Dreaded Bonding AU Sneak Preview: Signorelli Story
The Signorelli story in the Dreaded Bonding AU is still in progress, but I've got a good chunk of it that has enough of a story arc to make a satisfying read, so I thought I'd post.
Title: "A Thing that Happens to You" AKA, the Signorelli story
Rating: PG for language
Length: ~8400 words, this part
Status: WIP
Summary: Tony Signorelli, the Guide from the Kas and Angel Sentinel School story, goes to the Old Guides' Home and meets his Sentinel.
No canon characters appear--in the part that's posted so far, none are even mentioned. (The story overlaps chronologically with Finding Home," the main story in this AU, so at some point the media circus surrounding Blair's treatment by G-TAC may be mentioned, but I haven't written that part yet.)
Note: Title is from The Velveteen Rabbit: "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you." Significance will become clear when you read the story.
“Ready?” Major Brentwood asked. He had taken over as commander of the Sentinel School a few years ago, after Lt. Colonel Ketner had retired. Tony still wasn’t used to him, but it hardly mattered now, did it?
Tony picked up his bag. Vosberg and the others were off getting the rooms set up for the new crop of Sentinels that would be arriving day after next. He wondered if they’d remember to open up all the windows and give the place a good airing out-it wouldn’t do to have the scent of the last class still hanging around. And if they did, would they remember to close the windows again when it started raining, as it looked like it was going to do later in the afternoon? He’d stayed up late the last night, giving Vosberg as many instructions as he could think of, but there was never enough time.
Well, he supposed that didn’t matter, either. “Yes, sir.”
“Let’s get on with it, then. We don’t have all day.”
He had made the trip to the airport hundreds, maybe thousands, of times, picking up Sentinels in the staff car at the beginning of the course, dropping them off in the van at the end. He’d even flown out himself once, for his father’s funeral, but that had been twenty years ago. More. Now, he had the queerest feeling that he was heading to his own, only upright instead of feet-first.
That was why they were sending him away, after all. They figured he’d peg out any day now, and didn’t want him doing it in the middle of a session and upsetting the Sentinels, the way Lamotte had. Lamotte had been younger than he was, by a few years. Only sixty-three.
When they got to the airport, Brentwood walked him to the gate. “Here,” he said, handing Tony a little paper folder. “That’s your ticket; don’t lose it.”
“I won’t, sir.”
Brentwood hesitated for a long moment, then said, “Right,” and walked off, pausing for a moment to say something to a young woman in the airline’s uniform of navy-blue slacks and jacket.
There was a row of molded plastic chairs nearby; Tony slowly made his way over and sat. He was on his own now.
The young woman walked up to a stand with a microphone and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll begin pre-boarding for the disabled, elderly, and those travelling with small children. Everyone else, please remain seated until you are called for boarding.”
Most of the people in the waiting area got up. Damn idiots. Well, if there was one thing almost fifty years as a Sentinel School Guide was good for, it was knowing how to follow instructions. Tony remained seated.
After a few minutes, the young woman came over to him. “Sir? Would you like some help boarding?”
Naturally, she wasn’t Army, she wouldn’t know you didn’t call a Guide sir. For a second, he wondered if she thought one or more of the pack of squalling brats over by the vending machines was his. Then he realized what she meant. Last week he had Guided a Sentinel on field exercise, but today he was apparently too god-damn old to shift his ass onto an airplane. “No,” he said. “I can manage.”
But she cleared away the rest of the people who were crowding the podium, shuffling him right to the front with a man in a wheelchair, a trio of old ladies, and two families with babies. Once they were on the plane, one of the babies’ fathers left his wife’s side to throw Tony’s bag into the overhead compartment for him. Sickening, really. True, back at the School, the younger fellows took on the heavier work for him-with his knees the way they were, getting down to scrub a floor was not as easy as it had once been-but that was different. They had a right.
Flying was a noisy business. Not only were the engines roaring, but nobody on the entire plane seemed to know how to keep their mouths shut for a second, and when they finally left the ground, both babies started wailing and a woman a few rows back prayed loudly in a foreign language. If he was at a Sentinel’s side, he would have had to help him cope with the racket-talk him through dialing down, maybe link up-
He cut the thought off. He’d never have had reason to fly anywhere with one of the student Sentinels, and he was far too old to be daydreaming about having one of his own.
Once they were up in the air, the young women came around with drinks. It was quite a novelty being waited on, instead of being the one doing the waiting, and he took his time deciding on tomato juice.
“There you are, sir, and if I can do anything else for you, just let me know, okay?”
“Yes, yes, all right.”
As he sipped his juice, a boy sitting in the row ahead began peeking over the seat backs at him. After about ten minutes of this activity, the boy said, “Do you work for the airplane?”
Tony glanced down at himself. He supposed his G-TAC uniform did look a little like what the stewardesses had on. “No. I’m a Guide.”
“Cool! Where’s your Sentinel?” he asked, looking at the people seated to either side of Tony.
“I don’t have one.”
“How can you be a Guide without a Sentinel?”
“None of your business.”
“Did he die?”
“Noah!” the boy’s mother said. “Sit down and stop bothering the nice man.”
“I’m not bothering him, I just wanna know how come he doesn’t have a Sentinel.”
“I said sit down.” The boy didn’t speak to him again, and neither did the mother, but she treated him to a long lecture about how the reason Tony didn’t have a Sentinel was probably something that he didn’t want to talk about.
She was right about that. He didn’t know how he’d explain, if he wanted to. “Back when I was a few years older than you, I was a trouble-maker, and I’ve been paying for it ever since”? The boy would never believe it. Hell, he wouldn’t have believed it. Not back when he still thought life was somehow fair.
He’d been an idiot, back when he was a kid, when he’d found out that being a Guide meant doing everything a Sentinel said, for the rest of your life. He wished he could say he didn’t know what he had been thinking, but he could remember it clear as day. He’d had enough of that at home, at the wrong side of Pop’s belt, and he wanted something else, now that he was a man. All the time that the G-TAC trainers had spent breaking him, he’d thought that any moment a Sentinel would come along who’d appreciate his spirit, and whisk him away in a child’s fantasy of rescue. Even through his first years at the School, he’d looked at each of the entering Sentinels, wondering which of them would be the one. The old man who’d been senior School Guide at the time had tried to disabuse him of the notion, but Tony hadn’t really believed him, any more than Collins or the Irish kid, Doolan, had when Tony had tried to do the same for them.
Hours later, when the airplane landed, the same young father who had tossed Tony’s bag up onto the rack got it down again for him. Tony just nodded his thanks; it was amazing how tiring it was, sitting in a chair all day long. He waited for the rest of the crowd to shuffle their way off the plane before heading out.
At the end of the corridor, the woman from the plane was waiting next to a young man wearing jeans, a scrub shirt, and leather jacket. “There he is,” said the woman.
“Guide Signorelli?”
Tony straightened up. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m Jason, one of the orderlies at the retirement home.” Jason looked him up and down. “D’you need a wheelchair, or are you all right? I can get one.”
Did he look crippled? “I can walk, sir.”
“Okay, great.”
After a detour past the baggage check, where Tony had to explain that the duffle with his uniforms in it was all he had, Jason led him out to a battered old van. The young man seemed to think that he was a tour guide; once they got away from the airport, he pointed out restaurants, movie theaters, and national landmarks as they flew past at reckless speed. Tony didn’t get a good look at any of them, but he supposed it wasn’t likely that he’d need to know where to get a pancake buffet or what exit to use to get to Monticello, anyway.
Tony couldn’t have said what he expected the Old Guides’ Home to be like, but when he saw it, it was nicer than he’d expected. A neat one-story brick building with white shutters, it had tidy flowerbeds out front and extensive gardens off to the side, beyond the parking lot, where a few old people walked or sat in the late afternoon sunlight. While Tony was still struggling to get his seatbelt off, Jason hopped out of the driving seat and grabbed Tony’s bag from the back, shouldering it easily. Tony was a bit taken aback, because Jason was about the right age to be one of the student Sentinels-although he wasn’t a Sentinel-and they certainly had no problem with Tony carrying their luggage, let alone his own. But Jason toted his bag along like it was the most natural thing in the world, and Tony supposed it wasn’t his place to say anything against it.
When they passed by the gardens on the way to the side door, Tony realized that a few of the people out there were Sentinels. That made more sense, then. The nice area that was out in front for everybody to see was for the Sentinels and Bonded Guides, and they probably had something else around the back for the Guides on their own.
“First thing we have to do is have the doctor check you out,” Jason explained, leading him inside. They went through a nice lobby, with stuffed chairs and oil paintings and things, then down a linoleum-tiled hallway. This was more what he had been expecting, with the tang of cleaning products and sickness in the air, and a few withered husks hunched over walkers shuffling along. Doors lined the hallway, and the few that were propped open allowed him to see people lying in hospital beds, dwarfed by machinery.
“This is the critical care unit,” Jason explained. “It’s for the residents that need, you know, a lot of medical support. You’ll be on a different unit. I think. But the doctor is based here, since this is, you know, where the people he needs to check on every day are. Here we go.” He opened a door and ushered Tony in before him. “Guide Signorelli, new resident,” he said to a nurse sitting behind a desk.
“You can take a seat there; I’ll be with you in a moment.” She picked up the phone and said, “The new resident is here,” then sorted through a stack of folders on her desk, picking out one.
After asking him a few questions about his medical history, which all seemed to be written down in the folder, she took his blood pressure and had him step on a scale. “Jason, are you staying?” she said to the young man, who was leaning up against the doorframe.
“Yeah, I have the whole afternoon blocked out to get him settled. I think they thought he was going to be, you know, more frail than he is.”
“Lucky you-if you could roll up your sleeve, Mr. Signorelli.”
