(no subject)
I am a warrior who does not fight, a woman who does not love, and a healer who does not heal.
Inside this particular room in the burn center, one patient sleeps and another works, head bent to her laptop as she types with tedious one-handed concentration. She's supported by the angle of her adjustable bed, and headphones feed furious music to her ears, driving her onward. The visitor's chair is empty at the moment, and a rather large book sits on the bed tray next to her laptop.
The door is for the moment open. Ellen knocks politely for attention on the door's frame and steps neatly in past the threshhold. She looks with some disappointment towards the sleeping woman's bed, and then turns her pale gaze curiously upon the awake one. She clasps her hands neatly behind her back and stands there for a moment to see if she is noticed, with her sunglasses pushed up on her head and her hair bound in a ponytail. She does not look especially official, in her business casual of pale blue and grey.
It takes a moment. Natalie's concentration is fierce, evidenced by the quick jabs of her fingers and the clench of her lower lip between her teeth. Eventually her gaze catches sigh of Ellen in her peripherial vision and then she startles upward suddenly. Her right hand lifts to yank one headphone from her ear and she blinks at Ellen for a moment, expectant.
"Hello," Ellen says. She puts her head slightly to one side and looks at the stranger hard at work in the bed with a certain alert curiosity. "Are your injuries serious?"
"What?" Natalie blinks at Ellen and the frowns, expression shifting into a fierce scowl. "Why? Are you a doctor?"
Ellen considers silently how best to answer this question, and settles upon some only slightly insane version of the truth. "I am an attorney," she says. "Of some familiarity with medicine and healing. What is your prescribed course of treatment?"
Natalie looks vaguely suspicious now. "Who sent you?"
This Ellen can answer. "I am here of my own recognizance," she says. "Does your treatment promise to be extensive?"
"Are you kidding me?" Natalie returns, gaze sweeping over Ellen from head to toe and back again in a baffled study. "What do you want?"
Ellen looks puzzled. She tips her head first one way and then the other, turning this over in her head. "I am in a position to offer aid to people whose injuries are severe and treatment inconvenient," she says. "Not many people seem interested. What does your course of treatment look like? I do not understand. Is this an uncomfortable question?"
"You're a /lawyer/," Natalie answers, and now she looks distinctly uncomfortable as she stares at Ellen. There's a brief pause before she says, "I think you should leave."
Ellen looks /more/ puzzled. "I attended Harvard Law," she says. She almost sounds hurt. "I do not understand how it relates."
"I don't know you." Natalie's hand inches toward the call button next to the bed.
"Oh." Ellen nods seriously. "Hello. My name is Ellen."
Natalie falls silent, and for the moment her hand overs and she does not press the button. She simply eyes Ellen with a sense of confused and wary bafflment.
Ellen looks back at her, likewise baffled and becoming similarly wary.
"You should go," Natalie repeats clearly.
Ellen sighs. "I do not understand people," she says. Then she turns on her heel and walks back out of the room again.
The other woman makes it to the door before Natalie leans forward in her bed, still wary, to ask, "How?"
Ellen pauses. She lifts her hand from the clasp held behind her to press its palm against the frame of the door as she cants her glance back over her shoulder to look back at Natalie. "How?"
Natalie leans back again, silent with her jaw set.
"I am sorry, what is the question?" Ellen turns back again and stands quite straight in the doorway, clasping her hands again.
Silence spreads again, and after a moment Natalie waves her hand, fluttering nervous dismissal as her gaze fixes on the screen of her computer.
Ellen stands there like a baffled gargoyle.
Natalie lifts her hand - the right - and pounds at keys.
Ellen watches.
Eventually, Natalie's gaze slants sideways and she blinks uncomfortably at Ellen.
Ellen regards her with wary curiosity.
"What?" Natalie snaps.
"How what?" Ellen asks.
"/How/," Natalie elaborates, and then scowls. "Nevermind."
Ellen looks confused again.
Natalie looks bitchy. "Nevermind."
Ellen stands there for a moment longer. "I am not certain how I have offended you," she says, "but I will offer my apologies. I was only attempting to be helpful."
Natalie waves her right hand with a quick flicker of irritation.
Ellen turns to leave again.
This time, Natalie remains silent.
Ellen goes!
