#like I’m all for donating blood or plasma and to help where I can and feel comfortable doing so | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ajax-b1ue · 2 years

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So I donated plasma for the first time yesterday? I’d love it if I could say I’m in a place in my life where I’ve got the time, energy, and financial stability that this is just out of a sense of altruism, but admittedly I also need the money. That said, it occurred to me that it might not be a terrible idea to talk about the process and what all was involved in case that’s something that anyone else was considering. I donated at a CSL plasma center; I imagine some details are a little different with other companies, but probably most of it still applies. Anyhow, rest is under the cut, long post ahoy~

For the curious, plasma donation is different from whole blood donation in multiple ways. For starters, yes, you can get paid for it. Also, you can donate plasma much more frequently than whole blood— plasma is the liquid part of your blood, which your body can replenish within a few days. In contrast, red blood cells take a couple of months. In plasmapharesis, the machine does draw blood, but it then centrifuges/filters out the cellular components, and returns the blood cells to you. The other nice thing is that it only ever draws off about 8 oz (1 cup) of blood at a time before it returns the whole components to you— which means, if you’re like me, and prone to passing out when donating blood (which is the reason I don’t donate whole blood anymore), plasma donation was a lot easier and didn’t make me feel woozy.

So, first thing I did was check out the company’s website and download their app. From what I gather, regardless of what company you’re looking at, they’re only going to accept donors within their ‘collection area’ (I believe to keep people from attempting to register with more than one program/center), so first thing to check is where the closest donation center is for you. I live in a city, so that was fairly easy for me; if you live further away from a center, you may need to call/email to double check that your address falls within their area.

I will say that the websites/CSL app were actually pretty helpful with information on qualifications, or more specifically, what would disqualify a donor. The major standout ones are age, weight, recent tattoos/piercings, and for anyone AMAB who has sex with other AMAB people. Unfortunately that last one I think is a holdover from the AIDS pandemic, and plain old institutionalized homophobia. :\ Tattoos and piercings have to be older than 4 months, and you have to be 18 years old. (Minors weren’t actually allowed in the building at the center I was at.)

As for weight, you have to be minimum 110 pounds; this one is a legal requirement, so it’s going to be the same no matter what company you’re looking at. What’s not as clearly laid out is that if you’re lower-weight, they can’t take quite as much plasma from you, which also means your compensation is lower. For my center (and, it does vary by region, even within the same company), people from 110-149 lbs receive $90 for the first three donations, $40 for the 4th-6th donations, and $90 for the 7th and 8th. So, up to $570 for the first month. By contrast, anyone 150+ lbs receives $100, $50, and $100 (or $650 total) on the same schedule. (This is the payment structure for the first 45 days only, if you donate 8 times within that timeframe; I suspect the payment amount is reduced after that.)

Which brings me to donation schedule— it’s totally voluntary, and there is no minimum schedule or commitment. Obviously they want people to donate as frequently as they’re safely able to, and to become regular donors instead of donating just once or twice, but there’s absolutely no reason you can’t do exactly that. You can only donate 2 times within any 7 day period, and you can’t donate on successive days. (So, my first donation was on a Thursday; I can’t donate again until Saturday, and if I do, I won’t be able to donate a third time until next Thursday.) Again, this is a legal requirement, and why you're not allowed to double dip by donating to multiple programs— this one is a safety thing, for the donor.

Another safety thing is making sure you 1) are very hydrated and 2) ate a solid meal beforehand. You’ll also want to have gotten a good night’s sleep, and not had anything caffeinated within the last few hours. And, when I say hydrated, they want you to drink an extra 4-8 cups of water within the 2-3 hours before you donate. I managed 4 before I started to feel like I would make myself sick if I drank more, but took a water bottle with me. Side note, don’t chug water, you need to space it out so your body can actually absorb as much of it as possible, but you do really want to have that extra water on board, because they are going to be removing a decent amount of fluid from you.

Okay! About the process of becoming a new donor and the actual plasmapharesis:

Show up at the center (no appointment required at CSL).

Bring your driver��s license and social security card. Or, do like me and make it to the center, realize you forgot your SSC, and drive all the way back home to get it. :’)

Get into the new donor line; tell the person at the counter you'd like to donate, provide IDs. Get instructed to go to a private booth for purposes of verbally confirming that you are literate, and what spoken, written or sign language(s) you communicate in.

Get given a packet to read/video to watch that contains a boat load of info about the process, qualifications, etc. (I had the option to watch the video on my phone by scanning a QR code.) Sign forms indicating that I’ve been provided this info and understand it, and consent forms.

Move to new donor waiting area. Sit and wait.

Continue waiting.

Wish you had realized how long the wait would be, because those 4-8 cups of water are catching up with you and now you really need to pee. (Keep an eye on the people who arrived before you; if there are still people who were there earlier, you’ve probably got plenty of time to run use the bathroom. But that’s part of the reason why it’s good to bring a water bottle, so you can stay hydrated while you wait.)

Finally get called back to a private booth to start being processed.

Go over a lot of the same information that you reviewed at the beginning. This will not be the last time. They are very insistent that you know and understand all of this.

Fill out a 64 point questionnaire confirming your eligibility. (A couple of these are literally quiz questions, where basically you are confirming that you know and understand the info.) Get your picture and digital fingerprint taken.

Once overall eligibility is confirmed, receive a donor number and donor Visa card; this is where compensation will be directly deposited after each completed donation.

Move on to “day-of” screening— things that will not disqualify you from donating, but can cause you to be deferred to come back another day (or week, or month, depending on what it is). This includes weight check, temperature, blood pressure, and a finger-stick (using a spring-loaded autolancet and a pipette, the tech will get a few drops of blood from your finger; it pinches/stings, but it’s not terrible) to check hematocrit and protein levels. If you’re underhydrated, this is where it will show and you can get deferred for the day. Also like... if you have a fever or are visibly sick, which... yeah, please don’t try to donate body fluids if you’re sick.

Also get checked for cuts/scrapes, plus needle injection sites, new tattoos and piercings. (I was asked to remove my jacket and show the tops and undersides of my arms, including lifting my arms up. Might have shaved if I’d realized that but oh well. :’D ) Cuts or scrapes won’t disqualify you, so long as they’re scabbed over and not inflamed. New tattoos, touch ups, or piercings will get you deferred (4 months from the date that you got them).

Get asked how many previous tattoos and piercings you have and where. See the tech’s palpable relief when you don’t have sleeves. Relief becomes understandable when you realize that she has to record and describe every tattoo and piercing you have.

Once day-of eligibility is confirmed, get sent to Medical waiting area.

Start getting hungry, because you’ve been here for a couple of hours by now. Open up a pack of fruit snacks, because if this is anything like waiting for the initial screening—

Get called back to an exam room almost immediately.

Debate stuffing entire handful of fruit snacks into your mouth at once or searching for a ziploc baggy in your bag to put them into.

Begrudgingly decide to be an adult.

Physical exam with the medical staff. Very routine— things like listening to your breathing and heart with a stethoscope, checking whether or not being struck in the tendon below your knee will make you accidentally kick the doctor, shining a light in your eyes to make sure your pupils dilate, and checking inside mouth with a tongue depressor.

Sheepishly explain that you were eating fruit snacks right before you came in here when the doctor wonders why your tongue is unusually red.

Also get asked to lay down on the exam table so they can palpate your liver and spleen. Also also get arms checked for cuts and injection sites again— and this time, ankles as well.

Really, really wish you had shaved recently. But like, it’s long pants weather, c’mon.

(The doctor was not phased in the slightest, to her credit.)

Get sat down to review and verbally confirm same information that you’ve gone over twice already. You will know all of this. Resistance is futile.

Review any and all medications you take with the medical staff, both over-the-counter and prescription. There are only a handful of meds that can cause you to be disqualified/deferred, but you still want them to know any meds you are on, as part of signing up is consenting to potential random or spot-drug tests. (I was not drug tested, just had to agree that they had the right to potentially request a drug test in the future, and that if I were to decline I would be disqualified/deferred.) For any of my fellow ADHD kids, you definitely need to let them know in advance if you take Adderall, as that will give a false positive on a drug test for meth.

(I discussed this with the doctor, including whether or not they needed a letter from my psychiatrist or a copy of the prescription; at least for CSL, I was told that they didn’t need any of that, that it’s basically on the honor system. So long as they know about it in advance, then I’m good to go. They did ask what conditions my various medications were being prescribed for; I don’t generally mind telling people that I’ve got ADHD and anxiety, but just as a heads up. Also, if you take birth control pills, don’t forget to mention those— I don’t, and the doc double checked that with me, but she didn’t ask me to explain.)

Finish with the physical, and finally (finally!) get cleared to go over to the donation floor. (Personally, I’d been at the center for about 3 hours at this point. I was told that new donors do usually end up having to spend a couple of hours in-processing on their first visit, though it seemed like this was a little longer than usual, but there was a decent amount of people there that day. Just, be aware, first time is like, a half-day commitment.)

Realize that there is also a line to wait in here, for returning donors. Die a little inside.

Be shown mercy by the medical staff, and be placed at the front of the donor line. (This is for first-time donors, since it’s such a long process to get to that point, they let you jump the line.)

Get called over to one of the donation beds— oh my god we’re actually getting to describing the actual process of having the plasma drawn, it’s happening—

Confirm your name and birth date, if you’re allergic to latex, iodine, bandaids, or nickel, and what arm you’d like to donate from. (I went with my non-dominant arm, since it was my first time and I wasn’t sure how sore/fatigued that arm might be later; I also was asked to remove that arm from my jacket.) Go over donation floor rules— no eating or drinking (including water) on the donation floor, no talking on a phone. Watching videos, texting, playing games, listening to music, reading, etc, is all perfectly fine and encouraged. (They did have complimentary wifi.)

You are kindly requested to not nap during the donation.

If you fall asleep, they are forced to assume that you have passed out and respond appropriately. Please don’t.

A pressure cuff is used on donation arm, along with you being asked to clench your fist multiple times then hold it clenched, so the tech can identify where exactly your vein is on the inside of your elbow. (My tech used some kind of tool to make a shallow circular indent in the skin on the spot he identified as the best injection site, which was a new one to me.) The pressure cuff stays on for the whole procedure, FYI, though it’s not engaged the whole time.

Iodine scrub for 30 seconds on the injection site, then 30 seconds to dry.

Needle is inserted at injection site, into the vein.

...into the vein.

Third time’s the charm??

Get asked if you mind the tech trying your other arm. Sigh internally but agree.

Before the tech pulls the needle, a supervisor happens to walk by and they ask if they want to give it a try. Supervisor manages to find the vein after another two attempts.

Look I’m sorry I don’t control how big my veins are.

Joking aside, very important note: the needle is large, and it is rigid. If you’ve had an IV before, this needle is larger than that, and many IV needles (or at least the part that gets left in after the initial injection) are plastic and flexible these days— this one is not. I was implored to please, please not bend that elbow, because 1) it would feel incredibly unpleasant and 2) it would push the needle through/blow the vein, and the procedure would have to be stopped immediately. Plus, there would be a very high likelihood I would have to then get stuck in the other arm anyways, so they could return whatever blood cells were still in the machine at that time.

Warnings aside, I do want to note— being very honest and up front, the needle was not particularly comfortable to have put in. Having it inserted was a little painful. (It also took multiple attempts for them to find the vein, which was definitely a contributing factor.) That said, the tech was very gentle, constantly checking with my to see if I was okay, and told me to let him know if it was hurting at all. My answer was, truthfully, no more than I would expect from having a needle in my arm. Despite the trouble in finding my vein (which, that’s not the first time that’s happened), I could tell that he wasn’t digging around with the needle, and seemed very skilled and professional. There was no point where I was concerned that he wasn’t experienced or didn’t know what he was doing. And, once the needle was successfully in, it only took a minute or so to get used to; I was always aware that it was in, but like, only in the “very mildly uncomfortable” sense. It was not painful at that point, or during the blood draw or return. It was definitely more uncomfortable to not be able to move or flex my arm for an extended period of time.

And now more waiting! Except at least this time, it’s at least while the plasmapharesis is actually happening. You’re hooked up to a machine that does all the drawing, filtering, collecting, and returning, but there are techs circulating on the donation floor and checking on you every few minutes. (There was always a tech within eye/ear shot.)

The machine also controls the pressure cuff; when the machine is actively drawing blood, the pressure cuff will be engaged, and you will clench and unclench your fist to help keep blood pumping to that vein, and help avoid the vein collapsing. (For me, the tech also lowered the maximum collection speed on the machine to 85%, because my vein was, in his words “tiny”, although once we started he noted that I was getting a very good flow rate.)

When the machine is filtering/returning blood cells to you, the pressure cuff will relax, and you can relax your hand/arm. The way it was told to me was, “when the cuff’s working, you’re working— when the cuff relaxes, you relax”.

I’d been told the process can take 30-60 minutes, depending on how much plasma they’re collecting from you and the rate of flow. Since I’m in the lower weight group, they were collecting a slightly smaller amount from me (you can see the collection bottle hooked to the machine, mine only got filled about 75-80%), but as noted above, they turned down the machine’s speed for the same reason. In total, my donation time was 57 minutes.

One thing that momentarily caught me off guard, and was probably the most uncomfortable part of the actual donation itself— before you totally finish up, the machine will give you some saline to help replenish some of the fluids/electrolytes it’s drawn off. The saline is cold as fuck. The only reason I realized I was getting saline at all was because my arm was suddenly really frickin’ cold, and I was getting concerned, until I happened to glance over at the machine and saw the “administering saline” text. This was only a couple of minutes at the end, fortunately, but it still would have been nice to know, especially since that arm was out of my jacket.

Finishing up: once the machine totally finishes, another tech comes over, double checks that you haven’t developed an allergy to latex in the last hour, puts a piece of gauze over the injection site, has you hold pressure on it while they remove the needle, then wraps your elbow with a stretchy bandage to hold the gauze in place. This bandage is supposed to stay on for 2+ hours.

Sit up, carefully. I didn’t feel woozy, which I take as a good sign, but I’d say better safe than sorry. Verbally confirm that you feel alright, whether or not you have any last questions, and get informed what the soonest day you’re able to donate again is.

And that’s it, you’re done!

Well more or less.

Aftercare instructions: drink a few bottles of water throughout the remainder of the day to help rehydrate, go have a good meal, no heavy lifting for at least a few hours. (The bandage prevented me from bending my arm completely while it was on anyhow.)

When you do go to remove the bandage, if your needle site is still oozing a little (which is possible, there is a small amount of anticoagulant added to the blood that is returned to you), you should put the bandage back on for another hour or two. Mine was not still oozing, but the clot that formed was stuck to the bandage, and they do very specifically tell you not to pull off any scab or clot on the injection site; I ran warm water in the kitchen sink and held my arm under the water for about 30 seconds to soak the bandage off. Just to be safe, and just in case I had accidentally removed too much of the scab, I went ahead and put some antibiotic ointment and a regular bandaid over the site (since the original bandage was soaking wet at that point).

But, that’s $90-100 dollars that just got added to your prepaid donor card, once the donation’s completed! So that’s nice!

Anyhow, there you go! Sorry that was a novel, but— I like to know what to expect when I’m doing new things, especially by myself, and I figured on the off chance that this could give someone an idea of whether or not they want to try donating, I felt like it was worth taking the time to type up.

As for whether or not I’m going to continue donating? Yep! Honestly, the excessive amount of time it took this go round was just because it was the first time. Now that that’s out of the way, I think the process will be: check in, answer questionnaire, do fingerstick/temp/weight/cuts-scrapes-and-new-tattoos check, go get in donor line, donate. So, way faster, maybe like an hour and a half. I was also told that Wednesdays, Sundays, and rainy days are particularly good days to come donate (at least at our center), because those tend to be slow days with little to no wait. For my second donation, I will also get a front-of-line express pass (I assume to incentivize people to actually come back for more than just the initial donation), so that’s nice too!

For future visits, I probably won’t take a water bottle or snacks inside with me, because the returning donor queue is on the donation floor, and I imagine the time between checking in and getting to go to that line (and the no food/no drinks area) will only be a few minutes, so, not much of a point. I’ll probably still have those things with me for afterwards, though, just stashed in my car.

But do make sure your phone is charged! And, that you know where the bathroom is. :D

Happy donating!

#plasma donation #plasmapharesis #csl plasma #tw needles #tw blood #long post

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1-ufo · 7 months

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Funny story so one time last year I was here for my immunoglobulin replacement therapy and I don’t tolerate the infusions very well so we have to do a very slow drip which means my appointments typically last about 6-7 hours. So I usually call ahead because my med takes about an hour to mix and I don’t want to add more hospital time if I can help it.

So I did that and went in for my appointment and it was weird because I was there got my iv ready and everything. Had my Benadryl nap and woke up and my med still hadn’t arrived. And it definitely should have been here by now. I know sometimes the pharmacy gets busy and it takes even longer to get my med prepped. it’s taken 2 hours before so this isn’t /that/ unusual.

A nurse pops her head in and is like… so the pharmacy says they’ve sent the med but we haven’t received it yet. We think it got stuck in the pneumatic tube and we don’t know where. And since it’s the weekend we don’t have the usual maintenence people here. If it’s stuck for too much longer the medication will go bad before the end of your infusion and they’ll have to mix another one. (Note, my medication is made up a very specific, rare, blood type due to the rarity of my condition, these are received through plasma donations from people who also happen to have this very rare missing immunoglobulin that I’m also missing and therefore my medication most especially of all the different ones is Very Expensive. Thousands Of Dollars Expensive. So this would be a massive waste of a very hard to get plasma donation and also $$$)

Awesome

It took another hour before I got the med, and from my understanding they had to put holes in the walls up through 9 floors to find my med and fish it out of the wall. I was there for twelve hours that day.

So they Learned on that day.

#the medication did not go to waste luckily #actually my mom grew up with the person who’s donations I probably received.#she’d been telling him at a class reunion about my condition and he was like… oh! they call me all the time for donations!#so that’s also kinda a cool story but he moved to Florida so #idk whose plasma I’m getting now but it’s highly sought after so #no doubt he gets called often in Florida tho too. maybe #my mom and aunt have said medical shit in Florida is Bad and they’re using extremely old outdated methods and tests #it wouldn’t shock me doctors in Florida even know my condition exists #except for the mayo Jacksonville campus I’m sure

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shcmook · 2 years

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!!! PLEASE HELP !!!

I am a poor, mentally ill LGBT person living on my own for the first time and am struggling to even pay for my basic bills and groceries.

I’ve known I would have to something like this at some point for a while but I have been putting it off and putting it off because of whatever undiagnosed mental illness I have has been causing me to feel completely overwhelmed and unable to take any action to resolve this.

I need money desperately. I hate that that’s true. I already work 40 hours a week, at a job where I’m paid a decent hourly rate plus commission, and I make money on Patreon. But even with all this I partially depend on selling plasma just to keep my budget balanced.

This past month, not only did the hurricane, me being sick for a week, and thanksgiving all prevented me from making what I budgeted from the plasma donations, but… The week of Thanksgiving there was an incident where there were complications during the process and not all my blood was returned back to me. I feel fine. This hasn’t affected my health in any way. But I’m unable to sell plasma at all for the next two months.

