Chapter Text
Clover remembered blood. Blood and pain and darkness.
There was the sunset, golden against endless fields of white. Freezing cold gripping his back, keeping him stuck in place. There was a hot agonising pain cutting through his chest and the sickening taste of metal coated his tongue and the back of his throat. It was wet and felt oddly foreign, seeing as it came from his own body. His own blood was drowning him. His chest was on fire but the rest of him was frozen. He couldn’t even move his head to look at his wound or the place he’d fallen or… anything. All he could see was the sky, changing over his eyes from shades of blue to yellow, a single moment of peace completely unattached to Clover’s little Hell.
He could feel a wet warmth bleeding over his chest, and the sky blurred like watercolours as tears filled his eyes. He was mortally wounded, he was in pain, and he was all alone. He was frightened. But he wasn’t dying. Well, he was dying for sure, but it was beginning to dawn on him that he wasn’t going to die anytime soon. A bout of uncharacteristic bad luck, but his Aura had been depleted to nothing. And yet… there Clover was. Still staring up at the vibrant sky. His mother once told him that when artists died, the gods let them paint the sky. Why was he thinking of that? He wasn’t sure. He supposed it was just what people did when they waited for death. Had to pass the time somehow.
Anything to distract from the pain that gripped his chest like the talons of a Nevermore. It felt like his ribs had been cracked open to make way for the blade that had pierced through him. Was he really going to die alone? It wasn’t how he’d imagined dying, not that he’d imagined it much to begin with.
Blackness finally ebbed at the corners of his vision, his mouth slowly filled with blood, and the snow around him became stained red. His blood froze into red ice around him, and Clover still just wouldn’t die.
Clover’s eyes began to close. He was tired, he was so tired. It hurt. He couldn’t think, didn’t want to. The lovely clear sky became breached by airships. Atlas, because who else would it be? But he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind closing his eyes and letting the cold take him. His body felt empty, much of his lifeblood was currently melting and freezing into the snow, fusing with the ground around him. It was so cold the blood on his chest froze the fabric to his skin, gripping him. Clover’s breathing began to shallow, and a terrifying sense of calm enveloped his mind. So he closed his eyes as the airships circled above him, and darkness enveloped the world.
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Clover had vague memories of a hospital, the ceiling white and sterile above him. People’s eyes and only their eyes, the rest of their faces covered by surgical masks. Their expressions were bleak, worried, but somehow still blank. They were all strangers.
And then... more darkness. Endless. Everlasting. Then a worrying numbness. Then cold, unyielding metal. Not the taste, but the real thing clinging to his skin, pinching and piercing.
Clover couldn’t move for the longest time. He was strapped to the bed by long strips of leather, fastened tight. Most of his own face was covered by an oxygen mask, cold plastic tubes in his nose and another tube taped around his mouth, pulling on his cracked lips. But he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He just felt deadened. There weren’t just needles and tubes going into his body, pumping liquid sleep into his bloodstream. No, there were wires. Red and black and white. He could hear the low hum of electricity moving in them, in… him. He could just about muster up curiosity, but that was it. He just wanted to focus on breathing, and the greying white walls around him. He preferred dying out in the snowfields; at least the view was nicer.
Clover was surrounded by machines, beeping and whirring and buzzing. Holographic screens floating by him, just out of his proper view. The beeping was the worst, distracting him and making him jump from time to time; it took a while to figure out in his fog-filled brain that it was his heartbeat. It would quicken sometimes, and he felt oddly relieved when he heard it stop. More darkness, more nothingness, more wires and tubes and monitors. Clover had lost all concept of time, of anything at all. If someone told him he’d been in an underground emergency medical ward for the better part of 4 months, Clover… wouldn’t have reacted, in all fairness. Not until the doctors decided they didn’t have to keep him as doped up, once it was clear he’d make a slow but sure recovery.
According to the x-rays, something long and sharp had gone straight through his body. It smashed through his spine and made room for itself outside his chest. It split his ribs, splintered his breastbone to nothing, but through some miracle that he couldn’t even thank his semblance for, he lived. His organs had been scathed, but not skewered. Fixable. Granted, he also had the finest Atlas tech and the most experienced doctors and surgeons working on him for months on end at all hours.
But Clover should have been dead. He should have been, but he wasn’t.
The General had apparently explained what had happened once he was awake, but Clover had no memory of it, still relying so heavily on morphine to just cope with the trauma his body had received. But later down the line, when he wasn’t relying on (as much) morphine being fed into his system, a crew of doctors told him that the procedures were a success.
What procedures?
They’d replaced many of the vertebrae in his spine with mechanical prosthetics, even better than what money could buy. What was left of his breastbone had been picked out with tweezers and, he guessed it, replaced with metal. His ribs had been pieced back and “synchronised” with the new parts, now all he had to do was rest.
