The intercom jingle sounded throughout the available areas, thankfully waiting until the end of the movie in the Sun Room.

"Hello, everyone! As most of you know, the next shift will be the same as the one before it – that is, free roaming throughout our accessible areas (with the permission of your assigned nurse, of course), and more visitors. Our movie will continue to play on repeat in the Sun Room so that everyone has a chance to watch."

The "pause" suspiciously rang as a cut-off.

"I believe that's all for now! Carry on!"

The intercom clicked off.

[ The "nurses" will be handing out letters this shift. If your character is not on hiatus, they are eligible to receive a letter during the shift. Those on hiatus will get their letter in their possessions box later tonight. For more information, please refer to this Lounge post. Thanks! ]

By some stroke of luck, Harvey hadn't been bothered while he'd been in the library, allowing him to lose himself in a random book for at least a little while. Even so, he'd gone through all of his possible options for who might be visiting, from Gordon (in which case he'd probably end up sedated by the end of it) to his mother to Bruce Wayne to even the Joker.

He knew the latter couldn't be possible, not when he had to be rotting in a cell of his own by now. He'd better be, anyway. If Batman was going to be making a nuisance of himself, the least he could do was get the insane clown behind bars.

In other words, the book hadn't completely prevented him from working himself up about this whole visitor thing. It was the last thing he wanted, but as the shift ended and a soldier came to collect him, it became clear that resistance would not be tolerated.

And so he was shoved into one of the rooms, watching as the patients from the previous shift exited out, some looking relieved and others looking crushed. It only made the knot in his stomach pull tighter, but Harvey forced himself to breathe and calm down. No one he recognized was here yet, so he'd have a moment to compose himself at least.

Taking a seat off in the corner, Harvey considered grabbing one of the outdated magazines to read over while he waited, but he couldn't relax quite that much. Instead, he pulled up one leg to rest on the opposite thigh and made subtle glances towards the door every few seconds.

After his conversation with Gabriel, Castiel hadn't felt up to speaking with anyone, and so given a choice, he'd picked the library. Finding a quiet spot toward the back of the room to sit on his own and -- not read, but think -- was how he'd spent the third shift. There was no easy way to accept all that he'd been told, both of his brother's brainwashing and the fact that he'd died before arriving at this place. It implied that he might have been revived as well (which he was at least used to by this point), but it also meant so much more.

They might have no chance of fixing things after all.

Trying to come to terms with that would likely take longer than the duration of a shift, but Castiel wasn't given that much time. As the announcement came on again, Landel's voice still taunting them as if he were a ghost, a soldier found Castiel in his hiding place and informed him that he'd need to move on. He had no idea why soldiers would have any interest in his socialization, but it seemed pointless to argue.

Castiel moved on into the Game Room, as it wasn't as crowded as the Sun Room and seemed to have some items of interest in it. In particular, he was drawn to one of the packs of cards, recalling how Dean had a fondness for the game. There was no pool table to be found, which was something he related to the Winchesters even more, but that wasn't so surprising.

It was odd, how it almost felt like the two weren't here even though they were. The Sam and Dean he interacted with in this place were like echos in comparison to the brothers he'd come to know.

[For Nigredo.]

When she left the lobby, Anise still didn't know what to think about her visitor. All this time, she thought the one person the institute would never truly get to was the Colonel, and that if he was gone, then maybe he was hiding somewhere, plotting a way to rescue the rest of them. Now that she thought about it... maybe that was naïve of her. She only thought those things because she didn't want to believe that the institute had that much power...

Thinking about it too hard made her feel so anxious it made her stomach churn, though, so Anise decided it would be best to distract herself in the meantime, and then think about it when her head was clearer. She'd probably have to tell Guy and the others what happened, too.

While she really wanted to see the movie she helped select, she also really wanted to see if the Arts & Crafts Room had those new sewing supplies the Head Doctor talked about a while ago. When she arrived, she asked her "nurse" about it, who cheerfully replied that yes, they had them, and that Anise was among the ones fortunate enough to have the privilege of using them. Was that a good behavior thing, or a military rank thing...? Well, in either case, it meant Anise got to check out the new materials they brought in, so she wasn't going to complain.

