(Untitled)

[divine_mandate]

It's absurd. Patently absurd. Juliet can't help thinking she's eventually going to get up out of her sick bed to walk outside and discover she's at the Hotel Portmeirion on the set of some horrible The Prisoner remake. I'm not a number, I'm a free woman! A peal of laughter bubbles out of her at the thought and she quickly covers her mouth,

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[246th]

She's started to feel like the clinic's her spiritual home. At seven months, she's starting to feel like a hot-air balloon and she spends a lot of her time getting poked and prodded and checked.

When she sees the woman, she pauses, one hand on her bump. She tilts her head.

"Need anything while I'm here?"

[divine_mandate]

So lost in her admittedly depressing thoughts, Juliet is startled by the question. Pushing a hand through her hair and trying to sit up a bit to at least make herself somewhat presentable.

"No. Thank you, I'm fine." She looks the woman over and is surprised at the state of her. Not that she really has reason to be since she was told that people have had children here. Though, she supposes, it's one thing to be told and something else to actually be confronted with it. "I appreciate the offer, though. Have you...have you been here long?"

[246th]

"Few months," says Martha, taking the question as an invitation to come closer. She tucks blond curls behind her ears. She takes in the scrapes on the woman. Something nasty here.

"Long enough to end up the size of a house."

[divine_mandate]

So she didn't arrive already pregnant. Juliet had been curious though she would never have asked, and now she isn't certain which possibility was the better one. Still, if she'd wanted evidence that people are building lives here, she imagines she couldn't have asked for anything more.

"I wouldn't say that," she replies with a smile. "You look lovely. I hope you're just here for a routine check-up."

[alittleofboth]

In the manner of a small community like Tabula Rasa, word had made its way 'round to Anthony that some unlucky colleague of Adam Carter had made her way to their shores. Though he had spoken to Carter less than half a dozen times (they couldn't have stood being in each other's presence much more than that, frankly), the man's ironic not-quite-similarity to someone rather more important to Anthony had made the name stick in his mind. And when he had happened to hear it over breakfast, he had listened in on the conversation out of habit.

So another member of the security services has found his way here, he had thought wryly. God help us all. Loyalties and past actions meant nothing here, but old habits died hard. Curious, Anthony sought her out.

He was just pausing in the clinic doorway when the dark bubble of laughter escaped Juliet's lips. "Have you just found out about the dinosaurs?" he quipped dryly. "That's usually about when people start laughing, in my experience." A pause. "You are new, yes?"

[divine_mandate]

His voice cuts through her rather depressing revery and she pushes a hand through her hair, hoping she doesn't look quite as bad as she feels.

"At this point I'm thinking it's best to simply accept even the most outrageous statements about this place as true and work from there. However I've never considered dinosaurs much of a laughing matter."

She pushes herself further into a sitting position and tries her best not to look like an invalid. Lying in a sick bed is certainly not her favored way to make new acquaintances. "But yes, I'm new. Just arrived a few days ago. I was unlucky enough to need medical assistance but lucky enough to find it. I suppose I should be grateful under the circumstances."

[alittleofboth]

"I never considered dinosaurs at all until I ended up here." Anthony said with a dry smile. "And in that case, I'm sorry to be the one to break the news: yes, it's true, no, they're no harmless, thankfully they're meant to stay on the other side of the island." He looked her up and down. "Looks like you had quite the welcoming."

[divine_mandate]

She supposes that answers that question. She does look as bad as she feels. Either that or he simply has terrible manners, it's really too soon to tell.

"And here I was thinking I was almost presentable," she replies with just a touch of her typical biting sarcasm. "But no. Sad to say this particular fate would have been waiting for me whether I got sucked into this bad dream or not. One of the hazards of having powerful enemies."

[captainjack]

Jack sauntered into the clinic, a mug in each hand. He smiled at Juliet in her bed and held each of them up.

"Coffee? Tea?" he said in a tone that a person might use with their oldest friend rather than someone they'd just met. He did, however, have enough sense not to add '...or me?' He figured she wouldn't appreciate the joke, laid up as she was.

"I know you English love your tea, but I'm a fan of coffee, personally, so I brought both. How are you feeling?"

[divine_mandate]

She feels slightly ridiculous at the grin that breaks out at the sight of him, but she can't help herself. He's absurdly charming, even if he's clearly all too aware of that fact, and he did save her life. Hard not to feel some level of affection based on that fact alone. His providing her with something hot and sweet doesn't hurt either.

"Tea, please. I wouldn't want to ruin a perfectly good stereotype." She finds it amazing how a familiar face can turn a mood around. "And I'm feeling good. Well, better anyway. The doctors here can apparently work miracles. I can't say I'm not grateful. And you?"

[captainjack]

He handed her the tea and his smile grew just a little bit brighter.

"The doctors here are amazing," he agreed...and yet somehow made it sound vaguely lurid.

Jack sat down beside her bed and took a sip of the coffee. He'd honestly had no preference; he'd drink what she didn't.

"I'm great. It's not every day I get to be a daring hero and save the girl," he continued. "And before you argue that I didn't do much let me just point out that no one else can carry a stretcher as well as I can," he said, being cheeky on purpose.

[divine_mandate]

He's so obvious but she laughs anyway and it's genuine and it's good and she could kiss him just for that. Chasing away her grey clouds. She's never been one for wallowing and she doesn't think it particularly suits her. Much better to deal with things as they are not waste time regretting what can't be.

"Oh, I think you did a good deal more than that, Jack. Though carrying a stretch is a vastly under appreciated task, I'll admit."

She takes a sip of her tea and has to close her eyes for how good it feels. Like a taste of home.