Ellen is a very helpful and obliging person. So many do not appreciate. :(
It's a little after lunchtime at the cafeteria of Lennox Hill Hospital, but with the various breaks of all the employees and the constant influx of patients and worried family and friends, it's fairly busy. It's not the best food, but it's filling and keeps the mind off why visitors are here and not at home. Alicia is sitting at a table, the remains of a bland beef stew in front of her, still in her paramedic's uniform, light blue shirt over dark pants.
Valkyrie is a ghostly presence throughout the hospital. Lean and tall and dressed in muted colors, with the pale fall of her hair bound into a severe tail that sharpens the angles and planes of her face, she makes eye contact with few and has thus far exchanged only minor pleasantries with anybody. She has round-framed dark sunglasses that prop up on her head and has the harried, alert look of many a hospital visitor. The reception desk was little problem; a moment's distraction was all she needed there.
Now she walks, with close set steps, drifting through the halls and listening to snatches of conversation. It being around lunchtime, she wanders towards the small knots of worried people that accumulate in the cafeteria to see if there is more to be heard. Or perhaps she is just hungry, as her first step upon arriving is to obtain a tray.
Kathryn's on her lunch as well. Or rather, close to the tail end of it. She'd come here for a required checkup, and that out of the way, now seeks food. She lingers near the large cooler areas, eyeing the pre-made sandwiches and salads, debating which would be easiest to eat with one hand while she drives with the other. After long deliberation she picks up a turkey club sandwhich, adds a bottle of Pepsi to that, and moves up to the cashier to pay. Before quite reaching the counter a bag of chips is added to the mix as well. Her attention is on little else but her food and her own musings, at least for this moment.
The petite paramedic toys listlessly with her food, watching the crowd with a vauge sense of displacement. She's not used to being /done/ with work at this time of day, but the night has become slightly more unnerving for her, hence the change of shifts, temporarily. Her eyes suddenly catch a familar face at the cashier and she sits up straight, waving an arm in the air to see if she catches her friend's attention. "Hey! Kath! Over here!"
Ellen picks up a wrapped sandwich of her own and looks at it very hard before deciding it has passed muster. She takes a place behind Kathryn in line at the cashier's and eyes the array of chips with suspicion. She picks up a bag and turns it around to read the nutritional value. With distaste, she puts it down again. It crinkles.
Kathryn glances at the woman behind her before handing a few crumpled bills pulled out of some deep coat pocket over to the cashier. Hearing her name her head lifts up, peering around looking for the source of the voice. As she does find Alicia she raises a hand in quick greeting before turning back to accept her change (which is returned to the same pocket) and picking up her food. "Hey! Funny meeting you here." She jokes as soon as she's close enough to Alicia's table. "What's up?"
Alicia smiles at Kathryn. "Yeah, funny, since I /work/ here," she retorts, moving her tray aside to make room for the cabby. "I should ask you what /you're/ doing here. Dropping off a fare and decided to brave the jello?"
Ellen pays for her sandwich entirely in quarters, laying them out in neat rows on the counter, much to the exasperation of whatever poor souls ventured behind her in line. Then she carries her tray out to survey the array of tables with an expression of puzzled consideration.
"Nah. Just had to get a check-up and figured as I won't get a chance to eat elsewhere better grab food here." Kathryn grimaces slightly as she sets down her various purchases, seating herself across from Alicia. "Though my boss was /ever/ so gracious and let me have an extra 20 minutes on my lunch break today, so I could fit in getting looked at /and/ possibly getting to eat." Kathryn comments, a bit on the sarcastic side. Her gaze drifts around again, coming to rest on the woman who'd been behind her in line. "She...looks a little lost." She adds after a moment in a lower voice.
"Hah, sounds like a real sweetheart, your boss. Oh, if you don't have a fare when you're done, would you mind dropping me off at home?" Ali turns to see who Kathryn is talking about, still talking, though a bit embarrassed. "I think I'm still a little jumpy about being out a night after Mr. Scary cornered me at my volunteer job. Did you know he /wrecked/ the intercom system and bent the safety bars on the door?"
"Bent the safety bars on the door," Ellen says. To enter into a gossipy conversation in a lunchroom with unknown women: socially normal? Conceivably. Traditionally one would repeat the phrase with disbelief or amazement, not with that particularly blank tone. Ellen is not socially normal. She turns pale eyes upon Alicia with grave interest and holds very tightly to her tray, with its lone wrapped ham and cheese sandwich on it.
"Eh, he's normally alright, I think he's just getting tired of my 'issues'." Kathryn refers to her boss with a shrug, opening her sandwich. She looks up again with concern as Ali explains about her recent encounter, but before she can reply the woman she'd previously been watching speaks instead. Kathryn blinks a few times, looking to her instead. "Um. Hello." Kathryn speaks after a moment. "Yeah, that's what she was just telling me about." She speaks slowly, a little uncertain.
Alicia blinks up at the tall woman standing near their table, taking in the clothes, her wrapped sandwich and the comment. Could be eccentric, or off her meds. But Ali moves her tray over a bit to make room for the strange woman, couldn't hurt, right? "Umm, yeah, hi. Did you need a place to sit? The caf's a bit crowded, but we've got room here."
"Hello." Ellen inclines her head towards the greeting with the force of long habitual courtesy, but looks immediately back to Alicia again when she has done so. "Thank you," she says. She studies the space at the table for a moment, and then with an exquisite precision of movement, sets down her tray and seats herself. If the skip of her gaze between the two younger woman is a little wary, it is no moreso than anything else she does. She carefully begins to unwrap her sandwich. "You had an unpleasant experience," she says. "With a man who could physically bend metal safety bars." She pauses for a moment as though trying to remember what comes next. "Are you all right?" There.
Kathryn as well shifts her food aside before taking up her soda. She twists at the cap, but sets it back on the table quickly to settle as a little bit fizzes over the edge and drips to the table. Next she picks up her sandwich, taking a healthy bite, as she looks between Alicia and the newcomer with cautious interest.
Oh, yeah. Off her meds or should be prescribed some. But Ali doesn't let that stop her, she's used to some characters from her ambulance calls. "Uh, yeah, I'm fine. I think he just wanted to scare me, is all. Which he did, quite admirably." She shudders. "Any guy who corners women is scary, but when you're my height, a guy who towers over you by a good two feet and /sniffs/ you is just insanely creepy, by anyone's standards."
Ellen looks at Alicia and remembers to sound skeptical. "Two whole feet?"
"Yeah, from the sounds of it, he was just being a creep for the sake of being one." Kathryn offers around a mouthful of sandwich. "City's full of strange people." Her gaze lingers on Ellen just a second longer then it needs to before returning to her food. Next comes the chips, a quick tug and the bag opens with an audible pop.
Alicia looks a tad defensive. "Well, it was dark, but the guy just /towered/ over me. It's possible he wasn't that tall, but I wasn't going to ask a guy with black eyes and /claws/ his vital statistics." She nods at Kathryn. "Yeah, well, all he's managed to do is make me change my schedual. I have /no/ desire to meet him again in a dark alley. Or a well-lighted street, for that matter."
"Those contain very little actual food value," Ellen tells Kathryn helpfully, with a flicker of pale eyes towards the bag. She finishes unwrapping her sandwich and picks it up. "That does not sound human," she says to Alicia. "Where do you work at?"
"I work here most of the time, but I volunteer at The Mustard Seed Clinic in Clinton. I've been working there for a couple of years and that's why I've been so... floored that this happened to me. First time I've ever been bothered." Ali thinks about the human comment. "Well, he was more than likely a mutant. Or a guy who likes to wear Halloween make-up when he scares the bejeezus out of women on the street. Who can say?"
Kathryn looks into the bag of chips, then back at Ellen. She shrugs. "Taste good though." She answers, unconcerned. She listens to Ali's explaination, at the word 'mutant' she glances away, clearing her throat as discretely as she can manage.
"The Mustard Seed," Ellen repeats. She nods once, slowly. "Clinton is not a very good neighborhood. You are lucky that he did not do worse than frighten you."
Alicia nods. "Yes, I know, he surprised me before my cab arrived. But I've learned my lesson. Changing my hours, at least for now, and a nice neighbor has been offering to go with me for a while when he has time, so..." She shrugs. "I won't give up on the volunteer work. Most of the people there have gone through much worse than a good scare."
Kathryn looks back as the others start to speak again. "No, Clinton's not." She agrees, eating several chips at once. "Least you got someone to go with you though. I don't like to go down there period, much less alone." She admits.
"I have spent some time in the area," Ellen says mildly. "The locals are not very hospitable." She takes a bite of her sandwich, chews it solemnly, swallows, and then puts it down, all with those same very deliberate, precise motions. "That is Jean Grey's clinic," she identifies. "Your social conscience is admirable. Especially if you are harassed by mutants while you work there. You are a paramedic?"
Alicia looks at the woman, trying to imagine her in Hell's Kitchen, but it doesn't quite work. "Dr. Grey? Yes, I suppose so. I don't usually run into her when I'm there, but that might change with my change in hours." She shrugs again, "Mutants, hobos, druggies, gang-bangers, they're all a possible problem that you can run into there, but I feel I make a difference, so I keep going." Ali nods and gestures at her uniform. "Yep. Paramedic here."
Kathryn blinks. "Jean Grey? I didn't know she worked in Clinton." She eats the last of the chips, crumpling up the foil bag in one hand. She nods in agreement with Alicia as she lists off the possible problems around Clinton. "Crazy place." She reiterates.
"She is everywhere," Ellen tells Kathryn, with a momentary flicker of dark amusement that brings some semblance of life to the even blandness of her expression. "How do you get into that sort of work?" she asks Alicia. "Is it a competitive field?"
"Well, you can go to school for EMT and work your way up to paramedic. Paramedics are better trained than your average EMT. It's getting to be a competitive field, though not nearly as in demand as nurses are, nowadays. But I'd go crazy if I had to change bedpans and listen to doctors who think they're gods." Ali starts to say more, then closes her mouth. "Oh, man. We've been chatting away and I never said my name. I'm Alicia and that's Kathryn. Nice to meet you."
Kathryn shakes her head quickly. "Ugh, no thanks. I'd be no good at that either. Though I don't think I'd mind being in the medical field 'cept for all the sick people." Kathryn jokes, risking opening her Pepsi again. This time it doesn't leak and fizz all over. At the introduction she raises her hand in Ellen's direction. "Hi! Er...again."
"Hello," Ellen says solemnly. She lifts her sandwich and chews another bite before swallowing and offering her own introduction, meanwhile pondering what Alicia has said. "What you do truly aids those in need of healing. My name is Ellen. I have some experience in that area, if no history of formal employment."
Alicia works her way through that rather convoluted sentence. "Yes, I try. I've got the best record of any paramedic in the hospital. Haven't lost one patient en route so far." She furrows her brow at the last comment. "Experience with no formal training? Did you do some time in the peace corps or something?"
Kathryn looks between both women with interest as she listens. "So you mean like volunteer work or something?" She asks Ellen.
Ellen tips her head and looks, momentarily, very baffled. "I have never served in the peace corps," she says. "I suppose you could call it volunteer work. I have provided aid to the wounded."
Alicia looks almost as confused at Ellen for a moment before nodding. "That's good. To be honest, I'm getting tired of being a paramedic. I'm thinking of going back to school for physical therapy, though I'd probably still volunteer."
"So like Red Cross or something like that? Where you're not trained, but still do stuff like that?" Kathryn questions, her confusion a bit more obvious as she tries to figure out what Ellen means. "That's kinda cool."
"Physical therapy?" Ellen asks, because that is better than trying to explain the inexplicable and criminal.
"Yeah, helping people regain full mobility, or as much of it as possible through exercise, stretching, massage and stuff. I'm just getting burnt out with the grind. People being jerks, both inside the hospital and out. Watching people get hurt who shouldn't." Ali rubs her eyes and looks tired. "So I'm checking out schools. I can probably finish in under two years if they take credit for my real life experience."
"I know some do." Kathryn replies around the last mouthful of sandwhich before pushing the container away. "Like sometimes mechanic schools, you can get more points for knowing more." She relates the topic to something she better understands.
"Interesting," Ellen says, although she seems still to be slightly confused by the idea. She lifts her sandwich for another somber bite, which she chews thoroughly.
Alicia hrms and looks at her watch. "Ack, Kath, I hate to rush you, but do you have time to drop me off at home? I need to get some stuff done before it gets dark."
Kathryn nods. "Sure. As long as you're a paying customer then I can." She grins, starting to stand up, sticky soda bottle in hand. "Hey, was nice to meet you." She smiles and nods towards Ellen.
"The pleasure was mine," Ellen says gravely, and eats more of her sandwich.
"Of course I'll pay. Heck, I'll even /tip/" Ali teases, as she picks up her tray and goes to deposit the trash in the proper receptacle. "Nice meeting you, Ellen. You have a good day." And with that, she and Kathryn exit the cafeteria.
Ellen hears rumors of an old buddy lurking in a certain neighborhood and eats a sandwich. Mmm. Sandwich.
Inside this particular room in the burn center, one patient sleeps and another works, head bent to her laptop as she types with tedious one-handed concentration. She's supported by the angle of her adjustable bed, and headphones feed furious music to her ears, driving her onward. The visitor's chair is empty at the moment, and a rather large book sits on the bed tray next to her laptop.
The door is for the moment open. Ellen knocks politely for attention on the door's frame and steps neatly in past the threshhold. She looks with some disappointment towards the sleeping woman's bed, and then turns her pale gaze curiously upon the awake one. She clasps her hands neatly behind her back and stands there for a moment to see if she is noticed, with her sunglasses pushed up on her head and her hair bound in a ponytail. She does not look especially official, in her business casual of pale blue and grey.
It takes a moment. Natalie's concentration is fierce, evidenced by the quick jabs of her fingers and the clench of her lower lip between her teeth. Eventually her gaze catches sigh of Ellen in her peripherial vision and then she startles upward suddenly. Her right hand lifts to yank one headphone from her ear and she blinks at Ellen for a moment, expectant.
"Hello," Ellen says. She puts her head slightly to one side and looks at the stranger hard at work in the bed with a certain alert curiosity. "Are your injuries serious?"
"What?" Natalie blinks at Ellen and the frowns, expression shifting into a fierce scowl. "Why? Are you a doctor?"
Ellen considers silently how best to answer this question, and settles upon some only slightly insane version of the truth. "I am an attorney," she says. "Of some familiarity with medicine and healing. What is your prescribed course of treatment?"
Natalie looks vaguely suspicious now. "Who sent you?"
This Ellen can answer. "I am here of my own recognizance," she says. "Does your treatment promise to be extensive?"
"Are you kidding me?" Natalie returns, gaze sweeping over Ellen from head to toe and back again in a baffled study. "What do you want?"
Ellen looks puzzled. She tips her head first one way and then the other, turning this over in her head. "I am in a position to offer aid to people whose injuries are severe and treatment inconvenient," she says. "Not many people seem interested. What does your course of treatment look like? I do not understand. Is this an uncomfortable question?"
"You're a /lawyer/," Natalie answers, and now she looks distinctly uncomfortable as she stares at Ellen. There's a brief pause before she says, "I think you should leave."
Ellen looks /more/ puzzled. "I attended Harvard Law," she says. She almost sounds hurt. "I do not understand how it relates."
"I don't know you." Natalie's hand inches toward the call button next to the bed.
"Oh." Ellen nods seriously. "Hello. My name is Ellen."
Natalie falls silent, and for the moment her hand overs and she does not press the button. She simply eyes Ellen with a sense of confused and wary bafflment.
Ellen looks back at her, likewise baffled and becoming similarly wary.
"You should go," Natalie repeats clearly.
Ellen sighs. "I do not understand people," she says. Then she turns on her heel and walks back out of the room again.
The other woman makes it to the door before Natalie leans forward in her bed, still wary, to ask, "How?"
Ellen pauses. She lifts her hand from the clasp held behind her to press its palm against the frame of the door as she cants her glance back over her shoulder to look back at Natalie. "How?"
Natalie leans back again, silent with her jaw set.
"I am sorry, what is the question?" Ellen turns back again and stands quite straight in the doorway, clasping her hands again.
Silence spreads again, and after a moment Natalie waves her hand, fluttering nervous dismissal as her gaze fixes on the screen of her computer.
Ellen stands there like a baffled gargoyle.
Natalie lifts her hand - the right - and pounds at keys.
Ellen watches.
Eventually, Natalie's gaze slants sideways and she blinks uncomfortably at Ellen.
Ellen regards her with wary curiosity.
"What?" Natalie snaps.
"How what?" Ellen asks.
"/How/," Natalie elaborates, and then scowls. "Nevermind."
Ellen looks confused again.
Natalie looks bitchy. "Nevermind."
Ellen stands there for a moment longer. "I am not certain how I have offended you," she says, "but I will offer my apologies. I was only attempting to be helpful."
Natalie waves her right hand with a quick flicker of irritation.
Ellen turns to leave again.
This time, Natalie remains silent.
Ellen goes!
