destinystrings | Farewell Happy Fields!

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Farewell Happy Fields!

Farewell Happy Fields!

☯

What: Aftermath of Anoli Attack: Hospital
Where: Leo Ward - Caduceus Hospital Headquarters
Summary: It is the aftermath of the Anoli attack on the Closing Ceremonies. The injured have been taken to Caduceus Hospital Headquarters, and it is time for reflection, visting, or old-fashioned escapes from the hospital rooms.
Warnings: Mild squick if people want to describe their wounds in explicit detail.

Caduceus Hospital Headquarters. It has a distinguished history within Hinoto-Ri, boasting of a staff of well-trained Healers, as well as possessing the most cutting edge medical technology possible. There was no limb they couldn't reattach, no organ they couldn't replace... - they even claimed to be able to bring someone back from the dead (with the small disclaimer that it could only occur under certain conditions and with an obscene amount of luck).

So needless to say, the hospital was more than well-equipped to deal with the aftermath of the Anoli attack on the Closing Ceremonies.

---

Nearly every hospital bed had been filled by an injured patient that night. The A&E room had been in constant chaos, with civilians crying and shouting, searching for loved ones, or demanding to see doctors or healers to help so-and-so...

There had also been plenty of reporters milling about, shouting and crying over the status of the Mayor's Secretary, and whether the Red Lion had really died at the scene, or if he was still alive and well within the safety of the hospital's ICU.

By the time morning broke, there was a false sense of tranquillity within the hospital. The healers had been pushed to their limits with the sheer number of patients being wheeled in and out of surgery, but otherwise, the situation had finally gotten under control. Now, both civilians and visitors were merely waiting for word of the conditions of their injured friends and family...

[Welcome to the winding down of the event! You are now at the hospital, where you may be visiting the injured, or be one of the injured yourself! Those with RED injuries will be in the ICU, and those with YELLOW injures will be in normal wards, for obvious reasons. Those with GREEN injuries wouldn't have had to go to the hospital at all, so they are free to come and go as they wish!

You may all start your threads and mingle!]

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As family, Minako has a few privileges that other hospital visitors don't. Namely, she's allowed to stay overnight if she wishes. It's not quite the end of visiting hours, but it is the evening, after a long and tiring day. The hours since the attack had been spent in hallways and waiting rooms, unable to do anything but worry. It was late evening before he was released to a room and she was able to be at his side.

They say he will be fine. The knife hadn't hit anything vital. It was poisoned, but it isn't fatal. He'd lost blood, but despite her offer they didn't need her to give a transfusion... His broken arm will heal too, good as new. There's nothing to fear.

Telling herself that doesn't block out the images.

Minato, with a knife at his throat.
A crimson stain blossoming through his shirt.
The crunch of breaking bone.
Another person, lying deathly still in a different hospital bed, hooked up to IVs and machines.
The pale green walls of a children's ward, years and years ago, with only one patient for a pair of twin beds.

The power of social links makes you stronger. Bonds friends, bonds with family... those attachments bring joy and create miracles. But right now, Minako only feels small and weak.

One moment, she decides. One moment while no one is here to listen. She leans onto the bed beside Minato and buries her head in her arms, muffling the sound as she finally gives in to tears.

Edited 2013-01-29 08:47 (UTC)

Except someone is listening.

Shinjiro is standing, leaning against the wall just outside the door, observing quietly—just another of the many tangible ghosts inhabiting the hallways.

Most of his memories from the time the attack began are jumbled. He remembers watching a girl fall unconscious, he remembers fighting until he couldn't anymore, remembers coming into the hospital, remembers realizing other people besides him were hurt and everything was pretty damn wrong. Though all those memories are a blur of pain, adrenaline, and color, like all the memories to the day are puzzle pieces that have been broken apart and scattered, and each piece found is but a fragment of a moment. He figures things will string back together now that he's feeling halfway lucid. His body still aches from the poison, but he no longer feels like his body is being eaten away by acid and fire, and he no longer believes he's twenty seconds away from suffocating. Breathing's easier, and he can think without his thoughts swimming somewhere else. The wound in his arm's stitched up, and though it probably should take days to heal, he can already feel it itching and mending. The poison's been purged, and the last of it, as well as the drugs they gave him through his veins, are fading away from his system, clearing his mind and enabling him to better reason, move, and think—lucid enough to remove the IV and leave, so he wouldn't take up room in a temporary and hastily made hospital bed that someone else probably needs more than he will.

