二十七

[anatural]

[ action ]
[Korra is done with the hospital. So very, very, VERY done.

Unfortunately, neither her body nor the hospital staff agree. Just a few more days, they promise her. You sustained major trauma from those bullet wounds. Personally, she finds the pain less traumatic than the terrible smell and the snoring of her roommates. (She's able to think this only because of really excellent pain medication.)

The biggest problem with being stuck in the hospital, though, is that it gives her too much time to think. About the injuries she sustained. About how she's going to need physical therapy. About the fact that no matter how hard she tries, she might never be able to move the way she used to again. The doctor warned her that her shoulder will be prone to popping out of its socket, and that her muscles may be stiff and harder to move than before. She's very lucky that none of the bullets shattered bone or nicked any organs. She could have died or been paralyzed. She tries to remember that and feel grateful, but mostly she feels like, bit by bit, everything that makes her her is being chipped away.

She hates hospitals.]


[ooc: open to any and all visitors or hospital staff!]

Comments

[charring]

[Charlie's visit is probably unexpected but Charlie wants to know that Korra is recovering. Her injuries had been horrific and Charlie wanted to try to distract her in some way.

So, she's bringing food from her shop. It's all made fresh and on the house because Korra is something of a friend, even if they don't talk often. Charlie likes her because she's from Toph's universe and Charlie adored Toph.

Bag of food in hand, Charlie knocks on Korra's door before pushing it open slowly.]

You're probably not up for visitors but I brought food.

[She steps in and puts the bag on the bedside table, offering Korra a half-smile.] Tell me to leave if you want. I won't be mad.

[anatural]

[Korra's heart jumps into her throat and gets stuck there -- even after she realizes it was just a knock on the door. She gives Charlie a weak smile.]

No, that's fine. [How can she turn away the woman who saved her life?] That smells great.

[charring]

The Jasmine Dragon's finest. [Because that's how Charlie rolls. She settles on a chair nearby, smiling at Korra in return.]

So, honest question. How high on pain meds are they keeping you?

[It's a roundabout way of asking how Korra is feeling. She's never liked that question, even asked outright. It seemed invasive, especially since she's heard it often since Merlin left.]

[action;]

[unflagging]

[Hey, who's this kid? Yeah, this one, the one sneaking around the hospital hallways.

It's not real clear, but from the bruises on her face and the bandages on her hands, there's a chance she's another patient. Either that, or a visitor who's been in a few scrapes herself. No telling.

She's a little shifty, a little nervous, a little shy--looks like it, at least. One never knows. They say the ones with the sweetest faces mix up the foulest poisons.

She's glancing in the rooms as she walks slowly down the hallway, limping a little ('Ware the man who fakes a limp, some would say). She glances, likewise, into Korra's room and...yeah, offers a small smile.]

[ooc: Icons chosen somewhat ironically.]

[action;]

[anatural]

[Korra's about ready to explode from boredom. When the girl pokes her head into the room, it provides a welcome distraction.]

Hey there.

[action;]

[unflagging]

[A small and flickering smile.

(If there's nothing else to say about him, the creature called Randall Flagg, Rory Fletcher, and now...whatever his traveling name was while hiding behind this face, he was a passable thespian.)]

Hey.

Sorry, I was just--yeah, don't let me disturb you or anything.

[Another one of those nervous, flickery smiles.]

action;

[mortemscintilla]

[ If it's any consolation -- (It rarely is) -- Hei hates hospitals too. He hates the antiseptic smells, hates the weakness and fear burgeoning in the atmosphere, hates the hypocrisy of the doctors and nurses. The place doesn't represent convalescence to him. It's the embodiment of inertia, helplessness, lost time. There's no room for that in Hei's profession. He'd been admitted to a hospital only once, as a child-soldier, and he'd left with the cold resolution never to go into one again. It's not like him to make exceptions -- but he supposes, at this point, Korra qualifies as one. ]

[ In the expanse of the room, white walls, white sheets, white floors, Hei remembers what it's like to be that child again. It's not a pleasant feeling. ]

[ He sits by Korra's bedside, quietly reading the patient chart. Intrusive, yes, but he can't say he gives a fuck. It's disquieting, seeing her like this. There's no room in his imagination for Korra on a sickbed. He can only see her as her usual brash, bright-eyed self, all sound and fury signifying teenaged rebellion -- or dead. It's an effort to fight the slow burn of anger, like someone's run over his cat or broken his favorite toy. ]

[ He breathes easier only when he sees that she is too. ]

action;

[anatural]

[Korra drifts in and out of a restless sleep -- too shallow to be restorative, but fortunately not deep enough for dreams. Nothing pleasant waits for her in the dark of her subconscious.

