Chapter Text
Predictable. That was an appropriate word to describe Alhaitham’s routine: wake up at precisely the same time no matter the day of the week, make coffee from the same beans, brush his teeth before washing his face, and leave the apartment exactly seven minutes before the official start of his workday. Come home straight from work on most days. Work on any chores before showering. Showering. Reading. Eating. Sleeping.
Repeat. If anyone knocked on his door, he would steal a glance through the spyhole and usually pretend to not be home. He did not appreciate being bothered for trivial matters.
Repeat. Leaving the house was generally avoided due to the loudness of the public, so he usually only left for groceries or any other matter that could not be avoided: relaxing at home with an interesting book was much more enjoyable, anyway.
Repeat. It’s a peaceful routine; here is no one to bother him. Back in his university days, this amount of silence in his life would have been shocking, as a certain someone would talk his ears off, ruffle his hair, tug on his sleeve, adjust his earpieces, complain when he wasn’t responding, and hum a tune in a low voice even when they weren’t holding a conversation. His current life was much calmer.
He stared out of the living room windows, observing the lush green of the forest rustling in the wind. It was a spectacular view, really, boasting faraway peaks and the flora of Avidya Forest, and the apartment was high up enough that he heard nothing from the streets below. It was not excessively large, composed of three rooms and one bathroom, with a spacious kitchen and an enviable amount of sunlight. The price had been low, too, for the apartment’s value, and so Alhaitham was fully satisfied with his living arrangement.
Well. Somewhat.
Three rooms had seemed an adequate amount to fit his bedroom, a study, and a guest room, but perhaps the idea of a guest room had been a miscalculation. After all, no one ever came to his house, not even for a dinner or anything of the sort: someone staying there for a whole night seemed laughable. He had no family, either, who might want to come into town. Three rooms was too much.
This was his logical explanation for why the house felt so… empty. He had a post-doctoral thesis published on words, and so he knew quite well that “empty” was not the correct term to describe the sensation. Perhaps the furniture was to blame, too— Alhaitham had bought only what was necessary, and that included no form of decoration. The walls were a sterile white, while any objects were bland shades of neutral colours. Perhaps he had given interior design too little credit, and aesthetics were, in fact, affecting his psychological state.
He shook his head vehemently at the thought, searching for another cause instead. Surely it was not the silence in the house that bothered him: he, who wore noise-cancelling earpieces everywhere and had always been sensitive to noise.
Perhaps it was the cold. What a strange thought, he observed, when I have perfectly functioning heating. But it was undeniable that his home lacked a sort of warmth, the kind that emanated from the kitchen in his childhood when his grandmother cooked Sunday lunch, or when there was laughter to be heard from another room.
Ah. It was company that he was lacking.
How odd, that this of all things would affect him when he willingly avoided the presence of others, and when he had actively built a lifestyle centered on peace. Alhaitham had, after all, the life he had always wanted. He was the head of the Ancient Languages Branch of Sumeru Akademiya’s Linguistics Department (being the head of anything was inconvenient, but it earned him a higher salary), a job that provided him with the ability to do research and with access to the university’s archives. He had financial freedom, a satisfactory house located near his workplace, and plenty of free time to indulge his desire to read. There was nothing missing in his life, per se, except for things he had never wanted in the first place— such as close company.
Perhaps he had been wrong. It always pained him to admit such a thing, but a scholar who did not realise his own logical fallacies did not deserve such a title, and so Alhaitham found him forced to accept that yes, he did want company, despite what he had always thought.
It was not that he did not enjoy interactions with others; there simply seemed to always be better things to do. The Akademiya had faculty members with whom debating could be quite interesting, but the department get-togethers were usually in bars where the pungent smell of alcohol and the unbearable noise left him desperate to leave. Besides, when he did attend a social gathering (usually a birthday celebration which politeness had forced him to RSVP), he often itched to go home and eat food he actually enjoyed, or continue reading whatever book he was currently absorbed in.
Social interaction just seemed like it was not worth the trouble. I suppose loneliness is the lesser of two evils, he concluded, recalling a birthday party in which an unknown guest had vomited on his shirt. I’ll get used to it.
But the sensation did not leave. It only seemed to intensify now that its origin had been identified, and Alhaitham found himself acutely aware of those around him talking and laughing together while he was alone. In his favourite Inazuman restaurant on a Friday evening, he realised his was the only table with only one customer— everyone else seemed to have someone to share their meal with.