For as bad as things are, it will still be okay.

Doesn't mean things aren't still hard and bitter to swallow. He knew, vaguely beneath the haze, what had happened to Minato when he had been told, and had made an effort to find out where he was, and made a deliberate beeline for his room once he had become well enough to leave. He figured that's where everyone that can will gather eventually. It's also where he assumed Minako would be, and he's right on that count. He'll find where they stashed his regular clothes later, and stick with the garb the hospital had shoved him in for now.

It's distressing, though, hearing her cry. He hates it. Makes him feel a lot of things he was never supposed to.

Stupid kid (though not a kid, really) should just hurry up and wake up for her all ready; a big brother isn't supposed to make his younger sibling worry.

(Except that he knows it's probably far better that Minato's unconscious for a little while. He'll come to, eventually, but he shouldn't have to deal with the waking world right now.)

He debates waiting outside until she is done crying, because Shinjiro's sure she's only crying because she thinks she's alone (she isn't). She probably doesn't want anyone to see her this way, because it's a part of her, maybe, that she doesn't want anyone to know exists. Except he's seen just about every part of her by now. This one certainly isn't her greatest secret. He's seen her laugh, he's seen her smile, and he's certainly seen her cry. She doesn't really have much to hide anymore.

But he respects her need for privacy, too. He also debates leaving for awhile just to see it done. Let her have her moment alone. But then, he thinks, she never left him alone in those moments that he wanted to be, so maybe he shouldn't wait and he shouldn't leave, not until she tells him to. So he doesn't.

He walks in quietly, looks at Minato in his bed (idiot), before making use of his voice. "Hey," he says, letting his fingers lightly touch her shoulder. "It'll be okay."

And it will. Eventually. Though he's also not sure what the hell to say.

Edited 2013-01-29 19:39 (UTC)

She jolts when he touches her, immediately raising her head to look at him. For a moment her expression is the shameful shock of a kid who was caught with her hand in the cookie jar, only with blearier eyes. Then she swipes at the tears and looks away, as if that would erase the need for them. "I know. He's actually fine..."

Fine as in not dead, comatose or permanently injured, at least. It probably says something that she's feeling guilt for crying over anything less.

Shinji standing there in a hospital gown is another kind of guilt. Of course, she wasn't able to do anything for him any more than she could do more than she had for Minato, but the facts still are that he's hurt, Minato is hurt, and she isn't. She decides to focus on that, instead. "How are you feeling? You really shouldn't be walking around already."

He tilts his head when she looks away. Perhaps he can read into the guilt there, and wonders if she understands that they're all glad that she's not hurt. It's not even an assumption. Her not being hurt like they are is one of those small miracles he's grateful for. His fingers put more pressure on her shoulder then, but their presence is brief as he turns and walks away to close the door before returning. That way, they'll have more warning if anyone else decides to arrive. It will also help to block the chaotic mess of noise going on outside.

"Fine," he says in response to her question as he turns around, slowly lowering himself to the floor beside her. Most of his back leans against the hospital bed's frame. There. Not walking around anymore. And he is fine. Better than Minato. After another day or so, his body will have transitioned itself back to its usual idea of normality, which is nothing he can't deal with. They had mentioned that they wanted to do a scan to see if the poison had damaged anything internal later, once the chaos is over, but he doesn't think he'll bother, because he doubts they'll find any damage that wasn't already there in the first place. "Just tired." A small admittance he wouldn't make under a lot of circumstances, but it's one he's willing to make, and it's perhaps his subtle way of saying that she shouldn't be ashamed for what she's feeling.

Thanks to Aki, crying is one of those emotions Shinjiro's become used to. Aki cries over a lot of things. He's cried over a lost wallet once or twice before, distressed. It's a funny thought, at first, until you understand what kind of background Aki comes from, where that wallet may have contained what little money he had, and how distressing that loss would have been—especially when he was young, because it meant that he no longer had the means to buy his little sister a meagre Christmas.

Shinjiro doesn't like to see her cry, doesn't want her to cry, but that doesn't mean she isn't allowed to. Aki can cry over a lost wallet if it suits him, and Minako can cry over her brother and not have to feel guilty about it.

