Stage I
Ellen hasn't had a day of real stillness, real quiet, since the day she was first run out of the Vault. You don't get to sit still for long in the Capital Wasteland. If you want to eat, you have to work for it. If you want to survive away from other people, you have to keep moving. Staying in one place, holding still- it makes you a target. Besides, there's too much to do to just sit. The Wasteland isn't going to save itself, not from what she's seen. Even if she really wishes it would. When she's not in the Wasteland, Milliways makes things a little less urgent- but when she's not in the Wasteland she's got the training regimen John-117 set her. She keeps it religiously when she's at the Bar, so as not to lose her edge through idleness. It's been a long time since things were any different.
There... is a slight problem with this.
Somehow, she's still not sure how, she survived a radiation dose at her father's purifier that should have killed her. The medicine she's been given since then- here at the Bar, back in her world, wherever- it's kept her insides where they belong and spared her the worst of a lot of other things that could've happened. Dr. McCoy was righter about the rash than he knew, since it had already begun under her clothes before he'd told her about it. Her hair's gone, some of it fallen out, some of it shaved to even out the effect. She's all right with that. It's a very small price to pay, compared with what Gob and Tulip and all the other ghouls she's met have been through.
But even with the medicines- maybe because of them, she doesn't know- she still has trouble keeping her food down. Doesn't much want to eat at all, if she's being honest. And her hands still shake, too. Not all the time. Just if she tries to do anything too strenuous with them. What bothers her is how low the bar for 'too strenuous' seems to be set now. Sitting up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed... that's tiring. She's pretty sure making her way to the washroom would be an exhausting experience, although she could probably do it if she wasn't likely to get caught and sent back to bed by an insistent doctor.
It's shameful, to be this badly flattened. Oh, yes, it could happen to anybody, it's just a matter of the human body being vulnerable to incredible danger, but- well, how do you deal? She's stuck here, flat on her back, staring at the ceiling and wondering how long she's been here. How long she's got left to go. How much ground she's losing that she had to work so hard to gain, whether under John-117's tutelage or just her own need for survival in the Wastes. What is she going to have to do to gain it all back? What's going to be left of her endurance when the doses can finally stop and the doctors say she can get up again?
She has comics. Alyx brought those. So did Tyler. They're all right- she likes the stories- but it's too easy to look at Grognak slaughtering his way through the corrupt guardians of the Jeweled City of Drax and realize that she hasn't swung her own sword since... she doesn't know when. The movies John Baum brought her are pretty good, but she has to wonder, with some of them, if the shaking in her hands is ever going to go away enough for her to fire a gun again. Even the ghouls in Underworld were able to do fine work and handle intricate equipment. If she can't...
Well, maybe there'll be work for her somewhere. Maybe she'll be able to stay awake long enough at a time (that bothers her too, how easily she drifts off for minutes at a time) to run the purifier project. Or at least to work on it a little, and pay other people to do the rest of the work, if she can just figure out how. If there's anything she can do when all of this is over. If she's lucky.
There's something else, though.
You don't grow up a doctor's daughter, or spend three years training to become a Vault chaplain, and not learn a few things about despair. The first is that if you have any way of keeping it from gaining roots, you should use that way, and use it often. Even if it's only distraction. It's not a fair enemy, so you don't have to fight fair; do what you have to in order to not think about it, and if it does land a few punches, take them and let them pass, as best you can.
What's going to happen next she doesn't know, and yeah, she's afraid that it's not going to be much good, whatever it is. But she didn't get to the kind of endurance that got her and Fawkes and Cross from Fort Constantine to the Citadel by lying idle. When the doctors aren't looking, she lifts her arms up and over her head as far as she can, or out and around to the sides. Or she draws her legs up towards her middle, first one knee and then the other. When there's no IV to worry about she makes fists and brings them up to her shoulders, and then down again. It's not much, and it's a shameful kind of burning when such little things exhaust her, but... it's something to do, right? It's better than nothing. And better than thinking.
She'll get better or she won't, and she doesn't want to think that she won't, so... yeah. Better than thinking.
There... is a slight problem with this.
Somehow, she's still not sure how, she survived a radiation dose at her father's purifier that should have killed her. The medicine she's been given since then- here at the Bar, back in her world, wherever- it's kept her insides where they belong and spared her the worst of a lot of other things that could've happened. Dr. McCoy was righter about the rash than he knew, since it had already begun under her clothes before he'd told her about it. Her hair's gone, some of it fallen out, some of it shaved to even out the effect. She's all right with that. It's a very small price to pay, compared with what Gob and Tulip and all the other ghouls she's met have been through.
But even with the medicines- maybe because of them, she doesn't know- she still has trouble keeping her food down. Doesn't much want to eat at all, if she's being honest. And her hands still shake, too. Not all the time. Just if she tries to do anything too strenuous with them. What bothers her is how low the bar for 'too strenuous' seems to be set now. Sitting up, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed... that's tiring. She's pretty sure making her way to the washroom would be an exhausting experience, although she could probably do it if she wasn't likely to get caught and sent back to bed by an insistent doctor.
It's shameful, to be this badly flattened. Oh, yes, it could happen to anybody, it's just a matter of the human body being vulnerable to incredible danger, but- well, how do you deal? She's stuck here, flat on her back, staring at the ceiling and wondering how long she's been here. How long she's got left to go. How much ground she's losing that she had to work so hard to gain, whether under John-117's tutelage or just her own need for survival in the Wastes. What is she going to have to do to gain it all back? What's going to be left of her endurance when the doses can finally stop and the doctors say she can get up again?
She has comics. Alyx brought those. So did Tyler. They're all right- she likes the stories- but it's too easy to look at Grognak slaughtering his way through the corrupt guardians of the Jeweled City of Drax and realize that she hasn't swung her own sword since... she doesn't know when. The movies John Baum brought her are pretty good, but she has to wonder, with some of them, if the shaking in her hands is ever going to go away enough for her to fire a gun again. Even the ghouls in Underworld were able to do fine work and handle intricate equipment. If she can't...
Well, maybe there'll be work for her somewhere. Maybe she'll be able to stay awake long enough at a time (that bothers her too, how easily she drifts off for minutes at a time) to run the purifier project. Or at least to work on it a little, and pay other people to do the rest of the work, if she can just figure out how. If there's anything she can do when all of this is over. If she's lucky.
There's something else, though.
You don't grow up a doctor's daughter, or spend three years training to become a Vault chaplain, and not learn a few things about despair. The first is that if you have any way of keeping it from gaining roots, you should use that way, and use it often. Even if it's only distraction. It's not a fair enemy, so you don't have to fight fair; do what you have to in order to not think about it, and if it does land a few punches, take them and let them pass, as best you can.
What's going to happen next she doesn't know, and yeah, she's afraid that it's not going to be much good, whatever it is. But she didn't get to the kind of endurance that got her and Fawkes and Cross from Fort Constantine to the Citadel by lying idle. When the doctors aren't looking, she lifts her arms up and over her head as far as she can, or out and around to the sides. Or she draws her legs up towards her middle, first one knee and then the other. When there's no IV to worry about she makes fists and brings them up to her shoulders, and then down again. It's not much, and it's a shameful kind of burning when such little things exhaust her, but... it's something to do, right? It's better than nothing. And better than thinking.
She'll get better or she won't, and she doesn't want to think that she won't, so... yeah. Better than thinking.