In addition to all this, my budget already wasn’t fully covering some of my existing unpaid debt, the fact that my rent will increase next month, or any type of medical bill, including getting on health insurance. I haven’t seen any type of doctor in over a year.

In total the amount of money I need to make up in the next month or two is around $2000.

A number I only really understood the size of yesterday. Again, due to mental illness I have been unable to really think about this problem without feeling completely overwhelmed and just shutting it down. So I’m only now doing the math.

Asking for charity from random people online is not my only method of making up this deficit in my budget, fortunately. But without it I’m left hoping random junk I’m putting up on eBay will sell at a decent price, that my parents, who are also fairly poor, and who don’t really support my identity as a trans person will be able to help me pay for this, or that I get a new job that would pay significantly more than my current one, or I’m able to find some kind of charity or mutual fund or government aid that can help with this. All of which I am still trying to do.

Any help you can give is appreciated. Whether that is giving financially, or helping to share this story and my links. Helping share my tiktoks or YouTube content also helps as I do make a little bit of money from Patreon, and helping that content reach more eyes will help prevent me from having to do this again in the future.

I’m sorry to keep asking for help like this. I’m just not sure how else I’m supposed to survive. I genuinely don’t know how anyone survives in the current economy. And thank you in advance to anyone who does give.

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/dajoezenone

https://linktr.ee/DaJoezenOne

#lgbt #mental illness #mutual aid

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dunne-ias · 2 years

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This is how ias listens to podcast

Look at my lovely lists. Aren’t they pretty (no they’re not because my handwriting is atrocious sometimes). But that’s not the point. What’s on there isn’t the point either. This isn’t a list of podcast tips (for one thing, not all of these are in English).

I listen to podcasts every day. Every single day. I listen to podcasts when I walk (I walk 50km per week), I listen to podcasts when I clean (I... don’t clean much), I listen to podcasts when I’m donating blood and plasma. That quickly becomes a lot of episodes. I don’t like listening to the same one all the time though. So that’s where my lists come in. As you can see, there are two columns. Column left: podcasts I’ve listened to from the beginning, every episode, and I’m now “caught up” with. Some of these are crossed out, and it’s because they’re no longer getting updates, or I don’t want to listen to them anymore, but I once did. Column right are all the podcasts I’m currently listening to from the beginning (I skip episodes here and there of course). Crossed out podcasts were limited series that have ended and won’t be continued.

Every two months or so I do this:

1. I open Spotify, which is my podcast server of choice.

2. I make a new playlist. Being able to add podcast episodes to playlists is a relatively new thing. I do this on desktop, because using the mobile app is too annoying.

3. I start at the top of my right list, and add ten episodes of that podcast to my playlist. I keep going. Sometimes, I add a few more, sometimes a few less. For example, in the more narrative podcasts I listen to, it makes more sense to not be too strict about my 10 episode rule if, for example, there is a new season, or the RPG-players starts a new campaign etc.

4. All done? Save it offline on my phone. This time? 163 episodes, roughly 115 hours. My data usage is very small because I don’t play a lot of music while outside. This playlist usually lasts me about two months.

I have sometimes thought that I should make two list, one for fiction, and one for non-fiction, but I haven’t gotten around to that yet.

Well, this is how I do it. Maybe this helps someone else.

#as always there is chaos in my organisation #and organisation in my chaos #podcasts #podcast organisation #how many of these do you listen to?#how similar are we?#nonsims

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boldly-ho · 4 years

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Another Life - Chapter 9

Fandom: What We Do in the Shadows

Pairing: Vladislav x Reader

Series Rating: M

Word Count: 2360

Chapter Summary: Reader finally (FINALLY!) figures it out. She also meets yet another important character.

A/N: As always, cross-posted to AO3.

“Y/N! You’re still here!”

You had entered the kitchen, and apparently startled Deacon. It was a reversal of your usual roles that quite pleased you.

“Yeah; I decided not to go out, after all.” You’d told the guys you were going to see a movie tonight, but after the hectic day of email bombardments and near crises of your online job, you’d decided you’d rather spend a relaxing evening lounging in bed with a book.

His eyes were wide, and you could see that his mind was racing a mile a minute.

“Is that a problem?”

“Jackie is bringing people over for dinner tonight. We’re hosting a dinner party.”

As if on cue, Viago and Vladislav entered the kitchen. Both looked rather unpleasantly surprised to see you, as well.

“That’s fine. I can grab some food and be out of your hair. I was planning on spending the night in my room, anyway.”

The long pause was palpable.

Viago was the first to break the silence. “You would be okay being in the house, knowing we… had people over?”

You shrugged. “Yeah. Why would I-?”

You froze. ‘Had people over.’ Did he mean…? You scanned each of their faces, all three looking uncomfortable and vaguely alarmed. Were they actually going to kill someone tonight? Is that what Jackie did? Brought them people to kill? Was she in on this weird delusion? No, that couldn’t be it. No way. You must be misunderstanding. They wouldn’t admit that’s what they were doing. Unless they knew that you knew.

Not that you knew anything.

Suspected, really.

But, still. Did they know you suspected? The conversation you’d had with Deacon and Vladislav in the kitchen the other day, had that given it away? They’d said themselves that you were too cavalier about Petyr. You’d thought at the time that it felt like an interrogation. Maybe it was. Maybe they decided you were in on it. Okay with it.

You’d told them that you were getting used to it.

But you hadn’t meant… It was just… Weirdness. You were getting used to weirdness.

Your mouth felt dry. You nonetheless swallowed before speaking. “So they’re coming over for dinner… and they’re not, uh, leaving…?”

Viago wouldn’t meet your eyes.

Deacon still seemed perplexed.

Vladislav stared you down, with a lack of shame that made you feel weak. He nodded once as he answered simply, “Yes.”

You felt dizzy. Ill. Guilty? No. Shocked? No. You couldn’t place the feeling.

“Y/N?”

You weren’t sure who said your name. It sounded funny. Hollow. Echoey. Like when someone spoke to you while you were submerged in the bathtub. Your hands were falling asleep, and your vision was grainy, like on an old TV set.

“I’m passing out.”

You said it aloud the second you realized it was happening. The edges of your vision darkened. Tunnel vision? Is that what it was called? This had only happened to you once before, after donating plasma. You’d stood up too quickly afterwards and the same thing happened. The tingling, the odd hearing, the loss of vision. You told the nurse, ‘I think I’m going to black out.’ He had you sit back down, but it was too late, and you’d passed out in the chair.

Maybe you should sit down now? Your vision was entirely black. You wondered for a moment what your eyes looked like right now. Glassy? Were your pupils dilated to let in more light? Maybe that wasn’t good for them… Sit down and put your head between your knees. You could hear blood rushing in your ears. Is that why everything sounded funny? You moved to lower yourself to the ground, but you fell too quickly.

You heard someone shout. It was a nice sound. Warm and real and

You opened your eyes to find yourself staring at the ceiling above your bed. What happened? You had gone down to the kitchen…?

You sat up quickly. The dinner party. The admittance of what was going to happen. Or of what had happened? Oh god, how much time had passed? You had to call the police. Shit, you should have gone to the police ages ago. What the hell was wrong with you? What’s the worst that could have happened by going to the police, really?

You reached for your phone, only to slap your hand against the empty nightstand. You checked your pockets and scanned the bed. No phone. You must have left it downstairs. Were they still down there? You didn’t have a clock; without your phone, you had no way of knowing how much time had passed.

You couldn’t just go down there. What if they were in the middle of…? Of whatever it was they were doing?

You approached your bedroom door but didn’t open it. The last thing you wanted was to draw attention to yourself. Instead, you pressed your ear against it, listening for any sign of activity. You heard voices, muffled enough that you couldn’t make out the words. There was a woman’s voice. Not just your flatmates, then. There were still people here.

You moved back to the bed, and sat there. You didn’t reach for your book. A sense of idle unease was growing inside you. A sort of restless energy. You felt like you had to do something, anything. But what could you do? You couldn’t get help. Your phone was downstairs. And going downstairs at all right now, whether to retrieve our phone or to leave the house, wasn’t an option. You wanted to scream.

Your flatmates were murdering someone.

It was like you were living in a horror film.

No. It was like you were watching a horror film. You were in the audience, and you wanted to scream to the characters on screen. Don’t go in there! Don’t trust them! Run away! But they couldn’t hear you, of course; they were characters on a screen.

Only this was much worse. It was real. And the characters weren’t fictional. And you couldn’t do anything about anything.

You were pulled from your thoughts by the sound of someone sprinting down your hallway. Your hall was a dead end; there was nowhere to go.

The bedroom door flew open, and a stranger ran in, slamming the door behind him.

Nowhere to go but into your bedroom.

A horrible, hissing, spitting noise came from the hall, only to stop abruptly when the man yelled, “Fuck off!” He turned to you, eyes frantically searching the room. “What the hell is going on? Where am I?”

You were frozen, still perched atop your bed. If the man was frantic, moving, dynamic, you were the opposite. You stared, unblinking, unmoving, static. Your heart raced, though externally you may as well have been part of the décor.

He opened the side door and charged into your en suite bathroom, only to march back into the bedroom when he realized where it led. “How do I get out of here?”

You just gaped at him. Say something, Y/N!

“Hello!” he yelled at you.

“I don’t-“ You stopped as suddenly as you started, when his backpack began unzipping of its own accord. No, not of it’s own accord, you realized. A hand was unzipping it from the inside, and the attached arm was slowly reaching out. You felt as though your body temperature had physically dropped, when, to your growing horror, the arm grabbed at the man’s face while an accompanying head rose from the backpack.

You felt a piercing scream tear from your body, though you didn’t actually hear it.

You did hear when the stranger yelled, though, shaking off the backpack and violently throwing it across the room where it fell to the floor beside your bed. You looked down at the bag as the man ran from the room, only to realize the entire body pulling itself from the pack and scratching its way across the floor was that of Deacon. He laughed manically as he emerged from the much too small bag and chased the man.

With the door left open, you could more clearly hear both the laughter and the yells that were occurring throughout the house. You heard a rapid series of thuds at one point, but couldn’t place their source.

You weren’t very focused on the noises, though. Instead, your eyes were glued to the backpack. You picked it up and looked inside. It was a normal backpack. The canvas felt rough on your fingers, and the only contents seemed to be a laptop, a water bottle, and a wallet. It was just a normal backpack. Deacon couldn’t fit into it; no one could. No one human, anyway.

But, Deacon had come out of it.

It was just a normal backpack.

You were still sitting there, however much later, on the edge of your bed, the backpack clutched in your hands as you stared at it, seeing nothing, when someone at the door cleared their throat. Normally, the noise would startle you, make you jump. You looked up slowly and calmly this time, to find Vladislav standing in the doorway.

“Are you alright?” he asked. “Deacon said he may have frightened you.”

“So he sent you? You’re hardly the most comforting presence.” You didn’t realize how shaken, upset, and angry you were until you spoke. Your words were bitter. Hateful. He didn’t seem bothered by them, but you regretted them instantly nonetheless.

“Deacon didn’t think he should come up, and Viago is a bit too bloody right now.”

Bloody. Right.

“Are you a vampire?”

Vladislav remained expressionless.

It was a stupid question, really. There were no such things as vampires.

It was a stupid question, really. What else could they possibly be?

“Yes.” He walked into the room and sat beside you on the bed. He wasn’t so close as to be touching you but he wasn’t more than an arm’s reach away. “We thought you knew that.”

“No. I mean, yeah. I just-“ You paused to search for the right words. You were extremely overwhelmed. He didn’t press you, which you appreciated. “I didn’t think vampires were real.”

“You bought a crucifix. You saw Viago covered in a victim’s blood. You met Petyr. We thought you had figured it out.”

“I had, technically, I just… I don’t know. I thought it was makeup on Petyr, and that you guys were serial killers or something, I thought that you all thought vampires were real and that you were delusional, and, and… I don’t know,” you finished lamely.

Vladislav laughed in that boisterous way of his, and you somehow smiled in spite of yourself.

“You thought we thought we were vampires, but not that we were vampires?” He was still grinning.

“Well, to be fair, did you think vampires were real? You know, before?”

“Of course.”

“Really?” you asked incredulously.

He nodded. “But, that was the Middle Ages. Everyone believed in vampires back then.”

You scanned his face, but couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not.

“Right…”

Vladislav sighed. “Y/N,” he said gently. He reached over and gingerly pried the backpack from your fingers. You had forgotten you were still holding it. He set the backpack on the ground, and took one of your hands in both of his. “Do you feel how cool my skin is?”

It was cool. You hadn’t registered it before, but you’d noticed it. They were all cold, all the time.

He manipulated your hand until he held your wrist between his fingers. He brought it up to his chest, which was, as usual, exposed by a low cut shirt. He placed your hand firmly against his cool body, your fingers tangling in with his chest hair. You ignored the intimacy of it all.

“I don’t have a heartbeat.”

You realized he was right. You pressed your palm more firmly against him, moving it around in search of a pulse. Unable to find one, you brought your eyes up to his. Meeting his gaze, you yanked your hand away from its resting position on his chest.

“Deacon came out of that backpack,” you told him.

He nodded. “He told me.”

Rising from the bed, he walked to the center of the room, and turned to face you. “Don’t panic.”

You nodded, though you had no faith in your ability to keep any such promise.

His eyes not leaving yours, he rose from the ground. You looked down at his feet and they weren’t on the ground. Looking back up to his face, you saw him still staring at you. “Are you okay?”

You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak.

With that, he rose higher, faster. He was actually flying. He flipped himself upside down and sat on your ceiling, his hair hanging down, but otherwise looking perfectly at home lounging on the peeling paint above your floor. He looked down at you, where you were still perched on the bed in accordance with the laws of gravity. Suddenly, he was no longer on your ceiling, and a bat was flitting around the room, instead. You let out a small shriek. The bat quickly flew to the center of the room, and once again turned into your flatmate, who held his hands up, as if in innocence.

“Sorry. I should have warned you.”

“No, it’s okay.” You realized how wide your eyes were, and made a conscious effort to relax your face. “It’s kind of a lot to take in.”

He leaned against the doorframe. “I understand. I can have Viago schedule a flat meeting, so we can all talk about this. Would that help you?”

Help may be too generous a word. But, having a set, structured time to air this out, where you could ask questions and really come to terms with what was going on couldn’t actually hurt. Maybe it would be a bit beneficial.

“Yes, please. Thanks.”

Vladislav nodded, but lingered in the doorway.

“I might go to bed now, I’ve got work in the morning.”

He nodded. “Good night, Y/N.”

“Night.”

He closed the door behind him when he left, but you didn’t move for a while.

Vampires.

Real, actual vampires.

#wwdits #vladislav #vladislav x reader #jemaine clement #another life #al fic

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doodle--writes · 5 years

Text

Hellooo Nurse!- Adult Eddie Kaspbrak X Reader

Word Count: 2,833

Warnings: Blood, Injury, Cursing, Sexual Jokes

Request: could i request an 2019!eddie kaspbrak x wife!reader where reader freaks out when eddie gets stabbed by bowers and she's the one to patch him up and he gets all cute and asking her to kiss it better and stuff but also being his usual self freaking about all of the germs and instructing her on how to stitch him and stuff? if that makes sense?

_____

It was barely afternoon when you got home from a half shift of work. The rest of your day would be on-call, meaning whenever someone needed help, they'd call you.

You opened the fridge, looking for something to eat and settle for leftovers of grilled salmon and rice before throwing it onto a plate and heating it up in the microwave.

You slid your shoes off and placed them on the rack in the closet.

You heard the microwave and your phone go off at the same time. You rushed over, opening the microwave to shut it up and accepted the phone call, putting it on speaker.

The plate was hot so you carefully pulled it from the microwave, giving your normal line.

"Hello I'm Y/N L/N-Kaspbrak from Grand Central Donor Center, how may I help you today?"

"Hey Y/N, it's Mike Hanlon."

You paused. "Excuse me, who?"

"Mike Hanlon. We're old friends from high school. Derry, remember?"

"I remember Derry, yes, but no Mike Han-"

"Y/N, It's back."

You felt as if the world had suddenly flipped, your whole sense of gravity and strength diminished. The plate dropped to the floor; the sound of shattering glass sounded nearly like an explosion in the quiet kitchen.

"Y/N? Are you alright Y/N?"

In reality, you were not fine. The only thing that kept you on your feet was the counter digging into your hip.

"Yeah, I just dropped a plate is all."

Mike started to talk more, letting you know what was going on, but you ended the call without warning because another pending call popped up at the top of the screen.

You answered it without an inkling of hesitation. "Eddie? Eddie, are you okay? I just got a call from-"

"Mike. Yeah, me too."

Something's wrong. Eddie talked sluggishly instead of his typical jabbering pace. You didn't trust his response at all.

"Eddie, baby, are you sure you're okay?" You put the phone on speaker once again so you could clean up the mess of salmon, rice, and broken glass.

He sighed, but a small chortle followed. "Our insurance premium is going to be pretty high this month."

You couldn't help but smile although you were worried. He just had a way of making you smile, even in the worst moments. "Eddie, just tell me what happened."

You heard a little hum that Eddie always made when he was nervous, but it was followed by a snicker. "Alright, I may have crashed the limo."

"Eddie! Oh my God wh- shit," you winced. You looked down to see that you cut yourself while picking up a shard of plate.

Then he was the one who was worried.

"Y/N? What happened? Are you alright?"

You stood to walk over to the sink to clean off the wound and grabbed a band-aid.

It had been Eddie's idea to have a box at every sink in the house and you didn't mind that considering your finger didn't look nor feel pretty.

"I'm okay Eds, just a tiny cut. I was trying to clean up a broken plate and well- you know how clumsy I can be."

"You're the clumsy one? I drove right into a taxi!" He paused for a moment. "Wait did you use peroxide on the cut? Did you pet pressure on it to clot the blood? Did you-"

You tried to keep yourself from laughing, but you couldn't. A loud giggle escaped and you heard Eddie make a small 'hmph' noise on the other end of the line. You smiled. "Eddie, honey, I'm an RN, I know what to do for a tiny cut. Stop worrying so much."

You could imagine Eddie going from a pout to a sheepish smile. "Yeah, yeah I know. I just worry."

"I know you do."

The blithe air quickly diminished, leaving a somewhat heavy and thick feeling in your throat.

After a moment Eddie asked, "We have to go back, don't we?"

By habit, you nodded even though Eddie wasn't there to see it. "We swore. All of us did. We're older now; it'll be easier."

After another moment of silence to gather his thoughts, all Eddie said was: "I'll be home soon."

___

When Eddie got home, the first thing he did was wrap his arms around you, squeezing tight as his stubble rubbed against your cheek.

You were safe there, wrapped up in the scent of his cologne and the warmth of his hug.

It was hard to tell how long you two stayed like that, but when he pulled away, he still kept a hand on you. It proved to him that everything he was going through was real.

You two booked an early flight the next day to Maine. Your airport was about a half an hour south of Derry.

Then came packing your bags. Now, being married to Eddie for thirteen years, you were used to how much he packed, but part of you was always surprised at how that list seemed to grow each time you took a trip together.

So when you saw Eddie coming up from the basement trying to carry four luggage bags, you ran over, taking two of them from him.

