004. [location: wayne manor] we raise it up

[lambentstar]

Now that Cat is convinced that the bombs aren't going off (she checked all the clocks she could find, just to be that little bit more sure) she's shifted the focus of her organization. After firmly admonishing the Extras that they still had to stay inside, she asked a few of them to join her in setting up a clear space in a room near the kitchen.

Comments

[dieneidio]

On her way out again after securing Dean a car and sending him on his merry way, Enfys reconsiders and heads around the front to catch up with Cat again, not bothering to knock this time.

"Cat! Hey, Cat!"

[lambentstar]

"Yeah?" Cat answers carrying an armful of towels, her hair finally tied back in a ponytail when she stopped to realize that it kept getting into her face and that's why she was noticing trouble seeing. "What's the latest?"

[dieneidio]

"Triaging the ballroom," she says, and if she's using the lochaber's long handle as a staff to lean on a little, that's...probably fair, don't call her on it. "You got incoming, Dean'll be here with Trixie and a couple girls what need doctoring, I'm off to find some more doctors, we're pointing people at Wayne Manor to converge. You want to start sorting something out so we can get it going faster once I start ferrying folks this way...?"

[lambentstar]

"I'm already half done it--honey," Cat turns and addresses a passing Extra, a woman not much younger than Enfys with thick black curls, "Go tell everybody to hurry their asses up, and move some cots in there, would you? And then set some water boiling, Lord knows that tends to come in handy." Sterilizing instruments? Making tea? There are all kinds of applications, it's just good to have available. The Extra nods, chirping 'yes, ma'am', and heads out, and Cat turns back to Enfys.

"I figure I'll stay by the door to tell them where to go, and--I never caught your name the last time, who am I thanking?"

[ → continued ]

[obscuronoctis]

Penelope misses the moment of somewhat creative Jersey-accented swearing that her blackout inspires, because he knew it was a risk and he did it anyway, hoping the pressure change wouldn't damage her injuries too bad and that she didn't have a concussion. When she comes to he's very relieved - she's got to be in an insane amount of pain for it to have knocked her out, but it's better than the alternatives.

Bruce could move faster, but he'd jostle her too much, so he concentrates on trying to be both efficient and accommodating. There's less rubble near the housing district, and he glides up the stone stairway to the front doors with more grace than someone might expect of Just Some Guy.

"Cat!"

Hey, he's finally back and he has a groggy, blood-covered girl. What did he miss?

[ → continued ]

[lambentstar]

"Bruce!" It's traditional, perhaps, for people to yell each other's names at times like this; Cat isn't focused on being original, she's focused on her friend, and the heartbreakingly small and battered girl he's carrying with him. She stayed by the doors like she said she would, and now she runs down to meet them on the steps, although once she's there she doesn't know what to do except hover.

"Oh, honey, you shouldn't have," she says, almost helplessly, the kind of sass that's not funny and isn't meant to be. It's her way of pretending that she can bring normality to this hideously abnormality. "We've got a room set up for injuries, y'all just come with me and we'll get this fixed up, okay?" She ushers them (unnecessarily) up the steps and holds the door open to let them in.

"What's her name?" She asks, looking at Bruce, as if he'd know, of course.

[ → continued, forever and ever, amen. etc. ]

[meanwhileback]

"Penelope," she gasps out, because obviously she should speak more. This is clearly the greatest idea. In her wooziness, she can't really think of a reason not to, until it's ever-so-helpfully provided for her by the fantastic shooting pain squeezing through her ribcage and throbbing out towards her extremities.

Now would be a good time to pass out again, she thinks. Sweetly, her brain complies.

[obscuronoctis]

Bruce was actually just trying to get Cat's attention, and apparently he needn't have been concerned; he feels a flicker of satisfaction at her demeanor, having prepared everything without blatant instruction to do so. For a moment there's a wry thought that maybe his ability to judge character is improving somewhat.

"Is Trixie back yet?" He suspects not, moving quickly through the house to where things are prepared, as he has no idea if Enfys has even been able to find anyone to serve as a driver, and navigating the rubble is going to be annoying in a large vehicle. Gently as he can, he lays Penny down on a bed and steps back to check her over again. He puts her feet up and takes her pulse and looks over at Cat. "I need you clean her face up and tell me if it looks like any the blood is from inside her mouth and not just from the scratches."

Assuming she will just ... do that, Bruce pushes Penny's shirt up (sorry) and checks her abdomen again, comparing the bruising and swelling from earlier to now and basically just trying to

[mightyfallen]

Jack has spent most of the past hour getting whoever he could out of buildings and into safe zones, using Leila's force fields to secure Gatas and a few other locations around the city. He isn't certain it's worth bothering with the Extras--he doesn't even know what they are, really, other than alive and vulnerable--but it seemed cruel to leave the Taxon residents least equipped for complex thinking to fend for themselves.

When he gets to Wayne Manor he still has a small group behind him, if only to keep them from wandering through potentially unstable rubble, but he leaves Abby circling them in the yard while he checks out the house.

"Does anyone need an extra set of hands in here?" He doesn't look in spectacular shape himself, but none of them do right now, and the dried blood isn't his, so that's...comforting in a sense.

