When he comes in to get more drugs, he discovers the doctor is crying. 

That's stupid. You can't cry. If you cry, people will think you're weak and then they'll beat you up and take your stuff. 

Maybe Xue Yang should beat her up and take her stuff.

But he doesn't want to beat her up and take her stuff. She gave him drugs and that delicious drink and she didn't ask for anything in return. She's weak and pathetic and he should want to beat her up or at least take advantage of her but he... doesn't?

He feels sad that she's crying?

That's stupid. Maybe the patheticness is contagious. 

Marian hears someone come in. She can't see who it is because she's too busy sobbing over a dead body. 

...A mostly-naked dead body, which is very aaaaaaah, Sophie wouldn't have wanted that at all! Marian hastily fumbles for the balled-up flannel hospital blanket - which is kind of gross, and so are Sophie's clothes, she doesn't have anything else to dress her in - but at least it covers her up for slightly more dignity. 

"I'm sorry," she says, thickly, "I - is it an emergency - s'not a good time, I'm - cleaning up in here..."

She actually hasn't even started the cleanup proper, and the room is a mess. Not as much of a mess as a normal ICU room after a patient death, she had way less stuff to work with and thus less packaging to toss on the floor, but it's still pretty obvious that some events took place in here. 

The doctor said some words and is... covering up the dead body?

Maybe she murdered the girl and is trying to hide the body. 

Xue Yang has no way to convey that he's not a snitch but maybe he can put his blanket over Sophie's face. 

This is not a very good body-hiding strategy, doctor.

That's helpful– oh no crap it's him!!! ...He probably didn't murder Sophie? Marian was not maximally tracking the criminal investigation side of things, she was kind of occupied this afternoon, but she's pretty sure she remembers the New York contingent discussing how their suspect had been interrogated and was apparently - well, not innocent, but at least hadn't murdered anyone at the school? 

...Why is he here, though, it's kind of suspicious, was he - maybe he didn't intend to kill her but he did hurt her? And he's now wanting to hide the evidence? Not that that makes a lot of sense, and also Marian really super cannot worry right now about whether Drugs And Crimes Kid is going to kill her because she's a witness. 

If he tries to sexually harass her today she's probably going to punch him in the face, so she really hopes he doesn't. 

"Do you need something?" she asks him, very slowly and loudly, in case he has a teensy bit of English. In case she doesn't she tries to add a questioning gesture and expression. 

Okay well they really have to hide the body better than this. She has a void wall right over there, that's probably a good place to put the body in.

He picks it up and starts carrying it to the wall.

What the heck, what is he doing? 

Marian steps in his way and makes a vigorous arms-crossing 'no' gesture. Points at the gurney again. "Please? I'm not - I'm not done." 

Is she going to want to do something creepy to the body first?

He heard that doctors like cutting up bodies. That's why you shouldn't go to doctors, they'll kill you and sell your organs to rich white people. There are lots of rich white people here, so it makes sense that she would want to do this.

He returns the body to the gurney and awaits cool gruesomeness.

Nope! She's cleaning it! Very gently, with care more appropriate to a living person than a dead one. She's still sniffling a bit and blinking away tears, but not sobbing outright anymore. 

Xue Yang knows nothing about how cutting up bodies works. Cleaning could be involved.

Marian isn't sure whether New York wants her to do, like, an autopsy? She should probably ask; she's pretty sure someone will come bother her at some point, though, so she's not going to bother going and searching. (Not to mention she super does not want to leave Sophie's body in here alone, and she definitely doesn't want to task Crimes Kid with watching it.) 

She covers Sophie up with the blanket, again, and then sighs and starts picking up trash from the floor. She...should probably actually salvage everything she can? Reusing IV tubing between patients isn't the most sanitary, but the void isn't reliable about giving her supplies. Maybe she can get someone to make her an autoclave...? 

No... dissection???

Maybe she's keeping it for later. 

He looks around the ground optimistically for a bunch of pills.

Marian eventually puts together why he's probably still hanging around. Maybe if she gives him drugs he'll go away? ...And then possibly get eaten by a mal, so she probably should get him to stay put if he's willing to? Maybe he'll at least leave her alone? 

She goes to her supply shelf and finds the little packet of maybe-ketamine (it could be the MDMA but the effects the other day seemed very MDMA-ish?) and offers it to him. 

"Thank you!" he says and puts the ketamine away in his pocket.

Marian has no idea what he just said, but she bobs her head and smiles at him. And then, cleanup mostly-sort-of done, she goes to sit with her back against the void wall. 

He sits near her in case she is going to give free things to other people, which she should not do. Free things are only for Xue Yang.

....Why is he still here? She's so confused. 

- maybe he's hoping she'll give him more stuff? She has most of a bottle of Pedialyte, from when she asked the void for more but it shortly became clear Sophie wasn't going to make it anyway. It's already opened, it won't stay good without refrigeration, which this school does not appear to have. Xue Yang can have it if he wants? 

Wow! If he stays here he gets all kinds of good free stuff!

He drinks up the Pedialyte.