"Oh my God, honey, we don't need this many bags!"

Eddie beamed, setting two of them down at the top of the landing. "You're right, we need one more." He turned on his heel to march back down the stairs, but you stopped him by tugging on the collar of his shirt, making a small 'tsk tsk'.

"Eddie," you purred, "look at me."

Eddie obeyed, turning back towards you with wide, curious eyes. He wanted to hear whatever you had to say and you knew he'd listen. "We're only taking two of these with us and one backpack. Got it?"

He nodded and you giggled, running your fingers through his hair. "You're so cute, even at forty."

"You're even prettier at thirty-nine."

Your smile grew as you pulled him closer, wrapping your arms around his neck.

"You know," you traced a circle on the back of his neck with your nail, sending chills along his skin, "now that we remember our teenage years, how about we act like teens for a night? We do have until tomorrow."

Eddie's hands playfully squeezed your rear end. "I don't think I could ever turn that down."

______

Both you and Eddie were in fairly high spirits as you drove to the airport.

Last night may have (okay, it most definitely did) put the both of you in a better mood.

The entire drive to the airport was filled with the two of you singing along to songs from when you were kids and the sounds of impatient New Yorkers in traffic, which wasn't even a quarter as pleasant as the music.

Getting onto the plane was easy but once the mostly empty flight began, silence swelled between Eddie and yourself.

The both of you were thinking about the same thing.

"How did we end up together if we didn't remember our childhoods together?" You looked at Eddie, wondering if he had any sort of answer.

He looked to you. "We started dating when you were sixteen, I was seventeen. Didn't we?"

You nodded. "But I also distinctly remember starting to date you at twenty five."

Eddie thought for a moment, crossing his arms in front of his chest. His eyebrows knitted together in thought.

"Well, if we take things we've confirmed are true, then after I moved away from Derry, I think I forgot about you, and you did the same. So when we met again years later, we thought we were strangers."

The thought of forgetting Eddie, someone so God damn important to you, made you feel queasy.

Eddie's hand moved onto yours, fingers intertwining. He smiled small. "We found each other. Even after forgetting and having a fucking clown mess with our minds, we found each other."

You smiled and kissed the ball of his nose. "I love you."

"I love you too. So much."

______

Jade of the Orient, that was the place. You looked up at the sign before walking inside, being greeted by a petite hostess.

She led you to the back of the restaurant and there were two figures you found vaguely familiar. Their features were ones you recognized, just aged from years of absence from each other's lives.

You found yourself in the warm embrace of Mike, who went on about how he knew 'you'd keep your promise'.

Next, you were nearly tackled into a hug by Bill, whose eyes were just as bright and as persuasive as they were as kids.

All of you sat and got to talking for a few minutes.

"So Y/N," Bill began, "what do you do for a living now?"

You smiled. "Oh well, I work at a medical donation center, but I work with plasma donations. Essentially what we do is draw blood, extract the plasma, and give you the blood back. The plasma is used to create medicines for diseases like HIV."

Mike nodded. "Sounds like an interesting job."

You nodded as well, thinking of what else to say before you heard a booming impression of Yacko from The Animaniacs.

"Well helllooo nurse!"

Your head snapped towards the entrance to see a man whose comedy specials you adored and who was your best buddy as kids.

"Richie fucking Tozier," you cheered, jumping from your seat and tackling Richie square in the chest for a hug.

"Well hello Y/N a God damn milf L/N!" He laughed, mocking the tone of your voice.

You smacked his arm. "Oh come on I'm not a milf!"

He put his hands up defensively. "Sure, sure says the milf."

You rolled your eyes, drawing him into a hug again. "Dude, I can't believe you made it! You're a god damn comedian! You did it you lucky bastard!"

Richie laughed, starting to make a joke, but you looked over to Eddie. His lips were drawn into a thin, unamused line and his arms were crossed in front of his chest like a little kid. You had forgotten about that too; whenever Richie made you laugh, Eddie would become pouty. The weird part about that was that Eddie only got jealous when it was Richie specifically.

You chuckled and strutted over, seating yourself in his lap. "Oh c'mon Eddie, don't pout." You pressed a soft kiss to his temple.

The others put the pieces together quick. Richie's jaw drops.

"Wait wait wait, you two are married?! How?! We all forgot!"

You laughed and nuzzled closer to Eddie. "Well, we found each other by accident. We didn't even realize that we had known each other in the past."

He looked at you, smiling soft.

"Man, you're whipped for her, huh Eds?"

Before Eddie could respond, Ben and Bev walked in. You jumped to your feet, running to give Beverly a hug.

"Now the party is really starting!"

_____

You wish you could say the remainder of your time at Derry was as lively as seeing your friends once again. You wish it was as peaceful.

It wasn't.

You were in your motel room answering a phone call from work. Shit. You forgot to tell them that you had a 'family' emergency.

During the middle of explaining, you heard a thud. You apologized before hanging up and stepping into the hallway. "Guys? Is that one of you?" The sight that hobbled out in front of you made you scream, making everyone in the townhouse run up the stairs.

Eddie waddled towards you, blood pouring out from his mouth and the side of his fucking face! You ran over to him, and he fell against you. He looked up at you, eyes wide. "Is it bad?"

As he asked, a fresh glob of blood spilled from his cheek. You looked to everyone behind you. "Anyone have anything fabric I can use to hold against this?"

From a lack of response, you assumed no and placed your hand snug against Eddie's cheek. They questioned him about what happened before running off to find Henry Bowers.

You ushered Eddie into your room, assuring them that you could handle it.

You carefully sat Eddie on the bed and pulled your hand away, strings of blood running from his cheek to your hand. Your palm looked like Beverly's bathroom twenty seven years prior. Eddie made a breathy noise like he was lightheaded. "You washed your hands recently, right? Because if any germs get into my blood then-"

You moved off of the bed, letting Eddie ramble while you searched for the first aid kit. "Yeah sweetie. It's habit for me to wash my hands constantly. Part of working in healthcare."

After a little more shuffling you found the kit and tore through it looking for a needle, thread, gauze, and athletic tape. Not to mention peroxide and cotton balls either. As soon as you had everything, you were sitting on the bed by Eddie's side. You handed him two cotton balls. "Stuff these in your cheek without pushing them through the wound, alright baby?"

He looked at you uncertain. "Are you sure that's sanitary? I mean think about the cotton fibers that could get stuck-"

You cut him off with a small kiss to his forehead. He then does as told, carefully placing the cotton balls in his mouth.

Next, you put peroxide on a cotton ball. You were about to dab it on the wound, but paused. "Eddie, if you need to grab me or squeeze me, you can. This is gonna hurt like a bitch."

He placed his free hand on your knee, but as soon as that cotton ball made contact, he winced, squeezing about five times as harder.

You hated seeing him in pain, so you tried to be as fast and thorough as possible.

After a minute or so, you were done you prepared for another painful part.

But you decided he could wait a little longer for stitches as you found a pain relieving medication. In no way was it over the counter, but Eddie usually took the children sized medications because he was afraid of becoming reliant on any normal drug. Considering his childhood, you understood why. But you grabbed him two Benadryl and had him wash them down the hatch with some water. You had him be extra careful considering the cotton balls in his mouth.

So then you waited for them to kick in.

The signal for that was when Eddie began to compliment you to an overbearing extent. Yes, you were flattered but also, your husband could be embarrassing.

He jumped a little and wriggled while you tried to give him stitches, but it was nothing you couldn't handle.

"My face feels weird," he hummed, going to feel his stitches.

You quickly moved his hand away. "Be careful honey. It's fresh."

He pouted and you couldn't help but giggle. You had a feeling you'd be taking goofy videos of him all night for him to see in the morning.

You walked to the bathroom to see that everyone disappeared and a few patches of blood remained on the floor. You shook your head and grabbed a washcloth from the closet, dampening it before returning to Eddie.

As soon as you walked in, he started whining. "Y/N, it hurts," he puffed out his bottom lip. "Kiss it better."

"You are such a baby, but not the whiny kind; you're just cute," you giggled and walked over to him. You sat, pulling his head into your lap.

His cheeks turned pink and he gave you the same nervous smile he would as kids. You pushed his hair back and looked down at him. You show him the washcloth. "Now, this is to clean the blood off of you. After that, I'll kiss everything else better."

He laid there quietly, staring up at you adoringly while you cleaned the blood off of him.

After that was done, you set the towel on the nightstand to take care of later. You laid down next to Eddie and took his face between your hands. At first he looked confused. You laughed quietly, calling him silly before pressing your lips against his; not too hard but filled with love.

You pulled away, smiling proud. "I told you I'd kiss it better, but I'm not done yet!" You proceeded to pepper kisses all over Eddie's face, earning giggles and squeals.

Finally, you put the gauze and tape over his cheek for good measure. You kissed the top, humming. "Alright, now I'm done."

Once you announced the completion of patching Eddie up, he pulled you down next to him without a sound. You moved so your head rested on Eddie's chest. Neither of you said it, but you both thought it.

I love you.

Requests OPEN

#eddie kaspbrak #eddie kaspbrak x reader #eddie kaspbrak imagine #it fanfiction #it 2019 #it x reader #adult eddie kaspbrak #50 club #100 club #150 club #200 club

252 notes · View notes

medeafive · 4 years

Text

Blood and Stone - 19

Masterpost

"Oh, thank God."

"This stuff is really scary."

"How long was that? Five minutes?"

"Yeah, six or so."

"Definitely works very quickly."

"It's just the pulse. The other problems are-"

"Mhm."

"Oh, she's even awake."

She opens her eyes, somehow much easier than before. Rough silhouettes standing and sitting around. "I think it works," Tony's voice says. "Though we shouldn't stop the blood transfusions."

"With what blood?" Bruce asks. "This is the last one."

"Blood is really hard to get," Fury remarks. "And dangerous."

"What if we donated?" Sharon suggests. "What's her blood type?"

"She's an A+. She could only get donations from A or O, positive or negative."

"Well, I'm O-," Sharon replies. "So you could take some of me and give it to her."

"You're an universal donor?" Sam questions. "Wow, you should be donating blood all the time."

"Wait, I'll get my emergency sheet," Bruce remarks.

Pepper chuckles. "Does anyone else think it's weird that we're discussing blood donations when there's a vampire in the room?"

"I don't even know what that blood type is," James says.

"It's about antigens, who can donate to whom," Sam explains. "Maybe you could smell or taste the difference."

"Oh, don't turn this into a fucking wine tasting," Tony throws in.

"Here." Bruce flips through a folder. "Pepper is B+, so she's out. Clint is AB, also out. Right, Sharon is O-, Tony is O+, I'm A+. Fury is A-. Sam is B-, he's out."

"What about plasma," Tony suggests. "Isn't that the inverse?"

Bruce starts rubbing his temples. "Right. AB plasma can be donated to any blood type. But there's no way to get a B donor and an A recipient together."

"That's Pepper and me," Sam remarks. "We're really out. But if everyone else gives a little-"

"We should give her as little as possible," Bruce warns. "From as little people as possible. Preferably type A. I can cross-test the blood but there's always a risk- wait, she's pregnant. We can only give her O- until we know the foetus' blood type."

"Oh, great, I've always wanted to do a paternity test," Tony decides.

"Come on, he's a vampire, he doesn't have a blood type," Clint throws in.

"Well, if he can have kids, maybe that's… a lot more conventional than we think," Sam suggests.

"He's blood type O," Sharon whispers. "Or he was."

" What ," James interrupts.

"They put it on the dog tags, during WWII," Sharon explains slowly. "In case someone needed an emergency blood transfusion. The SS even had tattoos."

"How the fuck would you-"

"I wanted to show you this." She pulls out the photos. "They're not very good but- this guy. You should remember."

James jerks back as if they're scorching hot. "I don't remember anything."

"But you do, don't you," Sharon insists.

"Do you really all need to be here all the time," Natasha interjects. "It's exhausting."

"You're right," Sam agrees, getting up. "We'll let you work it out. How are you feeling, though?"

"Like shit," Natasha replies. "No surprise there."

"I'd like to take blood right now, Sharon," Bruce suggests. "If that's okay. Then I have time to test it."

"You two can stay," Natasha decides. "And James. Everyone else, out."

Tony grins. "Oh, you sound a lot better."

"I really don't remember," James repeats.

Sharon snorts, staring up at the ceiling. "Nat, your friend is super annoying."

"I just can't-" James groans. "There's nothing there. Really."

"But that's you in the picture," Natasha argues, chewing. "Definitely."

"Maybe," James admits. "But I'm not so sure. And not so sure if it matters."

"Of course it matters," Natasha replies, reaching in the bag again. "And- I'll let Sharon break that to you."

Sharon snorts. "Oh, thank you ."

"What the fuck- how many secrets do you have," James complains.

"It's not a secret," Natasha justifies. "Just very recent."

"Well, the blonde tall guy in the picture, Steve, he's-" Sharon sighs. "He crashed with an aircraft, in 1944. You wouldn't know that. And- do you know about the ice block?"

"Yeah, I told him," Natasha confirms, putting another chocolate bean in her mouth.

"Yeah, but I didn't really care," James remarks. "The guy you're trying to revive with vampire blood, wasn't it."

"He wasn't dead ," Bruce objects.

"Yeah, and now he's really up," Sharon adds. "Except right now he's sleeping, recovering. Anyway, he's the blond guy in the picture. Steve."

"Wait, how isn't he dead?" James questions. "Now?"

"Long story," Bruce replies. "But basically, the ice stops the aging process."

"Well, good for him," James replies. "I don't see- wait, if I'm really the guy in the picture, then- then he'd know me? Shit."

"He definitely would," Sharon confirms. "That's why we're telling you."

"You can't tell him-" James looks around frantically. "Did you tell him about- vampires? Please don't tell him."

"He does know about the vampires, though I'm not sure he understands the scope of it," Sharon explains. "But nothing about you."

"You can't tell him- imagine what a shock that would be," James argues. "Finding out your best friend has turned into a- a monster, do you know how much bad- don't do that to him."

"You're not a monster," Natasha repeats. "But you seem really worked up about this."

"Come on, he's going to find out," Sharon returns. "I mean, what are we supposed to tell him who got her pregnant?"

"Speaking of, I'd like to do another ultrasound," Bruce throws in. "Monitor the growth. Sharon will be done soon."

"Will I?" Sharon asks. "Good."

"Yeah, that's enough for now," Bruce replies. "Don't get up too fast, eat and drink a lot, don't exercise, you know the drill."

"Yeah, okay," Natasha agrees. "Can't hurt."

"I'm also going to take a little blood from you to cross-match," Bruce adds. "See whether it agglutinates. Just to be safe."

"Where is that guy even," James complains. "Please tell me he's not-"

"Next door," Sharon replies. "Yup. Get over it."

"Get over it?" James repeats, horrified. "Do you really wanna do that to him, imagine him finding out- as if he hasn't already enough on his plate, and the- I really don't remember and if I really was that and now I'm- this- don't do that. Don't tell him."

"Look, I feel you," Natasha replies, chewing. "But we can't control- if he wakes up, he can just walk over at any point."

Bruce bites his lip. "Actually- I locked him in."

Sharon laughs. "Really? Didn't expect that from you, Bruce."

"This is very expensive lab equipment," Bruce justifies. "I don't want him running around, unsupervised-"

"So you could have a head start," Natasha states. "Before running into him."

"I'm not sure I'm keen on breaking that to Steve," Sharon ponders. "So maybe… I don't know. You're not getting out of this for long. And you don't need to, Steve is very understanding-"

"With all due respect," James interrupts. "You don't know that guy, except from the rosy tales of your granny, and this is not- not some minor- if I ever was that guy, I am not anymore. I'm so much worse."

"So do we do the ultrasound right now?" Natasha asks.

"No reason to wait," Bruce replies, removing the needle from Sharon's arm. "Don't get up just yet. Maybe you could- we have plenty of food here, don't we."

"Yeah, gimme that bacon sandwich," Sharon demands. "Are those M&Ms?"

"Something like it," Natasha replies, handing the bag over to James so he can give it to Sharon. "Guess I'll stop munching for a minute, for the scan."

"Yeah, just a second, let me get my… things in order," Bruce says, looking around in confusion. "God, this- everything- I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Same," Natasha remarks, licking her fingers. "Same."

"Yeah, but you- whatever." Bruce adjusts his glasses. "Yes. Ultrasound. Could you move out of the way?"

James gets up reluctantly, taking exactly one step back. "What is that even?"

"Something to look inside," Natasha explains, pushing her shirt up and her pants down below her hip bones. "That's it. Doesn't do anything else. Except it's cold and tickles."

"I guess you'll have to live with that," Bruce suggests, spreading the gel over her stomach. "Let me see…"

"Mind if I stay?" Sharon asks between bites.

"Sure, nothing secret about it," Natasha replies. "James, I think you need to step back."

James reluctantly takes another step back. "I don't like this."

"Don't you want to see?" Sharon suggests. "How it's growing?"

"No," James replies. "Not really."

"Won't take long," Natasha promises as Bruce places the transducer on her abdomen. "Right?"

"Right." Bruce shakes his head. "Really, I don't really know what to look for. I just want to take a picture to document the growth, for when Bobbi arrives."

"Sounds like a good idea," Natasha replies. "I should stop talking, shouldn't I?"

"Would be helpful if you moved less," Bruce mutters. "Oh, there. Now let's see..."

Sharon sits up to peer at the screen. "Oh my. That's really quite grown already."

"Sharon, could you hold the transducer?" Bruce asks, trying to flip a book open with one hand. "I have to…"

"Sure." Sharon gets up and slips past James, smiling at Natasha. Bruce pushes his sleeves up and leans over the book. "Yeah, okay. Okay. Move it a little, without taking it off."

Sharon lets the transducer glide over the gel. "Wow, I think it's really gotten bigger already," Bruce whispers. "Looks more like the picture at 20 weeks than at 16 weeks."

Natasha gulps, which James notices. "Honestly… are you sure that's a baby?"

Sharon snorts loudly. "Oh wow. You're going to be a horrible father."

"Definitely a fetus," Bruce replies, staring at the screen. "Move it a little, again. Mhm. I can't really see anything that looks… not human."

Natasha bites her lip. "Is it a boy or a girl?" Sharon asks.

Bruce snorts softly. "Don't nail me down on this, but… I think it's not a boy. I think we'd see that."

"Wait, it just-" Sharon also stares at the screen. "I think it's sucking on its thumb."

"Let's just take the pictures and then we're done," Bruce suggests. "Then Natasha can go back to sleep."

She's not as exhausted as before but still very tired, and so she is out very quickly and sleeps for what feels like forever. A shutting door wakes her up. "Wow, you look like shit."

She pries her eyes open. James, at her bedside, turns. "Yeah, you," Clint adds. "You know, you always look dead but now you look like it was painful, too."

James bares his fangs. "What do you want?"

"Get some sleep," Clint demands. "You're not helping here. Yeah, yeah, I'll look after her."

James clearly doesn't like the idea, still the threatening fangs. "It's fine," Natasha mutters, eyes half-closed. "I'll just sleep anyway."

James' hand, now warm, comes to her cheek. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, sure," she whispers. "Just come back later, rested."

