In that case, the question can be relayed to Merrin herself! Is now a good time for a very brief family visit to the room itself? If so, does she want special instructions conveyed to them? 

Oh. Um. ...Yes? Well. It's not going to be a better time at any later point, this is probably the least distracted and busy she'll be for a while, and it's very reasonable of them to want to visit - they're here at the hospital now? she didn't realize they were here? ...which is stupid in hindsight, obviously they came to the hospital.

Actually she is realizing that she knows so few facts about the family! She did not have time to read any of the extra dossiers. They should...not touch anything? If they're going to be upset about not touching the patient, they can maybe - pat him on the hand? Or something? Merrin has been doing that and while she has weird superstition paranoia that someone else will manage to do it wrong and hurt him, that is objectively speaking probably not very reasonable. 

Also, umm, what...are their names. Is there anything she would know if she'd had time to read up more on the patient, that will be super embarrassing for her not to know? 

Private text message, Fanthim to Personnel: presumably Merrin should not at this point be informed that the patient's grandmother also refused cryo and truicided? It informs some of the family dynamic here, but the family dynamic is not in fact Merrin's problem to handle, and seems like it would be distracting? 

(Merrin is obviously not herself cleared to know the rest of the factors that Fanthim is pretty sure are the explanation behind all of the anguished looks behind exchanged.) 

No!!!!!! Wow!!!!! Also what the flaming supernova!!!! Personnel is sort of wishing this hadn't been raised to her own attention because AAAAAAAAAHHH that is really upsetting!!!!

....Merrin will totally be mad at them if she finds out later, and finds out they deliberately didn't tell her to avoid distracting her (mostly because she will be mortified and replaying everything she did on the assumption that, not having that information, she probably managed to say something hurtful or offensive), but no, she should not be informed. 

...Fanthim is nonzero worried that Finnar is neither the world's most predictable person, nor very inclined to follow instructions he disagrees with. But presumably he will agree that touching Merrin's medical equipment is a bad plan. 

Verbal message to Merrin: parents are Finnar and Nerdel. There are also another six children between the ages of thirty-one and fifteen. She isn't sure they should let all the siblings in? That's so many people. Maybe just the parents? 

Information about the parents: they're obviously devastated and very worried. The mother in particular is emotional, though she can maybe collect herself a bit if Merrin is going to find it distracting to have a visibly upset person literally in the same room as her. 

Wow, it feels so rude to insist that her patient's MOTHER who must be SO SCARED AND UPSET isn't allowed to cry in the room because Merrin wouldn't be able to handle it! It's fine. Merrin will be fine. Though yeah she would maybe prefer if they didn't rotate eight people through. 

All right, then, Fanthim will walk Finnar and Nerdel over. Brief parental visit incoming in like five minutes (it's a ways to walk, they put the family housemodule as close as possible but there aren't that many places close to the ICU that can fit that many rooms.) 

Merrin fiddles with bypass machine settings and has SOCIAL ANXIETY. 

The family reaches the room. 

It's quiet. (Alarms are going straight to the medtechs' earbuds, personalized to which ones are relevant to their task, not hanging out noisepolluting the whole room. Team chatter is subvocalized.) 

Nerdel has slightly pulled herself together; her eyes are red, and noticeably watery, but she isn't even quietcrying. 

She hesitates at the doorway. 

Finnar doesn't. He takes a few steps in - not getting in anyone's way - and looks at Kalorm. 

Finnar may be a self-taught amateur in critical care medicine as of this morning, but he lacks any of Merrin's experience and context in interpreting what he's seeing. 

Kalorm is lying very still, his face grey and his expression completely slack in deep unconsciousness, the rise and fall of his chest with the ventilator not even visible from a vantage point across the room. He's mostly naked, covered in bruises, his broken arm hastily splinted and since then ignored. The sensors are nearly all wireless, but a number of tubes snake out from holes where there should not be holes, blood leaving his body and whirring through machines. His head is shaved, which is a bizarre and disorienting sight for anyone used to Kalorm's mane of startlingly pale hair, and there are EEG electrodes all over, and now six different sensor hubs inserted through holes carefully drilled in his skull. 

