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Ship 3 was well into its nighttime light cycle when Luida finally emerged from the medical ward, clad in scrubs, her eyes deeply shadowed. Wordless, Brad offered a mug of coffee, taking in her raked-back hair and the tension in her jaw.
"How is he?" he murmured, feeling wrongfooted as the hour Luida brought Vash home – both soaked in his blood, Vash unconscious and missing his left arm; Luida barely able to explain herself how he'd lost it. Feeling like he should be the one exsanguinated and comatose, for the part he played in Vash's self-exile from the Home he knew.
Luida rubbed her eye, frown lines etched between her brows. "He's stable," she managed, voice tremulous, "He can't take human blood. Someone had to try to get a donation from one of the Dependents, and we don't have a protocol for that. Took a while." She sniffled, held the coffee cup below her face for its comforting steam and aroma. Her cheeks were pale, almost ghostly in the turned-down light. A wan smile. "She didn't fight it. The Dependent. I think she knew it was for Vash."
Brad scrubbed his face with his hand, clasped his fingers around his mouth. He couldn't say anything stupid now. Not after…
"He's sleeping, now." Her frown deepened. "His arm isn't regenerating."
Brad dropped his hand. "Why not?"
Luida chewed her lip. "I don't know. I know he doesn't produce anything, but if he can heal Dependents… I don't understand why he wouldn't be able to heal himself." She sipped the coffee. Brad winced at her grimace; he always made it too strong for her tastes and tonight was no exception.
"Maybe he needs to be awake for it."
"And not losing so much blood."
"Yeah. Fuck." Brad rubbed his brow and sat in one of the chairs outside the ward. Luida took the seat next to him, and leaned against his shoulder. He reciprocated. "Did they… say what to do next?"
A mournful sigh. "For now, the… wound is closed. If Vash can't regenerate his arm, then…"
Brad pursed his lips and jogged his knee a few times. "He'll need a new one." Out the corner of his eye, Luida looked at him.
"You don't need to make this up to him, Brad," she whispered.
He dropped his head into his hand, shielded his eyes from her. "I shouldn't have said any of that, with the black box. He heard me, and that's why he ran away, Luida. I never--" He cleared his throat and sat up again, glaring at the floor. Quieter, he confessed, "I swore I'd never be the kind of man my father was, and I turned out just like him anyway."
Luida didn't know what to do with that. If Brad had ever meant to say it. She soothed her hand over Brad's arm. Things were quiet. Their coffees grew lukewarm, and the night ticked by. At some point it occurred to them that neither had to stay here, holding vigil at Vash's sickbed. But they stayed.
"...Do you hear that?"
Both straightened, all attention on the high-pitched buzz they couldn't pinpoint. Brad craned toward the medical bay doors. "Is it coming from--"
Vash screamed.
The doors slammed open as they both rushed at once for the recovery ward, Vash's terrified cries escalating until they reached where he thrashed against the hospital blankets in his sleep. "Vash!" Luida yelled over the heart monitor's alarm, grasping for Vash's flailing wrist. "Vash, wake up!" Brad flattened himself over his skinny thighs, but the restriction only increased Vash's unconscious panic. He wailed, struggled again, and fell back on the pillow shaking and weeping, begging in nonsense for it (someone?) to stop, let him go.
Luida shook his uninjured shoulder. "Vash," she coaxed, "Sweetie, are you awake?"
His eyes blinked heavily, slits of blue peeking under dark lashes. "Wh'appened?"
"You're Home. You're in medical. What do you remember?"
Vash lifted what remained of his severed left arm, to examine its heavily bandaged stump. "All of it."
He wouldn't look at Brad, even as he lifted his weight off his legs. But not because of anger; Brad wouldn't believe it if Vash weren't in front of him, but that was shame dulling the boy's eyes.
Why would Vash ever feel shame , of all things, for something Brad could have prevented if he'd just learn to control his temper?
What could Brad ever say to make things right between them again?
Up the bed, Luida was carding back Vash's hair – bright and fluffy as a new chick's down, someone must have washed the blood out while he was unconscious – and wiping away his quiet tears with the end of her sleeve. "It's okay, sweetheart, you're safe. Everything's okay." Vash sniffled and covered his eyes with his arm. "Do you want to talk about it?" Still hiding his face, he shook his head.
"Could…" his voice was thick with exhaustion and something like defeat. "Could I be alone for a minute?"
He didn't see the look Brad and Luida exchanged – their mutual understanding that whatever happened at the wreckage of Ship 5, something in Vash had changed . The grief of it wouldn't hit them for some years yet; for now it was only an itch in the back of their minds. Something they could ignore rather easily, at least for now.
"Okay, Vash," Luida agreed softly, petting his hair back once more. "We'll be outside if you need anything." She stood, and Brad followed her cue to leave the medical ward and resume vigil in the seats past the doors.
The shadows under Luida's eyes grew darker.
She would burn her uniform when it came back from laundry irreconcilably clean of all of Vash's blood.
The coffee was stone cold.
Brad got up to make more.