Legal Disclaimer: I do not own Red vs. Blue or any of the show's characters. They are the rightful properties of Rooster Teeth.

Chapter Twenty-Two:

The first thing that Lavernius Tucker was aware of when he regained consciousness was the searing pain in his side. Then came the annoyingly bright lights blaring down on him, like he was hungover without having enjoyed any of the fun before the hangover.

Tucker winced and grimaced immediately in response, memories from his past flooding back unbidden at the familiar sight and the feel of a medical table beneath his back. For a moment, he swore that he was back in that fucked up facility about to give birth once more…

The dark-skinned man jerked subconsciously at that train of thought, his hands going protectively to his stomach. Unlike back then, his hands weren't strapped down to the table. That action partially started to calm his nearly panicked brain down.

Dimly, Tucker recognized the room he was in as being quite similar to one of the hospital rooms of Chorus. That realization calmed him down even more, as did the familiar sights of Doctor Grey, Bones, and Doc suddenly hovering over him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tucker could see a pale Andersmith sleeping in another hospital bed with Grif's friend Cass sitting listlessly in a chair by his side. What the fuck had happened?

"Tucker! You're awake!" Doc stated the obvious in a relieved voice, his purple eyeglass frames dangling precariously off the tip of his nose.

Tucker nodded, then winced as another stab of pain washed over him, "Kind of wish I wasn't though."

"That's understandable given your injury." Bones assured him gently, trying to coax Tucker into a more comfortable position.

His injury…? Well, that would certainly explain the ache in his side. It almost felt like he'd been…

Suddenly, the events leading up to his lying in a Chorus hospital bed became crystal clear.

The teal-wearing man remembered being with Washington, then the power outage happened and they had run into Doc and Donut. That was right around the time that Felix and some of his asshole mercenaries had shown up. There had been a flash of metal followed by pain…

Then, he glimpsed Washington racing forward towards Felix. The blond Freelancer's back had been the last thing he had seen before everything went black.

"Wash!" Tucker bolted upright in the hospital bed and his side suddenly felt like it was on fire.

"Careful!" Doctor Grey warned cheerfully as she brought her hands to his shoulders to steady him, "Don't move so fast or you'll reopen your wound again. While it would be a blast for me to reseal it, I doubt you'd be so keen on the experience."

"Fuck that!" Tucker remarked, looking frantically around the room for any sign of steel-and-yellow armor, 'Where's Wash?"

Doctor Grey and Bones both looked at each other, unsure of how to respond to Tucker's query.

It was Doc who finally answered him, looking at the ground with a crestfallen expression, "He was…he was captured." He finally said at length, "Donut too."

"Along with several others." Bones added after a minute of hesitation, as if gauging how Tucker would handle the news.

No wonder Doc had looked so forlorn. Tucker swallowed nervously and shot him a sympathetic glance. Losing Donut probably hurt Doc a lot. He felt a pang at the thought of Washington, Donut, and other friends having gone missing.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." Tucker finally said at length before dropping onto his pillow again in staunch disbelief.

He looked around, still trying to process that Donut, several others he didn't even know about yet, and especially Wash were gone. He was desperate for something good, real, and reassuring at the moment.

"Hey, where's Junior?" Tucker asked after a moment of quiet, "He's okay, right?"

Please let him be all right!

The three medical staff members all looked at one another uneasily once more, and Tucker felt what was left of his world shatter into pieces.

There was a shouted "God fucking damn it!" from further down the hallway, and Leonard Church couldn't help but wince at the despair lacing his friend's voice. So, it looked like Tucker was now not only awake but had also been caught up to the situation at hand.

The cobalt-armored soldier felt horrible for the dark-skinned man. Having an ounce of sympathy was saying something considering how sucky he felt the situation was. Church was honestly still having a hard time processing what had happened himself.

Granted, his own uncomfortableness was tenfold because of the fact that the two most important women in his life were currently having a staring death match standing across one another over his hospital bed. Said "glare off" was broken only temporarily by the shout from Tucker, as both Carolina and Tex looked over at the door for a split-second in concern before going right back to staring at one another.

