This sounds like it's going to be incredibly stressful, especially since they need to (briefly) turn the kid onto his back again, they can't get at him for the bronchoscopy while he's in prone position. Aaaaaah. 

She's going to prepare the procedure drugs and bronchoscopy kit on an extra wheeled table, and then hover and fret while she waits for the attending doctor and respiratory therapist to perform the procedure. 

Does the patient tolerate being turned onto his back for a couple of minutes? 

The respiratory therapist works quickly to connect the bronchoscope while the doctor prepares sedation and pain medication. At a nod from the doctor, drugs are pushed into IV lines - but rather than relaxing, the boy's body seizes violently, back arching off the bed as alarms blare a warning of disaster close at hand.

His oxygen saturation plummets, heartbeat veering into a dangerous rhythm. The doctor shouts orders over the din, hands moving swiftly to intubate and push life-saving medications. After a few terrifying minutes the boy's body stills, monitors slowly quieting to a steady cadence once more.

Still shaken, the doctor withdraws the bronchoscope with a frown. "His lungs reacted badly to the sedation. We'll have to postpone further interventions until he's more stable." He sighs, gazing down at their mysterious patient. "He's holding on by a thread. The next few hours will be critical - keep a close eye for any change in his condition."

Well that was completely terrifying. Marian managed to stay reasonably calm during it, but 'her patient has a seizure in response to completely normal pre-procedure sedation' is NOT something Marian normally expects, and it takes several minutes of watching her patient lying still, back in prone position, before she can get her hands to stop shaking and go work on prepping the next dose of antibiotics. 

It's somehow only 4 pm?? She's so tired. 

She's also kind of scared to administer the ordered bronchodilators, which can increase heart rate and general cardiac irritability, when the kid was just doing wacky dangerous arrhythmias in response to pain medication. ...Well, and having a bronchoscope shoved down his lungs, which would make anyone unhappy. His lungs still sound tight, though thankfully the rattling crackles of secretions are mostly gone for the moment, and overall his breathing is a bigger problem than his cardiovascular function. She wants the respiratory therapist to stay until the whole dose of nebulizers is given, though, for her own peace of mind. 

How does the patient respond to it? 

The respiratory therapist eased in behind Marian as she administered bronchodilators through an inhaler attached to the ventilator. With sharp eyes they monitored each rise and fall of the boy's chest, alert for any change in the rhythms of the room that might herald disaster's swift return.
For an eternity of minutes the familiar sounds continued unbroken, a steady cadence to mark time's passage through the hourglass of a life measured breath by breath. The boy's lungs seemed to ease somewhat under the medication's influence, the lingering tightness of each inhalation fading by slow degrees as peace descended once more upon its wanderer's rest.
But as Marian moved to end the treatment and return him to safer slumber, a sudden stuttering beneath attentive hands gave pause. His body tensed, a tremor born not of healing dreams but heralds more dire, as monitors sang the discordant song of overtaxed flesh struggling still to survive the trials allowed this far but perilous journey. A faltering in that well-worn way which had by mercy's grace alone attained its present wandering marked the guise of hope slipping once more toward despair's dark vale. Though the boy yet breathed, his lungs seized as if to grasp some memory of open skies now walled away by the device that did alone grant breath, this fragile flame.

Marian isn't sure what to make of the boy's sudden tension, or why he's abruptly fighting the ventilator again, but she motions for the respiratory therapist to pause the rest of the nebulizer treatment. 

She shrugs. "He has some idiosyncratic drug reactions, that's for sure. I don't know what's going on," or whether it has something to do with the mysterious hallucinations in the ER, or however he got here in the first place, "but - I think let's hold off for now." 

Honestly, she's going to go with touching her patient as little as possible and changing as few settings as possible for the rest of her shift, to see if he can find some kind of tenable equilibrium. Also because she's exhausted and all she wants is to sit down. 

When 7 pm finally arrives, she does a final assessment and checks the latest labs before giving shift report to the night shift nurse. Wow. It's hard to believe all of that fit into one shift. 

The night nurse arrived as Marian finished her report, features schooled to hide reaction at the litany of close calls and complications that had marked the shift now ending. But a flicker in her gaze betrayed the sobering thought of hours ahead keeping watch where life had strayed so near the edge.
"Get some rest - you've had quite the day." Her voice was gentle, a reminder that vigilance now passed to steadier hands while others found respite for trials yet to come. The days were long within these walls, an unending cycle of discomforts and alarms that wore down body and spirit alike when allowed too long to keep their wanderer's company.
Marian nodded wearily as she gathered her things to make way for the next shift's trials. But at the door she paused, gazing back once more at the still form under blanket's shield. "Call if anything changes. I just...want to know he's still fighting." The boy remained a mystery, his provenance unknown, yet having passed through her hands she found his fate no longer left unpondered once beyond these walls. Each breath might still be counted out, an unvoiced litany against the coming of that final, silent rest where all life's riddles found their close.
The nurse's soft reply followed as the door swung shut on long-awaited escape. "I will. He's in good hands - we'll see him through, Marian. Have a good rest tonight." And in those quiet hours while others found reprieve the battle went on, each measure gained against the lingering shadows carving out survival's way through the deep hours of night.

