Chapter 2: Memory Tests and Robotic Limbs
A week had passed since Ruby woke up. Yang was so eager to see her little brother as soon as she got the call from Weiss that Blake had to physically keep her from jumping down the cliff side and running to the hospital on foot. She stayed up until 6am when the first airship took off into town and rushed Blake out the door, not that she needed to. Blake was just as eager to see Ruby as Yang had been. Dating Yang for about a year now, she saw Ruby as her own little brother and him being the only other faunus on their team… they had a bit of a special bond.
When Yang had finally seen Ruby she was ecstatic to see that he remembered her. At first she thought that, other than his stomach and his missing limb, he was completely okay. But over the course of the week she started to see the extent of Ruby's brain damage. Ruby was already a bit forgetful… But the accident had taken it to a new level. He was repeating things sometimes, wondering where something was 30 seconds after he put it down… And the 'memory tests' weren't going so well. Every morning the doctor would come in and give Ruby 3 words to remember, 15 minutes later she would ask them what they were and Ruby always forgot. Ruby insisted that he just didn't care about the tests and that "I've always been bad at tests and you know this!"
Yang was still happy just to have her baby brother smiling and talking with her again. It was a little hard to have to have the "daily medication" conversation with Ruby.. But the doctor insisted that he needed to continue to take his anxiety and anti-depressants. The doctor was convinced Ruby was still suffering from general anxiety because of the way his heart-rate monitor always sped up whenever Weiss entered the room or came too close to him. Though, Yang knew better. Still, he did suffer from anxiety and depression from a very young age. Yang guessed it was just wishful thinking to assume that was on the list of things he had forgotten. At least Ruby was pretty understanding about it. Especially since he was already having trouble sleeping at night, the anti-depressant really helped knock him out every night.
The doctor also had to have a serious discussion with team WBY about the severity of Ruby's brain damage.
"You'll need to keep an eye on him. If Ruben's brain takes any more serious damage it could be fatal."
The colour quickly drained out of team WBY's faces
"But! Just so long as he doesn't sustain any unnecessary blows to the head he should be fine!" she smiled trying to be reassuring and lighten the mood "Hopefully he's not the clumsy type, right?" She joked
Team WBY shared a concerned look before they looked back at Ruby. He smiled and waved at them, accidently knocking his comic book over the side of his bed. As he leaned down to pick it up, he banged his head against the tray table left next to him. And once more when he lifted his head up.
"Of all the people… it had to be the clumsiest dolt on this planet" Weiss said shaking her head.
It seems Ruby's memory lost went back at least half a year. Probably a full year but it's not definitive. Weiss was already spending all her time with him tutoring him and trying to re-teach him all the things he had forgotten. Although she did it with much more patience and kindness than she had the first time she taught him all of the material. Weiss and Yang were practically at war with each other to spend the most time with Ruby. As much as Yang wanted to push the heiress away and assert her 'older sister' dominance… she didn't. She knew that Weiss felt guilty for what happened to Ruby. No matter how much Blake and Yang (once she came around… with some long talks with Blake…) tried to insist that it wasn't her fault but the person who had attacked her and Ruby, they knew that Weiss still blamed herself for Ruby getting hurt. Ruby had noticed there was enough tension behind 'the incident' that when he randomly brought it up and saw Weiss' face, he immediately dropped it and decided to change the subject.
Nonetheless, his memory problems weren't serious enough to merit a longer hospital stay and his stomach had healed enough that he could leave and be treated for it at home. He was cleared to leave. All that was left was one more night and the next day he would get his new robotic limb.
It was early in the morning, the day of Ruby's release. Yang walked into Ruby's hospital room which was filled with roses of every colour… Despite Ruby's insistence that he did not want flowers, Weiss continued to bring a full bouquet of roses every day that she came to visit him (which was every day that week). Yang was carrying a fresh pair of clothes for Ruby now that he could finally change out his hospital gown and a bag of cookies.
"Hey lil' bro! How's it going?"
"It's gonna be going great as soon as we get my new arm" He replied as he continued to watch cartoons on his scroll. It was a bit strange at first to see him gush over "how much had happened on his shows" while he was asleep… When he was gushing over something he already watched and squealed about over a month ago. But his team also found it cute to see him geek out all over again.
"Well, today's the day!" she beamed " C'mon lil'pup! Sit up and I'll help you get changed, Blake and Weiss are waiting downstairs, we're going to go to the RLR wing together"
"Wait, what? Just give me my clothes and I'll get dressed myself. I really don't need your help"
"But Ruby, you STILL get stuck in your binder sometimes… without an arm it's going to b-"
"God! Yang! That's the LAST THING I'd want help with" Ruby said suddenly feeling embarrassed and upset. He couldn't even meet eyes with his sister, instead opting to stare at his scroll which had finished playing the cartoon he was watching and was now displaying a black screen
"But it's me, Ruby. I'm the one person you should trust with this kind of stuff" she said deflated.
Ruby rolled his eyes and grabbed the clothes from his sister while glaring at her.
"Turn around, stand in the corner. IF I need your help I will ask for it. And IF I ask for your help you're expected to keep your eyes away from me until I say so. Okay?"
