The ambulance shows up within just a couple of minutes; the car that struck her was empty and has stopped in its tracks to shelter her place on the asphalt and account for its failure to brake in time. It also called the ambulance, though so too, redundantly, did a passerby.

Does she appear to have a concussion based on diagnostics such as "shining a light into her eyes" and "asking about whether she is oriented to time place and person"?

Vivi's eyes are a little dilated with pain, on account of how something really hurts, though she can't quite figure out what hurts or why something would hurt right now. She was just trying to get to lectures! She isn't sure why she's on the ground. She wants to go to Foundations of Cryptography very badly and she is annoyed that she has, for some reason, stopped making any progress on this. And now there are people shining lights in her eyes! She vaguely attempts to bat the annoying light away. 

She is absolutely not oriented to time, place, or person. She blinks slowly at the confusing questions and says, "Want... study, try, angry, cryptography! Confusion! Want no! Go! Where?"

Okay, they think that's plausibly a concussion. (They arrived a bit too late to catch a report that she was like this before the car hit her.) She's going in the ambulance now. Can she tell them who her emergency contact is? Failing that, has she got useful identifying documents on her - ah, a driver's license, don't see too many of those these days.

Wait, why do they want her to go in an ambulance? Do they not understand that she's trying to go to her cryptography lecture? She doesn't want to miss the first one of term and then already be needing to do catch-up work before she's even got started, she'll make such a bad first impression. Vivi believes it is unladylike to kick people or punch them, but this will not stop her from vehemently wriggling against anyone attempting to physically move her into an ambulance. She doesn't do a very good job because her ribs keep sending her confusingly massive amounts of pain signal and then she feels weirdly like she can't breathe well. 

She's got a pocket full of annotated grocery receipts, a pocket full of empty Lays potato crisp packets folded into various origami shapes, and a different pocket full of index cards written in a mixture of four alphabets and several homemade cyphers, but they can eventually dig out a student card and driver's licence and a medical info card to identify her as Vivian Angus, a 20-year-old MIT study-abroad student from Ireland with severe allergies to sesame and latex. 

Good to know about the severe allergies! Wow she really needs to stop squirming like that. Is she at all responsive to instructions to cut that out from human voices if her ribs aren't doing the trick?

Instructions to cut that out get a frustrated: "Why?" 

Vivi doesn't understand why she can't string words together all of a sudden, but surely it can't be that difficult to communicate what she wants. "I want go," she produces with noticeable effort. "Want... to...." - there's a long pause while she figures out how to glue the parts of an infinitive together, there's too many parts to infinitives - "going."

"We know you want to go, but you are injured. You got hit by a car. You're badly hurt. You need the emergency room."

....and what does any of that have to do with the price of tea in China? 

"Why?" 

"A car hit you." This is clearly not working. "You're hurt. Rest. We're taking care of you."

A car hit her and therefore cryptography isn't interesting anymore? A car hit her and therefore lectures are cancelled? A car hit her so now people like her more than before and people will want to take care of her? A car hit her and caused time-travel and now it is bedtime? None of those sound right! Maybe a car hit her and that's why she's confused? She totally could have a concussion, and a concussion would be a reason not to go to lectures... but a concussion wouldn't explain why her ribs hurt. Could a car crash explain why her ribs hurt? But she wasn't driving, and besides, hurt ribs won't stop her going to lectures.... 

None of this sounds like good reasons for resting! "No," she insists, "cryptography." 

Perhaps it will help if she gestures! She points in the direction of what she is pretty sure is the way to lectures. 

"No cryptography today."

but she waited for months and months...

She is about to just leave and figure this out on her own when her ribs make a kind of ugly crunching sound that.... seems like it might be connected, somehow, to something she did. It's really unpleasant and being unable to express with words how unpleasant it is makes her want to burst out crying. But she can't quite figure out how to burst out crying so she settles for making a strangled sort of screeching noise and shouting: "Why?" 

"Vivian," maybe her name will help, it was on her ID, "Vivian, you've got broken ribs. Don't move. You'll hurt yourself worse if you move."

They also know her name? How do they know her name? Oh no is this a terribly embarrassing situation where she's totally blanking on someone who she should absolutely know?

Why is she suddenly so stupid?

...maybe there's something wrong with her? She's kind of disoriented. 

She is grudgingly willing to attempt not moving, though she still has no idea how that's going to help her make it to lectures on time, or what any of this has to do with cars. Are they going to put her in the ambulance and are they willing to let her direct the ambulance (through gestures and impatient pained grimacing) towards her lecture? 

Oh she's in the ambulance now and it's going wherever it wants which she can't tell if it's her lecture or not from the gurney.

Well, Vivi is sort of out of plans that don't involve lying on the gurney and making pain noises, and coming up with new plans is surprisingly effortful.

It's kind of fascinating how her ribs hurt, but this just doesn't seem like a very important fact about the world. Vivi is pretty sure that's normally the sort of thing that is really important. And it is mindblowingly awful, just - not in a way that seems very relevant to her life. It's like hearing about a rare deadly disease with horrifying symptoms, but then learning that it's genetic and she can't get it, so she just gets to hateread the Wikipedia articles and text pictures of weird skin lesions to her favourite pre-med friend and then go back to looking at cats. 

So if there is something wrong with her, she reasons, it's probably not her ribs. It's something to do with her being so confused. She can't figure out anything from her day today that seems relevant, but she can go through her standard checklists for when she's having a problem: has she taken her breaks today? Does she need a snack? Is she staying hydrated?

...maybe that one!

Now to communicate it through the stutter she's suddenly, frustratingly, developed out of nowhere as though her day wasn't going badly enough already.

"Apple juice?" she enunciates very clearly. She has a half jug of that left in her fridge, she's pretty sure. 

"You can ask at the hospital, if they don't need to operate they can get you apple juice."

"Hospital????"

Will they let her off the gurney please? 

Absolutely not. "You need a hospital. You're hurt."

But why does that mean she can't get off the gurney? The hospital will either have apple juice or not have apple juice, regardless of whether she gets off the gurney?

She contemplates briefly how to express this and tries, "Juice yes... Bed no."

"You need to lie down, because you are hurt."

"Hurt, yes. Lie down, why?" 

"...because you're hurt."

So all hurt people need to lie down now? What about people who are throwing up and need to not get it on themselves? What about people who are on fire and need to put it out? If she's stubbed her toe, does she need to lie down? That's ridiculous nonsense and she is tired of this situation. 

How thoroughly restrained is she and can she go leave through that nice visible door right there and go get her apple juice? 

They are noooooot going to let her do that and will get her more thoroughly attached to the table when she tries.

Vivi does not understand why she's being held down by strangers and doesn't understand why she's so disoriented and doesn't understand why everything hurts so badly and doesn't understand why she's suddenly so stupid - she never feels this way, like she doesn't have a plan C or a plan B or even a plan A - she doesn't have a clue what's going on and she hates not being in control - and there are strangers holding her down to a table in a moving vehicle and her ribs hurt and it's awful and she doesn't understand what she's done to offend anyone - she wants to bite something but she can't really move - 

Vivi bursts into ugly, full-body sobs that send pain spiking through her ribs, which only makes her sob a little harder. 

It does not occur to her to ask for pain relief. 

They will get her something for that once they're at the hospital which will be, after a brief ambulance -> ER cutscene, right abouuuut now. Does she care to express opinions on the available options?

