xp_logs | Scott and Madelyn, Tuesday morning

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Scott stops down in medlab to get the promised check-up and finds Madelyn on duty. They discuss stress, vacations, the HeliX formal, and Firefly.

He had promised Alison he'd do this, and Charles had suggested in a tone that meant it really wasn't a suggestion that it would be a good idea as well. Still, as Scott walked into the medlab, he reflected that there were about twenty other places he'd rather be, and that was just what he could come up with off the top of his head.

"Hello?" he called, holding his breath as he waited for a reply. Hopefully he'd been informed correctly and it was Madelyn on duty down here. Both Hank and Moira would have entirely too much to say to him.

"Just a minute," came the reply, followed shortly after by Madelyn herself, coming out of one of the adjoining labs. "Hey there, Scott. Something I can do for you?"

He took a deep breath, managed a wry smile. "I'm not sure, actually," he confessed, his gaze flickering around the room as he avoided meeting Madelyn's inquisitive look. "This was not actually my idea. Alison and Charles apparenlty think I'm due for a check-up. I'm not sure why they were so insistent."

"Perhaps because you've been acting... let's say, not like yourself lately? Or too much so, depending on how you look at it," Madelyn replied with a hint of a smile. She gestured at the exam table. "Up you get. I've got my over-stressed faculty member exam down pat now."

"I just bet you have," he said wryly, but did as he was told. "I suppose this is where I tell you that I really haven't been feeling like myself lately?" he asked, watching her. "I figured it was all due to not sleeping properly, though..."

"If you like. But I'd prefer to hear how you're feeling, yourself or otherwise." Madelyn gestured at his arm. "Can you roll up your sleeve? Might as well start with the blood pressure." As Scott obeyed, she went on. "How long have you been having trouble sleeping?"

"Uhh..." He had to think about that for a moment. "Since June, I suppose. I've had a few days at a time of decent sleep, a few times since, but... yeah, late June, more or less." He finished rolling up his sleeve. "The headaches have only been the last couple of weeks, though."

Madelyn repressed the urge to roll her eyes. "Since the radiation exposure, you mean?" she asked, her tone carefully neutral.

"Yes," Scott said a bit defensively. "Hank said we... Nathan and I, I mean, could expect symptoms like that for a while." She was giving him that look, or rather, not giving it to him, which was almost as unnerving.

"So he did. He also said, if I recall correctly, that you should come and see one of us if they persisted." The very barest hint of reproach edged into her voice, but otherwise she kept her poker face on as she wound the blood pressure cuff around his arm and put her stethoscope in her ears. "Anything else I should know about?"

And Hank had said just that, Scott remembered, but he couldn't remember how long was supposed to have been too long, with the headaches... "My stomach's been a little unsettled from time to time these last couple of weeks too," Scott went on quietly. "But I laid off the coffee for a while and it was better."

"How unsettled are we talking here? Actual throwing up or just a touch of the squirms?" Madelyn asked, inflating the cuff.

"The latter, mostly," Scott said. "The former, a few times just after the radiation exposure. Not since." He paused. "Well, except for the other day, but that was probably the hangover."

"I'll refrain from the usual 'you brought that on yourself', since you've probably heard it any way and I'd be a hypocrite to give you grief about that any way." HIs blood pressure was elevated - not seriously, but considering Scott's excellent physical shape, it wasn't a good sign. "You were right about the beaches, by the way," she added with a smile. "Although tequila? Nasty stuff."

Scott smiled, a smile without much in the way of humor about it. "That's the really unfortunate thing," he said, striving for a dry tone. "There were things I said in that post that would have been worth saying, sober." He watched her take the cuff back off and rubbed his arm for a moment before pulling his sleeve back down. "I can't afford slip-ups like that," he muttered.

