onepassingnight | [002] Doctor's Hours

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[002] Doctor's Hours

This is a waiting room inside a large hospital, comfortably furnished and provided with a mixture of medical journals and fashion magazines. After a reasonable wait, a bustling nurse calls out the appointments, everyone who arrives. "Doctor Mizuno will see you now."

Inside the doctor's office, bookshelves line every wall, packed with heavy textbooks. Doctor Mizuno, remarkably young for her title (youngest in her world, it's rumored) sits behind the sturdy desk with a quiet, self-satisfied smile. She's wanted to be in this place for so long; the thrill of finally achieving it hasn't worn off even in dreams. It's enough to make her smile in the faces of the people who think she's only here because of her mother's famous name, and go about showing them how wrong they are by her results.

"How are you feeling today?" she asks her patient.

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"I don't really want to talk about it."

...Which really didn't make much sense, because she came here for some reason, right? How did she even get here in the first place? Wait, are those...books?

Yoko's confusion is obvious. Her posture is rigid and awkward.

"It's been raining for days now...it hasn't let up at all," she says idly, knowing that she needs to say something, but doesn't have the heart to say it. "I have my own bedroom now, with a soft bed and sheets--but it feels colder than the nights where we had nothing but a dying campfire and sleeping bags. Even though I've been reunited with my friends from home, I feel--..."

She clams up.

"You feel lonely anyway." Ami finishes the sentence as a shrewd guess. Who knows the coldness of loneliness better than her? Or the way it's possible to be near (false, in her case, back then; no wonder she'd left) comrades and not feel right?

"So go on if you want. I'll hear you out."

She nods.

"I had failed," Yoko says with a shaky exhale. "I failed my promise to him--to watch his back. But Simon thinks it's his fault." She looks down. "But it's his own fault. He is--was--a bit of an...idiot." Yoko forces an empty laugh.

"Your promise to Simon?" Ami specifies. But of course, that isn't really the point. "In battle, you can't watch everyone's back. If you fought hard for what you wanted to do, don't have regrets."

Edited 2011-03-30 22:01 (UTC)

Yoko hides her face in her hands.

"No. Kamina. Sorry, I'm not really being clear." She hesitates and drops her hands.

"I was fighting for what I wanted to do, but now I fight for what I should. What he wants me to fight for." She doesn't bother correcting herself with the past tense. "He wants everyone to have the freedom to live on the surface, so I'm going to make that happen or die trying. It's the fact that I can't fight by his side anymore that kills me inside."

A part of Ami is impatient at the lack of clarity, but Yoko stops that with her next words.

Ever since the Kunzite she knew in Econtra died, Ami has tried to live by his ideals. This is saying a lot from the girl who once challenged him at the end of her sword for trying to kill her target himself, but he is so many things: captor, admirer, abuser, mentor. They had ended at mentor somehow, and he became that important to her. And now she knows the true reasons to fight the targets he gave her, the unthinkable ending if they don't fight, the justification for all those early petty reasons.

And she'd give anything to fight at his side once more. Even fighting at the side of his alternate self is largely in his honor and memory.

"I understand," Ami brushes it all aside too simply. "You're missing the person who became important to you. That's probably normal." She says it slightly as if she's not sure what normal is.

"But if that's the case, there's no other path for you. There's nothing you'd change about what you're doing now. So there are no regrets." It's the same, again, for her. She can't repent, she can't turn back to the Light, she can't be saved... because she can't turn around.

"You're only telling me what I already know. In my head, it's the logical course of action, but in my heart..." No. No, don't say that. That's far too sappy. Yoko balls up a fist and squishes it against her brow.

"I've been having this recurring dream," she finally spits out, putting her hand back down. "I'm at the place we camped the night before that battle. It's all so vivid--it's probably the most vivid dream I ever remember having--but I'm all alone. And I keep having it. I want it to stop."

No, it wasn't exactly too sappy. It was something she'd said herself, so long ago, back when the cold and dark part of herself still disturbed her. In my head, I know it will be that way. Of course it will. But when I saw it, I started to hate...

She's never been as good as she likes to think she is at letting that head overrule the heart-driven but.

Doctor Mizuno leaves those thoughts. She is willing to listen, but she is no therapist. She stays with the practical, now. "Dreaming occurs during a specific part of the sleep cycle," she explains to Yoko. "You can try taking melatonin or certain prescription sleep medication to adjust that."

Of course, they both know the obvious next words. "It won't end them." But Yoko can have some sleep while she deals with the true issues.

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[002] Doctor's Hours

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I realized I screwed up my timeline in my first tag. whoops!

No worries! <3 And I think I love these two for the similarities XD