If he's here, at least he's not doing crimes, so that's something? Marian isn't about to kick him out. If he's not going to leave, though, then he's stuck being witness to the rest of her crying session, because it's getting increasingly hard to put that off. 

Yep he's going to stay here with his blanket and Guard the Infirmary.

This kid is so weird and mystifying! 

It is, however, kind of nice just to have someone nearby? It's hard to be scared of Xue Yang when she's watched him get high and pet a blanket. (He still has the blanket and looks so pleased with it!) 

He is pretty sure some words for "candy" are the same in English and Shanghainese. 

"Snickers?" he says hopefully.

Marian has no idea what that presumably-Mandarin word means! She wipes her eyes on her sleeve, and then shakes her head and gives him an apologetic look. 

Hey.

The doctor is sad. 

Xue Yang should... do... something? About the nice doctor being sad?

No one should make the nice doctor sad, because she gave him candy!

But she doesn't speak any normal languages, just weird white people languages.

He attempts to mime stabbing. 

Huh? What does he want - oh fuck. No stabbing! Marian shakes her head vigorously. 

Maybe she didn't understand it properly. 

He looks around for something sharp with which to more clearly mime stabbing.

Marian does not want anyone to get stabbed and is going to try to block him from getting at her supply shelves! Not that she has anything sharper than, like, scissors and 21G intramuscular injection needles. 

Hm. He will try a different approach.

He puts his hand on his chest and says "Xue Yang."

....Is the Crimes Kid trying to make friends with her? Weird. Then again, not the weirdest event of her day. 

Marian shrugs and taps her own chest. "Marian." 

He mimes crying, and then mimes shrugging, then points elsewhere. 

Marian is really not sure what that's trying to convey! If he's trying to kick her out of her own infirmary for crying crimes, he can fuck off. She shakes her head, narrowing her eyes at him. 

He tries again. Points to himself: "Xue Yang." Points to Marian: "Malian." Mimes crying, points outside, and looks curious.

What???? Communicating across a language barrier is the WORST. At least it's a marginal improvement that, unlike the last time she had a patient with no English, he's not currently on a ventilator. 

Anyway, is he - asking her if she wants to go cry somewhere else that doesn't have a dead body? That's...maybe sort of sweet.

She will try to figure out if this is what he's asking by doing a complicated mime of pointing at both of them in turn and using her fingers to indicate 'walking to the door' and 'opening it' and 'opening a different door somewhere else' and then herself curling up. 

No!!!! That's not what he wants at all!!! This doctor is STUPID.

He mimes someone yelling, and then mimes himself crying. Mimes someone stabbing someone else, and then mimes himself crying. Mimes being hungry, and then mimes himself crying. Then he looks questioning. 

Ohhhhhhhhh. Now she feels really stupid. 

Marian points at Sophie's body, and mimes coughing and throwing up, then points at herself and mimes the simplest and most comprehensible nursing action she can think of, which is 'holding up an imaginary Sophie to help her drink'. And then points again at Sophie's body and tries her best Charades attempt to convey 'dying', by letting her upper body go dramatically limp and her mouth hang open. Then points at herself and - okay shit she doesn't have to pretend cry, now she's just actually crying again. 

Well, that's not a problem he can solve with stabbing at all.

Xue Yang tries to figure out how else he can help the doctor. They did give him vending machine tokens, which Lily explained to him could be exchanged for candy and should be saved for IMPORTANT things so that he has candy LATER.

But this is an important thing. He should get her candy.

He runs off.

...Well now she's just confused again. Did she scare him away? Does he...think she's horribly incompetent as a nurse and therefore untrustworthy? 

Whatever. At least she can huddle up against her void wall and cry in peace for a bit. 

He returns with a package of five-year-old fizzy straws, a six-month-expired honey almond oatmeal square, and a cracked bottle of shelf-stable skim milk with no visible date on it.

He presents them to her with the air of a cat presenting a still-twitching bird to its owner.

Awwwwwww. That's one of the sweetest things that's ever happened to her. Traumatized crimes kid is trying to cheer her up with questionable snacks! Her HEART. 

Without thinking about it, she starts moving to hug him - and then catches herself and stops, he flipped out last time she tried to touch him without permission. She can't exactly ask for permission, but she can make a sort of hug-offering motion with her arms and wait to see what he does? 

Oh! That's a hug. He knows about hugs. Lily gives hugs.

He hugs Marian.

Hug! 

Wow, she really badly needed that. It feels kind of weird to be getting comfort about her dead patient from traumatized crimes kid, but it's not like anyone else has been offering. 

Hugs are NICE. He likes hugs. Hugs are ALMOST AS GOOD AS CANDY, probably.

Hugs are nice! 

...Marian is now doing some reinterpretation of Xue Yang's earlier pantomime. Was he...offering to stab someone...to cheer her up? What is this kid's deal? 

Eh. Not currently her biggest problem. She will focus on getting HUGGED. For, like, a minute, if Xue Yang puts up with that. And then she can (very tentatively, in case he's decided not to share after all) reach for the snacks he got and open the fizzy straws. She takes one and offers him one. 