Why are they offering her pain relief?

She has to figure it out for a few seconds but... oh, right, because she's in pain. Huh. That makes a weird amount of sense, how did it not occur to her?

Once it's been exhaustively explained to her, it isn't so confusing: she got hit by a car, so she's hurt, so she needs pain relief. It makes so much sense once someone says it, so why couldn't she put it together herself? Is she stupid? She still doesn't understand how she got hit by a car. The dots just won't... connect. 

No sense in being grumpy at the nurses, it's not their fault that her brain is moving like a slug through molasses and she's getting mad at herself about it. Even if she's getting really quite mad at herself about it, because she's better than this -

"Uh. Painkiller?" It's easier if she doesn't try to fight the stutter. "Pain, ribs, knee, head, pain."

Okay, if she isn't going to launch into a story about how she has a family history of opiate addiction or anything else that would let them elicit decision criteria from her they'll pick something and get her set up with that.

Even if Vi did have a family history of opiate addiction, she wouldn't be in any state to understand how that could be relevant information to deciding what painkillers she should get.

....and now the pain is going away! This is an extremely welcome and unexpected development! She has no idea what caused that to happen, but she's glad you can get hit by a car and then get better, on account of how the world apparently contains people like her who are stupid enough to just not understand how to not get hit by cars....

"Apple juice?" she enquires plaintively of the first nurse who looks like she might be willing to explain to Vivi how she can find her way home so she can look in her fridge and get her drink. 

They can get her some yup here is a juice box.

Vivi stares uncomprehendingly at the juice box in her hand, which is not her apple juice from her fridge.

This.... has some relevance to her. The box is here for a reason and it hurts that she doesn't know what it is. She recognises it, she's seen juice boxes before, she just can't hold everything in her head at once and cross the conceptual gulf between her situation (tired, angry, ribs hurt, breathing hard, head hurts, scared, leg hurts, thirsty, upset about missing her lecture, confused, ashamed) and the juice box (made of cardboard, about ninety calories, Mott's brand, contains apple juice, bright yellow and forest green, weighs maybe a bit over a hundred grams, labelled entirely in English...) and it makes her furious at herself.

One thing at a time. Does the bright green colour solve her headache? No. Does the Mott's branding solve her being angry? No, she doesn't feel that strongly about apple juice brands. Does having cardboard solve her being tired? Nope, cardboard doesn't solve tired, she'd need... coffee, or an energy drink or something. Does the bright green colour help with missing cryptography? Wait, no, she already covered the bright green colour. Or - wait - did she? She checked if the green helped with tiredness but not if it helped with being angry. Does the bright green colour solve her being tired? Did she already figure out what would solve her being tired?

She wants to ask for help with solving the mystery of the stupid fucking juice box but she can't use her fucking words right now! 

"How - box -" No, try again. "What -" but she can't figure out how to construct the shape of her question.

"Why?" comes out as a sob of frustration. 

"...you asked for apple juice. This is apple juice. It's for you."

...yes but she wanted her apple juice from her fridge because she remembers how that apple juice is connected to the problem of her being thirsty. She bought it to drink when she was thirsty. She does not understand how this juice box is relevant to the problems she is currently experiencing! She does not want cardboard or ninety calories or a picture of a smiling apple!

Vi cannot think of a coherent way to express any of these opinions except angrily throwing the juice box on the floor, which she immediately regrets, because the nurses are being so nice and she is so stupid and she doesn't want to hurt anyone. "Sorry sorry sorry sorry!" 

The nurse patiently picks up the juice box and sets it aside.

Vivian does not understand why that makes her so irritated. She stares longingly at the juice box for half a minute, wondering why it's there and how it helps her. 

Okay, so she's.... concussed or drunk or having a mental breakdown or dehydrated or something... right now. Maybe she needs to simplify things all the way down. Why did she want her apple juice in the first place? She's trying to solve... something. Something to do with the confusion. Right, that was it, she's seeing if drinking will help. 

(It is so insanely frustrating to have to figure that out again. Vi hates this. Okay, deep breathing before she tries to talk to the nurse... wow, no, the pain in her ribs means that doesn't help at all. She cries a little.) 

"Dehydrated?" she offers when she's collected her wits enough to communicate without yelling. Nurses know how to solve dehydration. They will help her solve this problem. 

"Could be, do you want to try the juice?"

"Yes!!!" 

Juice box can be punctured on her behalf.

....oh, she can drink that?

...yes! Of course! She can drink that! How did she not realise - never mind beating herself up, she's thirsty. Vi delightedly gulps down the entire box of apple juice. It's delicious. 

Great! They're going to see how that sits before they give her any more. Meantime they're going to get underway on managing her various injuries and getting ahold of her emergency contact.

Vivi continues to not understand why her injuries need managing and why she can't go to Cryptography, but she eventually gives up on protesting. 

Vivian's mother is in Ireland, so it's later into the evening for her, but she picks up immediately if she's called. "Kathleen Angus speaking, how can I help you?" 

"This is Laurel McCrae at Boston Medical Center. Are you Vivian Angus's mother?"

"Oh - my baby - please don't tell me something's happened to her?! I told her not to go to Boston for school - I'll get on the next flight -" 

"She's stable but she was struck by a car and seems to have hit her head; having you on hand to call the shots and be a familiar face would be great if you can make it over here."

"Oh Christ Almighty - I'll be on the next flight - can I talk to her? Is she going to be alright? How on Earth did she get hit by a car -" 

"You'll probably be able to get the camera data from the car company, ma'am, but we're not sure exactly."

"Well is my baby alright? Can I speak to her? She promised me she'd stay safe in America-" 

"I can put her on the phone but you should be aware she's very confused right now."

"What do you mean confused - did she get a concussion - oh no she'll be so upset if it affects her grades - did you give her medications or -" 

"We think there was some head trauma, yes. She's on -" list of drugs. "But the confusion's all the concussion, we believe."

"Okay, oh no, my baby - oh no she probably can't tell you, she hates hospital gowns, gosh, she gets so down on herself if she thinks she looks dishevelled - and did she mention she's allergic to latex - and if you don't leave her lights on at night then she won't be able to read and she'll be so miserable - sorry that's probably too much, gosh, yes please can I please speak to her?"

"We found her medical info card and we're avoiding latex. There's not much to be done about the hospital gowns, unfortunately. She really shouldn't try to read with a concussion. I can hand her the phone in a moment. Vivian? Are you up for talking to your mom?"

...she loves her mum but why does her mum want to talk to her right now. She is so not up for fielding one million questions about whether she's eating well and whether she's met any cute boys lately (or cute girls, mum! or cute girls!) and whether she wants lamb or pork when she comes home for Christmas (your cooking is always great, mum, I don't mind whatever you make) and whether she's doing well in her "technology and all that" classes.

BIG sigh. 

"Yeah." 

"Sweetheart are you okay?" 

Vi has no idea how to answer that question! She is in the hospital but nobody has actually told her whether or not she's okay yet! Maybe she is dying of a new type of space cancer that will turn her toes into hamsters!

"Vivi? Sweetie??" 

She knows how to answer that question! "Yes mum!" - oh wow those words came out together on autopilot without her having to figure out how to glue them together, convenient. 

"They tell me you got hit by a car? You have a concussion? I'm getting on the next flight I can book to Boston, just - how did you get hit by a car? You weren't driving were you? You know how unsafe that is in cities - we talked-" 

Vi is pretty used to her mum's chatter and usually pretty comfortable cutting her off, but she hasn't the faintest clue how to string together enough words to give her an explanation she will be remotely satisfied with.

