They had moved him

They had moved him. He didn't know why or how but he had awoken between different walls, crisp, spring green walls that felt out of place in the tiny, steel cold cell. When the door opened and Trevor appeared, he felt the closest thing to what he remembered 'happy' feeling like before everything had happened that had erased the memory of it. He looked like he was about to say something but lost it when suddenly found him self pinned to a wall by Trevor's own grip.

"Trevor, what are--"

"Hal, I need you to be quiet and listen to me for a moment. There's a camera in this room. I disabled the audio so they can't hear what we're saying but they can still see us. They put you to a room with surveillance because they're starting to suspect that something is up...and they have good reason to. Last night, I sent a signal from your nanomachines to Sunny letting her know where you were."

"W-what? How is that? Jonas disabled them."

"The injection of Demoral I gave you a few days ago wasn't only to ease your pain. There was an agent in it to stimulate your nanos as well. I couldn't figure out how to do it technologically the way Jonas could have but my way is pretty hard to trace...but not impossible. Time to switch." Trevor swung Hal's body to an adjacent wall and flinched when his face showed signs of pain from the impact. "To get Sunny's attention, I relayed the signal from your nanos through your laptop, Hal. Jonas isn't stupid so it's only a matter of time before he figures out I jacked into the network on an unauthorized computer but hopefully by the time he's putting everything together, you'll be out of here."

Hal's face was bleak as everything reeled and processed in overdrive. He had been numb for nearly two months and tried everything he could to recall that memory of 'happy' again to react to everything Trevor was saying.

"Your friends are coming for you. You're getting out of here." He told him when he didn't see his words stirring anything in him. "But, until then, no one can know any of what I just told you. If they figure out you're escaping, they won't have a problem killing you...and then them." He stressed that he meant Sunny in his tone.

"What will they do to you?"

Hal thought Trevor looked as if he truly hadn't considered it. "Maybe they'll kick me out of their club. Don't know, but I do know that this is probably the last time we'll meet. I have something for you." Trevor picked Hal's back off the wall and slammed it as a distraction to the camera. He swiftly took one of his hands and stuffed it into Hal's pocket. "It won't help you get out of here, but I thought you might want it. There's a blind spot on the wall next to the bed. Look at it after I leave the room."

"Trevor, thank--"

"You can thank me by getting yourself out of here alive. Good luck to you, Hal. Now, tighten your stomach."

"Why?"

"Just do it." He sent a hard left fist into Hal's stomach and let him double over to the ground as he left.

Hal coughed his breath back and crawled to the blind spot Trevor had told him about. The texture in his pocket felt familiar and when he looked at it, it instantly stirred in him emotions he swore he had felt die. Sunny could feel him still and the warmth that she radiated to in the blue rose petals hadn't allowed them to fade away or wither one bit.

"I love you too, Sunny." He said as he stroked the petals in his hand, "Always and no matter what."

Every negative or bad thing Snake could have about what kind of condition he'd find Hal in went released as soon as he felt his chin touch the cold metal of the bar. As long as that bar came between him and his thought process, he could stay sane and almost positive. He felt it almost loosen itself from the structure of the exercise machine several times with every hard projection of himself up and ungraceful descend down again. The over exertion was on purpose. The stabs of pain that radiated through his arms made him forget what he'd be facing in two days.

When he saw Sunny in the doorway of his room, Snake counted one last chin up before he released his grip from the bar. It was easy for her to forget he was even sick as she watched him try to cool down the after burn in his muscles with subtle stretches and deep, calming breathing.

"Is something wrong, Sunny?" He finally asked, a little too much adrenaline from the work out in his tone still. The little girl looked unnerved for a second.

"No, well, yes. I had a nightmare. It was about Uncle Hal." Snake was barely equipped to deal with children much less comforting them after nightmares. That had been Hal's job, one that he had been great at. Sunny let herself in and sat down on his bed. "I saw him but he looked really cold and white like he was..."

"He's okay, Sunny. Are you and Mei Ling still tracking his nanomachines?"

"Yes…and I know he's okay now. In my dream, he was already home. I walked into his room and saw him like that."

"I think that maybe you're just scared about seeing him again."

"He's not going to be the same when he comes back, is he?"

"For a while, no. Hal's been through hell. It's going to take him some time to readjust and feel safe in his surroundings again."

"I want to help him. Will there be anything I can do?"

"Of course. He's going to need all the help he can get."

"Snake...are you scared?"

The question, as simple as it was, drove his body to sit on the bed next to her in silence. After a long moment, he nodded barely a finger nail's length. "Yeah, I am."

"It's okay to be scared."

