Fish Out of Water [2430-2-3-Tue 5:50pm]

[Chase Nicolai]

Chase was not having a good day. It had been his third day working at a market stall. It had also been his last day, since his boss had pulled him aside and told Chase that it just wasn't working out. At least he'd gotten a little money out of it. It wasn't good for anything, except for a few meals, but that was better than nothing.

The hospital was beginning to get familiar to Chase. He'd been here enough times over the past few weeks. It was the easiest place to meet Celyn after work. It was also where Terence was. Visiting hours didn't last too long, but Chase always made sure he got there in time for them.

The nurse at the desk recognized Chase, giving him a friendly smile. "Back to see your friend?"

"Yeah." Chase pressed his thumb against the check-in sheet, watching as it brought up all his information. Technology still constantly amazed Chase a little. Just the touch of his thumb had told the computer everything it needed to know about Chase. It was almost like scents, except the information you got from the computer was sort of... cold. He found it hard to put it into words. A scent held so much more weight to it, and you could pick out emotions or feelings in it. The computer always just smelt like metal, and it made Chase's info seem sterile. Like the hospital. Like most of Terra.

"Say hi to Celyn for me." The nurse was nice. Chase wished he knew her name, but he hadn't thought to ask at first, and now it seemed rude to do so. Human manners were different from Were manners. For once thing, Chase had to wear clothes all the time now. He'd almost gotten arrested the one day he forgot. Luckily, Celyn had been near, and she'd talked the police into understanding that he just hadn't known that it was a law on Terra instead of a suggestion.

Chase headed down the hall to Terence's room, tugging on his shirt collar. He really didn't know how Tere had gotten used to so many layers. Chase always felt too hot, or like he was going to chafe. And the smells... the overwhelming stink of something Celyn said was 'disinfectant', and the stink of sick or dying. It made the jaguar in Chase feel like running as far away as possible. But every day, he walked through the hall and put up with the smell, and the itchy clothes, and the strangeness of humans.

Terence's door opened easily. "Hi Tere." Chase greeted his best friend. Terence didn't answer back, since he was still comatose. At first Chase hadn't said much to him. But then he'd figured that maybe that was the problem. If he talked to Terence, maybe Tere would actually wake up, just so he could talk back.

"I got fired." Chase shut the door and headed over to the bed, grabbing the nearest chair and pulling it over so he could sit near. The machine made it's usual quiet beeping noises that meant things were okay. "It was going okay until this guy tried to take things without paying for them. Of course I caught him. He couldn't outrun me once I changed. But I guess that wasn't the right thing to do, because the police had a long talk with me and with my boss, and then my boss just paid me and said I shouldn't bother coming back tomorrow. I saved them at least two or three hundred credits by catching that guy, but because I scared a couple of guys, they don't want me around."

He sighed. That was the other thing about Terra. It looked like the easiest way to get along here was to hide what you were. Some people seemed to think being able to change into an animal was neat, like Celyn, but most humans weren't so impressed. In fact, most of them didn't really want to be around you once they found out. Chase didn't get it, but he was figuring out pretty quickly that you were better off pretending you were human than proving you weren't.

Chase tried to think about good news to tell Terence. "Hey, Rudy sent me a message today. The ship he's on is flying out around Corus. He wanted to know how you were. I told him you were being as lazy as ever." Tere just slept on, but Chase pretended that Terence had replied somewhat indignantly.

Casey and Rudy had both moved on. There were no hard feelings. The fact was, they'd had just enough money to get the ship back to Terra and into long-term storage. And the Kildeer wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon, not without Terence as captain. Casey had found work within a few days. He wasn't really the writing type, so Chase and Celyn hadn't heard from him. Rudy had visited the first week, but managed to get a job offer, and had taken it since he needed the money just as badly. He was the writing type, and every few days, Chase got another message from Rudy asking how things were, and telling Chase about what the weather was like on other planets. It was nice. It sometimes even made Chase forget that nobody else sent him messages, since Terence couldn't anymore.

