xp_logs | Clean Slate: Moira, Amanda, Curt

Several days later, the search for what's causing Amanda's symptoms continues. This one's got both of them stumped.

Under different circumstances, Moira would have laughed at the fact that she and Curt bore nearly the identical expression. But this time it was one of frustration and confusion and it was concerning Amanda, so this was certainly no laughing matter.

It was now several days later since Amanda and Remy's arrival on Muir and the two doctors didn't feel the slightest bit closer to figuring out what was going on with her.

"Maybe it's vasculitis," Curt suggested suddenly, peering at the screens as they put Amanda through an MRI.

"Vasculitis?" Moira sounded skeptical. "I dinnae think so but we can check. She's nay 'avin' some o' th' larger symptoms, aye? I'm nay seein' signs o' tumors, either..." There was a collective sigh of relieve for a second there. "But we'll double check."

"Tumors are out, we've ruled out any other kinds of cancer, there's no swelling that can be causing the headaches." It almost looked like he wanted to throw the file in the air. "And vasculitis' symptoms can vary."

Moira frowned. "We can check 'er for it, though I doubt it." Pressing a hand to her head, she watched the information on the screens get filled in. Amanda's symptoms had started to get worse and it was obvious that she was getting more worried as time went on. They all were.

The table was cold beneath her back where the hospital gown had slipped a little and the injection they'd given her to improve the imaging was leaving a strange taste in her mouth. Then the machine made a clanking noise and the panels began to light up and she sucked in a breath, trying not to flinch.

"Stay completely still, Amanda, it's important," came Curt's voice and she made a small wavering noise of affirmation.

"Okay." She'd seen the machine working before, during her medlab assistant days, but being inside one? She fought off a wave of claustrophobia as the scan went on. She'd had to strip all her body jewellery - there wasn't as much as there used to be, but there was still enough - and she felt strangely naked without it. At least the thing about tattoos reacting to MRIs was a myth.

When Curt turned off the microphone, Moira sighed. "I know she cannae like bein' in tha'."

"Who does?"

She poked him in the head as he grinned at her. "Smart ass. Are ye as frustrated as I am?"

"If you're measuring your frustration levels by miles, then yes I am."

"Well, I'm measurin' by kilometers..."

"Now who's being the smart ass?" Shaking his head, Curt again looked like he just wanted to throw the papers around him in the air. "There has to be something we're missing. Nothing we've given her has helped the pain and it's only getting worse."

"I know. We're runnin' out o' options 'ere." The expression on her face was a mix of frustration and determination. "We'll find somethin', though, there 'as ta be a reason. Maybe when th' scans are completely done we'll see."

It seemed like the scan was going on forever, that taste rising in the back of her throat and threatening to make her vomit. Or maybe it was the headache, which was near-constant now and didn't seem to appreciate the machine - pain was spiking through her head, making her want to curl into a ball. Tears oozed from beneath her closed lids, trickling down the sides of her face. She was dying, she had to be, why else would she be in so much pain and nothing work? Punishment perhaps for all the wrong she'd done?

"Moira? Can I come out soon?" she whimpered. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Curt, stop th' scan," Moira said, heading to the door.

"Already on it." They weren't going to be missing much information, the scan had actually been winding down.

Bolting over to MRI machine as it slowly wheeled Amanda out, Moira bit her lip as she moved a trash can closer to where she'd end up. They had to find out what was going on and they had to find out soon.

The trash can was a good idea - as soon as she was able to move Amanda rolled over onto her side, retching helplessly. "I'm sorry," she gasped between heaves. "I'm sorry. Please make it stop."

"We will, I promise," Moira soothed, supporting Amanda and holding her hair back as much as she could. Throwing a desperate look at Curt on the other side of the window, she closed her eyes for a second. "There's nothin' ta be sorry about, this isnae yer fault. We'll put ye right."

The wave of nausea passed, and Amanda curled up on the table, shaking and cold. Her hands clutched at her head, trying to hold it together - it seemed like her skull would fly apart. "I can't do this much more, Moira," she whimpered. "I just want it to stop. Why won't it stop? Was I that bad? I tried to make things right."

Then Curt's voice came through the intercom again. "Moira? Get Amanda settled and then I've got something to show you."

"Aye, I'll be right there." As gently as she could, she pulled Amanda to a sitting position and kept her arms around her. "This is nay yer fault," Moira said quietly. "Ye did nothin' ta deserve this. Come on, love, lets get ye ta bed."

