The marks fade almost to invisibility, but the remaining stain lingers; toward the end of this process, the catheter tubing and urine in the collection bag gains its own similar inkiness.

There's a brief beeping from the oxygen sensor, as her sats dip, but they're back above 92 and she's breathing normally by the time Marian gets there.

About thirty seconds after Marian runs to her patient's room to see which alarm is upset this time, the phone rings. When Marian answers it, a bored voice announces wearily: "I have an EEG report for Forty-One, Orange." 

Whoops, she hadn't even noticed that the report was delayed and she should probably have called them sooner. "Uh, yes, this is Marian, I can take the report." 

The report is not all that informative! Marian takes it verbally and also looks up the written report in the computer and reads it through twice. 

The patient...doesn't look like someone in a coma at all? She looks asleep. Very deeply asleep, to be fair - enough to be somewhat unexpected and abnormal in itself - but there's some jargon about 'high voltage delta' coma, and the neurologist is very sure that the patient isn't suffering from that, there are still some alpha and beta waves present. 

Huh. Weird. Not clear what she's supposed to do about it then. 

Marian does another neuro check just on general principle, though - is the patient still totally unresponsive even to sound, light, and pain? 

Yup.

Her eyes are still rolled back, but this time Marian catches a glimpse of mustard yellow rimmed with blood red, where her iris should be.

What the FUCK okay whatever probably she imagined it. She could double check but actually right now she just wants another coffee before it's definitely too late in the day for caffeine. (It's midafternoon, already pushing it pretty hard, but today is feeling like the sort of day where it's reasonable to need bonus caffeine.) 

After she's given report but before she's quite made it off the unit, though, the phone rings. Elaine answers it. 

She listens with an increasingly puzzled expression. 

"....Marian?" 

"What." 

"It's the, uh, lab supervisor - apparently your patient's blood broke their equipment...?" 

Marian stares blankly at her for ten seconds. 

"...Well, I don't know what they want me to do about it. I'm getting my coffee now." 

She leaves. 

Elaine watches her patient from the computer desk, somewhat nervous that some OTHER horror movie thing is going to start happening at her. 

The offending patient is quiet and still, her vitals politely within the normal ranges.

Marian gets back without incident and parks herself back in her chair. There's not actually a lot to do right now, which is unfortunate; it leaves her imagination with far too much time to invent terrifying half-formed explanations for her patient's weird lab-destroying blood. Also she's probably going to be too mortified to ever call the lab directly again. 

Her patient doesn't seem inclined to help her with this problem.

It's past five pm by the time she's interrupted by Dr Millinger just before finishing her coffee. "Hey. Why are all her electrolytes back as Xs." 

"....I...uh...apparently...herbloodbroketheequipment -" 

Marian feels like this is very implausible and that Dr Millinger is unlikely to take her seriously about any of the horror movie aspects of this situation. 

"- Wow. Fuck." He snorts. "Vitals stable, though?" 

"Uh, recently yes. Oh, and the EEG report's back - it, uh, thought it didn't look like a coma at all, but I checked and she's still totally unresponsive." 

"Huh. Well." He frowns. "- I'll put in a psych consult, I guess, why not, maybe it's some sort of bizarre catatonia thing." 

Marian is PRETTY SURE that this doesn't explain the horror movie black veins and blood that kills lab machinery, but she just nods politely. 

"Right. Anyway. Do we have her on tube feeds yet?" 

"Uhhhhh. No." Also she is SUDDENLY REALIZING that, while she totally put in an order for an X-ray to verify the tube placement, she isn't sure that it...ever happened... 

Dr Millinger is already standing up. "Well, put her down for the standard starter orders, and a dietician consult tomorrow." 

Marian does this, and then very sheepishly calls the X-ray department and asks them to please come and do a portable bedside X-ray 'when they have a chance', she feels too embarrassed to ask them to come stat when it's on her for forgetting all day.