Chapter Text
Black must have been truly shaken by Severus’s collapse that afternoon, for Greengrass appeared the very next day, a full three days before his scheduled visit.
This time, Severus had no intention of remaining silent. He intended to demand explanations regarding his condition, to pierce the veil of euphemisms they wrapped around him like a heavy shroud. He was weary of being excluded from his own fate; it was his body, after all, even if it had currently been reduced to a vessel. A wretched, biological incubator.
Though the examination was carried out with the usual routine Severus knew by heart, this time it felt as though the minutes were dragging on unmercifully.
The pressure on his bladder was becoming unbearable again. It was a dull, throbbing ache that ignored the fact that Severus had been to the bathroom only minutes before the visit announced by Kreacher. He lay there, irritated, feeling every second of wand-waving over his abdomen stretch into an eternity. Greengrass examined the foetal heartbeat with devout concentration, his pale eyes scanning the taut skin of Severus’s belly as if reading a map of a complex, hidden world. In the thick silence of the room, Severus could hear his own heartbeat, fast, uneven, filling his head with a deafening roar.
Finally, unable to endure another second, Severus pushed the doctor’s hand away with a decisive movement.
"I need to use the bathroom," he announced, pushing himself up into a sitting position with a wheeze. His rounded stomach shifted beneath his shirt like a heavy, tethered balloon. He felt humiliated by the mere fact of having to announce such needs, and he fussed feverishly with the fabric, trying desperately to shield his body and preserve the remnants of dignity that were slipping through his fingers.
Greengrass straightened up, showing no hint of impatience.
"Of course, Mr Snape, please do not feel constrained. Nature rarely asks for a convenient moment."
Black, who until then had stood motionless by the window, twitched. He apparently took this as a signal for action. As if the fact that Severus had been too exhausted the previous evening to protest further gave him the right to lay his hands on him. In two large strides, he was at the bedside. Severus automatically flinched and recoiled, and a second later, he was hit by a wave of stale alcohol still evaporating from Sirius’s pores. Black was clearly using anything as an excuse to get drunk, even someone else’s health problems. Feeling a sudden spasm in his stomach, Severus pressed a hand to his mouth to suppress the urge to gag. When the nausea eased slightly, he wrinkled his nose in undisguised loathing.
"Don’t you dare! You reek of the gutter!" he hissed, thrusting his other hand out like a barrier.
Sirius stopped mid-stride, then rolled his eyes, pursing his lips in a gesture of weary irritation.
"I can get there on my own, or failing that, I shall use that cursed chair. Your assistance is the last thing I require," Severus added through gritted teeth.
Sirius answered only with a heavy sigh and, without a word, pushed the wooden wheelchair forward. He watched from the side, hands shoved into his pockets, as Severus carefully and painfully clumsily tried to shift his weight. It wasn't until the third attempt, with sweat breaking out on his forehead, that he managed to seat himself.
The round trip took place in an icy silence, broken only by the creaking of wheels on the floorboards.
As Severus struggled to pull his swollen feet back onto the bedding, exhausted as if he had run a marathon despite moving no more than five paces, Greengrass observed his ankles with clinical interest.
"Frequent trips to the toilet are the norm at this stage, Mr Snape. Just as are the weakness, swelling, and hot flushes you are experiencing," he began gently, which only soured Severus's mood further. "However, to relieve you of these increasingly exhausting treks, especially at night... a sensible solution would be to use a chamber pot set by the bed."
Severus felt the blood drain from his face, only to return a moment later in a searing wave of purple. The proposal was logical, medically justified, and absolutely degrading, stripping him of his final shreds of dignity. Out of sheer humiliation, he was unable to utter a word. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Black; he had closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, as if physically bracing himself for Severus’s explosion of fury.
For a moment, Severus simply breathed deeply, staring at a single point on the duvet, fighting the burning tears behind his eyelids that he had no intention of showing. Only when he felt certain his voice would not tremble did he lift his head.
"And what..." he began, pointedly ignoring the subject of the chamber pot as if the suggestion had never been made, "...is not the norm? What is causing this patronising concern of yours, Mr Greengrass?"
The Healer looked down at his notes, then at Severus’s thin wrists.
"As you well know, the male body is not biologically equipped to carry a foetus. It lacks the necessary elasticity, supporting structures... or the natural safety valves that women possess."
