damned_institute | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Elle finally forced herself to look at him. He was so pretty; why couldn't Daddy look the other way, just this once? "M-my dad..." she started, feeling bile rise in her throat at the memory of how Daddy had looked a her. She wanted him to be proud of her. "When you were staying with us, he never approved of me spending more time in your room than I needed to."

And that had been half the thrill, hadn't it? It wasn't just that she hadn't cared - she'd actively enjoyed her petty rebellion. She'd never do anything that would make Daddy truly angry with her, not on purpose, but being bad in a
small way, like kissing Peter, had been fun.

"He said he'd take me home if I was better."

Staying with them? His room? Elle kept giving him hints of what their time together had consisted of, but Peter still didn't have a very clear picture of it. He planned to ask her about it, but he couldn't do that if she wasn't willing to talk to him. On the other hand, she hadn't tried to shoo him away yet, so she wasn't too intent on not speaking with him.

He frowned at what she said next, not entirely sure how she could know that unless--

Unless her father had visited her? Had she taken the man's words at face value, when he was the one who had the real problems? Only one way to find out.

"When was this?" he asked and then took a bite of his breakfast.

"Yesterday," Elle mumbled. "He visited."

She glanced at the nurses, trying to catch them looking at her. They must be keeping an eye on her and telling Daddy everything - that's the only way he could have known. If they told her father that she'd been talking to Peter...

"I'm sorry, he'll be mad if he finds out." She turned away from him, but didn't leave, hoping that he'd say he didn't care what her father thought or that he'd find a way to avoid the watchful eyes of the nurses. If only his abilities were working, it would be so easy to hide.

So that was it, then. Even though Elle was once again making an attempt to avoid him, Peter wasn't going to leave her alone just yet. Having to deal with years of Nathan brushing off his idealistic talk had made him pretty persistent when he wanted to be.

"You can't listen to him," he quickly insisted. "Look, the visitors? They've had something done to them. My brother came and saw me yesterday, too, and -- well, he was here before. We were working together to try and get out of here. Then suddenly he disappeared and then yesterday he was here calling me Ethan and saying I had to get my head back on straight."

Elle's father must have never been here, or at least not at the same time that she was. Peter knew that it might have been easy for her to buy into what her father had said, since he had probably acted exactly the same as he always did. Nathan had.

"It's us who has to help them remember who they are, Elle," he continued, leaning forward further in his seat as he hoped she would hear him out. They were both in the same boat, after all - they shouldn't be avoiding each other.

Something in Elle's stomach fluttered when Peter didn't giving up on talking to her.

"But he was my dad; he was exactly him," she insisted. "He said all the same things he always does, except that he called me by that name the nurses use. But that could've just been... I mean..." If her father was trying to make her stronger, like he said, that could be part of it. Somehow. She just hadn't worked out what Daddy wanted yet.

"What if we really are crazy?" She wasn't entirely sure that wasn't true. After all, people had been telling her she was crazy since she was a kid - it was a distinct possibility that this was all in her head. No, at night she could still generate electricity. But... Daddy wouldn't put her in here unless she deserved it. And nobody could have put her in here but Daddy, right?

"It was the same with Nathan," Peter was quick to explain. "He acted exactly the same as he always did, but the people who run this place must have messed with his head somehow. It doesn't seem that impossible, does it?" If Elle had been involved with helping people control their powers, then she probably had a lot more exposure to it than he did. She might even know if there were powers capable of that.

When she went so far as to question their sanity, though, Peter had to frown. He had been told just a few months ago that he might be mentally ill, that his insistence that he could fly was just a delusion, but it hadn't been. This was just the same thing all over again, and he wasn't going to fall for it.

He wouldn't let Elle do so, either. He tried to will her to look at him, to give him her attention. "Do you really think that?" he asked. She must have realized that she didn't feel like she was losing her grip on reality. A lot of the stuff that happened at Landel's did seem insane, but they were all lucid.

They couldn't fall into the trap the head doctor had set up for them. That Peter was sure of. If they did that, then they wouldn't be able to help the people who had already become victim to it - that included Nathan and Elle's dad.

"No, no one could have gotten to my father!" The suggestion that her father could be less powerful than Landel, that anyone could 'mess' with Daddy in any way, was enough to rile Elle. She finally looked back at Peter, into those earnest, puppy-dog eyes of his.

If she told him the truth - that she was a diagnosed psycho - he'd never talk to her again. Probably. "I don't know... But if we aren't, then what? We're stuck here. I've been trying to escape for almost a week now and I can't." Being crazy would almost be the better option - if she could just get sane again, she could go home. If, on the other hand, the horrors of this place weren't just in her head... there was no way out. "So unless you've got a plan, Superman..."

Peter also didn't want to believe that Nathan could so easily fall for the lies that Landel was spinning, but he could only justify it by assuming there had been some heavy brainwashing involved - that was what had caused Peter to almost assault those people on the field, after all. If the people in charge here were capable of turning them against their friends, then why couldn't they also make people believe they led a different life?

"Well, I don't have much of a plan," he admitted, "but on the bulletin I read that there's a room somewhere that has the files of all the patients that have been discharged from here. Chances are that Nathan's file is there, and maybe your dad's too." Would that prove it to her? If not, he could always bring up his own brainwashing as an example. If Elle continued to be stubborn after that, then he wasn't quite sure what he could do. He'd probably just have to work at it with Claire.

Day 37: Breakfast

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