She took two vials of blood, then sent him in to the next room. The doctor’s examination was thorough, and he made a lot of notes. Tony hoped there was nothing wrong with him-maybe there was, and that was why he’d been sent away so suddenly. After extensive poking and prodding, the doctor asked him a lot of foolish questions, like what year it was and the president’s name. Then he wrote for a very long time.
“Well,” he finally said, looking up. “You’re in fairly good shape for a man your age. Cholesterol is a little high; we’ll keep an eye on that and maybe put you on something for it if it goes any higher. Little bit of arthritis, but that’s not surprising. You were never Bonded?”
“No, sir.”
“Huh. Well, we’ll see you for another checkup in three months, if there are no problems before then.”
“Yes, sir,” Tony said.
“Put him in A, then?” Jason asked.
“Hm? Not having any trouble with your ADLs, are you?” the doctor asked Tony.
“Sir?”
“Activities of daily living,” Jason said. “Dressing, getting to the bathroom, that kind of stuff.”
“Oh. No, sir.”
“Then yes, A,” the doctor said to Jason.
“Cool.” Jason shouldered Tony’s bag again and ushered him out. “Unit A is the retirement wing, most of the folks are still pretty active and don’t need daily nursing care. B is assisted living-the folks who have trouble with their ADLs. This is C,” he said, indicating the hallway they were in, “and D is the memory unit. Alzheimer’s and stuff.” Jason led him back through the lobby and down another, nicer hallway. This one seemed lighter and airier, and the people, while old, were moving around with some energy. “Caroline, just the person I wanted to see,” Jason called as they approached a nurses’ station. “Guide Signorelli, this is Caroline Hart, head nurse of Unit A.” He handed her the folder where the doctor had written up all of his information.
“Ma’am,” Tony said, ducking his head.
“He’s one of ours?” the nurse asked.
“Yeah, Dr. Mayfield said. Where do you want him?”
She glanced through the folder. “Hm. Give him the tour and show him where he can get something to eat. You can leave his things here.”
“Sure thing. This way, Mr. Signorelli. Okay, all the resident rooms are down here,” Jason said, pointing to the hallway where the residents’ rooms were. “I guess later on we’ll figure out where your room is going to be. This is the activity room. We have the activities in here-you know, bingo, tai chi, stuff like that. Most days there’s something going on. And here’s the TV room, where you can watch TV.”
Tony wondered if Jason was extremely stupid, or thought that he was.
“We usually have movie night on Saturdays, you know, watch a couple of movies, have popcorn, stuff like that. Oh, and the sun room’s down here,” Jason added, taking him down a short hallway.
Tony fully expected the explanation of the sun room’s function to be something like, “Where you can, you know, sun,” but Jason surprised him by saying, “People usually come here if they want to, you know, just talk and hang out. We have a couple of residents who give you a hard time if you talk too much in the TV room, so, you know, that’s kind of the quiet area. And we have some games and stuff here. Checkers and stuff.” There were, indeed, several people playing checkers and stuff, although most of them seemed to be finishing up and moving toward the door. Jason stepped out of their way, adding, “And you can go out here if you want to sit on the porch or, you know, go out and walk around outside,” pointing to a set of French doors. “I guess that’s everything. Everybody’s getting ready to go to dinner now. Hey, Peggy,” he said to a woman who was part of a trio that was playing cards-two Guides, one man and one woman, and a woman Sentinel.
“Good afternoon, Jason,” said Peggy, a white-haired woman with an alert expression.
“Pegster, do you think you could do me a solid? This is Tony, he’s the new resident. He’s kind of shy. You want to maybe take him in to dinner, introduce him to some people?”
“I’d be happy to.”
“You’re a champ, Pegs.” Jason clapped Tony on the shoulder and took off at speed.
Peggy watched him go, shaking her head slightly. “He is a nice boy, Jason,” she said.
“And so well-spoken,” the Sentinel said. The others laughed.
“Well, you already heard, I’m Peggy-not ‘Pegster,’ please-and this is Evelyn, and Carl.”
“Ma’am,” he said to the Sentinel.
She raised her eyebrows. “Where did you come from?”
Tony had an inkling that the question might be rhetorical, but it seemed safer to answer it. “US Army Sentinel School. Ma’am.”
Peggy and Carl exchanged a glance. “I’ve never met a Sentinel School Guide before,” Carl said.
Tony nodded. They didn’t get out much.
“Come on,” Peggy said. “Let’s get to dinner before the TV room crowd eats it all.”
The dining room reminded Tony of the one at the School-small tables, each seating about four persons, with the meal served buffet-style from steam tables. Here, though, Sentinels shared tables with Guides, something he could only remember seeing once or twice before. Most everyone lined up and helped themselves to the food, except for a few who used wheelchairs or walkers, who were helped by their neighbors. Most of those were Sentinels being helped by Guides, but he saw at least one Guide in a wheelchair being assisted by a Sentinel, and nobody seemed to think that was strange.
Maybe that was an advantage of being old; nobody much cared what you did, if they figured you’d be dead soon anyway.
They collected their meals and found seats at one of the tables. There was quite a bit of conversation in the room, and Peggy contributed more than her share, seeming completely unconcerned about whether Evelyn or any others of the Sentinels were bothered by the chatter. “Most of the gang’s here tonight,” she said, gesturing around with her fork. “You can have meals in your room if you want them, but most of us from A wing come out, and a few from B, if they feel up to it. The dietician is always going on about how a social atmosphere increases appetite. I imagine she’s right; when somebody starts eating in their room all the time, you know they’re circling the drain. Did Jason tell you about the four units? Basically, the further down the alphabet, the more decrepit you are. It’s not bad at all here on A-a lot of us Guides are sent here when our Sentinels have passed away, and there’s not much wrong with us. Sentinels more often stay at home until they can’t manage on their own anymore-that’s why there are so many more Guides here than Sentinels. Evelyn’s kids pretty much insisted she come here after her Hank passed; they were convinced she’d fall down the stairs or something. Of course, they’re a Sentinel and a Guide, so they have to stay where the Army put them, and couldn’t really keep an eye on her the way they wanted to. Her son’s stationed at Fort Meade, so that’s easier for him to get away and visit here.”
“I don’t miss the Minnesota winters, either,” Evelyn put in.
Peggy went on to explain that her Sentinel had been a woman, and Carl’s a man, so neither of them had children to, as she put it, push them around. Peggy had lived on her own for a few years after her Sentinel passed, something Tony hadn’t even known was allowed, but had gotten tired of being by herself, “and with G-TAC coming around every month or two and saying how they were sure I’d be happier in the home, I said what the hell and moved down. And it turns out there’s plenty to do here, if you aren’t ready to put your feet up and do nothing.” Tony thought she meant, perhaps, bingo and movies, but she explained, “There are plenty of Sentinels on the other wards. We don’t have to help out with them if we don’t want to-we’re supposed to be retired, after all-but a lot of us do.”
Carl spoke up, “Don’t start out in the Alzheimer’s ward, if they ask you to. It’s pretty grim.”
Before Tony could even begin to form an opinion on the idea of not doing something he’d been asked to do, Peggy had moved on to giving potted biographies of the rest of the residents, covering hobbies, former professions, and annoying habits. He had trouble keeping up with it all, but fortunately, Peggy did not seem to require that he participate in the conversation.
He was a little relieved when dinner was over. Peggy and the others seemed quite nice, but they talked more during one meal than the entire staff of School Guides did in a week, and it was all a bit overwhelming. Fortunately, Jason was waiting by the nurse’s station, and waved Tony over to him, so he was able to break away from the group.
“Hey, Mr. Signorelli. How was your dinner? What’d you think of Peggy? She’s really something, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Y’know, you don’t have to say that?”
“Sir?”
“Yeah, that.”
Tony was no more enlightened than he had been before, but Nurse Hart was approaching now, so there was no chance to try to work out what Jason was talking about. “Mr. Signorelli, I hope you had a pleasant dinner. I understand you had a chance to meet some of the other residents.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nurse Hart glanced over at Jason, who shrugged. She continued, “There’s a way you might be able to help us out a little bit, if you’re willing.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We thought we’d have you room with Mr. Miller. He doesn’t leave his room much, and we’ve gone back and forth about moving him to unit B. He’s not really that ill, according to the doctor, but it hit him hard when he lost his Guide, and he hasn’t really adjusted. We think having a roommate who’s more active might help him take more of an interest in life. What do you think?”
Tony thought that he must have misunderstood something, because it sounded like they were assigning him to a Sentinel. Didn’t they know that School Guides didn’t get Sentinels? But Nurse Hart was waiting for an answer, so he said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you. If it doesn’t work out, we can always move you to another room. Jason will show you the way and help you get settled.”
Jason grabbed Tony’s bag and started down the hallway. “Hey, you didn’t mind that I had Peggy show you where the dining room was, did you?”
“No, sir.”
“I didn’t think so. Caroline got really ticked off when she saw me outside smoking, but what did she want me to do, stand there and stare at you while you were having dinner?” That seemed to Tony like an entirely reasonable expectation-he stood and watched people have dinner all the time-but Jason apparently didn’t expect an answer. “Anyway, it worked out, you got to meet Peggy and the others, and I had a chance to help Caroline figure out where we were going to put you….You’ll like Mr. Miller. He’s not, you know, the most talkative guy, but he’s cool once you get to know him.” Jason tapped on a door. “Mr. Miller?” he called as he opened the door.
It was a pretty big room, with a row of windows along one wall. It was furnished with two beds-one a hospital bed, one regular-and a dresser, small desk, and upholstered chair. An old Sentinel was sitting up in the hospital bed, a mostly-uneaten dinner tray on the bed-table in front of him.
“Hey, Mr. Miller, this is Tony.”
“Sir,” Tony said.
“’erry,” the Sentinel said, his voice slightly slurred.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“My name,” he said, more carefully. “Harry.”