He lets go reluctantly. "Okay. I won't be away long."

She's got the feeling he will. Who knows how long he hasn't slept. "You can have my bed."

It looks like he doesn't want to kiss her, in front of Clint, so he touches her cheek again. "Okay. Take care. Sleep well."

Clint rolls his eyes as James passes him, moving slowly for his standards. Natasha sighs, closing her eyes, rolling onto her back. A chair screeches over the concrete floor. The door closes. Natasha snorts. "Are you going to give me the silent treatment again?"

"You're really insane," Clint says. "You know that?"

"Yeah, so what?" Natasha returns. "What about it? Weren't you the one who said go for it?"

"I said carefully ," Clint replies. "And don't fuck it up. But you clearly fucked it up, so…"

"This is fucking it up?" Natasha cuts in.

"Yep." The chair screeches again. "Or did you want this?"

"Oh, come the fuck on."

"He definitely didn't," Clint remarks. "Still doesn't. So you know what that means."

"I'm making him?" Natasha opens her eyes. "Is that what you're saying?"

"He's really not father material," Clint states. "You know that. You can't make him into something that he's not. He'll try but it won't change a thing."

"You know all about fathers, don't you," Natasha shoots back venomously.

"Fuck off," Clint returns calmly. "And you're not better. You're good at killing vampires, you're not a mother ."

"And I can't be both?" Natasha questions.

"You're insane, you're vicious, you're a killer," Clint states. "That's good for a hunter but impossible for a mother. And I guess you think you need to be kind and caring and soft, for some reason, but you just aren't."

"I was, though," Natasha whispers. "I really was. Before."

"That's not you anymore," Clint replies. "That's just how it is, I'm sorry. And you always had it in you. Don't try to be something that you're not, just because you think that's what you need to be happy. You'll fail and then it'll be worse."

"You don't know who I am," Natasha returns. "What I am. What I can be."

"Kinda do," Clint contends. "And then there's the fact that you'll definitely die from this."

Natasha snorts. "Oh yeah. You totally know that as well."

"I really don't know who you're doing this for," Clint remarks. "Seems like you just have to prove something to yourself. And die doing it."

"Look, none of us know what will happen," Natasha reminds him. "Don't pretend you do. You don't know shit."

"Please." Clint folds his hands. "Just tell me I'm wrong."

"Of course you're wrong!" Natasha throws back. "This is not about proving anything."

Clint snorts, kneading his fingers. "Oh, Tasha, you can't lie to me."

"The fuck do you even want," she spits out. "You don't get it, so just leave me alone."

"If you wanna be with him, I get that," Clint states. "I don't like it but I get it. No reason to make little monster babies, though."

"You're just jealous, aren't you," she hisses. "You wanted to have kids with Bobbi and she didn't. And now you can't bear seeing me have one."

Clint grins coldly, leaning forward. Looks very ugly. "Whatever Bobbi and I were, before I fucked up… trust me, you and him are not that. And you will never come even close."

"Yeah, maybe that's good," Natasha remarks sourly. "Given how you turned out."

"You don't even know him," Clint remarks. "You met him, what, two months ago? Three? The couple of nights you snuck out? That's nothing."

"For the last fucking time, it's not about him," Natasha returns. "It's about what I want. If you even care about that."

"Not fair," Clint remarks, getting up from the turned chair. "Fine, I'll go. Just… this job, it changes you. Everyone. Hardens you. And that's okay. It's okay if you lost your nurturing side, if you ever had one. Just don't pretend it's still there."

"I know he's going to disappoint me," Natasha whispers. "I know that. I'm fully prepared for that. Everyone will disappoint me sooner or later. The trick is not to trust too much. But… but not my baby."

"Hm?" Tony makes, behind the metal mask, then turns on the welder again, drowning out any response she might have had.

Bruce is inspecting her and Sharon's combined blood sample for clotting or something like that. When the welding noise dies down painfully, he sighs. "Tony, could you shut up for a moment?"

"What?" Tony pushes up the metal mask. "You're asking me in advance ?"

Bruce rolls his eyes, staring intently at the blood. "Just say yes."

"Fine." Tony pulls the mask all the way off. "Was gonna do some finetuning anyway. Don't mind me."

Bruce sighs again. "Yeah, so, Nat, about the scan you don't want to do… The endovaginal one."

"Did you seriously wait until James is gone to talk about that?" Natasha questions.

"Excuse me, he looked ready to murder someone the second you pushed up your shirt for the ultrasound," Bruce defends. "I don't think he'd like this."

"Can't we wait until Clint's ex is here?" Natasha asks. "That would be more comfortable for everyone involved."

"Could take a few more days," Bruce replies. "And this thing is growing so fast… I just want to make sure she has the best possible information ready when she arrives."

"Can I say something?" Tony suggests innocently.

"I know you don't like it," Bruce hurries to say. "And I've been thinking… I don't have to do it myself. I could ask Sharon or Pepper to assist."

Natasha bites her lip. "I don't know."

"I'd just have to look at the screen," Bruce adds. "Really."

"Could you…" She hesitates. "Could you ask Sam?"

"Seriously?" Tony interjects, switching to a bigger screwdriver.

"Yeah, sure," Bruce replies immediately. "But it's not about medical knowledge. Pepper or Sharon could do it just as well. Also, Sam's only trained in emergency medicine, nothing that would help here."

"I'd prefer if he did it," Natasha insists. "If he agrees, of course. If you could ask."

"If you… okay." Bruce shakes his head, pushing the vial away. "I'll ask. Right now, or…?"

"Yeah, right now, we should have plenty of time," Natasha replies. "And Tony, you better fuck off or I'll tell Pepper."

Tony grins, stuffing the screwdriver between his teeth. "Mhm. No fankf. Gah. Fuft a fecond."

"I hope he's awake," Bruce remarks, closing the door behind him.

Tony yanks the screwdriver out again and drills something in. "Mhm. There. So, seriously, Sam?"

"Come the fuck on," Natasha remarks. "You know I'm not that comfortable… it's not about having a vagina."

"He's going to say no," Tony states, lifting up the metal parts. "With your creepy bat boyfriend around. I mean, if he's smart."

"That's purely medical," Natasha returns. "It's just awkward, it doesn't mean anything."

Tony grins, putting the metal parts down and getting up. "Oh, sure. I wouldn't bet on it."

Sam doesn't say no and now she's in a weird hospital gown, feet planted, and Bruce is pointedly only looking at the screen. "Tell me if it hurts," Sam remarks.

Oh, she must have pulled a face again. She shakes her head, willing the expression away. "Could you…" Bruce starts.

"Deeper?" Sam asks.

Bruce blushes, nodding. The gloved fingers sink in a little deeper, uncomfortable, she's not that wide. It's not only weird, it kinda hurts, stretching and poking. She blinks, staring at the ceiling, clenching fists. "Is that…?" Sam asks.

Bruce nods, pushing some buttons. "Yeah."

Natasha turns her head, glad for the distraction from the fact that Sam has the transducer and his fingers up her vagina. "What?"

"The heartbeat," Bruce replies. "It shows."

Natasha bites her lip. "And it moves, stretches," Sam adds, looking at the screen. "Do you feel that?"

She shakes her head. "Are we done soon?"

"Sorry," Sam remarks. "Bruce, are we-"

"Little to the left," Bruce interrupts. "I'd like to take a closer look at that."

She wakes up when something touches her hand, warm but firm, like a cobblestone in the sun. Opens her eyes hazily. It's dark down here, but it's James, and they're alone otherwise. "Mhm."

"Hey," James whispers. "How are you?"

He looks better, at least. Natasha sighs. "Okay. Tired. Hungry."

"I'll get you something in a minute," James promises, rubbing her hand. "Just… I thought about it and… can I talk to you?"

She lets her head drop to the side, staring at the wall. "Yes."

"Please don't have the baby," James says. "I know it's not my- it's your decision but- please don't."

She doesn't say anything, heaving chest the only sign she's not dead. "Even if it's your decision, it's still my responsibility," he continues. "I know you don't want to hear that it's my fault but- you wouldn't be in this without me. And I want to be there for you, help you, not leave you alone with problems I created- but I can't. You know what I am. I don't like it but I can't change it."

A tear runs down her cheek and he picks it up, staring at the drop on his finger. "I'll disappoint you, sweetheart. I'm not… human enough to do this. I don't want to abandon you but even if I stay, it's as good as that. I can't give you that, do that, what you need. I'd rather be not a father at all than a bad father."

Another tear breaks free, no stopping it. "I don't want you to cry because of me," he whispers. "Don't give me a responsibility I can't live up to. Just… if Schmidt finds me, he'll kill me. I still hope that you can get away somehow but… I don't think I'll make it out alive. You'll be okay on your own without me but… I can't bear saddling you with a baby I'll never be able to take care of."

She wants to tell him to shut up but the lump in her throat is too big and scratchy. James smiles, gently wiping away the tears on her cheek. "You don't have to say anything. I'll… I'll get you something to eat now."

When he comes back with a PBJ sandwich, she pretends to be fast asleep.

#blood and stone #buckynat #vampire au #natasha romanoff #black widow #bucky barnes #winter soldier #my writing #fanfic

