Janice would never have been able to keep it up forever. As much as it was panning out to become more of a compulsive habit than a planned occurence, and as much as she wanted to keep on doing this every day, eventually her trips to the hospital had waned off from being daily to much more sporadic. Things had gotten in her way. Her life had gotten in the way. There wasn't much room left in her schedule for someone who no longer possessed the capacity to talk to her, let alone even acknowledge she was there. It had been a few months now, no change. Not that she'd expected any. But the absolute bleakness of the scene she saw whenever she entered the room was enough to make her start avoiding it entirely.

She'd all but forgotten what he had been like when he had been -- awake.

The room that night was very quiet, and very dark. It was long since past the hour anyone would be visiting besides in extreme circumstances, and nobody else was present in the entire hospital besides those on staff who were working graveyard shift. In many ways it was in complete opposition to how the hospital had looked during the summer months: instead of packed beyond capacity, it was nearly bare. Instead of flourishing greenery and harsh sunlight, there was pitch blackness and large tufts of snow swirling around outside.

The atmosphere hadn't changed one bit, however, save perhaps for the intensity of emotion. It was still a somber place, a sterile place, uncomfortable to be in. And it was also sort of a hopeless place, though that bit depended on who you asked.

But if you asked Captain Uranophane, that would be the answer she would have given.

It was dark. Her footsteps were oddly loud upon the linoleum floor, amplified by the silence and the cold. Uranophane kept expecting that a worker would notice her stalking past machinery and beds before she reached the one she had come here for -- she didn't exactly want to knock out an ER doctor or something just so they wouldn't call security -- but she had gotten lucky that night. No interruptions. As much as a blessing as an interruption would have been, so she wouldn't have to go through with this, it had been a clear and easy line from point A to point B.

"It's been a while, St. Germaine," she said, more to herself than the irreparably cowlicked head of blonde hair in the bed. As expected, there was no answer -- and even if he'd heard, he would be baffled enough. He'd have no idea who it was standing over him, she was as good as a stranger to him. That wasn't very consoling. She didn't want want to do this.

She didn't want to know.

But she had to, because not knowing for certain was worse.

She took a breath, and made the plunge before she could think about it any more. The sharp fingers of one gloved hand splayed over his chest for a moment before sinking into them entirely, into that strange part of the body only a corrupted hand could access: where the heart was, except not. And there she searched, digits wriggling like parasites, digging deeper than she had ever cared to in anyone else --

-- and found nothing.

Her hand came out empty.

Nothing.

For a brief instant, she stared at the empty space occupying her hand. Then she watched it ball into a fist, shaking, as if to crush whatever it was that was supposed to have been there, and then it swung --

There was noise, she remembered. Loud crashes, paper flapping into the air, the tinkling noise of knickknacks raining to the floor. Glass shattered, water pooled out on the floor and flowers were left to wilt and be trampled there.

No. No --

There was a scream -- maybe it was hers, or someone had discovered her --

and just as soon as she had started reaching for things to tear up, there was nothing left to be broken, and she felt no better for it. Her hands still trembling, her teeth still gritted, she turned her back on the small whirlwind she had let loose in the room, and with a crack and a fizzle of ozone she departed for nowhere.