Authors notes: Onto the next chapter of my MGRR anniversary gift! TW for some self-harm in this chapter.

Oh poor confused Raiden…

.

The only upside to having monitor duty, Aaron decided, was the abundance of free time it offered. It was a little eerie at times being the only living soul here over night. The labs were usually a whirlwind of well controlled chaos with eight assistants along with the Doktor all working. That all had changed when everyone was kicked out for days when the subject had arrived. Aaron hadn't been there at the time, but he heard that it wasn't pretty.

As he was the most junior member of the labs and as such had the least important responsibilities, Aaron had been stuck with the grand task of babysitting the subject in the quiet hours. Even though he was occasionally unnerved being alone with a man who was only made up of a head, doing nothing all night was a nice change of pace to his usual hectic schedule. Aaron had managed to catch up with all of his missing work before his third night on monitoring duty was over and now he was free to spend his time as he wished.

The young man checked to see if he were finally alone in the labs and settled into the office chair at the station for the night. On his right amidst a tangle of tubes and wires was the patient himself. Aaron grimaced at the somewhat creepy and pathetic sight. The Dok was stretching himself thin trying to maintain several time sensitive projects that could not be pushed back any further and trying to get his patient fixed neurologically all at the same time.

It seemed like a pointless endeavor to Aaron but what did he know?

Apparently the man had been a former employee here at Maverick, a big shot from what the other assistants had told him. Aaron had only become an employee after the individual had resigned and so the nearly reverent stories of the others didn't hold the same weight to him. All he saw was the pathetic remains of a man hooked up to life support.

A glance at the numerous readouts on the computer told him that everything was stable. Exactly the same as they had been last night, and the night before that. Aaron had no doubt that it would be the same again tonight as well. Some kid had been doing the night monitoring before he had been assigned the job but apparently that had been too much for her after several days and nights of no sleep.

The assistant had no idea what her parents were thinking letting her stay here. Not his business though. His business was to supervise and monitor until the Dok told him to go home. There had been some buzz the other day that the subject was waking up before, but as far as Aaron could tell from those readouts it wasn't happening anytime soon.

Looking to his left, the assistant glanced at the VR display screens. The Dok and for some reason that kid had decided that it would be kinder to hook his patient to a VR simulation. The program was of some hotel room that for some reason or another they had on hand in the back files from five years ago.

While Aaron could not blame them (no body, no external senses, not even a functional Codec, the poor bastard), from what he could see on the screen the guy just laid there and didn't ever wake up. The lab assistant's developing area of expertise was more on the mechanical and programming side of the cyborg process than the flesh side so his neurological knowledge was not as detailed as the Doktor's. But with another sidelong glance at the severed head and the readouts he was beginning to suspect that he was babysitting a vegetable.

And an odd one at that.

Why the guy hadn't been totally converted was a mystery. Whole body cyborgs were getting a little sparse nowadays. Typically people only wanted partials (better cardiovascular system here, replacement for a missing limb there) or they wanted the far more efficient total conversion. Extract the whole brain and unite it with machine to rise beyond the limits of the flesh. It was much more practical than, you know, simply cutting off peoples heads and plugging them awkwardly into hardware and being stuck somewhere between man and machine.

With totals your form, your function, everything about you was completely customizable to your wishes. No more being limited by genetics and stuck with the hand you were dealt in life. It was mankind's way of defying nature, of defying fate in favor of intellect and sheer will. It was the way the future of humanity was going and Aaron was proud to be a part of the field.

Soon cybernetics might even become a thing of the past. Nanomachine tech had been developing rather quickly of late. Who's to say science could not take a brain and put it in a body purely made of nanos?

'It would totally be like the T-1000', Aaron enthused to himself. Such design seemed like it would be far more reliable than hardware that broke down and required said nanos to be repaired. Such projects were beyond the scope of Maverick though, Aaron mourned. Nanos were hella expensive and they simply weren't in the budget.

Science may even evolve beyond the need for the consciousness to stay anchored in flesh at all. Who knew what heights humanity would rise to beyond that. The only limits to science was the imagination after all. Once mankind transcended the flesh, who knew what their improved imaginations would provide.