She'll settle for answering the questions she knows how to answer. She was not driving! "No!"

(She has no idea how that is remotely relevant to the current situation, but if it'll satisfy her mum...)

"...no you weren't concussed or no you weren't driving? Are you eating enough? Are they feeding you that awful hospital food - I'll see about bringing you something-" 

That is way too many questions! She does not know how she feels about her mum attempting to bring food all the way from Ireland!

Vi gives the nurse a plaintive, 'rescue me' sort of look. 

The nurse is monitoring Vivian's condition but in a way that involves more medical equipment than facial expressions.

"-and should we call the university to let them know, I know you'll probably have so much catch up work - how is that new subject you were so excited for -" 

Vivian suspects that even if she weren't concussed she wouldn't quite be able to put together a full truthful sentence that would reassure her mother.

Hopefully if she sort of makes "mhm" noises and doesn't sound too much like she's dead... 

" - Vi are you listening to me?" 

"...concussion?" 

Indeed concussion, good that she seems to have absorbed that. Though the confusion's the main symptom; she doesn't seem to have very many other signs of head trauma.

"Mhmm... mhm. Mhm!" 

Hmm. Conversations with her mum are always a bit easier if she runs errands and walks and talks, she can call her while she grocery shops and she gets a nice defined endpoint to the conversation - plus she can say easy things about how the price of eggs is too high and she'd like advice for what veggies to put in a stew. Vi will just scooch on out of this uncomfortable bed and attempt to go to the grocery store? Maybe they will have more apple juice there... 

Nooope nope nope she should not do that and if she cannot be made to understand that they will have to cuff her to the bed.

She is trying to go to the grocery store when strange people accost her and try to cuff her to a bed.

To a bed. 

Vi completely endorses her decision to start screaming at the top of her lungs and simply not stop screaming. 

"What's - what on Earth - what are you doing to my child -" 

The phone is on the floor now! It is an afterthought! They will talk to the person on the other end in a moment thanks! People with this many broken ribs on this many drugs should not go wandering the hospital and Vivian does not seem inclined to listen to verbal instructions on that matter!

She is booking a flight with one hand while holding the phone with the other and yelling at her husband to call the hospital administration, the owner of the health insurance company, Vivian's usual doctor, the school administration, somebody, she doesn't care if he has to call the President - 

He does not know any of those people's numbers but he is willing to help her book a flight. 

Vivian is pretty willing to kick people and punch people and if necessary bite people who don't let her run away as fast as she can manage on a pretty injured leg. This seems incredibly reasonable to her because strangers are trying to cuff her to a bed.

She's not particularly built for kicking people and, while she's slippery and determined, she can't seem to connect a single blow; she just can't quite figure out how to get her hip into a blow and tuck her elbow in and curl her first in and add all those elements together into a blow that connects with anyone she's aiming for.

So she ends up cuffed to a hospital bed, screaming at the top of her lungs, hoping that at least somebody will rescue her if she can be loud enough. 

The nurse picks up the phone off the floor. "Ma'am, are you still there?"

"Why is my daughter screaming?" asks Kathleen in a tone of voice normally reserved for people actively in the process of committing murders. 

"She tried to get out of bed," sighs the nurse.

"She has gotten out of bed many times in her life and that is not a noise she makes about it."

Nobody is coming to save her and Vivian vaguely remembers something from a self-defence YouTuber who said that people are more likely to respond if they think the emergency affects them, and this is a very simple one-word thing she can scream, so she starts screaming: "Fire! Fire! Fiiiiiiire!" 

"Nothing is on fire," says the nurse. "She tried to get out of bed with a fair few injuries, ma'am, it must have hurt."

"FIRE," because she knows nothing is on fire but possibly this will result in people coming to save her from the kidnapping that is obviously happening? 

"You're clearly hurting her and I need to speak to-" 

"Hey darling, how about you give me the phone?" 

"Our daughter is screaming that she's on fire-" 

"Ma'am, she's not on fire. She's very confused, I don't know why she's saying that."

Vivian's ribs hurt an excruciating amount. It doesn't occur to her that this might be related to her screaming at the top of her voice, it's just another terrible thing happening to her on this incredibly terrible day. 

"Then.... unconfuse her!" 

"Why don't you go and pack for your flight, and let me talk to her?" asks Vivian's dad, who is pretty unsurprised at being completely ignored. 

"Ma'am, we'd love to but we don't have anyone on staff who can undo concussions."

"I am pretty damn sure concussions don't make you think you're on fire, you absolute-" 

Gently prying the phone out of Kathleen's grasp now while giving her a nice, reassuring hug! 

"Hi, um, sorry. Can I just clarify what hospital this is? And can one of her friends come and visit her? I think it might put everyone's mind at rest." 

"This is Boston Medical Center," sighs the nurse, tentatively relieved, "and yes, visiting hours are till eight p.m.."

"What is one of her college friends going to do if the hospital's hurting Vivian-" 

Nice reassuring hugs! Little backrubs with one hand while he holds the phone with the other! Gentle nudging towards having Kathleen's head buried in his shoulder so she can cry on his shoulder and not swear at the nurse!

"And - sorry, we're in Ireland - the current time? Do they have to say anything special, does she need to give permission for visitors or something?" 

"It's two thirty two in the afternoon here. Only one or two visitors at a time are allowed but by default they're permitted if they have her name and know she's here."

"Okay thank you very much," and he hangs up before Kathleen can get them banned from the hospital. 

There is nobody coming to help her despite how this definitely seems to be a hospital, and hospitals are supposed to be full of the kind of people who help. There is just no explanation for any of this. It doesn't make any sense at all. 

If they try tentatively undoing a cuff later when she's had a chance to calm down does she get fighty again?

It's not that Vi has never heard about the virtue of knowing when to quit; it's just that she's got a level of that virtue where she's still trying to make it to Cryptography class. Also, she's actively in fear for her life.

So "later when she's had a chance to calm down" is going to mean when she's really not capable of doing any more screaming and fighting because her throat is tattered and achingly dry, her wrists are bruised, and she's low enough on oxygen that her face is tingling.

She has no idea if the person undoing the cuff is rescuing her or if she needs to punch them right away, because she's so fucking stupid, and she hates herself hates it hates herself hates everyone hates herself hates this.

Vi experimentally tries curling her fingers into a fist. Ow. (How did her hands get hurt? She doesn't think the car crash did that...)

"Whoa, hey, you've gotta stop attacking people, hon."

She didn't attack anyone! People kidnapped her and cuffed her to a bed and she was just trying to go to her lecture and then go to the grocery store! And she is so baffled about all of it! 

"...Not," she manages, though it's audibly painful for her to say anything at this point.

(She wants them to let her go but she can't figure out how to string the sentence together.) 

"You want some ice water?"

She wants water so badly, but ice sounds absolutely terrible. It will hurt her teeth, and her throat already hurts, and the last thing she needs right now is brain freeze.

If she says no, though, they're not going to give her water. And she's still cuffed to the bed by her other hand and she still doesn't know if this person is part of kidnapping her and everything is going to be terrible forever.

Stick to what's been established to work. "Apple juice?" 

Yeah she can have another apple juice.

Not if she can't figure out how to puncture a juice box with a straw one-handed, she can't.

