“M’never drunk when I work,” He answered with a shrug of his shoulders. Zach couldn’t hide the grimaced at the way shrugging his shoulders made the world kind of tip to the side again. “S’no contradiction.” This time he was smiling again as he opened his eyes and tried to focus on Leah again. “Wait ‘till you’ve seen as much death as I have, then you might take up drinking as well.” Sure it wasn’t just medics that saw death on a daily basis, but they were in the thick of things, left to deal with everyone else’s mess when things would go terribly wrong.
Zach tried to push up the wall again to a standing position and made it halfway up to a standing position before he slide back down. Right, Leah was the one with the brainy twin sister, the one Maddie had mentioned to him. “Mindfuck or their biggest fantasy actualized,” One side of his mouth was quirked up in a smile as he added. “It really is too bad she’s not here.”
Reality was reality, people died and Zach had learned a long time ago that sometimes all that could be done was easing their pain. That was something he had learned back during his military service. No, what haunted him were the deaths he hadn’t even had the chance to try and prevent – like Sasha’s – or the situations he hadn’t had the nerve to change – like killing Gordy once he had turned.
“Someone has to.” Was Zach’s only response to Leah’s words. It was harder to have that opinion when you had family members hanging around the infirmary hoping for a miracle – the thing they never realized was he wasn’t a miracle worker.
Did he need help moving? The answer seemed obvious. Zach grimaced at the idea of moving and knew that even if Leah did help him find a better place to sober up; she wouldn’t be able to do much more than steady him. He disliked asking for help, it was a pride thing – but it was pretty clear he wouldn’t be moving on his own. “My whole body would like to just sit here awhile longer, but I really should move,” he answered as he braced himself against the wall and slowly managed to get up onto his feet again. “Y’know to save whatever dignity I’ve still got.” Zach added with a faint smile.