Participants:
| Scene Title | Oh Ny Rah Wha? |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Peyton visits Dr. Brennan to ask about her sleepwalking suicide attempt. |
| Date | December 7, 2009 |
Dr. Brennan's Office
"Should have the cultures back in a couple days, but for right now, just lots of rest, fill that prescription and if he spikes a fever worse than the 100, say 104, you bring him on back and Norma will see about fitting you in okay?" Brennan's walking out the second to last patient a woman and her kid who's propped on a hip and looks like he did indeed need to see the doctor.
"You tell Dr. Michelle that she's to get better nah, you hear? You gots all those youngings and such" The older woman and it turns out, her grandson, tells Brennan. "It's a crying shame you hear me. Darn crying shame the state of people these days' There's tongue clucking and fussing with the winter jackets during which, Brennan produces a sticker and a lollipop out of a pocket, tucking it when the womans not looking into the pocket of the boy's jacket. "I'll pass it on Wanda, you can be sure, you have a good day now"
The Norma in question is taking the one clipboard and substituting it for another, the last patient of the day. "Peyton… Whi-" Brennan's brows rise and he looks up. "Well. This is a surprise" He offers a congenial grin to the socialite.
Peyton is sitting in the waiting room, flipping through one of the magazines, and looks up at the sound of her name. She looks tired, though not as badly off as the last time he saw her — pale lavender circles under her eyes that peek through the makeup that is meant to cover them up. She doesn't look ill or too upset, however, as she grins at the affable doctor. "Hey, doc. Good to see you somewhere that's not so smelly or, you know, likely to kill us as the last time I saw you." She stands — today she's dressed more uptown, designer coat, designer bag — since she's not slumming it in Staten.
Half the people who come don't look ill. They just feel it or are there for preventative. THe pen ic slicked, nub retracting. "So true" He laughs quietly at that. "Never saw so terrifying a sight as eight asian grown men with butchers knives raised. Then never so happy to see the FRONTLINE members. Come on back, here for a chat or deciding to be an official patient of mine?" The door is pushed open and held open for the woman to go on through ahead of him.
"I guess I might as well be, huh?" Peyton says with a chuckle. "Unless you don't want me to be," she adds, a bit self-deprecatingly. "But yeah, I mean, I don't know if I need a physical or any medicine or that sort of thing, but I wanted to ask about sleepwalking." Her cheeks color at the admission, as if
it's something like bedwetting, something to be ashamed of, something she should be able to control.
"Sleepwalking huh?" Guess that means he'll take her as a patient, photographer's or not. "Something you've done before, or is it something new and you're looking to see if there's a cause?" There's a motion down the hall with his hand, vaugly. "Room two"
"Never before, at least that I know of. Never woke up in weird places… well, I have, but not any that I didn't know how I got there." There's a smirk at that. You wake up in a lot of weird places when you party. "Nothing in my childhood or whatever. It…accompanied a nightmare." She heads into the room and glances around, then hops onto the exam table until he tells her otherwise.
"You remember Sleepwalking or did someone witness it?" Accompanied a nightmare is .. strange to say the least. He reaches for the door then pauses. "You want me to bring a nurse in?" Said by rote, an offer made to everyone who isn't the same gender as himself. Oh the world they live in, but one has to be careful. He figures she'll say no, but, better to ask.
Peyton shakes her head no to the nurse question. "I don't remember the Sleepwalking part," she says, carefully. "It's… it's weird." She furrows her brow, trying to think of how to best explain it. "I had a bad dream. A really real dream. And in my dream I … I went to get a knife from the kitchen to bring back to my room so I could …" she blushes, again, as if it were her own fault; her eyes fill up with tears at the same time. "So I could try to kill myself." Her voice is thick; she swallows hard, pausing to breathe in deeply.
That is - It doesn't look normal if you go by the look on Brennan's face. He strides across the room after closing the door and reaches for a box of tissues. "What were you doing in the real world, while you were sleepwalking, do you know at all?" He's automatically scanning over her, looking for bandages of any sort while holding the box of kleenex out to her. "Anyone living with you?:
"I … in the real world I guess I was doing what I was doing in the dream. Kind of. I mean, I wasn't wearing the robe that I was wearing in the dream, that I put the knife in, in the dream, but I apparently walked down to the kitchen to get the knife from the knife block — and that's only because in my dream, my nurse person had hidden the razors and stuff, I think… I didn't have my gun or whatever. So I had to use a knife. And she was out on the balcony, so I went into the kitchen when she was outside and got the knife." She wipes her eyes and then rolls them, as if annoyed at herself for crying. "It gets… weirder. Aaron's my roommate."
She pauses, then looks up at him. "He had a dream where I was … I was doing the same thing. And he sleepwalked down the hall to my room just in time to catch me."
It sounds so bad when she says it like that. Her brows knit together again. "We're… sleeping in shifts, to make sure we don't hurt one another or ourselves," she adds. She has some common sense, maybe.
"Ms. Whitney, Peyton" How to put this? He sets the Kleenex down beside her to grab more tissues if she needs before picking up her wrist. Fingers situated to take a pulse and looking at his watch he tries to explain. "I'm by no means an expert on sleepwalking and other sleep disorders, I end up referring people to sleep clinics when they have the issues and work in concert with the doctors there to get down to the issue, and usually psychologists if there's a issue stemming psychologically that's causing it" Satisfied with her pulse he lets go of her hand to start going through the usuals for a basic exam.