He lifts one of his hands then. The touch is hesitant at first, but grows more determined as he lets his hand brush gently against her face, detecting the grief there.

"You okay?"

Don't sit on the floor, either. This is a hospital, there are probably germs. But the chair she had been using isn't that comfortable, anyway. She relents eventually and slides off the chair and onto her knees beside him. She can use the excuse to scrutinize him, even if he's trying to do he same in reverse.

"I'm fine. I only got some scrapes, and they're already healed." Her mental fatigue from summoning Personas (and the emotional turmoil) is much greater, but she's used to powering through that kind of thing. "I bet the doctors wouldn't agree with you saying that, though." She prods his arm, lightly, to prove her point.

When she talks to him like this, she doesn't have to think about the memories that overwhelmed her earlier.

And there are probably germs on the chair and everywhere else you could choose to sit. There are worse places than the floor. He's been sitting in one of those beds for the past four hours, and he doesn't much feel like sitting in a stiff chair.

When she descends down to his level, he stares at her as she stares at him, and when she prods his arm, he snorts in response.

"They can disagree with me all they want."

He doesn't much care.

As if to prove his point, he uses the same arm to pull her closer, wrapping it around her waist. No one's around to see, after all. The only people surrounding them are unconscious, and will probably be that way for awhile. (See? His arm's fine.)

His eyes don't find anything to be alarmed about either, as he looks her over, as if searching for something she might be hiding. He's glad she's okay. He doesn't ever want to have to see her in one of these beds. Doesn't want to see anyone he knows in them. He wants to tell her that he's glad that she is okay—not as fine as she could be, as emotionally and mentally exhausted as she is, but okay—but saying that here would feel wrong somehow. Especially when Minato's as injured as he is, as are many more within the hospital's walls. It would feel selfish—and maybe he is—so he doesn't.

So instead he says the three words he's never told her, though they've always been true: "I love you, you know."

Because there are so many could-have-beens. It would have been easy for things to have gone even more wrong than they did, and he's glad they didn't. He's sorry that Minato's injured, and that he wasn't there to stop it, but he's not sorry Minako isn't.

Just barely conscious as he has become since sometime after Minako started crying, Minato isn't able to muster up much of a response, and it's hard to say if he's even aware enough to really comprehend anything he hears. But... even so, unnoticed, his lips twitch ever so slightly into a smile. It's about time, Shinjiro. It's about time.

She almost thinks she misheard him. It's not that she doubts the words, because she does 'know.' She can tell he loves her from the way he puts up with her, humors her, comforts her, touches her... He never needed to actually say it back. But now he has, and it stops her short for some long seconds.

"I - of course I know." No, that's not good enough in this situation. That's like saying he shouldn't have said it at all. She wraps both arms around him, crushing him to her. "I love you, too... so much."

She's said those words herself several times before, but this time, it has more meaning. They'd gone beyond the level of a friendship, or simple infatuation. When she'd lost him before, she'd tried to move on, because then being left behind had been the norm. She couldn't stop to dwell on it.

But now, it's different. She's come to realize she possesses things she can't replace. People she doesn't want to leave her behind. Like Minato, he's a part of her life she can't risk losing again. He's family, too.

And he knows she knows.

There was no question of her really knowing. Him saying so had never been strictly necessary. It's a sentiment he doesn't see the need to be thrown around casually, because it should mean something when you decide to use it.

"I know you do." Just as he knows the street goes both ways. It's almost been five months now, plus the one back home. If he hadn't known then, then there's certainly no doubting it now. Not that he had ever doubted it before. And knowing that, he welcomes the embrace quietly. "Just.... wanted you to hear it once."

Not that he couldn't have told her it before, but right now he felt the need to, after everything. After her having to watch her brother get cut down, after hearing her cry. This place has all but proven that their lives are still very mortal here, and, like she had told him months ago, they hadn't been brought here for the sake of reunion. As nice as it is, it seems that there are still a lot of battles to fight, whether they like it or not.

"Thank you, Shinji." His name gets easier and easier to use when they're alone, although she's still attached to the connotations of 'senpai.' It's a joke, an admission of respect, and a sign of affection all in one. "I promise I'm all right. I just..."

She pauses, as though unsure about whether she should even continue speaking. But it's Shinjiro, and he's already seen her tears today. He's probably already guessed anything she might say. "I know we first met in a hospital, but... I really don't like them."