“Oh. Yes, sir.”
“Well, come here and let me have a look at you, boy.”
Tony had almost forgotten the way Sentinels used to call you “boy,” back when he’d first entered the service. You never heard that anymore-or at least, Tony didn’t, since the only Sentinels he saw were eighteen or nineteen years old. But Sentinel Miller was around his own age.
It was the first time since he’d left the School that morning that anyone had given him a sensible order, instead of hinting around asking him if he wanted to do things. He was surprised what a relief it was. He stepped over smartly, wishing he’d taken the time to ready himself for an inspection.
Fortunately, Miller didn’t seem to find any fault with him. After looking him over closely for several long moments, Miller held out his hand.
It took Tony a moment to realize he wanted a link-they didn’t do it that way at the School, but he had seen that gesture from several students who had come from Sentinel families, not to mention that one strange little Sentinel who had Bonded before School. He took Miller’s hand in his and formed the link.
Tony was used to linking with young Sentinels who didn’t really know how to do it. This was…different, somehow. Smoother, and more controlled. The student Sentinels usually had their dials all over the place, particularly in the first few labs, and it could be difficult to keep the link steady while that was going on.
There were none of those problems with Miller, though, and Tony was almost sorry when Miller pulled his hand away.
“Well?” Jason asked.
“He’ll do,” Miller said. “He’ll do just fine.”
“Cool,” said Jason, and set about unpacking Tony’s things.
#
Harry could tell that the Guide was still awake, even though he hadn’t moved in over an hour. Lights-out was pretty early here; the staff seemed to have the idea that old folks needed a lot of sleep, even though as far as he could tell, it was the opposite.
He wasn’t sure how he liked it, having a Guide sleeping in his room again. The staff had been shoving Guides at him since he’d gotten here, like they thought, “the old fart’s been moping around since his Guide died; all he needs is another one.” But it wasn’t having a Guide, any Guide, that he missed; it was Vic, who had been with him for forty-three years. All of them good, except for the last, which had been pure hell as Vic died by inches.
There was no one else like him, and having other Guides fluttering around making a fuss over him was worse, in a way, than being on his own.
Then today Jason-easily the most annoying orderly on the staff-came around saying they had this new Guide, and he seemed, “a little, well, you know…he’s had kind of a rough life. He needs somebody looking out for him.”
It was pretty transparent, clear as glass, that he figured Harry wouldn’t be able to resist the idea of a Guide who needed his protection. But just because it was transparent, didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Harry had been in the Army a good ten years before getting Vic, and had formed the impression that Guides could be knocked flat by any kind of rough handling. New assignments were especially hard for them; a lot of them crept around like terrified mice the first few days or weeks. A little attention from a Sentinel would put them back on their feet.
So now, well, even though Jason’s ploy was nowhere near as subtle as he thought, Harry really hadn’t had much choice but to agree to give it a try. He hadn’t been sure that he’d be able to go through with it, until Jason had brought the Guide in.
If anything, he was an even sadder sight than Harry expected. Small and slightly stooped, he smelled of fear and there was a certain terrified stillness to the way he held himself. Harry didn’t know how much good he could do for Tony, both of them having one foot in the grave, but he had to try. Even if it would leave Jason thinking he’d put one over on him.
“You awake over there, son?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Did you want something?”
“No. You all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Warm enough?”
“Yes, sir.”
This was a lot easier in the Army; if you were stationed out at the ass-end of nowhere, your Guide probably needed something, so you could show them you planned to take decent care of them, without having to talk about it. “When did you go into the service?”
“Nineteen forty-nine, sir.”
“Couple of years earlier for me-forty-six. Just missed World War Two, but I made it to Korea and Vietnam. National park service after that.”
“Sir,” Tony said.
“What about you?”
“Sentinel School, sir.”
Harry supposed that counted as a rough life-even as a wide-eyed kid of nineteen he had thought being stationed at the Sentinel School had to be a miserable way for a Guide to live. No Sentinels of their own, no chance to form a Bond or have a real home. Getting down on their knees in front of snot-nosed kids. “What about after that?”
“Here, sir.”
Oh. Well, he supposed that made sense. The School Guides in his day had seemed like a crowd of pathetic, beaten old men-even though they had to be younger than he was now. Maybe that was where Guides ended up if they never Bonded. “Where were you before that?”
“Sentinel School, sir.”
“You were there for fifty years?”
“Yes, sir.”
Poor bastard. “That must have been a pretty tough assignment.”
Tony didn’t answer for a long time, and Harry thought he might not answer at all. Finally he said, “Sir.”
The conversation didn’t seem to be putting Tony at ease-if anything, the Guide smelled even more upset than he had before. Harry tried to think of something else he could say that might help, but considering Tony had been at the Sentinel School all his life, what else was there to talk about? Finally he said, “We should get some sleep; everybody gets up early here.”
“Yes, sir,” Tony said.
#
Contrary to what Sentinel Miller had said, it was nearly seven thirty by the time Jason came into their room. Tony had been waiting for at least an hour for someone to come and tell him what to do. He hadn’t done a very good job of following Miller’s instruction to go to sleep. He had never slept in the same room as a Sentinel before-on field exercises, there were always other soldiers around making noise, so he wasn’t too worried about it, but this was different. Tony certainly didn’t want to do anything to disturb him, but how could he be sure that he wasn’t, if he was asleep?
On the other hand, Sentinels could tell if you were asleep or not, no matter how quiet you tried to be, so Miller had probably noticed that Tony hadn’t done what he said. All in all, he was glad when it was finally time to get up, so he could stop worrying about it.
“Morning Mr. Miller, Mr. Signorelli. How are you this morning?”
Sentinel Miller said, “Fine.”
“Cool. You want to shave before breakfast this morning?”
“I always do,” Miller pointed out.
“Well, you never know.” Jason helped him out of the bed and into a wheelchair.
Nobody had said anything to Tony, but he supposed that if Miller was getting up, he ought to get up too.
“Jason!” a female voice said through the door.
Jason turned his head. “Yeah?”
“Dietary doesn’t have your meal tray slips.”
“Aw, shit. Mr. Signorelli, you’re going to the dining room for breakfast, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Tony said uncertainly.
“Just one, then, for Mr. Miller,” Jason yelled through the door.
“Velma says if you don’t fill out your slips like everybody else, she’s not making trays for you.”
“Damn it-I’ll be right back,” he said and dashed out of the room and leaving Sentinel Miller sitting in his wheelchair, halfway between the bed and the bathroom.
He was not right back. After a moment, Tony said, “Can I help you with something, sir?”
“Yeah-push my chair into the bathroom.”
“Yes, sir.”
It turned out that Sentinel Miller was without the use of his left hand. Tony helped him through the rest of his morning routine-putting toothpaste on the brush, applying shaving cream, little things like that. They finished just as Jason came back to the room.
“Okay, sorry, now we can--” He stopped and looked puzzled.
“Already done,” Miller said. “Help me back into bed.”
“Oh, hey, you trying to do me out of a job, Mr. Signorelli?”
Tony froze. He hadn’t thought of that; he’d only been trying to make himself useful, but what if-
“He’s joking, Tony, relax,” Sentinel Miller said.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “Thanks. It’s crazy around here some mornings.”
“He’s better at it than you anyway,” Miller said to Jason. “Doesn’t talk your ear off like some people.”
Neither of them was really angry, then. Good.
After he’d helped Miller back into bed, Jason turned to Tony and said, “You know, you might wanna get ready and go to breakfast. They start clearing it away at like eight-thirty.”
Tony glanced over at Sentinel Miller, who nodded and said, “I’m fine; you go on.”
“Yes, sir.” He quickly got himself dressed and ready for the day-apparently he was expected to use Sentinel Miller’s bathroom, as well as sleep in his room-and reported to the dining room.
Peggy, Carl, and the person he had to think of as “Sentinel Evelyn,” since he still didn’t know her surname, had nearly finished breakfast, but as he was filling his tray, Peggy called, “Come sit with us,” so he did.
The others stayed at the table while he ate-apparently no one here had anything better to do than sit around in the dining room. The hot food was cleared away at 0830, as Jason had said, but many of the residents stayed nursing cups of coffee for almost an hour.
He soon learned why. Mealtimes were the only part of the day where time mattered. At the School, their days had been scheduled down to the minute, between rising at 0530 and cleaning the kitchen and dining room after dinner had been served to the Sentinels. The few hours between dinner and bed were more flexible, but between taking care of their uniforms, cleaning the Guide dormitory, and any extra tasks the Sentinels had assigned, keeping busy was generally not a problem. There were none of these long empty hours.
That first day, Tony drifted between the sun room and TV room, with one detour to the activity room when a perky young staff member suggested he might enjoy bingo, and he didn’t know how to say no. He thought often of going back to Sentinel Miller’s room, just to see if he might need something, but he didn’t want to bother him, and anyway, the nurse in charge had said it would be good for the Sentinel to have a roommate who was active. He wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but standing by the door waiting for Miller to need something probably wasn’t it.
When he finally did return to the room, after dinner, Sentinel Miller asked Tony to take him into the TV room. He was already in his wheelchair, but as Miller explained, “My left side’s so weak, if I try to wheel myself I just end up going in circles.”
“Yes, sir,” Tony said. He took Miller there and found him a good spot in front of the TV, then took up a position by the door, suddenly feeling a lot less lost. He realized he had been waiting all day for someone to tell him, this is where you should be, right now.
Foolish of him, he supposed. It wasn’t as if the Sentinel School staff had spent all their time telling Guides what to do. No, they had simply done what was expected of them, and the only time anyone took any notice was if they didn’t. He had already figured out that here it was a bit different. He was unlikely to get in any trouble for not being where he was supposed to be; he wasn’t worried about that. It was just that nobody really cared what he or any of the Guides did, and that was unsettling.
