I don't know if I can be what you want me to be [Mood]

There are many ways of opening doors, especially those that would normally be barred.  Keys, picks, stealth.  Knowing the right person, the right handshake, the right words.  The right bluff.  Or the right uniform.  It’s well after normal visiting hours when Alexander walks into the hospital.  It’s not hard to find the right room and the guarding nurse at the main desk is perhaps a little easier to get around for someone in uniform than random people walking in off the street.  It’s part of the unspoken deal between some of the public services – I’ll keep you safe, you put me back together again after.

“Room 306.  I’d say try not to wake him, but...”  The nurse shrugs, shakes her head sadly and then points the way down the corridor.

He finds Kalen asleep, unrousable, in a hospital bed.   The room lights are low and the monitoring equipment at the head end of the bed throws a little extra light into the room, making Kalen look paler than he really is.  The plastic tube from a drip disappears under the sheet.  The equipment is silent in its watch over its charge.

There’s an empty chair to one side, which Alexander moves over to the side of the bed.  He sits on it, then crosses his arms on the bed rails and rests his chin on them.  “What have you gotten yourself into now?”

He stays there, quietly watching the comatose man.  Eventually Alexander starts to feel sleepy, feels the drag of his eyelids downwards.  He stands, returns the chair to its original spot, then moves to the door.  He pauses under the frame and looks back at Kalen’s still form.  Says quietly, “I don’t know if I can be what you want me to be.”

A few more heartbeats pass and he leaves quietly.