"I'm sorry, I was just-" The man paused, lowering his hands from his tear streaked face. "-I've been gone for so long."
"Mark, it's okay." Another man answered, putting a hand on Mark's shoulder. "You weren't really gone, you were-"
Mark violently pushed the hand away. "I was in a hospital bed! My body, my flesh, my fucking atoms were here, but I fucking wasn't!" His teeth clenched, and the tears turned to rage. "How many years, Jake? How many fucking years did I lose?"
Jake hesitated, taken aback. "...Twenty-five."
"Two and a half decades!" Mark snapped. "That's… What, six presidential terms?! Three hundred more X-men issues?! Are they even still making that book?!"
"Actually, yeah, they-"
"It was fucking rhetoricle!" Mark took a deep breath. "That's not the point." He continued, a bit more calm. "I was fifteen years old, Jake. Now I'm forty. And I missed all of it. I can buy cigarettes and beer, but I-" The final fumes of his rage deflated from his gut. "-I don't even know what I'm trying to say, it just all feels wrong. Hell, just two weeks ago I was keeping a lingerie catalog under my mattress, and now I… I'm old enough to be a grandpa."
There was a silence that seemed to last hours, though the clock beside the hospital bed remained frozen.
"So what happens now?" Mark asked.
"What do you mean?" Jake asked in return.
"I mean… Do I go back to school? Do I get a job? What am I supposed to do?"
"You live." Jake answered. "That's all anyone wants you to do."
Mark sat back and let out an amused chuckle. "Last I remember, I had a curfew. I've never actually had a chance to live. How do I start now?"
"We'll figure it out." Jake said. "But for now you need rest and some food."
"I could use one more thing." Mark said as Jake stood to leave.
"What's that?"
"I never did beat the Elite Four." Mark said. "Do you still have my gameboy?"
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