Day 22, Waiting Room 2, Evening Shift

[31st_of_china]

Sanzo couldn't think of anyone who would want to visit him. He knew that he wasn't exactly the most pleasant person around - not that he gave a shit - so it wasn't like he made any friends. That was more for the others: Gojyo had called him a "self-absorbed prick" more than once, and Sanzo didn't care to change it. Fuck the roach

Comments

[burst_knuckle]

Zell was miserable. He generally tried to be upbeat, but he didn't really have a lot to be upbeat about at the moment.

Last night had been going relatively well; he'd found Squall and there had been a noticeable lack of scorpions. But then he and Squall had picked a direction, Squall had turned a corner a few seconds ahead of him -

In those few seconds between Squall's turning the corner and Zell's being able to see down the hallway, his friend had vanished completely. Zell had spent the entire rest of the night (which actually hadn't felt like much more than an hour while simultaneously seeming like an eternity) trying to find his friend with no success. And it wasn't like Squall to pull jokes, especially in potentially hazardous situations.

Something had happened. Probably something bad. And Zell hadn't been able to do a damned thing.

Even the prospect of a visitor didn't really cheer him up much; for one thing, he kinda suspected that since he wasn't this Macaulay person, the guy's relatives were going to be total strangers to him. Maybe it'd get him out of this place...

But what about Squall?

Zell sunk despondently into a chair, awaiting whatever and whoever might come.

[damned_visitors]

When a stocky woman, with her sleeves pushed up to her elbows (and wearing an apron, as if she'd literally been pulled out of her kitchen and deposited here) was escorted into the room, she didn't have to search for long before locating her son.

"Macaulay!" she exclaimed, and moved over to him at a surprisingly fast pace. Usually she didn't call him by his full name (Maccy had sufficed as an endearing nickname), but in this case it seemed appropriate.

Before Zell would have had much of a chance to react, she had yanked him out of his chair and enveloped him in a huge - the crushing sort.

[burst_knuckle]

When Zell had looked up at hearing the name of the person he was still convinced he'd been mistaken for, and looked up, he'd done a double take.

It wasn't exactly his Ma - there were subtle differences, nothing so major he could put his finger on it but enough to make him hesitate - but there were a hell of a lot of similarities. But more than anything else, it was the hug that convinced him. No one but Ma Dincht could hug like that.

"Ma!" His arms were practically pinned to his sides, but he managed to get them partly around her nonetheless. And for a moment he was guiltily relieved that Squall wasn't around, because he'd have felt incredibly self-conscious about this if anyone he knew was around.

[damned_visitors]

Once she had initiated the hug, it was hard to let her boy go. It had been so long since she'd seen him; she felt like he'd grown so much already. He was only seventeen, after all. There was still a chance that he'd have a final growth spurt. (She knew how self-conscious he was about his height.)

Eventually, she forced herself to detach from her adopted son, taking a half-step back so she could look him up and down.

"Have you been eating well?" she asked with a frown, grabbing for his wrist and lifting it up to get a better look at his arm. "You're so scrawny!"

[burst_knuckle]

Zell's despair had been wiped almost completely clean; Squall was still missing, but to have his Ma show up...it was better than he could have hoped for. It was like a full-out cavalry charge. Ma would rip the staff apart to get him out of here if she had to, and Zell didn't question for a second whether or not she could handle it.

Hell, he felt bad for the staff.

"Awww, Ma," he complained when she examined his arm, with something that sounded like a whine even though he was grinning like a maniac. "They don't have hot dogs here." This was said with the same horrified disgust as if he was announcing that the staff killed kittens on their lunch breaks.

Then he lowered his voice, leaning in to whisper to her. His Ma was smart, and Zell's brain was working fast now that his misery had lifted; she'd called him Macaulay, so maybe she was pretending to believe that Zell really was that guy as part of a plan to get him the hell out of here. If so, Zell wasn't going to be the big-mouthed idiot who blew their cover this time. "But it's okay, right? You're here to get me out of here, right?"