The person who had stuck around was Celyn. Chase didn't know what he would have done without her. He had been sleeping on the couch in her apartment, which was just the right size for a jaguar, and when he had been trying to figure things out, she'd been the person who had helped him, teaching him everything from how to use elevators, to how much the credits were worth and how not to get ripped off, to learning just how to dress himself like humans did. Chase wouldn't have been able to do it without Celyn.

"You should wake up soon." Chase told Terence, "Celyn needs you. I need you too. How am I supposed to figure out how everything works? How did you keep all the smells from driving you insane? And how didn't you mark your territory? I just want to go all around the apartment block and spray it, but if they didn't like me getting naked in public, I'm pretty sure they really won't like this. I need you to back me up on this one Tere. I don't want to go to jail because I was just doing what was natural." It was a joke, but there was too much truth in it to make it really funny.

There was a quiet chiming noise. That mean it was six p.m. Humans were very focused on time. That was something else he'd had a hard time adjusting to. They always had things to do, and they had to be done at an exact time. Chase didn't understand why they were so rushed all the time. What did five or ten minutes difference make? They were barely any time at all. But it did make a difference. After all, ten minutes is what got Chase fired from his first job.

There was one good thing about the time though. Six was when Celyn got off her shift today, which meant she would come by to say hi to Terence and see how he was doing. It was the easiest way to meet up with Celyn. And the doctors and nurses didn't like it much when Chase just went walking through the hospital to find her. There were places that were off-limits, but Chase usually only figured that out after he'd wandered into them.

"What are you eating today?" Chase asked, glancing at the bag attached to the feeding tube. The liquid looked unappetizing, but it seemed to do the trick, because Terence certainly wasn't starving. "This is why you should wake up. You're eating some sort of... whatever that is, and I'm having meat. Don't you want meat? Big juicy steaks? You're already drooling, I know you are. They've got so much meat on Terra. You're really missing out. Mammoth is great Tere. If you'd wake up, you'd know that. There's a restaurant around here that serves nothing but meat. How am I supposed to take you there if you're just sucking back whatever this crap is?" He motioned to the bag of liquid, as if Terence was actually watching. "Cone on, don't leave me hanging."

The jaguar settled back into his chair, sighing a little. Tere would wake up when he woke up. The doctors hadn't said that talking would help. But it made Chase feel better, so he was going to keep doing it, even if he sometimes felt a little stupid for fighting with a coma patient.

[Celyn Ryan]

Celyn

Terra was a welcome site, but another reminder of the dull days that were to come. Arriving back on Terra, and saying a few goodbyes to the Crew and loading up the ship it was off to the Hospital.. and everything had a pattern now. Everyday was another sad day, Another look into the sleeping eyes of her Tere.. another day to look upon the sad eyes of Chase.

The clock on the wall chimed softly, and Celyn sighed with relief. Today was over and it was time to head home. Although she always had one stop to make before she left, it was a better way to find Chase.. Instead of him wandering into the ICU. She chuckled at the thought, and punched the large blue time clock on the way with her ID badge. In the breakroom she changed from her light blue scrubs into her normal day ware. A pair of jeans and a shirt, Nothing fancy but nice enough to keep cool in the humid outside air.

She glanced at the clock again, as she slid on her tennis shoes and shut her locker before exiting the Break room and headed down the hallway. After they had returned to Terra, Celyn spoke to Dr. Augusten about returning to work to pay for her Friends room and medical needs. Of course Dr. Augusten was more then happy to welcome the young Nurse back into her hospital, and put Tere in one of the best rooms they had. It had a nice View, looking out over the metal city. Smoke billowing up in clouds all around the hospital.. They had nurses come in every other hour to strech his body and move him around the bed to prevent bed sores.

Her apartment was perfect for Chase, and he seemed to settle in fine.. but after a few days he began itching to get out.. and so she spoke to a few friends who offered him jobs. The first didn't seem to work out so well, but she hoped he'd find one that would work out. But then again... everything was completly new to him. It was the opposite for her, learning everything she could about being a Were and what it was all about.. now she was the one teaching how to be a human.

