Rick couldn’t think, or feel, or move, but he could sense the passage of time vaguely. It was a slow eternity before he could sense the hands holding his head, the soothing detachment and sense of distance, the whispers of voices. He tried to wake up, but he couldn’t, he was too tired, his everything felt like it would hurt and his everything felt wrong. Like he was feeling several things at the same time.

When he was finally able to open his eyes again, Rick realized the world had shifted. He was somewhere else, somewhere with a rocky stony ceiling over his head that gave him a strange sensation of having been there before.

The pink-haired maiden kneeling next to him was certainly more familiar. It took him a moment to properly recall her name. Dia. “I feel like this has happened before.” Rick spoke out, his voice cracking.

Dia startled, eyes opening and instantly reaching out and pressing her hands on his chest, the gray glow pouring into him with warmth before stopping as soon as she realized what she was doing. “Sir.” She looked at him, blinking with a forlorn troubled look, there were bags under her eyes, and exhaustion permeating out of her every pore.

“Monica?” He croaked out.

“Unconscious, but stable.” She pipped up instantly, tensing as she looked down at him and grimaced. “She… will live.”

“Am I in a bad spot?”

“You’re stable too, sir.” The nurse deflected the question.

Rick closed his eyes and breathed in. “I can’t move.”

“You will make a full recovery, sir… I hope.”

There was a trickle of concern to be had there. “Hope?”

“How…” The maiden paused, her lips curling and brows furrowed. “How much… do you remember?”

She had her hands on his chest, there was a dim glow, and Rick abruptly realized she was a snap-decision away from knocking him out. “I… fought the Baron, no, Monica fought the Baron, we, she… killed… and lost, and…”

“What is your name?”

The question caught him by surprise a little. “Rick Cross.”

“And where were you born?”

“I was born in…” The words abruptly died in his throat, his breath hitched. “I was born in…” A deep breath, his brows furrowed. “I… was born in a… in a… it was a city, I…” His breathing was quickening as he felt his heart start to hammer. “It… it was a medium? No, large, no, small? It had… a college. I worked there as a teacher, chemistry.” It was right at the tip of his tongue, like a shelf he could barely reach out. A name, right there, it was right there! “My mother’s maiden name was Angela Cale, she… came to live in the city from a small town. I’ve been there, the farm, the chicken, the-.”

He stopped as he saw Dia’s tears. “I’m sorry.” Her fingers tightened, squeezing against his chest as her lips trembled.

Rick couldn’t find a response. He didn’t need to ask her what she was sorry about, it felt like a mountain had fallen on her shoulders. The words were loaded with meaning, far more than he could process right now.

There was nothing he could say about it, so… he didn’t.

“My arm?”

Dia let out a hiccup, wiping off the tear. “Sir?”

“My arm.” Rick muttered again, feeling drained, tired, exhausted, and every other synonym to the word in existence. He wanted to sleep and rest and eat.

“We had to amputate to avoid the spread of the poison.” Dia’s hand moved to touch his shoulder. “Limb regrowth is perfectly possible, your body will make a full recovery in time.”

“That’s… good.” Rick let out a sigh he hadn’t known he’d been holding onto. “That’s good.” A deep breath, trying to not think about the other wound. “The others?”

“They are outside, safe.” Dia quickly nodded, her fingers carefully pressing against his bandaged chest, her gaze distant.

Closing his eyes, he tried to find something else. “How... did we win?”

“Sir?”

“After the… coin.”

“The… Baron died.” The nurse’s body tensed as she spoke, her eyes closing tight for a second. “I killed the Baron.” She added, there was a slight shake of her voice. “Just… it was wrong, I couldn’t let him… I couldn’t let him...” Lips pursing, she became quiet.

Rick held his expression neutral. “And then?”

“And then… Mimi helped.”

“Mimi.”

“The Tigermouse.” A slight nod. “The one that had been pinning you down.”

“… why?”

“The Baroness commanded it.”

There was a long pregnant pause, the chemistry teacher looked up at the rocky ceiling and blinked. “The Baroness.” He spoke with a deadpan, not having expected that answer.

“Mimi was never bonded to the Baron.” Dia nodded again, her expression a complicated one. “Her Ladyship ordered Mimi to sabotage the fight, and if the Baron died, then to aid in subduing the others.”

“If.” He blinked. “You said ‘if’.”

A slow nod. “The Lady’s goal was to weaken the Baron, to make her own fight against him more certain of victory.” The voice came from somewhere to the right, Rick wanted to turn his head to look, but couldn’t, forced instead to keep looking straight upwards. “She is thankful for your help, and has given orders to the Hunters to come pick us up once the second feral wave concludes.”

“Rick’s awake!?” A voice rang out from outside.

The aforementioned Rick wanted to sigh as he could recognize the voice.

There was a shift in the light, all too suddenly there was a lot less of it. One blond woman was leaning down to look at him with a smirk, Tomas not too far away and a bit more apprehensive. Then there was the woman with scales on her face and Rick felt himself tense up. “Who-!?”

“Rick, meet Lizzy.” Kat waved. “She’s the one who took some of our chicken, she came back! Anyway, I totally bonded her all bad-ass like, and it was great and-.”

“Lizzy tried to kidnap her.” Tomas piped up. “Freya almost killed her.”

Closing his eyes, the teacher sighed, feeling a slight sense of relief at being able to recognize them. At least that part hadn’t been harmed in the incident.

“Please stand back!” Everyone startled at the harsh bite in Dia’s voice, the nurse particularly glaring at the aforementioned Lizzy. The loudness nearly made them all jump back, the nurse leveled her intense gaze on the others. “The patient is in a near critical condition, leave now or be made to leave.”

Slightly pale, the trio had quickly scampered out of sight, and Dia let out an exasperated sigh. Leaning down, her eyes met Rick’s once more. “Sorry about that, sir,” she whispered, carefully caressing his shoulder, fingers readjusting the bandages ever so slightly. “Are you… uncomfortable? Does it hurt anywhere?”

“I can barely move, let alone feel anything.” He replied with a deadpan that did a poor job of hiding a slight chuckle. The relief was washing through him in waves. They’d won.

Dia nodded, and another long silence stretched out, only the sound of the wind outside and his own breaths as the teacher did his level best to keep his thoughts in order, to calm down and recover. The nurse’s eyes kept trailing over him, her fingers fussing over his chest and arm as if looking for any possible tiny scratch she might have missed to heal it up.

There was that quiet nervousness about her.

“Where’s… Monica?”

He finally broke the silence, the question snapping Dia out of the apparently automatic action. She didn’t answer, instead reaching out to grab his head and very slowly and carefully turn it to the side opposite to the entrance of the cave.

Monica lay right there, barely half a meter away, her sleep so silent he’d not even noticed.

The feline was still, her stomach wrapped in so many bandages it was impossible to tell the actual state she was in, if not for the slight rise and fall of her chest, Rick would have feared the worst. His own body was too numb for him to feel anything, a familiar thing considering the time he’d woken up in the hospital.

His eyes caught sight of Monica’s claw as it lay on his hand, her fingers grasping his own ever so gently.

“Can you…?”

He needn’t ask further, Dia leaned forward, glowing fingers tracing a line from his wrist up to his shoulder and neck. Sensation came back to him, only his left arm, only a slight soft tingle.

It was uncomfortable, almost painful.

But it was enough for him to squeeze back.

“Thank you.” Rick whispered, letting out a sigh, glancing at Dia as she let out a shy smile.

Something else caught his attention.

“Where’s… your collar?”

And Dia looked away, hiding a troubled expression as her cheeks blushed.