The nurse will do that part for her.

Well that's very confusing but okay.

She puts the straw in her mouth and then crumples the carton in her fist, which turns out to be a great way to express her incandescent fury at the situation and also drink an entire carton of apple juice in under five seconds. 

Vi does not actually want to live on apple juice for the rest of her life but at least she has established something that she can want and get, unlike all the other reasonable things she wants and can't get, like going to Cryptography and going to the grocery store and not being held down and not being cuffed to anything and not being fucking stupid.

"....more?"

Sure, the doctor seems to think it's safe for her to have whatever she wants to eat and drink.

Then she will have fifteen cartons of apple juice in a row, all of which she mashes angrily in her fist, and - oh, right, she can communicate information with gestures and body language. Vi points at the other cuff and says, as firmly as she can manage while hoarse and on the verge of crying more, "No." 

"You can't get combative, hon. Do you think you can stay in bed and follow instructions?"

Vi wants to scream. Why can't I leave? Why won't you let me leave? What's wrong with you? What's wrong with me? Why the fuck are you calling me hon? People who keep me cuffed to a bed don't get to call me hon, that's fucking creepy-

Deep breaths. One time in therapy her therapist said something about how if she stays calm, that can be a fact about her relationship with herself, and it doesn't have to mean that anyone else is winning or correct or right or making her submit. She is not surrendering to this situation by staying calm, she's just also not surrendering to her feelings either. Vi's not sure that's true, but she's.... very tired and very hurt... and punching people wasn't working at all; she can get her wounded pride to lie down enough that she can try communicating.

She does her best to smile (it's a deeply wrong-looking forced smile) and points to the door. "Lectures. Study! Groceries. Life, freedom, friend."

She points to the bed. "No." Points to the cuff. "No." 

Does the nurse understand her assertion of her basic human rights to not be cuffed to a bed and never to be called hon by a stranger again?

"...you can't go to your lectures or anything like that with a concussion and this many broken ribs."

"Rights!" Vi insists, failing utterly at maintaining the smile. "Liberty! Freedom, release, autonomy..." 

This communication disability is actually the worst. She gestures angrily at the cuff. "No!"

"Do you want to read the emergency restraint order the doc signed, because there's a copy over there I can give you if you want."

What possible relevance could an emergency restraint order have to the situation where people kidnapped her and now she's not allowed to get groceries. She shakes her head furiously and points at the cuff. "Why? Jail? Crime?"

"Hospital! Injuries!"

If someone is injured and in a hospital you help them, you don't fight them and cuff them to a bed! That makes no sense at all! She hates everyone involved in this situation!

She tugs the cuff hard enough that it hurts her hand. "Pain." Tugs it again. "Pain." Tugs it again. "Pain." 

"Yeah, if it hurts when you do that you should stop. We can't go up any more on the painkillers without the doctor signing off."

OR

CRAZY IDEA

YOU COULD NOT CUFF ME TO A BED

RAGE HATRED PAIN ANGER DESPAIR CONTEMPT FURY

Vivian is going to attempt to get the cuff off by wrestling it with both hands and her feet and get teeth and she's open to breaking her thumb if that's what it takes. "Worse worse worse worse worse worse-" 

How's about the nurse calls backup and "both hands and her feet" cease to be viable options here.

She is also extremely willing to kick and bite the backup, but the fundamental problem is that she kind of sucks at kicking and biting. 

She hates being restrained. She hates not understanding what is going on and she hates herself. Everything hurts and the cuffs make it hurt worse and she's so humiliated. 

"Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate." 

Yup understood and yet. If she can't be cooperative when loose then sooner or later the juice is going to wind up in a bedpan.

"Um, hi, I'm here to visit Vivian Angus?" 

"Let me check... okay, you want those elevators, third floor, turn left and ask at the reception desk there."

Bruna has her most sensible shoes on and her most floral blouse, is equipped with her nice leather satchel full of notebooks and pens and ibuprofen and her reference copy of the Constitution, and hugs a clipboard to her chest as she walks. It is unclear what exactly she's going to write down on the clipboard, but Vi's dad made it sound like this might be a Clipboard Situation. And Vi's mom made it sound like it might be a Reference Pocket Constitution situation, though she also made it sound like it might be a fire truck situation and Bruna doesn't have one of those.

This is the closest she gets to war paint; there is a mechanical pencil tucked behind one ear.

She approaches the reception desk and leans on it just enough to hide her badly-chewed fingernails below the lip. "Hello! I'm looking for Vivian Angus? Her parents said she's here." 

"Vivian Angus... that's room four. You should know she's very confused and we haven't been able to get her to agree to stop attacking people so she's been restrained, I'm warning you so you won't be alarmed. It's not her fault, it's a common effect of head trauma, but you shouldn't uncuff her without staff on hand to help if she starts trying to hit people again."

Bruna assumes there is some sort of paperwork that lets the hospital cuff somebody, but she isn't about to let on that she doesn't know exactly what the form's called, so for now she'll just nod; she can ask to see it later and figure out how long it lasts for. In fact she will note down on her clipboard 'room four' and 'figure out how long the psychiatric hold lasts for' and 'ht people, apparently?'

"Is there any reason I wouldn't be allowed to give her her things? I've brought her a book, her study notes, some snacks she likes, her headphones, one of her fidget toys..."

"A concussion makes it a bad idea to think too hard. I know it sounds cartoonish but it's true, it's worse for recovery to do anything in the first couple of days that requires concentrating. If you want to leave the homework and book with us we can give it to her later, but it'd be really understandable not to want to count on the hospital system not to lose the stuff. Headphones and fidget toy should be okay, I don't think she turned up with specifically any damage to her ears or hands... snacks are fine too."

Bruna knows full well that you're not supposed to concentrate with a concussion, but she is pretty dubious of the idea of leaving Vi's homework with the hospital system. Her roommate hates being told what to do - it's one of the things they have in common, really - and will probably feel better if it's her choice to leave her book in a bag because she shouldn't read it right now, and feel infinitely worse if the book is forcibly kept from her.

This, however, is a fight she can pick after she orients to the situation and figures out which fights are worth picking; there's always ten to pick when rescuing a friend from hospital or jail or Thanksgiving dinner, and it's usually best to stick to two or three.

For now she puts on her best studious face and notes down everything the receptionist said in tiny, neat shorthand. "Mhm. Got it, thank you! Before I head to room four, do you happen to know the procedure for keeping hold of evidence she might need for an insurance claim? Like, any medical reports, details on bystanders we might be able to ask for an account of what happened, pictures of injuries, that sort of thing? Her mom wants to know, in case they need to sue the car company." 

"Her mom will be able to get set up on the patient portal and pull reports and imaging but we don't handle bystander type things on our end at all."

"Great!" Scribble scribble. "Can I get a leaflet or handout on getting set up with the patient portal? I'll send a photo to her mom." 

"Uhhh the website URL is on the wall over there under the wifi credentials but I think her mom won't be able to get onto Vivian's account without showing up in person and showing ID for patient privacy reasons, it's pretty irregular to have a guardian on an adult's profile at all."

"Makes perfect sense! I'll come back if I have any questions!"

And she'll go knock on the door of room four... jesus what is going on in there. 

"Hate pain hate no pain hate no prison pain jail hate rights pain hate no no pain liberty hate hate pain hate pain no -"

someone is knocking at the door? "HELP!!" 

