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shift from hell
Leareth is a terrible ICU patient. Does this thread need to exist: no! but who can stop me
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It's not quite six-thirty in the morning, still dark and with a faint drizzle starting, and Marian Daly is coasting gently downhill, the city of Reno sprawled out ahead and below - 

- when there's a violent flash of light, followed by a crack-roar of sound. 

"The fuck–" 

Her grip jerks on the handlebars of her bicycle and she nearly goes into a skid, but recovers, brakes, and stares at the source of the explosion. It seems to have been nearish the river? There's a plume of something in the air now, and a distant flickery glow that might be trees on fire. 

"What the fuck," Marian repeats to herself, several times. "What was that?" 

She blinks, trying to clear the afterimages, and then checks the time. "Oh crap." She's running late. Her hands are still shaking a little bit, but she swings her leg back over the bicycle and keeps riding. 

She reaches the hospital at 6:40 am exactly; she doesn't have time for makeup, she barely has time to skin out of her cycling gear into dry scrubs and retrieve her work shoes from under the couch in the break room (as a visiting travel nurse, she doesn't get the luxury of a locker.) 

At 6:44 am she's lined up for her floor assignment. 

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The charge nurse is on the phone. 

"- Christie, new admission'll leave us short - can we keep Marian–" 

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Marian perks up. That sounds interesting. "Sure, I can stay here."

It's very tempting to ask if she can have the admission, but then again it might be terrifying and also she doesn't want to be annoying, so she doesn't say anything. 

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Assignments are handed out! The other travel nurses disperse. 

Marian's friend Alice is talking to the charge nurse. "How about we put the admission in the spare bed in pod four - I'll take him but I can give Marian my lady, she's stable, and Elaine can keep her guy from yesterday but she should have some slack to help us out." 

"Sure." 

"Well? Marian, let's go get report." 

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"Is it still the leg-lifts lady? I remember her." 

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"Yep, and she's still at it. Woman's got to have abs of steel by now - I made Dr Bloun up her tube feeds, she has to be burning extra calories with all that flashing the entire unit." 

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Marian was thinking that at least Elaine's patient, in the room directly opposite, wouldn't mind the fishbowl view of scrawny sixty-year-old alcoholic vulva. He'd been her patient three days ago, on her last shift, and had been in a medically-induced coma ever since an altercation with his tattoo artist ended with him being shot in the stomach.

Seriously, why was Reno like this. 

"What's the admit?" 

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"...I have no idea, honestly? He's not even at the ED yet. Some dude the cops just fished out of the river, major trauma, don't know details." 

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Marian does not say that this sounds interesting but she does think it. Then she stops. "- Wait. Is it anything to do with the giant explosion?" 

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"You saw that too? I nearly crashed my car, it startled me so bad." 

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"What was it? Airplane crash?" 

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"No idea! I'm sure it'll be all over the news by breaktime." She rolls her eyes. "If either of us gets a break today. Sounds like adventures for this morning. Let's go get up to date on 112." This is the patient also known as Leg Lifts Lady. "I'll keep 114, he's not going anywhere, and we can stick the admit in 113." 

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Marian sits on the urge to comment that Alice really could give her 114 instead; the poor man has been in a deep coma ever since an unfortunate fall from a ladder while fixing his roof. It's horrifically sad, but unlike Leg Lifts Lady he won't be constantly escape-artisting his way out of his hospital gown. OR doing his best to remove every single tube and wire and piece of essential lifesaving equipment nearby.  

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They get report from the night shift nurse, who eagerly escapes before anything else can go wrong. 

- less than three minutes later, Nina from the next pod over is desperately calling out for help from anyone familiar with dialysis machines, hers - well, her patients' to be precise - is having some sort of baffling problem. 

"Coming!" Alice yells. "Marian, be a dear and take report from the ED on my admit if they call, could you?" 

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"'Course." Surely it won't be for a good while, though. Marian plops herself in front of the nearest computer console, with a clear view of her new patient in 112, and logs in to skim through her chart. And to surreptitiously check who the trauma surgeon on for today is and where they rate on the Asshole Scale. She's mildly kicking herself for volunteering to stay on this unit when for all she knows it might be Dr Haste, who terrifies her. 

It's not. It's Dr Millinger, who's only middle-of-the-range on dickishness. Deep breath. She can handle that. 

There are still occasional muffled swearwords coming from the dialysis room when the phone rings. She checks the caller ID screen. Apparently it's the emergency department. 

Marian glares at the phone as though it's a snake that might bite her; she has not had enough coffee today for phone reports. Elaine looks busy, though, and she did promise she would take Alice's report. 

"HithisisMariancanIhelpyou." 

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The nurse on the line is probably staying late from night shift, since she sounds exhausted. "Got an admit for you - room ready?" 

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"Huh? Didn't he literally just get to you–" 

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"Yes, but we've got four ODs in here and we're short two nurses for the day shift - he needs a scan and I can't leave my pod to take him, I was hoping someone could come by from your side and swing by CT on the way back." 

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Marian scowls and sticks out her tongue, safely where the ED nurse can't see it. "Uh, maybe? I, um, we need more of an actual report first." Alice sounds occupied and this sounds time-sensitive, but being trapped in the radiology department with an unstable patient she knows literally nothing about does NOT sound like her idea of a good start to the morning. 

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"Uh, Lina took report from the paramedics but she's stuck dealing with an airborne iso patient right now." 

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This is fine this is fine thisisfine this is FINE. If she agrees to do Alice a favour then mystery airplane crash river guy will PROBABLY not code on her in the CT scanner, and if she hauls herself out to the emergency department in person, then maybe said paramedics will still be getting coffee or something and she can drag a proper report out of them - 

- not to mention if she goes that way, the coffeeshop is right there and there won't be much of a line right now since it's mid-shift-change. 

"Name and age, at least?" she says. 

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"Couldn't find ID on him. We're opening a chart under 'Fifty-Seven, Red'." 

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Opening the chart under a hastily assigned code name is standard for trauma patients arriving, not just for the ones who don't have their driver's license in their pocket. Marian carefully writes it down. 

"We'll be over to get him in ten minutes," she promises, and then heads over to check this plan with Alice. 

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There are several different sources of concerning alarm beeps coming from behind the closed curtains. Alice, as always, sounds unruffled. "Yes, Marian?" 

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"ED's swamped with drug overdoses for some reason and they want your admit moved out, plus he needs scans on the way. Should I go get him for you? 112 is fine, she's restrained, I think Elaine can keep an eye on her and your guy." 

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"- Sure, that'd be great of you. Don't let them send you to CT without at least two good IV lines, make sure you've got sedation ready even if he's not needing it yet, don't agree to go alone if his vitals aren't stable -"

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"Yes, yes, I know..." And it's a good reminder to do slightly more troubleshooting, e.g. making a stop by the clean supply room and cramming a lot of possibly-necessary materials into her scrubs pockets. She doesn't know where to find anything in the emergency room, and radiology won't have half of what she needs short of ripping open a crash cart, so best to be prepared. 

Last stop, the break room, to stick her phone in her bra - you never know, she might have a long boring scan wait to check Facebook - and grab some change for the coffeeshop. 

There is, in fact, a wonderful shortage of line, and within sixty seconds of walking up, she has a grande Starbucks light roast and is forging onward. 

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There is not, at a first glance, anyone visibly available to talk to in the emergency room! It's shift change, and short-staffed; nearly everyone is pulled aside for reports.

In the trauma bay, one bed has the curtains pulled and someone inside - maybe several people - are audibly sobbing and wailing. Another has all of the lights on and about a dozen people crammed around, so that she can't actually see what's happening. 

The third looks a little like a hurricane just passed nearby it and left various excess packaging from supplies all over the floor. A couple of paramedics are using the top of the crash cart as a desk for paperwork, and a concerningly young - resident? medical student? - role unclear but definitely young, is hovering by the bed. 

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Marian spends a minute glaring dubiously at the heart monitor from a distance, and then pushes through the inevitable feeling of social awkwardness, and marches up closer. "Uhhh, I'm looking for - what's-her-name, the nurse - is he the admit for ICU, can someone give me a report or something....?"

She will also try to figure out whatever she can by just looking at the patient, whose code-name she's already managed to forget; she can't easily find it on her clipboard right now because her other hand is full of coffee, which she takes another scorching gulp of. 

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The patient does not notice or care about her appraisal! He's unconscious, strapped firmly to a backboard which is now sort of plopped onto the gurney, with his head immobilized between foam blocks; some of his dark hair, still soaking-wet, is stuck in the Velcro straps, which makes Marian wince. His clothes have been peeled off from the waist up, with one of the paramedics' horribly crinkly-scratchy blankets sort of flung over him. It's also wet at the edges. 

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Nobody has answered her question yet, so Marian keeps looking. 

Airway and breathing: he's already on a ventilator, check, though the monitor is failing to pick up a reliable oxygen saturation curve and is currently reading 68% with a question mark and beeping plaintively, and she can't read the settings because it's the stupid ED ventilator model with the unreadable-at-a-distance screen.

There's a blood pressure up on the monitor but she has no idea how long it's been there. She whacks the button again. His heart rate is steady at about 120, which is...fine...though not entirely reassuring if that's a real blood pressure number. 

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Footsteps. "Oh, phew, you're here. Can I give you report." The nurse finishes shedding her isolation gown and crams it into the nearest dirty-linens bucket. 

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"That would be great! Are you Lina?" Marian fumbles with her coffee and clipboard, trying to find a way to hold both and also a pen; after a couple of seconds she gives up and sets the coffee down under the patient's gurney, trying to make a firm mental note to definitely pick it up before wheeling him anywhere. 

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She gets a report! 

It is not the world's most helpful report! Police responded to reports of an explosion, found the man unconscious in the shallow water near the edge of the river. 

"Breathing and had a pulse when the paramedics got to him, but sats were in the low nineties when he got here on a hundred percent O2, and he was unresponsive, so we intubated him then. Vital signs otherwise decent -" 

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Marian is looking suspiciously at the monitor again. "When's the last time you got a decent sat reading? I bet it's because he's cold - here, I brought one of the stick-on kind for infants, I'll try it on his ear, sometimes that's better..." She grabs for the hand sanitizer and goes in to do this. "Uh, what's his temperature...?" 

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"Couldn't get a reading on it with ours, it just said 'low', but it's finicky below ninety-five. Ventilator settings, one sec..." Lina unrolls a crumpled scrap of paper. "Sorry, we've been running all night, I wish I had a better report for you." 

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"I get it." Marian scribbles down numbers. "IV lines, just the one it looks like - just saline, he doesn't have anything for sedation?"

She'll make a note to try to call Alice and get her to set up the thingy for warming IV fluids, if he's already hypothermic they shouldn't be dumping more cold fluids into him. 

The patient's hand is in fact very cold, nailbeds purplish and mottled from it; no wonder she can't get a pulse waveform there. When she tries moving it, though, it does eventually stabilize, the wave matching his heart rate and the number steadying out at 95%.

"There, that's better. Though if he's on seventy percent O2 it's not great. Apparently I'm supposed to detour by CT after this - can I steal your ventilator for it if I promise to bring it back right after?" She didn't think to grab the transport one, which incidentally she hates.

The blood pressure dings and provides a fresh number of 108/72. Marian squints at it with suspicion but writes it down. 

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"Sure, whatever." 

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"Is there anyone who can give me orders for sedation, if he wakes up in CT I'm going to be having a bad day." And also Alice will give her an 'I told you so'. 

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"Can you?" Lina says to the presumably-a-resident, then digs in her front pocket. "Oh, and I've got some propofol left over in here - it's technically from the lady next door but that was like twenty minutes ago." She offers Marian a ten-cc syringe and the half-empty vial. 

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...She has probably ever done something at work that felt sketchier than 'accepting a syringe of unlabeled drugs from a random ED nurse on faith' but Marian isn't sure what. 

"Uh, thank you? Can I have an IV pump anyway though. Just in case." There isn't one on the pole right now. She peers around.  

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"...Oh, they must all be in bed one, she spent half the night coding on us, but the family's in there now." 

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Marian grits her teeth, weighing out the stress of 'dragging a patient to CT by herself with literally no way to run IV drugs except by gravity', versus the agonizing social awkwardness of barging in on a family grieving their loved one in order to steal equipment from the dead body. 

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Lina sighs. "I'll go find you one. Emma, can you do the orders?" 

     "- Oh, right, sure." The resident heads for the nearest computer-on-wheels - or COW, as they're universally referred to by the staff. 

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Marian grits her teeth. Mortifying or not, she is not delighted at the current plan. "Uh, are you busy? Is there any way you could come to the scan with me, in case I– in case something comes up?" 

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The young woman lets out her breath. "I'm supposed to talk to the family in bed one after this," she says morosely. "You know what, sure, I can come with you. You're worried?" 

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"...I don't know if I am." The problem, Marian reflects, is that she knows about two point five things about this patient. I hate shift change admits. 

She tries to go down the mental list of things Alice nagged her about, and then the separate mental list of 'things she really ought to figure out for herself'. There used to be a checklist at the back of her clipboard but last week she somehow managed to let her patient pee on it and she hasn't been organized enough to print it out again. 

...Coffee retrieved, check, that'll help with thinking. "Right. Uh, Emma, any chance you know where they keep the soft restraints here? I know he's not awake now but I'm kind of paranoid about leaving intubated patients in scanners without that." 

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"Oh, that's a good point. Sorry, I don't know where anything is yet." 

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Great. That makes two of us, Marian thinks, gulping more coffee. It's finally cool enough not to scorch. 

She checks her watch. It's somehow already almost seven-fifteen, and this isn't even her patient. At least Leg Lifts Lady is boringly stable and doesn't have any scheduled meds before nine. 

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Just as Lina is getting back with an IV pump and more drugs, the intercom crackles to life.

"Code blue, ICU–"

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Marian endures a second of chest-thumping panic that her patient in 112 wasn't sufficiently restrained and has now pulled out her trach and gone into cardiac arrest as a result, but then the announcement finishes with 'room 110' instead and she relaxes fractionally. That's the patient with the misbehaving dialysis machine. ....Which sort of throws a wrench in calling Alice for help prepping the stupid room for Alice's stupid patient, but at least it can't possibly be her fault. 

....What else, come on, think. At this point Marian is definitely stalling, and it's because she hates transporting patients. She likes her patients to be in rooms where she knows where everything is, and where there's a crash cart right there and a supply room within twenty steps. She does not like to have patients in, say, elevators. Or CT scanners while she's evicted to the other room. 

She manages to stall for another two or three minutes, grabbing warm blankets from the blanket-warmer and piling them on Alice's soon-to-be-patient, then checking the IV pump and the oxygen tank under the gurney, and listening to the patient's lungs herself - definitely quieter-than-normal on the left side, which isn't especially surprising if he almost drowned but she's ticked off that she didn't get it in report. 

Lina gets the patient transferred onto the portable monitor. Marian frowns on it and then sets the blood pressure to cycle every five minutes instead of the default 'every hour'. And fiddles with the alarm settings so it stops pinging constantly for a heart rate above 100.

It's somehow 7:25 am. If she spends any longer delaying then she's going to run into the day shift scheduled CTs and have to WAIT which would be terrible. 

"Let's go," she says to Emma-the-resident, whose hospital nametag she can't read because it's flipped backward. She chugs the last of her coffee, balances her clipboard on the gurney beside the patient, they forge out into the hallway, Marian trying her absolute best not to swerve the gurney into any walls by mistake. The hallway is ALSO terrible but the sooner she starts the sooner it'll be over. 

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CT scan is quiet and they do not need to wait awkwardly in the hallway, but they do demand the patient's name and medical record number! 

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Which Marian has to scramble to look up, and this is the point at which she discovers the patient did not manage to get equipped with a hospital bracelet. She wants to melt into the floor out of sheer embarrassment, but apologizes politely, and Emma-the-resident rescues her by dint of having actually written it down somewhere she can find again. 

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The patient coughs from the impact of being slid across onto the scanner bed, straining a little against the straps pinning him to the backboard - the first movement she's seen out of him.

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Not that she properly checked for responsiveness herself, which would be a good idea to do before she's evicted from the room. Also she's now facing the serious problem that the hand restraints would usually be tied to the gurney, which the patient is currently not on, and she has no idea where or how to fasten them to the CT scanner base. Maybe she can find somewhere on the spinal board to tie them... 

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The patient whose code name she still can't remember doesn't respond at all to being asked to open his eyes, but does grimace faintly when she pinches his nail, trying very halfheartedly to pull his arm away. 

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This would normally be a good sign but right now is SUCH INCONVENIENT TIMING. Marian internally debates the merits of just going ahead and starting the sedative drug now - but his last blood pressure is already very borderline, she doesn't especially want to push it any lower. And his heart rate is up to 130 now.

Which could just be because he's in pain, but if it were only that she'd expect a higher blood pressure too. Is he bleeding internally...? She doesn't KNOW and the entire reason they're doing the scan is to CHECK and she wants it to be over now please.

She ties the restraints to the backboard, then lunges to grab the IV pump as the radiology technician starts moving it to the side. "Careful! Don't pull that - make sure it's got lots of slack on the tubing, please, that's his only IV line– One second, I'll tape it better." She has tape. Marian always has tape.

"Ventilator tubing too, please, try to get it in close so it's got more leeway when he goes in..." She hates scans so much. 

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Emma-the-resident is trying to be helpful, but as a tiny baby doctor, she's very inept at it. The tech is more careful after that, though. 

They get everything set up, and vacate to behind the glass window. 

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Marian reminds herself to take some deep breaths. She's irritated with her past self for failing to pay attention to the angle of the portable monitor; it's at the head of the scanner bed, but sloppily placed at an angle, and the glare from the fluorescent lights means she has to squint to read it. Also something must have jarred the stupid O2 sat probe out of position, because it's back to not getting a very good waveform. 

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The senior tech is tapping away at things on the computer. "So what're we doing today?" 

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"...I have no idea." God that's embarrassing. Why is today the morning of CONSTANT EMBARRASSMENT. "Uh, probably everything? - Emma, um, do you know?" She feels very awkward calling residents by their first names when they haven't discussed that, but MORE awkward about pointing out the backward nametag issue. 

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"Uh, I think head, chest, abdomen? We don't know what happened to him." 

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Except that some sort of giant explosion was involved, one that nearly made Marian crash her bike from miles away. This is not exactly reassuring

She waits. 

"...Do you have coffee?" she asks hopefully, after a couple of minutes. 

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"- Oh, sure, Keurig's in back." 

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Marian fidgets a bit, and eventually decides that she needs more coffee badly enough to be willing to take her eyes off the monitor for thirty seconds. To be polite, she offers to make one for Emma-the-resident too. 

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Everything is darkness and fog and pain, and Leareth tries to claw his way toward the surface of it but he can't - can't move, can't see, for some reason it feels like he's choking, and breathing is unreasonably hard, trying to get a deeper breath doesn't work and just hurts -

- orient, where, what - but his thoughts are mud and glue and he can't make any headway... 

On sheer reflex he tries to Gate, without even having a destination, and it doesn't work - 

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Marian stares vaguely at the stream of coffee filling the paper cup. There's a new annoying chime somewhere in the background– wait, what is that, it's not a standard alarm but it's familiar...

It's the stupid ED ventilator model, isn't it. 

She snatches up both coffees and speedwalks back to the monitoring room, because it doesn't quite sound like the scale of emergency yet that calls for abandoning coffee. 

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"Your patient's coughing a lot or something," the tech says over his shoulder, sounding irritated with her about it. "We might have to redo this pass on the scan, too much motion artifact." 

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"Oh. Uh, pause it a minute? I should go in and see what's up."

Whyyyyy didn't she get the portable suction, it's because she's an idiot that's why. 

Emma trails after her into the room. 

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Her patient doesn't have a lot of range to move, being thoroughly strapped and tied down to the backboard, but he's certainly struggling hard against the restraints, if not very purposefully. He's also coughing a lot and fighting the ventilator, which is making its unhappiness about this loudly known. 

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"Fuck," Marian says, eloquently. "God that alarm is irritating - where's the silence button -"

And she still doesn't have an O2 sat reading, probably because her patient won't stop trying to move his head even though he really really should not do that. She fumbles to turn on the IV pump, then remembers that the tubing for the propofol sedation isn't actually hooked up. Because she's stupid (okay, and partly because she sensibly wanted to have fewer tubes that might get yanked by a moving scanner bed.)

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Emma, however, is rising brilliantly to the occasion, by ducking around to the other side. "Here, I can reach his IV port from here - pass me the tubing... Oh, did you still have the push syringe, I can give him a little extra while you sort that out." 

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"Uh, sure, please." Marian is suspicious that this is definitely not how one is Supposed to do things, but then again nothing about this situation is how anything is supposed to be. She passes her syringe and vial across, then the trailing end of the tubing. 

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It's still nearly impossible to think, but it's not a very complicated observation that something is badly wrong and he needs to get out of here now. 

Leareth tries to Gate again. 

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"Eeeek what–" Marian yelps, as the floor inexplicably shakes, right at the same moment that she inexplicably gets static-electricity-zapped by touching her patient's arm. 

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"Are you okay?" Emma squawks. 

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"Just sedate him please!" Why is there an earthquake this is the worst time in the entire world for there to be ALSO AN EARTHQUAKE, she didn't think Reno was even a high earthquake rate sort of place. 

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"I'm trying, he keeps– fuck, is he having a seizure or something–" 

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Marian doesn't think so, but even if he is, propofol will stop that too and then they can figure it out when her patient is not stuffed inside a CT scanner. She goes back to frantically programming the pump. 

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Within the next ten or fifteen seconds, the patient stops struggling and goes limp - and the floor stops shaking, too. 

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Marian sags against the table. "That really could have gone better. Thank you, Emma." 

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"You're welcome, should we keep going with the scan now?" 

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"Uh, give me a minute to get fresh vitals." Marian whacks the button for another blood pressure reading, and goes back to messing with the O2 sat probe trying to get a reading; it's given up on even made-up numbers and is just showing a question mark.

A pause. 

The monitor dings sadly at her. 

"- BP's down to seventy over forty, crap, I think he doesn't like the propofol - how much did you give him?" 

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"Ummm, all of it?" Emma gives her a wide-eyed look. "He's a decent-sized guy and he was getting pretty combative." 

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...She is not going to yell at the tiny baby doctor for lacking the common sense to notice that a reasonable dose of sedative for this patient if he were otherwise healthy is NOT the same as a reasonable dose given that he's clearly already in shock and probably bleeding internally or something. Yelling at Emma will not help

Also she doesn't have anything on her to address this, because she's an idiot. 

She mashes the refresh button on the blood pressure again. "Okay. We're okay. It's short acting so his BP should come back up soon, but I also want to be able to go up on the drip if I have to and I don't know if he'll handle it. Can you go get me some pressors - norepinephrine, whatever, just something we can have ready–" 

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"Right – um, I don't know where..." 

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"Go back to the ED if you have to but maybe consider running."

 

After Emma runs off, Marian has a moment to consider that if her patient codes she is now trapped in the CT room BY HERSELF and this is the worst day ever. If there's another earthquake on top of everything else she is going to cry. 

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The radiology tech sticks his head in. "Everything all right?" 

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Marian does NOT snap that this is a stupid question. "Just give us a minute," she says shakily. "Sorry." She wants her coffee so badly but she kind of needs both hands free right now. 

The next blood pressure is down to 52/29, and Marian grits her teeth and takes it again. She still can't get a sat reading. Probably because with that BP he barely has circulation going.

"Argh," Marian mutters to herself. She fiddles the ventilator settings up to 100% oxygen just in case. And squeezes the half-deflated bag of saline to make it go faster. It's not like she has anything else she can do. 

The next reading fails to give her anything at all; the poor confused machine just spends thirty seconds whirring before turning up question marks. Marian swears and tries to reach around the backboard head blocks and the hair-caught-in-Velcro to check for a pulse. 

She finds one and is very slightly relieved, and then more relieved when the next blood pressure reading is above 60 systolic, which is not usually cause for celebration BUT. 

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By the time Emma gets back, it feels like about a century later, with another one of the ED nurses and an IV pump and bag of pressors, the patient is up to a basically-tolerable blood pressure. Also he's starting to squirm and cough again, but Marian is at this point kind of terrified to up the sedative drip before they arrive. 

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Marian transfers the second IV pump to the same pole for simplicity, and finishes priming the tubing and programs the pump and hooks it up. To the same IV, which isn't really recommended for those two drugs together, but there's lots of saline going in to dilute it and probably it'll be fine for five minutes. She does have IV supplies in her pockets but her hands are kind of trembly right now. 

She gives it another couple of minutes of fiddling with dosages, and sets the blood pressure automatic cycle to every three minutes, and then goes back to the glass-walled observation room and retrieves her coffee and flops. 

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Probably she didn't calibrate the drips exactly right, because the patient's blood pressure is creeping up kind of high now, but she will TAKE IT and deal with it LATER. 

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...Five minutes or so later, the tech whistles through his teeth. 

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Marian jerks around, nearly spilling her half-drunk coffee. "What?" 

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"Come have a look - this is a pretty spectacular scan, wow - left lung's completely whited out." 

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"Oh fuck." Considering that news, she's actually surprising he isn't doing a lot worse. 

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Emma-the-resident leans in to look as well, then shares a glance with Marian. "I think we know where he's bleeding now! Should I, uh, call someone - probably we need to get him to the OR...?" 

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"Yes. That'd be great. Please do that." Normally Marian would offer slightly more in the way of handholding, for a tiny baby doctor clearly out of her depth, but she is so done with this situation.

She digs out her own phone and tries to call Alice, and very unsurprisingly doesn't get an answer, so she dials the main phone for pod one instead. And checks the time again while it rings. God, how is it already past eight... She needs to pee too. Which cannot happen now. 

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Elaine answers. "Yes? Oh, Marian, is that you - what's keeping you?" 

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"Adventures," Marian says drily. "Can you check that room 113 is ready for us? New admit's got a horrific hemothorax, probably got to rush him to the OR, but I want to not be in CT one second longer." 

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"...Got it. Uh, do you want me to give your leg lady her meds too? Oh, and Alice wants to know if you can take this admit after all, she's probably taking over the patient in 110." 

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...On the one hand this is interesting; on the other hand, aaaaaaaaaaaa.

"Yes, of course. Not sure I can take him and 112, though." 

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"- Should I take over with her? I think we're not getting a new podmate, the unit's short, but I told Alice I'd take her other guy and I could trade you - he's easy..." 

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This is starting to feel like some sort of Hot Potato Patient game. "Yeah, sure, that works." Marian sighs. "On the off chance that I have time at all, want me to grab you a coffee on my way back?" 

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"Ooh, always." 

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"Did you feel the earthquake a few minutes ago, by the way?" 

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"- The what? No." 

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"Huh. I felt one over here." An earthquake that's only in one part of a single building makes no sense, but Marian is way too frazzled to be curious about geology processes right now. "Anyway. See you soon." 

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The rest of the patient's scan is at least not obviously horrifying, either to Marian or the tech. 

They get him slid out of the machine, and off the scan table, without any particular incident, and Emma helps her hustle him out into the hallway. It is, thankfully, not much further from there. 

As soon as the automatic doors to the unit creak open, half the staff on the unit surge toward her. The other half seem to all be in Alice's new pod, but that still leaves enough people to descend on her patient like a swarm of piranhas - friendly piranhas, at least from Marian's perspective, maybe less so for Fifty-Seven, Red. 

Within ten minutes he is tucked into the new ICU bed, with a heating blanket plugged into the wall, two new IV lines, a catheter placed, and bloodwork drawn and headed to the lab in the pneumatic tube system. Elaine is confirming with her stethoscope that nope she cannot hear any air moving in his left lung. The charge nurse is hassling Dr Millinger to read his scans and inform them whether they can get him off the backboard now.  

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Marian stands at the foot of the patient’s bed with a COW, perusing his rather sparse and useless chart. The age is marked as 99, which seems very implausible but is what it defaults to when the birth date is left blank. She makes requests as she thinks of them.

“Can someone please get me his temperature - oh yeah can you bring the ED back their vent, I promised...” The newer ICU model is much better, in that she can read the screen from here. 

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Ally hooks up a new bag of saline, this one fresh from the warmer. “I got 92.3. Poor guy’s an icicle. Want a continuous temp probe?”

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“Uh that’s be great - once we’re allowed to move him, Dr Millinger can we -“

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“Sure, spine’s clear - put him in a C-collar though, could be soft tissue injuries. Took a lot of blunt force from something - multiple broken ribs, and,” he squints at the washed-out grey of the brain CT scan, “reckon that’s a hairline skull fracture and tiny subdural bleed. Hopefully it’ll stay tiny - I’m ordering a followup scan in six hours, got it? And get me an arterial blood gas while we’re waiting— is that a real O2 sat -“

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She is going to spend her ENTIRE DAY having harrowing adventures at scans, isn’t she. 

“No, I bet it’s— oh fuck.” She scrambles for the patient. This time, the reading of 87% - and dropping - is accompanied with a tidy waveform. “He’s - fuck he’s on 100% O2 already, forgot I did that - I can’t go up - Elaine! Ally! I need a hand - let’s get him off the board so we can lift his head—“

Gravity means her patient will have an easier time getting air if he’s sitting up, but his actual problem is that he’s bleeding to death into his lungs and she CANNOT fix this by herself and they’re still waiting for the operating room to call back...

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They unstrap and roll him, gently and carefully, and slide the board out, replacing it with the two halves of a cervical collar.

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Marian winces when Ally yanks the Velcro loose, tearing her patient’s hair. Not that he cares, right now, he’s spectacularly sedated and she’s glad of this, but he has a head injury and they should be careful. 

Ally draws a blood gas while she and Elaine crank up the head of the patient’s bed. “Grab me some ice for this, would you?”

The phone rings.

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Dr Millinger answers, because unlike SOME surgeons he doesn’t consider this beneath him. “Marian, it’s the OR - are we ready to roll?”

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“Great! Yes please!”

And after a frantic minute of unplugging and wrangling machines and trying to keep tubes from being yanked, they are in the hallway once again!

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The OR nurse wants a report! She is not much happier with Marian’s attempt than Marian was in the ED, and is more snappy about it.

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Marian is used to this and doesn’t take it personally. She apologizes that the labs aren’t back and she doesn’t know the patient’s blood type or anything about allergies. (She does NOT passive-aggressively blame this on the ED nurses, it’s not their fault either.) 

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The patient starts coughing and wriggling again as they slide him across onto the operating table.

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Marian lunges to grab his wrists before he can go after the breathing tube. “Sorry sorry sorry! Uh I can up the propofol, but it tanks his BP - I can up the pressors— wait crap someone upped it already, sorry I told you the wrong rate, he’s on ten. I can go up to fifteen and then up his sedation but do you have a second drip ready...” 

She fiddles with IV pumps.

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“On it - I’ll push some Versed for him now, should settle him down without knocking his blood pressure too much.”

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“He got pretty combative in the scan, just to let you know.”

She doesn’t mention the earthquake, despite her uneasy superstitious feeling that this was somehow related, because that’s obviously insane.

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The patient calms down. His next blood pressure is down to 92/59 but the mean pressure is tolerable so Marian lets it slide. 

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“We’ve got this in hand,” the nurse says distractedly. “We’ll call when we’re bringing him back over, I’d say give us 45 minutes to an hour. Dr Millinger he’s desatting again, can we move—“

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Marian escapes with great relief.

She has so much charting to do, but first things first: detour by the break room for her wallet, line up to collect some coffees for the unit. And a muffin. Today is NOT shaping up to be the sort of day that includes a lunch break. 

It’s already past 8:30, which seems like it should be illegal.

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The OR calls back at 9:20 am, which is long enough that she’s caught up on charting, but in Marian’s opinion not nearly long enough to be ready for dealing with Fifty-Seven, Red again.

”Procedure went fine. Drained 1800ccs from the pleural space, the doc tied off the bleeder, bedside chest X-Ray already shows improvement. Though lots of patchiness appearing - did he aspirate?”

