ways_infirmary | Back in here already?

Cass places the plank against the wall and stands quietly beside it, eyes darting about the room, absorbing everything.

Fortunately, Guppy has another patient in here already he's keeping an eye on.

He peers out of the office, sees who it is, and dismounts from the wheelie chair.

"Evening YT." He eyes the blood, putting his rubber gloves on. "Skateboard?"

"Nope. Demon bunny, then rock. Well, mostly the rock," YT says sheepishly. "At least it's my head and not my ankle this time, so I'm, y'know, providing some variety." She turns and looks at her new friend, whose name - she realizes - she doesn't know. "Umm, do you want to stay here?" she asks.

A small smile as Guppy approaches.

"I'd take the ankle, personally." he says, having a closer look. Glancing at Cass. "Are you hurt too, or are you a concerned friend stroke innocent bystander?"

She shakes her head and waves him away. Her eyes are still moving around the room taking in the equipment. She walks over and waves at YT with a slight tilt of the head.

YT thinks she knows what this means. "If you want to stay and the doc doesn't mind, sure. Although if you want to go that's fine too."

[OOC: For Guppy to tag. All future "for ___ to tag" notices will be whitetexted at the bottom of my posts. I think it's a good way to keep things straight. :)]

[ooc: *nods* Okydokes]

"I don't mind at all." Guppy says, glancing at Cass. He's not convinced she's okay, but he'll let it pass for the moment.

"Were you knocked out?" he asks YT gently.

"I don't think so. I did see kind of a flash when I hit the rock. If I'd been knocked out, the demon bunny would've bit me, I think," she says. "It didn"t really hurt much when I hit, though. It just hurts when I touch it. Although it's kind of bleeding a lot."

"Head injuries often do bleed a lot." Guppy says, gently examining the wound. He gets a clean pad and puts it over the wound.

"Okay, if you'd like to hold that pad and hop on the bed I'll check for foreign bodies. Then we can get it closed up for you. Any other changes in your medical history since last time we met?"

YT, holding the pad to her head, gets up on one of the exam tables (not quite as hard with just one hand as it was with only one good leg). "Well, since then my ankle's gotten better," she jokes. "But other than that, no."

"I assumed it had, or you'd have been back. No new medication or anything?"

He disposes of her original blood-soaked gauze.

"Apart from sore, how are you feeling? Any headache, dizziness, nausea or visual disturbances?"

"I'm not on any meds. And except for the flash when I hit my head, I haven't had any of that stuff."

Guppy nods.

"Okay, well you've nearly stopped bleeding now, so we can start sealing that up in a minute. And since you're not one hundred percent sure you weren't knocked out, I recommend you stay here overnight for observation. At very least we should scan you in case you've got any internal head injury we haven't yet uncovered."

Cass has been standing out of the way, simply watching. She nods in approval at Guppy's treatment and recommendation.

YT pouts. She doesn't want to be stuck in here overnight, but it's better than possibly dying because her brain gets puffed up or something. "Okay," she says, resignedly. "But you can close it up with something other than staples, right? Please?"

Guppy nods, with a small smile.

"Yes, we can. Steristrips probably won't hold a cut this big effectively, so the options are stitches or the skin fuser."

Stitches aren't much better than staples, but "skin fuser" sounds kind of ominous. "Umm, what's a skin fuser?" she asks.

"It's a device from my world's future, which sort of regrows skin in fast forward. I've tested it on myself, it doesn't hurt." he adds.

"If it's the discomfort that concerns you, I can give you a local anaesthetic first."

"It's not that. It just sounded kind of weird," YT says. "That's a whole lot better than staples, though. Less of a Frankenstein effect."

Guppy nods.

"Yeah, it does sound odd at first I know." He gets the targ out to show her. "This is it. It'll feel warm and you'll need to give it a bit of time to heal properly afterwards, but it'll keep it clean and speed recovery. It just does the first part of healing."

"Okay," YT says. "That sounds good." She looks over at Cass. "If I write a note, can you please give it to Bar for me, so she can tell my other friends where I am?"

Cass frowns at her, not understanding.

YT realizes that she's sort of reached the limit of the other girl's understanding here. So far, she seemed to understand things even though she couldn't speak very much, so YT thought she'd get this too.

