Visiting hours

[Emily Littleton] It has gotten colder. That much may be hard for Nico to tell, confined as he is to the hospital grounds, but the temperature has steadily dropped toward winter while he wiled away his hours here. In the first week, Owen's once-Apprentice had brought things by for the both of them. Clothes for the Singer, a couple books from the broad shelves at Owen's flat. Then her presence dwindled, and then it slipped away all but entirely.

He's no longer living in ICU, which is a blessing to everyone. It shows a marked improvement. Honestly, Emily was surprised by this news even knowing, as she did, that Israel had offered her blessings and sped things along. Today, when Emily masters her own feelings about hospitals enough to mount another assault on the establishment and its horrifically tight reign over information and Nico's whereabouts, she is wise enough to come during visiting hours.

She has a box balanced in her hands, wrapped in crisp white paper and tied with a blue and green dyed ribbon. It's not large, but it's big enough to carry a few things from the outside world.

The Singer is wearing low heels that click on the hard hallways, and dark slacks. She's wearing a long coat, and a pale pink scarf and a sweater that's cream colored (a bold choices for a place with this much sickness and bodily effluvia). She knocks, just twice, on the door to his room enough though it stands somewhat ajar at this hour. Emily waits at the threshold, her shoulder, the curl of her hair and the lines of half her face clearly visible even though she has not rightly entered.

[Nico Brady] It's worth mentioning that the physicians at Mercy are completely thrown by the marked and--admittedly--sudden recovery that their MVC patient had shown since arriving in the ICU. To say that he was in rough shape was a goddamn understatement: he had had two collapsed lungs, multiple broken ribs, and open fractures to his clavicle that required surgery to repair. He had slipped between unconsciousness and incoherency, rarely able to surface from his drugged stupor long enough to answer questions that were posed to him by anyone, let alone the people who came in to visit him. Whenever anyone did come to visit, the odds that Owen would be there, holding his hand and not speaking, were great.

Luckily Nico is no longer in such horrible shape that he requires a plethora of monitoring equipment and palliative measures to ensure that he doesn't slip away in the night. For a time there was a legitimate concern that he would not wake up one night, that his lungs would flood and he'd drown in his own blood, or an infection would set in and he would succumb to the injuries he had sustained.

And then one day he took a large breath without assistance, and he was able to open his eyes fully, and he could answer with certainty where he was, what his name is, and who the president of the United States happens to be. They could do no more for him in the intensive care unit, so they shipped him upstairs.

His impressive recovery has hit something of a plateau. His lungs are back in full working order, and his ribs are healing, but his left arm is still in a sling because his clavicle is still broken. They are reluctant to release him just yet--his internal bleeding could resume if he doesn't remain still and under near-constant medical supervision, is the reasoning, but to a man who hates hospitals that just sounds like a load of horse shit. Protesting has gotten him nowhere.

Visiting hours are in full swing, but the ward does not bustle and hum like a waiting room. People are respectful of their neighbors and don't cause a ruckus. Nico's door is ajar, and he's sitting upright in bed, his hair an unruly yet clean mess of curls. He's shaved recently, and he looks as rested as one could expect from a man who has been hospitalized for over three weeks. A book is in his lap, held in place by his off right hand, and when that knock sounds he looks up.

When he sees who it is, Nico smiles. He isn't gray and stupid anymore. His tan has returned, and his eyes are intelligent instead of glazed and swimming in their orbits.

"Hey," he says, brightly, and fumbles the book face-down with the spine spread with his right hand.

[Emily Littleton] There's no panic in her, not like that first night, and Emily has not had to trick and cajole her way into to reassure herself that he is alive. A lot has happened in the past few weeks, both in Nico's mending and in the general progress of the outside world. She looks a bit less haunted, too.

"Hey," she echoes, stepping across the threshold and into his room. "You're looking better," she tells him with the same candor that most of his guests must use. There's a warmth underscoring it that hadn't always been there before. Emily sets the box she's carrying down on his bed, and then shrugs out of her coat, unwinds the scarf from her neck.

"Are they treating you alright in here?" she asks. Emily hasn't waited for him to wave her toward the chair in his room. She's more familiar with this scenario than he might have guessed. It had always helped her to have guests who were not, in their own right, uncertain and ill-at-ease. That's who she's trying to be, to him, just now.

"I brought you some illicit things from the outside world," she says, layering her voice with innuendo, but when Nico opens the box he'll find a collection of sugar free candies, a few more books of varying genres, a holiday coloring book and some colored pencils, and a bright red bouncy ball.

The latter has a little string around it, which is, in turn, taped to a note with tiny lettering that reads:
In cases of extreme boredom, throw against far wall of room. Alternate uses include: projectile assault on nurse's station.

