alltheheroes | Breathe deep, breathe clear

Ten l o n g days and nights.

Time has blurred into one long continuous stream that feels so surreal it must be a bad dream. Or at least, that's how it feels for the student that has kept constant vigil at San Fransokyo Memorial Hospital. Leave had been allowed for the students following the fire at the showcase. They had called it a 'tragic incident' and expected students to return after the funeral that had been held on a rather rainy afternoon.

Tragic isn't even close.

Go Go had begrudgingly attended classes only at the insistence of her fellow classmates, but there was no heart in it for any of them as they struggled to push through the hours until they could go where they felt they needed to be most. For her, it meant sitting in the warm ICU room where her professor has been making a slow recovery. She came whenever the other students were visiting of course, but would always return at the shift change for the night nursing staff to arrive. It was easy to slip in with them distracted during orientation rounds. At first, the nursing and nursing aides had insisted she leave, threatening to call security, but a few brief words, and she had managed to stay put. The girl only ever seemed to leave to go stretch her legs, visit the restroom, and get a drink of water before returning right back to her perch. She never bothered the staff or the patient, and perhaps that's the only reason they allowed her in to watch over Professor Callaghan. That, or they felt sorry he had no blood-relations to visit.

Given that she, nor any of the other students, would be contacted if anything went wrong, Go Go had to make sure for herself.

Seated on the window sill as always, she keeps her legs pulled up tight against her chest with her arms wrapped snugly around them, making herself as small as she can while her weary eyes stay locked on the monitors and machines surrounding the inflatable bed that constantly cycles air quietly beneath her teacher. Steadily, the ventilator pumps air in a regular rhythm, providing an audible reassurance that the man laying covered in so many bandages and lines is still, in fact, alive. Every so often she dozes, head resting against her knees just right, but she never completes a full sleep cycle before awakening to the sound of another beeping from a machine.

The numbers on the monitors and machines are so foreign to her. If Tadashi-

If he were here, he could easily translate all of them. Only from experience has she learned what sort of numbers at different spots are acceptable and which are not by watching the reactions of the nurses and doctors checking on him so frequently.

By now the smell of burnt flesh had diminished quite a bit from the first night she had spent in the room, and it makes it much easier to resist the urge to wrinkle her small nose whenever she has to take a deeper breath in an effort to keep herself calm.

All she can do is wait, and for someone that so loves speed...

it's hard.

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Another look to the phone at that tapping sound, and quietly his student squints her eyes in thought. Her upper lip scrunches just faintly as she works to recall everything she had listened to directly and all the discussion of the other staff she had overheard in the hallway.

Her hearing is better than most expect.

"Dunno. The doctors don't have any idea themselves. Said there are some different options to consider that would affect how long, but they couldn't give more information cause legally I'm not supposed to know about your care. HIPAA crap or whatever." She pauses at that, reaching a hand up to rub at her face and back into her hair, "But...I do know they had to do some work on your heart after you spiked fevers from an infection. You were on more support than you are now for that."

Bureaucracy. There's a distinct eye-roll, but he supposes it's acceptable enough. It isn't as though he has any family members to learn about it...

...none that he bothers keeping in contact with,anyway. And isn't that a sobering thought. It's just hit him that there are very, very few people who would take note of his passing on anything but a professional level...aside from Go Go and the others, apparently.

Callaghan isn't sure what to make of that.

s ty i l l c rt c l?

Obviously, or he wouldn't be here, but...has the immediate hurdle of infection passed?

Edited 2014-12-29 05:04 (UTC)

Apparently there are ways to bypass the standard HIPAA protocols that would give access to more information for anyone Callaghan chose as a liason with the medical staff, but given that he has woken this much, he probably wouldn't need one unless something else went awry.

Tadashi...he wouldn't even need permission. He'd be able to discern a lot more just looking at Callaghan and other materials scattered around the room. To Go Go, the bits of scrap still visible on the counters are no clearer to her than Greek script.

At the question that follows, she shakes her head, "Don't think so. No fevers over a hundred since the surgery that I know of."