Following the MRI, Curt and Moira brainstorm.

Moira sighed and looked around the room that she had Curt had started using for Amanda's diagnosis. Charts littered the walls and tables and currently the other doctor was staring at the read outs from the MRI.

"What is this?" he asked, finally, pointing at odd spots on the readouts. "I've never seen anything like this."

"I think 'tis th' damage she suffered from when she severed th' link wit' Manuel," Moira replied, eyeing her own copy. "She's done far too much an' th' damage..."

Curt threw up his arm at that. "I have no precedence for a damaged link, dead people AND a crazy witch influence in the head!" he wailed, perhaps just slightly wildly. "...and your husband doesn't count."

"Nathan's never been near a crazy, evil life suckin' witch, thank ye verra much." Mentally, she made a note to keep him as far away from those as possible.

Getting up, she walked over to the wall on the left side. Most of it was filled with a writable board and, sadly, most of that was also filled with various scribblings about this case. "Cancer is out," she said, pointing to the word that had been marked out.

"Vasculitis is out." Curt came up behind her, slightly more composed. "There's no swelling on the brain, which, by the way, I'm surprised at."

"Let's start from th' top."

Moira started to pace, hands clasped behind her back as Curt stared at the writing board.

"Have there been any cognitive and communication problems?"

"Nay an' they would 'ave appeared by now."

"Have we seen any contusions on the brain, cheerfully ignoring those weird spots that normally wouldn't be there?"

There was a negative noise as she went over and started to poke around in a storage closet to keep her hands busy. "Th' brain stem is completely undamaged," she muttered loudly so he could hear her.

"Right. And she hasn't suffered any head trauma recently, we've made that clear... Multiple sclerosis?"

"Now yer jus' graspin' at straws."

"Ow!" Curt glared at her over his shoulder when he felt something poke him in the ribs. "Where on earth did you get that cane from?"

"Th' closet." Moira shrugged and fiddled with it, trying to keep her hands busy as she thought this through. "We're missin' somethin'."

"What we're missing is a neurologist," he huffed, rubbing his side.

She tapped the cane - one of Rory's old ones, she realised - slightly on the ground as she frowned. "Nay, we're missin' somethin' big. Wha' test 'avenae we run on 'er yet?"

"We've run every single test on her noggin that we can run, Moira, you know that."

"'Tis nay in 'er brain..."

"Headaches are normally caused in the brain area," Curt responded dryly.

"I'm goin' ta go see 'er, tryin' ta see wha' we've missed, because we 'ave missed somethin', tha' much is obvious."

As Moira ducked out of the room, cane in hand, he sighed and rubbed his ribs again. "I work for a crazy person. A brilliant crazy person but nonetheless... crazy."

Looking for more information, Moira goes and talks to Amanda again. It's perhaps more productive than Amanda realises.

Moira paused outside of the room they had put Amanda in and knocked softly. She wasn't considered, yet, one they had to put on watch 24/7 so they had given her one of the medical suites on the first floor of the castle. They had the medical equipment needed but were much more comfortable both physically and mentally.

"Amanda? Can I come in?"

"Sure," came Amanda's slightly listless reply. She was sitting propped up slightly in the bed, plenty of pillows supporting her back and head and she was wincing and rubbing her eyes slightly as Moira came in. A book - a first year college psychology text - lay open and face down on her lap where it had been dropped. Obviously the pain was getting too much to read. Nor was there any extraneous noise; no music, no television, even the machines monitoring her brain patterns set on mute. Amanda had developed a sensitivity in the last few days. Still, she managed a wan smile for Moira. "Hey."

"'ey yerself," Moira replied quietly, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. Automatically, she quickly scanned the machines and read-outs and bit back a noise of frustration. Everything was remaining the same with the sole exception being Amanda's pain and discomfort. "'ow're ye feelin'? 'as it gotten any worse?"

"Some," she admitted reluctantly. "My eyes hurt and I can't focus to read - the words're all swimmy." Frustration laced her words - she'd been so proud of herself for finishing high school finally and beginning the preparation for the social work classes she intended to take, and now it looked like that wasn't going to happen either. "I've thrown up a couple of more times too - can't seem to keep anything down, but it's probably from all the meds I'm taking. 'S why I'm on the drip now, I suppose," she added, indicating the needle in the back of her right hand.

Moira nodded and picked up the chart hanging off the end of the bed. The nurses had been pretty thorough with their notes, indicating medication dosage and frequency, each time Amanda had been sick, her meals...

