From Such Great Heights, Chapter 4
I apologize for being such a lurker but I've been feeling a bit antisocial and as my friends in rl can attest, I have habitual lurkerness where I only speak to two or three people besides yelling at my muses to cooperate. Which reminds me--anyone else know Tifa built Seventh Heaven under my bed?
I'm actually rather concerned about that.... >.>
Title: From Such Great Heights
Chapter Title: Chapter 4--To Medical, Part 2
Author: kazi_kun
Beta: No Beta
Rating: SFW (for now)
Word Count: 1,887 (for this chapter)
Pairings: TBA
Genre: Uh...shall we go with "General/Dark" for now?
Warnings: Character Death/Mentions of Character Death, OOC/Incident-Behavior Changes, Multiple Animes, Random Created-By-Kazi-kun Plot, Profanity/Drinking/Smoking, Somewhat Minor Character Abuse...
Disclaimer: I Own What You Don't Recognize, and the Medications (unless asterisked) are NOT real, only ones I created. I will asterisk the real medications, should I choose to use real ones, and I'll put list them at the end of the chapter. ^^
Summary: This...this was finally happening, wasn't it? The end had really arrived this time, after so many false promises when she had gone into battle with nothing left for all those years....
-----
"From Such Great Heights"
Chapter 4
Cloud woke with a start when Angeal lightly jostled his knee, the blond quickly lifting his head from the larger SOLDIER’s shoulder. Muttering a quick apology as he passed a hand over his mouth, Cloud wasn’t shocked to find he had nodded off against his friend and superior’s shoulder. It wasn’t the first time one of them had done that, mostly because Angeal truly didn’t mind when he became a temporary pillow…though, he did manage to get some of the most entertaining pictures with his phone to tease his fellows at a later time.
Cloud looked towards the opening doors as the foot of a gurney was being carefully wheeled into their corridor. The time on Angeal’s PHS said roughly two hours had passed since they had arrived at Medical, which meant the persocom had been right about the time it would take. And speaking of the persocom…
The humanoid computer was no longer in the seat he had been occupying, and his bags were gone as well, meaning he had already left.
Both SOLDIERs got to their feet and followed the medical team and the gurney to a recovery room, tossing their empty coffee cups away en route. Angeal and Cloud waited outside the door for the medical team to transfer their patient from the gurney, to the hospital bed, and then to get all the lines, leads and equipment into place. It took another 10 minutes before the everyone filed out again, letting Cloud and Angeal finally go into the room.
“Be warned.” A nurse said, pausing in front of the SOLDIERs. “We’ve had to use a heavy sedative during the operation, so she’s not going to be conscious for much longer. We weren’t expecting the high tolerance to the anesthesia. So, please, don’t be too long. She needs her rest.”
“We understand.” Angeal assured. “We just need a rough timeline from her point of view, so we know where to begin properly.”
“We’re just down the hall if you need us.” The nurse’s bedside manner then took a rather unsurprising turn. “Her little toy is in there now. It’s disgusting how human it pretends to be. Seeing those things around, makes me sick.”
Angeal and Cloud exchanged a look as the nurse walked away, muttering about machines pretending to be human and the disgusting way people fawned over them. Cloud just shook his head and Angeal lightly bit his tongue to keep from saying anything…though, Reeve would undoubtedly like to know if someone like her, held such prejudices. Some persocoms, boomers and shells were medically necessary for certain individuals, much like…
Cloud shoved that thought aside as he and Angeal crossed the room to the bed on the far side. The persocom was there, a chair between the window and bedside, angled to keep the window and door within sight, and he was helping her drink water from a cup. And for a moment, Cloud wasn’t so sure what he was seeing-let alone who.
Now, Cloud knew he had seen her around the SOLDIER floor many-a-time, usually getting lightly harassed by Zack or handling rank-sensitive documents, taking them where they had to go. The long black hair was only partially the giveaway, the ocean blue tips on long bangs and deep blue tips on the ends of two thin braids, only confirming it, in Cloud’s mind. Her skin was naturally pale, Cloud knew, but it looked even paler at the moment and the bandages and splints were really helping either. Her good eye was closed and a noticeable split marred her lower lip, just to the left of her labret.
Gods, she looked so-so fragile in that bed, hooked up to leads and drips.
The persocom glanced up at them, the processing line no longer flashing across his dark eyes. His expression was definitely in the neighborhood of wanting them to come back at another time but he knew-he knew they couldn’t. He understood what their role in this was, and why he couldn’t stand in their way.