Sentimentality has no use, he told himself. If I were with anyone else, their plate might take longer than mine to be prepared, and so my hunger would be prolonged. Conversation might also cause the dinner to take longer, and I would arrive home later. I have papers to grade, so that would be inconvenient.
Inconvenient. That was precisely the word he had been looking for, to describe why he had no real friendships. It was as simple as that: his life was better off with the peace of depending on no one but himself.
Logic started failing him, however. He repeated to himself over and over that this was the best arrangement for his personality, but the nagging desire for company seemed to follow him like a shadow. At the university, he realised he was never invited to coffee breaks with his coworkers, and readily realised it was probably because he had refused their advances every single day in his first weeks as a professor. After four days of observing their excited chatter as they approached the door, he cleared his throat.
”May I accompany you? I would also like some coffee.”
”Of course,” Madam Faruzan, the elderly Head of Department replied, a glint of curiosity in her eyes.
He stayed silent as the other professors discussed this or that research study, disappointing himself as he realised the itch for company had not been reduced in the slightest. He probably had to engage in conversation.
”It’s simply ridiculous that they rejected my funding proposal again. Those fools in the Dean’s office say my ideas are too ‘niche’ and ‘impractical,’ as if they had no use whatsoever and I’d just be wasting their money!” Madam Faruzan was exclaiming.
”It is a pity, but what with our limited funding, it makes sense that they would focus on research with practical applications,” Alhaitham observed.
She raised a brow. “And who is supposed to determine how ‘practical’ an application has to be to deserve their precious money? Because the quote-unquote scholars I submit my proposals to clearly are not sufficiently qualified. I’ll have you know, young man, that they probably consider anything related to ancient languages completely useless.”
”That would not be entirely incorrect. It is crucial to archaeology and history, as well as satiating the curiosity of researchers like me. However, I must agree that it should not be Sumeru’s priority, when other, more tangible problems must be dealt with.”
Faruzan narrowed her eyes, studying his face from her short height as if dissecting it meticulously. “Tangible problems, such as understanding ancient technology found in desert monuments which could help the inhabitants of Aaru Village? Or understanding ancient runes to solve puzzles and save tourists trapped in those deadly temples, where so many lose their lives? Or preserving ancient knowledge which is crucial for understanding cultural roots? Truly, I never would have expected you to downplay the importance of studying ancient languages.”
”I am not downplaying its importance,” he replied, sipping on his coffee. “If I thought it was irrelevant, I would not have pursued a career in it. I can simply understand why the Dean’s office might focus their funding elsewhere when they are forced to prioritise.”
The discussion continued, and Alhaitham could not help but feel that the other professors were irritated with his comments, having transformed an enjoyable break into a heated debate which clearly seemed to be striking some nerves. What was he supposed to do? He had opinions, and it would be nothing short of dishonest to pretend he agreed when he simply did not. Convictions were convictions, and until further evidence was presented, they would remain as such. If he ever got to the point of being embarrassed to express his opinions, he would have turned into someone else entirely.
Once they were back in the office, Faruzan typed furiously on her poor keyboard while Alhaitham noted in one of his many notebooks: “First attempt at socialising within the Linguistics Department: unsuccessful. Possible reason: opinions differ too much from Madam Faruzan’s.”
He sighed. Socialising was not as easy as others made it out to be.
His second attempt occurred on the very next day, in which he brought a padisarah pudding as a peace offering for the department. It seemed to mostly work, especially for Rowshan, a newly-hired assistant professor who ate half of the entire thing, but Madam Faruzan wrinkled her nose at the smell.
”No, thank you, there’s really no need to share it with me. Shouldn’t puddings be made with rice? These culinary innovations might be getting out of hand…” she muttered, returning to her research proposal.
Alhaitham internally sighed, and gritted his teeth at the memory once he was home to his kitchen, cleaning up the mess from the previous day’s cooking spree. He had gone out of his way to buy fresh padisarahs, then gone to sleep half an hour too late when the recipe took longer than expected.
Staring at the clean dishes now, he felt suddenly exhausted. He had to admit that the smiles he had gotten had made his chest feel somewhat warm, but it had been nowhere near what he was craving. At the thought of friendship, his mind conjured the image of a messy blonde braid, swishing to the rhythm of self-indulgent laughter, and he found the corners of his lips twitch, too.
