The conversation hit a lull after that, Neya soon excusing herself to have dinner and deal with Alex’s clothing problem, letting him get back to his unreasonably large books. They had not gotten any more thrilling, but it filled the time.
She came back after about two hours with a t-shirt that was pretty much exactly like the one he’d been wearing, though the different fabric and lack of a tag indicated it had been made onboard. He pulled it on, that alone making him feel more Human than he had in the last day. Their conversation restarted with a thanks, and it carried a much lighter mood now, delving into music more than anything. Neya was a fan of something that translated to ‘life sound’, what Alex could only describe as Tsla’o jazz after she played a few tracks on the underpowered speakers of her tablet. It seemed as complex as Human jazz, something Alex was only a passing fan of. She monopolized the conversation, apparently starved for someone to listen to her discuss the finer points of musicians whose names Alex immediately forgot. He did try to keep up, but her enthusiasm simply outpaced him.
Neya eventually fell asleep while he was in the bathroom, again. Alex stepped over a surprisingly active tail and returned to his bed, his legs that no one cared about for reasons that were not clear back under a blanket. His guess was that the hospital setting was also a venerated sort of space for them, or everyone he was dealing with was a professional who was slightly afraid of Eleya and didn’t want to incur any sort of wrath by being a creep to her new nephew.
He could go either way.
Effectively alone once more, he resumed his exploration of the goings on of the first age Tsla’o Empire, very nearly done with the tome when morning came around, Carbon bursting into the room as soon as she was back onboard.
“Well look who it is!” Alex said, a broad smile crossing his face for the first time in a while just before Carbon caught him in a hug, leaning over the edge of the bed and squeezing the life out of him. Over her shoulder he spotted quite a large number of people out in the hallway, several sets of eyes glancing into the room before the door quietly closed on its own. Not doing the secrecy thing so much over here. Fine by him.
“You are not allowed to do things like that anymore.” She mumbled into his neck as he set a hand on her back, patting her through the dark gray jacket she wore. “I have seen you too close to death too many times.”
“I really don’t intend to make a habit of this.” He laughed softly, despite the severity of the situation that had landed him in the sickbay.
Neya stirred from her slumber before he could say anything else, blinking in the lights before sitting up like she’d been shocked. “Princess Tshalen! I am-” she paused and wiped the corner of her mouth, then smoothed the fur of her face a little, “I am glad for your safe return.”
Carbon had loosened her grip on Alex as she spoke, taking his hand in lieu of crushing the air out of his last lung. She switched back to Tsla to address her, “Thank you, Neya. It is good to be back, and to see you have carried out your duties.”
Neya gave her a short bow from her seat, looking pleased with that.
She turned her attention back to Alex. “Technicians are working on installing the mediboard now, everything to integrate it into the surgical suite was fabricated last night. It should be done shortly.” She gave him a wistful smile and squeezed his hand again.
“Short reunion, huh? At least I’ll be put back together and then hopefully I can never need something like this again.” The odds for losing multiple organs in a knife attack and living felt like it would be pretty slim. He did not care to actually know what they were, but he imagined doing so twice was even worse.
“You will not.” She nodded, resolute, her word enough to stop any further injury to his person.
“I’m done with all of this nonsense anyway.” Alex gestured at the medical equipment and his chest tap, fighting the urge to start asking the pile of questions he’d saved up, or launching into what would no doubt have been a long conversation about what Eleya had done. Half of that was just stuff he wanted answered by the one Tsla’o that he had absolute trust in, but the other half was deeply personal things that were not meant to be talked about in a sickbay room he was sure was being monitored. At least by medical staff, but probably by security or intelligence as well. That felt like something Eleya would do.
All that would have to wait.
The chief medical officer - Yatsala, Alex was pretty sure, with the same gray fur that Tashen had - opened the door, standing there in a matte purple surgical robe. “Prince Sorenson? The device has been installed and is performing a startup check now. It should be ready in a few minutes. If you would like to come down to the suite, we can begin the procedure as soon as possible.”
“Damn, that was fast.” He couldn’t help but be a bit surprised, Carbon hadn’t been there for ten minutes yet. “Yeah, I’ll hobble on down in a moment, thank you.”
“The instructions for installation were very straightforward. A bolt on each foot, and a main power conduit attachment.” The way Carbon said it made it sound like she would have disapproved of it having taken longer.
He supposed that was her forte, and it was just a couple of bolts and a plug. Probably had to make an adapter for Tsla’o power to Human power spec, but she had made their drives work with a Human made tokamak on the Kshlav’o, so that should have been childs play. Alex swung the table and unreasonably large book out of the way and tossed the covers back, standing and stretching before unplugging his chest tube.
Carbon made a negative little noise when she looked at the book. “She gave you the logs? Whr-” She stopped suddenly, eyebrows knit together in confusion as she stared at the sheet wrapped around his waist.
“It’s a kilt.” He lied, pulling the waist tight again and making way for the door. “Nobody here knows what a hospital gown is, can you believe that?”
“A... dress for the hospital?” Carbon shook her head and joined him at the end of the bed, antenna raised in curiosity. “Is that why the selection of clothes for women seemed so much larger? There is specific clothing for a stay in the hospital?”
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“No, that’s... it’s not a dress, it’s just a-” Alex locked up for a moment as he realized that yeah, a hospital gown was like a dress, one you would only wear in a hospital. “It’s a protective article of clothing issued by the hospital so people aren’t wandering around naked.”
Her eyes narrowed as she processed that. “Ah. Protective, that is understandable.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” He turned and gave Neya a wave before toggling the door controls. “See you around.”