When the news program was over, he took Sentinel Miller back to his room and helped him get ready for bed. That was all right, but he wasn’t really Miller’s Guide, and he couldn’t expect the Sentinel to take responsibility for keeping him occupied.
If he was going to have any kind of a routine, he was going to have to sort it out for himself, and the next morning, he set about doing just that. He got himself up, showered, and dressed by the time Jason came in to help Sentinel Miller to his wheelchair. Both of them were happy enough to let Tony help Miller with his morning hygiene-Jason because he was either overworked or very lazy; Tony never figured out which, and Miller because Tony was more reliable.
At breakfast, he learned from Carl that mornings were generally a hectic time in Ward B, and if he reported there, he stood a very good chance of being given something to do. He was soon given the regular job of feeding a very old Sentinel. She was too weak even to sit up in bed, and the orderlies had to spoon pureed food into her. But her senses had all but deserted her, and she often didn’t eat much.
“She does much better in the evenings when we have one of the Guides on staff link with her,” the head nurse explained. “We think she can taste the food better that way. But the mornings are so busy that we can’t spare one for something that really isn’t a skilled nursing job.”
Skilled or not, Tony was a Guide, and that was something he could do. He was only told the Sentinel’s first name, Shirley, and was mildly uncomfortable addressing her so familiarly, but even linked up she couldn’t hear well enough to understand what anyone was saying, so he supposed it didn’t matter.
After that, he could ask if any of the other Sentinels needed to use a Guide-there were some whose senses bothered them, particularly those with painful conditions, and others who had lost much of their hearing or eyesight, and could only read or hear the television if they were linked up. Or he might be sent to read to someone who was completely blind and bedridden. According to the nurses, they generally didn’t take much notice of what was read, but they liked to hear a Guide’s voice. Tony wasn’t sure about that-at the School, they had always been told that Sentinels didn’t want to listen to a lot of Guide chatter-but he didn’t argue. He generally managed to spend the whole morning in Ward B. Sometimes he fed Shirley again before going to lunch himself, if the Guide nurses were busy.
He would have happily returned to Ward B after lunch, as well, but the residents usually napped then, so he had to find something else to do. Peggy’s group usually played bridge in the afternoons, and didn’t have a regular fourth, so he usually did that. He wasn’t very good at it, but he figured that at least he was of some use to somebody that way.
After dinner he went back to Sentinel Miller’s room. If Miller felt up to going to the TV room to watch the news, Tony would take him there. Other times, he’d have something Tony could do for him, or he’d talk to him a little. Sometimes he did it right after dinner, while Tony was sitting quietly waiting for lights-out; other times he waited until they were lying there in the dark, but either way he’d start off, “Did I ever tell you about…” The first car he owned, or the Christmas he’d spent overseas, or the care packages his sister used to send him in Korea. And then when Tony said, “No, sir,” Sentinel Miller would tell him about whatever it was. Tony liked those times best. Having your own Sentinel must be like that, at least a little. If you were with the same one all the time, they’d talk to you. It would have made just as much sense to pretend that Shirley was his Sentinel, but the most she ever responded to his presence was to slightly tighten her hand in his, so Miller was much more satisfying.
As soon as he thought it, he drew himself back, feeling as though he ought to look around to see if anyone had noticed. It didn’t do to have favorites at the Sentinel School-all of them would be leaving in six weeks, you couldn’t have any of them, and none of them would want you, anyway. Was it any different here? Miller wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. He had a feeling Shirley might. Otherwise, it was the same. Wasn’t it? If he did have a chance at having either of them for his own, it would probably be Shirley, the one who needed him, who barely knew he was there.
But he neither of them was really his, so Miller wasn’t any more out of reach than Shirley. As long as he gave Shirley what she needed, would it matter that he liked Miller better? Would it really be so bad if-as long as he made sure Miller never, ever found out-he secretly pretended Miller was his Sentinel?
No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t see how he was hurting anyone but himself. And that was all right.
#
“Mr. Miller?”
“Yes?” he said, turning away from the window. It was Nurse Hart. She usually stopped by his room about once a week for what she probably thought of as “a little chat”-more if Jason had done something she thought she had to apologize for.
“How are we feeling today?”
“Fine,” Harry said.
“Good, good. Diane says you still aren’t interested in working on transfers?”
“Diane’s gotten better at understanding plain English,” Harry said. Diane, the physical therapist, was of the opinion that if he really wanted to, he could learn to get himself into the wheelchair without Jason’s help. She may have been right, but, as Harry told her, if her aunt had balls she’d be her uncle. He didn’t want to, so it was useless to speculate about what might be the case if he did.
“How are things working out with Mr. Signorelli?”
“Fine.” Realizing that the curt answer might give the impression he was unhappy with the arrangement, he elaborated, “He’s settling in all right. Makes himself useful.”
“We’ve noticed he’s very…quiet.”
“Quiet” wasn’t quite the word for it, but Harry knew what she meant. “They’re always like that at a new posting.” Tony, Harry thought, was more so, but then again, he had had a very tough assignment, for a very long time.
“The other Guides on the ward--”
“That’s different. They were all Bonded.” He knew that because Dr. Ochs, the shrink, tended to mention that they had all managed to cope with their loss in a healthy way. Unlike him. “Once you’re Real, you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
“I’m sorry?”
Harry shook his head. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Once, when Harry had wondered why his own Guide seemed much livelier than the others he’d been assigned, Vic had explained it to him. “Didn’t you read the Velveteen Rabbit when you were a kid? About how toys become real if somebody really loves them? It’s the same way with us. When a Sentinel loves us, we become real.”
Vic got like that, sometimes. Sentimental and just a little bit queer. It had stuck with Harry, though, and when he’d been shot, he’d worried that Vic would stop being real if he died. Vic had reassured him it didn’t work that way, and later, once they were transferred to the rehab hospital stateside, Vic had dug up a copy of the book somewhere and shown him.
He wasn’t entirely sure that it worked the same way for Sentinels, though. He didn’t feel particularly real anymore.
Which, he supposed, was why Tony was so much more tolerable than the other Guides. He wasn’t going around being real all the time, reminding Harry of what he had lost.
Nurse Hart ended the “chat” with the usual comments about how he barely touched his meal trays, and how he might find that his appetite improved if he ate in the dining room with the others. He ended by politely refraining from telling her to piss off.
He kept thinking about Tony, though, and by the time the Guide crept silently into the room after dinner, Harry knew that he-or rather, Vic-was on to something. The stuff about Guides becoming real sounded like horseshit, and in one way it was, but it was Vic’s way of trying to get at something there weren’t really words to talk about. Tony was missing something that ordinary people had. He was hollow, somehow. It wasn’t just that you could tell how he was feeling; it was more like you couldn’t tell because he wasn’t, actually, feeling anything at all. It probably wasn’t just to do with being a Guide, though-Guides were, basically, like anyone else, after all. Maybe nobody was real until somebody else thought they were. Guides just had fewer chances than most.
Usually, thinking about anything that Vic had said or done made him feel like his every nerve ending was exposed. Even something as simple as the dining room serving their pale and tasteless version of lasagna-which was nothing like the kind Vic made-was enough to leave him raw and aching for days. Somehow, though, this wasn’t quite so bad. He could almost remember that he had been happy once.
He also knew exactly what Vic would say if he were here. Nurse Hart, and the shrink, and even that young idiot Jason, had all pointed out that Vic wouldn’t want him to give up on life just because he was gone. They were right, but that didn’t matter, because Vic wasn’t here; that was the point. It didn’t make one blind bit of difference to Vic if Harry got out of bed or didn’t, because Vic was dead.
But Vic-if Vic were here, somehow, he would say yes, sure, I’m dead, but then he would look over at where Tony was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking blankly at his feet, and Vic would say-
He’s not.
He wouldn’t have to say anything more than that. Harry would know, without Vic having to spell it out, that he’s not meant it mattered, again, what Harry did or didn’t do. And just because Vic wasn’t here to say it, didn’t make it not true.
Jason had asked Harry to look out for Tony-to let him feel useful, and to drag himself far enough up out of self-pity to be kind to him. Jason didn’t have the right to ask any more of him than that. He didn’t have the right to ask him to make Tony real.
Harry wanted to say that nobody had the right-not even Vic, because Vic, after all, was dead. If he wanted to be able to ask Harry to do things, he ought to have damn well stayed around to ask him.
Except that if Vic were here-still dead, but here-he’d turn his head again, and look at Tony, and this time he wouldn’t even have to say it.
He does.
So Tony had the right to ask. And it didn’t matter that he wouldn’t ask, because you couldn’t realize that you wanted to be real if you weren’t at least a little bit real already. That only meant that Harry was going to have to do it without being asked.
Could it be done? Could a Guide who’d been not-real for fifty years-or almost seventy, if he’d been not-real before going to the Sentinel School-be made real, at the eleventh hour, by a Sentinel who didn’t feel too real himself?
Maybe not, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to do something he wasn’t sure he could. There were only two choices: do it or die trying.
So it was win-win, really.
Harry had been looking at Tony since the first time Vic (didn’t) looked over at him, and Tony seemed to have noticed. He raised his eyes, slowly, and said, “Sir?”
“Come here.”
Tony stood and came over to his bedside, waiting for his next instruction.
Harry had not thought this through. He had struggled, on Tony’s first night here, to find a way to say something that wasn’t any more complicated than, don’t worry; I’ll treat you right. He didn’t think Tony had really understood that yet, so how was he to get across this new thing, that he couldn’t even say in words if he wanted to, at least not without getting himself a one-way trip to Ward D?
He couldn’t, that was all. He’d have to start with something smaller. “Sit down.” Tony looked as though he was going to go back to his own bed, so Harry added, “Here,” flopping his weak arm against the mattress.
Tony sat, his expression as blank as ever, except for maybe a faint puzzlement around the eyes, which Harry might have been imagining.