His chest felt... Heavier. Most prosthetics these days, especially ones made in Atlas, weighed the same as the original body part, but when Clover breathed, it felt foreign. He couldn’t tell if it was some placebo effect or the drugs, but breathing took more work. And he didn’t dare try to sit up even after the leather straps were loosened (not undone, just loosened).
Nurses soon came in for his first conscious bath, and forced him to sit up, which he gingerly did. He could hear the metal almost scraping within him; it made him cringe. And when they unwrapped his bandages...
It was right there. He stared down at his chest, and his reflection stared back. The metal was shiny, silver, like a mirror shard jutting out from between his pecs. His skin wanted to peel around the metal, which his doctors noticed. After trying and failing to keep the skin in place, it was decided that they could and really should cover it.
Another surgery, a skin graft, and Clover was plunged into darkness once again. He wondered, when he was capable of wondering, how his other surgeries went. Did his luck help? Were there complications? Was he dead at any point at all?
He didn’t know, and hadn’t the strength yet to ask.
The chest piece was covered up, and where there was once metal there was now a long, jagged scar dragging itself into a reluctant circle around his chest. They’d said that the same couldn’t be done for his back, different structure, too much movement. But thankfully his skin and body in general had taken to the new spine like a duck to water. Clover could even walk... Eventually.
His teammates would visit him sometimes. Only sometimes. But he appreciated the company. Marrow even brought him flowers. Elm had been worried sick, or so she said. Granted, she was often genuine, and Clover appreciated that. But they still had missions, they all did, so they rarely visited. Clover didn’t hold it against them, but it did make him realize how lonely his life would be without his job. The hospital was lonely.
Even with the finest Atlas technology, the finest Atlas everything, recovering from an injury like that was never going to be easy. Clover’s luck probably helped in ways he couldn’t even ponder, but he wasn’t going to be out on missions any time soon. So it didn’t surprise him when General Ironwood came to visit regarding the matter.
It was a cold Autumn afternoon, and Clover had been moved to an above-ground ward. He sat by the open window, thankful for the natural light. The air was cold, brisk, but not windy. It just felt nice to feel fresh, moving air on his skin, feeling the goose bumps raise on his forearms. The sun was setting, a nice curtain-close to how the sky was when it all started. The clouds were filled with heated oranges and yellows, but also pinks and even a hint of purple from the direction of where night was coming in.
“You know you could catch a cold,” the General’s voice snapped Clover back to his senses, “it’d be embarrassing if you survived all that only to be taken out by sickness.”
“General Ironwood, sir-” Clover tried not to grunt as he lifted himself to his feet. Quick movements still sent throbs down his back and through his legs.
But Ironwood only raised his hand, ensuring Clover it was alright. The door was shut behind him, and the General approached. “At ease, soldier. How’s the back holding up?”
“Like a charm, sir.” He tried to hide his own smile. The nurses at least seemed to appreciate his persevering humour, but he didn’t expect the General to.
As predicted, Ironwood didn’t react, he only nodded like he was taking note. “Tell me, where did you grow up?”
Clover blinked. “Sir?”
“Where you grew up, Ebi. It’s not a hard question.”
“Uh – Patch, Sir. In Vale… Sir.” Why was this important? It was all on Clover’s file anyway.
Ironwood nodded, his expression never faltering. “Do you still have any family there?”
Also on his file. Where was the General going with this…? “No, sir.”
Ironwood nodded again, and a short silence fell between the two. “You should go back there to finish the rest of your recovery. It seems you’ve earned a break.”
Clover’s eyebrows furrowed. “With all due respect, Sir, Atlas is my home.”
“Of course, and you’re proud of it. As we all are. But Patch is quiet, and unassuming. Well-protected by the natural borders and, it seems, nostalgic to you personally.”
Clover frowned. He hadn’t been to Vale in years, not even on missions… Why would it be suggested? Surely it would be better for him to stay in Atlas, under the eyes of the doctors? It didn’t make sense. “I don’t understand, Sir…”
“Don’t worry, Ebi. It’s not your job to understand orders.” Ironwood waved his hand. “Think of it as a mission in and of itself. Atlas needs you fully recovered, and a few quiet months far away from… all this, will help.”
Clover opened his mouth, and shut it again. This wasn’t like the General. This wasn’t usual. But he said it was an order. So Clover bit his inner cheek, and nodded. “Yes, Sir.”
Ironwood might have smiled for a moment, but on second thought probably not. He turned to leave, the light catching the metal on his forehead for just a moment. And Clover found himself speaking before he could stop. “General Ironwood?”
The General turned to him, raising an eyebrow.
Clover swallowed. “The spine, what’s exposed, it feels… cold.” He glanced over the General for a short moment. It wasn’t common knowledge, but he was privy to the fact that the General was about half robotic at this point. Clover couldn’t be sure on the specifics – and really thought it was rude asking – so he had no idea which… pieces were mechanical, and to what extent. But he had to know one thing. “Do you feel… cold?”
Ironwood stared at Clover, his eyes blank like snow. “Freezing. You get used to it.”
Clover shivered once the General left, and he closed the window.
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