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“They pulled him out of the river. Near-drowning.” And the river is gross enough that she wouldn’t want it anywhere near her patient’s lungs. “Did he get antibiotics yet?”

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“We gave a dose of pip-taz, so he’ll be due in six hours for the next one.”

(Piperacillin with tazobactam, the standard extremely-broad-spectrum treatment for “we have no idea what infection this patient has and don’t feel like waiting two days for cultures to find out.) 

“He got three liters of fluids and a unit of blood - O-negative, he’s got some weird blood type - he may need more on your side.”

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“Oh good. Orders in? And vital signs right now?”

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“Heart rate hanging in at 110 - blood pressure’s a beautiful 120/70 right now but he’s maxed on the norepi. Vent settings - he’s still paralyzed, so set resp rate of twenty, he’s on...one sec...looks like 60% O2, sats are 94% but don’t lay him flat too long or it drops. Drips, we’ve got him on fentanyl and a touch of Versed, you can go up to 10 ccs an hour on that if you have to.”

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“Any chance you got a central line in?” Marian asks hopefully. “He really needs one.”

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“No, sorry, Dr Millinger said he’d have a resident do it on the unit, so you should get set up. Arterial line yes. Chest tube on suction, left side.”

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"Great, sounds good - do you guys have enough people to help bring him over–" Fortunately it's not far, the trauma ICU is conveniently arranged to be very nearby the OR; however, Marian is developing some very paranoid feelings about being left alone with this particular patient in a hallway without any of her equipment. 

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"Sure, I'll send the resident - can you come now, though, we've got to clear the room for the next case." 

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"'Course, I'm coming." Marian stands up. On reflection she holds onto her coffee. "Elaine, sorry, I'll help you turn your guy after. Oh, and can you prep a central line kit outside the room, apparently we're doing that." Which will be EXCELLENT and a huge relief, having more reliable intravenous access for this patient who keeps determinedly trying to DIE on her, but also it's another task and she's feeling a bit overwhelmed by the pileup of tasks ahead. 

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Her patient is looking somewhat better! That is indeed an absolutely gorgeous blood pressure waveform; in fact, it's hanging out at around 125/90, which is higher than strictly necessary and she can turn down the pressors and buy herself some leeway for later.

He's not restrained, which is annoying and the OR does that all the time, though it's not an urgent issue since he has the limp floppiness of someone recently given paralytics. She cranks his sedation drip up; she won't know if he wakes up still paralyzed, and doing that to a patient by accident is honestly one of her worst nightmares.

The chest tube drainage box must have been just emptied, but it's already got another - hmm she peers at it - two hundred ccs of bloody fluid in the receptable. Which is significantly more than the amount of pee in the hourly-measurement-bucket section of the catheter bag. His O2 sats are creeping down, though, and at a quick listen his lungs sound like a washing machine, though at least there are sounds at all on both sides. 

Also he's drooling all over the pillow. 

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Marian is a nurse. She can handle the sight of blood. And the smell of it. And having it all over her scrubs. Same with poop - of any texture and consistency - and pee, and being vomited on. In fact, pretty much any bodily fluid is fine. 

With the exception of mucus, snot especially but lung gunk is almost as bad. And saliva. For some inexplicable reason, saliva is the WORST THING.

Blech. 

She grits her teeth and goes in with the suction catheter. 

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Her patient is, inconveniently, too thoroughly paralyzed to cough about it, but she gets some gunk out; his O2 sats drop briefly while she's in the middle of attacking his lungs with suction tubing, but lifting the head of the bed more gets them to pop back up to the mid-90s. 

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"That'll do." She looks around hopefully for the promised resident to accompany her. There's a LOT more equipment around the bed now; she cannot wrangle all of this by herself at all. "All right, let's go." 

They reach the unit without further incident, except for Marian's sudden forehead-slapping realization that she didn't get an up-to-date temperature from the nurse, and it doesn't look like all his fluids were going in warmed at all. Patients always come back from the OR cold and she didn't think to warn them about the hypothermia. 

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The piranhas are back the instant they cross the doors back into the unit, though there's less to do this time; they wheel his bed back into the room and replug all the monitor wires and charging cables, and Elaine cheerfully helps turn him a little, very carefully holding the dangling chest tube to avoid yanking it. They can finally manage to properly check his back in order to chart 'no bedsores on admission', and get a continuous rectal temperature probe which should definitely be reliable. 

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Marian sneaks in and tucks a couple of pillows to keep him propped a quarter-turn onto his side. He's been flat on his back for hours - somehow it's almost ten, god, she's so late on morning meds for the patient in 114 who's theoretically hers now - and maybe having the bad lung up will help it finish re-expanding. 

Her feet hurt so much but it's time to help a baby resident put in a central line! For 'practice', which means she's going to spend the entire time watching anxiously and trying not to yell at them! Joy! 

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Emma-the-resident seems to have fled back to the ED or maybe home to sleep, but there's a fresh-faced new baby doctor lining up to do this under Dr Millinger's watchful eyes! 

He gets the sterile field set up and only needs prompting twice, and then swabs her patient's neck with the sterilizing solution and starts poking around with the bedside ultrasound to find the jugular vein. 

Dr Millinger is in a teaching mood, apparently. "There! See, that's the carotid artery, with the pulse, and that's the vein right by it - look how easily it collapses when you press? He's still hypovolemic." 

     The resident blinks. "Didn't he get like four litres of fluids already? Should we start another–" 

"Saline won't expand circulatory volume as much as colloidal fluids, lots of it spreads out in the tissues - that's why our patients tend to end up with edema, right, you can already see how his hands are a little puffy. And he's not dehydrated, he's lost two litres of blood." To Marian: "What's our ETA on the next couple of units? And last hemoglobin?" 

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Aaaaaaaaaaaa she was busy watching the resident to make sure he didn't break the sterile field and this is too many things. "I, uh, newest one from the OR isn't back yet - last one was six. Elaine!" she adds, raising her voice. "Anything from the blood bank?" 

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"I'll call them!" Elaine shouts back from Leg Lift Lady's room. "Dr Millinger, do you want to order some plasma too?" 

     "- You know what, yes, two units please. And once we've got this line in, send another set of labs, check clotting factors too if we don't have a recent one. And a new blood gas in, hmm, half an hour, once he's had time to settle down - the last one was gnarly." 

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Marian refrains from pointing out that the last arterial blood gas was both when her patient had one working lung and had just been moved and shoved around a lot for the scans, of course it wasn't great. Getting a new one will be almost trivially easy now, since he has a nice shiny new arterial line from the OR. Aside from the part where she has way too many things on her mental stack right now. 

She writes it down, and keeps watching the nervous resident as, with aaaaagonizing slooooowness, he gets his materials ready and starts trying to slip an ultrasound-guided needle into her patient's jugular vein. 

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"You've got blood return - excellent!" Dr Millinger coaxes. 

(Whyyyy is he so much more patient and kind with his residents than with the nursing staff?? Or, come to to think of it, with the patients?)

"That's it - all right, slide the guidewire in, you've got it - there it goes...bit further..." 

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The patient's heart monitor pings plaintively. 

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"We're getting ectopic beats," Marian says levelly. "Careful, that's probably– fuck fuck stop that's V-tach!"

Her patient's heart, stressed and irritable from the heavy workload expected of it plus the stimulation of the norepinephrine drip, is reacting badly to being poked from the inside with a guidewire. In particular, he is just now slipping in and out of a life-threatening arrhythmia, though at least there's still a visible pulse on the arterial line tracing. His blood pressure is plummeting rapidly, though. 

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"Pull back," Dr Millinger says, much more calmly. "About an inch - ah, there, he's coming out of it. Just hold there, and slip your catheter over the guidewire - no, make sure you hold it, do not push it further in again–" 

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Her patient's systolic blood pressure is still hovering in the 80s, so Marian sighs and maxes out the norepi drip again, then folds her arms and waits, trying not to hold her breath. This isn't actually the baby doctor's fault but she's SO STRESSED. 

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Her patient stays calm and limp and does not threaten her with any more scary arrhythmias. Though he's desatting a bit again by the time Dr Millinger fiiiinally talks the resident through sticking a clear dressing over the site and switching the IV lines over. 

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Probably it's because the head of the bed has been lowered to flat for five, maybe ten minutes now. Marian checks that she can raise it again, and awkwardly stretches over from the wrong side of the bed to listen to his lungs again. Absolutely full of crackles, but she doesn't have a good angle to get at the suction tubing from here, it can wait one or two minutes. 

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"Marian!" It's Elaine. "Want to sign off on blood and plasma with me?" 

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"Yes! I do!" She bounces.

They double-check all the information on her patient's transfusions, and get them hooked up, and Marian glowers at his temperature on the monitor - it's 93.3 - and ups the heat setting on the plug-in electric blanket. 

His blood pressure is recovering nicely, she bumps the pressors back down a bit, but his O2 sats are back to hopping between 90-92%, occasionally dipping to 89% and beeping at her. 

"I'm really sorry, I have to go in and clean some of that stuff out of your lungs, it's going to be uncomfortable but it'll make it easier to breathe after, okay?" Presumably he cannot hear her at all but talking to her patients is a habit. 

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The paralytics are wearing off and her patient does cough this time, with the simultaneously satisfying and incredibly gross result of getting a lot more yellowish phlegm into her tubing.

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"Euuughhh lung snot," Marian mutters. Quietly, to herself. To the patient: "That's really good - sorry, I need to do a few more." 

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Coughing has to hurt a lot, given the broken ribs, even with all the drugs in his system. He starts coming a little more awake by the third go of it, grimacing and pulling at the wrist restraints, then making an abortive attempt to sit up. Which has to hurt even more. 

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She gently pins his shoulders, trying not to put pressure anywhere near his broken ribs. "Shh, hey, it's okay - you're okay - just take some deep breaths now, I'm done for now." Someone amazingly, the patient's eyes are half-open, though unfocused and not tracking her.

"You're at Renown Hospital," she adds, just in case he's conscious enough to process words, though even if he is he probably won't remember it – the sedatives tend to cause amnesic effects. "You were, uh, in a bad accident - you just got back from surgery, but it went fine, everything's going to be fine - just try to relax..." 

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- there's a voice but the language isn't familiar - 

Leareth is in agonizing pain, enough that he can barely parse what exactly is hurting, it just seems to encompass everything. It feels like he's suffocating. He seems to be tied down, or held down; he can't move - 

Also his head feels dark and swampy; it takes constant effort to stay conscious at all, let alone complete a thought. Something is wrong but he can't even grasp at what kind of wrong it could be. 

With a flailing effort, he reaches for mage-sight. 

- nothing. Or, well, there's a person's aura, but no shields, no active spells - not even his standard talismans - and his native personal shields have to be entirely down right now - 

:Help: he tries, more instinctively than deliberately, though it comes out less as a coherent word and more a burst of !!! emotion. 

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The floor shakes again. 

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Marian squeaks and jumps a foot in the air, which is unfortunate because she's holding the patient down and inevitably jars him. "Sorry sorry sorry– Elaine was that you, what, do you need help–" 

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Elaine is midway through jumping up from her COW right outside the door. "What? Do you need help?" 

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"I mean, yes - maybe - you didn't just yell something?" 

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"No! Wasn't that you?" Elaine hurries over and helps hold the patient still. "Oh, did you bang into something - I heard things rattle in here–" 

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"Huh, you didn't feel the earthquake? Just a sec, I'm bumping his sedation up - he was totally out before, I think he'll calm down as soon as I stop torturing him."

She turns up the Versed drip to the maximum, she'll put it back to something more reasonable later. "Can you cosign with me on upping the fentanyl too - he looks so uncomfortable..." 

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"No wonder! Poor guy, he really got messed up. By the way, I gave your other guy his meds and turned him." 

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"God, thank you so much - I feel like I haven't stopped moving once this morning, what time is it even..." 

It's apparently 10:15. Somehow. And she's managed to lose track of her coffee. 

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At least her patient is calm again. And his sats are at 98% which is beautiful. His heart rate is jumping up again and his blood pressure is riding higher than it needs to, systolic in the 140s, but she's going to wait and see if that's just from the bit where she was hurting him. 

Also he's drooling everywhere again. 

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Marian signs and gets him cleaned up, while trying not to look too hard at what she's doing, and then flops down in the nearest chair and tries to remember what else was even on her to-do list. Right. Labs and blood gas - except she should wait on the latter until not right after she shoved suction tubing down his lungs. And then she needs to call for an X-ray to confirm the central line is in the right place still, and check the chart for results and new orders. Oh crap and the endless parade of placing various tubes has NOT included a gastric tube, so if he does have orders for oral medications she can't even do anything about it - probably she should handle that first and then get the X-ray for both at once...

One thing at a time. First up: make a list. 

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Her patient is calm and still and, when she finally catches up on charting and looking up results and goes to slide in a nasogastric tube, he is incredibly sedated; he doesn't respond at all in any way to being pinched, or having a tube stuffed down his nose, and he barely coughs when she goes after him with the suction again. 

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This is probably excessive, but it's also so nice and peaceful, and his blood pressure seems to be bearing up, she's even able to nudge down the norepi drip another notch. Versed isn't as short-acting as propofol though; if she runs it at twice the rate he needs all day, it could take him another few days to clear it out of his system. And at some point they're going to want more information on his neurological status, though she would really rather it was later, just in case there's some reason other than coincidence why a FUCKING EARTHQUAKE happens every time he starts waking up. 

She nudges the Versed down from 10 mg/h to 8, and then calls for a bedside X-ray. 

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They come twenty minutes later, and her patient's only reaction to being ratcheted up into a 90-degrees sitting position, and then jostled and jarred around so an X-ray board can be stuffed in behind the sheets, is to grimace very slightly and cough again. 

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Huh. 

Dr Millinger is going to be ticked off if she makes it impossible to get a valid neuro assessment on him for the next twenty-four hours, so Marian cautiously increments the Versed drip down to 6 mg/h, which is much more in the vicinity of 'reasonable for a person his size and not an elephant.' She checks the time - almost eleven - and tries to remember what time the second CT scan is six hours from

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Leareth drifts. 

He's in pain, even when they - whoever 'they' are - are letting him lay still, but it's oddly far away; mostly he feels floaty and distant. And very, very foggy; it's hard to string together thoughts, and he isn't sure whether he's even managing to stay some-degree-of-conscious versus drifting in and out. 

He counts numbers in his head, to try to test this. It's slow going even for that simple task, and a couple of times he gets muddled and loses track and ends up starting over, but eventually he's gotten to a hundred and is fairly confident this was all in the same block of semi-alertness. 

So. Orient. 

He tries opening his eyes, just a slit, and can't see much; everything is blurry, and also painfully bright. 

He tries mage-sight. His range is appalling; as with his ordinary vision, it's like he can't make it focus properly, and everything beyond what seems to be one room is lost in haze. There's not much to See nearby; he's totally unshielded, he can't feel the signature for any of his usual artifacts, and the room itself contains no visible shielding or wards or alarm-spells or anything

Thoughtsensing picks up on the glow of a mind nearby - un-Gifted, probably unshielded - but again, he can't seem to focus in enough to get any surface thoughts clearly. 

Breathing is uncomfortable, and harder than it ought to be, but he vaguely remembers a feeling-of-suffocation, and that at least is gone now. And he remembers being cold, before - wanting to shiver and curl up but mysteriously not being able to do either of those things - but right now he seems to be wrapped in something deliciously warm, though not a heat-spell or weather-barrier since he can't See anything there. 

- what - where - orient - 

Just staying conscious is more effortful than climbing a mountain. He craves sleep, letting go and just resting, with an intensity that's almost painful. And he's running out of strength and willpower to fight it. 

...He's foggy enough that he might forget this entire chain of reasoning if he sleeps, though. And he isn't safe. Clearly. Something is wrong.

It's not clear he's going to have a choice, though. 

Gamble - get more information - 

He reaches out with all his strength for the nearest mind. 

:Where am I: 

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Marian squawks and knocks over her coffee, spilling it all over her COW and lap. "What? Who said that?" 

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Elaine is busy wrestling Leg Lifts Lady onto a bedpan. "Hmm?" 

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"- Nothing, nevermind, it wasn't you." 

She grabs an armful of paper towel from the dispenser above the pod sink and mops up her spill, then hesitates in the fishbowl-like doorway to her patient's room. He's lying still - but his heart rate is up again. 

She crosses the room. "My name is Marian, I'm your nurse. Can you open your eyes?" 

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The voice is a lot closer now but Leareth has no idea what she's saying! And he still can't quite focus on her thoughts; trying is making his head pound. 

"Where am I," he tries to say out loud, but for some reason talking is not happening at all, and he starts coughing instead, which is shockingly painful. 

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Marian reaches for his hand. "Shh, hey, don't try to talk - you have a tube in your throat to help you breathe. Can you squeeze my hand?" 

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The words are gibberish but now that she's actually touching him, he can make out surface thoughts, though sort of metaphorically blurry.

The problem is that a lot of them make no sense. Most of her mind seems to be occupied on - the sort of complicated mostly-nonverbal reasoning he would associate with complex magic, but it's not any kind of magic he recognizes, and he can't really follow. She's trying to explain what's happening, he thinks vaguely? The issue being that this doesn't make sense either. 

He can squeeze her hand though. Assuming that it's even a good idea, to give her the information that he understands her - but her mind is unguarded, fully open, and even out-of-focus he can sense her intent. She's worried and earnest and trying-to-help. 

He squeezes her hand with all the strength he can muster, which it turns out isn't very much. 

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"Good! That's really good!" The words are still opaque but her mind lights up with delight and satisfaction. "I need you to try to relax and hold still, okay? You had an operation and you're hooked up to a lot of equipment, right now you still need help to breathe, so you mustn't pull on things. I know the tube is uncomfortable. You can be more asleep for it if you want?" 

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Leareth is trying blearily to follow her surface thoughts, but she has a lot of them - only a corner of her mind is focused on the words, running a well-practiced script underlaid with that same earnest, very very young-feeling helpfulness. Most of her attention is on other things, flickers of numbers mostly, a vague sense of the room - he can catch a glimpse of himself through her mind and it's terrifying. Would be terrifying. For some reason he doesn't seem to be capable of panic, right now; he feels floaty and calm and incredibly drowsy. 

She seems to be talking about that, maybe? He doesn't want to be sleeping; he wants to be able to wake up. He tries shaking his head, which doesn't really work. 

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"Please hold still," Marian repeats. "You're okay. You're doing really well. Right now I just need you to rest." 

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Leareth's head is throbbing too much to maintain focus with Thoughtsensing, but he can still pick up on her affect, which remains uncomplicatedly friendly. And worried, and a tiny bit exasperated behind that, but...in a way that feels like how a Healer would be. And he's clearly injured or something, so that fits. Kind of. Aside from all the parts that make no sense and that he can't keep track of at all. 

He wonders momentarily if he's under some kind of heavy block or just painkilling drugs; he doesn't remember ever feeling like this before. 

It's not much in the way of reassurance, one maybe-Healer seeming helpful, and he still doesn't have any of his shields, which is enough to force a sliver of panic through the thick-laying fog. 

But he's overwhelmingly sleepy, and if he stops fighting it then maybe his head will hurt less - it's making it impossible to think anyway - so he lets go, and the world fades out. 

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Marian holds very still until she's sure he's definitely out again, and then bounces off gleefully to inform Dr Millinger that their patient is AWAKE. Though definitely not very with it, yet; it felt like he was only understanding a quarter of what she said. But it's hopefully a sign that his minor intracranial bleeding is stable and not getting worse with her unawares.

And! There was NOT an earthquake! Just superstition after all! 

...Well, there is still the weird part where she would swear her patient called out to get her attention, which is impossible. She must have hallucinated it, which seems ridiculous and unfair, it's not like she's even that sleep deprived. 

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Dr Millinger is guardedly pleased but wants a couple more scans at six-hour intervals just in case, and to know right away if the patient becomes less responsive. Also he wants another set of labs four hours after the last ones, when all the blood transfusions are done. 

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Elaine needs help cleaning up Leg Lifts Lady and turning her other guy, and Marian squeezes in an actual assessment and noon meds for her appallingly neglected second patient, and flops to catch up on her non-neglected-but-very-exhausting patient's charting. 

She squints at him, relaxed and comfy-looking in bed, O2 sats hanging out at a comfortable 94% even after the respiratory therapist dropped his settings to 50% oxygen. His blood pressure is a little high, even, now that he's gotten a bag of blood and two bags of plasma poured into him. She fiddles the norepi drip down.

"Elaine, uh, I'm going to call for the second unit of blood - would you mind if I take a fifteen-minute lunch break after that?" She's hungry and also badly wants to sit down somewhere quiet where nothing is beeping in her face. 

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"Right, sure, of course. Uh, is your guy due to be turned?" 

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She squints at him. "He looks comfy, I'll leave him be for now." Or else there might be EARTHQUAKES. 

Elaine cheerfully agrees to this, and Marian helps her prep for a trach dressing change while they wait for the blood to come up in the tube system, and she hangs it and charts a set of vitals, cheering very quietly to herself that her patient's temperature is up to 97.1 which is normal and good. He looks so much better. Still pretty sick, of course, bedridden and surrounded by life-support equipment, and she's not zero worried but he seems to be trending better rather than worse and this is great and she's in such a good mood about it.  

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The break room isn't as quiet as hoped, because two of the pod six nurses are watching sports on television, but there is a merciful lack of ventilator alarms within yards of her ear, and she can sit and shovel carrot sticks and hummus and stew into her mouth while charting at the computer in the corner. 

Ten minutes in, she's caught up on the bare minimum charting for both her patients, though ideally she'd flesh it out more for Fifty-Seven, Red, she's probably forgetting half a dozen relevant things. 

There's a ventilator alarm somewhere, insistent. 

And then a shriek, and it goes silent. 

And then a monitor pinging very loudly and urgently. 

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"Oh for fuck's sake." The unit has terrible acoustics, Marian can't tell if it's coming from the direction of her patient's room, but it sounds like maybe she had better check. 

She walks rather than runs, though. 

"...Oh fuck! What the hell. What the hell happened – Elaine, what–" 

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Her patient is almost entirely sitting up in the bed, wild-eyed, fighting hard - if not very efficiently - to get his hands loose from the restraints. His monitor is alarming for a heart rate above 150 and his blood pressure is spiking alarmingly high and he's lost the O2 sat probe again. 

The more concerning part is that there's...smoke???...in the room? And also that his ventilator isn't just silenced, it - seems to not be on

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Marian sprints. 

Elaine is plastered back against the wall of the room for some reason, but Marian goes straight to her patient and takes his shoulders, shoving him gently but very firmly back against the bed. "Hey hey hey. Easy. It's me, Marian - you need to relax - just relax, it's okay, I've got you..."  

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He's awake enough to almost be making eye contact with her and he keeps trying to mouth something around the tube. The only reason this isn't setting alarms off is because the screen of his vent is black. And - scorched around the edges?

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"You need to stop trying to talk you're going to be okay just let me fix this– Elaine! Elaine I need help in here right now what are you doing–" 

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"He - there was - electric shock - fire..." 

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"I noticed the fire! If you get me a wet towel I can put it out! But I've kind of got higher priorities here!" 

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He's suffocating and every breath is agony and he can't think through it at all - he can't remember anything except fog and glue - but the voice seems familiar - 

:Help - cannot - breathe -: 

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...Great she's hallucinating again. 

Except that mysterious electric shocks and smouldering blankets aren't a hallucination, Elaine's seeing those too... 

"I know - it's okay, it's okay, I'm going to fix it - I need you to stay still so I can fix it - just hold still - just for ten seconds–" 

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He can get just enough of that from her surface thoughts to pick up that he's supposed to hold still. He can do that. Probably. 

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Oh good. 

Marian dives for the ambu bag shoved in the back of the room by the suction canisters, cranks the wall oxygen up as high as it goes, gets the tubing stuck onto it with shaking fingers, and then promptly yanks it off again when she tries to spool it out toward her panicking patient who she really hopes Elaine is watching. 

"Fuck fuck fuck fuck–" 

She gets it back on and is slightly more careful this time and manages to stretch the tubing across to him and - after three or four tries because she's still shaking - gets the main tubing off and the bag attachment on. 

She looks into his eyes. "I'm going to help you breathe with this. I need you to relax and try not to fight it - take slower breaths -"

He is predictably not going to be able to obey that instruction right now, though, and he's breathing at least forty a minute - she can't squeeze the bag that fast but she can try for every other breath and hope he calms down and cooperates with it when he's getting a little more oxygen. 

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And, FINALLY, it feels like about a year after she could have used it, there are several nurses from adjacent pods running for the room!  

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"Can someone fix my sat probe - I need a new vent in here, his broke - uh and there's a fire–" 

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Alice looks so confused but, unlike Elaine, she's immediately in motion. 

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Her patient is kind of fighting her attempt to squeeze air into his lungs - probably involuntarily - but at least he's visibly trying to stay still rather than flailing to get free of the restraints, and he doesn't resist when Alice grabs his hand and shoves the normal O2 sat probe onto it. 

The circulation in his extremities is a lot better now that he's not hypothermic - not to mention his blood pressure is through the roof because he's panicking - and it takes only a couple of seconds to get a waveform and then a number.

The monitor immediately starts yelling its displeasure to the world, because said number is 77%. 

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Dr Millinger reaches the room. "What's going on in here?" 

     "There's a fire," one of the other nurses says. She's slapping at the smoking blankets with a handful of wet paper towels. 

"There's a what."

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"I think there must've been some sort of weird electrical malfunction?" Marian says. "Shorted out his vent and, yeah, bit of a fire. I'm bagging him for now but we need a new vent and - probably some extra sedation on board, he's freaking out." 

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He still can't focus on any of the more distant minds, but he can just barely pick up on the nearest surface thoughts - she's thinking about forcing him to sleep again - 

:No: 

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Dr Millinger jumps. "What? Who said that?" 

     "It wasn't me! I thought it was you!" 

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....Apparently it's not just her hallucination? 

She ignores everyone else and focuses her patient again. "Hey. Look at me. I know this is really scary - but you're burning more energy, because you're scared, so we need to help you calm down for a bit, okay? And we'll get everything fixed and you're going to be okay." 

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...Oh, is that all, he can try to calm down without being asleep... 

Maybe. It's incredibly hard to make himself relax when it still feels like he can't breathe, and to suppress his body's reflex to cough, but the last minute of terror is giving him at least a brief spurt of mental clarity, and Leareth is very good at mental discipline. 

He holds still. He relaxes. With an incredible effort of will, he stops frantically gasping for air and instead times it to when the young Healer is trying to help. 

Everything still hurts, his heart is still pounding from residual panic, but it is easier when they're not fighting each other. 

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"Oh wow! Good. That's so good. Your oxygen numbers are coming up. ...You're really tense though. It looks like you're in a lot of pain? Is it all right if we give you some extra medicine for that, right now, it won't knock you out all the way, it'll just make it a bit easier..." 

And maybe prevent MORE FIRE. Marian does not want there to be any more fire at ALL. She has no idea how the patient is causing fires or earthquakes or electric short-outs, but. 

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Now that he's trying to back away from the fight-or-flight response, Leareth is exhausted. His body feels like he just sprinted five miles; he's content, for the moment, to lie here and let her breathe for him. 

It's a lot harder to reach out with Mindspeech, even though she's literally touching him, but he manages a burst of wordless assent before closing his eyes. 

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That's even weirder but she can worry about the weird later. 

"Being put to sleep freaks him out a lot," Marian tries to explain to Dr Millinger, still hovering at the foot of the bed looking baffled at this exchange. "He's in a lot of pain, though." 

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Dr Millinger is shaking his head. "Get him a hundred mcgs of fentanyl, then, and you can bump his drip up to two hundred an hour if you need to. He must have a metabolism like a furnace, he burns right through sedation." He frowns at the monitor. "Is he still on the norepi? Seems unnecessary if so, his BP's up at 180." 

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"Eeek!" Marian can't see the monitor well from her current angle, and it hasn't stopped ringing the whole time; she's only paying attention to the oxygen sats, which are finally creeping up into the high 80s. "Oops, sorry, I'll stop that - uh - Elaine can you stop it, I can't reach from here." 

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"Uh, of course." 

      "Fentanyl up to two hundred?" Alice is saying. "Looks like his BP can take the hit. I'll get you the bolus, too, Elaine and I can sign off on it - you just hang in there, all right?" 

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"Uh, thank you." She is going to just keep standing here and breathing for her patient, who is being so incredibly cooperative for this and she's so proud and impressed. 

...also her feet are killing her so maybe she'll just sort of perch on the bedrail for a while. 

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He floats. He has the very odd feeling of being several miles away from his body, which is still in pain but it's hard to care very much when it's way over there. 

He keeps having the nagging feeling that he's forgotten something important, that he's missing something - that something is terribly wrong - but it's sort of obvious that a lot of things are wrong. And he's very tired, and running short on the will to struggle against that, and maybe he'll just - sleep - for a minute or two, that's all... 

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- and then there's a voice. "Hey. Hey, it's me. Wake up. Come on. Squeeze my hand?" 

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His body is still a long way off but he tries to do this. 

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"There you go!" A pause. "I, uh. Listen." 

She speaks in a low voice, but close to his ear, slowly and clearly. 

"I - know this is possibly crazy, but, uh, you seem to attract weird accidents. When you get stressed. We got you a new breathing machine and you're fine, everything's fine, but - I really really want you to stay calm and try not to get scared again, okay? Also that's just a good idea in general, it'll help your body recover, but, well. Weird accidents." 

Another pause.

"Do you understand me? Can you, uh, show me somehow whether you understood that?" 

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Thoughtsensing is hurting his head a lot right now, despite the floaty feeling, but he thinks he followed some of that. 

:No fire: 

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Marian clears her throat. "I, uh, that's right. I think we should aim for no fires and also no random electrical discharges. Or earthquakes. I, uh, I know this is really really scary, being hurt like this. And that makes it hard. If it's too hard, we can give you a bit more drugs to stay calm - uh, we could do a shorter-acting one just when you're stressed and need it right then, if that's better..." 

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That is way too many unfamiliar concepts at once, all half-glimpsed at best because his Thoughtsensing is slipping in and out of focus and she's, yet again, thinking about other things in the background - bright numbers on a dark screen, mostly - and he's not really following anymore. 

She wants him alive, though. He's very sure of that. She wants him alive and she was scared and now she's relieved but still nervous. 

He sends wordless assent.

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"...That's a yes, you agree?" How does he do that, is she completely imagining it, what is going ON here.

The patient doesn't do anything to dispute this, so she releases his hand and gets up and goes to ask Dr Millinger if she can try little boluses of propofol as-needed and try to wean the Versed drip lower that way. "I, uh, I think he's actually a lot more cooperative if he's awake enough to track what's going on? And, uh, like you said, he burns through sedation stupidly fast, we can't keep him out cold all the time." 

Also she is PROBABLY GOING CRAZY but she's going to worry about that after her shift today. Possibly after her shift today and then getting drunk. 

...She briefly considers saying something to Alice about how she might be having a psychotic episode, but that sounds so incredibly mortifying, and...she feels okay? She checks; she can totally multiple seventeen by fifty-four in her head. She can run through a mental list of everything that happened today. If she were having a psychotic break she would probably be more impaired than this? 

Maybe it's a dream. 

She tries to wake up, and does not wake up. So it seems like the best course of action is just to keep doing reasonable things until she can go home and figure out what the hell just happened. 

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The next time he jolts himself half-awake with a coughing fit that sends stabbing pain through his chest and head, the young Healer whose name he still can't remember but who's by-now-familiar is right there. 

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"Hey, it's me, Marian - you're okay - can I give you some of the medicine, you'll wake right up in a couple of minutes but I need to suction out your lungs again and this way I won't be torturing you so much." 

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...He was totally not successfully Thoughtsensing enough to follow most of that; he tries to indicate this with his face, and then with a flaily mental :??:

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...It seems like he understands her better when she's touching him, for some reason? Weird, but Marian moves closer and puts her hand on his arm, then repeats herself, even more slowly and clearly. 

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:Yes: It's kind of hard to breathe again and he would like that to stop, but also whatever it is she's been doing to him - the concept/mental image in her thoughts is baffling - is in fact extremely unpleasant. 

