Rusty cracked one eye open, golden light filtering through his wet lashes.
“Good afternoon,” a blurry shape said with a man’s voice as it approached out of the brightness.
The sound was pleasant, but its funny up and down tones meant nothing to Rusty's ears. Details of the room around him slowly came into focus, its faux wood vinyl flooring and pastel blue walls. He could feel that he was sitting slightly upright in an unfamiliar bed, but his body was leaden. His arms rested atop a thin blanket pulled up just past his waist, and those shapes extending to the end of the bed must be his legs. He gave one foot a weak wiggle to confirm. There was a confusing sense of relief at seeing his body whole, as if he had escaped some danger that he couldn’t quite remember.
An ID card rustled against the doctor's white coat as he rolled a stool to the side of the bed. He sat and turned to his patient with a disarming smile. “Awake enough for a little test now?" he asked slowly, gently enunciating each word. "Can you shake my hand?” He mimed the motion a few times before offering his hand.
Rusty reached out with his left hand. There was a tremble in his arm, but he was able to meet the handshake with a familiar strength. Distantly, in the place where his groggy mind seemed to float unperturbed, he wondered at this activity and where he might be.
The doctor then pointed to Rusty’s right hand, indicating that they should repeat the exercise.
This time his arm felt heavy, unwieldy. It shook as he struggled to raise his hand from his lap, until finally the doctor reached over and gently pressed it back down.
The doctor turned slightly to say something over his shoulder. There was someone there, sitting on a sofa against the nearest wall. Rusty shifted against his pillow to get a better look, but a yawn suddenly overtook him and he knew no more.
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“As expected, there is considerable weakness on his right side,” the doctor said while turning to where Mairi Mackenzie sat rigid on the edge of a nearby sofa.
“Unfortunately, brain trauma is a bit of a double-edged sword for us Coordinators,” he began carefully, easing into a conversation that had grown far too familiar since the war began. “While in many cases we do heal faster and with fewer lingering consequences, the larger number of cortical neurons and the increased neuron packing density in our brains means that trauma like this has the potential for far-reaching consequences.”
He paused as the doorbell for the private room chimed. The door slid into the wall with a faint pneumatic hiss, revealing a nurse in ZAFT medical scrubs, but before she could speak a tall blonde man pushed into the room.
Rusty’s mother was already on her feet. “What are you doing here, Jeremy?” Her voice was low and sharp as she moved to stand between the hospital bed and her ex-husband.
“He’s my son too, Mairi—”
“When you’re not busy trying to fuck your assistants.”
A polite cough from the doctor interrupted the exchange, but tension still simmered on either side of the room. “Thank you for joining us, Councilman Maxwell. As I was about to tell Ms Mackenzie, we’ve already initiated a vigorous treatment regimen that has produced positive results in other patients. Once we had Rusty here stabilized, we went in with an angiogenic biomaterial to fill the cavity created by the bullet, which should promote the growth of new vascular and axonal networks. We also started intravenous mesenchymal stem cell therapy this morning. While those will help regenerate brain tissue, he will still need long-term rehabilitative therapy to correct—or at least cope with—inevitable physical, emotional, and cognitive complications.”
Jeremy watched the doctor intently, his eyes the same bright azure as his son’s but with none of their humour or kindness. “What sort of complications?”
“Don’t be dense, Jeremy,” Mairi cut in. She turned to where Rusty lay, comfortably asleep and oblivious. “We’ll be lucky if he’s fully verbal after this," she said while gently placing a hand on his head, which had been shaved for surgery and was now tightly bound. A gauze pad covered his left eye and sickly yellow and purple bruises crept across his swollen face. This body, dragged home half dead, looked nothing like her son.
“Well,” the doctor began before Jeremy could respond. “To answer your question, Councilman Maxwell… There will likely be numerous complications. It was a perforating wound—meaning the bullet passed entirely through rather than being lodged inside. Luckily, the trajectory only took it through one hemisphere and no vital brain tissue was impacted. So we expect complications for verbal and logical functions, including all aspects of language. And of course general weakness on his right side, along with some motor impairment.”
“And what kind of life is that?” Jeremy was rigid, fists clenched at his sides. “You’re saying my son is going to be some kind of doddering invalid?”
Mairi ignored him and continued stroking the side of Rusty's face. “We’ll begin further therapy right away, so everything will be just fine,” she told her son softly, as if her words of comfort could seep into his dreams.
“It’s too early to give a long-term prognosis.” The doctor's neutral expression hardened as he pointedly looked from one parent to the other. “Because much will depend on having a calm, stable, and supportive environment in which to recover.”
The tight line of Jeremy’s mouth turned down. “Of course I’ll be there for my only son. Whatever he needs. And we’ll make those duplicitous fucking Naturals pay.”
Mairi snapped up to face him. “Really, you’re going to bring up violence here—in a hospital—in front of our son who nearly died?”
“A calm environment,” the doctor repeated.
“I expect daily updates,” Jeremy said curtly as he turned and strode out of the room.
Mairi glared after him. “He hardly even looked at his son.”
“Well… You didn’t exactly make it easy.” The doctor let out a tired sigh and shook his head. “I understand that emotions are high right now, but I cannot stress enough how interactions like that will only hinder Rusty’s recovery.”
A bit embarrassed but unrepentant, Mairi let her shoulders sag as she sat down on the side of the bed. “I can’t help but be defensive,” she confessed, hands clasped on her lap. “Let’s just say that I was granted full custody for a reason. That’s why Rusty will be coming home with me, and if his father wants to see him… Well, he can arrange a video call.”
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Rusty blinked his right eye open, squinting against the brightness of the room. A woman was sitting next to him, her pale amber hair pulled up in a loose bun, though a few long strands had fallen free to frame her face. The way it caught the light was familiar.
“M—mo…” His mouth formed the word but only a rasping sound fell out.
“Yes, baby. It’s me.” Mairi forced a trembling smile and quickly wiped her eyes as she scooted closer on the bed. “Yes, baby. We’re going home soon. I promise. You did good. You did so good. We’re so proud. Now you can rest all you want.”
Rusty flinched away. It was too much—too many words, too many emotions—all directed at him like bullets. He grimaced and a distressed sound caught in his throat.
“Ms. Mackenzie…” The doctor gently took hold of her elbow as she reached out to touch Rusty’s face. She froze there for a moment, a tremor passing through her outstretched fingers, before letting her hand fall back to her lap. He patted her on the back. “We can’t overwhelm him. It’s still early in the healing process.”
Mairi took a breath and steadied herself. “But he did... He does…” She turned her plaintive gaze to the doctor. “He recognizes me, right? He was trying to say ‘mom’.”
“Presumably so, yes. Issues with facial recognition are associated more with right hemisphere trauma. However, right now there is no telling how intact certain memories are. For now, we should let him rest. This was enough stimulation for one afternoon.” He put one hand on Mairi’s shoulder and held the other out towards the door. “Let’s go meet some of the physical and cognitive therapists we have available. They’re all very good, I assure you. Now, before we go, I’ll push some sedative to make sure our hero here gets some good, healing rest.”
"N-" Rusty's voice creaked as they moved towards the door. He told his arm to reach out, but it just slid from his lap to rest awkwardly on the bed. A heaviness began to pull at his mind, threatening to drown him with sleep. The woman with familiar hair and fierce green eyes paused to look back, and he hoped she would rush over and stay with him, but she was quickly ushered out of the room. The door clicked shut; the lights dimmed to darkness.
He was alone, and sliding into dreams.
A man loomed above him, ready to give the killing blow…
