The fine green line jolted with each repeated chirp of the heart monitor. The screen spread across the wall beside the bed, just above the whirring box that served as a hub for all the tubes and wires strung up across the patient's bare chest. Black hair splayed flat against a pale forehead. Dark eyes began to shift beneath slouched purple lids, and the patient's first conscious breath drew through the oxygen mask.
"Patient is regaining consciousness. Vitals stable," an android at the bedside read.
Noxis attempted to rub his eyes. Only one hand came up to his face.
He blinked out of confusion, holding his arms up beyond himself. Bandages covered one forearm, an IV and two other cords taped into his hand. The other arm ended an inch above the elbow, in a bundle of gauze. "What the f…" he mumbled. His hand patted the stump; clumsily, as if in a daze at first. He worked up into a frenzy, until he began tearing into the knot of gauze. "WHERE THE FUCK IS MY ARM?!"
The android at his bedside grasped his good arm. "Frontline Biomedical's doctors determined emergency amputation was–" the android reported, struggling against Noxis's wild movements. It disengaged and the faunus's hand covered its mouth, pushing it back against the rolling IV stand.
"Increasing sedatives!" a second android stated. It stabilized the tottering stand, and wheeled it out of Noxis's reach, cranking a dial on the box. A flock of human nurses and doctors rushed into the room.
"No! Don't you d–" he protested. His right arm– the half of it left, waved around toward the IV plugged into the opposite. He cursed and clamped his teeth down on the tubing, tugging one out of place before the weight of his own head caught up with him, and it sunk past his shoulders. "Don't make me…" he muttered. "My arm…"
Caspian's crossed arms leaned over the railing of Team CRLN's balcony. The sky was overcast, but not yet dark enough to threaten rain. Just a solid dome of stark white, as if there were no sky at all. His eyes were drawn downward anyway, to the gravel path winding between trees and undergrowth. It proceeded toward the dormitories' communal greenspace that only saw use during about two and a half months of the school year. A squirrel rooted through the orange and brown mosaic of late Autumn, then pulled back to its haunches to nibble on something from underneath. A student walking up the trail sent the squirrel scampering away and up the nearest tree.
Two days had passed since the mission. He spent the first night in the infirmary after his fight with Sable. As a precaution more than anything, as none of his injuries were particularly threatening. Snow visited him that morning. The next day he spent in his room, re-arranging his team's initials with L in the leading spot. The whole day's effort only amounted to one option: LCRN. Liseran was a bit of an obscure shade. Magenta's less popular little sister. But she'd do.
The door handle clicked behind him and he heard a step drag from carpet to concrete. He hoped it was Lilly.
"Cas?" she checked. He was glad he didn't have to explain to Rowan what he was doing outside, alone in the cold.
"Hi, Lilly."
Lilly came even with him at the edge of the balcony and her head turned to him. "You wanted to talk?"
"Yeah," Caspian managed. He didn't yet look back at her. "I heard you took down that giant Nevermore with Rowan. He told me you actually did most of the work. That's really impressive."
"Oh, thank you," Lilly acknowledged with a slow nod. "But that's not true, I couldn't have done it without him."
"Sure sounds like something a leader might say," Caspian wearily hinted.
"...What do you mean?"
He shook his head. "I'll just tell you straight: I was wondering if you wanted to take my position as leader." He felt cold, damp steel beneath hands that clutched the balcony's top railing. "I think you're better fit for the job than I am."
An arc of white sky shone in her surprised eyes. "I see. Well, I'm flattered, but… no. You're a much better leader than you give yourself credit for."
"My decisions almost killed Noxis, and could've killed Mr. Verdi," Caspian reminded. "And I thought it was a good idea to run off alone against another of the Red Claw's Heads, right after being told not to do it. It's not about credit: that's not good leadership." The frigid railing spread a dull ache through his knuckles. "I feel like I haven't changed at all since coming here. I haven't gotten any stronger, and I'm an even worse leader if anything. I just want some time to try and work this out. It doesn't have to be permanent."
"You have the potential to be a better leader, then," Lilly insisted. He wished she had just accepted his offer and agreed with his assessment of himself. It would have hurt less, somehow. "The answer is no. I want to watch you become the leader you want to be."
Caspian let out a cloud of mist on his sigh. "Fine. Maybe you're right."
Lilly knelt beside the plant that snaked up from its pot and around the railing. She propped up a spade-shaped leaf from the rest with her first two fingers, examining a yellow blemish across its face. "Oh, by the way. Moka has been asking about you."
"She has?" Caspian prompted.
"Yes," Lilly confirmed. "We've been hanging out a bit recently. I have to admit I thought she might be a bit too much for me at first, but I like her. She's a lot of fun."
