En Krusning i Tidsströmmen

Participants:

carver_icon.gif chris_icon.gif cooper_icon.gif corbin_icon.gif dumortier_icon.gif

finn_icon.gif kara_icon.gif nicole3_icon.gif robyn2_icon.gif yi-min_icon.gif

past-elsef_icon.gif past-jepp_icon.gif past-mats_icon.gif past-roald_icon.gif past-sonja_icon.gif past-stig_icon.gif

Scene Title En Krusning i Tidsströmmen
Synopsis Two sides of the modern world collide while investigating the past, where times are dangerous in unexpected ways.
Date September 8, 2020

Lilleskalla Village


Standing outside at the back of the cottage, the visitors from Providence get an earful in Swedish between the children and a woman peering down at them from the upstairs window.

At least they’re practicing social distancing.

Elsef points to Carver often, the word “Läkare” used each time. Jepp has remained silent and watches the guests rather than the little girl arguing with his mother.

“I feel like we’re stray puppies that the kids are asking to keep,” Finn murmurs, hands in his pockets as he awaits their fate.

Finally, Jepp turns his gaze up at the woman in the window and says quietly, “Snälla, Mor,” and that seems to turn the tide. The woman sighs and slams the window closed. A moment later she appears in the doorway.

“Barn stannar ute,” with fingers jabbing in Jepp and Elsef’s direction, and they nod, not moving. Elsef looks up at Carver and the other adults in the yard. “You can go in now.”

Kara's not unused to being around scads of persons whose language is unfamiliar to her, where an interpreter is her only lifeline to being understood and accepted. This all is familiar to her, save for that it is taking place in a time not their own. She skims a look over what they can see of the village, looking for adult eyes that might be beginning to peek their way.

Though, it's not lost on her they're entering through the back door.

"Doc," Kara interjects when they're given the clear to head in. "You got something to wear as a mask? If not, you can take my bandana." It's of red-and-white paisley, at least, instead of the black it might otherwise be. She fishes it from her pocket pre-emptively, afterward glancing to Yi-Min. "I'm staying out here," she indicates quietly. She's under no illusions she'll serve any good other than guard duty here. "Are you heading in?"

If so, inheritance order of her makeshift mask has shifted.

Carver is also not unused to being surrounded by people speaking a language he doesn't know… but there are things you can read even without language. The tilt of a head, the tone of a voice — they don't substitute for knowledge of the spoken word, but they can reveal a lot in their own right.

So Carver watches. He makes no sudden movements, keeps his hands free, and generally does his best to convey an impression of an object at rest — not likely to cause any trouble. His eyes, though, are constantly moving, assessing, considering.

Läkare is doctor, he's pretty sure. Isn't that nice, he's learned a word. Just another twenty-nine thousand to go. "I'm good," he says to Kara, reaching into one of his pockets and pulling out a small plastic bag; inside are a pair of blue disposable gloves and a white bandanna. He isn't entirely unprepared for this…

…just mostly.

In truth, he's only got a couple more tricks — a tiny tube of Motrin, a pocket knife, a penlight, and a flask of brandy. He wishes he had his medical bag… but he'd been expecting dangerous animals, not Brigadoon.

Maybe what he's got will be enough, though. God knows, he's been in bad situations with less and managed to make due. He works on donning the mask, then the gloves; as he gears up he glances to Elsef. "Elsef. Before I go in, can you tell me how to say a couple of phrases? Hello, I am here to help, and I don't understand your language. Just in case."

In the meantime, Yi-Min's list of concerns is only quietly lengthening in her mind— much too late, of course. These now include more of the possible consequences of bringing whatever 'pox' is affecting these people back to their own time with them.

Obviously, if they first ever make it back to their own time.

"I am staying out here with you." Aside from Yi-Min's wish to not leave Kara out here by herself in this completely foreign environment, there wasn't really any reason for them all to file into one little house. One of the others could come back out and fetch either of them, in the event they were needed.

"Carver's the one with the experience, I'm good out here." No offense, old goat. Surely he can appreciate the various attitudes of 'nope' as being practical. Dumortier hangs back as much as is polite, giving the cottage a quiet, considering stare. Something else gets his attention, however. One jacket sleeve is lifted up to his face, nose rankling and brows lowered.

An elbow bops Finn in his own. "Do you smell that?" It's not at all a dig on the locals— they look hygienic enough. They've met worse.

The little girl beams up at Carver when he calls her by her name, quite clearly pleased with herself at being their ambassador and liaison.

Hej, jag är här för att hjälpa,” she says slowly, and the analogs to English are easy enough to hear for someone as attuned to language as Carver is. “Jag känner inte ditt språk.”

Jepp looks over at the Swedish, suddenly understanding the conversation again, and huffs a short, irritated laugh. Teenagers are teenagers, even in Brigadoon.