- it's not clear how she's giving him any drugs because he definitely isn't swallowing them - in fact swallowing seems to be kind of broken right now - but the world fades out. 

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She is SO BEHIND but she's going to snatch the opportunity while her patient is (consensually) sedated and not fighting her, to grab Elaine and reposition him so he's straight in the bed rather than diagonal-ish and halfway slid down, and tilt him very carefully a bit to the other side while arranging a pillow to make sure this won't kink the chest tube or put too much pressure on his ribs. 

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50 mg of propofol is enough to render him conveniently asleep and floppy for this process, but his back, when she tucks a pillow against him, feels concerningly warm. 

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Oh for fuck's sake, his temp on the monitor is up to 100.9 and she can't tell if he's spiking a fever - plausible, his lungs are nasty - or if he just really doesn't need the warming blanket anymore. In any case, it smells like burnt plastic now. She unplugs it and strips it off and shoves it in the corner. 

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The unit is, finally, something that distantly resembles quiet and under control, though no one will dare to say this out loud or think it too vehemently. 

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Marian drinks a juicebox filched from the patient supply fridge - it's not like any of their patients eat - and swings her legs and charts, watching her sleeping patient and waiting for the next, inevitable adventure. 

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Belrun is having a BAD DAY.

First, of course, she got attacked by wyrsa in the process of reuniting with her lifebonded, and then he did something about it, which appears to have landed the both of them - she can tell it's both of them because he's not that far away, though Amshalan is - in a bizarre city with glass towers. She broke her ankle, banged her elbow, and cut her leg on something while she was crawling out of the river, and she can tell Leareth, wherever he is, has it worse.

She sits on the side of the river, waving people off while they speak a foreign language at her and managing to be convincing enough that she's not in need of assistance, while she gets her ankle in shape to walk on and the bleeding to stop, even if she can't fix it all through. She breaks a branch off a tree to lean on a little while she proceeds Learethward, nearly gets herself creamed by a blundering wheeled thing that screams past very fast and only just manages to fling herself out of its path in time, and thereafter makes a careful study of how the locals cross streets. She has to do some more waving people off, shaking her head - they do seem to shake their heads, here - and making shooing gestures if they approach her about the bloody clothes or the limp.

Leareth is her compass through the maze, and she crosses streets and tries to get her ankle to stop complaining and stops to sit on a bench for a little while and kill an incipient infection in her cut, and rest, and then she keeps going, because she doesn't know how to get food around here short of Fetching it through a restaurant window and this seems like it might be more trouble than it's worth when he isn't that far away and she can rethink theft as a survival strategy when she's made sure he's not going to die.

She locates him as - in that building, somewhere, up instead of over, and looks for a way in. The doors part on their own and she and her stick, by now all dried off from the dip in the river, proceed inside to look for stairs.

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Someone wearing a loose shirt and trews in matching pale blue cotton jumps, and then steps in her path.

“Ma’am - miss? - are you lost - this isn’t the emergency room,” he says, in a totally unfamiliar language, looking at her odd as well as bloodied clothing in bewilderment.

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Does the head-shaking-shooing-gestures-continuing-to-look-for-stairs procedure work on this person.

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It takes a while! But after a minute of trying to insist, he seems to decide that he's too busy and this should perhaps be someone else's problem. 

She has to shoo off several more attempts to 'help' her but eventually finds a door! With a window in it that shows stairs on the other side! 

Unfortunately the door is heavy steel and it seems to be locked; there's a sort of panel beside it, but it's not magical and it's unclear how to interact with it. 

Past the stair-door is a sort of alcove with a bunch of what look kind of like weird double doors in it? They lack handles, though. 

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...she touchsights past the doors, and decides to watch for a while to see what people do with them.

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Eventually a gaggle of people in the same odd loose cotton clothing, this time all in matching pink, crowd in together with drink-cups in their hand - that look like they're made of paper or something - and one of them pokes a circle beside one of the doors. 

Something lights up - it might be text in another language - and there's a dinging noise. The people fidget. One of them approaches Belrun for, presumably, a repeat of the exact same concerned conversation as before. 

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She does her best to look exasperated and long-suffering, sighs, points at the elevator. Oh, it has arrows. She gets into the elevator.

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They join her. One of them hits a different circle inside. 

The doors on the metal box close and it starts moving! It seems to be going up. 

After a bit it stops and the doors open again and the people in pink get off, one of them muttering something concerned at Belrun and hesitating before moving on. 

Leareth is not here, though, he's - somewhere vaguely thataway and maybe a little down? 

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Oh dear, down. Well, she'll get off and proceed thataway and see if there is a way down in the thataway direction.

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There's a hallway and then a set of heavy metal doors. Which are locked. There's another panel next to them, still non-magical. The pink-clad people have headed off in the other direction and are out of sight. 

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Does Leareth seem like he might be like RIGHT past those doors.

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Probably not right past those doors! He's close, for sure, and this place has NO shields, but the feeling of him is oddly muted given the range. He's probably still at an angle somewhere below her, as well as maybe fifty yards ahead and...some distance to the left...? 

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Okay, so this is not a great candidate for spending dwindling reserves on. She will meander left looking for other, likelier doors, or a flight of stairs.

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She has to backtrack a ways and is eventually a lot more than fifty yards from Leareth in that direction, but eventually there's a another windowed door to a flight of stairs that goes down, and it's even unlocked!

- Leareth is suddenly radiating some sort of vague distress along the lifebond, but not in a very purposeful way, certainly not trying to Mindspeak her. 

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Well she can try to mindspeak HIM. :I'm coming, I'm very close by, I'm on my way -:

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Mindspeaking him is bizarre and doesn't feel at all like usual; he's not really holding his end of the link – and he's not shielding, apparently at all, which is especially baffling and worrying for him.

She can feel a wash of surprised relief through the lifebond so he heard her, probably, but his response, if there is one, isn't projected anywhere near strongly enough to reach her a couple hundred yards away. 

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Hopefully he is at least slightly reassured. She goes down the stairs until she is the right amount of down.

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Now he's just straight ahead that way, maybe a hundred and fifty yards, and then a little more to the left! 

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She does not run but she wishes slightly more than usual that she could. She and her bad ankle and her stick go as briskly as they reasonably can toward Leareth.

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The place continues to be kind of a maze - the corridor hits a dead end well before she's close enough, and jinks sideways another fifty yards which takes her past where he is, and then continues on. 

And then, finally, she's really close but there are more locked doors. And, judging by the view through the window in one of them, a second set of locked doors twenty yards past those ones? 

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Time to "feel around" the inside of this locked door till she's identified something to yank.

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The mechanism inside the locked doors is insanely complicated! She can feel at parts of it with touchsight but some of it seems to - not quite be mechanical at all? Though it's not magical either? It's very odd. 

There is at some point a more recognizable locking-bolt mechanism; it's unclear how it's usually operated, given that it's entirely buried inside the door and most people are not Fetchers with touchsight. It's also not totally clear if she can move it directly without damaging something; stuff seems to be crammed in there pretty tightly and intricately. 

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Well, her next idea will also damage something and the smaller the thing she has to damage the better, all else being equal.

YANK.

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The door makes a rather alarming rattling sound, and if she tries pushing it she'll find it opens! 

Judging by the tugging feel in the lifebond, Leareth knows she's not far and is trying VERY HARD to reach out to her, but not in an especially effective way. 

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:I'm coming I'm coming I'm almost there: She strides forward to the next set of doors, yanks the same thing, shoves them. WHERE IS HER LEARETH.

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She nearly runs headlong into someone coming the other way; this person is an older man wearing a different uniform, with a sort of long white half-robe thing on top, open in front. He looks surprised but mostly busy and irritated. 

"What are you doing? You can't come in here–" The words are as usually incomprehensible to her, but he tries to shoo her back the way she came. 

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She does not have time for this person trying to get between her and Leareth. She sidesteps him, shooing him with her stick.

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He turns and follows her, yelling something. 

She finds herself in a wider hallway; to the left is a sort of elbow-high wall with a desk-like surface that runs all the way around a square space. There are chairs in the square space, in front of a more normal-sitting-height bar-like table, and odd boxes and flat squares with glowing surfaces - almost as though they're showing moving illusions, but still completely non-magical. 

Straight ahead is a hallway that eventually bends around a corner; there are a couple of normal-ish doors and then a big open area containing some rooms that don't have doors at all, just - weird sliding glass fronts? Some are open to view; some have curtains pulled across inside the glass. Leareth isn't in sight yet, he's around the bend thataway, but the open rooms she can see contain beds. And people who she can see at a glance, without even Healing-Sight to help, are all pretty sick or injured. 

The older man is having a loud conversation with a blond woman, who turns on her heels and forges toward Belrun. 

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Aaagh. She doesn't want to have to drop this lady but she can hardly outrun her. At least the rooms have windows and if she really has to she can probably break one and glide herself and Leareth to safety but she'd rather just find him and then demonstrate to these people she can't converse with that she had really better be in the same place as him. Maybe this is a good time to risk a touch of mindreading since it is already pretty clear that this lady is thinking that Belrun is not allowed here and that's probably all she'll pick up. :Back off, I'm here for my lifebonded:

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The woman jumps a foot in the air and squawks; her most strongly projected surface thoughts are WHAT!!?? and Marian seriously!!! 

She is, however, startled enough that she takes a step back and doesn't come after Belrun, just stares at her in befuddlement.

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Oh good. ONWARD TO WHICHEVER ROOM LEARETH IS IN THEN.

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It's in a different sort of bay-room budding off the hallway, around the corner. It's easy to identify because the curtains are pulled wide and Leareth is clearly visible in the bed. He seems at least conscious enough that his eyes are open and pointed in her direction.

He's also surrounded by half a dozen more of the weird boxy colorful devices with glowing not-illusion faces on them, all of which are trailing...tails or cords or tubes, she can't tell yet from ten yards away, which go to him. One of them goes into his mouth, which seems to be why his visible attempts to call out to her aren't working at all. 

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A young woman - Belrun's age or even a little younger - wearing the same blue cotton outfit, is standing beside him trying to hold him in the bed. "Hey, it's okay, just stay put will you please hold still - no earthquakes–" 

She sees Belrun and stops, her mouth slightly open, apparently at a loss for what to do. 

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Well, if his door is not locked she's just going to go right in, random local or no random local. Leareth, at least, shares a couple languages with her. "I'm here, I'm here -" She weaves carefully around boxes and tubes and sits on the bed beside him and catches his hand in hers.

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Leareth grasps at her hand in a very uncoordinated way, tries to speak again and ends up just coughing silently, at which point something makes a VERY LOUD sound like the world's worst musical instrument, about a foot from Belrun's ear. 

He tries Mindspeech, and at this range succeeds, though he's clearly projecting it to the room in general rather than just her. 

:Where - am I...?: 

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:I think this is some kind of hospital but this city is very strange and I don't know where it is:

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Leareth would have a dozen questions, right about now, but a single slow thought at a time is all he can manage. :Are you...all right...?: 

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:Doing better than you. Do you know what all these tubes are for?: She can Look at him but the tubes are not organic and her ability to discern what the fuck they are doing is therefore limited.

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:...No: A pause, while he thinks. :Helps breathe...?: 

The visible-organic parts of Leareth are in kind of terrible shape right now! He has multiple broken ribs; one clearly broke in a way that tore something important, he looks like he's lost some blood - though less than she'd have expected, given the amount of damage in there - and the tissues around the lung on that side are all bruised.

Something seems to have been done about it, though? There's a cut that doesn't look like it happened at the same time as his injuries, sewed up now but not Healed, and one of the tubes goes through the remaining hole and is hanging out in the space between the two layers of delicate membranes surrounding the lung. It's slowly draining bloody fluid into a box on the floor. The inside of his lungs are a mess too; it definitely looks like he came close to drowning, and the river was not especially clean.

Aside from that, he's had a hard knock on the head. And bruises everywhere, and his left knee and ankle were definitely wrenched pretty hard, though he doesn't seem to have noticed this at all compared to the rest. 

For all that, though, he seems - remarkably okay? He should be struggling intensely to breathe - or maybe dead hours ago - with that level of damage plus the pain of multiple broken ribs, none of it Healed at all, but he's...fine?

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Marian has been politely giving them a moment. 

"Uh, hello?" she says finally. "Are you family?" 

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"I can't understand you without reading your mind," Belrun tells her, which should hopefully be clear even in a different language, and then she inventories Leareth's injuries and decides the thing they have done the least Mysterious Glass City Stuff to that she can therefore most confidently interfere with is the broken ribs. She starts patching those.

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:She - Mindspeech works...: Leareth tries to explain. He's so incredibly tired, though

To Marian: :More...awake...?: 

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She gives him a dubious look. "Are you going to set anything on fire." 

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:No fire: Leareth tries to assure her; this is a lot of Mindspeaking at once and his head really hurts. Again, he's including Belrun by default. 

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"Do not make me regret this," she mutters, and gets up to do something to one of the glowing chirping boxes. "Uh, do something to warn me if you're in too much pain, all right?" Which she predicts will happen in about five minutes. Maybe three minutes. 

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Belrun watches this process suspiciously but all the Mysterious Glass City Stuff has kept him alive this long so they probably have a general idea what they're doing. Ribs ribs ribs be unbroken.

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Marian is ALSO suspiciously watching the strange newcomer in the bizarre Renaissance-faire clothes with the bloodstains and the stick! What is she doing

...It occurs to her that she can get some other useful information out of this, though, which will reduce the amount of future social awkwardness so much. 

She taps the newly arriving young woman on the shoulder, then points at herself. "Marian." Then questioningly mimes at the two of them, one at a time. 

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Belrun has a hand free to point. "Belrun," she says of herself, and "Leareth" of him, since he doesn't seem likely to have given any name false or otherwise in this condition and she doesn't need to coordinate with him on a consistent alias.

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She has a NAME! That's so much better! ...Now she just has to figure out how to spell it. 

And how to communicate with them, apparently? She wonders if the newcomer, Belrun, can do the hallucinatory-voice thing too. It would be pretty useful. 

Belrun looks busy, though, and Alice is standing outside the room with her arms folded, glaring, so...probably she should try to defuse that situation first...? 

She gets up. "Er, she's family." She initially wasn't sure if it was wife or daughter but now she's leaning toward wife. "I don't think she speaks English, but it's - really good, he should have someone here, right?" 

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Leareth is a little less foggy but his head hurts more noticeably, which sort of balances out. 

:What happened?: he manages to Belrun. 

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:I was sort of hoping you'd know. Whatever you did to get us away from the wyrsa dropped us - here - I landed in the river and you look like you did too:

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:Did I?: He doesn't remember anything. :I...no idea...: 

Normally he would try to come up with a plan first and then wallow in self-pity if he felt the need to at that point, but this is Belrun, and also his planning ability is seriously impaired right now. 

:Scared: he tells her. :Hurts: 

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:Yeah. I think we are not in immediate further danger and I'm working on your ribs right now. Are you with it enough to ask Marian if it's okay for me to Mindspeak her even though I'll get excess thoughts? I'm not as good at it as you:

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That is a really good idea, Marian must be almost as confused as they are right now. 

He tries to reach her - he can feel the glow of her mind somewhere over there - but reaching for her is like trying to lift a house. One with a stone foundation attached to bedrock. It just doesn't work

Leareth grimaces at the stab of pain in his forehead. :Need her closer: 

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Belrun beckons to Marian, collects her hand, puts it on Leareth's arm.

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Marian takes this surprisingly in stride! She waits. 

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And now he has to formulate words. :Can Belrun - talk - same way...?: 

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Marian lights up. "She can do that too? That would be really great!"

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At least she's mostly focused on their conversation, which makes it slightly easier but still not easy to pick up the content of her answer in surface thoughts. 

:Do not - speak - language: he tries to clarify. :Reading thoughts: 

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"Huh!" Marian looks impressed, and not displeased. "That...kind of makes more sense, honestly? ...So that means I don't have to answer out loud?" 

Just think it really loudly at you, she finishes. 

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She's taking this surprisingly calmly, Leareth thinks. 

:Yes: 

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"Right." Right, she adds in loud-clear-thoughts after a moment. 

She turns to Belrun and nods, smiling encouragingly. 

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That is pretty much the limit of what he can manage right now. :You...explain better...?: he says hopefully to Belrun, and then closes his eyes. 

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:He's better at this than I am. I will accidentally pick up things you don't mean to say till I have more practice:

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Leareth is too bleary to try to convey that he's been doing this the whole time. It'll probably be easier to avoid now that Marian knows that he's picking up her answers mentally, and can think them loudly instead of absently talking to him while mostly thinking about inscrutable numbers on boxes. 

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Marian frowns. Considers it for a long moment. 

Go ahead, she thinks as distinctly as she can in Belrun's general direction. I have no idea who you people are and it seems important to know? 

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:Well, I'm Belrun and he's Leareth. We're from - somewhere else - I have no idea where this is, we got here in a magical accident and fell in the river and got separated:

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On the one hand what the HELL on the other hand 'literal magic' is...maybe a better explanation for various weird occurrences than - what did she think before - mysterious accident-prone-ness? 

She remembers that she has to think her answers clearly, and tries. :Oh. Is the magic why he sets things on fire sometimes?: 

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:Presumably. He must have been really freaked out, it'll be better now I'm here:

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Marian is SO RELIEVED to have someone who knows her patient, who can talk to her, and who isn't herself incredibly out of it and confused! Also it's pretty convenient that she can answer by thinking; none of the other nurses have actually asked her about her bizarre one-sided conversations with her patient, but she's slightly worried they're going to stage an intervention about her going crazy or something. 

:I figured it was because he was freaked out and it wasn't on purpose. It was a really close call earlier, though - he broke, uh, some of the equipment that's helping keep him alive, and then he couldn't breathe, it was super scary. But he seemed really set on not wanting me to give him more drugs so he'd be asleep: 

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:He was terrified, yeah. Is there going to be some kind of trouble about the broken equipment - or the doors -:

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:...What about the doors?: 

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:There were some locked doors between me and him and I think I did not open them in the usual fashion but I don't know if it damaged them badly:

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:Oh, is that what Dr Millinger was yelling about?: Marian frowns. :So - hmm, we - don't have magic at all, here? I don't know what people'll think but they won't think that - I, uh, might've implied the equipment damage thing was because of an electrical malfunction with it: Shrug. :I don't know. I was kind of planning to worry about that later or just let someone else worry about it, I had enough on my plate with him: 

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:...huh. Okay. I did also Mindspeak to someone who objected to my being here:

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:Oh. Who? ...I mean, uh, what color hair, what did they look like...?: 

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Belrun sends a mental image.

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:Whoooooa you can do that too??? Neat!: Marian takes a deep breath. :That's Alice. She's my friend. Also, uh, she's having a horrible day right now, her patients keeps trying to die on her, so she's probably a bit snappier than usual. I...can try to talk to her at some point?: 

She twists her hand around a fistful of her scrubs. That sounds SO SOCIALLY AWKWARD. 

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:I'm willing to talk to her, I just want people I might need to talk to warned about the excess mindreading thing:

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:Right: Marian looks thoughtful. :I...guess I don't really care if you get some of my thoughts, they're mostly about him and that's kind of your business. It might be a bigger deal with Alice because she has a different patient so there's confidentiality: 

Aaaaand now she's really self-conscious about that and trying not to think about Leg Lifts Lady but this is like trying to not think of a pink elephant and she is definitely picturing sixty-year-old elderly alcoholic lady vagina, despite her best efforts NOT TO. 

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:I'm a Healer. Mostly I'm a microbiologist but I've seen patients before. If that helps:

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Marian grins. :Oh wow! That's so cool!: 

On the one hand it's making her more self-conscious because what if Belrun JUDGES her skill as a nurse or what if she's missed something really obvious and dumb that's wrong with Leareth or what if aaaaaaaa – but on the other hand she loves talking to patients or family members who're also medical people, especially if they want to nerd out a bit about it, and Belrun seems pretty friendly and non-judgy so far. 

:What sort of things do Healers do? Is it, uh, is it magic as well?: 

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:Uh, basically, though some people draw a technical distinction between mage-gift and other Gifts. Right now I'm fixing his ribs, I didn't understand what stuff you'd done but you seemed not to have done anything rib-related so I figured it would be safe. I'm also a Fetcher which means I can move things around so when I do wind up seeing patients I'm especially good at getting out obstructions or getting water into them:

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:Neat! You can just do that, that's so cool ...Uh, just a second, I want to take some notes:

Her brain is doing the frazzled-buzzing thing it does when she's short on sleep and high on caffeine and it's been too long since she had ten minutes of quiet time to collect herself, which she knows from experiences tends to result in dropping things from her working memory stack as soon as she's interrupted – and given how today is going she WILL be interrupted it's just a matter of time. 

She flips her scribbled-all-over report sheet over and writes down bullet points on the basics of what Belrun explained. 

:...Okay. Thanks. I - should I try to explain all the things we did and are doing, so you're not working as blind?: If she were in Belrun's position she would be INCREDIBLY STRESSED about trying to treat a patient who had already gotten a bunch of mysterious alien treatments she knew nothing about. 

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:Yes, please. Also I could really use something to eat, I had a long walk to get here:

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:Oh god I'm so sorry, I should've asked if you needed anything! Uh, I can get you a snack from the patient fridge, and there might still be leftover pizza from when Dr Cann ordered it the other day, um, if you don't mind three day old pizza - and I could show you where the cafeteria is but I guess you maybe don't have money if you're not from here?: 

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:I don't know what pizza is, do not have local currency, and don't want to leave Leareth until he's oriented enough to be able to remember for the duration of my absence why I'm gone:

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:That's really understandable! I'm a lot more comfortable taking my eyes off him now that you're here, though - and I don't think anyone's gotten real breaks today - if you're all right with me leaving you here with him for ten minutes, maybe I can make a run and get food and coffee for everyone?: 

She has some lunch left over but right now she doesn't want carrot sticks and healthy stew at all, she wants a giant Starbucks muffin with sugar on top, and also this will get her back in people's good books despite her patient being disaster-prone, and ALSO it will get her ten minutes where she can just be a person in line and no one will try to TALK to her. 

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:If you could give me a rundown of what all these tubes are doing first sure:

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:Yes of course - and I'll grab you some juice and crackers just so you have some calories. Uh, all right. So this tube goes to his lungs and it's hooked up to that machine, which is helping push air into his lungs - if something goes wrong with any of that we have a really bad problem and you should yell for Elaine right away, she's the other nurse in this pod. That other tube goes to his stomach, it's not doing anything right now but we can use it later to feed him or give him medications - oh right I should look up the X-ray and see if it's in the right place. This thing in his neck goes right to his bloodstream and these pumps are giving him drugs, right now it's just the ones for pain and to keep him a bit sleepy so he's not freaking out about the breathing tube, but if his blood pressure drops again there's a different drug I could start up again to help. The one over here is draining fluid from the space beside his lung so it stays un-collapsed, he had SO MUCH blood in there before. This one is, uh, just for peeing into: 

And she's totally forgotten to measure and flip it for - way too many hours actually - but there's a decent amount in there and it's pale-coloured so he's probably fine. 

:Uh what else - all these wires are just for monitoring, to tell me how he's doing, the vital signs are up here - can you read any of it? I guess probably not. If it beeps like this: she imitates a slow low-key beeping, :it's not a big deal, but if it's like this: she makes a higher-pitched faster and more frantic beeping, :then there's a problem and you should yell although probably you won't have to because someone'll hear it and come running: 

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:...can I have some paper, mine all got soaked in the river. Also this isn't a priority right now but I might want to get rid of the stomach tube, since I can just Fetch food into him as necessary:

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:Uhhhh okay right. It shouldn't be especially uncomfortable or bothering him so probably that's not urgent?: 

Marian's main objection is that this would require EXPLAINING to Dr Millinger that her patient and his bizarre wife-or-girlfriend have MAGIC and that sounds like the most unbearably awkward conversation she can imagine. 

She checks the time. :Oh right - and I'm supposed to haul him off for a scan of his head in, uh, an hour? There was a little bit of bleeding in his skull and we need to check it's not getting worse - I think it probably isn't because he's responsive, but...: 

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:I can See that, it's not getting worse:

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:Oh good! I'm really glad!: 

On the one hand, if she can manage to explain this to someone, maaaybe she won't have to take her patient out of this nice comfortable well-equipped room and out on adventures? On the other hand, that...would mean having to explain it which sounds agonizing. 

Marian is going to worry about that AFTER she has coffee and a giant muffin, she decides. And has gone to the bathroom. One thing at a time. 

:All right. Uh, all his numbers look pretty good right now, I'm not too worried but do yell for Elaine if you see something getting worse. There might be a long line at Starbucks because it's lunchtime but I shouldn't be more than twenty minutes - oh and I'll grab you a quick snack first. Okay?: 

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:Okay. Thank you very much:

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Marian escapes - first to the break room, where she locks herself in the bathroom and pees, this is the best feeling, she meant to go after eating her lunch but Things Happened. 

She heads for the tiny patient kitchenette and shovels a handful of saltine crackers in little plastic packets out of the drawer, and then grabs two juiceboxes at random, and fills a styrofoam cup with ice water. Her hands are kind of full carrying this back to Belrun but she makes it in one trip. 

:- Oh sorry can you clear some of the stuff off his bedside table, I don't really have hands - you can just move it onto the countertop right there...: Leareth hasn't exactly been needing his table so she's been using it as a surface to keep various random supplies. 

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Belrun doesn't want to let go of Leareth or try her bad ankle any harder so she just Fetches it over; it's small stuff and a short distance and it's okay if it zooms there instead of popping into place so this isn't too hard.

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Marian stares in amazement.

And then decides that this is not her top priority to be amazed about right now. She deposits a pile of snacks and slides the table over on its wheels. :There you go. I'll be back soon. And... Thank you. For coming. I'm really really glad he has someone with him: 

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:Of course: And she starts systematically demolishing the saltines.

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Marian troops around the unit taking Starbucks orders - and mentioning to Alice, who is trapped in isolation gear in her dialysis patient's room, that they Need To Talk later - and then heads out. 

The doors do seem to be kind of broken; they open and close fine but don't lock automatically. Clearly no one has had the energy to do anything about this. 

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Leareth holds Belrun's hand and tries to ignore the headache. He's gradually getting a bit more awake, as the drugs in his system wear off; being awake is appallingly unpleasant, though, he is WAY too aware of the breathing tube and keeps gagging on it. 

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She tries to push calm at him through the lifebond and once his ribs are somewhat knitted together sets about trying to determine what she will need to do to get the breathing tube redundant.

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It's going to take significant work, possibly more Healing than his body can handle in one afternoon; there's a lot of diffuse damage to the delicate lung tissue, from nearly drowning, and now on top of that there's a nasty infection brewing. He's a little feverish already. 

Leareth squirms. Now that his ribs hurt less, he's more able to notice how much everything else hurts; his entire back and left side feel like one enormous bruise, and his knee and ankle are throbbing distantly.

:Belrun?: he manages eventually. :M'cold: He really badly misses the nice warm blanket from before and it feels very unfair that Marian took it away. 

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She can MURDER some infection without requiring more resources from Leareth's overstressed body. And cast about the room for blankets.

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There aren't any blankets in the room itself, except for a slightly scorched-looking folded-up pile of something in the corner, but there's a cart just outside with fresh linens on it, including clean white flannel blankets. 

A curly-haired girl in the same pale blue uniform as Marian emerges from one of the other glass-doored rooms as she's grabbing one. She blinks, then waves sort of shyly. 

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Wave wave. Blanket goes on Leareth.

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Marian is back within fifteen minutes, with a precariously-balanced cardboard tray full of cups and a number of paper Starbucks bags piled on top. She deposits all of this on the desk-area in their pod with a sigh of relief, and digs out a cup and a bag to carry them over to Belrun. 

:I didn't think to ask if you have dietary restrictions, sorry, but I got you tea - here's some milk and sugar to go with, if you want - and this is a panini: 

Both are warm; the 'panini' in the paper bag is a sort of folded-over piece of bread with toast-marks as though it were roasted over some sort of grid. 

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:I'm not picky or allergic. When it comes up he prefers not to eat meat if that's workable: She wolfs down her sandwich.

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Nod. :How's he doing?: Marian gives Leareth a thoughtful look. :...He looks like he's due for me needing to suction his lungs again, he's got pneumonia so there's a bunch of crud in there, but it's sort of torturing him to do it when he's this awake - can you ask if he's okay with me giving him the short-acting drugs again just to do that?: 

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:I've been killing off an incipient infection for him, he can't absorb too much direct healing at once. I'll ask: "Leareth, she needs to suck some junk out of your lungs again, is it okay for her to give you the drugs that will keep you calm about that for a little while?"

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Leareth considers this. 

:Do you trust her?: he asks Belrun. He thinks he's managing to directionally shield at all, or at least keep his Mindspeech short-range and contained to Belrun; Marian is standing further away and out of range where he can pick up on anything more detailed than 'a person there.' 

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:I think so. She's trying to help:

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:Think so too: Leareth tries to summon as much alertness as he can manage. :Maybe - safe to be asleep? Now...that you are here? This is. Very unpleasant: He's not sure whether or not he's capable enough of coherent thoughts to make that judgement himself, though. :What do you think?: 

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:I'm here and wide awake. You can sleep:

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:Can you tell her: 

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:He says okay:

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:Good, thank you: 

Marian retrieves a plastic tube-thingy of something white and milky from the table, cleans the end of one of the apparently-unused short dangly tube-bits from the tube in his neck, and screws it on. She squeezes half of the contents of the plastic syringe in, then digs out another syringe of clear saline from her pocket and flushes it. 

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Leareth feels a wave of OVERWHELMING SLEEPINESS and then nothing. He goes limp and relaxed. The background distress and discomfort coming through the lifebond trail off. 

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:Okay good - let me get this done...: Marian pushes the suction tubing all the way down and slowly pulls it back, sucking an impressive amount of yellow gunk out; Leareth coughs but doesn't wake up. :Ughhh. I hate phlegm. Need to do another couple...: 

Belrun's work on murdering the infection has also loosened some of the secretions, and Marian goes through four rounds of sucking them out before declaring that good enough. 

:...All right, that's better. He'll be out for another minute or so and then start coming around. You up for helping me get him straightened out in bed while it's less uncomfortable for him?: 

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:Good idea: She rearranges him.

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Leareth drifts slowly back to awareness - disoriented at first, and still too groggy to Mindspeak, he just flails out across the lifebond, where is Belrun is she there - 

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"I'm here, I'm right here, it's okay."

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It feels like he should remember, but his head is so gluey. :Where am I: 

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:Some sort of weird hospital. It seems safe:

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:Oh: He relaxes. 

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There are increasingly insistent beeping noises of various types coming from around the corner, including the worst-musical-instrument one, and the high pitched fast ringing-bell sound that Marian told her was worrying. 

And then the older blonde woman is there at a jog - her eyes narrow on Belrun for half a second but she's clearly too busy and stressed to follow up on their earlier altercation. "Marian are you busy - I could use help -"

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Marian looks over at Belrun. :Alice needs help with her patient. Uh, are you going to be okay with Leareth here for a few minutes?: 

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:Yeah, that's fine:

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Marian runs off with the blonde lady. 

There are increasingly concerned-sounding raised voices from the vicinity of around the corner. 

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Leareth stirs. :Is there - problem -?: 

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:Another patient is having a bad time: Can she See what with from here?

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It's well out of her Healing range, especially with walls in the way; she could in theory read the nurses' minds but she presumably does not want to do that. 

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A couple of seconds later, though, there's an appallingly loud beep that seems to come from the ceiling - it makes Leareth startle and shake the floor a little - and then Marian comes bolting around the corner. 

:Belrun can you help Alice's patient is dying–: 

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:I'm going to see if I can help, won't be far: she tells Leareth, and :What of?: She seizes her stick and limps to the next room.

