Nobody Panic!

The Guard had been...slightly more cooperative the last time Damas interrogated him. And he'd had nothing kind to say about the young rebel who supposedly delivered his city from its tyrants. Macon was mostly silent on the topic of Jak, but enough was said to let Damas read between the lines.

As they'd suspected, Jak was a survivor of multiple war crimes. And he hadn't even grown his wisdom teeth yet.

Some alterations were made to the standard procedure around his recovery plan once they had a slightly clearer picture of what he'd endured before. And the kid had been surprised by the accommodations. Surprised that they would've been done sooner if he'd asked for them.

He was not used to being treated like an actual kid.

He was not used to being treated like what he wanted or needed mattered. In fact, it seemed more like he was accustomed to not saying when he needed something because it would guarantee the exact opposite effect.

It was hardly surprising, then, that when given time to reflect, the boy would have a great many inner demons to face.

And given Jak's status as an unaccompanied minor foundling, it was as much Damas’s responsibility as everyone else's to help him find his way. Especially if the Bureau had no immediate plans to release him to barracks' custody.

Brother Tam believed music was having a positive effect on the patient — unsurprising, Brother Tam was a strong supporter of using creative outlets to deal with stress or strong emotions.

Damas didn't share his music, generally. He didn't mind if people overheard, but he did not play for audiences. Those days were long over. When he played the lyre, it was for the benefit of his own soul and no other's.

But for a young man -- a kid, honestly -- suffering as badly as he once had,

Well.

That wasn't so terrible of a sacrifice to make.

It wasn't Tam who brought the boy to the eleventh floor of the citadel. Jak stood in sullen silence, projecting hostility like a shield, just behind one of the Convalescence Ward's security staff. The boy's eyes were red again. Whether from tears or lack of sleep, Damas didn't know.

"Thank you," Damas said to the guard, and nodded to the stairs. "You can go."

The Wastelander glanced at Jak, clearly skeptical of leaving him alone on a high-security floor. Damas cleared his throat, and the guard quickly stepped out of the landing.

"Don't give him any trouble, pipsqueak," he warned Jak. He continued to eye the kid with veiled suspicion until he was out of sight.

After six different worker's comp filings in Ward Two, Jak had gotten himself a little bit of a reputation.

Damas folded his hands behind his back and observed the teenager for several seconds.

"Need somewhere to vent?" he asked after a moment.

Jak's shoulders hunched.

"Not gonna talk about it. Tired of talking."

It had very quickly become obvious that Jak held very little stock in hierarchy. He spoke to everyone the same way, whether they were a king or a stray dogat. At first, it had been a source of great irritation to Damas. He'd reigned fourteen years in this unforgiving wasteland, and his reputation was well earned...to everyone except this impudent child that fell from the sky. Being addressed as an annoying peer by the boy had been a bit insulting for a while.

Now it was beginning to grow on him. It was akin to the honest simplicity of someone raised in the country. Almost a naivety -- although such a word felt wrong to apply to Jak after how much he'd endured.

"Well I hadn't planned on having any long conversations tonight either," Damas said to the boy, "so you're in good company."

Jak clung to his poorly constructed mask of anger until the door to Damas’s quarter locked behind them. In the privacy of the sitting room, the fight went out of the boy at a jarring speed.

"When do your eyes go back to normal?"

Damas paused with his hand on the door still.

"I don't follow."

Brusquely, Jak gestured to his reddened eyes.

"You know what it's like. So when do your eyes stop hurting? When does your body stop doing...this?"

Ah.

"When," Damas said hesitantly, "when there are no more tears to cry, I'm afraid. Catharsis is a messy business."

The answer clearly wasn't the one the boy had hoped for. A bit downcast, he rubbed his eyes.

"...when do people stop asking you what's wrong?"

Damas blinked. "You're in a recovery ward, son. That's part of their job."

"It's not nurses." Jak hunched his shoulders and continued to stand awkwardly, stiffly, at the edge of the sitting room.

"It's the four guys on the other end of the room."

Four?

"There are only supposed to be two other patients right now," Damas said with a frown. "Who got hurt this time?"

Those hunched shoulders lifted in a listless shrug.

"Nobody. Their brothers keep coming in to bug 'em. And me."

Ah. Yes, that sounded more accurate for Wastelanders.

"And you need space so you can hear yourself think?" offered Damas, giving him a way out without having to talk about his inner turmoil.

He stepped back and waved to the couch.

"Come on then, it's no good just standing there, boy."

Jak was reluctant to follow. But he eased around the stocky furniture, never turning his back on Damas for a moment.

