damned_institute | Day 54: Recreational Field

Well, that was the most exhausting lunch Elena had ever experienced. And she didn't get around to eating very much either. Her headache was a least somewhat bearable now, but as the shift ended, she realized how stupid it had been to not get something in her system before the shift ended. But that apparently wasn't in the cards. In fact, just as she stopped panicking long enough to try and get some food down, her nurse was sweeping to her side.

"Shift change, m'dear." Like she hadn't noticed everyone getting up out of their seats and leaving the cafeteria. "I'll take your tray for you, and you make sure to get out to the field on time."

"On time?" Her blank expression must have given away more than she realized, because the nurse was giving her yet another sympathetic look.

"You slept thought a lot this morning, I'm afraid. I'll explain along the way."

By the time they had reached the Rec Field, the nurse had explained most of what had happened with the food fight, and the tear gas, and it only served to damage her calm yet again that day. Of course she slept through something like this, and of course the boys and girls were split up this shift, and of course Elena would have to wait around for some uniformed man to call out her fake name before she could get to Stefan.

At least her last name was near the stop of the list.

"Bailey, Samantha-"

"Here! I'm here. Can I go back inside now? Please?"

Though she didn't even wait for an answer before turning back and heading for the building. As far as she was concerned, she did what she was told, and there was no good reason why she couldn't make her way to the Sun Room right this very second.

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A... house...? That earned Leela a bit of a look (though considering it was one of Tomoe's looks it probably went unnoticed). She turned forward again after a moment, listening to the rest of what she said. "Based on... everything else, I would not doubt that."

"I do have someone here," she said, choosing her words carefully, "Apparently he has been here for at least a month. We haven't been terribly successful in sharing information yet." Considering the first night their shadows came to life and attacked each of them before anything of importance could be touched upon, the entire second night was non-existent, and that morning someone staged a coups d'état with breakfast food and got the entire cafeteria gassed...

"Someone like a boyfriend someone?" Leela aksed, her interest caught. Elaine had had a husband here, even if, thanks to their timelines being screwy, she'd sort of been more Guybrush's wife than he was her husband. Sometimes Leela was glad Fry wasn't here, and sometimes she wished he was. Pulling his butt out of trouble would've given her a goal more concrete than hope something happens to make violence the answer for escaping. After this morning, she had a bad feeling about that ever happening.

"He must be pretty tough." A month was an awfully long time to be here. Very impressive. "Or she must," she added hastily, in case Tomoe meant a friend.

She straightened up just a bit at the question, mainly because she had been trying to skirt that particular subject entirely. "He..." she paused in her answer, still not sure what the appropriate one was. The accurate answer was that he was her widower, but she couldn't very well say that--and yet husband wasn't exactly right either. But it was the simplest. The pause likely didn't go unnoticed, "He is my husband..."

The answer didn't set right with her, but there wasn't much more to be said. Besides, there were much more important things going on than their ill-defined marital status. "And yes... he is..."

Edited 2011-02-07 04:18 (UTC)

Leela definitely noticed Tomoe's hesitation. "Oh! Are you married in a time that one of you hasn't gotten to yet? I think that's kind of romantic."

She hadn't had the best of luck with that kind of thing herself, but, in fairness to Fry, she had been skipped over most of the courtship. It better have consisted of something a little more ambitious than fluffing Bender's assprint out of the couch cushion for Leela to sit on, but she was aware it probably hadn't. Stupid Universe-B Leela, outdoing her romantically, waving diamond scrunchies in people's faces.

"On the other hand, it could also be a pain in the butt." She gave Tomoe a smile.

Tomoe was starting to regret mentioning Kenshin at all--she only had to give some kind of hope of better answers from someone who had been there longer than each of them, not to wind up delving into the turmoil that was her personal life.

"No," she answered almost grimly, unsure whether she should say more. "It is more the opposite..."

Leela tried to puzzle out what the opposite would be. They weren't married, in a time they hadn't gotten to? Tomoe's tone said clearly enough that it was probably past pain in the butt and into the sort of existential gray area that only a place like this could stick you into.

"I don't understand, but I'm sorry if things are tough. My old roommate's husband is here, only they were married for him, and not for her. Poor guy." Leela thought Guybrush was too sweet to be a very good pirate, but he was a good person.

She looked over to Leela at that statement. She couldn't help the selfish pang of realizing there was someone else in this... confused state. She looked away again, her brows drawing lightly. With everything else she had not been thinking on the more personal end of the situation--staying alive, finding out what was happening and hopefully figuring out how to get the hell out seemed so much more important. But now that the topic had been breached she couldn't help but think on it again.

"We were married in my time..." she said quietly, that grim note still in her voice. "But he is fourteen years older here... and I..." she went quiet for a long moment before finishing, "I should be dead."

"I'm sorry to hear that!" Leela thought about it for half a second, then put her hand on Tomoe's arm for a moment. "It must be so hard for you two. Not to mention confusing." She frowned sympathetically. Jumping forward in time randomly was bad enough, but getting what amounted to one big jump, that you couldn't undo with chronitons, had to be worse.

"But at least you get to be together here." Now she was back to thinking it was sort of romantic. Maybe they'd be able to get out together, too.

Tomoe stiffened a bit at the touch, even if it was from another woman she really wasn't used to being touched so openly by anyone (and if there was one thing she'd noticed during the day shifts, it was that nearly everyone seemed a lot more grabby than the people she was used to--it obviously had to be some sort of cultural rift).

'Hard' barely touched on the matter--not when in their first two meetings they could barely look at each other because of everything that had happened in the end, not when she could almost see the horror in his eyes at having such a significant ghost shoved right under his nose. If it weren't for the fact that he was the only person she knew she could completely trust in the entire hellhole she would likely keep her distance just to save him the pain of her presence and her the pain of his reactions to it.

She nodded to the last statement though she didn't agree with it. It was more than obvious that he didn't want her there--both for the difficulty of the situation and the fact that the institution wasn't a safe place to be. After what she'd seen and heard about she was already confident that she was going to be of no use in any plan to escape from it. All she would likely be was all she had ever been: one giant weakness. The reminder of that fact just made her blood boil.

Day 54: Recreational Field

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