Another nurse is coming past in the hallway with a blood pressure machine on a cart. "...most patients on this floor can't get up to let you in, ma'am."

Bruna had been assuming there was a nurse inside the room! Leaving someone restrained and unsupervised was presented as a cardinal sin that one time she went to a rope class! Even if they don't asphyxiate on a restraint they might pee themselves! 

...she should write this down on her clipboard! And say slightly incredulously, "...then how do I know if she's okay with me coming inside? Or if she wants privacy?" 

"She's one to one, I think Daphne has her now, but she's yelling a lot and Daphne might not have heard you knock. Do you want me to go in and ask if now's a good time?"

"Help! Help! Heeeeeeeeelp!" 

"...no, it's alright, I think that's a pretty clear invitation to come inside!" Bruna says, slightly too chipper. (Nothing is this particular nurse's fault, so she will get the best polite smile Bruna can manage while her friend is screaming desperately for help in the next room!) 

Then she turns very quickly and slips through the door with her clipboard hugged to her chest. "Hey Vivi, brought you some snacks!" 

The presumable Daphne glances wearily in Bruna's direction, then at Vivian to see if there are any discernible clues about whether this visitor is a) a beloved and welcome friend or b) an acrimonious ex or something who is good at acting.

Today was confusing enough before her college roommate showed up with snacks. This particular development is baffling enough that Vivi stops crying and just stares.

Why is Bruna in the hospital? Why would she be carrying snacks around? What possible relationship is there between the mysterious stupidity situation and her very smart roommate? Wait, have the kidnappers taken her to Brazil? No, that can't be it, that would've taken way longer. Or maybe the student newspaper is doing a piece and Bruna's working on it? No, that doesn't make sense, the student newspaper wouldn't be reporting on things happening at a hospital that isn't related to the university. Maybe Bruna got serious food poisoning and brought the snacks to hospital so the type of bacteria could be identified?

Vi tries to reach out an arm but goddamnit there's the cuff and, oh, now she's sniffling with tears of futile helpless rage again. 

"Oh no, don't hurt yourself - oh your wrists look so sore - I'll help you or I'll get them to uncuff you, the front desk said I'm allowed to bring you snacks."

Bruna throws a meaningful look over her shoulder at the nurse. The front desk did say she was allowed to bring snacks. She wrote it down on her clipboard and she underlined it.

"What do you want first? I have marshmallow bars and a 7-up and some of those cinnamon apple chips you like." 

What do her wrists being sore have to do with whether she should have snacks? The sore wrists situation isn't going to suddenly make her allergic to apple chips. She tries to reach for the snacks again, is foiled by the cuff again, and makes an entirely undignified sort of whimpering noise that she immediately hates herself for making. 

"It would be great if you could get her calm enough for it to be safe to uncuff her," says Daphne. "I can undo one hand to let her eat, that was working with the juice boxes for a while." She cautiously releases one hand.

...now she's being partially uncuffed, which is deeply suspicious; is Bruna working with these people somehow? Is there some horrible betrayal of her friendship involved in Vivi being cuffed to a bed and forbidden from the grocery store? But no, that doesn't make sense. As confusing as everything is, she's pretty sure they're entirely unrelated and it's just an incredibly weird coincidence that her roommate has showed up at the hospital at the same time as she has.

In any case she doesn't want to punch Bruna, who would probably not punch her back but who does know exactly which paperwork to file to get Vi in the maximum amount of trouble and who might also write about it in the school paper, both of which would be worse actually.

Also she's her friend. Maybe that is related to her lack of desire to punch Bruna. 

Well, that makes it nice and simple and clear: her mission is to get her friend calm enough to be allowed out of cuffs. Bruna likes it when she's got a mission.

"Want a marshmallow bar?" she guesses.

Marshmallow bar is an actual option? "Yes!" 

Bruna has done Sacred Passenger Duties on enough long roadtrips that she knows the drill here! She rips open the wrapper of the marshmallow bar and slides it a third of the way out of the packaging, so that there's enough plastic to hold and also enough bar to get teeth into without looking, then passes it right-side-up to Vivi and makes sure she has hold of it before she lets go.

"I don't understand why you like these things. I tried one, they're gooey," she comments as she dusts a maybe-imaginary crumb off her shirt. "Like, the complete opposite of a satisfying energy bar texture. But not gooey enough to be a candy bar instead." 

In amongst all the awfulness and confusion, Vi is convinced that this marshmallow bar is a miracle. 

By complete coincidence, as far as she can tell, Bruna is here. At the hospital. On the same day that she got hit by a car and came down with a mysterious stupidity disease and also got assaulted twice and missed Cryptography and wasn't allowed to go to the grocery store and - wow, the number of different awful things that have happened today is insane, the odds of them all happening on the same day must be minuscule - honestly she was beginning to wonder if the explanation was that she died and went to hell. And yet Bruna is here! And for some absurd, miraculous, wonderful, the-world-is-forgiven-its-horrors reason, Bruna just happens to have Vi's favourite snack with her.

The sugar tastes absolutely incredible right now. Vi has no idea what's making it taste better than normal, but it's ridiculously good. She doesn't even care that Bruna is talking bullshit. "Sugar," she offers as a counterargument. 

It is fair to prefer a marshmallow bar to a dry turkey sandwich from the hospital kitchen, that's really very normal.

"Well, if it's sugar you're looking for then the good news is the store was totally out of diet soda."

Is that good news? That doesn't sound like good news or bad news. Vi mostly doesn't care what the store has in stock or doesn't have in stock if she's not allowed to go to the store. She said sugar because she was explaining why marshmallow bars were good, and she doesn't think the taste of marshmallow bars is improved by a local store being out of diet soda?

She is so fucking stupid and she hates it but at least Bruna is someone she's used to being stupid in front of. Bruna has seen her struggling with homework. Bruna doesn't even get mad when Vi wants to play Duolingo at 5am with the volume on. "Clarify?" 

She pops the cap on the full-sugar 7up from her pocket and offers it to Vivian. "Sorry it's kinda warm. Got here as fast as I could."

There has got to be some sort of correspondence between the random things Bruna is saying and the random things that are happening. Vi just can't figure out what the hell it might be. 

She's trying, running through test possibilities in her head, checking different angles to see if one makes things add up. But they just don't. The store is out of diet soda and therefore this drink is warm? Bruna got here as fast as she could and therefore marshmallow bars are worse than energy bars? The store was out of diet soda and that's why Bruna had to go to hospital? Marshmallow bars have a bad texture and that's why the drink is warm? Bruna had to rush to hospital and this impacted global soda supply chains?

She's really stupid right now. She hates it so much, but it's the reality; something awful has happened to her, and stolen all her best qualities - her easy wit, her keen eye, her ability to puzzle things out, all the things she takes pride in - and she just has to pray things will get better as mysteriously as they went to shit. But Bruna is smart. If Vi can explain the situation enough that Bruna can solve it, she's set. The only problem is figuring out how the hell to explain to Bruna that Vi is having a sudden attack of Random Awful Nonsense when she can barely string two words together.

"Irrelevant," she tries, hesitatingly. "No?" 

"Hydration is not irrelevant. You gotta drink enough hydration, it's in the roommate pact."

Vivian furrows her brow for a long few seconds, trying to figure this one out, and: Oh! The 7up is being held out to her? Bruna is trying to put it in her hand? Maybe she's supposed to drink it? 