Another glance at the pitiful figure on his right put a harsh damper on Aaron's enthusiasm. While the science had made leaps and bounds in the past few decades, the field still had a ways to go before mankind was freed from their flesh prisons.

"I've got time." Aaron muttered to himself as he sat back in the seat and rooted around in the bag at his feet. He pulled out his sketch book for his engineering ideas and set it on his lap. While there was extra time on his hands he had might as well get some ideas planned out.

Secondly, the young man pulled out his tablet and propped it up on its stand. In no time an opening sequence to an anime was playing in the otherwise silent lab. A blond man with a gun cavorted around during the musical intro while the tinny sound of guitars shredding blasted through the tablet's little speakers.

Settling into the cushy chair for the long haul, Aaron flicked open his sketch book and for his own amusement began designing ways to integrate guns and hidden weaponry into basic cyborg tech. Everyone here at Maverick was obsessed with blades. Sword this, knife that. Guns now...guns were where the real fun was at. He had some ideas that were sure to be an asset here and Aaron was determined to make his mark at Maverick.

The schematics for the hidden firearms slowly took form in his sketch book as the episodes followed one right after another. So caught up in the shoot outs of the cartoon and the tricky bit of adding extra hardware without disturbing the form or function of 'natural looking' cybernetics, Aaron was completely oblivious to movement over on the VR screen. It was subtle, just a figure slipping from the bed to the floor. After that there was no more movement for a long time to potentially catch his eye.

Hours slowly ticked by as the long night stretched on. An occasional glance at the vital readout assured Aaron that all was normal and then the thought fled his mind. The young man had slowly lost interest in the anime with the constant gunfire and bombastic characters.

The drowsiness slowly crept up upon him and made his work sloppy which in turn made him focus on the paper all the harder. He did not detect at all the movement unfolding over on the screen to his left nor the uptick in the readouts on his right. Any sound from the monitors was drowned out by animated chaos on the little screen and the intent scratching of pen on paper.

Eventually a few minutes past five in the morning Aaron had to concede defeat as his work became too erratic to continue along with. It would not be too long until he would be relived and get to go home to catch some shuteye. The Dok always came early anymore and left late now that he had his personal project to care for. Aaron shot a glance over at the VR screen as he stretched out the kinks in his back from being hunched over with pen and paper for so long.

And immediately fell out of his chair in shock at what was displayed.

There was blood absolutely everywhere. Everything that could be broken was in pieces scattered about the entire area. The walls had splashes of red, hand prints trailing off into streaks, as if the subject had used the walls as support to keep moving. The windows were painted with red clawed streaks and the debris of furniture that had shattered against them littered the floor.

"Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit..." Aaron chanted as he got back to his feet. He shot a look over at the vitals display. The man's head just sat there, inert, but the vitals and brainwaves were considerably elevated. He was was clearly and most certainly awake.

And apparently deranged.

Frantically Aaron scanned the VR screens displaying the digital rooms looking for the man. After a few frantic moments the assistant spotted him. The blond man was on his knees clawing at the bottom of the front door trying to pry it open like a trapped animal. Judging from the amount of blood that coated the bottom of the door and door knob, he had been at it for some time.

Aaron flinched violently at the sound of a gunshot then realized that his anime was still playing. He quickly shut the device off and threw it into his bag, heedless of the fact that he probably damaged it in the process.

'Oh I am in such deep shit...' Direct comms to the subject were unavailable, but thankfully that barrier was not present in VR. Aaron hit the button to broadcast directly into the simulation and almost managed to keep a steady voice.

"H-hello?"

The man immediately froze into place. Now that he was no longer struggling against the unmovable door, Aaron could get a better look and see what damage he had inflicted upon himself. Bland blue lounging clothes were liberally splattered in red. Bare feet were bloodied, most likely due to walking over the broken glass strewn about everywhere.

Both hands had cuts covering them but the outer left forearm seemed to be the source of most of the bleeding. Tiger stripes of running red slashed across the limb. The gore was shocking, yes, but not something Aaron was totally unaccustomed to in his field. What haunted him and made him break out into chills were the man's eyes.

