(Untitled)

[population_ctrl]

Title: Level of Service Quality: N/A
Setting: Modern AU.
Date: 13th of June, 2012.
Summary: The food is horrendous and the situation itself riddled with boundaries and limitations. That is, until Mireille takes over, once more servering the larger picture into something less boundless and impossible.

Comments

[population_ctrl]

She takes his plate before he can react - and really, if he’d wanted to do anything, what exactly would he accomplish aside from flailing his one, functional arm at her? Watching as she cuts up the meat into smaller pieces, he realises something very essential, something that makes his temper burn out within seconds. Or rather, two specific things. One: the next weeks - months, potentially - are going to try his dignity in ways he’s never wanted to imagine. And two; if she leaves, if she packs up her things and goes away (or even just home), he and the hospital personnel will be walking a very, very thin line indeed between basic functionality and complete disaster.

It’s not that he can’t handle leaving things to others. If he couldn’t delegate, leading others would wear him out. But in terms of cutting up his food or getting dressed in the morning, there is absolutely no way he can deal with anyone else but her taking over; after all, there is a noticeable difference between pushing people around like puppets - and getting someone else to sort out your own, mixed-up strings. Who’d you want that to be, really, apart from the one person you know you’ve played more or less to perfection? So when she holds out the plate for him, he takes it back quietly, no hesitation, his mood having reached a kind of status quo. Balanced out by her calm approach to the situation and by his own admission that yes, he’s going to have to deal with this. And he will, because of her.

“Appreciated,” he says after a long moment - because it is, if it can’t be any different. Starts eating, slower than normally, even such a dry, uninspiring schnitzel almost too much taste to get down. He’s fairly certain he’s going to leave half the plate uneaten, but surely that’s for him to decide and for them to accept. Most things still are, really, if he thinks about it. The rest is unimportant at length.

[unreadability]

There follows the scraping of his fork against the porcelain, when he finally begins eating and she doesn’t continue watching him, once the noises of normalcy settles. Between them. While he shall have to accept his shortcomings in stages, she has accepted their full course already. Accepts it unquestioningly, because he is breathing on his own, isn’t he? Most of the machines surrounding him now being entirely soundless. Nevertheless, she notes how piece after piece disappears from his plate, at a slow pace - but without any indication of his system rejecting the nutrition. He has always had sensitive taste buds, within the palette of sweetness. Refrains from eating cake and chocolate. Preferring dry wines. And the food they’ve been provided with, if nothing else, is entirely tasteless. Won’t require the same willpower to swallow. It’s a mental response, of course; thorough because Jean Louis is never stripped of his force of will.

They will both have to establish their everyday life within this setting, isn’t that so? Despite the momentary halt to which the nation was brought and one interpretation of the world with it, in the wake of the assassination attempt... Their surroundings won’t remain suspended in mid-air, simply because their own context has been restricted to the squares of a clinical ward. White walls, disinfectant and medicine on the hour. The glass is cool between her fingers as she picks it up, the enforced silence of drinking brief. “Since I plan to go home tomorrow,” she tells him. Making the familiar sound of ingestion cease immediately. She looks up, only to find him staring at her. The pause extends further, until she realises that he will most likely need the continuation of the statement to appreciate it. “I will have Doctor Hirsch return your Mac.”

She’s been needing fresh clothes for days. Her books, as well. Currently, he's a natural element of the hospital. But she will have to adapt. In every way possible.

[population_ctrl]

He watches her. Waits for her to add something to that sentence, something to prove her stated intentions to be of a temporary nature; to indicate that no, she will not in fact leave when he’s just realised exactly how much he needs her around. But nothing happens. Of course, she could easily go home. He’s already admitted to not understanding why she’d do anything else. Doesn’t change the fact that his appetite just disappeared entirely, the fork in his hand feeling suddenly a lot heavier. Putting it down roughly enough to send a few bits of carrot tumbling onto the tray, he sighs.

“You’ll wait at least two days,” he says, voice even and face mostly devoid of expression. “The security system must be updated before you can stay there overnight.” Leaning back, he resists the urge to run his hand through his hair, aware that he’d be pulling the IV tube enough to make the movement uncomfortable with the current arrangement. Instead, he reaches for his glass and takes a sip, the water cool in his mouth. Cool, but stale.

If she wants to leave, again, he can’t stop her. But even the thought of Hirsch returning his Mac doesn’t level out the feeling of frustration and helplessness - that if she leaves, he’ll be stuck fighting off incompetence on his own with next to no means of success. And that’s a seriously unpleasant thought, the effect of will power not withstanding.

[unreadability]

At that, she adopts a stare to match his. Usually she is painstakingly aware of the messages she conveys; how they are presented, pronounced and understood. Ambiguity has no place in communication. She doesn’t endorse it in poetry and neither in her own wording. Least of all. In herself. Even so, he is responding as if her intention was to leave him behind, here - at the hospital. Let the doctors and nurses follow him through, without acknowledging… accepting… Without wanting the responsibility of staying loyal to the last name she bears, in place of Father’s. Despite everything. Despite knowing; she is still his wife by choice alone and disposing of him now, merely because it would not entail yet another fight... It would be a greater weakness than the one he is currently confined to, physically. Than the mistakes he occasionally succumbs to.

However, it doesn’t translate to her voice, does it? When she speaks, to the both of them. She doesn’t allow it to, beyond the persistence in the words themselves. “It shan’t require an overnight stay, for me to gather a large enough wardrobe --” Resting her hands in her lap, she leans back as well. Mirroring him once again, isn’t that so? As they have grown so accustomed to. “To not wear the same clothes two days in a row. The nurses might leak it to the press, after all.” There is no real smile to detect, accompanying the conclusion, but the line of her mouth softens. A lightness to her features in general. Tangible, like the sense of relief. At repeating her wedding vows in a setting not put on public display. Intended for him. Even if not for him solely.