There’s no use reminiscing, he reminded himself, forcing the thought off his mind. The image of Rowshan’s clumsy smile as he shoved a large slice of pudding into his mouth replaced Kaveh’s, and the memory somehow only made Alhaitham feel worse. How pathetic, he thought, to be happy at the thought of pleasing a stranger simply to feel better about my own loneliness. I am so disliked that this is the closest I currently have to a relationship of any kind.
To his own surprise, the sides of his eyes prickled with the threat of tears, and he found himself unsure of what to do. He did not want to be seen in such vulnerability, but his apartment was as empty as it always was, and so, why the irrational urge to hold the crying back? Crying is a natural mechanism for releasing stress-related hormones, he had told Kaveh years before. Why are you resisting? Cry. There is no rational reason why you should be embarrassed.
How stupid he had been. Even with no audience, the thought of letting his sadness overflow from his head onto the physical realm seemed daunting, and he simultaneously tried to prevent the flow of tears while letting them happen. A broken, choked sound escaped his throat, and it took him a moment to realise it was his own sob. It sounded foreign to his ears, but they kept escaping his tightly shut lips until he found himself too exhausted to fight the instinct. He curled in on himself, lowering his trembling body to the floor, then stared up at the blaring white lamp on the kitchen ceiling. Why had he bought one with white light? It was too harsh on his eyes, and he suddenly understood why Kaveh had always insisted on buying warm lightbulbs. The thought ripped a wail out of his mouth, and the tears blurred his vision.
He had cried considerably as a child, when his grandmother would take him onto her lap, engulf his entire body in a soft, grounding hug, and caress his hair with a sweet lightness that his own fingers had never been able to replicate. He tried once more, contorted into a miserable pile of bones on the kitchen floor, but the effect was the same. His nails grazed his scalp and there was no comfort to the movement. There is no comfort in there being no one you can call when you’re crying so much your head throbs.
To break down in the kitchen, too, of all places, was disorienting. Crying in the privacy of the bathroom, or in the soothing warmth of your bed, provides your misery with some level of grace, whereas a tear-stained face in an area of nourishment and heat simply seems out of place. Alhaitham crawled to the bathroom, and upon seeing his usually collected expression struck with glassy, widened eyes, he turned the shower on and forbade any more tears from coming. (But yet it is our trick, a line from his undergraduate course whispered, and he understood, finally, why empathy was crucial to understanding literary texts. The tears did not stop.)
Alhaitham had never been one to wallow in self-pity, and so he found a solution to his problem, which was set into motion the very next weekend.
”I am looking to adopt a cat,” he explained to the pet shelter volunteer worker.
”I think it’s going to be hard to pick, because I’ve fallen in love with all the ones we have here!” she exclaimed, smiling brightly. Her name was Nilou, and she had striking red hair which reminded Alhaitham of a certain pair of eyes. “Do you have any preferences? What age are you looking for?”
”Doesn’t matter.”
”Will you only want one?”
”Yes,” he replied, then considered the question again. “Do they get lonely? I am not at home between nine and five.”
”It depends,” she said. “Some of them do, but we have some who don’t like other cats. I feel bad for them, they’re always holed up on their own.”
Like me, he thought dryly.
She led him through a small door, towards the rescued animals. “I wish I could adopt all of them, I always feel awful for the pets who aren’t picked. We have some who’ve been here for a couple of years, even though they’re adorable. For some reason, nobody seems to want them.”
A strange sense of sympathy welled up in Alhaitham’s chest as he observed the small animals’ suspicious eyes glancing at him. The kittens looked so small he was scared to kill them with an accidental step.
”I want one of those.”
”Which ones?” Nilou cocked her head.
”The ones who no one picks.”
She beamed, twirling her feet with a giggle. “You have no idea how happy that makes me. Let me show you this one.”
She crouched down next to a tabby cat with curious green eyes, scratching behind its ears. “This here is Tabby. Yeah, I know it’s far from an original name, but she answers to it, look. Tabby!” Her voice came out in a soft, high-pitched tone, and the cat looked up. “This is Alhaitham. Would you want to go home with him?”
