Madelyn, Angelo - Tuesday morning

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Angelo finds Madelyn in the medlab, of all places (surprise, surprise!) and asks how Jono is doing. Short, fluffy bit.



The medlab halls were alive with the sound of music. Well, Jono wouldn't have called it music, but Madelyn thought it was, and that was good enough for her. Humming along to REM and occasionally joining in with the chorus in a pleasant-but-untrained voice, she was in the middle of inventory in the main exam room, restocking supplies. Big surprise, they needed more sedatives.

Angelo followed the sound of the music when he made his way down to the medlab, there to see if there was any news of Jono. When he found her, he leaned against the door frame of the exam room with a slight grin, and called a greeting over the song.

"I've got my spine, I've got my Orange Crush... Oh, hi, Angelo!" Madelyn looked momentarily embarrassed at being caught singing, but shrugged it off. Being caught being cheerful - it wasn't a crime, not even here. "Did you need something? It's a bit late to treat those hands of yours, really."

The grin turned a little rueful as he glanced at his hands. "Ah, they were only bruised, nothin' major. I came down t' see if there's any change with Jono, really."

"Not overly. He's not any worse, but there's not really been a change for the better, either. But Hank and Moira are working on it, and I'm sure they'll come up with something soon." She closed and locked the medications cupboard, and turned around to face him, leaning back against the bench, hands in her labcoat pockets. "Next time you take your frustration out on the punching bags, try icing your knuckles afterwards. It stops them swelling so much and people don't look at you so funny," she suggested, a rueful smile on her face.

He nodded at the information about Jono, and looked up at her quickly at the advice about his hands. "You've been there too, huh?" he guessed, seeing the smile.

"Many a time," she said, pulling her hands out of her pockets and showing him the new pink skin on the knuckles. "Not so much now, but sometimes it's hit something or start taking it out on the nearest person, and I can't do that, not in my position." Madelyn's smile turned nostalgic. "I had a terrible temper as a kid, really awful to see. So my dad set me up a punching bag in the garage and told me to take it out on that instead of my brother. It worked, although my mother had a fit the first time I came in with bloody knuckles."

He nodded. "I know that feelin'. About havin' to hit somethin' - or somebody. 's why I've not been around much this last little while - between schoolwork an' the dog an' lookin' after Amanda, that is - while my hands were healin' up an' I couldn't hit the punchbags again, I didn't wanna risk losin' it an' yellin' at someone who wouldn't deserve it."

"It's frustrating, seeing people you care about in pain, isn't it?" Madelyn asked softly. "Especially when you can't fix what's hurting them." She glanced towards the isolation room that had housed Alison for so long, and was still on standby in case of another emergency. "But even when you don't think you're doing much, you are ? Amanda needs someone to be there for her right now."

"I'm doin' my best", he answered quietly. "Especially now with Angie... well, with whatever's wrong with Angie, this powers overload or whatever it is. 'manda slept in my room last night, she doesn't like bein' by herself. But she said she was gonna ask Nathan an' Moira if she could crash on their couch 'til Angie's back, so she should be okay there, at least."

Madelyn nodded. "You know to come see one of us if it starts becoming a problem? The sleeping? And that goes for either of you - I know you want to help, but don't go running yourself into the ground."

He nodded back. "Yeah - I've still got enough of those pills you gave me for a while, but I'll come see you if I need more. Make sure she does, too."

"Good. If only all my patients were that co-operative." Tilting her head, she gave him a considering look. "I don't want to pry, but that problem you were having before, with Paige... Are you talking again? I noticed things got a bit tense the other day in her journal."

He shrugged, shoulders hunched suddenly. "It's... better than it was. I left her a letter, like I said, an' she came to see me on the Friday night. So yeah, we're talkin' again. But... yeah. Think everybody's a bit on edge lately."

"Waiting is hard, especially for someone like Paige, and us not being able to give her much of an indication of when Jono will recover, or even if he'll cover… it's hard on her. She's not one to deal with helplessness, not with that hero complex she has." Madelyn's voice was sympathetic. "And you're right - everyone is on edge. But we can only hope things will get better."

He nodded, ignoring the bruising to shove his hands in his pockets unhappily. "Yeah... some quiet time between things goin' insane would be real good, at least."

"Unfortunately we don't always get what we want. So it's a matter of doing the best with what we can get." Unconsciously Madelyn echoed Angelo's gesture, putting her hands back in the pockets of her labcoat again. She didn't look happy with what she was saying, but really, what else was there? She couldn't say things would get better - something would inevitably make a liar out of her.

That brought a wan grin and a somewhat wry chuckle. "Oh, I'm gettin' good at that. Only reason I've stayed here through the raids an' the fights an' all the rest of it... is 'cause what's here is still better than what's not, an' I don't just mean the house itself."

"I know you didn't," Madelyn said with an answering smile. "There's something about the people here… they really get under your skin, don't they?"

He nodded, somehow managing to convey both ruefulness and deep affection at the thought of "his" people. "That they do. Paige, Amanda an' Nathan most, for me... but then there's Clarice, Kitty, Angie, Jamie, Doug, the munchkins... almost all of 'em, really."

"And that would be why we hang on, even through the shitstorms," said Madelyn.