RVA: Shadow of Doubt, Renewed

She didn’t so much wake up as start swimming. Not that she’d ever been in a body of water larger than a bathtub, but it felt like swimming, or rather what she imagined swimming underwater would feel, in darkness, pressure all around her, crushing her, unable to breathe. The surface had to be somewhere, but she’d lost the way. She panicked and flailed wildly, but creatures grabbed her by the arms and legs, pinning her to the soft sand of the ocean floor until she slept again.

She woke, swam, felt herself begin to drown again. But each time it felt as if the surface was a little closer, the light a little brighter.

After a long time, she found herself laying on the shore, too exhausted to move. Vague shadows of people passed near her, but the sun was too bright to make them out. They spoke to her, but their voices were too weak to be heard above the roar of the surf.

Eventually some of the shadows became clearer. The ones in white she didn’t like very much. They made her stand and try to walk, catching her as she fell over and over again. They kept asked questions and she couldn't’ make out what they were saying. She tried to tell them this, tell them she how tired she was, but her tongue was stiff and stupid in her mouth, and all she could do was babble and drool like a newborn cub, the frustration of trying so hard making her weep.

There was another shape that was almost always near when she was awake. It was tall and spare, dressed in shades of blue. When they were near she was able to calm down, pay attention to white shapes’ demands with more patience. That shape wanted to help her, she knew.

Gradually, the shapes became people. Some she knew, like the nice lady in blue, and the ones with the black and white fur. But she couldn’t remember their names, couldn’t form the words to ask, and the frustration of trying and failing over and over made her growl and weep like a child, until dreamless sleep came again.

Then one evening, finally, she woke up all the way.

Ali blinked sleep crust out of her eyes. It was night and she was laying curled up in a hospital bed, the railings raised up, dressed in warm, soft ship knits, underneath a quilt that somehow she knew had been hand sewn just for her. She was in a room that could have been a small hotel room, if it weren’t for the bed, the only light a dim night light visible from the open door of the bathroom.

One corner of the room had a table stacked high with flowers, floating above them a half-deflated silver balloon with “Happy Birthday, Ali!” in bright colors printed on it. In another corner was a walked, like something used by the very aged to get about. A table beside the bed held a call button. Beside it was a greeting card with a familiar scowling Gomelian countenance upon it, the message “Get Well Soon! The Ultimate Leader SO  COMMANDS!</b>” printed inside, along with Aunt Karra’s signature.

“Hello? Salli?” Ali called out softly, then reached over for the call button. Something was wrong with her reflexes, for she only managed to knock the call button off the table before thinking to grab the cord that was clipped to the bed and pull it back up to her. She touched it, and was rewarded a moment later when a male foxen wearing blue hospital scrubs came into the room.

“Now, now, it’s late. You ought to be sleeping, Miss Ali,” he said, in the sort of cheerful sing-song voice reserved for young cubs.

“Where’s Salli?” she demanded, her voice sounding too high and squeaky to her ears.

The nurse, or whatever, cocked his head. “Do you know who you’re asking for?”

“What kind of stupid question is that? I’m talking about Lady Sallivera, Sallivera Darktail. Do you know where she is?”

The nurse suddenly grew a lot more alert. “I’ll get her for you. You just stay there.” He left the room, coming back in a moment to assure her that Salli was on her way, and to give Ali a cup of water with a straw to drink. She accepted it readily, her throat feeling dry and scratchy. Then he asked her name again, her birthdate, and other questions, repeated over and over, as if she was some kind of idiot.

She was getting ready to bite one of his ears off when Salli rushed into the room, panting as if she’d been running. The normally elegant noblevixen looked absolutely disheveled, fur sticking out in all directions, wearing green culottes and a t-shirt that had been put on inside out, like she’d just jumped out of bed. Almost as surprising were her eyes. Sometime while Ali had been asleep… sick?... she had finally gotten her cyber eye replaced, the camouflage activated for once, making it match her good left eye, though she still left the white fur over her scars undyed.

“Ali!” she panted, catching her breath. “Are you all right?” Her voice grew hesitant. “Do you know who I am?”