That put his eyes on uncomfortable display.

Reddened and inflamed they might've been, but he knew that shade of blue just a little too well. And he knew the shape of the socket around them.

They were too close to his own eyes.

By what trick or coincidence of blood do you exist, little one?

Jak looked exhausted. He hadn't come to a point of acceptance about all that he'd endured yet, if Damas were to guess. Honestly, he would probably never be fully "over it." Even when he'd cried every last tear and been left hollow, the scars remained. Damas had days when his duties were all that kept him moving. When the emptiness of the chambers crushed his lungs. Two years lessened the pain from the shadow of death to something survivable.

"....when do the nightmares stop?"

Damas’s face did not betray his emotions, but inside he was wincing.

From everything he'd heard, for the kid to have even asked the question at all was a drastic departure from his usual hostility. Whatever Tam was doing, it was apparently working. He wasn't at rock bottom, but he was close enough to see the rocks.

"I can't answer that, kid," Damas sighed. "It's- sometimes they don't stop. They just get...they turn into regular nightmares. Stupid ones. Takes time though. And allies."

The boy made a bitter sound and drew his knees to his chest.

"Yeah well. They didn't throw mine out with me. I don't...know where he is."

His voice grew softer.

"I don't even know if he's alive."

Ah, there were the signs of suppressed tears. The boy's body was trying to cue him to release stress but he wasn't allowing it.

Something was wrong.

Not in the general sense. Just looking at the foundling, Damas knew something wasn't right. His skin was pale -- unnaturally so. His hair was pale. Damas heard soft clicks, pops-

Gods and Precursors it was his skeleton.

The instant he saw blackened bone rising from between loose braids, Damas’s heart sank.

The boy might have escaped the experiments, but it left him with more than just physical and psychological scars.

Would the horns dominate his skull like the second body they'd found?

Or would his limbs wither like the fourth?

Damas remembered the sixth, fingers nothing but exposed bone sharpened into hooked claws.

No. No, he wasn't going to sit and find out.

Jak was spiraling. There was enough in his body to create eco without falling into ketosis. There was enough that he couldn't hold back a transformation any more.

Would they put him in solitary once they realized the KG was right about him?

A cage?

An operating theater?

A morgue?

Cold hands clamped around the sides of his head and he snarled. It wasn't anger. He was angry so often, but that wasn't what had triggered the shift.

It was fear.

Fear for Daxter, left alone on that air train with Veger and Ashelin.

The cold seeped through his temples, wrapping around his skull to force its way inside. Instinctively, Jak struggled. His movements and thoughts seemed slowed, like time wasn't working correctly. Like a thick gel covered his brain.

"Stop fighting it. You're out of balance."

Damas was behind the couch. Those were his hands wrapped around Jak’s skull.

"Find your current, boy."

Balance? Current-?

Eco.

Light eco.

But he wasn't hurt?

It felt wrong. It felt so wrong. Like it had stopped time. His breaths were too far apart. His eyes refused to blink.

"Come on. Come on, kid, you can do this."

There was a strain in Damas’s voice. Jak didn't know what it meant.

"Don't shield your core. Let it do its job."

Two years of excruciating pain had taught Jak to automatically resist any eco he didn't consciously channel himself. It took a full fifty seconds to muscle past instinct and let the light eco travel down his spinal cord to the eco core.

The pain subsided, the cold dissipated. The panic remained.

Damas let out a relieved breath.

"Good man," he said wearily. "Alright, we're alright."

Jak's hands were brown again. He turned them over to look at the inch-wide scarred patch across the back of the left. In his periphery, Damas appeared to drop to the seat on the other end of the couch. His legs were shaking. Why were his legs shaking?

"Haven't had to siphon out of my own core in a while," the king grunted, "I'm out of practice. I'm just- just going to rest for a minute."

He reached for something under the couch. Jak didn't look up. He heard the sound of rustling canvas, and a zipper, but he was overdrawn. Exhausted in body and mind.

Daxter I'm so sorry-! I should have grabbed you. I could've kept you from hitting the ground, I know I could've. I failed, I failed, I'm sorry!

He missed the first two notes, low and quick. Then a third, higher and easier to hear, began to break through the fog. It felt like a thread -- like the silk ball Mother Spider gave the hu'men girl in the only fairytale Uncle knew start to finish. Meant to tether her to the living even when she had to go down among the Forgotten to retrieve the stolen sun.

Jak followed the thread back to his body. He was breathing. He was reasonably whole. He could leave if he wanted to.