[population_ctrl]

The effect of her words is almost immediate - how his body relaxes noticeably, breathing resuming at a less uneven pace. So, she isn’t planning on leaving any time soon. At least only temporarily... He pauses. Pushes the plate to the side, having lost all interest in its contents. Instead, he looks at her for a moment, thoughtfully. The way things are, he can’t justify letting her stay for more than another week at the most; even if she brings a suitcase of clean clothes from home, she’ll have little choice but to keep him company 24/7. And while he wants - and needs - her around, there’s no way they can manage something like that without... well. Without losing patience with one another, whatever that would mean in the present context. He doesn’t want to know. In fact, he doesn’t even want to consider it.

“You’ll need some private office space,” he says, finally, pushing at the hospital table and sending it rolling to the side, leaving the bed feeling less constricted. “If you’re staying.”

The last thing he wants to do is to appear hesitant or insecure; when every physical fact about him, currently, spells ‘weakness’. But all the same, that last bit is a question without a marker. Something they’re both used to, even if he seldom deploys it towards her. In most cases, he’ll always choose to be direct. This particular question, however, he doesn’t want to ask. Doesn’t want to consider its implications, consequences, the possibility of a ‘no’. It must be posed regardless, but his chosen approach clearly shows exactly how uncomfortable it makes him feel.

[unreadability]

A few moments of unresponsiveness follow. Pass her by and them in extension. It isn’t that she’s considered returning home to her everyday life anytime soon; preferring the possibility of staying at the hospital until he’s made a full recovery. Or something, at least, that resembles it. But there have been - still are factors which must be taken into account, of course. How her leave of absence is currently only scheduled to extend to the 1st of July, after which she is to conduct a couple of summer seminars that have yet to be cancelled. She has not been incited to decide on the matter, but neither has it been implied or explicitly expressed that it would be met with understanding, were she to prolong. Stall. Regardless of the consequences, the reactions it might prompt, it is a choice she cannot avoid. Won’t. However, it will wait. They still have weeks at their disposal, before she shall have to determine what options are available to her. And which to employ. For now -- For now, she is here. With him.

Standing up and thus leaving two-thirds of the schnitzel untouched, she picks up the magazine at the top of the pile - an issue she has already read more than once today, but which features a relatively accurate coverage of the investigation into the background of the three surviving Africans. Amongst the gloss and a recapitulation of conjecture. Five steps and she’s moved around the bed, sitting down on the half that is hers in practice. Places herself next to him, cracks and metal bars apart. Gossip spread out over her lap.

“As I have every intention to.”

[population_ctrl]

He follows her with his gaze as she moves from the chair and around the bed, magazine in hand. Then she decreases the physical distance between them significantly, sitting down next to him on her side of the bed, her proximity suddenly palpable; the last remains of her YSL perfume, the heat of her body, the way the mattress moves beneath her as she settles back against the headboard. He shifts closer without thinking about it, the metal bar between them halting his movement before he can notice what he’s doing. He stops. Glances at her before leaning back.

“Good,” he says after a moment. Looks away again, feeling suddenly exhausted. The smell of the leftovers on the plates is nauseating, too, and he reaches down with one hand and pushes the service button once more, to have them come and take the trays away.

He’d lie down, really, if he could move enough to manage it. But for now, he doesn’t try - too tired for that as well. Instead, he leans sideways slightly, just a bit, his good shoulder pressing against hers. Cocking his head, he squints at the contents of her magazine, bangs obscuring most of his vision. Not that it matters. Gossip doesn’t interest him. But it’s a great excuse to rest his chin on her shoulder and so, he does. Waits for the nurse to come barging in; enjoying the quiet for now, for as long as it lasts.

[unreadability]

Sensing how he leans in against her, she chooses to refrain from categorising it within the various clichés of expression - to think of him as a symbol of weight on or off her shoulders. Instead he is heat and the sound of breathing near her ear, evening out. Slowly. He is the embodiment of refusal, to deny oneself the indulgence of selfishness. Towards her, between the two of them. And towards the world, for his own sake alone… He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t deny himself and neither does she. Deny him. Nor denying herself. As such, she doesn’t centre her interpretation of the present on him, well aware that had he wanted her to leave, she most likely wouldn’t. Have. He may be regarded as self-seeking, but she certainly seeks her own comforts, too. Doesn’t she? The comfort he provides.

A nurse enters, yet a different one, who casts a quick look around the room, followed by a longer one in the direction of the bed before she picks up Jean Louis’ tray. First and closest. Doctor Hirsch has indeed made it incontestably clear that his staff isn’t to be considered waiters at personal disposal and as Mireille watches the girl filter out the door, taking with her and thus away their service - in all definitions of the word, it becomes obvious why. That is. She lacks the necessary balance point, her carriage inelegant as a result. Turning the page, Mireille returns her attention to the magazine. Jean Louis’ entire political career mapped out in pictures and headlines; years upon years of rhetoric and agendas in which he’s always acted as the subject. In this, though, he’s made an unmistakable object of himself. It’s the change she’s called for, continuously. Increasingly desperate on both their behalves, isn’t that so?

When she glances to the side, his eyelids have fallen shut. She shall willingly admit that the greater evil wasn’t what went before, because at this point -- She must focus her efforts on ensuring that the lesser evil will cease being an evil altogether.