At the bottom of the box there's a tiny mp3 player (second hand [scrubbed to be as germ-free as she could make it) with a collection of music she imagined he might like. There's an entire folder of Lady Gaga. The headphones are new.

Emily settles into the chair, folds her coat and scarf over her lap. She's close enough that she can reach out and touch him, but she doesn't just yet. He's well enough to not need that, necessarily, and hale enough to choose for himself whether he wanted it.

[Nico Brady] He's looking better. That makes him laugh, quiet yet appreciative, and it trails off into a smile that manages to hit his eyes. Their color isn't far off from that of the sky outside, dreary and cloud-ridden, but his eyes don't have that same melancholic quality that the sky does. For the most part Nico Brady is a happy young man, even when he finds himself in situations that would make most people despondent or question their faith, their purpose, their reason for being. He's not inclined to fits of sadness, even if he has plenty in his life that would qualify him to feel sorry for himself.

Pick one. None of them inspire in him a need to bemoan his fate or his circumstance. He cracks jokes with whoever comes into the room, has done so ever since they had him drugged into a zombie-like state downstairs.

"I can't complain," he says, to the matter of how they're treating him. "Well... I mean, I can, but I don't have tubes stuck in just about every hole in my body so they're treating me pretty well, now."

She brought him illicit things from the outside world. Nico eyes the box not with suspicion but with grateful interest, and he manages to get the thing open with one hand. There are amused comments for just about everything, and when he's reached the end of the box's contents, he sits up off the slanted mattress and gestures for her to come closer with his right hand.

Should she assent, Emily finds herself the recipient of a clumsy one-armed hug. He's warm, despite the fact that he's in the hospital and still rather injured. And drugged. There are anxiolytics in his system to keep him from panicking, which seems to happen quite frequently. It keeps his blood pressure and pulse down, keeps him from trying to convince the attending to release him when he's still far from out of the woods.

"Thank you so much," he says when he releases her.

[Emily Littleton] Emily has been in a different place for the last month or so than when he'd known her before. She'd been borrowing heavily on a legacy of bad behavior that had lent her more than a few surprisingly out of character moments. Bringing him illicit (but largely benign) things from the outside world was not the worst of her indiscretions.

When he beckons her closer, Emily rises and moves over to the stand beside his bed, to lean into that one armed hug, and to slip her arm around him -- but not pull him close, because she recognizes that sling on his arm and the pain associated with a broken clavicle.

"Any time," she tells him. Her hand lingers a bit against his back, between his shoulder blades, where the warmth of it can be felt without being overly invasive. It's a gentle touch, but reaffirms her presence as much as the soft of her sweater, or the faint scent of clove and vanilla does.

"I'll have a better present for you soon," she says, and the cant of her smile remains genuine here. Hopeful, even. "But these will have to tide you over until then.

"They're things I would have wanted," she tells him. "When I was stuck in hospital. But I was an irascible, headstrong teenage girl then. You'll have to tell me if I missed the mark, overmuch," she offers him a grin that leans toward cheeky, but doesn't quite reach it just now. Emily pulls the visitor's chair closer so she can sit near him rather than holding court across the vastness of the hard-tiled space.

[Nico Brady] Unlike when Ashley made the mistake of sitting on the bed with him, Nico does not try to drain as much physical contact out of the encounter as he can. He's grateful for the connection, for the solidity of the woman hugging him, but he isn't so out of his mind with medication that he loses hold of himself and seeks it out. For being as warm and open as he is, Nico is actually somewhat restrained with his shows of affection. If he has to touch someone, if he chooses to do so because he thinks it will make the other person feel better, or feel less alone, a hand on the shoulder is about as far as he goes. When he hugs Emily he keeps his arm around her shoulders: it doesn't go around her waist. His left arm ends up stuck between them for a moment but she doesn't press against his upper body, so it doesn't jar the still-fractured bone.

He can tell which of his visitors have been patients before based on how they handle him when they're here.

Emily sits again, not so far that she seems as though she's here just to watch over him but also not so close that they would be mistaken for anything other than acquaintances, friends, by anyone walking by. She doesn't grasp his hand or touch him otherwise as he lies back.

"You didn't miss anything," he says, that lopsided smile creeping in that warns of the approach of a joke. "I happen to be an irascible, headstrong gay man."

[Emily Littleton] She chuckles, a bit, and the warmth of it seeps into the dark fields of her eyes. It shapes the wry cant of her smile, which is appreciative and a careful about her reply all the same. She hadn't called him irascible or headstrong, but she's willing to agree once he offers them.

"I suppose that's hardly a surprise," she tells him, with a lilt of gently continued mocking. "I mean, look at the company you keep." She was clearly including herself in that statement.