Jak repeated this to himself again and again as the musical phrase repeated.

Damas seemed to have forgotten his guest even existed. He was huddled in the corner of the couch, staring at nothing as his fingers moved along the lyre like they possessed a mind of their own.

The tune was familiar. He'd heard it somewhere in Haven before, but he couldn't place it. There was something melancholy about it that felt appropriate.

For one absurd moment, Jak wished he could gather the notes out of the air and weave them into a band he could wear around his head. That way he could listen to the instrument whenever he needed it.

There was so little music in Haven.

"Usually I just go shoot something," Damas said unexpectedly. "But I can't always do that. So."

He paused to slightly lift the lyre.

"It gets me out of my head when I can't do anything else."

Then, meaningfully,

"It helps with the nightmares."

Jak hunched over, fingers laced together with white knuckles.

"You...turned it off."

Damas cycled through a breath.

"...yeah. Has it happened before?"

"I-" Jak curled further inward. "A- a lot. In Haven. The guard probably told you."

After a moment, the lyre began again.

"I won't tell anyone," said Damas placidly. "Seems like a useful secret to have up your sleeve in a fight."

Useful? The dark form? Useful for destroying things, maybe.

Why were Wastelanders so...

Jak didn't know what to call them. They were not soft. But compared to Haven?

"Brother Tam will probably come looking for me if I don't go back," he mumbled after the melody had changed twice.

"How many sessions are you up to now?"

Jak would've glared if he'd had even a little energy for it.

"I dunno. Leon makes me talk to him every day."

Damas did the glaring for him.

"Leon thinks everyone in the world should be as miserable and humorless as he is."

He shrugged. "But until Tam makes an appearance, you can stay if you like."

He pretended he was playing to settle his own nerves.

He'd do it again if it meant getting out, avoiding the slop that was supposed to fix his poor nutrition, allegedly.

He'd heard some of the staff talking about moving him to "Phoenix Block" if he continued to be violent. The high-security wing of the "children's hospital", supposedly, where the hourly checks were closer to every twenty minutes, and all the doors required passkeys to open.

Jak knew prison when he heard it.

He was getting out of here. He didn't want to have to kill anyone, but if that's what it took to get away, he'd do it.

When Dr. Goad woke him up on the thirty-second day in Spargus and told him to get dressed, told him he was being transferred to "Convalesence Ward" in a separate facility entirely, he thought maybe it was a reprieve. That he wouldn't need to kill anyone after all.

He'd made the minimum weight requirement to be allowed to leave the immediate supervision of the pediatricians, he was told, but that it was in his best interests not to deliberately antagonize the head of C-Ward, Dr. Leon.

"If you attack him, he will defend himself and you will not like it," Goad warned as she handed him a small canvas bag with a copy of his treatment plan in it. "You're also going to start speaking to one of our counselors-"

"Good luck with that," Jak hissed.

As usual, Goad wasn't fazed.

"The Foundling Bureau has determined that you must complete minimum twelve anger management sessions if you want them to even consider moving you to the youth barracks with your peers."

"And I'm supposed to care what some Bureau wants because-?"

"Because you're a Foundling, kid. That means you're a ward of the state until you're twenty-one. The state handles cost of living, education, medical bills etc. But they also get to make the call on when you're ready to be integrated into the rest of the city."

Goad nudged his shoulder.

"Let's go. Stick with your treatment plan, don't try to kill anyone, and maybe you'll be earning your gate pass before Rainfall."

The first week in C-Ward was a nightmare.

No walls, just curtains between two rows of beds. No lock on the door. Jak could see armed men walking that hall every hour. The one with the glass eye definitely didn't like him.

Probably because Jak headbutted him and broke his nose. Served him right for getting so close.

Dr. Leon was not a "pediatrician." He got all the stubborn adult patients, and he coddled no one, especially not "upstarts with too much punch in their system." A battle of wills always ended in Leon's favor. Always. Violence resulting in deliberate injury was not tolerated. Doing something that could cause harm to himself or staff meant sedation, since he'd been promised that no restraints were to be used except as an absolute last resort.

Jak had learned after two involuntary sedations not to try to kill him. He had eyes on the back of his head, always seemed to know when Jak was about to strike.

He also had an unholy level of patience for outlasting defiant patients. And he wouldn't leave unless Jak drank the disgusting protein mix. If he wanted what little privacy the curtains provided, he had to take the formulated mixture.

Jak hated it. And he was pretty sure he hated Leon, too.

