Synn moved through the lobby to the cafeteria with a book tucked under one arm.Seth was stirring on his bunk. The drugs were keeping him in a dark haze from which escape seemed impossible. The restraints the orderlies had attached to his wrists and ankles were chafing painfully against his skin. He stirred uncomfortably, only slightly awake.
Synn was unable to concentrate. She looked up at the clock, wanting very badly to see Seth, so she stood and headed for the door which led to the hallway. She eased warily up to the Security office, it's doorway being watched over by an armed guard ever since the 'incident'.
The guard was leaning against the wall, seemingly bored out of his mind, his eyes half closed.
Synn asked the guard where Seth was being held. He told her without hesitation and she turned around and moved down the hall towards the Psych ward.
Quiet and trembling within, she approached the guard that was in charge of the ward.
"I'm here to see Seth."
The guard looked her up and down for a moment, a smirk riding his lips. "Yeah? Are you a Doctor?"
Synn set her jaw. "No, I'm a nurse." She fished around in a pocket then held out her badge.
The guard sighed, obviously annoyed, and brought forth a clipboard with papers on it. "Your name?"
"Synn Deesse."
He scanned the papers, then looked at her. "Sorry Miss, you aren't authorized personnel."
Synn's eyes narrowed. "And who manages this list?"
"I don't know. I am just handed this list when I start my shift. You might wanna talk to a Doctor, they're the ones making the rules around here."
"No, they are the ones causing problems around here." She turned around and started in the opposite direction, her shoulders low, a forlorn look on her face.
The guard glanced from his list to her with a slight frown. "What are you saying."
"Forget it ... just forget it." Synn headed out into the hall, in search of the chief resident.
The ER was hopping with activity, the burned girl being only the latest in arrivals. There were everything from sprains and broken bones to plasma burns being treated
that night.
Zac slipped into the ER behind Asche and slinked along the wall, keeping out of the way. A dizzy spell washed over him, but he gritted his teeth and shook it off.
There were many curtained cubicles line the wall of the ER, most contained patients. Zac pawed around in search of some gauze, a needle and some suture thread. He glanced over and observed a couple of nurses quickly cleaning the injured girl up and rubbing salve on the strange burn marks caused by "stickie" hands.
Asche was there in the ER mainly to oversee things. "Admit her, keep an eye on her." She told the medics and left the girl to the nurses. Turning, she headed out into the ER proper and signed her name to a chart that was suddenly thrust into her hands and returned it, not a step missed.
Zac scrounged some more and found what he needed. He then looked at his reflection in a mirror. It was a long, hard stare ... the first he had seen himself in a long time. "I have seen what you have done. I know what you will do." His voice was barely above a whisper. "You can't run from my one eyed stare. It would seem we travel our separate ways. Yet it seems you watch me and I watch you."
Asche paused just behind Zac and heard his words. "You're delirious."
Zac's eyes narrowed, then he dropped the mirror back to the tray with a clatter. He turned to look up at Asche, nearly jumping at the sudden sound of her voice.
Synn was rounding the corner just at that moment and interrupted, "Excuse me. Who is the chief resident on duty tonight?"
"Let me take a look at you." Asche offered to Zac, then turned at the sound of Synn's voice "Well that would be me. What's up?"
Zac blinked once up at her and spun on his stool. "Stitch me."
Asche was looking the nurse up and down.
"I would like to ask for some clearance to the Pysch ward. It would seem only doctors are allowed to visit patients." Synn was shifting nervously from one foot to the other.
"Yeah, that's right." She indicated for Zac to show her where it hurt without taking her attention from Synn. "What do you need in the rubber room, sister?"
"Well, I would like to visit with a patient." It was simply stated.
Zac merely stared upwards, lost in thought, his cig twisting from corner to corner. The jagged slice over his good eye showed the obvious pain spot.
"The patients name?" Asche gave Zac a scowl. "Well, that would be a definite ouchie."