Tabby looked at him blankly, and he had the feeling that perhaps she did not, in fact, want to leave Nilou’s scratches for his cold, empty house. “She’s around three years old. We found her when she was pregnant and looking for a safe place to give birth. All her kittens have been adopted by now.”
Alhaitham nodded.
”People usually prefer to adopt kittens,” she mumbled. “Do you want to pet her? She’s super sweet, I promise she won’t bite or anything.”
He reached a tentative hand forward, letting her sniff him before softly brushing the cat’s bizarrely small forehead with his fingers. “She’s fluffy,” he commented. He reached to scratch the spot Nilou had touched, and his eyes widened when Tabby closed her eyes and purred. “She’s purring.”
”She likes you,” Nilou smiled. “I think she’s saying, Please adopt me, I want your pets everyday, I promise I definitely won’t eat your house plants.”
”I don’t have house plants,” Alhaitham replied. “Perhaps we are a good match.”
Tabby had purred for him. There was no way he could just leave her in this run-down shelter with aggressive dog barks in the background. She had leaned into his touch, and she didn’t have anyone in the world.
”I’m showing her to you because she doesn’t like other cats. Since you said you were only looking for one, she would be a good choice. I think she’d have trouble adapting to having a sibling.”
Alhaitham nodded again, now rubbing Tabby’s neck. This is an adequate, rational decision, he told himself. This cat is old enough to not be as messy as a kitten, and she does not require for me to adopt another one. He did not admit to himself that his heart was fiercely enamoured with Tabby after only having known her for two minutes.
“I will take her.”
Nilou raised her eyebrows. “You don’t want to look at any other cats, then?”
Alhaitham shook his head. He would probably be tempted to take every cat with him if it showed an ounce of interest, and he could not turn his apartment into a feline orphanage. “Is there any paperwork I have to fill?”
He left the shelter to visit a pet shop, where he acquired everything Nilou had indicated. He spent fifteen minutes reading the labels and ingredient lists of every adult cat food package in the store, then made his way back to pick up Tabby.
”I’m really glad you’re giving this little angel a home,” Nilou said as she waved them goodbye.
The car ride was silent. Alhaitham stole a glance at the cat at every stoplight.
”Even I can recognise that Tabby is a terrible name,” he noted. “And I’ve come up with a solution. Your name is going to be Tabi, spelled with an ‘i.’” Tabi blinked at him, unimpressed. “And it’s gonna be your nickname. Your full name is Tabitha.”
Tabitha did not react. She was more preoccupied with the honking sounds distressing her fluffy ears.
”I know, I hate this kind of noise too,” he told her. “But you’ll see, our house is much quieter.”
He had the sudden realisation that he was holding a full conversation with a cat, as if she could understand anything leaving his mouth. Am I really so lonely that I’m talking to a cat? He reminded himself that everyone talked to their pets. This is perfectly common, and not a sign of psychological instability.
He made a point of not saying “Welcome home,” as he opened the front door, allowing Tabitha to slowly explore the living room while he set up her things. “I will leave your bed here. You will not sleep in my room, I don’t want to have my sleep interrupted.”
She evidently did not understand that sentence, or if she did, she ignored it, because once Alhaitham went to bed, she gracefully jumped onto the mattress and started pawing at the covers.
“You look like you’re kneading dough,” he remarked. “Interesting. I will have to research the explanation behind this. Now, leave my bed.” He picked her up and placed her on the floor. She gracefully jumped onto the mattress once more.
Alhaitham sighed. He procured her bed from the living room and set it next to his own. He plopped the cat onto the bed. She jumped back onto his mattress.
”Fine,” he muttered, holding back a smile as he heard her purr. “Just for tonight. Since you might be homesick.”
They fell asleep curled up together, her fluffy tail snaked around his wrist.
“Do you have pets, Madam Faruzan?” he asked a couple of weeks later.
”No. Between teaching, managing this mess of a department, and insisting on the funding they won’t give me, I have no time for such things,” she replied, then raised a brow, noting that the impromptu personal question was quite unlike Alhaitham. “Why?”
”I need to take my cat to the vet. I was looking for a recommendation.”
”Ah,” she said. “I’ve had cats before. Just pick a vet close to your house. It’ll be less of a hassle.”
Naturally, that made sense, but Alhaitham did not want to simply take Tabitha to any veterinarian. He had to minimally inspect their credentials, before subjecting a living creature’s wellbeing, which he was entirely responsible for, to a common idiot’s pseudo-savoir faire. He was determined to do his research.