"Mm-hm."
"But, she's been wondering how you're doing recently," the faunus explained. "It's a shame you two had a falling out, considering you got along so well."
Another cloud escaped Caspian, this time through his nose. "I wouldn't even call it that, really," he admitted. "I just kind of went off on her. And said a lot of things she didn't deserve."
"This sounds like a good opportunity to apologize, then," Lilly suggested. "She wants to talk, if you do."
"I do. Part of me does, at least. It's not like I'm upset with her anymore," Caspian replied. His head withdrew toward hunched shoulders. "I'm just too nervous to face her."
Moka's texts slowly became less frequent in the weeks since their encounter in The Roots. Apologies and check-ins were daily for the first four days. Then, every two days for the next week and a half, like clockwork. The last of those messages fell on a Thursday, then the following Monday, and the very last came the following Saturday, just before the missions:
"Hi, I hope you're doing okay. If you do decide you want to talk things over, I'll be here."
He unfurled the device from his wrist and extended it into a tablet. He lay on his side under the bedcovers– no, too uncomfortable. Maybe on his stomach he'd be in a better mindset to reply. His thumbs hesitated to each side of the screen before pecking out an answer to her lingering question.
"Hi! Sorry I haven't responded lately–" No. It felt disingenuous somehow.
"Hi Moka, sorry–" No. An apology over text wouldn't do at all.
"Hi–" No. Let's start from scratch.
He picked a loose thread from the hem of his sheet, flicked it from the bed, then returned to his Holoband.
"I do want to talk things over. Are you free today?"
He sent the message before he could overthink and delete it just like the others, and threw his Holoband to the far side of the bed. He barely had time to fidget, sweat, and get that sick feeling through his stomach and throat before it vibrated. Two extended pulses, the pattern that came with a message from someone outside his team.
He couldn't bring himself to read it. But not knowing her answer– whether she jumped on the opportunity, or told him she never wanted to see him again and Cattleya had been right about him, and he was a horrible person who deserved everything that had happened to him over the last several months– was unbearable. He tried to think of something else. Anything else. It might not have been Moka texting him in the first place. It could easily have been Snow. Or Ichigo. The bedcovers started to get too heavy for him. Too hot.
He finally caved in and retrieved his Holoband. Moka's name accompanied her message.
"Great! I'm heading to the SFC in a bit, want to come with me?"
He breathed a sigh of relief– the last breath before his chest began to tighten. The Student Fitness Center. Sure, he did want to start actually trying. Start improving, moving forward as both a huntsman and a person. And maybe she would be a good workout partner. But not only was he going to face her for the first time in weeks, he'd have to parade exactly how weak he was right in front of her. He closed his eyes, and drew another deep breath. He began to type out a reply.
The elevator felt like a cage. The beep signifying he had passed the third floor was the first second of a countdown to his death. He pressed the button for floor two to buy himself a spare few breaths, and bought a few more with the "open door" button. When he resumed his descent into hell, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Maybe if he rocked hard enough, he could shift the elevator off its track. Or its cables, or however elevators worked. He couldn't work out with Moka if he was stuck in an elevator, right?
The door opened to the lobby and let him know it was too late. He didn't find Moka anywhere among the lobby's chairs and couches, and found himself hoping she'd forgotten. Or changed her mind. That thought was dashed by the flick of a tail past the glass doors, like that of the tiny creature Caspian had seen from the balcony. The faunus leaned against the railing past the doorway in yoga pants and a white rainproof pullover to ambush him on the way out.
He winced behind the opening glass door as she turned his way. But she smiled at him. She smiled that same genuine, goofy grin he had seen all those times before, as if nothing at all had changed. As if he hadn't told her to shut up and leave, and told her she had ruined their friendship. He couldn't tell where the light in her eyes even came from. In the torturous hour before their agreed meetup time, the clouds had thickened.
She smiled and pointed toward his feet. "Hey Cas! I like your socks!"
He extended a leg to display his birthday gift from her. "Thanks!" He had only worn them a handful of times. Not only because they were a bit tight around the shins. The first time he wore them in front of Cattleya, she side-eyed them enough to make him change to a plain black pair, and tuck them in the back of his drawer.
Moka's tail drooped a little. With a gentle voice she jumped straight to the question Caspian didn't know how to answer: "How have you been?"
"I've been… better, I guess," Caspian decided. "...I'm out of my room, so that's a step."
A smile didn't accompany her weak giggle. "I'm really sorry, again."
"It's alright," Caspian dismissed. The stretchy fabric of his heather grey workout shirt grabbed his feigned interest. "And... I'm sorry for a lot of the things I said to you. And the fact I've kind of ghosted you for the last few weeks. I want to make excuses and say I wasn't in the mindset to talk to anyone, but I think you know that. And it doesn't make it any better."
