#trinitydrift

Combeferre wakes to silence. Silence in his mind, the complete and utter absence of a Drift where there is only the excruciating sense that it should be there, two consciousnesses overlapping his own and he feels stripped bare and exposed. The room is silent too; he feels unbearably alone.

  The last he knew, the last he remembers is the push and pull of the Drift;

  memories and thoughts overlaying, aligning and contrasting that of his copilots;

  pain suddenly forcing all of it away;

  cries in his mind, Enjolras and Courfeyrac echoing his own screams;

  then, sharply, nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  Blackness.

  Wrenched from The Drift, his mind is still open, expecting to feel them there;  phantom pain from phantom limbs which aren’t there, as real and as visceral as the pain in his corporeal arm. But there is nothing, horrible, lonely, awful, black nothing and it makes him nauseous.

  His arm throbs sickeningly in accord, as if to remind him he it is not only mental anguish he suffers. Something soft in on his right hand though, it is an anchor in the sea of solitude which sickens him and he realises he is not, in fact, in reality, alone.

  Shifting his head and blinking he sees a blurry shape beside his bed, which moves, looking up.

  “Combeferre. You’re awake.”

  He cannot see clearly without his glasses but he would know that voice anywhere.

  “Joly.”

  “Hello, my friend. Welcome back.” He says kindly. Combeferre blinks, ineffectually trying to clear his vision. Something looms close to him, touches his face and the world sharpens into decipherable focus. Joly is sitting back in his chair, after settling Combeferre’s glasses onto his nose. “Better?”

  “Thank you.” His lips move, but he makes little sound.

  Joly reaches over again and presses a straw to his lips; water is almost as good as his glasses in making him feel vaguely human again but the more tangible and real the world becomes, the more intense and undeniable the pain in his arm becomes.

  This must show on his face because Joly gets to his feet again and collects something from a nearby tray.

  “Morphine.” He says simply, holding up a vial, a syringe in his other hand.

  Combeferre can only nod, not trusting his voice as the pain forms itself into sharp spikes which rob him of his breath. He watches Joly inject his liquid relief into the port of the IV in his right hand and cannot help but sigh as numbness begins to immediately wash over him. A tension he didn’t know had taken over his muscles leaves them and he becomes quite limp against his pillows and the mattress of his hospital bed.

  “That was only half a dose; I can give you more if you are still hurting too much. I thought you might like to be lucid for a little while.”

  Combeferre nods, incredibly grateful to his friend, touched by his perceptive instinct. His arm still hurts, pain reduced now to a dull, dismal ache in his upper arm radiating from his elbow into his forearm and from his shoulder to his collar bone.

  “Enjolras? Courfeyrac?” He says as soon as he feels he can wrangle his tongue and voice into coherency.

  Joly smiles. “Of course the first thing you ask about is them.” He sighs. “Both still unconscious, I’m afraid, you are the first to come around.”

  “Lonely.” Combeferre says, to explain the wrongness in his brain that something is horribly missing.

  Joly purses his lips and shifts on his feet. Combeferre, feeling the need for contact in the face of overwhelming loneliness tugs his arm with his good one until Joly gives him a small smile and perches on the edge of the bed.

  “I didn’t want to knock your arm.” He says, to explain his reticence. “You feel lonely?” He hums, pensive, clearly looking for a way to explain. “You lost consciousness before the neural link could be terminated, and the other two lost consciousness before the Drift could be shut down. You might not be in jaeger anymore, but to all intents and purposes, your mind still thinks it is in the Drift.”

  “And they’re unconscious.” Combeferre says. “That’s why I feel so strange?”

Joly smiles properly. “You really are too smart for your own good, you know that?” He says as Combeferre immediately grasps the consequences of the abruptly terminated Drift. “We think so. Without the other two, though, we have no way of knowing how connected you still are, but we’ve been monitoring your brain waves and there are, surprising, similarities. How…what…um…how do you feel?”

  “Alone.” Combeferre says, closing his eyes against the unnerving sense of being alone, feeling as if he shouldn’t be, but desperate for the touch of the other two when he should not be. “It feels like something is wrong…something is missing, but it shouldn’t be. I should be me, just me, but I’m not. I remember Enjolras’ fifth birthday as if I was there; the cake, it was red – chocolate because he loves chocolate…no, wait…that’s Courfeyrac; the dessert from his first date, I remember it… as if I were there…I can’t…can I…I need to…”

  “See them?” Joly says, perceptive once again.

  Oh god, yes. Combeferre nods, blinking back desperate tears of need.

  “They’re both unconscious, Combeferre. Courfeyrac hit his head, hard, and there’s been a little swelling. And Enjolras…well, we don’t entirely know why, but he lost a lot of blood…”

  Combeferre clutches at Joly’s arm. “Please.”

