Author's Note: Hello Everyone! Again sorry for the absence. College started back up and I needed some time to get back into the swing of things. Thank you to everyone for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and following! I hope to get back into updating more regularly soon. Thanks for being patient and sticking around!
On with the story!
Holiday knocked on Rex and Bobo's shared room's door before entering. She found the chimp just laying in his hammock looking off into the distance, hat off in his lap. It took him a second to register she was there, but when he turned his head and saw her, he immediately scrambled up, accidentally dropping his hat on the ground and almost falling out of the hammock himself. She covered her mouth with her hand as she tried not to laugh watching him steady himself into a sitting position in order to not come crashing to the ground.
Once he was finally still, Holiday decided to take pity on him. "While I'm mad at you for what happened back there, the rational part of me knows that you had no idea what you were walking into when you did. I'm not here to yell at you, though I will ask that you don't turn the lights on in the lab when they are off and people are clearly inside from now on," she said with a wry smile, an attempt at humor before getting to the serious topic. "I just want to let you know what is going on with Rex right now."
"I ain't never seen da kid like that," Bobo said quietly. "Is Rex gonna be okay?"
Holiday sighed and sat down on the bed. She told him all that had happened so far and the chimp listened in solemn silence, waiting for her to get to the part where she had a solution for the kid.
"I'm afraid to say I haven't sorted this one out yet, this toxin has me stumped," Holiday said as she stared grimly at the floor. "I've got a few more tests I can do but so far everything has come up empty. All we know for sure is that Van Kleiss is targeting his memory."
Bobo could see she needed some encouragement. "I ain't seen anything ya can't fix, Doc. Tha kid's gotten himself into trouble more than he's worth, but there has always been a way ta fix it."
Holiday smiled warmly at him. "Thank you, Bobo." Then she smirked, "I guess the caring monkey who visited children's hospitals isn't all the way gone."
Bobo rolled his eyes. "This is wha' I get fer my troubles," he grumbled. "Ya didn't have to ask though, o' course I'll keep an eye on Rex when you an' Green Bean are busy."
"You know, it has always amazed me how quickly you and Rex got along so well."
"Ya well, tha snot-nosed kid grew on me. Us intelligent EVOs got ta stick togetha' ya know?" He got serious for a moment. "Plus he was da only one ta let me outta that cage when I asked."
"Rex does have a way of winning over almost everyone."
"If only Rex could win ova Van Kleiss," Bobo snorted.
"I heard my name, you guys talking about me?" Rex said with a sly grin as he popped into the doorway, Six just steps behind him. He leaned against the doorway and took in the scene before him. "Did I just interrupt a bonding moment?" The sly grin got wider.
"Wha' have ya been doin'? You stink!" Bobo deflected.
"Look who's talking," Rex shot back immediately. He rummaged around for his shower stuff. "You gonna tell me where you went this time or is it still mysterious 'Bobo time'?"
"I'll tell ya when you're older," Bobo smirked.
"By then I won't care." Rex had gotten his stuff and was headed for the door. "Care to join me Special Agent Six?"
Bobo started laughing. "Ya get more like a nanny every day, Green Bean."
"Only more aggro!" Rex called in a singsong voice as he walked down the hall.
"Hysterical," Six deadpanned as he resisted the urge to face-palm.
One slightly less awkward shower than last time later and Rex was all but ready for bed.
"Get changed and head for the lab," Six said as he answered a call on his earpiece.
"Why?"
Six didn't answer, but shoved Rex into his room as he listened to the call. "Understood. Six, out."
"Is there an EVO? How come I didn't get a call?" Rex practically whined.
"You're off active duty for the night."
"What! Why?"
"You're doing a sleep study."
"A sleep study!"
"Are you just going to keep yelling?"
"Yes!"
Six just turned around and headed for the hangar.
Rex sighed as he watched Six leave before heading towards the lab. He walked in expecting to just see Doctor Holiday and a bed probably, but this was insane. What greeted him was a king sized bed with a bunch of machines and wires around it and no less than 15 doctors and lab assistants all standing around with clipboards and talking excitedly.
He stood there dumbfounded for a moment before Holiday rushed up to him. "Are you ready?"
"No, I'm not ready! Why are there so many people here? How am I supposed to sleep like this?!" He hissed at her in an angry whisper.
She had the decency to look sheepish. "It kind of got around that I was going to be doing a sleep study, and there's never been one done on an EVO before so it seems everyone wanted to come see it happen."
"Why? I sleep like everyone else!"
"We don't know that yet for sure, but we will after tonight. Please, Rex, just one night. You won't even know anyone's here."
"I doubt that," he deadpanned before sighing. "What if I do something weird or embarrassing. What if I drool?"
"Rex everyone here has a medical degree, we've seen things way worse than drool. I promise this will be very professional."
He sighed again. "Okay, but you owe me."
