A/N: sorry its been so long!
raleigh wakes up, meets a cold nurse, confusion ensues. then pentecost meets raleigh.
trigger warnings: doctors, ivs, scene in hospital room.
Raleigh felt consciousness come to him slowly. He felt like dogshit that had been sitting in the sun for weeks. His whole body ached.
He opened his eyes and immediately shut his eyes. Ouch. The lights in his room were not his friend, apparently. Testing the waters again he cracked his eyes open a sliver again. It hurt a lot, but he would have to get used to the brightness if he wanted to see anytime soon.
He brought his hand up to rub his eyes but felt a tug at his elbow. Through his squinted eyes he saw that there was an iv in his elbow. He followed the tube all the way over to the wall of machines monitoring his vitals.
Wow. That was a lot of machines. Raleigh blinked, letting his eyes trail over the screens. He couldn't comprehend what they were conveying, so he hoped it was good.
He looked around his bed, searching for a I've-just-woken-up-and-need-a-nurse button. When he found it he pushed it and leaned back.
Not even a minute later a nurse burst in with a clipboard. He awkwardly waved at him when he just stared at him like he should be dead. Not far off the mark, honestly.
He snapped out of their daze and all but ran over to him. He grabbed his chin and made him follow his pen light. He huffed at the man handling but let him direct Raleigh. The nurse hadn't spoken since he'd arrived.
"So, what's your name? Kind of unfair you know mine but I don't know yours." Raleigh said when the nurse tucked away his penlight and wrote something on his clipboard.
"Doctor Xuē Li Ming, I am your nurse. And I don't." Raleigh blinked at that. Even if everybody in the shatterdome didn't know him and Mako from their drops, Dr. Xuē should know him from his files. Maybe he was playing a joke on him?
"What?"
"Do you know where you are?" Dr. Xuē ignored his question.
"Now hold on, this joke isn't funny." Raleigh pushed himself up, ignoring the twinge of pain from the iv. Dr. Xuē sent him a sharp look and pushed him back down. Raleigh let him.
"There's no joke. Do you know where you are?" Dr. Xuē repeated.
"Hong Kong Shatterdome, med bay." His brows furrowed when it occurred to him that Mako wasn't here. She could be in another room, but usually pilots weren't separated.
Unless one was injured fatally enough that the other pilot would be constantly distressed by being in the same room as them.
Or the other pilot was dead.
"Do you know the year? The date?" Raleigh's attention was brought back to Dr. Xuē.
"2025, January 12th or something. Where's Mako?" Raleigh's breathing picked up, he noted.
"Miss Mori? She's with the Marshal. How do you know her?" Dr. Xuē made a note on his clipboard again. Raleigh's breathing slowed. She was alive and walking around if she was already with the Marshal. Was it Herc? He seemed like the obvious choice to succeed Marshal Pentecost.
"We met a few weeks ago, she was rebuilding Gypsy Danger. Can I see her?" Another mark on the clipboard.
"Hm. As soon as you are cleared for visitors, we will send her in. What's your birthday?"
"December 11th, 1998."
"Are you in any pain?"
"Uh, just a little nauseous. Some head pain. And sore. I feel like a kaiju ate me and spit me back out. Speaking of kaiju, how'd the operation go?" Raleigh furrowed his brows and stared at the clipboard.
"The operation went well. The trauma to your head won't affect your everyday life, but you won't be able to step foot inside a jaeger ever again. Not to mention the various fractures throughout your skeletal structure. You will likely be in crutches for a while."
Raleigh grimaced. He hated crutches, but he preferred them over a wheelchair. The physical therapy he would have to do on his legs would be too much. Not to mention the physical therapy that he'd have to do alone.
"When will I be released?"
"Dr. Basa will see you and then the Marshal. Once they've both visited you and given the okay, you will be dismissed to your quarters."
"Okay."
Dr. Xuē ran a few more tests and then left the room.
It took half an hour before Dr. Basa came into the room. He'd assumed it was because she was reading over the notes Dr. Xuē had written on him. She came in and sat in a chair by his bedside.