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:Uhhh the most immediate problem is his heart keeps doing arrhythmias because his electrolytes are whacked and before it was just a couple of seconds at a time but now he's sustained V-tach sorry you probably don't know what that means–: 

She holds herself to walking at Belrun's pace although this seems to take her a LOT of willpower. They reach the room, which about six other nurses have already swarmed on, but Marian nudges her way through. 

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Belrun gets through the knot of nurses and puts her hand on the patient's arm. She would like his heart to BEHAVE.

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It's really not behaving! It's currently fluttering in an extremely fast rhythm which is not actually succeeding at moving any blood! Shoving Healing at it gets it to calm down for about two seconds and then it's right back to how it was before!

His heart muscle is under massive strain and clearly has been for a long time; it's exhausted, it's not getting fed enough blood through its own arteries to fuel all that exertion, and it's starting to go into a spasm the way any muscle would under these conditions. There's also something in his bloodstream pushing at it to beat faster and harder, the same way the body's native fight-or-flight response would, but it seems to be coming from somewhere else - maybe the drugs pouring into his neck vein - and it's clearly been responsible for keeping his blood circulating at all but is only adding to the load on his overworked heart. 

He's not getting nearly enough oxygen into his lungs either, which isn't helping matters at all, and his blood feels very very wrong to Healing-Sight in half a dozen ways that she's never even seen to this degree before because usually this would not be survivable for longer than five minutes! 

There are also kind of a shocking number of other things wrong with him and several more mystery-tubes in addition to the ones Leareth has, but probably the heart is the top priority! 

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She is not a real clinical Healer but she can try to boost the tired muscle of the heart so it will be able to behave on its own.

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It's hard to tell at first if this is working, because one of the nurses is pounding on the patient's chest in what seems to be an effort to shove blood in and out of his heart anyway, and it's messing with her Sight - but Marian catches her eye and then says something and the nurse stops doing that. 

Now everyone at the room is staring intently at the glowing box above the patient's head! 

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Belrun doesn't know what any of the symbols on it mean, but her Sight shows that the patient's heart is behaving itself better - every third or fourth beat is still abnormal as the irritated muscle twitches or spasms, but he's getting enough organized muscle contraction to be circulating some blood again, now.

Which is probably going to help with the lack of oxygen in his blood, in a minute or two, if she can keep it up - his lungs are in terrible shape, his tissues oozing fluid into the airspaces, but he has a breathing machine as well and it's shoving concentrated air in and out with considerable force. 

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:What did you do?: Marian asks, amazed. :Can you - see what's wrong - is there something we're missing...: 

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:I don't know what you can see. His heart is exhausted, I'm helping but I can't do this forever. There's junk in his lungs, but the machine seems to be helping:

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Marian nods. :Just - if you can buy us a couple minutes to see if we can get him stabilized, let Dr Millinger if it's worth trying anything more heroic...:

She takes a deep breath. :I can tell you the case history. He's about fifty, was pretty healthy before but had a bit of heart disease, high blood pressure - then he was hit by a truck, really bad crush injuries. We got him stabilized at first but the damaged muscle dumped a lot of proteins into his bloodstream and that gummed up his kidneys - that's why he's so fluid-overloaded and it's backing up in his lungs and stuff. The machine over there is filtering his blood instead, but that's also hard on his body, and we can't take too much fluid off him because he's in shock and his blood pressure is already too low. His blood is messed up because of the byproducts from the tissue damage and because his kidneys are fucked up, specifically his potassium - dunno if you know what that is - is crazy high and that's messing with his heart, makes it more irritable and likely to do arrhythmias like that. Oh, also his clotting is all messed up, from having a lot of internal bleeding before and from the dialysis machine, so he's probably oozing blood internally? If we can get his potassium down and get some fluid off his lungs that'll take a bit of strain off his heart and he might get through this: 

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:I can do a couple minutes. Will it help if I find where he's bleeding inside - I don't think he has much slack to let me fix it but maybe you have something?:

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Marian takes another deep breath. 

:We might be able to buy you some more slack to fix more of what's wrong with him. If you could otherwise do that. There's a machine we can use that'll pump his blood for him so his heart can rest. The problem is that it won't really work longer than a day - we have to pull his blood in and out of his body, it causes micro-damage to the red blood cells and eventually he'll clot off the filter. And I don't think his problems would get better on their own in a day. But if that's long enough for you to work on his kidneys or get bleeding stopped or whatever, then...: 

A helpless shrug. :Maybe. I really don't want him to die. He has a wife and kids, they're cute, they'll be so devastated...: 

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:I can't guarantee I can do it, I'm a microbiologist and not in great shape myself, but a day - with some sleep in there and a huge breakfast, Gift-use makes you hungry - I probably have a shot:

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:...I understand. We can't ever guarantee that sort of thing: 

Marian looks imploringly at her. :- Are you willing to try. I know you want to be with Leareth, and this would distract you...: 

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:How frequently is a crisis this bad going to happen in the next, uh, week:

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:...I think stuff as urgent as this - where the patient still has a chance of surviving and having a good life ahead of them if we can fix them, I mean, sometimes it's just hopeless - but, anyway, it's...maybe once a fortnight or once a month. Not every day: 

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:Then yeah, I can:

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:Okay:

A pause.

:Just...keep his heart beating. As long as you possibly can. Don't worry about anything else yet. I - I need to convince Alice and Dr Milinger that this is worth trying... I'll explain about the magic later but maybe once he's not dying: 

She turns and starts talking in the unfamiliar language. 

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Belrun nods and focuses on his heartbeat.

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The other staff are mostly standing around looking anxiously at the machines. They seem a bit surprised by Marian's insistence, and are giving Belrun concerned looks, but no one tries to shove her out of the room. 

After a bit, the older white-coated man who tried to stop her entry earlier nods, briskly, at which point the nurses blur into motion. Within remarkably little time, a new machine has been hauled into the room and someone is running fluid from a bag into a giant intricate set of tubing with a weird cylindrical canister in the middle, while a different nurse wipes down one of the little tables-on-wheels and rips open a blue square package that proves to contain all sorts of bizarre equipment including some very sharp implements, and Belrun is nudged slightly toward the man's feet so that the older man can take her place; he dons a blue paper gown over his clothes, being very careful not to touch the outside of it with the rest of his body, and pulls on tight gloves. 

And shortly later he's using some other machine to show a black-and-white image of what's inside the patient's chest - sort of like her Sight except much worse - and cutting a small hole and wrestling with yet more tubes, shoving a surprisingly wide one through the large returning vein practically into the patient's heart, and then placing another in the artery, somehow without causing the patient to bleed out everywhere. 

The atmosphere is hurried but not frantic; everyone is very calm and controlled, half a dozen nurses still latched onto the patient like hungry leeches, helping the doctor hook up the tubes hanging off the machine to the tubes piercing the patient's body. 

And then it's done! The patient's heart stutters and his blood pressure plummets briefly as the pump in the machine spins and blood is yanked from his body, but then the first gush of fully-oxygenated blood makes it back from the machine, and starts flooding through his body.

The glow of his life-force is almost immediately brighter, to Belrun's Sight. 

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Wow, the glass city has very cool machines.

She finds and stops little bleeds, shoves fairly undirected Healing at his kidneys.

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The others bustle around her and don't interrupt right away.

At one point Marian is talking to them, over in the other corner and in a low voice. 

Eventually, though, the blonde woman - Alice - and the older male doctor march up and stand in front of her. 

:Is it true you have telepathy: Alice thinks loudly at her. She seems very dubious, and surprisingly incurious; mostly she's exhausted and slightly crashing after the stress of the emergency. 

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Belrun is not reading her mind at this time, and gives her a quizzical look.

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This isn't that surprising to Marian, who feels like she really should have realized it would happen. 

"Belrun?" Marian says to get her attention, and then thinks loudly, :I tried to explain you have magic and telepathy and healing, and they're really dubious and looked at me like I was crazy, can you demonstrate something: 

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:Uh, okay: She thwaps Alice in the face with her own nametag lanyard.

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Alice jumps. Her eyes go wide; she looks simultaneously scared and impressed. 

"Belrun," she says as well, and then looks Belrun very deliberately in the eye and attempts to very loudly think DO YOU REALLY HAVE TELEPATHY????? at her. 

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"She wants your permission," Marian says. "She might read your other thoughts too by accident." 

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"- Whatever! My patient was coding and you're claiming she fixed it, compared to that why would I care if she finds out what I had for lunch or something!" 

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:She says it's fine if you read her mind a bit when you telepathy with her: Marian thinks at Belrun. 

"- We should get another X-ray for Leareth," she adds.

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"...Who?" Dr Millinger says blankly. 

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"Oh sorry! Fifty-Seven, Red, my admit in 113. That's his actual name. She says she healed his broken ribs, and he really does look better, I think we should get an X-ray to check. Oh and if it's true then can I cancel the CT scan? Because she also said the head bleed is stable."

And she REALLY doesn't have time and will probably cry if she has to leave the unit again, but this is not a medical justification she can say out loud to the trauma surgeon who she has to work with for the rest of this week. 

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Belrun looks up when she hears Leareth's name, and when they seem to be done she mindspeaks Alice, having received permission. :Yes, I really have telepathy:

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Alice blinks and seems unsure how to absorb this. :Right: she thinks back. :And you can move things, and - you think you can save my patient?: 

     Dr Millinger is scowling at being left out, but apparently isn't comfortable consenting to additional mindreading. 

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:Maybe. I'm not a clinician at home, I'm a microbiologist, but even relatively undirected Healing is pretty good and my Sight is well-trained so I can at least tell you where things are going wrong:

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:Okay: This seems to be more comfortable ground for the overwhelmed-looking nurse; she grabs her report-paper. :Tell me what you're seeing, then?: 

The patient's blood is almost a normal amount of oxygen-containing, finally; his heart and lungs are also both still working but are only taking on about half the load right now, it looks like the external-nudge of drugs to make his heart work harder has been backed off, and the pressure of air into his lungs made a little less forceful and thus less damaging to the fragile air-sac tissues. His body is still way too full of fluid; it's leaking into his lungs and several pints of liquid are just sort of hanging out under the membrane at his lung-bases, and his extremities and face are visibly puffy and swollen with excess water. His kidneys are...maybe a tiny, tiny bit un-gunked? It looks like the reduced circulation was straining them as much as anything else, and they're not working well but there's a tiny trickle of urine leaking out. 

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:The machine is helping. He's got a lot of excess fluid, especially hereabouts: she points, :might benefit from a suction tube like Leareth has, and I'm working on his kidneys and I think I'm getting somewhere with that. I've closed off a bunch of little bleeds here, here, here -: Point, point, point.

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Alice flips the sheets up and examines the pee-tube emerging from his crotch area. "Whoa," she breathes, pointing at the still dark and miniscule, but definitely new, trickle of urine. "Dr Millinger, she says the pleural effusion looks bad - I bet it's worse than this morning, he's another litre fluid-positive from the pressors - figure we can do bedside chest tubes?" 

     "He'll bleed," the doctor points out gruffly. 

"She says she can fix bleeds." A helpless shrug. "And, I mean, what do we have to lose?" 

     The doctor is silent for a long time, then finally nods. "...This is way too X-files for me, but I guess why not, I don't want to be the one who has to talk to his wife. Ask our weird visitor if she can see any blockages in his coronary arteries?" 

Alice nods, and turns to catch Belrun's eye again. :Dr Millinger wants to know if any of the tiny arteries that feed his heart are blocked? His bloodwork this morning had some elevated troponin, that's a sign of a minor heart attack - heart muscle losing bloodflow and dying, that is - but we're not sure if it's caused by a real blockage we can try to address or if it's just the general stress on his body: 

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:I'll look: Peek.

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There aren't any fully-blocked sections, but there and there and there are all quite narrowed, with an accumulation of fatty plaque and calcified hardening on the inside of the tiny arteries, rending them less stretchy and resilient. It's not incredibly serious in itself - even in Velgarth she's seen older people with similar changes in their bodies - but the strain of his serious injuries and illness on the organ is about like running a continuous marathon for most of the last week, and with that, his heart is struggling a lot to keep up. 

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:Nothing totally obstructed. Some junk in there. I can Fetch it out if that's going to be a particular problem for something you're doing but it trades off against everything else:

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:Just arterial plaque and stuff?: Alice frowns. :Once he's a more stable and off the heart-lung bypass, we can take him to the cath lab and put stents in there. Can you fix enough of the everything-else that his heart will hold up until then?: 

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:I don't know! Usually clinical Healers only call me in when they're shorthanded or they need the telekinesis part done! I can try:

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:...Okay: Alice takes a deep breath. Nods. :Do your best. If he starts doing more arrhythmias then I'll ask you to try fixing the heart blockage first. If not, focus on the kidneys, and we'll get some drainage tubes in - oh, I told the doc that if he starts bleeding into his lungs because of that, because of the clotting issue, you could stop it. You can, right?: 

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:Long as it's not huge, yeah. Though I'm not going to be good for that for all that much longer, I broke my ankle in my fall and also had to do some work on a cut I picked up and I've been working on Leareth too and I'm getting really wrung out:

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:Okay. Well, do what you can - oh, and should we help with your injuries too?: Alice glances at the dried bloodstains on her clothes again. :I'm sorry, I should've asked - I guess I'm preoccupied. But we could get you some oral antibiotics and have someone bandage you up and do stitches if you need them: 

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Across the hall, Leareth is starting to pull at the lifebond, distress leaking across again. 

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:- something's wrong with Leareth:

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:- I'll go see if I can figure out what he needs. He's probably due for suctioning again: Marian runs out. 

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Leareth's O2 sats look beautiful, actually, all the way at 99% - but he's squirming restlessly around in the bed, grimacing. 

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Marian puts her hand on his arm to get his attention, and to get in range for his telepathy. :Leareth, are you in a lot of pain? You look like you're hurting: 

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His ribs aren't as bad - though it still hurts to cough, which he keeps doing involuntarily when he gags on the breathing tube - but the headache is pretty awful, he probably pushed Mindspeech and Thoughtsensing too far earlier today with all his attempts to communicate, it's generally ill-advised to use Gifts with a head injury but it didn't at the time seem like he had much choice. 

:Yes: he manages, though this makes him wince and try and fail to moan. 

(Across the hall, Belrun can notice relief and lessening-of-tension through the lifebond, though he's still pretty distressed.) 

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:I'm not surprised! Hmm: She glares at his IV pump. :You're already maxed on your fentanyl - I could go back up on the Versed, you're only at 3 ccs an hour right now, but that's not really a painkiller, it'll mostly make you calmer and sleepier: 

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:No: Leareth protests. (Ouch.) 

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Sigh. :I'll go ask the doctor what I can give you. ...Sorry, I can tell it's hurting you to talk to me, I would just talk to Belrun instead but she's saving someone's life right now: 

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(A burst of pride and warmth and love along the lifebond.) 

:Good. Tell her - keep doing that...: 

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:Of course:

And Marian troops back across the hall and relays this to Belrun.

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:I'm on it. Uh, but do let me know if he might get worse, I will be very dramatically incapacitated if he dies:

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:Oh. Fuck. Uh, thank you for telling me - of course I'll get you right away if anything changes, but he seems - he looked really proud about you helping us: 

It was ADORABLE and the two of them are quickly becoming her new favourite patient-and-spouse couple. 

"Dr Millinger?" she says out loud. "My guy in 113 is in a lot of pain but he's maxed on fentanyl and he does better when he's not on too much of the Versed - what can I do...?" 

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The doctor is busy working with Alice on setting up for a chest tube placement. "Hmm? What's he on?" 

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"Two hundred an hour." 

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"Whoa!" His eyebrows go up. "That's an elephant dose. Maybe he's developing some resistance to it? It'd be fast, but, well. He's a weird dude, isn't he." Dr Millinger frowns. "Try hydromorphone, then. 1 or 2 mg, every...hmm...I'll say every hour but please exert common sense about it. Put in the verbal order for me, I'm kind of busy." He's already slipping on a new pair of sterile gloves. 

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"Right, yes, of course." 

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Leareth is very relieved to see Marian, and stops her with a :nevermind: when she tries to think at him to explain what she's giving him and why; he is not at all up for more Thoughtsensing right now. 

It's a vast relief when the new drug hits him. It also makes him feel very dizzy and drowsy, and kind of nauseated - he's not sure what would even happen if his body tries to throw up right now, whether it would have anywhere to go or get stuck behind the stupid tube - but the headache goes from 'intolerable' to uncomfortable-but-bearable, at least as long as he lies still and keeps his eyes closed and doesn't try to use his Gifts. 

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Marian pats his shoulder. :You're doing so well: 

She considers trying to explain the concept of a call bell for him, but on reflection he doesn't seem to want to use his telepathy - it looks like it hurts him to do it, which kind of makes sense, if he has to use his brain and he's very concussed - and maybe it'll be easier if she waits for Belrun, who can speak his language. 

She goes to see her other patient. 

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Alice's much-worse-off patient is, very gradually, doing a little better! His kidneys already look noticeably more alive to Belrun's mage-sight; getting them actually functioning-in-earnest will take longer, but progress is happening. The chest tubes are shoved in, one on each side, and an impressive quantity of straw-coloured translucent liquid drains out into the same sort of little box as the one Leareth has. His blood oxygen and circulation are being mostly carried by the machine, but with that help, are doing really well actually. His heart, given a chance to take it easy and rest and recuperate a little, is now beating smoothly and steadily again. 

His condition is still dire and wouldn't be survivable for more than two minutes without all the machines, but the trend is starting to point toward improvement. 

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Belrun is kind of zoned out, focused on the kidneys, otherwise drooping noticeably.

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Some indeterminate interval of time later, Marian is tapping her shoulder. "Belrun, Belrun, hey."

She switches to thinking-loudly once Belrun's eyes are focusing on her. :You look beat. And he's doing better. I got you a personal pizza at the cafeteria, and I tracked down an armchair that's sort of convertable to a bed - you should eat something and then maybe take a nap in Leareth's room? He's asleep right now, he's doing well:  

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:Can it be close enough that we can hold hands while I sleep? We're lifebonded and I will probably be able to low-key send him energy even asleep:

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Awwwwwwwwwwww they are ADORABLE. 

:Yeah, of course - I'll just need to move some things around in the room so you won't be in my way...: 

She considerately offers Belrun her arm in case she's tired enough to be unsteady on her feet. 

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An arm is better than a stick. She hobbles over to Leareth's room and eats her entire pizza crust and all and needs an explanation of the plumbing and then crashes hard, hand in hand with him like otters.

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Awwww. 

At some point Marian really needs to clarify what on earth 'lifebonded' means, but right now she is going to SIT DOWN at the computer by the desk and catch up on multiple hours of charting. Things keep happening!!! She wants fewer things to happen!!! It's somehow already past 4pm and her head hurts, probably from dehydration. She gets herself some water. 

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Leareth starts squirming and grimacing again about 90 minutes after his bonus pain meds. 

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He's obviously still drowsy but he's on a ventilator so it's not like it matters too much (and in fact it makes her life MUCH simpler), and it seems like maybe Belrun feels what he's feeling? And Belrun is exhausted and deserves her rest. 

Marian quickly preps and gives him more of the hydromorphone before her patient can wake Belrun up with his distress. 

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At about 4:30 pm, the charge nurse swings by and asks her if she can stay for an extra four hours. "As long as you can, really - we had two people call in sick tonight and the unit acuity is way up, we're so short." 

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"...Uh right yes of course." Her patient is great and interesting and his wife/girlfriend is SO COOL; she's very glad not to be in Alice's shoes today, Alice's patient is terrible.

She thinks. "Can you watch our pod for a couple minutes so I can get another coffee, in that case?" She's had, like, five coffees today, and normally she would stop well before this point because she wants to SLEEP tonight, but if she's going to be here until midnight then she'll need the boost. 

...

She gets her coffee and chugs it while marathoning through all her neglected charting and gives her poor neglected coma patient his suppertime meds via feeding tube - while musing about Belrun's possible ability to do the same thing by telekinesis, that's also SO COOL - and then helps Elaine turn both of her people and give shot-by-tattoo-artist dude an enema because he hasn't pooped in five days. 

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And then Alice hurries over. "Marian? Is your patient's wi– oh, she's sleeping." 

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"What is it?" 

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"My guy's throwing a lot of arrhythmias again. Which isn't going to kill him because he's on a bypass, but - well, we just did a tropopin and it's way up, I think he's really having a MI for real this time, if he loses too much viable heart tissue then we're not getting him through this..." 

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Marian takes a deep breath. Glances at the time. It's past 5:30; Belrun's had a couple of hours of sleep, plus a meal, and if she's not up for it then probably she'll be able to fall asleep again easily. 

"I'll ask if she can try something," she says, and goes in to gently tap Belrun's shoulder. 

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"Mmf?"

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:I'm so sorry to wake you - Alice's patient is probably having a heart attack for real this time - are you rested enough to do anything...?: 

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:Ugh. Guess so: She drags herself out of chair. Fumbles for her stick.

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Marian glances at Leareth, makes sure he's still asleep, and then offers her arm again and helps Belrun limp across the hall, immediately grabbing her a chair to sit beside the patient's bed. 

Thirty seconds later she's back with a tall Styrofoam cup of ice water as well. :Thought you might be thirsty: 

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:Thanks: And she touches the patient's arm with her non-water hand and tells that heart to behave.

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She can pretty easily nudge it into a steady rhythm again, since it's minimally under-stress. 

The actual problem is that one of the narrowed vessels she noticed before seems to have acquired a blockage - a tiny clot, probably broken off from the filter in the machine that's currently pumping and oxygenating his blood for him, but it didn't take much to cut off circulation given the existing plaque. 

The heart tissues that would be fed by that artery aren't fully-dead, yet, but they're being deprived of nutrients and oxygen, and it's only a matter of time. 

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:Found a clot. Do you have some salt water I can swap it with? Fetching exchanges things, when it's not just sliding them around:

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Marian offers her a syringe. :It's sterile salt water inside - will that do?: 

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:Yup: Ker-swap.

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It helps! The bloodflow immediately starts up again; life-force flows back into the section of heart-muscle as it receives oxygen again, and the contractions strengthen. 

Unfortunately, the Fetching process left a slightly-rough surface where the plaque was, and the blood is threatening to start clotting onto that, so she's going to need to figure something out there. 

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What if she narrows her sight VERY small and pulls out the plaque too till it's smooth.

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Leareth drifts just under the surface, dizzy and sick, half-asleep and caught in nightmares... 

- he can't move - there's a loud sound - 

He struggles through the fog in his head. Orient. Analyze the situation. 

- not safe - 

His eyes fly open. 

Ow. The light is way too bright. A moan of pain tries to escape, and for some reason doesn't. 

His eyes aren't focusing properly; everything is doubled, with halos around it. There's a...what is that...flashing colors and too-loud sound - it shifts in and out, his eyes struggling to make sense of the inexplicable shapes and colours - is it a lizard, is it a dragon, what is is - 

under attack - 

His mind struggles against the glue, orient, what's happening??? Maybe some sort of Pelagirs Changecreature - maybe that's what hurt him - it seems to be looming at him, certainly...

Belrun. 

She's not far away, he can feel her, but - something wrong - she might be in danger - 

He clamps down instinctively with his personal shields, don't let anything slip, don't let the enemy know where he is... 

Which is...where...? Leareth can't remember where he is, or how he got here, but BELRUN IS IN DANGER. 

He tries to sit up - that hurts too, and everything in his field of vision is jiggling and wavering like jelly, but it doesn't matter, he has to find his Belrun... 

There's something choking on him, he keeps gagging on it, and he tries to pull it away but his hand is stuck, so he hammers at that with a burst of unformed mage-energy - and then one hand is free - 

The maybe-lizard-Changecreature is flashing overwhelming colors - is that a territorial display of some kind - and screaming at him, he wishes it would just SHUT UP but he should save his strength to rescue his lifebonded... 

He claws at whatever it is that's choking him, and it hurts a lot but then he's loose - the Changecreature is even angrier now though - 

He flails at whatever monster is holding him down, he's trapped - he has to get to her, has to find Belrun - shield don't give it away - have to reach her, have to have to have to - 

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Belrun is making decent progress on disloging and removing the plaque, and the patient's heart is beating more strongly with each success, but it's very fine and delicate work and it's slow going... 

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Marian is very focused on helping Alice swap out the dialysis tubing for her patient, and it takes fifteen seconds or so for the alarm in the distance to really reach her brain. 

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Elaine's scream is a lot more notable, though. "MARIAN MARIAN YOUR PATIENT–" 

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She starts to run, and then stops herself and grabs Belrun's shoulder and shakes her. 

:LEARETH IN TROUBLE: she thinks at her. 

And then she sprints. 

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Belrun snaps out of trance, gets up, trips and falls flat on her face, and, nose bleeding, struggles across the hall to Leareth.

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Someone is running at him - Leareth tries to fling up a shield - 

He needs to get out of here -

He tries to stand up, but unfortunately there's a bedrail and multiple tubes in the way, and instead of landing on his feet, he tumbles over and cracks his head on the floor and lands in a heap. 

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When Belrun reaches them, Marian is crouched over Leareth, who's now sprawled on the floor beside his bed, minus breathing tube, gasping for air like a beached fish and blinking glazedly at the ceiling. Every single machine in the room is making loud noises, and there's quite a lot of blood coming from somewhere or other. 

:HELP: Marian thinks at her. 

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:Leareth I'm here it's okay -: She has been doing WAY too much Gift-use and her head is killing her and she hates the smell of blood and her nose is currently full of blood on top of all the other blood but oh well! She hauls Leareth back into bed with liberal Fetching-assistance, headache or no headache, and shoves the breathing-tube back at Marian because she certainly doesn't know what to do with it and starts working on his head.

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Marian super cannot fix the breathing tube problem now that it's yanked out! Instead she lunges to grab the oxygen mask still in its wrapper behind the bed, and get it attached to the oxygen pipe on the wall and hands it to Belrun, :can you put this over his face please -: 

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Leareth is still gasping unevenly, clutching at Belrun's hand. :There's - a colddrake - I think? maybe gryphon??? we need...to get away...: 

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:There's nothing, we're in a hospital, there's nothing there -: She tries to figure out how to put the thing over his face. Probably in this direction.

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He struggles against he attempt to do this, apparently unsure whether it's her doing it versus the hallucinated monsters attacking him. :Have to go - have to - get away...: 

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Marian grabs his hand and stuffs the O2 sat probe back onto his finger. "Elaine! He yanked out his art line, he's bleeding - can you put pressure on it - I need a fucking blood pressure..." She retrieves the normal blood pressure cuff and starts trying to get it onto Leareth's arm but he is not at all cooperative with this. 

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:Love calm down we're trying to help you there's no monsters:

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Leareth stops moving, but is radiating TERRORTERRORTERROR at her along the lifebond. 

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Marian snatches the opportunity to get the blood pressure cuff onto his arm and whack the button on the monitor. 

:...Okay his O2 sat isn't great but it's rising at least - he might be okay with just the mask - can you tell how bad his head is, is he bleeding again -: 

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(If Belrun looks, she can see some additional vague signs of bruising and injury, and also one of the previously-oozing blood vessels is torn again and bleeding freshly, though not fast.) 

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:He is, yeah, I'm on it: She would like to be on FEWER THINGS.

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Leareth flops back against the pillows and closes his eyes and squeezes Belrun's hand very hard.

:- scared: he sends after a while, :what - is happening - where are we...?: 

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The monitor dings. 

"Well, his blood pressure isn't too low," Marian says, while thinking the same thing loudly at Belrun. The number is 183/101. "...Actually we should try to get it lower, if we can, it'll increase the pressure in his skull and he'll bleed more." 

:Belrun: she adds in just-loud-thoughts. :Can you think of anything else to get him calmed down or should I get more sedatives - if I do that we might have to put the breathing tube back in though, and he seems to be doing okay without it: 

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:I'm trying: she tells Marian. :Leareth, we're in a hospital. I am here and we can get you all fixed up but you HAVE to calm down. Please calm down for me or we're going to have to give you sedatives:

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...He vaguely remembers something like this before - it was important to be calm, he had to stay calm - he doesn't know why, but Belrun is there and he can feel her and he trusts her. 

Even less of his mind is working per usual, right now, but he focuses on taking slow deep breaths - it only hurts a little, to do that, he vaguely remembers it hurting a lot, that's a nice change...

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"Is everything okay in here?" Dr Millinger is standing in the doorway, sounding VERY ticked off. 

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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah this is terrible this is all her fault why is this the worst shift of her entire life. 

"He was confused and tried to get up and fell," Marian says stiffly. "But his wife has magic healing so she's making sure he's okay. I'll, uh, I'll tell you if we need to do anything more...?" 

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"Good, because there's another trauma case in the ED and I need to go. Page the resident if you need orders."  

Dr Millinger scowls at her and strides off, looking just as exhausted as she feels. 

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Marian hits the blood pressure cycle button again, and waits for the result to pop up - down to 159/92, which seems to match Leareth's apperance of someone gradually calming down - and she adjusts his oxygen mask - the O2 sat is up to 92%, that's fine, everything is fine... 

She turns away to face the wall and starts crying. 

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Belrun sits there, fixing bleeds, trying to be calm for Leareth, politely ignoring the crying glass-city-healer because she doesn't have anything to spare for that.

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Leareth is dizzy and nauseated and confused and can only hold onto one thought, which is that it's very important that he STAY CALM, so he hangs onto that and breathes and clings to Belrun. 

When something beeps:

:- Belrun is that wyrsa...should we run...?: 

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:No. No wyrsa. They just have a lot of noisy things here. Relax:

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Leareth gives her a helpless look. :Am I - seeing things - that are not there...?: 

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:Maybe. Also some of the stuff here is weird looking. But there are no wyrsa, okay?:

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:Oh: 

Leareth tries to lean in closer to Belrun and reach for her; this is somewhat easier without his hands tied or the ventilator tubing, but harder because Marian is trying to hold pressure on his wrist where he's still bleeding from the arterial line site. 

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It seems like he might really need the comfort, so Marian shifts herself to give him more reach. 

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Belrun does her best to snuggle up without doing him further harm.

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Marian sniffles and takes deep breaths and manages to get herself slightly under control.

She holds pressure on Leareth's wrist until eventually the bleeding seems stopped, and then wraps it with pressure-dressing tape and lets him have his hand back. 

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Leareth immediately curls to the side and tries to snuggle up in Belrun's arms. 

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Awwww they're being cute again. 

Marian sniffs again and dabs at her eyes. :I, uh - I need a bit of a break, I think - Belrun, his vitals are fine, just...keep an eye on whether he's working too hard to breathe and might get tired, I guess? And...I'll just be in the breakroom...: 

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:Okay: She is at some risk of falling back asleep herself but she will probably wake up if he's in distress.

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Everything is quiet for a little while. Elaine, the curly-haired other nurse, sits yawning at the desk outside the room and patters away at the keyboard, then goes into one of the other rooms for a bit. 

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Leareth's brain is definitely quite bruised inside his skull, but eventually the concerning bleeding is definitely stopped and she's coaxed the incipient swelling down.

He anxiously checks with her a couple more times whether there are really (various dangerous threats) in the room or if he's hallucinating again, and eventually he dozes off in her arms. 

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Marian locks herself in the staff bathroom and sets a three-minute timer on her phone and runs the tap so no one will hear her crying, and then she splashes water on her face and smooths down her hair in front of the mirror. 

It's 6:30 pm and normally she would be able to go HOME in forty-five minutes but instead she's here until past eleven pm and maybe longer. At this particular moment, this fact is kind of a relief; she does not at all feel ready to give a shift report. 

She spends a little while taking deep breaths before she forges back out into the fray to help with the new admission. 

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Belrun falls asleep curled up awkwardly with Leareth.

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When she wakes up, hours later, the lights in the hallway are dimmed and the unit is mostly quiet, save for the usual background distant-beeping. And Leareth is awake, holding still in her arms but reaching for her across the lifebond. 

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"Hey," she murmurs. "Everything's okay we're safe don't freak out this is a hospital please don't freak out again."

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Leareth considers Mindspeaking and decides against it. He clears his throat; it seems like he's capable of talking again, though only in a croaky whisper. "Belrun. I am so sorry."

