Recovered, but never truly.

8

It took TestTube a while to find where MePhone had gone. Through her worry, she honestly didn't even know where to start, but as a scream ripped through the night, that's what she knew she needed to follow, praying she wasn't to late.

Honestly, despite all her thoughts and worries, she was still surprised at what she stumbled into.

Knife was here. Along with MePhone, who was completely motionless as Knife moved to drag him away from the cliff. As TestTube made her presence known, he looked over, his expression just frankly freaked out. Neither of them said anything yet as TestTube walked over, kneeling down to try and see what happened. It wasn't exactly easy to figure out just by a glance, looking up at Knife for an explanation.

He opened his mouth to speak, but didn't end up saying anything, his expression shifting a few times, before he got up to his feet.

"Let's bring him back to your lab." Was all he said.

"Knife, what happened."

"He tried to kill himself, TestTube. He was so close to just going off that cliff, and-- Shit, I wouldn't have been able to stop him in time if he hadn't just... Passed out." Knife's expression remained stern, but it was clear there was a large sense of guilt behind his eyes as he moved to pick MePhone up, trying to be careful this time.

He was a lot heavier this time. Likely because he actually had most of his internals back. TestTube just stared at him, her expression dropping to something that was just... Sad, as she got up, too.

"I guess I have a lot of work to do," She sighed out, her brain already reeling with how she was supposed to fix any of this. Reeling with regrets, too. She should've monitored him better. Checked on him more. Made sure he was fine-- because he clearly wasn't. She just felt stupid for letting herself believe nothing would happen despite how badly she did see he was doing.

But it was too late for regrets right now. She was going to spend the rest of her night figuring out how to fix him, and what to do beyond that to make sure he wouldn't feel awful enough to... Do something like this again. Which was probably going to be a near impossible task, especially considering everything, and... Whatever seemed to happen with him and Trophy. She just didn't understand why he'd leave the lab unprompted. She didn't understand any of this, really.

So she was going to try to figure it out. Maybe it would help if she had the arm ready by the time he was active again, too. Hopefully. As grim as this was, she was trying really hard to keep optimistic about this, because someone had to. Maybe it wasn't realistic, and maybe she didn't like thinking so hopefully, but she didn't want OJ to hate her again for being the way she was.

The trip back to the lab was quiet, neither of them knowing what to say anymore.

The rest of the night was rough for everyone. Trophy went to sleep shortly after the conversation, citing a migraine as to why he couldn't handle talking about this anymore, practically kicking the other two out of the hotel room.

Soap and OJ could only stand outside the door for a few moments, trying to process all of this. It seemed like the both of them had been lied to up there about various things. It pissed OJ off, really. Was it not enough that the monster up there did irreversible damage, that he had to come up with such vile lies, too?

But it was too late to really do anything about any of this.

"... Gods, OJ... What are we even supposed to do about this," Soap sighed out, leaning against the wall to the hallway, moving a hand to her head. It was clear she was tired.