Participants:
| Scene Title | Like A Memory |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Abby goes to see Gillian following her outburst in her sleep the night before. |
| Date | March 22, 2011 |
Bannerman's Castle: Infirmary
The infirmary is a paradoxical room in that it sees more use than the people who work and volunteer there would probably like. Unlike the wooden cots in the castle's living quarters, the beds here are made of metal, lightweight and foldable in case furniture needs to be rearranged in the event of an emergency. Strung up sheets provide patients in severe and critical condition with some privacy, even if this privacy is so flimsy that it can easily be stripped away by someone simply lifting the fabric, but most of the cots here are dressed in their linens only and are visible from anywhere in the room.
At the back is a set of double doors that leads into a storage area where additional bedding, medicine and supplies are kept, and these doors are almost always closed and fastened with a heavy padlock to discourage the theft of painkillers and other prescription drugs that the infirmary is in possession of.
The infirmary's low ceiling is outfitted with cheap incandescent lighting and is one of the only rooms in the castle where electricity is available courtesy of its generators.
Even by the next morning, Gillian's curtain sheets that she once had on her bed have not been replaced, but perhaps she hasn't pushed for it. The past few days she'd been curled up on the back corner, avoiding contact with people until someone needed to see her. Perhaps the reason she wanted the blanket to hide her was because of how she would talk to herself quite a bit. She hasn't been doing that this morning.
Instead she's asked for a sketchpad and pencil from one of the nurses, and has been using the light to try and write down what she can remember, with doodles on the sides. There's been almost no coughs from her today, either—
But the same seems to be true for two more of the Lighthouse Kids, Hailey and Justin. Maybe more will be leaving soon.
One person who won't anytime soon is Abigail, hallucinations having been jotted down on her chart but no one has seen fit to correct the healer when she starts talking to people as if they're her husband. WHich has been few and far between. At least, beyond Liza, she hasn't tried to kiss anyone again.
But morning rolls around and what little energy that the EMT has is being spent in getting help to move to the empty bed between Gillians and Lynette's. Troubled breathing, the same coughs that plauged Gillian worsening in Abigail. "What are you drawing?" Once she's been deposited and made comfortable on the bed, not craning her neck to look, at least not yet.
When she glances up, Gillian even looks better, at least in terms of skin tone— there's an even more haunted look in her eyes, though. "I— was just writing down my dream, and trying to draw parts of it." It's clear she's trying to draw a face, but she keeps stopping before she finishes, and doesn't have the dimensions right in some cases. But if she were as bad as she was a week ago she wouldn't have been able to draw without shaking.
"It was just an hallucination, or something… I've been having those for weeks."
"Fever dream? or like.. a dream dream?" Was Delia nearby? "Was delia putzing about in your head?" That was, to her, a possibility. "i know she was lost before, probably practicing how not to get lost again" Abby leans against the pillows that support her, moved from her own bed, turning away to cough up a lung or two, an apologetic look on her face before she does so, as if she truly were sorry to be interrupting their conversation with such.
"Who's Delia?" Gillian asks, looking rather confused at the mention of a dreamer. "It didn't— seem like one of those dreams. I mean it was… I don't know. It was pretty vivid, but not as vivid as some— and not as crazy as Eve's dreams." Which she only knows from her experience of having Eve's ability for a short time. "It was more like… a memory… but not."
'Ferryman. Can putter around in dreams" Settled back on pillows, Abby tilts her face towards Gillian. "Like a memory.. was it..' She's racking her brain, things taking a lot longer to pull up, having to go through the pea soup fog of fever and illness that coats her mind. "Like… Like it was from the future, like.. ten or so years?"
"Something like that, yeah— Colette Nichols was there and so was…" Gillian glances up on the page, as if she needs the refresher of what she wrote down to remember. "Sable— the musician who helped out at the Lighthouse for a while. Some of the Lighthouse Kids were mentioned, too, but I didn't see them." There's a hesitation as she glances down at the page again. "And— remember that future that… that those time travellers came from?"