There were some pretty floral patterns among the pieces of fabric, so Anise selected those. Anything that she made had to have a few cute elements, after all. She brought the pieces to her table along with some needles, thread, scissors, and a roll of a thick cord-like material.

Before she could begin, however, that "nurse" returned, dropping an envelope on the table in front of her. "This is for you," was all she said before walking away again. When Anise picked the item up, her eyes widened in shock. There, on the envelope, was the name Dolores... written in her Mama's handwriting. Much of the other information on the outside had been blacked out, but... was this from her parents!? Without a moment's delay, she tore open the envelope and began reading the letter within, her hands trembling as she did.

[For Claude!]

That movie had been far more depressing than Guy had been ready for. It might not have been as bad if it hadn't all been based on real events, but knowing that people had tried so hard to escape only for so many to die was rather sobering.

Despite that, the action scenes had been intense enough that Guy was feeling revved up even after the credits rolled. He would have liked to spend the rest of the day with Claude, but he was sure his friend had someone he wanted to meet -- and more than that, the staff didn't seem to approve of them spending all of their time together. They seemed to think that they needed to make more friends.

Guy didn't mind meeting new people, but he also felt that he had all the friends that he needed already.

It wasn't his choice, though, and so he decided to spend the last part of the day in the library. It would help him calm down and get his mind off of that movie in time for dinner to come, at which point he'd have only their nighttime plans to worry about. Seeing how they were taking steps further into the basement, though, he definitely had good reason to be anxious.

While Guy had already bought a book in town and therefore didn't need to look for one to take back to his room with him, he still took some comfort out of the quiet of the room and the feeling of all the books surrounding him. He wished he could look up information about the war that the movie had been about, but he already knew that sort of thing wouldn't be available here. Instead, he took to wandering.

[For Alaric.]

Since her talk with Soma in the morning, Rapunzel had been afraid this moment might come. Even as she distracted herself with other things, there was a tightness knotting up inside her stomach. Even as she assured herself that she would be prepared if it happened, the feeling wouldn't pass. And now, she felt a firm hand on her shoulder, and the word "visitor" passed from the lips of a disguised soldier to her ear. She hadn't thought that knot could get any tighter, or heavier.

She forced herself to breathe as the soldier led her to a room full of chairs. Okay. You can do this. Just take it like Soma said. Whoever this is, or looks like, or whatever — it's not the end of the world.

She drew a deep breathe in. Let it back out. Then lowered herself into a seat. She was glad for that seat, at least; it made the shaking of her legs harder to see.

Well that had been weird.

Scott hadn't been able to get back into his game after meeting Alternate Universe Captain Kirk, and so he wandered back out into the Sun Room now, hoping that maybe sitting in front of a different screen for a while might help clear the bamboozlement from his brain instead. At the very least, it would probably give him tips on how to get out of this hole. The Great Escape, was it? Sounded useful enough. And at the very, very, very least, Scott figured he could fall asleep in his chair for a while, then wake up more alert for the night to come.

The night to come. Oh boy. Scott still wasn't sure what to think about that. On the one hand, he was psyched to get past a major stage, as any gamer would be. On the other, he also valued his hide. If the injuries everyone had suffered in the other parts of the basement had been bad, who was to say they wouldn't get double that in this Coliseum or whatever it was? If there was a Sphynx elsewhere in the basement, did that mean they had to fight a Hydra or something for the final challenge? Whatever they were fighting, it definitely wasn't going to be easy, even with six of them.

His existing injuries were good enough by now, at least. The pain in his leg and arm was almost gone, and the scars on his cheeks were starting to dull. Here was hoping that whatever they got from the fight tonight, it would heal just as fast.

So, Scott slid into a seat, ready to start chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool... God, had he just thought that? Yuck. Go away, 90's Will Smith.

He hadn't been there for long when he got a sharp tap on the shoulder from a soldier. After nearly falling out of his chair in surprise, Scott turned to find an envelope being shoved in his face. "What is... Is that for me?" Scott blinked in the dim light, taking the letter with no small degree of WTF.

