Chapter 101: Essays During Recuperation
The door to the intensive care unit was guarded by the four women. Lacus stood against the wall on one side of the ward door, staring blankly at the opposite wall. C.C. stood silently on the other side of the door, staring down at the floor. Mineva was held by Ange and sat on the chair opposite, the little girl was whimpering.
Loran and Diana were also here, but only stayed for less than five minutes before the couple could not stand the eerie atmosphere and left first.
The rescue was directed by Queen Diana and Prince Loran personally, taking the highest level of secrecy and medical treatment on the moon, trying to save Dr. Lingus at all costs. Ade came out of the operating room and went straight into the ICU, with the lead surgeon still inside as well. No one explained to them exactly how the operation had gone.
Lacus came back to her senses and went to Ange and opened her hands and said softly, "Mineva, let me hug you, Sister Ange is also tired."
"No, don't hug me!" There were tears in Mineva's eyes. She gazed at Lacus with hate, "It is you who put Uncle Ade in this condition, do not pretend to be innocent. Aunt C.C., Aunt Lacus, you are all bad people."
"Mineva, don't take offense." Ange stroked the little girl's head, "Ade's weak, and this green-haired woman is strong. It can't help that he was stabbed. But it wasn't Lacus who did it, she's good."
"Uncle Ade is NT, how can he be stabbed?" Mineva cried while shaking her head fiercely, "Sister Ange, you don't understand at all, Uncle Ade voluntarily got stabbed, it was all because of these two aunts!"
Mineva's cold gaze stung Lacus's heart, she awkwardly withdrew her outstretched hands and walked back to her original position, leaning helplessly against the wall and closing her eyes.
"Only Sister Ange is good." Mineva held the hand of Ange with her own small hands, "Only Sister Ange likes Uncle Ade just like Mineva. They are all bad people, and only Sister Ange is needed in this house."
"Okay, no need to satirize me, I'll go." C.C. suddenly looked up and spoke, "I'll go when the time is up."
Mineva's big teary eyes stared at C.C., gritting her teeth without saying a word. Even C.C. was defeated in front of such a pair of eyes and looked away from her.
"Why do you think Ade volunteered to be stabbed by you?" Ange glared at C.C. discontentedly, "Are you happy now? You're going to run away after stabbing him? Have you thought about his feelings?"
C.C. responded in a low voice, "I thought—"
"What did you think? You don't know him at all. What makes you think that?" Ange interrupted her in a loud voice, "Ade has been reading your name in front of Dr. Yang, so it's an easy question for you? Don't be ridiculous, what kind of mood do you think Ade was in when he rejected Dr. Yang!"
"How should I know such things? It was you who was beside him, right?" C.C. hung her head in pain, "I watched him grow up, six whole years, all of a sudden it was gone, did he ever think about how I felt?"
"I did it first, if you want to hate him, hate me too." Lacus suddenly interjected, "Or do you hate him that much? It's not enough to kill him, and you even want to take away his reason for doing so?"
"I don't know what to do." C.C.'s voice was full of helplessness, "He'll be sad if I leave, and I'll be sad if I stay, what can I do?"
"Do you need to ask such questions? Even an intellectual like me understand it," Ange whispered softly, "It's better for me to be sad than for him to be sad."
C.C. and Lacus went silent together.
After another unknown amount of time, the door to the ICU finally opened and the doctor came out from inside, Lacus greeted him anxiously.
"The patient is basically out of danger, but still should be under close observation." The doctor said with a tired face, "Don't go in with too many people, don't let the patient get emotional, the visiting time is thirty minutes in total."
Ange put Mineva down, stood up and raised a bow, "Thank you."
The doctor waved his hand and said, "It mainly relies on the patient's own vitality, such an excellent body actually came from a research worker, I can only say that it is worthy of Dr. Lingus. In fact, the first cut is not deep and the bleeding is not large, the fatal one is mainly the subsequent damage caused by repeatedly agitating the wound. Thanks to the emergency treatment you did yourselves, which was timely and professional, otherwise, the consequences would have been worse."
