Tifa & Yuffie 3

[Yuffie Kisaragi]

Axel frowned when the woman noted that Alex would likely lose his eye...he decided that Alex could handle it, though, he hadn't gotten to the rank of Sergeant at 16 for no reason, after all. He found the SPARTAN's eyes rather eerie, personally, but in a strangely comforting way. He had heard that prosthetic eyes were apparently twice as sharp as natural human eyes, so he could imagine that Cass had exceptional eyesight.
Axel then excused himself from Cass' presence and went to talk to the pilot, who was actually a friend of his, to see if they had any knowledge of what was happening on the main front of the war -the battle for Halo.

((skip a bit?))

[Tifa Lockhart]

Cass resumed removing her breastplate, and once it was off she filled her shoulder wound with bio-foam, feeling it sting as it began to harden and fill the wound.

((Feel free to skip all the way to Alex waking if you like.))

[Yuffie Kisaragi]

His head felt dreadfully bleary, the left side of his face burned painfully and upon looking around him, discovered the left of his vision was black. He recognised the place he was in as the infirmary back aboard the flagship of their fleet.
He could hear the voices around him, but none seemed familiar to him, so he assumed his team was elsewhere. He had little recollection of the mission and when he attempted to remember whether the mission was completed and what had happened, he drew a complete blank, last he remembered, they had been ambushed by Brutes...that was about the extent of his memory.

[Tifa Lockhart]

"How is that shoulder of yours 113?" one of the doctors could be heard asking nearby, just after the sound of hydrolic doors sliding open filled the air.
"Healed. Thankyou doctor," a female voice replied.
"Well you just take care of yourself, you SPARTANs throw yourselves around as if you're completely indestructible, but you're not."
There was a chuckle following this comment, and a brief moment of silence before the female voice spoke again, "How is Sergeant Rickman doing?"
"Well enough, go over and see for yourself," the second voice replied.

There was the sound of metalic footsteps slowly growing close to Alex's bed.

[Yuffie Kisaragi]

Alex didn't recognise the voice, wondering who the woman was, but then he realised that the doctor had said '113'. It then occurred to him that the SPARTAN commanding their squad must be a woman, this thought brought to mind a short snippet of conversation from the 'previous' day "walk out of her like a man, or I carry you!".

He then heard the metallic, heavy footsteps drawing nearer to where he was. After a moment, he turned a rather vacant, still half-asleep eye to look at the dark-haired woman who approached him. The heavy armour-suit was familiar to him, but this was the first time he had seen his commanding officer's face. The first thing he noted was her eyes. Clearly prosthetic and somewhat unnerving in their lack of pupils, but at the same time -to him at least- eerily beautiful...he himself had somewhat odd eyes for a human, so he was used to unusually coloured eyes. As of yet he spoke not a word, since he was still barely with it.

[Tifa Lockhart]

"Ah, hello there," Cass greeted when she realised that the man she'd come to check up on was in fact conscious. "How are we feeling?"
Her voice was serious, but had a kind undertone to it, as many of the SPARTANs seemed to have. Despite being bred for war, they were not given the same exposure as normal humans, this made them far less disposed towards acts of random violence or aggression, all their abilities were directed purely at their enemy. There were a few exceptions, but not many.
"You look older now," she added with a lightly amused tone, running two fingers in a line down across her left eye.

[Yuffie Kisaragi]

Alex frowned slightly as she asked how he was feeling, to indicate he wasn't exactly well, but the slight shrug he gave at the same time suggested he meant to say "I'll live with it, though" as was his nature. Alex frowned again as she made note of his injury. He was more than aware by now that there was no bandage that was obscuring his view and he was, in fact, blinded in his left eye.
"that will be a rather bothersome setback..." he mumbled, rather quietly, though not so much weakly, since he was beginning to wake up now. "but I shall learn to cope, I suppose..." It was strange how little he seemed to care for wounds or handicaps...but it made sense as he had little to worry about going home to...this ship WAS his home and his four walls and roof were just about all he had to call family, so he saw little point in fretting over injuries.
"...was the mission a success, sir?" he asked, hoping she would reply with 'yes' or something to that effect.

