ways_infirmary | Visiting Post for Commander Colene Shepard

Visiting Post for Commander Colene Shepard

The Milliways infirmary is a lot busier than usual, mostly because of the recent wave of nightmare-injuries. The aforesaid situation has turned one of the regularly attending doctors into a patient, so Zhaan has been spending a lot of extra time here.

Most of the patients are recovering just fine on their own, but Zhaan is watching the sleeping ones closely in case they have nightmare episodes and need to be woken up for their own safety. She also has a certain patient in with broken fingers and a concussion.

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And Garrus could be heard coming from a long while away, almost jogging to get to Shepard. When he arrived, he immediately started looking over all the beds, and if someone didn't stop him he was likely to start picking them up and looking under them, if he didn't find Shepard soon.

Zhaan, upon hearing the new arrival and sensing his worry, comes out from behind the curtains surrounding one of the beds. She hasn't seen this person before (or one of his species before), which means he must be new: she's been in Milliways long enough to know who's a regular and who isn't.

She makes a polite throat-clearing noise to get his attention. "Can I help you?" This may forestall the visitor from taking perhaps inadvisable action on his own.

"You're the doctor?" Garrus looked over, the throat-clearing getting his attention immediately. At first, he thought it was an Asari... but closer inspection revealed that there were several differences. That caught him off-guard for only a moment though, remembering that he wasn't in his own galaxy anymore.

"I'm here to see a woman, Commander Colene Shepard." He said. The turian tried his hardest to keep the worry out of his voice, hopefully the good doctor was unaccustomed to the way turians spoke.

Even though he's of an unfamiliar species, his worry and agitation are very clear - you don't need to be an empath to see it. "She's currently asleep. And please keep your voice down - some of the other patients are as well."

She already had to ask one of Shepard's friends to leave because her fretting wasn't helping matters, and was seriously getting on Zhaan's nerves.

"Apologies." He said, actually obeying the unfamiliar species. Shepard had taught him the importance of keeping a cool head. Now was no time to be disrupting that. The turian then walked along the infirmary, pausing when he saw the familiar, sleeping body.

"Commander..." It was just a small utterance to himself.

Shepard thought she was having one of those half-asleep dreams when she heard Garrus come in. But now it seems that she's not dreaming after all.

She opens her eyes and blinks up at the turian. "Hey, Garrus. When did you get here?" Shepard's voice sounds a little weak: her throat still hurts and she's on some painkilling drugs. Still, she's more clear-headed than she was when she came in.

Garrus just gave a small sigh of relief. She was talking, at least, but he still hated seeing her like this. Seeing her injured made him incredibly uneasy, especially with the knowledge that a dream did all this to her.

"Not long ago. How are you feeling?" He asked, still quite worried.

The doctor shrugs and goes off to check some of the other patients' readouts.

"I feel like an elcor used me for a trampoline, but I've felt worse," Shepard says.

Immediately after this.

There's the sound of fast-moving bare feet just outside the infirmary door.

and then there's a young woman just inside the doorway. She's likely just been asleep; the nightgown is an obvious enough clue. She's holding her left hand several inches away from her body, palm up, and her right sleeve is rolled clumsily to the elbow. "Hello? Is anyone here?"

alyssa isn't - Selar isn't - Dr. Crusher isn't - Gene isn't.

Never mind empathy. The tone of her voice alone is proof enough she's terrified.

"Mm." His eyes shone with admiration at the human. He started to ask about the dream, but he thought that may be a sensitive subject, for now. So, he just stood at the end of her bed.

"...This place is really odd." He said finally.

Zhaan's by Sariel's side in an instant. "It's all right. What happened?" she asks, looking at Sariel's injured arm.

"That's a major understatement, but otherwise? Yes, it is," Shepard answers with a mild smirk.

"Just who was that doctor, anyway? It looked Asari, but... According to Tali, she could be from anywhere." He said. He gave a curious glance back at Zhaan.

"I know her name's Zhaan, but I don't know what species she is. I'd hold off on asking her until she's less busy.

"You met Tali? She was here a while ago...did she leave while I dozed off?"

"She said the doctor made her leave. Tali gave me the basic idea of the place, but it still confuses me to no end." He paced a bit, now, back and forth at the foot of her bed.

"The way she said it, she made it sound like you couldn't leave."

"I can't. The door doesn't exist for me. It does for Tali, but she doesn't want to leave me on my own here." Shepard can't understand why, although if their positions were reversed she'd be doing the same thing.

Shepard tells him the date and time - Citadel-side - of her first entrance to Milliways and that of her second entrance, the one she got Bound on. "If you're from after that point, don't tell me or Tali about anything that's happened since. I'd rather not know."

Sariel flinches, head turning sharply as zhaan appears. she's reacting like prey, and the fear she's giving off would be readable by anyone with an ounce of empathy. "I don't know, sir. I woke up this way--I thought I was asleep." And now she's doubting it.

Her left palm is red; there's a fine diagonal slice running from her little finger to just shy of her thumb, and that opposite sleeve is rolled up for a reason. Fingerprint bruises are already standing out against her skin.

"Hm." He took all of that in thoughtfully, ceasing his pacing for just a bit.

"I came in not long after that. The reward ceremony was yet to come." Garrus was wise enough not to think about how screwy time was, here. It would only hurt. After more pacing and such, he straightened and turned back to her.

"I think I'm going to stay as well. If not until you leave, then at least until you get better, commander."

"A few people have been experiencing such nightmares lately," Zhaan says. The injuries Sariel has sustained are mild, compared to what many of the other victims have, but she's had a worse-than-average scare. "Come sit down. I'll clean that and dress it, or use the fuser on it - whichever you prefer."

"It's getting to be a regular party in here," Shepard says, before realizing that Garrus may not understand what she means. "I wonder if the Landlord is collecting us.

"How much did Tali tell you about this place?"

"She mentioned that we're at the end of the universe, which is frightening. But also that everyone, from every universe and every planet, as well as from every stretch of time, can be here. In a gist." He added the last bit, because, well, Tali hadn't put it like that. That was just his own inference.

"Although it did seem to be predominantly human, particularly when I was in the bar."

Sariel follows along obediently; questioning zhaan's treatment is lightyears from her thoughts, and objecting's even further out. that doesn't mean something the other woman says doesn't register. "Others have had this happen?"

It's not so much fear of her own nightmare experience anymore as fear of... something else. "they've been returned?"

and that's a rather odd choice of words, isn't it?

"Yeah. A lot of them are from Earth, too. From what I can tell." Shepard herself belongs to the first generation of non-Earthborn human children, so that makes her feel a little out of place.

"This place is pretty extensive. There's the grounds, this infirmary, a library somewhere, a garage downstairs, the rooms and the security office."

"They were dreaming," Zhaan says, "about the things or people they most fear. I think you may be confusing your nightmare with whatever it was based on." She sits Sariel down in a padded chair and goes to get some disinfectant and the skin fuser.

"It's insane and breaks everything that the galaxy has researched." He said, the pacing now replaced by looking around at all the other patients. Garrus didn't really understand it in the least, but ever since he met up with Shepard, strange stuff like this had been happening.

"But you and Tali are here. So either you're a beautifully crafted part of my imagination, or it's real."

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Visiting Post for Commander Colene Shepard

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