“Of course I do, Salli. Why wouldn’t I?” Ali said indignantly.

Her next question was cut off in a woof as Salli suddenly flung herself atop Ali, hugging so tight the smaller vixen had the breath knocked out of her, while Salli shuddered and just said over and over, “Mother Goddess, thank you. Mother Goddess be praised and thanked! Mother Goddess, thank you.”

“Oi! Lemme breathe!” Ali protested, even as she wrapped her arms around Salli and hugged back.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Salli panted. “It’s just… I was so afraid…” She caught her breath, easing back to hold Ali by the shoulders. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was in the Necessary,” Ali said. “I was… er…”

Before she could try and come up with some innocuous explanation for what she’d been doing, Salli put in, “I know you were in recovery from addiction to combat stims. Melanie explained it all to me.”

“She did? But she promised me…”

“Nari, the servant who took care of my rooms, remember her?” Salli prompted.

“Yeah, sorta,” Ali said cautiously.

“She was Countess Highglider’s second traitor in our House. She was also the one who wrote the graffiti on my skimmer and poured paint on my bed. She was in love with me, though I had no idea about her attraction. Her last act before getting caught was to tamper with your medication. You ended up injecting a powerful household cleanser into your veins.” Salli swallowed. “Combined with the previous damage from your forced abuse of combat stims, and it very nearly killed you.”

“Well shit,” Ali said in surprise. “Did she hurt anyone else?”

“No, she was arrested a day or two later.”

“Good. How long was I out? A week? I feel like a wet dishrag.” When Salli didn’t reply, Ali pressed on. “Two weeks?” she asked, increasingly dubious. “Three?”

Salli cleared her throat briefly, before answering, “It’s been fourteen months.”

“Fourteen months?”

“Yes,” Salli said. “The damage was very severe, Ali. The only way to save you was to initiate a full cellular regeneration, like we’d discussed for me that first morning after we returned to Foxen Prime. It took eight months to repair all the damage, and you’ve been in physical recovery for another six.” She swallowed, wiping the back of her paw across her natural eye. “Mentally… there had been so damage, and you were in stasis for so long… I was never so terrified for you, when the doctors woke you up, but you didn’t wake up.” She shuddered, and Ali hugged her again.

“Hey, hey, it’s all right now.” Ali licked Salli’s cheek briefly, trying to nuzzle and reassure her.

“Yes, yes, everything is fine now. Your doctors said you did seem much more aware of your surroundings the past few days. The past couple of months you had made such progress learning to walk and attend to yourself, I had dared to hope it might work out. But you still didn’t seem to recognize anyone, and weren’t able to speak coherently.”

“Yeah, I kinda remember that part,” she admitted. “Everything was so blurry and I couldn’t seem to concentrate. And there were parts that were just weird. I mean, there was one moment where I swear Aunt Razi, Aunt Karri, you and the twins were all singing Happy Birthday to me.”

“That actually happened,” Salli reassured her.

“Yeah, but with Hydragon and the Ultimate Leader singing along?”

Salli laughed. “That actually happened too. I made a contribution to the latest Hydragon movie funding campaign, and managed to get the tier reward for a personal appearance by the actors.”

“Aww… and I wasn’t able to enjoy it! Please tell me you recorded it.” she demanded, which only made Salli laugh harder.

“I promise we did! I just have to pull up the link on my palm comp.”

“Thanks.” Ali reached over, taking the cup to sip more water. Her voice was still squeaky and scratchy. “Gah. Just one thing I don’t understand. I thought cellular regeneration was expensive. How did you ever convince your lady mother to pay for it?”

“Well, there’s a very happy Terran resort company that now has a ninety year lease on ten thousand square kilometers of beachfront property on Continent Three. I used the part of the profit to pay for your treatment, and the rest is being invested in Greenholme’s infrastructure. I can’t stand Melanie most days, but she was motivated to nail down an impressive bargain with them.” She shrugged. “As for my  mother, while she may not love you, she was quite angry at the idea of you being injured so badly under her roof. She was perfectly willing to pay for your recovery, once I found the means. Also, now that she knows that Rolas married a pirate, she could hardly deny me the same privilege.”

