[Madelyn, Marie] How does your patient, doctor?

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

After the event at Selene's, Madelyn examines, and later loses, Marie. Tricksy things patients, especially them that don't want to be in medlab ever again.



"I'm fine." Marie batted irritably at Madelyn's hands as the doctor tried to shine a penlight in her eyes.

"You were unconscious for at least fifteen minutes, according to Alison." Madelyn ignored Marie's protests and went about the standard list of checks. "Did you hit your head?" she asked, seeing Marie wincing.

"No! It just hurts. Apparently it's possible to overload my mutation and it hurts now. It's nothing, okay?" Marie tried to sit up and stopped halfway with a gasp. "Okay. It hurts a /lot/." Her face blanched with the pain and she froze, unwilling to move, even to lie back down.

"We'll need to do a scan," Madelyn said firmly, pushing Marie back down. "I'm taking you to do that now."

"...okay," Marie said in a small voice, pressing her hands to her temples. The pain was enough to make her shake and that made it all hurt worse.

"I think a little Demerol first, though." Madelyn kept a gloved hand on Marie as she turned around and pulled a loaded syringe from the tray by the gurney. "What do you think?" She popped the lid and shifted the syringe to her other hand, grabbing an alcohol wipe to prep a spot on Marie's hip.

"please?"

Madelyn found a bare place between flames and swabbed, then plunged the needle in deep. The Demerol was like frozen fire and stung horribly. "You'll be fine in a few minutes. Do I need to ask what on earth you were thinking?" She gave the gurney a shove toward the imaging room.

"It was only for a second," Marie said defensively, keeping her hands over her eyes to block out the lights going by overhead. "Just enough to give me an advantage. I was already letting go when I kind of shorted out. I'm not stupid."

"No, you're not," Madelyn admitted. "It's just, didn't we /just/ go through you getting someone in your head with Angelo last week?"

"Yes." The Demerol was already working, making Marie feel odd and light-headed. At least the pain was fading.

"Lie straight, woman," Madelyn said, helping Marie uncurl even as she spoke. "Can't scan you like that."

"I don't like doing it," Marie said, almost cheerfully. "It sucks. But she hurt Sarah. And then she was throwing things around and casting spells and..."

"Spells?" Madelyn stepped into the diagnostic booth and flipped on the intercom so she could keep talking to Marie while the scans were being run. The imaging room dropped into darkness except for the flare of lights from the 'eyes' of the complex scanners as the great metal heads dipped toward Marie and investigated the length of her body, seeming for all the world like curious modern dinosaurs bending to sniff at something new and interesting.

"Yes. She was casting spells." Marie relaxed in the dark as the painkiller swept away the searing fire in her head.

"I'll make a note of that," Madelyn said. "I wonder if that had anything to do with it. So, you touched her and it knocked you out?" She watched the scan results and found herself almost disappointed at their normalcy. Normal results bothered her far more than anomalies but then again, as she told herself, look at where she worked. The whole place was an anomaly. Marie seemed fine, just a little more activity in some brain centers than was to be expected of a human, but they'd never gotten to look at her after her power had been activated.

"Not really," Marie said, trying to think through the Demerol high. "I touched her and I felt it working, but it was like.. .it was too much, even that little bit. I couldn't control how fast I was draining her and I let go but it was too late."

"You seem to be pretty much... yourself," Madelyn pointed out casually.

Marie nodded in the dark and was pleased that her head didn't hurt. "I didn't touch her long," she said. "A second or two. It wasn't enough to get her in my head. So much else was coming across anyway. The channels were all used up."

Channels. Madelyn was curious. She really was going to have to talk to Marie about this more. The way a mutant described their power went a long way to sorting out what was really going on physiologically. "So you're not feeling odd?"

"No," Marie said, a little surprised. "My head is actually pretty.. quiet. I don't know why." A giggle escaped her. "Maybe they're all afraid of Selene."

Madelyn laughed as well. "I can believe that, from what I've heard. It's good to know someone in that head of yours has some common sense."

"Hey!" Marie protested giddily. "I do too have common sense."

Madelyn snorted, shaking her head. "Yes, you just choose to ignore it. Stay still, this last scan will take about ten more minutes and I have to pay attention. Try and sleep if you can." She watched as the brainscan showed Marie drifting off into sleep. Everything seemed fine, from the girl's pulse to the movement of the fluid in her spinal cord to the temperature of her fingertips. Perfectly normal. In some ways, Madelyn wished fervently for something that would keep the girl home for a week or two, keep her out of trouble and give her time to rest and give Madelyn time to discuss her mutation with her. Maybe she could come up with something.

When the scans were done, Madelyn pulled blankets out of the warmer and tucked Marie in, rolling her out of the imaging room as Hank was bringing Alex in. She looked over at the fragile boy and winced.

"I'll be in to help you in a minute, Hank," she said. "Just going to put Marie where she can sleep this off."

When Marie woke up a half hour later, disturbed a little by doors opening and closing and the sound of Scott's voice, she sat up and was pleased to feel that her headache had subsided. Hmm. She perched on the edge of the gurney, swinging her feet. No IV. No chart. No one looking for her.

Summoning up her will, she hopped off the gurney and hung in mid-air, not trusting herself to walk in the high heels. Free to go, she thought, knowing full well, under the Demerol haze, that this was very much not the case. I'll check back in tomorrow morning, she rationalized. They dont need me cluttering the place up. Part of her was a little afraid that if she stayed, she wouldn't get back out again.

Telling herself that she wasn't really sneaking out, Marie slipped away when the halls were empty and flew up the stairs like a shot before anyone could catch her and send her back to bed.

When Madelyn stopped in after bringing Scott up to date on Alex' condition, she swore at the sight of the empty bed. "That little..." She sighed and leaned against the doorway, shaking her head. The girl was incorrigible. Then again, it was probably that same stubbornness that kept her from going crazy. "It's not like I can't find her if I want her," Madelyn said to herself. She had no doubt that Marie was on the third floor, in the room at the far end of the staff wing. She was also fairly certain that she'd have no argument from Logan, should she want to get the girl back down for more testing and expected, in fact, to see the man rumbling down in a few hours when Marie's Demerol wore off.

Muttering to herself, Madelyn prescribed and signed off on six tablets of Demerol with instructions that Marie take up to three every four hours. If she needed more than that in the next twelve hours, she needed to be in medlab. She pinned a plastic bag with the medication and a note on the staff's board and told Hank where it was when she went back to help him further with Alex. If no one had come to get it by the time she'd signed out, she'd take it up herself.