"Okay, sorry. Umm, let me try this again." YT almost rubs the back of her head with the hand she's got there, before remembering why that may not be a good idea.

She espies a notepad and pen on one of the counters, and points in that direction. "Can you get me those, please? I'll write a note," she continues, miming writing something with a pen, "and then I'll explain the rest."

Cass is moving as soon as YT points, and the pad and pen are in YT's reach almost before she's finished speaking.

(It may be worth noting that although she carries the objects with the same grace and ease of her every other movement, she holds them unusually - as if, for example, she has no idea how to hold a pen. For example.)

"Thanks," YT says, taking the paper and then the pen, since she's only got one hand free. She saw how Cass carried them, the pen particularly. Even if you're not using a pen, you usually carry it a certain way - with your fingers, not clenched in your fist, unless you are very nervous.

YT draws up her legs and props the pad on her thighs while she writes with the other hand.

Bar -

If Hiro, Merlin or one of the computer sprites comes to you, or you hear anyone else asking around for me, please let them know I'm spending the night in the infirmary.

After a moment's thought, she adds,

And tell them it's not too serious.

Thanks,
YT

She puts the pen down and turns to Cass again. "You know the Bar? The thing that gives food and drinks?" She tears the paper she just wrote on from the pad. "This goes on the Bar. It's for anyone who's looking for me. Me, YT," she says, finally introducing herself after a fashion.

The writing is observed with blank curiousity, but Cass just patiently waits out the explanation, smiling. She takes the note and heads for the door.

As she leaves, she's studying the note intently, first one way up and then the other - and then sideways, not that she appears to realise there's a difference.

The girl did not give her own name when YT gave hers. And it's pretty obvious that she doesn't know how to read, English or anything else. This is kind of weird but not entirely surprising. YT's gonna have to catch up with her later.

She turns back to Dr. Sandhu. "Okay. I'm ready to get my head back to what passes for normal," she says.

Guppy deals with strange people every day, so makes no comment on Cass. He smiles reassuringly at YT.

"Okay, hold still for me. This will feel slightly warm and uncomfortable but shouldn't hurt, and will take a couple of minutes."

He gets the targ and puts his other hand on her head to steady it. Then works the machine, knitting the skin back together so that it covers the wound.

The sensation of being treated with a skin fuser is one of those things that you can easily stand for a few seconds, but grows very uncomfortable after a minute or so. YT has to resist the urge to slap at or scratch the spot where it's doing its work, and she spends most of the time chewing on her lower lip.

Guppy finishes and peers around at her.

"All done. Are you okay? And don't scratch it."

"I'm good, I'm good," YT says. The back of her head is still kind of tingly. "Do you have to put a bandage on it, or something?"

"There's no need, and the open air will help recovery." Guppy says. "But you need to be careful, it's only a thin top layer. The wound needs time to heal underneath."

YT nods. "I get it. And I stay here overnight. If something starts going wrong, what happens? I mean, how do I let someone know?"

"Well the machine will let me know." Guppy says. "I'm here with another patient at the moment anyway, so apart from nipping out to the bathroom or for food, I'm here all the time you're here. If I'm out of the room, I get paged. I will have to wake you up every couple of hours and check you're still able to wake up, okay?"

YT shrugs. "Well, if you have to. If I cuss at you when you do that, please don't take it personally." She looks around. "Do I sleep out here, or are there, like, separate rooms?"

A small grin. "I won't. I did the same the first time I was in for concussion. This is a ward of sorts, so you'd sleep on the bed you're on now. There are curtains you can draw around for privacy." He gestures to the curtains between the bed and the other current resident. "Bathroom's on the left over there."

"Thanks," YT says. She had noticed the curtains drawn around the other bed, but hadn't exactly registered that there was someone else in there. Maybe they were sleeping. Unless they're in a coma or something.

That actually makes YT kind of worried: up 'till now, she didn't really think about the possibility that she has something worse than a split scalp. "I think I'll do okay," she says, hoping she doesn't sound as nervous as she feels.

A reassuring smile.

"Chances are you'll be just fine. We just need to be careful. Like I said, I've been kept in for exactly the same thing. Three times in fact, and there's nothing wrong with me."

He heads into the office. "Try and get some sleep, give me a shout if you need anything."

Back in here already?

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