Yang sighed heavily but complied. She knew when it came to things like this the best thing she could do was be blindly supportive. She made the mistake once of telling Ruby she was the only person who understood and Ruby got really upset, claiming she had no idea how he felt or what he went through. He didn't speak to her until she apologized and admitted she was wrong, which didn't take long.
When Ruby finally did ask for help, he told Yang she was free to look at him. He had already gotten his shirt, cape, pants and shoes on. All he needed help with was buckling his belt. Yang was a little surprised at how much he accomplished one-armed. But then she remembered who she was dealing with. Ruby could probably climb a mountain one-armed if someone implied he'd need help to get it done, purely just to spite them and show them how capable he is.
Yang helped him finish off his belt and then held out her hand with two pills in it
"What is this? I already took my meds" Ruby said
"Pain killers. You should take them. The doctor said that the limb replacement is going to hurt when they connect the limb to your nerves. A lot. Ruby…" she started giggling a bit "I can't even tell you how much she went on about how painful it's going to be, it was like, way over the top. I think she was getting off on it, to be honest"
Ruby turned up his nose at them
"Don't wanna."
"Ruben~" Yang sighed
"I'm a tough little boy and I don't need no pain killers for nothing! Plus celebrities get hooked on them and we all know I have an addictive personality"
Yang rolled her eyes and threw her arm over her little brother dragging him out of the room while she rubbed his head between his two faunus wolf ears
"Today you're a 'tough little boy' but yesterday you were telling Weiss you were a 'sensitive little boy' "
"I can be both!" he quickly shot back
Yang and Ruby reached the RLR wing and quickly found Blake and Weiss waiting for them. Weiss ran up to Ruby and quickly told him the 3 words he was in charge of remembering that day.
"Bee, Cube, Slide"
"Ouuu I like these ones~ I think of a cubed bee sliding down a slide" Ruby said smiling
"Hopefully you'll actually remember them for once" Blake chimed in
"Hey! I was close yesterday!"
"Ruby… The words yesterday were Remedy, Chair and Pin, you guessed Squeegee, Monkey, Ball…" Weiss said exasperated
"It's because the words are usually so boring! I'm an exciting boy who needs exciting words in his life!"
Just then a nurse walked up to them
"You're Ruben Rose, right?" she asked
"Yep yep yep"
"Alright, follow me please"
"My friends can come too, right?" He asked worried.
"Of course they can" she smiled
Ruby was lying in a hospital bed, feeling like he was going to be lying in hospital beds for the rest of his life. The top of his shoulder was being held down by the nurse as the doctor readied the robotic limb into place.
"Alright Ruben, this is going to be very~ painful. You took your pain medication right?" the doctor asked
"Uhm… Yeeeeaaapp!" He lied. Blatantly.
"Alright on the count of 3 we're going to connect the limb to your nerves."
"3… 2…." BANG. She had connected the limb as Ruby proceeded to make a series of strange noises as he attempted to suppress his screams of pain.
"You went on 2! What happened to 3?!" He yelled
"I didn't want to give you too much time to worry" the doctor laughed
"Yeah, that one second made all the difference" He said, rolling his eyes.
"Alright, I'm going to need you to try to slowly move your fingers, starting at the tips"
Ruby looked down at his new limb and slowly attempted to move his fingers, it wasn't hard. For the past week he had been using his 'phantom arm' to pick things up only to find them still laying in the place he had left them. He still knew how to use the limb he no longer had. The tip of his robot fingers slowly started twitched and in no time he was moving his full fingers and then opening and closing his hand.
"Very good, you're catching on faster than expected" the doctor smiled
"he always does…" Weiss lowly murmured
The rest of team RWBY were happy to see Ruby with all his limbs back but still felt a pang of guilt looking at his face. Misconstruing his concentration for apathy… That is until he looked up at them with a beaming toothy smile…
"THIS IS SO RAD! I'm like that kid from that one show! Even though he never got the Robo-arm when he actually lost his arm… just had a dumb little flower… OH! OH! I'm like that guy from that game! Oh.. Except he has two robo arms… Quick! Someone chop off my other one and let's go for twosies!"
Ruby continued to ramble on like that even as they left the hospital and headed for the airship. As they reached the air docks Weiss turned to him and asked
"Ruby, what were the 3 words?"
Ruby stared at her blankly in silence
"Ruben…. At least try" Weiss said. She looked so concerned and Ruby knew that he had no idea what the words were. He didn't want to see her face fall flatter so he went with
"I, Love and You" he gave her a cheeky grin and hugged her fully with two arms for the first time in a long time.
Weiss sighed loudly but found she didn't care enough to ruin the moment by pressing him for the answer, she knew he had forgotten them anyways.
There's chapter 2! Idk how I did this. I was pretty tired after work but for some reason felt like writing :)
Thank you to the faves/follows! They make me sosososo happy :) !
And all the views! I'm so glad people are interested enough in this story to even give it a chance! I was so worried people wouldn't be into the idea so thank you! :)
The next chapter may take a bit. I struggle really badly to write Blake and Weiss cause they use big words and they're smart _
But hopefully I'll manage! We're slowly getting to the more "Slice of Life" part of the story :)
