as_damaged | ☤ nineteen

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☤ nineteen

[Accidental Video;]

[The view is wavering and poorly focused, the camera on her PDA just barely poking out from a pocket as Cameron walks down a clinic hallway. The lights are dimmed, the exam rooms on either side dark.]

Chase? [She's not bothering to hide the frustration in her tone. She's only here because he isn't answering his phone, even though he paged her. Even though she suspects it's likely some misguided game, the slim chance that it's an actual emergency is enough to lure her down to otherwise closed clinic.]

Here. [The answering voice, and the hope in it, is weak but audible. On the floor of one of the exam rooms, Chase has managed to elevate his leg with the help of a chair. The amount of blood soaking through his pants and pooling on the floor suggests this is a recent development.] C-Cameron? In here.

What is-- [The question dies with a gasp as she marches in upon the scene, shocked into a moment's pause before training, habit, takes over. The view shakes as she rushes to grab something off a countertop-- a bundle of gauze, something clean to apply pressure-- and kneels next to him, heedless of the mess.] What happened?

[He's been applying pressure himself, tie pulled off to make a crude tourniquet. A last resort move, but it's obvious he wouldn't have gotten far in this state. Shaky and sweating, pale as a ghost, he lets himself fall back as she takes over.]

Came off my bike when I was s-six. Severed... popliteal. [He twitches, swallowing hard to force his jaw into unclenching.] Would have called House. Didn't... think I had... time.

It just... opened up? [She doesn't look up at him, fingers shifting over his leg, trying to get a sense of the damage, pressing the gauze on top of his soaked trouser leg, unwilling to risk pulling or cutting it away, lest it make the damage worse. She presses as hard as she can, trying to keep the artery against the bone, above where she judges the break to be.]

It was Eden. For God's sake, Cameron. [He doesn't have much of a voice left, and still less colour in his face, words hissed through teeth that won't ungrit.] ...Help.

[Cameron doesn't reply, bending to peek between her fingers to see how much blood has seeped through. Too much. One hand still curled firmly around his leg to keep pressure, she reaches up to press her fingers against his wrist, feeling for his pulse.]

I'm calling the ER. [The camera view jostles as she shifts back, obscured by the shadow of her hand as Cameron reaches for the pocket it's sticking out of.] I can't staunch the bleeding, and you're hypovolemic. You need a transfusion, and I can't move you mys--

[The transmission cuts off midsentence as Cameron turns off the device, never noticing it was recording.]

[ooc; speech color = Chase, Cameron. all network replies will come after Chase is out of her hands and in more stable condition. ♥ ♥ ♥]

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"I wouldn't sign up for a marathon tomorrow." Maybe not the worst person to call. At least she'll deign to touch him, under these circumstances. If only to check his pulse. As angry as she is at him-- angry as she's ever been-- she doesn't hate him (which, really, is the better part of her problem.) Instinct lends her to mending wounds. Even if she didn't care at all, even if she never wanted to see him again, it's not like she would have left him there.

And here she's been, waiting by his door or at his bedside. Professionally, of course. Eye on his vitals, on the sheet, the clean new bandage with no trace of blood. She's glad he doesn't try to meet her eyes, though her concern is easy enough to write off. Cameron loves broken things, after all; bones and spirits alike, damaged people who need her as much as she needs them to.

"It was close, but you should make a full recovery." Softer now, easier; the worst is over for both of them. She's still leaning lightly on the bedframe, watching him shift, approving of the color that's returned to his complexion. The worst is over. As sanguine as she's been when she's paused to check the Network, allaying everyone's fears, seeing him awake is a weight off her shoulders.

Here she's been. Chase won't read anything into it; Cameron would sit vigil by the bedside of her worst enemy if there was a chance they might need her. He's watched her do it. Somehow the telegram about that vacancy in Calcutta never came through, and now here she is with him and he can't help noting that he's never had that from her before. Sympathy.

"You're using your patient voice," he observes, laugh turning into a cough half way through. "Could I get some water or something? I feel like I've been gargling with lint."