Finally, a nurse arrives at the door, shutting off the call light outside the room with the press of a button at the wall. At the arrival of a staff member, Go Go withdraws physical contact from Callaghan as she reports what he had asked for, then fully steps back to the window sill. She sits back on the small ledge, hands gripping over the front edge, but she keeps her feet in contact with the floor. For the time being, she'll stay there until the nurse has had a chance to perform the oral care and do anything else needed.

It doesn't take long; Callaghan has never liked being cared for, and even now when he needs it, he's subtly withdrawn. But to their credit, the nurse has dealt with such patients before, and is quick to get his other needs. Their professionalism is probably what draws forth the admission of discomfort in the rest of him, and it is handled appropriately.

By the time they leave, Callaghan hardly feels perfect, but at least...better. He turns his head back towards Go Go, arching his brow in silent query before managing another actual question;

g o i m gh o m, e ?

With the pain treatment starting to kick in, he's not sure how coherent he'll stay, but- he's the distinct impression she should be elsewhere, not here.

All the while the nurse is working with Callaghan, Go Go remains silent and out of the way. She appears to look off intermittently, but it is only to stare at reflective surfaces where she can still watch and keep an eye on what is going on, especially when the nurse is between her and Callaghan physically. The delivery of the pain medication is noticed, but she shows no response to it outwardly.

Once the nurse has left, she gives a push with both hands to rise back up to her feet, and within a couple steps, returns to her prior position at the bed rail. Message on the phone screen read in a glance, she turns to step away from the bed. Without a word, she moves to the corner of the room to grab a plastic chair by the top of the back support, and drags it over across the floor on two of the four feet. Turning and pushing it over to where she had just been standing, she then proceeds to sit herself down next to him and looks back to Callaghan with a single raised brow.

Answer: Not a chance.

He wouldn't be surprised if she noticed everything that was going on, but the pretense of privacy shields his pride. As does the lack of verbal response; there's no pity there, no offer of sympathy, nothing- at least, nothing aloud.

The hnh sound still sounds amused, but it's not like the attempt at laughter of before; acknowledgement of the intent behind her motions and her settling beside the bed.

He's not sure why he feels grateful for that. By all rights, he shouldn't. He should shoo Go Go off, tell her to go home and get some sleep. She's got class, still, hasn't she? She needs to take care of herself, because the doctors here can certainly take care of him, or at least he has to believe so.

And yet...

t a l k

He doesn't care what she talks about, but he'd rather not have the only sound right now be the machines keeping him alive.

Doctors are experts at caring for the body, yet there is a distinct lack of emotional or mental support for patients. That usually falls to family or friends. For Callaghan, to his students. If nothing else, her presence can serve as a distraction from the slow ticks of the clock and the static surroundings.

Really though, efforts to shoo her away would be wasted expenditures of energy. Go Go only trusts in so much after all.

Hearing that sound of acceptance, she picks up her feet and tucks them onto the edge of the seat with ankles crossing as she shifts her hips further away from the bed only to lean her shoulder over and rest against the bedrail. Go Go looks at the phone as he taps again, then up to his face after receiving the message. That edge of confusion in her expression is erased as she notices how he looks just a bit drowsy now.

Well, she's a poor subsitute for Fred in this department, but she'll give it a try.

Might as well talk about something familiar and neutral; something he could listen to without becoming bored but not feel the need to hear the whole story. Almost immediately thoughts of the other students and the school mascot come to mind, and she delves into a new story from the lab. Apparently, someone in another lab had borrowed the music player without returning it, and Fred had been on the case with Honey to get it back.

By relaying some of the details she knows only from the two directly involved, she manages to keep herself going. As her words continue to forge a story, she slips one hand through the opening in the lower bed rail and reaches to take her phone from Callaghan's hand. Tapping the power to turn the screen dark without shutting it down, she deposits it between his forearm and his leg. He can keep it with him until she can get the tablet from the lab and use it to communicate better than that silly pointing chart. With his hand now free, she sneaks her own fingers into the space the phone had filled, and lightly grasps to hold on while she waits for him to go to sleep as she talks over the machines.

Breathe deep, breathe clear

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