Emily played with the artfully frayed end of her scarf while they talked. She had never been very good at sitting still. She was always moving something, or toying with the rim of her glass; her hands were almost never idle.

"Chuck's been working on getting your things out of storage. I think we might about have your flat back by the time you get out of here," she tells him, with a glance around at the lovely interior as if to imply that she wondered why he'd ever want to leave. She knew full well how hard it was to heal anything more than the body in a place like this, with people prodding and pushing and checking numbers against ranges to evaluate your state of being.

"How are you doing?" she asks. It's a poignantly simple question, but it offers him no easy escape from its directness either. Emily rarely asked questions, or pried. This was a rare thing, unveiled and undeniable concern from the young woman beside him. She didn't open herself to these things often, not willingly.

[Nico Brady] Now, Emily says a lot in the short amount of time that she's here, and it's allowable because Nico is, by his nature, inclined to simply listen to other people rather than attempting to dominate the conversation. Whether that's just how he is or because there is some underlying reason why he isn't fond of talking about himself is anyone's guess, but as long as anyone's known him he's asked more questions and steered more conversations towards the realm of The Other Person than he has allowed to stay on himself. That's just how he is, maybe, or maybe he simply has the mien of someone who likes listening to other people... or is willing to... or won't protest if he isn't afforded the opportunity to talk at length.

People get the impression that Nico is a nice, easygoing guy, and nice, easygoing guys often find themselves being bowled over in a wide variety of scenarios.

However, once she's got his irascible nature and the state of his apartment out of the way, Emily asks him how he's doing. Normally that question would be answered with a pat "I'm fine, why?" response, as though there has to be some sort of ulterior motive for another person asking him something as ludicrous as how he's doing. But Emily has never been one to pry. She's always left him alone, even during those first few days back when there was very obviously something eating away at him.

That darkness that came back to Chicago with him isn't there anymore. Perhaps a brush with death had been enough to remind him that being alive wasn't so horrible that he needed to dwell on something that had happened to him that he had no control over.

"Honestly?" he asks, his expression skeptical, as though she would be asking if she wanted to hear a bullshit answer. A pause, and Nico draws a breath before leaning back against the bed. He's one of those patients who finds excuses to get out of bed and walk around. The nurses are beginning to hate him and his 'brother' simply because of how much time they spend not in Nico's room. "They're keeping a pretty steady dose of lorazepam in my system. I don't want to be in the hospital anymore. It's not just... boredom. You know? I wouldn't call it a phobia but I just... if it weren't for the medication I couldn't stand to be in here."

[Emily Littleton] When Emily listens, really listens, there's a weight to her gaze and a press to her attention that's almost as unavoidable as her one-time Mentor's. But her brand of intensity is tempered more with a sense of grace, which lessens that a little. It allows for breathing space. She knows when to look away for a moment, when to swallow or shift her posture slightly, so he doesn't feel trapped by that. But nothing in her demeanor suggests she wanted or would accept a bullshit answer.

If that was what he chose to give her, Emily would sit on it for awhile and revisit the topic later. She was all sorts of patient, some times. She saves it up, so she could have enough of it in times that matter.

"I... can very much relate." She doesn't go into details, but, well, one didn't need to with a statement like that. Emily reaches up and tucks some of her curls behind her ear. "How much longer do you think you'll have to stay, bare minimum, before they'll let you sign out?"

Now, a reasonable person would be encouraging Nico Brady to stay as long as his doctors insisted. Emily was not, for the sake of argument, all that terribly reasonable about hospital stays. The two of them ought to have applied the What Would Owen Do principle, here, to balance out his phobia and her intolerance. But Owen was a specter these days, and if he didn't like Emily's tack of conversation, he could do his best to rewind that later.

"Assuming we can find you a safe place to stay and recuperate, of course."

She was not reasonable, and she also had plans of some sort brewing behind that question.

[Nico Brady] [Awareness+Perception: WHAT KIND OF SAFE PLACE HUH EMILY HUH? -1 (wound penalties).]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Nico Brady] [This is not going to end well.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Nico Brady] [You know what? IT AIN'T ENOUGH.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Nico Brady] [You know at this point I'm just doing it to be contrary.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 9)

[Emily Littleton] Emily isn't really worried about finding a safe place for him to recuperate. She knows his doctors will ask about the type of facility or home he'd be staying in. She knows they'd want all sorts of assurances about how he'd come back if anything went wrong. She vaguely remembers overhearing these conversations first when she was transferred, and then later when she was released.

Her god-father had much better people skills than she does, but Emily manages to make due somehow.

She's not worried about the where because, perhaps, she doesn't think there will be much recuperating left to do. She's asking after a time table, and Ms. Littleton has a plan of some sort that she's fitting to it.

