Words

[amelia_z]

E Coli O157:H7

Comments

[caleb_z]

That figure is familiar to her, and by the look about him, has been here for some time. His chair is turned towards the one next to him, where he is attending to a small pile of stones.

"On the plus side, I've siphoned off enough excess magic to recharge two so far."

[amelia_z]

She takes some long minutes to look around the room. It's not a place she recognizes. She can't pull herself upright, and after gripping the bed rail a few times she gives up.

"[Where?]"

[caleb_z]

"Metropolis University Hospital," he answers her, his attention still on the stones. "You lost consciousness roughly four hours ago."

[amelia_z]

Amelia brushes her face against the pillow, turning her head against the material to rouse herself. She's got IV tubes. The last meal she can remember seems to be four days ago.

She coughs. There's that dry, stretched feeling in her throat. They've moved her. She hasn't missed that, it's probably for a reason. "[I'm always falling asleep on the job. That's me,]" she says with a weak smile. "[You're the responsible one.]"

[caleb_z]

Caleb alerts the doctors, but there isn't much they can do. "She's stable," they tell him. "The best thing for her now is to rest."

Not that Caleb will stray far from her side, of course.

Though while she is still asleep, Caleb slips out front to make a phone call.

[green_shield]

The cell phone plays, "The Rasputin," and Tara picks it up. "What's up?"

[caleb_z]

His voice is abound with forced neutrality.

"Do you have a minute?"

[green_shield]

She can hear through it by now. "How bad?"

[amelia_z]

Waking up is unpleasant and hard-coming. Amelia keeps consciousness for seconds at a time, then falls away again. Eventually her eyes open and she blinks a few times. It feels like time has passed but she doesn't remember falling asleep. Actually, that keeps happening.

Her first sight is the ceiling, flared bright orange and slightly purple, like a fading bruise. Caleb, you louse... Amelia knows those aura colors anywhere. There really isn't any reason for Caleb to have dragged Tara out here... Amelia's breathing goes up a little as she looks around. Where is 'here'?

"Where'm I?"

[green_shield]

"A guess? 3000 miles from where you want to be."

[caleb_z]

"Which is to say, Metropolis General," he adds. "You, uh ... you've been here since this morning, Bird. Since the big seizure."

[amelia_z]

"Right. Eh. Never liked that house much." Amelia's going to do her best to look 'normal', at least while there's other eyes here. She shrugs and smiles some. "Too small."

The fact that she woke up here almost exactly two years ago and will likely die here doesn't escape Amelia. The irony hurts. There isn't much that hasn't been ironic about her life since she woke up, though. She's trying to take that for the karmic balance it likely is. She looks over at Tara. "You've likely got somewhere... better t'be. For what it's worth 'm sorry."

No, she isn't happy about saying that. There's some part of her mind that says sense still could be made of this, that she could still be right, but the likelihood of that is small and it doesn't much matter anymore. She cracks a crooked smile that's fighting to stay that way. "Took accepting my brain's going. Couldn't rely on, on m'head. Took too long, I guess."

There's a brief glare in Caleb's direction. "Sorry he bothered you."