Cure

What Ratchet Needs

He felt pain. He felt tired but it was wearing off. He felt something strange sticking out of his body, he could hear a machine clicking and whirring, people rushing about and talking in a foreign language. He remembered being in a crash, seeing Clank, seeing Talwyn, but not much else. He felt sick, his back and head hurt.

Was he in a lab? Was he being tested on? Ratchets heart leaped in fear. Was he going to have to fight his way out? There were pipes in him and he felt very tired...

Someone was coming near. He turned his head slightly to see. It was not a doctor bot, it was Angela. How could that be? He hadn't seen or heard from her in years.

"Try to sleep longer." She instructed him. "You need to rest and this is going to take a while."

Ratchet tried to look around him, to move. He had to find out what was going on, he couldn't do it. He must be dreaming... He closed his heavy eyelids and slept once more.

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Clank and Talwyn sat up expectantly as Angela came out of the BPP room looking quite exhausted.

Angela ignored them and walked out into the hall and through another door, and Clank and Tal waited patiently for her to come back. Shortly, she returned with two cups of drink and she handed one to Talwyn who nodded in thanks.

Angela dragged a chair around so she could sit and face her and Clank as she spoke to them.

"How is everything going?" Clank inquired.

"The BPP is going alright..." She started slowly. "It's going to take a long time but it's working. We've extracted almost five hundred millilitres of foreign substance from his blood so far, the only worry is that includes the tonics Sleep and Cleanse as well. When we started he was asleep but the more we get done the more of the sleep inducing liquid is cleared away and the more alert he becomes. He's woken up once already but I think he's genuinely tired as well, hopefully it's enough to keep him out of it."

"Why can't he be awake? Isn't there anything else you can give him to make him sleep?" Talwyn asked.

"It's not that he can't be awake, but purifying the blood is a very delicate operation and he needs to stay very still. I'm worried that might be hard for him because it's also quite painful... On any other planet the hospitals might use gasses or tablets to send people to sleep, but we only have liquids and machines serving in this hospital. There's nothing that can help."

Clank nodded in understanding. "He can be fidgety at the best of times. Just tell him to keep still, and assure him we are here waiting for him."

"I will." Angela nodded.

"How are you feeling Miss Cross?" Clank asked. "Are you doing alright?"

"...I'm a little frightened..." She admitted. "Because his blood's slowly being filtered through a big machine, it takes a while to get done because the machine needs to correctly separate the blood from any other kind of liquid, which... As you know it's dangerous and scary. If the machine isn't set properly, if someone makes any kind of mistake, it could leave too much poison in or take to much blood out."

Talwyn sat there looking a little pale faced, but Clank asked for a reason.

"We truly appreciate all you and the other physicians are doing for Ratchet. I am confident that you are doing your best and that he will pull through as he always does." Clank smiled putting aside his own worried feelings.

"Thanks Clank. I'm sure he'll be alright too. He's holding strong." Angela smiled back at Clank and sipped at the rest of her drink.

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