Tadesse drifts behind banks of fog. 

He's mostly not aware of his body, let alone the room around him. He's mostly not even having thought, just - flickers of awareness, a deep-engrained instinct to hold on to keep fighting to never walk away no matter how long it takes no matter how much it hurts - 

(he's dying, he thinks vaguely. it feels like dying. he knows how to recognize the feeling by now.) 

- but somehow he's not dead yet. Something else is holding onto him, giving him a surface to cling to, and the desperate reflex to hold on is warring with his soul-deep exhaustion - he can't think about it, right now, it's way too complex a thought to hold in his drug-fogged mind, but there's...something awful...something he knows is waiting for him, a future he has to deal with, but it's so very tempting not to deal with it in this lifetime. He could - let go - 

- he doesn't, though. It feels like it would be so easy, and yet he cannot, actually, override eight hundred years of habits. He keeps holding on to whatever the metaphorical wreckage is, keeps fighting for each breath. 

(The patient's condition is still precarious, but he does steadily improve, over the course of the night. By morning, his pulse is much steadier as the strain on his heart eases, he's off the dobutamine entirely, and he's no longer even on maximum ventilator settings. His lungs are a mess, and the morning X-ray shows it clearly, but he's at least no longer getting worse.) 

The night passed slowly, each hour marked by the wanderer's ragged breaths and the soft sounds of the nurse moving quietly between checks of IV lines and monitors keeping tireless watch. Though his condition seemed stabilized for now, she knew each moment balanced on a knife's edge - improvement and decline separated by a feather's fall, life and death meted out breath by breath in the days and hours ahead.
Morning brought the familiar bustle of change-of-shift, day staff arriving to relieve the night's long vigil. As the night nurse gave report, tension slowly eased from weary forms; their patient had lived to see the dawn. The day physician studied test results and scans with a cautious nod, detecting signs of slow recovery taking root at last to guide a battered form back from the shadows into which he'd strayed so close.
"We'll start lightening sedation to check neuro status, and see if we can lower vent support." His gaze grew distant, thoughts straying to riddles yet unsolved. "There's still much we don't understand about how he came to be here. But we'll find the answers, in time."
Step by step the wanderer emerged from twilight into the grey light of a world now alien, distant shores left far behind. The long days of storm had given way at last to clearing skies, though storms untold might still be waiting to try voyage and wanderer anew. Each dawn awoke the call to forge ahead through the forest of fading shadows, toward a gleam of gold shimmering now on waking mists beyond.

Oh phew her patient made it through the night! Marian is so relieved!!! There are even a couple fewer blinking IV pumps beside the RotaProne bed. 

She's pretty nervous about lightening sedation, given how fragile the kid's condition still seems, but she's also incredibly curious to learn more about this strange teenager. She'll tweak down the rate on the IV pumps, and wait to see how his vital signs handle it. 

The wanderer's eyes blinked open, gaze swimming up through clouded depths to find the familiar figure of his nurse checking the network of lines that bound him still to machines making of each breath a gift. A spark of recognition lit within those depths, chasing back the shadows for an instant's flicker. His lips moved as if to shape some word or thought long lost to silent wandering, before confusion dimmed the light once more.
Marian eased the sedation lower still, coaxing back her patient through the veils of troubled sleep. His vital signs remained steady, giving leave to solve one riddle where so many lingered still unseen. With gentle hands she soothed away the frown his wandering thoughts awoke, keeping anxious watch for any sign the light might gutter and go out.
The physician entered quiet as a wraith, sharing counsel in whispers lest the world intrude too swift. "How is he responding?" At Marian's hopeful nod he drew closer, studying the wanderer who even now emerged back into their keeping. "Can you hear me?" A flicker, the barest nod in answer as awareness kindled, burning back the fog. "Do you know where you are?"
Confusion clouded the boy's gaze as it roamed the unfamiliar room, no anchor to be found in walls and peaks of strange machines. He shook his head, words still nearly lost to silent wandering, a rasp of breath shaping the question: "Who?" The riddle woke at last, in lights and shadows intertwined - a name, an origin, a path that led into their midst and might by mercy lead beyond. The first faint gleam had come to guide through forests yet unknown, and point the way on twisted paths where hope and healing walked as one.

Tadesse can't figure out where he is. 