Harry took a deep breath and said, “Did I ever tell you about Vic?”
Title: "A Thing that Happens to You" AKA, the Signorelli story
Rating: PG for language
Length: ~8400 words, this part
Status: WIP
Summary: Tony Signorelli, the Guide from the Kas and Angel Sentinel School story, goes to the Old Guides' Home and meets his Sentinel.
No canon characters appear--in the part that's posted so far, none are even mentioned. (The story overlaps chronologically with Finding Home," the main story in this AU, so at some point the media circus surrounding Blair's treatment by G-TAC may be mentioned, but I haven't written that part yet.)
Note: Title is from The Velveteen Rabbit: "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you." Significance will become clear when you read the story.
“Ready?” Major Brentwood asked. He had taken over as commander of the Sentinel School a few years ago, after Lt. Colonel Ketner had retired. Tony still wasn’t used to him, but it hardly mattered now, did it?
Tony picked up his bag. Vosberg and the others were off getting the rooms set up for the new crop of Sentinels that would be arriving day after next. He wondered if they’d remember to open up all the windows and give the place a good airing out-it wouldn’t do to have the scent of the last class still hanging around. And if they did, would they remember to close the windows again when it started raining, as it looked like it was going to do later in the afternoon? He’d stayed up late the last night, giving Vosberg as many instructions as he could think of, but there was never enough time.
Well, he supposed that didn’t matter, either. “Yes, sir.”
“Let’s get on with it, then. We don’t have all day.”
He had made the trip to the airport hundreds, maybe thousands, of times, picking up Sentinels in the staff car at the beginning of the course, dropping them off in the van at the end. He’d even flown out himself once, for his father’s funeral, but that had been twenty years ago. More. Now, he had the queerest feeling that he was heading to his own, only upright instead of feet-first.
That was why they were sending him away, after all. They figured he’d peg out any day now, and didn’t want him doing it in the middle of a session and upsetting the Sentinels, the way Lamotte had. Lamotte had been younger than he was, by a few years. Only sixty-three.
When they got to the airport, Brentwood walked him to the gate. “Here,” he said, handing Tony a little paper folder. “That’s your ticket; don’t lose it.”
“I won’t, sir.”
Brentwood hesitated for a long moment, then said, “Right,” and walked off, pausing for a moment to say something to a young woman in the airline’s uniform of navy-blue slacks and jacket.
There was a row of molded plastic chairs nearby; Tony slowly made his way over and sat. He was on his own now.
The young woman walked up to a stand with a microphone and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll begin pre-boarding for the disabled, elderly, and those travelling with small children. Everyone else, please remain seated until you are called for boarding.”
Most of the people in the waiting area got up. Damn idiots. Well, if there was one thing almost fifty years as a Sentinel School Guide was good for, it was knowing how to follow instructions. Tony remained seated.
After a few minutes, the young woman came over to him. “Sir? Would you like some help boarding?”
Naturally, she wasn’t Army, she wouldn’t know you didn’t call a Guide sir. For a second, he wondered if she thought one or more of the pack of squalling brats over by the vending machines was his. Then he realized what she meant. Last week he had Guided a Sentinel on field exercise, but today he was apparently too god-damn old to shift his ass onto an airplane. “No,” he said. “I can manage.”
But she cleared away the rest of the people who were crowding the podium, shuffling him right to the front with a man in a wheelchair, a trio of old ladies, and two families with babies. Once they were on the plane, one of the babies’ fathers left his wife’s side to throw Tony’s bag into the overhead compartment for him. Sickening, really. True, back at the School, the younger fellows took on the heavier work for him-with his knees the way they were, getting down to scrub a floor was not as easy as it had once been-but that was different. They had a right.
Flying was a noisy business. Not only were the engines roaring, but nobody on the entire plane seemed to know how to keep their mouths shut for a second, and when they finally left the ground, both babies started wailing and a woman a few rows back prayed loudly in a foreign language. If he was at a Sentinel’s side, he would have had to help him cope with the racket-talk him through dialing down, maybe link up-
He cut the thought off. He’d never have had reason to fly anywhere with one of the student Sentinels, and he was far too old to be daydreaming about having one of his own.
Once they were up in the air, the young women came around with drinks. It was quite a novelty being waited on, instead of being the one doing the waiting, and he took his time deciding on tomato juice.
“There you are, sir, and if I can do anything else for you, just let me know, okay?”
“Yes, yes, all right.”
As he sipped his juice, a boy sitting in the row ahead began peeking over the seat backs at him. After about ten minutes of this activity, the boy said, “Do you work for the airplane?”
Tony glanced down at himself. He supposed his G-TAC uniform did look a little like what the stewardesses had on. “No. I’m a Guide.”
“Cool! Where’s your Sentinel?” he asked, looking at the people seated to either side of Tony.
“I don’t have one.”
“How can you be a Guide without a Sentinel?”
“None of your business.”
“Did he die?”
“Noah!” the boy’s mother said. “Sit down and stop bothering the nice man.”
“I’m not bothering him, I just wanna know how come he doesn’t have a Sentinel.”
“I said sit down.” The boy didn’t speak to him again, and neither did the mother, but she treated him to a long lecture about how the reason Tony didn’t have a Sentinel was probably something that he didn’t want to talk about.
She was right about that. He didn’t know how he’d explain, if he wanted to. “Back when I was a few years older than you, I was a trouble-maker, and I’ve been paying for it ever since”? The boy would never believe it. Hell, he wouldn’t have believed it. Not back when he still thought life was somehow fair.
He’d been an idiot, back when he was a kid, when he’d found out that being a Guide meant doing everything a Sentinel said, for the rest of your life. He wished he could say he didn’t know what he had been thinking, but he could remember it clear as day. He’d had enough of that at home, at the wrong side of Pop’s belt, and he wanted something else, now that he was a man. All the time that the G-TAC trainers had spent breaking him, he’d thought that any moment a Sentinel would come along who’d appreciate his spirit, and whisk him away in a child’s fantasy of rescue. Even through his first years at the School, he’d looked at each of the entering Sentinels, wondering which of them would be the one. The old man who’d been senior School Guide at the time had tried to disabuse him of the notion, but Tony hadn’t really believed him, any more than Collins or the Irish kid, Doolan, had when Tony had tried to do the same for them.
Hours later, when the airplane landed, the same young father who had tossed Tony’s bag up onto the rack got it down again for him. Tony just nodded his thanks; it was amazing how tiring it was, sitting in a chair all day long. He waited for the rest of the crowd to shuffle their way off the plane before heading out.
At the end of the corridor, the woman from the plane was waiting next to a young man wearing jeans, a scrub shirt, and leather jacket. “There he is,” said the woman.
“Guide Signorelli?”
Tony straightened up. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m Jason, one of the orderlies at the retirement home.” Jason looked him up and down. “D’you need a wheelchair, or are you all right? I can get one.”
Did he look crippled? “I can walk, sir.”
“Okay, great.”
After a detour past the baggage check, where Tony had to explain that the duffle with his uniforms in it was all he had, Jason led him out to a battered old van. The young man seemed to think that he was a tour guide; once they got away from the airport, he pointed out restaurants, movie theaters, and national landmarks as they flew past at reckless speed. Tony didn’t get a good look at any of them, but he supposed it wasn’t likely that he’d need to know where to get a pancake buffet or what exit to use to get to Monticello, anyway.
Tony couldn’t have said what he expected the Old Guides’ Home to be like, but when he saw it, it was nicer than he’d expected. A neat one-story brick building with white shutters, it had tidy flowerbeds out front and extensive gardens off to the side, beyond the parking lot, where a few old people walked or sat in the late afternoon sunlight. While Tony was still struggling to get his seatbelt off, Jason hopped out of the driving seat and grabbed Tony’s bag from the back, shouldering it easily. Tony was a bit taken aback, because Jason was about the right age to be one of the student Sentinels-although he wasn’t a Sentinel-and they certainly had no problem with Tony carrying their luggage, let alone his own. But Jason toted his bag along like it was the most natural thing in the world, and Tony supposed it wasn’t his place to say anything against it.
When they passed by the gardens on the way to the side door, Tony realized that a few of the people out there were Sentinels. That made more sense, then. The nice area that was out in front for everybody to see was for the Sentinels and Bonded Guides, and they probably had something else around the back for the Guides on their own.
“First thing we have to do is have the doctor check you out,” Jason explained, leading him inside. They went through a nice lobby, with stuffed chairs and oil paintings and things, then down a linoleum-tiled hallway. This was more what he had been expecting, with the tang of cleaning products and sickness in the air, and a few withered husks hunched over walkers shuffling along. Doors lined the hallway, and the few that were propped open allowed him to see people lying in hospital beds, dwarfed by machinery.
“This is the critical care unit,” Jason explained. “It’s for the residents that need, you know, a lot of medical support. You’ll be on a different unit. I think. But the doctor is based here, since this is, you know, where the people he needs to check on every day are. Here we go.” He opened a door and ushered Tony in before him. “Guide Signorelli, new resident,” he said to a nurse sitting behind a desk.
“You can take a seat there; I’ll be with you in a moment.” She picked up the phone and said, “The new resident is here,” then sorted through a stack of folders on her desk, picking out one.
After asking him a few questions about his medical history, which all seemed to be written down in the folder, she took his blood pressure and had him step on a scale. “Jason, are you staying?” she said to the young man, who was leaning up against the doorframe.
“Yeah, I have the whole afternoon blocked out to get him settled. I think they thought he was going to be, you know, more frail than he is.”
“Lucky you-if you could roll up your sleeve, Mr. Signorelli.”
She took two vials of blood, then sent him in to the next room. The doctor’s examination was thorough, and he made a lot of notes. Tony hoped there was nothing wrong with him-maybe there was, and that was why he’d been sent away so suddenly. After extensive poking and prodding, the doctor asked him a lot of foolish questions, like what year it was and the president’s name. Then he wrote for a very long time.
“Well,” he finally said, looking up. “You’re in fairly good shape for a man your age. Cholesterol is a little high; we’ll keep an eye on that and maybe put you on something for it if it goes any higher. Little bit of arthritis, but that’s not surprising. You were never Bonded?”
“No, sir.”
“Huh. Well, we’ll see you for another checkup in three months, if there are no problems before then.”
“Yes, sir,” Tony said.
“Put him in A, then?” Jason asked.
“Hm? Not having any trouble with your ADLs, are you?” the doctor asked Tony.
“Sir?”
“Activities of daily living,” Jason said. “Dressing, getting to the bathroom, that kind of stuff.”
“Oh. No, sir.”
“Then yes, A,” the doctor said to Jason.
“Cool.” Jason shouldered Tony’s bag again and ushered him out. “Unit A is the retirement wing, most of the folks are still pretty active and don’t need daily nursing care. B is assisted living-the folks who have trouble with their ADLs. This is C,” he said, indicating the hallway they were in, “and D is the memory unit. Alzheimer’s and stuff.” Jason led him back through the lobby and down another, nicer hallway. This one seemed lighter and airier, and the people, while old, were moving around with some energy. “Caroline, just the person I wanted to see,” Jason called as they approached a nurses’ station. “Guide Signorelli, this is Caroline Hart, head nurse of Unit A.” He handed her the folder where the doctor had written up all of his information.
“Ma’am,” Tony said, ducking his head.
“He’s one of ours?” the nurse asked.
“Yeah, Dr. Mayfield said. Where do you want him?”
She glanced through the folder. “Hm. Give him the tour and show him where he can get something to eat. You can leave his things here.”
“Sure thing. This way, Mr. Signorelli. Okay, all the resident rooms are down here,” Jason said, pointing to the hallway where the residents’ rooms were. “I guess later on we’ll figure out where your room is going to be. This is the activity room. We have the activities in here-you know, bingo, tai chi, stuff like that. Most days there’s something going on. And here’s the TV room, where you can watch TV.”
Tony wondered if Jason was extremely stupid, or thought that he was.
“We usually have movie night on Saturdays, you know, watch a couple of movies, have popcorn, stuff like that. Oh, and the sun room’s down here,” Jason added, taking him down a short hallway.
Tony fully expected the explanation of the sun room’s function to be something like, “Where you can, you know, sun,” but Jason surprised him by saying, “People usually come here if they want to, you know, just talk and hang out. We have a couple of residents who give you a hard time if you talk too much in the TV room, so, you know, that’s kind of the quiet area. And we have some games and stuff here. Checkers and stuff.” There were, indeed, several people playing checkers and stuff, although most of them seemed to be finishing up and moving toward the door. Jason stepped out of their way, adding, “And you can go out here if you want to sit on the porch or, you know, go out and walk around outside,” pointing to a set of French doors. “I guess that’s everything. Everybody’s getting ready to go to dinner now. Hey, Peggy,” he said to a woman who was part of a trio that was playing cards-two Guides, one man and one woman, and a woman Sentinel.
“Good afternoon, Jason,” said Peggy, a white-haired woman with an alert expression.
“Pegster, do you think you could do me a solid? This is Tony, he’s the new resident. He’s kind of shy. You want to maybe take him in to dinner, introduce him to some people?”
“I’d be happy to.”
“You’re a champ, Pegs.” Jason clapped Tony on the shoulder and took off at speed.
Peggy watched him go, shaking her head slightly. “He is a nice boy, Jason,” she said.
“And so well-spoken,” the Sentinel said. The others laughed.
“Well, you already heard, I’m Peggy-not ‘Pegster,’ please-and this is Evelyn, and Carl.”
“Ma’am,” he said to the Sentinel.
She raised her eyebrows. “Where did you come from?”
Tony had an inkling that the question might be rhetorical, but it seemed safer to answer it. “US Army Sentinel School. Ma’am.”
Peggy and Carl exchanged a glance. “I’ve never met a Sentinel School Guide before,” Carl said.
Tony nodded. They didn’t get out much.
“Come on,” Peggy said. “Let’s get to dinner before the TV room crowd eats it all.”
The dining room reminded Tony of the one at the School-small tables, each seating about four persons, with the meal served buffet-style from steam tables. Here, though, Sentinels shared tables with Guides, something he could only remember seeing once or twice before. Most everyone lined up and helped themselves to the food, except for a few who used wheelchairs or walkers, who were helped by their neighbors. Most of those were Sentinels being helped by Guides, but he saw at least one Guide in a wheelchair being assisted by a Sentinel, and nobody seemed to think that was strange.
Maybe that was an advantage of being old; nobody much cared what you did, if they figured you’d be dead soon anyway.
They collected their meals and found seats at one of the tables. There was quite a bit of conversation in the room, and Peggy contributed more than her share, seeming completely unconcerned about whether Evelyn or any others of the Sentinels were bothered by the chatter. “Most of the gang’s here tonight,” she said, gesturing around with her fork. “You can have meals in your room if you want them, but most of us from A wing come out, and a few from B, if they feel up to it. The dietician is always going on about how a social atmosphere increases appetite. I imagine she’s right; when somebody starts eating in their room all the time, you know they’re circling the drain. Did Jason tell you about the four units? Basically, the further down the alphabet, the more decrepit you are. It’s not bad at all here on A-a lot of us Guides are sent here when our Sentinels have passed away, and there’s not much wrong with us. Sentinels more often stay at home until they can’t manage on their own anymore-that’s why there are so many more Guides here than Sentinels. Evelyn’s kids pretty much insisted she come here after her Hank passed; they were convinced she’d fall down the stairs or something. Of course, they’re a Sentinel and a Guide, so they have to stay where the Army put them, and couldn’t really keep an eye on her the way they wanted to. Her son’s stationed at Fort Meade, so that’s easier for him to get away and visit here.”
“I don’t miss the Minnesota winters, either,” Evelyn put in.
Peggy went on to explain that her Sentinel had been a woman, and Carl’s a man, so neither of them had children to, as she put it, push them around. Peggy had lived on her own for a few years after her Sentinel passed, something Tony hadn’t even known was allowed, but had gotten tired of being by herself, “and with G-TAC coming around every month or two and saying how they were sure I’d be happier in the home, I said what the hell and moved down. And it turns out there’s plenty to do here, if you aren’t ready to put your feet up and do nothing.” Tony thought she meant, perhaps, bingo and movies, but she explained, “There are plenty of Sentinels on the other wards. We don’t have to help out with them if we don’t want to-we’re supposed to be retired, after all-but a lot of us do.”
Carl spoke up, “Don’t start out in the Alzheimer’s ward, if they ask you to. It’s pretty grim.”
Before Tony could even begin to form an opinion on the idea of not doing something he’d been asked to do, Peggy had moved on to giving potted biographies of the rest of the residents, covering hobbies, former professions, and annoying habits. He had trouble keeping up with it all, but fortunately, Peggy did not seem to require that he participate in the conversation.
He was a little relieved when dinner was over. Peggy and the others seemed quite nice, but they talked more during one meal than the entire staff of School Guides did in a week, and it was all a bit overwhelming. Fortunately, Jason was waiting by the nurse’s station, and waved Tony over to him, so he was able to break away from the group.
“Hey, Mr. Signorelli. How was your dinner? What’d you think of Peggy? She’s really something, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Y’know, you don’t have to say that?”
“Sir?”
“Yeah, that.”
Tony was no more enlightened than he had been before, but Nurse Hart was approaching now, so there was no chance to try to work out what Jason was talking about. “Mr. Signorelli, I hope you had a pleasant dinner. I understand you had a chance to meet some of the other residents.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nurse Hart glanced over at Jason, who shrugged. She continued, “There’s a way you might be able to help us out a little bit, if you’re willing.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We thought we’d have you room with Mr. Miller. He doesn’t leave his room much, and we’ve gone back and forth about moving him to unit B. He’s not really that ill, according to the doctor, but it hit him hard when he lost his Guide, and he hasn’t really adjusted. We think having a roommate who’s more active might help him take more of an interest in life. What do you think?”
Tony thought that he must have misunderstood something, because it sounded like they were assigning him to a Sentinel. Didn’t they know that School Guides didn’t get Sentinels? But Nurse Hart was waiting for an answer, so he said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you. If it doesn’t work out, we can always move you to another room. Jason will show you the way and help you get settled.”
Jason grabbed Tony’s bag and started down the hallway. “Hey, you didn’t mind that I had Peggy show you where the dining room was, did you?”
“No, sir.”
“I didn’t think so. Caroline got really ticked off when she saw me outside smoking, but what did she want me to do, stand there and stare at you while you were having dinner?” That seemed to Tony like an entirely reasonable expectation-he stood and watched people have dinner all the time-but Jason apparently didn’t expect an answer. “Anyway, it worked out, you got to meet Peggy and the others, and I had a chance to help Caroline figure out where we were going to put you….You’ll like Mr. Miller. He’s not, you know, the most talkative guy, but he’s cool once you get to know him.” Jason tapped on a door. “Mr. Miller?” he called as he opened the door.
It was a pretty big room, with a row of windows along one wall. It was furnished with two beds-one a hospital bed, one regular-and a dresser, small desk, and upholstered chair. An old Sentinel was sitting up in the hospital bed, a mostly-uneaten dinner tray on the bed-table in front of him.
“Hey, Mr. Miller, this is Tony.”
“Sir,” Tony said.
“’erry,” the Sentinel said, his voice slightly slurred.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“My name,” he said, more carefully. “Harry.”
“Oh. Yes, sir.”
“Well, come here and let me have a look at you, boy.”
