damned_institute | Day 37: Breakfast

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Day 37: Breakfast

[for Sylar, I believe]

At the sound of the intercom, Wally jerked awake and blinked around at the room. He’d fallen asleep. He should have been up and keeping an eye open for ZEX, but he’d fallen asleep waiting on his bed.

“Idiot,” he groaned, ruffling his hair and sighing in annoyance. “Way to help a guy out, hotshot.” Hopefully ZEX hadn’t dropped by and thought he’d left or something, or wouldn’t be too mad at him for just forgetting about it like that. If he was lucky, he’d be able to catch up with the other patient at some point and explain what had happened.

Rolling himself a little awkwardly out of the bed, Wally took the opportunity to stretch his injured leg and test how well it was holding up. It was feeling a bit better, not so much that he could abandon his crutch or that it didn’t pull painfully if he wasn’t careful, but better. Tony had apparently made it through the night in one piece as well, which was a relief. He really didn’t feel comfortable about the thought of his roommate wandering about on his own with an injured arm. Not when Wally himself could relax and fall asleep in the apparent safety of their room.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to let himself forget that one in a hurry.

It was at that moment that the door swung open to admit one of the nurses. She seemed surprised to find him awake and ready to go already, but smiled warmly. “Hungry, are we Mr. West? Well in that case, let’s get you to the cafeteria. The staff have provided some delicious French Toast as well as a range of other foods I’m sure you’ll like. Now will you be needing a hand with your leg, dear?”

“No thanks, I can handle it,” Wally replied, smiling back. After all, it probably wasn’t the nurses’ fault that this place was so messed up, so it wasn’t like picking fights with them would do anything. With a cheery wave goodbye, Wally slowly made his way to the cafeteria, keeping a tight grip on his crutch all the while. Obtaining a plate of food was only slightly less difficult than it had been yesterday – he didn’t have the painkillers to work around this time – but he managed well enough, coming away from the buffet with a tray containing a plate piled high with slices of French Toast and slathered in maple syrup, butter, and sugar, as well as a glass of juice. Not quite as good as some coffee would be right now, but the sugar would hopefully make up for it. And, with how few people were here at the moment, he could afford to take more food than might have been considered ‘normal’ – he’d have most of it gone by the time anyone came to keep him company, then he could just worry about how many extra serves would be allowed before he aroused suspicion.

Feeling pretty happy with how things were looking so far, Wally hummed faintly to himself as he dug in to his breakfast.

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Celes regarded Hughes quietly, "My apologies, sir. I hope that you've much luck in your club." She meant it, too. The clubs were a way of building rapport and morale with the patients, though it might not have been their original intentions. To start losing leaders would be a horrible strike to it.

"What are you going to do now, then, with the club?" Celes lifted the first little square of toast and chewed it thoughtfully. Perhaps it would behoove her to pay back her transgressions from the night previous by indenturing herself to the clubs in some manner.

Hughes just nodded, used to the sympathy now. He guessed he should be grateful that no one knew how close he and Roy really had been.

"Uh, same thing we've been doing," Hughes said, between bites of breakfast. "Supplies, research, information. Supplying weapons and things to people who need it. Basically anything we can to help folks out and get everyone prepared to handle this place, and hopefully get the hell out."

"I see," Celes replied. "But I'm still not quite sure what it is the cooking club does. How does one procure weapons from nothing, at least, from near as I can see?" It was always so strange that they asked for supplies for the weaponry, but due to the secretive nature of the bulletin board, it wasn't clear to Celes what they had required. Still, it seemed that people were getting what they wanted, if Xigbar's bow from last night had been any sort of hint.

She lifted her glass and half-toasted him. "Well, here's to the hope that we shall all get out of here in one piece. Do you suppose there is anything I could do to help you, then?" Even if she was getting the so-called supplies. "I'd like to make up for my actions of the night previous."

"Alchemy," Hughes explained. "I'm not an alchemist myself, but it's the science of turning something into something else. They can take pipes and pieces of wood or bits of stuff around the institute and turn it into a weapon. It's exhausting, so we can only do one a night, but it's better than nothing."

And every little bit helped, after all.

"And we can use all the hands we can get," he went on, at her offer. "We look after the radio hints, we get the supplies for the alchemists, we look for anything new or informative about the institute we can find. People go out in groups, so no one's alone, and if you end up getting supplies, they're dropped off at my room."

Another explanation for Alchemy? It would the second time in three days that someone had said that the last being... Colonel Mustang, who had seemed very perturbed that she, as a young woman, so soundly outranked him. "I would be happy to, then." Provided nothing of import came up before. But the General was sure she could do two things as once.

Perhaps she could be a free agent, like Shadow, that ignoble mercenary. Just without the loss of her honor.

"I really appreciate it," Hughes told her, his sincerity showing on his face. "We lost a lot of people when Roy went missing. And we've still got weapons orders to do." Not as many as there had been, but still. Claude was coming for his, wasn't he? Then Leon was next, if he hadn't found somewhere else to get one.

"Anything in particular you'd prefer to be doing?"

Ah, so they'd already taken a hit upon their morale, and perhaps a dangerously unhealthy one. "It matters not; I will be content with whatever you chose to put me on." It would be important for all the clubs to save face and not panic when their leaders were lost or killed, but, that was extremely difficult when the leader was beloved or respected.