Always better to double check though. "Mine?"

"That's why I'm handing it to you, yeah, it's for you." Bruna will help Vivian wrap her fingers around the can if that's too hard for her right now. 

Well she wasn't just going to assume that! She can't just go around assuming everyone who opens a soda can in her vicinity is trying to give it to her! Most soda cans held by other people will not be relevant to her hydration options! 

"Clarify," she grumbles. 

Feeling put-upon won't stop her from draining the entire thing once it's in her hand though. 

This is promising so far! "Vivian, if I undo the rest of the cuffs can you stay in bed till I'm ready to help you to the bathroom?"

Bruna gives Vivian a little eyebrow curl that means: Please Vivian have the good sense to say whatever will successfully get them to take the cuffs off, and not whatever she really wants to say because she's mad? 

Well she theoretically is capable of remaining in bed. Whether she will actually do that... isn't the question she was asked and doesn't seem relevant. "Yes." 

If someone tries to help her go to the bathroom she will bite them. Some things are supposed to be private, and peeing is a fairly central example. How on Earth to express that in a single word, though? She does kind of need to pee after draining all of those apple juices...

People who have this many injuries absolutely need help to go to the bathroom or they are a fall risk. But Daphne is going to tentatively undo cuffs now. She is SO ready to yell for backup if Vivian takes a swing at her or tries to go ruin the floor's statistics on patients falling down again.

"Here!" Bruna extracts the bag of apple chips from her satchel and offers them to Vivian as a stay-in-bed-please gesture. "Sorry if they're a bit crushed but I got the kind you like." Bruna is personally mystified by why you would want sugar and cinnamon and vanilla nonsense ruining your perfectly good apples, but the important thing is to distract Vivian from everything being terrible and sugar is famously effective for that sort of thing. 

Why would she get out of bed when there are apple chips right here? Om nom nom apple chips. It's very mysterious why swallowing hurts. 

So far, success. Daphne charts the eventuality.

Bruna is so happy the apple chips are keeping Vivian in bed. She is so winning at channelling her mom. Polite society crumbles beneath the force of her winning smile and willingness to take extensive notes on a clipboard.

"So how'd you get hit by a car?" 

"Uh...."

Vivian wracks her brain for anything that could explain getting hit by a car. Her best guess is that some kind of terrible alien force is causing a long string of incredibly horrible coincidences to happen to her today, but she just can't make any particular explanation add up.

"Confused?" 

"You're confused by the question, or you got hit because you were confused, or you're confused how it happened - wait," Bruna glances over at the nurse, "am I making her think too hard?" 

"No," Vi says as emphatically as she can, because she needs all the help she can possibly get in becoming less confused. Why would there even be such a thing as thinking too hard? 

"It's really better if she'll rest but it is actually impossible to force people to do that without prescriptions she does not have right now," says Daphne. "A conversation that isn't about anything too hard is - okay."

Bruna briefly wonders if it's a journalistic ethics issue if she might write up 'a student got hit by a car, what even is this, the 70s' for the student newspaper. On the one hand Vi would be totally in favour. On the other hand the nurses would definitely not let Vi talk to a journalist in her current state. This sounds like a question she can pick such a fun fight with a professor about later.

"Confusing question?" she prompts Vivian. 

Was... which question a confusing question? The one Bruna just asked, which seems inherently self-referential and therefore yes pretty damn confusing? The question about whether she was making her think too hard? The previous one about what she was confused by?

This should be fucking obvious, there should be - some kind of social cue or contextual cue that tells her what Bruna means. She knows this. Bruna would specify if she thought it was at all difficult to know. It's just that Vi is incredibly stupid. 

All she can really do is shrug and eat her apple chips in abject misery. "Question?" 

"Yeah, was the question I asked confusing? Or were you just expressing - general confusion or -" 

"Everything! All! Most!" 

Ooooookay time to back off from this subject before she makes Vi upset enough that the nurse kicks her out or puts Vi back in cuffs.

"Okay okay that's fine - do you want more snacks?" 

Vi does in fact want to use the bathroom but she'll be damned before she admits this in front of the nurse who apparently thinks she needs help in the bathroom.

"No," she answers, and casts her mind about for anything else she might plausibly want and be able to ask for... "Cryptography?" 

"That's probably a bad idea," says Daphne. She is not a hundred percent sure what cryptography is but it doesn't sound like a cross stitch pattern.

"Bathroom?"

Vi preemptively puts out a hand towards Daphne in a 'stop' gesture. "Alone."

"You’re a fall risk. I can’t let you go by yourself."

Okay but that's a complete non-sequitur? What kind of fall is supposed to be prevented by not letting her pee on her own? She could use a rope to avoid falling off a cliff, she could use a parachute to survive falling out of a plane, she could use breakfalls from self-defence class if someone pushed her over, but having someone watch her pee is just not solving any problem that she can conceive of. She has fallen zero times because she was peeing. It's not an activity that makes you fall over.

What the fuck is going on?

"Help?" she begs Bruna. 

"Girl I love you but I'm not wiping your ass for you." 

"No!"

No, damn it, the thing she wanted Bruna to do was explain! How the fuck does she communicate this without the ability to say sentences?

If what Vi wants is for Bruna to break her out of the hospital, Bruna is very willing to try, because hospitals being allowed to cuff unconsenting people to beds when they'd be perfectly nonviolent if left alone is very wrong and frankly un-American and exactly the sort of thing that makes her want to become an investigative journalist. Unfortunately, unlike Vi who seems to want to become James Bond, Bruna has reasonable ideas of what can be achieved by using her words. They are getting her out of here by convincing the nurse that she's safe and will be well-cared-for by parents and friends and maybe pulling out Rules and Paperwork and Citations, not by tackling anyone or jumping out any windows.

She attempts to communicate this update to their long-running argument by giving Vi a meaningful glare.

...she supposes she can also scribble down 'nurse not letting her use the bathroom on her own' on her clipboard in case it turns out there's a rule or protection about that, but she sort of doubts it. 

That's an incredibly meaningless glare to a person who isn't currently capable of figuring out that the intense pain in her ribs might be somehow connected to having been hit by a car.

"Privacy?" she asks plaintively. "Rights?" 

"Lawsuits," mutters Daphne under her breath, then: "Vivian, you're injured and could fall and make it worse if you walk around without help,"

That doesn't seem relevant or true. Her feet are still attached, her legs aren't broken, her inner ear feels fine, none of her injuries are remotely relevant to walking or falling over. The only reason it's kept hurting when she tries to move is that people keep assaulting her and putting her in cuffs when she tries to fucking do anything. She shakes her head firmly. "Capable!" 

"You have a concussion, and you are on painkillers but your ribs will bother you more if you start moving around. That could make you lose your balance."

...well they might be able to cuff her to a bed but they can't actually force her to pee if she doesn't fucking want to, and she is completely out of willingness to cooperate with these fucking people.

"Won't."

"Will she be okay if she just sorta, holds it until we can get her home? I mean -" 

"- we are getting her home tonight, right, so she can sleep in her own bed?" 

WINNING SMILE. 

"I don't think I can possibly recommend discharging her yet but I'm not the doctor."

"Discharge yes leaving going discharge healthy freedom discharge capable discharge leave freedom discharge!"

Okay that was embarrassing, no more attempting to put sentences together when she is fully aware that she can't do that right now. 