Before he could get out his usual grunt of disapproval, the little girl's arms were on their way around him. She hugged him around his shoulders and rested her head on his right one. Snake was frozen in her embrace. To him, her love and affection all felt like it was meant for Hal. He felt like a substitute body for Sunny to pour her feelings into in his absence.

"Sunny...you don't understand. If I get scared, people die." Their eyes met when she looked up at him. Her intensity caused him to divert his gaze away.

"I believe in you, Snake." She placed her head back on his shoulder and tightened her embrace to punctuate it. "I know you'll bring Uncle Hal back."

When Sunny left the room, he went back to the chin-up bar and wrapped his grip around it, planning the release of the rest of the circling buzzards of emotion in him in the next 30 or so lifts. Snake shook out the stubbornness in his right hand when it refused to grab the bar with the firmness his left hand had. A few lifts in, when his right hand started to tingle, he worked through it. It was a new symptom his aging body had developed over the past few weeks and in learning to deal with it, he found that discontinuing whatever movement it was doing only made it worse. The loss of the tingling sensation brought on the loss of any sensation at all and suddenly, Snake's unexpected body unclasped. In the moment that it took Sunny to come running back to him, he realized he had crash-landed to the hardwood with a throbbing pain in the back of his head.

"Snake!" The little girl slid onto her knees beside him as if he were home plate, "Are you okay? What happened?"

He spent a couple of seconds waiting for the Sunny's features to come into focus for him and was surprised at how much concern were in them when they did.

"I'm fine."

"Did you hurt your hand?"

Snake looked down at his right hand and realized it was positioned across his midsection in isolation of movement from the rest of his body, as if he had wounded it.

"No, it's fine."

"Why are you holding it like that, then? Let me see it." Sunny grabbed his hand in hers and squeezed it as request for him to respond in the same way. "Snake, squeeze my hand back." She instructed him aloud when she thought he hadn't understood her action. "Snake?"

He ripped his hand out of hers.

"I told you, there's nothing wrong with my hand, Sunny."

"But, you couldn't squeeze my hand."

He hurried himself to his feet when he realized Mei Ling coming into the room.

"God, Snake...are you okay? You sounded like you fell out of the sky!"

"I'm fine, Mei Ling."

"What about your hand?"

Snake unproped it and shook his arm at the elbow, still unable to move his hand. "Everything is fine. I just...lost my grip. It's not as big a deal as you two are making it." Mei Ling nodded and left the room in sight of Snake's annoyance at being smothered by their worry. But, Sunny didn't.

"Snake, something's wrong. I can tell."

He sat down on the bed and limited the light shaking motion to his hand when he felt waves of tingling dare to bring feeling back to it. "You don't have to worry. I'm going to be fine enough to bring Hal back to you, Sunny. I'll get it done no matter what. I won't screw that up."

"Why do you say it like that?"

"Because...I know you miss him a lot and want me to be okay long enough to rescue him."

Sunny smiled even though Snake turned his eyes away from hers. "Snake, do you know what my favorite movie is? It's Beauty and the Beast." Sunny took his hand in hers and lightly bent his fingers back and forth. He threatened his mind to formulate a question to find out what she was doing but he felt more compelled to listen to her talk instead. "It's about this handsome prince who is cursed to live as a monster in his castle all alone unless he can find someone who cares about him for who he is. Well, the beast thinks he's too hideous and scary for anyone to love until he meets this beautiful girl named Belle who doesn't care about what he looks like or what his past is like. She just cares about him for who he is," In her massaging motion of his hand, Snake felt feeling drift back into it and the ability to move it slowly begin to return. By the time Sunny let go, full motion returned to it without a hint of it ever having gone in the first place. "Soon, the beast turns back into a prince and they live happily ever after."

"I'm afraid there won't be a happy ending for me... "

"I know," she admitted quietly to him and to herself. She threw her arms around his neck and held onto him tightly. "But sometimes, I think you feel like you're the beast...and I don't want you to think that." Snake listened as the little girl's breathing hiccupped under her sobs. He knew those tears weren't for Hal although he felt they should have been. He didn't deserve them. He never had. His hands moved to detached her but they, at some point, lost their way and fell around her in a returned embrace instead. Giving in and accepting Sunny's affection felt better and was a lot less tiring than pushing it off like he normally did.

"I'll try not to see myself as the beast anymore, okay?"

She pulled back to look up at him and over returned the small and rare smirk he had on his face.

"You promise?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I promise."

Sunny quickly stole a small peck from his cheek before she exited the room, a move he had barely processed even seconds after it happened. He laughed to himself a bit and flexed his wrist and fingers to reacquaint himself with the freedom to move them.

"I guess I'm really not the beast now."