"To the point. Spare us the anatomy lecture," Severus cut him off.
"You will feel worse with each passing day. The child is not only consuming your stores of magic and minerals but is quite literally physically taking up space you do not have. Your blood pressure is alarming... far too high for the safety of the pregnancy. And for your life." Greengrass paused, as if weighing his words. "The amniotic sac will soon begin to compress your lungs, making breathing difficult. I fear you will enter a state of multi-organ failure. When that happens, we will have very little time to... perform a Caesarean section."
A silence so heavy fell over the room that one could almost hear the settling dust. Severus felt something turn to stone inside him.
"How much time?" he whispered.
"Not much. At the current rate... perhaps two weeks. After that, the risk will become too great. Mr Black has already given his consent."
Severus felt a sudden flash of heat that had nothing to do with his physical state. So, Sirius knew. He had known beforehand and made the decision himself, disposing of Severus’s life as if he were choosing the colour of new wallpaper for the drawing room. Without consultation, without warning, without so much as a single word of explanation.
"Two weeks," Severus repeated, trying to steady his voice. "That will be the thirty-fifth week."
He slowly turned his head toward Sirius. Black was looking at him, and his grey eyes expressed absolutely nothing.
"Is that not a little early to extract your heir?" Severus’s voice dripped with pure mockery, though inside, everything in him was screaming. "So much trouble, so much effort, all for nothing?"
"It isn’t 'for nothing'. It’s necessary," Black simply sighed, as if talking to an unreasonable child.
Severus smiled crookedly, the taste of ash on his lips. The sense of helplessness choked him more than the pressure on his lungs.
"How heroic of you! Such sacrifice! A true Gryffindor!"
"There is no other option," Sirius snapped, turning his gaze toward the window as if the sight of Severus had finally begun to tire him. "A corpse makes for a poor surrogate, Snape."
Severus narrowed his eyes.
"Do you enjoy seeing me... like this? Does it finally satisfy... your bloodlust?"
Pale with rage, Black glanced toward Greengrass, who was pretending he wasn't there, before snarling: "Either you are an idiot, or this weakness is affecting you more than it seemed." He curled his upper lip in contempt. "For your sake, I hope it’s the latter."
****
The following week passed under the sign of futile attempts to strengthen Severus. His body began to crumble like a Jenga tower from which someone had pulled one too many blocks with a single careless move. The entire structure groaned at its foundations, threatening total collapse at any moment.
Soon, Severus was no longer able to reach the bathroom on his own. Faced with the choice of humiliatingly calling for Kreacher or Sirius to help him into the wheelchair, he chose the lesser evil: the chamber pot. At first, with the last of his strength and pride, he would vanish the contents magically immediately after use, aiming his wand toward the toilet in the adjoining room. However, the closer the scheduled date of the operation drew, the more his powers waned, and he became too indifferent to care for such details.
Each day, his stomach refused to accept any solid food. Severus existed in suspension, kept alive by tedious drips and strengthening decoctions and shakes that tasted of chalk and ash. His breathing became shallow and rattling; the pressure of the amniotic sac made his head thrum from lack of oxygen, leaving him in a state of perpetual daze. Most of the time he simply slept—but it was a shallow, unrefreshing sleep, interrupted by the need to urinate.
Every so often, Black appeared in the doorway. He didn't say much. He just stood there for a moment, leaning against the frame, monitoring his condition with a cold, appraising look.
There was no distinct moment of "later."
It was hard for him to believe that he had once cared about things like a future career, being a Death Eater, or revenge on Dumbledore and Sirius, that the world outside the window had once interested him. The days ceased to differ from one another.
Now, in flickers of consciousness, his entire world had shrunk to a constant shortness of breath, to pain in his chest and the weight in his belly. Severus drifted on the border between sleep and waking, in a state that was no longer even fatigue, but a chemical fog. The drips slowed everything down, thoughts, reactions, even the pain, which instead of disappearing became dull and diffuse, as if someone had stretched it in a thin layer beneath his skin. Everything was soft and blurred: images, sounds, feelings, thoughts.
A knock at the door pulled him to the surface. He didn't need to look to know it was Sirius, obviously.
"Severus..." he said.
The name reached him with a delay, as if from a distance. For a moment, Severus wasn't sure if he was actually hearing it or just remembering the sound of it. He tried to move his fingers. He only managed a minimal twitch of his thumb.