He doesn't, really, look alive. 

For anyone not as inured to the extremes of lifesaving medicine, the scene is undignified, almost offensive, radiating wrongness. It's hard to shake the feeling that they're hurting him, even torturing him - or would be, if he were there to experience anything at all. 

It wasn't as real on the screen. 

Finnar is terrified.

Being Finnar, this comes out in him looking coldly furious as he marches up to Merrin. Sounding exactly like someone who has +4 SD thinkoomph on her plus significant background knowledge of physics and chemistry, has memorized the contents of fifty-plus critical care case studies in the last four hours, and also did not know anything about the topic five hours ago, he starts interrogating Merrin on her choices of bypass machine settings.

What is even happening to her right now. 

Oh no. In hindsight this was probably predictable! Somehow! Fanthim just did not think to request that he avoid stressing the chief opper out by sounding like he thinks all of her medical decisions are stupid. Who even needs to be TOLD not to DO that??? 

(She's pretty sure he doesn't think that and that is literally just his normal voice, but poor Merrin.) 

She steps forward and clears her throat, while trying to think of something to say that will de-escalate this without making Finnar feel like she is the enemy - she is really not supposed to be the enemy here - and ideally also not making Merrin any more self-conscious than she already is. 

Khemeth is watching on the screen and also feeling very stupid for having failed to foresee this! This was incredibly foreseeable! It's just that thinking - well, managing any additional thinking over and above modeling Kalorm's preferences and Merrin's state and needs and also dealing with his multiple chat conversations - is very hard right now. He really needs to figure something out about that, they have another twelve hours of this and he might have to make very important decisions. 

He wants this to not be the thing that's happening. 

Nerdel gets there first. She puts a hand on Finnar's arm. 

"Finnar, love, there's a person whose job it is to answer our questions without bothering the oppers. We're just here to see him and get out of their way." 

She is looking at Kalorm with a distressed, longing expression. 

"It's okay." 

Merrin takes a deep breath. "You...should be quick though. Um. He's– you have to be pretty careful touching him, a lot of these machines are particular. But I can...?" 

She starts to reach for Nerdel's hand. Stops, awkwardly. 

Nerdel nods, and puts her hand under Merrin's. "I'll be very careful. He looks - is he..." She trails off. 

Merrin guides Nerdel's hand over and puts it on top of Kalorm's hand, the one that doesn't have the radial arterial line. 

(She is okay she is fine she is not dying of embarrassment inside. ...All right, maybe she is slightly dying of embarrassment inside. It's FINE it's WORTH IT she is not going to be a horrible person and ask them to kick out Kalorm's parents just because it turns out his dad is scary.) 

"Yeah, I know, he looks terrible." She is having some trouble keeping her voice level, which is humiliating. "He doesn't super like being at 18 degrees, is all. He should look way less scary than this by the next time you can see him." 

Nerdel very very carefully holds her son's hand for about a minute, and cries, but she has enough dignity not to be noisily crying. 

Finnar is shifting his weight from one foot to another and looking deeply uncomfortable. The amount of Kalorm's blood that is, rather than inside Kalorm, instead inside plastic tubes, is kind of freaking him out actually. 

Eventually Nerdel, reluctantly, lets go. "Thank you," she says thickly. "I - we know you didn't have to..." 

Merrin braces herself, mentally grits her teeth, and makes eye contact with Finnar. "I, do you, do you want...a turn...?" 

Finnar has no idea what to say! He looks very stern, and stiffly holds out his arm to Merrin. 

He's so scary! He's setting off all of Merrin's subconscious Scary Threatening Person alarms and her social-tracking instincts are sort of screaming! Also he looks super mad. Merrin does not like it when people look super mad near her patients! Even if they're the patient's family member! What if he breaks something! 

"Ummm," she says. "Just, can you, just be really gentle, okay...?" 

Finnar's hand goes on top of Kalorm's hand.