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"It's okay. You were really out of it. Not enough slack to go around is all. You just rest. Do you need anything?"

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He swallows. "My head hurts. But - I think the drug for pain made me hallucinate things? Probably I - should not have any more..." 

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"They might have other kinds, do you want me to ask?"

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He considers this. "Yes. Please." 

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Is Marian around, or Alice?

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No one is in the bay where they are except for a redheaded man she doesn't recognize, but if she stretches out with Thoughtsensing, she'll be able to feel Alice still hovering in the very-sick-patient's room, and Marian somewhere else a little further away than that. 

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:Marian?:

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Marian is in the middle of trying to get an IV into the new admit, and startles. :Eeek! Uh please don't interrupt me can I talk to you in two minutes: 

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"Couple minutes' wait," she tells Leareth.

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Marian collects herself, and helps Krystal get an IV on her new patient - who's at least young and fit and thus not too hard - and then excuses herself and runs off, dropping bloodwork in the pneumatic tube on her way. 

She pauses in front of the room. "- Oh hey, Ben, I guess we're podmates till I go home?" Yawn. :Belrun, sorry, what is it?: 

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:Leareth could use a painkiller that does not have hallucinations as a side effect:

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:I'm so sorry about that! It's not a common side effect! I guess he just reacts badly to it... Uh, I'm a bit leery of giving him more opiates than the fentanyl drip, since he's off the vent, I don't want to suppress his breathing more. I can get orders for some milder painkillers just to try - though I don't know if he'll be able to swallow pills yet and he messed up his feeding tube. I guess you could do the Fetching thing?: 

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:I should take it easy but small things a short distance shouldn't be too bad:

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:- Oh, right, you must be exhausted. I'm so sorry things keep happening like this!: Sigh. :I can ask for the IV version for now, it'll take effect faster anyway, just a minute: 

She goes off to find the doctor. 

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Leareth has been resting his Gifts and avoiding a worse headache by not even trying to track this. 

"What did she say?" he murmurs to Belrun once Marian has trotted off. 

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"She's getting something."

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Marian gets distracted on the way back, running an errand for Alice, but makes it to Leareth's room within ten minutes. :I'm sorry - I'll just get these going...: 

A pause. 

:Is Leareth listening right now: She can't tell; his eyes are closed and he doesn't seem to be making an effort to pay attention, but she's not sure. 

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:I don't think so, why?:

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:I, uh, I - wanted to ask...: This is SO AWKWARD why is this so awkward. :He just - he seems to get so panicked about things, and then he gets fighty about it - most patients don't attack their ventilators even if they're confused... What's his deal, does he, like, have PTSD or something?: 

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:I don't know the term. He does need to be paranoid in general at home and also right before we fell in the river monsters were after us, though:

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:...Oh. Uh, the term means, hmm - usually it's something that happens to people who fought in wars or something and are traumatized and jumpy from it? I've had patients with that problem before. And he...seems like that. I, just - I didn't want to be nosy, but if this is a - way he tends to be in general, then I should warn the other nurses. I have to go home at some point: 

She lets out her breath in a gusty sigh. :Although, honestly, at this point I'd kind of rather sleep on the floor of the break room, I have to be back at 6:45 am tomorrow and I do NOT feel like biking back up the hill at midnight: 

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If Amshalan were here Belrun could ask her to give Marian a ride. :It's likely to happen if he's confused or scared, especially if I'm not there, especially especially if I'm upset. It won't happen while he knows what's going on and what's going on isn't that he's being attacked:

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Nod. :...How's he doing? On the knowing what's going on front, I mean. I don't want to bother him if he's getting some rest, but if you were talking to him before...: 

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:He understood last time I talked to him. And he can speak out loud now, which should help him with not using his energy reserves on talking. But if I were far away and he were hazy - I think he thought I was in trouble -:

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:Oh. I guess that makes sense, if he woke up without you there, and you were probably stressed. Sorry: Marian rubs her eyes. :I wish we had twenty of you! We could use so much magic healing, just in general, but obviously I can't ask you to leave him just yet... I think it's pretty normal at this stage for him to be waking up disoriented like that, even if he's pretty easy to re-orient if you're there: 

Sigh. :I'm just SO glad you got here before he started waking up more. I cannot at all imagine dealing with this without you: 

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:I wish we had some of you at home, you seem to have almost totally orthogonal strengths and weaknesses. Maybe when he's better he can re-engineer whatever got us here and we can pop back and forth, do healer-exchange programs and stuff, it'll be fun: Yawn. :Can I get something else to eat, I need to keep putting food in me if I'm going to be propping up myself and him and incidental third party emergencies:

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:...Oh wow. I - hadn't even gotten as far as thinking about how you might not be able to get home! I'm sorry - I really hope you can: She bobs her head. :I'll go pick up some more food for you. Cafeteria's open until eight so I'd better run. Should I just get a whole lot, so you can keep snacking until morning?: 

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:That would be really good, thank you:

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Marian is back ten minutes later with a borrowed cafeteria tray HEAPED with food. There's another personal pizza, and a burger, and a potato salad, and chocolate cookies, and a fruit cup, and a yogurt parfait, and a chocolate milk – she just sort of grabbed one of everything that was left in the almost-closed cafeteria.

She has more coffee and a granola bar for herself. Coffee at 8 pm is perhaps a dubious idea, but. 

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Leareth stirs at the sound of her footsteps. His throat is so scratchy right now; he has to swallow and clear it twice before attempting to speak makes any noise. "I am very thirsty," he tells Belrun. 

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:Marian, he's thirsty, is it safe for him to drink?:

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:Hmm. He might have trouble swallowing properly, after having the breathing tube? But I guess you'd be able to tell if he was aspirating. I think, start off giving him ice chips one at a time, and if that goes fine he can have liquids to drink in an hour: 

She should technically ask Dr Millinger about this, but Dr Millinger is currently in the OR with their new admission, some poor woman who tried to singlehandedly stop a gang of hooligans holding up a corner liquor store - and succeeded, somehow - but collected a handgun bullet to her neck and a few more to her shoulder in the process. Why is Reno LIKE THIS??? 

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:Ice chips, huh: She tells Leareth he might have trouble swallowing but they have ice he can try.

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Letting bits of ice melt in his mouth is AMAAAAAAZING and Leareth sucks on them with a blissful smile. 

- swallowing anything more substantial than his own saliva is, in fact, weirdly hard to figure out? He coughs a bit the first time he tries, and is ordered by Marian to Take A Break For Five Minutes, but manages to figure it out after that. 

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Marian wanders around the unit paying back all the help she's gotten today with Leareth by helping other nurses, and then flips her coma patient onto his other side, and then parks herself near Belrun to chart. 

:Wanna hear a ridiculous story?: she says after a minute. Normally she would probably think a little bit about the confidentiality issues here, but she's been at the hospital for coming on fourteen hours and her impulse control is...low. 

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:...sure, why not:

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:Okay, so the new admit over in the other room - she's this lady, we think from out of town, it sounds like she was walking through downtown and saw some guys robbing a store? And thought the best response to this was to walk in and fight them or something? It's - not clear exactly what happened, the clerk was hiding under his desk, but she must've terrified the fuck out of the robbers - the cops got there and arrested them, I guess, but then hauled them off to the ED too, and now three of them are under psych observation because they're refusing to talk or move. Anyway, she got shot. Which I feel like shouldn't be a surprise if you decide to personally fight armed robbers! She'll be fine though, hopefully: 

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:Refusing to talk or move? Three people are doing this? Is that a normal thing here?:

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:- I mean, there are mental illnesses that cause that? I've...never heard of three people suddenly having it all at once like that, but - well, Reno is batshit, one of the patients here got shot in a fight with his tattoo artist: 

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:There... is magic that causes that, though I don't know why another person would have been caught in the same thing that moved us:

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:Whoa! Can you do that sort of magic? I guess I get why you wouldn't want to do it on Leareth to make him calm down...: 

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:All I have is Fetching, Healing, and Mindspeech. Uh, what's the person who got shot look like?:

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:Uh, black, tall - dyed her hair white for some reason, which is actually a really cool look but must've taken some doing - come to think of it Krystal did say she was dressed weird too...: 

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:Nayoki: Belrun tries.

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There is in fact a findable Nayoki! She's further away than the extent of the hallway, but not much further. She's not really answering though, and unlike Leareth when Belrun arrived, she's still shielded normally. 

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:Okay, yeah, that's someone I know, but she's not answering me and I'm worried about leaving Leareth. You are not going to be able to fix what she did, she'll have to do it. Can you move her to this hall so I can work on her and make really sure she'll be able to do that without getting too far from him?:

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:Huh! Right, she's probably still in PACU - I should, uh, maybe go over there and warn someone she's magic too...: 

The ceiling makes a weird staticky beep again and then there's an unnaturally-amplified voice saying something. 

:- Oh FUCK are you FUCKING KIDDING ME: Marian swears several times out loud for good measure. :I hate today so much!: 

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:Now what?:

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:Code blue AGAIN - sorry, patient in cardiac arrest - not here, but we usually send help and I don't know who has the pager, Alice did this morning but she can't leave her patient and Ben's really new -: 

"Ben!" she calls out anyway. "Can you go?" 

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He sticks his head out behind the curtain of Leg Lifts Lady's room and shows her gloved hands smeared with...something brown. "Uh I'm a little occupied." 

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:For fuck's sake: Marian drags a hand over her face. "I'm going, I'm going!"

:It's not Nayoki, different unit - Belrun don't worry about this one, stay put with him–:

She runs. 

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Well then, Belrun will hang out here and work on Leareth and work through her food stash.

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Two minutes later, Marian abandons the room containing a perfectly fine and healthy patient. Today is not the day when she's in the mood for false alarms, although it's arguably better than a real alarm, they only have one free bed left and none of the nurses on duty really have slack - probably she'd've had to give Ben her coma guy and taken the new admit and then be split across two pods which is terrible... 

Well, at least it's right next to the PACU, she can detour in to warn Dr Millinger. 

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Dr Millinger, when she finds him, is busy berating a confused resident. "Where did my patient go?" 

     "I don't know! I was just in the bathroom for a minute..." 

"How the hell could my patient have disappeared while you were in the bathroom for one minute???" 

     "Ummm maybe it was five minutes...upset stomach..." 

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Marian grits her teeth. She hates interrupting people, especially tired cranky surgeons. "Dr Millinger? Uh, is it the new admit who's disappeared?" 

And when he nods: "Sorry I have to go right now–" 

She sprints back to the ICU and arrives out of breath. :Belrun we have a different problem than I thought: 

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:What is the problem?:

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:Nobody's dying which is good, but, uh, your friend is missing? Somehow snuck out of the PACU? I think she must've somehow made the false alarm happen although I have no idea how: 

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:...I don't know off the top of my head how she'd do that either, though probably there's some way especially if a person triggers the alarm and she could fuck with their head. I guess she's conscious now though, I'll try to Mindspeak her again:

:Nayoki!:

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:I am a little busy! I need to steal some clothes so that I blend in here. Are you in danger right now?: 

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:No, but you're making a lot of fuss in the hospital you just escaped from and also I hear you've been shot! Where do you think you're even going?:

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:To come get you! I will be fine. Is Leareth with you, is he all right - I was having difficulty Mindspeaking him -: 

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:He's in a hospital bed being cared for by me and these nice locals and he's kind of out of it because he was badly hurt. He's not exactly okay but you do not need to make a scene:

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:They do not seem very nice to me! They kept sticking me with sharp things!: 

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:They don't have magic and the sharp things are how they get drugs into you:

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:I did not want drugs! Also they cut holes in me! ....I mean, I did already have holes in me, but surely they did not need to be made into bigger holes!: Nayoki sounds incredibly offended. :Though at least they sewed them up after: 

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:I don't know what that's about but I'm actually pretty sure there will be a reasonable explanation if we ask! Would you like me to ask the nearest Healer why they might have done that? Also please don't wander off and die, you set-commanded some people and I certainly can't fix them:

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:...Are you sure? That the people here are trustworthy and will not keep us captive?: 

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:I like the ones I have talked to but I suppose I can double-check about that, it hasn't come up since I don't want to leave Leareth and he's not really in a condition to be moved:

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:All right. I was not going to wander off, I want to find you and Leareth and I suppose if you feel you are safe here then we can stay here. ...To be clear the people I set-commanded deserved it, they were threatening a perfectly innocent old man with weapons to make him give them all his money: 

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:Yes but there is probably some local way of dealing with that and nobody here will be able to reverse the set-commands to let those people, like, eat, or anything:

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:They should wear off after a couple of days, and the people can eat fine if someone feeds them, think it is fair enough: A mental sigh. :If you trust them enough to stay here with Leareth, and he is not trying to leave, then...I suppose I will come find you where you are: 

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:Can I get someone to walk you here so there aren't further misunderstandings?:

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:I suppose if you want: Nayoki sends, exasperated, and flashes a mental image of her position. She seems to be hiding in a bathroom right now. 

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:Okay: she tells Marian, :I have talked her down a bit. She does not want to be drugged or to have any of the holes in her enlarged or anything but is tentatively willing to trust me that it's safe here. Can you go here: she bounces the image :and escort her up so nothing else happens on her way?:

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:Sure: Marian frowns. :I'm going to grab a wheelchair, it seems not-great for her to be walking around right after having surgery even if she did apparently escape on her own feet: 

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Leareth stirs again as she heads out. "Belrun?" he croaks. "Problem?" 

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"There is no emergency. Nayoki is here for some reason and has been injured but Marian's getting her and we're still safe."

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"Oh." He seems to consider trying to sit up more, winces, and decides against it. "She - had my work. The artifact. Must have - come looking for us." It's very irritating how he still can't speak in complete sentences without stopping to breathe. 

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"Well, I wish she'd brought Amshalan but I suppose that would be even more awkward!" She sighs and kisses him on the forehead.

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Leareth closes his eyes, leaning into her touch. "I love you. So glad - you are here." 

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Marian is back five minutes later. The automatic door-opening button seems to be on the fritz, presumably because of Belrun's messing with the doors earlier, so she has to turn around and hip-check the door to get it open and then walk backward pulling Nayoki in a wheelchair. 

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Nayoki is wearing the rather unconvincing disguise of one of the white jacket-robe garments that some of the staff have, over one of the loose cotton gowns that they put on patients. Her neck is wrapped in gauze; there's a bit of blood on it. Her eyes are slightly glazed, with either exhaustion or drugs, but she's sitting up and looking around curiously. 

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"Krystal!" Marian calls out. "Found your patient!" And in a disapproving tone: "She ripped some of her stitches!" 

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Nayoki catches a glimpse of Leareth, and calls out to him. "Leareth! Are you all right?" 

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He definitely can't project his voice loudly enough for her to hear him ten yards away, so he just waves reassuringly. Though probably his general appearance isn't reassuring at all. 

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"He's been better but he's improving. I will have more left to work on him if you let them treat you but if you insist on not being poked with any sharp things I will manage somehow."

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:I can explain what all the sharp things are for?: Marian offers. :And you can decide which if any you're okay with? ...Hmm, let me see your arm - okay great you didn't actually rip your IV out! It takes a sharp thing to put it in but once it's there, there's nothing sharp left in, it's just a bit of plastic. We can use that to give you fluids and extra blood, you probably lost a ton of it - I'm amazed you can walk, honestly: 

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:...I cannot say that walking was much fun: 

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:Well, now that you've seen Leareth for yourself, can we get you into your bed here and Krystal can have a look at you so we know what treatment you still need?: 

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Nayoki, who is definitely drooping more at this point, grudgingly agrees to this and lets herself be wheeled around the corner to the available bed. 

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Thank goodness. Belrun snuggles up to Leareth and wonders when she is going to get ten consecutive non-exhausted minutes. Possibly not for days. She will budget accordingly.

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The unit descends into blessed quiet, save for the hum of machines and occasional plaintive alarms at various distances. And the sound of Dr Millinger complaining vocally as he examines his runaway-and-found patient and pronounces her 'probably not going to bleed out on us at this point.' 

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Nayoki is, after five minutes of explaining and coaxing by Marian, persuaded to let the 'nice doctor' redo her popped stitches, and to allow Krystal to put in a second IV and give her antibiotics. 

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(Marian feels she is only slightly lying when she says Dr Millinger is nice. He's barely snapped at her at all today despite her having let her patient fall out of bed.) 

...Around 9:30 pm she dashes over to Leareth's room. :God I'm SO sorry - I'm two hours late on his antibiotics - Belrun I know you can do stuff about the infection but we might as well not give you extra work...: 

She hangs the IV bag, and then supervises Leareth sipping some water through a straw and pronounces him safe to swallow. He can have juice and a Jello cup. 

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Leareth is not exactly hungry - something is making him pretty nauseated right now, actually - and the Jello cup is a kind of disconcerting-looking food item, but he'll try a few bites. Eating and drinking is exhausting and kind of frustrating right now; he gets short of breath and his sats drop if he takes the oxygen mask off for even ten seconds. 

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10:00 pm rolls around, and finds the unit calm and peaceful, lights dimmed, and with a huddle of exhausted nurses and one exhausted trauma surgeon sitting around talking. They're hanging around near room 110, since Alice can't really leave her patient's room right now. 

"What a craptastic day," Alice says dryly. "I'm starving." 

     Dr Millinger glances around. "Pizza sound good?" 

"I think we're due for sushi?"

     "Oh, god, I could so go for some California rolls. Put them right here in my face-hole." 

Sushi orders are collected and a nearby restaurant is called. They take orders from the unit every week or two and are familiar with the drill. 

     "Can someone watch my machines while I pee?" 

"On it. ...I should probably turn my lady but I'm not gonna. I'd have to stand up, see." 

     "Oooooof I know. My poor feet." 

A few minutes of desultory banter ensues. Alice gets back from the bathroom and arranges herself in front of a bedside table stolen from next door so she can mix bags of drugs while SITTING DOWN. (Her patient's room has somehow collected THREE bedside tables. They're all in use.) 

     "So." Dr Millinger yawns and stretches both arms above his head. "How am I meant to explain to my med students tomorrow that several of our patients are magic?" 

     "- Are you gonna tell 110's wife that we fixed his kidneys with magic? I would love to be a fly on the wall for that convo." 

"...Aren't you supposed to, I don't know, tell people if you find out magic is real?" 

     "Tell who? If we tell the ED staff they'll eat Belrun alive, they'll want her fixing up everyone." 

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"We can't make her do more things!" Marian says hastily. "She's pooped. Also Leareth has horrible PTSD or something and if she goes too far away he'll probably freak out and set the unit on fire." 

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"And that," Alice says dryly, "is not a sentence I ever thought I would hear– Fuck off!" This is addressed at a beeping IV pump. "I'm coming, I'm coming, you don't need to torture my poor ears like this..." 

     "It wants you to hear the song of its people," Krystal says, rolling her eyes.

The overhead intercom buzzes, and everyone groans, but it's just a code white (violent patient) in the emergency department. The staff sag back. 

     "...Okay, whose vent alarm is that - fucking unit acoustics, you'd think they could've designed it better–"

"I'll go see–" 

    "I mean, this is sort of like 'aliens turned up', right? We could tell...the newspapers?"

"Do you want a television crew in this ICU because I do not!" 

     "The government?" 

"I don't trust the fucking government with this!" 

     "The FBI would try to cart them off and study them, I bet." 

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Marian giggles. "Good luck with carting Leareth anywhere he doesn't want to go. He'll set them on fire." 

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"Did we ever find out what Nayoki did?" 

     Shrugs all around. "Escape artistry?" 

"- Oh no do you smell that?"

     "Unfortunately." A nurse hauls herself up from her chair. A minute passes in silence, interrupted only by Alice swearing at another IV pump. 

"...Guys guysguysguys who wants to join me for a party in 108?" 

     There are loud groans. "A shit party?" 

"I would say that's understating things. This shit could defeat empires." 

    "I can tell - I can smell it from all the way over here." 

"It's a - get this - it's a poonami–" 

     "You did NOT just say that." 

"I hate this job." 

     "If you hate this job why do you take overtime every week." 

"....Love of money and glory?" 

     "Riiiiight." 

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At 10:45 pm, Marian troops over to Leareth's room, carrying a plate of sushi rolls. "Belrun? Leareth?" 

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"Mm?"

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Marian moves some food wrappers off the bedside table and plops down the sushi. :Brought you some more food. Also they're sending us a float nurse from the ED so I get to go home! And Alice is gonna let me crash on her couch so I don't have to bike home: 

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:It's raining and I'm a kind woman: Alice thinks loudly at Belrun, joining them and leaning on the wall by the room. :I'm taking this kid to the bar next door for some tequila shots first, though. I did put her down as a contact in your chart, just in case, but please try to avoid having to call her: 

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:I'll do my best insofar as I have control over that. Should you introduce me to the next person so I can get their permission for Mindspeech?:

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:Definitely! She's headed over now: Marian peers around the room. :Hmm - I bet if we get some of the unnecessary equipment out of here and move things around, I can fit a gurney against the wall by his bed? And then you can sleep on that and be right next to him, it'll be more comfy than the recliner - how does that sound?: 

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:I'd appreciate that, thanks:

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Marian, yawning, putters around the room for a few minutes tidying up, shoving the now-obviated ventilator up by the window, and then wheels in a gurney stolen from PACU and collects some blankets and pillows for Belrun. 

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Leareth, who's been drifting in and out of a doze, wakes up to the noise and reaches for Belrun. "Need water," he croak-whispers; the oxygen flow is drying out his mouth so badly. "Can - ask her - blanket back...? The warm one." 

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Marian, who of course can't understand this at all, glances expectantly at Belrun. 

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:Thirsty again and he wants 'the warm blanket' back:

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:I'm not surprised, the oxygen mask does that. I'll get you guys a water jug so you can give him refills. And - hmm. He did scorch the electric blanket a bit but it was still working: She frowns at the monitor. :I took it off because he was getting feverish, but he's all right now. Guess he can have it back if you can keep an eye on his temp for me and take it away if he's running too hot: 

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:I can't read your instruments but if he seems too feverish I can take it off:

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:Okay, that works: 

Marian introduces Noreen, the float nurse from the ED; she's a moderately overweight black woman with her hair in cornrows, who seems more exasperated than curious about the whole 'magic telepathy' thing. 

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As long as she's okay with it.

Belrun arranges the warm blanket over Leareth and eats sushi and cuddles up next to him otter-fashion and sleeps.

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The ward is quiet, but Leareth is having a bit of a rough night, and defaults to reaching for Belrun through the lifebond rather than trying to communicate with the night nurse. Mindspeech is still very painful and effortful. 

At various points he wakes her because:

- he’s thirsty again and can’t reach the water cup.

- he wants to roll over but can’t manage it by himself.

- he tries to refill his water cup himself to avoid bothering her, and manages instead to upend the jug of ice water all over himself.

- his oxygen tubing got kinked when he moved in bed (this time Belrun is woken first by the monitor screaming at them because his O2 sats are down to 73%.)

- his head hurts too much to sleep.

- he drank too much water too fast and threw up.

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Belrun wakes up all six of those times and helps him, or gets the night nurse to help him, and then when he's situated she falls back asleep.

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Dim grey light creeps under the blinds on the window, and the unit starts to stir. Someone turns on the lights at the central nursing station. There are curious mutters about the matter of the broken doors, as new day shift staff start to troop in. 

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Marian arrives with Alice at 6:47 am exactly, yawning and blinking at the light; both of them are clutching venti Starbucks coffees. :Morning, Belrun: 

She has some regrets about her life choices; namely the midnight tequila shots. 

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:Morning: says Belrun tiredly. She's still in her bloody and now slightly vomited-on clothes from yesterday and curled up next to Leareth. She has gradually snacked away all the food.

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:- Oh, sorry, I completely did not think of this yesterday - do you need a change of clothes? We can grab you some scrubs from the OR, they've got a big cabinet of them: 

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:That sounds perfect. Next time Leareth is particularly lucid I can try the artificial rain situation in the bathroom:

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Marian giggles. :We should maybe try to bathe Leareth later, if he's up for it. I'll grab you some clean clothes: 

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While the nurses are huddled up for report in the nursing station, Dr Millinger strolls in, and tosses a breakfast sandwich over onto Belrun's lap. 

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Sandwich goes in face. Belrun gets some work underway on Leareth with a view to getting him able to spend twenty minutes without her right next to him and not setting things on fire so she can take a shower and change.

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Leareth is still feeling pretty awful - pounding headache even with all the pain meds running straight into his central line, tender ribs, sore and bruised and achy everywhere - but he wakes up calm when Marian and Noreen come in for bedside shift report, and remembers where he is. He's still coughing up gunk, and gets short of breath literally just from rolling over in bed. Also he's managed to lose his voice even more thoroughly, which Marian says is pretty normal and will pass. 

Mostly he's just very, very tired, and all he wants to do is lie still with the lights dimmed and his lovely warm electric blanket - it's such a good concept - and let Belrun take care of anything more complicated than breathing and drinking water. 

"You can go wash up," he assures Belrun, in a barely-audible whisper.

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:I'll stay by him: Marian promises. :Oh, and Dr Millinger wanted to haul you back to 110 to do some more Healing, but I told him you'd head over yourself when you're up for it and not to bother you until you do: 

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:Yeah, I'll probably get around to it at some point but right now Leareth's headache is distracting me and I think I can probably sort that out with a little more work and be more efficient after: She gives him a little kiss on the temple and then goes to figure out the artificial rain situation.

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The artificial rain is controlled by two shiny metal knobs on the wall, which seem to respectively be for hot and cold water; she has to fiddle with them to get a reasonable but non-scorching temperature. The towels on the linen cart are individually kind of small and sad, but there's a two-foot stack of them and Marian says she can take as many as she wants.

A plastic box on the wall dispenses weirdly liquid-goopy soap, and Marian provides her with two little packets that she says are 'shampoo' and 'conditioner', plus a bristly little brush on a stick and a tiny waterskin-like squeeze bottle; this assembly is apparently for cleaning her teeth? 

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Belrun will gamely attempt all these things and ask Marian the occasional clarifying question by Mindspeech through the wall. Eventually she emerges cleaned up with her hair wet and the scrubs on and settles back into place to see if Leareth is up for another departure so she can work on the patient in 110.

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Leareth is reasonably alert, propped up with the head of the bed cranked to almost ninety degrees. Marian has added a different oxygen tube that hangs around his face and hooks onto his ears, with two little prongs that poke into his nostrils; it doesn't flow fast enough to keep his sats up for long, but it means Marian can encourage him to spend ten seconds at a time on some sort of weird deep-breathing challenge with a cylindrical thingy that measures how good his deep breaths are. (They are not very impressive.) 

He recovers from a coughing fit after his last try, sips water, and then tells Belrun it's fine for her to go a little ways off; his passive Thoughtsensing is working a little better and he thinks he'll be able to feel her presence anywhere in the unit and use it to reassure himself. 

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Marian fidgets for a moment. :I, uh - I did want to ask a favor. It wouldn't take very long and it'd just be looking, not fixing things - I don't know if that's easier...?: 

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:Looking is a lot easier, what is it?:

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:My patient next door. He's - been in a coma for weeks, not responding at all. I don't - our scans aren't good enough to tell if he's likely to...get better...or, uh. Not. I was hoping maybe you could see and...I don't know, then we'd at least know?: 

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:Uh, I don't know if my judgment on that will be any good but I can give him a look and if there's anything that jumps out at me I can tell you:

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:- I guess in your world, you might not be able to keep unconscious people alive that long?: Marian points her over to the room. 

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:Most Healers aren't Fetchers, so it's not typical, no: She goes over to the coma guy and checks him over by Sight.

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...It is, in fact, kind of shocking that he's still alive at all. 

She can see the place where his skull was cracked – significantly worse than Leareth's – and also a place where the bone seems to have been cut and opened, and then put back in place; there's a half-healed passage where, most likely, some sort of tube used to be. Torn blood vessels have been delicately stitched back together; the tough membrane encasing the brain was likewise neatly restored. It's incredible; damage that would have been irreparable even with the best Healers right there, and fatal in seconds to minutes, was mitigated and repaired as much as possible. 

There are signs of previous inflammation and swelling and bruising; it's mostly resolved, now, the body's natural healing doing what it can. Still, wide swaths of his brain are dark, missing the vibrant swirling life-force that should be present, the tissues damaged beyond repair. The base of his brain, that controls breathing and heartbeat and basic primitive reflexes, is mostly intact, but the higher areas...aren't. 

To her Thoughtsensing, it doesn't even feel like there's a person there. 

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Wow.

:I think he's, uh, kind of already dead. Lots of his brain has gone dark and Thoughtsensing doesn't pick him up at all - it does pick up people who are sleeping or knocked out. I can tell you guys worked - so so hard on him, though, that's really amazing -:

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:Oh: 

Marian closes her eyes. 

:I - I was kind of expecting that: She hugs herself a little. :We can't even donate his organs, he - he's not quite dead enough - there are really strict rules on it, and he's still got enough brain function to breathe on his own. Though...he won't last long, when we turn off the machines: 

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:Donate his - wow - wow, what a clever idea:

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:It's pretty cool! I had one a month ago. She'd checked the organ donor box on her drivers' license, so she saved - gods, I think it was four people, in the end - lungs, liver, heart, kidneys, all of them were healthy and viable - she was only twenty-eight, it was a car crash - she was fine except her head... She had little kids. Four and six. I don't think they understood much at all what was happening. It was really awful and tragic, you know? But - but at least she saved people, in the end: 

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Belrun nods and steps out of the coma room to go work on 110.

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Alice smiles at her, tiredly but warmly, and holds up the catheter bag. There's about half a cup of darkish urine in it. :Pee!: she announces, jubilantly. :We have pee!: 

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:Awesome: She can focus on the heart, then.

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It's still the heart of a fifty-year-old man who hasn't lived a particularly active or health-encouraging lifestyle, and there's a little bit of additional damage from when the tissues were starved of oxygen - this patient won't be climbing any mountains - but the electrical pathways that control the heart rhythm are pretty much okay now!

His kidneys are working! They'll probably never be as good as new, but it looks like, given another few days of lighter workload, they should be able to function well enough to get him off the machine. As of yet they're not putting out a lot of volume, in terms of pee, but with his circulation stronger, it the dialysis machine was able to filter some of the excess fluid out as well as the waste products in his blood, and his lungs are a lot less soggy now. 

The main lingering issue is from the broad diffuse inflammation in his body, a runaway out-of-proportion response to his injuries that's ended up doing more harm than good – though the glass city healers must have something to help with this, her Sight can faintly pick up that there's something nudging back against the relevant metabolic processes. Still, the immune response is making his blood form miniscule clots wherever there's irritation in his blood vessels, which has the dual effect of leaving him deficient on all the clotting-substances when it comes to actual injuries, and also threatening to clot off yet another of the plaque-narrowed heart arteries, though as yet it's only partly blocked.

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She will get more saline and clear out some arteries and generally push against the inflammation response.

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With a couple of hours of sustained work, she can get a noticeable improvement in both! Calming down the inflammation seems to be doing the patient's kidneys a favor, too.

Alice does at one point, while handing her a sub sandwich and giant cup of Coca-Cola from the Subway across the street (a food run was done by a bored resident), ask if she can aim a bit more Healing at his kidneys in particular. :It'll be easier on his body if we can get him off the dialysis at the same time as the bypass - he's nearly there but his kidneys aren't passing enough output yet: 

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Coca-Cola is STARTLING. :Yeah, I can work on those a bit more:

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Down the hall, Leareth dozes on and off; Marian's given him a cold pack to put on his forehead, which helps keep the headache to tolerable levels as long as he holds still. He's still waking a bit disoriented, but has the range back to Mindspeak Belrun for reassurance. 

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Marian spends most of the morning in 114's room. 

She carefully and thoroughly bathes him, recruits Elaine to help change the sheets. Combs his hair. Shaves his stubble. She can't get him looking healthy or normal, given all the tubes, but she can get...somewhere. 

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When the glass-city-Healers are ready to get 110 off some machines, Belrun's standing by in case this goes horribly wrong somehow.

