damned_institute | 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She didn't answer at first. But there was no hostility, no outbursts, and Stefan could be grateful for that.

You're not here to get me out. Stefan wanted to deny it, wanted more than most anything to be able to tell her that that was exactly what he had come here to do. Hilary, for all her protests, wanted nothing but the best for their daughter too, and though Stefan was with most things patient he couldn't help but feel suspicious of the Institute. Four days, and nothing had changed.

And perhaps most importantly...she wasn't happy.

He couldn't tell her that, though. Couldn't let his concern show on his face. Maria had to believe that she could be cured, to be motivated to work at it. So as much as it pained him to let the issue slide (she'd take the silence as agreement, certainly), he did.

"...your mother wanted to come, but Alexei convinced her not to," he said finally.

"She's been redecorating your room for the past few days. Said she wanted to hurry lest you come back before she's done."

...her mother. She hadn't anticipated lies like this, had only expected the usual meaningless platitudes fed her by the nurses. She should have known better. She had underestimated this place from the beginning.

But how could he do that? How could he just sit there and talk about--about redecorating her room and her mother worrying when Holly Smirnov had been dead for a decade, only familiar to her through the framed photographs that lined the mantelpiece at home? How could he mention his own son in the same breath when she knew full well they hadn't spoken to each other in years? How could he say such--Soma fumbled uselessly for the word--such normal things as if they were true?

(And now she realized with a sinking feeling what had been glaringly wrong with him ever since he'd arrived, and that was that his scar was missing, completely gone. But of course it would be, wouldn't it? Because the nurse had told her her father wasn't in the military.)

She wasn't the sort for mind games and had never been. All she could do was attempt to confirm what she was sure she already knew.

"I'd like to come back before she's done. It means I'll get out of here sooner," she ventured at last, trying to ignore how deceptively easily the lie came. "How is Alexei?"

There was a flicker of--something. A new tension of sorts when Stefan mentioned Hilary. Perhaps it would have been better were Hilary to have come, though at the time Alexei's assertion that her mother's presence would only disturb Maria more had been persuasive.

"Busy," Stefan replied honestly.

"The internship's taking more out of him than expected, but he isn't complaining. Like father, like son, your mother says."

Soma forced herself to nod, trying to hide her confused emotions from the man who wasn't her father. She doubted she'd be able to do it successfully; he could read her as well as she could read him by now.

It all sounded so normal, and there was that word again, but she couldn't think of an acceptable substitute. Even with the lieutenant colonel worried about her and unwilling to admit it, even with how tired he looked, she got the sense that asking after her apparent older brother was not unusual for Maria Medvedeva. That they were a family, and the only thing that might possibly prevent them from being one right now was her presence, here, at the institute.

It was a lie, she told herself. This was all impossible. The dead couldn't be brought back to life (but they could, she had seen that for herself last night).

"And you're happy?" she said after a moment, not entirely sure whether she was asking the question of him or of the entire family, or whether she was referring to her not-brother Alexei or to their false lives as a whole.

...the more Stefan spoke, it seemed, the more confused his daughter became. Perhaps even...troubled, more than confused. Stefan went over what he said in his head and wondered if he had been insensitive to have mentioned Alexei. Alexei and Maria had always had an amicable, if not close sibling relationship, but perhaps it didn't Maria to mention her brother when she herself was going through so much.

It was difficult to feign good cheer when Maria asked him her next question. While the wording of the question itself was ambiguous...there was no doubt in Stefan's mind what his daughter meant by it. And maybe that was precisely what had made Stefan so reluctant to send Maria to the Institute in the first place. Perhaps she had lost touch of reality-- yes, perhaps she had even forgotten who she truly was. But beside that...his daughter was still the same person she'd been in the past. She used the same expressions and language. She cared about the same things. And most importantly, she was still his daughter.

"...I am doing...well," Stefan replied. He stopped for a long, heavy silence, warring with himself and what he could say. It was difficult to reconcile his lack of faith in the Institute with his desire for Maria's happiness. Perhaps...

"...are you, Maria."

She hesitated almost imperceptibly, unsure of what to say. Telling him about the nights here was out of the question; she knew she wouldn't be believed, as much as he still trusted her here. When it all came down to it, she was still a mentally troubled girl, even if she was his daughter. She had no idea what she had apparently been diagnosed with, and anything she said might easily be written off as mere delusion.

"The staff here--" she began, but cut herself short. Was it any use to make him worry about her more? What if he did pull her out of the asylum--what if she went home with him, back to this family she didn't know? Was that as good as returning to their own world? Was it...better, if he was happy here, if she could learn to be happy here...

She hadn't often questioned herself before. Now the questions came flooding in at an overwhelming rate, and the answers didn't present themselves quickly enough for her to respond in time. They never had.

"It's difficult," she said quietly, and the lie came just as easily this time, if not easier, "but I'll be all right." Then, quieter, "...I miss you."

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

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject