Sunny can't leave Raiden alone. When her fingers aren't flying over the keyboard, the clicks like a concert pianist at her work, she shoots him anxious glances, adjusts him to make sure he's comfortable, asks if he'd like anything to eat. He is laid out, his back rigged to the dialysis machine through cords. His breathing is heavy and ragged, but his chest doesn't move. He is completely still. It could be how he was built, but it only makes her more anxious.
Raiden's face is turned to the wall, but he removes his oxygen mask, and replies, "I don't need to eat."
Sunny hmms and falls silent. Raiden has always been inaccessible, but more now than before. Before, he was friendlier, if sad and maybe lonely. Now he is distant and untouchable. Almost like Snake, but in a different way. Snake is a legend, more than a man in the eyes of many. Raiden is a machine, battered and broken and left like a forgotten doll. Whenever she tries putting him back together, he withdraws into steel stares and dead silences.
He is the reason she is here at all. Perhaps he won't ever be Snake. She knows how he looks up to the ageing man, because she feels the same with Naomi. Naomi is smart and beautiful and Uncle Hal likes her a lot. Snake is strong and fearless and heroic. Raiden is just that; he gave everything for her. She didn't understand before, but she does now.
A few days ago, Sunny managed to hack into a top-secret Patriot database. Even into the early hours of the morning, her eyes were glued to the screen in growing horror, taking in every last detail. Jack had been taken to that place – the last place in the world she tries to think about. It meant agony and loneliness and knowing no one and nothing, even with the world at her fingertips through a machine. What he went through was so much worse, and now she understands why he never talks about it. He can't.
Most importantly, he did it for her. He will always be a hero to Sunny, and she wonders if he knows that.
"Jack," she says, and his breath hitches. It's Raiden, his eyes say. He doesn't get angry, though; Sunny's allowed to use the name. "D-Do you remember when you first took me here? To live with Uncle Hal and Snake?"
A heavy sigh and a grunt, and Raiden pulls himself up to look at Sunny, perched on the table beside him. He doesn't answer.
"Do you?" he asks instead.
"Yes," she nods, swinging her legs and smiling. "I won't ever forget."
Raiden fixes his stare to the ground.
"I cried," she continued, trying not to be discouraged. "and you asked me why I was crying. You said I was free and should be happy."
He pulls his brows together. "I don't remember. Why... why did you cry?"
"I didn't want you to leave."
"Sunny..." Raiden says softly, raising his eyes. Not directly at her – he never does. His gaze, even when it meets her eyes, seems to be trapped in a faraway place and time.
She wants to pull him back, but he just seems to be going further and further away.
And just a few days ago, she'd almost lost him entirely.
The realisation makes her slide off the table and over to him. Raiden can only get in a short, "What are you--?" and Sunny's wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
It's not comfortable. They're too broad to fit her arms around entirely, and cold to the touch. When she presses her head against his chest she can hear laboured, mechanical breaths. The way he tensed up like a cornered animal doesn't help either, but she doesn't care. She doesn't care.
"Sunny?" Raiden rasps out.
"I'm listening."
"Listening?"
"To your heartbeat."
Raiden doesn't know how to answer that. Instead, tentatively, he reaches out to put a clawed hand on her head. To anyone but Sunny, it would be a small gesture. To Sunny, this is one of the closest displays of affection she's ever had, and that means all the world.
A nagging voice tells her she should leave him to rest. She can't.
She wants to stay like this just for a little longer.