With her Time away from Terra she had realized how much she hated it, You couldn't see the stars on Terra. The thick smog like clouds covered the skies, even at night. It was a fond memory and she smiled remembering watching the stars next to Tere.. she sighed softly and shook her head. At the nursing station a few of the Nurses waved her way, and she smiled turning left down the hallway towards Tere's room. Pumping the hand sanitizer and rubbing her hands she entered Tere's room... The dim lights always cast a dismal appeal to the room but Chase's enthusiasm always brightened it up some..

Catching the end of his sentence she chuckled softly, Some people said talking to a comatose patient always helped. They said they could hear you, and admired the attention.. but Tere's brain waves never moved, never inched a bit from their straight line. Throwing her jacket and purse over the extra chair she gently leaned over the bed and kissed Tere's cheek "I missed you today.." she gently whispered in his ear before sighing and looking to Chase "So, how was work today?" she asked softly running a hand through her curls. Maybe today was better then the last few days.

[Chase Nicolai]

It was a relief when Celyn showed up. It was funny how much he was looking forward to seeing her. But it was nice to have someone who missed Terence as much as Chase did. A lot of the time, it seemed like the other coma patients didn't have too many visitors. Maybe they just didn't have any families. The idea that people could just give up on their friends or family, and just leave them alone in the hospital was something that hadn't crossed his mind. Chase would never desert somebody, especially his best friend, just because they couldn't talk back.

Her question wasn't exactly the one he wanted to answer, but it was best to get it over with. "Not so good." Chase admitted, "It was going great until this guy tried to steal from us. I caught him, but I think they weren't too impressed with how I did it." He held up a hand and made a claw-gesture. People were freaked out enough as it was. Changing in the hospital to demonstrate a point would probably go over just as badly as it had in the market. "So my boss said not to come back. But I did get paid." There was a least one, small silver lining.

"How about you?" Chase was always interested to hear how Celyn's work went. Being a healer wasn't something he had any patience to do, or any skill in, so it was fascinating to Chase that Celyn could do it. And the hospital was so different on Terra than on Nox. It was so busy, and there were so many more humans coming in all the time, with their own ailments and injuries.

His eyes glanced over to Terence's machinery as something made a noise. Chase had no idea if it was a good noise or a bad one, and no way to tell by looking, but he looked all the same, just in case this was the noise that meant Tere was waking up, or the noise that meant something worse.

[Celyn Ryan]

Celyn

Chase always had a way of bringing a smile to her lips, even in the dark room they currently were in. Even if Tere was asleep, Chase kept both their spirits high. His enthusiasm for life was intoxicating, so much it was hard not to get wrapped up and believe it herself. One day, Tere would wake up.. He would be the same happy go lucky Tere he was before... Right?

A slender bronzed hand covered the smile that tugged the corners of her lips as Chase spoke of his work today, and she softly shook her head "I see.. I guess It may have helped If I told him before hand.. huh?" she asked with a sly smile. A lot of folks on Terra weren't used to seeing big cats and other creatures forming from a Humans body. It was down right frightening to most, Seeing as Terra was nearly barren of all its creatures.. Seeing a Were was a bit of a well.. Reality check. And a lot of times people just liked to ignore the fact that they'd killed nearly every creature.. Now all they had were pictures in books and stories.

Although it was different to Celyn, The experience was something that was exciting. Of course getting to close was a bit scary, but they were powerful and beautiful handsome creatures. She chuckled softly and shrugged her shoulders "My day was.. busy. Its been awhile sense I've been this busy.. Riding on the Kildeer there were only a few minor bumps and bruises.. Nothing like here on Terra." she spoke softly. It was only a few days before a little girl had been stabbed, another Pregnant mother came in the hospital in labor and the Nurses looked right past her. It made her sick to think how Humans these days had become..