[Tifa Lockhart]

"You'll learn to cope," Cass replied easily enough, an element of understanding in her voice, "and they'll set you up with a prosthetic when this war ends."
The SPARTAN glanced behind her, fetching a stool before dragging it over to his bedside and lowering herself down in to it.
"The mission was a success," she offered calmly, though her frown suggested that something bothered her. "I apologise for putting you all in harms way, I should have anticipated Brute Stalkers. I suppose I... am simply not used to working with uh... regular soldiers."
She'd floundered slightly for the final word, sounding as though she'd initially been planning to say 'humans'. She'd been grilled since basic training for not including herself in the 'human' bracket, and it was a habit she tried hard to break. But she just couldn't class herself as a human... she did not feel as though she belonged in that category.

[Yuffie Kisaragi]

Alex shook his head slightly. "no, blame me for my injuries...I was the one who let that Brute hit me." He smirked slightly. "besides, we aren't really 'regular' soldiers...we're trained special ops marines...we're used to handling more difficult missions" He noted her fumble for words and at first wondered why, but it didn't take him long to work out that she had been thinking on saying 'human soldiers'. He frowned lightly at first and paused, seeming to ponder words, before he spoke again. "you know, just because you're a SPARTAN doesn't mean you aren't human, sir" he said, glancing away slightly. In his mind, if either of them were less human, it was him...he didn't think he wasn't human, as such, but definitely he had lost a significant part of his humanity when his sister had died and he had been left with no-one to be human for.

[Tifa Lockhart]

Cass chuckled, her seemingly light-hearted demeanor not faltering one bit, "you're not the first to tell me that, and nor will you be the last," she mused. "But there's more to being human then how you look, Rickman."
She skimmed over the topic quickly, not leaving him any chance to pursue it any further, she wasn't going to let him psycho-analyze her, there was a very good reason why SPARTANs never underwent psychology screening like regular soldiers.
"I don't doubt that a young corporal will be dropping in soon to check on you."

[Yuffie Kisaragi]

Alex went to insist that that wasn't what he meant, but she moved on too quickly for him to get another word in. He resolved, silently, that he would say what he had intended to next time they were on this topic.
"o-oh...yes, Axel does have a tendency to worry about his squad..." he said, frowning lightly. "I apologise if I caused any inconvenience to you all"

[Tifa Lockhart]

Cass' expression became quite firm then, and she raised a hand as if to silence him, shaking her head.
"Never apologise for being injured. It does not mean anything about your character or your abilities. No one walks away from battle unscarred."

[Yuffie Kisaragi]

Alex looked a bit surprised, as she silenced him, but after a short stunned silence, he nodded. "of course..." he didn't seem particularly convinced that he shouldn't be apologising, but he made no argument. He moved one hand then, after a moment, to very lightly touch his wounded face, a slight wince crossing his face, briefly, before it was gone. It was rather painful, but he was sure once it was properly healed the wound wouldn't cause any trouble.

[Tifa Lockhart]

"If it's any consolation..." Cass began softly as she rose from her stool and pushed it casually aside, "you look quite seasoned now, I'd say any Grunt would think twice before taking you on."
She smirked as she propped a hand on one hip, "Your friends have been bragging about how brave you were, in the cafeteria. Expect a heroes welcome."

[Yuffie Kisaragi]

Alex grimaced slightly. "great. as if being worshipped as a Helljumper wasn't bad enough" he didn't seem to like being the center of attention very much. "I just pray they don't smother me with their 'welcome'" He noted that Cass had risen from her stool and assumed she had things she needed to be doing. "places to be and people to talk to, sir?" he asked, to confirm his suspicions.