Black stepped closer. Severus felt a change in the air, someone’s weight in the space, a shadow shifting across the ceiling. He forced himself to open his eyes. The image was blurred, the light too sharp; his eyelids immediately stung.
"Greengrass says they’ll increase the dose of Sanguis Vigilans tomorrow," Sirius said. "It should stabilise your blood pressure before the surgery."
The word "tomorrow" meant nothing to him at that moment. He didn't register when one day ended and another began. He swallowed, but his throat was parched and his tongue dry. Since his body had stopped even keeping down water, his only supplementation of nutrients and fluids was the IV. The fact that a catheter had been installed reached him late, through the fog of sleeping potions. Someone had been touching him, exposing him, and operating on his body while he drifted in the void. The most terrifying thing was not the violation of intimacy itself, but how much he had ceased to care.
Severus knit his brows in concentration, trying to follow what Sirius was saying. Despite the fog surrounding his brain, he knew which potion Black was talking about. It contained belladonna distillate, essence of hellebore, and several other potentially risky ingredients for a pregnancy, each of which could kill a foetus even individually, let alone mixed together. In fact, not just for the pregnancy; for his life too. A few drops too many and the patient departs this earthly vale of tears. After all, the only difference between medicine and poison is the dose.
"There is one more thing that needs to be settled," Black continued. "A name."
The air seemed to thicken for a moment. Severus blinked slowly. A name. The word evoked no image or emotion—only a short, hollow echo.
"If it’s a boy," Sirius went on, "I’ve considered a few options. Family names. Or something simpler."
Black’s voice was dissolving, losing its contours. Severus focused on one point: a tiny crack in the plaster above the door. He counted his breaths. Three short inhalations. One longer exhalation. The pressure in his chest eased slightly.
"And if it’s a girl, the choice is... broader. Give me your suggestions."
Severus tried to move his head. The movement was so slight that he wasn't sure if he had succeeded. With his right hand, he instinctively brushed the sheet as if looking for support. His fingers met the cold metal frame of the bed. He clenched them until his knuckles turned white.
"Severus?" Sirius frowned. "Do you hear me?"
He opened his mouth. For a moment, nothing happened. Only on the second attempt did he manage to push out air.
"It is..." he began. His voice was quiet, hoarse, barely audible even to himself. "It is of no consequence."
He felt his abdominal muscles tense violently, triggering a sharp, stabbing pain. He hissed quietly, automatically drawing his elbows closer to his body as if he could curl into himself.
"What do you mean 'of no consequence'?" there was irritation in Black’s voice.
Severus closed his eyes. His pulse hammered in his temples. Every word cost him too much.
"Choose..." he whispered. He paused, catching his breath. "Whatever."
He swallowed with difficulty.
"Since you..." he broke off as a sudden wave of breathlessness forced him to stop. He gasped for air sharply until dark spots danced before his eyes. "Since you are choosing everything else anyway."
Silence fell. Severus felt Black’s gaze on him like physical pressure. He had the feeling that if he opened his eyes, that look would crush him even more.
"This concerns your child," Sirius said coldly.
The corner of Severus’s mouth twitched in something that might have been a smile, but the muscles wouldn't cooperate.
"Why... the pretence?" he whispered. "You will... choose what you deem fit regardless."
His heart accelerated again. The hand he held on the bed frame began to tremble. He only let go when his fingers stiffened with tension.
"Fine," Black said after a moment. "I will decide myself."
He turned away. The footsteps began to recede. Finally, he heard the door close quietly. Severus breathed unevenly for a long while, like someone who had run a long distance. The name vanished from his thoughts almost immediately. All that remained was soft fog and timelessness.
*****
In the night preceding the procedure, he was awakened by fear, a frantic, mindless panic, sudden and sharp, that ripped him from his shallow sleep. He didn't remember what he’d dreamt of; he only remembered his terror. For a moment he didn't know where he was or what was happening; he could only hear his own loud, hysterical breathing. His heart pounded like mad, and his breath hitched as if his lungs were refusing to cooperate; he felt sweat covering his temples. He felt as if he were suffocating, unable to draw enough air. Only after taking several deep breaths did his breathing calm enough that Severus could focus on his surroundings. His eyes, dazed by drugs and the nightmare, took in the dimly visible surroundings in the twilight, he was still at Grimmauld Place, in the same room as yesterday. It was both a relief and not.
