…
"…Where is he…"
"..was somewhere around…"
"…Muk, it looks like a train…"
…
"…found him!"
"Oh Arceus, what…"
…
"Mind his head…"
…
"The hospital in Rustboro…"
…
…
"Zel…"
"Hm?"
…
"Zeld…"
"Link, can you hear…"
…
…
"Z…"
…
…
…
"You're here about…Link, yes?"
Both May and Richard looked up to see a man with a clipboard. Richard stood up. "That's us. How-"
May beat him to it. "Where is he? Is he going to be okay? Oh Arceus, please say-"
She stopped abruptly as Richard laid a hand on her shoulder. "Don't overwhelm the doctor, May," he said, chuckling at the doctor's shell-shocked expression. "Go on, sir."
The doctor collected himself and beckoned for them to follow. "It's a good thing you were able to get him here when you did," he said, looking through the notes on the clipboard as he continued to walk forward. "Nothing too serious, mind you. Minor blood loss, internal bruising-"
"Wait a minute," May interrupted, dodging various nurses and doctors that also worked their ways through the hall. "How is that all he had?" She turned to her father. "Norman hit him with a truck, didn't he?"
The doctor abruptly stopped and looked at her, horrified. "What?!"
"Car, actually," Richard offered. He sighed. "It happened during the explosion."
"Hm," the doctor sniffed. "Been hearing that a lot these past few days. We've been taking in everyone as far as Verdanturf here ever since that explosion." He began walking again, never losing a beat in his speech. "Professor, what was that all about, anyhow?"
Richard paused; and then he said, "I wouldn't be able to tell you, Doctor. I'm a biologist, not a mountain climber."
"Of course," the doctor sighed before suddenly stopping again. He opened a door to reveal a small room that most likely had been a supply closet before it had been repurposed for the mass increase in patients. The most it contained was a bed and a small table. Lying on the bed was Link, either asleep or unconscious, his tunic removed to reveal a chest lined with scars.
May stifled a cry at the scars, and moved over to the side of the bed. Richard was about to follow when the doctor prodded him lightly on the shoulder and led him out into the hall.
Lying on the bedside table was a large box.
May looked at it from across the bed before forcing her eyes away. Don't even think about it, she scolded herself.
She glanced back. It still sat there, taunting her curiosity just for a NO! No! Not going to do it.
…No...
She quietly stepped over to the box, gingerly opened it up and surveyed its contents. In it, she found: a half-empty bottle of potion, two surprisingly heavy gauntlets, and his hat and tunic. She lifted the tunic out and gave it a closer look, to discover that the material it was made out of wasn't cotton or any recognizable type of fabric; as she ran her hand along its surface, it felt veined and fibrous, like a very large leaf.
As she felt along the veins of the leaf-tunic, she found a pocket. She gave a quick glance to Link to see if he was still unconscious (he was), reached inside carefully, and quickly drew it out again with a gasp. Something in the pocket had pricked her finger; she looked at it closely and saw a bead of blood form on the end of it. She wiped it away and reached into the pocket more carefully. As she felt something hard and small, she pulled it out from the pocket and held it up to the light to inspect it.
It was a diamond. She paused, rubbed her eyes, and held it up to the light again. No; not quite a diamond. It was a clear crystal of some kind, but in its center was a blue core that was…no…it couldn't be glowing, could it?
Suddenly, Link's hand stretched out and clung onto May's wrist. She leapt in surprise and began to pull her hand away, but he held fast.
"Link," she softly objected, trying to pry off his fingers one by one.
"Zelda," he groaned back.
May froze. That name again. The one he kept repeating all the way here. She slipped the gem into her pocket and lowered herself to his level. "Link?" she whispered.
He was silent for a moment, his eyes still firmly shut. Then he began to mutter. At first, May thought that he was making random noises until she realized there was a certain rhyme and reason to them. He was speaking some language she didn't understand, nor did she recognize. And again and again, he kept calling out that name: Zelda. Zelda. Zelda.