A frown suddenly appeared and she flipped back through the records that the nurses had been dutifully recording. There was a pattern here. Amanda had been eating very little of the three meals she'd been provided with since she'd arrived and lately, hadn't been touching any of it due to the pain and the nausea.

She glanced over at her and noted that while she looked like hell, she didn't look like someone who hadn't eaten well in several days. "Do ye feel dizzy or light headed?" she asked suddenly.

Amanda shook her head. "Not really. Apart from the headache, I feel fine." And as far as she was concerned, the headache was enough.

Flipping through the files, she frowned. They had just started her on the IV, so that couldn't account for the fact that she was looking like she had been eating at least on a regular basis. "When was th' last time ye remember 'avin' a full meal tha' ye could keep down?"

Amanda frowned, trying to remember. "Um... maybe a few days ago? I don't really remember, but it's been a while."

"Ye should be feelin' th' affects by now," she muttered to herself. Moira stared at the wall for a second. It couldn't be, could it? Amanda's powers were, or had been, primed to sustain her body by absorbing energy. Granted, that energy was normally magical in nature and, thus, fed into the magics that she performed. But suppose...

But her powers had been 'burned out' since Selene and Askani. The two doctors also hadn't noticed the food consumption because of the rush to find out what was going on... and they hadn't run any of the tests on her powers that they normally would have, especially since Amanda herself hadn't said she'd noticed anything powers-wise. "I'll need ta run more tests on ye, love but... I 'ope we'll 'ave some answers soon."

Amanda was used to Moira's thinking out loud, and simply nodded, carefully. "All right." She hesitated a moment, and then asked. "You'd tell me if it was something serious, wouldn't you? Like a tumour or something?"

Reaching over with one hand, Moira squeezed Amanda's comfortingly. "In a bloody minute," she replied. "I dinnae believe in keepin' news like tha' ta meself, better ye know sooner than later. But, nay, 'tis nothin' like tha', thank God."

The girl relaxed slightly - she'd been wondering if perhaps it had been something like that, considering the severity of the pain and the uselessness of the painkillers. "That's a relief," she said, trying to make light of it. The pressure behind her eyes increased and she whimpered a little in the back of her throat as she closed them. "The light's too bright," she said, pressing her hands to her eyes. "It hurts."

"We can dim th' lights or turn them off completely." Moira thought for a second. A white noise generator might not be a bad idea, it would certainly help ease whatever little noise was still aggravating Amanda. "I can also give ye a sleepin' mask, tha' might 'elp ease yer pain as well. We'll get ta th' bottom of this soon, I promise ye."

"Off. Turn them off, please," she replied, not moving her hands until Moira had done just that. When the room was dark, she lowered them, blinking cautiously at the small amount of light still in the room from the machines. "I'm just so tired of hurting, Moira. I can't think, I can't do anything and it feels like I'm losing everything I worked for in New Orleans." A thought occurred to her. "This isn't anything to do with breaking the link, is it? I had headaches then, for a few days. Selene..." she paused, wincing again. "She had telepaths who helped with it."

Standing next to the head of the bed, Moira ran a gentle hand over Amanda's hair. "I dinnae think so. There is residual damage from it tha'll probably last th' rest o' yer life. Nothin' dangerous but it did show up on th' scans, like I 'ad expected. I've also been in contact wit' some colleagues regardin' telepathic damage --" Pausing at the look on the girl's face, she smiled. "Nay anyone ye know, dinnae worry. But we've got some on 'and if I think we need a bit o' a psi ability on this one. 'Tis 'ighly unlikely. I will say this, yer eatin' 'abits 'ave sparked an idea but I want ta check it out more before I say anythin'. Is tha' okay wit' ye in case 'tis a dead end again?"

The touch tingled, her scalp ultra-sensitive from the pain, but Amanda leaned into the contact nonetheless. Being in the clinic had been rather isolating, even with the nurses doing their best to comfort her. Besides, this was Moira. Moira never gave up on her, even when she had just cause. "I trust you," she said at last. It said everything.

Leaning over to tuck Amanda in, Moira smiled at that. "Thank ye, lass. I willnae let ye down, I promise. Sleep well, aye? I'll see ye in th' mornin'."

Amanda slid down in the bed as Moira tucked her in, closing her eyes tiredly. "I'll try," she murmured. More often than not the pain woke her, but the nurses would be close by with the sedatives. "'Night, mu-- Moira."