He lay for a moment longer, listening to his slowly stabilising breath before sleep claimed him again.
He was awakened by the sensation of being touched.
"Steady," someone’s voice said, too far away. "It’s just a reaction. Please don't move."
Someone’s hands,cool, steady, held him in place. Severus tried to protest but only managed a quiet groan. Someone gave him a potion; the bitter liquid slid down his throat, robbing his thoughts of sharpness almost immediately.
"We are beginning the preparation," Greengrass said, as if reporting a change in the weather.
The word "beginning" was the last one Severus fully understood.
After that, it was only movement: the bed, the corridor, the ceiling sliding slowly above him. Cold. The smell of disinfectants. Voices that talked about him, not to him.
Someone asked for a name. Severus didn't answer. Someone answered for him.
And then the world began to recede, to shrink, until only one persistent impression remained: that his body, for the last time, was ceasing to belong to him.
The light was too bright. Not white, but sharp, as if it had sliced through the air and hung above him, motionless. Severus had the feeling it was burning his eyelids, even through closed eyes.
The smell hit him almost immediately: metal, disinfectants, something bitter that settled in his throat and wouldn't leave. He tried to swallow, but the reflex came with a delay, as if the body needed permission to perform the simplest task.
Voices were close, yet didn't concern him at all. Conversations took place above him, beside him, as if he were merely an object placed in the centre of the room. He felt detached from himself, as if lying right next to his own body, observing it from a short distance.
Cold touched his abdomen suddenly and without warning. His skin tensed instinctively before he could understand what was happening. For a brief moment, the body tried to recoil, to protest, but it was almost immediately immobilised by its own inertia.
He knew he shouldn't move. That awareness existed somewhere on the margins, detached from the rest of his sensations.
Someone’s hands adjusted the sheet, pulling back the fabric, exposing more than he wanted. The touch was efficient, impersonal, devoid of any interest in him as anyone other than a body requiring specific actions.
He heard a command to breathe. So he breathed, though he had the feeling the breath did not belong to him. Air flowed in and out, warm, filtered through a plastic mask, alien and intrusive.
The thought of Sirius appeared suddenly, unrelated to what was happening around him. It was like a spasm, short, sharp, impossible to ignore. Severus tried to move his head, as if he could see him, make sure he was somewhere outside this blinding brightness. His neck, however, felt unnaturally heavy, as if it had ceased to belong to him.
Someone spoke again, closer this time. Words were spoken about how "it won't be long now," though Severus couldn't determine exactly what was about to happen. The concept of time was blurring, losing meaning.
He felt pressure, deep, unpleasant, lacking clear contours. It wasn't pain yet, rather a signal that something was happening, that a boundary had been crossed. The mind refused to interpret, leaving the body to its own devices.
Thoughts broke and vanished, replaced by single images: the reflection of a lamp in a metal instrument, the brightness of gloves, the movement of hands. Then came warmth, and immediately after it, a feeling of void, a sudden, unnatural lack of gravity inside the body. It wasn't relief, it was the feeling of being "eviscerated."
His heart accelerated, though he couldn't say why. He wasn't sure if this anxiety still belonged to him.
He heard his name. Once. Then again. He reacted with a delay, blinking slowly, trying to gather the scattered fragments of consciousness. The world fell apart into pieces, then reassembled itself, crookedly and uncertainly.
Then a sound reached him, quiet, initially difficult to recognise, but distinctly different from everything before. Severus tried to give it meaning, but the thought didn't close into a whole.
Then the light went out and he sank into a soft darkness.
*****
Severus returned to consciousness slowly, as if emerging from a thick, sticky liquid that coated his lungs and thoughts.
Weight.
That was the first thing he registered, the absence of the rhythmic, stifling pressure on his own lungs. Not that familiar, crushing weight that for weeks had pressed down on his chest and belly.
Air was entering him too easily. Too deeply. It expanded his ribcage to the point of pain, as if the body no longer remembered what to do with such an amount of oxygen.
When he tried to move his hand, he felt that his fingers were alien, disobedient, weightless, as if they belonged to someone else. They twitched reluctantly after a moment, like a marionette whose strings had been partially cut but the rest left.
