Chris

she doesn’t have anything. no house, no job, no car, no free will, no legal protections. her entire life down to the level of her brain has been organized around piloting a mech for years and now she doesn’t get to do that. she doesn’t know who she is and she doesn’t even know how to turn back on the higher level brain function that would let her try to answer that question.

you’re technically not supposed to take rejected pilots home, but no one’s going to stop you. as far as the government is concerned, she’s basically dud hardware, and it’s not like anyone else was going to claim her. plus you saw a pdf on how to do this online and thought it might be interesting, and you keep seeing her at the library and she looks so sad just sitting there staring off into space

these instructions seem simple enough

getting her home is easy. just tell her to come with you. she doesn’t have a handler, so she’ll default to your orders and you can lead her straight into the car to go home

once she’s home it gets harder. you have to feed her and clothe her. for food, treat her as if she has a stomach bug. pilots are trained to forage for food but you have no idea what she’s been eating (probably not enough - she looks starved and you can see her ribs through her shirt) and if you overwhelm her gut biome before it recuperates, you’ll just make her sicker. soups are good. soups remind her of the IV nutrient fluid she’s used to, even if it has little noodles and chunks of chicken in it. you don’t have chicken soup, but your pilot seems fine with italian wedding, wordlessly swirling the broth around and watching how the noodles move

she’s not used to sleeping outside the cockpit or one of the pods that simulates it. if you have a heated swimming pool, that’s the best option for her since the warm water feels pretty similar to the PFH gel pilots are submerged in. if you don’t, put her in a cold room under a lot of weighted blankets and she’ll adjust. you set her up on the couch with a heavy quilt draped over her. you also gave her a stuffed animal. she stared at it, almost looking disgusted by it, but she was holding it when you came back in the morning to check on her

she’s not used to making choices. in the shower, put out one clearly labeled soap and shampoo so she doesn’t have to make any more decisions than necessary. you forgot to do this part and found her sitting on the floor of the shower after 45 minutes, unwashed, because you had two different soaps and she literally couldn’t decide which to use. you took one away to help her

it’s important to keep her brain stimulated. take her places - the mall, public parks, maybe a restaurant from time to time. give her games to play - shooter games at first, but then slowly work in more tactical games and more creative ones to reopen the parts of the brain she can’t access consciously. watch movies together. she didn’t particularly enjoy CS:GO, but she really liked Splitgate. Guitar Hero didn’t really resonate with her, but she giggled when you lost at Candy Land - the first noise you’d heard her make

don’t feel discouraged if she doesn’t improve immediately. most recovering pilots don’t even talk for up to a week. keep a consistent routine, and she’ll open up to you. it took her six days. she brushed up against your shoulder and murmured “thank you.”

eventually, she’ll probably want to hold you. let her snuggle up next to you, resting her head on your shoulder or curled up against you in bed. in this stage of recovery, she cares deeply for you. allow her to express those feelings. you saw her one night, lurking in the doorway, wearing one of your old nightgowns and clutching the same stuffed wolf you gave her on her first night here. you patted the bed and she came to sit down, allowing you to take her by the shoulders and pull her down next to you, where she buried her face in your chest.

once she’s put on some weight and she seems capable of making simple decisions, take her clothes shopping. she’ll need new ones that don’t remind her of her past, plus it’s a great way to exercise those mental faculties and put some nice outfits together. she has ridiculously expensive taste. no one ever said this would be cheap. those black leather boots look great on her though.

most burnt pilots will subconsciously go to places they valued before training. you found yours at the library. you took her there and immediately discovered she loves reading - you gave her a relatively simple book about insects and you’d never seen her smile the way she did since you got her. it’s cute. you helped her make a library account and showed her how to check books out.