[damned_visitors]

"No hot dogs?" She seemed almost as appalled by this as Macaulay was. She knew better than anyone how much the teenager adored the things. She had long lost count of what his record was for the most hot dogs eaten in one sitting. But it was understandable. He was a growing boy!

When her son took on a conspiratorial tone, she was at first confused, but her brow furrowed when she realized what he was getting at.

"Honey," she said, putting a hand to his cheek near that tattoo. (She had almost fainted the day he'd come home with that, but there was no point in staying hung up on it.) "I can't do anything like that. You've... you've got to get better before you come home." She lowered her head, and it was obvious that it was difficult for her to say. She wanted him to get out of here more than anyone else, but she knew it was important for him to heal first.

[burst_knuckle]

Zell stared at her, open-mouthed, almost comically stunned. The possibility of his Ma showing up at this place and not getting him out of it had never actually crossed his mind. Nothing could stop his Ma from getting him out of this place if she wanted to get him out, and that she might not want to get him out...

It was inconceivable. It was like the sky turning green.

"But there's nothing wrong with me," he protested, almost feebly, reeling so much from the shock of this unexpected betrayal that his voice cracked. "Why am I here, Ma?"

[damned_visitors]

That wasn't something she could easily answer. She seemed apprehensive, which was rather uncharacteristic. She was the type of woman who was always firm and sure about everything, but when it came to her son, that wasn't always true.

Hadn't the doctors or nurses explained this to him? There was no easy way to put it, but she did her best to search for the right words. "You're... sick," she said, her frown deepening. "Not physically, but..." Couldn't he infer from there? Then again, Macaulay had never been the sort to figure things out so easily. He knew a lot - prided himself on it, in fact - but being able to put two and two together wasn't exactly his strong suit.

[burst_knuckle]

She was hesitating, uncertain. That was almost as unlike his Ma as her being willing to just leave him in the hands of strangers.

Zell was in fact starting to feel sick, right in the pit of his stomach. This was wrong. His Ma couldn't be doing what she was doing, saying what she was saying...because, despite even her believing that he wasn't quick to catch on, he'd already gotten the message. Hell, when he'd first started having the visions of Laguna and his friends, he'd certainly asked himself whether he wasn't going insane.

"You think I'm crazy?" Zell had never felt, or sounded, more miserable in his life. Not in living memory, anyway. Of course, SeeD memory was notoriously spotty.

[damned_visitors]

It broke her heart to hear him take that tone with her.

"I'm just trying to do what's best for you," she said quietly. There was no way for him to understand the unconditional love a mother had for her child, even if he wasn't biological. Certain painful judgments had to be made if she believed it would turn out best for him in the end.

"After the way you lashed out, they told me you could only get better if you were kept in a facility. I... I didn't want to do it, but..." Her shoulders started shaking.

[burst_knuckle]

"But Ma," Zell whispered - less now because he was being conspiratorial and more because he was actually short of breath from shock and pain; his mother had never not believed in him before, "I'm not crazy. There's nothing wrong with me, honest..."

Lashed out? When had he lashed out? And at who? Not that Zell's lashing out was exactly uncommon, but - he couldn't ever remember doing so in such a drastic way that his own mother would let him be locked away for it.

And now he was torn. He was positively shattered, having lost the one person he'd counted on to always support him, but...his Ma was crying. And he was the only man of the family, a responsibility he'd always tried to take seriously.

This wasn't like his Ma at all, but he couldn't just let her cry. "I'm sorry, Ma," he said brokenly, hugging her tightly. "Don't cry, okay?"

[damned_visitors]

She nodded, letting him hug her, but not yet having the composure to return it. It was pointless, getting so worked up. How many times had she told her boy when he was younger and prone to crying fits that tears never got anyone anywhere?

She sniffed and wiped the tears away, determined to stop with that foolishness right away. She had found that the longer you cried, the harder it was to stop. "It's not your fault, and I know that, and I want you back, and I... I want to believe you." Her gaze hardened then as she stared him straight in the face.

"But these doctors, they know more about this sort of thing than I do." She seemed almost shameful then, as if she should have learned more about it, but how could she have known it would ever be an issue in her life?