[obscuronoctis]

After securing Penny and leaving her under Cat's watch for a proper doctor to arrive, Bruce all but sails through the house on his way to the library, and happens to catch Jack's inquiry. He stops short.

"Benjamin--" his tone is authoritative, and nothing about him in attitude or mannerism resembles the quiet man Jack had coffee with a few days ago, "Come with me. We're moving equipment and setting up for anti-radiation treatment."

... Well he did volunteer. Bruce carries on down a hallway, apparently just assuming Jack is going to listen and follow.

[mightyfallen]

Jack doesn't argue; he's moving to follow before he even thinks long enough to comment, because this isn't the kind of situation where you waste time quibbling over who gets to order who around, but there's a testy edge to the way he cants his head all the same.

"...If there's a short explanation for why we need that, I'd like it, otherwise don't bother." More future technology, he's guessing, which is only correct from the standpoint that Gilboa's technological state is profoundly odd.

[obscuronoctis]

"Compiling that list is step one," Bruce tells him. They're actually on their way to the library, which is something of a hike in this place. When they get there it's enormous, circular, and the entire height of the building with spiraling staircases and sliding ladders. There's no internet and no hospital with a handy CDC databank for Bruce to rifle through here, so the old fashioned way will have to do. He consults an index file and then goes to pull out a medical book from the other side of the room, flipping through it on his way back.

"I'm going to make a list of things for you to get out of the hatch." He puts the book down on a table and grabs a notebook. "If you don't understand what they are, take a moment to look them up. I'm going to go dig out some equipment in another room." ... The other room being the batcave, but as his late father was a doctor, he can get away with whatever explanation he'll need.

[notsawbones]

McCoy had always been a grumpy man for the latter half of his life. Always dealing in scathing remarks and sarcastic quips, he had not been tempted to punch the living daylights out of someone since his brief amity with a surly Tessma named Arvid when he was seventeen. Now that was a story and a half.

But somehow this "The Doctor", inverted quotes, had managed to piss the Starfleet doctor off to the point where he wanted to find him and shake the other man until he reacquired some tiny molecule of common sense. But until then, he was sulking outside the various pieces of the Enterprise their crew had brought with them, practising his aim with a hatched box of tennis balls at his feet and a phaser attached to one hand in a white knuckled grip.

And missed every single one he had tossed out in front of him so far, which was why he had taken this activity outside: like hell was he going to risk damaging and scuffing up his sickbay practising his aim with this damn thing.

[dieneidio]

Enfys had dug through the tablet's cache of network posts to see if she could dredge up some more names and faces to go with the nebulous requirement of 'medical personnel'; McCoy is one of them, along with Simon Tam, and so when she comes across the former of the two men she's pretty pleased with herself.

McCoy may be moderately less pleased by the long-legged twenty-four year old who just pulled up and got off the Ducati a few feet away from him, squinting at his not-spectacular aim and looking like she was recently dragged backwards through a field of gorse bushes. "Dr McCoy?"

[notsawbones]

McCoy was remarkably unpleased by the Ducati the woman had arrived on judging by the thin, white line of a tell-tale grimace where his lips were meant to be, as he arched an eyebrow questioningly. It looked like one of those retro automobiles Jim often lamented at him as a shining beacon of what he had given up when he chose the path of ridiculing his instructors with his Goddamn intellect for three years and sending his heart rate soaring through the roof when he climbed on one of these things.

And clearly McCoy did not know enough about these retro vehicles to realize that automobile was a car and not a bike. Not that he let that bother him at the moment; her appearance was something that set that eyebrow even higher on his face, before he tossed the tennis ball aside, where it bounded down the street and out of sight.

"Do you see any other poorly treated Starfleet doctors around here?" Which was a way of saying yes, yes I am Dr. McCoy.

[dieneidio]

Her head cocks to one side. "Right, good then! I need you to get on the back of that-" she nods toward the bike, "-and come with me back to Wayne Manor. We're setting up a triage in one of the ballrooms and bringing in the injured, we need actual doctors, and you just volunteered yourself."

By confirming that he's a doctor. Enfys is a nice girl.

"So, d'you want the nice polite introduction or do you want me to hit you with a stick 'til you do what I say, because I've had a real fucking long day, I'm telling you, mate."

[beenthroughhell]

Now that more people have started arriving, Tara is actively looking for news of her friends and a doctor, in probably that order. However, she's sticking close to Stefan, even so, not least because he's the reason for the later part of her search, though he keeps insisting he's fine and that they need a doctor for her. The two of them probably look more than a bit of a mess, considering; both are covered with dust and debris, with the addition of blood in Stefan's case.

[saintsanguine]

Stefan is fine! He's a vampire! What doesn't kill him only makes him str--never mind. Once the werewolf blood is out of his system he's going to crash pretty hard, actually, but at this moment it is certainly correct to maintain he's more worried about Tara. It keeps his thoughts somewhere not ...you know, full of crushing despair.

"I don't suppose I could get you to sit down somewhere," he inquires of her, half-suspecting this will not be happening. "I could go ask about your friends for you if you would."

[beenthroughhell]

"I'm okay," she says for probably the dozenth time. "Just a little tired. Though if you want to sit for awhile..."

[saintsanguine]

Stefan gives her this look which may, frankly, be a trap. "I will if you will."

Yes, it is.