Hazy Purple Mirror [Bambietta, Ryouko]

"Ugh."

It was the first sound that she could utter, her head just felt groggy like someone had taken her brain and beaten it with a mallet over and over. Maybe the feeling of fire that was clawing at her mind is what someone felt when a bullet went through it, that sharp piercing pain but it wasn't short-lived. For the moment it was here to stay.

Ryouko grimaced when she opened her eye, only one from the small amount of light already making the migraine worse for her while looking around the dingy little room. The low light and small space was a kind of comfort if only because it reminded her of her little storeroom. On impulse she grabbed at her head to cover her eyes. Everything felt a bit out of sorts in her head and it was a struggle just to figure out if her left or her right hand had come to her eyes' aid.

Just because she wasn't in the 2nd Division right now, that didn't mean Bambietta was any less qualified as a medical professional in the Gotei. She knew kaido well, even if it wasn't her specialty, and she had all the time in the world given her own medical leave. It was no wonder, then, between that and the trust she'd built up between quite a few divisions, that she'd ended up being put on duty with Miss Amou here after what had happened.

Whatever it had been, Bambietta had been given more than a few pretty explicit instructions not to actually dig too deep into what had happened to this particular patient, and so despite her curiosity, she hadn't made any inquiries or looked into it any further. Bambietta was good at taking orders, both out of a sense of self-preservation and a genuine dedication to her duty.

"Oh, you're awake."

Bambietta's voice carried a decided care to it, a pleasant tone that made it clear she was going out of her way to be quiet for the patient in question here. She didn't really know how to handle something quite like this, but she'd figure it out.

"Try not to move too much. What hurts? I can ease it."

Who was this person? It was the first thing that came to her head when she heard the voice. The second was the fact that it was unfamiliar and the next thing that crossed her mind was where was she? Unfamiliar things terrified her, and so she jolted upright with enough pain to make her splutter from the shock of moving.

"What's going on!?"

She moved her head around to try and look around but the pain left her blind, not helped by the fact her glasses were absent. Even though she was in pain something was off but she couldn't place it. She never had the kind of energy to do anything like this, and there was an something wrong about her sitting. She felt lighter, weightless even compared to how she normally felt, but the adrenaline running through her system from the fight or flight response had things moving too fast.

Not that there was a fight response in her. Everything about her right now wanted to escape to something safer and more familiar.

Oh, geez. That maybe should've been what Bambietta was the most ready for, but it was hard to plan when she didn't know exactly what had led to all this. She kept her voice low, picking up the glasses that had been set to the side and holding them out carefully to Ryouko.

"It's alright, you're here in medical. There was an accident, I'm just here making sure everything's alright."

Honestly, being so careful and gentle wasn't really in Bambietta's nature most of the time, but it was the right way to handle things right about now. If nothing else, she knew how to handle things gently, she'd gotten pretty good at that.

Ryouko caught the shape of her glasses, they were blurry but she reached out to take them nonetheless. There was a pause when she clasped them though and she stared at the silhouette of her hand wrapped around the frame.

Something wasn't right about it when she stared at it. Her thoughts expanded a bit more like she was becoming more conscious of her own body.

"Accident..."

She mumbled to herself, the act of getting on her glasses was an act full of fumbles and fear until they were finally on her face and she stared down at herself. It was like she had been dumped in ice cold water when she looked down at herself with the colour leaving her face.

Bambietta had at least been given the previous medical records for her patient here, so she knew what the woman had looked like previously. Seeing herself for the first time was going to be a shock no matter what, but she did start cursing at herself internally for not giving her some kind of gentler warning first.

"Don't feel like you need to talk about it if you don't want to."

Honestly, she didn't even really know if she could understand what Ryouko was going through or not. This was kind of frustrating, actually. What could have even happened that she needed to be kept in the dark about it? That alone told Bambietta a lot. Probably not something she wanted to pry into, but she couldn't help but feel bad for not being able to better help.

"Do you want anything? I can get you something if you need."

She was pretty sure that if she put in a request, someone from 2nd or 3rd would be there within a few minutes. This was obviously high profile. Bambietta wanted to at least put all that attention to good use, one way or another.

What accident? She might've continued down that train of thought to try and remember if the present was not far more important than the past to her right now. Ryouko's dainty hands touched at her stomach and sides, touched at her face. Where there was once a protective layer of insecurity was gone and she felt naked, even by hospital gown standards, or she just felt like someone had given her the wrong set of clothes.

She looked around for a reflection until settling on the dim reflection of herself in the lowlight. It was barely looked like her anymore and the first impulse she felt with that knowledge was to shriek and try to get away from the reality. Everything was wrong, it needed to be right. It had to be corrected somehow.

As she tried to force her way off the bed in a manner which would only cause her to collapse, whether by fumbling off it or falling because of her atrophied muscles, she considered another possibility. She was dreaming. That was it. This could never happen to her, she was just a ugly little nobody that couldn't handle people around people.

That is exactly what this was she rationalised to herself as she tried to get away.

That was bad. Bambietta had been recovering decently enough, but it wasn't like she was in tip top physical shape. She had to use a small flash step just to move to catch Ryouko as she collapsed from her bed, and the catch didn't really feel too pleasant. Still, she just gritted her teeth and took the brunt of the fall, not exactly strong enough right now to catch much of anyone but at least healed up enough to make a half-decent shock absorber.

"You're alright, Miss Amou. Deep breaths, take it slow."

Bambietta wasn't really strong enough to actually hold the woman in place here if she seriously tried to get away, but she kind of had to hope that just the action of helping here would be enough to at least calm things down a little but. The last thing she needed was for this to get worse, because she really didn't want to have to get help with this.

She wriggled and squirmed in the other woman's hold. A little bit more work than her battered body wanted to handle right now but her adrenaline was spiking right now and so it wasn't much effort to break her grip so that she could get onto all fours and look around like a scared rabbit that was anticipating a bird of prey to appear at any moment to take her away.


Ryouko muttered like a mantra to herself through watery eyes. Her mind told her to run but she felt tired just trying to get this far even though she felt completely fine despite falling onto Bambietta. It was like all the energy from her rush of fear was being sapped.

"Please stop it. This isn't funny."

She cracked and sobbed at the woman that had become her cushion. This wasn't a funny joke that people in her division were playing on her.

This sucked. Not the part where Ryouko had fallen on her, Bambietta was fine with that, it was just part of the job. No, the part that sucked was watching that dread slowly settle into the woman. She could only continue to be here, offering whatever support she was able to as Ryouko started to cry.

"You're right, it isn't funny. I'm sorry, Miss Amou. I wish it wasn't real."

Whatever had happened had obviously been traumatic, and Bambietta was no stranger to trauma. She didn't like the idea of other people going through that kind of anguish, and she certainly didn't want to see someone under her care so upset.