!!!!!

He chomps on his fizzy straw with obvious enjoyment.

Awwww. Watching him be so delighted about candy is also very sweet, and it is in fact helping her mood a lot. 

She opens the oatmeal square and breaks it in half to share between the two of them. The milk looks questionable, she's not sure about it. 

If she doesn't want the milk he'll drink it.

Sure, he can drink the milk if he wants - she thinks milk tastes bad when it spoils, so probably if it still tastes okay enough that he's willing to drink it, it won't give him horrible food poisoning which will end up being her fucking problem to deal with.

Does she want... more hugs?

If he's offering more hugs then yes, definitely! Pooooossibly this is at some point going to cross the line into 'unprofessional' - or in fact might already have - but Marian is really far past caring. 

There are other fun things you can do with touching!

He tries to kiss her.

Ack! Nope nope nope not that! Marian squirms away and gets her hands up to block him and shakes her head vigorously. (On top of all the other problematic aspects, has he not NOTICED that she's, like, a decade older than him?) 

Why doesn't anyone here like sex????

Probably she should not seek out any more hugs because it'll just encourage him to sexually harass her? Ugh. She was appreciating the hugs. 

She also doesn't want to hurt his feelings by making him feel like he did something wrong, though - well, he did do something wrong, but it's not really his fault? 

Maybe she can convince the void to give her something nice for him. Come to think of it, she can totally make a case for therapeutic food. Xue Yang isn't quite as worryingly skinny as the other kid with the horrible clothes whose name she can't even slightly remember, but he looks pretty underfed, and the amount of delight he takes in expired candy and milk supports that theory too. 

She's sitting right up against the void wall, so she can pat it and say nice things about how good a job it did earlier without even standing up. And then ask if she could please, pretty please, get some kind of medically approved nutrition supplement to help this kid get into better condition, it would be so helpful and good. 

Oh, does it have something for her! 

What appears to be an...entire, rather battered and mistreated-looking, shipping pallet??? ...of boxes of something ??? - slides awkwardly out of the void wall and thuds on the floor. 

"What the– Oh. Oh." Marian finishes reading the print on the side and starts making excited noises. "Thank you! You're the best void! ...I hope you didn't steal this from some famine relief charity? You're still the best void in the world though!" 

It proves somewhat difficult to get the top box open, and she has to go get her hidden medical scissors and then pet them and say nice things to them for thirty seconds so they don't turn evil and murder her. And then she can open the first crate of almost 100 packets of concentrated 500-calories-each approved malnutrition treatment food paste. Hopefully it's not horrible tasting? It looks like it's mostly made of peanut butter, which is promising. 

Would Xue Yang like a packet of nutrient-dense food paste? 

This isn't candy!!! What kind of trick is the doctor pulling!!! He glares at her suspiciously.

...Okay maybe she should, in fact, try the food paste herself to determine how horrible it is before trying to convince Xue Yang that it's just as good as candy. She tears it open and smushes off a bit and puts it in her mouth. 

- huh, for nutritional supplement food paste that's surprisingly delicious? Not quite candy-like but it's sweetened and nutty and has a satisfying texture. She tries to very expressively show with her face that she's enjoying it, and then holds out the rest of the opened package to Xue Yang again. 

All right. He will give the doctor the benefit of the doubt.

... ... ... 

Fine. This is good. He will have some.

Marian lugs the rest of the boxes over to the shelving and moves some items so she can line the boxes up on the bottom shelf. There are eight of them. That's, like, eight hundred meals. 

Marian is beaming. She's so happy. She's grinning and wiggling with it. She'll be able to trade this for SO MUCH STUFF - really she should try to spread the word ASAP, she wants to find some upperclassmen artificers and alchemists to work with on making her infirmary actually a hospital. 

(A real ICU could have saved Sophie... Nope she's not going to keep dwelling on that, she did everything she could as fast as she could.) 

((Maybe the void...feels bad...? That it couldn't get her IV fluids or oxygen or anything else for respiratory support when she asked for it?))

She's so happy. She feels RICH. She feels, however briefly, like everything is going to be all right. 

Oh! OH! He can help lug boxes!

Awww, Marian would super appreciate help lugging boxes! She shows him where to put them. ...And then she's going to drape her remaining clean sheet over them, just in case someone gets bright ideas about stealing them rather than paying in trade items. 

She really wishes it made sense to give the poor deprived children in the death school food for free. But she has to be pragmatic, here. 

Does the doctor have anything else she needs from him? (Is she going to dissect the body now?)

Actually she's going to try to shoo him out, because she really wants to find someone from New York and talk to them, and it seems agonizingly awkward to have Crimes Kid hanging around doing who knows what. 

That's fine. He can go back to his room and eat the weird paste thing and spraypaint the walls.

Sophie's body is still sitting there, being a reminder of all the things Marian doesn't feel ready to think about yet, but it's a lot easier to try to move on with her life now that she's had some hugs, however sketchy and concerning the source of said hugs is as a person.