Day 37: Breakfast

[scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com]

[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.

Comments

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

Sheena wasn't sure she'd get used to this suddenly waking up in her bed thing. The ninja sighed and kicked her covers off, letting her hair down before finger combing it and then pulling it back into its unruly ponytail. With a flick of her wrist, she produced the cards she had left over from the previous night, only to find the writing blurred and the cards unusable.

With a sigh followed by a grumble, she crumpled the now useless cards and tossed the ball into Elena's trashcan on the other side of the room. The wadded up balls sailed into the receptacle and Sheena went through a quick series of stretches to work the kinks out of her muscles before the nurse arrived.

Eggs and sausage were the breakfast selections for one grumpy ninja. Last night... Raine had pushed too far. She'd gotten too personal and didn't seem to realize she'd done it. The half-elf meant good, but she just didn't know when to let things go. She always thought she knew best and that she could help with or fix every problem. Raine wasn't the world's mother and she needed to understand that she doesn't have the right to force things out of people, just because she thinks they need to talk.

So, with a vicious bite of her sausage, Sheena grumbled and tried to focus on something other than her desire to kick Raine in the face.

[distraction coming in the form of one New York clown]

[jokers-wildcard.livejournal.com]

"Ms. Dumas, please," her nurse said with an exasperated sigh, trying desperately to sound patient. "You have to eat something. It's not healthy to skip breakfast so much."

Had Harley been really paying attention, she might have argued that she'd only skipped breakfast a few times, but at the moment her nurse was the least of her worries. Harley was nearly panic-stricken.

She hadn't made it! Last night, she never made it to the lab! Another night wasted away from her sweethearts. When her nurse had opened her door, she had attempted to burst through and make a run for the lab again. She hadn't gone beyond her doorframe before two orderlies hooked her by both arms and kept her still. After her display during visiting hours, they were cautious enough to have orderlies ready for her the next morning. The threat of another sedation kept her compliant as they led her to the cafeteria.

Her head was spinning. If it wasn't too late last night, it very well might be by now. They could be dead, or worse! Everything Crane had said the previous night... she didn't want to believe any of it, but it was true! All of it!

Unaware of her care's plight, the nurse placed a full tray into Harley's hands and led her to the closest table. She gently pushed Harley down into a seat near one of the other patients with an obviously fake smile. (At least to Harley it was obvious.) "Here you are, darling. Try to eat everything, okay?"

With that, she wandered off, leaving Harley to stare blankly at her tablemate while she tried to comprehend what had just happened. The girl across from her didn't look like the jolliest camper around herself. She sighed exasperated. "Darlin' my butt... They sure got some nerve, don't they?"

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

Sheena was not particularly thrilled to have a random woman deposited at her table while she was planning Raine's demise. Okay, so maybe she really wasn't planning the demise of the one person she knew she could 100% trust within these walls - since Zelos was gone - but the ninja certainly was entertaining the thoughts. That displeasure, though, went away the moment the woman opened her mouth.

Sheena snarfed her orange juice - damn that burned - as the snicker caught her in the middle of a drink of water. Grabbing her napkin, Sheena covered her nose and mouth, wiping the mess away while trying not to laugh. The ninja had been exposed to many accents in her life between Tethe'alla and Sylvarant, but this woman's had to be the funniest thing ever.

"Yeah... some nerve," she replied with a snicker, having mostly recovered. "What's your name, where you from? You know... the usual."

[jokers-wildcard.livejournal.com]

Harley jerked in surprise when the girl suddenly started laughing, a confused smile crossing her own face. She had no idea what the girl was laughing at, really. Maybe this girl didn't hear blunt comments like that all the time. Still, it kind of made Harley feel a bit better to see someone else smile.

"I'm Harley," she said, at least trying to sound in a better mood than she was in. "Got transferred from Gotham City few days ago... Or maybe it was a week."

Wow, it actually felt like so much longer. There was no concept of time in any asylum, let alone this one. Even the nights seem to drag on forever. She took a bite of one of the sausage links before continuing. "How 'bout, you, girlie?"

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

Sheena quickly decided that drinking anything while this woman - Harley - was talking would be a bad thing. Oh yes, she could see it now: great Mizuho ninja drowns on her own orange juice thanks to a deadly accent attack.

"I dunno where Gotham City is, but I'm from Mizuhi in Tethe'alla," the ninja replied. "I'm Sheena. Sheena Fujibayashi." A pause. "I take it you're a favorite of the nurses?"

[jokers-wildcard.livejournal.com]

"...Tee-teh-lawaka what?" No, really. This girl had just gone completely over Harley's head with that one.

Was she Japanese, too? Not that Harley cared about races or anything, but there sure seemed to be an awful lot of Japanese people here. Or rather, there were an awful lot of Japanese people who didn't look anything like they were Japanese. Granted, she wasn't blond like Meesy or Sanji, but still... At least she had gauged that the girl's name was Sheena. Harley wasn't even going to attempt that last name.