Nico might rightly be worried by this. Or he may be buoyed with a new hope that he won't be stuck at Mercy for-fucking-ever.

Her concern for him is genuine, though, and runs deeper than he may have expected. She's not feigning interest or doing this out of the goodness of her soul. She genuinely wants him to get better, and get his life and things back. He can say what he will about her methods, but her motives are more or less pure.
to Nico Brady

[Nico Brady] His gaze is not penetrating, does not give Emily the impression that he is dissecting her as she speaks. When he looks at her, his examination of her motives and emotions is, if not exactly effortless, then not taking up so much of his attention and energy that he cannot continue to partake in the conversation. Nico has to be wondering if she's offering because she has some ulterior motive, as though there is something that she could gain by telling him that they're looking for a safe place to stay and recuperate.

Perhaps he's just trying to gauge whether what he's going to tell her is a good idea, whether it's just going to cause agita or hard feelings. He has no idea that he and the Initiate Chorister have been the topic of conversation before, that what to do about them has been brought up.

What he picks up from her tells him that that isn't truly her concern. For whatever reason, she doesn't think it's going to take him very long to recuperate, period. Nico drums his fingers on the mattress as he considers this, then says, apropos of nothing, "I was supposed to go back to work on the first. It's going to be hard to get back into an apartment if I don't have a job."

[Emily Littleton] She considers this for a long moment, weighs it, reminds herself that there are things beyond her scope and ability to fix. Emily's mouth purses thoughtfully, she exhales a small sigh.

"I don't think I can help with the job, but you can stay at my flat if you want. I'll be here and gone a lot for the rest of the year. Just promise me I won't come back from Christening my god-son to find you right back in this place, and we'll be fine."

There's a lightness to what she says, but Emily's at least partly serious. Worrying about him while she's overseas would weigh on her mind, and she'd feel somewhat responsible if he was rehospitalized because she'd encouraged him to leave early.

"I'm relatively certain others would make the same offer. You're quite popular, you know?" she tells him, with a wry quirk of her smile. In better settings, it would be almost wicked just now.

[Nico Brady] "Yeah," he says, huffing laughter staining his response.

His tone is somewhat wry, as though he has trouble believing that that is the reality of the situation. Objectively, he can state that there have been quite a few people in and out of here over the course of the last three weeks, that more people than he would have expected had shown up attempting to distract him from the fact that he's stuck in a hospital bed until further notice.

Given that he has not ever outright asked for help, that he has only taken offers of a place to stay because he has been stating, as fact, that he was staying a motel due to the somewhat disastrous ruins he'd made of his life, one has to imagine that Nico just doesn't know how, or that he prefers not to. He's a therapist, someone who makes a living--in theory--helping others sort out their lives. That leaves little room for admitting that there are things in his own life that need to be taken care of.

"There's nothing anyone can do about it, really. If there's a position open with the same agency, I'll take it. If there's not, I have to look somewhere else. It's not the end of the world... just... you know, not something I can do when I'm hospitalized. They haven't even given me a date when they think I can leave, so I haven't started... you know, thinking about where I'm going to be staying."

[Emily Littleton] Nico hasn't asked for help, and Emily hasn't asked for permission to give it. Not really. No one at that table in the Chantry had asked for permission. That was one of the horrible and wonderful things about their community: you got what you were given, often with a take it and like it mentality attached.

"There's also the House," Emily says, rather deadpan, as if she's obligated somehow to acknowledge the possibility. She's good enough at schooling her expression that the shape of her nostrils do not flare in distaste, and her lip doesn't curl. Not even slightly. Emily would rather go back to her couch surfing ways of last year than stay at the Chantry.

It's the last she says on the places-to-stay front. Her politically correct quota has been met. Somewhere, she hopes it counts to her tally of un-hateful things said or thought about the Chantry.

"Do you want me to talk to your doctor?" she asks, though the prospect of that going well (HIPPA) is rather (did I mention HIPPA?) low (and you're not a family member). She'd pretty much pushed the envelope with the staff's willingness to overdisclose already.

It occurs to Emily, quite belatedly, that she doesn't know what would or wouldn't be helpful in this situation. She'd been a child. She'd gone home to family. Someone else had worried about the bills, and making meals, and her medications. All she'd had to do was not collapse into herself entirely... and she'd not managed that swimmingly. It would be more complicated for Nico, and the world would expect that he could handle those complications because he was an adult.

She drew her hands into her lap and looked down at them for a moment, suddenly dumb and a little off-kilter. These places of sickness and near-death, they were difficult for everyone to navigate. Even Emily, who knew enough to bring gifts and focus on positive things like getting discharged, and life as we knew it.

[Nico Brady] [Pause!]