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Pac doesn’t remember much of his last day in purgatory; he knows he spent most of it, right up until the last few minutes, curled up in the desecrated remains of blue’s base, drifting back and forth between deep sleep and hazy, liminal awakeness. He had wanted to be there, had wanted to stand with his neighbors against the putrid eye creature that had been taunting them throughout their weeks of torment - but the events of the previous day had left heavy exhaustion seeping all the way down through his bones, pooling at his back the moment he laid down for the night and solidifying into claws that kept him stubbornly rooted to his soft bedroll. The few times over the following 24 hours when he had been conscious enough to move from his prone position, he had only had long enough to passively accept water and food from his worried teammates before the cold comfort of the void would wrap itself around him once more.
There was an earthquake, he thinks, towards the end of the day. And then there was a high pitched sound ringing through his ears over and over, like something being counted down, and then there were strong arms hauling him up from the ground and over the equally strong back they were attached to and suddenly he was moving, fast . He hadn’t needed to open his eyes to know whose shoulder he was draped over - even to his nearly asleep mind, the undeniably metal grip and the contrasting carefulness with which it had lifted him had been a dead giveaway. The low murmur of “I’ve got you, Pac” had been entirely unnecessary, but it had at least been confirmation enough for the panic that had been trying to bring him back to the waking world to begin receding.
Even as Pac was hanging upside down, each hurried beat of his handler’s boots against the hard ground jolting his body in a way that would have surely been uncomfortable to someone more awake, he was entirely calm and content in the knowledge that he was safe and so continued to doze through the chaos. After all, it had been Fit’s voice that had rung through his skull so pleasantly, like it had a million times before - and if Fit had him, then everything had to be okay. Even if that same voice was yelling frantically to other voices around him that responded with equal urgency, even if the footsteps didn’t stop or slow down for what seemed like ages, even as smoke and dust and ash licked at the inside of Pac’s nose, everything was okay. Fit was with him, so he was safe, and his mind purred happily against the tendrils of sleep that were once again tightening their grip on it.
He was once again jolted to half-consciousness when he was dropped unceremoniously onto what had to have been a boat, judging by the unmistakable feeling of ocean waves rocking the surface under him. Another body hit the ground next to him, and he instinctively curled into the warmth it emanated. Fit was speaking again, with one of the other voices from before that he thought must have been Philza, that same urgency still creeping out from behind both of their hard fought for composure before there was the sound of fireworks going off and the boat was rocking harder and then suddenly the voices around him were too distant to matter. He’s not sure how much time passes before Fit returns, but it can’t have been long because Pac has been almost-conscious the whole time without interruption.
Fit lands hard and stumbles a few steps before crashing to the floor somewhere near Pac’s head, panting hard enough that the smaller man could feel it in his own chest as a new but familiar voice thanks him profusely for something. “I was able to get one person,” He grits out, and that’s when Pac finally manages to crack open his eyes a bit; because Fit sounds sad - Not even sad, distraught, bitter and disappointed and scared all at once, and Fit should never have sounded like any of those things if you asked him. “I saved Bagi,” comes his voice again, and even through his dark eyelashes and the blur of his vision adjusting to the harsh sunlight, the look on his savior’s face is enough to put a frown on his own.
Why are you sad,
he tries to say.
You saved Bagi. You saved me.
He doesn’t know what they’ve been saved from, but whatever it was is making Fit sad and that was unacceptable.
You did amazing. You’re amazing, Fit.
There’s no response from the man in question, not even a glance towards him, he just stares emptily into the space ahead of him. Pac can hear Roier screaming for Cellbit in the background, louder than he’s ever heard the man before. The countdown noise is getting louder, and the body next to his own is beginning to shiver. His eyes had at some point sealed themselves shut again without him noticing, and the corners of his mind are growing fuzzier by the second. The last thing that reaches him through the fog is a bone-deep sense that the world is ending around him.
It’s ok, you got me. You did so well. I’m sorry I couldn’t wake up. I love you i loveyouiloveyou-
-
Soon after Pac wakes up back on Quesadilla Island, dazed and dirty but still as in-tact as he was before purgatory, he finds Fit in the up-until-recently abandoned adoption center. Their tearful (on Pac's part) reunion is cut anticlimactically short by the presence of a new egg, and the fuzzy flash memories that had been nudging their way into his peripherals are quickly lost in the noise and the euphoria of having children running around the island again, and then the world-shattering relief of seeing his own child safe in the egg hospital. Some time after that, when the initial buzz has died down a bit, Fit tells him and Forever that he was the one to get them onto the boat off of the island.
"It was me," he says proudly, with a smile just a bit too tired to convincingly match his bright tone. "I put you in my backpack!" His shoulders sag slightly, like they remember the weight. Like maybe carrying two unconscious grown men across an entire island was a more difficult task than he wanted to let on. The flash memories come back to the forefront of Pac's conscience, the smell of sweat and ash and an unyielding arm locked around him, and he's overtaken by a warm rush of affection for the man that's even more potent than he's used to. He ignores the swarm of butterflies fluttering in his chest in favor of thanking Fit profusely, his tone light in keeping with the one he had set; far too light to really communicate the depth of his gratitude, but Pac is fine with that. He doesn't think he could scrounge up any words to do that anyway - in his ideal world, where he's much braver and much better at reaching for what he wants, he would pull Fit against him and kiss him breathless until there was nothing left to be understood.
In his real world though, Fit is smiling and Forever is laughing heartily, and their children are safe and they're all alive. And that's all that matters, really. The gravity of Fit's act of kindness, and of all of the pain that led up to it, remain unspoken between them. But when Pac goes to bed that night, camped out on the path outside the hospital, he falls asleep thinking about how lucky he is.