“You have visitors.” The persocom said gently, taking the straw and its cup from her lips. “SOLDIERs, First Class. Here to talk to you before you go under.”
“…really?” She turned her head to look at them, even opening her good eye-which promptly closed with a soft pained sound and a slightly more evident wince. Ah, she had pulled on a wound unintentionally.
“We won’t be long.” Angeal assured, speaking to her in a gentle, soothing tone. “We just need a basic timeline of events, so we know where to start.”
“…I’ll try…but I don’t….” She opened her eye and looked at the tank, already clearly on the cusp of passing out on them.
“Just what you can recall right now. We’ll come back for more details later.” Angeal replied, accepting the chair Cloud brought over for him from the other (currently empty) bed.
“…dunno where to start…” She admitted, blinking very slowly.
“How about after dinner? Did you have any assignments, any duties to carry out once you left the mess hall?” Cloud asked, standing by the foot of her bed.
She closed her eye, her face lightly scrunched in concentration. She was trying to think passed the anesthetic.
“…no, not tonight…had evening watch last week, though…” She answered. “…had nothing else to do…was really worn out…went to the barracks to get cleaned up an’ bunk early…did my school work after patrol…”
The late afternoon patrol hit before dinner but an hour or two after the military academy let out, depending if you had an extra class aside from the typical six. It would be a good place to start for the rest of her schedule and past rotations, the mention of evening watch helping narrow it down even more.
“…got a shower, took my meds…had to stay up a couple hours to take a couple others…mostly read until I got pinged…a friend wanted to talk ‘bout some projects…took my final set…lost track of time…” She replied, swallowing thickly. Her persocom coaxed her into drinking some more water before he let her continue. “…lights out came...some went to sleep…wasn’t tired anymore…Fennally lost it…dunno what caused it…got outta bed to see…”
“Did you see or hear what was bothering him?” Angeal asked gently.
“…dunno…can’t ‘member…had to go for my sword…knew I had to get it…knocked stuff to the floor…” She swallowed thickly again. She shifted unintentionally, and locked her jaw against the pain. “…got shot…’member that…white hot…still hurts like hell…”
A flag went up in Cloud’s brain. “You’ve been shot before?”
She nodded without thinking and swiftly regretted it. “…was 15…some prick tried to shoot Takeshi…slipped, caught me instead…”
“What happened after you were shot?” Angeal coaxed, getting an out-ofiit dark eye to look at him when he spoke. “Did the MPs arrive?”
“…dunno…got hit, pistol whipped…cut his arm to make ‘im drop the gun…not sure where exactly…wasn’t seein’ too straight at that point…was losing blood…dug his fingers in the wounds…tolerance too high…couldn’t make me pass out…” She answered, the drug obviously beginning to drag her deeper. “…’member gettin’ pulled off ‘im, though…’member gettin’ carried somewhere…didn’t wanna leave my sword…knew I’d need it…rushed in…guy was practically diggin’ into my bones to get the rounds…Law’s not like that…he jus’ goes in an’ pulls it out…this guy’s sloppy…”
Cloud and Angeal exchanged half a look, knowing they’d have to look into the surgeon who removed the rounds from her body. If he damaged her or the bullets during the recovery, then there was going to be repercussions. Also, (considering what time it was) if he was tired, why didn’t he let one of the rotational surgeons take over for him?
Something didn’t feel right, to Cloud. Something was definitely up.
“…think it could be related to the fire…?” She asked, regaining the SOLDIERs’ attentions.
“How so?” Cloud asked, wondering what she meant. There had been at least a dozen fires within the last month alone, on and below the Plate.
“…girl’s dorm…saw ‘whore house’ spray painted on the interior wall when the alarms went off…Fennally kept callin’ me a whore…dunno why…” Her words surprised the two adult men, red flags going up immediately in Cloud’s brain. “…ever find out how they got so close without raisin’ a ruckus…?”
“Who?” Angeal inquired gently. “How who got so close?”
“….AVALANCHE…saw a couple of ‘em runnin’ off towards the outer buildings…couldn’t go after ‘em…had to evac upper floors…filed a report…sent a copy to Anders…”
“Administrator Anders?” Angeal earned a nod and a pained sound as she swallowed thickly. There had been an eyewitness and they hadn’t known about it? Had Anders dropped…?
No, Anders was far from sloppy. He cared about the cadets, worked hard to make sure they had everything they needed to do their best in such a drastically different environment from what the majority was used to. And she said Anders had a copy of her filed report, which meant the superior she had filed the original report with, had been the one to fail…or had purposefully dismissed it as utter bullshit.