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His blood clotting is still a bit screwy and they would appreciate her help making sure he doesn't bleed when they remove the tubes going to the heart-lung machine! They leave the dialysis line in place, just to keep for a few more days in case he needs it again; it's a little smaller and less invasive, more tolerable from the point of view of infection risk. Though they'd appreciate if she could check for signs of infection just in case? And do something about it if there are any?

(There's a thin film of bacteria growing on the inner lining of the tube; they don't seem to be causing particular trouble yet but are murder-able.) 

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Marian finishes her project, and talks for a few minutes with Dr Millinger, and then gives Leareth his antibiotics and refills his water and parks herself by his room to chart. 

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Belrun tells the locals about the bacteria in case they have a better solution than her murdering them all. Also if they want her to draw one of the bacteria maybe they will know if it's even a bad kind?

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Alice is so surprised and impressed! :Uh, sure, just a second - I'll get a specimen jar, you can pop it right in. Though it needs to be enough to get a culture of them going in the lab: She frowns. :I don't know what else we'd do about it; we know biofilms happen sometimes, we don't really understand how often they'll end up causing issues: 

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:Okay, well, I can kill them if I need to but it's easier if there are fewer so it would be good to know if I need to soon:

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:Oh - hmm, let me talk to Dr Millinger - I think the thin-film of them may not multiply fast? Maybe we can have you check it again in an hour: Her eyes twinkle. :You'd be incredible for research. Just so you know, if you mention this to Marian she won't stop asking you questions before tonight: 

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:That's what I do at home, I'm a microbiologist:

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:Wow! That's really quite something: Alice seems not to have time to dwell on it much, though. 

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And when 110 is stable she goes back to Leareth to see how he's doing. Are any of HIS tubes growing anything?

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No! Not yet, at least; he's had them in for a much shorter length of time. One of his arm IVs is a bit red and inflamed, though; not infection, but some sort of irritation in the vein. 

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Well, that's relatively straightforward to handle with her skill level, which, like she keeps telling people, mostly befits a microbiologist. After that she mostly concentrates on his head.

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It's making a pretty noticeable difference! Leareth is still immobile-by-preference, but mostly just because any exertion still leaves him short of breath; he's noticeably more alert and interactive with her, and when he dozes off and wakes - he's going to be sleeping a LOT for the next few days, Healing is exhausting - he immediately remembers where he is. 

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Marian finishes charting and slips into the room, waving at Belrun. 

:Hey. I, uh, just wanted to apologize if it feels like I'm ignoring you this morning. Dr Millinger called 114's family and...told them the prognosis. Which we were already pretty sure of, at this point, you just confirmed it. They're coming in now - probably they'll want to be in there for a bit with him and then I'll take him off all the machines. I might be distracted by that: 

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:That's okay, I can find Alice if I need anything:

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:Thank you: 

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The family trickles in; a wife with dyed-blonde hair showing dark at the roots, two teenage children. They go into 114's room. 

Marian fetches Dr Millinger, who goes in and talks to them in a quiet, gentle voice. (He's so much more friendly and warm and reassuring with patients than with the nursing staff.) 

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He leaves, and Marian goes in and pulls the curtains closed. 

She comes out about five minutes later, head down, and slumps wearily into a chair by the desk in their pod, bringing up the patient's monitor display on her local screen; she's switched it to private mode in the room itself, and turned off every alarm. The family doesn't need to see or hear the details on their husband/father as he dies. 

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Leareth blinks himself fully awake. Looks at Belrun. "Is something wrong -?" 

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"No emergency. There's a patient who couldn't be saved."

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"Oh." 

Leareth closes his eyes for a moment, massaging his forehead. 

"- It is hurting her so badly," he says eventually, with a vague gesture in Marian's direction. "I wish I could – that there was something to say – I do not know her well enough to guess if telling her that death is awful and I am working on fixing it will help, or be more upsetting." 

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"I don't know either.

Is this - out of context enough that we're going to be parking here trying to figure out how to blow up the moon -"

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"...I keep trying to think about that and then it hurts my head," Leareth acknowledges quietly. "I think - yes? If they can do this–" a vague gesture around the room, at the machines, "then - what else...? I wanted to ask Marian about - what their world is like, outside of this place- but my condition has been keeping her so busy already." 

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"Yeah. And I don't want to wander off while you're still in iffy shape. But if we're going to stay here I am going to need Amshalan."

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"We - should talk to Nayoki. About how she found us. That would be more informative for finding the way back - I am afraid I do not remember anything after the wyrsa attacking us." 

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"I can go see if she's up for explaining that right now."

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Leareth nods. And then leans back and closes his eyes again, because apparently just having a conversation is very exhausting. 

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Belrun pets his hair out of his eyes and goes to visit Nayoki.

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Nayoki has discovered that her room has a TELEVISION! Television is the best thing in the world! She has no idea what anyone is saying, of course, she can't Thoughtsense the pictures-of-people - though when her nurse is in the room she can grab her understanding of the words from her surface thoughts - but even when the conversations are gibberish, it's very entertaining. She's watching something that seems to be about a....wedding? Wedding traditions in wherever-this is are very very strange but highly entertaining. 

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"Hello - what is that?"

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"It is the best thing! It is called a -" she pauses to carefully enunciate, "a teh-leh-vih-jun. It shows moving pictures of stories! My Healer said that they have actors, like in a theatre troupe, and they have 'cah-meh-ras' that they use to make illusions that they can keep on crystals of some kind! But not magic crystals, apparently everyone in this world thinks that magic is pretend!" 

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"Well, I'm glad you're having fun. Is this a good time to talk about how you got here?"

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She sighs a little and uses the remote - which Krystal very considerately showed her how to use - to turn off the television. "I suppose so." 

She does not, however, immediately answer. 

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"...is it complicated somehow?"

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"...Sorry, I am a little distracted." She rubs her bandaged shoulder, wincing. "It - is a little complicated. We completed the half-finished prototype in Leareth's Work Room, from his design writeup, and I examined the scene and was able to trace where you went - it seems the artifact did not work as intended, possibly because there was a large discharge of magic nearby when he activated it? In any case, I am sorry it took all day but we were able to follow you." 

She ducks her head. "But - we may have a problem now." 

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"...what problem may we have now."

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"The artifact did not actually come with me, it must have been left behind. Leareth's, too - I do not think I would have been able to track you down at all otherwise. But...that means I do not have it anymore. I did have the plans for it, but they took my clothes and I am not sure where they are now." 

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"I can ask about your clothes and you two can make a second artifact when you're better. Does Amshalan know what happened?"

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"Yes. I said I would come back for her - I was worried about landing in a hostile situation and it seemed better not to risk her safety, given..." Vague gesture at Belrun. 

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"Yeah. But at least she can tell the Valdemarans so they don't panic." Sigh. "I'll go ask about your stuff." She goes back to Leareth's room to see if Marian is there.

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She's sitting just outside it, alternately watching Leareth poke at his Jello cup and morosely staring at the glowing symbols on the screen in front of her. 

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:Hey, where are Leareth and Nayoki's clothes and stuff?:

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She leaps to her feet. :Oh fuck! I have no idea - they're supposed to come along with patients but I went myself to get Leareth and I forgot to look for his. I don't know for Nayoki but the ED had a hectic day too, bet they're still there. I can go look right now - I'm so sorry–: 

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:Some of them are magic:

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:Are they going to be dangerous to touch or anything?: 

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:I should ask Leareth, actually: She sticks her head in the room. "Love, is anything you had on you trapped or is it safe for Marian to go get it?"

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He lights up, and starts to lean forward before grimacing and changing his mind. "She knows where my talismans are! ...Hmm. We did not hear about any trouble when the healers who took me in removed them, no?" 

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"No, but you're you so I thought I should be very sure about how aggressive your anti-theft precautions might be."

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"- I think if there was going to be a problem, it would have been when somebody tried to remove them from my body? My guess is that the ones with offensive precautions are fully drained or damaged." He thinks for a moment. "It would still be safer for her to avoid touching them directly, if possible. I would go with her, except..." Gesture at his current, very wired-into-place state. 

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"Right. Do you know about Nayoki's stuff or should I ask her separately?"

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"I think she is less paranoid than I am on this front, but you ought probably ask her." 

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So she goes and checks with Nayoki too.

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"It should not be a problem! Though not touching them with bare skin would be a sensible precaution." 

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So she goes and tells Marian that neither mage thinks their stuff is actively trapped, but just to be safe she might want to wear gloves.

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She can do that! 

She spends a minute glaring at the slowly-dying coma patient's monitor readings, before shrugging and asking Elaine to watch her patients for her. 

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"Sure, but you owe me help with a dressing change after." Elaine jerks her chin at the gunshot-wound patient in 115. 

Leg Lifts Lady is at it again with her leg lifts, crotch visible to the world - or, at least, the fellow inhabitants of their pod, most of whom are in no state to care. 

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Rude. Belrun heads back into Leareth's room to go back to work on him.

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Marian is back twenty minutes later, hauling two cinch-necked plastic bags. She delivers one to Nayoki and then brings Leareth's over. 

:Sorry! I had to look all over for it. Uh, and...I think all your clothes in here are kind of wet and gross? I decided not to shove my hands in since the magic artifacts might be dangerous: 

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:The clothes aren't important, just the artifacts, and he's not in a condition to work on them right this second anyway:

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Marian nods, and finds a corner of the room to plop the bag in. 

Next door, 114's family is reciting some sort of prayer together.

Marian looks around, then shoves a pile of towels out of the way and hefts herself up to sit on the counter by the sink. She sighs heavily. :It's going to be a long afternoon for them, I think. It's...hard, with people who were healthy before. I'm amazed how long some patients can just hang out with a blood pressure of 40/20: 

She shakes her head. Swipes at her eyes. :It's - I don't even believe in God, you know, and I'm pretty sure he's not in a better place - he's not anywhere, anymore, he's not anyone, just...: Helpless shrug. :But I'm - still grateful they have something to hold onto:

...Marian seems to belatedly realize that she's rambling at her patient, and looks embarrassed and self-conscious. :Sorry: 

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Leareth is staring at her. 

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Belrun squeezes Leareth's hand. "Not sure how to field that one, honestly," she tells him.

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"...She seems well-educated," Leareth says faintly. "I - predict she would be aware of what is known by their scholars - and even if they are wrong, if it is - possible to be a clever well-read person and believe there are no gods here - then the gods cannot be very meddlesome. Which...changes things... It seems quite important to know, if this is true!" 

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"I suppose that's true, I can - probe about it in a general way, except she's so busy..."

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"She seems less busy today, but I am still hesitant to distract her during her shift." 

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Marian swings her legs. 

:Anyway!: she thinks brightly at them. :I got permission from Dr Millinger to get you sitting up on the side of the bed! Uh, if you're feeling up for trying that. It'll help with your lungs and getting all that gunk out, so we can wean down your oxygen: 

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If Leareth feels up for that Belrun will help adjust his position!

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Getting Leareth sitting up is a significant production! First Marian has to move all his remaining tubes and wires and machines to one side of the bed, and arrange them so that there’s enough slack and she and Belrun can make sure nothing pulls. Then she cranks the head of the bed up, and coaxes Leareth to shuffle his legs and feet toward the side of the bed. Then she supports him from one side, his arm over her shoulder, with Belrun on the other side, and they swing him around until he’s sitting perched on the side of the bed with his legs dangling.

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Leareth takes controlled breaths and tries not to grit his teeth or moan out loud. Sitting up, he clutches the side of the bed and clings to Belrun.

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:How are you feeling?: Marian asks him, anxiously. 

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He’s still trying to catch his breath. :Sore. Very weak. A little dizzy:

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:That sounds really normal! Just stay there and take deep breaths - we’ll try to do five minutes like this, but please let us know if you’re feeling worse:

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:All right:

Leareth leans his head on Belrun’s shoulder. He’s still too out of breath to feel like speaking out loud, but touch-range Mindspeech barely hurts at all now. 

:This is becoming frustrating: he confesses to her. :I dislike being so incapacitated:

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:Yeah, of course you don't. You'll get better, though, and it's safe here, and I'm here:

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:Mmm: 

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:Doing all right?: Marian checks after about a minute.

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:- A bit more lightheaded. I feel...hot? But I can keep going:

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:....Hmm, you are getting a bit sweaty. I know sitting up may not feel like much, but it’s going to be a big workout for you righ— Leareth?: 

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Leareth is no longer holding himself upright, and suddenly most of his weight is on Belrun’s shoulder.

:I feel bad: he manages. 

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:- You don’t look great either. Let’s get you laying down - Belrun, I can’t - the button I always hit up there to get a blood pressure reading, can you poke it with Fetching...:

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She can do that, and she can turn her Healing-Sight on Leareth to figure out what's gone wrong this time.

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It seems to be mostly a matter of his body being unused to gravity and being upright, and maybe also the effects of the pain medication; his body is failing to compensate enough for the change in position, with the result that blood is pooling in his lower half and less is reaching his head. It seems likely to resolve by itself as soon as they have him horizontal again, which Marian is rapidly helping her accomplish.

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Marian wrestles Leareth’s legs and feet back onto the bed, though he’s sort of sprawled diagonally now, and starts lowering his head to lay him flat.

:Were you being stubborn?: she chides him. :Please be less stubborn that that. It’s all right to need to take things slowly: 

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:...I might vomit: 

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:I’ll forgive you. You just had a blood pressure drop, you should feel better in a few seconds:

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Belrun grabs him one of the bags they have for that.

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Leareth clutches it and dry-heaves a couple of times, then just flops there, panting. 

:Sorry: he says to Marian. :I was not trying to be overly stubborn - I just started to feel worse very suddenly... Belrun, can you tell why that happened?:

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:You're just not used to being upright, and maybe the pain meds aren't helping. Probably we should keep trying it occasionally for shorter periods:

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:I do not recall having this problem the last time I was injured!: 

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:Well, maybe this is worse or the meds are different:

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:I suppose that is fair: 

He closes his eyes. :...I think I need to rest for a while now: 

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:Yeah, of course: She tucks him in.

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While Marian is still helping her get settled, Alice bounces over, looking positively gleeful. 

:My guy in 110 is off the paralytics and he's waking up a tiny bit! His family's coming in to see him this afternoon! You should meet them!: She rubs her hands together, delightedly. :Also you should come see the pee! It's such good pee!: She sounds incredibly pleased with herself about it. 

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:...have they said it's okay if I accidentally get thoughts?:

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:- Oh. I haven't talked to them yet about, uh, the magic and stuff. It seemed awkward to try to explain over the phone. I can ask once they arrive, before calling you over?: 

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:If it's important for me to meet them, uh, sure:

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:I mean, you don't have to, I just figured they might want to thank you and you'd deserve to hear it from them: 

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:It sounds awkward, to be honest:

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:I guess that's fair. Well, I mostly wanted to let you know the good news: 

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:I appreciate it:

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Alice nods and ducks out.

"Wait. What the– what. The."

She tries and fails to swallow a snicker. 

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"...What?" Marian hops up and joins her. "Oh. ...Oh my god. Why." 

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"Elaine!" 

     "What? I'm a little busy -" 

"Your patient in 112." 

     "....What about her." 

"You should - uh, I think you've got to see this for yourself." 

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"Can you be quiet?" Marian hisses at Alice, gesturing at the closed curtains by room 114.

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"You know," Alice says wryly, still staring at Leg Lifts Lady, "if this were a TV show it would get terrible reviews for being incredibly tone-deaf." 

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:...Uh, sorry I ran out: Marian explains, sounding rather distracted. :I, uh, the patient in 112 is...um...touching herself...with her hands...covered in poop.... I think I should help Elaine, uh, deal with this. I'll be back soon, I promise - is Leareth doing okay...?: 

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:He's okay. I don't feel like I really needed that information:

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:.....Sorry:

Looking kind of mortified, Marian slinks off.

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Belrun returns her attention to her lifebonded.

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A while later, Marian comes back in to check on Leareth, looking a bit sheepish and apologetic. :How are you feeling? Up for trying to eat something more substantial for lunch?: 

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Leareth sighs and glances over at Belrun. :Eating sounds very exhausting. If I need nutrition, then perhaps Belrun can do something with Fetching?: 

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:Yeah, I can do that. With something liquid so it won't suffer from not being chewed:

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:We've got liquid food. ...Leareth, I guess I could redo your feeding tube, to save Belrun's energy, but I'm guessing you wouldn't like it much while you're awake: 

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:Probably not: He looks over at Belrun, though. :I will do that if you need the break, though: 

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:I can move small amounts short distances and I don't think you're exactly up for a three-course meal:

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:He should take it easy to start: Marian agrees. :Though moving on to solid food will help with – uh, so, the pain medications he's on tend to make people pretty constipated, and being stuck in bed and not eating won't help: 

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:...I see: 

Leareth tries to pay attention to whether he feels that way, but it's impossible to tell when his body is sending him so many other random distress signals. 

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:Well, as necessary I can deal with that too, though I imagine you have something for it:

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:We do! I should probably have gotten on that earlier but, uh, it's been kind of hectic. Anyway I'll get you some liquid food and then I think I'll take my lunch break: 

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:And solid food for me:

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:Oh right, that reminds me - did anyone actually bring you the doughnuts that Dr Millinger got for you?: 

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:Continuing as I do in ignorance of what a donut is, no:

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:I'll go get them! And then I'll bring you some, uh, more savoury food from the cafeteria. Doughnuts are a dessert: 

She darts off, and comes back with a cardboard box. :Enjoy! Dr Millinger seems to have decided the way to thank you for fixing his patients is just to feed you constantly: 

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:That will certainly do for now although eventually we are probably going to need, like, a house or something, when he's better enough to leave, and I might want to start drawing some kind of pay before that day arrives:

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:Oh! I was actually just looking at apartments near the hospital - the travel agency I work for found me a place, but it's waaaaay at the top of the hill and I'm sick of biking home uphill after a 12-hour shift. I can look for you too... Uh, it sounds like that means you're planning to stay here longer and not go back to the magic world you came from right away?: 

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:I'm not sure how long it will take them to reconstruct the travel artifact - it didn't come along on the trip - and even if they had one already handy we'd probably want some sort of base of operations here, we're not just going to fuck off never to be seen again!:

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:Oh: Marian looks thoughtful for a moment, then smiles. :Good! I'm glad. Do you think you'll be able to bring more people with healing magic over, later? Ooh, and of course I'd be really excited to visit your world, if you wanted to do a trade or something...: 

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:Visiting our world would be... complicated... and also I think you'd have a harder time adapting to a ward full of Gifted Healers than vice-versa because your machines wouldn't have anywhere to plug into the wall:

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:Why would it be complicated–: 

Marian stops herself. 

:Sorry, I should get both of us food first, before I bug you with a lot of questions. But I am curious. About tons of things: 

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:I'm not sure where to start explaining but I will give it a shot when you're back, if you want to eat here:

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:...You know, why not. It'll be more restful than the break room, they're watching football in there again. I'll be back in ten minutes?: 

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:Sure:

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Marian is back ten minutes later! She delivers a little carton of high-calorie high-protein meal replacement shake for Leareth, and another sampling of various cafeteria options for Belrun, and she perches herself on the counter again and starts working on her own pizza. 

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Belrun eats a grilled cheese triangle and Fetches a little bit of shake into Leareth to see how that settles before she starts on the other. :What do you most want to know?: she asks Marian.

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:Wow. I don't even know where to start. I guess - who are you and Leareth? And, uh, why did Leareth need to be paranoid all the time in your world?: 

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:Uh, I'm a microbiologist who worked at a university doing basic research on microbes until I met Leareth. He runs - an organization - I'm not actually sure how to describe it, its mandate is fairly flexible, but it's threatening to some parties and he has experienced kind of a lot of assassination attempts:

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:Neat! Uh, what's medical research like in your world - is it all done with magic?: 

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:I guess you could collect some kinds of statistics without it, and there are some Healing-assistants who aren't Gifted and mostly change sheets and bring people meals and stuff, but pretty much, yeah:

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:Mmm: Marian bobs her head and smiles.

She wants to just ask a hundred questions about healing, but that probably shouldn't be her most urgent priority here. :Was, uh, was the thing that happened right before you ended up here an assassination attempt too? Or something else?: 

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:It was, yeah, somebody sent a pack of monsters after us and Leareth triggered the artifact to get away but obviously it is not very considerate about elevation when it drops people. Also it left behind my magic horse, which is uncomfortable:

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:Your...magic...horse...?: 

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:They're called Companions and they bond to people, sort of like the bond me and Leareth have. It's uncomfortable to stretch that bond too far so I really wish she were here but it would probably have been even more awkward to try to bring a magic horse into this hospital looking for Leareth, plus presumably she would also have fallen and gotten hurt:

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Marian nods. :I'm sorry, that does sound hard. ...Uh, can you say more about the sort of bond you and Leareth have? I don't think we have that here: 

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:That's probably convenient for you. Uh, when people who are - sufficiently compatible in a certain way - meet, then it forms with enough exposure. There's some empathic back-and-forth, and the distance thing, and the compatibility gets, uh, very salient. Also if one of us dies the other will be in typically-lethal psychological torment about it. We did not actually want one but we were both distracted by circumstances long enough to be stuck with it:

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Marian shivers. :Yikes! That does sound pretty awful! I'm - god - I'm really glad he pulled through, then. We had a couple of scary moments before you got here...: 

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:Yeah, that would have been bad. Presumably I would have eventually somehow managed to encounter Nayoki and she could have gotten me home but I would not be good for much at that point, my plan if it happens is to go back to my old university with my magic horse and drown myself in as much work as there are hours in the day and try very hard not to be subject to the lethality part because that would hit my magic horse: And also because he'd come back but she doesn't wanna just blurt that out.

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:Mmm: Marian shoves another bite of pizza into her mouth, trying to organize her growing pile-up of questions. She's feeling pretty frazzled, which makes it hard. 

:Uh, and - why would it be complicated for me to come see your world?: 

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:Well, we're the ones who could bring you and there are people after us:

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:Because of Leareth's, uh, organization, and the people who don't like it and keep trying to kill him?: 

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:Some of the people don't like him personally, too, but yeah:

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:Mmm: More fidgeting. :So...it's not really safe for either of you to go back, either?: 

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:Depends how well we can aim. His headquarters is pretty safe, it's just I'd been on a diplomatic mission and was coming home and he was there to pick me up:

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:Oh! What sort of diplomatic mission - is it normal for medical researchers to be diplomats too in your world -?: She stops herself. :Uh, sorry, you don't have to tell me if it's sensitive or something: 

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:It's not especially sensitive. I was there in my capacity as Leareth's lifebonded, not as a microbiologist. It was easier once we were lifebonded for me to drop what I was doing to be with him than vice-versa:

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:Uh, right: Marian is SO CURIOUS what Leareth's mysterious organization actually does, which comes across clearly in Mindspeech, but she feels too awkward to try asking more explicitly. 

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Leareth isn't sure how to respond to that! He's following along with Thoughtsensing, mostly, but he's also getting quite drowsy again, and projective Mindspeech to someone un-Gifted like Marian is more tiring. 

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Yeah, it's awkward, Belrun agreeably echoes across the lifebond. :There's a specific country that has magic horses, I was actually born there but moved away as a child, and I was there and that's where I acquired Amshalan, my magic horse:

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:Huh! Uh, what do magic horses usually...do, in that country?:

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:The standard case is that a magic horse chooses a teenager and the teenager is then drafted into an elite company of what are called Heralds who do various state functions and are supposed to be incorruptible because of the guidance of the magic horses, but I'm a weird case and will not be being a Herald: Also she broke Amshalan's incorruptibility within like fifteen minutes.

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:Uh, right. Is that...a normal sort of way for countries to be, in your world?: 

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:No, it's pretty weird. I grew up in Rethwellan which I think of as being very normal, and, like, that's probably because I live there, but I also lived in Valdemar for a while, so:

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Nod. :What were you doing diplomatic stuff about? Like, trade and things like that?: Marian doesn't feel that she knows very much about the subject. 

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:It's... complicated. It was sort of, uh, peace talks in advance of having any actual war. It went well though!:

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:That's, uh, good?: Marian isn't sure what the right response is to 'we almost had a war'. It does seem better than the talks not having gone well. Also she's VERY curious but it feels especially awkward to ask what the hypothetical war would have been over, so she just fidgets. 

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:Sorry, it's hard to know how to discuss this and Leareth isn't as clearheaded for discussing how to pitch it as he normally would be:

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:Oh. That makes sense: 

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Leareth takes a deep breath and shifts position slightly. (Being able to do both of those things without agonizing pain is such an improvement.) 

He's definitely too foggy for any in-depth strategic thinking, but - it feels like maybe the core of the question here shouldn't be complicated? 

:Belrun, I think that...maybe the most important part is whether this world in fact lacks gods. If that is true, then...I would be inclined to tell her at least something of our plans. Her reaction will be informative. ...I am quite groggy, though, so I might be missing something. What do you think?:

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:I'm not sure how to gracefully segue into the topic but even apart from that I think even a non-god-influenced person could be reasonably offput by some details!:

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:I think we should not share all of the details! I am not sure which parts make sense to share at all; I am just suspecting that it is more than zero of them: 

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:Fair enough:

:Marian, earlier you were saying something about the patient's family's religion?:

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:Mmm?: Marian looks slightly concerned, and very self-conscious. :I, uh, probably shouldn't say anything else about them, there's confidentiality stuff and all...: 

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:Oh, no, I'm not interested in that family specifically, it just made us curious in general terms about religion here:

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:Oh: Marian sounds relieved. :What's it like in your world?: 

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:I won't know what would be most salient till I know what it's like here: Belrun dodges.

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:Right: 

Marian is having a hard time figuring out where to start, explaining religion to someone who doesn't only not know about the current most commonly practiced religions on Earth, but also doesn't have any context on the last several thousand years' worth of historical leadup. 

:Uh, so the most popular religions nowadays are monotheistic - they think there's only one god - though that wasn't true as much a couple thousand years ago, and it varies in some other countries. There are a few which are kind of interrelated, they sort of come from the same much older religion, Judaism - that's still around too but fewer total people, they kind of...believe they're the chosen people of God, and have a lot of practices around that. Anyway at one point two thousand years ago, there was a sect that split off around -: wow how is one even supposed to explain Jesus to people from another world without writing an entire essay about it, :- uh, around believing that this particular religious leader had been the son of God and when he got executed by the government he was sacrificing himself and dying for all of humanity's sins? ...I think it's more compelling than that in context, I'm not explaining it that well. Anyway that religion is called Christianity, and there are about a million different factions of it now but if you sum it all up I think it's...a third of the world's population? Two billion people. There's another branch-off called Islam which is based on the teachings of a different prophet called Muhammad, a few centuries after that, and it's less popular in this country but dominates in some other places, I think that's another one and a half billion people or something. Then there's a religion called Hinduism which is... Uh actually I'm kind of blanking on details, I learned about it in school a bit but it's rare here, it's very old though and less monotheistic? They have some neat creation mythology that I can't remember, and lots of cultural stuff with rituals and a traditional social caste system, and some beliefs about a cycle of rebirth or reincarnation and the concept that your virtuousness sort of accumulates across lives so you get better ones if you do good acts... There's a different religion called Buddhism that arguably branched off from Hinduism but it's pretty different, they don't really believe in a god per se, they have similar philosophies about the reincarnation thing but mostly it's about meditating until you reach 'enlightenment' and escape suffering. Or something. Then there a bunch of others but those three are the biggest by far. ....Oh and then like half a billion people in the world don't believe God exists at all and don't practice any religion. I looked it up once: 

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:....Your world's population is...five, six...billion people...?: 

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:That's so many people!:

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Marian, oddly, ducks her head and looks sheepish! Maybe even defensive! 

:Yeah, we had really really fast population growth during the twentieth century. But it's slowing now - there's something called the 'demographic transition', I don't know if your world would have the concept, but basically -: her eyes go slightly unfocused, her mindvoice slipping into the tone of ar recalled school lecture, :the theory's that when a society goes through an industrial revolution and infant mortality drops, you get a big spike in population, but after a while - especially if there's birth control and women can go to school - people start delaying having children, going to school first, and have fewer kids total. And even the developing world is starting to get closer to that point, now - I remember when I was little lots of people were freaking out about overpopulation and damaging the environment, but I think probably it won't keep going unsustainably like that forever. I, uh, could get my phone and show you the graph, it's pretty cool...?: 

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Leareth blinks at her, off-balance. :Marian, I - I was not judging your world's population growth - it makes perfect sense to me that with...all of this...: he gestures vaguely at the room, :your technological level would support a higher population. I - just - it is impressive. Incredible: 

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:...Oh: Now she's blushing slightly. 

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:I'm not sure our whole world has a billion all told - Leareth, do you have a good estimate -:

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Of course Leareth has an estimate. :A census across the whole continent is not feasible, of course, but - I would guess thirty million, currently. Perhaps as high as fifty million if the far western coast is denser-populated than I realized; Nayoki did not have figures on that. The Eastern Empire has the best administration for a census, and they are...eight million, currently? Unless the other continent on Velgarth is far, far more advanced than I know of, our entire world's population cannot possibly exceed a hundred million: 

A pause.

:...It would have been higher, before the Cataclysm. Much higher. But...half a billion, at most: 

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:Oh: Marian seems unsure how to respond to that. :Wow. I think even in the Middle Ages we had more than a hundred million people in the world - uh, but if your world only has two continents you know of then maybe that's why? We have lots. Uh, what's the Cataclysm?: 

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Leareth is starting to run out of Mindspeech stamina, and gives Belrun a hopeful look. 

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Oh boy. :Almost two thousand years ago there was a war and it got dramatically out of hand - a magical weapon destroyed a lot of stuff directly, but also messed up the weather for years and directly altered a lot of land such that it tends to be uninhabitable and dangerous; the cleanup is still underway:

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:Oh. That....sounds really awful. I guess it'd explain having fewer people: 

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Leareth takes a deep breath. :We can come back to it. Gods?: Again, he looks over at Belrun for rescuing. 

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:Ah, yes. Our world, uh, has them. I don't think I'm aware of anyone who thinks we straight-up don't have them, though different people tend to prefer and worship different specific ones and they aren't all friendly with each other. Companions, the magic horses I mentioned, were created ex nihilo about eight hundred years ago by an unknown god or gods, for instance:

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:Whoa! Really??? That's - wow - I don't even - what's that like? Can you pray and get miracles? Do the gods heal people?: 

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:...Sometimes. I confess that 'access to miraculous Healing' is not among the top twenty most salient traits of our gods, from my perspective: 

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:Yeah, most healing is done by Healers. Gods, uh, give people visions sometimes, made the Companions, that sort of thing, but most of their behavior has to be determined by sort of - echo effects - they're good at arranging coincidences:

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:....Uh, if that's the case, how do you - know it's actually them...?: 

Marian is trying VERY HARD to be tactful and not say anything about 'but do you actually have proof they exist.' Belrun and Leareth seem like sensible clever people and probably they wouldn't believe something stupid? 

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:- Well, you have a point that, in any given situation, it is hard to be sure. But - patterns accumulate over time...: 

Owwwwww his head. Leareth glances at Belrun again. 

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:For example, if a god is trying to kill you, you might be attacked at the worst possible moment by a creature that does not live in the area, which is what happened to us this most recent time, but in the past gods trying to kill Leareth have chosen more direct methods like just setting him on fire so we can be pretty suspicious any time something tries to kill him and it's weird at all:

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:Fuck!: Marian accidentally knocks her pizza box onto the floor. :- Eeeek, uh, sorry! But - what - you got set on fire - how did you survive–: 

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Privately to Belrun:

:- Should we explain...?:

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:The short version is magic: Belrun tells Marian, and to Leareth, :I don't want to have to explain to people that you're a serial killer while you're still relying on them for care, do you have a version that doesn't mention that part?:

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:Not a prepared version: (in Velgarth's he's learned to be VERY secretive about his immortality, :but - she knows little of Velgarth's magic, and she is familiar with the concept of reincarnation - if we claim that I reincarnate myself using magic I doubt she will question it: 

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:Maybe if she decides she wants a less short version:

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:That makes sense: 

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Marian does not, immediately, seem to be demanding a less short version! 