Doyle was still snoozing away in a bed on the other side of the clinic space, Kimball inexplicably sitting beside him. Every so often, the genetically-engineered woman's dark eyes darted towards the two other women and Church, but she seemed focused on her own little world at the moment.

After a few more tense moments of silence, Church figured what the fucking hell? If he was going to break the silent death match, he'd better do it now.

"So," Church began in a totally convincing, not-fake-at-all conversational tone to Tex, "I take it that the reason you left before had something to do with Charon?"

It wasn't much of a guess at this point. Tex and her pilot friend showing up when they had pretty much cemented it. But, Church was the king of trying to stay casual and suave.

Tex blinked at the sudden question intruding on the staring contest between herself and Carolina, but nodded in reply, "That's right."

"So you just left without telling anyone why." Carolina muttered under her breath angrily.

The two women were back to regarding one another from over his hospital bed, and Church found that he really wanted a bed pan right about then to help shield his balls.

Tex broke the eye contact with a sigh, "Look, Carolina, I didn't want our new family getting involved in something dangerous after they had finally had a chance at a peaceful life."

"Well, you did one hell of a job all things considered!" His sister shouted back in Tex's face, her voice full of anger and hurt.

Church had honestly expected Tex to get right up in the other redhead's face then to defend her actions. But, what the black-armored woman did instead managed to surprise both Church siblings. Tex let out a sigh and glanced at the ground, clenching her left hand into a fist, "You're right about that."

She spoke so softly at first that Church had to strain his ears to catch her words, though when she looked up again there was the familiar steel he'd always admired in her tone: "But, first and foremost, we need to focus on a rescue. Now."

Carolina scoffed, "Like I needed you to tell me that." She stated angrily before stalking out of the room.

…For some reason, Church suspected that she was going to have a chat with the black-haired pilot that had come with Tex. They had been pretty close back in the day, if he recalled their interactions correctly.

Tex remained standing for a few moments, silently watching the doorway that Carolina had just gone through before turning to regard Church with an unreadable expression in her dark eyes, "Let me guess. You're pissed at me too?"

From her voice, it sounded as if she already expected the answer.

Church couldn't help but roll blue eyes, "Given the shit you pulled?" He asked incredulously, "You're fucking right I'm pissed. Bitch."

Tex nodded, looking not at all surprised. The redhead seemed ready to leave the room, even turning as if to go. Church panicked at the notion, "But honestly?" He admitted a second later, "Right now?"

She paused, raising an eyebrow as if trying to guess what he was thinking. Her hand rested on the back of the chair she had seemed incapable of sitting in ten minutes earlier.

"Right now, I'm just glad you're back."

It was as close to a "mushy" confession as they were likely to give one another, and Church couldn't quite meet Tex's dark eyes as he felt his face get red. Suddenly, the sheet covering his legs was incredibly fascinating.

Tex took that comment as a cue to finally sit down. "It's…good to be back." She told him awkwardly, "Even with how shitty stuff is."

He nodded his head and the two sat in companionable silence together. At some point, unknowingly, they even started to hold hands. Church could just imagine how pissed Carolina would be if she saw them.

Richard "Dick" Simmons woke up with a start, completely unaware of his surroundings. It took him a few seconds to process that his back was on a cold, hard surface. It took him a few more seconds to realize that he was staring up into a bleak ceiling of gray, nondescript metal.

Somewhere nearby he could make out a constant hum. His mind registered the noise as something mechanical. An engine, perhaps? Which would mean what, exactly?

It took his sluggish brain a minute longer to piece back the memories of what had happened earlier, his face reddening as he realized he'd just been about to kiss Grif again. Then, because his timing sucked as usual, there must have been another blackout.

It was nice that he could recall those memories, but none of them explained why he was on a transport of some kind now. Everything was so foggy, as if his brain was still trying to sort itself out.

"Simmons! Thank goodness you're awake!"

He blinked at the sound of Sheila's recognizable voice, turning his head in its direction. The gunmetal green robot was sitting on the floor of what appeared to be a small, empty room that was serving as some kind of holding cell. Lopez was seated next to her, the two robots' metallic fingers entwined.

Relief bubbled up in his chest at the sight of the familiar, helmeted faces—and Simmons sat upright, ignoring the dizzy feeling that accompanied the sudden motion.