"Seth Rahved." Synn blinked, chewing on the inside of her lip.
Asche began to clean the wound. Zac seemed to snap out of his daze and shook his head, reaching for the needle. Asche slapped his hand away.
Synn was looking down at Zac's wound, then returned her gaze back to Asche.
"Elliot, call up a patient file. Rahved, Seth. What's his condition?"
Quent and Arium slipped in and stopped near the trio. Quent slid to the floor and sat just inside the cubicle. "Shh, we already missed some of it." He whispered to Arium as she stared down at him.
Zac growled at Asche's slap, then huffed a bit.
Synn gave a side glance to Quent, who seemed subdued and intent on watching.
"This gonna take all night, Doc?" Zac asked.
"Hush. I'm trying to do three things at once."
Synn took a step back. "Finish with your patient, doctor, I can wait."
Zac's good eye rolled in obvious anxiety.
Asche took a closer look at the wound while she waited on Elliot. "No, no ... it's okay."
"Or perhaps I can assist you?" Synn offered, looking at Zac.
Elliot's smooth, calm voice came over the speakers above. "Yes, Ash. Seth Rahved, male, 20 years old, currently held in the Psych ward for violating hospital policy on guns on the premises."
Arium bent to whisper to Quent. "What am I watching?"
"The ER show, this one's always different."
Asche reached for the needle. "Someone admitted him for that?"
Synn looked at the floor, then back to Asche. "It's all a misunderstanding really."
"He has been stabilized with Medication and kept sedated after trying to escape through the air vent shaft two days ago." Elliot continued.
Quent pointed to Zac, whispering to Arium. "He's a tough guy." He turned his finger to Asche. "She's a medic." Then to Synn. "She's a nurse."
"Elliot, what did he do? Threaten someone?" Asche asked the computer.
Synn supplied the answer first. "Well, sort of. It was the doctor that cannot seem to remember her name. They had an argument over something in the past."
"Did he act in an insane manner?"
Zac's thoughts were broken when Asche pressed a bit too hard against his wound. He growled low once more, but didn't move an inch.
"He ... I, I just want to see if he is all right. He's a friend."
Asche was stitching as she talked. It was something she was used to by now.
Elliot piped up. "The primary incident occurred five days when he opened fire in the in the cafeteria upon the psychologist."
Synn closed her eyes as she heard Elliot blurted it all out.
Asche mumbled under her breath so that only Zac could hear. "Shoulda admitted you when you shot up that chair."
"The psychologist should be the one admitted." Synn said, barely able to suppress her anger and Asche shot her a sharp glance.
Zac eyed Asche and snorted. "Should have caught me." He snapped back under his own breath.
Synn looked away, turned and started to pace the floor.
Quent pointed to her and leaned in towards Arium. "She's talking about my friend Adeline, her friend the Church man did stuff to each other once I think."
"All right, I'll let you see him. We'll have Larkinn take a look at him tomorrow."
Synn's eyes flickered as she flashed Quent a look, then stopped her pacing.
"Thank you doctor, I really appreciate this."
"Eliott, make sure she gets through." Asche then turned to Synn. "Don't make me regret this."
"Clearance filed and access granted."
Quent suddenly realized something and stood, staring at Synn. "Excuse me a moment. Are you talking about the nice doctor that does stuff to my head?"
"I promise you won't." Synn told Asche then looked full on at Quent, raising her brows. "Yes, perhaps I am."
"Why should she be admitted, she's nice, the lady who lived in her body before was mean." He nodded.
"The lady who lived in her body? What are you talking about Quent?" Her voice was soft and kind.
"She's not the person that she used to be, she can't remember the other resident anymore." Quent bit his bottom lip innocently, defending his friend.
Synn's eyes narrowed. "She has lost her memory? Or this other person she used to be? Interesting . . . " Her mind was starting to reel with thoughts.
"Yeah, the lady that that Church guy is afraid of is all gone."
