The customary jingle sounded over the intercom, signaling the shift change.

"Hello again, everyone!" the Head Doctor greeted. "I do hope you all enjoyed your breakfast. Goodness, I thought I could smell the French toast all the way in my office! Or perhaps I was just hungry..."

He gave a small, friendly chuckle. "At any rate, nurses, please escort patients to the next activity. Children will spend second shift in the Arts and Crafts room, while adults will go to the showers. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of your morning!"

The intercom clicked off, and the staff went to work.

[Note: Newly-arrived characters (those who ICly intro'd either last Nightshift or this Dayshift) will not be forced to shower with everyone. Instead, they're welcome to spend their shift in the Sun Room! Let us know if you have any questions.]

Well, it was about time they got to bathe, that was all Loki really had to say about it. He'd been wondering just how barbaric his captors were. The fact that it was showers only, and no baths for soaking spoke volumes, as far as he was concerned.

But at least there were showers, which was certainly better than nothing. Loki felt something approaching cheerful as he allowed the nurse to lead him on. At the showers he shucked off the ridiculous uniform without so much as a pause and claimed a shower head from those available.

He was used to bathing around others. And as a god among mortals, he definitely had nothing to be ashamed of. Though the warm spray of the shower did let him know that he had some definite bruising on his back from where Kratos had managed to hurl him into that wall, and one of his ribs still twinged occasionally. His jaw still hurt a bit as well, but any bruising there had taken care of itself during the night.

[For the ambiguously gay duo!]

His nurse had whisked him away from breakfast as soon as the intercom’s voice faded.  Surprisingly, she didn’t take him to the shower rooms, instead bringing him to the Sun Room (as she called it), explaining that since this was his first day he would be allowed to skip the showers.  Besides, it would be good to let his injuries heal a little more.

 

He’d passed through this room on the way to breakfast, but hadn’t really paid much attention to it the first time.  Now that he was standing here, the Once-ler understood why it was called the Sun Room.

 

Despite the fact that it was cloudy outside, there was still far more natural light coming in through the ceiling windows than he had seen in a long time.  The Once-ler stood still for a few moments, simply staring up.  It seemed almost like a dream, really.  The valley never got brighter than twilight, even at noon.  There was too much smog in the air to let any more light through.

 

After a few minutes, he shook his head.  Anybody who saw him just standing in the middle of the room would probably have questions about it, and he did not relish the thought of explaining himself to a stranger.  He glanced around the room itself, spotting the bulletin board Soma had talked about during breakfast.  The Once-ler decided that was a good place to start, and hobbled on over to get a closer look.

 

[For Nina, I believe?]

After all the energy spent worrying and running and healing the night before, it was amazing Rapunzel only slept through one shift. Her head still felt woozy upon forcing herself out of bed, bringing on a bit of nausea with it, but she had confidence that she would be fine if she walked around for a little while. A shower, her nurse convinced her, would probably help to wake her up as well. True, she still felt uncomfortable going to the showers, but she would rather be clean and embarrassed than dirty and embarrassed-for-reasons-of-stink.

Before leaving her room, she found a note from Tsubaki on their night stand:

( Note from Tsubaki )

She could definitely understand someone wanting to keep his weaknesses private, Rapunzel thought. Though she still didn't quite get Eugene's reasons, she got that he had those reasons for, well, reasons. The same probably went for Tsubaki's friend.

In any case, the note inspired her to leave one of her own, except this one was on the bulletin board. If she was going to be healing someone tonight anyway, she might as well make a night of it, especially when she knew so many people had been hurt the night before. The more people she could help get back on their feet, the better. Who knew? Maybe she could convince Eugene to heal up more as well and then stay in with her afterward; she knew he could use a night off as much as she could.

With that out of the way, she let her nurse lead her to the showers. As always, she was careful with her towel and hair, try to keep as much of herself covered as she could for as long as she could. She took deep breaths as she approached the showerheads. Okay, today I'm gonna do it: I'm going to drop the towel. No one likes a soggy towel, she thought, biting down on the inside of her lip. She reached out for the shower knob, hesitating.

[Soma]