"Yeah" Abby murmurs nasally. "Where Flint and I were married and I had two kids. One of the Teo's is from there" She supplies, what little she knows of that particular brand of future. "It's gone though. Ghost did things and killed it" To the best of her knowlege.
"We did a lot to kill it ourselves," Gillian says with a grunt, remembering the moment on the roof where she helped Cardinal take down Arthur. "But I had a kid there, too. And… I saw him in a dream, but it was one of those weird dreams, where… he was a cherub statue that melted into my son. But that was before I started helping at the Lighthouse— before I even wanted to help at the Lighthouse. If I hadn't seen him, known about him… I don't think I would have wanted to help out, or…" she trails off, biting down on her lower lip for a moment.
The fog and haze have cleared, but that doesn't stop her confusion. "I had a son there too— and he had the same name as the son I had in that future. So— it was probably just a dream. I've dreamed about him since then, too." The son she would never have.
"I had a dream, like yours. We were here, in a graveyard." Which at the time there wasn't one and she doesn't know about the one that Joseph has been diligently building and constructing to put those who have passed away, at rest. "Pastor Sumter had died, we were having a service. Flint was there, Quinn, Liz, Kaylee, Eileen, some kids that belonged to people. Pastor Sumter's daughter, it seemed right to call her his daughter, she kept yelling at Ryans that it was all his fault, that the Pastor'd still be here"
Abby shakes her head. "Planes, jets were flying up above us, dunno whether for the good or the bad, but it's like you said, vivid, like it was a memory, like it was my memory. Except that it seems others had it too. The same. Maybe.. get word to Sable and to Colette? See if they dreamed the same?"
For a long while, there's silence. The pencil is grasped tighter in Gillian's hand, until her knuckles turn white. When she does speak, it's preceeded by a shaking of her head, dark hair longer and overgrown, some of the natural curl visible in the untamed lengths. "No— mine was just a dream. My fever broke this morning— so it was probably just the last hoorah of the stupid five-ten."
Because the alternative is something she's not sure she can handle, really.
"Do you remember your other fever dreams like this?" Quietly spoken, watching Gillians face, only now craning her head to see a glimpse of what the other woman is drawing. The odds of her knowing what it is? Slim. But she does it anyway, holding her dirtied coughing rag in her hand. "can I see?"
There's a stubborn set to Gillian's jaw for a moment, before she turns the sketchpad around so that she can see. None of the other questions are answered, likely because she doesn't like the answer to the questions. Maybe if she doesn't say it she won't have to admit to it either.
The dream is described in broken sentances, as if she can't quite figure out the flow of words.
In a trailer. Lots of blankets. Cold outside, perhaps winter. Snow? Didn't go outside. Woman, late twenties. One white eye, one green. Colette Nichols. Teaching my son, Nate, how to fly by throwing him off six story buildings. Boy skidded his knee. Dark hair, dark eyes, about seven years old, give or take a year. Crying. Sweet voice. Colette said it was Joe's idea. The roof throwing. Lighthouse Joe? Most likely. Nate mentioned going to see Lance.
Was raising Nate alone, out west. Had come back east. Sable came in to see Colette? Trouble? Sang to my kid, taught him Beatles. I never liked the Beatles. Said I needed a copy of her music, cause Mad… something wasn't available out West. Heard other children laughing and playing outside.
Colette mentioned 'him'. He missed me.
There's some scribbles that make the last few things unreadable, like she wrote more and then decided to scratch it out. On the edge of the text is her attempts to draw her son's face. Big tearful eyes. And then…
Last thing I heard was the same sound I heard in Argentina. The sound of those giant robots shaped like llamas. The roar that told us they were coming. I knew they were coming for the children.
And under that, she's trying to draw the robots that she remembers.
Abby looks up at Gillian. "There's robots, already. I burned one, the llama one. Sentry of a sort with negation gas. There's a cat one too, that injects something, and can spit out negation gas. THey're roaming midtown at night" Abby's voice is quiet, GIllian would have to strain. It's not something she's sure that the those outside of council or the terminal have much knowledge of. Not with the specifics.
