So, I found myself writing more, at long last. In fact, I found myself writing about ten different stories all at once all centred around this one event I'd mentioned offhand in another set of notes. Given that I've been messing around with them all for ages and not really getting one or another finished, I thought I'd use the fine medium of this site to spur myself forward. As such, concrit is appreciated. naturally. If I'm fortunate, I'll be writing more skilfully by the end of this than I am right now! This story ties in with all the others I've written on here, coming as they all do from the same place. Usual disclaimers apply.
There was something vaguely unsettling about the clinical blandness of hospitals, Fox found.
It wasn't that he disliked them, so much as what being in one signified. Patient or visitor, it was a sign that something had gone awry, life had been interrupted somehow. At least he had the small mercy of being the visitor this time.
'Here' was the Dunsinane Military Station hospital, a far-flung outpost locked in high orbit above Macbeth, a sentinel watching the chaos below. The constant gang warfare below tended to erode any surface facilities, making the station this sector's only medical service. The occasional roving doctor came to the area, brave enough to bring 'healing to the savages', but they soon ended up back in Dunsinane's wards, being patched up while they vowed never to return.
Fox had taken a seat by the viewport, jacket folded neatly on his lap, staring out at the red-brown surface of the planet below, lost to his thoughts. This was not a place he'd ever expected to be.
How long had it been since he'd last properly spoken to Lombardi, face to face? Eight years, nearly? It seemed a lifetime ago now he was here, sitting in the same room as his one-time wingman. Thankfully he was still asleep: Fox had no concept of what he could possibly say to him when he woke up. 'Long time no see' probably wouldn't cut it.
This hospital room was much the same as any other he'd seen, with it's wipe-clean white walls and floor, accented here and there with occasional flashes of pale green and gunmetal grey, everything fresh and clean and anonymously sterile. Even the scent of antibacterial cleaner in the air was the same: you got the sense that if you walked out the door, you could be almost anywhere in the system.
Lombardi had the room all to himself: being a recognised Lylatian hero had its perks even now, it seemed. For a military installation, the room was pretty spacious, the various medical monitors embedded into the walls behind the bed, one of those huge mechanised things that tilted and shifted at the touch of a button. A couple of chairs were placed on one side of the bed, a cupboard on the other and the rest of the room was bare. Again, there was the sense of being in some strange, faceless limbo, caught awkwardly between life and death.
The patient himself was firmly tucked beneath the starched white sheets, as though the nurses were afraid he'd try and escape (how well they knew him already!), his breathing quiet, almost un-noticeable. If not for the subtle rise and fall of his chest, someone might have mistaken him for the recently dead. He looked oddly fragile, the blue of his feathers appeared almost black against such a stark background, ruffled out of place, while the flash of red round his eyes was pale in comparison, drained and faint.
He'd been asleep for a while now, at least since Fox had entered the room an hour before. It had given him time to think about what he wanted to say, though for all his thinking he was no closer to deciding. For the past few minutes he'd simply been watching, re-familiarising himself with this cornerstone of his past, hunting for traces of the youthful bravado and swagger he was used to, hidden within the older, more weary face in front of him.
A soft sound disturbed his thoughts as Falco began to stir, a little grumble of displeasure as he opened his eyes to tiny slits, peering around the room uncertainly until his gaze found Fox and widened.
"Hey there."
"Nngh... 'm still dreaming... that you, Fox?" His voice was thick, the slurring of his words no doubt a side effect of the painkillers. His movements were minimal, such an odd thing to see from the one who'd been the most active on the team. Fox blinked a couple of times, aware he'd been staring, focusing on the heartrate monitor above the bed. He realised he had no idea how to reply, even as he opened his mouth.
"Yeah, thought I'd come say hi, bring a bunch of grapes, some flowers. You know, the usual hospital visit crap." The words rolled off his tongue, express delivered from his subconscious, which seemed to be better prepared than he was.
"Hn... It really that bad?"
"You look like shit."
"Yowch..." Falco gave a pained smile. "Thanks for the honesty. That why you come to visit after so long?"
"I thought maybe it was about time I came and looked you up again."
Falco nodded, resting his head back on the pillow and closing his eyes again, while Fox tried to marshal his thoughts into something he could work with, rather than the chaotic mess this situation seemed to have reduced them to. Wasn't it just like his former wingman to come in out nowhere and make things all crazy?
