable to put him to death after making a deal with him and backing out on it.

"But-"

"Don't worry about it." He laid his hand on Yuri's shoulder. "All I want you to worry about for now is healing."

"Well, that's not going to happen, is it?" he snapped, glaring at Flynn with a sudden fire. "Isn't that what all the doctors say?"

Every now and then, Yuri blurted out some bitter comment revealing that some part of him at least realized how permanent his injury really was. Usually he insisted he was going to walk again, but Flynn wondered how much longer that hope would last as he continued to receive zero signals from his legs. "I just meant that I want to see you out of the hospital."

The fire fizzled out as suddenly as it had come. "Yeah. Right. Hey, can you do me a favour?"

"Of course." Anything. He would actually love to do a favour for Yuri because he'd feel less helpless.

"Tell the docs to stop giving me so many drugs. They keep putting me to sleep and then I have these really fucked up dreams."

Flynn bobbed his head. "All right, I'll tell them. What kind of dreams?" He wasn't sure if fucked up meant terrifying nightmares or getting chased by a meatball.

"Stupid stuff. It's not important. I just don't want to spend so much time sleeping."

There was obviously something Yuri wasn't telling him and Flynn had a feeling Yuri's dreams weren't on the meatball side of the fucked up scale. However, he knew Yuri well enough to know better than to press the issue. "You know, if the doctors think you should sleep a lot…"

Yuri just glared at him, and Flynn sighed. Yuri was stubborn and non-compliant when he was healthy and happy, and putting him in pain and emotional stress hadn't done anything to make him more open to taking doctors' advice.

"Hey, do you know anything about the other patients here?"

Flynn frowned. "No more than you do. Why?"

Yuri looked to the door. "There's this weird guy I've seen. The other day when my door was open, I spotted him just sitting in the hall, staring at me. It was kind of creepy."

"He was a patient, and not a visitor or a nurse?"

Yuri nodded. "Yeah, he was in a wheelchair and his arm was in a sling. Just kinda silently staring at me."

Flynn instinctively glanced to the closed door. "Do you think he means you any harm?"

"I dunno. I mean, how much harm could a guy in a wheelchair with a busted arm be?"

Yuri and Flynn stared at each for a few seconds. Yuri realized what he'd said as soon as the words left his mouth, because as non-threatening as the man might be, he was still in a wheelchair and thus a step up from Yuri's condition.

"He's probably not dangerous," Flynn said. "He's likely just as bored as you are. The nurses wouldn't let him roam freely if he was a threat."

"Yeah, probably. I don't know, Flynn, I just…" he scowled. "I don't feel safe like this."

Flynn rested his hand on Yuri's shoulder. "You're perfectly safe. There are no monsters in the hospital." He couldn't even imagine how vulnerable he'd feel if he was paralyzed. Someone who lived their life by the sword would take a lot of adjusting to not being able to jump up and fight off attackers at a moment's notice.

Yuri just kept scowling, until he moved on and tried to talk about something else. "So, what did you do at work today?"

"Nothing too exciting. I had some meetings."

"What about?"

Flynn took a moment to deal with the shock of Yuri being interested in the minutiae of a desk job. "Uh… I met with some captains about a territory dispute in the Peyoccia Plains. Why?"

"What, I can't be interested in my significant other's life?"

"You're really bored, aren't you?"

Yuri stared at him for a second, and then rubbed his eyes with a hollow laugh. "Fuck, Flynn. I am so bored. I never though almost dying would be such a hideously boring experience."

Flynn managed a slight smile, understanding precisely. He felt restless and antsy on his day off if he stayed in bed until nine, and couldn't imagine how bored he'd be if he was bedridden for a single day. "All right, well this morning I had to deal with two nobles arguing over carriage parking. For some reason they felt their dispute over who stole whose parking space was a matter the commandant needed to be part of…"

Yuri listened with interest as Flynn related the ins and outs of his day. It was nice to have Yuri interested in his less-exciting work, but disheartening to know Yuri was so bored and miserable that hearing about Flynn's political meetings was a step up.

As they laughed about a Councilman's ingenious plan to solve the monster problem by putting a pile of food at the bottom of a cliff and waiting for the monsters to fall to their deaths trying t get it, a nurse stepped in.

"Sorry to interrupt, Commandant, but visiting hours are over."

Flynn's laughter died. "Oh, yes. Sorry." There was never enough time. He couldn't skip work to sit with Yuri during the day, so they were left with a meagre fifty minutes at the end of the day before he got kicked out. "I'll be back tomorrow, Yuri."

"Yeah, ok."

Flynn rested his hand on Yuri's shoulder and leaned over to kiss his cheek, and then left the room. There was nothing he could do about the hospital's policy on visiting, but he still felt guilty every time he left Yuri all alone in a silent room.

On his way out of the hospital, Flynn stopped by Dr. Burke's office. The door hung open, so he knocked and leaned on. "Dr. Burke? May I have a word?"

"Oh, good evening, Commandant." He was putting papers away, getting ready to head home for the evening. "Is there something Mr. Lowell needs?"

Flynn still couldn't get used to Yuri being referred to as 'Mr. Lowell'. It always took him a second to realize who they were even referring to. "Yuri wants to ease up on the drugs. He doesn't want to be drowsy so often and he claims they're giving him weird dreams."

Burke sat at his desk and nodded slowly. "Yes, we could do that. His pain levels will increase, of course. Apple gels are good at healing light wounds but they don't do much for nerve pain."

"Perhaps give it a shot and see if he finds it acceptable?"

"Yes, we'll try tomorrow. Actually, commandant, could you sit down for a moment? There's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"Yes, all right." He was suddenly nervous and hoped Burke didn't have bad news. He didn't think he could handle any more bad news related to Yuri. "Is something wrong?"