“Who’s your squad supervisor?” Angeal asked.
“…Justibol…unit sup’s Campbell…” She answered before her persocom urged her to drink more water to keep her from succumbing to cottonmouth, a side effect of all anesthetics.
Cloud nodded at the silent question, if the blond would check with Justibol while Angeal spoke with Campbell. Justibol was one of those supervisors with a mixed history that wasn’t student-friendly but nothing that would stick. And Campbell was more military than school but as he was a unit supervisor for the Cadet SOLDIER Program…wait.
“You’re in CSP?” Cloud earned a soft laugh.
“…yeah, ‘course I am…didn’t think ‘bout my havin’ a sword was weird, if I were a grunt…?” She coughed and her “good hand” moved to the side of her ribs with a groan. “…Cadet SOLDIER, First Class…Student Lieutenant Commander…Hotaru Tomoe…Zima’s got my scan card…if ya need it…”
Well, shit-no wonder she had put up such a fight before going down.
“Rest up, SOLDIER. We’ll talk later, when you’re not fighting going under.” Angeal earned a weak smile from Cadet Tomoe.
“…thank you, sirs…” She mumbled, another very slow blink accompanying her words. “…sorry I couldn’t be of more help…”
“This is more than enough to get us started in the right direction.” Angeal reassured. “Get some sleep. We’ll drop in on you later.”
The cadet managed a weak salute, making Angeal smile sorrowfully at the effort. She didn’t see, as she closed her eye again, but she lowered her hand as though Angeal had saluted her in return. Her persocom, Zima, took her scan card from his pocket and offered it to Cloud as Angeal helped her lower her hand to the bed again.
“We’ll get this back to you as soon as possible.” Cloud promised the persocom, receiving a nod.
The blond would wait until they were somewhere else before he mentioned the flags Cadet Tomoe’s words had raised. With what Tifa had hissed at him earlier and the targeting of the girl’s dorms specifically with no other buildings suffering damage, the pieces Cloud was beginning to collect, were not forming a pleasant picture with this new bit of news.
However, he’d need that report, if he was going to be certain of his suspicions.
------
Ha! Two posts in one day! Yesss!
Okay, aside from that, I'm not too sure this flows right but if I messed with it anymore, I'm certain I'd ruin it. Please let me know what you think!
I'm actually rather concerned about that.... >.>
Title: From Such Great Heights
Chapter Title: Chapter 4--To Medical, Part 2
Author: kazi_kun
Beta: No Beta
Rating: SFW (for now)
Word Count: 1,887 (for this chapter)
Pairings: TBA
Genre: Uh...shall we go with "General/Dark" for now?
Warnings: Character Death/Mentions of Character Death, OOC/Incident-Behavior Changes, Multiple Animes, Random Created-By-Kazi-kun Plot, Profanity/Drinking/Smoking, Somewhat Minor Character Abuse...
Disclaimer: I Own What You Don't Recognize, and the Medications (unless asterisked) are NOT real, only ones I created. I will asterisk the real medications, should I choose to use real ones, and I'll put list them at the end of the chapter. ^^
Summary: This...this was finally happening, wasn't it? The end had really arrived this time, after so many false promises when she had gone into battle with nothing left for all those years....
-----
"From Such Great Heights"
Chapter 4
Cloud woke with a start when Angeal lightly jostled his knee, the blond quickly lifting his head from the larger SOLDIER’s shoulder. Muttering a quick apology as he passed a hand over his mouth, Cloud wasn’t shocked to find he had nodded off against his friend and superior’s shoulder. It wasn’t the first time one of them had done that, mostly because Angeal truly didn’t mind when he became a temporary pillow…though, he did manage to get some of the most entertaining pictures with his phone to tease his fellows at a later time.
Cloud looked towards the opening doors as the foot of a gurney was being carefully wheeled into their corridor. The time on Angeal’s PHS said roughly two hours had passed since they had arrived at Medical, which meant the persocom had been right about the time it would take. And speaking of the persocom…
The humanoid computer was no longer in the seat he had been occupying, and his bags were gone as well, meaning he had already left.
Both SOLDIERs got to their feet and followed the medical team and the gurney to a recovery room, tossing their empty coffee cups away en route. Angeal and Cloud waited outside the door for the medical team to transfer their patient from the gurney, to the hospital bed, and then to get all the lines, leads and equipment into place. It took another 10 minutes before the everyone filed out again, letting Cloud and Angeal finally go into the room.