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This country because America uniquely holds the promise of a God Made Scots A Wee Bit Better T-Shirt place where everyone can belong we know that for too many and for too long that promise has been denied but we also know America is at its best when we make that circle of belonging wider just over 10 years ago I joined the military where firing me because of who I am was just possible it was policy now in 2020 is unlawful in America to fire someone because of who they are or who they love the very ring on my finger away we celebrated here where I’m standing reflects how this country can change love makes my marriage real but political courage made it possible including that of Joe Biden who stepped out ahead even of this party when he said that marriage equality under the law of the land there is a long way to go but if this much can change between 2010 and 2020 imagine what could change between now and 2030 imagine what we could achieve this coalition we are building this very season gathering progressives and moderates independents and even what. Tony catfight theory meets up with themand Bruce Banner black widow continue to have a bit of a romance that is destined to fail is the both very damaged in different ways anyway in South Korea Ultram is building the perfect library embodied himself with the my stone from Loki scepter in its head over the twins find out Ultram is planning on killing everyone in the world not just Tony Starks that I like well Tony Stark is probably better than the entire will be destroyed so they team up with the avengers even just vital Tron in South Koreaand let us get away with that perfect body he made stuck in banner try to put Jarvis into this perfect body all the avengers alike K you try this beforeand this happened so maybe don’t but they do it anyway what’s alighting from Thor’s hammer the body comes to lifeand becomes the vision where she is a good guyand is also kind of invincible he proves his intentions by lifting Thor’s hammer saw speak plan is to lift up’s cobiaand drop it like a meteor onto the earth killing everyone the venture shopping fight with help from war machine who actually got the memo this timeand experience Ella carrierand if he all Tronand all is all shallotsand save the day now without any repercussions though Pietro maxima dissecting Hawkeye also a kid who’s in Segovia doing charity work is killed in battle as is the family of helmets IMO a succumbing soldierand not terribly nice guy Simon was so angry over the avengers indirectly killed his family is planning on how to get revenge he realizes he can’t defeat them directly as if a robot army can do that I was a sad strange little maggot to do it instead takes a page out of the Loki bookand decides to tell them apart from the inside also during the battle Bruce Banner hoax outand decides to fly off the Quinn jet which eventually ends up in space somehow after while it crashes in the planet of scar that junk plaintiff before because being a form planet is pretty stressful banner staysand hope for him he’s done by Valkyrie who remember is now a drunk who scavenges stuffand she brings into the Grand Master this very weird eccentric guy whose brother is actually the collector from earlier he runs in arena gladiator fighting thing on this planetand the whole becomes his number one champion over the next two years Houck fights in the arena learn some basic speech becomes closer Valkyrieand overall is really just loving life after all this store still weirded out positionsand goes up to look for the infinity stones goes around the universe for two years looking for them which for the record is a marvel one shot I would love to see but is completely unsuccessful the managers back on earth now set up base in New Yorkand move away from ledgers tower with this big new fancy facilityand Blackwood are going train scarlet which falcon war machineand vision to become real avengers why the indestructible laser shooting hyper intelligent robotic in the Thor’s hammer needs training I’m not entirely sure on Tony’s also there but he’s a little preoccupied with the relationship problems he’s now having with pepper which leads to them taking a break while in space status is getting real sick of everyone failing to get his stones so he decides he’s gonna do it himselfand by that I mean he’s going to wait three years to do it but he start planning now which most in getting a bigger glove called the infinity gauntlet that would let them hold the stones once he finds them unearthed the shield team gets to the human campand shield was to register all been humans on a big list so they’re all accounted for something like a human’s version of the Scobee Accords which will get you over the humans at the camp predictably don’t like this also people start realizing that Daisy’s mom is kind of evil so a big fight ensues in the war which is really more of a battle between shielding humans he follows his nonskilled anklesand loses his arm also those chargingand human crystalsand up in the oceanand spend the pillsand also to stuff so now in human start popping up moreand more around the world also Mays ex husband Garner egrets in humidified enter into this horrible monster called flash also grant one was to try to start by Dragon even though the avengers just fishing that Daisy also says about her dad who wasn’t such a bad guy after all he gets his memory erasedand start a new life may decides to take a break from shieldand Fitzsimmons finally start dating however risingand going Simmons is in the same room as the monolith which shield has occasional memory that’s the portal through which you go to this terrible ugly planet with an original inhuman monster hive lives she was the inspiration for Hydra away quick positive video here I really hope it doesn’t feel like I’m talking down you guys by saying in case your memberand that’s her stuff a lot I genuinely does make this as easy to followand not confusing as possible is especially for people who are defense of the stuff that haven’t washed all this already of this information is slightly hard to keep track of you a second thatand gets into that placeand he said last night was abandoned there a long time ago they become friendsand survive together after many years of service Frank S returns home to his family from his militaryand shady servers daysand it’s super niceand emotional however around this timeand Cerberus leaks with Cerberus was actually about including the video that it is a guiding shot to this guy called David whose nickname micro will be back in a sec agent orange transfer for doing this because he’s not a big fan of Frank’sand so with the help of the Cerberus squad including Frank supposed best friend Billy Russo he sets up a three way gunfight between three gangs in a park to kill Frankand his family Frank’s wifeand children are brutally murderedand Frankish on the head but survives after this Frank is enragedand devastated answer decides take matters into his own hands he uses his military trainingand pure anger to hunt downand kill everyone in the gangs involved with his family’s death he does this under the vigilante guys of the punisher first just make a plan though so that takes a little time now micro is a hackerand NSA analyst these to help a Daisy when she was working as a hacker’s analysis info that Cerberus doing legal stuffand he starts leaking it so agent orange triesand killed his men shoot microand think they killand really the bullet his phoneand so survived because phones are bulletproof in this world Michael doesn’t hidingand pretends to be dead even from his wifeand kids who he watches from security cameras Scott Lange has finally finished serving his time in prison for his crime that really was not badand is released going to stay with his old cellmateand pal Luis he wants to see his daughter but his life is moved on to another guyand so that’s difficult in its with Luis his new friends Kurtand Daveand try to get a job at Baskin Robbins but Baskin Robbins always finds out tech is having run by Darren cross hang pencil protégé along with Hank’s daughter hope while Hank is on the world they some old tales of Hank’sand process about his own version of the suit called the yellowjacket only this one is way deadlierand fliesand shoots lasers cross also plans to sell this tech to Hydraand the 10 ringsand just the worst people thanks not too happy about thisand try to think of a plan to stopand even where Scott Lange ever since the very public Vista quick job I think Scott could be a good choice to take on the object stuff before gets into the wrong hands through a series of people think it’s got a tip about as mentioned Rob Casillas to see how good Scott really is what Scott eventually does only to find the entrance to he takes it tries it onand is terrified by the experience Hank is impressed with the skill cc but when Scott tries to return the suit he’s caught by the policeand cost breakdown in jailand tells of his pregnant with cross help is not awfully happy with how things are developing as she was to wear the MS student takedown cross but Hank does a letter because of how her mother died all those years ago so they trained Scott until he becomes great at the shrink tricky stuff even to friendsand called Anthony very good Scott also starts to get romantically involved with hopeand Hank reveals to help our mom diedand she is all well I totally understandand forgive you know dad even though you really could is only sooner I’m an adult you know they’re good now Scott needs advice from an old avenger space to steal the yellowjacket suit is there only to discover that it’s been renovatedand it’s now the new venture space is not by falcon who fights in man is defeated but also impressed by Scott’s abilitiesand less just called Scott’s good fortune that it wasn’t patient who was on patrol that day also by the way crosses going crazy because pen particles mess with the brain after all this Scott goes in to steal the yellowjacket suit but gets caught so him across FIFO while in a helicopterand then a briefcaseand in Scott’s daughter’s room to save his daughterand kill cross Scott go subatomicand saves the day but is temporarily trapped in the quantum realm where Hank’s wife Janet was left however he manages to get outand it’s all good after all this Hank believes that hope is finally ready to become a heroand so gives her the lost barber Scott is back his familyand his daughter Anna’s dosing hopeand never once happy now go back to the moon real quick a place we haven’t been for a while where the go inhumanand potentially the most unlikable character in this entire universeand human arguing about this American flag I am only mentioning this to see him forget that there’s an entire inhuman civilization just living on the moon while all this is happening back on earth the tomb salvaging company shows up in the area were scurvy’s to beand picks up small font Exceland some of this ends up in the hands of Hydra uses it to build a giant robot called ultimo but the manager show up at least those are leftand defeated now were getting into the Netflix world for a while first off Jessica Jones gets new job from Joy Meacham the sister of one Meacham was running red Enterprises will be manipulate it by’s dad was being controlled by the hand I give it a second to sink in again anyway she is Jessica to investigate the people around so she can blackmail them later if need be also Wilson Fisk is stilland by his he I mean jail because he such a big crime boss he start making connections there that Frank Castle has finally gotten all the resources he needs to kill the gangs he thinks were solely responsible for his family’s murder so starts going around doing that in the most brutal way possible starting with the Irish Mafiaand a gang called the dogs of hell is all happening in or near Hells kitchenand that Murdoch starts noticing the stuff so he starts investigating eventually as daredevil in a newand improved suit by the way he comes face to face of the punisher which ends with a bullet to the face that is seriously injured but survives fighting keep fighting that the vigilante stuff while Cassidy is going around the city killing pedophiles in such an entry castle manages to kidnap daredevil Jenny into a chimney where they learn about each other’s pastsand ideologies Castle takes a gun to daredevil’s hand pulse of the criminaland hasn’t had to shoot the criminal or he’s can do it because castle things killing your enemies is the way to go hello I thought a lot of the people daredevil Scott daredevil to try to kill anyway daredevil breaks outand has to fight through some angry bikers Castle unleashes on them later on Frank it’s kidnap by the Irish who brutally tortured him but eventually he gets out with their troubles help explain the situationand himand daredevil cool now but that is arrested that the craziness is now over but nope just now Electra shows up his old girlfriend then ninjaand potentially secret weapon for the handand she’s like a let’s find together because I see her doing that nowand so they do if I think he was a mainly with franking space to Karen what happened to his familyand the bondand become best is so daredeviland Electra are going around fighting the accuserand ultimately come across this giant pit the hand is digging in order to get Dragon bonesand to become immortal that still going on their tax by handand just until state shows up to save the day meanwhile on the lower side of things the punisher trial happensand during that Frank saw like an Angus into jail where he meets Wilson Fisk Fisk is like Frank nothings working everything but my biggest rival this person helped kill your family soand Frank Sykes say no more so he takes a that guy that this double crossesand try seven killed by Frank is just too good for that so Fisk lets them goand Frank tells Fisk to kill him when if he sees them again Frank it’s a geland mean wild animals like snow but again then ninja he thought he go before was brought back by the hand also their little kids being drained of their blood also for resurrection purposes through similar shenanigans the punisher keeps going around killing guys involved with his family’s murderand I will still have conflicting ideologiesand punish ends up killing an old Marine buddy of his Electra stick have a falling outand cystic trust tablets are killedand she didn’t like that so she tries to kill him will saves the dayand sticks kidnapped by the hand so Matt goesand save steak but while he’s doing that nobody reveals that Electra is a black skyand should be leading the hand she almost does but ends up joining their double insteadand the five images together real lasted I’m on right there after a hostage situationand Electra go up against like an infinite supply of hingesand Electra ends up sacrificing yourself for daredevil the punisher also shows up at the last minute to get daredeviland assist which is a pretty awesome moment not to lie no booze killed for real this time by stickand the good guys win except the hand takes Electra’s bodyand uses their Dragon magic to bring her back to life so she can work for them one of the five leaders of the hand the main one Alexandra comes to oversee her resurrection fog equatesand hours for Hogarth from Jessica Jones reveals he’s daredevil to Karenand the punisher goes off to kill everyone was involved with his family’s murder micro also wants answers about the whole Cerberus thing as a goes into Frank’s houseand puts the disk there with the video on it Castle’s unit in Afghanistan tortureand killing that innocent guy which Frank findsand takes with them tiny little break from the granite stuff here a witch just straight up which shows up in Londonand steals a magical artifact called the dark scepter however long case aliasand more masters of the Mystic arts show upand stop her a reminder that there’s magic in this world back to the streets now the gauge is now working at Pops barbershopand I know people disagree on what years these Netflix shows in particular take placeand they are confusing but based on the research I did this seems to check out anyway Luke also works of the barand one evening because he such a player he starts floating with detective Misty Knight the club Lucas working is also my cottonmouth now is a big shot crime boss’s cousin Mariah is a City Councilmanand is also pretty shady just more low key than enough strike is a hammer check from Justin Hammer for some good money but the operation goes wrong look secret half brother Willa striker is also involved here at the highest level is a big criminal now is now called diamondbackand is cottonmouth’s boss basicallyand so he sends in his body shades to make sure everything is running smoothly godmother still cool because these be friends back in the day but because the guy because the deal to go wrong is involved with pop one of cotton’s goons goes against disordersand shoots at the barbershop killing pop through this link in contrast to fightingand looks all like I really care for but not my radar so stop doing illegal stuffand calmness like know so we can start messing up his operation Luke also teams up with Claire Temple daredevil hotel buffet crimeand start a romance energy gets his hands on some bullets I can actually penetrate Luke’s impenetrable scan forand use them thoughand up having an argumentand so she murders him with a mic standand because the new big crime boss with shades help diamondback decides to team up with their setting out a plan to run the crime will do Harlem well Mariah does all the boring political stuff diamondback also shoots a cage twice with those magic bulletsand reveals that he’s actually his brother Claire takes her to the doctor who originated the experiment on themand they send an asset or boiling water something painfuland basically he’s restored to full strength while diamondbackand Mariah are running like a spear campaign against the cage to turn the people filed against them they do this through politicsand super shock loves Lucas backand FaceTime back in the police eventually diamondback shows up in a terrible super suitand even the punch each other for a bit is the end against diamondback partly with helping New York Spiderman style despite all his heroicsand proving himself a good guide to the policeand the people Harlem Lucasand back to prison because been discovered as Carl Lucas back in the day with your call despite being innocent broke out of prisonand so still needs to service time however one of Luke’s barbershop friends is a file that proves his innocence so he’s getting out soon also diamondback is taking them but I doctor who did this experienceand Luke so he’ll probably have some modifications the next time we see them there is a little bummed out that Luke is in jailand that they can’t get a cup of coffee for a while but she keeps itself occupied by starting martial arts training with help from Colleen way that martial artist to statically buy land but doesn’t really know that the hand is evil a bunch of little stuff happens here now firstly that kid who Iron Man said a while back Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider which gives in special abilities like superstrength the ability to climb the wallsand having a dead uncle because he’s a genius kid he also designs web shooters that shoot superstrong webs also because he’s a good kid he realizes if you help people using his new powers he’s responsible for one bad stuff happens so he designs a pajama looking costume takes a living Spidermanand starts fighting little crimes in Queens now over with the Masters of the Mystic arts page 1and Margot find a group called the Dragon Raiders just FYI also falcon is still pretty impressed by thatand I guys a while back I think she could be a valuable asset to the team so he finds a way to contact with them through Luis about potentially joining the avengers Scots like well I cannot stay with my daughter right now but if you really need me yes give me a call we had about the shield team in a while but they’re still doing stuff around these husband Andrew turned into an inhuman call mile he did that is now a giant monster whose sole purpose really is to hunt other humans with humans popping up around the world now shields main mission objective is protecting in humansand training them is made harder because the government treats a group called the ATC you which is designed to track down superpowered people like humansand take them then basically they’re designed to replace yield now that shield has had to go underground in the ATC you is this guy called Malik once again is a big secret Hydra guy said he thought we were done with Hydra you were sorely mistaken the reason this ATC you exists is so Hydra can get a hold of all these in humansand use them you guessed it to make a super soldier army is not getting that seriously 99 of Hydra’s plans so shield in the ATC are fighting for to try to get Simmons off at alien planet which eventually doesand what is still working on rebuilding Hydra I guess Marilyn Stucker’s weightless cool son Werner to join him in a nutshell the main thing is shield us to start up a team of humans the inhuman hunting monster is out there going after them thing of lash is like a less strong or cool version of the book he changes in this monster at different times Olson is asking pretty close to one of the higher ups at the ATC you who isn’t actually evil but then worksheets are in the throat cycles is like I just have to crush discussed just Hydra also wants to get to the matter because they want to bring Benjamin back because they think will be a big secret weapon for them so word fits in Colson end up on an alien planetand cousins like mandatory wordand he crushes Ward’s chest with his robot handand then goes back to think that’s the end of Ward but then the superpowerful clinical human eye possesses corpseand then makes its way back to earth I was now leading Hydra through Ward’s bodyand he’s observing people for strengthand you know typical evil villain stuff so that any rent is still in and now going to basket CCI festand that’s what the iron fist does ever he starts missing homeand gets bored because he’s kind of a spoiled brat so just ramp runs away when the pass is open his eyes to go back to New York to take packs company because that’s I think it works because he’s also kind of a thundering dumbass doesn’t work focuses old friends join Ward Meacham if it were just go with it think is a crazy homeless person understandably wards think that that Harold is still kind of running the company while being controlled by the hand which he started to get kinda sick of becomes friends with Colleen at the dojo he also meets Claire Temple bananas put in a mental hospital he breaks out there with the power of the iron fist stocking 30 with Colleenand Bruce’s friends that it actually is an is coming back with the help of Jerry Hogarth he kinda sucks a business though because he’s been living among city in another dimension for the past decade ends of meeting Harold whose IK we should work together can sometimes take a controlling me so you can go kill themand I like gathers the main purpose in life I had to hand them gal the hand is still selling heroinand Denny’s unhappy about that science of beating herand agreeing to a series of challenges the loser has to pack upand get out of the city anyways but Manga breaks the promise but she’s got ancient society superpowers so there’s not much you can do about it Danny keeps consistently sucking a ring’s company so he’s married now by the board along with the Meacham’s words also super pissed at is that Harold is he took all of his money so he tells Harold bio comes back thanks to the hand Danny Colleenand Claire go to Chinaand take them gal realizes that Ward killed him so he frames them for drug possessionand so Ward gets locked up in the asylum Harold of its joy to be his new number two Danny also made potato Colleen so teacher was also secretly when the 5 m of the handand find out about thisand is in the fan now this guy called divers who isn’t that Dallas is days old friend from and he shows up to help Dannyand Colleen Joyce into saying that the hand probably his neck in the end after helping Dallas is like take the path to come on is open right nowand you’re supposed regarding it what the hell manand I was like well you know is boringand decides to team up with Haroldand joy to take on handand the Kudo but the kudos now working with wordand long story short is defeated but runs away Dallas is not a Danny but they work it out kind of data gets frame for drug stuffand goes in the runand Harold is the bag on the endand tries to take over the company Danny Lord in the big final battle team up kill Haroldand burn his corpse so he will come back to life now Ward is running the companyand Dallas teams of joyand maybe not out to kill Danny down the lineand then sends a team led by lecture to come on which again has no iron fist protecting it they kill a bunch of the monks there it’s pretty brutal the entrance is then close for safety so no one knows when it’ll open up again because back to check out the passand find the city is goneand some abilityand he realizes he probably should state to protect it also Luke Cage sends Claire letter from prison because there still thing overand cover Taj at this point Casillas is starting to get kinda pissed with Angel on it if you like his training isn’t getting him what he wants to start having some friction with most the Masters there also finds out that the angel on his drawing power from the dark dimension which he thinks is pretty have a critical because he must use the dark dimension to see his dead family againand to gain immortality but the angeland told him no because a bunch of people that the ancient one is withholding informationand they should bring tomato from the dark dimension to earth to golf it in eternity forms to rise up against the ancient one they break into the libraryand cover tiesand steal some pages from the ageless book about the dark dimension one tries to stop them but they get away in the end one point Rogers well the shielding goes to Mexicoand meets the human called yo yo who has superspeed who eventually joins the ranksand eventually becomes next girlfriend also Bobby Hunter leave the team because they were so staff spent off but that didn’t happen somewhere venturesand Sue Shield has an inhuman team but highest the inhuman Hydra God takes control of Daisy’s mind because he can do thatand turns against the team just as a vision of the future where one of them diesand other important detail there’s this group called the watchdogs which is basically inhuman racist who are going around killing humans as they plan by the way is to make every human in the worldand in human goes against Dr Ratcliff a scientist who he thinks can help them re create the original Cree experiment that native humans in the first place he realizes he needs actual Cree blood to do it so he sends a signal to the Creed to get some to come downand they do in a fight ensues they’re both taken out but also rendered useless however some Cree blood from daisies used from when she was saved without original Cree corpse long story doesn’t really matter experience go half rate asand it turns peopleand these gross disfigured mindless things meanwhile Scott laying after successfully cross job is still training is at man with Hankand hope that at some point here he upgrade to suitand test out new tech that allows him to become giant he tries it onceand passes out but hey it works Peter is continuing to Spiderman around the city at one point stopping a car crashand getting caught on camera the footage is uploaded to YouTubeand catches the eye of Tony Stark who keeps it in his watch later until he really needs it he’s got bigger stuff to think about right now is right around this point people are starting to take more notice of how much damage the superheroes have actually caused in their superheroand the guy who’s all over this is unsurprisingly general Ross from the days he needs of the presidentand his appointed Secretary of Stateand start talking about how they can keep the stuff moreand check the start of on the ideas for the Segovia cords basically a way of regulating superheroes with more oversight by forcing them to register with the government while this is happening Frank Castle continues his killing spree of people who were involved in this family’s murder going from truck murder to sniper murder to the bathroom murder is getting what he thinks is all them in a decides to move all of his life is the whole point the punisher was to avenge his family so that’s done now or so he thinks also after lectures not has stopping daredevil for a few months now because he’s just too sad things are not bad though foggy Nelson get some helpand I got in the barbershopand clears the cages nameand Lucas at a prison loop is up with Claireand they get that coffee they’d wanted Jessica Jones comes across lecture during one of her cases is still doing whatever the hand once rememberand objective Dragon bones under New York immortality the only problem is those Dragon bones are essential foundations for the city so the removal of them is causing serious earthquakesand could eventually to the whole city collapsing is also hiring a bunch of Harlem kids to help them kill and or clean up the mess is left behind by their enemies cages about this news like I got to protect the people of Harlemand Danny Randy is about this is like I gotta take a hand saw this lease to them crossing pathsand having a bit of a fight every day become friends because of their mutual friend Claire through fortuitous circumstances Jessica’s tracking guy connected to the handand that Murdoch ends up being her lawyerand also gets interested in the case so all four of them end up at the hands buildingand start fighting their ninjas electro sent into daredevil surprise but doesn’t remember him remind you of anyone but they all managed to get out of thereand go hide out in a Chinese restaurant where the become more acquainted state gets kidnapped by the hand but gets out of there by cutting off his own hand get itand goes to talk to the team Alexandraand had followed to see Alexandraand the hand is a whole knee iron fist alive because his iron fist is the key to open the gate to the sweet sweet Dragon bones if I happens electro starts remember who she isand that offenders get their hands on one of the hands main leaders also have their superhero team name is the defenders this guy is not of much help thoughand so stick to set off is not happy about this because they’re running out of there immortality juice the defender starting though because they’re like if the hand need you Danny we should probably had your wayand then he does what he does bestand is a whiny baby so they’ll punch him for a whileand then time however stickand typical stick fashion thinks that he might in the world so I’m getting kill him but lecture shows upand kill stickand tasty on fist to the hand she also kills Alexandra as she wants to be in charge I guess Jessica Jones find out more about that whole get it will found a while back with hands digging for Dragon bones after Lilith over the police that offenders minus Danny fight the hand plus the got Colleen to help Danny accidentally opens the gates of the Dragon bones because of course he doesand other defenders are fighting to hand in a lecture while also trying to block building so the hand can destroy New York the kudos guild Misty Knight loses an armand the offenders whenand get out of there butback to talk to Bucky I mean Electra yesterday heard the building collapses on the master kissingand that he saved by some nuns think look that they savedand that doesn’t actually die thank God it’s time to introduce another very important character very late in the game a Stephen strange is an amazing surgeon but he’s also super arrogantand kind of addict’s ex girlfriend also works with him called Rachel McAdams one day he’s drivingand textingand he crashes his car crushing his amazing surgeon hands in his life because he can’t be an awesome surgeon anymoreand he somehow even more awful to sex than usual really his life is just falling apart he starts to find ways to heal himself however ridiculous eventually he comes across Jonathan born the guy who trained with the ancient oneand was cured so strange has two Taj is there more to one of the masters takes into the ancient one because of all the crazy ultra dimensions there are at least the trip used ones he’s like help me learnand she’s like no your grossand sad in a terrible person but he pleadsand stays her door so she reluctantly changes her mind so strange that’s learning how to control the Mystic artsand other dimensionsand make hologram shieldsand whatnot with the help of Moto the ancient oneand the bookkeeper Wong who he befriends is about the different symptomsand how they protect worldand trains for several months along the way he also stumbles upon the times done sitting in a handy necklace the INI tomato figures out how to been time with it more unwanted like you don’t do that you could get stuck in a time loop anyway at one point you stuck to Mount Everest restraining just while all this other stuff is happening remember Stephen strange is getting great a magic this whole time so U ventures all trained upand going on missions also still looking for Bucky the next hydrogen in Lagosand think it might finally be Bucky but as they get there they realize it’s actually Brock Romo crossbones who understoodand is planning on suicide lineup himselfand Capt. From the capital nation to be only the abandoned government found wanting to you is down for lack of probably racial stories are for slavery would like we enjoyed helping our countries pushed the right from overcorrection Levi Roberts reports be noticeable degree for nearly a century was to story one of America’s years and will grow as he never heard her needs needs degree beating my hair as See Other related products: God Made Scots A Wee Bit Better T-Shirt

#God #Made #Scots #A #Wee #Bit #Better #T-Shirt

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davinciandwilde · 4 years

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As a therapist in training I’ve been seeing some posts going around and I wanted to put my two cents in:

Yes, therapy is expensive. Stupidly so. I’ve worked as a receptionist for multiple therapists, If you tell me your insurance I can give you a good estimate about how expensive it might be for you. Mental health coverage in insurance companies are getting a bit better, but not by much. It’s not fair. And some people’s private fees and negotiated fees are still ridiculously high. Unfortunately, your therapist still has bills to pay, continuing education hours, student loans, the rent of the building or the room they are using, any resources they give you, and other things. Some folks are in it for the money, yes, I have seen outpatient and inpatient facilities that were awful. But some folks are doing their best, and capitalism isn’t kind to them either.

Accessibility is stupid. Your right, it shouldn’t be a 3 month wait for a therapist when you are spiraling, you shouldn’t have to turn to the bottom of the barrel when a family member dies and you just need somebody to talk to, there isn’t enough of us no matter where you go, but especially there is not enough therapists who can connect personally to minority groups, at least where I live. It’s not fair. The accessibility for that education also is not fair. Any resources we might be able to connect you with for shorter waiting times quickly get filled within a few months anyway. We don’t feel proud that our case loads are so full that we have to tell you there isn’t any openings or we can’t get you in for psychological testing for another 4 months. It means there is a systematic problem that isn’t getting met or fixed, and that’s obvious.

Bad therapists absolutely exist. Those that think they know what you need before you open your mouth, those that try and push their own ideas and expectations on to you, those that don’t try and understand but push for their idea of what healthy looks like and if you are actually trying. Others that are transphobic and homophobic and kink shaming and all those other things. But especially those that do not understand the financial burdens that people go through, how there is no ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’, there is no leaving work for an appointment because you work 2 jobs and still donate blood plasma to buy groceries. I’ve worked with them. Trying to teach them these things does not work. I’ve tried. And there are absolutely some folks I have worked with that know you will take the only break you have to come to their office because you are that desperate. I’ve worked with them too.

But I have also met therapists who stay open as late as 8:00 and Saturdays and Sundays to try and get folks in, who have paid out of pocket to get ink for the printer, put together packets and posted them online for folks who couldn’t make it no matter how low the price and how late the time, who try and attend the specialized trainings for psychosis and how to help somebody deal with hallucinations and such. Therapists who take the extra time to advocate for better wages and better working conditions and accessible health care and so on to any connections they have. Therapists who can’t attend rallies for fear of losing their job with the facility they have to work for so they quietly donate as much as possible. I’ve worked with them too.

I understand having a bad experience with counseling. And great experiences too. As a therapist myself, I try and understand before I make suggestions, I make sure the immediate symptom or problem is dealt with before getting to the why and how do we weed that thought pattern out, and when I offend, because I know I do, I am quick to apologize. I encourage my clients to tell me when I fuck up and when something in particular helped so we can keep doing that. A good therapist, in my opinion, is going to model the behavior and communication they try to teach.

I’m still learning and I am in the system while I try and change it. It is far from fair or perfect, but please do not think there aren’t therapists out there who aren’t trying. We get into this field to help people, more than just mental health, but advocating in all areas to ensure the best quality of life. Some folks will always need a therapist to help them and keep them in check, and that’s fine, but I also think my supervisor said it best.

“You work yourself out of the job. You work so that they don’t need you anymore.”