“She is Fru Nilsson,” Elsef says and nods to Jepp. “Jepp’s mor.”

The woman narrows her eyes at the group, and waves for Carver to enter.

Finn pats the older man on the back. “May the force be with you, Obi-Wan.” To Dumortier, he shakes his head. “I think I just forgot to shower,” he quips back, lifting his arm to sniff at himself. There definitely is the smell in the air that comes with outhouses and rustic living.

Carver nods, committing the words to memory. And the name. Jepp Nilsson. Worth looking into. But even he isn't entirely immune to Elsef's beaming grin; a faint flicker of a grin creases his lips…

…and dies as Finn pats him on the back. He gives the man a moment's worth of side-eye… though only a moment's worth. At this point, they're teammates; being a crusty old man is fine in your off time, but not when you're on a mission together. "Right," he rasps, turning his attention back to the sickhouse. "I'll conduct a preliminary examination, and we'll go from there. I may need help in enacting treatment procedures." Possibly optimistic, but he's not going to start by assuming the worst.

He considers for a moment whether there's anything left to say… there isn't, save one thing. "Going in," he announces, striding towards the sickhouse door.

What the absolute, everloving fuck is with these woods? Chris gave up asking that question when they passed the carcass some yards or meters or whatever unit of measurement the Vikings are using. Cubits and spans? But he hasn't wiped the question from his face. There's something seriously spooky about it, has been ever since that explosion.

He shows his knowledge of the haunts plainly in the slight and suspicious frown he's casting at just about everything, SESA agents and the group that rounds the corner of the sick house ahead of them included.

“Smells worse than a stable that hasn't been cleaned all winter,” he observes to no one in particular as he turns after Mats. Chris angles his focus beyond their escort as he comes around the corner of the house himself… and finds familiar faces. He swallows the urge to quip about discovering the source of the stench, instead gives Kara and remaining crew a small nod.

Maybe Nicole should have doubled back and called in. Probably should have told them to get a historical costumer on the line, from the looks of things. The closer they were to the village, the further into it they’ve gone, the more uneasy the senior agent feels. This is meddling in something they don’t understand. She’s read enough Bradbury to have an appreciation for butterflies. And this whole bubble of seemingly displaced time is one big lepidopterarium. What kind of hurricane could their presence here cause?

The presence of others — familiar faces — has Nicole’s spine straightening. She shouldn’t, she supposes, be surprised to find friends from Providence here. All the same, the situation has now become complicated by further civilian involvement.

There was so much to see as they made their way into the village. “I hope you’re getting good photos, Miller.” Cooper turns to look back over his shoulder in the direction of the cow wondering out loud. “What if that was Chupacabra, or like an alien tractor beam… maybe a giant robot with tentacle thingies?”

When he turns his attention to the other group of strangers, Cooper doesn’t recognize any of them, but… oh wait… Yi-Min gets a little head tilt and a wave. The rest get a once over from Thomas, before he breaks into a bright smile and flashes them a Vulcan ‘Live Long and Prosper’ sign. “Hello fellow, time travellers, I see you, too, have entered the Twilight Zone.”

As he steps out not far behind the others, Corbin’s eyes fall on one of the only people in Providence that he’d known and he at least can’t help but smile a little despite the situation. At least there’s one more person he can count on in a pinch besides those that were with him. “Just another day in the woods, huh?” he says with a grin, shaking his head and glancing at Cooper— because— well yes, they were probably time travellers of a sort. He couldn’t wait to tell Hokuto about it when they made it back.

If they made it back.

No, no, when they made it back. He was going to stick with that optimism. Because he rather preferred optimism to pessimism.

“I’m guessing no one here had a sat phone on them?” cause he was starting to wish he had brought one. It would at least answer one of his lingering questions. If they had been thrown into the past, or if the past had been thrown into the present. But he would just have to— hope for the best.


Meanwhile


Fru Nilsson doesn’t look any happier about Carver entering than he does, but she lets him enter anyway. The cottage is small but cozy, with a parlor, kitchen, and dining room taking up the first floor and a narrow staircase leading up to the second. A dry, hacking cough of a child can be heard, and the smell of sickness hangs over everything.

The woman, sternly round in face and hardy in figure, shows no sign of illness, but looks exhausted as she tips her head toward the stairwell to begin the ascent to the sickroom. “Den här vägen,” she says tersely though not unkindly.

The smell is the first thing he notices — even through the mask, it has a way of getting in. He's smelled it before; his reaction is always the same. Shoulders square, spine straightens. It's time to go to work.

He still doesn't know much of the language, but her meaning is clear — 'thataway'. "Thank you," Carver says, giving a slightly exaggerated nod — the meaning, he hopes, will cross the language gap. He checks himself over one more time — gloves are secure, mask secure — and starts up the stairs, following her lead. The patient awaits.

