ways_infirmary | (no subject)

It's about to become a little less quiet in the infirmary.

The pair who come in together aren't quite shouting to talk to each other, but it's just a level or two below it.

"--ver would have known this was here," Liz is saying. Her voice precedes them.

"Usually people will tell you," X says.

"But you do not get hurt very often. When you are here."

At least not that X has observed. So there's that.

"Generally that's why people come here," she observes, setting the most recent chart aside.

"Hi. I'm Dr. Ford -- Kim, when I'm off duty. What's going on?"

Liz didn't catch all of what the woman said, but she figures it's safe enough to assume that she's the doctor and she needs to know what's going on. She only pauses half a second before she says, "There was a banshee scream and--" she wiggles a finger at her ear, "I'm a little deaf."

Meg's sister, Laura had said, and Liz can see the familial resemblance in the woman's face, if not in her hair.

"She said it was getting better," X adds.

She makes sure that her face is turned toward Liz, and her delivery is still louder than normal.

It is only polite.

"But I do not think it is better enough."

"You were right to bring her in, then," she tells X. To both, Kim adds, "Let's see what we can find out then, shall we?"

She's raised her own voice a bit as well, and beckons Liz toward one of the infirmary beds.

"Sit there while I get a couple of things."

She hops up on a bed. "It really is getting better," she says, making a face -- a rather amused face -- at Laura and her mother henning.

(She's watching the doctor work, too; cautious.)

Edited 2009-08-05 04:01 (UTC)

X shifts her own position to take up one across from Liz.

But she does not sit down.

It is better to be ready to move. Just in case.

Kim gets a pair of gloves from a drawer. She opens a cabinet and gets out a tuning fork and a small device that has a handle at one end and a light, a magnifying lens, and a small black bulb at the other. Everything goes in a tray that she carries over and sets on a table by the bed.

"That's a good sign," Kim tells them, encouragingly. She's smiling. "We'll just do a quick check to be sure."

As she puts on the gloves, she asks,

"Are you hearing any strange noises right now? Buzzing, ringing, a crackling sound, anything like that?"

Liz eyes the instrument tray.

"Just some ringing." She reaches up and belatedly pulls out the earpiece, letting it dangle from her vest by its wire. "No buzzing, crackling, or roaring." Liz has an idea of some of the questions that'll be asked; she's been close to a number of explosions in her day, not all of which were caused by her.

Edited 2009-08-05 04:14 (UTC)

X is watching Kim's actions with interest.

And a little bit of dubious suspicion.

It goes with the territory.

"Good, good," she says. "I'm presuming you weren't having any problems before the -- scream you said it was? No pressure or drainage?"

Kim picks up the tuning fork.

"This won't hurt," she tells Liz -- tells both of them, really, as she's far from unaware of X's observation. "It's a tuning fork; it vibrates, and emits a sound when it does. What I'm going to do is strike it and set the base against your forehead, and I want you to tell me if you can hear it in one ear more than the other."

Liz looks at the tuning fork, then at the doctor. She nods.

"No problems before the scream," she specifies, shaking her head. "There's some pressure now." She resists the temptation to dig her finger in her ear as she says it.

"The sound will not be very high pitched?"

X does not wince in advance.

"Not too bad," she reassures. "It's C-512, see?" She shows them the fork, where the number is engraved on the base.

"If you're musical, that's the C above middle C, I'm told. Okay, here we go--"

Kim strikes the fork, and touches it to Liz's forehead, holding it there with a touch that's gentle but firm.

Liz listens to the high, clear note for a moment, and then she reaches up and taps her left ear, the one that she wasn't wearing the earpiece in. "It's louder in this one."

Edited 2009-08-05 04:50 (UTC)

"Mmm."

It's noncommittal, but her demeanor shades just a fraction more professional as she lifts the fork.

"Okay, we're going to do this again, hold still -- "

A second strike of the fork, and this time Kim touches it to the bone just behind Liz's left ear where jaw meets skull.

"How about now? Can you hear that?"

There's a downside to watching the doctor as closely as Liz has been: you notice little shifts like that.

Liz's shoulders set just a touch more stiffly as the doctor moves the tuning fork, and then --

"Yeah," she says. Undertone: should I not hear it?

X is frowning very slightly, her regard turned more intense.

It's been that way for a minute or so, now.

"Okay," Kim says again.

A third strike, and this time she holds the tuning fork in the air beside Liz's left ear.

"How about now?"

There is a long beat of silence, and then Liz leans back and peers to her left side to find that yes, Kim has struck the fork.

She shakes her head wordlessly.

X's frown deepens, and she stands very still.

Waiting.

Kim nods, and sets down the tuning fork.

"All right," she says, and although it's still professional, it's anything but brusque or unkind. "It looks as though you've got a little bit of damage, I'm afraid. That's the bad news."

"The good news is that the way you responded to the test means that it may be the kind of injury that we can do something about." She reaches for the scope.

"Let me take a look."

Jesus, Liz thinks, and she nods once, slight, and turns her head to present Kim with her left side.

X's expression is blank.

Depending on how this goes, Liz may find herself dragged off to San Francisco.

She gently pulls down on Liz's earlobe as she thumbs the switch to activate the light of the otoscope, then places it to Liz's ear and looks through the lens.

"Mm-hmm."

Kim lets go and moves to Liz's other side, repeating the procedure with her right ear, then steps back and sets the scope aside.

"What you've got is a small perforation in your tympanic membrane -- a little hole in your eardrum," she says. "It's very, very common, and can be caused by all kinds of things -- including sudden loud noises or explosions, which I think is likely the explanation in your case."

"It's right in the very middle, and it's very little, even tiny." Kim smiles. "Both of these are good things. It should heal on its own just fine in a few weeks, maybe a month at most."

"In the meantime, try not to get any water in that ear. Don't go swimming, and put in an earplug or a cotton ball when you take a shower, okay?"

Liz cracks a tiny, disbelieving smile. She might laugh.

"--That's it," she says. "A ruptured eardrum."

(She's been down this road before.)

Edited 2009-08-05 05:53 (UTC)

X's posture is a little less rigid.

This may be her way of expressing relief.

Insofar as any expression is involved at all.

"Oh."

Beat.

"Good."

"That's it," Kim reassures them, smiling. "Mind you, it could have been worse, and you're lucky it wasn't a broader spectrum of noise, the kind that causes nerve damage and permanent loss. I'd speculate--"

A slightly distant look enters her glance for a moment, and the timbre of her voice changes slightly.

"-- that the sound you encountered was the aural equivalent of a drill or a bullet; sharp, pointed, and destructive." She shakes her head, and the manner fades.

"I don't know what deflected it exactly, but you seem to have come out of it relatively unscathed."

"It was supposed to kill." Liz knows exactly how lucky she is. "So I'll be able to stop yelling within a couple weeks, right?"

The Bureau will be a noisy place for a little while. Liz was not the only agent exposed to the scream.

"More likely a day or so," she promises. "That part of your hearing should return sooner rather than later."

"And in the meantime, if you need coughdrops for the sore throat you're going to get from yelling, I think we can handle that."

She smiles, tiny and crooked and a little rueful; shakes her head. "I'm good with a little yelling. Thanks. Can I...?" She gestures as if she were going to hop down.

"Sure."

She steps back out of the way.

"You're good to go."

The pair of them slip out again -- with another thank you to the doctor -- as quickly as they'd entered, and much more quietly.

Until Laura says something as they go through the door, anyway, and the raised-voices conversation starts all over again.