And a lot worse besides. Head still throbbing - can't be dehydration, there's a drip pushing fluids into him, one he's written up the order for a thousand times before - he turns his head to see what else he's hooked up to. Checking readouts all slightly south of normal but none of them frightening. He could have told himself he'd be fine, and he's still not sure he'd believe it. He's had near death experiences before, but never because someone was trying to kill him.

She's waited at too many bedsides to count. People she loved, people she didn't know. Too many times, waiting for the meters to slow to a still, the harsh and dissonant note of a flatline. Waiting for someone to wake isn't nearly as bad-- and due to her nature, it's a less common occurrence. Let him think what he wants. That it's only sympathy he's earned, and nothing more.

She nods and turns to a table beside her, the hint of a wry smirk killed when he coughs, to fill a paper cup from a plastic pitcher. "Only a little," she says, not dropping the patient voice as she hands it to him. And indeed it's barely half-full, enough to get the taste off his tongue and little more. He should be good as new, or nearly, but Cameron doesn't intend to chance unbalancing his system. "You were in severe hypovolemic shock, your electrolytes tanked." No dying of water intoxication after near exsanguination-- if only because he'd come back, and House would never let either of them forget the idiocy of it.

"I went to med school too, Doctor." That said, it's hard not to knock back what there is in the cup and ask for a second helping in a pint glass. And now he's caught up to the cause of the headache: epi hangover. Someone's pumped him with epinephrine, presumably to shock a sluggish heart back into beating like it should. It's been a while, but he wouldn't forget a migraine like this in a hurry. Feels like his brain's trying to ram-raid its way out of his skull.

He holds the last sip of water in his mouth, eking it out as long as he can before swallowing. "And that was the equivalent of taking a piss in a desert."

If nothing else, his voice is stronger. He sounds like he's just run that marathon she suggested he avoid, exhausted and pausing to catch breath between words, but confident that they'll come. Now if only he knew what to say. They've been trying to avoid each other, with the sure knowledge that the second a case comes up House will lump them both on it like recalcitrant toddlers needing a lesson in how to share. He hasn't wanted to hear anything else from her, hasn't known whether to apologise or protest that she lied to him too. Or that both of them told the truth, but not all of it. Somehow casual hadn't been exactly what she wanted at all.

There might be a rule about losing your right to complain after somebody's saved your life. Same problem, though. If he doesn't thank her he's an arse. If he does, he's risking getting it thrown back in his face. "Sorry I had to put this on you," he says, finally. "I waited until I was sure she'd gone. As long as I could."

"You're lucky I was close." If she'd had any idea of his condition she'd have run. As it was, assuming he'd paged her for some frivolous reason-- to try and worm his way into her good graces, or maybe merely to annoy her, send her on a wild goose chase-- much longer to get there, and they wouldn't be having this conversation. The circumstances, in an odd way, were in his favor; eager to get it over with she'd come straight over. Drawing things out was a tease, a game that had ended as soon as she'd found out about Angela.

"It's all right." She can forgive this breach of mutual avoidance, even with the dangerous currents it stirs. That he wanted her there, and that she wants to be here. If she didn't care at all-- and Cameron is mildly surprised that he has yet to remark upon it-- it wouldn't bother her where he spent his evenings. What she'd wanted was something serious, but unacknowledged-- impossible to explain without violating its own terms of secrecy.

"There are people out looking for her. If you know anything..." She trails off, steering the conversation away from what she doesn't want to discuss.

He's not apologising for breaking yet another unspoken contract. That much

wasn't

his fault, and even he can't find a means to skew it that way. Sheer, bloody bad luck, and that's what he's sorry for. The blood, having to see him in that state. That most of it is a blurry, sticky mess in his head only makes matters worse, conjures up things he might have said. She shouldn't have had to take responsibility for him.

He didn't mean to scare her. But maybe that's projecting. Maybe he's only remembering choking on his own pulse, slowing heart still threatening to beat its way out of his chest and the pain he hasn't mentioned to anyone - doesn't plan to. Worse than made any kind of sense. Enough to feel like it alone could kill him. Something in him knows he'd have gone to pieces if he'd had to be the one to find her. That's why he waited, almost long enough to run the clock out on his own chances.

