Participants:
Scene Title | Foggy |
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Synopsis | Francois checks in on Tamara, who is healthy enough to be evasive. |
Date | June 19, 2010 |
Gun Hill: Odessa's Clinic
The sun has long since risen too high to cast any direct light through the basement's small windows, but there's still a fair amount of illumination to the clinic. Not that Tamara is really utilizing the light — not when all she's doing is sitting on the edge of the bed, an empty water glass in her hands, walls smudged with fingerprints from turning it around and around in-hand. She does seem to study the random patterns formed by those smudges, their clumps and associations, the negative space they define; but it's an idle thing, a casual and nonchalant amusement.
The blankets on the bed have been twitched into something resembling order, although calling it made would be an overstatement; an empty mug sits on the nightstand nearby, rimed with dark residue that looks (and smells, upon particularly close inspection) like coffee. There's still a folding chair set up beside the bed, currently empty — it hasn't been for long, but even Colette has to eat sometime.
Francois imagines that he is unfamiliar, but unfamiliar things might be difficult for Tamara to come by, even if she might not have glimpsed him in the sporadic waking hours over the last twelve of 'em or so. He is tired, but there are worse things to be. When the doctor with his crooked hand, bitten ear and neck scarring arrives at her door, he knocks it with a gentleman's rhythm before letting himself in. His bottom half is a casual combination of worn boots and blue jeans, but the pale blue button down he wears is plainly formal, loose at his throat with a slice of a white underdshirt showing, the sleeves rolled back in on themselves.
"Tamara?" He has a smile in place for her, even if, since the visions, these gestures have taken on some strain and weariness, as if there is something going on behind him. Francois rarely means to be insincere. "How are you feeling this morning?"
The girl looks up as the door opens, regarding Francois for a moment before peeling one hand from the glass to rub at her eyes. "Foggy," she informs him matter-of-factly, sounding a little tired herself in spite of that whole recent marathon of sleep. Or at least unconsciousness. She twists about the other way and leans over the bed to set the glass down on the nightstand, its bottom thunking briefly against the wooden surface. When Tamara straightens, it's to set her hands in her lap, gaze resting on Francois with a faintly curious air. Folding her left foot under the other knee, her right foot swings idly back and forth by the bedside. "How were you feeling?" she asks politely in return.
Picking up a chair, no doubt one that anxious friends have perched in to watch over the sleeping precognitive, Francois settles it on the side of the bed she's chosen. He hesitates as he carefully sets all four legs down, a small crinkle in his brow showing at her choice of wording, but his smile remains, as does his tone; "Very well, merci." Sitting down, he has a diagnostic penlight in his hand, and this is fidgeted with, turned around between the straighter fingers of his right hand. "My name is Francois — I've been helping Doctor Price, while you have been here.
"I introduced myself a little earlier, actually, but I do not expect you to remember. I was hoping you might tell me what you do remember?"
Of all the standard questions out there, that one's high on the list; typical, generally harmless, and important in normal social interactions. Confronted with it, Tamara averts her gaze, letting her eyes wander up one of the basement's painted-concrete walls from the bottom join to its very very top. Slowly, as if every pit and pocket in the surface was important to note. Her foot stops moving, but her fingers fidget at the hem of her shirt, rolling it back and forth between their grasp. When she replies, it's while watching the doctor from the edge of her vision. "I don't want to fish," the girl informs him diffidently.
Not only is it a standard for the conversational query, it's also somewhat relevant to Francois' medical opinion, which is why his eyes narrow in thought as she gives that response. He takes an interpretation, smile softening into something more sympathetic as opposed to awful, attempted optimism and politeness. "If it is difficult, I do not need to make you. I only want to know that you are well." His head tips a little to the left, a guiding attempt to catch her eye sight. "You said you were feeling foggy. It is normal to be tired, even sore, after that much unconsciousness."
Now that that subject is off the table, Tamara lets Francois catch her eyes, bobbing her head in a more confident response. "It was okay," she assures the doctor, tapping her foot against empty air. A moment later, she slides off the bed, the better to pivot in a circle, arms outstretched. "See?" Not that her capability to stand and turn around proves anything with regard to fitness, particularly when the very next thing the girl does is plop back down to her seat on the bed and lift a hand to cover a very wide yawn. Still, she can laugh at that, smiling ruefully over at Francois. "Tired was often. But the pieces are mostly there, or enough of them, and the fog didn't stay too long."