"Great," Gillian says in the same quiet tones, taking the sketchpad back and twisting it around. "I didn't see the robots— only saw them in Argentina. I promised the government I wouldn't talk about what I saw there, but the government screwed me over, so screw them too."
"Magnes talks about them. Magnes has one. This little raptor, keeps it in a box" Abby isn't supposed to talk about that either. But she has a very straight face when she says it, and given who it is that supposedly has it, it's no wonder. He smuggled a penguin home.
"Magnes kept it a secret for a while, but— government didn't deserve our help. They gave me a pardon and then left me to rot in that hospital," Gillian says with a bitter sound to her voice, looking down at her wrist for a moment. There's a black handprint on it, but it's what's on the inside of the wrist that she's looking at— scars. The self-inflicted kind.
Black handprints! Peter's been busy. She didn't know what went on in the hospital. She lifts a hand, pointing to the handprint. "Peter got you too" Or she thinks it's peter at least. "Mine is hidden by my hair. Won't do it again though" She remembers what it felt like. Not nice. "I think the government that we helped Gillian, isn't the same government that is sitting out there now. Something changed, a tide turned or… or a river flowed some other direction."
"This one's from November 8th," Gillian says simply, bringing that hand up to pull down the collar of her shirt some. It's over her heart, that one, the fingers splaying toward and around her shoulder. "This one's from when they got me out of the Staten Island hospital. I don't remember the first one— he did it while I was unconsious— the second… dying would have been worse, I think, but it was a pain dragging him all the way here after." The shirt goes back into place as she lets go, leaning back with a sigh.
"I helped the government because I had to, not because I had a choice, and now I hope they believe I'm dead. I was always paranoid that they used the registry as a shopping list— I know they do now."
'They aren't the only one" Who uses it as a shopping list. But then most of the Ferry knows about the circumstances involving the former blonde healer. "Will you be okay?" Not regarding the scars, she's not looking at them beyond a proper and polite glance as they're shown. She means in the wake of the dream. Gillian may be brushing it off as a fever dream, but Abigail isn't. Not that she can do much about said dream.
"That's why I never wanted to get registered," Gillian admits, putting the sketchpad away completely and moving to get up out of the bed. For the first time in a while she doesn't need help, but she still seems weak and sore. Mostly from lack of movement. "I'll be fine— let me help you back to your bed. I want to go check on the kids, too. I probably won't leave until they all do, even if I get better." Megan would probably have to drag her out.
"You can't carry me gillian" Abby's legs aren't working period, and while she may weigh a feather, Gillian seems like a feather or gust of wind might topple her. Heroin chic is the latest style in this infirmary. "But you can get someone to come help me back and that will be good enough. Get some more rest before Lynette kicks my arse at mousetrap. Or you can send over one of the kids and they can play it with me"
"Alright— I'll go find one of the… well I guess Megan's the only nurse, but you get the idea," Gillian says, reaching out as if tempted to touch the other woman, but recalling her dislike for touch and she pulls the hand back. Though whoever carries her she'll have to suffer touching from. "I'll send Justin over. He likes Mouse Trap, and you won't have to deal with Hailey's dog." She adds on, as she moves away to find one of those 'not-nurses'.
Dogs. "If you get out of here, can you see how Delia's doing with Rhett? I brought him here and then I got sick and he went to her. I haven't heard anything" She tolerates the touching, you can't be this sick without someone touchign you to take pulses, put their hands to your forehead, wipe you down. "I don't mind hailey's dog, at all"
"I don't even know Delia," Gillian says with a shake of her head, not having the slightest idea how to find the woman even if she did… "And you may not have a problem with Hailey's dog, but I do. I'm really not a fan of dogs. I'll see if someone else can help you, though." Someone not her. Who would have nothing to do with dogs if she could help it.
'That's fine" It's okay, not everyone is dog people. Abigail offers a wan smile to Gillian before closing her eyes, letting the tattoo's and scarr'd woman off to check on her proxy spawn, wait for someone to help her back to her bed that she might otherwise try to scoot along to if things weren't feeling like lead. So she'll sit here. Think about Gillians dream.