Blink 7/7

Chapter Seven:

To a mathematician, words are less important than numbers.

To a teacher, words are the lifeblood of their existence.

Charlie has to work to get the words back. The numbers never left him.

He sees specialist after specialist and spends hours in speech therapy. Amita drills him and he pushes himself constantly despite the possibility he may never regain the full faculty he once took for granted.

However, to teach again means to speak. While the university is more than willing to bring him back with an interpreter, Charlie knows he needs his hands for other things when he's teaching.

He practices teaching classes to Amita, who encourages him and tells him it's okay to resort to writing the words he has trouble with. He starts consulting at the Bureau again where Don can read his sign language if he has trouble with a few phrases. He updates an old seminar he taught on P vs. NP and teaches it to Amita's students for practice. Finally, he presents himself back at Cal Sci and tells them he'd like to end his medical leave and resume his teaching schedule. They agree, but suggest that Amita stay on to assist him until the end of the semester when she'll be assigned her own classes to teach. Except this time she'll be his co-instructor, not his teacher's assistant.

A date is chosen for his return.

Aware of how awkward it will be stepping into courses already in session, he spends hours reviewing lesson plans and student histories with Amita. He knows he won't recognize them, so they agree that grading exams will fall to her.

Always a confident teacher in the past, Charlie suddenly experiences anxiety over his abilities and wonders if he can really do this. Amita assures him he'll be as wonderful as he ever was, but Charlie agonizes over his lecture topics, how best to approach them, how best to present himself to students who are as new to him as he is to them.

He steps onto the campus that morning, Amita by his side, and instead of it feeling foreign - a place he's barely seen in the last year - it feels like home. Being back where he belongs erases any doubts he might have had about his readiness to return or his place there among the faculty.

Walking up the steps to his building, some former students recognize him and wave. He happily greets them, still oddly thrilled to hear his own voice coming out of his throat.

He stands with Amita at the front of the classroom as the students file in. He watches them for a while then, remembering, looks up at the ceiling. He remembers that view, that odd perspective on the room he'd once spent so much time in and then been away from for so long...

He turns his gaze back to Amita as she addresses the students. So capable and confident, he wishes he could just watch her teach. But that's not what he's here for.

"So, as I mentioned at the start of the course, I have only been filling in until Professor Eppes returned. We'll be teaching this class together until the end of the semester, so please feel free to approach either of us with questions from this point on. Professor Eppes is an excellent instructor and I'm certain you will all learn a great deal from him. I assure you that you will enjoy the process as well."

Amita turns to him and gives him an encouraging smile. "Charlie?" She backs away and cedes center stage to him.

Charlie walks to the front of the class, and stands looking out at them for a moment. He sees their expectant faces and feels a thrill at the prospect of filling their waiting minds with wonder. This is why he went into teaching. This is what makes all his rehabilitation efforts worthwhile.

"No sense wasting precious time. I'm Professor Eppes. Let's get started, shall we?"