The smell is thicker the higher Carver climbs the narrow, steep stairwell. Eventually Mrs. Nilsson leads him to a small room where two young boys lie in separate cots. They seem about the same age — somewhere between Elsef’s seven or so years and Jepp’s teens, maybe ten or so, though it’s hard to tell. Both lie listless, hair dark with sweat on bedding much the same.

Min Roald,” she says, moving to the fairer and smaller of the two — it isn’t too hard to see how he might be Jepps’ younger brother, with fair features and long faces that make them look somber, unlike Elsef’s more impish face structure. “Det här är Elefs bror, Stig.” The second boy is darker than the little girl, with brown hair and freckles, but a snub nose reminiscent of Peter Pan illustrations.

Both boys bear similarities in the fever and malaise that seems to have overtaken them; even at a glance, through the openings of their night shirts, Carver can see a rash on the chest but no higher.

Roald murmurs at the the mention of his name. “Törstig.” Thirsty. Swedish is remarkably close to English, thanks to those Anglo-Saxon roots.

My Roald, and Elsef's brother, Stig. Guesses, but they fit with what he knows. Carver nods and lets out a noise of acknowledgement, but his attention is focused on the patients. The rash on the chest, the fever, the malaise. Boxes being ticked on a checklist, check, check, check. Or circles being laid over one another, various diseases being circled out until only the correct malady remains. The possibilities narrow.

Carver tries not to let Elsef's earlier words impact his diagnosis. She is a bright girl, and who knows, maybe someday she'll become a physician… but she is not one yet. For now, the doctor in the area is him. Which means, do your damn job, old man. Right. Those three symptoms — fever, malaise, rash — are the most visible, but they might not be the only ones. That dry cough he'd heard earlier, for instance. Had that been a one off? Or something more?

There's only one way to find out. Carver turns his attention back to his patients. Roald seems to be the more awake of the two, which means he gets his checkup first.

He moves forward, going to stand over the side of the boy's bed. "Hej. Jag är Läkare Carver. Jag är här för att hjälpa," he says with as much bedside manner as he can muster, taking care to enunciate as clearly as he can; he's improvising a little, playing off of the script Elsef gave him, but hopefully he doesn't sound like too much of an idiot.

Roald’s lids flutter open and his blue eyes look up into Carver’s. “Only the gamlinger talk in Svenska,” he says with a grin, though there’s a skeptical look given to the doctor looking down on him that says maybe Carver should speak Svenska.. “And Jepp,” the boy adds with some apparent irritation with his non-English speaking older brother.

Some things don’t change, even in nearly 300 years.

The young boy sits up, clearly weak but cogent. “I never seen a real doctor before,” Roald says, giving Carver an appraising look. “Do they all dress funny?”

Stig, in the bed over, coughs again — the dry, non-productive bark racking his small body. He flops over in the bed, kicking off the covers. The rash has tapers off around the boy’s lower legs.

Carver rasps out an approving noise. "Good. That's about all the Svenska I know," he says dryly. That skeptical look gives him a suggestion as to gamlinger, but not enough of one that he's going to risk using it conversationally. "Here's a secret about getting old, Roald — you stop caring too much about whether others think you're dressed funny," he says kindly. Carver's bedside manner typically isn't the best, but he's got a soft spot for kids.

That cough from Stig draws his eye like a hawk, though — not a one off. The fact that the rash is centered on the trunk is another clue, as is the smell of… rustic living… that permeates the village.

Taken together with the fact that, so far, Fru Nilsson is healthy and the rest of the village doesn't show signs of infection… pox is looking unlikely. The symptoms don't quite line up. It's definitely not chicken pox… and it's also not the one he'd been secretly dreading, smallpox. That is a good thing. Both kinds of pox are viral, which means the care he could advise isn't much better than what good Fru Nilsson is already providing. But he's pretty sure that what he's up against now is bacterial, and a bacterial infection can be treated. It's a strange day when he's glad to see typhus… but typhus, at least, he might be able to do something about. Depending on how good Dr. Yeh's chemistry is, and more specifically how good she is at antibiotic synthesis.

"That's something you'll find out yourself, one day," he says, patting the boy once lightly on the shoulder. He's not so worried about Roald — he's still lucid — but Stig is clearly not doing so well. The sooner they get some medicine in him, the better. "I'll have to check to see what kind of medicine I've got. If I don't have the right kind, I'll have to make some." By which he means ask Dr. Yeh to make some. "Either way, though, we'll have you well soon enough." He takes a moment longer to look over the two, looking for anything that might contradict his diagnosis, then nods to Fru Nilsson and starts towards the door. Time to go and talk to the chemist.

The little boy gives Carver a smile of someone who has won them over. “I never had real medicine before. Just bitters and sometimes peppermint if I have a stomach ache,” he says solemnly.

