He'd been here many times since the Trial ended. He'd dreamt about the terrible events that had followed the verdict over and over. He'd seen the Twistings in his mind's eye, just *knowing* that they should have killed him, not quite believing that he'd made it out alive. He'd watched some of the media coverage of the incident, but couldn't bear to see much of it. He'd even seen himself on television, and heard the reporter mention his brief musical career, Mr. One-Hit-Wonder Himself, here in the courtroom, doing his Civic Duty, compared to that dog. Who is, evidently, more famous than him. He'd gone over the events time after time in his head, reliving the whole episode again and again.
But this time it was different.
He was dreaming of an unassuming man, somebody he'd completely forgotten about until now. It just hadn't seemed very important at the time, seeing as the defense's arguments were completely ridiculous. It was Mr. Martindale. And the other Mr. Martindale. Two men, from different places in the Nexus. But the same man, from different versions of the same place. In Joshua's dream, Mr. Martindale was sitting and talking to the courtroom, but instead of only two of them up on the witness stand, everyone in the room was another Mr. Martindale. The one standing in the middle of the room was saying, "They are, in fact, the same person, albeit alternate versions from two different realities." He picked up a book from the defense's table, and opened it. "I have here INCONTROVERTIBLE PROOF that Mr. Martindale is innocent!" Hundreds of Mr. Martindales gasped in horror. "No, I'm kidding," he said, and slammed his book closed.
Joshua woke up suddenly, in his room in the hospital. His damn roommate couldn't keep quiet for two stinking hours so he could sleep? "_Please_ be more quiet, Mr. Jinkins! I was sleeping."
Mr. Jinkins was terribly forgetful. He seemed to forget on a regular basis that he even _had_ a roommate, never mind that he had to sleep once in a while too. "What was that?" came the querulous voice from beyond the curtain.
"Never mind." He'd just forget again, in any case. It wasn't his fault. Some sort of medical problem with his brain function, or something. Joshua could hardly blame him, although sometimes he did anyway.
Joshua had been in the hospital for a couple of weeks now. The doctors had no trouble sewing up his arm, once they'd treated him for the shock and blood loss. He'd gotten excellent treatment here, probably because they'd found out who he was and had seen dollar signs floating in front of their eyes. Well, he probably wasn't as well-off as they thought he was. They'd even offered to fix his arm up so that he no longer had visible scars, but he'd refused. He wanted to keep them as a reminder. A reminder of what could have happened, in hopes of doing something better next time. He got that scar when he ran away. He could've helped more, could have done more. He wanted to remember that.
The hospital had also arranged to detoxify him. They'd noticed the signs of withdrawl symptoms and had started an aggressive program to get him well. He wasn't sure how successful it had been mentally, but physically he felt better than he had in a long time. He just hated to go to counseling. Speaking of which, he was late for an appointment, had slept right past the scheduled time. He was never quite sure if he did that sort of thing on purpose or not. Maybe he was subconsciously trying to avoid going to counseling at all.
The phone rang. "Josh. You're late for your meeting."
"I know. I'm coming. And don't call me Josh."
"I'm sorry. Joshua."
He hung up and walked out the door. /Guess I have to go, now./