Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

[selfrescuer.livejournal.com]

Somehow, after their talk in the chapel, Elaine felt simultaneously more accepting of and more irritated by her future husband. On the one hand, seven years had clearly been good to him. He seemed more sincere and thoughtful than he had been before his disappearance, and he had a more mature (dare she say, handsome?) look to him. On the other hand, there were clearly some things that made even time throw up its hands in vain and say, "To hell with this!" Guybrush was still inexorably prone to disastrous accidents if the story about the Pox of LeChuck was anything to go by, and he was so obviously keeping something important from her that any passing dolt in the Institute would have been able to tell. In the end, that eternal underlying sweetness of his that won out, keeping her from punching him again, at least. That was only by a hairs width, though. Her snugglecakes was going to have to stay on his best behaviour if he knew what was good for him.

She left the Mighty Pirate™ alone for the time being when the announcement of the next shift went off. He would want some time to catch up with Morgan next, presumably. As much as the woman's attitude bothered her, she was a friend of Guybrush's, as she had claimed. Elaine could be strict, but she wasn't the kind of shrewish future wife/past fiancé who would keep her man from seeing his friends. Besides, she needed some more time to catch up on the goings-on of the Institute. Patients filled the building to the brim, now, it seemed; there would be a lot to investigate.

After a few quick trips back and forth to the bulletin and a few new leads to follow up on, the governor gave in to her nurse's persistent nagging and headed to the cafeteria for brunch. After the relatively light fare of the day before, Elaine took advantage of the Institute's admittedly scrumptious offerings and loaded up a full, balanced brunchfast of eggs, sausage links, waffles, and vegetable soup. As expected, the selection of drinks did not offer either root beer or grog. Grog she could live without, at least, she thought while making a face. Eugh. For now, she settled for a tall glass of water.

Elaine settled into a seat in the cafeteria and tucked into her meal. Her eyes didn't stay on her food, though, instead gazing around restlessly; she hadn't seen LeChuck so far this morning, and god forbid he wanted to invite himself to brunch with her if he chose now to show up. A certain horribly unpleasant dinner on Mêlée Island came to mind. She was prepared to either move at the first sign of the dread pirate or signal a random stranger to sit with her before he could.

[For Dean]

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[kingside]

"Not every organized group," Lelouch corrected promptly, taking a sip of his orange juice. Coffee would be so much more appropriate right now. Well, he supposed he should be thankful that he was able to drink anything at all; it was impossible to do so through that mask. "It seems a little foolish to expend the effort necessary to maintain journals for some of the smaller groups. If they have members who are willing to do so, of course, I won't stop them, but otherwise, I think it should be all right if they were to pair up with other small groups and share.

"As for the History Club, they'll have no more over what goes in the notebooks than they would have had the information stayed on the board. I'm not intending to share anything in these journals that I wouldn't on there, Mr. Gavin. The fruits of our research in other areas will be given somewhat more care than that. The History Club is, after all, far from the only group with a dubious reputation in this place." That wasn't even going into the various individuals in the institute, but Lelouch didn't even bother pointing that out. It would have been a waste of time, assuming Gavin was as intelligent as he thought he was.

"Apart from that, we can always implement penalties for groups who fail to contribute. We may not be able to take their journals away from them once they've gotten them, but we can prevent them from updating them with the others. Outdated information can quickly become obsolete in this place. They could theoretically steal the information from other groups' journals, but we could just as easily penalize that group as well or stop using the system entirely. I am not suggesting that this is a perfect plan; it is merely the best I could come up with under the current circumstances.

"I am, of course, open to any other suggestions you may have for improvement. I do not believe, however, that excluding the History Club at this stage would be a wise idea. It is still a prominent group, and assuming this information proves to be something that they have a genuine interest in, we may be able to find some way to ensure that the success of this venture becomes one of their goals as well. It isn't the ideal outcome, but I believe that enough people will benefit from it that it should be worthwhile."

He kept his eyes on Gavin, scrutinizing him in what was likely a vaguely unsettling way. He had no doubt that if the man had any inkling at all of the sort of things he had done in the past, he would lose his support in an instant, and after Edgeworth had been released, that was a possibility he had to avoid at all costs. The current subject wasn't the sort that might cause such a split, but the subject of the History Club itself... he would need to keep his true opinion on their methods hidden.

As focused as Lelouch was on the current conversation, though, he could hardly block out Nunnally, and he lightly touched his hand to hers, sparing a brief glance at her. The look she gave him was one he recognized, and he gave her a brief smile. If she wanted to help with this, he would hardly stop her; it was something he'd be working on himself, and as long as he could keep an eye on her...