Participants:
| Scene Title | Sick Jokes |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | The midnight fairy run to the bathroom yields sick jokes, and bedside manner to get Daphne back up in bed. |
| Date | April 1, 2010 |
"The Den" is a cover name for a Ferrymen safehouse based out of Roosevelt Island. The structure is an expanded basement beneath the Butcher's Fancy located just across the street from the Summer Meadows development on the south side of Roosevelt Island.
Beneath the floorboards of the butcher shop, the Den sprawls out as a surprisingly large underground complex comprising more than just a single building's basement. The basement of an adjacent tenement building under management by the same owner as the butcher shop is compiled into the same structure. The entry point of the Den is a large hall with an eight foot ceiling and industrial spiral staircase descending from the back stock room of the butcher's shop above. This room is decorated with old patched up sofas, a single television and a few old bookshelves stacked with records and an old fashioned turn table. Speakers for the turntable flank the couch, but the left most one is always cutting out.
Adjacent to this hall is a storage room containing non-perishable foods stacked in cans and jars on old wooden shelves as well as a small armory consisting of typically no more than five or six bolt-action rifles and boxes of ammunition and a pair of handguns, necessary in case the safehouse were ever overrun.
Opposite of the storage room is a wide doorway in the concrete that leads into an eight foot long earth and board tunnel lined with hanging construction lamps that connects to the basement of the adjacent tenement building. It's this tenement building that serves as residence for some of the safehouse's tenants. The basement itself contains a boiler, furnace and work-bench with tools, along with stacks of old newspapers and magazines in cardboard boxes. Stairs here lead up to the ground floor of the two-story tenement building, which was condemned by the town in 2008. The front doors are bolted shut and do not provide entrance, which is why the basement access was created to keep outside appearances.
All of the exterior windows of the condemned two-story building are shuddered and covered with weatherproof plastic to keep in heat, while only the ground floor has any working radiators. The tenement building itself looks like it may have been little more than a halfway house before it was condemned. Small rooms consisting of little more than a single mattress on the floor are barely large enough to be considered full bedrooms. The ground floor features the only working bathroom, as well as a communal kitchen and dining room. The second floor is largely vacant, due to the poor stability of the flooring and lack of any furnishings in the remaining rooms.
At night, no lights are allowed in the tenement building, to give it the presence of abandonment.
It's a sick joke that the Flu patients are on the second floor and the bathroom is on the first. And Daphne is too stubborn to ask for help. It's the middle of the night, but her bladder won't wait. Fluids, fluids, and more fluids are about all she's had for the last several hours, re-hydrating from the fever and sweats that have plagued her more frequently and in longer durations.
She does the awkward transfer from bed to crutches, lumbering one crutch forward after the other until she gets to the stairs. Then it's down on her butt, the crutches in her lap, as she moves slowly one step at a time — it reminds her of her childhood and getting around a farm in resourceful ways.
It's when she's halfway down the stairs that there's someone there at the bottom of the stairs. Brennan with the same need, bathroom. He'd made a round when they first got there, checking in on people and making sure to see everyone. if there was anyone that frankly, no argument, needed to go to the hospital.
With each subsequent thump, he doesn't move to help her, not yet, but he is close enough to make a grab if she doesn't manage it on her own. "Should I be inquiring as to Commodes for upstairs?" He keeps his voice quiet since it's so late at night and there are others sleeping.
She's not in the throes of high fever at the moment — a low-grade one, as always, with this flu, but she can think and see clearly. Enough to know that this is a man she's met before, if his name eludes her. "Museum man," she says with a slight smile, as she finally reaches the bottom. Each crutch is planted on the floor of the landing, her rear a couple of steps up — it is actually easier to stand this way. Being a doctor, he can probably tell from the way her legs seem to want to turn on their own, the way her feet seem to want to pigeon-toe, what her malady is. "No. I don't expect anyone to empty a chamber pot for me, all right?"
His hands come up slightly defensively. "Just an option. Better than a bed pan" He points out. "I came by earlier, you were sleeping. But imagine my surprise that the girl with the scarf was here. I'll just walk with you to the bathroom, if you need help, just let me know. If not, I'll let you do things on your own" He's seen that before. But he never saw her do that before. But given that she's obviously evolved, maybe her ability had something to do with it.
"I'm going to bother my wife, get her to send over Anti-Virals, see if that helps at all with everyone here. Might lesson symptoms. Might do nothing too since it take a week or so to kick in. You willing to let me dose you up?"
Daphne scowls at the ground a little. It's clear she hates being reliant on anyone else, though she knows he's asking to be helpful. "I can get around. It just takes some effort," she says. Understatement of the year. She considers the question. "If it won't make things worse, because between the fevers and the hallucinations and the coughing up blood and the being crippled, I really can't handle anything more, no matter how stubborn and independent I am, Doc," she says, finally looking up with a sad smirk on her face, "then you can dose me up."
"We'll see. Once I find out if any of them would do anything to help. Now. Get moving there lady, you're not the only one needing the bathroom. Just cause your unable to really walk right now is no excuse" He's trying to put some humor into a late night situation that isn't all that bad. "Get, quick, before I do pick you up. Actually, I probably will do that on the way back, because, you know, I've been away from my wife for a while and I need to prove my manliness to some female authority to retain my membership card in Men anonymous" Another joke as he leans against the wall.
The pixyish blonde arches a brow at him. "Yes, very manly of you. Are you insinuating it would be difficult to carry me? Are you calling me fat?" she demands, though there's a bit of a spark in her eyes that wasn't there a moment ago. Never mind she's probably underweight, thanks to the flu. She disappears into the bathroom, and there's a bit of a rattle of crutches and toilet seat and various issues in there. "Don't stand next to the door. I don't need you hearing me pee, all right!" she says, loudly enough to be heard through the wood.
