Danger Zone

It has been weeks since Mrs. Novinchi has died and Daime is still stuck inside the hospital doing all of his therapy to prevent the drastic spread of his disease. 

The young man sighs heavily as he forces himself to stand up from his bed and sit on the wheelchair before calling out a nurse to help him wheel out of his room.

It has been days since his arms finally give out and now, he can no longer feel them. His legs are much worse since every time he tries to stand up, he falls down to the ground.

The promise that he left to the old lady is now impossible to do in this condition that he is in. The lesions are getting bigger as time passes by and his right eye goes to total blindness. 

The doctor tells him to wear an eye patch but Daime doesn't want to. He doesn't want to cover the blinding eye even if he can't see anything at all. 

It has been days since he last ate food. Now, he is on total parenteral nutrition since he can't eta solid food due to his mouth being sore. 

Catheters are also attached to his urinary bladder since his genital is also sore and his legs can't walk anymore. Daime looks at himself while waiting for the nurse to come and help him and he looks like he is about to die.

"I should've came with Mrs. Novinchi. That will stop my suffering with whatever disease I have."

He remembers when the doctor told him about his condition and can't help but be pity with himself. 

"Behcet's disease. What a joke."

Yes, it feels like a joke to him. But when he felt the pain that disease causes, he regrets joking about it. It makes him think whether one of his family has the disease and was passed on to him but he can't remember anyone dying from it.

"Fucking hell, look at you, Daime. Dying without by your side. Just like the old lady."

As he thinks about what she might felt, knowing that she is going to die any time soon and none of her family is there to be by her side. He feels lonely. 

"Even if I am there at her last moments, I am still a nobody. I am not part of her family. I don't even deserve to be called one."

He closes his eyes and hears the door opens and slowly looks at the blonde nurse that he first met when he first meets the old lady.

She smiles at him and pulls him away from his room without any word. She pushes the wheelchair slowly towards a room where the doctor conducts his diagnosis.

"Good morning, Mr. Santoro. How are you today?"

Daime only give him a weak smile. Seeing this, the doctor only knows what he is about to say since he gives him the same answer every time he asks him that question. 

"Let's begin?" 

Daime chuckles weakly at him and moves his arm slowly towards the doctor. He still have control over them but it is so little that they look like noodles now. 

"Do I have a choice?"

The doctor shakes his head and brings out a clean needle that he will be using to prick Daime's skin.

"Is this the only way to diagnose this disease?"

The doctor looks at him after pricking his skin with the twenty gauge disposable needle. He sighs at Daime and faces him fully as he turns his body towards Daime's direction.

"We did a couple test on you using your blood and urine but both of them shows a negative sign of Bechet's disease except for one. You skin biopsy shows a positive sign of the disease as it slowly progress from your skin."

Daime almost cusses when he hears about it. Remembering the time when the doctor asks for some sample of his skin. Daime sighs as he is being wheeled out of the room.

Normally, he will asks the nurse to bring him to his room as soon as he is done with his diagnosis. But this time, he asks the nurse if he can go to the garden to breathe some fresh air.

"Sure. Although, the doctor says that it will only be for thirty minutes."

Daime nods at this and let the nurse to wheel him out of the hospital and into the different flower beds that surrounds the hospital. 

While walking, the sight of the flowers make him remember the times when he had a sate with Aiden at his family's restaurant. It has been the very last memory that he cherishes and waits for him to sleep before leaving the mansion towards the airport. 

Reminiscing the past, Daime knows that he needs to get back to Switzerland to show and tell his sister that he had been good and he is doing extremely well in Russia. 

That this disease won't kill him while he is away. He looks at the nurse's direction and smiles. She is beautiful but using her to make him better is never a solution but he needs a sacrifice. 

Daime sighs and breathes internally as he looks at the vast space above the flowers. It is a magnificent sight. 

"What a beautiful sight. I wish my love could see this."

The blonde nurse looks at Daime as he slowly speaks with his raspy voice and his trembling tone.

"I miss him so much but our love was never all sunshines and rainbows. It is more like a black and white picture."

Daime sighs once again before forcing his hand to move and pushes him upward to stand. The nurse sees this and immediately helps him with his aid. He gratefully thanks her and inhales for the umpteenth time.

"I need to be better to see him, should I?"

The nurse looks at Daime with admiration at how much he loves this lover of him. She nods at him and quietly curses out that this lover is not taking care of him.

She also knows that none of his family knows about his condition and will probably never know whatever he is going through by the time he is stable.

"Help me recover, please?"

The nurse looks at him as she smiles and nods. His tone is pleading. Something that sounds like he is begging for mercy to the crime he did not commit. 

And from this day and forward, Daime promises himself that he will recover and goes back to Switzerland with a smile on his face. 

***

"How many months has it been? Three? Four? Five months?"

Daime looks at the doctor as he chuckles what he says to him. The young man shakes his head as he looks away and faces the mirror again. 

He has been shaving his beard for five minutes and the doctor has been talking to him for the last hour. 

"Can you stop and let me shave, please?"

Standing tall and proud, balancing his weight that he managed to get back for the past five months of pain and diagnosis. The lesions on his skin are now slowly healing and coming back to their natural state. 

He even asks a tattoo artist to cover them up, creating a new look for Daime that even his sister will never recognize him.

"You look like a different person. I can't believe you are that patient who has been losing his confident to live. What changed you?"

Daime washes his face as he cleans the sink filled with shaving cream and tap water and his shaven hairs. 

"I just find another way to live."

He scoffs away and lowers his head before walking away from the bathroom to his bed. He puts his things inside his bag as he faces the doctor again, smiling at him with every thankful messages he can think of.

"Oh, don't be like that, kid. I just did what I had to do to save your perky ass."

Daime laughs at him as he bows to the doctor and bids his farewell to all of the medical staff that he became friends to all the months that he became a patient to the hospital. 

The blonde nurse who helped him to recover is there, standing right on the corner with her husband, holding her like a jealous husband, making Daime chuckles at his reaction. 

He bows to him and goes on his way. He immediately goes back to the military base to greets them while holding the jar where the old lady's ashes are in. The lieutenant officer looks at him with a sorrowful expression and pats the cover of the jar as he prays for the lady's soul.

He personally opens the gates of the barracks and lets Daime climb up the mountains, talking to the old lady as if she is beside him. He climbs down to the stream where she taught him how to properly hunt and looks for that humongous rock where her family lays.

"Here we are, Auntie. You are with your family now. Please continue to guide me to the right path before my days end."

Daime bows to her and prays for her soul before going back to her small house for his mission of burning it down to the ground. 

He goes inside and grabs the suitcase filled with money and his passport to go back to Switzerland. He takes it out with him before filling up the wooden hut with more leaves and wheat, setting it on fire after pouring a lot of gas around it.

"Thank you for everything, Auntie."