✅ Project SETI Trilogy

Chapter Three - Part X: Reversal

          Two days later...

          Nova was woken by Julia and his parents in Gabriel's room not long after he'd fallen asleep. The doctor assured them that his blood work was normal, aside from the fertility drugs and trace amounts of the Daxut epinephrine analogue—but she omitted those details in the presence of outsiders to Project SETI.

          Nova had been torn about going home. On one hand, he longed for the familiarity of his own home and the comforts therein, but on the other, he felt immensely guilty about leaving Gabriel. When he'd suffered his own comatose state as a complication of the egg multiplication, Gabriel told him that he'd stayed with him the whole time—almost four days—and he worked relentlessly to treat the symptoms of his coma and diagnose the source. When he needed to sleep, he slept in a chair at his bedside; he didn't consider leaving to be an option until Nova woke up. He found himself wanting to reciprocate that level of loyalty and love, but he also knew that at this point, he really, really needed to rest and recuperate properly, even if only for the night.

          He slept for sixteen solid hours when he was finally in his own comfortable bed again. When he woke up, he immediately went back to the private medical facility and sat with Gabriel for the remainder of the day; thankfully, he still had clearance, as a patient of Project SETI. His condition generally persisted—he remained unable to breathe without assistance, and his response to stimuli was minimal, but he was hanging on. During one of her examinations, Julia had explained to him that the best thing he could do was stimulate his senses, so he spent the evening talking to him and holding his hand and playing his favourite music for him from his phone. Eventually, he went home to sleep again, with plans to return again as soon as he woke up.

          It was already late in the afternoon by the time he crawled out of bed, and he rushed to feed and caffeinate himself before heading out. He asked for Julia at the front desk; he wanted to ask for more detailed information about Gabriel, but he was informed that she was currently in surgery. The nurse assured him that he would send Julia to Gabriel's room to speak with him as soon as she was available to do so.

          He walked to the room with an urgent stride and found him in the exact same position he was the last time he'd seen him. He observed his vital signs, all of which were in normal range—his breathing was still artificial, and his heartbeat was still slow, but he was stable nonetheless.

          "Hey, Gabe..." Nova greeted him quietly as he approached the bedside. He leaned in and gently squeezed his bicep and kissed his forehead at the same time. "It's me, Nova... I'm going to keep you company again today, and every day until you wake up..."

          As he pushed the chair up to the bed, he found himself wishing he could join Gabriel and hold him, but he knew it likely wasn't a good idea, at least while he was intubated. Instead, he took his hand and rubbed his thumb back and forth over the top of it while he looked him over. Right away, he noticed that the amount of healing gel-strips had been reduced— all but the largest ones had been removed. The brown scars from the arcing electricity were still there, but they were markedly smaller in size now, to the point that they looked more like misshapen freckles than anything else. He then took out his phone and selected a song from the playlist he'd made for him. Nova chose a slow atmospheric track that he heard him listen to a lot when it happened to be raining; it featured a jazzy walking bass line, choral backing, and an electronic-sounding flute lead. It was all pulled together by steady rhythmic tom-toms and hi-hats that lent it its slow groovy flow.

           Nova placed the phone on the bedside table nearby and touched his hand to Gabriel's cheek. He trailed his fingers down his jawline and felt the soft, fine facial hair on his chin; it wasn't visible at a glance, and he smirked at the patchy hair when he leaned in to get a closer look at it. He hadn't noticed it before, and he idly wondered how long it'd been there.