Participants:
| Scene Title | Just Knowing |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Doctor Price discovers the "Red Death" has hit closer to home than she would like when Devon calls her to see her newest patient, Brennan's eldest. |
| Date | July 23, 2011 |
Hospitals are scary places. Not to be childish about the fear, but those buildings are downright frightening. The overclean atmosphere with its strange smells and hidden eyes posing as security watching the goings on in each and every common area. The officials, those with badges visible and those you won't know of until it's too late casting looks of suspicion to every passer by they come across. It's a wonder that Devon's made the trip at all, injured as he is and in spite of concerns surrounding his legality and certain zealots of anti-evolved sentiments knowing his identity.
But there's a certain young girl who might like a visitor, and a determination to see she get any kind of help the teen can muster from a doctor on the outside.
Devon had sent a text to Doctor B. well ahead of the planned visit, giving him a few hours notice and saying he was bringing Doctor Price along with him. Odessa, on the other hand, had gotten less notice with the time and location to meet the boy, yet still enough to not be considered a spur of the moment invite.
Standing in the hall for Odessa's arrival, where two corridors come to a T, Devon waits. Very typical today, a black T-shirt and blue board shorts, arms folded over his chest and shoulders shrugged in a manner that suggests the posture is more to keep himself stabilized and standing without leaning much on the wall. His eyes track down the different hallways, slipping past the nurse's station to glance down the line of rooms. There's few others in the hallway, an occasional doctor breezes past, nurses off to check on charges. The suits of hospital administrators can be seen crossing between corridors or rooms even further down.
Doctor Price isn't quite presumptuous enough to wear her lab coat in a hospital she doesn't work in, but she does have it slung over one arm. If only because she dashed out of work in an effort to be on time, forgetting she was wearing it. Her black slacks and red blouse are smart, and her top matches the handmade patch over her eye. Red velvet with sparkles attached to it. Her shoes are sensible, in that the heels are only two and a half inches rather than her typical favoured four.
They're still silver sequinned and match her Coach bag. (Label whore.) Odessa approaches Devon, seemingly all business, tucking a strand of her growing-out bangs behind one ear where they've fallen from the confines of cherry red barrette. "Mister Clendaniel," she greats with a brief twitch of a smile. "Where's our little patient?"
"Over here" Three doors down, to the left. Where Brennan has just emerged from. No lab coat, no suit. Jeans and a short sleeve, tattoo's normally well hidden from sight, peering out from beneath sleeve hems that don't hide the muscle he has too. "What Devon thinks you can do for her, is beyond me though Dr. Price" There's no frenchwoman cooing, Michelle off to rest and sleep while Brennan takes this shift with their daughter.
He beckons the two of them to come over, come in, stop loitering in the hall and enter into the room with the chart and nametag that proclaims this to be the room of Marlena Brennan. In the wards for those with the flu, it seems.
And it is, the room inside a private one, bright sunflowers littering one side, a teddy bear with rusty stains on it that is soon to be switched out for another so it can be washed is held in the arms of the nine year old on the bed who struggles to breath, eyes closed above the oxygen mask. Tubes snaking out from underneath gauze that covers ports and leads to bags that hang and provide medication and blood to the little girl on the bed, the dark haired spitting image of her mother. A cot, a couch, coffee cups, McDonald's bags, all the evidence of two parents who spend their days and nights here. As indicative of the turmoil they're going through as the lines and bags under Brennan's eyes.
The sound of heels against linoleum pulls Devon's attention to the approach. "Doctor Price," he returns quietly, subdued rather than meeting the air of business with businesslike himself. He does try to stand a little straighter, without much concern for if he succeeds or not, and further response is stayed by the beckoning from down the hall.
The boy gives a nod of his head toward the briefly emerged Doctor Brennan, slanting another glance toward Odessa. He's second guessing his thoughts on this adventure, but in the end he sighs and turns for the room. "Thanks for coming," Devon asides to the woman, just before stepping through the doorway. The accents of the room are given brief regard before he looks to the little girl hooked up like a science experiment. He swallows, steps halted at the sight edging forward again, taking him out of the doorway and within a few strides of the bed.