Lacus and the doctor talked. C.C. crouched down in place and buried her head wordlessly in her lap.
"Sister Ange, let's go in." Mineva pulled her hand, "They're not qualified to go in."
"Let's go see Ade later, I'm sure I'm not the one he wants to see most right now." Ange stroked Mineva's head and walked over to C.C., "I don't like you at all, but he needs you right now."
C.C. trembled slightly and silently stood up and walked inside the ICU, saying "thank you" in a voice that was almost inaudible.
The ward was large, with only one patient and a few nurses inside, and seemed empty. The pure white color and the smell of sterile water stimulated C.C.'s nerves, reminding her of what she had done. She shuffled over to the front of the only bed inside, and the nurses knowingly gave them a little privacy.
C.C. looked out at the man she had once been skin to skin with, who was now lying weakly in a clean white bed with many tubes in him, looking at her with a haggard smile on his face.
"You're here." Ade said mid-sentence, "Has the anger subsided yet?"
C.C. sat down in the chair by the hospital bed and asked softly, "Did you do it on purpose?"
"Of course I did it on purpose, My NT radar was making so much noise that my brain was about to explode, could I not know that?" He smiled breathlessly, "How about it, how does it feel to be set up? Have you tasted the power of my uncompromising methods?"
"Is it honorable to use your life as a weapon? Do you know the doctor said you almost couldn't be saved?" C.C. said with some excitement, "Is the girl called Ange cheated by you by this kind of trick? She is even willing to die for you. I didn't even know that Dr. Lingus is so powerful now."
"The doctor said that I should not get excited, and when you get excited, I tend to follow, so you can't get excited either." Ade smiled smugly, avoiding the topic of Ange, "I owe you two lives, this is considered returning one, right? As long as you stab again, we will be even. I just have one request, can you wait until I get better before you stab me?"
C.C. looked at him in a daze and sighed, "You've become very mean now, you can already take advantage of my guilt, I still miss the kid who was so nervous when he guessed what was going on in his mind. Even if you died, I wouldn't feel a little better, maybe it's better for everyone to separate, so what if I must go?"
"Then I have to make sure first." He asked tentatively, "Miss Crystal?"
C.C.'s eyes widened in sudden shock, "How did you—"
"So it's true." He laughed a little harder, but accidentally pulled the wound, and the pain made him frown and hiss.
C.C. stood up nervously and tried to call the doctor, but when she looked at his smiling expression, she pretended to sit back down as if nothing had happened.
"Well, this makes another reason for me to not let you go. You are his handpicked chief actress, I can not face him after death if I let you run away." He previously skipped this story before, so C.C. was confused to listen to this, "So if you have to go, I will go to you."
"Your life is so short, Lacus and Ange are enough for you, right? How will you have time to find me?" C.C. lowered her eyes lonely, "It's better to leave me alone, six years is easier to forget than sixty years. Your purpose is not to torture me either, right?"
"On January 1, U.C. 0085, a woman told me a 'Happy New Year.' Because of these words, I will always remember this woman." Ade read tenderly, "If memory were also a can, I would hope that this can would not expire. If I must add a date, I hope it will be ten thousand years."
"Where did you get ten thousand years?" C.C. was silent for a while, "Don't make a girl a promise… if you know you can't keep it. It will just make people suffer more."
"Are Loran and Diana like this now because of nanobots?" Ade suddenly talked about irrelevant topics, but C.C.'s hand suddenly shook, "Zechs Merquise and Leonard are so young, Embryo should also have similar techniques. If I can't, I'll catch angels. I don't know if it has any effect to eat the fruit of life, but I can try."
"Have you evolved into a scoundrel?" C.C. shook her head helplessly.