Then it was like something clicked, the machine beside Tere's bed made a beep.. The Brain wave monitor kicked into gear and Celyn leaped from her chair and rushed to his bedside. Her fingers greedily grasped his brain wave sheet and she smiled and looked to Chase.. Maybe this was it.. Maybe he was finally waking up! Then it happened, just like that Tere's eyes slowly opened.. Her pearl white smile glistened and for once it truly reached her eyes. It would be a bit of a shock, this she knew, so instead of leaping ontop of him and hugging him like crazy she stood beside his bed and checked all his vitals.. Blood Pressure - a little high but with the shock of waking up, Normal. Heart Beat- Normal.. A little fast but perfectly fine. Brain waves responsive.. and then another miracle happened, His velvety voice filled the room and her smile broadened.. She gently reached down to unhook his IV bag from the needle in his arm (leaving the needle in just in case he needed it later) and placed it on the rack behind his bed "Well First off, Can I ask you a few Questions?" she asked softly, letting her fingers gently brush the skin on his hand; Sending goosbumps floating up her arm. "You've been out for awhile.. No more then a month and a half.." she whispered softly moving to grab her clipboard and take a seat..

It was procedure to ask the Patient questions, To make sure and see how bad amnesia had set it.. and so she begun the short test, "Alright.. First off What's your Name?" she asked softly..

[Chase Nicolai]

"Maybe. I don't know..." Chase was beginning to learn what thousands of weres before him had learned. Sometimes it was easier to just hide who you were, and never show the side of him that scared everybody. It seemed like lying, but it was a sort of lying that made things easier. And it wasn't a total lie. After all, Celyn knew him. "I think I'm just going to have to keep that part hidden. Should be easy. There's not a lot of prey to go chasing after around here. I just wish these damn clothes weren't so... tight." He tugged at his collar. Nothing beat fur.

He listened to Celyn tell him about her day. Chase had never been good with healing, but he respected the practice. It saved lives, and he knew the value of those on Nox. There were so many humans here, and so few doctors. Sometimes, he wondered how they managed to carry on without being overwhelmed. "The Kildeer didn't have so many people. I still can't get over how crowded your planet is. There are people everywhere." At least he knew Celyn would understand that. She had seen Nox and how empty and open it could be. There wasn't any of that on Terra. There were people everywhere, all the time, and sometimes he wondered exactly how they all managed to fit together and not go crazy.

[Terence Yorick]

"What do you think you're doing?" a deep, animalistic voice echoed. Terence looked around, startled at where he was. He was naked, standing in a clearing surrounding by dry, chest high grass. He couldn't see anything on the horizon, the grass was blocking his view. He tried to walk, but the moment he tried his leg muscles gave out and he collapsed on the ground. "What's happening? Last thing I remember I was on Nox..." he thought.

"What do you think you're going?" the voice said again, but closer. Terence looked around again, but this time searching for the voice. As if in answer, a large male lion walked out of the clearing. The grass seemed to part of its own accord, not even touching the animal. The lion stopped just a few feet away from Terence and looked down at him, a look of disgust in his eyes. Something about the lion seemed familiar, but Terence couldn't figure out why. "What do you think you're doing?" he repeated.

"I... I can't seem to move," Terence said as he flipped onto his back. No reason to not get comfortable if you couldn't move. The Lion growled and shook it's head.

"Weakling! You can move, you're not trying hard enough!" the lion growled again. The animal moved closer and bared its teeth, its face only inches away from Terence's. "You're pathetic. I don't know why I ever let you take control."

Realization dawned on Terence as the lion finished speaking. "You... you're my lion side..." he said in a whisper. This place must be his mind, or at least some part of it. At this realization, the world seemed to melt around him and reform into the forest on Nox that he had been running through not so long ago. "How long ago was it, really?" he thought.

Terence saw himself in lion form running through the forest, Chase close behind. Genevive burst out of what seemed like nowhere and slammed into Chase, throwing him aside like a play thing. She lept on lion-Terence and began bashing his head against the ground. With every hit, human-Terence winced, as if reliving the blow.

The world melted again and Terence found himself back in the savanna grassland clearing, still on the ground buck naked and his lion self standing over him. "You allowed this to happen, you pathetic worm," the lion growled as he stood up. "Never expect me to cooperate with you again." With that, the lion turned around and walked away.

Before Terence could call out, a new, more familiar and welcomed voice, flooded the area. "I missed you today." The words seemed to bounce off the grass, coming back to full volume every few seconds."I missed you today." Celyn. It was her voice. That lovely voice. He had to get to her. He threw his entire being into holding onto that voice, almost like using it as a rope to pull himself out of a pit.