"Thank you. I promise to make this as painless as possible."
"Yeah, yeah," he said as he walked towards the bed.
"Alright everyone, we're ready to get started," Holiday said slipped into an authoritative voice. "Let's set some ground rules. Only I will be allowed to adjust any wires attached to the patient. Everyone will stand at least 10 feet from the bed. You can stand or sit in one of the chairs provided to the left. If you need to move or leave for any reason do so quietly and courteously as to not wake the patient or disturb anyone else in the room. If there are any problems or complications during the study I will address them as I see fit. Any questions?
"Okay, Rex. You can get in the bed now and I will attach all the wires while everyone gets settled and then we can get started. I'm going to sit in the chair to the right of you okay?"
"A whole king sized bed to myself? This might not be so bad." He sat up while she was attaching everything and then got cozy while trying not to disturb the machinery.
"All set? Okay, everyone I am going to dim the lights and then there will be complete silence until the study is over."
Rex spent 20 minutes just laying there, trying to get over how weird it was to have everyone staring at him.
"Rex, just relax. Feel free to shift around to get comfortable. You don't normally sleep on your back, do you? We'll do some breathing exercises, okay?" Holiday talked to him in a hushed voice.
With the okay he shifted around for a bit and ended up on his side facing Holiday. He nodded at her to show he was ready.
"Okay, breathe in one, two, three; breathe out one, two three. Breathe in one, two, three; breathe out one, two three. Breathe in one, two, three; breathe out one, two three."
It took about 10 minutes, but Rex finally fell asleep.
He was wandering around somewhere. He wasn't sure where but it seemed nice. He was in a town of some kind and all the signs were in Spanish. He read one that pointed towards downtown and headed that way. Was this Mexico? It was nice.
The dream shifted. He was tall and he was running into things? Maybe knocking them down with his arms. It hurt a bit, being this tall, and everything seemed fuzzy. He was mad about something, something that happened before but he wasn't sure what.
He saw a white thing coming towards him, but small, very low to the ground and there were tinier white things coming out of it. A truck and people maybe? They shot at him and he didn't like that. He got angry and shot back. There was a green blur and then everything was crumbling and he crashed into something solid.
Outside of his dreams, the doctors were watching as Rex tossed and turned. He let out a grunt and turned over, clearly having a bad dream even without the machines to tell them. But he didn't wake up and he calmed down back into peaceful sleep after a while so there was no need to worry.
Back in the dream he woke up surrounded by rubble. Had he crashed into something? He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of anything, just that he needed help. He asked for just that and said something else that he wasn't sure of either. A man pulled him out of the rubble, dressed in all green, how weird. His name was Six? He was too rough and in too much of a hurry, he was hard to keep up with. Rex followed the man because he didn't know what else to do and apparently it was weird that he didn't know anything but his name. He was in shock I guess.
He stopped the scary thing and saved his new friend and apparently that was beyond weird. He got taken to Providence, an ugly building with ugly walls and ugly uniforms. But Six was there and he was nice and Doc too once she stopped hurting his arm. He had never eaten so many burritos and maybe this place won't be so bad he thinks as he falls asleep.
Suddenly he's being woken up by the mean man from before. He says he needs to take him to see Six and Doc right away. He likes them so he goes willingly. He's brought to a lab and told he's waiting for them to get here. There's another doctor who comes up and starts talking to him but then his arm hurts and everything is fuzzy. He gets carried and strapped down to something. Maybe a table? Everything is dark for a while. Now he's being lowered and there's green. Six is here? That's good.
But then Six and the mean man start fighting and the doctor is hurting him and what's happening to him? Everything hurts! He feels metal coming out of him and his arms aren't arms and everything hurts! Alarms are blaring and he's convulsing off the table and he's in so much pain..."
Back in the lab Rex is tossing and turning on the bed, flailing one minute and curling in on himself the next, his face contorted into agony. He's screaming out and alarms are blaring. The machines are beeping in a frenzy and flashing red warning signs all over the place. The machines start sparking as no one can get near enough to Rex to wake him up and the lights flicker overhead. Holiday is a frenzy of movement herself, barking orders at fellow doctors and trying to wake Rex and all the reading show he's powering up-
A shriek silences everyone and stills all movement as Rex bolts up in the bed, breathing like he hasn't had air in minutes and shaking worse than a leaf in a strong gale.
Holiday reacts first. She shoos everyone else out with the assurance that she has this under control, he just had a nightmare, he's not actually powering up. With everyone gone and just her in the room, she sits on the bed in front of Rex and waits.
He uncurls himself a bit and says very unconvincingly. "I'm fine." It comes out soft and it sounds not fine at all.
"Do you want to talk about it?'
"Not yet. Can we just sit here for a minute?"
"Sure." She gives him a sad smile and he attempts one in return before looking at his knees again.