"Just stating a fact, this is my plan for the rest of my life, the only way to stop me is to hurry up and stab me while I'm here." Ade grinned, "Or when I eat the fruit of life, you will never have peace. When I spend a hundred or so years to practice martial arts, you will never be able to get rid of me."
"Be a little self-conscious." C.C. said, followed by a laugh, but immediately made a serious look, "Do not say it. If you continue, I really cannot help but do it again now."
Ade giggled and C.C. was uncomfortable.
"Don't be too happy. There's no forgiveness for you." C.C. interrupted him coldly, "Set Lacus aside, where did this Ange come from again? Just giving you a chance, don't get carried away."
"All I need is a chance too, and you've given enough." The long talk made him a bit tired, but he still tried to keep a smile in front of C.C. "There are still 10,000 years to go, so let's head back to the first time. If once doesn't work, we can do it over and over again, until it works."
C.C. couldn't help but look at his miserable face and softened her heart, putting her voice a bit gentler, "For the sake of your decent attitude, I can grant you a wish that is not too much."
Ade replied without even thinking, "I want to touch your hair."
C.C. looked at him speechlessly and stole a glance at the nurses at the other end of the room and moved her chair closer.
After C.C. went out, Lacus came in and just apologized, and instead Ade was comforting her. By the time Ange finally hugged Mineva and went in, there were only five minutes left.
"How did you two get along?" He looked at the duo curiously, "Mineva has only known Ange for less than a few hours, right?"
"Sister Ange is good, those two aunts are bad women." Mineva stood by the bed, her little hand clasped with Ade's big hand, "Mineva will grow up quickly, when she grows up, she can protect Uncle Ade and won't let those bad aunts hurt Uncle Ade."
The little girl's words made him feel funny, but he didn't correct them now, otherwise, it would be too hurtful to the little girl's heart.
"Ange, I'm sorry." He looked to the other one, "I—"
"No need to be sorry, it's my choice." Ange also took his hand, "I will protect you."
Ade looked at her unadulterated eyes, felt warm in his heart, and slowly said, "I may have seen him."
Ange immediately understood who it was, there was only one "he" in Ade's mouth without the prefix.
"I don't know if it's a hallucination, or a delusion." His voice was somewhat subdued, "It's not just him, they are there too. In that place, in the deepest part of my, no, everyone's soul, they didn't go back, they're still out there wandering. Ange, do you think he's waiting for me?"
"You, you don't think nonsense." Ange looked nervous, and her emotions infected Mineva. The little girl also became to feel uncomfortable.
"Don't be nervous, it's not like I'm going to be stupid enough to verify it." Ade squeezed their hands, "It's just that I have a feeling that I'll probably see them again soon."
The hospital life after this was extremely boring, with nothing to do except for a half-hour visit every afternoon. The doctors strictly forbade him to use his brain excessively, and even banned him from the Internet, so he could only think about random things every day. He begged Loran to let him visit the Internet, but Loran said that he should listen to the doctor's words.
During his stay in the hospital, Kira and his wife came to visit him and he was shocked that they were pregnant. Cagalli asked him to name their unborn children, asking for names that were both meaningful and related to each other.
"The boy will be called Haruka and the girl will be called Sora." He said this to Cagalli, "One means far away and the other means sky, what do you think?"
Kira and Cagalli were extremely satisfied with the two names, and Cagalli praised, "Dr. Lingus, you are really educated".
Uraki and Shinn also gradually learned of the news, but the daily meetings were short, and they did not talk deeply, but mainly about the dynamics of the people he knows during the year. He was overwhelmed by the fact that his friends fell in love, got married, and got pregnant.
For his own serious injuries, the explanation given was that he accidentally stabbed himself while peeling fruit. Of course, no one believed this bullshit reason, but they did not pursue it, only Shinn made an "I understand you" face.
More than a month later, he was finally discharged from the hospital, the first thing after discharge he did is not to go home, but to come to his own hangar. Looking at the MS in front of him, he tapped the small bag in his hand and said happily, "Long time no see, Alice."
