"Well ... you did say I remind you of your foster father. You obviously know him to some extent, no matter how you feel about it now."

"You can't know how I feel."

"Can I try anyway?"

"Knock yourself out."

"I think you've been feeling guilt all this time. I think since you spent all this time running from the blame, you've really been running from what you really want. Now that you've been freed from the guilt, you still crave the blame. So you want another reason for someone to blame you."

"You know a lot for a dud. I guess it's like having a strong desire, a love that can never go anywhere. I need to be blamed." Sierra let her upper body fall. "I want my life back."

"You ... have someone to go back to?"

"I ... guess. She's ... sort of like family."

"Then go to her. You said yourself, nobody stays homeless unless they want to. You don't want to. I guess that means you're free."

"Free? Yeah, I guess I sort of am. Then again I still have that big bearded drunken ball and chain to look after."

"Yeah I think he'd miss you. So would I ... and Alex too."

"I know. It'll be good when we're all back together in the park again. A little normality wouldn't go amiss."

Sierra leaned against the parapet to gaze out over the city again. The snowfall increased, near hiding the nearest buildings in view. Pretty soon it would be unadvisable to stay here.

"Hard to believe we're so close to home, isn't it?" Henry said.

"Yeah, the city looks like a winter paradise from up here."

"Only cause we can't see the dirt through the snow."

"Yeah."

A heavy swish of wind descended over the rooftop. A flurry fell along with, forcing Henry to huddle himself more intensely.

"Maybe it's time to go back down."

"Scared of a little cold? If I can handle it you should too."

"H-hey, come on! You're wearing almost four times the clothes I am. Besides, we should really get going. We've left Rum and Alex alone together, that can't turn out good."

"I guess. I'll see you later then."

"You're not coming?"

"I think I'll stay up here just a little longer. I've got some stuff to pine over."

Henry shrugged, making way back to the roof access door from which they came.

Sierra waited till Henry closed the door behind him. At once she set her sights on what had fixated her since coming up here. Hopping to her feet, she grabbed one of the storage crates. Junk or not, there could have been something valuable inside. Despite expecting a struggle to pull off the frozen down lid, it slid off easily. Suddenly she realised these abandoned crates weren't so abandoned. It seemed they'd been opened very recently. Her face twisted to horror when she found out why.

Chapter 32.

Rum stomped his way out of Alex's room into an empty hallway. "Ungrateful jackass."

"Stay the hell out of here, old man!" Alex cried from his bed stricken state. "My heads sore enough without your help."

Rum had only been awake a matter of minutes and already their quarrelling resumed. For what purpose neither really knew, or cared to remember.

For the time being Rum let it wash off on his back as he strolled away and down the corridor. "Lanky streak of piss," Rum grumbled to himself. "Saying shit like that me after I bothered staying with him. The dud and Sierra didn't even bother. Yeah, so what if I was asleep - it still counts!" He stopped to look up and down the empty hall. "Who the hell am I talking to? Damn I need a drink."

"You weren't talking to me?" an ominous voice spoke from behind, echo bouncing on the walls.

Rum wheeled round, stopping in wait so the voice could make formal introduction.

A doctor garbed in the usual white emerged from a stairwell behind. He wore a head of brow flat hair buzz cut to a perfect flatness. There was a light scar over his right eye which curved as his bushy eyebrows narrowed with interest. Though his features were more worn than the doctor named Adam, he seemed to bear a close resemblance.

The doctor, apparently embarrassed by the intrusion, bowed slightly. "Sorry, it's been a long day."

"Don't do that," Rum said. "This place is too dark to be sneaking up on a fella."

"That's what I'm trying to fix." The doctor held out a box of candles, a lighter in his other hand.

"Candles? 'Scuse me, you are a doctor right? The hell you lighting candles for?"

"It's the New Year ... who needs me, the drunks? We usually leave those people alone until they sober up."

"Mopping up after them would be more productive."

"We have plenty of nurses available for that. In fact I believe that's where most of them are now."

"Cut the crap, you got real sick patients in this place and you're out here fucking about with candles. This is some sick joke."

"The power's out, what can I do without morphine to shut them up?"

"You got some mouth for a doctor. Don't you people even check up on patients?"

"And ruin the peace? The patients are locked safely in their rooms. It's not morphine but we get the same result - silence."

"Should I pretend I didn't here that?"

"Judging from those rags you're wearing I can guess you're probably a patient here, so it wouldn't matter what you try remember between these few hours of sobriety and the moment you forget."

Rum could feel his fists tighten, his face red with heat and teeth churning top on bottom. "You sorry bastard. I always knew the private hospitals left the rejects behind, I never imagined there'd be someone like you."

