Rough Day by guardianangelicas

Whispers of You

This story doesn't belong to me. It belongs to guardianangelicas on AO3.

Day 3–4:58am:

You thank your lucky stars that you wake up early and immediately feel around for the communicator to check the time.  Your hand reaches blindly for where you kept it last, patting around without opening your eyes after just a couple hours of sleep, but... you don't feel anything on the side table.

When you finally turn and scooch yourself over to check, you find it on the floor next to the bed, blinking with two percent battery life.  The dawning light is illuminating the sky a pale gray-green through the window and it takes you a second to figure out what happened, but when you do, your tummy lurches and you suddenly feel sick, scrambling to sit upright and set the watch back on its charging station.

Wide awake now and trying not to panic, you stumble out of bed and quickly use the restroom while muttering curses to yourself.  And then you run around the room to collect your belongings and throw them into your backpack—the dirty clothes you were wearing, a purple fruit you've been saving for yourself, the blaster you slept next to—before changing into the new clothes from the store yesterday and yanking on your last pair of shoes, muttering more curses to yourself.

Afterwards, you just sit on the edge of the bed and stare down at the communicator as it attempts to regain battery life, bouncing your legs and playing with your hands.  Din is moving fast, he was booking it last you heard, and you know that if you click the earpiece on right this second to ask where he is, you'll unintentionally reveal there's a problem and make you even more susceptible to getting caught.  In the meantime, you at least try to think of one last evasion tactic before you're full on sprinting to your best hiding spot—and you're able to figure something out, although you're not totally sure it's going to work.

It takes just a few minutes to rub the nasty clothes in your backpack against the bottom of your shoes, letting about as much dried mud and dirt get into the tiny crevices as you can and consequently making your footprints considerably dirtier and all the more noticeable as they touch the expensive carpet once again.  Hopefully this won't backfire, and you admittedly feel a bit bad doing it.

All in all, you have enough patience to let the comm sit and charge for a good half hour, about as long as you can bear not moving, but the sun is coming up through the window and you have to go, now.   There's only seven percent battery life by the time you clip it back onto your wrist, and you know—it sounds bad, but the battery lasts three days, so that should give you a little over five hours before it drains completely, right?  You just hope there's a way to accomplish that where you're going or it's game over for you tonight.  You consider swiping one of the charging pads from the room and taking it with you since you're almost positive this place will at least have electricity, but the fucking thing is bolted to the wall.  Which was actually a pretty good idea on management's part, you suppose.

When you finally make it down to the lobby, there are multiple people already mulling about a breakfast bar, which smells downright mouthwatering, but you don't have time to eat.  You pass by the trays of steamy food and then a few maintenance workers hanging up decorations and flowers by the front desk—is there a wedding happening here this weekend or something?  It doesn't matter, you're not staying much longer, just one more quick conversation with the concierge before you go.

"Hello," you greet the unformed man with a kind smile.  "Sorry to bother you.  Would you mind pointing me in the direction of the Keja Orphanage?  And telling me how far away it is if I'm planning to walk, please?"

He looks slightly confused for a second, but nevertheless pulls up a holomap of the moon built into the front desk.  A blue spherical projection of Sanctuary II slowly rotates between you, before he zooms in and identifies the exact location you're seeking.  "Head directly east once you go out the front doors," he tells you.  "If you go through the suburbs and then past the gates, it should be a few miles into the outskirts.  Three hours walking distance."