Do you need glasses? (Sebastian)

Fatigue. Muscle aches. Chills. Dry red eyes. A pounding headache. A slightly queasy feeling.

In the chair at Iris' clinic's front desk, Sebastian turned the next page of his notes and pulled a blanket a little tighter around his thin frame. Damnable healing energy kept racing through the network of his cells, uselessly trying to repair this or that. Sebastian wished it would just quit it; the cold was distracting.

Five days left and finals would be over for the semester. He straightened and massaged his sore back as he turned yet another page. He squinted down at the words, slumping over them as he tried to decipher his own shorthand. What in hades had he been thinking of when he wrote these notes? If the headache would only go away, maybe it would make more sense.

His eyelids drooped. Sleep beckoned, but Sebastian ignored its call and took another sip of coffee. It wasn't like it made a difference, but he could pretend.

Five days left.

His stomach moaned, protesting against the warm liquid. When had he eaten last? He wasn't even sure that he really was hungry. Besides, he didn't have time to prepare food. He didn't really need to eat. He needed to study.

Five days.

Sebastian never got sick. He couldn't get sick, he wasn't about to start now.

Not when there were still five days left.

----

Someone pounded on the door, sending pulses of pain through Sebastian's headache. If that was a customer... he glared up at the front door. No one was there. Soft barefooted footsteps rushed down to answer the summons to the back door.

>> “Where is he?”

Sebastian's droopy eyes flew open and he quickly stood up. Adrenaline pumped through his veins more efficiently than caffeine ever did.

The gruff voice belonged to his father-in-law, Allen Swift, a man he respected deeply, but also one that intimidated him. It was funny, Sebastian could face vampires and camp guards with blazing guns, even dragons for Zeus' sake, without fear, but facing one ordinary human man made him jittery.

Sebastian started toward the back of the clinic, certain that the 'he' Mr. Swift was looking for was himself. In the examination room window, the unicorn man caught a glimpse of his reflection. He looked awful. He hadn't shaved in days, had bags under his eyes from not sleeping, was completely disheveled.

He took a split second to at least straighten his shirt before opening the door that separated the clinic from the apartment entryway in the back of the building.

“Mr. Swift, welcome,” he attempted a smile.

What was he doing? Was that a trick question? Sebastian's tired mind scrambled for the correct response. Prefontal cortex? No, that wasn't it.

Not what he ought to... Sebastian followed his father-in-law's significant looks toward Ghost. He realized that he hadn't really seen her all day, even though they had been in the same building. He'd had his nose in a book from well before breakfast up until now, whatever time of day it was now. He had sort of lost track.

Ghost looked paler than usual, everywhere except her cheeks which were quite pink. Her voice, when she had been speaking before, it hadn't quite sounded like it normally did.

“Do you have a fever?” Some doctor he was, not even realizing that his own wife was sick. He curled his fingers and touched the backs of them gently to Ghost's cheek to test the fever theory. She felt warm, but it was hard to tell for sure, because his own fingers were so cold. At the touch, a tiny spark of cold energy jumped from his fingers to her face, sputtered, then died away. He stared at his own hand, surprised. He hadn't realized that his energy was running so dry.

He looked back to Mr. Swift, half bewildered, half apologetic, wholly uncertain of what to say.

Ghost had grasped one hand already, and when Mr. Swift had swung them towards each other, it had felt only natural to take the other one as well. It was like they were getting married all over again to stand that way and have someone remind them that they had promised to be together in sickness and in health.

He shouldn't have needed the reminder.

He shook his head dolefully at her apology, “He was right, though. I've been...” his tired brain struggled to find the words to express his sentiments, “...far too preoccupied.“

Sebastian pulled Ghost closer and hugged her close, “I'm so sorry. These classes are so difficult, and it seems so important to learn this material so that...” he trailed off, took a breath and started over, “ I can't believe it. I'm a healer and I let my wife get sick.”

He blinked tiredly at the question of whether he needed anything, then shook his head. “I'm not the one that is ill. Can I get anything for you?” Anything she wanted or needed, he'd get for her. All he needed was these five days to be over and only time could take care of that; time and study. He could maybe tuck Ghost into bed then read for just a few more minutes to make sure he could solidify a few things in his mind before they faded into the fog.

He nodded into her hair as she started to hug back. Fewer hours would mean he'd have more time to spend with his family. It also meant it would take longer for him to learn everything he needed to know about how to help Ghost not disappear into thin air. There was already such a narrow window of opportunity between finishing medical school and the time when Ghost would perhaps be too far gone to help. And in that window he would have to discover a cure, too.

Sebastian swallowed, but couldn't choke down the rising doubts in himself. It just wasn't enough time, and he was starting to think that he wasn't smart enough to figure it out. It was like trying to discover a cure for cancer all by himself with a time limit of a year. What if he failed and found that all that time he had spent had been a waste?

Over Maya's shoulder, Sebastian surveyed the paper mountains that had sprung up from the desk's surface. All of that paper represented only a fraction of what he needed to know; an eighth or less. His tail drooped.

It all seemed so futile.

“It's more important that you rest. Don't worry about me. The Latin roots make the memorizing a little easier,” at least the names of the body parts, that was. “Let's go upstairs.” Suddenly the last thing he wanted was to be trapped in that hopeless room.

Sebastian stepped backwards out through the doorway, getting about as far from the mountains of books as his wife's arm holding his hand would let him. He shook his head at the books, the lists, the papers, the syllabi, and the notes.

“It's not that,” his quiet answer was almost more to the books than to his wife. The words on the pages ran across the pages like tears in front of his eyes. The books lying open seemed to be laughing at him. Dread filled his chest, clenching his heart and making it harder to inhale fully. He didn't want to go back in there. Not right now.

He turned away from the mess, determined not to look at the piles of failure. It wouldn't be so bad, after he had rested a little while. He could come back later, when he had slept. When the panic was gone.

He took a deep breath and admitted, “I'm afraid. I'm worried that whatever I am able to learn here, it will be too little too late to help you.”

Deep breaths, deep breaths. Don't panic.

Sebastian looked at his own feet, unaware that they were also under scrutiny by someone else as well. Ghost didn't say it in so many words, but what she was telling him that she didn't need a savior as much as she needed a husband.

He squeezed her hand back. He was holding her hand, and he could be okay with that, but it didn't ease all of the worry. If he didn't save her, who would? These so-called genetics and heredity experts... they didn't care about Ghost like he did. They had no idea that she even existed or that she needed help.

“Aren't you afraid of disappearing?”

Sebastian ventured a look up at Maya's face. Her eyes were searching, but for what he wasn't certain. His eyes drooped at the corners, tired and sad, but searched hers as well. She was so sincere, so accepting. And so right.

If she was happy just living her life rather than trying to change it, shouldn't he be content to do the same? The past semester they had barely even seen each other, all because he was trying so hard to change fate. He had no proof, though, that what he had been doing had even helped. He had essentially missed half a year, without any guarantee that he had made any difference in the final outcome.

His shoulders drooped further.

“I'm so sorry Maya.” Sorry that he had failed at being her savior. Sorry he had failed at being a husband, and a father. Sorry about everything.

It was just so difficult to accept that he could not be both husband and savior. It was even more difficult to accept that his limited amount of time was so short. He had lost loved ones before, but it didn't make it any easier to know how limited that time actually was.

He wished he didn't know. It was torture to know about the future but not be able to do anything. The faces of a couple he had met in Europe, that now resided at his old home, floated to the forefront of his thoughts. How could he stand knowing? In that moment, Sebastian gladly would have traded saving the world from the Haywire virus to simply go back to being oblivious.

Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless.