so long, lonesome

Once the sun had set, and after he drank his breakfast, Aldric went in to the school to relieve the day crew of their shift. The afternoons, he imagined, were busy, with students leaving classes or skipping them altogether for some sickness or another, and then, of course, there were the athletic injuries.

The night shift was typically quieter. There were fewer classes to leave at this hour, which meant the students he saw were sick with something usually a bit more serious. Food poisoning, a bit too much to drink, sudden viruses that required a note to get them out of class the next day—it was a different pace, but one he was fine with, for it permitted him to grade papers in between patients.

It was not ambition that drove him to gather responsibility, but rather, a desire to fill his time with as much work as he could. There was too much to think about, too many melancholy crooks in his memory to revisit, when he did not fill his time adequately.

There were no students waiting for treatment, or for a signed note, and so he went into his office, where he took out papers and began reading. He kept the door to his office open, in the event anyone came in to the infirmary.

Five papers later—decent papers, he was pleased to report—he heard a soft voice call out in his native tongue. Aldric's head shot up. There was a brief spark of excitement in his eyes, for a long time had passed since the last time he encountered anyone whose language sounded like home.

"Guten abend!" he called back, his voice strong and affable. "One moment, one moment." He tucked the papers back into his briefcase, then walked out, a stethoscope around his neck, a white jacket on his body, and a clipboard in his hands.

"My name is Dr. Reinhardt," he said, "what seems to be the—"

He looked up from the clipboard to see two people: a student in a chair, who looked feverish, and a young, transparent man who looked like Aldric's greatest failure.

A calamity began in his chest—though his heart no longer bear, and though his lungs no longer required air, there was a sudden, sharp tightness, as if his insides had been twisted. Was the face his face, or just a similar one? And were those his clothes, or someone else's? Aldric's first instinct was to call it coincidence, some random chance in the wild universe that tortured him centuries later over an error he could not forgive himself for.

His brows furrowed slightly, the only visible sign of vexation.

"The… trouble," he said slowly. "What seems to be the—the trouble."

A hand shot up to cover the man's neck, and just before the palm could cover it, Aldric saw the old wound he had inflicted. A wound to save Johann's life—a wound that had failed—a wound that now taunted him, as if those two puncture holes were empty eyes, staring blankly at him.

No wonder this man was transparent. He was a ghost. But Johann was buried in Germany. Aldric himself had dug the grave, had himself ordered the headstone, had himself given the eulogy and seen Johann put peacefully into the ground.

It made no sense for Johann to be here, so far away from home and so far from a peaceful rest. Desperation told him some apparition must be playing a cruel joke, and perhaps some evil was at work here—but Aldric had a job to do.

The paintings on the walls shuddered. Aldric snapped his eyes away to watch them quiver, and then, once they stilled, he looked back to Johann. Something like terrified, confused awe glimmered in his eyes, but it was faint and reluctant to show itself fully.

"Of course," he said. "I can help."

He swallowed over a growing lump in his throat, then turned away for a moment to retrieve a thermometer. When he returned, he knelt in front of the student, and explained, in a careful and gentle voice:

"I'm just going to take your temperature," he said, "and then listen to your chest, is that okay?"

The student nodded, though very slowly. Clearly exhausted. Midterms would do that. Aldric gave the student the thermometer, and it came back with a high temperature, just as he suspected. He put the stethoscope into his ears and placed it against the student's chest.

"Deep breath," he instructed. The student did so, and he gave the instruction a couple more times, moving the stethoscope to a different part of the chest. Aldric's eyes wandered back to Johann—despite the calm professionalism of his voice, he felt wild, and could not look away from him.

"Thank you," he said to the student, "and—" to Johann, "thank you for bringing them. There is—it's going around—a bug. There's a bug going around. It was good of you to—be on the lookout."

He stood up fully, then averted his eyes. "I'm going to prescribe some antibiotics," he said to the student. "And lots of rest, and lots of liquids." He scribbled something on a pad of paper, then offered it to the student to take and hopefully be on their way.

He had much to discuss with this ghost.

The student left, prescription in hand, and Aldric watched them go. Even as he looked away from Johann, he felt some force tugging his gaze back to look at his long-departed companion. He tried to resist it. When he looked at Johann, he saw nothing but despair; Johann's death had been his undoing in so many ways, and for over a century Aldric had regretted it.

He turned his head away to look at the opposite wall. He inhaled an unnecessary but calming breath. The pain in his chest increased, then dissipated slightly as he exhaled through his nose. It sounded like a heavy sigh, but was meant only to be a breath to clear his head.

But his head didn't clear. How could it? He was not so unfeeling that a simple breath could dispel everything that Johann's presence here made him feel.

At last he looked back to Johann, and wondered how he had managed to look away to begin with.

But Johann looked pained, and Aldric could hardly blame him. He was surely in pain, remembering how Aldric had failed him in the moment of his greatest need. Aldric did not know what to say, and so he merely stood there, looking at Johann, who he thought he would never look at again.

"Leave?" The wrinkles in his forehead were evidence of his bewilderment, to be asked such a question. Aldric shook his head from side to side. The motion felt both fast and slow, as if he were moving through syrup and yet also on fire.

"No," he added. "I don't want that—how could you think…"

He trailed off. It was a useless question.

"There is no reason for you to leave," he said.

He did not know what else to say. All the questions seemed futile. It didn't seem like the right time to ask any of the important ones. Aldric wet his lips with his tongue, thinking, and then made an offer—he had waited too long to do that once, and he did not want to make that mistake again.

"Would you like to join me in my office? You needn't, of course, if you're busy, but it has been so long…"

One hundred and ninety-nine years, eleven months, nine days.

Johann had kept count, and this felt like a wound. It had been more than a long time—it had been lifetimes since they'd seen each other. So much time had passed that Aldric had forgotten the sound of Johann's voice, had nearly forgotten what he looked like until he was confronted with him again.

Though he had forgotten the physical aspects of Johann—what he looked like, what he sounded like—there were other things he could not forget. The weight of his body in his lap while he tried to save him. The taste of his blood in his mouth. The way his breath had stopped. The sound of his heart stuttering, then stopping, and not starting again.

As Johann grew more emotional, objects about the room began to shudder. Pens inside a repurposed coffee mug ricocheted off each other. The room belonged to Johann now, and to the strength of his own grief.

"What?"

The accusation made no sense.

"I didn't leave you, Johann," said Aldric. His voice hitched to say that name again—the air rushed out of his chest.

"I was with you until you died. I stayed with you, even after. When the sun rose, I was holding you. And afterwards I buried you—I didn't leave you."

Tears dribbled down Johann's cheeks, a sight which he had never seen during the young man's life. Johann never wept before him—not even when he was a child, newly brought to the manor, or in the days before his death when he'd had something on his mind.

Until now, Johann had done all his crying alone, behind the closed door of his bedroom, through which Aldric could only hear him. To offer comfort then was to breach Johann's privacy, but now Aldric took a small step forward. He raised his hands a little bit, with the fingers spread wide—he was not quite reaching for Johann, but instead trying to calm him, trying to show that he had no way of hurting him.

"[After what?]" Aldric asked. Despite his concern and confusion, he kept it out of his voice—his words were soft and low, hoping that if he stayed calm then it might spread to Johann.

With the room dissolving into chaos, calming Johann was the first priority. Now it was more than a coffee mug full of pens clattering, more than paintings quivering.

One of the paintings fell to the floor, and its frame snapped. Pens lifted off of desks and flew across the room, like arrows, to stick themselves in walls.

"[When did I leave you, Johann?]"

One stapler began pressing itself down, stapling nothing. Another sprang open and fell to the ground, spilling out the staples inside it.

Aldric seethed to see the pile on the ground. This was the last thing he needed. Compulsion drove him toward the staples and as he knelt down, he said:

"[I'm not lying to you.]"

And then he began picking up the staples, counting them in his head. He was glad, at least, that the stapler had not been entirely full when it fell.

…Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen…

He paused and looked up from the small mess.

"[I am not lying, Johann. I did not leave. You died in my arms. I buried you. I did not leave you.]"

…Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen…