xp_logs | Madelyn, Haroun -Saturday morning; physiotherapy can be fun. Not!

Madelyn is running Haroun through his new 'ware. Haroun is being frustrated. Madelyn is being repetitive. It's a good thing they're friends.

Haroun glared the glare of spontaneous human combustion at Madelyn. Unfortunately, she failed to indulge his foul humor by actually combusting. "You are a sadist, you know that, right? What's next, you're going to bang on my knee with the hammer-thing so you can see how that doesn't work too?"

"Well, now you mention it..." Normally Haroun's foul mood would have raised all sorts of hackles with Madelyn, but the fact Haroun was alive to have the foul mood tended to make it a lot easier to take. Well, for another week. And then she was smiting. "It'll take time, Haroun. You've got a completely different set of 'ware in here, and you're going to have to learn how to use it all over again. Yelling at me isn't going to change that."

"It doesn't work." he said stubbornly. "I think the move through, each motion from beginning to end. And it WILL NOT LISTEN!" he said, slamming a fist weakly into his thigh, and then screaming as his leg registered pain. Actual, real pain.

Madelyn serenely made a note. "Reaction to painful stimuli, check." Then she lay her pen and clipboard down and moved to lay her hand on Haroun's shoulder. "Hon, getting worked up about this isn't going to make things happen any faster. In fact, the more you try and do things the old way, the less successful you're going to be. Now, calm down and approach this a bit more rationally, okay? Forge assures me everything's working as it should, you just have to learn how to use it."

"What the fuck was that?" he said, staring at his new legs. They looked an awful lot like his old legs, which was just messing with him. "I _felt_ that." he said in horror. "What did they DO to me?"

"They fixed you. Better than that, they gave you something that approximates flesh and blood a lot closer than the old 'ware." Madelyn perched on the side of the bed so she could look Haroun in the face. "You'll feel a lot more than you ever did. You'll find that eventually the 'ware reacts more like your orginal legs than the other." She paused a little delicately, and then added, with a slight grin. "You'll have a whole new world of sensations and experiences that you didn't have before. But you'll have to let go of everything you every knew about using the old systems."

Haroun stared at Madelyn. "I don't remember my original parts." he said after a long moment, and then shook his head. "I don't remember how they worked."

"Then you'll learn. You did before. But, hon, it's going to take some time and beating up on yourself and the rest of us isn't going to change that," she reiterated gently. "And the reward will be worth it, I think."

"I want back on active duty." he said. "I have a Russian to track down. But I can't do that from a fucking hospital bed, which is why I'm trying so damned hard to get _out_ of it. And the ware is Not Listening." he said, the frustration creeping back into his voice. "I don't know what to do." he admitted.

"Because you're not listening to it." Madelyn pointed out. "You're trying to push things to fit what you want, not taking into account the new parameters." She grinned a little wryly. "This is one time when being pig-headed isn't going to get you your way. As for active duty and Arkady... forgive me for being selfish, but I'd much prefer you recover fully and don't rush things before you go out and get yourself damn well nearly killed again. If anything, it's hell on my social life having to work on you 24-7." She kept her tone light and teasing, but her voice trembled a little on the last words. She hated seeing her friends nearly die. She was strange that way.

"There's nothing to listen to! I tell it what to do, it obeys. That's the way it works." he said around gritted teeth. "It sends me feedback data, lets me know when it's unhappy. That's how it has always worked."

She could hit him over the head with something heavy. No-one would blame her and she'd feel so much better. "How many times do I have to tell you, Haroun? This isn't the same 'ware. What always worked before isn't going to now."

Haroun glared at Madelyn. "All right then, genius, you tell me how to do it since the only thing I've ever known how to do isn't working. How do I get up out of this bed and walk? How do I get myself back on my feet?"

"Talk to Forge, for a start. This new system is a lot closer to his arm than your old 'ware, and he did design a lot of it." Madelyn crossed her arms across her chest and tried not to lecture him too much. "I'll work on the physical therapy on your upper body, get your strength back. And Charles will keep working with you on the mental processes. We'll continue doing what we've been doing, ad nauseum."

Haroun nodded. "All right. Bring the weights back over here. May as well get pissed off about something I can do something about." he grumbled. "I _hate_ being helpless."

"None of us do." Madelyn obligingly slid off the bed and returned with the two ten-pound weights Haroun was using every day to work on his arm strength. "But it's only temporary. We worked too damn hard on you to have you turn into the world's most technologically advanced paperweight."

Haroun picked up the pathetic ten-pound weight and starting doing curls. Normally, before his accident, he could have done those reps all day and all night. Now, his arm trembled and he broke out into a sweat after the first half-dozen. When he finally had to let the weight fall, unseen by him, his foot twitched.

Madelyn noticed it, and smiled a little to herself. Involuntary reactions were starting to show, which was an indication the interface between Harouns' nerves and the wiring of the 'ware was beginning to settle. "Good," she said, taking the weights back and handing him a towel and a bottle of water. "That's more than yesterday."

"I'm not done." he said, ignoring the water and the towel. "Next set." he demanded, reaching over to grab the weight again.

She held firm. "Water first," she insisted, keeping the weights out of his reach. "You're still recovering from the high temperatures, and I won't have you dehydrating yourself. You'll get these back when you've had half of that bottle."

Haroun gave Madelyn the death-glare of SHC again, but once again she stubbornly failed to ignite. "I'm not some child you have to mother. Give me the damned weights. Let me knock out another set, then I'll drink the whole bottle."

"Nope." Madelyn kept out of reach, ignoring the death-glares. "Half now, then you get the weights back. This is not negotiable - you're lucky your muscle tissue didn't degrade any more than it did with the fevers you were having, and over-heating yourself, even a little, is not going to be an option for a while."

Haroun's eyes flickered over to the Medlab fridge - on the other side of the room. Then he sighed, and extended a trembling hand towards the water bottle. "Fine." he said. "But I do two sets after."

"And after that you get a full bottle. Plus the other half of this one," she replied, still with that frustratingly calm and firm tone. There was a reason she'd taken the job of Haroun's physical therapy. Might as well use the inner bitch for the cause of Good.

Haroun nodded. "Fine. Then I do the other arm." he said. "Give me the bottle - or do you have to warm it first and put a nipple on it?" he joked, sticking out his tongue at her.

"Ew. Bad mental image of you in a diaper," she replied, handing it over.

Haroun shot her a Look, but took the bottle and polished off half of it in a few clean swallows. It tasted better than it had any right to, but he wasn't about to get into that with her. She'd want to put him back on no-exercise and high-fluids. "Next set?" he asked, looking at the weights.

"Knock yourself out." She handed them back over in exchange for the half-full bottle, watching him for signs of over-extertion. He'd never say, but she wasn't in the mood for sticking emergency hydration IVs in him. Again.

The simple exercises - despite his substantial loss of strength - felt _good_ to Haroun. It was something he had control over. Lift the weight. Lower it. Do it again. And again. And again. Simple, direct, efficient. He finished off his second set, although his last few reps he had to work _hard_ for - sweating, straining, agonizingly slow.

Madelyn let him work without uttering words of encouragement and the like - he wouldn't appreciate them. "Good job," was all she said at the end, taking the weights back and handing him the bottle. The towel was left pointedly on the bed, within reach. "Break for a few minutes, finish the water and then we'll do the other arm." Then she added, with only a hint of an evil grin. "Then we'll do those sensitivity tests. Since you know how much I like the idea of sticking pins into you."

"Bitch." he said, but he grinned while he said it.