And research he did. He pinpointed, on a printed-out map, every veterinarian in a twenty-five minute walking radius, then placed strategic post-its comparing his options.
”I’ll only take you to a vet who graduated from the Akademiya, Tabi, don’t worry,” he murmured. Tabi was lying on his desk, paws playing with one of the pins. “You want that one?” he chuckled.
He searched up the places one by one, opening their websites to dutifully examine the Our Team page. These looked competent enough, he would definitely consider—
His eyes paused at a specific name. Kaveh Kshahrewar, DVM, Sumeru Akademiya Guest Lecturer, Specialist in Oncology. Alhaitham swallowed thickly, stealing a glance at Tabi. “Well,” he started. “I do trust him to be a good professional. He’s always been very dedicated to his studies.”
Tabi licked her paw.
”Would he be upset if I scheduled an appointment with him?” he asked, absentmindedly playing with her tail. She did not reply, because she is a cat. “I honestly don’t know. Would he still be mad, if I just ran into him on the street?”
Tabi blinked, and Alhaitham took that as a yes.
”Well, you don’t even know what happened between us, so it’s not like you can opine,” he defended himself. “We were best friends in university. He was in vet school and two years my senior. He was losing his mind in a senior-year project, letting his group members walk all over him, and I kind of scolded him for it. It turned into a big fight, I said some things I didn’t mean, he said some things I hope he didn’t mean, and we’ve never talked again.”
The study was silent save for the sound of Tabi licking her paw.
”I’m scheduling an appointment.”
Alhaitham silently paced around his house as Tabi watched him, having never seen her owner so jittery (or rather, Alhaitham’s own brand of jittery, which was similar to a regular human being’s rest state). He crossed his arms.
”It’s just a routine check-up,” he told her, as if that were the reason for his nerves. “No need to worry. He’ll probably just give you a few pets and send us on our way.”
Tabi did not enjoy being forced out of the house again, meowing fiercely as she violently clawed at the carrier bag Alhaitham had placed her in. “You’re not going back to the shelter, relax,” he murmured. “I promise we’ll come back home.”
Well. She did not believe him. The walk was blessed with the beautiful soundtrack of Tabi’s hissing, and the waiting room was even worse, with her wailing at the sight of another cat and, God forbid, a Rottweiler.
”You may go in,” the receptionist told him, audibly relieved.
He took cautionary steps towards the room at the end of the corridor, recognising the golden curls sitting atop a crouched head the second they came into view. Kaveh only looked up once he was standing at the doorway.
”Welcome, this is little Tabitha, right?” he greeted, beaming, before his expression collapsed into a look of pure confusion.
”Yes,” Alhaitham replied, clearing his throat.
Kaveh simply stared. Alhaitham stared back. Kaveh stared at the cat. Alhaitham stared at the cat, too. The cat meowed loudly.
”Can I take her out? She doesn’t like the bag.”
Kaveh nodded slowly, looking somewhat more put together. “I will need her age and information about what vaccines and procedures she may have gone through.”
His voice sounded exactly like all those years before, but his tone was oddly… professional. Alhaitham had expected Kaveh to burst into screams the second he laid eyes on him, or, if he was not upset anymore, at least ask how he had been. Kaveh, however, decided to focus his attention on the cat.
”Hello, beautiful,” he murmured, voice high-pitched and soft. “You’re adorable. Do you feel okay? Is there anything I can do for you?” He caressed her head and she leaned into his hand, purring shamelessly.
”It’s just a check-up, I just adopted her,” Alhaitham specified. “She’s around three years old, and this is the information I have about her medical history,” he added, handing Kaveh a sheet of paper Nilou had given him.
The appointment continued silently, disappointingly for Alhaitham. Kaveh shushed Tabitha sweetly while he examined her, commenting that there was nothing out of the ordinary.
”So…” he started, looking away. “Did you know? That I was the doctor? Or was this just a coincidence?”
Alhaitham made his best attempt at a nonchalant expression. “Yes. I was researching vets near my house, and saw your name. I know you’re a highly competent professional, so I decided to bring Tabi here.”
Kaveh nodded. “Right.”
Even the cat sensed the tension in the air, shyly sitting back from where she had been pawing at Kaveh’s earring.