They didn't make him stay in bed if he couldn't sleep at least. And they'd told him at the outset that they wouldn't sedate him at night unless he requested it — and he never would. At least Jak could say that about this tower. They just made him go with someone if he wandered, allegedly so he wouldn't get lost.

Usually it was the man with the faded red blotch on his forehead. Brother Tam. The '"mandatory counselor". He'd showed up the day Jak threw the protein bottle at Leon's nurse.

Leon wouldn't let Jak leave the room until he'd cleaned up the mess.

Jak wished he'd thrown the bottle at Leon.

But Brother Tam didn't snap or scold. He sat down on the floor and gently asked Jak to hand him a towel. He just...talked, about things that had nothing to do with the situation.

Jak wouldn't have even considered touching the rag, just to spite Leon. But he didn't like the idea of a little old man cleaning his mess. That wasn't how the world worked.

Tam didn't gloat, or even say a word about his acquiescence. He asked instead if Jak wanted to go exploring with him to find the laundry chute.

Jak didn't know what to make of Brother Tam. He spoke to Jak like he was a young child, and that was infuriating. But he'd started bringing bribes for not getting into fights, and he had all these weird ideas about self-worth that made Jak feel a little bad about getting angry with him.

It was one of the nights when sleep wasn't coming to him. Leon had left the ward already, and Jak didn't care enough to even feel relieved.

Tam found him sitting in the hallway outside the ward dormitory, looping a bit of string around and around his fingers. Too tightly, but he needed that sense of compression. He needed grounding at the moment.

"Good evening, friend."

The elderly man smiled down at him.

"You look like you have a lot of thoughts tonight. I find that when I have too many thoughts to sleep, it helps to take a walk. Do you want to take a walk with me?"

Jak shrugged. He didn't really "want" to do anything. But he didn't...didn't not want to do anything, either. He couldn't explain the sensation. Tam reached into the tote bag he always carried and brought out that stupid cardboard circle with the seven colors on it. Emotion spinner, he called it. Each color represented a different feeling. Happiness, sadness, anger, fear, excited -- that one never got used -- confused, and one vaguely the color of oatmeal that Brother Tam referred to as "the blah."

"How are you feeling tonight, friend?" Tam asked.

Jak waited a few minutes before cooperating. He always did. So far, Tam was a lot more patient than some of the hospital nurses. Definitely gave him his space more than Leon.

Jak needed a couple more instances before he could say with any confidence that this wasn't an act.

After a moment, Jak pointed to the oatmeal colored triangle.

He didn't really feel anything right now. Just sort of numb to everything.

Tam nodded as if this made perfect sense.

"There's nothing wrong with feeling that way," he assured Jak, "Sometimes when we've been hurt very badly for a long time, it's hard for our brains to make the right amounts of chemicals that make us feel happy or excited about things. They've been more focused on survival. But that's okay!"

He reached out to offer Jak a hand up. As always, Jak brushed him off to haul himself to his feet. He needed to know he could still do it himself.

"After the last couple days I think we've explored all the way to the ground floor on this side of the citadel," Tam said as if he hadn't noticed, "Shall we try going up a few floors tonight?"

Jak shrugged. He didn't have an opinion one way or another.

Tam kept up a steady stream of talk in a low, soothing voice as they walked. Nothing of importance, just comments about architecture, counting the number of stairs they walked as if he were a child, the same thing as always.

The difference came when they'd reached the huge open chasm that supposedly led to the very top of the tower. There was a sound coming from one of the floors above them, something Jak would not have expected in a million years.

Music.

Not the tinny, garbled voices on the radio in the saloon, or like when Tess hummed, or even his own whistling in happier times. This was an instrument. Not a recording, it was real. Jak could hear the deep notes of strings being plucked and stilled in a familiar melody. If he remembered it, Jak supposed the song must have been very old indeed.

*A Stillness in the Rain". That's what the song was called. And Jak-

Jak remembered.

He remembered Uncle teaching him to play the first four notes on his lumpy clay ocarina -- it was all it was capable of.

Brother Tam seemed to realize Jak wasn't with him and turned to find him frozen on the steps, head tilted back and listening. The old monk cocked his ears in the same direction until he too picked up the sound. A warmth spread across his face as he returned to stand with Jak.

"It's the king," he said softly. "It has been...years, since the last time he played."

"Harp?" Jak asked -- signed, lest he miss a single note.

"A lyre, I think," Tam answered. "I'm glad to hear it again. Music is a balm to a troubled soul."

"He forgot a measure," Jak said in observation. He wasn't really talking to Tam so much as just signing his stream of consciousness.

