Oh. 

Well, that's an awkward downside of her being only the second-in-command.

Ma'ar doesn't think that he wants her superior involved here, though. More complication, and also just more people in the room, and thanks to whatever they did to him, he's really not on top form, he's not sure he can manage more than one person. 

He could wait for Marian, and try to recruit her voluntary aid... The idea of escaping with Marian's help is somehow a lot less frightening. 

It's too late, though, the scholar is already suspicious and confused. 

He pushes through another compulsion, this time with more power. She is NOT going to leave this room she is NOT going to try to call for help she is going to help him get all of these tubes out and then they're going to leave. 

Even after thirty-six hours of almost no sleep, Emmy notices that. 

She has no idea what 'that' is at first, it mostly feels like a ghost metaphorically shoved its cold ghostly hand through her skull. 

...She tries to head for the door, and - can't. 

Tries to scream. She can't do that either. 

She is filled with the intention to extubate this patient, which - what - what's HAPPENING to her...? 

Even as her feet move her toward the ventilator, she tries to think. 

Stop panicking. That's the first thing. ...Judging by his heart rate, the patient is also panicking right now. His heart rate is 119. She can't quite see the settings from here but the usual default is 120 for a yellow alarm and 150 for a red alarm...

If he goes any higher, then maybe someone will see it from the nursing station. Though they probably won't care. It's not like a heart rate of 120 is in any way weird or unusual, in the ICU, and the other nurses don't know this patient's particulars. 

The IV pump that she paused is beeping plaintively. A burst of hope: maybe someone will hear that - 

Focus. Stop fucking panicking already. 

Can she...talk? While her hands hit the 'oxygen boost' button on the ventilator and then start reaching for the patient, she pokes at whatever wall is in the way. 

Apparently yes, if she does it at normal volume and not with the intent of 'calling for help.' 

"What are you doing? Why?" 

Ma'ar's head is throbbing. He feels dizzy. He's really hoping this isn't a mistake, but - too late now -? 

The female scholar, judging by her current state of panic, absolutely did not know he was Gifted and - has maybe never heard of compulsions before at all? 

:I intend to leave: he sends. :I do not wish to hurt you. Please do not get in my way: 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah what WHAT that was a voice in her head is she hearing things now is she having a psychotic episode - she's stayed awake this long before and didn't crack and she doesn't have a family history of schizophrenia but it's still the obvious assumption.

Okay. Focus. She should - stop doing things and call the attending - except she can't because her hands are instead busy reaching to suction the patient's lungs because she's going to extubate him...

...Are psychotic people usually this - self-aware - about it? She wouldn't have thought so. (She remembers Dr Prissan muttering that she needs to stop overthinking everything, well, maybe she's overthinking her own psychotic episode now, oops.) 

The alternative is that - this is real? And her extremely mysterious patient is...mind-controlling her and talking in her head? 

The voice in her head sounded so scared. 

"I...don't think it's a good idea for you to leave?" she manages to say, though her voice is shaking. "You almost died today." 

:Because of what you people did to me: 

....And then Ma'ar loses his entire train of thought because the HORRIBLE THING is happening to him again. 

Emmy notes, distantly, that he's got kind of a lot of lung secretions. Marian mentioned something, that he was crackly...? God, she can't even remember if Dr Prissan looked at the chest X-ray properly. She remembers checking the tubes, all fine, and then thinking it looked a bit patchy but she knows she's not a trained radiologist and the report wasn't up yet... 

Poor guy looks so miserable about being suctioned. Most young people do, she's noticed, when they're this awake. For some reason the elderly take it better. She wonders vaguely if anyone's ever studied that, do old people have weaker gag reflexes does that make them better at oral That is not a thought she is going to let herself have right now.

She looks down at him. Face scrunched and red as he coughs, tears in his eyes. It feels like she's really seeing the discomfort of it for the first time. Maybe that awful thinkpiece her mom linked on Facebook once is right, and doctors need more empathy... 

Whatever he's doing to her, it doesn't stop her from reaching into her pocket and retrieving a tissue - after one especially memorable rotation with a palliative care doc, she always keeps a minipack on her - and cleaning the tears from his eyes and the spit from his chin. 