  “Alright.” Joly nods, reluctant but torn; emotional versus physical best care for his patient and close friend. “But you will sit in a wheel chair, and like it, and back to bed as soon as I say, yes?”

  Combeferre nods his acquiescence watching Joly fetch one from the corner of the room; he really is remarkably perceptive, that man.

  Joly wheels it over to the bed and stops, regarding Combeferre with his head tipped to one side. “Do you even want to know about your own condition?” He asks.

  Oh.

  Joly sighs and begins to pull back the bed clothes and position himself under Combeferre’s good arm to help him out of bed. Combeferre takes the opportunity to assess himself. Aside from his arm, encased in a thick cast which extends across his left pectoral and across his shoulder blade and strapped inescapably to his body, he appears to be unhurt.

  “The kaiju ripped Trinity’s arm clean off.” Joly explains. “It was so fast the rig couldn’t disengage from your suit in time; your arm was wrenched backward, dislocating your elbow, your shoulder and breaking your humerous. Thankfully, the rig did disengage before your own arm was ripped off, but it was a close cut thing.” Joly says as they make the awkward move from bed to chair. He peels back the collar of Combeferre’s hospital gown to show him the ugly bruising which has spread in fingers of black, blue and purple across his chest from his shoulder. “You blacked out almost immediately.” He closes the gown again and makes much of wrapping Combeferre in one of the blankets from his bed before setting off down the corridor in the direction of intensive care.

  Unlike his own room, silent and peaceful, intensive care was a cacophony of machines whirring and bleeping in some sort of rhythmic, yet discordant harmony. Though there were only two beds occupied, the room was rather full.

  Joly pushed the door open and several heads turned towards them.

  “Combeferre…”

  Before Combeferre could quite register what was happening he was being folded into a hug by a tearful Jehan, swiftly followed by Feuilly, Eponine, Cosette, Marius, Bossuet (who was extremely careful of his arm) and finally, over the top of everyone, Bahorel.

  Eventually he was released, and although the strange feeling in his head of infinite pools of black either side of his own consciousness hadn’t completely faded, it swooped back suddenly giving him an awful sense of vertigo as soon as his friends pulled away. Joly, though, pressed a hand to his good shoulder, and pushed him over to Courfeyrac’s bed with their friends parting like a sea before them.

  He’s so still, only the movement of his chest giving any indication of life, his tanned skin pale and dusky. There is a brace around his neck and several electrical nodes on his forehead, monitoring his brain activity; a nearby monitor shows a, thankfully, normal EKG.

  “After you lost consciousness they were able to kill the kaiju, but not before it was able to mount another attack. Courfeyrac was badly jarred – whiplash, head injury. Plus, the additional strain of carrying a neural load meant for three between the two of them.”

  Guilt swoops in Combeferre’s stomach. Immediately he feels a hand on his face, not Joly’s, but Jehan’s.

  “Hey, hey. No guilt. Alright. It wasn’t your fault.”

  Combeferre nods, throat thick and eyes burning. He looks back at Courfeyrac, loud, bright, vivacious Courfeyrac so unnaturally still. He kisses his own fingers and reaches up to press the kiss to Courfeyrac’s forehead before turning to look at the other bed.

  Enjolras is just as still as Courfeyrac, not just pale, but ghastly white against the sheets and his pale hair. Even his lips are bloodless, the only hint of colour on his face the red edge to his nostrils and faint smudge beneath his nose; the tell tale signs of a nose bleed. Aside from that, he appears unharmed.

  Joly sighs and drops to his knees beside Combeferre’s wheelchair as Combeferre reaches out to tenderly take Enjolras’ hand between his own. Still and pale as he is like this, it seems delicate and fragile in a way it never has before and Combeferre holds it as if it’s the most precious thing in the world.

  “He’s lost a lot of blood, internally, though there appears to be no damage of any sort. He just…bled…” Joly explains, and sighs again. “Courfeyrac lost consciousness about two minutes out of the harbour. Enjolras brought Trinity in by himself.”

  Combeferre looks at him sharply, hissing as the sudden movement pulls on his bad shoulder.

  “He what?” He whispers.

  “He carried the neural load, all of it, for about a minute and a half. He got Trinity, and you both, back to the Shatterdome safely.”

  Combeferre snaps around again to look at the EKG monitoring Enjolras’ brain activity. Like Courfeyrac’s it appears normal, but something is off.

  “But…that’s…it…” Combeferre whispers, horrified.

  “Should have killed him.” Feuilly says, standing the other side of the bed to Combeferre, Enjolras’ other hand in his, their fingers wrapped together. He looks up to meet Combeferre’s eyes and adds, quite simply…