Ellen is a very helpful and obliging person. So many do not appreciate. :(
It's a little after lunchtime at the cafeteria of Lennox Hill Hospital, but with the various breaks of all the employees and the constant influx of patients and worried family and friends, it's fairly busy. It's not the best food, but it's filling and keeps the mind off why visitors are here and not at home. Alicia is sitting at a table, the remains of a bland beef stew in front of her, still in her paramedic's uniform, light blue shirt over dark pants.
Valkyrie is a ghostly presence throughout the hospital. Lean and tall and dressed in muted colors, with the pale fall of her hair bound into a severe tail that sharpens the angles and planes of her face, she makes eye contact with few and has thus far exchanged only minor pleasantries with anybody. She has round-framed dark sunglasses that prop up on her head and has the harried, alert look of many a hospital visitor. The reception desk was little problem; a moment's distraction was all she needed there.
Now she walks, with close set steps, drifting through the halls and listening to snatches of conversation. It being around lunchtime, she wanders towards the small knots of worried people that accumulate in the cafeteria to see if there is more to be heard. Or perhaps she is just hungry, as her first step upon arriving is to obtain a tray.
Kathryn's on her lunch as well. Or rather, close to the tail end of it. She'd come here for a required checkup, and that out of the way, now seeks food. She lingers near the large cooler areas, eyeing the pre-made sandwiches and salads, debating which would be easiest to eat with one hand while she drives with the other. After long deliberation she picks up a turkey club sandwhich, adds a bottle of Pepsi to that, and moves up to the cashier to pay. Before quite reaching the counter a bag of chips is added to the mix as well. Her attention is on little else but her food and her own musings, at least for this moment.
The petite paramedic toys listlessly with her food, watching the crowd with a vauge sense of displacement. She's not used to being /done/ with work at this time of day, but the night has become slightly more unnerving for her, hence the change of shifts, temporarily. Her eyes suddenly catch a familar face at the cashier and she sits up straight, waving an arm in the air to see if she catches her friend's attention. "Hey! Kath! Over here!"
Ellen picks up a wrapped sandwich of her own and looks at it very hard before deciding it has passed muster. She takes a place behind Kathryn in line at the cashier's and eyes the array of chips with suspicion. She picks up a bag and turns it around to read the nutritional value. With distaste, she puts it down again. It crinkles.
Kathryn glances at the woman behind her before handing a few crumpled bills pulled out of some deep coat pocket over to the cashier. Hearing her name her head lifts up, peering around looking for the source of the voice. As she does find Alicia she raises a hand in quick greeting before turning back to accept her change (which is returned to the same pocket) and picking up her food. "Hey! Funny meeting you here." She jokes as soon as she's close enough to Alicia's table. "What's up?"
Alicia smiles at Kathryn. "Yeah, funny, since I /work/ here," she retorts, moving her tray aside to make room for the cabby. "I should ask you what /you're/ doing here. Dropping off a fare and decided to brave the jello?"
Ellen pays for her sandwich entirely in quarters, laying them out in neat rows on the counter, much to the exasperation of whatever poor souls ventured behind her in line. Then she carries her tray out to survey the array of tables with an expression of puzzled consideration.
"Nah. Just had to get a check-up and figured as I won't get a chance to eat elsewhere better grab food here." Kathryn grimaces slightly as she sets down her various purchases, seating herself across from Alicia. "Though my boss was /ever/ so gracious and let me have an extra 20 minutes on my lunch break today, so I could fit in getting looked at /and/ possibly getting to eat." Kathryn comments, a bit on the sarcastic side. Her gaze drifts around again, coming to rest on the woman who'd been behind her in line. "She...looks a little lost." She adds after a moment in a lower voice.
"Hah, sounds like a real sweetheart, your boss. Oh, if you don't have a fare when you're done, would you mind dropping me off at home?" Ali turns to see who Kathryn is talking about, still talking, though a bit embarrassed. "I think I'm still a little jumpy about being out a night after Mr. Scary cornered me at my volunteer job. Did you know he /wrecked/ the intercom system and bent the safety bars on the door?"
"Bent the safety bars on the door," Ellen says. To enter into a gossipy conversation in a lunchroom with unknown women: socially normal? Conceivably. Traditionally one would repeat the phrase with disbelief or amazement, not with that particularly blank tone. Ellen is not socially normal. She turns pale eyes upon Alicia with grave interest and holds very tightly to her tray, with its lone wrapped ham and cheese sandwich on it.
"Eh, he's normally alright, I think he's just getting tired of my 'issues'." Kathryn refers to her boss with a shrug, opening her sandwich. She looks up again with concern as Ali explains about her recent encounter, but before she can reply the woman she'd previously been watching speaks instead. Kathryn blinks a few times, looking to her instead. "Um. Hello." Kathryn speaks after a moment. "Yeah, that's what she was just telling me about." She speaks slowly, a little uncertain.
Alicia blinks up at the tall woman standing near their table, taking in the clothes, her wrapped sandwich and the comment. Could be eccentric, or off her meds. But Ali moves her tray over a bit to make room for the strange woman, couldn't hurt, right? "Umm, yeah, hi. Did you need a place to sit? The caf's a bit crowded, but we've got room here."
"Hello." Ellen inclines her head towards the greeting with the force of long habitual courtesy, but looks immediately back to Alicia again when she has done so. "Thank you," she says. She studies the space at the table for a moment, and then with an exquisite precision of movement, sets down her tray and seats herself. If the skip of her gaze between the two younger woman is a little wary, it is no moreso than anything else she does. She carefully begins to unwrap her sandwich. "You had an unpleasant experience," she says. "With a man who could physically bend metal safety bars." She pauses for a moment as though trying to remember what comes next. "Are you all right?" There.
Kathryn as well shifts her food aside before taking up her soda. She twists at the cap, but sets it back on the table quickly to settle as a little bit fizzes over the edge and drips to the table. Next she picks up her sandwich, taking a healthy bite, as she looks between Alicia and the newcomer with cautious interest.
Oh, yeah. Off her meds or should be prescribed some. But Ali doesn't let that stop her, she's used to some characters from her ambulance calls. "Uh, yeah, I'm fine. I think he just wanted to scare me, is all. Which he did, quite admirably." She shudders. "Any guy who corners women is scary, but when you're my height, a guy who towers over you by a good two feet and /sniffs/ you is just insanely creepy, by anyone's standards."
Ellen looks at Alicia and remembers to sound skeptical. "Two whole feet?"
"Yeah, from the sounds of it, he was just being a creep for the sake of being one." Kathryn offers around a mouthful of sandwich. "City's full of strange people." Her gaze lingers on Ellen just a second longer then it needs to before returning to her food. Next comes the chips, a quick tug and the bag opens with an audible pop.
Alicia looks a tad defensive. "Well, it was dark, but the guy just /towered/ over me. It's possible he wasn't that tall, but I wasn't going to ask a guy with black eyes and /claws/ his vital statistics." She nods at Kathryn. "Yeah, well, all he's managed to do is make me change my schedual. I have /no/ desire to meet him again in a dark alley. Or a well-lighted street, for that matter."
"Those contain very little actual food value," Ellen tells Kathryn helpfully, with a flicker of pale eyes towards the bag. She finishes unwrapping her sandwich and picks it up. "That does not sound human," she says to Alicia. "Where do you work at?"
"I work here most of the time, but I volunteer at The Mustard Seed Clinic in Clinton. I've been working there for a couple of years and that's why I've been so... floored that this happened to me. First time I've ever been bothered." Ali thinks about the human comment. "Well, he was more than likely a mutant. Or a guy who likes to wear Halloween make-up when he scares the bejeezus out of women on the street. Who can say?"
Kathryn looks into the bag of chips, then back at Ellen. She shrugs. "Taste good though." She answers, unconcerned. She listens to Ali's explaination, at the word 'mutant' she glances away, clearing her throat as discretely as she can manage.
"The Mustard Seed," Ellen repeats. She nods once, slowly. "Clinton is not a very good neighborhood. You are lucky that he did not do worse than frighten you."
Alicia nods. "Yes, I know, he surprised me before my cab arrived. But I've learned my lesson. Changing my hours, at least for now, and a nice neighbor has been offering to go with me for a while when he has time, so..." She shrugs. "I won't give up on the volunteer work. Most of the people there have gone through much worse than a good scare."
Kathryn looks back as the others start to speak again. "No, Clinton's not." She agrees, eating several chips at once. "Least you got someone to go with you though. I don't like to go down there period, much less alone." She admits.
"I have spent some time in the area," Ellen says mildly. "The locals are not very hospitable." She takes a bite of her sandwich, chews it solemnly, swallows, and then puts it down, all with those same very deliberate, precise motions. "That is Jean Grey's clinic," she identifies. "Your social conscience is admirable. Especially if you are harassed by mutants while you work there. You are a paramedic?"