"It's something I've been wondering about. I was told his injury was caused by a stab wound to the back, but was there any other trauma?"

"Well… the stabbing was the culmination of several days of torture. Is that what you mean?"

"I know about that." Burke brushed his hand, like several days of torture was some minor thing he didn't have time to worry about. "But did his back suffer any other trauma beyond merely getting stabbed? I ask because an injury as complete as his is very rare from a stab wound."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that when people get stabbed in the spine, either they die from blood loss or complications, or they suffer much milder paralysis, typically affecting only part of the body. It's very rare to see a stab wound result in complete paralysis, because you would have to be very skilled and specifically trying to totally bisect the spinal cord. Bone would get in the way, and that's not getting into how unlikely it would be that the knife would also cause such a large rip in the vertebral disc. However, if he was roughly moved or suffered a fall immediately after, that might explain it."

A memory of pulling Yuri onto his back and carrying him out of the catacombs flashed through Flynn's mind. "I… do you mean something like carrying him?"

"Did you carry him?"

"I pulled him onto my shoulders so I could carry him out to get medical attention."

Burke stared at him with a carefully passive voice. "I see."

Flynn's heart quickened. "Did I do something wrong?"

Burke spoke slowly and carefully. "It is typically not recommended to move someone with a spinal injury."

Horror sank into his stomach. "If I hadn't picked him up, would Yuri be able to walk?"

Burke's hesitation betrayed the answer before he had to speak and a stab of guilt sunk into Flynn's chest. "Most likely. What I believe happened is that the knife cut the side of the spinal cord and damaged the intervertebral disc."

"Which is what?" He was starting to lose his patience with doctors who threw words around that meant nothing to him but were integral to understanding what was happening with Yuri.

Burke drummed his fingers on the desk, obviously annoyed at having to explain such rudimentary subjects to him. "The spine is made up of vertebrae, yes? Little disc bones?" It obviously killed him to have to use the phrase 'little disc bones'.

"Yes, I understand that much."

"Holding all the vertebrae together are thin discs made of cartilage. This is what lets the spine bend. Now, when Mr. Lowell was stabbed, the knife damaged one of these discs. When you picked him up and swung him onto your shoulders, that put strain on the disc and since it was already damaged, the rip grew and completely broke, causing the spine to dislocate. The dislocation caused the unstable vertebrae to compress the spinal cord, severing it the rest of the way."

Flynn felt sick. "So if I hadn't picked him up, Yuri would still be able to walk."

"Most likely. He'd still have some mobility and sensation issues from the partial transection, but he'd probably manage walking with a cane."

Flynn stared at his knees. It was my fault. He'd felt guilty about failing Yuri all along, but learning his guilt was totally justified made him feel as incapable of standing as Yuri was. He hadn't had a choice, had he? Yuri was bleeding to death. But would it really have been that much harder to run upstairs and get Estelle to come down and treat him where he lay? Then they could move him onto a board and carry him out with aggravating his spine. No, there hadn't been time for that. Had there? Now he really wasn't sure.

"Anyway, there's another thing I meant to ask you," Burke said, already moving on from this topic. How dare he not be devastated by this news, too!

"What?" Flynn asked dully, only partially paying attention.

"From what I understand, Mr. Lowell is a resident of the lower quarter and currently works with a guild that hasn't run missions in a while. I bring this up because this is the best hospital in the city but also the most expensive, and we don't operate on charity."

Flynn suppressed a flash of rage. He had just found out he was almost entirely to blame for Yuri's disability, and now the doctor wanted to talk about finances? "I'm paying for everything." Yuri would insist on paying, of course, but Flynn had an idea of how high medical bills could run from a hospital like this, it wasn't the kind of money Yuri would ever see in his life. Even if they let him pay in small instalments, he could very well be in debt for the rest of his life. It was Flynn's responsibility to pay for this, because none of it would have happened if it weren't for him.

"How fortunate he is to have wealthy friends. Very well, I'll inform Sylvie who to fill out the bill for when it's time for him to leave the hospital."

"Thank you," Flynn said distantly.

On his way home, thoughts stormed through Flynn's mind. When Yuri had been stabbed, all Flynn had thought about was stopping the bleeding. It hadn't even occurred to him that his spine itself might be damaged. Of course he hadn't - he'd been panicked and bleeding himself and far from thinking straight. If he'd kept himself together better, though…

It was too late. What was done was done. Yuri had as many chances of walking across the room as he did walking on the moon and there was no point dwelling on what he should have done. What bothered him the most was whether he should tell Yuri. Did Yuri have a right to know that it was Flynn's fault he was crippled? What good would that do? It seemed morally wrong to keep this from him, but Flynn was so terrified of how Yuri might react.

One thing was certain: this was the kind of knowledge Yuri didn't need to deal with when he had a million other worries on his mind. Flynn would wait, let him recover, and come to a decision about whether or not to tell him when Yuri was stable, both physically and mentally. Of course, there was no telling how long it might take to reach that point.

A/N: Ok, this probably doesn't matter to most people but I want to take a moment to address medical technology used in this fic, since there's a high amount of medicine going on here. I'm putting this down here so it doesn't make the intro super long. Anyway, if anyone is as particular about historical accuracy as I am, I had to decide what the tech level of non-magical healing would be in Terca Lumireis. The game as a whole is pretty anachronistic so there was no clear real world parallel to make, so I decided I'd go with the late 19th and early 20th century. It turns out a lot of medical technology is older than I thought, like catheters, so I feel justified using them in this setting. Other things are knowingly anachronistic because prognosis for Yuri's injury before the 1970s was pretty much 90% fatal within a month and I didn't want Yuri to die.