"Alright." Hughes nodded. That made things a little easier. Damn, this was all easier when he and Roy were able to discuss them together. Maybe Ed would be willing to do that with him. He sure as hell couldn't do all of this alone.

"Where are your strengths? We try and make sure everybody's well matched, and has an equal amount of muscle and medical knowledge. Just in case."

Celes pushed her half-eaten plate away and steepled her fingers, "I am well versed in swordplay and in command," she better damn well be, considering her status. "I can cast healing spells, but the bulk of my knowledge is in the art of war. As such, much of my spell casting has been reduced two two spells in this state. I was a general on my homeworld." She smiled, just barely. She might have done despicable things for Empire, but she had done more good things for her people and soldiers than bad.

Or so she hoped. "Anything you can send me on, I'm sure I can prepare myself for it."

"Good to know." Hughes nodded. "I'm a Brigadier General back home, myself. It's always a pleasure to work with other soldiers." It made things easier, and made him a lot less likely to hold back less than pleasant or more dangerous ideas. Military folks could handle it.

"I'll have assignments up later today, on the bulletin."

He was copying down the information as he spoke, to keep track of who could do what and all of that. He'd match them up based on the info he gathered.

"It is also quite a bit easier," Celes agreed echoing his thought. "I will look for the note." She returned to her meal. The use of so much magic, not to mention Siren's symbiotic suck of her own magical reserves had left her drained and weary. She chewed neatly at a bit of bacon and looked thoughtfully at her plate.

They'd done some terrible things to her in that white walled room, but damn if she couldn't think of the whole thing clearly. Perhaps it was a kind of mental block. "I wonder what the process the Institute's good doctors," there was a heavy trace of sarcasm on that word, "do to the patients that return their abilities," she said idly. "I remember very little aside from great pain." And needles, longer needles than Cid had ever thought to use on her.

"Yeah, it is."

Hughes nodded, and was glad the morning was starting off well. If he could keep this up, maybe the Cooking Club would get back up to snuff.

"No one really knows how they do what they do," he went on. "They guard their secrets real close. This is all a big game. Sometimes I wonder if we even matter, or if we're just convenient little game pieces."

Celes examined a piece of bacon, "I'm willing to believe, that with the patient number that constantly and consistently fluctuates with little regard to the relationships built on their being here, that they do not care which pieces stay on the board, or leave play. In my own experience, they've removed pieces quite abruptly in a matter of days." Edgar, Larsa and Gabranth, naturally, had affect her in what she could only think of was a uniquely crippling blow.

"However, I understand that some of them return, either with no memory of their previous time here, or as the 'visitors' which seek to affect us in abstract ways. But, you know," Celes dropped the cold bacon back on her plate and neatly wiped her fingers clean with a napkin. "Though I am all for playing games, I think it's far past time to start making our own rules. This Head Doctor changes them far too often for my tastes."

"It's hard to tell," Hughes said, glancing up as though towards the intercom. "I feel like there's a reason behind all the crazy stuff, but I just can't figure it out." And it drove hum nuts.

"We've been trying to make the rules for a while. It just doesn't seem to work too well. Right now, Landel's still holding almost all of the cards. We need some more of our own before we can start changing things up on him." He shrugged. "I mean, other than just organizing everyone to stay in their rooms at night so we don't let him play his nighttime game...."

And that was just ridiculous.

Celes hmphed, quietly, the wheels of her mind turning to try and discover some angle they've over looked. "I think it's because there are too many free agents - that is, too many patients that just go off on their own, for whatever reason. Certainly, some discovery has been made through the use of free agents - the basements, for example - but on a whole, we're not presenting a very united face to our enemy. Landel uses this quite effectively against us. And with the death of the former 'radio' man, the newer one has either been ignored entirely, or scoffed at for not being 'Jack.'" Celes postulated and ate the last bite of her French toast.

"But, on the other hand, trying to convince those patients that are civilian in nature to form up and be united would be like herding cats." Thank the Triad for the military.

"That's because we've just got chaos here," Hughes pointed out. This sort of conversation was one he was used to having, after all. "There's no government, no system of rules or laws. I mean, we've got what Landel puts down, but he's not exactly a respected authority figure. We've got different factions that need to be on the same page, free agents like you said, people who've got no idea what they're doing, in-fighting...."

It was exactly like a prison. Stripped away of medical trappings, there was no difference between this place and any prison back home in Central.

"I'm supposed to meet with one of the other club leaders today, I think. Maybe we'll figure something out, I dunno. You wanna come?"

Celes had, without intending to Hughes imagined, somehow managed to get Hughes thinking of her as his own second in command.

Celes mulled it over for only a few moments before replying, "I would be glad to." She nodded slightly, and meticulously cleaned her hands with a napkin, hoping knowing that a shower was soon on the way.

"Perhaps we can start unifying the groups together," the general had lived entirely too long to put all her eggs in one basket. What if this other club leader was as stubborn as an ox?

"I appreciate it."

And Hughes did. He felt better having someone to...well, watch his back, he supposed. And bounce ideas off of.

"It's a nice thought, but we'll see. Some of them are big, the group leaders don't really know me the way they knew Roy...." They'd have to see how it went. "Hey, but who knows? Doesn't hurt to throw the suggestion out there."

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Day 37: Breakfast

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