”Are you upset?” asked Alhaitham.
”No.”
”And are you still upset about our fight?”
Kaveh paused. “I don’t know.”
The silence returned, and Tabi made her way to Alhatham’s lap, curling in on herself. Alhaitham wished he could do the same.
”Well,” the vet continued, “she needs to get a shot, but we can’t do it today. Do you mind coming back next week? I’m here everyday in the afternoon.”
“Okay,” Alhaitham said, fishing for something else to add. “Your hair looks good like this.”
Kaveh blinked at him, clearly taken aback. “Uh, thank you. It’s way shorter than the last time we saw each other.”
Ahaitham nodded. The awkwardness hanging around them was tangible, but it was better than an argument.
”Well, thank you. Can I come back Tuesday at the same time?”
”I think that’s fine, yes. Have a talk with the receptionist so they can put it on my agenda.”
Alhaitham stood up, holding Tabi, then paused, thinking of a way to end the conversation. He pulled one of her paws up, gently making her wave. “Nice to meet you, I’ll see you next week. I’m excited to munch on your earrings,” he stated, voice as emotionless and deep as ever despite attempting to personify a cat.
Oh, my God. What in the actual fuck did I just do? Did I come here to embarrass myself?
Kaveh laughed, eyelashes dancing and teeth appearing through pink lips, just like Alhaitham remembered. “It was nice to meet you too, Tabitha. If you’re a good girl for the vaccine, I’ll let you bite my earring,” he whispered, giving her a goodbye head pat.
Well. Good news. Once he was home, Alhaitham wrote in his notebook, First attempt at repairing my relationship with Kaveh: apparently successful. Possibly only because of Tabi.
Kaveh took his white coat off, carefully folding it before putting it on his car’s passenger seat. It had been carefully embroidered in multicoloured threads by his own patient hands, making up a pattern of splendid bird wings on his back which reached his shoulders and unravelled into dancing, vivid lines falling across his torso.
He tried turning the car on, but the clutch wailed in sputtered sounds while he sighed. What an end to my day. He finally won against the rebellious pedals and began his hourlong ride home, attempting to occupy his mind with the endless traffic instead of his last appointment.
Alhaitham. He had genuinely believed they would never see each other again, and for good reason. The man had looked at him with pure fury years ago, listing his flaws like items on a menu, with that characteristic coldness of his. Kaveh, in turn, had screamed, every insecurity in his heart being suddenly released as he insulted Alhaitham again and again to try and make himself believe that Alhaitham was a monster, that was it, what he was saying was not true, he was just cruel, he didn’t care about Kaveh at all, Kaveh wasn’t this flawed creature who couldn’t do anything right, this was all a lie, an exaggeration, he wasn’t—
A long honk brought him back to reality, realising the light had turned green. “Sorry,” he mumbled under his breath, breathing deeply. Alhaitham doesn’t hate you anymore. So, you can’t be as bad as he said back in uni.
Or… well. Or what? Alhaitham had always been difficult to decipher, but especially after years of no contact, his current behaviour made absolutely no sense. Why was he reaching out? Was it simply because Kaveh was the only vet he knew? If this was anyone else, Kaveh would dismiss that hypothesis, but this is Alhaitham, who relies on logic and ignores sentimentality. He may well simply want a vet who he knows is competent.
Or, he wanted to see Kaveh again. Ha, why in the world would he want that? He was very clear about his opinion of me the last time we spoke.
Okay, no, it was more complicated than that. After all, young, shy Alhaitham had stuck to him like a barnacle, and in his own particular way, demonstrated again and again that he appreciated Kaveh’s presence a thousand times more than anyone else’s, reserving a myriad of privileges (such as the one to touch his hair) for Kaveh alone. It was also obvious (in hindsight) that Alhaitham’s outburst had come partially from a place of care, but that did not excuse his behaviour. And he had been furious. And he had never apologised. Or approached Kaveh ever again.
Until now.
Kaveh groaned, throwing his face onto the steering wheel and accidentally honking, scaring even himself. He looked up and noticed a column of smoke about a hundred meters away, coming from… a car. I hope no one is hurt, was his first thought. Just my fucking luck, was his second. An accident that’s gonna cost me another half hour on the road.
It was going to be a long drive, and an even longer wait until Tuesday. If his nerves didn’t kill him first.