Unlike his real life form with the gauze wrapped about hiding the injury, in the VR the man's eyes were sharp. Piercing almost. The crouched figure looked almost feral as he looked about for who had spoken, darting eyes looking at every doorway and shadow. No emotion was visible on the man's face, just the focused soulless stare of a predator. Aaron actually flinched away from the screen as those blue eyes seemed to look right at him.

Shifting from his frozen position, the crouching man reached over and grasped the shard of ceramic that had been placed by the door, heedless of whatever damage the edge might be causing. The jagged glass was held at the ready, prepared for any foolish enough to approach. Aaron couldn't stand the tension any longer.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" From the flinch and the raising of the shiv, Aaron could very well see that he could in fact hear him. A quick glance over at the vitals display, shit those were high, to check and see what the man's name was again. "Uh… Mr. Raiden? Everything is ok. You don't need that, everything here is safe. You're currently being held in the labs at..."

Oh that was absolutely not the right thing to say, Aaron realized as the blond abruptly bolted from where he had been crouching by the door. The assistant began chanting profanities in a pleading tone as he watched the feral subject find the nearest window and began trying to break through it. Only there was no breaking though the simulated glass. Aaron watched in horror as he tried again and again to break free, no doubt hurting himself in the process. The vitals feed chirped out a warning.

"It's ok! It's ok, please believe me! You don't need..."

"Let me out!" The man roared, throwing his shoulder against the unbreakable glass once more. "Let me out!"

"I can't." Aaron pleaded. "This is a simulation, it's..."

"I won't go back! Let me out!" Giving up on that window, he darted off to find another potential exit. Aaron didn't see where he ended up as the vitals began to squeal their alarm. The assistant could only pull at his hair in panic as the chaotic situation threatened to overwhelm him.

Forgoing to watch the madness unfold over on the VR screen, Aaron darted over to the system that housed the brain and it's vitals. With the instructions of what to do should stress levels rise too high ringing through his memories, the assistant flew through the required keystrokes and the system automatically began administering sedatives. Realizing how closely he stood, Aaron took a step back from the physical form of the subject, instincts irrationally insisting that he was at risk of being attacked.

Over on the display screen the blood soaked man took a few more stumbling steps, the ceramic wedge falling from weak fingers. One more step and he the fell like a stone and remained still. Aaron had his phone out dialing the Doktor even as he typed in commands to the VR system. The screen briefly turned black, and then the leisure simulation presented anew. Gone were the bloody hand prints. The broken furniture was restored. And back in the bedroom the man, who was not supposed to wake up on his shift, slept peacefully and unharmed.

That is, until the sedatives wore off.

Oh he was so fired.

-0-0-0-

The light coming from the space underneath the door was the only source of illumination in the small cramped area. Raiden sat huddled in the back of the linen closest watching the small rectangle of light intently. Any moment now there would be shadows moving in front, blocking the light. Any moment now they would be coming for him. The still air was heavy with the scent of blood. In the darkness Raiden held tightly to his wedge of broken glass and waited for them to come.

He had woke again on that damnable bed. Confusion had hung about him like a fog until the sight of his surroundings had jarred his memories. Upon rolling off the mattress, expecting to be ambushed, he had been stunned to see that everything in the room was exactly as it was before he began his escape attempt.

For several long moments he had thought that his attempts to escape had all been one of his nightmares. Or even the hallucinations returning. Raiden had been frozen in his confusion and indecision for heavens knows how long, bewildered and unsure. Then the voice appeared again, the one that said he was being held in the labs.

Not again. No. No. No!

He couldn't go through that again. Not again

He had to get out of here.

To Raiden's surprise, his limbs heeded his command more readily. Thought came quicker, his focus less slippery. His memory was still shit with only flashes and impressions of things. But he had not exactly been in the mood to reminisce at that moment.

Going from room to room had only confirmed that everything was restored to a pristine state. It didn't last long. All the while the wheedling voice had tried to demand his attention. Raiden paid the voice no mind and soon the chatter just became background noise in his far more pressing task of escape.