Then came the smell. It wasn't the stifling scent of food or the metallic odour of blood and disinfectants. It smelled of dust, old wood, and something else, familiar. Because he had been practically deprived of this sense for several months, he noticed it more clearly now.
Only then did the thoughts come. Clear. Sharply outlined.
He tried to move his fingers again. The reaction was delayed; the signal had to push through something thick, sticky, lingering between will and muscle. His thumb twitched. Then his index finger. That was enough.
He opened his eyes. His eyelids felt like lead plates, the image was hazy, unstable. He was no longer in that pitiless, sterile brightness of the procedure room. The bed canopy emerged slowly, then the heavy curtains. The dark wood of the frame, the bedside table with books on the left, exactly where they should be. An IV connected to his arm.
His own bed.
His own space.
Grimmauld Place.
Only then did the most important thing hit him.
His belly was flat.
Not empty in the sense of pain, empty in the sense of absence. Like after the amputation of something that had never been part of the body, yet had managed to become so. Severus drew in breath more sharply than he had planned. His abdominal muscles protested with a dull, hollow ache.
He hissed quietly.
"Mr Snape is awake!" a croaking, muffled whisper came from the side of the bed.
Severus flinched. Only now did he notice Kreacher. The elf was staring at him with his large, watery eyes, in which was reflected a peculiar mixture of relief and customary, deep-seated resentment.
"How long..." Severus began, but his voice refused to cooperate. His throat was parched, his tongue heavy. He swallowed. The second attempt was slightly better. "How long have I been..." he trailed off.
Kreacher trembled.
"Mr Snape has slept a very long time," the elf croaked. "Mr Snape was forbidden to speak and think. Mr Black told Kreacher to watch."
That was enough for Severus to understand one thing: not hours.
"Water," he said quietly.
The elf vanished with a quiet crack.
He was left alone. Severus closed his eyes for a moment. His heart beat slowly, heavily, as if every beat had to be approved by a separate decision. He tried to organise the facts, but his thoughts drifted apart, breaking into loose fragments.
The operation.
Darkness.
Then... nothing.
Not two minutes could have passed before the bedroom door swung open. Greengrass entered, with Sirius right behind him.
Black looked different. He wasn't drunk, but his handsome face was gaunt, with deep shadows under his eyes that made him look like a character from a dramatic painting. He stopped a few paces from the bed, his hands clenching the back of a chair.
Greengrass was immediately at Severus’s side, drawing his wand. He too was pale, clearly tired, like someone who hadn't slept for many days but forced himself to maintain the posture of a Healer. His gaze travelled to Severus’s face, then, with a short, controlled movement, to the dressings hidden beneath his nightshirt.
"Steady, Mr Snape. Please do not try to sit up. Your body has undergone immense stress."
"How..." Severus had to pause to moisten his cracked lips with his tongue. Greengrass immediately poured water from a carafe and held the glass to Severus’s lips, supporting it while Severus took a few sips and then froze, waiting for the wave of nausea that didn't come. It was so surprising, he’d grown so used to the constant discomfort, that for a moment Severus thought it was a trick before realising it was behind him. "How much time has passed?"
The Healer glanced briefly at Sirius before returning his gaze to the patient.
"It is March, Mr Snape. The twenty-third of March."
The words hit Severus harder than he had expected. March. The last thing he remembered before the drugs in the IV scrambled his consciousness was mid-February. Over a month. A month cut out of his life as if it had never existed. Erased. Taken.
"Complications?" he asked without preamble.
Greengrass raised his eyebrows as if expecting a different question, but even if he was offended by the question, he didn't show it, maintaining a perfect politeness.
"Respiratory failure, transient kidney damage, severe exhaustion. The Caesarean section was necessary immediately. You lost a lot of blood." The doctor paused for a moment, as if assessing how much Severus could bear, before continuing: "You were in a medically induced coma. Afterward... you were not reacting stably enough to be awakened sooner."
"But I’m alive," Severus summarised, forcing a shadow of his customary irony, though it sounded rather pathetic.
"Yes," Greengrass admitted. "Though for a time, it was not certain."
"What is the situation now?"
"Your results are much better, the worst is behind you. From now on, you will be returning to full strength."
Severus nodded, accepting the words, and shifted his gaze to Sirius.