Suddenly, things began to dim. Not like the sun was setting, but like someone was lowering the brightness setting on the monitor of the world. The world eventually became completely black, and it took Terence a second or two to realize he simply had his eyes closed. With a blink, he opened his eyes. Things were so bright, and he blinked a few times to help himself adjust. Then it hit him. His head hurt like someone had a balloon wrapped around his brain and was inflating it to try and blow up his head. "Oh, my fiking head..." Terence grumbled.

"Well first off, can I ask you a few questions?"
"You've been out for awhile.. No more then a month and a half.."

"Too late, you already did," Terence answered. He finally looked around and saw two people in the room. Celyn, who was standing by some machine that was spitting out paper and Chase sitting in a chair close by. He felt Celyns hand brush against his own and it sent a slight shiver through his body. It had been a very long time since he'd felt contact with a living being. "I missed you too," he whispered to Celyn, a smile coming across his face as he looked at her. Then her second sentence registered in his head, and he let out a small groan. He slapped his hand over his eyes and let it slide down his face. "Oh man, a month and a half? Why didn't you wake me up sooner?" he said jokingly.

"Alright.. First off What's your Name?"

"My name? Come on, I wasn't gone that long was I?" he said with a grin, his voice hoarse from never speaking in nearly two whole months. "My name's Terence Yorik," he finally answered. He looked over at Chase and what he looked like finally registered in his head. "Wow. Clothes, huh? Did you lose a bet or something?"

[Chase Nicolai]

Chase could barely resist the urge to start hovering over Terence, as if some other predator was about to burst in and ruin this. But they were on Terra, and this hospital was a safe place. But his instincts still raged on inside of Chase, and he was just overjoyed to see his friend awake and okay. He kept his space and let Celyn check on Terence to make sure he was okay.

"Or something," He answered Terence, and shot him a relieved grin. As far as Chase was concerned, Terence had to be fine if he was cracking wise. It was easy to fall back into the groove, even if it had been a month and a half since they'd last been able to speak face to face, "Terran police don't like it when you walk around without anything on. I don't know how you can stand such an uptight planet, Tere."

[Terence Yorick]

Terence let Celyn continue checking on him, doing whatever a nurse was supposed to do when a coma patience wakes up without interrupting her. They could catch up later. Right now he needed to figure out.... "What did Chase just say?" Terence thought, his last train of thought having been derailed.

"Terran police? We're on Terra?" Terence said out loud, though not to anyone in particular. He then looked at Chase, realizing how bad he must have been hurt for Chase to want to leave Nox. "Well, had I known getting my skull broken would have gotten you off Nox I'd have done it a lot sooner."

Then, Terence's stomach growled. Not just a normal growl, but the kind of growl even a lion would have envied. For a second, it looked like the one window in his room had shook at the peek of the noise. "Oh wow, I need some meat in me now," he commented, then looked at Celyn. "So, am I fit to leave and get something to eat?" Just the thought of food was making his mouth water.

[Chase Nicolai]

Chase laughed. He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t even that funny, but he was just so relieved to hear Terence cracking jokes and talking again, rather than lying there in bed like a lump and listening to doctors tell Chase not to get his hopes up about Tere.

“There’s no way they’re going to let you just walk out of here. This is what happens when you get your head knocked on a rock,” Chase told Tere, knowing Celyn would back him up, “But I’ll go harass the nurses and see if I can get you something. One good thing about Terra is how pretty all the girls are.” Chase grinned at his friend, and then left the room to find Terence something.

He wanted to hang around the room, but he knew he had to give Terence and Celyn some time alone. After all that had happened… he and Tere would have plenty of time later.

[Terence Yorick]

((OOC: I'll NPC Celyn a little to help move things forward. Hopefully she comes back soon. It feels awkward romancing myself.

EDIT: Ok, I waited long enough. Time to get Terence out of the hospital.))

