August watched as Alia sat up, gripping her head with closed eyes groaning whilst pushing her hair from her face.
"You've finally decided to grace us with your presence! Amazing, now come here." Diya said, grabbing Alia's wrist, at which the red haired girl jerked her hand back.
August sighed "She's a doctor, let her."
Alia turned her head to look at him, and he responded with a smile.
"I made it."
Alia nodded understandingly, then reluctantly allowed Diya to take her hand.
As she grabbed it, there was a small blue light, then dozens of small lights appeared, expanding into transparent green gears. They turned slowly, then faster, and suddenly, they disappeared.
Then a small notepad appeared in Diya's hand, she flipped through it curiously, then nodded. Seemingly satisfied, she nodded and turned away, walking out.
Alia sat in bed, confused, looking around and clearly taking everything in. August allowed her to inspect the room, until eventually her eyes landed on him once more.
"Don't worry about it, she does that a lot, like really, a lot."
August was unable to pry the smile from his face. It had just become real to him, all at once. He had successfully gotten himself - both of them out of the dark forest. He almost cried, but in that moment, Alia's voice pulled him from his thoughts.
"Hey." She said quietly, her voice hoarse from lack of use.
"How you feeling?" He asked, trying his absolute best to keep a straight face.
She looked down at herself, then back at him.
"I feel a lot of things, you're going to have to be specific." He suddenly paled.
"I meant physically, but I'll listen to you." He said.
"I'm cold, but otherwise I feel fine. How long was I out?"
"Eight days." He responded.
He was now trying to keep a straight face for an entirely different reason.
Her response wasn't random, it was just a bit late.
It was obvious that she would be upset about being abandoned. Even if it was her idea for him to run away, it must have hurt. He had already tried to apologize, but even then, it wasn't a genuine one.
The truth was, August had no remorse, there was nothing he would have done differently. He ran because he wanted to live, and he did not regret his actions in the slightest.
What he did regret however, was allowing his friend to suffer alone.
Alia was currently sitting silently, looking around still. She had no doubt thought that they were going to die in that forest, so waking up alive and safe must have come a quite the shock.
August found himself waiting in awkward silence for his friend's response.
"Hm." She finally said, breaking the silence.
August couldn't make out what she meant, but he decided that an apology was due sooner rather than later, even an ingenuine one.
"Hey, I'm sorry about running back-" before he could even finish, he was cut off.
"Please shut up, I know exactly what you're about to say and it's just stupid. We both know you don't regret running, and by now you probably realized I planned to have you run away from the start."
"But still, there's no reason I can't apologize for what you went through."
"And there's no reason you need to, you're immature if you believe that an ingenuine apology would make me feel better about being mauled."
August nodded silently, there was nothing more he could or would say.
Growing up, he learned that an apology was always the best way to avoid future conflicts, so for some reason, listening to Alia tell him there was no problem to begin with, it was comforting.
"Thank you." "Thank you."
August looked at Alia, who looked back at him, equally shocked.
"For what?" She asked.
"It's not really important, but what are you thanking me for?" He responded.
"Well, I only made it out of that forest because of you, so thank you."
He nodded.
"Well then, thank you for killing that tiger. We both would have died if you didn't."
She chuckled.
"How about we don't play this game? There's probably hundreds of things we can thank each other for."
"Agreed, from now on, let's put a ban on thanking." He sighed with relief.
"So" she began "what have you learned from being here?"
August grinned, and began to tell Alia the things he had heard, starting from what Sasha had originally told him, to what he had inferred from countless other small details.
When he finished, she simply nodded and asked.
"So what do we do now?"
~~~~~
The last few days in the hospital suddenly felt much brighter with Alia back, now he had someone to talk to at all times and was no longer forced to constantly seek entertainment by following people around.
He still went about his regular activities, such as helping Mateo with children, or following Diya around. Now however, he no longer did it alone.
He had also taken up a bad habit of hanging around the logistics division, particularly, Alia and him liked to move things around Sasha's desk. The blue haired woman had been thrown into panic at first, but now she simply looked somewhere else whenever something went missing.
Sasha had also seemed to take quite a liking to the two, bringing three lunches instead of one to share. She also liked to keep both of them entertained with history lessons and long conversations about random things.
This had led to her doing much more overtime than otherwise needed - due to skimping out on her actual job, but she stated that she thought it was worth it.
So they continued to visit her constantly, occasionally hiding from Diya's medical check ups in her cubicle.
August also managed to get his sweater back, Diya had brought it up with a few other things to prepare for their discharge from the hospital.
The night before they were discharged, they were forced to do a truly inhuman amount of paperwork. Apparently reintroducing yourself to a world that thought almost everyone currently unknown was dead was a strenuous endeavor.
When it was finally done, they were both provided suitcases and told to pack their things.
That was what they found themselves doing right now. T
Whilst they packed, Sasha came in, though she was dressed much more casually than her typical business attire.
She was currently wearing a black t-shirt which was half tucked into brown khakis.
"So…guys, how are you doing?" She asked.
"Good, trying to figure out where we'll be going after this." Alia was the first to respond.
"Did you get a date?" August asked, questioning her unnatural attire. She was usually dressed rather formally, so seeing Sasha in anything but such attire was odd.
The blue haired girl shook her head then smiled, playing awkwardly with her ponytail.
"About both questions, I… uh… don't have a date… but I did adopt two children."