He rolls over to stare at the weaker Stig in the next bed. “Stig, we get medicine. I hope it tastes nice.” That wishful thought seems to coincide with the summit of his energy, because he yawns and closes his eyes as Carver makes his way outside.

Mrs. Nilsson follows him down the steps and to the door, to open it for the doctor.


Meanwhile


Finn’s brow rises as he sees Chris of all people, along with Nicole and other familiar faces of people he’s met through Lucille.

“Nanu Nanu,” he replies with a solemn nod to Cooper, then turns to look at Kara. “See? I’m not the only one who thinks like me. Clearly this gentleman is a man of excellent mind and body and possibly my brother from another mother. Even if he is a SESA agent, I’m pretty sure.”

No offense guys.

“Sup?” he asks the rest of the agents.

At that moment, they hear the door open again, and Carver appears. Fru Nilsson stays beyond the threshold but peers out with narrowed but curious eyes.

Mats hasn’t said anything but at the appearance of the homesteader, he takes off his hat and gives her a nod. “Jag hoppas att ingen har oroat dig, Fru Nilsson.” She shakes her head, but turns her eyes back to Carver, waiting to see what he has to say.

Elsef hops up from where she’s been inspecting a bug on the ground and hurries to Carver. “Can you help them?”

Carver's mouth is hidden behind his mask, but it's not hard to see his smile in his eyes. "I think so," he rasps. His gaze is already scrutinizing the newcomers who've joined them. It's not too hard to tell when he realizes Mrs. Miller is among them; the surprised widening of his eyes gives that away.

But whatever her reason for being here… it can wait. "It's not pox. It's typhus… and I can treat that, with the proper medication."

His attention turns to Yi-Min. "Dr. Yeh, I've heard you have a deft hand when it comes to matters of organic chemistry. Can you synthesize antibiotics with what's available on site? Tetracycline or doxycycline would be ideal; chloramphenicol in a pinch." If not… he'll have to fall back to other options. He has stocks in the clinic, but he's not entirely sure he'll be able get back if he leaves Brigadoon; this situation is weird enough that he definitely doesn't want to take things for granted any more than he has to.

“Oh yeah, totally SESA,” Cooper confirms, not at all put off by the comment, he’s probably used to that sort of thing. “They, hands down, have the best donut choices.” Looking at Nicole with a lop-sided grin, he motions at Finn with a thumb. “This guy. He gets me.”

Turning back to Finn, Cooper does a not-so-discreet point Nicole’s way and gives a small shake of head, because clearly they do not. “But hey,” he says with a clap of his hands, “How about this living history museum, huh? Smelly, but kinda cool too.”

Brows suddenly furrow and he looks between both groups, brows going up. “Hey, question. Has anyone thought to ask how they got here or if they have been beyond the circle?” Cause for all his comments and gawking at that this was the first time he thought of it himself.

The arrival of more people is at first alarming. Once realizing who they are, however, Dumortier is moving right forward with a half-smile. Corbin and Nicole are quite possibly the only federal agents he marginally trusts— as agents, anyway. On a personal level, well. That's different. They're different.

"No sat-phone, no regular signal, don't bother looking…" Rene's half-smile falls the rest of the way, arms crossed and expression wary. He looks from Corbin to Cooper, the latter getting a once-over for being a new variable. "We were a little busy with halflings. Human and tree. You said circle so I'm going to assume it was like that the whole way 'round?"

After a glance towards the woods, "There's nothing wrong with them. The trees. They're just… like if you suddenly had a baby head." Terrible imagery, but it works.

Robyn has been quiet since they arrived in the village, trying as best as she can to peer around every corner and take in ever sight she can - the only reason she hasn't deployed her doppelganger to aid in the endeavor is because when she suggested it, Nicole gave her the an expression that just oozed I will end your whole career if you even consider it, and honestly that's a pretty good deterrent.

But it's the phrase "baby head" that finally draws her out of her own considerations, brow stitching together as a perplexed look washes over her face. "I think I saw that ad campaign once. It was awful." Or she's misremembering something. Still, she looks up at Rene and then over to Nicole. "Sounds similar to my conclusion."

Kara regards the oncoming SESA agents with a raise of her brow, and almost— almost draws her weapon.

But then she spots a familiar face— two— among their number, and the hand that had begun to reach falls back by her side. She doesn't know what to make of them for the most part, robbed from most forms of acknowledgement due to her look flattening at Cooper's greeting, and then at Finn's response.

Mostly because throwing around the words time travel in front of the kids, who can speak and understand English, probably isn't the best choice.

"I'm pretty sure if we have to draw on pop culture references, this is more a… Back to the Future situation," she issues in a warning tone between the group of time-travelers. "So it might be worth considering just what we're doing here. The effects it could have."