"Bring me back something good and meaty. Whatever they were feeding me when I was out definitely lacked in the protein area," Terence said to Chase, and also mouthed a silent "thank you" to him. As much as he loved Chase, and he loved him like a brother, Celyn was the one he was most excited to catch up with. He turned his head to Celyn, a smile coming to his face. "Boy, is she beautiful," he thought.

Then Celyn lept forward and wrapped her arms around Terence, letting out a quiet sob into his shoulder. This took Terence by surprise and at first he recoiled, as if something in him had temporarily taken control of his body. His immediate instinct was, at first, to throw her off, but he kept himself from indulging in such an act. He wanted to hug Celyn... at least the human part of him did. "What's wrong with me?" he thought, but remembered the dream he had had while he was in a coma.

"I thought I had lost you too," Celyn choked out between sobs.

Terence returned the hug, keeping his animal strength in check so as to not crush her and keeping his own tears back. "Don't worry, I won't let something like this happen again," he said, his voice husky from the emotions welling inside him.

Something occurred to Terence and he pulled himself out of Celyns hug and pulled himself into a sitting position. "Wow, I missed our one month mark. Sorry about that," he said, and added, "I promise I'll make it up to you once we get to our two month mark."

Something seemed to shift inside Terence after he stopped talking. The sudden urge to get out of the hospital overwhelmed him. He let out a small growl and started pulling the various tubes and wires off his body as he threw his legs over the edge of the bed. Celyn protested and tried to make Terence lay back down, but he just batted her hands off him and stood up. "What am I doing?" he thought, shocked at what he'd just done.

Suddenly, various nurses and other medical staff burst into the room, alerted by the sudden lack of a pulse in the machines that were hooked up to Terence. Bad timing.

Terence saw it as a sudden threat, and any conscious thought flew out of him. He shifted into his animal form, shredding the hospital gown as he did. He let loose a savage roar, and the hospital staff scattered. However, one figure didn't move from the doorway. Something seemed familiar about him, as if he was a part of Terence's pack, and that made him pause. He sent a wanting growl to the figure, though the fact he recognized him seemed to bring something of the human Terence back. Not much, but enough to hold the lion back from mauling whoever it was.

[Chase Nicolai]

Chase was talking to the nurses when he heard heard the sound of alarms from Terence's room, quickly followed by an all-too-familiar growl. Nurses and doctors rushed in, and Chase ran after them, fearing the worst. It had all been too easy. Damnit, damnit, he should have known better, nobody woke up from a coma like that with no problems.

Terence was in animal form. Chase stopped, trying to figure out what was going on. What the hell was Chase doing changing in the middle of the hospital? He was going to scare Celyn, not to mention every other person standing around. Chase looked at his best friend, trying to catch his eye and figure out what the hell was up with Terence.

That's when he saw Terence's eyes, or rather, what he didn't see. That wasn't Terence. That was a wild animal looking back. Oh shit. Oh this wasn't good.

"Hey, Terence..." Chase said, staying still and not getting any closer, "It's cool. Just calm down. You're okay. Everybody's okay. Just... calm down. Come back to me. Maybe get a little less furry. There are a lot of cute nurses here, you really don't want to scare them off with the whole king-of-the-jungle act." His mouth ran, but he didn't really listen to what he was saying. It was less about the words, more about the calm tone of voice. If he could get Terence to turn back up, maybe things would be okay.

[Terence Yorick]

Terence bared his teeth, growled, and took a half step forward. However, he paused. The person talking to him was getting more and more familiar. His name was... what was it? The simple fact he was trying to be calming and soothing seemed to be setting something off inside Terence.

Terence took another half step forward, but paused again. He shook his head, as if shaking the fog out of his head. He looked up again at the man who had been talking, and finally recognized him. "Chase?" he tried to say, but it only came out as words in his own head. He looked around and finally noticed himself. He had a snout and his feet were pretty close to his head, and they were all furry. Realization dawned on him. He was in lion form!

Terence shifted back, but it didn't happen all too quickly. It was as if the lion was reluctant to be folded up and stuffed inside a human body. Terence just concentrated harder and finished the transformation. Finally, back in human form but lacking in the clothing department, he looked around.

