damned_institute | Dayshift 43: Waiting Room / Lobby 2 [4th Shift]

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Dayshift 43: Waiting Room / Lobby 2 [4th Shift]

"Now you just have a seat and wait for your visitor like everyone else."

As the nurse went away from him, Kurogane huffed out some agitation but refused to have a seat. Hearing that he had a visitor had been one of the last things he'd expected. It was always the magician who got one, not him. And who the hell would want to visit him anyway?

During his first protests, the nurse had been telling him to behave since it wasn't nice to be sour to girls, so he knew it had to be a girl that was visiting. There were a few of those Kurogane knew could show up as a "visitor" for him, all of which were annoying. Some were worse than others too. He could probably handle if Sohma showed up, and maybe Amaterasu, but when it came to Tomoyo-hime... she was already hard to handle normally, no matter what world she came from. The Piffle version had been pretty much the same, just raised differently. If he saw her, even a fake her, she would probably be just the same and he'd have to at put up with it no matter what.

Eventually he chose to take a seat, knowing that he would not be leaving any time soon. Of course, he picked the one that was furthest into the corner to avoid unwanted conversations. He would already have to deal with a visitor; he shouldn't have to deal with anything more.

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At the sound of her name, all the bluster and anger left her and she deflated like a balloon. The ninja's shoulders slumped and she looked down at her hands in her lap. What was the point in getting angry at Corrine. This place had just done something to him. Still...

"I want to go home, too," she replied. "But home doesn't want me. It hasn't wanted me since... grandfather..." She swallowed. "I just want a place to belong." She was so tired of being lonely.

"You'll always belong with me," he murmured, pulling her close again. "You know I've never wanted you to go away..."

Even though I did. It was just for a few years, he thought she'd be okay. Would she--?

Okay, this was NOT the time to doubt her. Kishin added softly, "Home is where the heart is, right?"

She wanted to believe that so much, the aching in her own heart echoing that sentiment. She really did.

Reaching up to grasp his collar, Sheena pulled him down to eye level. "I didn't go away, Corrine. You died. You died protecting me because I was too much of a failure to protect myself. It's my fault."

"I'm right here, aren't I?" Kishin said, trying to calm her. This was exactly the kind of thing he had been worried he would see, but she didn't need to know that.

"But how do I know you're real, if I'm supposedly sick and making things up?" Sheena tightened her grip on his collar, pulling him a little closer. "Maybe you're just a figment of my imagination, conjured up because I miss you so damn much?"

She was fighting it, fighting it hard, but the overhead lights reflected off of a glistening at the corner of her eyes.

"Well, I think hallucinations don't need to breathe..." he said, trying to get her to loosen her grip a little.

He saw the tears, and he didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad one that she was emotionally involved enough with all this to cry. Either way, he wished he could comfort her.

"Oh. Sorry," she replied, letting go.

She was silent for a moment. "You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"

"You think I'd get away with it if I tried?" They'd known each other too long. Sara could be a little dense, but she knew him well. He didn't think he could lie to her.

She eyed him for a moment, trying to decide if she liked that answer or not.

"No, you wouldn't." Most of the time. "So, who put me in here? I didn't walk in by my own free will."

"Your grandfather." He wanted to add so much about how worried they had all been, but it was probably best to keep his answers short, only expanding on them when she asked him to.

This would be painful, but recovery... couldn't be expected to be easy.

Her grandfather? But he was in a coma! Did this mean he woke up? But even still... he put her here?

Sheena looked like she'd just been slapped across the face. Had she disappointed him so much that he put her in a ranch? Finally, she lost the battle and a tear slipped free.

Kishin hugged her close, hoping she would accept the comfort. "I'm sorry... Sheena. I really am." He just wanted her home, but he knew very, very well it wasn't possible right now.

"He sends his love," he whispered in her ear.

Sheena buried her face in his chest, trying so hard to stop the slow trickle of tears down her cheeks. "W-when did he... when did he wake up?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, puzzled, before realizing just how many of her memories must be hopelessly scrambled. "He woke from that coma just a few weeks later. He only missed your eighth birthday."

Of course, the incident that had put him into that coma ruined his health, the poor old man was in the hospital again right now, but he was alive and awake.

Her eighth birthday. But that didn't make any sense. She'd sat by his bed for hours at a time as she grew up, when she wanted to hide from the rest of the village. It just didn't. It had to be a lie.