:I, uh, right - I'm sorry... I, um, I don't think I've heard of things that...obvious...happening here: 

Marian is suddenly feeling VERY EMBARRASSED that she has not, personally, read up on all the original sources about the 'historical Jesus' and how plausible the miracles in the New Testament are. 

:Uh, I can say for sure that I personally haven't seen anything god-related or supernatural happen. Ever. And, uh: Even more sheepishness. :I tried really hard, once. To be religious. It...didn't work: 

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:Why did you... try to be religious?: That seems like such a bizarre thing to do.

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:...Because...I mean.... Well, if God and Jesus were real then that'd be the most important thing in the history of forever, right? And so it seemed worth it to - try to check -: 

A pause. 

:...Okay, fine, and I guess...part of it was that I was really good friends with this one girl, and - she was religious - and she had a group and community that just seemed so...happy, and healthy.... Sometimes people on the Internet talk about how the modern age is destroying communities, and, I don't know, I wasn't even born yet in the past they're talking about, but there was something good there...:

Helpless shrug. 

:But it didn't work. I - tried to pray to Jesus and sing and dance and - let the Holy Spirit take me, it turns out you can have weird psychological experiences - and it...didn't make me have faith in God, and I never saw any real convincing evidence either: 

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:Huh. Why does the community work so well, do you know?:

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:....I don't know. I think to some extent maybe it wasn't all as great as I thought, at first, and I was just - idealizing, and only looking at the best parts... And other than that, I guess they - all had something in common, something to built toward:

A helpless shrug. 

:But - I don't think it was a real thing. I don't think Jesus Christ was the son of God. So I couldn't stay, it would've been a lie...: 

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:That makes sense. Anyway, where we're from there are gods and they have their partisans but as far as we're concerned are neutral at best:

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Marian nods, slowly. 

:...I mean, if God were real - and the stories were true - then He'd be pretty horrible. I think there's, uh, a lot of evidence that most of the stories aren't true, though. And...not really a lot of unexplained mysteries. I guess I could get it up for you on Wikipedia - nevermind, you wouldn't be able to read it, would you: Shrug. :I'm not a complete expert on this or anything, but I did research it a bit, once: 

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Leareth nods. :I understand. It does seem that, if your world contains any gods at all, They do not have very strong opinions on your civilization, or a tendency to intervene - and certainly They are not trying to hold technological progress to a standstill. That by itself would be a vast difference, from our world: 

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:Yeah, we're nowhere close to this technological level and I don't think it's just that we haven't had time:

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:I guess it could be that it's taken things a long time to recover after the Cataclysm? If there's a lot of land you still can't live on, and stuff: 

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:Certainly the Cataclysm was a setback: Leareth's mindvoice is level, but he winces very slightly, probably only noticeable to Belrun. :I - am quite confident it is more than that, though: 

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:Oh:

Marian seems unsure how to respond to this. She retrieves her pizza box and starts fidgeting by peeling a strip of cardboard apart around the rim. 

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Leareth closes his eyes; this is a very inconvenient moment for exhaustion to be hitting him in waves again, but it sure does seem to be doing that. 

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Belrun pets him. :He knows more about it than I do, if you wanted details, but that's about the high-level picture:

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:Right: Marian stares into space for a long moment, then scowls. :That sounds awful. And...really hard to have to deal with. I'm sorry:

She hesitates. 

:I - I don't know if there's any way our world can help...? Or I can - I can't really promise help from other people - although I'm also not very good at very many things...:

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:Trade alone - and a godless staging area - would do a lot:

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:Right. I, uh...honestly I have no idea who you're supposed to talk to if you want to make a trade agreement or something, but I can try to find out?: 

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:That would be helpful! Or we could just start trying to sell things and see if they swing by of their own accord, perhaps, I don't know if that would offend your tax collectors:

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:...I think probably there are rules about that and someone would get mad? Uh, I can try to Google it for you: 

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:I don't know what that is but will trust your judgment on its usefulness:

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Marian lights up, bouncing a little. :Oh right! You don't know about the Internet! It's really really cool - it's sort of like a library, does your world have libraries - except it runs on computers, which are–: wow how do you even explain to computers to someone who's never heard of them, :which are really really complicated machines that can store information and transmit it and you can make them follow instructions, and then the Internet lets you communicate that all over the entire world...: 

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Leareth stares at her in amazement and awe. 

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:Oh, wow, that sounds amazing, I have to learn to read English:

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:You should! Uh, I'd offer to start teaching you, except I really doubt I'll have any energy for doing things when my shift is over. ....I guess if you had money you could pay someone for tutoring, I could help you find a person maybe. But that'd mean needing to be able to sell things - or get paid for healing people, you already did a lot of that - and we don't know if that's even legal– Uh, I don't know if it's this complicated in your world, but I'm from another country and I had to do all sorts of paperwork and proving my qualifications in order to be legally allowed to work in this country and get paid. And I at least have a standard university degree from a country that the US has heard of: 

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:I am definitely not legally allowed to work in this country if you weren't:

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Sigh. :I'm sorry you had to end up in a country with awful immigration policy! It's so frustrating. If you were doing, oh, babysitting or something you could maybe get paid under the table - uh don't tell anyone who works for the government I said that, but lots of people do work illegally in the US - but I can't see the hospital being set up for that. At least Dr Millinger's allowed to get you free food: 

She frowns. :...I mean, I guess there's no reason couldn't just give you money, if I get cash out there's no way the IRS can tell what it was for, right. ....Uh, don't tell anyone official I said that either: 

Marian is constantly unsure how paranoid to be about getting in trouble with immigration authorities, but then again 'private telepathy' has GOT to be one of the safest ways to communicate without literally any chance that the FBI could intercept it. 

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:Okay, but that would be your money and not something I was earning with Healing:

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:- I guess, but at least you could buy yourself food and stuff. Or pay someone as a tutor to teach you English: 

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:Do you make enough money for all that on top of your expenses?:

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:I don't have a lot of expenses right now. The travel agency pays for my apartment, on top of what I get paid for hour, and I'm thinking of moving closer but apartments in Reno are really cheap: And lately she doesn't do anything EXCEPT work, and half her meals are ones the doctors buy for the nursing staff. 

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:If... it will not be a substantial financial burden for you... then some slush money until we find our feet and can pay you back would be cool:

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:I think I should be able to do that. Although, uh, getting you a bank account would be really hard since I'm guessing you don't have anything the US banking system would accept as identifying documents, and I don't know how you'd pass the background check for renting an apartment...: She grimaces and drags a hand over her face. :Gah. I think we probably do have to talk to, uh, someone official, about your world existing - I just have no idea where to start...:

It feels very daunting. (Probably a lot of this is that ANYTHING paperwork-related feels daunting the day after a sixteen-hour shift.) 

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:Your world seems a lot more... institutional:

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:I think maybe it's more scalable that way? Er, it's helpful for making things go smoothly when you have hundreds of millions of people in the country, I mean: 

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:I guess that makes sense. Just this country is hundreds of millions, wow!:

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:China has over a billion people just in the one country!: 

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:Maybe we can learn useful things here about scalable institution-building!:

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:...China is kind of awful right now. And even worse things happened in their history while they were industrializing – here too, honestly. But I guess they've got a lot of competent institutions, at least: 

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:Awful things like what?:

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:...Uh, they imprison political rebels without any sort of fair trial system - also a lot of people get killed or tortured probably - the government's basically a dictatorship, they have loads of censorship internally too. Uh, and one of the worst parts I read about is, decades ago they had a thing where they tried to - use a top-down planned economy to advance really quickly? But made a lot of stupid decisions or had wrong science about agriculture, and then millions - I think maybe tens of millions? - of people starved: 

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:Okay! We will also learn what not to do!:

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Marian shivers, hugging herself a little. :I - I'm not sure if anyone in our world knows what not to do, to - avoid those sorts of things happening... It seems to just be how things go. Even when everyone is - fighting for the right reasons and trying their best...: 

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:How does everyone trying their best result in torture:

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:I have no idea! ...I mean, probably it involves some people who - are kind of horrible - who enjoy watching other people suffer and things - but, I mean...:

 

She hesitates, biting her lip, blinking hard. 

 

:- but, I mean, I - sort of tortured Leareth earlier. Because I needed to suction him - because I thought it was the right thing to do and it would help him stay alive... I hate it when my patients are hurting but sometimes I cause it myself. And, I mean, I could...see that generalizing...and if I believed wrong things about medicine, or about - bigger things than that–: 

She curls into herself. 

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:I'm not blaming you for having to use uncomfortable machines to get Leareth okay. He isn't either:

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:That - isn't really what I meant. I don't feel bad about it or anything. Just... It's a thought I have sometimes when I try to make sense of things that've happened, in our world. That...it wouldn't feel any different from the inside...: 

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:I guess that's possible:

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Marian hugs herself for a moment longer, then twitches and looks around. :- Oh wow! I think I totally lost track of time. I...should check on 114. And cover for Elaine. Do either of you need anything?: 

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Leareth is feeling...surprisingly okay? His stomach is definitely making noises about being expecting to digest food again, even liquid food, but it doesn't hurt or feel queasy, so that seems fine. :No. I think I will nap now: 

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:Sounds good. Uh, if you're comfortable right now, I kind of want to start decreasing your pain medication? We'll have to get you off the continuous IV before you can leave the ICU, not that I think that'll be for a few days but we might as well get started on the process: 

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:...I would not say I am entirely comfortable, but...: Leareth tries shifting slightly in the bed. :- Yes, I can tolerate this fine: 

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:Well, don't try to be a tough guy about it, tell me if that changes, and I'll go gently: Marian glances at Belrun. :Don't let him be stubborn and insist he's fine when he's not, please - I'm guessing you can tell better than me because of the lifebond, yeah?: 

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:I'll know if he's in a bad way, yes:

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Marian fiddles with the settings on his IV pump and then leaves them to it. 

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Leareth doesn't complain, and there's no, or not much, sign of increasing discomfort through the lifebond. He sips water – by himself!! – and asks for Belrun's help shifting and getting comfortable on his other side, and then falls asleep snuggling a pillow. 

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Awww. Pet pet.

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After a while, Nayoki reaches out to her with a Mindtouch. :My nurse got me paper and I have salvaged what I could and redrawn the diagrams for the artifact. I need some materials to work on one in order to go home, though: 

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:What kind of materials?:

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:A quartz focus about an inch across - or glass would do, but it takes magic less well so would need to be the size of my fist. Also copper and silver wire: 

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:Can you be more specific? I'm not a mage and have never tried to shop for a focus before:

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Sure, Nayoki can show her the sketches, and spend a while describing the shape-tolerance and how clear and flawless the focus has to be and what thickness and purity for the wire - some materials other than silver would do, it's just what she tends to use. 

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Belrun writes this all down. :I'll ask Marian how to go about it when she's back:

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:I suppose we are not in a huge rush. ...Have you learned anything more of this place, by the way? Their television is fascinating and very impressive! Though the 'news' is often quite gruesome: 

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:I'm picking up bits. Their population is enormous, billions over the whole planet, hundreds of millions in this country alone. One country has more than a billion by itself:

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:- Incredible! What did Leareth think of that?: 

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:He was very impressed, of course. Also it sounds like they either don't have any gods or theirs don't do anything:

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:They - oh: Nayoki's eyes slowly widen, almost comically. :That...changes many things: 

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:I know, right? How well can you two expect to work out the kinks in the artifact so it doesn't drop people from significant heights into rivers when used?:

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:Mine did not do it on the way here! I think perhaps Leareth did not have the spell fully under control when he used his - maybe because he was under attack, or if he was injured...: 

A sudden, thoughtful pause. 

:I wonder what the Heralds are thinking. We informed them of the attack, and then - they would have heard nothing at all since my departure here -:

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:Amshalan'll know I'm alive but yeah ideally we'd get in touch:

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:And ideally we would reunite you with Amshalan soon, now that we know it is safe here! ...Though inconvenient while Leareth needs to stay in here, I suppose. But hopefully that will not be too much longer, and Marian will know where you can obtain materials...: 

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:And I can also inquire about residences suitable for a Companion to join us in:

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:I wonder how difficult that will be! Even Valdemar is not very good at this, and these people have no reason to take it into account: 

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:Yeah, it's really weird that Valdemaran buildings, at least ones Heralds are in all the time, don't have space. But maybe some people have indoor horses here, or just really big houses because they have so much architectural technology:

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:I suppose we will find out!: 

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Marian, when she gets back from covering for Elaine's patients, isn't sure where in Reno you can buy the supplies Nayoki wants. :I can ask Alice? She's lived here a lot longer than I have: 

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:That would be good of you, thanks:

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Alice swings by a few minutes later; her patient is doing well enough that she's not run off her feet today. 

:I don't know that they'd have it at Wal-Mart, but my sister Loreen is really into crafts, she sells jewelry on Etsy. She totally might have something in her supplies that'd do for this. Want me to give her a call?: 

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:That would be really helpful, thanks!:

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:Sure thing!: Alice bustles off to the break room. 

Dr Millinger is just making his way back to the unit, and throws her a bag of doughnuts. 

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:Thank you: Om nom.

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Alice meanders back. :She says she's not sure but you'd be welcome to head to her place and have a look! She loves meeting new people and I...might've drunk-called her last night and told her about the magic, she's terribly curious. She's happy to pick you up if you want - she lives a couple of miles out from here: 

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:I'm not sure it's a good idea for me to be miles away from Leareth yet:

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:It's not even a ten-minute drive! But, I suppose that's understandable - she'll be happy to have you over whenever's a good time: 

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:Please tell her I appreciate it!:

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:Will do!: 

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Leareth is waking up from his nap, and experimenting with moving a little in bed. :...I am still quite sore but this is tolerable? The headache was the worst part by far, and Belrun's work was very helpful with it: 

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:Good! I'm going to tweak the fentanyl down a bit more, then - oh, are you up for doing your deep breathing exercises again? Your O2 sats have been really good for a while, I think we can probably switch you to a different mask which will be more comfortable and not dry your mouth out so much: 

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Leareth is cooperative with this! He's very much looking forward to not being stuck in here any longer than necessary. 

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Belrun is so relieved he is getting better. She will try to fix all the pain points that crop up when he's taking deep breaths.

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Marian is so happy! At least one of her patients is getting better! 

:Think you'd be up for bathing?: she asks Leareth, once she's coaxed him through the deep-breathing and swapped out his high-flow 100% oxygen mask for one that comes with a dial for adjusting the percentage oxygen plus a humidifier-bottle. :You probably need it, no offense - the river is disgusting and that's where your last bath was: 

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:I would like that!: Leareth glances around with some trepidation. :...How far do I have to go?: 

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Marian giggles. :Nowhere! I'll just get a bowl of hot soapy water and we'll clean you up right here. ...Uh, I guess you could have just Belrun do it if you prefer, but I think it'll be easier with both of us so we can help you move around: 

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:Oh. I do not mind you helping: Leareth is unclear on why that would bother him. 

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:He's not prone to embarrassment particularly: But she'll help shift him and wash him up.

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Marian thinks that not being prone to embarrassment is an EXCELLENT trait and she wishes more of her patients had it!

With Belrun's help, she gets Leareth as clean as possible given the limitations of a sponge bath and avoiding tubes, and swaps his sheets for clean ones. 

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Moving around a bit feels sort of good, actually, but also it's very tiring and by the time they're done Leareth wants a nap again. This seems very unreasonable; he wasn't even doing most of the work! 

:You probably do not need to stay right here all the time: he reassures Belrun. :I am feeling much better, and also I am sure that I am not very interesting right now!: 

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:Are you sure? I'm probably sending you some energy passively without even really thinking about it, so you shouldn't assume you won't feel more run-down with me gone:

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Leareth considers this. :- Perhaps I would appreciate you here for the next candlemark, then, since I just did several tiring things - and I think that I want to try drinking some of that liquid food on my own and see if I can manage: 

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:Good idea: She pets him and when he feels ready gets him liquid food.

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The new oxygen mask is a bit less obtrusive, and Leareth discovers that the little carton comes with a straw, which he can tuck in under the mask while still getting his oxygen. 

:- Huh: He takes another sip, swishes it around his mouth, makes a face. :I - am trying to decide if I like it or not. It is not especially foodlike: 

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:What is it like instead?:

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:It is - sort of like milk, but thicker? And slightly...powdery, or chalky... And it is sweet but in a very strange way? Here, you can just taste it if you want: 

Leareth tries to offer it to her, but his hand is still shaky and also gets tangled in his O2 sat probe, and he nearly drops the carton. 

 

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Belrun catches it and untangles him. Pokes her finger into the container and licks it. :Ew:

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:I am not sure I dislike it! I just need to, well, avoid comparing it to actual food: 

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:I'm glad you don't dislike it, since you're not going to be ready to chew for a bit!:

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Leareth sighs. :At least it does not take much effort to consume. I think my body is still very confused about digestion and I am not hungry, so eating is hardly motivating: 

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:Makes sense. Okay, so you seem to have gotten it swallowed without incident, would this be a good time for me to ask about going to get artifact supplies?:

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:Yes! I think I should be fine - Marian will take excellent care of me, I am sure - and I am hoping we will have this sorted out and can send word home as soon as possible: 

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Belrun nods and kisses his forehead. Tells Marian she might go attempt some shopping-of-sorts.

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:Oh, good, have fun - here, I went by the ATM and got some cash out for you: Marian offers her an envelope. :It's only two hundred dollars, that's my daily cash limit, sorry: 

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:I was sort of hoping Alice's sister would have what we need lying around already but this will come in handy if she doesn't - thank you so much:

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:You're welcome! Good luck!: Helping with the exciting project of getting her MAGIC patient and his wife/girlfriend/whatever back home to their MAGIC WORLD is slightly making up for the deeply depressing numbers on 114's monitor and the even sadder quiet prayers being said inside the room. 

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Alice is happy to call her sister, and even show Belrun downstairs and introduce them briefly. :I want Starbucks anyway, and my patient's doing great, I can grab another break. And then I can make sure she understands about the maybe-accidental-mindreading thing if you talk to her: 

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:Thank you, I appreciate that. Though I'm getting a lot of practice so I'm much better at it now!:

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:Oh, I'm glad!: 

Alice ushers her down the elevator and out the glass doors at the front of the hospital, to meet her sister! Alice's sister Loreen looks a few years younger; her hair is an odd unnatural-looking shade of almost purplish red, with beads braided into it, and she's wearing sandals and a long dress dyed in multicolored swirly patterns. She and her sister hug, and talk briefly, and then Alice confirms that Loreen understands and consents to possible mindreading in order to talk to her. 

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:Hi! Does hair just sometimes be that color on this planet -:

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Loreen pats her hair, a little self-consciously. :I get it done at the salon: 

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:I like it. Alice thought you might have the things the mages need to make an artifact for the return trip?: She describes them from her notes.

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:I was hoping so! Come right this way, I parked the car over here...: Loreen directs her. :Alice says you heal people too. Do you do crystal healing? I have a friend who's into that -: 

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:Mages use crystals sometimes but the healing doesn't require a focus like that. I thought there wasn't magic here?:

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:Huh! Well, lots of people are skeptics, but my friend says...:

Loreen, while leading her to the parking lot, launches into an explanation of crystal healing: how the way crystals form underground over millions of years means they can hold energies, and crystal healing is a 'holistic and natural' practice for tapping into how these 'energies' affect the body and mind. 

:My sister puts them around my body and here and here, like this, when my sciatica is acting up -: 

Loreen does...not really stop talking, or rather thinking at Belrun. Ever. 

The 'car' proves to be some other kind of large machine, all metal and painted bright purple - the cars all around it are a variety of shades, most of them less bright. It looks a bit like a carriage except with very wide, thick wheels in some kind of matte black material, doors that seal entirely. Instead of any way to harness horses, it has an excessively long front-end a bit like a snout, complete with two glassy lens that flash brightly when Loreen gets out a chunky key and inserts it to open the door. 

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Hmm, one of those things that tried to plow into her when she was walking across the city. Presumably it's politer to people inside it. :Somebody loaned me some cash but if you'd rather I work on your sciatica I can see what I can do about that by way of thanks for the materials:

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Loreen pats her arm affectionately. :Oh no, no, dear - I don't want money for this! ...Though I wouldn't complain at a little something for my poor sciatica: 

Something deep inside the car rumbles and vibrates, and then they're in motion! Loreen affectionately taps some sort of swinging mobile, a glittery rhinestone and tuft of dyed feathers hanging from a little chain, and then backs out of the parking lot. 

:You know, I've been getting into aromatherapy too, lately - do they use essential oils in your world - I loooooove the lavender, helps me sleep like a baby...: 

Again, Loreen does NOT stop chattering as they steer onto one of the big wide roads and speed up. 

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:People use lavender in potpourri but I don't know that I've heard of it being rendered into oil:

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Loreen barely waits for her. :I also really like marjoram, and lemon - my friend uses peppermint but I find it a little stronger than I want -: 

She chatters away relentlessly until, within about seven or eight minutes of driving, they reach a quiet street ending in a cul-de-sac. Loreen's house is big and rambling and looks a little run-down; the roof is missing some shingles and the siding and porch are both in need of repainting. 

The decor is incredibly busy; there's an overgrown flower-garden, FULL of cheap ornaments; this includes, for some inexplicable reason, a row of painted ceramic figures, little men with exuberant white beards and pointy colorful hats and exaggeratedly large noses. 

Loreen parks in the driveway, gets out of the car, and gives one of the ceramic figures a pat. :Do you like my garden gnomes?: 

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:I've never seen anything like them before! They're, uh, decorative?:

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:Yes! And they're supposed to bring you good luck!: 

The porch has wind chimes hanging from the railings, and potted plants at the top of the steps. Loreen unlocks her door and lets Belrun in. :If you don't mind taking your shoes off...?: 

 

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Belrun will sit on the steps and take off her shoes obligingly.

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:Come on back - my craft room is this way, you can just have a poke around - would you like tea or biscuits while you're here -?: 

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:I'd take a biscuit if you have spares!:

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:Of course!:

Loreen shows her to the craft room, which has a table and desk covered in various half-completed jewelry pieces, and points out the shelf full of storage cubby-boxes. :Just have a poke around - jewelry wire is here, this shelf has most of the stones and crystals...: 

A minute later she's back with a porcelain plate full of very decorative little cookies. The plate itself has a picture of a kitten on it. 

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:I like the plate: Om nom. Does this room contain what the mages need?

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It seems likely! She's going to have to spend a while looking through the options, though; the storage bins are not very well organized, they're kind of just piled full of stuff. 

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Leareth is, inconveniently, just alert enough to be bored but still too low on energy to do much about this. He eventually settles for asking Marian's help in figuring out the 'television' device in his room, and watches the 'news'; he can't read the captions or understand what's being said, which makes it all rather baffling especially when he's still somewhat groggy, but it's something to do and he's hoping it might help for eventually picking up more of the local language. 

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Dr Millinger eventually manages some late rounds on his stable patients, including Leareth! He's brisk about it; he comes into the room, examines Leareth quickly and suggests clamping his chest tube for a few hours 'to see what happens', gruffly informs Leareth that he'd like to see him up out of bed and sitting in the armchair by tomorrow, and then asks Marian to switch his antibiotics to a less aggressively broad-spectrum drug.

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Marian relays all of this to Leareth, and gets him another carton of the high-calorie meal replacement drink, this time chocolate flavoured, along with the bag of his new antibiotics. :Need anything else?: 

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:No, not right now: Leareth misses Belrun, but he can be patient. He lays back against his pillows, takes occasional sips from his nonfoodlike drink carton, and half-watches television footage of mysterious events; there's a moving image of a city block on fire and emergency responders of some kind spraying it with enormous jets of water. 

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Marian sits at the desk with her chin propped in her hands. The monitor for 114 is not reading happy numbers at all. 

Then, after a little while longer, it's not reading any numbers at all. 

She sighs and shuts it off, and closes her eyes for a moment, and then stands up and, head bowed, slips through the curtain into the room. 

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After a while Leareth shifts uneasily in bed. He's too warm, for some reason, and he feels a bit sick to his stomach. Maybe he drank too much of the not-food-liquid. His back is itchy, too, but scratching it would require moving, which sounds unpleasant. Maybe if he adjusts the bed so he's not so propped up, and just lies still with his eyes closed for a while, he'll feel better... 

The bed controls are very convenient, but the movement makes him dizzy, and suddenly he's feeling very sick - and Belrun isn't there to help him find the bag for vomiting in, he thinks it's somewhere nearby but he isn't sure where and he can't see Marian either - he can sense her just barely, through the wall, but he can't Mindspeak her at that distance, and the fact that his body is on the verge of throwing up makes it hard to call out for help. 

He feels lightheaded and now his tongue is itchy, of all things - he tries to kick off his blankets and roll over, he's so hot and his forehead and palm are slick with sweat against the cool plastic of the bedrail - he feels awful right now, the sound of the television is hurting his head and the lights are too bright and for some reason his chest is tight and it feels hard to breathe again. 

Belrun, he tries to reach out, but she's far out of his Mindspeech range, so all he can do is cling to the lifebond and wait. 

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- elsewhere, Belrun's head snaps up out of a box of mostly fabric scraps. :Can you call Alice at the hospital and tell her something's wrong with Leareth?:

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Loreen sticks her head into the room. :- Yes, of course - how do you know, is that healing magic too...?: 

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:Something else but please call now:

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Loreen, moving in much less of a hurry than Belrun might prefer, putters off to the kitchen to grab the phone. :- She's not answering her cell, I think she might've left it in the break room. I can call the main hospital number but I don't know the extension for where Alice works, I'd have to ask the operator–: 

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:Please try that and I'll try Mindspeech: She doesn't think she can reach Marian from this far and Leareth probably already knows something's wrong and can't hit the call button - :Nayoki! Something's wrong with Leareth!:

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Nayoki is, in fact, in her range. :Oh no! I am telling Marian now -: a pause, but Nayoki holds her end of the Mindspeech link, :- Marian is busy elsewhere but Alice will go check him: another pause, :- I was able to Mindspeak him, he says he feels awful but does not know what is wrong - he seems a bit confused again though: 

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(Marian is SO STRESSED and desperately wants to check on her patient herself, but she doesn't really feel it's appropriate to flee in the middle of confirming time of death for 114, given that Alice is available to see what's wrong with Leareth -

- though she can hear the monitor alarm from next door now and this is NOT HELPING HER STRESS.) 

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Loreen is on the phone, waiting to be transferred by the operator. 

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:I got ahold of somebody, you can stop now:

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:Oh!: Loreen fumbles with the phone. :Did you find out what's wrong - do you want me to drive you back now?:

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Leareth is having SUCH a bad time right now - he's pretty sure the other nurse is trying to ask him a question, but he can't concentrate well enough to read her, and he wants Belrun but she isn't here...

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:Yes, please:

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Loreen still isn't hurrying quite as much as Belrun would, but she does get her shoes and hustle out the door to turn the car on.

...

Elsewhere, Alice is standing over Leareth's bed, trying to figure out what's wrong. Marian's patient is twisted over on his side, flushed and damp, breathing faster than she likes; his heart rate is up too. He's patting around the bed, clearly trying to find something, but she has no idea what. 

"Leareth," she says firmly. "Leareth." At least saying his name seems to slightly get his attention. What do you need, she tries to think loudly at him. With no result; his eyes are glazed, he's clearly not tracking her very well. 

She doesn't like this at all

...Some of the source of Leareth's distress is clear a moment later, when he starts making retching motions. Alice swears under her breath; she does not want him to throw up into his oxygen mask, and it's not actually clear to her if he's alert enough to protect his airway. Also his breathing is already laboured, and she can hear him wheezing even without using her stethoscope. 

She swears again and grabs for the suction, getting it in place to collect any incipient vomit and holding the oxygen mask so it's a little out of the way but still at least nearish his face.

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Leareth, who is very hazy on what she's trying to do or why, struggles instinctively, but not very effectively. He feels faint and still way too hot for some reason, and the nausea keeps hitting in waves; there's not a lot to come up, but it feels like his stomach is trying to turn itself inside-out instead. 

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The newest blood pressure reading sets the monitor to alarming loudly. 

"I COULD USE SOME HELP," Alice shouts to the unit at large, since she's definitely not leaving Leareth's bedside right now. He's desatting as well, though that could just be because he keeps trying to throw up rather than breathing. But he looks really bad, his blood pressure is inexplicably dropping, his skin flushed and blotchy but his lips starting to turn purplish-blue...

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Marian extricates herself not-especially-gracefully from 114 and sprints over. "What's wrong?" 

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"I'm not sure but - did he get any new medications? Because this looks like anaphylaxis." 

     Elaine reaches the room. "What do you need–" 

"Page Dr Millinger, get him here now. And - bring me my cell phone from the break room - I need to call my sister..." 

     Elaine gives her a VERY DUBIOUS look. "Doesn't seem like the–" 

"She's got his wife, who needs to be back here five minutes ago. Get me my phone." To Marian: "You still got fluids or pressors in here? He's tanking his BP, we need to start handling that now -" 

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Marian has a bag of saline hooked in with the fentanyl drip, running at ten ccs an hour just to keep the central line from risking getting clotted. She flips the rate on the pump to 999 ccs/hour instead, the highest it'll go, and then fumbles to reconnect the norepinephrine drip. 

:Leareth?: she tries, then remembers to reach over and touch his arm, and tries again. :Leareth, it's okay. You're going to be okay. We're helping you and Belrun is coming: 

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Making sense of words is not really working. :???: Leareth manages. 

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"Nayoki can talk to Belrun, right?" Alice barks. "Let's get her over here. Elaine! Tell Krystal I need her patient!" 

     "- What, you can't–"

"I absolutely can." 

     Dr Millinger reaches the unit at a run. "Oh for fuck's sake, what now– Yikes. What happened, he was looking great before - Marian, get a bolus going, please."

     Alice interrupts. "Looks like anaphylactic shock to me. He just got new antibiotics." 

"You're fucking kidding me." Dr Millinger reaches for the box of gloves by the door. "Get him half a mg of epi, stat, fifty of Benadryl IV, and prep me the intubation tray - he's looking pretty crashy - where's the magic healing girlfriend–?" 

     "I sent her off with my sister," Alice explains tightly. 

"You did what – I didn't say you could do that–" 

     Alice does NOT snap at him that they didn't actually need his permission and Belrun does not in fact work here. "We're trying to reach her." 

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Marian is having SUCH A BAD DAY. It should be illegal to have two bad days in a row like this. At least approximately every nurse in the unit is swarming the room, now; someone hands her the syringe of epinephrine to push, someone else is already setting up a new IV pump and priming tubing for an extra litre of saline. 

:Leareth: she thinks at him, squeezing his clammy hand. :You with me?: 

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:?: He feels so lightheaded and sick and awful, and INCREDIBLY ITCHY not that he has the energy to do anything about this but it seems extremely unfair on top of everything else, and he wants his Belrun but she's FAR AWAY - maybe getting closer, he hopes... 

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:Your body is having a bad reaction to something, probably the new antibiotic we gave you. I'm going to give you a drug to treat that but it'll make you feel pretty weird so I should warn you. I want you to try to stay awake - you're going to be okay - just keep squeezing my hand so I know you're conscious -: 

Unfortunately this means she's now down a hand, but she can kind of wrangle a syringe one-handed. 

"Uh, can someone get me the 100% oxygen mask?" she calls out to the room at large. 

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"On it–" 

     "Get me another blood pressure - are those fluids going in?" 

"Bolus is going, norepi's at ten - epi's given, I bet he's about to spike his BP through the roof." 

     "He's been vomiting, I'm worried about his airway -" 

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"He's conscious," Marian points out. "I'm talking to him. Uh, telepathically - and he's not very lucid but he's acknowledging me." 

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:Belrun: Leareth sends, insistently. 

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:I know - she's coming...:

"Alice do we have an ETA for Belrun and your sister?" 

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Nayoki reaches the room, pushed in a wheelchair by Krystal with a portable monitor in her lap; Krystal immediately abandons her to join all the other nurses in the room. 