#mental health #therapy #You can reblog if you want #some of this is just ranting from my many years in the field at this point #some of it is a response to posts that I've seen floating around #like #I get it #but don't fucking give up #I promise we are trying #personal

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megabadbunny · 5 years

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In Lovers’ Meeting (4/?)

“Be careful!” Rose called after him.

He spun round at the door. “If you insist,” he said, offering a cheeky wink before he popped open the door and stepped out into the dark.

A rewrite; dedicated to the absolutely wonderful @davinasgirlfriend . <3

* * *

- Chapter 4 -

Fluttering lids and lashes and fluorescent lights flickered overhead, on, off, on—

“—an emergency, please, open the doors!”

—light, dark—

Voices, some she knew, some she didn’t. The push and pull of a tide. An ocean full of life; bodies, packed together like fish. Murmuring.

“Move—out of the way!”

Scuffling and a whoosh sound, something out of Star Trek (or was it Star Wars?), a brisk breeze or an opening door, and her chest was so full that it ached, pounding like a lorry had hit her full-force, and she couldn’t breathe, and it hurt—

“Mrs. Tyler?” asked a voice, briskly, and a light shone into Jackie’s eyes from far away, white-hot and bright, slicing through the darkness like a knife. “Mrs. Tyler, can you hear me?”

Mouth opened but nothing emerged except a weak, strained wheeze, like one of those old people with the emphysema and the breathing-machines, and was that her…?

“...patient appears to be suffering from pulmonary edema and acute hypoxia among other—”

“Oxygen, she needs oxygen, now!”

The world tilted on its axis and she was falling—no, she was flying—no, someone or something was lift-lift-lifting her up, and then she was lying down, something soft beneath her, and she blinked and there was something on her face, a nasty plastic thing that smelled of rubber and hospitals, but at least she could breathe again, even if blackness was bleeding back into the corners of her vision.

“Mum!” cried out Rose’s voice over the sounds of frantic beeping and someone muttering “No no no no Jackie, don’t you dare quit on me, don’t you dare—”

Jackie’s eyes rolled back and Rose shouting was the last thing she heard.

***

For several long and agonizing moments it was far too quiet in the little grey room, the infirmary silent but for the sound of the heart monitor’s chipper little beep-beep beep-beeps. The Doctor listened to Jackie’s breaths and counted down the measures of her pulse and scrutinized her from head to toe as she lay on the cot, sure to hang back at a minimum safe distance while the attending physician checked up on Jackie’s vitals, pressing her stethoscope to Jackie’s sternum and stomach. After double- and triple-checking his observations, running numbers and scenarios in his head rapid-fire, the Doctor allowed himself to relax a little.

“How is she, doctor?” asked Rose, gripping the side of the cot hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

“Eh, blood pressure’s a little lower than I’d like,” replied the Doctor. “Fever’s coming down thanks to the painkillers, antibiotics should help in the case of infection, but of course she’s still got the fluid in the lungs, sounds like a few microliters more than I’m comfortable with, might have to consider a nitrate treatment, maybe dobutamine if things get dicey, but she’s stable enough for the time-being, or appears to be, anyway.”

Rose and the physician both stared at him.

The Doctor scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Right! Medical doctor, lowercase ‘d’. Of course. Got it. Carry on.”

“As he said, she’s stable for the moment,” the physician explained. “It’s a good thing you got her here when you did—a few minutes later, I’m not sure what I could have done.”

“Rubbish twenty-first century medicine,” laughed the Doctor. “One does what one can.”

The physician frowned at him, blinking uncertainly over her surgeon’s mask. “I’m sorry. Who are you?”

“Right! Didn’t exactly have time for introductions earlier, did we?” The Doctor gave a little wave. “I’m the Doctor. Nice to officially meet you. And you go by...?”

“Sarah Saito, MBBS. Just call me Saito.” Saito peeled off a glove to shake the Doctor’s hand. “Now. The Doctor. Wouldn’t happen to be the same bloke that helped with the Cyberman outbreak a few years back?”

The Doctor beamed. “Indeed I would be! How’d you know?”

Saito gestured to Rose. “Agent Tyler’s mentioned you a time or a dozen. The Doctor would do this, the Doctor would say that—”

“Has anyone else made it to the infirmary so far?” Rose interrupted. “Anyone else presenting symptoms, I mean?”

“Yes, I’m treating another live patient with this condition.”

“How are they doing?” asked Rose.

Saito hesitated, glancing between Rose and the Doctor. Whatever the answer was, the Doctor knew it could be summarized as Not well.

“Let’s focus on our objectives here,” the Doctor said quickly. “Education, containment, prevention. What are we dealing with, where did it come from, how does it spread, how do we keep it from spreading further?”

Rose nodded. “And how do we cure Mum and anyone else who may be sick?”

“And that’s where education comes in. We learn what this thing is, we learn how to stop it.”

“What do we know about this thing so far?” Rose asked Saito.

“Not much,” Saito admitted. “We’ve got security looking into the situation, trying to suss out whether this is a natural outbreak or the byproduct of biological warfare, and the medical field team is upstairs collecting what samples they can. But the quarantine protocols seem to be interfering with our network connection; we haven’t received any reports or updates for a while now.”

“Probably a couple of reasons for that,” the Doctor muttered darkly.

“Point is, we’re in the dark down here until the connection is restored.”

Rose swore under her breath. “What can we do for Mum in the meantime?”

Saito hesitated once more, removing her glasses in a bid for time. Not a good sign, the Doctor knew.

“Agent Tyler,” said Saito, not unkindly. She tucked her glasses in her labcoat-pocket. “Your mother is very ill—”

“I know. What can we do for her?”

“Run some tests,” Saito replied. “Make her comfortable.”

Rose glared at her, then turned to the Doctor. “What can we do?” she asked.

In other circumstances, the Doctor might have felt inordinately pleased that Rose turned to him for help, but—well, no, there was no but, he was just as pleased as he would be any other time, he just had the good sense to hide it at that moment. “If we’re lucky, the antibiotics will take care of everything, just whoosh the whole nasty thing out of her system and usher her straight into healing, but I don’t particularly feel like banking on luck here, and I’d imagine you don’t either,” he replied. “We really need to figure out a way to reverse or at least halt the contagion’s sanguinary alterations.”

“You mentioned that earlier, that this thing was changing the victims’ blood.”

“Exactly. Deoxygenation is our major concern at the moment. The oxygen mask is helping to prevent oxygen-starvation, but ultimately, it’s a plaster, not a cure.” He considered. “Now, if we could devise a method of speeding up platelet production…”

Saito frowned. “What are you thinking?”

“Oxygen enrichment,” the Doctor murmured thoughtfully. “Replenishing the depleted supply, so to speak. Replacing the damaged cells with healthy ones. The problem is, even though the human body is constantly producing new platelets and plasma, it can only manufacture so much so quickly. But! There were some very promising rapid-platelet-production techniques introduced sometime between the twenty-first and twenty-third centuries—you’ve got access to a somatic 3D printer and hematopoietic printing material, right?”

“What about a transfusion?” asked Rose. “Like a blood transfusion. Would that help?”

“Could do, if you had a ready match.”

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” said Saito. “The blood bank is inaccessible due to quarantine—”

“I’m a match,” Rose replied.

“—and with a direct transfusion, there are too many factors to take into account—”

“How do you know?” asked the Doctor.

“—such as screening for potential disease—”

“Mum’s donated to me a couple times.”

“—which, as you mentioned, we haven’t exactly got the time for—”

Wide-eyed in alarm, the Doctor frowned. “Why?”

“—and I don’t know if I could, in good conscience, endorse or participate in such activity—”

“Occupational hazard. Look, it’s not relevant, all right?” Rose said impatiently. “Do you want my blood or not?”

“Are either of you even remotely listening to me?” asked Saito, exasperated.

“No,” Rose and the Doctor both replied.

Saito huffed. “Of course not. And are either of you licensed medical practitioners, by any chance?”

Fishing out the psychic paper, the Doctor presented it with a flick of the wrist. “Depends. What does this say?”

“It just says you know everything.”

“It’s not wrong,” said the Doctor, pocketing the paper with a grin.

“But you don’t know what this is, what we’re dealing with.”

“Yet,” the Doctor replied cheerfully. “I don’t know yet. But I intend to find out. Hence the aforementioned education. Weren’t you listening?”

Fishing around in his pockets, he found the sandwich generously gifted to him earlier. “You need to eat,” he said, tossing the sandwich Rose’s way.

Rose caught the sandwich, wrinkling her nose. “Did this come from Miranda? Is it safe?”

“It is; the sonic would have picked up on it, otherwise. And you need to eat something if you’re going to give blood.”

“I can’t even begin to list all the ways your proposal violates the Hippocratic Oath,” Saito protested.

“Hippocrates! Great man, decent gambler, still owe him twelve drachma,” said the Doctor, hands in pockets as he waltzed lazily over to the door. “Or is it Euros now? Did they convert in this universe as well? I’ll have to find out. Another opportunity for education!”

“Where are you going?” asked Saito. “You can’t leave the building while we’re under quarantine.”

“Oh don’t worry; I shan’t. Just popping out for a bit of R&R—that’s Research and Reconnaissance, by the way, not Rest and Recuperation, no rest for the wicked, after all—and I’ll be back before you know it. Oh, and you should probably call someone to take care of that little zombie problem up in the cafeteria.”

“Zombies?” Saito asked faintly. “Is that supposed to be some sort of joke?”

The Doctor flashed her a grin. “Nope!”

“Be careful!” Rose called after him.

He spun round at the door. “If you insist,” he said, offering a cheeky wink before he popped open the door and stepped out into the dark.

Rose’s gaze lingered on the door all through her call with security, her brow furrowed in worry, like if she stared hard enough, the Doctor might waltz back in, smug but safe and sound.

“So,” said Saito, gathering supplies as Rose ended her call. “Still fancy him, then?”

Rose blushed. “Just shut up and take my blood.”

For some unfathomable reason, for a brief time after she and the Doctor joined company, Donna was obsessed with those ghost-hunting programs, the ones where fellows with tape-recorders and slicked-back hair stroll around empty buildings late at night trying, desperately, to make something out of nothing. Amused to no end, the Doctor would look on and shake his head as Donna watched the programs with rapt attention, her eyes glued to the blokes wandering around onscreen with their green night-vision goggles, playing with tape recorders and radio signals and pulling random words out of the noise and jumping at every little shadow that crossed their path. The Doctor, pages deep in some dusty old tome or days deep into whatever half-constructed project lay strewn about him on the library settee and coffee table, would chuckle and insult the program under his breath, meeting Donna’s protests of Oi, we deal with this sort of thing all the time, don’t we? Who’s to say they’re not every bit as legitimate as we are? with an exaggerated eye-roll and an assertion that no, these programs do not include actually feature any ghosts, at best they’re an incorporeal wavelength lifeform, Donna, terribly common and not at all as exciting as television paints them out to be, and besides, ghosts have much better things to do than make funny noises on radio waves. Sometimes the Doctor would tease Donna dreadfully, trying to convince her with mock-sincerity that that tiny critter on Falbrath IX was actually a paranormal entity or those rattling pipes in that old mansion was actually definitely a ghost, Donna! Quick, let’s take the TARDIS back to 1996 and nab a tape-recorder!

Now, the Doctor suppressed a shudder. Creeping through the darkened halls, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone lurked over his shoulder at that very moment, that the shadows painting the empty corridor were something more than inky darkness pooling in the dim starlight. He said a silent belated apology to Donna—if ever there was a haunted building, late-night UNIT headquarters would be it.

Soon the sounds of scuffling boots and plasticky crinkles and hushed voices in the stairwells informed the Doctor that UNIT had already dispatched a squadron of HAZMAT-suited agents in response to Rose’s call to take care of their little zombie problem, and blimey, that was fast. The Doctor opted to carry out his reconnaissance mission in a calmer area instead, popping open the door to one of UNIT’s communal office spaces with a furtive glance and a buzz of the sonic. He crept quietly through, cataloging everything around him, from the potted plants to the fluorescent lights flickering overhead, from the hardwood floor to the white-tiled cubicles stretching as far as the eye could see. Just your standard posh office workspace, even if a sense of foreboding lay over the place, settling in the walkways and the empty desks, thick like an autumn fog.

The Doctor picked the first computer that caught his eye and sat down, knocking something off the desk in the process. He plucked the something off the floor and chuckled. It was a Yoda bobble-head figurine, of all things. Hideously ugly and completely tasteless. He loved it.

“You and me, then?” he said. “Yoda and the Doctor. Seems fitting, somehow.”

Setting Yoda back on his rightful perch, the Doctor turned his attention back to the computer, aiming his sonic at the screen and cracking the passcode. He bypassed the firewalls to the secure server within moments, easy as rewiring a verteron resistance accelerator. So this sonic was every bit a magic wand as much as the last one, it would seem. Good to know.

(He refused to think of it as the different sonic or the other sonic; it looked and felt and acted the same as his old one, it was the same as his old one, even down to the funny little dent beneath the atomic accelerator. So it was might as well be the same, might’nt it? He wouldn’t even have known it wasn’t originally his, if Rose hadn’t told him. Though that notion opened up another can of worms entirely.)

“Think I’ll ever hear the rest of that story?” the Doctor asked bobble-head Yoda, whose head shook nonsensically in reply. Hardly a helpful response, but then again, Yoda did always have that annoying habit of speaking in opacities.

Fingers flying over the keyboard and eyes darting over the screen, the Doctor located and scanned over every report he could find, everything the medical team managed to upload before their unfortunate transition into zombie-hood. But so little time had lapsed since the beginning of the outbreak that UNIT hadn’t been able to run but a few tests, and what few tests they had managed to run had generated no concrete theories or results. (And of course, there was no mention of zombies or otherwise reanimated corpses to be found. If only the medical team had thought to document their experiences as they were undergoing them. Though the Doctor imagined the reports would probably just read something along the lines of “I was quite warm, and now I’m a zombie; I don’t care for it; mlaaaarggghhg brains.”) The only helpful tidbit the Doctor could filter from the mush was that one or two of the medical officers suggested the contagion could be extraterrestrial in origin, before they themselves contracted said contagion.

“And in their protective suits, no less,” said the Doctor, frowning. If the medical team had contracted the illness even in their suits, then what guarantee did they have that the security and containment team wouldn’t meet the same fate? But no, the Doctor thought; Rose would have told them everything they needed to know, and they would have responded accordingly, taking additional precautions—whatever additional precautions they could, anyway.

“I have to admit, this has me stymied,” said the Doctor. “A mystery contagion, no idea what it is or where it came from or who might have brought it here or why. Or how it reanimates the dead, for that matter. But they’re not technically zombies, not really, unless Sibelius Crow is hiding somewhere nearby and I just haven’t noticed. Which is highly doubtful, to say the least.”

Bobble-head Yoda did not reply, save to bobble his head unhelpfully when poked. The Doctor sighed in frustration. “The only thing in here that’s even halfway noteworthy is a report on the new paint job and some complaints of mold. These reports are literally as boring as watching paint dry, and just as useless.”

(Except the medical team had said something helpful, hadn’t they? Even if they hadn’t meant to, even if they’d been dead when they said it. Give it to us, they’d hissed at him back in the cafeteria, and they’d indicated that Jackie was what they were after. But why?

And if the medical team truly was dead then who was it, exactly, that had been talking to him?)

“I mean, extraterrestrial in origin hardly narrows things down, does it?” murmured the Doctor.

Yoda nodded sympathetically.

“My thoughts exactly,” the Doctor agreed.

Blinking past the blur that threatened to creep over the edges of his vision, the Doctor squinted at the computer screen for several moments before realizing, with no small amount of disgruntlement, that in this new human body he may actually need reading glasses. Well, wasn’t that just wizard. Donna’s faulty human DNA was clearly to blame.

He clicked through file after file after email after report until finally something interesting piqued his attention. He sat up in his chair, eyebrow arching in surprise.

“Now here’s something,” he murmured. “According to this report, none of the blood samples taken from the victims displayed any presence of antibodies. Strange in its own right; your body’s always got antibodies ready to fight off foreign contaminants, extraterrestrial origins or no. Bodies are sort of handy that way.”

He flashed Yoda a cheeky grin, wriggling the fingers of his good fightin’ hand. “Get it? Handy?”

Bobble-head Yoda did not respond.

“You’re right,” said the Doctor with mock-sternness. “This is no time for puns. Though I’m personally of the opinion that most times are good times for puns.

“So despite the unusually high temperatures of the victims at the time of death, we’re not actually looking at a fever here, because a fever is just the body’s way of fighting back, but whatever we’re dealing with completely dismantles the body’s ability to defend itself,” the Doctor continued, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “Ergo, it’s probably not a virus or disease of any sort. What it is is something that shuts down the body’s defense mechanisms, spreads alarmingly quickly, and appears to be immune to the usual precautions and even extra precautions. However—and this is worth noting,” he offered to Yoda, as an aside, “it only seems to affect certain people. Rose, for instance, hasn’t begun to suffer any ill effects, and presumably there are dozens of others in the building who are uninfected as well. Is it only a matter of time for them, have they simply managed to avoid contamination somehow, or is there some important physiological difference between the healthy and the infected?”

Bobble-head Yoda was, as usual, silent and withholding.

“Fat lot of help you are,” said the Doctor cheerfully. “But at least now we know our next step: finding the similarities between our various victims. Shall we?”

Easier said than done; a scan of each victim’s personnel file revealed far more differences than similarities. There was Miranda, a not-quite-middle-aged dinner lady, followed closely by the second victim, a more-than-middle-aged nighttime caretaker, and a third victim, an office worker who took ill and died immediately after stepping foot in the building. Then you had the medical team, not one of them alike, and the mysterious second victim in Saito’s care, receiving treatment along with Jackie. Strangely, according to the report, the young man fell ill after being bundled into sickbay with several others, but he appeared to be the only one affected. So far, no one else in sickbay had begun to exhibit any symptoms whatsoever. At least he was still alive, even if his condition was a little dicey; the other victims had all died within moments. The Doctor tried not to think of what that meant for Jackie.

He scowled. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn’t find a single factor to connect the dots between Jackie and the other victims, not age, not gender, not ethnicity, not vocation nor location nor general health or anything else, save that they all worked in this building, and they were all (presumably) human. Factor in the unusual symptoms, the highly irregular behavior re: antibodies, the likelihood of non-Earth origin, the reanimation of the bodies after death, and the absence of other markers indicating an infection related to viruses, diseases, or bacteria, and you had—

—a Doctor who was still completely stumped, and a Jackie who was running out of time.

“Rubbish,” the Doctor announced. “The medical team just overlooked something, that’s all. Not that I can blame them; I’m certain they were rather busy getting infected and turned into zombies and such. But if you want something done right…”

He pushed back from the desk, offering a brisk nod to bobble-head Yoda. “So long, then. But a word of advice, one supercentenarian to another: 900 years is no excuse to let yourself go.”

Jogging to the office doors, the Doctor quietly pushed them open, sticking his head out into the darkened hallway and glancing both ways. Of course, with the active quarantine in place, the hall was deserted, free of any over-enthusiastic UNIT agent that may attempt to apprehend and re-quarantine him, though something about the faulty fluorescent lights flickering queasily overhead made the Doctor uneasy. He couldn’t shake the feeling of something crawling up his spine, even as he busied himself locating the UNIT floor directory, scanning it for the location of their laboratory.