"You guys are here too?" He couldn't help but ask rather dumbly, realizing how stupid the question was the second after he had said it.

Lopez let out an electronic snort, "Obviamente." {"Obviously."}

Sheila nodded, "That's right. This cell was designed for holding robots specifically."

Huh. So, whoever had taken them evidently considered Simmons more robot than human thanks to his cybernetics. That was good to know, he guessed. And not at all hurtful or anything as he tried to ignore his suddenly watery vision.

"Bienvenido al maldito club." {"Welcome to the fucking club."} Lopez muttered sarcastically as if reading his thoughts.

Well, he assumed the robot was being sarcastic. He couldn't really understand him. But, because there was enough happening that Simmons didn't have time to fully dwell on his admittedly fragile self-esteem, he tried dispelling "I'm not considered human!" and not understanding Spanish from his thoughts.

"What happened? I don't—!"

There was the sound of rustling beyond the energy barrier that prevented the trio from moving out of their prison cell, cutting off the cyborg's sentence. Simmons glanced through the translucent blue field, surprised to find another just like it across the hallway. There was more movement from beyond the second field, and then three familiar figures came into focus.

"Hiya, Simmons!" Donut said, a bit too cheerily for their current situation, "Glad to see you're finally coming around!"

"Sir, it's good to see you!" Jensen agreed from her spot next to the dirty blond.

Her brother Matthews nodded his auburn head of hair in quiet, earnest agreement.

"You guys were taken too?" Simmons' voice became high-pitched in disbelief as he stood up, making his way over to the barrier.

He experimentally touched it, noting that there was a warm, seemingly solid energy field blocking his way, but that the barrier itself did little more than tingle his human hand upon contact.

"Are you all right?" He asked the others, noting a pretty big bruise over Donut's right eye in particular.

"Oh, we're just fine and dandy now!" Donut tried reassuring his teammate, "Though Felix wasn't too happy with me earlier."

Simmons blinked at that new piece of information. Felix had been involved in whatever this was? Then that meant…

"I am not okay." A familiar voice lamented just then, "I lost Freckles."

The redhead started at Caboose's voice, turning to stare at the wall to the right where he'd heard it from.

That must mean that the blue-armored young man was in the next cell over…

"Caboose?" He couldn't help but call out tentatively.

"Yes, Simon?"

There was a hectic rustle of movement then, and Simmons nearly jumped out of his skin at the pounding on the wall of their cell.

"Simmons! You're awake?" Grif's voice sounded more frantic than Simmons was used to it being, "Fucking finally!"

"Geez. Calm down, bro." Kai interjected not a second later, "I told you he'd be fine."

"Kai…" Simmons recognized the gentle tone belonging to Kai's friend, Volleyball.

Holy shit. How many of them were here? In a way, Simmons was both relieved and saddened to hear Grif's voice just then.

He smiled sadly, though he knew Grif couldn't see it, "Y—yeah. I'm awake now, Grif. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm fucking great." Grif remarked sarcastically, and Simmons could just picture the orange-armored solider rolling his eyes.

"We're all doing fine at the moment, Simmons." Washington's voice interjected.

Simmons' blood ran cold at the notion that Agent Washington of all people was captured too.

"What happened exactly?" Simmons' voice was soft when he spoke, but evidently it still carried into the other cells because he heard Washington sigh in response.

"Hargrove betrayed us. He had everything planned from the beginning. The mercenaries, the power outages. All of it." The Freelancer informed him without preamble, "Now, we're on his ship."

"Oh." Simmons' shoulders slumped as realization started to sink in.

How could he have been such a blind, trusting idiot? After all, he remembered how upset his father's interactions with Hargrove had made his mother. How could he not have seen how untrustworthy the older man was?

"They split us up into groups. The non-genetically engineered people in one room, us genetically-engineered guys in another. Robots in the third." Bitters stated.

"They even have Tucker's son in here too! Jerks." Palomo added.

So, Junior was there too? That brought the count up to fourteen that had been captured. Simmons felt terrible for the small boy in particular. And for what purpose, exactly? That question was freaking Simmons the fuck out.

For that matter, what the fuck was going on in Chorus too? Were those left behind okay, or…?