...It's hard to care very much, right now. His mission to explore the other continent, the only purpose he had managed to find any motivation in lately, has clearly and irreversibly failed. Presumably Ekunde's family is all dead. He must have...Gated here? wherever 'here' even is, it's so strange. Maybe it's the other continent after all, with far more advanced technology than he knew of. Wouldn't that be ironic. 

- a sleepy voice stirs in the back of his mind, the fellow inhabitant of this borrowed body that, for once, he didn't steal to wear but rather is sharing. Tadesse, where are we? 

I am not sure, Tadesse thinks back at his host. Leave me alone. I want to sleep. 

Ekunde, as usual, is the one with more curiosity and enthusiasm, but the fog of drugs is hitting him as well, and there isn't really space in his exhausted brain for two trains of thought at once. Ekunde drifts back down. 

(From the outside, the patient looks - confused, and like he's trying to think through some kind of internal conflict. And then his expression shifts to something deeply, painfully sad and tired, before he closes his eyes again.) 

The resident studied the boy with a frown, concerned by his obvious confusion and distress. "Can you tell us your name?" he asked gently. A long silence followed, the boy's gaze distant as if lost in troubled memories or thoughts too wearying to share.
Just when it seemed no answer would be forthcoming, he sighed, eyes drifting closed once more. "Tadesse." A name, though whether first or last remained unclear.
The nurse and doctor exchanged a glance, a flicker of relief that they had coaxed one riddle from the wanderer's tongue. But it stood alone, anchoring him no more to home or hearth than to the alien shores where now he lay.

It's Marian's third shift with the patient. Physically, he's continuing to recover, actually much faster than she had expected given that first awful day. He's conscious and off the ventilator and coping all right, with a lot of supplementary oxygen and frequent nebulizer and steroid treatments. 

...She's worried about his neuro status. Or, no, that's not quite right - he's with it enough to tell them his name, it really could be worse - but maybe his emotional status? He just seems so - sad. Depressed, almost, mostly not interacting with her even though he's clearly conscious and knows perfectly well that she's at his bedside. He hasn't answered any of her questions other than admitting his name, which proved to be unhelpful, since the Reno police department has absolutely no records of a 'Tadesse' (or Tades or Tadess or Taddess, they tried every possible spelling because it's clearly a foreign name.) 

Either he's - been through something awful, she thinks - or he's feeling a lot worse physically than he's letting on, in which case she's differently worried. 

(Tadesse is in fact not answering her questions because he can't. He can mostly understand her by reading her surface thoughts with Thoughtsensing, but he doesn't want to Mindspeak someone un-Gifted, and, due to being a mage from another world, he does not actually speak English. Marian has no idea of this, of course.) 

She watches him worriedly. Something is still wrong.  

The resident sighed as he reviewed the morning's test results, concerned by the lack of improvement in their patient's condition over the last day. While his lungs seemed to be slowly clearing, his overall weakness and difficulty interacting suggested there were still pieces of the puzzle missing.
With a frown, the resident approached Tadesse's bedside. "I'm afraid you're still quite ill. Your oxygen levels are lower than I'd like, and you don't seem to be improving as quickly as expected." He paused, studying the boy's distracted gaze. "Is there something you're not telling us?"
Tadesse didn't meet his eyes, staring instead out the window at the city waking below. The resident waited, hoping for some clue to guide them on the right course. Silence lingered, broken only by the soft sounds of the monitors keeping tireless watch.
"Please, if there's any information that could help, you must share it with us." The resident's voice was gentle but firm. "Otherwise, I fear your recovery will continue to stall, and the damage may become permanent."
Still Tadesse remained silent, lost in thoughts beyond the resident's understanding. With a sigh, the resident turned away, mind racing over possible avenues left unexplored. Some key yet eluded them, without which the wanderer might never escape the shadows into which he'd strayed. The riddle woke, in lights and shadows intertwined - a name, an origin, a path that led into their midst and might by mercy lead beyond. But time was slipping through their hands, each moment balanced on a knife's edge where life and death walked hand in hand.

You should talk to them, Ekunde thinks, in their shared head. They're nice. They want to help us. And - I want to go home. 

Tadesse rolls over in bed, turning his face away from the strange city of glass towers and impossible artifice. I am not sure we can go home. I think we are - somewhere very far away. 

Ekunde is also pretty cheerful about that. Wish Mom and Dad could be here, but - that's what we wanted! To explore new continents! 

Tadesse closes his eyes. I think we may be even further than that. 

This is so frustrating, Ekunde thinks. Tadesse is...usually better than this. What happened is really getting to him. You should talk to her, he insists. Marian. The cute one. 

Well, if the alternative is Ekunde bothering him in his own head forever, then fine. The next time someone comes in, Tadesse will clear his throat and say, hoarsely but as clearly as he can, and accented strangely, "- Marian?" 

- it's just occurred to him that the only way he can talk to her is telepathically in Mindspeech, which will probably startle her, but Ekunde does have a point. He can't just lie here forever in this bed and never talk to anyone. Eventually they would surely kick him out into the street and then what. 