Not that she gave that particular thought before leaping in feet-first after Carver. When he returns, Kara turns to him with a small frown. It's a frown that drags its way to Yi-Min, hesitant.

Once, she could have synthesized much out of hand. But now…

When Carver pipes up with his query about diseases and medicine, Yi-Min is still extremely busy arching her brow towards the sight of the second tourist group that had decided to join them on this increasingly unbelievable escapade.

So, too, does she become aware of Kara's frown towards her without looking right at it.

She can only answer either with a little shrug, blasé more than wistful. "Regretfully, my ability was never to synthesize antibiotics outright," she corrects, tone very mild for the dryness of the implication. Toxins, remember?

Toxins, AKA a still highly-experimental subset of medicine, even if this was something she had devoted much of her life's work to expanding upon. Not that she could have simply stood right here and spat out syringes anyway. She needed equipment.

"If I had access to my lab, I could certainly see what I could do. Unfortunately, we seem to have left that behind a few hundred years in the future."

How inconvenient.

Chris can only smirk vaguely and shrug when Finn looks his way. “Vacationers wanted the ghost tour package,” he explains, despite Kara’s warnings to keep the modern references to a minimum. Hell, Erik the Awful and the rest of the village had their own stories of hauntings and strange things. There was that cow they'd passed.

He regards the kids and Mats, their own escort, until Carver returns. What else is there to do but watch Vikings do Viking things while living normal Viking lives? But then the old man comes out of the sick house talking about typhus and

“You did wash after going in there.” Chris’ tone is deadpan, but his face is an image. He looks like he might take six large steps back, call for a crucifix and holy water, possibly even suggest burning things to be rid of the filth.

Okay,” Nicole’s voice lifts to be heard above the others’, without yelling. “Can we ix-nay on the ime travel-tay, please? Everyone?” That blue gaze is a lot less threatening without the bioluminescent glow to back it up, but Nicole didn’t get her reputation by ever actually using her ability on someone in that fashion. “Great.

Her attention swivels to Chris when he brings up matters of hygiene. “I’m sure Doctor Carver is aware of how to protect himself and others from communicable disease,” Nicole insists quietly. Of course, helping these people combat the illness sweeping through their village is a moral imperative.

However, there’s also the matter of the beast that’s been preying on their livestock. And Nicole suddenly has a bad feeling, due to something Cooper said, about what manner of creature might be behind such attacks. “Lucky,” she addresses Finn first, then, “Kara. Have your people seen any Hunters in the area recently?” That cow did not get that messed up all on its own.

In this case, Nicole would very much like for her gut to be wrong.

The man on horseback clears his throat after a few minutes of watching and listening to the visitors speak. Most of it has gone over his head, clearly, but there’s a set to his jaw that shows he’s a little on edge, though that air of propriety and respect is maintained.

“We’ve been hunting for whatever killed the cow. We do see bear around here but they generally stay clear of the villages and I never ken one to do that. Could be a prank from one of the young folk.” He looks to Jepp who meets his gaze steadily and coolly, no smile in sight.

Finn seems like he isn’t sure if he should answer Nicole or not, as the Swede speaks, so he gives the woman a silent shake of his head. Nope, no Hunters of the capital H variety here. He looks over to Cooper and makes a heart out of his hands. Bros for life.

Mats fixes his blue gaze on Carver — they’re both cut from that same cloth, lean and stern but not unkind. “You speak many words I do not know. But if you have means of healing the children, we would be beholden to you for your kindness,” he says with a solemn nod to the doctor. “Fru Nilsson and Jepp have already lost one family member.”

He finally turns to look at Cooper, and one corner of his mouth tics up into something of a smile. “I imagine we got here the same way as you did — by foot or by horse or by carriage. Before that, ships. We do travel now and then to other villages — Batsto and Hampton, rarely so far as you have come from. But we rely on ourselves and the land for what we need. No one has traveled that I know of in recent weeks.”

Mats looks to Elsef, as if to ask the tiny child to confirm it — she clearly is the town know-it-all. She shakes her head. “Maybe Hedda,” she says, with a shrug.

The man scoffs at the name Hedda, and adds to Cooper, “No one of note.”

Kara looks back toward Nicole at the question posed to her, eyebrow lifting. Hunters? No.

"The bots we've been dealing with don't leave behind carcasses," she elaborates, shifting a look to Chris. It'd seem he's kept his word on revealing little about the goings-on in Providence if he's not revealed that to them. For that, she gives him a tight nod of acknowledgement.

When Mats explains about the villages nearby, the first doesn't ring a bell— but the second does. Hampton sounded familiar. Okay, so maybe they really were only time-displaced and not time-and-space-displaced.

His disdain for this Hedda person doesn't go unnoticed— and it makes her wonder. Typhus, that she knew of, didn't just target children. If the children were friendly with whoever Hedda was, and the adults were not, perhaps that's why the illness was 'only' afflicting the children? Only they had had contact with her?

