Day 50: Chapel

[full-score.livejournal.com]

The last thing Claude heard was the Head Doctor's voice faintly filtering into the corridors of the ship before he found himself tucked beneath the sheets of his bed. It took a moment to register he'd even changed locations, but then he he abruptly sat up, fought the wave of nausea that washed over him, and felt the blankets beneath his fingers. The room. He was back in his room now. Under different circumstances, he might have wondered if last night had been some horrid dream, but the sharp pain in his eyes gave him a rude awakening. Hissing through his teeth, Claude buried the heels of his palms against his lids, only to discover two cold compresses had been taped over them.

"Good morning, Thomas," he heard the nurse's cheerful voice from beside his bed. Her sudden presence nearly made him jump out of his skin, and he sharply turned toward the source of the greeting, heart beating rapidly in his chest. "I'm sorry you're not feeling well today, but hopefully you can still enjoy some of the activities we have planned."

'Not feeling well' was a bit of an understatement. His hand hurt, his stomach kept turning with every movement, and it felt like someone had dumped a bunch of sand into both eye sockets. Right now, Claude just wanted the nurse to leave him be, but it didn't look like that was an option. Taking his uninjured hand, she gently tugged him out of bed, despite his protests that, no, really, he just wanted to stay in and sleep, please.

"I think getting out of your room a little bit will do you good," she told him. "I'm sorry your eyes are probably hurting, though. If you're ever feeling uncomfortable, don't hesitate to ask one of us for some pills."

"What about eye drops?" Claude asked tightly.

"Oh, no, too much of that could damage your eyes," she cautioned, and the sheer irony of the situation hit Claude so hard that it would have been laughable if he didn't already feel like crying right then. The nurse was as oblivious to it as always, however. "I know you usually go into the chapel during this shift. Would you like to go there again?" Claude didn't answered immediately, but that didn't deter the nurse. "Yes, I think that sounds best..."

In truth, he probably should have requested the sun room -- it was closer, for one, which meant the nurse didn't have to lead him as far of a distance. For another, lying down on one of their sofas sounded like a good option. But by the time Claude came to that conclusion, he was too stubborn to say anything, and he made his way up to the second floor, his footing slow, but steady.

The nurse deposited him on one of the central pews, next to the aisle, before leaving him to himself. Thankfully, it was still early in the shift. As he paused to listen, the room was mostly silent, save for the footsteps and hushed voices of the occasional staff member or patient who trickled in. But it was probably only a matter of time before others came. For some reason, the thought of being stuck in a crowded room made him tense, not necessarily because he thought anyone would pay him any mind, but because he simply didn't want it right then.

Somehow, the full implications of what happened last night hadn't sunken in: experiments, healing himself, the issue of whether he could actually go home after this, not being able to see, the ship, father. Instead, he just felt saturated with all of it, paralyzed by the horror of what they'd done to him, and the uncertainty of what it all meant beyond this moment. Claude took a shuddering breath, uninjured hand balling into a fist in his lap.

[For Guy.]

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[notthistrain.livejournal.com]

Cloud woke up with his screwdriver still in his hand. He was dry (thankfully), and no longer in the locker room. That second part was actually a bit disappointing, since he'd really wanted to take a look at what was in some of those lockers. The good news was that they wouldn't be going through any more tricky doorways for a while - at least until night rolled around again. That should give Yuffie the time she needed to rest up.

Once the sword and his screwdriver were tucked away, he waited for his nurse to come in and lead him out so he could check the bulletin. Checking that let him know that Zack and Yuffie were all right, as he'd expected. He was a bit more disparaged to find out that Tifa had injured herself. It would have been more difficult to meet up with her, what with how the doors had been acting, so he couldn't blame himself too much, but he couldn't help but think he might have been able to keep her safer if he'd been present.

His first priority had to be finding her - not only to check up on her, but to tell her what had happened to the rest of them that night. She'd want to know about the empty Highwind and Kalm.