"I think your parents are on their way and you can talk to them about that." She is not going to say the words "leaving against medical advice" out loud.

She is not going to say the words "you assholes kidnapped me and cuffed me and I no longer want your medical advice" out loud but mostly because of the situation where she can't make sentences. She is both impulsive enough and angry enough to say significantly worse things. 

"...I actually don't think her mom's going to be here until late morning tomorrow. She got the next flight she could, but she's still coming in from Ireland." 

"Yeah, I won't be on shift then but it's in the chart for whoever is."

Vivian has no clue what her parents have to do with her ability to go to the bathroom or to leave the hospital. Even if they weren't in another country, she has been walking and using the bathroom without their supervision for nearly two decades. This is all so incredibly stupid. 

But it seems like they are done with other silly topics, so: "Cryptography?" 

"...would it be such a bad idea to give her her study notes? I mean, if she's as confused as she seems then she won't get much out of them anyway." 

"Trying to concentrate on them is not restful for her brain."

Is being denied everything she wants and kidnapped and handcuffed and hurt and then told she can't even go to the bathroom on her own supposed to be RESTFUL TO HER BRAIN?

RESTFUL? TO HER BRAIN?

Is concentrating on her intense rage and hatred and desire to burn down the hospital supposed to be more RESTFUL or - 

The extent to which Vivian is going all tense and gritting her teeth and clenching her fists is, uh, actually kind of concerning - actually immediately concerning given reports of her hitting people -

"Hey Vi is there anything else I can grab for you? Like more snacks or-" 

"NO! CRYPTOGRAPHY!"

Will Vi accept.... a hug? Is this a hug situation? 

Vivian howls and struggles, in a pathetic dying-fish sort of way, but throwing punches doesn't work and trying to make sentences doesn't work and trying to do literally anything doesn't work and so she just sobs helplessly into Bruna's shoulder. She hates the nurse so so so much. She hates the hospital. She - feels like she's been reduced to a thing and she wants to be a competent human being who can advocate for herself and defend herself and fucking leave.

None of those feelings are things she can express in her current fucking useless state even if she could get the words out between the giant sobs that shake her whole body.

For some reason the sobs hurt in her chest. 

Quelle surprise. She's been pointed to the button for more painkillers but hasn't been using it. ...possibly she doesn't understand. Daphne will try to remember to bring it up when she's not in the middle of crying on her friend.

Why does sobbing hurt her chest? Why does her head hurt? Why is Bruna even putting up with her?

Wondering about all of these questions makes her sob harder.

She is willing to put up with this for one of her best friends, but Bruna is actually deeply uncomfortable with this amount of being cried on. It's sticky and weird and... honestly just kind of unnerving because she doesn't think of Vi as being the crying type. 

She also has no idea what to even do. This is not a situation she can solve with meticulous notetaking, diligent library research, or her pocket constitution. Breaking Vivian out of hospital seemed like a much more doable goal when she assumed it would involve navigating bureaucracy and not - oh Mary mother of Christ, Vivian is getting snot on her shirt. She just washed that shirt.

Bruna very gingerly pats Vivian on the back. "Okay. It's, uh, okay. You're okay." 

She's not okay and she responds by clinging to Bruna tighter.

...that was an interesting crunching noise from her chest area that seems unrelated to anything she just did.

Why's the pain worse now?

Well, it doesn't change her planned course of action, which is to cling to Bruna really hard and sob and hope that somehow everything magically gets fixed. 

"Miss, uh - miss, don't hug her like that, she's got cracked ribs."

"My name's Bruna," Bruna supplies helpfully, because she can't really think of another great response. She is hugging Vivian so gingerly. One hand is very gently patting Vivian's back and the other is sort of lightly on her shoulder and she's so incredibly ready to step out of this hug the moment she doesn't feel like her own ribs are at imminent risk of being cracked.

"Santiago. Bruna Santiago. We're roommates."

Wait are her ribs somehow involved in hugging?

...this is so tantalisingly solvable, like a math problem she can very almost get and she can just feel the breakthrough waiting for her if she applies herself. The sobs slow down slightly as her brain's gears churn.

Ribs are in the chest. And her chest touches Bruna's chest when she hugs Bruna. And her ribs do hurt. And there was that crunchy noise... these add up to something, but what was that first idea again? Right, her ribs are in her chest. The nurse told her not to hug, and that she had cracked ribs... was there a connection there? That she has cracked ribs because she shouldn't hug people or that she shouldn't hug because she had cracked ribs? But - no, discard whatever the nurse said, she doesn't expect good or useful input from hated enemies who do horrible violence to her. What was she trying to figure out again? Right - ribs, hugs, crunchy noise. Those could be connected but - wait, how did she hurt her ribs again? A car crash? A car crash doesn't seem similar to a hug...

But it's so close. She can feel it - if she just focuses and concentrates - 

But it just hurts. It hurts so so badly.

"Explain?"

"If you put any pressure on your cracked ribs they'll hurt more."

It surprises her, how bright and hot the flare of hatred and fury inside her is. She doesn't want an explanation from anyone who's responsible for hurting her or handcuffing her or - putting her in this fucking situation in any fucking way - and it doesn't make any fucking sense anyway, because hugs are obviously not a kind of pressure, hugs are comforting and not stressful, and hugs never explode the way a boiler does if it's overpressured, and she can remember everything in the pressure equation (pressure is force over area but it gets more complicated if you have dynamic pressure and liquids involved) and none of those things are relevant to ribs. Bernoulli's equations are for planes and sailing.

"No," she answers, and it's a little bit of a snarl. 

"Um, I actually think she's right about that one," Bruna tries, as she is beginning to run out of air due to the clinging. 

If this one’s still around next time Daphne is in she will trade assignments even if she has to take a patient with a dreadful iso protocol. Maybe the friend can talk her around.

"Bruna. Explain?" 

"....querida. Seriously. She's not lying to you, it sounds like your ribs are broken? So maybe it's a bad idea to hug me like you're trying to break mine?" 

Everything hurts and it's hard to think but it does seem like it'd be a bad idea to hug Bruna like she was trying to break her ribs. She will make sure not to do that. Vivian continues clinging to Bruna like she's her lifeboat in a storm.

"Captor. Jailor. Cuffs. Lying," she mutters. 

Daphne should simply not react to feeling defensive about her professional integrity here. It does not seem to help.

Well, Bruna has no idea whatsoever how she's supposed to react.

On the one hand: Daphne is not in fact lying about it being a very bad idea to put pressure on broken ribs, Vivian isn't helping her own case very much by sounding more like she's high or wildly rude every time she opens her mouth, Bruna is not in fact her guardian, and she does not like it at all when someone ignores her hints to stop touching her. Her shoulder is soaked with tears and there's snot on her shirt and she hates this. 

On the other hand: Bruna prides herself on being good at navigating bureaucracy and excellent at getting information out of people, Vivian is one of her best friends, she's clearly been through something horrible and traumatising, she needs help to get out of here so that she doesn't end up getting traumatised some more, Bruna is pretty certain her moral rights are being violated even if she'll have to check with a lawyer to probably just get told her legal ones aren't being, and Vi has never seemed this confused or incompetent before.  

On the gripping hand: "Vi, uh, please do let go of me, I can't breathe." 

Finally a simple and understandable and reasonable request! She can let go of Bruna even if she doesn't understand how the breathing is related to the letting go.