"Typhoid Mary situation?" she murmurs to herself, for the benefits of those standing closest to her. Those on her side of the fence, so to speak.

At Yi-Min's commentary, Carver gives a somewhat disappointed nod, tinged with maybe a bit of… commiseration. From one professional to another, both cut off from their resources. "I have something that would do the job at the clinic," he admits, "but… same problem."

Chris earns a mild look from the old doctor, but not much more than that — he has a point, come to that, and if Carver had more than one pair of gloves you can bet he'd be tossing the ones he's wearing just as quickly as he could. Nicole seems to have that one in hand, though.

But…

Wait. His gaze flickers to Nicole for a moment, eyes narrowing. The last he'd seen her, she'd been carrying a two pack of Miller Lites. Now she sure as hell isn't, which is concerning since the scuttlebutt hadn't had the zeroth birthday party until sometime in October — late September at the earliest. And if she'd had them before that, she probably shouldn't be back out running around the backwoods with the Slice Squad.

Then again, none of them should be running around three hundred years before they were born, give or take. Maybe there's some additional weird shit-time fuckery at play here. Maybe this is the Nicole of Christmas Future. He can't really ask and find out without getting into ime traveltay talk…

…and even if he could. She isn't dying from anything at the moment, aside from the thing that everyone everywhere is dying from.

The hunter's words draw Carver's attention back; he nods. "I'll do what I can. Unfortunately, I don't have the right medicine here." He falls silent, pondering the logistics of a clinic run… Kara's murmur draws his gaze swiftly, though. He shakes his head once. "Not applicable," he says sternly.

No Hunters, no Squids. Dumortier grinds his teeth enough to seem perturbed, giving the response from Finn to Cooper a perplexed crease of brow in the moments following. That aside, he takes his time listening to Carver and Yi-Min, chewing on the inside of his lip in inward debate.

"I can treat the symptoms. Probably." The last is added in a lower voice, and reluctantly, Rene turns to Carver, arms still crossed. "Depends on what these people have around. Or if they're already using herbal remedies, I can use that…" As much as he'd like to, you know, bail — typhoid, what — he's already here, and god knows what attacked the cow, and in that case alone, he'd prefer the buddy system.

"I can give things more kick. That's why my pot's so good." He can't help a nervous laugh.

Yi-Min is paying heed to the conversation about Hunters as it happens, but only from a distance. Kara and Finn would appear to have that point in hand, and her own area of expertise is her more immediate concern.

"We should have come here more prepared," she says both quietly and very flatly, giving her head a shake. "Treating symptoms can buy these people time—" and for this, she slides a small but grateful glance towards Dumortier. "However, herbal remedies are ultimately nothing compared to modern medicine, unfortunately. Short of trying to divine if there is some safe way to go back and then return, which might be too dangerous to bother considering, we will just have to do what we can here. And hope."

The talk of symptoms and sources has her thinking, though, and she turns her coolly focused gaze up towards the two children suddenly.

"Who was your patient zero, Elsef? Your first person to get sick. And how long ago did it begin?"

Carver is able to catch Nicole’s gaze while he sizes her up, and he sees the light in her eyes — proverbial, rather than one that’s usually quite literal — diminish some. Yes, he’s seeing what he thinks he’s seeing, and no, it isn’t as it should be, it tells him. By now she should be nesting, not out here, shepherding the Slice Squad. He receives a small nod of acknowledgement. They can talk later.

They have bigger problems right now. “Is there anybody willing to travel back to Providence to see about finding medicine and reporting this situation?” Nicole looks around those gathered for volunteers, careful not to let her gaze linger on any one person too long, lest she imply she expects someone to take on the role of messenger and courier.

Cooper gives Finn a look, like he’s touched by the gesture with a hand on his heart; even returning the heart hands in return.

But amusement bleeds away a little as his questions are answered for him by their escorts. To be fair, Cooper didn’t really think these guys were from another time. The world was rough out there. People like the Amish were better equipped for that kinda life. Getting told to shut it on the time travel, means that Cooper can only make a noise in the back of his throat about it.

He glances at the others as they talk about treatment of the sick and Thomas steps closer to their guides. “I’d actually, kinda wouldn’t mind talking to Hedda. She around? Before that though….” He debates how to word it… but… how do you ask what year it is without asking it outright. Oh hell… “You know… lately days have been really blurring together. So much work to do, you know how that is. You don’t happen to know the date today? Day, month, year.” He tries to sound all nonchalant asking that. “…..for my notes.”