“Be warned.” A nurse said, pausing in front of the SOLDIERs. “We’ve had to use a heavy sedative during the operation, so she’s not going to be conscious for much longer. We weren’t expecting the high tolerance to the anesthesia. So, please, don’t be too long. She needs her rest.”
“We understand.” Angeal assured. “We just need a rough timeline from her point of view, so we know where to begin properly.”
“We’re just down the hall if you need us.” The nurse’s bedside manner then took a rather unsurprising turn. “Her little toy is in there now. It’s disgusting how human it pretends to be. Seeing those things around, makes me sick.”
Angeal and Cloud exchanged a look as the nurse walked away, muttering about machines pretending to be human and the disgusting way people fawned over them. Cloud just shook his head and Angeal lightly bit his tongue to keep from saying anything…though, Reeve would undoubtedly like to know if someone like her, held such prejudices. Some persocoms, boomers and shells were medically necessary for certain individuals, much like…
Cloud shoved that thought aside as he and Angeal crossed the room to the bed on the far side. The persocom was there, a chair between the window and bedside, angled to keep the window and door within sight, and he was helping her drink water from a cup. And for a moment, Cloud wasn’t so sure what he was seeing-let alone who.
Now, Cloud knew he had seen her around the SOLDIER floor many-a-time, usually getting lightly harassed by Zack or handling rank-sensitive documents, taking them where they had to go. The long black hair was only partially the giveaway, the ocean blue tips on long bangs and deep blue tips on the ends of two thin braids, only confirming it, in Cloud’s mind. Her skin was naturally pale, Cloud knew, but it looked even paler at the moment and the bandages and splints were really helping either. Her good eye was closed and a noticeable split marred her lower lip, just to the left of her labret.
Gods, she looked so-so fragile in that bed, hooked up to leads and drips.
The persocom glanced up at them, the processing line no longer flashing across his dark eyes. His expression was definitely in the neighborhood of wanting them to come back at another time but he knew-he knew they couldn’t. He understood what their role in this was, and why he couldn’t stand in their way.
“You have visitors.” The persocom said gently, taking the straw and its cup from her lips. “SOLDIERs, First Class. Here to talk to you before you go under.”
“…really?” She turned her head to look at them, even opening her good eye-which promptly closed with a soft pained sound and a slightly more evident wince. Ah, she had pulled on a wound unintentionally.
“We won’t be long.” Angeal assured, speaking to her in a gentle, soothing tone. “We just need a basic timeline of events, so we know where to start.”
“…I’ll try…but I don’t….” She opened her eye and looked at the tank, already clearly on the cusp of passing out on them.
“Just what you can recall right now. We’ll come back for more details later.” Angeal replied, accepting the chair Cloud brought over for him from the other (currently empty) bed.
“…dunno where to start…” She admitted, blinking very slowly.
“How about after dinner? Did you have any assignments, any duties to carry out once you left the mess hall?” Cloud asked, standing by the foot of her bed.
She closed her eye, her face lightly scrunched in concentration. She was trying to think passed the anesthetic.
“…no, not tonight…had evening watch last week, though…” She answered. “…had nothing else to do…was really worn out…went to the barracks to get cleaned up an’ bunk early…did my school work after patrol…”
The late afternoon patrol hit before dinner but an hour or two after the military academy let out, depending if you had an extra class aside from the typical six. It would be a good place to start for the rest of her schedule and past rotations, the mention of evening watch helping narrow it down even more.
“…got a shower, took my meds…had to stay up a couple hours to take a couple others…mostly read until I got pinged…a friend wanted to talk ‘bout some projects…took my final set…lost track of time…” She replied, swallowing thickly. Her persocom coaxed her into drinking some more water before he let her continue. “…lights out came...some went to sleep…wasn’t tired anymore…Fennally lost it…dunno what caused it…got outta bed to see…”
“Did you see or hear what was bothering him?” Angeal asked gently.
“…dunno…can’t ‘member…had to go for my sword…knew I had to get it…knocked stuff to the floor…” She swallowed thickly again. She shifted unintentionally, and locked her jaw against the pain. “…got shot…’member that…white hot…still hurts like hell…”
A flag went up in Cloud’s brain. “You’ve been shot before?”
She nodded without thinking and swiftly regretted it. “…was 15…some prick tried to shoot Takeshi…slipped, caught me instead…”
“What happened after you were shot?” Angeal coaxed, getting an out-ofiit dark eye to look at him when he spoke. “Did the MPs arrive?”