Washington sighed into the uncomfortable silence that followed, "At any rate, we need to rest and prepare for whatever is going to happen next."

Despite inwardly still panicking, Simmons couldn't help but nod his head shakily in agreement despite the Freelancer not being able to see the gesture. Old habits die hard it seemed. He could almost hear Grif mutter "kiss-ass" from the next cell.

A couple more hours passed following Washington's oh-so-helpful advice that they catch up on rest. Normally, Dexter Grif would be all for that shit. But, this situation was definitely not normal. For once in his life, sleep was the last thing on Grif's mind.

Still, even when sleep alluded him, he was a champion of faking it. Boy, had that talent worked wonders on even Sarge at times! So, while the others rested, he sat down in his designated corner of the holding cell and waited.

He watched as Donut, Jensen, and Matthews had already retreated further into their cell. No doubt the trio would take up Washington's advice for themselves.

Bitters had waited just long enough to ensure that Matthews in particular was gone from sight before sliding down the back wall of their cell with an angry humph. He didn't even seem to mind when Palomo sat down next to him, oddly quiet despite getting to talk more with Jensen earlier.

Likewise, Washington didn't seem to mind that Caboose was leaning against him, still saddened as the young man was at being separated from the rest of their friends. Wash had an arm wrapped protectively around Junior while the boy slept on his other side.

Grif's glance lingered longest on his sister. The tan-skinned girl was resting with her head on Volleyball's shoulder, their foreheads touching and hands tightly grasped together. He couldn't help but smile slightly at the sight before his eyes once more returned to the blue barrier and he frowned.

Once he was certain that everyone was as settled down as they were going to get, he headed over to the wall that he'd heard Simmons' voice coming from behind earlier.

"Hey, Simmons?" Grif called out quietly, ignoring the beads of sweat all over his body.

For a moment, he didn't hear anything and assumed that either his voice was too low or Simmons was asleep. Then…

"Yeah?" Simmons spoke out rather tentatively.

Grif couldn't help but smile for a moment before turning serious, "How are you holding up?"

"I'm…doing better."

Grif rolled his eyes, "I meant with the Hargrove situation."

"Oh." There was some awkward shifting noises following that, "I could be…doing better, I suppose." The nerd admitted quietly, "I feel like such a gullible idiot for not figuring things out before."

"Hey, don't be too fucking hard on yourself." Grif put his hand against the wall and imagined he was touching Simmons' shoulder instead, "A lot of people were fooled by that asshole."

"I—I guess you're right." Simmons seemed to reluctantly agree.

A few minutes of silence followed that exchange, with Grif's hand still lingering on the cool, metallic wall. Grif could feel himself begin to get sleepy.

"Hey, Grif?" Simmons asked rather tentatively.

"Yeah, Simmons?" He couldn't help stifling a yawn.

"Are you…asleep?"

Grif shook his head, "Not yet, at any rate."

There was a sharp intake of air then, as if Simmons had been debating saying what he said next, "Would it…would it be all right if we stayed up for a little while longer?"

Grif pretended to think on it, "Gee, I don't know, Simmons. You know my time is valuable."

A snort of laughter followed that, "Jackass."

Grif couldn't help but smile fondly at the wall, hand still pressed against it as the metal cooled his feverish skin, "Kiss-ass."

The two talked on and on about a variety of subjects to get their minds off of what was going on. Grif had to admit, falling into their daily routine helped quite a bit.

…At least until the fucking doors to the detention area hallway opened and Hargrove and his asshole cohorts stepped in.

Author's Notes: Gah, Season 15 just hit me with so many FEELS. I just want to hug a certain cyborg so much now in particular!

Fic-talk now: this was a neat chapter to write, especially since it starts delving into the aftermath of what had happened earlier. Tucker found out about what happened to Junior, Wash, and the others—and was, naturally, none too happy about it. Tex and Church had a moment together. Grif and Simmons managed to have a moment together too, but of course it was interrupted by a certain jerk and his allies.

Next chapter will be a bit longer as Tucker, Church, and the others prepare a rescue attempt. Also, Carolina and Four Seven Niner have a long overdue talk, and Hargrove begins speeding up his plans. I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am getting the chance to write it out!

Thank you as always for taking the time to read this! :)