....wow everything sure does hurt enough to make her dizzy though, if she wants to throw up are they going to let her run to the bathroom without assaulting her again? 

No absolutely not but here is a barf bag, Daphne knows what someone who's about to puke looks like.

That bag is a mysterious offering from an untrustworthy source that has absolutely no relevance to the situation. She needs to go to the bathroom, she does not require a bag to store groceries because they won't let her go get groceries. She wants to get out of bed so she can run to the bathroom! 

She makes it as far as ineffectively tugging on the ankle cuffs before she can't hold it in anymore.

She does her level best to aim the vomit at the evil kidnapper, in much the same spirit as she might spit in the eye of someone in the process of murdering her. Not going down without a fight is a principle. She misses completely, but that doesn't make it any less of a mess on the sheets and the floor. 

Is she re-evaluating how badly she wants to take Vivian home? No, she really does believe that nobody is ever at their best in a carceral or coercive institution and nobody deserves to be trapped in one, she is not a hypocrite who will write essays about that and then not stand by it... okay, maybe she's re-evaluating whether she wants to but not whether she will.

She opens her mouth to begin explaining but - nope, not the time, Daphne is unlikely to be most open to persuasive arguments right in this particular moment. 

Headphones....? She is re-evaluating whether Rise Against will exactly help right now but there's surely got to be something else Vi listens to....

Ugh. Since Vivian did not take the bag Daphne was able to try to aim some of the vomit into it but now she's got a cleanup job. She gets on that.

Bruna steals one of the cleanup wipes (tissues? paper towels) to get all the snot off her shirt. 

"Restful?" Vivian seethes while tugging at the ankle cuffs. She's going to be furious about that comment for a while. Yank at the cuffs, wince at how it hurts her ankle, yank again harder. "Restful?" 

Yeah they should really be sedating her but Daphne is not the doctor and cannot make that call.

It's not particularly hard for Bruna to decipher Vi's general attitude: maybe if you stopped torturing me in the name of forcing me to rest, I'd be significantly better at resting is a fairly relatable kind of spiteful fury, as spiteful fury goes. The problem is that right now is not actually the time to try to suggest this to Daphne, because she's clearly pretty stressed and will probably feel defensive, and Vi being kind of mean isn't helping at all. 

This doesn't stop her feeling incredibly conflicted, because - oh god she can absolutely hear several friends telling her she's tone-policing the victim of this situation in order to placate the oppressor class - no, tumblr in her head, shut up, individual nurses are not the oppressor class even if medical systems involving handcuffs are bad.

She also can't actually explain to Vi that Bruna can work more effectively on getting her out of here if she isn't mean to the nurses, because Daphne is right there. 

Bruna shifts from foot to foot uncomfortably and writes "denied study notes, said nurse was lying, threw up, does not find cuffs restful" on her clipboard. 

Maybe her message is not being understood. Maybe everyone in the entire world turned stupid at the same time that she did. Vivian rattles the ankle cuffs as loudly as she can. "Freedom?" Yank. "Remove." Yank. "Rights." Yank. "No." Yank. "Liberty." Yank. "Off!" Yank. "Off!" 

"You attacked us," Daphne says against her better judgment, "and you are not well enough to agree on a plan that won't hurt you or anyone else."

"Kidnappers," Vi retorts angrily. "Abduction, jail."

What the fuck does she even say in this interaction. You know what, she's just going to be a fly on the wall and take copious notes for this one. Nurse says Vivian attacked her, Vivian says nurse kidnapped her? Injuries only visible on Vivian. Consider getting Vi's consent to photograph injuries? Curtains very nice shade of blue-

The vomit is almost all mopped up now. Daphne dumps paper towels and bleach wipes in a biohazard disposal. "Hospital," she says tiredly, in reply to "jail".

"Leaving? Freedom?" 

If she says "technically you can leave against medical advice" then Vivian is going to start chanting "advice advice advice!" and this will feature in a lawsuit later if they fail to take this as evidence that she wants to do that or if they discharge her on these grounds Vivian is not really following the conversation, it's just hard not to respond to being addressed. Does a meaningful look at Bruna accomplish anything?

What's she getting meaningful looks for, Vivian isn't wrong that if you can't leave then it's jail. 

Daphne's worst area in nursing school was not "The Political Philosophy of Medical Care" because that is not a nursing school class and instead she was busy struggling with mixing up "anterior" and "inferior". She gives up on the meaningful look. She charts.

Bruna also charts, just differently. 

Mostly her notes at this point are about the quality of the furniture. She's idly curious why it's not all IKEA. Maybe there's some company selling special hospital furniture that comes with a slightly-differently-shaped door handle that costs one zillion dollars. It would match with how everything else in the medical system works. 

If everyone is ignoring her then maybe it is time to sneakily attempt to escape the ankle cuffs. She vaguely remembers a YouTube tutorial involving escaping cuffs with a long piece of string. What material are these made of and is it susceptible to Vivian pulling off one of her shoelaces out and then immediately forgetting what relevance the YouTube tutorial might have to her situation? 

They are soft restraints with velcro involved. Vivian is not still wearing shoes at this point which may, mysteriously, prevent her from acquiring a shoelace.

Vivian doesn't remember anyone taking her shoes and doesn't understand the relevance of that to why she can't find a shoelace. Maybe one is in her pockets. Maybe it's in her socks. 

Daphne does not stop her from investigating her socks. Seems harmless. They're pretty sure her ribs aren't a lung puncture risk even though she makes really bewildering choices about how to move around.

"Viv are you looking for something?" 

"Shoelaces?"

She really hopes her shoes haven't been stolen forever. She liked those shoes. 

"...you need a shoelace? You can have one of mine but - why do you need a shoelace?" 

"Escape!"

...oh wait oh no, the nurse was also in the room and definitely heard that as well - is that relevant to the escape plan - 

Daphne is not impressed enough by this escape plan to be reacting very strongly to it.

Inside her head: Oh good, thank you very much Daphne for being reasonable about this, I have noticed and appreciate your non-reaction. 

"A shoelace isn't going to help with getting out of here? I need you to - be nice to the nurses and not hurt yourself - so we can convince everyone you'll be safe if you come home? Or I can bring snacks either way but..."

Vivian glares at Bruna like she just said something utterly stupid, like 'picking the lock won't help you get out of your cell, you have to be kind and lovely to people who kidnap you out of the blue for no reason, and just hope that they'll let you go for totally unrelated reasons like whether you'll be safe at home.'

Kidnappers don't care if you will be safe at home. If they cared about that they wouldn't kidnap you!

She can't string together an adequate sentence to explain to Bruna that she's horribly unsafe right here because people hurt her here, and perfectly safe back home because nobody's ever hurt her in her dorm room (unless she counts receiving emails from professors which answer a slightly different question to the one she asked).

"Nonsense?" she tries. "Crazy?" 

"That is mean, bestie."

Deep breaths! Put your 'interacting with toddlers' face on! Pretend she is your seventeenth-favourite baby cousin and it is Christmas!

"Is there something that is making you want to be mean right now?" she asks as pleasantly as she can. 

"Kidnapping! Stupid! JAIL!!!!!" 

ok. erm. wrong script. that was the wrong script

Unfortunately there is not actually a law that there has to be a right script for any given patient and even if there were Vivian wouldn't be competent to stand trial for breaking it. So.

Daphne will let Bruna hang out as long as she wants because it seems to divide Vivian's attention in a way that gives Daphne a break.