"Do- Harve." They're outside of work. Odessa's pretty sure she's allowed to call the man by his first name. She blinks bewildered for a moment before she follows him into the room. Two steps in, she stops and turns around. "Oops! Just a second, I think I dropped something in the corridor."
Rounding the corner and safely out of sight, Odessa's jaw drops and she clutches a hand to her chest. Not Marlena. After a deep breath, she forces herself back into the room, sets her coat and her bag aside and approaches the bed, reaching for the chart while offering a glance to Brennan. "May I?" If he were just a father, she wouldn't bother asking permission. But he's a doctor, and her boss. She feels this gives him some right.
"I… will have to confer with… my colleague. But we may be able to help." There's hesitation and uncertainty in Odessa's tone that she immediately curses herself for. She should be standing up tall, sounding confident. For everyone's sake.
"You may" Brennan's moved to the side of his sleeping daughter, her chest falling and rising with each noisy breath. "If Dr. Blite can be bothered to move her ass on what I had hoped she would have been focusing her attention on other than nursing wounds, maybe there might be hope for my daughter and the others in the hospital" A squares of gauze taped to the crook of his elbow is an indication that he's given blood, likely in an effort to help his daughter.
She stirs in the bed, turning her head to one side, eyes peeking open reveal the tell tale blood red of the whites, focusing on Devon and Odessa in the room with some small amount of confusion and flickering fingers as they spell out a question that Brennan has to focus on translating. "She says hello and if you're here to make her better" Both of them.
Torn, teeth biting into his lower lip, Devon watches the child, eyes occasionally ticking toward the machinery she's connected to before returning to Marlena. His brow creases with worry and fear, the uncertainty and knowing another actually stricken with the illness. He takes a half step forward when his attention is drawn to her hands moving, halting when Brennan translates. Looking up at Doctor B, the teen takes another step forward and offers comfort in the gentle weight of his hand on Marlena's foot. "Only if being a friend helps you feel better," he states quietly, eyes moving back to the girl.
Odessa's knowledge of sign language is confined to the alphabet, rather than full words or thoughts with single, sweeping hand motions. Short replies are easy enough. O-F-C-O-U-R-S-E. Being left handed, and signing with her right, the movements of her fingers are a little slow as she makes out the letters, a smile for the girl. A smile that slowly fades as Doctor Price reads over the details on Marlena's chart.
She's sure to have the clipboard covering her mouth, so her lips can't be read, as she assures Doctor Brennan, "I'll punch Yana in the mouth if she drags her Louboutin heels on this one."
"Tell her, remind her, that if she fails to use her ability to the full extent of it's true potential, that I will not hesitate to make good on my promise to her during our conversation in my basement" He keeps his back turned so that Marlena can't read his lips even though she's focused on Devon with his hand on her foot and the dopey grin on her face. She catches Odessa's words too, fingers fumbling through the alphabet, a compliment on the eyepatch before she's closing her eyes again, exhausted child.
"I'm surprised you brought Odessa. Devon, how are you feeling?" How's that gash in your side made by a bullet.
A small smile is offered to the little girl, but once her eyes are closed, Devon turns to face the two doctors. His expression has grown hard, and his voice has a slight edge to it as he speaks. "If Yana so much as hesitates at helping and I find out about it," he states quietly. His arms fold over his chest once again, looking beyond the adults to the door.
"I knew she was working with Yana," the teen goes on to explain. "I had other business to discuss with her and asked if she could come look, on faith since I wouldn't give her names." Devon's eyes flick toward Odessa as he considers Brennan's question. In short, and expressed in his posture, it hurts. A lot. But what he replies is, "Feeling alright today."
