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.

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[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."