A father's watchful eye

[Mar's POV]

"Come on, wake up," Mar mumbled as he was standing by the window, looking at the bright rising sun. He was worried sick.

This whole thing was strange.

Usually, when Alex would have an episode, his heart would stop, but after they'd reanimate him, he'd be fine. But this time, he wasn't fine at all. He was physically weak. Very weak.

And then there was Otto. The fact that Alex had freaked out because of her had been strange too. He had never done anything like that before.

Mar couldn't shake the feeling that the two of them were connected somehow, yet her symptoms had been completely different from Alex's. He almost dared to say, they were the opposite: Her body was perfectly healthy, but yet she wouldn't wake up.

Mar had felt the urge to keep them apart, but the longer Otto stayed unconscious, the more he realized the two of them needed to meet.

To take his theory to the test, Mar had arranged for them to meet. He'd removed all the personnel from the otherwise busy floor, had send Otto's parents home and set up a few cameras to monitor and record everything that was about to happen.

As predicted, even though Alex was physically incapable of doing so, he'd made his way over to Otto's room. Then Alex had spoken a language he'd never heard before and Otto had started to stir.

He'd ordered the nurses to wait and be ready when Alex started shouting for help and only allowed them to enter the room when Otto's hand had gone limp again, before he allowed them to reanimate her.

The experiment had been a great success: Otto had woken up, her parents were happy and he'd discovered a few interesting things.

The only downside was that Alex had taken a heavy mental blow. Seeing Otto's hart-rate monitor flatline had been quite the shock.

His condition had been bad ever since he'd woken up, but at least he'd had the will to live on.

When he'd seen his son hang over the trashcan, it had reminded him of when Alex was three years old. The little Alex from back then had lost his will to live after jumping out of the window on the second floor.

Every day had been a battle to keep him alive.

Mar still blamed himself for that. He'd left the boy alone for not even a minute, but the window had been ajar and Alex had climbed a nearby stool to get onto the windowsill.

When Mar had entered the room his little boy had grinned at him, as if he'd been waiting for his dad to see his great trick. Mar had raced over to grab him, but before he could reach him, little Alex had already jumped like a bird taking off to fly.

"You look horrible," a delicate female voice broke Mar away from his thoughts. He quickly turned his attention to the bed where Alex lay, just in time to see the boy's eyes flicker open.

Apparently, Otto had entered the room without Mar noticing. She was standing by Alex's hospital bed in her pyjamas with a very serious case of bedhead. Alex was staring at her, alive and well, as if he couldn't believe she was really there.

"Nice reaction," Mar thought to himself.

"She's real," he said out loud. Alex glanced over for a second as if to acknowledge his presence but quickly returned his gaze back to Otto.

"Are you sure?" he asked skeptically. His voice sounded horribly raspy. "I would understand if her ghost had returned to haunt me."

"A-About that," Otto said as she scraped her throat in Alex's stead and wrung her hands in her lap nervously. "I'm terribly sorry for everything that has happened. Apparently, you're the one who found me. I remember clumsily slipping on a patch of ice, and-... What are you doing?"

Alex had started getting up and was reaching out a hand towards her, which had stopped her nervous rambling.

"S-sorry," he stammered, not pulling his hand away. "It's just that I'm not completely convinced that you're really here."

He still hadn't reached her. If he wanted to touch her, he'd need to get up further. And if the frown on his face or the trembling of his hand were a correct indicator, getting closer was proving to be difficult.

Otto must have taken pity on him because she suddenly closed the distance by grabbing his reaching hand with both her hands.

"I'm real! You idiot!" she said, a fierce blush covering her cheeks. "What a reason to interrupt my apology. To think I'd been really worried about it too."

Alex's gaze flickered between Otto's hands and her face, as if he was trying to figure out if his mind was playing tricks on him and suddenly pulled Otto close in a tight embrace.

"Eeek! Alex, no! Let go of me! If you pull me off balance I might crush you," Otto screeched embarrassedly. Alex chuckled in her hair.

"Thank God! I thought I'd lost you!"

Otto calmed down and visibly relaxed.

"Silly. People don't die from stumbling. They get back up," Otto comforted him as she returned his hug. "Are you crying?"

"No."

"... You are crying! Did I scare you that badly?"

"You've been in a coma for three days!"

"Did not!"

"Did so!"

Mar hid his smile behind a hand while Alex and Otto bickered on. Kids will be kids after all. It was good to see them both so lively. Best to let the two of them get over their fears and worries in a healthy way together. So Mar went to the door, careful not to disturb the two youngsters and closed it behind him.