“I think this place is enough out of the way that we’re not in too much danger of causing a disturbance,” Corbin mentions to Nicole, without bothering with the pig-latin, but also not speaking too loudly, either. He wants to keep a positive spin on the situation, but he also isn’t going to actually whip out his cellphone in plain view of everyone either. Just in case. He shakes his head a little in disappointment, moving closer as he tries to remember from school what that disease actually was. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a disease that the modern world really seemed to talk about anymore, so he imagined it was something that basic hygiene had gotten rid of.

They were probably going to be okay…?

But did he suddenly feel itchy?

Maybe they should have sent a group back and seen if the vehicles were still there and could get back to town… Sigh. “Is it too late for me to listen to your original order, Miller?” he says with a small hitch of a laugh, looking back the way they had come. Was quite a walk now. And he definitely didn’t want to do it alone. “One of us should probably check out the cow, though. Get an idea what beastie we might be dealing with.”

A single finger is held up — no, not that finger — to pause Nicole’s insistence that Carver probably knows what he's doing. Chris is sure the old man is well versed in proper hygiene. But they're talking about typhus. His hand drops to his side, though, when all the talk and activity circles back to the sick house and healing and things outside his pay grade.

He turns to let the agents and the folks of Providence quibble and decide what to do next. Doctoring isn't in his skill set. A look is tossed to Mats, then the direction they'd arrived from. “I'm going to check the cow,” he decides aloud. For anyone, including their guide, who might be listening.

Chris looks at Mats again, shakes his head with a huffed breath. It's as close to a laugh, a disbelieving one, as he's likely to make. Historic Williamsburg had nothing on this place. Still shaking his head slightly, he wanders off, tracing their route in reverse to find that cow thing they'd passed before. Maybe he'll catch a kid or two that could explain the flying boar insanity.

“I’ll go with him,” Corbin says, gesturing after his nephew before he follows after, trusting Miller and Cooper and the rest to keep everything under control there. He didn’t know most of those from Providence, but at least he knew one of them and trusted that one as well. “We’ll be back before too long.” With that, he takes off after his nephew, not moving super fast, but also not letting him get out of sight. He’ll catch up before they reach the cow.

Elsef squints a little as the adults talk — her English is good, but they are grownups and it’s hard to follow. She tilts her head at Yi-Min’s question before it’s reworded in a way she can understand.

“The three boys all came down with it at the same time I think. Maybe Nils first,” she says, looking up at Jepp, whose face gets even stonier when he hears his little brother’s name again. “We thought it be just the regular pox but Nills died. Fru Nilsson took in my brother to make sure no one else got it.”

The sullen teenager turns and walks away, long coltish legs taking him far away from this group of strangers as he heads in the direction of the woods behind the house.

“A fortnight ago maybe,” Mats says helpfully, frowning as he watches the teenager stride off. The boy’s mother looks after him, her stern and suspicious expression turning to one of sorrow. A moment later, the door slams, with her within.

“I can go back,” Finn says, raising his hand like an avid student when Nicole looks for volunteers. “I trust my luck should I come into contact with beast or hunter or Hunter.” The second iteration of the word is emphasized. Hunter with a capital H. “Doc, tell me what the names were—”

He’s interrupted by the sound in the distance — from the woods just behind the house — of two gunshots. Too close together to be one of the muskets, they definitely were fired from a modern weapon. A pistol, from the sound of it, something small caliber. The teenager is still in sight, freezing in place as he stares into the woods, about halfway between the house and the treeline.

The crack of a gun different than the blast of a musket draws Kara's attention instantly away from the conversation at hand. "Jepp, get down!" she calls out sharply, followed by, "Get back!"

She looks between the group she came with for only a moment. Someone knowledgeable would need to either inform or go with Finn to get the medicine, and she knows she's not one of them. It's without hesitation that she brings her rifle forward, cradling it to her shoulder and beginning to move forward.

Kara moves swiftly to where Jepp had stalled, like her presence will serve as an aegis, or at the very least a more appealing target than him should their shooter fire this way. She can't see the shooter, but she heard the direction the gun fired from, and she begins to move in an arc toward it, but not directly at it, movements slow while she waits to see who else joins her in this investigation.

Maybe they, whoever they were, were a threat.

Or maybe they'd found the beast that the men in town had been hunting.

“That’d be great,” Nicole nods to Finn. Of all the people who could volunteer to go solo, she’s perhaps the most comfortable letting him be the one. Though, if anything goes wrong, she’ll never forgive herself. They have the same thought from there, and she starts to talk right over the top of him. “Get a list from Doctor Carv—”

Nicole’s head snaps up and in the direction of the gunfire. “Roux!” she snaps verbally in the immediate, then with her fingers, pointing in Jepp’s direction. Kara’s running interference, but someone has to get the boy to move. “Get him inside! I want as few people outside as we can manage.” She looks about for sign of Corbin or his nephew, taking stock of their location. They’re not the likely source, or intended targets, so she trusts Ayers to handle himself and the situation.