"That's okay, Cas." He didn't meet her gaze, and she looked to the ground between her boots. "By the way, I really am sorry I never told you about Cat and Blaise. I wanted to be completely sure before I said anything. But I really do think I should have told you."
"I don't know, maybe you should've. But something tells me I wouldn't have believed you. I would have told myself I didn't, at least."
"I'm kind of glad you and Cat aren't together anymore," Moka said. She started and raised both hands toward him as if he was stumbling into her. "Oh– sorry! Maybe that was too much for me to say right now. I just think she… I think you can find someone better for you."
"Oh yeah. Don't get me wrong, when I look back on it I'm glad too," Caspian responded. "I think the circumstances around it hurt more than the break-up itself. I've had a lot of time to think, and that's what I've figured out so far."
"Yeah, I get that. Getting cheated on stings. A lot. It's hard to remember it isn't your fault, but it isn't," Moka acknowledged. "And I'm glad you're doing better."
"Thank you. I'm glad I am too."
"And now we're about to work out! I heard exercise is good for mental health, too!"
"Really? I usually just end up getting exhausted."
"Really! There was this big research paper on it. I didn't read the whole thing, though. I tried and it was so boring I almost passed out. Do you know how dry something has to be to bore me to sleep? Anyway, apparently exercise releases some kind of brain chemicals that make you feel better." Moka tapped her chin in thought, tail swishing through the air behind her. "Endolphins or something, I think?"
"Endorphins?" Caspian guessed.
Moka hopped onto the balls of her feet and snapped her finger to point at Caspian. "Yeah! Those!"
Caspian laughed harder than he had for as long as he could remember. "En-dolphins?"
"Hey, I told you I didn't read it!"
The two began their journey to the SFC, first to the end of the dormitory block, across the road, and down the stairs until they reached the trail snaking around campus. Moka seemed quieter than normal. He hoped he was just overthinking things, until her next words confirmed his hunch.
"Honestly, I'm not sure how I felt about my mission," she admitted. "We were assigned to track down a few of the prisoners that escaped a couple weeks ago. And sure, I'm glad we were able to find a couple of them. But others, I don't know…" her head cocked, and she looked aside to the mush of wet brown leaves swept to the side of the trail. "There was this one guy who just escaped because he wanted to see his family again. When we showed up at his door, he didn't even try to fight us. He just hugged his son and walked out the door."
"Huh… what was he in for?"
"I don't know, some kind of theft. We only got specifics for the really bad guys," Moka answered. "How was yours though?"
The question he dreaded was out early. He couldn't decide if that was a blessing or a curse. It wouldn't hang over him for the rest of their meeting, though he'd rather talk about almost anything else. He would've deflected back to her mission, but he could see the effort it took for Moka to shrug it out of mind.
"...Not great."
"Aw, why's that?"
"We got ambushed by the Red Claw," Caspian replied. "Condor himself along with another one of their Heads, Sable. Noxis and I both would've died if it weren't for Mr. Verdi."
"Jeez... I'm really glad you got out okay. Lilly and Rowan are fine, right? I haven't heard from either of them."
"Yeah. They were off fighting Grimm and they got out okay." Caspian sighed. "Turns out the Red Claw were trying to kill Noxis for cooperating with my dad. He lost his arm."
"Oh." Moka let the single word hang in the cold, damp air for a few seconds. "That's big."
Caspian made a noise of agreement. "Apparently when he woke up he didn't take it very well, either."
"How do you take something like that well?" Moka considered.
The shake of Caspian's head was weak. "I don't know." he looked at the glass face at the front of the SFC, and realized how swiftly the walk had passed. "But, that's part of the reason I'm here. I guess I finally realized I should be trying to get stronger, instead of throwing myself at enemies and half-hoping I survive."
"Well, this is the right place!" Moka replied. She held her wrist out to the pad mounted outside the door, and it opened for the pair. "Have you been here before?"
"Usually it's just to get to my locker," Caspian confessed. As for working out, he could probably count the amount of times he had been to the SFC on one hand– definitely on two. "When I do come, I just go upstairs to the track. I don't really know how to do anything else." He took a glance around. The glossy black reception desk curved off to their right, toward a kiosk advertising custom protein shakes. He knew the stairs at the back left of the main lobby led down to the locker rooms and the dank, dreary weight room. Other than that, and the track upstairs, the SFC's layout was still a mystery. "...Or where anything is."