That made Ali laugh, until she was wheezing happily in Salli’s arms. “That’s great. When can I get out of this place?”

“In a few days, once the doctors have finished running all the tests on your memory retention and language recovery.”

“Oh, whee. Like I haven’t spent enough time here already.” She cleared her throat again. “Though I could talk better if my voice wasn’t so squeaky. What’s the matter with it?”

Salli frowned. “Didn’t the nurse explain…? No, of course not, there wasn’t time. Here, let me help you up.” She helped Ali out of the bed, letting the smaller vixen lean on her as they made their way to the bathroom. “Look into the mirror.”

Ali stared at her reflection, seeing herself, but not herself. Or more accurately, a skinnier, gawkier, and much younger version of herself, like when she was fifteen. Or maybe thirteen. “What the hell?” she asked, the last word squeaking high enough her ears almost hurt.

Salli eased her down to a sitting position on the toilet seat. “Ali, you must understand, cellular regeneration is normally only done on the very aged. In those cases it resets the patient’s age to somewhere in their mid-twenties. In your case, since you were already in your mid-twenties, you went back to a bit, er, earlier.” She added quickly, “On the plus side, you can now look forward to a full foxen lifespan of a hundred and twenty years, maybe longer.”

Bemused, Ali could only ask, “Do I have to go through puberty again?”

“You didn’t go back quite that far,” Salli assured her.

“Good, because it wasn’t exactly fun the first time.”

“There’s another thing,” Salli said, kneeling down beside her. “Because of the regeneration process, your muscle memory has been erased. You’ve had to learn to walk again. More importantly, it’s reset all your reflexes, especially everything you’ve learned about combat, all the moves that you’d learned to do automatically. I know how important your combat training was to you, but the mental physicians said it might ease some of your PTSD, give you time to think, instead of automatically reacting.”

“Oh.” Ali brought her paw up to eye level, flexing her fingers. She shot her arm out, twisting her wrist slightly in a way that would drop her stunner, if she’d been wearing her arm holster, into her palm. But while she remembered the movements, she had to think them through, the reflex to bring her weapon out and fire first no longer there. “But how am I supposed to protect you?” she asked.

“Ali, you don’t have to protect me. Countess Highglider, Kev Highglider, Bloody Margo, and all their minions are either dead or safely locked away. And if I do need a bodyguard for whatever unexpected reason, I can hire people.”

“But…” You don’t need me? she thought.

Salli took her by the shoulders again. “Ali, you’ve been given a great gift. The gift of time. Phillip has been able to build much public support for you, given all the drama with you losing your family, finding them again, and almost dying because of this last betrayal. Longear, the Minister of Justice, and few others in the Council of Countesses are petitioning  Stellar Justice to have your case reviewed so you might be granted a pardon. So far the signs are good that it will be granted. If it goes through you will finally be free, Ali. Free to be whatever you want to be.”

“I want to be with you,” she said automatically. She touched her cheek, then ran her fingers down her arm, feeling for the muscle development that wasn’t there anymore. “Or maybe… I don’t know.”

Salli nodded, divining her worries. “Physical intimacy… Well, I won’t lie to you Ali. in your current condition I would be extremely hesitant. I know there are twenty-six years of memories in your head, but…” She cut herself off, started again. “I want you with me, Ali. I will never abandon you. But I want you to have a chance to figure out what you want to be. Not a slave, not a pet, not an indentured criminal. I want you to be Alinadar, whoever Alinadar wants to be, as fully as you can. Maybe you want to be a doctor, maybe a teacher, maybe a librarian, maybe a civil protection officer, maybe a starship engineer. Maybe even a bodyguard again, if that’s what you really want to do. And after you figure that out, if you still wish to be with me, I will be here for you. My word as Lady Darktail.”

Ali nodded carefully. “I know you will be.” She rested her cheek on Salli’s shoulder, feeling the noblevixen’s arms tighten around her again.

For now, it was enough.