"I was wondering how long it would take for you to start with the whole 'I can't afford to be a fallible human being' riff," Madelyn said, this time with the eye roll. Scott opened his mouth to protest, and she neatly slipped a tongue depressor into it. "Say ahh," she instructed, peering down his throat. As he did, making strangled gargling noises, she went on. "You made a mistake. You're fixing it up. Great. But I tell you what, Scott, you keep yourself as clenched as you are right now and you'll be joining Moira in the ulcer club."

"Not to worry," Scott said a bit drearily as she withdrew the tongue depressor. "I've been arranging to saddle other people with a few of my responsibilities. Like a vacation, but not."

"A vacation wouldn't be that bad an idea," she suggested, breaking the depressor in half and tossing the pieces in the trashcan nearby. "But don't tell me, there's too much you have to do, the Professor depends on you, etc, etc..." With a shake of her head, Madelyn went on. "I'm the last person to be saying this, considering how much time I spend closeted down here, but you are allowed a break, Scott. I could always write you a note, if you need one." This last was added with a slightly-impish grin.

"I may be going off with Alex to visit one of his potential colleges in Hawaii for a couple of days," Scott ventured, then smiled back at Maddie, a bit tiredly. "He asked me if I would, and I have a hard time saying no to him."

"Good for him, then," Madelyn replied, moving to check Scott's temperature with the aural thermometer. "Sounds just the ticket - sun, beaches, a distinct reduction in the number of angsty teenagers with superpowers..."

"No kids blowing themselves up," Scott said, really liking the idea. "Or trying to drive. I swear the driver's ed course is almost as nervewracking."

"There's a reason no-one else volunteered for that one, you know," Madelyn pointed out. Temperature normal. She tilted his head up so she could check if his glands were up. "Seriously, Scott, go with Alex. Even for a week. The two of you could use the break, and you could come back with a fabulous tan and make us all jealous."

"Charles did keep using the word 'vacation'," he said with a sigh. Her hands were cool, professional yet gentle. "To be honest, the idea of sleeping for a week is awfully attractive at the moment."

"That could be arranged," Madelyn offered, only half-joking. "I'm told Amanda's sleep potions are rather effective. At least on Nathan, they are."

"I'm sure everyone would get a kick out of me playing Sleeping Beauty," Scott said wryly. "You could set me up in the front hall or something, with a little educational display about the dangers of sleep deprivation. Then again, I wouldn't want to steal Nathan's thunder."

"Or Monet's," Madelyn added, continuing her examination. "It's not very responsible of me to say so, but whoever keeps putting the funny hats on her whilst she's having one of her turns is getting very creative." Moving around to behind Scott, she lifted his shirt and lay her stethoscope on his back. "Breathe in," she instructed, listening to his lungs.

It was very difficult to breathe in properly when you were trying not to laugh, but Scott struggled manfully to do it. "What a weird little world we have here," he finally said with a sigh once she'd removed the stethoscope. "It's a good thing we so rarely get the chance to stop and think about that."

"We really should try and take that chance more often," Madelyn told him with a chuckle of her own. Laughter was good - Scott needed to do it more. "Helps your sense of perspective, realising how wacky this place can be. Stop and smell the plastic flowers with the water bulb attached, that sort of thing."

He raised an eyebrow at her, smiling wryly. "Why is it that stopping to smell the roses... get some perspective, whatever, only makes so much sense after you've lost it completely?"

"Because People..." Madelyn replied with an air of one making a solemn pronouncement on the nature of life, the universe and everything. "Are Dumb. Really, really dumb. But they manage to get it right occasionally, so there's hope yet for us all." She patted Scott's shoulder, pulled down his shirt again. "I want some blood samples, just to check your ratiation and vitamin levels and make sure you haven't acquired any mind-altering parasites, but overall... you aren't about to drop dead, and there doesn't seem to be an ulcer on the scene just yet, so I'd say the prognosis is good. I'm still prescribing a couple of weeks off spent lying in the sun and touching base with your brother, though. Or failing that, asking your fabulously attractive personal physician for a dance at the HeliX event. You _are_ going to that, aren't you?"