Tony had almost forgotten the way Sentinels used to call you “boy,” back when he’d first entered the service. You never heard that anymore-or at least, Tony didn’t, since the only Sentinels he saw were eighteen or nineteen years old. But Sentinel Miller was around his own age.
It was the first time since he’d left the School that morning that anyone had given him a sensible order, instead of hinting around asking him if he wanted to do things. He was surprised what a relief it was. He stepped over smartly, wishing he’d taken the time to ready himself for an inspection.
Fortunately, Miller didn’t seem to find any fault with him. After looking him over closely for several long moments, Miller held out his hand.
It took Tony a moment to realize he wanted a link-they didn’t do it that way at the School, but he had seen that gesture from several students who had come from Sentinel families, not to mention that one strange little Sentinel who had Bonded before School. He took Miller’s hand in his and formed the link.
Tony was used to linking with young Sentinels who didn’t really know how to do it. This was…different, somehow. Smoother, and more controlled. The student Sentinels usually had their dials all over the place, particularly in the first few labs, and it could be difficult to keep the link steady while that was going on.
There were none of those problems with Miller, though, and Tony was almost sorry when Miller pulled his hand away.
“Well?” Jason asked.
“He’ll do,” Miller said. “He’ll do just fine.”
“Cool,” said Jason, and set about unpacking Tony’s things.
#
Harry could tell that the Guide was still awake, even though he hadn’t moved in over an hour. Lights-out was pretty early here; the staff seemed to have the idea that old folks needed a lot of sleep, even though as far as he could tell, it was the opposite.
He wasn’t sure how he liked it, having a Guide sleeping in his room again. The staff had been shoving Guides at him since he’d gotten here, like they thought, “the old fart’s been moping around since his Guide died; all he needs is another one.” But it wasn’t having a Guide, any Guide, that he missed; it was Vic, who had been with him for forty-three years. All of them good, except for the last, which had been pure hell as Vic died by inches.
There was no one else like him, and having other Guides fluttering around making a fuss over him was worse, in a way, than being on his own.
Then today Jason-easily the most annoying orderly on the staff-came around saying they had this new Guide, and he seemed, “a little, well, you know…he’s had kind of a rough life. He needs somebody looking out for him.”
It was pretty transparent, clear as glass, that he figured Harry wouldn’t be able to resist the idea of a Guide who needed his protection. But just because it was transparent, didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Harry had been in the Army a good ten years before getting Vic, and had formed the impression that Guides could be knocked flat by any kind of rough handling. New assignments were especially hard for them; a lot of them crept around like terrified mice the first few days or weeks. A little attention from a Sentinel would put them back on their feet.
So now, well, even though Jason’s ploy was nowhere near as subtle as he thought, Harry really hadn’t had much choice but to agree to give it a try. He hadn’t been sure that he’d be able to go through with it, until Jason had brought the Guide in.
If anything, he was an even sadder sight than Harry expected. Small and slightly stooped, he smelled of fear and there was a certain terrified stillness to the way he held himself. Harry didn’t know how much good he could do for Tony, both of them having one foot in the grave, but he had to try. Even if it would leave Jason thinking he’d put one over on him.
“You awake over there, son?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Did you want something?”
“No. You all right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Warm enough?”
“Yes, sir.”
This was a lot easier in the Army; if you were stationed out at the ass-end of nowhere, your Guide probably needed something, so you could show them you planned to take decent care of them, without having to talk about it. “When did you go into the service?”
“Nineteen forty-nine, sir.”
“Couple of years earlier for me-forty-six. Just missed World War Two, but I made it to Korea and Vietnam. National park service after that.”
“Sir,” Tony said.
“What about you?”
“Sentinel School, sir.”
Harry supposed that counted as a rough life-even as a wide-eyed kid of nineteen he had thought being stationed at the Sentinel School had to be a miserable way for a Guide to live. No Sentinels of their own, no chance to form a Bond or have a real home. Getting down on their knees in front of snot-nosed kids. “What about after that?”
“Here, sir.”
Oh. Well, he supposed that made sense. The School Guides in his day had seemed like a crowd of pathetic, beaten old men-even though they had to be younger than he was now. Maybe that was where Guides ended up if they never Bonded. “Where were you before that?”
“Sentinel School, sir.”
“You were there for fifty years?”
“Yes, sir.”
Poor bastard. “That must have been a pretty tough assignment.”
Tony didn’t answer for a long time, and Harry thought he might not answer at all. Finally he said, “Sir.”
The conversation didn’t seem to be putting Tony at ease-if anything, the Guide smelled even more upset than he had before. Harry tried to think of something else he could say that might help, but considering Tony had been at the Sentinel School all his life, what else was there to talk about? Finally he said, “We should get some sleep; everybody gets up early here.”
“Yes, sir,” Tony said.
#
Contrary to what Sentinel Miller had said, it was nearly seven thirty by the time Jason came into their room. Tony had been waiting for at least an hour for someone to come and tell him what to do. He hadn’t done a very good job of following Miller’s instruction to go to sleep. He had never slept in the same room as a Sentinel before-on field exercises, there were always other soldiers around making noise, so he wasn’t too worried about it, but this was different. Tony certainly didn’t want to do anything to disturb him, but how could he be sure that he wasn’t, if he was asleep?
On the other hand, Sentinels could tell if you were asleep or not, no matter how quiet you tried to be, so Miller had probably noticed that Tony hadn’t done what he said. All in all, he was glad when it was finally time to get up, so he could stop worrying about it.
“Morning Mr. Miller, Mr. Signorelli. How are you this morning?”
Sentinel Miller said, “Fine.”
“Cool. You want to shave before breakfast this morning?”
“I always do,” Miller pointed out.
“Well, you never know.” Jason helped him out of the bed and into a wheelchair.
Nobody had said anything to Tony, but he supposed that if Miller was getting up, he ought to get up too.
“Jason!” a female voice said through the door.
Jason turned his head. “Yeah?”
“Dietary doesn’t have your meal tray slips.”
“Aw, shit. Mr. Signorelli, you’re going to the dining room for breakfast, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Tony said uncertainly.
“Just one, then, for Mr. Miller,” Jason yelled through the door.
“Velma says if you don’t fill out your slips like everybody else, she’s not making trays for you.”
“Damn it-I’ll be right back,” he said and dashed out of the room and leaving Sentinel Miller sitting in his wheelchair, halfway between the bed and the bathroom.
He was not right back. After a moment, Tony said, “Can I help you with something, sir?”
“Yeah-push my chair into the bathroom.”
“Yes, sir.”
It turned out that Sentinel Miller was without the use of his left hand. Tony helped him through the rest of his morning routine-putting toothpaste on the brush, applying shaving cream, little things like that. They finished just as Jason came back to the room.
“Okay, sorry, now we can--” He stopped and looked puzzled.
“Already done,” Miller said. “Help me back into bed.”
“Oh, hey, you trying to do me out of a job, Mr. Signorelli?”
Tony froze. He hadn’t thought of that; he’d only been trying to make himself useful, but what if-
“He’s joking, Tony, relax,” Sentinel Miller said.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “Thanks. It’s crazy around here some mornings.”
“He’s better at it than you anyway,” Miller said to Jason. “Doesn’t talk your ear off like some people.”
Neither of them was really angry, then. Good.
After he’d helped Miller back into bed, Jason turned to Tony and said, “You know, you might wanna get ready and go to breakfast. They start clearing it away at like eight-thirty.”
Tony glanced over at Sentinel Miller, who nodded and said, “I’m fine; you go on.”
“Yes, sir.” He quickly got himself dressed and ready for the day-apparently he was expected to use Sentinel Miller’s bathroom, as well as sleep in his room-and reported to the dining room.
Peggy, Carl, and the person he had to think of as “Sentinel Evelyn,” since he still didn’t know her surname, had nearly finished breakfast, but as he was filling his tray, Peggy called, “Come sit with us,” so he did.
The others stayed at the table while he ate-apparently no one here had anything better to do than sit around in the dining room. The hot food was cleared away at 0830, as Jason had said, but many of the residents stayed nursing cups of coffee for almost an hour.
He soon learned why. Mealtimes were the only part of the day where time mattered. At the School, their days had been scheduled down to the minute, between rising at 0530 and cleaning the kitchen and dining room after dinner had been served to the Sentinels. The few hours between dinner and bed were more flexible, but between taking care of their uniforms, cleaning the Guide dormitory, and any extra tasks the Sentinels had assigned, keeping busy was generally not a problem. There were none of these long empty hours.
That first day, Tony drifted between the sun room and TV room, with one detour to the activity room when a perky young staff member suggested he might enjoy bingo, and he didn’t know how to say no. He thought often of going back to Sentinel Miller’s room, just to see if he might need something, but he didn’t want to bother him, and anyway, the nurse in charge had said it would be good for the Sentinel to have a roommate who was active. He wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but standing by the door waiting for Miller to need something probably wasn’t it.
When he finally did return to the room, after dinner, Sentinel Miller asked Tony to take him into the TV room. He was already in his wheelchair, but as Miller explained, “My left side’s so weak, if I try to wheel myself I just end up going in circles.”
“Yes, sir,” Tony said. He took Miller there and found him a good spot in front of the TV, then took up a position by the door, suddenly feeling a lot less lost. He realized he had been waiting all day for someone to tell him, this is where you should be, right now.
Foolish of him, he supposed. It wasn’t as if the Sentinel School staff had spent all their time telling Guides what to do. No, they had simply done what was expected of them, and the only time anyone took any notice was if they didn’t. He had already figured out that here it was a bit different. He was unlikely to get in any trouble for not being where he was supposed to be; he wasn’t worried about that. It was just that nobody really cared what he or any of the Guides did, and that was unsettling.
When the news program was over, he took Sentinel Miller back to his room and helped him get ready for bed. That was all right, but he wasn’t really Miller’s Guide, and he couldn’t expect the Sentinel to take responsibility for keeping him occupied.