The day dragged into evening as Tadesse drifted in and out of uneasy sleep. Marian came to check on him during her rounds, adjusting IV lines and oxygen levels with a frown. His condition seemed stalled, each small gain balanced precariously on the edge of decline. She sighed, wishing their mysterious patient would open up and provide some clue to his condition's cause.
As she prepared to leave, a hoarse voice stuttered into the silence. "M-Marian?" She turned in surprise at the unfamiliar accent, meeting Tadesse's tired gaze. His eyes were dull with pain and exhaustion, but a flicker of awareness lit their depths.
"You spoke!" Relief flooded through her, chasing back the worry that had nagged each quiet hour of her watch. She moved closer, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. "I'm so glad to hear your voice. We've been very worried."
Tadesse nodded slightly, glancing away as if struggling to find the words to share some dire warning or plea for aid. But moments slipped past in silence broken only by the wanderer's ragged breath.
"What is it?" Marian asked gently. "Please, if there's anything you can tell us to help your recovery, don't keep it secret."
He shook his head with a frown, gaze distant. Some battle seemed to rage behind his eyes, a fight against foes unknown that sapped strength already taxed near breaking. Marian waited, heart racing, as the seconds stretched into minutes unending. The riddle woke again in lights and shadows intertwined, each word a victory and defeat where life and death kept tireless watch and time ran short.

Come on, Ekunde prompts. This is just awkward now. 

Tadesse sighs, and lifts his eyes to Marian's. :I am a mage and a Mindspeaker. I am not sure if you - have those there - I think it is possible I am of another world entirely, and my Gate went astray.: 

(He wasn't exactly in good condition when he cast that Gate, though he's surprised that raising a Gate while dying can get you accidentally into another world, this isn't the first time he's nearly died - plenty of times he did die, in agony and terror, and woke up in another young boy's body - and surely it would have happened before now. But it doesn't really matter. He's here now. 

...He's very tired.) 

The nurse blinked at the patient's words, confusion plain upon her face. His voice echoed strangely in her mind, the accent unfamiliar and tone carrying a weight of sorrow nearly unbearable. But the meaning behind those strange words remained unclear, slipping through her grasp like waking dreams half-remembered upon the morn.
Had his condition worsened so quickly, casting him into fevered delusions and a wanderer's fey? She placed a hand against his brow, relieved to find no trace of warmth beyond the slow burn of weary flesh struggling still to heal. His eyes remained clear and keen, studying her reaction with a frown as the silence stretched between them, still as the calm before the breaking storm.
Tadesse sighed, gaze drifting to study the city stretching vast beneath his restless dreams. A flicker of light kindled and went out behind his eyes, the battle with unseen foes still raging where life lingered in the balance spun by each uncertain heartbeat's fall.
The riddle woke again, yet still the answer lingered pale and wraithlike on the edge of thought, eluding understanding's grasp. The pieces lay scattered through the hours of their long vigil, a map of thoughts and traces left ungathered save in memory of each silent measure gained and lost since into this strange world from wandering's grim path his feet have crossed. Somewhere beneath the signs and measures manifold the truth still slumbered, hidden away where darkness reigned save for the light his weary voice alone could shed to guide them on their quest's first faltering tread.

She wants to help him. There's nothing but earnest worry in her mind. Tadesse takes another deep breath, and - he's so tired, but he tries again, this time putting more effort into making the telepathic Mindspeech communication as clear as possible, breaking it down to the level of concepts rather than foreign-to-her words. 

:I think that I am from another world: he tells her. 

The nurse blinked in confusion at the strange voice echoing in her mind, grasping at the meanings behind the words slipping through her fingers. Another world? How was such a thing even possible? Her gaze drifted to study the room around them, filled with familiar sights - the monitors keeping vigil, IV lines feeding life through plastic veins, white-coated doctors moving quietly between rounds. Nothing seemed out of place in their domain, and yet...
Her eyes returned to study her patient with new wonder. He seemed so young, and yet his eyes held depths of sorrow that spoke of years beyond counting, of wandering paths and tragedy untold in that far land from which he came. Each breath was hard-won ground against the gloom that lingered still, a battle fought with waning strength through all the hours of their long watch where life seemed poised to slip between their hands.
The truth remained hidden save for these glimpses granted when the wanderer's weary voice broke through the veil, coaxing riddles into light more dire with each whispered consonant and pause. The pieces gathered, forging bonds of trust and understanding to guide them on their quest, and yet the picture formed seemed but a pale reflection of the whole, a map of scattered thoughts and traces left ungathered. A gleam of gold still shimmered on the edge of thought, a promise of escape from twilight carried on the wanderer's breath where secrets yet untold might lend new hope to spur them on their course.