Over and over he had tried to get out. Every window, every door, was a false exit. The more he tried the more he only managed to injure himself. While pain was a welcome source of clarity, exhaustion had begun to rear its ugly head again though all of his efforts. He couldn't go under again. He just couldn't. They always came for you when you slept.

With no other options available to him, Raiden armed himself with a thick shard of glass of a broken vase and hid. He knew that he was in not in the best condition to fight. The ever increasing fatigue left him even more uncoordinated and weak. That did not deter him from being ready to fight tooth and nail though. If he had managed to kill three grown men with only a knife back when he had weighed less than seventy pounds then he could fight like this as well.

"Raiden, this is Doktor. It is alright now. You have been rescued and no one is trying to harm you."

"Nothing is getting through to him."

"Perhaps we should try and get John to talk to him. Perhaps he can get through."

"No. He should not have to see his father like this. We will find way."

Raiden just wished the voices would go away. They seemed to come from everywhere at once. At least tucked as far back in this small closet he knew that they could only physically come for him from one direction. So what if he had cornered himself? There was already no way to escape. It brought back unwanted memories of similar situations. So many memories...why did it have to be these that came back clearly?

The voices continued chattering from the sources unknown. They were hard to understand through the flashbacks threatening to take over but what he did make out was nothing but an offering of lies. Lies just like the hallucinations had offered him, like the injections all those years ago. Raiden did his best to block the words out.

The Patriots labs were full of lies as well. And false hope. Even with the pain and primal horror at having yet a little more of himself carved away still fresh and screaming, Raiden could not help but fight. Security would 'slip up' enough for him kill his guards and to dart away. He would fight his way through, so close to freedom only to be captured at the end with the light of the exit shining right in front of him.

It took him until his third attempt to realize that these were just test runs for the effectiveness of the cybernetics. After every retrieval they would cut away a little more and replace it with metal to be tested all over again. Raiden knew he was being manipulated but still he had to try. Those that didn't try died.

There was never any way to escape that place. Just like here. Just like back in the jungle.

The small closet with its near suffocating scent of blood seemed to close in on him. He gripped his head tightly, the feeling of being trapped was triggering those old memories hard. Like now there had been no where to run to, voices everywhere demanding his attention, his own blood the only thing he could smell. And just like back then, instead of trying to escape Raiden had no choice but to wait and try and survive whatever would come for him.

The closet reminded him of the cages all over again.

It had not been his fault that his unit had been spotted, it was the carelessness of one of the other boys. The skirmish was quickly won although they had suffered heavy losses. In a fit of rage Raiden had personally disemboweled the careless boy and left him to the tender mercies of the jungle along with both his achilles cut. Still there had been consequences to be had. His unit, his failure. And He had not been happy.

There had been wrath, and bloodshed, and the blessedly cool barrel of a gun that had been pressed to his head that promised to set him free from this hell. Something about his calm acceptance of death must have enraged Him into changing his mind and not providing an easy out. Instead the boy had been caged up and thrown into the pit.

Younger it was not so bad, but as Raiden had grown the cage quickly became too small to stay away from all sides of the bars at once. One had to keep scooting from side to side to keep out of reach of the starving dog that would desperately try to latch on to some flesh to rend and eat. Punishments could last for days at a time. No food, no drink, no sleep, only avoiding the starving beast wanting to feed.

The voices hounding him even now reminded him of the constant barking and snapping.

"You are in VR simulation my boy. Everything is ok now. Please calm down and let us help you."

"Jack? It's me Sunny. Can you hear me? Please say something. Anything."

Raiden covered his ears to block out the sounds assaulting him. The closet, the labs, the cages...everything was starting to blur into one. A conglomerate of green, grey, and black. This place where he was trapped at and what was wrong with him was already so unclear.

The blood coating him, even his body felt wrong. It felt like they were not his and he knew deep down that this was not how he was supposed to be. It was so hard for him to grasp what he knew should be there, just out of his reach.

Instead, reality was being overwhelmed by overlapping flashbacks and Raiden was drowning in all of it. The closet blended with the jungles which blended with the labs. He wanted out of here. He wanted to feel like himself again. And most of all, he wanted not to wake up in that damn bed again like nothing was wrong.