"You are a slender reed, that will be carried in the mouth of a giant buffalo" Brennan quips, remaining where he is and not beside the door to hear her pee. He doesn't yell back, no need to wake others. Just bide his time until the short blonde will eventually make her way out with all the noise, pomp an circumstance that her situation creates. He smiles though. She can't be too far bad if she can crack a joke back at him.
"Buffalo's don't carry reeds, do they?" she quips back. It takes a few moments to do her business, stand (or some semblance of it, aided by crutches), maneuver to the sink, wash her hands and her face. Her face reveals a ghostly version of the Daphne of just weeks ago — she has lost weight, her face is pale, and dark shadows seem to bruise the hollows under each eye. Luckily Brennan's married or she might be depressed that she looks like some little homeless waif from Dickensian London. She's already annoyed that yet another person who knew her before has seen her like this.
Finally the door opens. "Your throne awaits. Hopefully you don't need to sit, because I can't guarantee I didn't leak on the seat. I kinda lack finesse in getting up," she tells him. Her smirk suggests she's kidding. She is kidding, right?
God invented toilet paper for a reason. "Don't worry there Daphne" He'd been told their names earlier. "I think my masculinity card hasn't been revoked so much yet that I can't do it standing up" Making sure she's out of the way before he's heading in. "Now you better not be listening in" Pointedly told before the door disappears and after a few minutes, he's back out, hands washed and all.
"Now, Here's your option. You can make your way back up the stairs with me staring at your rear, imagining it's my wife's and perhaps it gets a little freaky" His forefinger is up, other hand ticking off the options. "You could… do the shimmy the but up the stairs, and I still watch you, but try not to laugh at how funny that would seem and end up waking everyone. or, option three" as the second finger is ticked off. "I pick you up, like the slender reed, and once we hit the top of the stairs, I'll let you back down to steam off to your bed on your own power where i'll proceed to be all doctorly and stuff. Which door do you choose?"
The slender reed in question snorts a little, having already made her way partly down the hall by the time he's out. At the stairwell she looks up. Up is harder than down, to be sure. And she's already used so much of her scant energy on the way down. It'll take her at least 10 minutes to get up the steps.
"Fine," she breathes out reluctantly. "I guess it's better than waking everyone. You can even bring me to the bed, if you're planning on following me all doctorly and stuff anyway."
"The lady acquiesces. I am overjoyed" For all that there's joking and bantering back and and he's gotten a glimpse at the state she's in, he's careful. "Grab your crutches, they're your job" A hand ready behind her knee's and the other across her upper back and letting her call the shots. When she does, up the stairs they go carefully. "So. Evolved. We have something in common. I negate, you..?" Making small talk as they go to bring her mind off the fact that he's carrying her. "I'm thinking.. that it has something to do with the Cerebral Palsy. I'm not sure, you know… Maybe not, I'm just not sure." More quiet humor.
"If I get better, this means we can never be friends, you know," Daphne says, giving him a frown as he tells her his power, though her words are meant as a joke. "I'm a speedster. My power somehow lets me walk, even if I'm not moving fast," she explains. It's more than she's told most people. "So if I get better," again there's that if, "if you negate me…"
"I don't just walk around negating people Daphne. I have to turn it on. Maybe if I'm angry, but no, If I did, well" In other words, far better control than that and Daphne doesn't need to worry. "Girls have been asking about you. They share the scarf" Towards the room she shares he goes, carting her along easily enough. "When are you supposed to take your next round of drugs?"
"I took some … maybe a couple hours ago. I'm supposed to take every four hours I think, to try to keep the fever away," she murmurs, tiring out a bit despite being carried. She probably would have fallen asleep around the 8th stair had she tried to go up on her own. "Nothing but ibuprofen, try to bring the fever down. The other docteur said." She smiles at the mention of the children. "They're cute kids. Tell them I say hi. Don't tell them I'm like this, though." Never mind that Marlena has her own disability.
"I won't. Your a patient. What happens with you stays between us. Not told to my children. Though, Dessandra would probably drape beside you and play up her own hurts. The feral dogs on Staten made a run for her last night. Mel shot the one trying to make off with her. So she's got a bullet graze on her cheek and a dislocated shoulder. Never have I ever felt so scared." He confesses, easing Daphne down into her bed, waiting to see if she needs help to get comfortable.
"Feral … dogs?" Daphne hasn't heard about them, but the news clearly distresses her. "I'm so sorry. I hope she feels better soon. I'm glad it wasn't worse," she whispers, pulling her legs into a more comfortable position and reaching to pull her blankets up around her. "Thank you for your help," she adds, dark eyes down. It's hard to accept help. It's harder to thank someone for giving it to her, when she doesn't want to need it.
"You'll be better soon enough. Speeding away and we'll never see you again. Ships passing in the night on the way to the bathroom" Brennan gives a lopsided grin, slightly concealed by the shag on his face. Camouflage that soon enough, will actually be gone. "Thank me by sticking in there and not getting sicker. Deal?" There's an offer of his hand to the other woman.
"I'm trying. I promised the other docteur I'd run him to Paris to see spring, since we may never get spring again here," Daphne says, reaching up to take his hand in her small one. Her eyes close. "G'night," she murmurs, dropping her hand on top of the blankets, before turning onto her side, to face the window and the snow outside.
Brennan holds on a fraction longer than he should, watching her turn over before retreating to the other bed to check on her roommate. Gone is the grin and carefree humorous manner when she's asleep so quick and he doesn't need to pretend that everything will be fine. It won't. They're all sick and there's nothing they can do for them.