The noise of the communicator jolted Elliot awake. For a moment, he could not remember who he was. He only knew that a moment ago he'd been somewhere blissful, bright, and carefree, but he could see it no longer. Just a feeling remained with him as he stared into the darkness of his junk-cluttered room, feeling groggy, sore, and down. His eyes stung as he held the device in front of them, lazy pupils struggling to focus. Already he felt nothing short of miserable, but what he read made him groan aloud. Tossing the machine back onto the nearby desk, he buried himself beneath his pillow and held it tight against his face to muffle his guttural cry.

A few moments later he sat up, mushing his eyes with his knuckle and wiping the despair off his face. For the second time he pored across the message, making sure to take in each word. [i]Do not speak any of the following out loud,[/i] he read. With a quizzical expression he looked left to right, examining each shadowy corner of his abode. After examining the rest of the message, Elliot heaved himself up to head to the bathroom and start pulling himself together.

Some time later, a nondescript young man in jeans, a striped gray-and-black t-shirt, and a black windbreaker pushed through the door to the Little Owl cafe. The dark bags under his eyes and weary expression spoke of long nights spent staring at a screen. At a glance, he spotted Lillian, and the new girl with whom he'd scarcely bothered to familiarize itself. [i]Scarcely is that dickweed Dean gone than he's replaced,[/i] he'd decided the moment he learned of the new Ward. [i]We're all just warm bodies filling out the roster...but some warmer than others.[/i] No matter which faces sneered at him during these stupid meetings, nothing would change. Ignoring the pair, he steered himself stiffly toward the main counter, where he murmured his request to the employee. He stood there, waiting, until a cup of black coffee came his way, and with a shaky hand he paid. 

With an utterly dispassionate air, he then made his way over to the table the other Wards occupied. He sought the remotest chair and plopped himself down, then leaned back and closed his eyes. Any empty gestures on the part of his supposed teammates went wholly unheeded—he knew, after all, that a token response would do them just as much good as their token greetings did him, which was none at all.