Tempest

6 - Healing

He froze, and quickly shrugged it off. "I don't need to prove anything to anyone."

"Oh, I agree. You've more than shown what you're capable of. Which is why I'm confused as to why you keep trying to prove yourself ... to you."

His shoulder slumped.

She waited for him to speak, refusing to budge on the issue until he did.

He rolled his eyes. "I know it sounds stupid ... but I feel so different from before. From how I felt years ago."

"How so?"

"I feel empty. Uncaring. And, well ... not as useful. I've got more scars on my body than I can count, and that's not including mental ones. I know I'm damaged, there's no denying it. But I just ... I just want to be as good as I used to be. I don't want to be a lesser version of myself or something-"

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see her next to him. "Four, you listen to me. You are damaged, no if's and's or but's about it. Probably more than any of the rest of us." She jabbed her finger into his chest. "But that does not make you a lesser man for it. If anything, it makes you stronger. I can't think of anyone who could have gone through what you did and lived to tell the tale."

"But-"

"So you'll never be a William Tell. Who cares? What matters is you can shoot, and better than most despite your disadvantage. But you're never going to be happy if you keep comparing yourself to who you once were instead of asking who you are now."

He sighed, and she saw from the fight leaving him that she had won. She patted him on the back. "C'mon, let's go."

"... I'm still not getting the prosthetics."

"Whatever."

— THE REUNION —

Tobias chewed his food quite unenthusiastically for someone who was supposed to be hungry.

You have to regain a lot of muscle mass if we're going to be darting around the stars looking for ... whatever it is.

He rolled his eyes, though KT couldn't see him. "Yeah, I'm aware. Doesn't mean I have to like it."

A few of the riflemen at a table nearby gave him a look. Most people were blind to the many aspects that came from being a Titan Pilot, one of which was the neural link between them. As far as they knew, he was just sitting there talking to himself. Which was fine by him; anything that kept people from bothering him, and made them stay away. He didn't much care for friends nowadays, unless it was the 6-4 or KT.

What could be so bad about eating?

"It's like how if someone tells you to do something, you immediately lose interest in it? I have to eat for these stupid requirements, therefore I'm unhappy about it."

Sometimes I've thought about what it's like to be a human; to be capable of such amazing ideas and yet such stupid psychological viewpoints at the same time.

He chuckled. "That's humans for you. Sometimes, we're the pioneers of interstellar travel and colonization, and sometimes we're the same monkeys we were millions of years ago, trying to figure out how to use our opposable thumbs."

"Hey, Four!"

He turned at the noise. "Hold on, KT." Gates was striding towards him, obviously happy about something. He only knew because he'd known her for such a long time; to the other soldiers in the cafeteria, she might as well have been brandishing a knife. They wisely averted their gaze and tried not to draw attention from the Pilots. Back when he'd still been a grunt, he would have done the same thing.