"Link," she said gently, but he cut her off. By this point, his words had become angry and bitter. His face was contorted into a look of deep, fiery anger and betrayal, and his hand squeezed even tighter around her wrist.
"Link, please wake up!" she pleaded. He gave no sign of doing such a thing, however. He had begun to thrash about, trying to kick off the covers and swinging wildly with his other hand. His angry words had increased in volume, and he screamed and bellowed in the bizarre language.
The sound of running feet echoed through the hall outside. She turned back to Link and begged, "Please, Link-"
His swinging hand struck her across the face, and she cried out. Immediately, Link stopped. His hand released her wrist, and she hastily stepped away, rubbing her stinging cheek. He was still again, but only for a moment. Slowly he curled into a fetal position, holding his face in his hands. And the room was silent save for the noise of his raggedy breath amidst his soft crying.
Years of helping her father in the field, researching and helping wild Pokémon (at more than one point, she had even seriously considered becoming a Pokémon Ranger), had not prepared her for something like this. She took several calming breaths, and did something that was very likely to be rather stupid. Slowly, she stepped back towards him and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, but accepted the gesture. Then she pressed her other hand underneath his head, and slowly raised his head from the mattress. His hands parted to reveal his face, slightly red and streaked with the lines of tears, and still his eyes were shut.
She lifted her other hand to his face, gently rubbing it as her mother would do for her. His face slowly relaxed, and one of his hands felt along hers, leaving a bizarre feeling in her skin as he caressed it lightly.
"Zel-" he whispered, but she placed a finger to his lips and shushed him. And what she did next, she would later rationalize that it just felt like the right thing to do, though at the moment, she had no clue of what she was doing.
She leaned forward and kissed him. It was a short peck on the lips; nothing more. But the action had its intended result. His face took on a look of contentment, and he became heavy. He eased himself down onto the mattress again and fell back asleep.
On the opposite side on the scale of comfort, May stayed in the same position for several moments as what she had just done registered through her mind. She touched her lips gingerly, and then rubbed her hand which he had held, though the unfamiliar tingle had left.
Snap out of it, she reprimanded herself. And though part of her wanted to stay in that moment forever, she stood up stiffly, popping her back and neck.
Suddenly, a nurse stepped into the room, making May quickly check herself and try to make her look more casual. Of course, such an action makes one look more obvious, which the nurse did not fail to pick up. "Is everything alright in here?" she asked with one eyebrow raised like a flag.
"Hmm? Oh, yes," May innocently flustered. "Everything's fine in here, fine, just…fine." She paused. "How are you?"
The nurse frowned. "We heard some noise coming from this hall, and we've been trying to figure out what happened. Are you sure everything's alright in here?"
"Ah, yes. Well, that, heh, yeah, that was from here, you see, um…Link here…" She glanced back at him sleeping peacefully on the cot. "…had a bit of a nightmare, I suppose."
Looking between the two of them, the nurse gave a sigh. "Alright. So long as he's fine." She turned away, throwing her hands into the air in a "Why-do-I-even-bother" sort of way.
As soon as she left the room, May gave a large sigh of relief. Her eyes suddenly settled on a small notebook on the floor. She scooped it up and flipped through its pages, delighted to find not a single thing written in it. She hunted through all the drawers of the room for a pen, found one, and stooped down by Link's side. In the notebook, she wrote:
THINGS THAT ARE WEIRD ABOUT LINK
1: He has a sword. A sword! Where in the world does a guy not only find a sword, but also become really great at using it?
2: He hates answering too many questions about himself; where he's from, things about his past, etc.
3: He has a bunch of weird things; a leaf-tunic, a pointy hat, glowing (?) crystals, and again, a mucking sword.
4: Who is Zelda?!
She looked up from the list at Link again and frowned. "Who are you?" she asked.
Being asleep, however, he wouldn't answer this question either.
Happy New Years!
Sincerely: the TriddKing