“…dunno…got hit, pistol whipped…cut his arm to make ‘im drop the gun…not sure where exactly…wasn’t seein’ too straight at that point…was losing blood…dug his fingers in the wounds…tolerance too high…couldn’t make me pass out…” She answered, the drug obviously beginning to drag her deeper. “…’member gettin’ pulled off ‘im, though…’member gettin’ carried somewhere…didn’t wanna leave my sword…knew I’d need it…rushed in…guy was practically diggin’ into my bones to get the rounds…Law’s not like that…he jus’ goes in an’ pulls it out…this guy’s sloppy…”
Cloud and Angeal exchanged half a look, knowing they’d have to look into the surgeon who removed the rounds from her body. If he damaged her or the bullets during the recovery, then there was going to be repercussions. Also, (considering what time it was) if he was tired, why didn’t he let one of the rotational surgeons take over for him?
Something didn’t feel right, to Cloud. Something was definitely up.
“…think it could be related to the fire…?” She asked, regaining the SOLDIERs’ attentions.
“How so?” Cloud asked, wondering what she meant. There had been at least a dozen fires within the last month alone, on and below the Plate.
“…girl’s dorm…saw ‘whore house’ spray painted on the interior wall when the alarms went off…Fennally kept callin’ me a whore…dunno why…” Her words surprised the two adult men, red flags going up immediately in Cloud’s brain. “…ever find out how they got so close without raisin’ a ruckus…?”
“Who?” Angeal inquired gently. “How who got so close?”
“….AVALANCHE…saw a couple of ‘em runnin’ off towards the outer buildings…couldn’t go after ‘em…had to evac upper floors…filed a report…sent a copy to Anders…”
“Administrator Anders?” Angeal earned a nod and a pained sound as she swallowed thickly. There had been an eyewitness and they hadn’t known about it? Had Anders dropped…?
No, Anders was far from sloppy. He cared about the cadets, worked hard to make sure they had everything they needed to do their best in such a drastically different environment from what the majority was used to. And she said Anders had a copy of her filed report, which meant the superior she had filed the original report with, had been the one to fail…or had purposefully dismissed it as utter bullshit.
“Who’s your squad supervisor?” Angeal asked.
“…Justibol…unit sup’s Campbell…” She answered before her persocom urged her to drink more water to keep her from succumbing to cottonmouth, a side effect of all anesthetics.
Cloud nodded at the silent question, if the blond would check with Justibol while Angeal spoke with Campbell. Justibol was one of those supervisors with a mixed history that wasn’t student-friendly but nothing that would stick. And Campbell was more military than school but as he was a unit supervisor for the Cadet SOLDIER Program…wait.
“You’re in CSP?” Cloud earned a soft laugh.
“…yeah, ‘course I am…didn’t think ‘bout my havin’ a sword was weird, if I were a grunt…?” She coughed and her “good hand” moved to the side of her ribs with a groan. “…Cadet SOLDIER, First Class…Student Lieutenant Commander…Hotaru Tomoe…Zima’s got my scan card…if ya need it…”
Well, shit-no wonder she had put up such a fight before going down.
“Rest up, SOLDIER. We’ll talk later, when you’re not fighting going under.” Angeal earned a weak smile from Cadet Tomoe.
“…thank you, sirs…” She mumbled, another very slow blink accompanying her words. “…sorry I couldn’t be of more help…”
“This is more than enough to get us started in the right direction.” Angeal reassured. “Get some sleep. We’ll drop in on you later.”
The cadet managed a weak salute, making Angeal smile sorrowfully at the effort. She didn’t see, as she closed her eye again, but she lowered her hand as though Angeal had saluted her in return. Her persocom, Zima, took her scan card from his pocket and offered it to Cloud as Angeal helped her lower her hand to the bed again.
“We’ll get this back to you as soon as possible.” Cloud promised the persocom, receiving a nod.
The blond would wait until they were somewhere else before he mentioned the flags Cadet Tomoe’s words had raised. With what Tifa had hissed at him earlier and the targeting of the girl’s dorms specifically with no other buildings suffering damage, the pieces Cloud was beginning to collect, were not forming a pleasant picture with this new bit of news.
However, he’d need that report, if he was going to be certain of his suspicions.
------
Ha! Two posts in one day! Yesss!
Okay, aside from that, I'm not too sure this flows right but if I messed with it anymore, I'm certain I'd ruin it. Please let me know what you think!