"That's alright. That part's hard."

"Oh?" The monk turned to more fully face him, a sparkle in his brown eyes.

"I didn't know you knew this song, friend."

"Uncle taught me."

Uncle wasn't much of a musician, but he thought it important to pass on the traditional folk songs of the Hill Country, where he'd grown up.

Was there any Hill Country left now, after the Metalhead Wars?

The metalheads...

Jak had never stopped to think about it -- rather, he'd deliberately avoided thinking about it -- but Sandover was the epicenter of the original invasion. None of the villagers could fight, they'd just used Jak for that! They were old!

They were dead.

All of them. Every single person he'd ever known growing up. Every inhabitant of the coastal villages was long, long dead.

I didn't say goodbye.

Somehow, that was the thought he kept circling around to, again and again.

I didn't get to tell Uncle goodbye.

I never got the chance-

He died without ever knowing what happened to me.

Sandover was gone.

Home was gone.

His childhood was gone.

"For the greater good."

All Jak had to show for that "greater good" was a handful of ruined huts and a melody. Did anyone even know the words anymore?

Jak's chest burned. His throat felt clogged. Tight. He had to move. Escape. If he didn't get out, he was going to-

The first hiccuping breath was soft enough to escape notice at first.

Not the second.

Nor the third.

He couldn't breathe through his nose, his face was hot- it was like having a fever.

Fitting, he felt sick.

Tam was talking to him, calling his name- it didn't matter. Jak couldn't focus on that at the moment and he wouldn't have cared if he could.

Haven had taken more from Jak than just his innocence and his freedom.

They took his home. They took Daxter when they threw Jak away.

Jak had nothing.

He didn't even have the clothes on his back anymore. Precursors only knew what had happened to those.

A heaving sob shook his entire body -- he was going to throw up, he knew he was going to throw up -- he couldn't see.

At some point he must have backed against the wall, because he remembered sliding down to sit on the stairs, just so he wouldn't topple off into the chasm.

Palms pressed against his eyes, teeth gritted uselessly against the next tremor to rock him.

Jak cried as he had not cried since he was a very small child. It was near silent then, too. Silence was safety.

But he couldn't manage complete silence this time. Hot tears burned against his palms, mucus clogged his nose and ran down his upper lip. It was ugly, and painful.

Like becoming his darker form.

An inane thought passed through his mind, a half-formed comparison of dark eco to grief that he never completed.

"Jak, are you hurting, friend?" asked Brother Tam. He sat down on the step just above Jak and placed his wrinkled hand on Jak’s shoulder.

"I'm very sorry that you're hurting right now. But it's good that you can cry. That sounds strange, doesn't it? But it's true."

"Uncle's dead."

His hands shook, slurring some of his words.

"Everyone's dead. I never got to say goodbye."

Tam made a noise of understanding. "You lost your family?"

"Not lost." Jak raised his eyes, but could barely make out the monk's shape.

What a stupid oversimplification. Lost, like they'd vanished at sea. No, Jak knew exactly what had happened to them. Samos took him through that bloody Rift Gate and left them to die.

Rationally, he knew they would have died too if they'd stayed. But knowing that Samos knew all along who was waiting on the other side did not incline him to be charitable.

"Haven destroys everything good. Why-"

Why do they hate me so much?

Why was nothing I did ever good enough for any of them? I tried so hard!

Hands went back to his face, hiding eyes stained scarlet. His kaftan sleeves were soaked, a mess of tears and snot. He gripped a handful of his own hair, desperate to ground himself.

"What's wrong? What happened?"

An authoritative voice rang out above them.

"...oh, excuse us, sire. I don't suppose you have any water with you?" asked Tam placidly.

Heavy boots thudded down the stone stairs, echoing off the chasm walls over Jak's quiet, hiccuping sobs.

"What's wrong with him?" Damas demanded, "Is he hurt?"

Brother Tam folded his hands and shook his head.

"I don't think this is a wound recently given, sire. I think Jak may be acknowledging wounds he received a long time ago."

Jak curled into himself, as if he could hide from the men. He couldn't think beyond the oily black sorrow. He had to expel it. Vomit it out before it could choke him.

Tam stood and turned a very serious gaze to the king. He gestured upwards towards the floor Damas had come down from.

"Young Jak heard the song you were playing. He told me his uncle once taught him that melody, too."

The monk winced sympathetically.

"His uncle was killed, I think. And his community, by the sound of it."

Some of the tension eased in Damas’s shoulders, leaving them to bow under an empathetic weight.