Morning activities divided the patients, but he'd made a hopeful guess as to where he might find her and asked the nurse to direct him that way. Before this morning, he hadn't even been aware that the Institute had a chapel built into it, and he made a note to himself to check it out after dark at the first opportunity.

It looked like he'd made a good guess when he caught sight of the back of a familiar head of dark hair, and he was checking for injuries even as he approached her.

"Better than it looks, huh?" He asked as he took a seat beside her.

oh my gawd it's so short I am sorry Dx

[36-24-35.livejournal.com]

She had been the one to bring it up, so there was no point in attempting to hide her injuries, especially when they encompassed her entire face. Brushing a few fly aways behind her ear, Tifa turned slowly to meet Cloud's eyes and smiled. Another bad decision, as it stretched the skin around her nose and made her eyes water. Those eyes were red and puffy, the skin around them a deep purple that stretched almost all the way down to her cheeks. Her nose was swollen and covered in gauze and metal for the splint, and her bottom lip was fat and scabbing over from a cut. "It's true..." The brunette's voice came out nasally and destroyed all of her credibility.

Shifting her gaze down to the grain of the pew underneath them, Tifa remained quiet, not sure where to go from here. There was a lot to say, and she was sure Cloud had just as much to tell. "So... you wanna go first, or should I?"

[notthistrain.livejournal.com]

"You should be saying as little as possible." Cloud leaned over to get a better look at the damage without touching it, as much as he wanted to. One hand did raise briefly, as if he was going to reach for her face, but just as quickly returned to his lap. He was very curious, of course, and wanted to ask her what happened, but that could wait. She'd hate the treatment anyway, and would probably insist on saying her bit just as soon as he was done with his, if she didn't interject before that.

The blond lowered his voice, knowing how well it would travel in a room with acoustics like this one. At least there were others speaking to drown him out. "I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that you had the same issue with the doorways that we did, in that they didn't lead to where they should have. We must've covered half the building, grounds, and Doyleton. And... further than that."

He glanced up then, if only to see if Zack or Yuffie were around. Having backup on this would have been nice, though Tifa was likely to believe him anyway. "We were in Gaia... if briefly. On the Highwind, just as I left it, and in Kalm. There wasn't anyone there, so I don't know how real it was, but I left a materia with Zack that came back with us."

[36-24-35.livejournal.com]

Like two positive ends of a magnet, Tifa lurched back quickly when Cloud came forward. It was a really unnecessary reaction since he wasn't going to hurt her, but despite all of Tifa's posturing the it wasn't all that bad, her nose did really ache. And she didn't need Cloud sniffing out the truth either. If she said she was fine, she was fine. If she wanted to talk, she was going to talk.

"And you should stop stealing my job. I'm the mother hen here..." What little curve of her lips she could call a smile lightened her words, but truly Tifa wasn't going to allow her friend to take what was left of her minuscule power she had in this institute. It was fortunate for both of them that the conversation took a more constructive avenue.

"Really? The Highwind?" She scooted closer, wary of any nurses or staff members listening in on their conversation. "You got luckier than me. I ended up in Mount Nibel's reactor. That was fun...." Tifa looked to the front of the chapel, eyes unfocused. "Nibelheim was deserted too. I wasn't sure if everyone had abandoned it or..... Well, it doesn't matter now that we're back here." She tried for an optimistic smile, it came out rather weak. "So you guys grabbed a materia, huh? I did too actually. Not intentionally, but it was in my closet when I woke up. Mine's ice. Oh, and I also have something else for you to use..." The brunette moved closer still. "I have a pry bar you can have, I don't need it..."

[notthistrain.livejournal.com]

Cloud frowned. "Nibelheim? Why there?" He could understand his location somewhat, since they'd been thrown in at about the point he'd been dragged out. There had been three of them, but he supposed if they were going together then only one location could be picked and that one held the most shock value. "Was that where you were last?"

