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The oddest part, if such things punctured through the layers of pain and unconsciousness Ian weighed under, was the music.

Sometimes it was louder, as if by him, and sometimes it was a ghostly few chords in some unknowable distance. Sometimes it was an upbeat allegra, sometimes it was merely mournful. There were long, long stretches of time (or perhaps short, short stretches) between them, but they always had the same voice accompanying. Sometimes there was background noise beneath the songs, but usually they came when it was all around quiet, when it was a little cooler in the room from the evening or night--those selections were always of the soft and slow variety, if they appeared.

This time it was in the distance, snippets of a song carrying over unwittingly through the silence. It lasted for all of three minutes before silence came again. Then, footsteps.

Jack set the guitar down in the chair with a small sigh, swiping up Ian's chart to replace it. He said nothing as he scanned the monitors, his eyes narrowed in concentration. He hummed the melody softly to himself when the silence began pressing in on his ears a little too much, murmuring little things to himself in between.

"Little better than before," he commented on the temperature, even though it was only by decimals. "You don't hurry up soon, I'll pick something god awful. Like, ********, I don't know. Dixie Chicks. Nickleback. Miley Cyrus." But Jack often talked to himself when making his rounds, so he didn't expect an answer--just like the other days before.

He still had to have his laugh, even if this was completely throwing him off schedule--and vaguely a little off guard about the whole thing.

He almost didn't hear Ian over the repetitive noises of the machines, and when he did at first he believed he might have made it up. It happened sometimes, if he got very bored. But his patient was starting to stir ever so slightly, and his heart rate was rising--and then came the audible breaths.

"Ah, good. Nobody can handle Nickleback and Miley Cyrus." Jack set the chart down. "And I might have strangled myself with the guitar strap first," he added pleasantly. "Ah well, the world will lament as usual. Can you hear me? If so tell me how many fingers I'm holding up."

His middle one was the only thing in view.

"Given that you only see me, I guess even that question needs an answer. No, not actual hell, just the other one's infirmary. Yes, alive." Jack crossed his arms lightly. "Passed you off to Martha and Morello when we got here and stuck around just in case; no-one'd let me handle anything beyond the usual trainee s**t. You've had some surgeries thanks to your stupidity, but you'll pull through. I'll let your partner chastise you for the rest of that."

He considered Ian for a moment, then said, "Don't go anywhere," and left the room. Shortly after he returned with a fresh water bottle from the fridge, which he then offered Ian if he was able to move.

"Take it slow. Someone's going to be pissed if you stretch your stitches."

"This is the...third day," Jack said after taking a moment to count. His routine was so set that sometimes it became easy to forget the passage of time, especially if lost in work. "I think. Something like that. More than forty-eight hours at any rate."

Uncapping the bottle, he very slowly tilted it to Ian's lips. "Say when." And when signaled he stopped and screwed the cap back on; there was enough condensation on the bottle that water collected over Jack's fingers and onto Ian.

"Now, normally when someone tries to off himself, he doesn't go breaking bones," he went on to say briskly, turning away to retrieve his chart. "Bronze star for effort. I found you with a ******** up leg, a nice big gash on your neck, a good collection of bruises, and a glass shard in your hand. Feel like explaining?"

Jack tapped the Mist's chart with a chained pen. "For the official record, that is. Because without a good explanation, I'll have to recommend a psych eval." God forbid it was because he cared.

He really didn't want to have to call up the psych eval, if anything was said about his expression. Frankly it was the most boring thing in the world, even if it was technically necessary, and personally it sounded like a small hell on top of the larger one Ian had landed himself in. Judging by his's response, however, Jack might very well have to scoot him over to the resident psychiatrist.

He sighed and, at Owain's advice about politeness, ignored the impulse to roll his eyes. (( Treat this seriously, dear one. Pain of the heart is a deadly affliction. You know this. ))

He sounds like every other a*****e who thinks dying's the "the best answer" just because they can't handle real life s**t. Sorry if I'm not sympathetic.

(( Perhaps the ghoul is right: you do need to work on your bedside manners. ))

The comment stung him more than expected, especially because it had come from Peyton. Jack bristled, took a breath, and exhaled, losing a little of the edge in his tone.

"Well, good thing you sucked royally at that," he replied, scribbling in a few things. "Shiloh probably would have killed me if you died along the way back. Life is pain, Ian: the point being it has a hell of a lot more to it than that."

He glanced up from the chart, meeting Ian's sad smile with his usual, narrow-eyed look, and tucked it under his arm for a moment. "I'm serious. What happened?"

In the moments Ian needed to bring himself from the brink of unconsciousness, Jack intoned with pleasant sarcasm, "Did I mention you had to take it slow and that broken bones were involved? I could have sworn I did."

(( Jack. ))

Waving the giant off, he took his guitar off the chair and set it carefully against the wall, pulling the chair up as Ian launched into his story. His brows arched at the mention of possession, and he wrote something quickly into his wrist as a secondary note for later, in case it got lost in the annals of his mind. Now that was interesting . . . A ghost, then? Did things live there, or was it just happenstance that a deathseeker almost got his wish? Black was hardly a description at all, but perhaps he would have a better chance at the library at discerning species, intents--well aside from wanting to murder hunters of course--

(( Jack. ))

He steepled his fingers and rest his chin lightly atop them as he leaned forward. Jack mulled over everything for a moment before speaking. "I'm going to assume you didn't portal out before things got dangerous because part of you wanted that to happen," he stated, as if reading a report rather than casting judgment. "Tell me if I'm wrong. What sort of mistake are we talking about here? Because he ******** followed you around like a puppy last I checked; a few kicks here and there doesn't stop something with that much adoration."

There was a method behind the repetition, the forcing of the obvious and not so obvious mistakes: things made aloud were more concrete than things that stayed in the head. If the mind made something that the heart rejected, then it needed to be acknowledged and corrected. As ever, Jack thought through this step by step.

Problem #1: Ian was grieving and dealing with that grief through mindless violence.
Problem #2: Ian had not minded dying in the process, up to the actual point of it happening.
Problem #3: Ian had cut Shiloh off completely prior to all of this.

They were connected, obviously, but there was still something missing. Jack was generously believing Ian was a sensible enough guy that not even a relationship breakup was enough to throw him onto this path of self-destruction. That was s**t reserved for overdramatic movies and overemotional people. He had a working theory but needed to know more.

"And this was prompted by . . . what?" he asked, adopting a milder tone as he eyed Ian. "I don't keep up with interpersonal relationship well, but it was very clear how enamored you were with each other."