A click at the end of the hall caused his head to whip round, his gaze sharpening, scanning the area for the source of the noise. But nothing unusual greeted his senses, just walls and ceiling tiles and potted plants and that never-ending flicker overhead. He took a few steps forward and gave a good long look at the door at the end of the hallway anyway, just to be safe.

Nothing. Just a nagging little buzz-hum rattling around the back of his head, probably the cheap overhead lighting. UNIT really should replace it all.

Shrugging, the Doctor turned back to the directory, only to jump back in shock.

Miranda stood there.

Rose tried very hard not to stare at the other patient behind the glass, averting her eyes as best she could while Saito wheeled in her mother into the observation room and arranged a more longterm setup. (“Technically a breach of protocol, bringing a patient in here for treatment,” Saito had explained moments before, “but this is the easiest way to keep an eye on everyone. That’s what comes of being the only physician on the graveyard shift, I suppose. Desperate times, desperate measures, and all that.”). But Rose’s curiosity got the better of her, and there she found herself. Staring.

The patient lay in the other room all alone, prone atop a hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling through glassy dark eyes; his skin had faded to a papery nigh-translucent white, and his fingernails and lips and eyes were stained utterly black, as if painted with ink. Between the oxygen mask strapped to his face and the tubes plugged in seemingly willy-nilly all over his body, the poor young man looked like a machine more than anything, like a cyborg or maybe Darth Vader peeled halfway out of his protective black shell. He was totally still, save for the stilted breaths that entered and left his body with a watery wheeze; Rose couldn’t help but think he already looked like a corpse. Rose kept glancing through the window at him as she shed her trusty leather jacket and Saito seated her and prepared her for the transfusion. She watched him while Saito prodded at her arm for veins and swabbed the inside of her elbow with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. Even the bite of the needle in Rose’s skin wasn’t enough to tear her attention away.

White skin, watery wheeze, black-stained fingernails and lips and eyes; that poor fellow was knocking on Death’s door, and Death was about to answer.

“So, Agent Tyler,” said Saito, monitoring the transfusion tube as it pumped blood straight from Rose’s arm into her mother’s. “It’s been a while since you last visited medbay. How’ve you been—”

“You don’t need to do that,” Rose interrupted.

Saito shot a glance over her spectacles. “Do what?”

“Distract me, keep my mind off all this. I know it’s part of the routine, but you don’t need to worry about it with me.”

“Agent Tyler—”

“Not Agent. It’s just Rose, now.”

Saito hmphed. “Welp, that answers the question of how you’ve been doing, at least.”

“Yeah,” said Rose flatly. “Been a lot better.”

“Been a lot worse, too. I was actually just getting ready to commend you for going a whole three months without needing stitches or a cast.”

“That you know of,” replied Rose with a faint smile.

She quieted, looking over Jackie’s limp body, at the blank expressionlessness of her face, deceptively peaceful beneath the oxygen mask. “S’weird,” said Rose. “Usually I’m the one on the bed, and Mum’s the one fretting over me. Never knew how hard it was to be on this side of things.”

“Not a role reversal you particularly care for, hm?”

Sighing, Rose reached out with her free hand to push a stray hair out of Jackie’s face. “This is why I told her not to come after me,” she said quietly. “I knew something like this would happen. She’s supposed to be safe, at home, away from all this stuff.”

Her mouth twisted in unhappiness. “Why didn’t she just stay put, like I told her to? I told her.”

“Yes, because the Tyler women are notorious for following orders without question,” Saito replied drily.

The urge to fling a lob of sarcasm swelled like bile in her throat but Rose did not reply, focusing on her mum instead. For several moments all that could be heard in the room was the pulsing of the heartrate monitors. Rose imagined she could hear accusations hidden in their tones, a rising chorus of Your-fault Your-fault Your-fault echoing off the sterile white walls.

Something seemed to soften in Saito’s features as she watched her. “Chin up, Rose,” she said, her voice much gentler than usual. “How many times have you pulled something out of a nosedive at the last second? Besides, your Doctor bloke’s here, isn’t he? And didn’t you tell me a hundred times what a miracle-worker he is? Even if his methods are highly questionable,” she added, rolling her eyes. “But if anyone can help your mum, it’s the two of you. Right?”

Rose hesitated. I think like him, he’d said. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything, he’d told her. Part of her wanted to believe him; it would be so easy to surrender to everything her gut was screaming to be the truth, to believe he could fix everything, just like before.

(That was one hell of a bet to hedge her mother’s life on. Then again, what other option did she have?)

Rose swallowed hard. “Yeah,” she replied quietly.

“What are you?” the Doctor asked.

Peering out from behind a ragged curtain of matted, oil-slicked hair, Miranda did not reply, or rather, her body did not; it watched the Doctor in silence, blinking just a fraction of a second too slowly, dark lids sliding over dull black eyes. Ichor dripped out of its mouth, trailing a path down, down, down its chin and throat and chest, staining Miranda’s work uniform and filling the air with the cloying stench of damp and rotted things. Its veins were far more pronounced, now, a horror-movie spiderweb of pitch-black lines inked into its face and the tissue-thin paper of its sternum. Its hands hung dull and heavy at its sides, darkness pooling in its fingertips.

Anger flared up in the Doctor’s chest, so burning-violent that his hands balled into fists and shook with the force of it. He fought to tamp it all down. He didn’t have time for that sort of nonsense. More importantly, Jackie didn’t have time. And besides, this wasn’t about him; this was about helping those infected, preventing the infection of anyone else. He could punish himself for his oversights and shortcomings later.

He could punish this thing later.

“The other bodies seemed to understand me. Do you?” he asked, louder this time. “What are you? And what are you doing here? And why?”

“You know who this body is,” Miranda’s body responded, its words slow and thick, its tongue weighing heavy in its mouth.

“I know who it was. Not so sure, now.”

Miranda’s body tilted its head, almost thoughtfully. “The Miranda. This is the Miranda.”

“Except that’s not true, is it? Not anymore.” When Miranda’s body fell silent again, the Doctor heaved a sigh in impatience. “Oh, come on, you know what I’m asking. No need to play coy, we’re all friends here. Well, not friends so much as some sort of invasive contaminant and the person most voted most likely to try and kill it dead, but, you know. Potato, tomato.”

“We need your help.”

“Oh, do we now?” asked the Doctor, eyebrow piqued. “My help, specifically?”

“Yes.”

“Well, isn’t that something,” the Doctor murmured, studying what used-to-be-Miranda’s face, like maybe something in its ichor-darkened features would give its intentions away. “Curiouser and curiouser. Do you even know who I am?”

“Traveler,” Miranda’s body hissed. “Magic-maker. Time-bender. Death-bringer.”

“That last one’s a little melodramatic,” muttered the Doctor. “How do you know all of this?”

Miranda’s body shook its head. “Not important. We need help.”

“Well, why don’t you tell me what we are, and I’ll see what I can do.”

“Help us,” it hissed.

“Tell me what you are,” insisted the Doctor.

“Help us.”

“Tell me what you are.”

“Help first.”

“Nope!” said the Doctor cheerfully, and good grief, wouldn’t that horrible buzzing noise overhead ever cease? “You want my help, you answer my questions. That’s how it goes. No other way, no other choice. So one last time before I start to get testy: what are you?”

“Not what,” gritted out Miranda’s body. “Who.”

“Fine. Who are you?”

“We are us. Ourselves. Legion. No name. Can’t tell anything more. Not before help.”

“Oh, but you’ve already told me so much, just now,” said the Doctor, rocking back on his heels. “See, your use of we indicates the plural, moreover the persistent use of we in lieu of any other pronoun indicates a lack of sense of individual self, and that, coupled with your insistence that you’re a who, not a what, yet you’ve got no name—well, that sounds an awful lot like a hive mind, doesn’t it? And it’s clear you’re not local, not unless this Earth has got some very funny little quirks the other one hasn’t; an extraterrestrial hive mind, then. Oh, but what need has an extraterrestrial hive mind got for human bodies, hm? Human bodies, but not human brains. Make that a parasitic extraterrestrial hive mind. A parasitic extraterrestrial hive mind that, somehow and for some reason, has the capability to possess humans—”

The lights flickered again overhead and the Doctor snapped his fingers in revelation. “Ah, not somehow—telepathy, that’s how!” he said excitedly, pointing to the lights above him. “That pesky flickering, that’s you lot, isn’t it? Interference with the electronics due to a low-level telepathic field. Explains that horrible intermittent buzzing sound, too—actually, anytime you’d like to knock that off would be fine by me, still got that post-regeneration extra-sensitivity and it feels a bit weird in the teeth. Although to be fair, the new teeth always feel a bit weird, so maybe that one’s on me.

“And that explains why you’d know certain things, doesn’t it? Like my identity, all that—your telepathy has granted you access to your victims’ memories. You probably know everything about me that Jackie does. And oh!” he shouted as realizations struck him, one after the other. “Oh, that explains why the protective suits don’t make a difference, as well! Telepathic possession isn’t like an infection or a virus or bacteria or disease, it’s not strictly physical, it doesn’t care if you’ve got antibodies or a protective suit. So you possess your victims, override their consciousness with yours via telepathy, and you mutate their bodies after, killing them in the process. That makes you a telepathic, infectious, fast-spreading, parasitic, zombie-generating extraterrestrial hive mind, with a nasty little side serving of murder.”

He glanced up at the Miranda-thing with a sharp grin, feeling very proud of himself. Certainly Rose couldn’t help but be impressed, if she saw him right now.

“How am I doing, so far?” he asked.

The corpse did not reply.

“So that brings us to the million-dollar question, which is: Why are you doing all of this?” the Doctor asked thoughtfully. “Why are you infecting humans, why are you killing them? Why are you changing their bodies on the molecular level? And why have you only targeted some of them, as opposed to others? Not that I’m complaining—broadly speaking, the fewer people you murder, the better—but why choose one human over another? Or have you even got a choice, or is it something else altogether? Just, why?”

“Wasting time,” rasped Miranda’s body.

“Whose time?”

“Yours,” it replied, its voice a snake slithering through the leaves. “Hers.”

“Now that sounds an awful lot like a threat,” replied the Doctor. He chuckled darkly. “Something you should know about me: I don’t take well to threats.”

“Not a threat. A promise,” hissed the corpse. “Help us, or she dies.”

As soon as the transfusion was complete, the needle removed and the tube with it and everything swabbed and bandaged and clean, Rose grabbed her jacket and slipped it back on, wrapping it snugly round her frame. Warmth suffused her bones and she sighed in relief; she felt much better with the jacket on, shielding her like a protective shell. Not to mention, giving all that blood had made her terribly cold. And a little sleepy too. Or maybe that was just the overall lack of sleep.

“You feeling all right?” asked Saito, concerned. “You look a little pale.”

“M’fine,” Rose lied.

“If you’re feeling faint or anything, you should let me know.”

Rose pulled her jacket tighter. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about my mum.”

“Agent Tyler—I mean, Rose—”

“What should we be doing for her?” Rose asked.

Saito huffed impatiently behind her surgeon’s mask. “I will continue monitoring her and running tests. You don’t need to be doing anything right now, except having a bite to eat. And maybe a lie-down.”

“I don’t want—”

“Too bad. You gave blood; you need a snack. Doctor’s orders. Two doctors’ orders.”

Rose hmphed. “Fine,” she said, grudgingly reaching for her sandwich. “I’ll eat, and then you’ll tell me how I can help.”

“Eh, truth be told, there’s not much you can do, unless we hear something different from your bloke.”

“He’s not my bloke,” said Rose as she peeled back the clingfilm.

She could tell Saito was struggling not to roll her eyes. “Well, until Not-Your-Bloke gets back, help me keep an eye on your mum, and keep her company,” she replied, peeling off her gloves. “That’s basically all you can do.”

Saito started to stand up, but hesitated. “A word of advice, if I might?”

Rose nodded at her to proceed.

“I’d like to think we have a good shot at saving your mother,” Saito told her. “I’ll do absolutely everything I can to help her. Knowing your family, she may survive out of sheer stubbornness, much as anything. But in my experience, it’s generally wise to hope for the best, whilst preparing for the worst.”

Rose’s hands trembled around the sandwich, clenching squeakily in the clingfilm. She forced them still. “Are you saying I should start planning her funeral?”

“No. But if there’s anything you want to tell her, now would be the time. Doesn’t matter if she’s unconscious. Better to say something now than risk leaving it unsaid.” Pushing up from the stool, Saito laid a gentle hand on Rose’s shoulder. “Take it from someone who knows firsthand, Rose. Regret is a terrible thing.”

Swallowing, Rose nodded again. Saito gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before she left the room, and now it was just Rose and her mother, and an atmosphere thick with uncertainty. Rose watched her mother as she slept, her eyes motionless beneath her eyelids, her mouth parted beneath the oxygen mask, her hands cold and still. She looked nowhere near as bad as the patient in the room beyond, but she was awfully pale, and the blackness in her fingernails had spread. Already, she looked like a ghost.

Your-fault, your-fault, your-fault chimed the heartrate monitors.

Rose clenched her eyes tight against the fear and guilt that threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn’t do that right now. She couldn’t give in. She had to be strong, for her mum. She had to help her fight. She had to help her win.

“Right,” she said, breathing out a shaky exhale. Rose set the sandwich down on the empty stool, scooting closer to her mother. She reached out and grabbed her mum’s hand, flinching when her mother did not respond. Worrying the inside of her cheek, Rose cast about for something to say. Anything. Anything at all.

(But her treacherous mind couldn’t conjure up any words, could only show her the last time she’d held the hand of a body on a cot, and the Doctor’s fingers were stiff and icy between hers, and it didn’t matter how stubborn he was, he was still—)

Rose tightened her grip around Jackie’s hand. She wouldn’t let that happen to her mother. The fact that Rose hadn’t got there in time to save the Doctor was irrelevant. She wouldn’t let her mother die. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.

She gathered her breath and her courage. “So,” Rose said, her voice trembling. “Mum. What do you want to talk about?”

“Killing one of my friends is an excellent way to ensure you’ll never get my help in any capacity whatsoever,” said the Doctor with a brightness that belied the anger in his eyes. “Now, do you want to try another approach, or shall I levy some threats of my own?”

Miranda’s body blinked lazily, its lips falling open and closed, as if it were considering. “Help us and we will surrender your friend.”

“And she’ll be healthy? No more fluid in the lungs, no more burning up, no more risk of turning into whatever-the-hell-you-are?”

The corpse shook its head. “She will be restored.”

“Excellent!” said the Doctor, clapping his hands. “That’s a little more like it. Now, what can I do for you?”

“Home,” breathed Miranda’s body. “Help us go home.”

“All right. Where are you from?”

“Far away. Very far away.”

“Well, that’s helpful,” the Doctor said mildly. “You got yourselves here, why can’t you get yourselves back?”

“Can’t. Not without help.”

“Why not? What, did you run out of pocket change for the intergalactic Underground?”

“We fell,” said Miranda’s body, and if the Doctor didn’t know any better, he’d think its tone mournful. “There were holes in the world. In the earth and sky. The nothing came, and it ate all the stars.”

“That sounds an awful lot like the Reality Bomb,” the Doctor murmured.

“We saw it everywhere. Stars, gone. Worlds, gone. All of them, lost to the nothing. We fled, to outrun the hunger. To outrun its maw.”

The corpse’s tongue slithered out, running over its teeth, exploring the crannies and jagged edges of them as if, perhaps, considering them for the first time. Black fluid smeared around its mouth and the Doctor grimaced in disgust.

“It swallowed everything,” Miranda’s body whispered. “Nowhere left for us to go. We took refuge in the howling black. We thought we were safe in the dark. But the dark…”

Miranda’s body shuddered. “It eats, too.”

“So you fled to the Void?” asked the Doctor, half-impressed. “How’d you manage to survive that?”

The body twitched, a convulsion borne of memory and fear. “Didn’t,” it rasped.

“Then how are you here?”

“Heard the song of the Vortex, sung by the magic box. Followed it.”

“Magic box,” the Doctor hummed. “I can only imagine you mean the TARDIS. So you did a bit of extradimensional hitchhiking, then.”

Miranda’s body nodded. “We clung to the box and followed our hope. Searching for safety. But it was too late. Just shadows, now. Desperate to live.”

“And the only way you could survive is by inhabiting the bodies of others,” said the Doctor, suddenly understanding.

“Yes,” whispered Miranda’s body. “An unfortunate necessity. Sins committed so we may survive. But we smelled it, now, the return of the stars overhead. The nothing is gone. So now, we can go home.”

It stepped forward, pleading. “We will claim no one else, if you take us home.”

A small eternity had passed by, and still, Rose couldn’t think of anything to say. She squeezed her mother’s hand, wishing desperately that Jackie would squeeze back in response.

“I guess I should probably call Pete, yeah?” Rose said quietly, staring at the floor. “So he can come and talk to you too, so that he can—you know. Just in case—”

Her breath hitched in her throat. “Should he bring Tony, too?” she asked, forcing the words out even though they hurt. “I mean—no, he can’t. Neither of them can come, can they? Not with the contagion. Can’t risk them getting sick too, can we?”

Sighing, Rose leaned forward, propping herself up with her elbows on her knees. God, she was tired. Even just thinking was as exhausting as climbing a mountain.

“Video chat could work, though,” she continued. “That way, we can make sure they both get to see you before—you know, if anything—like Saito said, about the worst—just—”

Rose sniffed loudly in the empty room, but Jackie’s eyelids did not flutter, her mouth did not move. Her hand did not squeeze back.

“Just wake up, Mum,” said Rose, and her cheeks felt suspiciously wet all of a sudden; surprised, she reached up to thumb away first one tear, then another, and another and one more. Her vision grew blurry and the pressure in her sinuses grew unbearable and before she knew it, the dam had split and tears were trailing down her cheeks, one after the other, growing fat at the curve of her jaw and dropping onto her jacket with a plasticky splat. Rose bit her lip to hold back the tears, but it was a halfhearted gesture because as horrible as it was to cry, as much as it made her feel like a small and stupid child, god, it was just such a relief.

“Wake up, please,” she said again, sniffling, and tried not to think about what life would be like without her mother in it.

(Would it have felt the same, if she’d successfully stayed in the other universe, and all the paths had sealed shut behind her? Would the realization of Jackie’s loss have struck her like it did now, pounding at her chest until she curled in on herself, until she withered under the weight of it all as the truth fully struck her that she would never ever see her mother again?

Lips pursed shut, Rose inwardly shook herself. No. This was nothing like that. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t.)

“I’m so sorry, Mum,” Rose said thickly through her tears. “I didn’t want to leave you behind. I never wanted to hurt you. Never, ever. But I wanted to get back so badly, and I thought—I don’t know, I thought if I could just get back to the other universe, everything would work out all right in the end, somehow. You know? Like it would fill this hole inside me, the one that’s been growing ever since we first came over here. I wouldn’t feel empty anymore. I wouldn’t feel broken anymore.”