And it gets a little bit less surprising to hear each time, though he doubts he'll ever grow out of the honorific. It's one of those things that's probably around to stay.

Her confession doesn't surprise him. He probably all ready knew she didn't, deep down, given what he knows about her. He certainly hadn't made her dislike of them any better.

"Don't think anyone does." There aren't very many people who want to be here. For all the good that happens, you rarely come here because everything's okay. It's all sterile halls, and death hanging over every few doorways. He'd never blame her for disliking him. It's sane. "You gonna stay here tonight?"

~~Someday they'll be seventy, and people will still wonder how he possibly became anyone's senpai.~~

She nods, pulling back from the hug to lean against his less injured side.

"I don't want him to be alone when he wakes up." Because that feeling is worse than being in the hospital in the first place. "What about you? Are you going home? You've already halfway escaped..." Unless a nurse corners him before he can find his coat.

Edited 2013-01-30 08:28 (UTC)

~~In his defense, he never tried to be anyone's damn senpai.~~

Shinjiro thought she would, though he didn't want her to stay in a place she disliked, in a building that did little but dredge up bad memories. It's easy to get lost in them when you hang around places that make you remember.

Her answer, though, certainly makes his decision either. "No." Though he might sneak out to make sure Koromaru's taken care of, if someone hasn't. He's pretty sure everyone that can get away with it is going to be hanging around the hospital tonight anyway. And it isn't like he knows where they've hidden his coat. It's like they knew he'd pluck out his IV out at the first possible opportunity. "I think I'll stay."

Edited 2013-01-30 09:29 (UTC)

"You will?" That's a surprise. She'd thought he'd be out of there as quickly as possible. "In your room, or..."

There's an extra bed in this room, since she'd already made her intentions clear to the doctors, but there wouldn't really be space for two people. Not to mention, the nurses would be sure to walk in.

Well, he was out of his own bed as quickly as possible, at least. He accomplished his main objective with flying colors, as far as he was concerned. But he could stay tonight. He could excuse himself for a little while, go take care of the dog, locate his clothes, find some (decent!) food to bring back. That would give her some time alone if she wanted it, though that was something she only had to ask for, anyway.

"Chair's fine."

There are a few of them here, and he has no intentions of taking the spare bed or asking for another that there probably isn't room for. Even if the bed had space for two people, that's something that extends past his sense of propriety. Living on the streets for two years has also bestowed upon him the particular talent for being able to sleep damn well anywhere without complaint. The nurse might kick him out (well, they could certainly try, see how well that goes for them), because he certainly isn't family in any legal sense of the term. If that happened, he could find somewhere else to crash, even in the bed he had used earlier, if he had to, but he'll figure out specifics when he comes to it.

Or if she'd rather him leave.

She can have much private time with her brother as she wants, but it seemed wrong to leave her alone in a place she only has bad memories of.

"If you're sure you're okay with that."

She doesn't doubt his ability to sleep in uncomfortable places. If the nurses don't make him leave, she's certainly not going to either. He's right, she'd rather not be here alone. Minato's not likely to wake up tonight to be good company.

Her tears have dried up by now, and she's almost back to her usual lively self. The grin that follows her next thought only proves it. "The timing on this whole thing could have been better, though. We'll have to put off that 'later' discussion for a little longer."

To his credit, he only lightly reddens at the reminder.

He smiles anyway. "I'll wait," he says, suddenly hyperaware of the warm body leaning against him. "Gives me something to look forward to."

She's sure one to talk about timing though. She was the one who brought it up first, not even an hour before the Anoli decided to make their move. That was timing for you.

That's because sometimes, timing just happens on its own. Like right now. They may be sitting on the floor in the middle of a hospital ward, but it's suddenly just the right time to lean in and kiss him. Bigger things will have to wait, but there's still room for a little bit of advance conversation.

And Shinjiro's not about to complain.

It's all too easy to kiss her back, touch light at first, like he might pull back after the moment is done, but soon deepens it, lets it change into something else. He turns, feels his hand reflexively tighten around her hip, while his arm wraps around her tighter still, lets his other hand reach up to braid into her hair.

He knows where they are, and will always be carefully aware of it as he is of most things, but it's suddenly easy for some of those details to blur and become temporarily irrelevant—even if only for a conversation's worth of time.

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Farewell Happy Fields!

Day 1, evening

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