"Yeeeah, well," she lulled with a look to the nurses wandering about. "I went kinda bizarro-nutso on 'em yesterday during visitin' hours, so I guess they're kinda edgy."

She shrugged. "Whole place is gettin' edgey actually. Been seein' more and more people hurt every day..."

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

"Teth-e-al-la," Sheena repeated. "Eh... just use Mizuho. It's easier that way."

Then Harley explained why the nurses were giving her special attention. Bizarro-nutso. Right. The ninja had to bite back another snerk.

"I've only been here a couple days... been dealing with a robot trapped in a human body and a man that doesn't think he's worthwhile for most of it, while trying not to knock like my only friend from back home upside the head." She exhaled upwards, blowing the messy bangs out of her face. "I kinda work, sorta, in the Clinic at night, so yeah... people getting hurt and stuff."

"...so.... Harley... why'd you go all batshit at visitors? Is it really that bad getting one of the fake people coming by to see how you are and pretend you matter, like they know you?"

[jokers-wildcard.livejournal.com]

"Mizuho." Yeah, that was loads easier to say. She could have just said that int he first place, jeez.

So this girl was one of those night volunteers. Meesy had something about going to the clinic at night to help out a few days ago, too. It was a nice thing to do, Harley guessed, but didn't these people feel weird not even trying to escape at night?

All the rest of what she said made perfect sense to her. People with delusions, people with problems, and people you want to throttle til sundown; yup that about summed up any nuthouse and family.

But she had to double take completely at that last thing she'd said. "...Whoa, hold on a sec! What do ya mean 'fake people?'"

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

Sheena leaned back a little at Harley's near explosion.

"Uh... the people they supposedly have show up on visitor day aren't the real people they look like?" At least that's what Raine had told her. Sorta.

[jokers-wildcard.livejournal.com]

Harley had leaned forward as the her tablemate spoke, as if to be 100% sure she was hearing her correctly. She stared at Sheena silently for what might have been a full minute as she processed this thought.

The people... weren't real? Could that really be true? The thought buzzed in her mind frantically. The possibility honestly hadn't even occurred to her.

Harley knew making fake people who looked and sounded just like the originals was possible. Red herself was able to do it, with other people and herself. If Red could pull it off, someone else probably could, too, right? The question was had that really been a fake that she met?

After another moment, her eyes lit up suddenly, almost like she was... happy?

"Really?! Like really really? They're fake people?!" She curled her hands into excited fists like she could almost explode from joy. "Ohhh... I knew it! I knew Red'd never say such horrible, awful things to me! She'd never really leave me here! I knew it! Ohhh, I..."

She stopped suddenly as if another thought clicked. "Hey... Hey!" Just as quickly as she'd become happy, she suddenly looked obscenely ticked. "Wait a sec! They were fake people?! What the deal?! Why'd we get a buncha jerk fakes to come visit us?!"

Man, this place was just like one big scam!

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

It was like watching the between match entertainment at the Meltokio Collesium. And then... there was that voice to go with it. Sheena failed to stop the snicker this time in the middle of Harley's verbal exposition... or whatever that part of an act was called.

The ninja held up a hand, watching the other woman like she'd suddenly sprouted a second head when the words turned angry. "Hey now, don't be yelling at me. I didn't have anything to do with them sending some not-real person to screw with your mind."

Sheena glared. "Geeze, calm down."

[jokers-wildcard.livejournal.com]

"Calm down? How can I be calm?" she said, still angry but obviously a little bit quieter about it.

It had been horrible thinking Red had come to visit her only to tell her she was delusional and leave her trapped here. But if that had been a fake, that meant Red hadn't come to visit her at all. So again, no one had really come to see her after all this time. No one had found her. She wasn't sure which situation was worse.

She turned her voice into a loud whisper, as though this would somehow make her appear more calm. "How do ya know they're fake people, anyway? Ya ever get one pop up for you? Or did ya find a secret clone lab-thing somewhere?"

Not that Harley would know what to do if she ever found said lab, but that was beside the point.

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

"First of all, drink your juice," Sheena said, pointing at the glass on Harley's tray. "It'll help. Secondly, shut up for a moment and take a few slow deep breaths." if that didn't calm the woman down, Sheena... well she wasn't sure what she'd do.

"To answer your other questions, no I haven't had a visitor yet, but my friend has. As much as she's pissing me off at the moment, she is like the smartest person I know. When she says the people visiting aren't really the people they look like, then I believe her." Sheena grumbled a bit to herself for having praised Raine.

"I don't know how they get people who look like people we know, but this is an evil place. People running human ranches can't be trusted. They're just trying to break our spirits by bringing in convincing look-a-likes trying to convince us we're crazy since that makes us much more pliable to whatever the hell they're going to use us for."