Midnight

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Amidst the flowing sea of residents, a lone agent stops at one of the corridor's doors, securing with a hug a small tower of timeworn books that tilt from left to right and threaten to topple over at any given time.

Her gray eyes stay at the door for a singular moment before bringing one hand up to meet it. With a light knock on the door, it begins to slide open, revealing the figure of the detective lying on the hospital bed, deep asleep.

The thought of leaving the woman to rest as she deserves is lost once something catches her curious mind.

Excluding the weirdness of the room's light being lit up as she sleeps, beside the bed, sitting on a wooden chair, stays a familiar figure.

Colette, who has been keeping an eye on the detective, reacts to the sound and is quick to lift her gaze from the detective's face to the figure standing, unmoving at the door. A deep frown begins and ends in seconds, taken away by recognition of her leader's face and scent.

While both agents nod their heads to each other in a greeting and Dalia steps in, the last agent of the group notices a new presence and unplugs their headphones from one ear.

Low music escapes from it as they adjust their lazy, sleepy posture against the wall column.

"Hey, the whole team is here; now we can finally get this sleepover going on." A deep, long yawn leaves their throat while they lift laboriously one knee to rest a chin atop. "We just need some futons here so we can get comfortable. Some warm...soft...futons."

"As much as I do understand today was taxing to everyone, I still feel the necessity to remind you that Doctor Yavia won't be too happy if she catches us lingering around after hours." Despite her own words, Dalia's lips contort into a small, contained smile as her eyes meet a clock stationed at the wall, striking close to their time to leave yet far away enough. "But that doesn't mean we can't stay a bit more and enjoy some peace of mind; she shouldn't mind us being here for an hour, just no more than that."

"Ya know, it might be a little too late for that...I wasn't going to say anything, but the doctor is already pissed hard at us." No so subtlety; Yui uses their eyes to point to the quiet woman at the chair, causing her to frown upon notice. "Well, at one of us more than the others."

"..." Without saying anything, Colette glares knives at the slowly rising grin on Yui's lips.

"What! We all know you're not defending yourself because I'm super right, Colie, as usual, so drop down the tough act." Yui, finding themselves about to yawn again, slips one hand into their jeans pocket and retrieves a wrapped candy that soon ends up in their mouth. "Besides, the one who suffered for that wasn't even us; the detective faced the worst punishment."

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

As Colette moves their focus away from the grinning agent, Dalia gains the chance to finally ask what's on her mind.

"Alright, I think that is quite enough, Yui; next time you want to make a point, do, but please tone down just a bit." Disapprovingly, Dalia puts the books down beside Olivia, then crosses her arms like a mother scolding her child, and, in response, Yui groans accordingly, like a child. "Now, please do explain what is the meaning of your words; what happened while I was away?"

"I heard the nurses talking in the corridor about a fight that happened in the gym, and that the whole thing escalated like, to death—and apparently the sprinklers set off for some who-fucking-knows reason—anyway, the point is, the detective got in the middle to stop the fight between Colette and a werewolf, earning a scar on her face as a result."

Now, Yui is the one who crosses their arms. "The doc got mad because she didn't want our little detective to leave the room, for starters, and got even more when she saw her back here half-wet and with a new wound to heal. As you can see, because of that, she decided to exaggerate in her healing thing and got the detective unconscious, but apparently that's good? I don't know. I just heard that this will guarantee she will be free from here tomorrow."

Uncrossing her arms, Dalia takes a step back, wearing on her face a thinking expression as she ends up resting her body against the nearest thing, that being the plastic frame of the room's bed. She dares for a moment looking at the detective's face, and, there it is, exactly as Yui said; an unpleasant scar crossing from the bridge of her nose halfway through her cheek.

"I see...Then her anger is more than justifiable, only misdirected."

Something bothers Dalia, and that reaches boiling point, forcing her to switch her gaze to Colette and find out what it is while trying not to be too noisy about it; in the end, it proves to be strangely easy, seeing that the woman appears to be uncharacteristically unfocused. 'No, that isn't true.' Dalia thinks to herself, seeing that saying she isn't focused is a mistake; she is, just not on what she expected. 'She does seem calmer than usual.'

A genuine smile, far from contained, takes over Dalia. "I'll say it again, today was very taxing, so let's not add to it, if possible. Errors aside, Yui, I do believe you owe Colette an apology, don't you think?"

Yui sees through Dalia's smile; she isn't suggesting, so, to not be punished, they sigh and hang their head low. "I'm sorry, Colie; I didn't mean to get on your nerves; I just wanted to tease you a little bit and shit. My bad, next time I'll ease down on it."

As expected, no words leave Colette's mouth, but she does end up nodding her head once in recognition of the words and acceptance of the apology.

After that, Yui simply puts the headphones back and fails to hold on to a yawn, sleepiness almost claiming their eyelids as one of their hands hangs tightly to a blue flower hairpin they unclasp from their chest pocket.

Satisfied with the apology, Dalia grabs one of the books she brought for the detective and sits on the empty space on the bed, near the woman's feet.

Without taking her eyes from the book's page as she prepares to begin reading, Dalia speaks her last words in a soft whisper, meant to reach only one person. "Tomorrow, when we are back at the field, I'll count on you to help me make sure the detective will be safe."

"Understood," Colette responds—the exact words Dalia wanted to hear.

Now, with all that needed taking care of done, time begins to fly, slipping away like sand without mercy, bringing it ever so close to tomorrow.

The beginning of the end.

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