She's really, really scared. But - if this is real and she's not insane - he's a person to, and he's scared. 

...Oh right she needs a syringe for this. There'll be one in the drawer. Her feet are already trying to move, but - 

"Hey, listen. I– do you want me to call Marian over?" He liked Marian, she thinks. Marian...actually treated him like a person, from the start. Just like what that stupid goddamned thinkpiece said about nurses versus doctors. "She wants to help you. If - what you really want - is to leave, then you can talk to you and she can probably help you with that." 

....He really wants Marian here. And she's - not quite one of them, whatever 'them' even is? He doesn't know what she is. 

Mindspeech is draining, so he just nods.  

"Okay. I'm going to text her. I need you to...let me do that?" And she starts walking toward the sink, reaching for the drawer beside it. 

...The drawer contains alcohol swabs and a rubber-banded bundle of teeny 1ml insulin syringes and a single rolled-up tourniquet and, for some inexplicable reason, a single packet of graham crackers. 

"I - need - to go and look in the other room," she says, and goes. It seems like whatever-he's-doing is letting her. 

- until she reaches the door, and she....can't. 

Ma'ar strains his Thoughtsensing to its full extent. ...Oh, that's the problem. Apparently this place has very complicated science and also dubious supply logistics? 

:Come closer again: he manages - casting at this distance is too hard.

Once the trembling scholar does, he adds a loophole. She can stop to contact Marian, and she can walk as far and only as far as the other room, to get whatever she needs for this, and she cannot speak to anyone else. 

Emmy walks over to the lady-with-pneumonia's room. She tries to pause in the hallway, in hopes someone might see her standing awkwardly, but apparently the mind-control doesn't like that. 

...Mysterious terrifying mind-control guy didn't actually specify what she could say to Marian. 

Hands shaking, she fumbles out her phone and opens text messages. Thank god she has Marian's number, from that one horrible nightmare shift. 

[COME TO ROOM 202 NOW ASAP.] 

[PATIENT HAS TELEPATHY AND MIND CONTROL] 

[WANTS TO LEAVE AMA]

[HELP]

Marian is too tired to scroll through Facebook, which is really saying something. She's also too tired, apparently, to make decisions about buying food, and for the obvious reasons she didn't pack a lunch. Her lunch has instead consisted of three-day-old pizza from the back of the staffroom fridge, and two jello cups stolen from the patient kitchen. 

She's still jittery, so she decided to set an alarm for the end of her 45 min break and then look up a meditation soundtrack and play it on her earbuds while she hides in the clean utility room and flops in the nice reclining chair. The stupid meditation track wants her to sit upright with good posture but CLEARLY it wasn't designed for nurses who's just had the kind of day she has. 

...Her phone buzzes. 

She ignores it. 

It buzzes again. Then a third time. Then a fourth. 

Emmy steals a 10cc syringe from 201's better-stocked or at least differently-badly-stocked drawer, and then...it seems like the mind control lets her walk slowly...can she, hmm, pause a pump so it'll start alarming later, or mess with alarm settings - 

- she spends too long being indecisive about what she can do that won't harm the patient, and the mind control forces her onward. 

Okay FINE she'll look. Maybe it's her mom. 

...It's not her mom.

The number is saved as 'Resident Whatsername', which from context must be Dr Beckett, and the texts are... 

Uh. 

What. 

More calmly than she would have expected, Marian unplugs her earpods and puts them in her pocket and gets up. Maybe meditating really does help. She pushes the door open. 

Amélie is talking to the dietician. 

....Okay she really doesn't want to embarrass Dr Beckett, in case she– okay, Marian isn't even sure what would explain this series of texts, but still. 

"Hey, Amélie? I, uh, have things to do in 202, but can you come over and help out in - ten minutes?" 

There. Insurance. 

She keeps walking. 

It seems like the mind control doesn't let her stop but it does let her stall. 

Emmy takes down her stethoscope and - moving slowly, both to buy time and to avoid startling the dude - listens to his lungs. Some crackles at the bases, mostly clear. 

Well, he's crackly, right, that means she should suction him again before she does anything else... 

Marian reaches the door, and - freezes, baffled. The ventilator screen is flashing and the monitor is flashing and she...can't hear either one of them? 

What. 