"Stop lying to me," she said. "It's been twelve years. Twelve!"

"Sara... Sheena." He wasn't sure what name to use. "I'm not lying." He certainly looked sincere, and concerned. "I know it feels like things have been going badly for a long, long time, but it's only recently that things went that badly."

He hated seeing her so confused and lost, but he didn't know what to do. So... he'd find out.

The ninja grabbed the front of Corrine's shirt again and yanked him so close she could only really see his eyes. See if he could lie to her now.

"Of course things really got bad, recently. Yggdrasil's trying to destroy everything! I can stop it... WE can stop it, but not while I'm stuck in this damn... damn RANCH!" She tried to ignore the wet tracks on her face. "Everyone back home hates me! I'm the reason Grandfather was in the coma to begin with. I'm the reason everyone died! You weren't there are that time. You can't tell me things weren't that bad twelve years ago!"

Maybe she wanted to pretend she wasn't crying, but Kishin wasn't about to let her; he cupped her face in his hands, fingers brushing the tears on the cheeks. "I'm sorry I haven't been here. You are loved, and you're missed, you know," he murmured. Maybe if he didn't escalate with her, she would calm down.

"By who?" Sheena swallowed, squeezed her eyes tight before opening them again, trying so hard not to keep crying. "The only one that ever cared about me was you."

Loved? Sheena didn't really know what that was supposed to be like, after all.

"I still do," he whispered. "No matter where I am, I'll still care. I promised, remember? And I will never, ever break that promise."

He really hoped no one was looking... and that his friend wouldn't kill him. Discretely, he slipped one hand down to touch just over her heart. "When I'm not with you, you can still feel me here."

A lot of good that promise was going to do with him dead. But was he really? Sheena didn't know. She felt him, even more so with the contact on her chest. Normally, the ninja would beat the crap out of anyone doing what Corrine just did, but it was Corrine and he... Well, he could get away with just about anything.

She let go of his shirt with one hand and covered his with it. "But I don't feel you when you're not here," she whispered. "It's been so lonely. The others... they don't fill the emptiness."

"Find out what does," he said softly. "We'll wait for you, as long as you need us to--but not too long, okay?" He ruffled her hair, even though that was really pressing his luck in terms of not getting punched. "We miss you back home."

With ninja reflexes, even injured, Sheena caught his hand as it finished rustling her hair. "Hey," she warned him. "You don't like it when I ruffle your fur, so don't be messing with my hair. It sticks out enough on its own."

She fell silent and looked at an interesting spot on the opposite wall again. Going home with Corrine, even if he wasn't being a fox at the moment, sounded so nice. He was sort of even offering her a home, a place where she belonged. How much Sheena longed for a place she really felt was where she was supposed to be? But what about Tethe'alla, Sylvarant and her friends? What about her pacts?

"You know, a friend of mine, someone I trust with my life, warned me that the visitors that came to see us weren't real. That they were going to seem that way, but they weren't, that they were going to end up causing us pain." Sheena bit her bottom lip. "I don't know, Corrine. I want to believe, because I feel you, but... I can't leave Tethe'alla and Sylvarant to their fate. I have to make right the wrongs I caused and stop Yggdrasil however I can. I can't just give it all up and go to this wonderful place where you say I belong and am loved." She drew in a shuddering breath. "I just can't..."

Kishin didn't know what to think; was she saying she wasn't even willing to come home? He didn't want to cry, himself, but this was his friend here.

Well...

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box--red velvet, not black, so it didn't quite look like he was trying to propose. "Okay," he said softly. "We'll be waiting, anyway. But until then..." he gave her the box. "I thought you'd want this."

Wait. What was he--

Sheena eyed the box as if it might bite her for a long moment before she accepted it. Why was Corrine giving her a box that looked an awful lot like the kind of box Zelos would randomly produce? She stared at it in her hand again for a moment before her curiosity got the better of her.

Carefully, she opened the box and then froze. Her eyes were wide as she stared at the contents. No... no... why did they have...

Fresh tears slipped unchecked down Sheena's face as she suddenly felt overwhelmed. She started to shake, a gentle jingling sound coming from the box. It was that sound that triggered the first actual sound of Sheena crying.

Dayshift 43: Waiting Room / Lobby 2 [4th Shift]

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