"Um... what just happened?" he asked. Speaking seemed to bring him back into the real world completely, and all the frailties it entailed. The sudden movement and transformation had taken a lot out of him, especially since he had just woke up from a coma. He dropped himself onto the bed to keep himself from feinting. "Seriously, what just happened?"

[Chase Nicolai]

It looked like he was getting through. He was still a lion, but he could see something else in the lion's eyes, that almost familiar look that was Terence and Terence alone. Chase stayed still, waiting to see if Terence could win out.

When he did and he shifted back, Chase let out the breath he didn't realized he'd been holding. It took Terence a while to shift, but Chase was too relieved to really notice that. He was too busy being glad that something serious hadn't happened to Terence. "I don't know. I stepped out to get the nurse and I come back and you're..." He gestured in the air, unsure how to explain what he'd seen. He finally settled on, "Not all there."

Chase approached his friend, glancing at the healers standing outside the doorway and then back at Terence, "What happened after I stepped out? Did you smell something or... something." Chase didn't know what to say or do. Some part of his mind wondered if Terence had suffered some brain damage, but he clamped down on that thought. That wasn't helpful.

[Terence Yorick]

"Not all there. That's for sure," Terence commented to no one in particular. He put his hand on Chase's and gave it a light pat, trying to calm not only Chase but also himself. He'd never lost control like that. Never. Something had happened, and Terence knew exactly what it was. That dream he had, the one with him and his lion self in the field, hadn't been a dream. It had actually happened, and that freaked Terence out. The animal in him was no longer going to listen.

"No, I didn't sme-" Terence said, but stopped himself from finishing. Maybe it had been something he had smelled. That seemed right. Terence took a big sniff of the room, and the old feelings of shifting came back, but not nearly as powerful as before. It wasn't just the smell, he realized, it was everything about this place. Smell, sight, noises, feelings. Everything in this place screamed to the lion Terence that it wasn't safe. People were hurt here, people died here, and people got sick here. It seemed the only thing that was keeping the lion inside him from trying to get out again was the combined presence of Celyn and Chase. "Well, maybe the smell was a part of it," he finished.

Celyn moved closer to Terence and stood next to Chase, unsure what to do. She had no idea how to handle a situation like this. Terence wasn't physically hurt and werepeople psychology wasn't her area of medicine, so she left things up to Terence and Chase. They knew their own species better then she did.

Terence leaned in close to Chase's ear. "It'll take too long to explain what's happened, and I'm afraid I'll shift again if we stay here. Plus, these hospital people might want to keep me here longer if they know. Sometimes humans are too inquisitive for their own good," he whispered loud enough for Celyn to hear as well, then went back to sitting normally on the bed. "I'll need clothes though," he said in a normal tone.

Celyn looked at one of the other nurses standing in the room. "Go to the storage room and get Terence clothes," she told him. There was no way she was going to leave Terence's side right now. She didn't want to see him in lion form when she got back. The nurse left in a hurry and came back a minute later, a bundle of clothing in his hands. "It's the same clothing from when we were on Nox, but we washed it for you," Celyn added.

Terence grabbed the bundle, thanked the nurse and got dressed. He stood up, but couldn't quite keep up on his own. The shift had taken a lot out of him, so he leaned onto Chase. "Take me back to my ship. I need a familiar place right now," he said.

[Chase Nicolai]

The hand on his hand helped calm Chase down a little, but only a little. He was still concerned about Terence, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. What he could do was get Terence out of the hospital and back to the ship. Hopefully, he’d have a better grip on himself there.

Chase waited for Terence to get dressed, quickly stepping in to give Terence something to hold onto when he got onto his feet. It felt awful having to be the one to support Terence. It reminded him too much of the first time he’d seen Terence all messed up, after he got away from those fiking vampires.

“We’ll get you back to the ship in no time. Then if you want to run around like an animal, you won’t be freaking out everyone else,” Chase kept things light, even though he didn’t feel very light-hearted. It wasn’t about him though. It was about Terence, and more than that, it was about Celyn and keeping her calm too, “People on this planet are weird about nudity. You’d think they didn’t know they were all naked under their clothes from the way they act.”