Emmy seems to be in the middle of suctioning the poor guy. The ventilator tracing is, unsurprisingly, going nuts about this. The monitor is yellow-alarming about both his heart rate and blood pressure being high. 

....Marian has no idea what's happening right now. But. It seems like there are two main hypotheses, right? Either Emmy is - having a mental breakdown? or something?? - or. Or. 

Or she's telling the truth and the patient is mind-controlling her to - what, to help him leave? 

Okay. Either way it seems like helping her poor patient be less miserable is a priority? And, in the mind-control scenario, he's pretty distracted right now...

Emmy locks eyes with Marian. Tries to jerk her chin in the direction of the IV pumps. The mind control doesn't stop her. 

Oh, huh, his midazolam is entirely off. 

The propofol pump is still right there, on standby. 

He didn't try to mind control her before. He...maybe did talk to her with telepathy, actually, now that she's considering the hypothesis explicitly. She just thought she was drunk and tired at the time. 

Anyway if she starts propofol he won't be able to, because he'll be unconscious... She does want to talk to him, though. Figure out what's going on.

Hurry, she reminds herself, Emmy is clearly doing a very slow thorough suctioning while making panicked eye contact with Marian but she can't draw it out forever. 

Marian slips over to the IV pumps. She can't reach the central line without awkward reaching, but there are two IVs on her side and whatever she'll misbehave on alcohol-swabbing and flushing just this once. She hooks it up. Unclamps the line.

Hits start on the pump, which is set to a mid-range rate based on her wild guess of the patient's weight. 

Emmy tries to look over at Marian. 

(She can do this.) 

Can she talk? 

(Apparently.) 

"...I, um." 

What the fuck is she supposed to say. 

....Probably she should be scared. 

Marian is...kind of bad at being scared when this would otherwise be sensible. Several responsible adults, including her mother, have told her that she should probably be scared about walking home alone late at night, and yet. 

He's her patient. He's sick and scared and doesn't speak English well and probably doesn't even remember how he got here, given that he was already hypothermic enough to look drunk when she found him at all. 

She's tried to help support him to walk to a hotel room (and failed epically). She's shoved a catheter up his penis. She's put heat packs on him to find veins. She's anxiously watched his temperature and blood pressure, and done a silent happy dance at the foot of the bed when the numbers were good.

It's just...kind of impossible to be intimidated, after all of that. Apparently. 

Well, apparently he has mindreading, so she'd better make sure her mind isn't upsetting.

Marian focuses on remembering her delight when he opened his eyes for her. When he squeezed her hand. When his numbers were better and happier. And she reaches for his hand under the blanket– okay no he's sweaty and flushed and his temp is 37.5, screw that - she pushes the blanket aside.

"- Hey. It's Marian. Your nurse today, remember? I, uh, I...heard you wanted to sign out of the hospital? Why?" 

Ma'ar is so confused.

...He's missing something, some essential piece of context. But he doesn't know what. 

Marian thinks of herself as something that...feels closer to a Healer, when she says whatever that word is. But the thought-concept behind the place-name she tells him is...different. In her mind are flickers of - holding hands. Looking into faces, her joy when patients nod, yes, they're comfortable. Memories of her arms around someone, helping them stand. Brushing soapy towels over sweaty skin. 

Numbers. Endless numbers, green and blue and red, and flashing alarms, and her delight or disappointment based on the results...

He's so confused and he's also feeling so drowsy and weak and tired again. 

:What are you doing to me: 

Well. She probably shouldn't lie. 

She takes a deep breath. 

"I, uh, I gave you a short-acting sedative. Because you looked really uncomfortable, and the doctor had already ordered it – I, um, wanted to get you off the longer-acting one. If you think you're ready to have the tube out, and we agree, we can stop it and it'll wear off in a few minutes. But I didn't want you to freak out and hurt yourself by accident." 

Following all of that is...pretty hard. Ma'ar manages to make out that:

- She is drugging him again. 

- If she stops drugging him he'll be awake again soon. 

- She's worried about him and is trying to help. 

:Please stop it now: he pushes out. 

Marian squeezes his hand. "Okay. If I pause it, will you stop mind-controlling the resident and talk to me about what's going on and why you want to leave so badly?"