"I know this, only because one of the twins sleepwalks. What you're describing is not common sleepwalking. Made more unusual by the fact that Mr. Michaels-" Yes he remembers Aaron. "Experienced a dream in synchronization with yours. Breathe in?" After he's pressed the stethoscope to her back so he can listen.
Her wrist is unmarred — not even a scratch from the blade held to it the other night. She breathes in deeply. "Does it mean I'm actually … suicidal or something? I mean… I 've done really stupid shit in my life, I admit it, but I never wanted to end it early. Even when I did drugs and alcohol and stuff, I was actually careful not to mix really bad things together or take too much. It's probably why I never was an addict. I was irresponsible, but not … stupid."
She knows that is a stupid thing to say to a doctor. Hello, I use recreational drugs intelligently. "The dream was bad. Everyone was dead… Wendy, Aaron. Gillian said I was pointless… shallow. I'd … I'd lost my memory because of a brain hemorrhage or something in the dream, and I had to have a nurse take care of me, and it just seemed to make sense in the dream, but it doesn't, even with shitty things like people bombs and HF and kidnappings, I don't want to die."
"Suicidal, no. Likely not. here's the thing, and don't get mad at me for asking, are you currently taking anything recreational?" He'd already got a list of of what she was taking. "Not taking anything to help you sleep? Anti-depressants?" he seems satisfied as well with what he hears in her lungs and her heart. Satisfied enough to tuck the stethoscope around his neck and hang onto either end with his hands while he leans against the counter. "Sometimes, some drugs can cause somnambulism, which is sleepwalking. Sleeping medication can cause it as well"
She shakes her head. "Nothing… barely even any drinking, and nothing that I can think of the night it happened. Aaron might have — he takes … whatever those antidepressants and stuff are, I'm not sure the names. But I didn't take any sleeping pills. Not even anything like Nyquil or whatever." Peyton chews her lower lip as she watches him.
"And you say he had corroborating dreams, nightmares? Sleepwalking as well?" This is really what's making him curious. "Frankly, like I said, it's a symptom of something, and it's not that common in adults. Children sleepwalk all the time, and generally, you don't remember what it was. Nor does sleepwalking usual lead to doing harm to oneself. There's been some people who have tried to use it as a defense in court but it's usually busted. Were you coming to see if there was anything I could do, or just to pick my brain about it, reccomend you to someone else?"
There is a nod when he asks about Aaron. "He basically dreamt… well, that he had to come save me. And … and he did, in the dream and in real life, somehow." She frowns as she looks down at her hands in her lap. There's a shrug. "I don't know what I want. I mean, if there's something you can do to make sure I don't try to do that again, that's cool. As far as a referral…" She hates shrinks. "I just don't want to be crazy or something." She looks up. "It couldn't be something with my power, could it?"
STill holding onto his stethoscope with his thumbs,t eh rest of his fingers lift and his shoulder in a shrug. "That you were visualizing it yourself, about yourself makes me think that no. No it's not your ability going off while you're sleeping. Or it would be you, seeing what Mr. Michaels, aaron is seeing. Which I would imagine, would be the back of his eyelids and unless he's suddenly projecting strange movies on the back of them while he sleeps, you'd see black, maybe the occasional ambient lighting that's close"
"First off, I'd suggest locking up your knives. Just to be safe. If you have another incident of going for them, well, then you know you have a fairly serious issue"
Flexing his knees, he pushes away from the counter. "I can give you an anti-depressant, believe it or not, those work to curb somnambulism. But of course, it'll have the usual other effects" His lips press together, going through his brain for solutions. "Anyone new move into your building?"
Peyton frowns, listening. She shrugs at the last question. "I don't think so but it's a big building. I can ask the management though I'm not sure they'd answer. I'll look for anyone new and suspicious, I guess." She swallows. "Is there any chance it's Aaron's power? I mean… it's never worked that way before, but maybe it's evolving." Her face pales at the thought.
"Maybe influencing it, but I wouldn't think so. if he had been the one goign through what you did, the reversal of roles, I //might think so. The thing is, again, that you remembered the sleepwalking dream and that another participated in it, shared dreamscape. I'll see what I can find out about that, but maybe there is an ability in effect, or maybe someone in your building is coming into a latent ability have an oniermancy effect to it"
"Oh ny rah wha?" Peyton says, scowling a little at the fancy word. "What power is that?" she asks, shaking her head. "Speak English. You sound like Wendy, flinging around ability names like I know what she's talking about."
That causes a grin. "Oh nere ro man cee" He enunciates. "Evolved who can influence, create, alter, stops dreams. I met one over in Africa once, in the congo. Fascinating woman. Woe be to the guerrilla's who came near her little village, they soon left because their dreams were nightmares consistently. Keep up with what you're doing right now, drop me a call if you have another episode, and then we can see where to go from there yes? "
"Okay. Thanks, doc," Peyton says, hopping off the table and picking up her purse. "I'll try not to need you for at least a few weeks this time." She cracks a smile and gives a wave, heading out into the hallway to find her way to the counter to pay.
"Here's to hoping" Brennan quips back from the exam room as he leaves behind her, heading for his office. "Take care, You have my numbers, call if anything happens"