Free Powerless by S.A. McAuley

muscles are or how they’ll heal.”
    “Nothing broken?” I asked, even though I knew movement—as painful as it was—wouldn’t have been possible if my bones were shattered as I thought they’d been when I’d woken up the first time.
    “Besides your ribs? Amazingly not. There’s a couple hairline fractures in your arm that will only get worse the more you move. You need to stay as immobile as possible.”
    I glared at him, his attempt to keep me in bed completely ignored as I continued to shuffle into the hallway.
    Feliu swore then stepped in front of me. “Simion is in the room next to you. To your left.”
    The door was only metres away, but it took me an untold amount of time to make it there. The doctor stayed at my side the entire time, silent, even as other personnel passed by us, shock contorting their features before they were able to pull their emotions back under control.
    When I crossed that threshold I was prepared for the worst. To see the man I’d grown up with just as tattered and torn as I was. But what I was greeted with was infinitely more ominous.
    “He’s…” I struggled, trying to find the right descriptor for how whole his body appeared yet completely without life.
    “He hasn’t woken up yet,” was all Feliu offered in the way of explanation. “Brain injury,” he clarified as he moved to Simion’s side.
    I made those last steps tentatively. Sickeningly aware of what that type of injury could mean for one of my oldest compatriots.
    Shit. One of my oldest friends.
    “Hey, Sims,” I whispered, unsure if he could hear me. I laid my hand on top of his wrist, feeling my thudding heartbeat fall in line with the gentle thrum of his.
    I didn’t take my eyes off Simion when I addressed the doctor. “Now, tell me what happened.”
    * * * *
    Apparently I had curled up when the explosion from the grenade had hit and the right side of my body had suffered the most amount of damage. Damage that surge couldn’t touch because I had gone without care for too long. And my snapped ribs, already compromised from the standoff in the DCR, couldn’t be replaced or strengthened by the titanalloy they’d discovered long ago my body would reject.
    The only reason I was still alive was because of Simion. He had hidden the two of us away through a blasted out wall until the Nationalist forces had vacated the bunker, then tracked down Feliu so he could bring me back to consciousness. Back to life, as it were. That had been almost a full day after the attack. Simion’s synth had come out practically unscathed, as had the bones that had been fused with titanalloy after his injuries in the DCR, but he’d received lacerations that had cut almost to the bone and burns on patches of exposed skin. It had been his collapse into unconsciousness a day after he’d got us to the doctor—later discovered to be a slow bleed in his brain—that had worried the doctor the most.
    It took seven days for him to wake up.
    And every day I would make the trek into his room. Stand silently at his bedside. With him. Waiting.
    I was there the moment he opened his eyes and started choking around the tube inserted into his throat to help him breathe.
    I was there when his first word was my name. A plea.
    For what, I didn’t want to think about.
    I was there the day Feliu smiled when Simion loudly told him off for poking at his wounds too harshly.
    It was that affable exasperation that showed me the man I’d grown up with was getting better.
    There was little left of the lithe teenager I’d known so many years ago. The form that fought against the restraints was muscled, nowhere as large as I was, but still hardened in ways our adolescent bodies had been incapable of achieving. His blond hair curled at the ends with the sweat from his brow.
    He was beautiful, even in pain. Strong.
    Ricor and I had been involved with each other years ago, more as exploration and pressure release—another facet of our training process almost.