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

[contentincloset.livejournal.com]

"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.

Comments

[damned-visitors.livejournal.com]

"Ah, Charlie, I've missed you," Anna murmured, leaning her head against his shoulder for a moment as she took comfort in the solid reality of him. He'd even called her by the right name this time, so perhaps he was starting to get better. It would be hard to tell with Charlie; he could have just remembered from last week and was trying to make her feel better, but even if that was the case it was a lie on her behalf. That she could forgive, and appreciate.

She finally drew back again just slightly, giving him a searching look. "Have you been sleeping?" she asked, lifting a hand to touch his forehead lightly. "You don't look like it. It's not the headaches again, is it? Surely they'd give you something for that..."

[brokenweapon.livejournal.com]

Bourne shrugged noncommittally at her question. He'd dozed, and the headaches weren't what was keeping him up nights. "I don't sleep too well," he settled on, because it was the truth. He hadn't. Not for a very long time.

But at least she remembered his headaches - that was a start. "I haven't been having so many headaches here, actually." Which was true. There had been maybe one in the past week. Of course, the headaches were replaced with something far worse, but he dared not tell her the terrible truth about this place. She'd think he was crazy (crazier), and worse, leave early. She'd feared him when she'd learned that he was an assassin, and rightly so, but she still stuck by him. He wasn't sure if Marie - Anna, she calls herself Anna - would stick by him through allegations of sadistic head doctors and changing intercom systems (what was that I.R.I.S. thing, and what was it talking about?) and worse, monsters.

No, he did not think any relationship could handle that. Particularly not one strained as theirs seemed to be by post-traumatic stress.

She's not real, you know. She's a trick. Landel's done something. This can't be Marie, a treacherous little voice in the back of his head whispered. He squashed it down. He'd lived without hope for too long.

[damned-visitors.livejournal.com]

He didn't, that was true; she'd woken up enough times in the middle of the night to find him awake to know that. Still, though, it was another worry atop all the others that had left him in this place. Her concern was apparent in her smile, even if she damped it down as best as she should to keep from worrying him too much.

"I'm glad to hear that you're feeling a little better, then," she said, latching onto that gladly. It had been a difficult enough decision that he needed to be here, and if she hadn't seen at least some improvement she wasn't certain how long her resolve would have lasted. "I'm...everyone is looking forward to having you home again, Charlie."

She brushed her fingertips across his forehead and down his cheek, as though memorizing the lines of his face. After this it would be another week before she could see him again, unless he recovered enough to be released this week. She hoped for that - but couldn't be certain.

[brokenweapon.livejournal.com]

He tried his best to smile broadly at her, as alien as the expression felt. "Come on, sit down," he said, keeping just the right level of excitement to see her in his voice, tempering it with an unspoken apology for making her worry. Jason didn't really mean any of it - which he was hating himself for - but it was necessary if he was to learn more about her, if she really was his Marie or another chameleon, like him.

"I am feeling better," he said, a little ruefully, glancing down at the journal. He wanted to escape, and if he had to use her to do it, he would. If she was Marie, she would understand when he told her and escaped and they could run. "But I just wish I wasn't putting you through this."

[damned-visitors.livejournal.com]

"It's not your fault," Anna replied, sounding firm about that much at least. He would never have wanted anything like this to happen if he'd had any choice in the matter, and she'd never had cause to think otherwise. She followed the glance down toward the journal, then back up at him, curious but not questioning it just yet.

Instead she only gave him a gentle smile and shook her head slightly. "You're doing your best, I'm sure. It just takes time. Okay? Don't fret so much you make yourself worse."

[brokenweapon.livejournal.com]

Jason shrugged, looking down at the journal again. He was doing his best...to escape. And if anything about this place was his fault, it was news to him. "I'll take it slow...but not too slow," he told her, trying to give her as much hope as he could.

This was difficult. He just wanted to grab her by the arm and run, as they'd done so many times before, make a rush for the doors and escape. That wasn't going to happen. He slid the picture out of the journal. "This has helped a lot," he said, "but it's still hard to grasp everything. There was the...accident. Where was that again?" he asked, acting like a man struggling with a half-surfaced memory; not much acting involved, really.

[damned-visitors.livejournal.com]

It wasn't as though Anna hadn't expected him to keep the photograph that she'd brought the week before, but the way he was carrying it around with him pressed between the pages of the journal was - well, solid proof that he hadn't forgotten about her, at least. Even if everything else had been turned upside-down, he still valued their relationship. Valued her.

It took her a second to regather her thoughts enough to realize that he'd asked a question, and still she paused before replying, casting a sidelong glance toward the nearest staff member. "They said not to tell you anything," she observed, voice tinged with mild irritation at the orders. She hadn't liked that, being forbidden not to tell him something.

After considering that, she finally sighed and muttered something under her breath (impossible to make out, but from the sound likely German), then leaned forward a little and lowered her voice, resting her hand on his as though she were merely trying to confide something of a personal nature. "It was on the river bridge, just outside of town. You were driving and you...they said you had an episode. It was like you just froze up. I grabbed the wheel, but..."

Another pause, then she quickly assured, "Nobody was hurt, don't worry - traffic was clear, the barrier on the bridge held, and the airbags worked. I know that you think...something else happened, but it didn't."

[brokenweapon.livejournal.com]

Bourne nodded. They'd said that last time, too. Not to tell him anything. It would be hard to get much out of her today if she was so committed to his 'well-being'.

The German muttering, though, was all Marie. He had to suppress a quick grin when she did that, dropping it altogether when she began to talk, scrawling it in his notebook.

In the basics, it was correct. Partially. Right up until his 'episode'. The barrier hadn't held. Marie had been at the wheel. She had been hurt (killed, he'd thought, he was sure). There had been no airbags. They'd dropped straight into the water. And it hadn't been an accident.

But at least he had an approximation of the exact circumstances that she thought had brought him here, even if her blithe statement of 'just outside of town' was maddeningly vague. Still, he wrote it all down, including her assertion that what he knew had happened, hadn't.

He closed the journal and sighed. "Why are you doing this, Anna? You - you don't have to come here, and...see me like this..." He tried to keep his voice level...but not too hard. Appeal to emotion. Manipulative, but coming from the heart. Though seeing her was a balm to his mind, it was also deeply wounding that the woman he loved thought he was insane, thought she was someone else.

[damned-visitors.livejournal.com]

The grin had been a good sign, and he'd paid attention to what she'd said instead of trying to argue it. That was still not entirely out of character for him, though - even if he wasn't certain of a situation he had always been good at pretending to fit in until he actually did. She'd seen it any number of times at social gatherings, and heard the other men in his unit comment on it.

When he spoke, though, she frowned slightly and shook her head once. "Did you think I was just going to forget about you?" She made a brief gesture in the direction of one of the nurses, the movement sharp with annoyance or impatience. "They tried to insist that I stay away. They said you needed to remember things on your own. But...Charlie, I couldn't just let you go on thinking that I was -- that you were alone in this."

For a moment she paused, then sighed, absently brushing her fingertips across her forehead to push stray bangs from her eyes. "You're not alone, Charlie. You can't go on believing only the bad things forever. I wanted to make sure you had something good to think about instead, and I hoped I could remind you."