"When is Six getting back?"
"He should be back soon. There were a few minor EVO instances tonight. He popped in earlier actually around 1 am.
"Oh." He fidgeted with the covers and then his shorts and then his shirt.
"Are you okay, Rex?" Holiday asked gently.
"Can you call, Six?" It had an almost desperate air.
"Of course. Let me get your cellphone from just over there," she said pointing out exactly where she was going.
She stayed across the lab as she hit Six's number on speed dial, wanting to give him a heads up before he talked to Rex.
"Rex?" Six answered on the first ring.
"It's Holiday. There's been a bit of a situation. During the study just now, Rex had a bit of an episode, something way worse than a nightmare. I'm not really sure what yet because I haven't been able to look at the data yet. Rex asked when you would be back and then asked me to call you," she talked in a hurry and keeping her voice low so Rex wouldn't overhear.
"Why me?"
"I don't know, he won't tell me what happened yet. Just... be gentle. I'm not sure exactly what's going on right now."
"Alright, hand me over to the kid."
"Rex? I've got Six on the phone," Holiday said as she handed it to him.
"Hey, Six."
"Rex, what's going on?"
"When are you going to be back at HQ?"
"ETA is 32 minutes."
"Are you in the jump jet?"
"Yes."
There was a long pause. Six wasn't really sure what to do, this was more Holiday's area of expertise. "Rex?"
"Yeah, um... I need to ask you some stuff but I want to wait until you're back here."
"Okay." Six was getting worried.
"Um... what kind of EVOs did you capture tonight?"
The phone call was awkward and full of long pauses but it was exactly what Rex needed. To Six's credit, he stayed on the line and answered every question until he landed.
Holiday greeted him at the lab door, "You did great," she told him in a hushed whisper before they walked to where Rex was now laying back down in the bed.
Six took up the chair and Holiday sat on the bed. Rex sat up and greeted Six with a "hey." There was some fidgeting before he came right out with it.
"What happened the day you found me exactly? I remember you pulling me out of the rubble and then it's all fuzzy until I'm in the lab asking 'where am I?'"
Both adults were taken aback but recovered quickly.
"I pulled you out of that rubble and I had to drag you around for a bit while I tried to figure out what happened to my team. An EVO attacked us and you cured it somehow so I brought you back here," Six said.
"What was I before you pulled me out of the rubble?"
Six stared at him for a moment. "I don't know. I didn't see you until you called out for help."
"So you brought me here, then what?"
"Well, I bandaged your arm and you ate a ton of burritos and then we put you to bed," Holiday said, clearly wanting to leave it at that.
"And then I got dragged out of bed by White Knight who told me I was going to see you guys at the lab so we could leave and then that doctor sedated me and I started mutating while they tried to kill me?" Rex said in a rush, while staring at Six and Holiday waiting to be told that was just a nightmare.
"Oh, Rex-" Holiday started but Six cut her off.
"Yes. That did happen."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Having been witness to what happened, I was hoping you wouldn't ever remember it."
"That does explain all the readings from the machines. Every machine you were connected to either had an alarm going off or had the readings of you overloading basically," She shuffled through all the read outs and checked the machines. "Looks like you did pretty minimal damage, only one machine is fried and you didn't cause anymore than a flicker in power."
"Sorry," he grinned sheepishly.
"No harm done, Rex. I wouldn't really call this your fault anyway."
While Holiday kept looking over the data collected, Six decided to ask a question that was eating at him. "Why did you ask what you were before I found you?"
"I was wondering around in some town in Mexico maybe? And then I think I was really big, I was running into buildings and stuff and I was mad about something... I thought that if the other part was real then that must be too."
Six made a split second decision. "I don't know about Mexico, but I found you in that rubble, not a rampaging EVO."
Rex wasn't done pondering on the topic but he decided to drop it with Six for now and change the subject. "Did you know there were going to be 15 people here when you told me to come to the lab?"
"Yes."
"Could have given me a heads up."
"I thought you would try to bail."
"That's fair." There was silence for a moment before Rex realized with a groan, "Oh man, I freaked out in front of every doctor that works here!"
Holiday gave a dry smile as she said, "You did give everyone quite the scare, but you'll be happy to know you didn't drool."
"Oh, good," he said sarcastically as he flopped back down into laying position. "To think that was my main worry a few hours ago."
"Did you want to go back to sleep? It's still early."
"Definitely not." Rex stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Six, can we go back down to the punching bag?"
Six looked to Holiday.
"Punching bag? Figures. I don't see why not as long as you're feeling better, Rex. I can finish going over this data in the meantime and then I want to meet back here to talk about what it means."
"Sounds good. Let's go!"
I'm basing the sleep study off one I saw on one of those medical shows except I made it all the more awful for Rex by making it in the middle of the lab instead of it being in its own closed off room like I think it usually is.
Thanks for reading!