On impulse, Raiden ran the edge of the glass he held across the side of his face, the pain of the action shocking him back into focus. The taste of the blood running into his mouth brought even more memories with it, but at least the spontaneous action seemed to stun the voices into silence. Raiden took shelter in the pain, the only thing that felt real and honest in his tumultuous mind.

When the voices started up again he couldn't take it anymore. He curled tightly in upon himself to hide from the aural assault. Before he turned to even deeper cuts from the glass to shut them up, a voice clear and distinctly different from the others managed to somehow cut through the chaos to catch his attention.

"Raiden." The unusual voice simply said. No inflection. No emotion tugging at the tone. Just a simple word. His name. All of the other voices faded away in the wake of this single absolute one. Yielding, even if it were only to keep the others from starting up again, Raiden heeded the voice.

"Yes." It was nearly a whisper and further muffled by his defensive position. The clear voice heard him somehow all the same.

"Can you understand me?"

"Yes." Raiden replied again, his own voice feeling foreign from long disuse. He would say what he had to as long as it kept the others at bay.

"Do you recognize my voice? Do you know who I am?" The odd voice asked simply.

Raiden was silent for the longest time but still the owner of the voice did not press. The speaker did seem familiar in a distant way. The feelings that the sound of the flat unemotional tone brought forth were of companionship, freedom, and unexpected help during a time of dire need. Suddenly the answer came to him with memories of metal glinting in blazing firelight and the setting of the sun.

"...Wolf?"

"Yes. It is I." The robotic voice that Raiden now recognized as belonging to the AI sounded out from places unknown.

What was Wolf doing here? How was he here? Where was this place at all? Had he come to save his ass once more? All these questions and thoughts fought for dominance in his already overwhelmed and confused mind. Unable to articulate his disjointed thoughts, all Raiden managed to get out was a simple, "What?"

"You are currently in a harmless VR simulation. You are currently physically incapacitated and we had no other way to properly establish contact with you."

In a VR simulation? Raiden thought about the rooms he had been trapped in. The windows that would not break. The doors that would not open. The fact that he kept waking up in the same spot in the same state over and over in some Groundhog Day-esq type of nightmare.

With the trusted voice outside of his own head for once to grasp onto, the images of the labs and the jungles faded somewhat. The room, the VR simulation, slowly began to come into a little clearer focus in his thoughts.

"You do not need to be fearful of attack any longer. I am with you. I swear this upon my memory banks and my freedom. The danger is no more."

Raiden felt no inclination to leave the security of the small dark room just yet despite the comforting words. He unburied his face from his arms and peered at the long rectangle of light from under the door. There was no sound to be had here in this place other than his uneven breathing and the muffled drip of blood on already wet fabric.

Although he did not yet let go, Raiden loosened his grip on the shard of glass considerably. He could not deny that hearing Wolf had soothed some of the feral fear in him that insisted that he was trapped and alone. It was such a soul soothing feeling to not be alone.

He hated being alone.

"You are safe." Wolf assured him once more. "I am with you."

Against the part of himself that was raving that he was a fool for listening to the lies, Raiden slowly opened his hand. Fingers uncurled around the edge of glass, nerves singing with pain as the air touched the open wounds. The glass finally slipped free from his grasp to go tumbling away into the darkness.

"I believe you." Raiden said softly. That quiet confession to the AI taking every ounce of trust he had left in him. There were no dramatic changes. No abrupt sounds or lights. No footsteps coming for him once he had been conned into relinquishing his weapon. He was alone...no...he was in a VR simulation, and Wolf was on the other side with him. The revelations of it all was overwhelming and he gripped at his hair in frustration.

"You are confused and distressed. I will do my best to assist you and answer any questions you may have."

The offer was left hanging in the stretching silence. There were plenty of questions Raiden wanted answered. His mind was a fucked up disaster and he would have begged Wolf to explain everything and clear it all up if Raiden had thought he would even be capable of taking it all in at the moment. The confusion muddling his mind made it hard to focus on what he wanted to know the most. Eventually he decided on the one that had plagued him the longest since waking.