"So..." the silence had grown awkward already. "...uh, how are you feeling?"
"Like someone stabbed me in the guts. How about you?"
"Worried, mostly." Fox stared at his hands, folded in his lap. "Kinda guilty, that it takes something like this to get back in contact. I mean, you're my best friend, and you nearly..."
"Ease off on the optimism, Captain Positive. Before you give yourself some kinda 'happy hernia' or something. It's good of you to come at all, I'm just, I dunno, grouchy."
"Yeah... stabwounds'll put a dampener on anyone's mood. The medical staff reckon your damn lucky to be alive."
Falco rolled his eyes and patted his stomach lightly. "I'm feeling all kinds of lucky right now."
Fox just rolled his eyes and sighed. Lombardi was as flippant about his injuries as ever, it seemed, far to eager to ignore the damage he'd sustained, shrug off the concern being shown. Out of the two of them, though, he'd always thought it would be him who ended up in hospital someday, while Falco screamed onwards, to immortality or an explosive end, one or the other. This strange limbo didn't suit his temperament at all.
He glared out the viewport at the planet below: only a hellhole like Macbeth could cause such a strange circumstance as this.
"You could have died, Falco." He was surprised at how quiet, how fragile, his own voice sounded. "You'd lost a lot of blood when you arrived."
"Feh, blood. Over-rated."
"You can't just act like nothing's happened!"
The Lombardi of old, the hothead flying ace who knew exactly how good he really was, would have countered that without hesitation. Wasn't that normally his way, his response to 'no you can't"? The immediate riposte of 'yes I can"?
"I know, I know... getting all angsty about it isn't going to make it better, you know. I just need to make sure it doesn't happen again."
He was still as stubborn as he'd ever been, of course. He'd just found a gentler way of expressing it. Fox sighed and nodded. "You could start by finding a better place to live..."
That definitely hit a nerve. Falco's face blanked, like someone had taken a cloth and wiped the emotion away, his voice suddenly flattening. "Can't do that."
"And why not?"
"I have unfinished business here, Fox."
"Then finish your business and get out!" Fox found himself on his feet and pacing around the bed almost immediately. "This place is a deathtrap and you shouldn't be here, not when you could do so much better for yourself!"
Falco gave him a sad look and shook his head. "It's not like I don't appreciate your confidence in me. I mean, I'm flattered, but I have my reasons for being here."
How strange this was, Fox mused, listening to that quiet voice explain, ever so calmly, how things were going to be. His wingman could exasperate him, confuse him sometimes, but he'd never credited him with being capable of this role reversal. He'd begun to feel like he was the one being unreasonable. Still, he'd been fortunate enough to be given an insight into what was happening here, and he intended to use it.
"Is it Leon?"
"... it's complicated."
Fox dropped back into his chair, crossing his arms across his chest. "I have time enough to try and understand."
"Does it really matter so much?" Falco shot him a pained look as he said it, but Fox rolled his eyes and pushed on regardless.
"Damn right it does, if you're planning on getting yourself killed over it." Probably Falco's most annoying trait, Fox reflected, was how bloody dumb he could be (or played at being) when it came to understanding that other people actually cared about his wellbeing. "You've got so much talent, so much potential, but you're wasting it on this... this stupid war with Leon. I can't just let someone I care about destroy themselves without even asking why!"
"It's not what you..." He'd tried to sit up as he spoke, but immediately he winced and groaned, clutching his injured stomach. When he opened his eyes again, Fox had moved to the bedside, face full of worry and concern.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine... my own stupid fault." Falco rested a hand on Fox's shoulder and closed his eyes. "Look... I'll explain it to you, but not now. Let me rest, come back tomorrow, and I'll tell you everything."
* * *
The door closed silently behind him as he left, Falco having slipped back into sleep quickly once they'd stopped talking. As he tugged his jacket back on, looking down the featureless white corridor, Fox pondered exactly what he was going to learn tomorrow that would somehow explain this whole mess.
He barely noticed the light pressure on his shoulder until he felt something coil round his neck. He tried to grab at it, but the limb was composed of taut, strong muscle and wouldn't budge. A weight settled onto his back, unseen appendages wrapping round his chest.
"Shhhhh, McCloud. Just stay calm, act normal. We're going to go take a walk, somewhere dark and quiet. I need to talk with you."