Pain welled up in her at the thought of those first few months after Canary Wharf, fresh and bleating as the day it happened, so much worse than the throbbing in her damaged fingers, all of it so loud she could barely think past it. But Rose forced herself to continue. “It all just hurt so much, Mum,” Rose said, pleadingly. “Getting stranded here without the Doctor or the TARDIS—s’like, I’d had a purpose before, yeah? When I was with the Doctor, we’d travel all over, righting wrongs, fixing things. Helping people. But I didn’t feel like I could do that properly here. I didn’t—”

She sniffled, loudly. “I didn’t feel like I could do it on my own. It was like someone had broken both my legs, and I couldn’t walk anymore. But working on the Cannon, working on getting back—not just to get to the Doctor, but to stop the stars from going out overhead, to help people again—it gave me something, Mum. I had meaning again, I didn’t feel so empty anymore. And then I worked so hard, for so long, that it was like everything about me, everything that makes me me, hinged on me succeeding, in getting back to him. Does that make sense?”

Rose swallowed. “I thought everything would turn out all right in the end, somehow. So I just tried not to think about it, yeah? How much I’d be giving up, to be with him again. You know?”

Silence was the reply.

“I should have told you all that upfront,” Rose murmured. “But I was just—I dunno. After Canary Wharf, after Will, after Plymouth—”

Memories of burnt ozone and a room full of screams sliced through her vision and Rose clenched her eyes to close them out. Her lips clamped shut, the words burning her like scalding-hot coffee in her mouth, even now.

“After all that, and everything else,” Rose tried again, her voice shaky, “I didn’t want to let anyone in. I thought it would be easier that way, if anything bad did happen. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, right? But the worst is here, Mum, and it’s not like anything I planned for. Nothing I did made any difference, and now everything’s gone wrong and you’re sick and I don’t know what to do and I’m not ready for any of it, I’m just not ready, I’m not—”

Her face crumpling so hard it hurt, Rose lapsed forward onto the hospital bed, surrendering to the gravity of her exhaustion and sorrow. Clenching Jackie’s hand tight, she sobbed into the mattress. “Please don’t go, Mum,” Rose half-wept, half-choked. Great heaving sobs wracked her shoulders and she cried even harder, gasping for air. “You can’t leave me. You can’t. Please, Mum. Please.”

Jackie did not respond.

Rose wept, and wept, and wept.

Scratching the back of his neck uncomfortably, the Doctor paused to consider. Even amidst his anger and disgust, he felt a small swell of sympathy for the creatures. They’d done what they felt they must in order to survive. They’d clawed their way past impossibility, banding together in the face of certain death. Theirs were actions borne of complete and utter instinct, the desire to live overriding everything else, leaving only fear and desperation behind.

That didn’t change anything, though. Didn’t reopen the holes between universes; didn’t grant them a way to slip back through.

It didn’t change the fact that they were killers.

“Please, take us home,” said the corpse, reaching a ghostly hand toward the Doctor, palm up. Its veins were black and stark beneath moonlit flesh. A request writ in ink. A plea birthed in blood. “Please,” it rasped again. “Help us.”

**********

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

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comorbidchaos-blog · 5 years

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A lil help if you've got it

Hey all, my friend and I have been struggling recently and could use some support. We're both survivors of childhood prostitution(me through my church), along with abuse and neglect from family. Currently both suffering from chronic pain that low-income doctors refuse to treat along with a fun mixture of mental illness due to our environments growing up. Were previously working but the pain increase made it impossible to continue. So yeah, life's been a struggle for us for a while, but we've been fighting to keep surviving and make things work by donating plasma and hustling where we can.

Last month we lost our housing and were unable to find a new place in time, forcing us to spend $50 a night on hotels, sometimes up to $80, sometimes sleeping on the streets. Recently even being harassed and threatened with arrest by police for "camping" even though we were just napping on a blanket during public park hours.

We've been very lucky and moved into a place this past Sunday for only $100 a week. However we're completely out of savings and are reliant on plasma donation to pay rent. Plasma donation is dependant on your health, so if you have a high heart rate from anxiety, high blood pressure from a bad pain day, or if anything goes wrong during the donation process you can be deferred from donation anywhere from 1 day to 3 months(which was my last deferral, the machine malfunctioned and I was unable to have my blood returned).

The good news is that at the end of this month (as he's now in school), he will be receiving financial aid and we will be more stable. Plus now that we have an address I can finish my application with vocational rehab which helps disabled people find work, which I'm am very much looking forward to doing again, so we just need to get through this month.

We're seeking either donations or even a small loan to help us through that we can pay back with a bit of interest, we only need to raise $100 to keep us going. He also does art and is happy to take commissions HERE. My CashApp is $Donji69, please leave a note if you would like to be paid back!

Thanks so very much to anyone that can help or even just pass this post along! 💜

#signal boost #mutual aid #mutualaid

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lurafita · 5 years

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hello! i love kitten peter! i was wondering if you could do where kitten peter meets the avengers and he doesn't like steve very much!!!!

Why is only the question displayed and not the answer I wrote to it? Is this a glitch? Wait, I will reupload this.

Yeah, no, it works in my tumblr app, but is somehow not displayed on the website? Okay, wait, this is gonna take a sec.

So, this is what I usually do when I start on a new fic/plot/idea/anything. Make little cliff-notes/a kind of blueprint with all the things that come to mind about what I could write in. It’s usually pretty convoluted and confusing and disorderly, as you can see. It probably makes no sense whatsoever.

But I thought I could share this with you, because I’m curious to know if anyone else does something like this, or if it’s just me. :-)

Also, please excuse the chicken scratch. I wrote this while I donated blood plasma. It’s kind of an awkward pose one is in, half lying, half sitting in one of those reclining chairs, while there is a needle in one of your arms.

hello! i love kitten peter! i was wondering if you could do where kitten peter meets the avengers and he doesn’t like steve very much!!!!

Working on it! 😉

My usual m.o. is to write a kind of blueprint/little cliff notes to myself about everything that comes to mind when thinking about a story or other project. It’s usually very convoluted and lacking any kind of order. Also, not every little thought I wrote down will make it into the end product. But it helps me write later on if I do this.

As you can see, I did this while donating blood plasm, which is why I wrote in such chicken scratch. It’s kind of an awkward pose when you are half sitting half lying in one of those recliner chairs. I hope it’s still readable though.

Anyone want to share their method for writing a fic? Or preparing for a sketch or something?

#Peter Parker #peter as a kitten #kitten!peter #peter is a kitten #kitty therapy #Tony stark #possible fic?#fic prompt #ask #how I prepare #Avengers

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bleedingcoffee42 · 6 years

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Eureka AU- Part 10

20k words was a gross underestimation. Maybe this ‘pilot episode’ will be wrapped up in 30k-40k but fuck me for already thinking about making more episodes in this AU and making it a series. Cause I have that time. But the ‘working together as well as married Royai AU’ element is not getting used enough in this fic and that would be a shame to not work with that more.

Click the Eureka AU tag to see prev parts of this serial flash fic.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

While Mustang and Edward where taking what they needed from Comanche's lab, Marcoh went over to have a conversation with Alphonse about the concerns he had with the chelation process. He had caught a few glances from Dr. Knox that said 'You better bring this up before I do' and he appreciated the good doctor allowing him to have the floor to discuss the matter. He was a little apprehensive about disturbing Al as he was controlling the nanites within Hawkeye manually. “Can we talk without it disrupting what you're doing?

“This?” Al said cheerily. “Oh this is actually easy for me. Ever since that little accident a few months ago where I had to transfer my consciousness to the bots to become a suit of armor because my body was in another dimension, I really fell like they're a part of me. Controlling them is second nature at this point.”

Marcoh had just assumed the kid was really into cosplay or prepping for a renaissance festival during that week he was walking around like a knight. There was a lot that happened in these halls that nobody really wanted to question. “If you can make them anything you want, why did you pick that?”

“Well, our Dad used to collect vintage armor when we were kids and had them lining the walls of his study. That's where Ed and I taught ourselves science. That's also where Mom would bring us cookies and tell us how proud she was of us and since we were trying to bring her back I was thinking of those days. She always smiled the most when we were in there. That's how I remembered her. So when I was being deconstructed and I quickly transferred myself to the nanites, I was already thinking about that time and place. It was the first thing I thought of.” Al smiled and then got more serious. “Plus I had to be taller than my brother and that was the biggest human size specimen I had ever seen.”

“If these nanites are a part of you.” Knox finally interjected himself into the conversation. He was blunt and that was what was needed or Marcoh was going to bring out the tea and cookies and start chatting about something else. “What's going to happen when we neutralize them with the chelation process?”

“They're not fragile, they'll just go offline until I can set them in repair mode once they are back in their tank. The chealors will bind to specific metals they are constructed of and disassemble them, they'll be partially broken down but nothing they can't fix themselves. If anything they'll come out of this stronger and with more experience than before.” Al said confidently. “So Dr. Knox, please place a catheter and collection bag if you have not already.”

“Not without Mustang's approval.” Knox said and sat down next to his patient. “First why don't you start by explain to me how you're going to avoid causing renal failure?”

“We're using a biological so that it will take time and collect the metals and deposit them in the kidneys so they can be processed like any other waste.” Al said. “I could program the nanites to do this themselves on a metered basis, but I would have something far more complex than the kidney's are prepared to hand. That's why we're going with chelation because it will transfer control of the process back to a biological competent instead of a mechanical. Nature can work in ways that mental I can't anticipate. “

“The chelators will bind to and break down the metals in the nanites themselves.” Marcoh reiterated.

“I get all that.” Knox said dryly. “What about the virus? The chelation process is going to destroy the carrier for the virus that we're counting on carrying it out of her system. Removing it from the blood stream is only a first step, depositing an active virus in the excretory system is worse.”

“My nanites have mapped the strain we're dealing with. We need an anti-viral to target them.” Al replied.

“There we go.” Knox opened his hands as they came back around to the missed step.

“Oh, yeah.” Al said and bit his lip. “I guess we didn't talk about that. I just assumed Dr. Marcoh was waiting on me to get him the profile of what we're dealing with so he could make something.”

“I was.” Marcoh shrugged. He had just assumed this was the route and he watched Knox mumble about 'fucking researcher' and 'I don't read minds'. “I'm sorry Doctor. We're used to working on our own and even in collaborations we leave each other to work on our respected specialties. I don't think any of us would work with someone without knowing something about what that person could bring to the collaboration and respecting their ability to contribute to the process.”

“Right.” Knox nodded. “I'll sit over here and commiserate with my patient who has to deal with the repercussions of that way of thinking in her job and life every damned day.”

“I guess...” Al thought about it. Knox was just an ordinary doctor, even if he was exemplary. He treated patients using the tests and technology they produced but he was an end game user. “We should be better about explaining things but it's just not how we operate.”

“We honestly wouldn't work well together if we told each other what to do. It usually devolves into a lot of yelling and not much progress.” Marcoh mumbled. “No offense, doctor.”

“None taken.” Knox said. “Just looking out for my patient.”

“I'll get to work.” Marcoh said. “I'll go to my lab. Call me if you need anything.”

As Marcoh left, Ed and Roy returned. Roy saw Marcoh was engrossed in his tablet and on a mission so he asked Al, “Is he off to make the anti-viral?”

“Yes.” Al said sheepishly and Knox mumbled so more. “Can I get your permission to have a collection bag placed?”

“I thought you would have done it already.” Roy replied and Knox threw his hands up, cursed a little and got up to leave. He wasn't sure why he was upset but was pretty sure it had to do with being around scientist who liked to assume a lot of things and did not waste time explaining anything unless they wanted money or supplies. “Did you check to see if there was any blood in the blood bank from Riza? I know she donated a lot and we have at least one bag in storage from her annual physical which is required.”

“Nothing fresh.” Knox said. “It's been a busy few months around here and you can understand why she only donates when there is downtime.”

“I do understand that completely.” Roy nodded. 42 days was still the standard for keeping fresh blood refrigerated. They hadn't pushed those limits yet.

“We should have something frozen but I didn't want to pull that out in case we needed it.” Knox replied. “We have plenty fresh in her blood type.”

“Our storage facility is state of the art.” Roy assured him. “Dr. McDougal's advancements in freezing technology mean we can store frozen plasma way long that the conventional year. In case you have your concerns.”

“Yeah, so I'm told.” Knox replied. “Thankfully I haven't had an occasion to need it since I've worked here. One nice thing about dealing with scientists instead of soldiers.”

Al frowned and the doctor got up to leave and collect his necessary supplies. Mustang looked over at him for an explanation and he quietly said, “I guess the whole anti-viral step wasn't obvious to everyone.”

“It was obvious, you doing something about it was not.” Knox snapped right before he left and tried to slam the door.

“Sorry.” Al called out after him.

“We're all a little stressed.” Roy admitted. Then he went back over to Riza and sat down. He rubbed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. “Once Marcoh makes the anti-viral we'll proceed with the chelation. We'll have to give the anti-viral time to work, but if he's making it it should be extremely efficient. He already knows the Xerxes virus since he made it, it's familiar territory and the hold up will just be the equipment producing what he needs. Time will also give Riza a chance to take her body back from all this and once Knox gets back I think plasma will help. Al, how are you doing?”

“I can keep this up all night.” He assured him.

Roy reached over and took Riza's hand again, weaving his fingers between hers and gently squeezing. “Ed, now that we have a profile of this pathogen we're dealing with, see if you can't do some digging and find out who made it.”

“I should be able to narrow it down by finding out who got an extra dose of Marcoh's Xerxes Vaccine.” Ed said and slid his laptop over. “We are pretty good at monitoring who we distribute our products to, even if the government isn't. Did you want to give me your access to....”

“No.” Roy said and flashed a smile at him. Give Edward Elric his password to gain complete access to everything this facility had on it's servers? Ha! “I'll send you the invoices. “

“We could just ask Dr. Marcoh.” Al said. “He'll know how many he made.”

“I think the good doctor feels bad enough about how this all turned out, let's not compounded it unless we have to.” Roy said and took his phone out and opened up the app he used to keep track of billing. He did a quick search and found the invoice in question and forwarded it to Ed. “Knox pulled the records from her unit, did he leave those notes here?”

“Yeah, it's in the file.” Ed gave an embarrassed grin. “'Cause someone likes to share information, unlike us.”

“Occupational hazard.” Roy said. “He's over it, he just wants to make sure it doesn't keep happening. We have to make sure we include him even though I know you all think he's just a doctor.”

Al sighed. The superiority complexes and egos did get out of hand here where almost everyone could brag on multiple doctorates, and too often did. Mustang and Ed were no exception and Al thought he was above that but he had been the one to offend Knox. “It's not like a medical doctor is a lesser field of study or occupation. We do respect him a lot.”

Roy knew that Knox was on edge, not just because of his patient, but because his own history as an army doctor had put him in the position to do some ethically questionable things while under orders. This, the way they were approaching Riza's treatment, felt more like experimenting on a patient than saving her. Roy knew that Knox would never say anything, he knew that wasn't the case, but he could see it in the Doctor's eyes when they bounced from solution to solution. He understood for sure that there was no time to test, just react, but it didn't mean it felt right to him. Both Knox and Riza were the same in that respect, they trusted instinct because their job was rooted in practice. Roy and the other scientist saw practice as a sign of complacency, if something was already established it was meant to be reconstructed in some way to make it better. There was no settling for how things were, it was always a process of moving forward especially because the results were uncertain. Science was about knowledge and pursing a greater truth, bending the rules of nature and shattering the standard practices because they had been established by scientists before them who failed to push boundaries any further than that. Roy squeezed Riza's hand again, it drove her crazy that he would rush into the unknown with a grin on his face when she wanted to default to reconnaissance and defense until it was safe to proceed.

“The order for the Xerxes vaccination was originally for a dozen doses.” Ed reported. “However Marcoh demanded blood samples from the Army so he could test the vaccine while also regulating how much he was sending out. So each vaccine he made was labeled for a specific person to avoid a surplus. Comparing to the records Knox got from his Medical Corps contacts, there is an extra dose intended for a Private Mobuta Mobuo who was not in that unit.”

“Did you say Mobuta Mobuo?” Knox asked as he returned with supplies.

“Do you know him?” Ed asked.

“Yeah, I made him up.” Knox said and shook his head and walked over to his table to set his box down. He turned to see three surprised scientist and wished he could be satisfied with being the one to cause that reaction, but his own heart was pounding as a name from his past came back to haunt him.

“I got the idea from an episode of M*A*S*H where they made up an officer in order to give his pay to an orphanage. I created a fictional soldier who 'used' up a lot of supplies during my attempts to save him from injuries, which I instead sent to a pair of doctors who were treating patients from both sides in the war. I had to 'kill' him in action in order to avoid having him promoted and given a medal of honor for as many times as I reported him being my 'patient'.”

“Dr. Knox, “ Al said with a hush whisper of awe. “That's amazing.”

“Yeah, well someone brought him back from the dead and that's not a coincidence.” Knox tried not to loose his cool but he was worried. Not about himself, but because this was a sign someone was trying to eliminate a lot of loose ends.

“Don't worry Knox, apparently that happens a lot around here.” Roy said and leaned back in his chair. So this was as well orchestrated move on raven's part. Knox would have done the autopsy if they didn't step in and save Riza from certain death. Knox would be thorough, use all the resources available to him, and would eventually find traces of the Xerxes virus. Then it would all play out like a scripted murder mystery: Eyes would turn to Marcoh for creating it, Roy would defend him and pull the invoice and they would be at this stage right now, asking who the hell Mobuta Mobuo was and why he wasn't real. Blame would shift to Knox who created the fake personnel file and by the end of the day he would be in handcuffs heading to a military camp to await trail.

“I got those doctors killed.” Knox said and the three of them once again looked at him shocked. He leaned on his patient's bed to support himself as the guilt of actions long ago ripped his heart out. “The Rockbells. They were good people. They volunteered their services to a humanitarian medical organization that treated patients no matter who they were. The army saw them as problem, putting enemy soldiers back on the front and replenishing numbers, so they would confiscate their supplies as contraband and try to dry up their resources. They were heroes, real doctors without allegiance to anyone but patients, and when they were killed....I suspected it a bit too convenient of an ambush to be coincidence.”

Ed watched the doctor slump over further, weighted down by the guilt. “That was not your fault!”

“I helped provide a trail of stolen supplies to their camp.” Knox said. “I gave them a reason to write off a murder as a 'tactical move'.”

“No.” Roy said with a flat monotone that said there was absolutely no doubt in what he was saying. “Raven bought himself a promotion in blood from that campaign. His corruption runs deep and now he's trying to erase the evidence. You and Hawkeye are both loved and respected soldiers, exiling both of you here was the only way he could ensure nobody asked questions about your disappearance from the ranks. Being off the radar for so long, you've both lost contact with your original units and life has moved on.”

“Yeah, I don't have to have the obvious explained to me now, Mustang.” Knox looked up at him. “These eyes have seen a lot and I know a set up when I see it. I also know I wasn't going to be seeing a trial.”

“We can't let him get away with any of this Mustang!” Ed said and slammed his fist into the table. “This son of a bitch is losing sleep tonight because he's excited he's going to get this gift wrapped and delivered to him like a present tomorrow.”

“He's underestimated us.” Roy said and looked at Riza. “So let's get back to work saving our Sheriff so she can have the pleasure of arresting him tomorrow.”

#fic #royai #eureka au

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