"Where am I?" Blood flecked from his lips as he spoke, the cut on the side of his face still bleeding. He relaxed his grip on his hair and let his hands fall limply into his lap.

"You are currently at Maverick headquarters. You have been here since we have recovered you from where you were being held captive." Wolf said factually and promptly. Silence fell again as Wolf waited for the next question that was slow to form and even slower to be spoken aloud.

Maverick? The old team? So they had found him even after he had turned his back on them all to go his own way. Once again the AI and Boris' team had come out of nowhere and saved his ass. The thought brought up his next question.

"Why am I here? VR I mean. Why am I in a VR simulation?" Raiden stumbled over his question, voice low with weariness. He leaned forward and rested his forehead on his pulled up knees. So much thinking, so much talking, so much confusion. It was exhausting.

"When we recovered you, you had been stripped of your cybernetics. You have also sustained damage to your implants which are still being investigated. As such, we had very little means to communicate with you once you regained consciousness."

Oh. That's right. He remembered now. Raiden flexed his hand, the cuts spreading open and stinging in response to the movement. No wonder they felt so wrong and foreign. He didn't have soft hands and even softer flesh. He was meant to be made of metal, cold and inhuman. How could he even have forgotten something like that? Had that place of the dark and cold driven him mad more than anything else in his life had managed to do?

"What the fuck is wrong with me?" This came out as little more than a whisper. More to himself than to his unseen audience.

"I am unqualified to properly answer that question...Doktor has asked if you would like him to explain it to you."

Raiden tentatively considered the offer but then dismissed it. Memories of the man in question talking and talking came to mind. The Doktor and his frequent deluge of words and his doggedness in perusing a topic until all facets had been uncovered was a deeply unappealing notion to Raiden at the moment.

"...No." When there was extended silence on the other end, he felt the need to elaborate further. "Words. Too many of them. I can't handle that right now."

"Raiden. Sunny has volunteered to explain it simply. She wishes to speak with you."

Sunny? The thought that she was here and seeing him in pieces like this was horrifying. Someone as gentle as her should not have to see something like this. Her brightness shouldn't be dulled by the darkness that seemed to follow him always, that was a part of him. Head still resting against his knees, Raiden drew his arms up and futility hid his face. She shouldn't have to see the bloody mess he'd made of himself.

After what seemed an endless age of the silence stretching tensely on threatening to snap, a voice sounded out. Wolf's robotic words was replaced by feminine tones, nearly a woman now rather than the girlish pitch he had last heard. Even after so long and with his mind in ruins, Raiden would always welcome Sunny's gentle voice.

"Hey there stranger." She greeted him softly. She wasn't her usual lively self and Raiden hated himself as he knew he was the cause of that melancholy.

"You shouldn't have to see me like this." His voice was muffled from where he hid his face, uncaring of the juvenile posture he had curled himself into.

"I've seen you in bad shape before. Hopefully it will be the last time, right?" She tried for a playful tone that fell painfully flat. After a few moments of silence a rueful chuckle could be heard. "I'm as much use now as I was back then. At least now you're getting proper medical treatment rather than borrowed equipment in the hold of the Nomad."

"Don't." He uncurled on himself ever so slightly. "Don't be so hard on yourself. You did the best you could with what you had then. I'm here, arnt I?"

"Yeah. You're here."

"Am I..." He freed up one hand and gestured vaguely at his head. "Am I going to get over this? Is this...mess, going to be forever? What's wrong with me?" The free hand tucked back in, almost a subconscious attempt to hold himself together.

"Short version: no, you are not going to be like this forever. You are already improving so much. And we... Dr. Voigt, is giving you the best treatment possible. Where you were confined and deprived of sensory input you kinda...shut down. You will be confused and foggy for a while, but we are hopeful for a full recovery with no permanent loss of cognitive function. I...uh sorry. Too many words. You're going to be ok, it will just take a little while."

"...How long?"

"We actually had no idea you would even be awake and talking this soon. It's kinda hard to estimate a timeline but knowing you, you'll be up and about in no time at all." He couldn't help the smallest of smiles tugging at the corner of his mouth. Some of the light and hope had come back in Sunny's voice, as it should be. If she believed that he would be recovered soon then it must be true. She was the smartest person he knew after all.

