Excuse the shortness of this chapter, puh-lease. It's sort of...setting the stage for angst and sorta-kinda-maybe-but-not-really-sentimental-ish-because-it-depends-what-your-definition-of-what-"sentimental"-is-stuff and all that good crap. Ba'nee will act kind of nice and we get to see her in action with a patient. Specifically Geldoblame. So don't expect her to be this nice outside of interaction with extremely screwed sideways patients. Specifically Geldoblame.

Things will get waaaay more interesting soon, though, because before this chapter, there has been virtually nothing happening aside from Geldo sleeping. Which is not interesting in the least SO: Caro will end up making a comeback, Eizich will return to be an asshole, Melodia will do some stuff in Mira, and shit will go down, among other things later, haha.

But: a least a bit of recovery needs to at least begin first, because without it, people will die. Again, specifically Geldoblame. SO.

An bei das fic!

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It had been two weeks, and Ba'nee was told that she must help him walk. Recovery needed to begin, whether or not he wanted it to yet. (It seemed rushed to Ba'nee, however.)

So she gripped his left wrist and held him up; lifted him into a standing position. She almost smiled at his compliance.

Almost.

He wobbled, unstable for a moment and quickly composed himself. Very slowly, she released his wrist. He trembled. She watched him.

He fell. She didn’t help him up. Slowly, he pushed himself off of the cold floor, careful not to disturb the still-healing burns on his hands; the skin was only beginning to grow back.

Once again, he stood and looked at her. She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose, shoving her glasses into her hairline and silently imploring him to walk to her. He took one step forward, still shaking, and then another. He stopped again, composing his features into something acceptable, something worthy of an Imperial such as himself. He took another step, but his knees gave way and he slumped back to the ground.

She almost offered him her hand.

Almost.

He rose again; halfway to her, and took yet another step. An absurd phrase came into her head- baby steps- and she almost laughed. (Almost.)

“Come on,” she whispered, as if coaxing a small, frightened animal, “come on.” He growled at her, unimpressed, disgruntled, that he, the emperor, was being treated like a sickly pet. She smirked, rather proud of herself; it had worked.

He looked down at his feet and straightened up. She knew that this was his way of saying wait, give me a moment, damn you. The room was almost completely silent—almost, save for his quiet, harsh breaths as he shifted his feet and stumbled forward again. This time, he took three steps. Again, she was tempted to offer him her hand.

This time, however, she did. He did not take it, and closed the gap between them with another two steps. She gripped his shoulders firmly when he began to shake again. He stopped quaking and looked abruptly at her. There was no need for words. She could, for the first time, read his face like she had no other patient. It was so obvious; a simple, disbelieving statement: I can walk..

He laughed quietly, shaking again, shaking with something almost foreign to him now—not pain, but mirth.

She would have cried, simply for the sole reason that this patient would live; he would move and breathe and hopefully, recover well. This would not be like Operation Sweep; this would not result in mass deaths, this would not result in that. This could not. This, she was capable of fixing.

A crash disturbed her and threw her violently back into reality a she went down as well. He growled in agitation and broken pride next to her as he unsuccessfully attempted to stand as effortlessly as she could. She grinned teasingly (maybe a bit nastily), and held out her hand.

He grasped it.

And then she knew that he was going to recover. This she knew for sure. He would be back to normal someday soon, someday later, someday. This she knew for sure.

...well, almost, because if he ever smiled at anyone like that again, she would be almost sure that this was not Emperor Geldoblame.

Almost.