"The child?" he asked, his tone purely technical.
"Alive," Sirius cut him off shortly. His voice was husky, devoid of its usual mocking note. "He’s in the nursery, with a wet nurse. Everything is... fine with him."
Severus closed his eyes. "Him." So, a boy. The heir of the House of Black who had nearly killed him. In the nursery... He knew nothing about this room, as he knew nothing about anything related to this life. But on the other hand, it was natural for the Black family to have such a room.
"Is anything else... left in me?" he asked after a moment, emphasising the words "in me."
Greengrass understood.
"No," he said firmly. "The operation was total. Another pregnancy is impossible. Your body is recovering. Convalescence will take a long time, but there should be no negative effects."
Only then did Severus release the breath he hadn't realised he’d been holding.
"Good," he said quietly.
Silence fell.
"Rest is now crucial," Greengrass's voice became firm. "In a moment we will give you some broth and another strengthening dose. Please do not try to get up; your muscles are in a state of atrophy. You must not cast spells, force your magic, or..."
"I wish to be... alone," Severus whispered.
"Mr Snape, I should like to perform some tests..."
"Tomorrow," Severus interrupted without raising his voice. "Now I wish to be alone."
Greengrass hesitated, looked at Black. Sirius gave a short nod.
"I will return later," the Healer said and left the room.
The two of them were left. Severus didn't turn his head. He stared at the ceiling.
"Why did you stay?"
"You survived," Sirius answered. "Just as I told you." It sounded like a challenge, as if he wanted to prove something to himself or to him.
Severus closed his eyes.
"Am I to thank you for that?"
Sirius was silent for a moment.
"Do you want to see him?" He didn't have to specify whom he was asking about, it was obvious.
"Not now. Perhaps when I am stronger." He didn't want to confront reality immediately, to look at that pitiful creature for whom he felt nothing but relief that he no longer had to carry it. He didn't want to look at Black playing the daddy either.
"Aren't you curious who he looks like?" Black didn't give in.
"You don't seem devastated, so probably you." Severus felt his throat tighten dangerously. He swallowed. "I know you are too simple to understand, but for me, the existence of this... child is a physical reminder of what you did to me." His voice sounded strangely thin.
For a moment it was completely quiet. Finally, the sound of Sirius's sigh reached his ears.
"As you wish."
After a moment, the door creaked quietly.
Severus didn't open his eyes until he was sure he was alone. Only then did he manage to move a trembling hand to his belly. Beneath his fingers, he felt the thick weave of bandages and the hard, raised line of a scar. The skin was alien, numb, as if it belonged to someone else. He felt no pain; evidently he was being given painkillers in the IV.
Finally, it was over.
Now that he had rid his belly of that parasite robbing him of his vital strength, his body remembered it belonged to a young man. The need for action was driving him. He was impatient that he was regaining his strength so slowly.
He tried to get up as early as the next morning, after breakfast which his stomach kept down, which in itself was like a miracle to him. He hoped another would happen when he stood up, but not this time. His legs immediately buckled, sending him to the floor. The rug cushioned the fall slightly, but not enough.
The wound on his belly didn't hurt much, only when he bent sharply, but his legs were like cotton wool. In fact, all his muscles refused to cooperate, as he discovered when he tried to get up from the floor.
He didn't want to be caught in such a pathetic situation by Kreacher, so he gritted his teeth and tried again and again. Finally, he managed to pull himself onto the bed, he was panting as if he had run a marathon.
Returning to fitness would take him longer than he expected, that was certain now, but Severus still felt an excitement vibrating under his skin. He hadn't expected that getting rid of the belly and the accompanying ailments would improve his mood this much. Now he suddenly felt much stronger mentally than at the beginning of his imprisonment, much more motivated to survive.
He had survived the most difficult part. Black, for his sacrifice, had received an unexpected bonus in the form of a child, which despite being a curse had its good sides. If Lily finally has a child, then his suffering will have bought him freedom. Or at least some form of freedom. Anything is better than being buried alive.
A year, two years, even five, if Lily gives birth within that time, he will still be very young and will have a chance to realise his plans. Fine, he will be patient. Everything in small steps, forward.
To start with, he intended to take a bath. After months of cleaning his body only with spells, not counting that unfortunate attempt at a shower, a bath in the tub was at the top of his list. And the rest he would handle in due time.