“Be well, Lord Sorenson.” She said, tipping her head down in a bow.
He’d let it slide this time, but rolled his eyes as he stepped out into the hallway. Unlike the last time he’d been out here, maybe an hour and a half ago, everybody with a purple sickbay jacket was out today, wanting to get a look at the new toy. Hopefully. Alex really didn’t want them to be there to watch him get worked on. He was fine with it as long as they were there to watch the machine work on him. Weird how not being the focus of something made it okay. He kept his voice low when he looked over at Carbon, who had followed him into the hall after saying a brief goodby to Neya as well. “I think this is going to take awhile, and there's something I’d like you to do.”
She fell in next to him, ear raised in his direction. “Of course, what is it?”
Alex exhaled and hoped he didn’t sound too much like Eleya saying this. “You need to have an actual conversation with Neya. She’s hurt, and from the sounds of things, you’re the only friend she has. Maybe, you know, do the thing.” He gestured nebulously at his forehead, ”if that’s something you’re comfortable with. I told her you two would talk it out, at least.”
They walked in silence down the hall, the conversations the medical crew were having quieting down as they passed. “I can do that. Did... Did she talk about me much?” Carbon’s voice had an oddly pensive tone in it, the words strained as though she were keeping her delivery tightly controlled. She pointed them down a side hall, the crowd of medical personnel getting a little thicker.
“A little. Said you’re the last person she’s got.” They turned a corner, the surgical suites past a heavy security door that was currently sitting open. “Everybody else died in the disaster.”
Carbon nodded in the edge of his vision. “It is so. Her experience was particularly brutal.”
“Yeah, well... I don’t want to put this on you, but she feels like you’re leaving her behind like everyone else.” It was entirely on her, based on what Neya had said. The cut of being avoided by your last friend, because of what was ultimately good news, had to be a deep one.
“I am not. I will not.” She looked up at him, eyes alive with determination. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I will set this right.”
“No worries. She seems like a good bean.”
Carbon smirked and laughed quietly. “A good bean. Such an odd turn of phrase.”
“That reminds me, she mentioned that she was thinking about going home, which was-” He was cut off by Carbon sucking a breath in through her teeth, a warm hand gripping his arm tight.
“She did not.” Wide blue eyes searched his, like she was hoping that he was making a particularly bad joke.
“She did. I had vented a little and said that I was getting mad enough to just walk home,” Carbon’s grip on his arm tightened as she stopped walking, eyes looking like they were about to bulge out of her head. “And that’s a really bad thing to say, I take it?”
“Returning home is a euphemism that has become common since the eruption.” Her voice was low, barely loud enough for him to hear, “we cannot go home to Shoen as it is now, not in a material sense. Some wish to return spiritually, to be with their lost family.”
It took him a second to put it together. Oh. He’d inadvertently told Neya he was considering suicide over a situation he was annoyed with, and she’d confided the same to him because almost everything she’d ever known was gone. “Oh. You know, I can figure out how to get there by myself if you want to...”
Carbon released his arm, eyes still wide as she dealt with this information. “I think it would be best if I did.”
Alex pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head, ignoring the much more open stares that attracted. Like they didn’t all know already. “Come find me when I’m done.”
“I will.” She hurried back the way they came, disappearing down the main hall in sickbay.
Alex turned back down the hall, suite three clearly the one modified for this based on the crowd waiting outside of it. He stopped at the back, a head taller than everyone. It would have been the perfect opportunity to ask what the line was for, but he felt a little too anxious to crack a joke. He tapped on the shoulder of Tsla’o in front of him. “Pardon, I think I’m needed in there.”
The crowd parted with remarkable efficiency, allowing him to press through without much effort. Yatsala was there at the control panel on the mediboard, running the show. Switching between the panel, clearly in English, and a translated manual. His antenna were resting in a personal AI, and given how hard he looked at things sometimes, he was surely getting translations through it. The motion caught his attention and he waved Alex up. “The diagnostics are complete, everything is running as expected. If you would disrobe and get on the table, we can begin.”
Alex had left his external translator in the room. Shit. Well, whatever. Everything had been fucked up already. “Great, let’s get to it.” Alex doffed his shirt and improvised skirt, then handed them off to someone who backed a bunch of the crowd out of the surgical suite, closing the doors behind them.
Of the handful of personnel left, he caught two of them staring for longer than would be respectful as he hopped up onto the board and laid back onto the thick layer of gel. It didn’t bother him as much as he had expected, but there were more pressing things on his mind right now.
The mediboard hummed to life under him, a warning sound warbling out of the control panel. Yatsala inspected it, checking his manual before looking over at Alex. “It will not proceed until your electronics are shut off.”
“You have a translator on that thing so you can talk to me?” He enquired, stifling a sigh.
He poked around the tablet that the manual was on a few times, a heavily digitized but clearly English voice coming out of the AI package on his shoulder. “Do you understand this?”
“I understand it, we’re good.” He shut off the internal translator, then his Amp, and the warble stopped. It felt a little more quiet in his head, though he knew that neither of them produced extra sound.
“Proceeding with operation.” The synthesized voice crackled.
The mediboard slid the privacy shroud into place, finally, a sensor scan proceeding from the underside of the board. Alex could feel the tingle of the older technology as it started from the top of his head, proceeding downward until it reached the middle of his chest, the warning alarm starting back up again. It could have had a problem with the artificial heart, no doubt obviously not Human make, or was it the sliver of metal the artifact had implanted in his chest?
Whichever it was, Alex didn’t bother keeping that sigh to himself this time.