Alicia looks at the woman, trying to imagine her in Hell's Kitchen, but it doesn't quite work. "Dr. Grey? Yes, I suppose so. I don't usually run into her when I'm there, but that might change with my change in hours." She shrugs again, "Mutants, hobos, druggies, gang-bangers, they're all a possible problem that you can run into there, but I feel I make a difference, so I keep going." Ali nods and gestures at her uniform. "Yep. Paramedic here."
Kathryn blinks. "Jean Grey? I didn't know she worked in Clinton." She eats the last of the chips, crumpling up the foil bag in one hand. She nods in agreement with Alicia as she lists off the possible problems around Clinton. "Crazy place." She reiterates.
"She is everywhere," Ellen tells Kathryn, with a momentary flicker of dark amusement that brings some semblance of life to the even blandness of her expression. "How do you get into that sort of work?" she asks Alicia. "Is it a competitive field?"
"Well, you can go to school for EMT and work your way up to paramedic. Paramedics are better trained than your average EMT. It's getting to be a competitive field, though not nearly as in demand as nurses are, nowadays. But I'd go crazy if I had to change bedpans and listen to doctors who think they're gods." Ali starts to say more, then closes her mouth. "Oh, man. We've been chatting away and I never said my name. I'm Alicia and that's Kathryn. Nice to meet you."
Kathryn shakes her head quickly. "Ugh, no thanks. I'd be no good at that either. Though I don't think I'd mind being in the medical field 'cept for all the sick people." Kathryn jokes, risking opening her Pepsi again. This time it doesn't leak and fizz all over. At the introduction she raises her hand in Ellen's direction. "Hi! Er...again."
"Hello," Ellen says solemnly. She lifts her sandwich and chews another bite before swallowing and offering her own introduction, meanwhile pondering what Alicia has said. "What you do truly aids those in need of healing. My name is Ellen. I have some experience in that area, if no history of formal employment."
Alicia works her way through that rather convoluted sentence. "Yes, I try. I've got the best record of any paramedic in the hospital. Haven't lost one patient en route so far." She furrows her brow at the last comment. "Experience with no formal training? Did you do some time in the peace corps or something?"
Kathryn looks between both women with interest as she listens. "So you mean like volunteer work or something?" She asks Ellen.
Ellen tips her head and looks, momentarily, very baffled. "I have never served in the peace corps," she says. "I suppose you could call it volunteer work. I have provided aid to the wounded."
Alicia looks almost as confused at Ellen for a moment before nodding. "That's good. To be honest, I'm getting tired of being a paramedic. I'm thinking of going back to school for physical therapy, though I'd probably still volunteer."
"So like Red Cross or something like that? Where you're not trained, but still do stuff like that?" Kathryn questions, her confusion a bit more obvious as she tries to figure out what Ellen means. "That's kinda cool."
"Physical therapy?" Ellen asks, because that is better than trying to explain the inexplicable and criminal.
"Yeah, helping people regain full mobility, or as much of it as possible through exercise, stretching, massage and stuff. I'm just getting burnt out with the grind. People being jerks, both inside the hospital and out. Watching people get hurt who shouldn't." Ali rubs her eyes and looks tired. "So I'm checking out schools. I can probably finish in under two years if they take credit for my real life experience."
"I know some do." Kathryn replies around the last mouthful of sandwhich before pushing the container away. "Like sometimes mechanic schools, you can get more points for knowing more." She relates the topic to something she better understands.
"Interesting," Ellen says, although she seems still to be slightly confused by the idea. She lifts her sandwich for another somber bite, which she chews thoroughly.
Alicia hrms and looks at her watch. "Ack, Kath, I hate to rush you, but do you have time to drop me off at home? I need to get some stuff done before it gets dark."
Kathryn nods. "Sure. As long as you're a paying customer then I can." She grins, starting to stand up, sticky soda bottle in hand. "Hey, was nice to meet you." She smiles and nods towards Ellen.
"The pleasure was mine," Ellen says gravely, and eats more of her sandwich.
"Of course I'll pay. Heck, I'll even /tip/" Ali teases, as she picks up her tray and goes to deposit the trash in the proper receptacle. "Nice meeting you, Ellen. You have a good day." And with that, she and Kathryn exit the cafeteria.
Ellen hears rumors of an old buddy lurking in a certain neighborhood and eats a sandwich. Mmm. Sandwich.