:What's wrong with him?: she asks. :Belrun is driving in the car back with Loreen now: 

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:Bad allergic reaction, probably to meds - can you ask Belrun if that's ever happened to him before - or if she's treated it in general - he's in shock and he's having more trouble breathing, if the drugs don't turn things around really fast we'll have to put the breathing tube back before his throat swells shut: 

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:Oh. Oh no: 

Nayoki goes very still for a moment, and then reaches for Belrun again with Mindspeech and relays this. 

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:I've never seen him have that reaction before. I've heard of it but haven't treated it myself in the past but can probably help some:

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:How far away are you? He - this looks bad...: 

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:I'm on my way, a few more minutes - if someone wants to meet me with a wheelchair and run me there instead of me trying to walk the whole way that might be faster:

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Nayoki relays this to Marian. 

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Who confers briefly with Alice. 

:I don't think any of us should leave but there are wheelchairs out front - Alice says Loreen can come up in the elevator, if Belrun can direct her: 

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Nayoki passes this along. 

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Leareth is very grateful for Marian's warning, because he feels INCREDIBLY WEIRD. He's a little more able to think than before, and it's somewhat easier to get air into his lungs, but his body is producing all the correlates of a panic-reaction to suddenly being under attack - his heart is thumping in his chest, he wants to hyperventilate, he's shaking uncontrollably and everything has the narrowed-down tunnel-focus feeling of an emergency - and at the same time his limbs feel much too heavy to move, and he's suddenly drowsy, which seems like it shouldn't be able to coexist with the panicked feeling but it does anyway.

At least his stomach is behaving better; he still feels sick, but it's easier to breathe when he's not retching up bile every thirty seconds, and it means Alice isn't constantly shoving the stupid suction thing in his face.

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Marian is patting his arm again. :Leareth. Are you still with me: 

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His vision is too blurry to make out her face, but he squeezes her hand. :Mmm. Belrun - where...?: 

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:She's coming. She'll be here soon. You're going to be okay. Listen - we might have to put the breathing tube back, if you're having too much trouble, but we are NOT going to let you die: 

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He really really doesn't want that. Leareth lies still, tries to ignore the inexplicable panic attack and uncontrollable tremors rippling through his whole body, and focuses on breathing. It's a lot of work for some reason, but he can do it. Until Belrun gets here, and then Belrun can do something... 

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Belrun flings herself out of the car and looks for a helpful wheelchair operator.

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There's a row of wheelchairs arranged just inside the glass automatic doors, and some people standing around in hospital uniforms who might or might not be available to help. 

Loreen doesn't follow her in; she swings around from the drop-off zone to go find parking. 

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...wait for Loreen or walk, wait for Loreen or walk. ...Belrun elects not to wait for Loreen. She sets out at as brisk a walk as she can.

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Fortunately it's not an incredibly busy day and she's able to get an elevator within seconds. 

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The elevator, at least, is not any slower just because she's on foot.

She remembers the way acceptably well and gets off at the right floor and strides in.

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Nayoki, of course, feels her coming. :I am so glad you are here! He seems not to be deteriorating further but it definitely looks bad: 

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Leareth still can't reach her with Mindspeech when she's not yet in the same room, but he can feel her approach through the lifebond, and stretches out toward her. It's getting very hard not to actually panic, especially with his body already flinging every single panic signal at him. 

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Calm down calm down calm down, she tries to shove it at him remotely till she can get to his bedside.

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He's not calm, exactly, when she reaches him, but he seems in control, despite the fact that he's shaking all over, drenched in sweat and breathing fast and shallow, his pulse racing visibly both to Healing-Sight and on the screen above his head. Marian has him rolled all the way onto his side, which means that the blotchy red hives all across his back are visible; she's holding an oxygen mask close to his face and currently trying to vacuum up vomit. 

Leareth releases Marian's hand and reaches for Belrun. :Sorry. Trying - to stay calm - feel terrible -: 

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Marian catches Belrun's eye with an expression of intense relief. :We're giving him fluids and drugs, his blood pressure's back up but it won't stay that way, the allergic reaction is going to keep coming back: 

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Belrun lays her hand on the rash on his back to get in easy range and flails around for ways to make the allergic reaction shut up and sit down. :What is he allergic to?:

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:I think probably the new antibiotic he got switched to, timing works out on that, but I guess it could be chocolate, I got him a different flavour of shake this time: Marian readjusts the O2 sat probe on Leareth's finger. :I'm really worried - he's barely keeping his sats at 90% and he's working hard to breathe, if it doesn't get better soon he's going to wear himself out: 

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The energy-flows visible to Healing-Sight in Leareth's body are in chaos; his body is flinging around all of its immune defensives, pretty much randomly at this point, and the drug they gave him is battling it out with the other runaway signals. His small blood vessels and capillaries are still more dilated than normal; his heart is working intensely to make up the difference. His airways are swelling, not quite enough to cut off his breathing but enough to make it difficult. 

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:I don't know if I can calm down the entire immune response, or at least I don't know how, but I can take down the swelling in the airway: And she focuses on that.

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It doesn't take a lot for Leareth to start noticing the difference; he squeezes her hand tightly, gratitude floating across the lifebond. 

He's still trying to ignore the background panic attack, but the exhaustion is now starting to dominate it; somehow despite his thumping heart and the stupid shakes that won't stop, all he wants is to sleep. 

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"- Leareth?" Marian is shaking his shoulder now, for some reason. :Leareth. Hey. Are you still with me?: 

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Leareth would like her to STOP BOTHERING HIM and let him SLEEP. 

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:Leareth, come on - I know you're tired, I need you to try to stay conscious, please: 

She reaches to hit the button for another blood pressure reading, then thinks to actually switch the settings for more frequent cycles. 

"- Dr Millinger, we have an issue -" The alarm is dinging again; Leareth's blood pressure is back down to 88/51. 

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"Get another 0.5mg of epi, please - is the bolus in, I think he needs another litre after that–" 

     "I'll grab that -"

"Hmm his sats are better at least." 

     "I don't like his colour, though." 

"Marian is he still responsive -" 

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"Not as much as I'd like!" Marian taps his shoulder again. :Leareth, I need you to confirm if you're still awake– Belrun! Is he responding to you?: 

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:Love, they want you awake:

:Why is it precisely you need him conscious?:

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:Mostly it's just - information on how he's doing - if he's exhausted and passing out then we need to get him back on the ventilator - honestly I think we probably should, while his vitals are still okay and we don't need to rush, but he hated it so much, I was hoping you'd be able to help us turn this around fast enough that he can manage without:  

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Why is she bothering him too. Leareth mumbles something in Mindspeech that isn't exactly a word. 

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:Love if you don't stay with me they're going back to the ventilator:

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:No - I want - not that -: 

He's so tired, but he makes a wrenching effort to drag himself awake. It's not very pleasant. His entire body itches and he feels sick to his stomach again, which seems ridiculous when he's barely eaten today, and his chest hurts and he can feel every heartbeat pounding in his aching head. 

:Going to -: he tries to warn Belrun, but doesn't have time to finish the sentence before his stomach heaves again. 

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:Leareth stop fighting me - open your mouth - no that did not mean 'bite it' -: Marian is getting so. incredibly. frustrated. And she doesn't even have gloves on. :Belrun would it be hard to make him stop throwing up, he's so out of it, I'm scared he's going to choke: 

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:He tried to warn me but not in time - I'll see what I can do -: She is a MICROBIOLOGIST. ...a microbiologist who is going to see if she can make his gut chill.

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This is straightforward enough but takes a minute or so of concentration to do. Leareth is still hanging onto consciousness, barely, but he's exhausted, and now he feels incredibly cold for some reason. 

And scared. 

It feels like dying. He's died before, of course, but that doesn't make it not scary - and usually it's faster than this, not to mention less undignified - 

- and he's never died before when this meant leaving his lifebonded behind. 

It's so much effort just to keep breathing. Not as bad as before Belrun arrived and started helping, maybe, but it feels like he's been running a marathon for so long. 

He wants to tell Belrun that he's trying, really hard, and he wants to stay with her and he doesn't want to die and he's not giving up but it's so hard and he's not sure if any amount of willpower is going to be enough for much longer. But that would mean Mindspeaking, which requires doing something other than breathing, and he's too tired and so instead he's just going to be vaguely terrified and upset in her general direction. 

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"I know, I know, hold on, I'm working on it," she murmurs, switching back to his lungs as soon as his stomach is behaving.

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"He's really not looking good," Alice is saying, worriedly.

     "Sats are dropping -"

"Marian, is he still responsive at all?" 

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"Not for me - a little for Belrun, I think -" 

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"We need to tube him now," Dr Millinger snaps. "Get me the tray. –I said now!"

     "I'll prep meds for you," Alice offers.

"I'm getting the second litre of fluids going in...how's our BP -?" 

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Leareth's blood pressure is hovering around 100/60, which...would be fine...except for the part where it's VERY CONCERNING that she just rammed 0.5mg of epinephrine into his central line and this is apparently as good as it gets.

:Leareth: Marian tries, but she's pretty sure he isn't picking it up. :Belrun. Dr Millinger thinks we need to put the breathing tube in again, urgently - can you tell him? ...I, uh, I don't think we can actually hold off if he says no, and I'm not sure he's with it enough to give meaningful consent, but I don't want to not warn him...: 

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:Love, you need the tube, I'm sorry -: She's just sort of dumping undirected Healing-energy in him now and hoping something gets figured out.

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He tries to answer, but Belrun feels so far away, he flails for her and can't reach her - he has to tell her, has to tell her...something...if he dies, but he can't remember what and it's too hard - 

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"Ready?" Dr Millinger barks at Marian. 

      "- Here, I've got the propofol," Alice says, pulling over the saline-bolus tubing to hook into. "Now?" 

"What do you think I want, next week?" 

     "Okay. Propofol going in now." 

"Get him repositioned - who has the suction -" 

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Marian helps flip Leareth onto his back, which is both easier and harder with him completely limp, deadweight in her arms. "Should I bag him -?" Where is the ambu bag, she had it right here yesterday but today is apparently not yesterday. 

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"Hold it - Alice move your ass, please -" 

(Dr Millinger gets snappy like this when he's stressed. It's never personal.) 

"I'm going in.... Someone lift his shoulders for me, I can't - asshole - he's too swollen, I can't see the vocal chords - what's his BP...?" 

     "I'll get one–" 

"Sats?" 

     "...Crappy reading again, I'm trying another finger." 

"All right, Marian, I'm backing off a minute so you can bag him - I need more LIGHT in here, one of you idiots get the ceiling spotlight for me -" 

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Marian finds the stupid ambu bag and, of course, instantly manages to drop it on the floor and has to scrabble to retrieve it; she clamps the mask over Leareth's face and squeezes.

It's...unclear whether this works. 

"I can't tell if I'm getting any air entry, can someone - Alice can you help me tilt his head back more, I think his tongue's in the way now that he's not conscious to help us out..." 

:Belrun can you tell if he's getting any oxygen right now, I'm uh not having the best of luck here: 

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With all his muscles relaxed in deep unconsciousness, Leareth's still-swollen throat and upper airways are in fact being pretty uncooperative with Marian's efforts. He's getting any air, but not anywhere near enough – and the additional sedation is slowing his heart rate, relaxing all his muscles including the involuntary ones in every minor blood vessel.

This would normally be a temporary, easily resolvable problem, but he already had very little left in reserve, and now his life-force is rapidly dimming. 

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:Tiny trickle, and the sedative's not helping:

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"Sats?" 

     "Still can't get a reading, I'm sorry -" 

"You had one job–" 

     (Alice does not yell back at Dr Millinger). "I'm having trouble getting a blood pressure -"

"Well, fix it!" 

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"Dr Millinger." 

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"What did I say about the ceiling light?" 

     "I'm working on it-" 

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"Dr Millinger!" 

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"For fuck's sake. What." 

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"....I'm not finding a pulse." 

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Leareth is floppy and boneless on the bed as she wrestles with his shoulders just in case this will somehow free up some space in his constricted airway. His colour is already ashen-grey. 

His life-force is disorganized, the patterns and structure that should be coherent, part of a graceful dance, instead falling apart into shreds.

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:Belrun can you DO SOMETHING–: 

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:I'm trying!!!:

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There's not enough of a coherent target left for her to anchor a Healing-link on. 

There's nothing there, anymore, for her Thoughtsensing to read, just a still dark pool. 

For a little while she can still sort of feel him, distantly through the lifebond, and then she can't.

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- she lets out a little gut-punched noise and collapses on the floor sobbing.

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This is INCREDIBLY AWFUL but Marian cannot, right now, do anything about Belrun, who isn't the one who's her patient. 

She's already scrambling up onto the bed to start CPR. 

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"Can you back off for two fucking seconds," Dr Millinger barks, "- someone get me set up for an emergency bedside trach - we're not going to get anywhere if we don't have an airway which right now we don't. Lights. Now." 

     "Here -"

"Get another pillow under his shoulders!"

     "On it." 

"Anyone got a flashlight -" 

     "...Dr Millinger, here, I got one of the pediatric-size tubes." 

"For once one of you has a single brain cell. Excellent. Let's do this." 

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Marian holds still in the incredibly awkward position where she's trying to lift Leareth's shoulders half off the bed, and tries to block out the sound of Belrun sobbing, and tries not to hold her breath because she's going to need it...  

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A shout of triumph. "Got it!" Pause. "...Hope so. Eighty percent I did. Stethoscope please - ambu bag - do we have air entry -" 

     "...I'm hearing air entry," Alice confirms, quietly. "You're in." 

Dr Millinger lets out another gleeful exclamation. "All right! Marian, go nuts." 

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Marian can do CPR. This is fine. It doesn't require thinking. Or being able to see the monitor, which she can't, because she is mostly but not entirely succeeding at not crying. 

She has to stop for ten seconds and try not to tumble off the bed while Alice shoves the hard CPR board under the sheets, and then there are NO THOUGHTS.

Until suddenly someone is interrupting her because apparently that was two minutes, and she's so exhausted. 

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"Hold a minute - do we have a pulse?" 

     "I'm not feeling anything." 

"Rhythm is...I'm not sure what that is." 

     Dr Millinger squints at the monitor. "I'm calling that ventricular random crap. We've still got electrical activity - push epi now, please, 1mg - he'll come back if we can get him oxygen - bag harder, please - are we even connected to the O2, for fuck's sake people–" 

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Giving drugs technically requires both thoughts and the use of her hands, but it's not complicated, Elaine's hauled the crash cart right there and she can recognize the box by colour without needing to be capable of reading the letters on it and she can totally tear open thin cardboard, yep, she is definitely capable of doing things right now. 

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...There's a flicker of something in Leareth's fading, disorganized life-force. 

Then another, stronger flicker. 

Then it starts to steady out, and Belrun can feel him again - distantly, faintly, barely within the limits of perception. But she can feel him. 

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- wha.

- as soon as there's anything there for her to feel Belrun slaps her hand down on his leg and pushes energy at him as hard as she can, she's fine, it's fine if she passes out afterwards as long as she NEVER FEELS THAT AGAIN -

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Marian notices instantly, and pulls Elaine back. "Stop a moment - Belrun felt something–" 

She digs around for a pulse. And finds one, and makes a small delighted squeaking noise. And then tries to FOCUS. Tongue between her teeth, she whacks the button to refresh the blood pressure, and then starts hunting around in her pockets to see if she still has a pediatric O2 sat probe - the standard one on his finger still isn't getting a waveform, probably because his circulation is still too crap, the back of his hand is ice-cold and mottled bluish-grey. 

But there's a heartbeat on the monitor, slow and irregular but already picking up its pace, matching the thready pulse under her fingertip. 

"Alice can you max out my norepi if it isn't already - oooh! Blood pressure!" 

The actual number is 78/32 which is not amazing or anything but, Marian thinks triumphantly, she will TAKE IT. 

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Leareth is still pale and limp and deeply unconscious, and his life-energies are dim and only brightening very slowly, but he's alive and at this point Belrun can definitely feel him growing brighter and stronger to her Othersenses, as more oxygen hits his bloodstream. 

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LIVE, YOU GODS-DAMNED INVALID.

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People move around her and say things that slide past her ears, and then eventually there are fewer people and quieter voices. 

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Marian unhooks the third empty and deflated litre bag of saline. "Dr Millinger, figure he needs more fluids?" 

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"Hmm. I think not for now, don't want him to go into pulmonary edema on us next. Titrate up the epi drip if you need to. I won't go far. ....Marian?" 

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"Y...es...?" 

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"Do not, I repeat, do not let him wake up this time. If he pulls that tube out we are royally fucked." Th surgeon rolls his eyes. "Honestly we should maybe paralyze him just in case." 

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"...I, uh, wouldn't recommend that. If he wakes up paralyzed he'll just set the unit on fire instead. Uh, can we put him on Versed for sedation again - and can I go higher on the fentanyl, I think I re-fucked-up his ribs and he won't be happy about it." 

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"He'd better be happy about it. Does the magic girlfriend need something to eat?" 

     "I could devour some Chinese food?" Alice says hopefully. 

"Can we get the General Tso's chicken from that place down the street again -" 

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The other staff eventually disperse, now that the emergency is over, though Elaine and Alice both stay very close. 

Marian putters around the room, multitasking frazzledly, until eventually she calms down to catch herself doing this, and instead gets herself a cup of ice water and drinks it slowly while standing at the foot of the bed and watching the monitor. 

There is still a dead body in the room next door but she can make Elaine deal with that, probably, she is NOT LEAVING. 

...

Some indeterminate length of time later, Marian nudges Belrun's shoulder. "Here. You should lie down, you look wiped - I've made up the recliner for you again, you just stay right here with him - there's some water and some snacks on the table..." 

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Belrun can haul herself onto the recliner. She can drink a glass of water on general principle and allow a saltine to dissolve in her mouth. She passes out before she takes a second one.

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When she wakes up, multiple hours later, it's dark outside the window and the lights in the room are dimmed, and Leareth is sort of reaching at the lifebond. He's not exactly awake, but he's definitely less profoundly unconscious than before. 

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None of the glass-city-machines are screaming. She tries to nudge the lifebond in a reassuring fashion. She goes to the bathroom and comes back and starts putting crackers in her face.

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Two different nursing staff are in the pod; they're currently both in the room with Leg Lifts Lady, but Ben is back from the previous night, and nods to Belrun. 

Room 114 is empty and pristine, the curtains pulled wide. 

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Marian is off in a different corner of the ward, yawning and grumpily charting at a computer. She hears Belrun get up, though, and meets her back at the room with a cardboard container of freshly reheated Chinese takeout. 

:Hey. I...: This is really awkward. :I'm, uh, sorry. About earlier. Are you...going to be all right...?: 

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:I'll be okay. Lifebond came back when he did:

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:I'm glad. But we should've...: She shakes her head. :I don't know what we should've done. Probably intubated him as soon as we knew there was a problem, without waiting for you, but I think we were all expecting he would freak out: 

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:He might've, yeah. I probably just - shouldn't leave the hospital. When Nayoki's up and about she can go materials-hunting:

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:We weren't expecting that– but yeah. If this'd happened when he was fully healthy, he wouldn't have crashed that fast - it kind of surprised me, he's so tough, but I guess his body was already compensating for a lot: 

She fidgets. 

:I - we don't know if - how much damage there might be from this. He wasn't down for that long, but...would've been a couple minutes where he wasn't getting oxygen to his brain. I...don't know if that's the sort of thing you can see with your magic...?: 

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:I can look:

What is there to see?

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Right now his circulation is fine, heart pumping steadily, the ventilator pushing oxygen into his lungs for his blood to convey everywhere.

Inside his skull in particular, there aren't any signs of large-scale damage, not like the poor patient in room 114. The usual vibrant activity that ought to be visible to Healing-Sight in a healthy brain is sluggish, muted, but it's hard to tell how much this is just from the heavy sedation. There's maybe some sort of diffuse metabolic stress going on, the sort of inflammation that happens after tissue injury, but it's small-scale and widespread enough to be hard to pick out.

To Thoughtsensing it's clear that there's a mind. Leareth is totally unshielded, and feels more like a person in deep sleep rather than the blank unconsciousness of before; he's not thinking anything, or aware of their presence. 

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:He's not obviously brain damaged. Might just be sedated enough I can't tell but it doesn't look like there's a problem in his brain:

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:Well. That’s something. I...hope he’ll be okay. I think it’ll be a couple of days before we know for sure:

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:Is there a good replacement for whatever he was allergic to?:

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:We’re just going to go back to what he was on before - it’ll work, the only reason we switched is that it’s a more broad-spectrum antibiotic and we’re supposed to minimize using it to avoid causing more antibiotic resistance:

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Belrun would be so interested in that concept any other time. She writes down the phrase "antibiotic resistance" so she can be interested in it later and cuddles back up with Leareth.

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Marian bids her goodnight and goes home. The unit is quiet. The night nurse pops in every two hours to turn Leareth, and once around 1 am for a low-blood-pressure-related alarm, which summons a frazzled on-call resident to the room; they turn all the lights on, which seems kind of rude and unnecessary, and she orders another litre of saline. 

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Around 4 am, when the night nurse wakes Belrun yet again for her assessment, Leareth’s body is finally starting to chill out. His face and extremities are puffy from having so much fluid poured into his veins, but the more-dangerous swelling in his airways is receding, and his circulation is behaving itself. By 6 am, his hand is finally warm to her touch again. 

He doesn’t wake up, though he does occasionally sort of half reach out to her through the lifebond; it seems purely instinctive.

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She nudges him back across the bond when he reaches. Catches sleep as she can. At one point asks if they have anything good for her headache.

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The night nurse gets her Advil, and then pulls the curtains shut and tries very hard to leave her alone for the remaining night. 

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Marian, when she arrives bleary-eyed with Starbucks for her third consecutive day shift, doesn’t disturb them. Leareth is her only patient until/if she gets an admit in 114, but he’s not going to get bedsores if she stretches it a bit longer before repositioning him just this once, and Belrun needs SLEEP. And she, Marian, is really appreciating the chance to sit quietly and just watch the monitor, occasionally tiptoeing in through the curtain to tweak his pressors down. By 8 am she has his entirely off the epinephrine and is weaning down the dose on the next one.

The sun slowly seeps in brighter through the not-totally-effective window blinds. 

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Belrun is still pretty conked out for a couple hours past dawn.

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Whenever she does stir, Marian is ready with water and an array of nonperishable cafeteria snacks, and Elaine is ready to time her break and go pick up a hot breakfast.

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:Thanks: Belrun says, cracking open a carton of juice.

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Marian putters around the room for a few minutes while Belrun eats, assessing Leareth's responsiveness (or mostly lack thereof) and listening to his lungs, tidying up mess left over from the day before, hanging up newly-mixed IV bags ready to go behind the nearly-empty ones. 

:Dr Millinger wants to start reducing his sedation, see how much he wakes up. I said I had to talk to you first - we really really need him not to freak out and go after his breathing tube, so I don't want to try until you're up for staying awake and keeping a close eye on him: 

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:I think I'm up. Uh, maybe Nayoki should set-command him about it though? If it's as bad as you describe:

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:- Oh, can she do it selectively like that? We do want him to be able to move and interact in general, kind of defeats the point of trying to wake him up otherwise. And...I mean, we don't know how bad it'd be, but given how yesterday went...: Shrug. :I'm not in the mood to take any chances: 

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:She can be selective, especially if she's not in a hurry. I'll ask her:

:Nayoki, they want to let Leareth wake up but it's important he doesn't try to pull out his breathing tube. Is this a good case for a set-command?:

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:Oh! Yes, probably - tricky to get that specific before he is awake, but I can take my time, and making it overly broad might still be safer than nothing? It would cause him distress but once he is awake I could fix it: 

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:Oh, I didn't realize him being asleep would make it harder. What if they wake him up and we hold his hands down at first, how long will it take?:

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:Five minutes? Hopefully less: 

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:He is restrained: Marian points out. :It's just that last time I'm pretty sure he got out of the restraints with magic - he probably can't do that if we're watching him closely enough though...: Shrug. :Also it could take him half the day to actually wake up, they were running the Versed at 10 an hour all night, it sort of accumulates: 

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:Okay. Nayoki, do you need to come here or can you do it from there?:

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:For a set-command I need to be closer. Maybe my nurse would let me come stay in his room a while? They were talking this morning about whether I could be discharged later today - not that I know where I would go...: 

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:I might have found some of the things you'd need to make an artifact that goes the other way but I don't know about all of them, I was interrupted:

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:Oh, good work! I am glad: 

Nayoki pauses briefly to think. 

:- I am feeling fairly well, but still a bit tired. If you are reading him with Thoughtsensing then I think you would have a few minutes' warning if he is about to wake up, and I could come over then?: 

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:Sure:

Belrun explains this plan to Marian.

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:- Sounds good: 

Marian is still kind of nervous, but she double-checks Leareth's restraints, and then pauses the Versed drip. 

And hauls a chair plus COW over so she can park her butt right next to him and watch him like a hawk. 

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No change is apparent within the first 10 minutes. 

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...Marian is eventually too bored of ONLY watching him like a hawk, and starts checking Internet sites as well. 

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Belrun peers over her shoulder a little while she works on her breakfast.

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Marian is reading some website which is mostly text, inscrutable to Belrun, and occasionally tabbing back over to Leareth's chart. 

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About forty-five minutes after Marian paused the sedation, Leareth seems to maybe be a little less deeply asleep; he's still calm, but there are more tugs through the lifebond, and a few vague flickers of emotion - mostly confusion. 

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:He's starting to wake:

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:Starting to? Is it at the point where I should get Nayoki, or...?:

Marian is already hauling her chair over to park herself right next to Leareth's bed, opposite Belrun, where his arm is within easy grabbing distance. 

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:I'm not sure how quick he'll come around, but maybe:

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:I guess better to get her too soon not too late. ...And then if we're lucky he won't freak out at all, since you're right here... I'll be back in thirty seconds: 

Marian darts off to ask Nayoki's nurse to wheel her back over. 

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Nayoki arrives a couple of minutes later, and is parked in her wheelchair at the foot of Leareth's bed. 

She frowns at him. :He is still not very awake but I can see what I am doing a little more, if you want me to go ahead now: 

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Marian frowns. :- How fast can you do it if he starts to freak out? I - figure it'll be extra confusing to him, waking up with extra magic done to his head, and maybe we should at least try giving him a chance and see if he's calm with Belrun here...: Glance at Belrun. :Can you tell if he's awake enough to be thinking anything yet?: 

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:Yeah -: She widens her Thoughtsensing a tad.

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At a quick skim, Leareth isn't quite having fully-formed or verbal thoughts yet, but his surface mind has some movement. Mostly scattered sense-impressions, some of which she's also getting via the lifebond; he's cold, he's thirsty, his throat hurts. Other than that, he seems minimally aware of his surroundings, but he's starting to reach for her more insistently. 

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:Nothing very coherent yet, mostly just feelings. He's cold: She snugs herself in against him.

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:Aww, poor thing. I can fix that, at least: Marian gets him another blanket. 

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Leareth tries to reach for her - this time with his hand, not just mentally - and catches against the restraint, and struggles against it muzzily for a moment before relaxing again. 

About a minute later he stirs and tries the exact same thing with no more success.

 

Some level of drowsy interpretation is starting to join the pure sense-experiences. Leareth is hazily confused, though not alarmed, yet. For some reason he can't move, and various things hurt, but Belrun's there - 

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- something wrong -

- he was going to tell her, has to tell her, there was something, it was urgent - 

 

 

...He remembers dying. It's a very unmistakeable feeling, for him specifically, the experience of leaving his body, being yanked back to safety - except this time it wasn't safe because Belrun - 

Leareth has absolutely no idea what's happening, right now, but he reaches frantically for her - is she there, is she safe, is she scared, is she hurt - 

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She's fine, she's fine, everything's fine, he just needs to stay calm stay calm stay calm -

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If Belrun is fine and calm then Leareth can stay calm. While he figures out - what - something - his thoughts are still mired in glue -

He starts by trying to count to fifty in his head, and is somewhat surprised to feel that he can, though it takes a while. 

All right. Focus. What are the actually important thoughts to have...

He tugs on the threads of memory; the picture is incomplete and he keeps losing hold of it... 

Eventually, laboriously, he manages to both formulate words and get Mindspeech to work. :How long was I dead: 

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:Just a few seconds:

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:How...?:

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:Lots of machines. I couldn't get a link to you at all till they got you back. I don't think it did any permanent damage. Will it have done any weird things to your soul situation?: Is he maybe too out of it for this question, oh well, if he is she can ask later.

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:...No idea. That was - not among scenarios I considered: 

He snuggles up against her - or tries to, he doesn't exactly have much leeway to move. :Can check. Later: 

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:Okay. It would be really bad if you pulled out your breathing tube so the plan is for Nayoki to do a set command about it, okay?:

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:Oh: This doesn't exactly fill Leareth with delight. :I - will try not to - but. Makes sense to - be careful...: 

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:Yeah. Don't die, it was bad:

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:I am so sorry: 

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:I'm all right now: The thing they gave her for the headache is pretty great actually, next time she takes a dose she wants to see what exactly it's doing to her in case she can replicate it.

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For a while he just snuggles up against her. 

:- I will probably have to be here even longer now: he murmurs sleepily after a while. 

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:Yeah. But it's less bad than if I were trying to take care of you myself, at least, you would have either died and stayed that way or it would've taken even longer:

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:Yes. And I suppose we...do not exactly have another place to go...:

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:Yeah, if they discharge you we will be... homeless... so we should figure something out first, which I'm sure we can, but it might not be the sort of thing we can figure out in a hurry:

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:Is it complicated? This place does seem complicated–: 

Leareth loses his train of thought because he starts coughing, which makes him gag on the tube and hurts his ribs a lot

:- I think...I want to be more asleep: he manages, once he can form coherent thoughts again. :I am - very uncomfortable - and, we are safe here...: 

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Belrun nods. :Marian, he'd like to be more asleep now if that's workable - and if you're done, Nayoki:

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:Nearly done! I should have him test it: 

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:I don't want to let him actually try!: Marian thinks loudly at her. 

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:Also he's tied down now, Nayoki, if it looks all right to you that's probably fine:

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:I - think I will probably not forget this time? I am more used to the concept: 

Also he's VERY SCARED at the prospect of not being able to breathe again -

 

 

- and in general, now that he's actually thinking about it. It would be a lot easier to put off feelings about what just happened if he weren't, right now, trying convince himself that they're safe here. 

:I - can you - I want some privacy with you: he tells Belrun. 

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:- more than just Mindspeaking?:

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:Yes: He wants to be able to relax fully, and it's harder to do that with Marian hovering and watching him concernedly. 

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:Since she's done and none of the machines are screaming can we be alone a bit?:

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Marian blinks. :I, uh, sure? I can shut the curtains and just be right outside if you need anything: 

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:Thank you:

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She does this, and sits outside to chart on how well that went. 

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Leareth tries to reach for Belrun, and is stymied yet again by the fact that his hands are firmly tied. 

:...I want to hold you: 

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:Marian, can I let his hands go?:

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:- I guess. If you're going to be literally in arms' reach the entire time: 

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:I'm not going anywhere: She undoes the restraints and snuggles up.

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He curls against her and tries to hold her tightly, though this is limited by the fact that his breathing tube is in the way and he has to avoid pulling any of the other tubes or wires. 

:I was so scared. I - it feels stupid to say that I missed you - there was hardly any time and I cannot really have emotions when I am dead - but - I almost lost you - you almost lost me...: 

The frequency at which Leareth cries is 'almost never' but this seems like an appropriate time for it. 

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She brushes tears off his cheeks in case they'd disagree with tubes. :It was very bad, don't do it again:

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It's extremely frustrating that he is, right now, literally incapable of blowing his nose. Also the ventilator is being very rude and refusing to take the fact that he's crying into account for when he should have to breathe. 

:Will you stay. Stay right here?: 

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:I'm not going anywhere, love:

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:I love you. Glad you are here: 

Eventually the sedatives kick in again, and Leareth's arms stay around her, relaxing but not quite letting go, as he drifts off to sleep.