Shifting so that he can sit at the edge of the chair, Francois suppresses his own smile that had grown at her antics, pinching it back down as he puts out his crooked left hand as he might steady her, or at least encourage stillness. His other flicks on the penlight, a gentle beam of illumination that dances up her face as he sets about checking the responses of her pupils to the light and its lack. "Non, not too long," he agrees, studying her eyes without actually looking into them, until he does — a subtle and only mildly disconcerting shift.
For those who might be disconcerted by such things. Something else that is disconcerting: Tamara's manner of speaking, but they lack slur and mumbling, nothing weak in the syllables themselves, these things that Francois is listening for in a less visible manner than looking through vs. looking at. "Any complaints, since you have woken? Physical pain, dizziness, difficulties?" he's asking her by the time he's flicking the penlight off, all business, if delivered in gentle tones of voice, naturally sandpapery and mild.
The girl sits obediently still as Francois checks her eyes, if only because it's a regrettably necessary step; under the aegis of focused light, the pupils don't contract quite as far as the doctor might like, but there is a fundamentally normal response. When it's turned off and she's free to move again, Tamara settles for merely shifting her head, the better to consider him sidelong. Her brows draw together slowly, lips pressing into a thinner line; she blinks, altogether giving the impression that this simple question is also — not so simple.
Tamara drops her gaze to her bare feet, not avoiding his but in study of them — wiggles her toes as she looks at them, then tracks her eyes upwards to her torso, out along each arm to her fingers. "I don't… think so?" the girl finally answers, looking hopefully up at Francois for confirmation. In her turn, there's a shift from at to through — her eyes slide a fraction sideways, losing focus as the pupils dilate independent of any introduced light source. "No," Tamara finally concludes after a moment's consideration, a blink of her eyes returning attention to her companion. "No, it all worked fine." She smiles warmly at the doctor. "Thank you."
His eyes go crescent in response, a cheerful kind of expression involving a smile that doesn't necessarily include his mouth, before he nods and searches a look over her. Save for muscle spasms that are not there, there isn't a hell of a lot that Francois would be able to find via his eyes alone, but he's thinking, is the thing, and considering Odessa's patient. "I will tell Doctor Price that you are feeling better," he confirms, finally, a hand going out to gently touch her wrist in a way that might seem forward, but is naturally him, tactile contact having importance. More so, before he was bereft of his power, allowed to live through it thanks to the machinations of the girl before him.
"And you can go, so long as you will promise not to strain yourself and your body. It has gone through some strain now. Is there someone that you live with or see every day? A guardian?" Sitting back, he's fitting the penlight back into a pocket, lifting his chin to her as he explains, "For it would be best for someone to keep an eye on you for a short while."
She doesn't mind the touch; rather, the girl traps his hand in hers, turning it over to study the lines on Francois' palm. Only briefly; she's not, after all, that kind of fortune teller, only prone to passing whimsy. Lets go so he can sit back, her fingers tapping arhythmically on her own thigh.
That the question of guardian doesn't get an immediate reply might have some correlation with Tamara's fidgeting.
"Yes…" The girl peers at Francois, first from the periphery of her sight, then turning to regard him more directly. "You didn't believe I could?" She sounds more amused than offended, as if his concern — perhaps the request for a promise she hasn't made — is a novel thing.
"What didn't I believe?" Francois asks, patiently, perhaps not yet well-versed with either not asking, or discovering the correct interpretation that allows him to answer. In any case, he started off distracted and will remain distracted, his eyes blinking across at her patiently even as he's taking out his cellphone to check the screen of messages— of which there are none— and subsequently the time. "I do believe you have recovered from your coma, mademoiselle — I just do not want to be wrong where no one can help you."
Distractions are all well and good for Tamara, who slides off the bed again while he's not looking, feet very quietly finding purchase on the floor. "You ask," she says, an eminently unhelpful clarification. Then she pads around the end of the bed, her pace slow at first, rapidly quickening as the girl approaches the door. "I'll tell Misty!" she calls back, assuring the doctor of her good behavior — or at least good intentions.
Technically, Misty doesn't guard anything yet.
There's a small, almost electrical start to the way Francois' back straightens, vague alarm cracking a flaw through his dignified demeanor, but the girl has already fled her perch. Pragmatic, he studies what he can of her walk, the gait of her steps and how steady she is on her feet, and finds it satisfactory enough that he isn't demanding her to get back in bed. Also satisfactory: her answer, for as long as he's not aware that Misty is a dog, out of all companions the most abominable if one were to ask him.
Tamara certainly isn't, and he lets her go, slipping his messageless phone back into a pocket and standing, replacing the chair where he found it.