"No worries. I'll show you!" Moka exclaimed. She pointed down the hallway directly in front of them. It went on for a while, light pouring in through a window to the right before it forked off in two directions at a water fountain. "So the pool's that way, and past it are a couple indoor courts people use for volleyball and stuff like that. The right one's always kinda gross and humid, though. Probably because it's next to the pool." She reversed direction so suddenly Caspian's sneakers squeaked on the floor to prevent a collision. "I was gonna do arms and chest today, and maybe abs after. We can start you on the machines over here, at least so we can get a feel for how much weight you can do. And then we can try free weights another time!"
After a breakneck tour full of more one-off anecdotes and tips about the facility, Moka led him back to the main room on the ground floor. The first four rows looked like a nightmare for his heart, lung, and legs. Treadmills, elliptical, stair climbers, and those bike machines. Beyond that, an array of seats, benches, bars and weight stacks that could work out any muscle imaginable. The SFC looked clean enough, and embodied the same comfortable modernity as the rest of campus's interior design. On the walls, warm orange-reds met blue at curving white borders, and Holoscreens hung in rows above the workout equipment, showing news, sports, talk shows, and any manner of inoffensive broadcasting.
None of it did much to mask the stench of sweat. Not quite as bad as downstairs, though.
"Let's start... here," she decided. Caspian's eyes snapped back up to meet hers as she twirled to face him, holding her hands out toward a machine. She tucked her tail through a gap in the minimally-padded seat, fiddled with its height and the stack of weights for a couple of seconds, and grasped the bars at chest level to each side. "This is the chest press," she explained, pushing the bars forward. She let them fall back toward herself, and pushed again. The weight stack rose with each motion. "It's pretty easy, you just kind of make sure the bars are level with your chest, grab them, then push out. Like this. Oh and make sure you don't lock your elbows at the top of your rep!"
"Simple enough," Caspian figured.
"Yeah, you've got this!" Moka agreed. She repeated the motion, and Caspian got a sense as to why she worked out so much. In those thirty seconds or so, all of her energy was focused in one place– to the simple task of pushing out, pulling back in, and pushing out again, in perfect tandem with the machine. After her fifteenth push, her arms dropped and she stood up to meet him. "How much weight can you do?"
"Honestly, I don't even know that much..."
"Hm," Moka mumbled with a glance aside. For a second the embarrassment Caspian had almost forgotten threatened to return. It was wiped away when she perked up with a finger pointed at the ceiling. "Oh, I know! Flex for me."
"Huh?!"
Moka's own flexed bicep did little to quiet his apprehension. "Flex!"
He swallowed his pride, and flexed an arm about two-thirds as thick as hers.
"I see, I see," Moka assessed, poking at his arm. "Let's start you off at fifty. Try doing twelve reps, then we'll move up the weight and see if you can do ten!"
The first three or four were easy enough. His arms became less willing with each repetition, until the tenth. He didn't know if he could do any more. He could see his face in the mirror, and it was just as red as the girl on the treadmill's leggings. But he didn't come to commit halfway. By some miracle, spurred by Moka's words and his own determination, he finished the last two. His splotchy arms, veins bulging under a sheen of sweat, fell to his sides, and he lifted himself off the seat.
"Nicely done!" Moka commended. She offered his water bottle. "You should stay hydrated."
"Thanks," Caspian acknowledged, accepting it and drinking deeply. He didn't even have the energy to feel shame at the fact she doubled the weight to begin her set. He felt an odd sense of pride at having done it at all.
The two spent about an hour in the fitness center, Moka demonstrating how to use each torture apparatus, getting a feel for his strength —or his lack thereof, and helping take the weight off his arms before they buckled. By the end of it all he wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to move his arms again. He could feel the blood bubbling through his veins, but not much else. He wanted desperately to shower and scrape the layer of sweat off his skin, but he didn't know if his arms would manage lifting a bar of soap.
"We worked pretty hard, so I think we can skip abs for today!" Moka announced, zipping her bottle into her bag. "We can do them another time. I mean, if you want to do this again."
Caspian allowed a smile as he left the main workout room. "I think I do. How often do you come here?"
Moka's smile surpassed his. "Every day! You can join me whenever! Tomorrow's cardio, which is actually perfect because you're probably gonna be so sore you can't do much else!"
"I, uh… have something going on tomorrow," Caspian claimed. Moka's well-mannered pout told him his half-hearted attempt to avoid her brand of cardio wasn't convincing. "I've been wondering though," he began. His fingers worked at the strap of his bag, and he bit back one last thought against asking. It was too late, anyway. "It's a bit late into the year, but is the Sparring Team accepting new members?"
"Yes!" Moka and her tail bounced with the nearly-shouted word. "The Sparring Team's always recruiting! The next meeting is Thursday at four, I'll bring you along!"
"Thursday." Caspian nodded along to his words. "I'll be there."