“Cooper,” Nicole calls to the other agent. “With me!” She can’t tell the people of Providence what to do, but she does let her gaze fall on Yi-Min, solemn. “Stay here, stay safe,” she pleads, then darts a glance in Kara’s direction. “I’ve got her back.”

All of the thoughts Yi-Min had been busy with right up until that second— those of this mysterious sickness, and its source, and finding a cure— drop like an iron ball when Kara stalks off after Jepp and the gunshots like the damned fool hero she didn't have to be.

The singular intensity of her gaze when drawn by the sudden daring of Nicole's interruption, even momentarily, is so great that it feels like it could sweep someone over. She wastes little time in forming a response of words, but only shakes her head purposefully.

Those here still had Carver and others.

Meanwhile, Nicole was not her commanding officer. It had been a long time since she had had any such thing, and Yi-Min now had only a few priorities left in her life.

Quick as some little woodland animal, Yi-Min slips off into the foliage directly after Kara, shotgun released from its scabbard on her back and gripped ready in both her hands.

"Hell with this." Dumortier grouses, looking after Kara and anyone else as they go towards the source of the gunfire. He's not going- they're at a disadvantage going at the treeline from the clearing—

"I can tell you what we need, Finn— " Grabbing onto the other man's sleeve and jerking, it's Dumortier's way of deciding to go with the retriever. It'll save time scrounging, besides— "Kara and SESA can handle it, and someone needs to find out if we can get back."

He'd like to be able to, and finding out sooner than later would be preferable.

Carver doesn't particularly mind the departure of Chris and the agent; if they're nervous, putting them further away from the sickhouse is probably a good idea anyway.

Besides, he's too busy being frustrated and annoyed at the moment. Typhus. Not typhoid fever, typhus! Yes, that's why he's the doctor and they're not, but it's still frustrating. "Typhus. Not typhoid fever — typhus," Carver starts to explain.

Then — gunfire. Two shots, probably from a pistol. Carver's eyes narrow, and he starts pulling off his gloves, carefully pulling them inside out as he pulls them off.

"Tetracycline. Doxycycline. In the storage room at the clinic," Carver states clearly to Finn and Dumortier. "There's an old black bag with my tools in it behind my desk, too. Bring that and I'll have everything I need," he says, stuffing the left glove and his bandanna into the right glove, then tying it off and stuffing the whole mess back into the plastic bag he'd gotten it out of in the first place. If Finn brings the bag back, he'll have another pair of gloves.

He'd offer a salute, but he's busy scanning for trouble — the source of those shots. Part of him wants to join Kara and Dr. Yeh… but no. If he gets his ass shot, then there won't be anyone left to treat the kids. Or to treat Kara or Dr. Yeh if either of them get their asses shot. And Mrs. Miller's with them.

"Wilco," Carver rasps to Miller. His eyes still scan for any sign of trouble, his free hand hanging near his pistol; he's already sidling towards the nearest cover he can see. There's a chance it's just someone from Providence, out hunting… but if it's not… better to be safe than sorry.

Well that didn’t work… Cooper huffs out a sigh as the date continues to elude him. Damn people shooting up the place. Turn at the sound of his name, he gives Nicole a nod. “Yeah. Let’s go. Right behind you.”
Jepp doesn’t speak English, and after that momentary paralysis, just as Kara reaches him, he jackrabbits forward to peer into the woods — at least he has the sense to stay low and behind trees as he peers within the darker wood for the source of that strange (to him) gunfire.

Mats gives a shake of his head at the discussion surrounding him as he spurs his horse into gear to head in the teen’s direction. It’s then that the teen turns back, his eyes big — there’s both thrill and fear in those wide eyes, even at long distance. “Djävulen!

When Robyn reaches for Elsef to get her inside, the little girl turns at Jepp’s words. “The devil,” she whispers.

Finn, crouching, shoots a look at Dumortier. “I know how to read, Alf, I can find the right meds!” even as he too heads toward the treeline rather than across the village the way they’d come. There’s no way he’s going to not check out what might be the Jersey Devil. Besides, they might need more weaponry to bring it down than whatever Nicole, Cooper, Kara and Yi-Min are carrying.

And the musket Mats carries, it’s not even worth noting.

Mats reaches Jepp well ahead of the two-legged runners, pulling him up onto the horse behind himself. He squints into the woods to see the creature or the shooter.

The sound that comes from the forest is an ungodly roar, part growl and part high-pitched squeal. His horse balks and rears backward, throwing both Jepp and Mats from it before galloping off in the direction of the house, whinnying and wild-eyed with fear.

Kara, closest to the treeline, can barely see through the thick pines — something that defies description, something that belongs in a horror movie or nightmare. Whoever shot at it hasn’t killed it yet.

Whoever shot at it might still be in the woods, alive.


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