"What the hell do you know? I come to work. I do my job. Nobody complains so I get my job done. I do the best I can, more than some sorry bum ever-"

"Walk away doc." Rum pressed his head up closer to the man's chin, face stern in his resilience. From their previous distance Rum failed to appreciate the man's larger stature.

The doctor turned, by all appearance merely resuming lighting candles. "Something like you trying to order me around. Pathetic. Stop wandering the corridors or security will mistake you for a drug addict. We've had quite a few lately and security's keeping an eye out."

Rum found that clenched fist of his rising slowly. He'd have smacked the doctor right over the head when Henry called from behind.

When Rum did return acknowledgment, Henry crept to the Old man's side. "R-Rum! W-what's going on?"

"A disagreement with staff policy."

"Disagreement?" Henry replied, unsure of the statement's full meaning. He looked passed those allusive words to the doctor, who had risen from his hunching to stare Henry down.

Rum eyed the two back and forth, making an attempt to push Henry away. "Ignore that fool. You'll get no help from him."

"You!" the doctor yelled. "What are you doing back here?"

"M-Me?" Henry paused to contemplate the question. "W-wait ... I remember you. You were the doctor who helped me escape from the police!"

"The hell you talking about?" Rum asked.

"When they took me and Alex here after the fire, the police tried to pin it on me and this doctor helped me escape. I w-wanted to thank him for ... He even-"

"Shut up! Shut your damn mouth. I told you not to come back here!"

"W-well ... yeah but ... my friend was sick. I didn't have a choice."

"I stuck my neck out for you and you don't even have the decency to do me that one favour."

The doctor made a violent step toward Henry, intercepted by Rum who body blocked the approach.

"Don't make me repeat myself, doc."

He seemed to take the warning, backing off with little joy. He did so without turning, walking backward, staring at Henry with a glare of deep contemplation.

When it seemed the doctor wouldn't quit, Rum simply turned round to resume talking to Henry. "Ignore that freak."

"But he-"

"I don't want to know. If that guy did anything good for you I'd bet there was something bad behind it. Just forget that freak. C'mon, let's go find Sierra."

"Don't have to. I left her on the roof. Said she needed time to think."

"Time to think? What's she really doing?"

"Well ... to be honest, she seemed more interested in some storage crates that were left up there. It looked like junk to me but Sierra would know better."

"Even junk's worth something. Leave her to it, God knows we could use some cash once we get home."

Henry didn't reply, instead he sent a blank stare past Rum toward something else which needed no reintroduction.

Rum turned to find that doctor slowly creeping closer to them.

"Take the hint," Rum said.

"You said your friend is on the roof?"

"The hell you gonna do, call security?"

The doctor's lips briefly twitched with contempt, almost as quickly as he snapped from his approaching to a gentle backing off. He nodded with a kind of hostile gratitude, then turned and vanished up a stairwell.

"The hell is that guy's problem?" Rum asked.

"He seemed nicer the first time." Henry reminisced on it a moment and let it drop. "Will Sierra be alright?"

"No one's ever gone down for being up on a rooftop. She'll be fine."

"Should we go see Alex then?"

"Sure, he might tolerate me more with you here."

Alex rested back on a pillow, looking sideways out a small window dominating one of the walls. From here he could see to the storage yard out back, illuminated by dim fog lights which flickered on edge, counting down the seconds it would take for those last few workers to finish up. Alex couldn't help think how this hospital's power generator must have been configured wrong, in how it cut out for the patients yet switched on so a few men could lift crates. Then again, those men were probably unionised and in possession of more rights than anyone forced to come to this place.

The snow worsened too so those workers moved faster until it seemed they'd dropped their work entirely. The way they left those struggling fog lights on would normally suggest they intended to return. So the yard stayed lit up and the snow kept building on top of all those walk in crates lining the yard, and in between the maze like spaces separating each.

"It's not going to end soon," a voice said from the doorway.

The blonde doctor from earlier entered, clip board in hand.

"Thought you'd forgotten about me."

"Distanced myself. It would have been difficult to do my job with your friends in the room. I assumed you would want to know the results of your tests in private."

"Results? I didn't think we'd done enough tests to start talking about results."

"Of course, with our machines down we can't be completely certain at this stage."

"Power looks fine from here." Alex looked to the fog lights outside in the storage yard below.

"The storage yard runs on a separate power line. It's been hit bad too but they squeeze out what they can."

"If they're not using it they could at least funnel a little power my way. Pretty sure those fog lights could power this whole floor."

"And half the one below, but it's not my section. I've no say in the matter."