"Did he lose all of his family? Has he no parents?"

Tam raised a hand. "I wouldn't ask just now, my lord. Some things a man's just got to process on his own time. This young man's been fighting for an awfully long time. Go ahead and let him cry himself out. It'll be good for him."

"Good for him? He sounds like he's going to throw up!" Damas protested.

"That's why I asked for water."

With a mildly chagrined expression, Damas unhooked a flask from his belt and held it out.

"Not much, I'm afraid."

Tam knelt and tapped Jak's shoulder.

"Jak? Do you think you can drink some water?"

Jak pulled away and shook his head. Just leave him! Just- Just let him be!

Damas took a step down and nodded meaningfully to the boy.

"This isn't the appropriate place to deal with this. Bring him up to my chambers."

The tide had ebbed for the moment when Tam pulled Jak to his feet and led him upstairs. His head ached, and his eyes throbbed, and that catch in his chest told him this was not over. Five years he'd gone without shedding a single tear and now he couldn't make them stop. He hated it. He hated himself. He must have looked so pathetic!

The room they took him to was dimly lit, and Jak didn't bother looking beyond the flagstone floor and a few patterned rugs. A stronger hand than Tam's took hold of his arm and pulled him across the room to a battered settee that had likely been green at some point. Damas barely had to push to get him to collapse onto the couch. Jak stared blankly at the floor with hollow red eyes. The violence of the tears had inflamed the blood vessels in his sclera badly.

Damas walked away, leaving Jak in a kind of limbo between the waves of repressed pain and grief striking him. Tam took his place, easing down beside him.

"Lord Damas hoped you might feel a little bit safer in here," he explained.

"I know this is hard, and I think this will probably be hard for you for a good while. But you're not alone, you've got Dr. Leon in C-Ward, and you've got me, and the king-"

"Don't put Leon in that list, he's terrible," Damas interrupted.

"Only if you avoid scheduled health examinations, sire."

"He's terrible," Damas said again.

Jak jumped when something cold and wet was draped over his hand.

"Wash your face," Damas said gruffly. He nodded to the cloth. "And hold that against your eyes until it isn't cold anymore."

Hesitantly, Jak did as he was told. His skin chafed against it, but it was a kind of relief. Faintly, he could hear the sounds of a whispered disagreement between Damas and Tam. That was almost enough to make him curious, but not quite. Tam, oddly, did not win the disagreement. There was a note of disapproval in his gentle voice when he announced that he would just be in the other room.

Jak focused all his attention on stifling the tears, ruthlessly forcing them back into their box. He was showing weakness. He was showing that he could be broken. It had to stop.

"Did they take everyone?"

The sudden question startled him, but he managed not to visibly jolt. When he raised his head slightly, he found Damas sitting across from him, elbows resting on his knees. Upon making eye contact, the king asked another question.

"You didn't get the chance for closure, did you?"

How could he know that? How could some warlord king know anything about grief?

When Damas spoke again, he sounded as though he were talking to himself more than Jak.

"It happens so fast. One moment you have a- a home. It's not perfect. Some of it is harsh and cold. But it's the only thing you've ever known. And then one day you blink and home is gone. One day you blink and there are people you trusted abandoning you in hell."

Jak's head shot the rest of the way up.

"Why do you know that?!"

Damas gave him a grim smile. Not so much sympathy as understanding.

"Many Wastelanders' stories begin the same way, my friend. Mine does."

Then he leaned forward, clearly struggling to find the right words.

"You're not...not alone."

He made a sound that might've been a bitter laugh.

"No one in Spargus is. We're the forgotten ones, we kind of have to stick together. No one else is going to watch our backs."

Goad reached down to lift one of his arms carefully.

"Tell me if something in particular hurts."

"Leave me alone."

The boy didn't open his eyes. His words came through bared teeth.

"Don't touch m- Ah-! Rotsucker!"

When the doctor gently prodded his trapezius, Jak yelped and tried to twist away. The stress on his still-healing vertebrae dropped him right back onto the cot again, sucking air in between his teeth. He exhaled an impressive amount of obscenities given the duration of the breath. He glared up at the doctor, and she glared right back.

"You," Goad said severely, "tried to get out of bed without the chair, didn't you?"

"I don't need it."

It was clear from his expression alone that had he been in any state to move, there would have been violence.

Damas looked around and saw the simple wheelchair, a good bit too far from the bed to reach. The odd angle it sat at, and the unlocked wheels, suggested that it had rolled out of reach during an attempt to make use of it. Some of the boy's anger might well have been wounded pride. He didn't seem like the type to call for assistance once the chair had gotten away from him.