"We'll have to run more testing but we think you have acute amnesia. Before that, I have a few questions to ask you."
"Amnesia?"
"Yes, you don't remember your name and you've gotten the date wrong. May I start asking you questions now?"
"Wait, I know my name! I'm Raleigh Becket. And the date can't be wrong, maybe a few days wrong but it can't be wrong enough to diagnose me with amnesia. You can't just diagnose me with acute amnesia based on that little evidence." Raleigh said. His body shaking from the mass of emotions welling up inside of him. Dr. Basa looked at him with a calm eye before writing something on her clipboard. He was beginning to hate those clipboards.
"Are you sure you're Raleigh Becket? Without a doubt?"
"Yes!"
"Hm. This is more complicated than I thought, but it does explain a few things. I do apologize about the misdiagnosis, Dr. Xuē was working with very little information."
"What?"
"What is the last thing you remember before waking up?"
"I… I'd sent Mako back through the breach in her escape pod with my oxygen because hers was damaged. I looked outside Gypsy and saw the… the-" Raleigh clutched his head as pain shot through it just remembering the absolute wrongness of the Precursor's dimension. "Fuck. The colors, they were too much so I had to look away. I couldn't look at them without feeling like my mind was being flayed." He ground his palms into his forehead. Those images would be forever engraved into his mind.
"I put my back to Gypsy's visor and focused on setting off Gypsy's core. She was our only hope of blowing up the breach. So I removed the safety protocols on her reactor and… that's where it gets hazy. I think I made it back to my escape pod. I didn't get very far before Gyspy went off and I passed out… Then I woke up here."
During all of that Dr. Basa was writing down everything he said on her clipboard. Maybe he wouldn't have to say all of that again if Dr. Basa passed on her notes to whoever was in charge and wanted to know what went down in the breach. Mako was already passed out by the time they'd made it into the breach.
Dr. Basa sat in her seat reading over what she wrote, and Raleigh sat there patiently. Finally she clicked her pen open and set her gaze back on him.
"Mr. Becket, I will have to call in the Marshal to talk with us, but do you have any lingering pains besides the ones you outlined for Dr. Xuē?" He mutely shook his head, feeling more tired now that he was no longer expected to talk. SHe clicked her pen closed and stood up.
"Alright, rest up. The Marshal and I will be back in a few hours to talk with you." SHe smiled at him and left the room. He took her advice and went to sleep.
"Marshal, he thinks he's Raleigh Becket, and spoke of the plan to close the breach. Specifically the role he played in it."
"Explain."
"He said he and Miss Mori piloted Gypsy Danger into the breach. Miss Mori's oxygen was damaged so he sent her up early while he detonated Gypsy Danger's reactor in the breach. He seems to be shaken by what he thinks he saw in the breach. But he set of Gypsy Danger and got into an escape pod. That's all he remembers before waking up in the med bay."
"Hmm. Do you think he believes what he's saying?"
"Wholeheartedly."
A knock on the door woke him up from his dreamless sleep. He bolted up, only prevented from leaping out of bed by the aches and sores of his body. As he cradled his head in his hands, he said a muffled come in.
Dr. Basa stepped inside. Followed by a familiar form. He blinked, before shaking his head.
"Oh, that makes sense. I'm dead." Raleigh rubbed his face with his hands, before letting out a disbelieving laugh. The tears started, and he seemed unable to stop them. He knew he wouldn't make it, but he had stubbornly hoped.
He had probably died in Gypsy's detonation and this was all some little fantasy. A world where he made it out of the breach alive and everyone he cared for was alive.
"Mr. Becket, I can assure you, you are not dead." Raleigh turned his focus to Marshal Pentecost. He was exactly as he remembered him. Down to the stern look he was sending him.
"I have to be dead, you died taking down Scunner and damaging Slattern. Or I'm insane."
"Mr. Becket, it is January 3rd, 2025. Operation Pitfall hasn't been enacted yet. The pilots for Gypsy Danger haven't been picked yet. And I am not dead." Marshal Pentecost reached over and pinched Raleigh's forearm. When he hissed Marshal Pentecost pulled away.
"The dead do not feel pain."