damned_institute | Day 51: Arts & Crafts (4th shift)

There were very few activity shifts, Cloud was sure, that could possibly make him feel more like he was being treated like a child. He took a seat at one of the tables and blankly examined the materials set out before him. A pair of the dullest scissors he'd ever seen were labeled 'ages 3 and up'. It was good to know where the patients stood in this.

He wasn't much of an artist, and he ignored most of the paints and other drawing utensils in favor of a few sheets of colored paper and instructions on how to make origami. That sounded vaguely familiar. Didn't Yuffie have throwing weapons made out of paper at some point? It was something to do anyway, and thus Cloud began the process of crafting what ended up being very elaborate paper wads.

Sadly, his attempts to keep from dwelling on the subject of his missing friend failed when he realized this was something Aerith probably would have enjoyed greatly. Tonight, he and Yuffie would go out and try to accomplish... something. It was depressing to think there really might not be anything they could do, that they might all end up the same as the flower girl eventually.

[for a hopefully more optimistic materia thief]

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[then prepare for this non-crazy man to look actually crazy in three, two...]

Jack knew someone who could probably make something useful, too. He could, but that didn't mean that he would. No, when it came right down to it, to the things that mattered, he would just stand by and watch everything fall apart.

She was sitting now. Jack looked at her out of the corner of his eye... and froze. What were the odds? "Donna?" One tick in the column of evidence that this was really all about him. "Oh my--" He grabbed her hand, to reassure himself. It didn't have to mean anything. Jumping to conclusions wouldn't do him any good. The Doctor was around, so it only made sense that a companion would have gotten sucked in with him. Collateral damage.

TARDIS roulette - see the universe, bet your life.

The little frog thing didn't look too hard, but Donna was set on trying to remember earlier days when she at least attempted to fold paper into a bird-looking sheet. Before she usually tore it to pieces for being "too difficult". She'd only just folded the paper over when suddenly her hand was being grabbed by the guy. Startled, she jumped a little and was about to protest that those kind of moves were too fast even for her taste except that something stopped her. Her name. Her... name? How would he know her name unless...

"You... we've met?" she tried, remembering just how confusing the Doctor had made some aspects of time travel sound before. She thought he'd said something along the lines of 'be nice and try not to give away too much'. Only problem here was that, since he already knew her name, she was the one behind.

Life with the Doctor was always so complicated.

"... not to sound rude or anything--"

"You wouldn't be you if you weren't a little rude." No judgment, just an automatic response based on the woman he'd gotten to know so very long ago. She didn't sugar coat, she didn't pull her punches, and she never bothered filtering things between her brain and her mouth. Donna Noble - uncensored, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week (depending on the planet and system).

Sometimes Donna could handle the truth, but most times it just made her want to hit people. This time it was a little of both as she pulled her hand from his and nearly swatted his fingers for the comment. "Oi!" she barked, but then stopped herself. After a huff and some thought, she really couldn't say he was wrong.

"Guess I can't argue that..." she admitted, rolling her eyes up, "Right, let's try that again. Not always in the right..." Time? Did he know about stuff like that? "...place," She eventually settled on. "you see so... remind me who you are again?"

Not completely rude, but rude enough if she was supposed to remember him and couldn't.

"You haven't met me yet." He sounded disappointed, and didn't bother trying to hide it. She would have been so much more useful with the molecules from Twitchy 2.0's regeneration saturating her every cell. It would also be much easier on him if she already trusted him. "Jack Harkness. I used to travel with The Doctor." Not a complete summation of his existence, but more than enough to explain their being out of sync. He had that effect on people - shaking up their lives and not always putting them back together as they should be.

If his first time hadn't let her know that, yeah, this guy knew what time travel was, then the second definitely did. The Doctor. Of course he'd know the Doctor. Who didn't? Donna had to keep from rolling her eyes. And here she'd thought she'd have a chance at some form of normalcy.

"So time travel's not a mystery to you. That's good. Would have had a hard time explaining things otherwise," she sighed in relief, "So ok then, Mr. Jack Harkness. Not big on spoilers, but I would like to hear you tell me what the Doctor looks like. Just to be sure." She gave him a knowing smile. That skinny spaceman was easy to recognize by description alone, so she'd know if this guy was just trying to play her or not.

Just to be sure. She was testing him. Well, of course she was. Donna Noble. "The version you know? Thin. Twitchy. Disheveled."

He paused. That actually went for more than one of them. "Big teeth, tight suits, and a bit of a jackass." Though that last trait seemed to also run through quite a few incarnations. "He always put me in mind of a lizard." Jack finished folding another little frog and dropped it onto the table.

That wasn't entirely true. There had been a time when Jack would have followed that hyperactive man to the end of the universe - had done so, in fact, though it wasn't intentional. Once upon a time Jack would have done anything for him.

Times changed.

Again, it wasn't anything the man said that wasn't spot on, but Donna could not help the image that came to mind at the mention of a lizard, or the fit of giggles it brought on as well. "More like a skinny rat!" she howled as she thumped the table.

That spaceman. Somewhere between being a rat and a lizard while at the same time being a three year old. Donna was half-tempted to put the image on paper (since they were in the craft room) and paste it up on the bulletin - no captions to speak of. She'd just give it flippy hair and see if he managed to put two and two together!

Jack was not against comparing the Doctor to a rat, but in his opinion the resemblance wasn't physical. No, not by a long shot. Donna liked him, though, whatever she might have occasionally said to the contrary - Jack remembered that much. Everyone always liked him, and if they ever realized the truth, it was usually too late for them to get out.

The paper in his hands was crumpled beyond repair now. "Rat," he repeated. "Absolutely. Tell me... how furious is he to be stuck in these clothes? Not a pinstripe or a tucked pleat to be found." It would be lovely if he could get his jaw to unclench.

Day 51: Arts & Crafts (4th shift)

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