The assurance that this fog of confusion and slippery thoughts would not plague him forever felt like a massive weight being lifted off of his shoulders. Like helping hands that pulled him out of freezing water that he was too weak to pull himself from. Having others on his side after the endless solitude was slowly starting to loosen some of the binds of confusion upon his mind.

He looked at where the closet door was shrouded in the darkness and thought of the empty rooms beyond. Alone out there the madness could creep back. Interacting with others brought back a sense of his own mind more than pain ever could.

"I want out of here." Raiden said quietly. He slowly uncurled himself from his defensive position.

"What?"

"The simulation. I want out of here."

"We can get you set up in one that you like a little bit better. What would..."

"No. I don't want to be in any sort of simulation." Raiden struggled to think of a way to articulate why this place was so distasteful even as Sunny sputtered on the other end of the line.

Raiden eyed the rectangle of light coming in from the bottom of the closet door. He had been trapped alone in the darkness of that cold place for far too long. Trapped inside of this simulation with its false relaxing atmosphere with this false body that did not feel like his own (but how bittersweet that was, to be normal again). He couldn't stand the physical solitude any longer.

"I've been stuck in here," He tapped the side of his head. "long enough. Even if I get to communicate with others it's still not the same. I can't stand being alone in my head any longer."

"I...you don't have a body right now. And you wont be able to see or hear...Wait...Dr. Voigt says that he may be able to set up something that will allow for some communication while a new body is prepared for you. But you'll have to be disconnected for a little bit...Are you sure you can't wait just a little while? Until we get you a body set up? I don't want you to have to go through anymore than you already have."

"Sunny...it's ok." Her flood of words washed over his quickly tiring mind but her concern could be understood clearly. "I'm sure. I spent...I don't know how long I was trapped like that. At least I'll know you'll be looking after me like before. I can't be like this any longer."

He spoke with soft conviction but Raiden wished he felt the same way. He knew that they could pick up his stress levels on their monitors but he stood by his decision. The thought of going back into the darkness and perhaps sliding down into the void into nothingness again was a terrifying one. He had only now just got himself back after all. But he needed truth and reality. And to know absolutely for certain that someone was there. That what he was hearing was not just another lie.

"...Ok. I will be here. I promise...Wolf said he would be here too. We will get ready to shut down the program and get started on the other way any time you say so. If you change your mind just let us know. We'll figure something out ok?"

"Yeah…" He wiped at the drying blood tickling his face then huddled back tightly. "Just a second though. Can you tell me something...how long was I stuck like that?"

The silence on the other end of the line stretched on. Dread made him prickle out into gooseflesh, a nearly forgotten and uncomfortable sensation.

"Sunny, how long?"

"They say it's not a good idea to tell you. That it will stress you out and might set your recovery back."

"I need to know...Please." Raiden looked upward, almost as if to beg those that might as well have been gods for all the power they held over him, looking down on him in his little digital cage of their creation.

"I...it's...From what evidence we had gathered, we think you were trapped down there for three years."

Three years…

He did not express shock. Nor rage. He did not break down weeping. Numbness settled over Raiden at the news that he had lost three years of his life to the dark and the madness. He minutely nodded to affirm that he had heard and understood.

"Jack..Raiden?" Sunny asked, voice as uncertain and small as it had been when she was a child.

"Its...over." He said no louder than a whisper after several beats. It wasn't the most reassuring of replies but it was all he could manage at the moment. He would think about it later. Raiden knew that he did not have the capacity to deal with such a revelation. The knowledge that he had been held captive for so long was not even the worst part.

'Rose and John.' Raiden thought with a stab of pain that was enough to steal his breath for a moment. He had been missing from their lives for years. John would be fourteen now. He had promised Rose that he would check in every month while he was away. Did she still wait for him to send her a message or had she given up looking after silence for so long? Surely they would have believed him dead and have moved on with their lives by now.