"Well, that's just it Quent, I don't know what it is he fears. She locked him up before I could find out what has happening, and what she did to cause this reaction to her in him."
"Really? Are you going to go see him? Can I come with?" Quent smiled innocently.
"Well, perhaps you can come and visit Seth after me?" Synn gave him a hopeful look. "I haven't seen him in a week...and I would kinda like to see him alone, at least for a few minutes. But you can come with me and wait if you'd like."
"Okay, are you two gonna have a no kids show?"
"No, no. I don't think so." Synn chuckled. She turned and motioned with her hand. "Come on Quent."
"Oh, okay." Quent got out of her way and went back to Arium. "You can't go there unless you're crazy or a crazy fixer, I'm sorry."
Arium was still sitting Indian-style on the floor. "Oh, that's okay. I think I'm going crazy."
Asche finished up the last stitch on Zac's brow and dabbed away the blood with a bit of gauze. He cracked his neck once as she finished, stiff from having to hold the position too long. A stab of his finger checked the wound.
"Bah, don't touch it."
He narrowed his one eye. "Habit for inspection."
Asche reached for his hand but he slapped it away. She grabbed his fingers and Zac's breath stopped short and he looked at her hand that was holding his. Asche was looking him square in the eye.
"That it?" She asked him.
"Guess so." The cig moved to the other corner of Zac's mouth.
"You sure?" She gave his hand a squeeze.
Zac looked past Ash and questioned, in his low voice. "The girl?"
"She'll be all right."
The squeeze to his hand didn't go unnoticed, he squeezed back and nodded once. "Good." Rising, his hand slid delicately from hers.
Asche smiled slightly, her hand falling to her side. "I should wrap that."
Zac shrugged his coat a little higher on his shoulders and allowed Ash a wink ...
or what would have been a wink if he had two eyes
The hospital lobby doors whisked open and a tall man, slightly battered, staggered through. A scarf partially hid his face and coiled around his left leg was a tourniquet. The dust in his eyes was wiped roughly away with the back of a hand and he made a painful path in the direction of the ER.
Arium glanced up from her cross-legged observation post on the floor and stared at the man as he leaned against the ER doorway.
Asher had quietly appeared sometime in the last score of minutes and he simply stood, trying to see what was going on. After a while he grew tired of that and murmured. "A man I don't know, a war of which I'm not a part, and a world in which I've never been until now." He sat down in a chair.
Zac nodded in the direction of the man with the leg wound. "Better see to him. I'm fine."
A quiet sigh, then Asche moved off toward the wounded man. "What's wrong?"
"Could you help me." A slightly trembling finger pointed to the leg.
Zac watched Asche tend to the man for a few moments before turning and moving in a slow pace towards the ER door. Tattered boots carried his form across the tiled floor and towards the Cafe door.
"A chunk of wood stabbed into my leg in a wind storm." He sat down, faint from the loss of blood.
Asche grasped him by the arm, leading him off to a cubicle. "All right, let's take a look." She pulled a pair of scissors from her pocket and cut away at the pant leg.
The man managed a small smile, fingers undoing the scarf from around his face. The leg was bleeding profusely. It appeared to Asche's observation that something had caught him by the leg and stabbed in about two good inches. "Good grief. I need a blood test over here!"
"Yeah, it sort of hurt too."
A nurse scurried in and took the necessary sample and the man winced at her clumsiness.
"Elliot, I need an OR readied."
"No, please. I hate that. I can stay awake."
"OR #3 ready." Elliot responded calmly.
The man cursed the computer. "I'll reprogram you! Can't you just fix it here?" He asked plaintively of Asche.
Asche gave the man a level look. "You have a hunk of wood the size of a trokk in it. You want me to just pull it out?"
"I'd like to get back to work soon."
The man reached down, gritted his teeth and pulled out the splinter himself. He groaned loudly and fell unconscious from the pain. Asche quickly cleaned out the bleeding wound and ordered a nurse to wrap the leg before checking on a few other patients, then wandering back out into the lobby.