The letter was packed in a clearly re-sealed envelope, with black stuff done up all over anything remotely identifying on it. The only things that weren't blacked out were his "real name" – Bryan Michaels – and the name of the sender – someone named Christopher Carpenter. Scott felt like he ought to know who that referred to, but was drawing a blank for the moment.

The blank went away the second he ripped open the top of the envelope and saw the handwriting. Even if he hadn't recognized the handwriting (he was actually getting pretty good at it, after weeks of bulletin practice), the contents would have made it clear enough. Scott grimaced.

"Great. Thanks, Wallace. Thanks a lot. Now you're brainwashed," he mumbled to himself, skimming over the utterly pointless letter a few more times. "Good job."

[Wichita]

Well, his talk with Tifa had gone as well as could be expected. Zack knew that everything that had happened that night with the shadows had been awkward, but he didn't think that either of them held anything against the other and that was what mattered. It wasn't really fair, to use someone's deepest thoughts -- the ones you'd never act on or verbalize -- against them.

That was really the least of his worries, though. He had the coming night and his own foolhardy plan to think about, not to mention the fact that there had been no sign of Yuffie recently. Not that he could do much about the latter. He didn't know how Cloud would handle that -- if he was in any way close to Yuffie or if they had only traveled together -- but it wasn't going to be fun delivering the news if it turned out the girl really was gone.

In any case, it was about time that he stretched his legs since chances were he was going to go nuts otherwise. That meant that Zack was out on the field practically before Landel's fake announcement was over with. The cold air was enough to sting his face, but it felt good to him. It woke up his senses and got him invigorated for the night to come, which was a good thing in his book.

Seeing how he was one of the only people out here, he had most of the field to use as his exercise grounds. Of course, the best warm-up routine was to do some squats and so once Zack found a piece of grass that wasn't littered with melting snow, he got to work: up, down, arms pulling out and in as he worked his muscles.

[For Damon.]

While Peter was glad that he had been able to meet not one, but two new patients and give them some advice, he had to admit that he was itching to see a familiar face by now. Actually, it was one in particular that he was looking for, and one that most people who knew him would have been able to guess on the first try. In others words, he hadn't seen Claire all day and he was worried about her.

It was possible that she was tied up with a visitor, which worried him. While he had been through it himself and had come out of it okay despite the fact that he'd had to face both his brother and his mom at different points, he didn't know how Claire would be able to handle it. What if one of her family members showed up? Or a friend of hers?

Even though he was close to Claire, the fact was that he still didn't know that much about her. Where would she go, if given the choice? It seemed like outside would be far too cold to go by choice, so where did that leave him? He hadn't seen her in the Sun Room, so he decided to search the Music Room next. Teenagers were usually interested in music, weren't they? Granted, he didn't even know what Claire liked -- pop, rock, maybe even country?

However, as he walked into the room in question, there was no sign of his niece, which forced a sigh out of him. He figured he'd probably be best off searching elsewhere (maybe the Game Room next?), but decided to pause and give the CD collection a glance over. It was usually too crowded to get a good look at them, but not today. Maybe he could take a walk down memory lane...

[Free!]

There was only so much knitting one small girl could do by herself. This quantity was far from exhausted in one short afternoon, but there was an entire Institute to explore, and time a more precious commodity than yarn.

Rose took her leave, and darted out through the gathering shadows in the Sun Room to the open courtyard beyond.

It was still winter. This had not ceased to be the case since the last time she had been outside. It was also empty, save for the guards flanking the building's every orifice. They didn't seem to get nervous unless she neared the wall, so she stopped trying that after a few minutes. Unfortunately, aside from provoking the guards, there didn't seem to be much to do out here in the daytime.

Rather than admit defeat, she found a promising snowdrift, and toppled back into it. There, rather than windmilling her arms and legs like a useless angel, she pressed them down in sinuous curves, then lifted them straight up, and repeated the process several times before rising up. Hm. The result was still rather humanoid in nature, even after adding eyes to what had once been a torso.

The vines by the wall were more suited to the task than human limbs. She tugged a few outliers free from their snowy prison, and stacked them in a pile. Then she gathered up a handful of snow and started rolling it.

[Alle?]