The thought was heart wrenching and threatened to overwhelm him. He wanted to ask for any word of them but knowing wouldn't fix the damage had already been done. For the sake of his tenuous grasp on sanity, he had to unwillingly step back from the thought of them. He had to get a hold of himself first, then he would see if he even had a family to go back home to.

Raiden grasped at anything else to distract from the crushing sense of loss. "What about now? Can I get out of here now?" He very nearly pleaded.

"Yeah...give us just a moment..."

The darkness that Raiden sat in, with its small slice of light abruptly faded away. Coming out of VR simulation was always jarring, like being suddenly woken up from a deep dream. The old familiar disorientation passed a little slower than he was used to. It had been some time since his last VR training and he was more than a little rusty with the mental wreck he had been left in.

The dark was more now an absence of sight rather than of light. There was no sound nor feeling of a foreign heartbeat pulsing through him. There was no sensation of an extended physical self. The only thing he had left was the feeling of touch and even that was nearly absent as all he could feel was the pressure of the device he was sat upon and the slight tickle of his own hair from the gently circulating air.

Raiden very nearly regretted his decision. His mind went back to the place he had been trapped and the slippery memories of his descent into madness. It was only the promise of Sunny and Wolf to watch over him that kept him from trying to signal that he wanted to go back. The thought of the simulation and his loneliness not to mention his shameful indulgence in pain that left the place painted red made the thought of going back worse than his lack of senses.

'Its only going to be for a little while.' Raiden reminded himself. Knowing the Dok, he had been working on a way to get him hooked up and connected with the rest of the world before the VR had even shut down. Still, it was hard to go back to silence after he had a taste of comforting words from those he knew and trusted.

If Raiden could have flinched, he would have upon unexpectedly being touched. Some of his startled reaction must have shown on his face because the hand quickly withdrew. From that fleeting touch he felt calloused but petite fingers.

Sunny.

'Its ok.' he wanted to tell her. She was one of the very few people in the world that he would allow to touch him freely. And to have true human contact, not the impersonal hands that had occasionally attended to him in that place, but someone real and that cared for him was something that he desperately needed.

There was no reaction he could think to give in his current state that would not be interpreted as displeasure or aggression. No way for him to indicate that he wished for her to return. Either his distress was plain to see on his face or she somehow knew (as she always did) what he wanted, because that feather light touch returned.

Tentatively she brushed his hair out of his face, and when she received no negative response, did it again more confidently. Raiden barely kept himself from snarling when cold metal touched the side of his face. It just held there, not any tool or instrument that he could think of that would be used. It puzzled him greatly until realization struck. 'Wolf.' Wolf was nuzzling up to him as well to show his solidarity and presence.

It was the AI trying to provide comfort that finally done him in. If he still had the ability to, he would have started crying right then and there. The look of distress on his face must have scared Wolf off because the cold presence and pressure of metal quickly disappeared. The hand petting him did not leave however.

Sunny continued to lightly run her fingers through his hair in an attempt to offer him some comfort. It was almost as if she were saying 'Are you ok?'

He had no way to lean into the comfort. To let them know that he understood. To do anything other than exist.

No way to say 'No. No I'm not.'

.

Authors notes: This fic actually was actually inspired by a dream. How would you stop someone who is seemingly unstoppable? What would it take to make a man who spent his whole life running from his demons to actually confront them? My dreams had a field day with these questions and thus the inspiration was born.

When I was outlining this story I didn't plan on making this arc as...lets say detailed as it is. It was only when I started doing research on torture methods and recovery times for sensory deprivation and solitary confinement did I realize how effed up Raiden would be from his capture. My initial outline was a little too...optimistic on his recovery time. Those readers fond of H/C should enjoy his recovery nicely. Its gonna take a little bit before he's up to throwing Ray's around but he'll get there, trust me on that one. On a side note, I am most likely on a government watch list now due to my research.

P.S- Anyone check out the new Trigun yet? I've not had a chance to see it. A Trigun fic was the first fan fiction I ever wrote. It was a pretty big one too. I even got a nerdy tattoo to celebrate my favorite anime and finishing my very first story. Gotta start thinking of a Metal Gear tattoo now. But what?