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Well, you should probably ask what happened. You're not the best at talking to people, but that? It's the least you can do.
"Hey, what happened to you?" You may have some reservations about her, but still, it sucks seeing her hurt. Well, it sucks seeing anyone hurt.
"ha. c-could ask you the same, vincent. what happened to you?" She deflects your question. She tries to straighten her posture in a vain attempt to save face. Her legs give up on her, returning her to her half-slumped position.
"How familiar." Your taciturn colleague sneers at the pitiful and, sadly, familiar sight. "Second time today. Doesn't make you tough."
You elect to ignore her comment. Something about it gets under your skin, but...well, Hidaka isn't really wrong, is she?
"ha. i'm a security guard, hidaka. i get roughed up here or-" Ashton struggles to catch her breath as a wave of discomfort washes over her. "-hhf. or there—that's part of the job description."
"H-hey, V-vincent? D-do you, uhm, still have one of those sandwiches? I-I think she needs it." Oh, right, duh. You rummage around your satchel for a moment for the goods. You walk up and extend your hand out, offering a stale healing sandwich and some smokes to the security guard.
"Here. Eat the sandwich; it'll help. Anomalous junk or something. Cooked it myself."
Ashton's arm shakes as she reaches to grab your gift. She unwraps the shoddily wrapped sandwich and quickly scarves it down, obviously not caring about the taste. As expected, her wounds begin to heal. Most of them are hidden under her vest, shirt, and jeans, so you can't really see the full extent of the sandwich's healing ability. It's at least enough to get her to stand up straight.
"hoo." Ashton runs her finger through her messy, clumped-together hair. "yeah, yeah, that hit the spot. i'll pay you back later, trust me. you have to make more of those for me."
"Now, can you tell us what happened?" You ask with obvious worry. You really don't want to ignore the elephant in the room here.
"Information is power." Hidaka responds in kind, though perhaps a bit more paranoid than worried. "Any reason you're hiding this?"
"no, no, i. i just didn't want to worry vince here, that's all."
"The fact you're not answering IS making me worry, to be quite frank."
"you know what, that's fair. so, it was a few hours after anthony told me about what happened this morning." She vaguely gestures at you and Hidaka. "to be honest, i wanted to check on you right then and there."
"It's fine. You have your job and I have mine. So, what happened?"
"well, i was assigned to patrol around layer 4. apparently one of the squads that would've been assigned there was unavailable today."
"something about a containment breach?" A trace of worry lingers in her words. "those are always pretty nasty. anyways, getting off topic."
"we were just supposed to patrol around there to keep the peace. to be honest, the researchers down there suck but hey. we all got a job to do."