He smiled a bit. "Wouldn't miss it," he said quietly. "I must be an unnatural specimen of the male gender, because I actually like wearing a tuxedo." She chuckled and turned away, presumably to get the aforementioned needle, and he took a deep breath, then let it out again. "But yes. Definitely a dance."

"Good. Consider it physical therapy," Madelyn said, returning with the dreaded needle and an alcohol swab. "This'll sting a bit, but I'll be as careful as I can," she added, swabbing the crook of the elbow of the arm he extended to her.

"Have you decided what you're wearing?" he asked almost playfully. "I gather that particular debate is raging in a number of different spots here in the mansion this week." He chuckled. "I caught Nathan and Moira having the most ridiculous conversation at the breakfast table this morning about what he'd do if she wore that white dress from their Santorini trip again. I had to remind them that there were impressionable minds around."

"The dress is bought, safely hidden, and Shinobi sworn to secrecy," she said coyly. "I figure I might as well acentuate the shock value with complete and total surprise." Carefully she slid the needle into the vein, watched the sample tube fill. "Although I'll be kind to my Captain and say it definitely has some slink to it." At his confused expression, she elaborated. "Shinobi talked me into being Zoe to his Wash. Which makes you my Captain, I believe."

"Uh-huh," Scott said, quite taken by the image of Maddie as Zoe. "That fits, you know. Fits rather frighteningly well." He smiled suddenly, almost mischievously. "So I guess we're supposed to trade war stories and make Shinobi terribly jealous now?"

The smile was definitely an improvement. Madelyn finished the blood sample, placed a ball of cotton wool over the puncture wound adn placed Scott's finger on it to maintain pressure whilst she put the sample away and fetched some tape. "It could possibly be arranged, sir," she said, her tone and expression deadpan. Then she grinned. "I have the outfit already. Shinobi took me shopping. What can I say - I'm a sucker for body armour."

"I have a brown coat," Scott volunteered as she taped the cotton ball. "And suspenders. Paige told me I looked very dashing." Maddie was still grinning at him, and he relaxed a little more. "That was relatively painless, you know," he said, then tried his best impression of Mal's drawl. "You wield a mean needle there, ma'am."

"I've had a lot of experience of sticking bits of sharp metal into people, sir," she replied dryly, her tone matching Zoe's exactly. There was a wicked gleam in her eyes as she added: "You know, it would really scar the little darlings upstairs if we recerated the "Take me sir, take me hard" scene."

"Oh. You have a very evil mind," Scott said admiringly, but then winced, thinking about some of the reaction to Betsy's post about his suggestion that she be Inara. "Probably best that stays an entertaining mental image, though," he said more quietly, that brief moment of relaxation fading away as if it hadn't happened.

Madelyn nodded, inwardly wincing to see Scott's walls slamming back up. 'Nice one, Bartlett,' she scolded herself. 'Always have to take a fraction too far, don't you?' "Either that or make 'Firefly' part of the compulsory viewing list for every student," she said. "And I'm done, Mr Summers. I'll run the usual tests on the blood sample and let you know if anything odd turns up in a few days, but in the meantime..." She went to one of the many drawers, unlocked it and pulled out a couple of small plastic bottles. "One's an analgesic, for the headaches - two as required, every four hours, but not more than six in a day. The instructions are on the bottle. The other's something to help you sleep. Take one a couple of hours before you intend to go to bed. You'll probably leave them sitting on the bedside table untouched, but hey, I tried." She handed him the bottles with a slight shrug. "And think about that vacation. Seriously."

"I think we could do worse than to make them all watch Firefly. Much worse," Scott said almost wistfully, then mustered a tired, if sincere smile for Madelyne. "Thanks, Maddie," he said, glancing at the bottles then back up at her. "I'll give them a try, I promise. I'm trying to mend my ways and all, and sleeping properly would certainly be a good start. As for the vacation..." He stopped, smiled again. "At least a couple of days, like I said. I need to start small, or the relaxation just might kill me."

"Too much shock to the system is bad," Madelyn agreed.