"Sit him up, please, doctor," Damas said calmly. "I find this tends to work a little faster when they're able to breathe comfortably."

The boy went very still, every muscle locked. His eyes darted around wildly, searching for the source of the voice. As the mechanisms propped up the head of the cot, Damas got a better look at the foundling. He was as thin as the day they'd found him, he hadn't misremembered. Dark circles beneath eyes that seemed to waver between a deep indigo and a nearly imperial blue. An uncomfortably familiar shade that Damas hadn't noticed before.

He hadn't realized what the boy's hair looked like when washed and cut, either.

Some ancient instinct, long forgotten, whispered caution to Damas. Something strange was at work here. Something that could not possibly be natural. Because had this boy's jaw been a little more squared, if his skin had been a cooler shade of brown than that suggestion of a warm tone, he would have been the spitting image of Damas as a young boy.

What on Inlé's beloved earth are you, young one?

"What are you looking at?"

Jak's bravado would have covered his fear well if he had been addressing anyone but Wastelanders. They saw through him all too easily. He was frightened. And he was hurting.

"Mind your tone!" Dr. Goad scolded -- a futile endeavor, she already knew, but she couldn't help it. "That is our king!"

"What's a king?" Jak asked bluntly. He caught the less than impressed look Damas leveled at him and did his best to return it. "Well? Higher or lower than a mayor?"

Oh. Oh, he wasn't being obnoxious -- on purpose, at least -- he really didn't know.

"A lot higher than a mayor," Damas snorted. "Higher than a Baron, if that helps."

"It doesn't. I thought Baron was a name for the first year."

Damas had to turn away very quickly to stifle a startled laugh. The circumstances the boy was alluding to were likely traumatic. It wouldn't do to make him think Damas was laughing at them.

The laugh slipped out regardless.

Hastily, he waved a hand.

"Apologies. You inspired a very strange image in my mind," he attempted to explain, "For a moment, I imagined if his godsforsaken parents had named him Baron. Baron-Baron Praxis. No one would have ever taken him seriously."

"His attack dog's name was Erol Eroll Errol. The Third."

Jak didn’t sound like he was joking.

"He would've been in good company."

Sobering a bit, Damas strolled to the other side of the bed. He kept his hands visible, and his movement slow, and pretended not to see the boy tense up when he approached. From a sleeve sewn into his waist armor, Damas produced one of the two vials of light eco and held it up for Jak to see.

"This is stronger than the controlled levels of green eco you've been given thus far," he said. "The light eco will repair the recent damage -- anything older than a year would require extended immersion, which is dangerous for hu'mens."

Jak's eyes widened, and the hostile set of his shoulders eased. A wary curiosity took its place as he raised his splinted fingers towards the vial.

"It...still exists?" he murmured, "Thought the dark wiped it all out."

Dr. Goad stiffened. "You've seen light eco before?"

It was as if he'd forgotten to fight. Jak was mesmerized by the eco. Distracted, he nodded.

"Not- not for a long time. Not since before- before Haven."

It figured. If any of the precious resource remained in that corrupted city, it was very well hidden. At least if the boy had some familiarity with the substance, he might be a little more at ease. A little more trusting.

Damas opened the vial and the eco floated up to swirl around his hand like a living thing. From the harsh intake of breath, he wondered if the boy had ever seen a channeler before. They had become rare on the eastern half of the mainland. Most of the remaining communities of non-monk channelers secluded themselves in the savannahs.

"Thankfully, this doesn't hurt," the king remarked, "but it is cold."

Jak did not appear to be wholly convinced.

The instant Damas held his hand even near the boy's eco core, the light eco shot out of his hand as if pulled by a rip current. It sank into the patient's skin all at once, before Damas could slow its entry. In response, Jak's back arched and he cut off a short, sharp cry.

And for one instant, his eyes shone, iris, pupil, sclera and all, a brilliant white.

Just as quickly as it had begun, it ended. Jak fell back, eyes dark once more, and gasped for breath. When Dr. Goad began unraveling the bandages around his hands, he let her. His eyes were unfocused, like he'd spent too much energy. Like he had been channeling the eco. Damas made a note of that.

"Those scars will take a few more doses to minimize," Goad said, not without sympathy, "But everything else looks healthy. Tell me if you feel any discomfort."

Discomfort. Jak preferred that to the word pain. Saying you were uncomfortable didn't make him feel as vulnerable. He lay listless against the pillow and let the doctor pinch and prod at his fingers while his mind buzzed restlessly.