She's not sure when she becomes aware of Hei's presence. It kind of creeps up on her, like twilight or a heavy fog. Her eyes flicker, not opening, and she turns her body towards him. Unconscious affection or wariness? She wouldn't know, even if she was fully present.]

action;

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei catches it in the line of Korra's body, when she floats to the bleary surface of consciousness. He's not sure what to make of it when she stirs toward him. In his place, that gesture runs parallel with instinctive training -- to gauge the threats in the room, to silently map out exits before you're even cognizant of your surroundings. His gaze slips sideways, studying her, waiting it out, before he turns another page on the chart. (Her flickering eyelids make him think of Pai, after her Remuneration, bubbling up into wakefulness from a pool of dreamless sleep.) ]

[ Eventually, he sets the chart aside. Turns to regard Korra with a complete and pensive attention, like a dull painting. He's no sniper; sitting still without reason isn't for him. But if there's one thing his profession has taught him, its a superhuman degree of patience. He's prepared to sit here for as long as it takes for her to come to. ]

[vicodincrutch]

Sorry. It looks like you're going to live.

[House keeping out of other people's business? Never. He pulls the lollipop out of his mouth to flip through her chart.]

[anatural]

[Korra frowns.]

You're not my doctor.

[It's more confused than accusatory. Hospitals like this are alien to her, and she doesn't really understand how they work. Maybe he is her doctor?]

[vicodincrutch]

Are you sure?

[He's not. He's really not. House still raises an eyebrow.]

Don't you remember?

[Horrible. And confusion of others is what he thrives on. Unfortunately, it's too easy.]

Okay. I'm not. The coma ward has too many people hanging around.

[As though that's an explanation all its own.]

[intheblanks]

[But she had a great surgeon.

He hasn't had the chance to catch up with her while she's been conscious, so Chase waits until the end of his shift and stops by her room, knocking lightly before putting his head around the door.]

[anatural]

[One of these days, her pulse will stop spiking at every sound.

One of these days.

In the meantime, she forces herself to breath and put on a smile.]

Hey Dr. Chase.

[intheblanks]

Hey, Korra.

[He could sympathise with those responses: he's become practiced in the art of covering for panic attacks, though they come less these days than they once did. For now he enters unarmed - no needles, trolley with him to check her vitals. He's looked at the most recent update from his ICU team - she's doing as well as can be expected.

So he just comes over to sit beside the bed.]

Rough day, huh.

[bookbending]

[Jinora has been in and out of the hospital since Korra was admitted and the doctors decided she would be okay. The girl hasn't been sticking around, and she feels a little guilty for that, but the building is unsettling. The air is too still and too sterile.

This afternoon, Jinora slips into Korra's room with a book. She kind of hopes someone else will be visiting so she doesn't have to figure out what to do with a bored Avatar...]

[anatural]

[Sorry, Jinora, it's just you and Korra right now. But you've lucked out and caught the Avatar sleeping. Korra's snoring softly, the occasionally twitch the only sign that her sleep is not wholly peaceful.]

[Visit-slash-nightly-rounds o/]

[pinokosthewife]

[Pinoko, in amusingly over-sized scrubs, comes in, bringing a meal.] Late night shnack~

[anatural]

[This is the first time Korra's been awake for Pinoko's rounds.]

What are you doing here?!? [Is some doctor letting his kid play nurse?]

[Dreams and Visions;]

[unflagging]

[That there should be a crow on the windowsill for part of the evening and into the night is immaterial. There are crows in the City, doing as crows do, running their crow-like errands, perching on windowsills while they survey the City.

This one must be one like that. (Although this one did seem to get a kick out of hanging out over the cardiology department and cawing at inopportune times so as to make the EKG readings spike and jump and to make the echocardiograms throb a bit louder.)

Pay no mind to the crow as it seems to stand and wait so nearby. Pay it no mind.

At least, pay it no mind until well after nightwall, well into the depths of the night itself.]

[anatural]

[Easy enough for Korra to pay it no mind; she's drifted into a restless, uncomfortable sleep.

[lawbender]

[ Lin is at the hospital sometimes. Perhaps not as much as a devoted parent would be, or a lover. She knows that structure is important, so she goes home regularly, spends meditation time with Jinora, attempts to reassure Tohru.

But she does visit. Stiffly, but her heart is there. ]

[anatural]

[Korra doesn't look up when Lin walks into the room. Her entire focus is on two little pieces of metal in her hands -- one of the puzzles Hei gave her his last visit. So far she hasn't had any luck, but she'd rather focus on how frustrating and aggravating this stupid puzzle is than the fact that they still won't let her leave.]

June 1st

[prosopopoeia]

[It isn't exactly that Marie thinks there is connection between the girl she injured and the destruction of her laboratory. Really, there is no reason to assume that without an explicit designation as such. Marie assumes the attack was political, that the deities hired someone to do the deed in response to the recent string of freedom propaganda. The main theme of Marie's work is escaping the City, the shoe fits.]

[No, she comes on the same day because her emotions have been worn down to nothing, numb inside. There is no other reason.]

[anatural]

[Her pain medication is starting to wear off and her entire body hurts. It's making her more than a little tetchy. When the door opens, Korra expects it to be one of the nurses, or maybe Tohru, and so she tries her best not to snap.

The last person she expects to see is Marie.]

You.

[She can't move her arm or muster up the strength for an airbending attack. So she settles for screaming.]

NURSE! NURSE!!!