"You just leave Doctor Blite to me," Odessa murmurs dryly. "She's not the only one who can work with and manipulate viruses," she further insists. "She's just faster than I am." Considerably. Unfairly. Damned ability.
"What happened to you this time, Devon?" It's obvious to the young doctor's trained eye that the boy is injured. "Do you need someone to take a look? It's… probably the very least I could do." A brow quirks upward as she slides the chart back into its place at the end of Marlena's bed, arms folding over her midsection.
"I already saw to him, he'll be fine" Brennan's words are short, to the point. Terse. His daughter is in the hospital with a serious illness and there's very little to do but wait and see. The chart slides home and Brennan glances to it. "Dr. Price works for me, as does Dr. Blite. You didn't need to be secretive about it. Soon enough it would have gotten out at work, that my daughter is sick. At least Henri hasn't caught it" This spoken in Odessa's direction even as he's moving forward to sit down on the stool beside Marlena's bed and take up her hand in his to squeeze. "The children are with their grandparents right now, so they can get some attention and we can focus on Marlena"
Pulling his arms more tightly over his chest, Devon shakes his head. This isn't the time nor place to go into an argument over who should deal with the wayward doctor. He looks over a shoulder to Marlena again before stepping away from the bed to the wall near the door. There he leans against the wall, giving his head another shake.
"Basketball accident," the teen fills in quietly, eyes going to the male doctor. "Doctor B's right, though. I'm fine. That's good news, about Henri. I've been worried the little guy would get sick, too."
"You should have told me it was Marlena Brennan right away," Odessa tells Devon, a small amount of irritation in her tone. He withheld information, and now he's lying (she's sure) about his injuries. Not that it concerns her. Logically, she knows it doesn't. "I could have gotten to work on this much more quickly." But it's done, and she's turning to Doctor Brennan after a brief flare of her nostrils, where her gaze was directed at the floor as as not to make anyone the focal point of her ire. "If you can get some blood work sent to our facilities, I can start immediately on…"
Shoulders come up in a little shrug. He knows what she means. Odessa may hesitate to use the word cure, or the equally ill-fitting antidote, but that's almost the sentiment. "I'm glad the others are all right."
"You can draw it right now if you like, but truth be told, I won't be holding my breath. If something hasn't been done by now-" Then nothing is likely to be done. "We'll ride it out regardless" He's not going to bicker about whether he should have come to her sooner or not. He hadn't intended to till Devon had called up and told him what he was doing. "Was there anything else? Mish will be coming soon" If either of them wants to stick around to talk to the Frenchwoman. His own gaze reserved for his child, thumb stroking over the back of her hand, as if that alone might cure her.
"I had my reasons for not telling you it was Marlena right then," Devon returns, a hint of warning in his tone. "And you could have been working on something, just knowing it was a child that was sick." It looks as though there's more he'd like to say, his expression alone speaks volumes of not just Marlena being sick but the flu in and of itself, but he again refrains from putting things into words. For the moment.
"I need to get home," Devon resumes, looking at Brennan. "They'll be worried if I'm gone too long. Tell Mrs. Doctor B hello for me, though." He glances toward Odessa again, a look of half thanks and half uncertainty. Then he moves away from the wall and steps into the doorway. "I'll come back to visit in a few days," he says over his shoulder. The teen pauses a moment longer before stepping into the hallway to find his way back to the exit.
"I'll talk to her attending." Doctor Price lingers a few moments, slowly gathering her things to give Devon time to take his leave so he won't feel as though he's being followed. "Say hello to Michelle for me, and call me if her condition changes. Better or worse. I will talk to Yana." She pauses in the doorway, bracing one hand against the frame, poised as if she, like Devon, might have something else to say.
She strides back in and to Marlena's side, brushing the hair from her forehead before bending down to drop a kiss on her fevered brow. "I swear, I will make you better, little one." The words for her own, and Doctor Brennan's benefit. With a quick nod to the girl's father, Odessa hurriedly moves again to take her leave.