There were other channelers. Not Samos, not dark eco mutants, light channelers. Jak had sort of believed he was the only person left who knew what that was like.

"Hand itches," Jak said after a moment. A grudging admission at best.

"Well once we determine the status of your stitches, you'll probably be able to take a shower. That will help."

Damas noted that the boy made a noticeable effort to avoid looking at the stitched-together flesh. He couldn't blame him. The moment they'd gotten him into the truck and Damas first realized how bad the puncture wound was still occasionally flashed to the forefront of his memory. He shouldn't have tried to pull the kid upright. They'd barely stopped the bleeding in time to provide emergency aid.

"That looks a lot better," Damas remarked. He folded his arms and tried to maintain eye contact. "I was worried, to be honest. We don't always make it in time to rescue the exiles."

"What do you do with the exiles you do rescue?"

Wary suspicion radiated from the patient, with no small amount of anxiety.

"Adults take a series of tests to determine where they will fit best in my city. Minors have fewer tasks, but more restrictions."

Damas’s eyes narrowed, and an almost comical look of irritation stole over him.

"You can only fish the same five kids out of the same kinds of incidents so many times before you have to start giving them a curfew."

Goad wound up the dirty bandages and tossed them into a paper sack. She stepped out of sight to wash her hands, then returned with an approving nod.

"The threads will dissolve on their own once you've showered. Just don't lift anything heavy for the next two weeks. Are you able to fully extend your left arm over your head?"

He always had been, it was just that he couldn't do it without pain.

Rather, he hadn't been able to do it without pain. But when he reached up now, as stoic as ever, his rotator cuff didn't so much as twinge! Had the light eco done that?

Amazed, Jak brought his arm down and rotated it slowly. His hands didn't ache. He could move his fingers. When was the last time he'd been able to move without at least a little pain?

Suddenly self-conscious, Jak let his arms drop and looked away. He cleared his throat and tried to seem like he was unaffected.

"I um. Thanks." He swallowed hard, but it only served to remind him of the pinch in his stomach. "I...don't know what you people use for currency."

As if he had any currency. Jak had nothing. Not even the clothes on his back belonged to him. And they knew it.

"Shards, metal gems, artifacts, it varies," Dr. Goad said without looking up from her clipboard.

Either she didn't hear the hidden question, or she was ignoring it.

Damas didn't ignore it.

"Hospital staff are paid by the district office. If you happen to come across any medicinal plants once you're finally cleared to go outside, however, they always appreciate those."

Jak wasn't sure he ought to trust that.

"How uh. How long do I have to be here?" he asked grudgingly.

Damas lifted one shoulder in a partial shrug.

"That depends on what your care team says-"

"-my what?!"

"-but I imagine two more weeks down here should suffice for the most urgent concerns," Damas finished as though he'd never been interrupted.

The kid looked horrified.

Weeks? he mouthed.

"No- no, I need to leave. I can't be here." He shook his head. "I can't-"

"You can," Dr. Goad interrupted, "and you will. Your bones are healed. Nothing else is. I'm not voiding my praticioner's oath just because you got restless, kid."

"Where's the soldier?"

Goad tilted her head and tried to puzzle through the switch in tone.

"What soldier?"

Jak's fingers dug into the thin sheets, and he avoided looking at the remaining medicated bandages, or the new scar tissue peeking out on the backs of his hands.

"The KG. Tattoos, blue armor. He fell with me. He dead?"

Understanding washed over Goad and Damas alike. Damas stepped closer to the bed and folded his arms comfortably. He gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"He lives, for the moment. When I've finished here, I'll be applying light eco to bring him out of his coma for a...conversation. Don't concern yourself with him, youngling. He is no longer capable of causing problems for anyone but medical staff."

Anxiety slanted Jak's ears back rigid, and his jaw worked in silence a moment. Residual pain combined with suppressed fear to roughen his voice.

"He's gonna say I killed an entire district. He's lying. I was supposed to die in the blast and didn't. They pinned it on me."

Damas took the statement with a simple nod.

"Thank you. I'll see if I can't catch our armored friend in any half-truths with that. Now, I don't expect Petros will approve physical therapy for another week, so you may as well take advantage of the time to sleep off your adventure while you can."

"While I can?"

Lifting a hand towards the ceiling, Damas almost smiled.

"It's a big city, kid. There's a lot to see."

He turned to go, adding almost absentmindedly over his shoulder,

"Welcome to Spargus, kid."

(That took five hours loll but I'm so proud of it)