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.

[identity profile] whiteychan.livejournal.com 2008-11-20 10:20 am (UTC)(link)
So it was something at least moderately useful after all, or at least specifics, things that he could focus on and be clear and concise about. He didn't want to hug or cry over this. He just wanted to be left alone with his grief; however, Sora deserved the right to know as well.

"I do know," Hitsugaya said, then, a little more quietly. "I was there."
lighthearted: gesture, smile, down (listless)

[personal profile] lighthearted 2008-11-21 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
Sora stiffened slightly. Hitsugaya knew, then - he could tell him, and yet he wasn't launching into an explanation right off the bat. Did that mean he didn't want to talk about it? Still, Sora felt like he needed to know, if only to have some amount of closure.

"Can you... tell me what happened?" he asked, forgetting about his food as he glanced across the table at the shinigami. "I mean, if you don't want to talk about it, then that's totally fine, but I thought I would ask," he quickly added. He didn't want to push anyone when they were already going through so much, but there might be some comfort in knowing the whole story - or so he tried to tell himself.

[identity profile] whiteychan.livejournal.com 2008-11-21 08:52 am (UTC)(link)
Not talking about it was such a cop-out. It was easy to hide from how he felt by not discussing the issue, but the time for hiding was over. Sora deserved to know. Everyone deserved to know.

"I led the team to retrieve him last night," Hitsugaya said quietly. "He'd been taken upstairs into solitary after the loss of Kuchiki Rukia and none had seen him. Our goal was to retrieve him and take him to his room." Simple goals, a simple task. Watch after the man and make sure he didn't do anything dumb. A child should've been able to do it. Still, he kept quiet on his thoughts and forced himself to stick to the facts.

"We found him and removed him from the binding outfit they had strapped him in. It was around that time when we caught sight of them. I don't know how many there were, I only know that there were more nurses than I'd encountered. Once I fended three off with the help of two highly trained fighters and Fowl. There were at least twice that many last night, and quite possibly more. We were surrounded." It was like they'd been led into a trap using Abarai as the bait....he shrugged off the thought and continued.

"Renji charged in and bought us an opening. I ordered the others on my team to retreat, yet Fowl charged in and was wounded. Toboe, the wolf, pulled him away from the scene and using nearly all of my reiatsu knocked Renji out through the same opening. They did not pursue, and we escaped a few corridors down. Both Abarai and Fowl were mortally wounded from their poisoned blows and I only had energy to heal one of them."

He glanced straight at Sora. There was no hesitation in his voice even if his head reeled at the decision. "I chose Fowl. Toboe called for help, but none came in time."
lighthearted: gesture, smile, down (tired)

[personal profile] lighthearted 2008-11-21 09:37 am (UTC)(link)
When it seemed that Hitsugaya was willing to explain, Sora sat up in his seat and leaned forward slightly, giving the shinigami all of his attention. He was surprised to hear that Renji had been put in solitary. He'd heard that threat made, but he hadn't ever come across anyone who had actually made the nurses act on it.

Then again, with Rukia gone, Sora could only imagine how Renji would have responded. The man had never been good at reining himself in...

When Hitsugaya brought up a previous time when he'd been attacked by nurses, Sora wondered if that was the instance when he, Kairi, and Rukia had come in at the end to help transport the wounded. Either way, he knew from other personal experience that nurses were the last thing anyone wanted to encounter at night. The idea of having to fight at least six of them was baffling, and also strange. He'd never heard of that many attacking at once, so what had caused it?

But then the details of Renji's death were given, and Sora felt a pang when he realized that Hitsugaya had been forced to choose who would live and who would die. Even though it was hard to accept, he understood why Hitsugaya had made that decision. Artemis was younger than Renji - in fact, technically Renji had already been dead. If someone was going to live, it should be the person who still had such a long life ahead of them, but that didn't make the reality any easier to bear.

He couldn't even imagine how Artemis felt about the whole thing. Sora took in a breath and then let it out heavily.

"I'm sorry... That must have been terrible, but... I... I think you did the right thing," he said, his voice wavering slightly. Maybe Hitsugaya didn't want his opinion, but he still felt compelled to give it. He was pretty sure Renji would have wanted it this way as well, after all.