Before I left the barracks for the base hospice, Peppy made sure he took me aside. There was something about the feel of his glove on my shoulder, the weight of it, that meant comfort even if I didn't feel any. I kept my expression pragmatic, as I tasted the bile rising in the back of my throat, bitter and burning. I felt twisted inside, knotted.

"Your father would be proud, Fox." Peppy looked into my eyes with that same comforting weight, serious and intense. "You've been very brave about all this…"

Brave? What is courage, really? Is it not feeling fear, or is it doing something even though you're on the verge of breaking?

… Ironic, because that's what they'll be doing to me later today. Stuffing my hind feet into my shoes had given me this sick sense of nostalgia just this morning, so nauseating and sorrowful that it made me throw up breakfast. As if the fear wasn't enough.

"As soon as you've done this, we can leave to find Andross," Peppy continued. "Our team is the best this academy… hell, this whole damn system has ever seen." The seasoned cadet looked into my eyes, then, like I would come back from the procedure as someone else. Like I was leaving and would never return.

"... Your father is watching over you, Fox. I promise we'll make things right." And then he clapped me on the shoulder, twice, and turned away. But not before I saw the apprehension on his face.

The walk to the base hospital was short and slow; I was savoring my steps, making sure to feel the grit beneath my soles and the sand scraping my boots. I was quiet and sick, but calm. Calm like my father must have been, as he had faced death. This was all for him, even if I had wanted to be a pilot before.

Camp facilities are sparse and undecorated. As I walked into the medical building, the walls were blank and concrete, the front desk simple and unadorned. I swallowed my terror thickly without chewing, struggling with it, before I approached the secretary.

"Fox McCloud…?" I said, responding to her sharp glance. I watched her tap out my name on her keyboard pensively. I could feel my heartbeat in my palms, in my mouth.

"Ah, yes, Cadet McCloud… you're here for the out-of-system flight adjustment?"

"Yes."

Even keeping the fear from my face, she cast me a gentle smile. "The procedure is a quick one, Mr. McCloud. It's simple and has a quite high success rate." I didn't respond as she turned back to her records screen; she couldn't possibly understand, both of her feet still attached and never going anywhere.

A nurse entered the room from the double doors to the right, primly. "Fox McCloud? We'll see you now. If you could follow me…"

I did as she said, through the thicket of dimly lit hallways. I found it hard to speak suddenly, like my throat was constricting. My breaths came shallow and quick, and my tongue felt dry and swollen.

The nurse stopped in front of me suddenly. I was startled out of my nervous haze, thrust into contemplating the hard, businesslike frame of her shoulders.

"This will be your room, Mr. McCloud… if you'd please follow me and make yourself comfortable, I can begin to get you prepped for the surgery."

The room was poorly lighted, and the cot looked uncomfortable, but I stood awkwardly trying to "make myself comfortable" as the nurse pulled a hospital gown from the utilitarian closet.

The rest of the preparations passed in a feverish blur; I felt as if I had leapt suddenly from being in my bed this morning, to lying in a hospital cot with the doctor sliding a needle smoothly into my vein. One moment I was panting with fear, feeling my stomach churn, and the next I was-

"Fox."

I felt heavy and dizzy, clouds swollen with rain suddenly swept by the wind.

You've forgotten how to fly, I remembered, the thought swimming in my head. I became aware of my fist, tightly closed; the cumbersome contact of breathing tubes in my nose. Everything felt fuzzy and uncomfortable.

"Fox," I heard again, and my ear flicked towards the voice; there was something familiar in both the tone and the delivery that made me… irritable. "Wake up, you lousy piece of work. You're such a pansy-ass…"

I opened my eyes, blinking slowly. Something in my head felt scrubbed raw, and yet remote, like I couldn't quite touch it. The hospital room was flat and unhindered by ornaments of any kind; the chair pulled up next to my bed was occupied.

"There you are," Falco said, keeping eye contact with me fiercely. "You've been gone way too long, pal." He spit the last word like a throwing knife. "You can't keep the whole team waiting just so you can sit in bed unconscious…"

I said nothing. It's not like it was a question anyway.

Also, Falco is an asshole.

My breaths were heavy and uneven through the tubes, steaming up close to my face as I watched my partner blearily. "How bad?"

Even as thick-skulled as Falco could be, he caught my drift. His eyes didn't soften, but he had the good grace to look away as he murmured, "not bad. It went as well as it could've."

"Blood poisoning?" I am hyper aware of the drip of the IV reserve; it thuds along with the heartbeat stirring the fur in my ears.

His expression turned sharp as he turned back to me. "Negative. Yet."

Yet.

Well, that's the best I could hope for.

With a soft groan, I dragged my lower body, still numb, over the edge of the mattress. There was a heavy clunk as my new appendages hit the steel bed frame. Falco crossed his arms, feathers overlapping, and watched without expression.

Ah. Well. I couldn't move them at all, but the steel contraptions designed to keep the blood in my core were at the very least shiny. I swallowed my nausea thickly, turning my "foot" to catch the light streaming in from the windows. The treads were neatly cut to fit into the bottom of my ship, to anchor me to the place I had never wanted to leave but now curiously wanted to escape.

No. I won't forsake you, Father.

A loud, dramatic gasp startled me as the curtains hiding my hospice bed were swept back.

"Mr. McCloud?! What are you doing!"

A nurse rushed forward to push my heavy utilitarian legs back onto the too-firm mattress. "You shouldn't be moving for days at least! Any strain on the tendons left-"

I couldn't speak, watching a thin trail of bed leak from the place where my flesh joined steel. Such sacrifices could be made in the name of family.

As the nurse tutted and bandaged me fresh, Falco finally looked me in the eye with something that wasn't irritation or swagger. I couldn't even name what it was. His voice was terribly empty when he spoke.

"Welcome to the team."

Coru Note: Ahem. For those that are confused, it's a fairly common-held belief that the pilots of Star Fox have... metal feet. Why is this? Even the fighter pilots of our very own planet wear tight clothes around their arms and legs to prevent blood rushing from the core of their bodies under G forces/duress. If you look at the cover of say, Star Fox 64, it seems clear that the pilots of the famed team have metal appendages. Perhaps it's for inter-galactic flight or perhaps it's not even an issue, who knows? It's simply a theory on my part. I wanted to explore it besides, because I am a fairly strange person. Hope you enjoyed anyway! =D