"I know. One of the first victims we took in was a member of the police force. Not the smartest move."

He rubs a hand across his face, still too cool and clamming to the touch. Leaves it there to shield his eyes.God, he's so tired. "That's not Eden. When they find her, if they don't know how to fix her they'll only break her worse."

"Holly." It's not question, she's put together a rough picture of events. Cameron nods, mostly to herself. Eden's one of the handful of people here she'd consider a friend, which makes this that much worse. "She called herself Aodhan." Whether the difference means anything, Cameron has no clue, but it's oddly uncomfortable to imagine Eden running amok, pulling open old wounds with no apparent remorse.

She's been oddly calm about the whole affair, more focused on the practical aspect than its implications-- only now, face to face with Chase up and talking does she have the leisure to consider the mess, consider how close he came to joining the ranks of the City's living dead, cold and curiously animate. Bleeding on the floor. A thought she pushes away, reminded of things she won't consider.

"I've no idea how you fix that," she admits with a faint frown. Controlling the damage is at least comprehensible.

"Everyone keeps telling me how impressed I'm supposed to be with their magical powers. Maybe they should try using them for once." He hadn't heard the creature's name, but he had spoken to it, and there wasn't anything of Eden visible in those creepy black eyes. Just remembering the sight gives him shivers he hopes she would attribute to tiredness.

The girl had been his friend, too, but obviously they weren't friendly enough. He'd bought her a couple of dinners when she was feeling down, teased her about House and got into picky argments with her right up until the point when it looked like she might pull out a weapon (and, after three months in the city, he'd just about acclimatised himself to the idea of armed teenagers being a fact of life), but he hadn't known her. Even if he had - what the creature with her body had told him rang true - alcoholics could be masters of the art of hiding their condition right up until it tore them apart.

He'd indulge himself with guilt about that one later. Not his responsibility, maybe, but she had to be someone's.

"There's a story in the bible about Jesus coming across a man so riddled with demons he couldn't speak with his own voice. Jesus cast them out into a herd of pigs. That thing's borrowing her body - maybe it just needs to be given a home of its own." He wouldn't bring out the bible quotes with just anyone, maybe not even with her in a less vulnerable state, but it's not like his seminary education is a well kept secret between them. When you're near death you're closest to God. Maybe that gives him license for a moment's belief.

The story doesn't faze her, but it worries her a little. His background isn't a secret, but it's not something she's used to hearing him discuss. Maybe he's more shaken than he seems.

"That sounds too simple, somehow," she murmurs. Bound and suppressed, she-- it?-- had said; not that that made it any clearer. She didn't know Eden as well as she ought to, perhaps-- maybe if she did this would make more sense, but Cameron has shied away from delving too deeply into the topic of magic or mysticism with anyone. She can accept its existence, but she doesn't have to like it. Her conversations with Eden have been mostly medical, sometimes more personal-- but always grounded in what Cameron can't help but consider reality.

"So I'm assuming the answer is like crap, but how do you feel?"

They used to be reality, to him. Demons, miracles and wine that was the holy blood of the lamb. And though he never fully subscribed to all of that, the memories stay with him like childhood stories that can't be true but leave you turning a light on for safety, just in case.

"Like crap," he answers, obligingly. "My head's killing me." Beyond the headache and the dizzying tiredness, there's a blood bruise from the IV on one arm, spread out in varying shades of purple to about the size of a tennis ball. His legs are stiff, but it's when he tries to bend one that his face really falls.

Popliteal artery. Back of the knee. There's a helpless irony when he looks up at her again. "Think I'm going to be walking with a limp for a while."

Cameron can appreciate God as a concept. She can sympathize with the desire for a point of reverence, but can't quite make the connection herself between some grand, creative power-- something infinitely vast and yet allegedly connected, concerned, intimately, with each living creature. It's hard to imagine that capacity for faith-- even harder (most of the time) to see its traces in Chase.

She might have smiled, joked, if the air were clear between them. He and House could have matching canes. But this conversation only works because he's a patient for the moment, and as such she can push aside their issues.

"It doesn't look like there's any permanent damage, at least," she consoles him.

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☤ nineteen

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]

[don't go out tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life]