That, of course, just added to the number of questions he wanted to dump on her. Nibelhiem hadn't spelled out good things ever since he'd left it, it seemed. Now that the population wasn't even the same as it was when he'd left, what reason did they have to go back unless there was trouble? And if it hadn't been the place Tifa had left, why had the Institute chosen to send her there? Who had she been with? She hadn't been alone, surely... How had she been injured?

Even though she had good news for him, he was so hung up on the other bits that it was nearly unimportant. It wouldn't be later, but right now he had so many things to worry about. Not that he was going to shove the news aside, either. "That's good, though. Yeah. Two materia between us is better than one, and I'm sure I can put that pry bar to good use."

But go back to the part about being in Nibelheim, was the obvious unspoken addition.

[36-24-35.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure..." Her brow creased (it was the only facial expression she could make without hurting), not pleased at being ignorant of the answer. "The last thing I remembered before coming here was closing up the bar. I dunno why I was taken to Mount Nibel. It wasn't really any different than last time we were there. I tried calling everyone too, but nothing got through..." There wasn't much else to tell. It had been quiet and very eerie seeing her childhood hometown deserted and left for nature to destroy.

"The only thing that was out of place were the monsters. They were not... the usual ones on the mountain. Maybe there was another leak and something spawned, but hmmm... it was like a behemoth, but the coloring was different and it was much bigger. Logan and I had to take it down with what materia I had..."

[notthistrain.livejournal.com]

That was strange. Why would he have been brought to a location that made sense while she wasn't? At least she had a connection to Nibelheim, what with it being their hometown and all. Maybe there was just no rhyme or reason to any of it. After all, why would Landel want to make the answers easy for the patients to guess when it was so much more entertaining to just toss them around willy-nilly.

"We fought a Tonberry," Cloud confessed. "In Kalm, though none of us have any idea what it was doing there. Makes just about as much sense as anything else, though. Oh - and Gil was there in the Highwind. Just the animals and monsters, but no people. Makes you wonder what they're trying to prove."

He was about to go on, when he had to backpedal to something Tifa had just said. She hadn't been alone, but had been drawn to Nibelheim with someone who wasn't from their world at all? "...Who's Logan?"

[36-24-35.livejournal.com]

"A Tonberry...?" If Tifa could look surprised without hurting herself, she would have. How could such lethal creature encroach so close into the towns? Perhaps it had something to do with the disappearance of of all the people. Had the institute exterminated humanity on Gaia? What was the point, of any of this?

"L--Oh!" Her voice echoed garishly across the chapel. Tifa ducked her head down beside Cloud so hopefully none of the nurses could point her out for being disruptive. "I met him when I was looking for someone else... We were going to the same place, and I needed help carrying everything.... yeah, it went rather crazy from there on out. We tried going into the Sun Room to get to the kitchen. We ended up at his house, way up north..."

A soft laugh stopped her rambling for a moment. "He was so sure we had gotten out. I told him we hadn't, it couldn't be that easy. Logan didn't believe me, but when he tried to take me to the next village on his bike, we suddenly crashed into the kitchen storage..... ... That's how I..." She pointed to her nose self-consciously, embarrassed to have gotten injured outside a fight.

[notthistrain.livejournal.com]

It had been strange enough winding up somewhere else when just taking a step in the middle of town, so Cloud couldn't imagine how it would be if he'd been on a moving vehicle at the time. Hearing that only made him want to check over Tifa's injuries again, but he managed to hold himself back as she clearly didn't enjoy being inspected.

And then they hadn't only been to Gaia, but somewhere else as well. He wanted to know more about this Logan person and what his goals were - whether or not he should get in contact with him again and consider him an ally. While he hated to think it, Tifa could easily attract male help, and just because they were interested in working with her might not mean they'd want to work with everyone else.

"Yeah, we wound up in a bunch of places too, from the area outside the Institute, to various locations on the second floor. It was a mess." Not good on the stomach, either, given his and Yuffie's motion sickness. Thinking about that made him wonder how the younger girl was feeling this morning.