ways_infirmary | (no subject)

(no subject)

"Alone she sleeps in the shirt of man
With my three wishes clutched in her hand..."

Simon finally hooked him up to a morpha -- morphine, whatever it's called here -- drip once the nerve block wore off and the supposedly unidentifiable opioid had left his system. Gaeta's half-drowsing, eyes closed in a vain attempt to sleep outright; the pain's still too great, though, and the exhaustion more prominent.

And if he sleeps, that means he can't do the only thing that's worked so far.

"The first that she be spared the pain
That comes from a dark and laughing rain..."

The words are a little roughened with hoarseness, a touch slurred by morpha -- but his voice still rings clear through the infirmary.

[ooc: for continuity's sake, all threads now take place before Boyd's and Simon's.]

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The coughing subsides fairly soon. Gaeta chances another sip, smaller this time; it goes down much easier.

"Have you seen Louis?" he asks once he's swallowed.

"Uh -- Louis who?" Beat. "What's he look like?"

How can he not know who Louis --

Oh. Maybe because he's never met him.

Gaeta sags a little, as if defeated. "Louis Hoshi," he says "Lieutenant Louis -- he's, um, he's a little taller than me, brown hair, brown eyes. He's probably gonna be wearing duty blues."

A beat.

Smaller, "I haven't seen him since I got back."

"Oh."

A friend? A close friend, by the sound of that.

"I'll look for him?" he offers.

He shapes a tiny, trembling smile. "Think a couple other people're looking for him, too," he says. "You don't have to. I just wondered if he..."

The smile falters, crumbles again.

(Louis hasn't come to see him since he got back.)

"Maybe he doesn't know you're here," he offers tentatively. "I could ... if I see anybody else from your crew, I could give them a message for him?"

"Yeah. Okay, yeah, that..."

Gaeta trails off, seeming to forget where he was going with that sentence.

More apologetic than anything: "I can't remember who else is here anymore."

"I'll ask around. Maybe put up a sign on the bulletin board?"

Gaeta's eyes widen a fraction. He shakes his head: not quite urgent, but making a go at it.

"Could be a security breach," he rasps. "Don't."

"O-okay," he says quickly. "I won't, then. But I can ask anyone in your uniform? Is that okay?"

He takes a laborious moment to breathe, trying to think that through.

"Yeah," he says at last. "Yeah, um. Anyone in duty blues should be okay. Or as long as they've got a..." He makes a vague gesture toward his upper arm. "A Fleet patch, there."

Andrew nods. "Got it."

"Thank you."

His attention drifts; Gaeta endures a small but intense fight to bring it back under control, swinging his gaze back up to Andrew, forcing himself to hold it there. The heart monitor stutters.

"How did you know?"

A beat.

"... know what?"

"That this was gonna happen. The other you," he thinks to add. "Um. Not Andrew Prime."

He swallows.

"He said he knew stuff."

"... uh."

He's resisting the urge to facepalm at himself.

"Did he say it like ... 'I'm Andrew Wells, I know stuff'?"

His forehead wrinkles as he tries to remember.

"I think so. Yeah."

Of course he did.

"I can explain it," he says slowly, "but ... it's kind of a lot to absorb."

"Please."

His voice has thickened with renewed tears.

"I want to know. Please just tell me."

"Okay," he says swiftly. "Okay."

He glances around for a chair, finds one against the wall, drags it closer, sits down.

"It's like ... well, for starters, you know how there are people here from all different worlds? And some of them are worlds that sound kind of impossible?"

Gaeta manages to crack a weak, half-hearted smile.

"Yeah. Definitely know that."

That's a good start. "So have you ... run into anyone you recognize from a story? A book, or a movie, or ... anything like that?"

Less promising: the way the smile fades, and the way Gaeta blinks in confusion.

"Didn't we already talk about this?" he mumbles.

(They didn't; it was the other Andrew who engaged him on the topic.)

"... did we? Sorry."

He's had this conversation with a lot of people; he loses track of who, sometimes. Or maybe it was the other him who brought up the subject.

"Anyway, the point is ... I think some worlds get more stories than others. I don't know why. But I think mine's one of them. So there's ..."

Frith, this is awkward.

"There's a lot of people here whose stories I knew before I ever met them. So I knew what was going on with them, when we met. And ... and sometimes what was going to happen to them."

Silence.

What little blood was left in Gaeta's face has vanished. It makes his dark, sunken eyes stand out even more starkly, huge and round against his skin.

The heart monitor ticks up a little faster.