If he was going to have any kind of a routine, he was going to have to sort it out for himself, and the next morning, he set about doing just that. He got himself up, showered, and dressed by the time Jason came in to help Sentinel Miller to his wheelchair. Both of them were happy enough to let Tony help Miller with his morning hygiene-Jason because he was either overworked or very lazy; Tony never figured out which, and Miller because Tony was more reliable.
At breakfast, he learned from Carl that mornings were generally a hectic time in Ward B, and if he reported there, he stood a very good chance of being given something to do. He was soon given the regular job of feeding a very old Sentinel. She was too weak even to sit up in bed, and the orderlies had to spoon pureed food into her. But her senses had all but deserted her, and she often didn’t eat much.
“She does much better in the evenings when we have one of the Guides on staff link with her,” the head nurse explained. “We think she can taste the food better that way. But the mornings are so busy that we can’t spare one for something that really isn’t a skilled nursing job.”
Skilled or not, Tony was a Guide, and that was something he could do. He was only told the Sentinel’s first name, Shirley, and was mildly uncomfortable addressing her so familiarly, but even linked up she couldn’t hear well enough to understand what anyone was saying, so he supposed it didn’t matter.
After that, he could ask if any of the other Sentinels needed to use a Guide-there were some whose senses bothered them, particularly those with painful conditions, and others who had lost much of their hearing or eyesight, and could only read or hear the television if they were linked up. Or he might be sent to read to someone who was completely blind and bedridden. According to the nurses, they generally didn’t take much notice of what was read, but they liked to hear a Guide’s voice. Tony wasn’t sure about that-at the School, they had always been told that Sentinels didn’t want to listen to a lot of Guide chatter-but he didn’t argue. He generally managed to spend the whole morning in Ward B. Sometimes he fed Shirley again before going to lunch himself, if the Guide nurses were busy.
He would have happily returned to Ward B after lunch, as well, but the residents usually napped then, so he had to find something else to do. Peggy’s group usually played bridge in the afternoons, and didn’t have a regular fourth, so he usually did that. He wasn’t very good at it, but he figured that at least he was of some use to somebody that way.
After dinner he went back to Sentinel Miller’s room. If Miller felt up to going to the TV room to watch the news, Tony would take him there. Other times, he’d have something Tony could do for him, or he’d talk to him a little. Sometimes he did it right after dinner, while Tony was sitting quietly waiting for lights-out; other times he waited until they were lying there in the dark, but either way he’d start off, “Did I ever tell you about…” The first car he owned, or the Christmas he’d spent overseas, or the care packages his sister used to send him in Korea. And then when Tony said, “No, sir,” Sentinel Miller would tell him about whatever it was. Tony liked those times best. Having your own Sentinel must be like that, at least a little. If you were with the same one all the time, they’d talk to you. It would have made just as much sense to pretend that Shirley was his Sentinel, but the most she ever responded to his presence was to slightly tighten her hand in his, so Miller was much more satisfying.
As soon as he thought it, he drew himself back, feeling as though he ought to look around to see if anyone had noticed. It didn’t do to have favorites at the Sentinel School-all of them would be leaving in six weeks, you couldn’t have any of them, and none of them would want you, anyway. Was it any different here? Miller wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. He had a feeling Shirley might. Otherwise, it was the same. Wasn’t it? If he did have a chance at having either of them for his own, it would probably be Shirley, the one who needed him, who barely knew he was there.
But he neither of them was really his, so Miller wasn’t any more out of reach than Shirley. As long as he gave Shirley what she needed, would it matter that he liked Miller better? Would it really be so bad if-as long as he made sure Miller never, ever found out-he secretly pretended Miller was his Sentinel?
No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t see how he was hurting anyone but himself. And that was all right.
#
“Mr. Miller?”
“Yes?” he said, turning away from the window. It was Nurse Hart. She usually stopped by his room about once a week for what she probably thought of as “a little chat”-more if Jason had done something she thought she had to apologize for.
“How are we feeling today?”
“Fine,” Harry said.
“Good, good. Diane says you still aren’t interested in working on transfers?”
“Diane’s gotten better at understanding plain English,” Harry said. Diane, the physical therapist, was of the opinion that if he really wanted to, he could learn to get himself into the wheelchair without Jason’s help. She may have been right, but, as Harry told her, if her aunt had balls she’d be her uncle. He didn’t want to, so it was useless to speculate about what might be the case if he did.
“How are things working out with Mr. Signorelli?”
“Fine.” Realizing that the curt answer might give the impression he was unhappy with the arrangement, he elaborated, “He’s settling in all right. Makes himself useful.”
“We’ve noticed he’s very…quiet.”
“Quiet” wasn’t quite the word for it, but Harry knew what she meant. “They’re always like that at a new posting.” Tony, Harry thought, was more so, but then again, he had had a very tough assignment, for a very long time.
“The other Guides on the ward--”
“That’s different. They were all Bonded.” He knew that because Dr. Ochs, the shrink, tended to mention that they had all managed to cope with their loss in a healthy way. Unlike him. “Once you’re Real, you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
“I’m sorry?”
Harry shook his head. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Once, when Harry had wondered why his own Guide seemed much livelier than the others he’d been assigned, Vic had explained it to him. “Didn’t you read the Velveteen Rabbit when you were a kid? About how toys become real if somebody really loves them? It’s the same way with us. When a Sentinel loves us, we become real.”
Vic got like that, sometimes. Sentimental and just a little bit queer. It had stuck with Harry, though, and when he’d been shot, he’d worried that Vic would stop being real if he died. Vic had reassured him it didn’t work that way, and later, once they were transferred to the rehab hospital stateside, Vic had dug up a copy of the book somewhere and shown him.
He wasn’t entirely sure that it worked the same way for Sentinels, though. He didn’t feel particularly real anymore.
Which, he supposed, was why Tony was so much more tolerable than the other Guides. He wasn’t going around being real all the time, reminding Harry of what he had lost.
Nurse Hart ended the “chat” with the usual comments about how he barely touched his meal trays, and how he might find that his appetite improved if he ate in the dining room with the others. He ended by politely refraining from telling her to piss off.
He kept thinking about Tony, though, and by the time the Guide crept silently into the room after dinner, Harry knew that he-or rather, Vic-was on to something. The stuff about Guides becoming real sounded like horseshit, and in one way it was, but it was Vic’s way of trying to get at something there weren’t really words to talk about. Tony was missing something that ordinary people had. He was hollow, somehow. It wasn’t just that you could tell how he was feeling; it was more like you couldn’t tell because he wasn’t, actually, feeling anything at all. It probably wasn’t just to do with being a Guide, though-Guides were, basically, like anyone else, after all. Maybe nobody was real until somebody else thought they were. Guides just had fewer chances than most.
Usually, thinking about anything that Vic had said or done made him feel like his every nerve ending was exposed. Even something as simple as the dining room serving their pale and tasteless version of lasagna-which was nothing like the kind Vic made-was enough to leave him raw and aching for days. Somehow, though, this wasn’t quite so bad. He could almost remember that he had been happy once.
He also knew exactly what Vic would say if he were here. Nurse Hart, and the shrink, and even that young idiot Jason, had all pointed out that Vic wouldn’t want him to give up on life just because he was gone. They were right, but that didn’t matter, because Vic wasn’t here; that was the point. It didn’t make one blind bit of difference to Vic if Harry got out of bed or didn’t, because Vic was dead.
But Vic-if Vic were here, somehow, he would say yes, sure, I’m dead, but then he would look over at where Tony was sitting on the edge of his bed, looking blankly at his feet, and Vic would say-
He’s not.
He wouldn’t have to say anything more than that. Harry would know, without Vic having to spell it out, that he’s not meant it mattered, again, what Harry did or didn’t do. And just because Vic wasn’t here to say it, didn’t make it not true.
Jason had asked Harry to look out for Tony-to let him feel useful, and to drag himself far enough up out of self-pity to be kind to him. Jason didn’t have the right to ask any more of him than that. He didn’t have the right to ask him to make Tony real.
Harry wanted to say that nobody had the right-not even Vic, because Vic, after all, was dead. If he wanted to be able to ask Harry to do things, he ought to have damn well stayed around to ask him.
Except that if Vic were here-still dead, but here-he’d turn his head again, and look at Tony, and this time he wouldn’t even have to say it.
He does.
So Tony had the right to ask. And it didn’t matter that he wouldn’t ask, because you couldn’t realize that you wanted to be real if you weren’t at least a little bit real already. That only meant that Harry was going to have to do it without being asked.
Could it be done? Could a Guide who’d been not-real for fifty years-or almost seventy, if he’d been not-real before going to the Sentinel School-be made real, at the eleventh hour, by a Sentinel who didn’t feel too real himself?
Maybe not, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to do something he wasn’t sure he could. There were only two choices: do it or die trying.
So it was win-win, really.
Harry had been looking at Tony since the first time Vic (didn’t) looked over at him, and Tony seemed to have noticed. He raised his eyes, slowly, and said, “Sir?”
“Come here.”
Tony stood and came over to his bedside, waiting for his next instruction.
Harry had not thought this through. He had struggled, on Tony’s first night here, to find a way to say something that wasn’t any more complicated than, don’t worry; I’ll treat you right. He didn’t think Tony had really understood that yet, so how was he to get across this new thing, that he couldn’t even say in words if he wanted to, at least not without getting himself a one-way trip to Ward D?
He couldn’t, that was all. He’d have to start with something smaller. “Sit down.” Tony looked as though he was going to go back to his own bed, so Harry added, “Here,” flopping his weak arm against the mattress.
Tony sat, his expression as blank as ever, except for maybe a faint puzzlement around the eyes, which Harry might have been imagining.
Harry took a deep breath and said, “Did I ever tell you about Vic?”