When the intercom came on, it was slowly, and with less static than usual. When the Head Doctor spoke, his voice was slurred – maybe drunk.

"You know... he... he was a good man, once. Maybe better'n... better than me."

Something clinked against glass. The Head Doctor laughed weakly.

"Lost your best friend. You did... I did. We all lose." He paused, then added: "Everyone... everyone always loses."

The static faded away into morning.

"Good morning – ah! Could you... could you close that, please? Lydia? Yeah. Yeah, thanks."

Unfortunately for the Head Doctor, today was particularly clear and sunny, and he sounded more disgruntled than usual as his Head Nurse seemed to do as she was told. The zzzziip of blinds unfolding was about as clear as the sound of her sighing, and one could even picture her rolling her eyes as she exited the room.

"...Anyway!" the Head Doctor continued, obviously trying very hard to keep up the cheerful charade. "Sorry about that – ah, bad night, you see. In any case, our regular rounds of therapy for selected patients will continue today, but first... breakfast! Today, we will be serving English muffin sandwiches with fried egg, cheese, sausage, and... well, whatever else you put on it. Er – for sides, we have tater tots, silver dollar pancakes, and our usual salad and fruit options. Our drink assortment is the usual kind too – orange juice, milk, water... the works and all that!"

He seemed to realize he was being a bit more disjointed than usual. He cleared his throat.

"In any case, I hope you enjoy it. I'll be speaking to you again soon!"

The intercom clicked off.

[ All introduction posts for this shift's group of new characters should be made in response to this post.

Have your character wake up in a random room as we don't have roommates sorted out yet. Putting M??/F?? in the subject line is fine. ]

It had all been going so well!

Seeing Cloud and Aerith(!) again had brought a now unfamiliar lightness to her shoulders. Work would be harder from here on out, but she wasn't on her own anymore. She was getting a second chance she'd never thought was possible. And then, then they'd trekked outside, totally ready to face the fog and the unknown (privately, the ninja had been a little worried; it couldn't happen again, it just couldn't, but what if it did?)—only to wake up. In their beds. As usual. Gaaaaaawd—!

"I just want you to know," Yuffie informed her nurse, grabbing her journal from the desk on her way out, "that your hair looks spectacularly god-awful today. What did you do, stick your tongue in a socket? I'm not exactly hip on fashion, too busy badass for that fluffy stuff, but—"

Plucky looked ready to plant her face in her hands. Or to plant her hands somewhere else. To her credit, and much to Yuffie's eternal disappointment, she did—tried to do—neither. "One of those days, is it?" the nurse sighed, disapproval incarnate. "Well. You're just going to have to behave; the new batches of patients are due today. We don't want to make a bad impression."

"I am feeling so completely convinced of my wrongdoing," Yuffie confided. They stepped into the cafeteria, practically empty as of yet. The chocolate cake last night had worked a treat, whetting her appetite. Honestly, she was getting sick of pecking at scraps like a runt Chocobo in the snow plains—but not literally, of course. Ew. She got more than enough of that on those damn buses once a week. Now that AVALANCHE really was dropping onto her lap—and remind her to get the hell out of dodge if Barret ever took his turn—she couldn't afford not to keep her strength up. For one, she'd be a liability. For two, she'd get her spine chewed out.

"Fruit," said Plucky, hovering as her charge picked out her choices for the day. Rolling her eyes, Yuffie grabbed an apple, slinging it onto the tray alongside an 'English' sandwich. "That'll do. I'll leave you to your breakfast, now." Somehow, that sounded about as comforting as 'My name is Don Corneo and I am raiding through your panty draw', and Yuffie was stopping that thought right there. Oh, god. Eurk. Bad, bad, bad! Bad, brain. Bad. That—yeah, no. Just, no. 'Sides, the guy was as dead as a doornail, splatted across Da Chao's feet. Dirtying them, really, but somehow Yuffie couldn't bring herself to be sorry about that.

(And it wasn't like the creep'd ever end up here, right? Right!)

She took to a seat, dropping her tray and her journal both onto the table. The book fell pages-down; Yuffie flipped it over, thumbing through to the middle as she worked through her apple. An almost finished map of Gaia stared back at her, neat as she could ever manage. Dots for major locations, squiggles for mountains. Stars for the materia caves, Chocobos for the tracks. All labelled in Wutaian. It was just a little piece of the home she absolutely had to get back to, 'cuz Leviathan knew what kind of trouble they'd be up to their necks in without her.

[For Donna]