tushanshu_logs | [Open] To die. To sleep.

Entry tags:

[Open] To die. To sleep.

Characters: Doc Holiday and YOU
Date: A few days following the event
Location: Earth/Metal Sector
Situation: Holiday had her nanites removed during the event and it's not going well at all
Warnings/Rating: She's super ill, super weak, super fragile.

((TL;DR version: Holiday is seriously weak. Her skin is pale, a little wrinkly, her hair has turned white, eyes are now grey, and she's super fragile. She's also exposed to all sorts of germs and she's not doing well. Holiday is desperate to find a lab to study herself because she IS the cure to the plague back home now, but whether she makes it somewhere is up to you folks. Don't worry about trying to figure who finds her where or whatever. It can all be sifted through later. She's just either walking/stumbling/leaning on buildings in the streets or passed out in a ditch somewhere. If you want another option, hit me up and we will see.))

Being a ghost had zero perks. No one could see her, hear her. She couldn't speak to anyone and she even tried to seek out those she knew had special abilities. Nothing worked for her.

But there was one interesting factor. Holiday noticed that staying around a particular area in her home sector, Earth, made her visage change. She felt the same, of course, because she was ghosty and what have you, but her skin, hair. At first, she thought it was more ghost business. Her skin would get paler, her hair slowly grayed... That is, until a couple of wrinkles formed on the back of her hand, as if she were going through an advanced aging, but it was different than that and yet very very familiar.

She wasn't aging. She was being bleached. The nanites were being purged. If it were anyone else, she would have dragged them far away from the place causing this, but she wasn't anyone else. She was Dr. Rebecca Holiday, lead researcher and scientist for Providence Laboratories, the only research center on the planet dedicated to finding a cure. A cure for Beverly.

So Rebecca stayed, making mental notes of every change she went through, searching the area as much as possible for any sort of trigger causing the reaction. Perhaps it didn't work before because she didn't stay in that place long enough... When the transformation came to an end, Holiday was well aware of what was going to happen if the ghost ailment wore off...

... She did not think it would be this bad. It wasn't this bad on White Knight, but, then again, White was sealed inside of a vacuum chamber when he was bleached and has been since. She was not and she was being exposed to everything. It crossed her mind that she was probably going to die before she even got the chance to take a blood sample and cursed herself for not already being in a lab when this wore off...

So, Holiday spent her time trying to get to the Metal sector (because Earth was too crowded with doctors), find a lab (any one will do that's not full of people), and work on this. If she was unlucky, this too would wear off so there was a time limit... Between the coughing and stumbling and finally passing out a third of the way there, Holiday had to admit that she did kind of look good with white hair...

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Shepard was aware of and concerned by the disappearances, of course, but it didn't seem like there was much she could do to help with them. It seemed more a question to be explored by the scientists and doctors - maybe the magic users, too, and she wasn't any of those things.

What she could do, however, was make the rounds of the medical clinics, see if any of the reported missing had shown up there, and if they had, what information they might be able to provide.

When she spotted the woman stumbling against the side of a building, she didn't recognize her, but went to help anyway. That was just Shepard - see someone in trouble, offer to help, no matter who it was or what else she had to do.

"Hey, are you oka - Rebecca?" A glance at her face brought recognition and a sharp burst of fear. "What the hell happened?"

Edited 2013-11-04 18:10 (UTC)

Oh, someone familiar. Holiday even smiled at the sight of Shepard running up to her considering the last week she had. It was nice to be seen... except for right now. A lecture and bed rest was exactly what she didn't need right now.

"A very long story, but I need to get to a lab," she wheezed. Maybe she over exerted herself with walking. Holiday stopped for a second and took a breath. "This is probably temporary," she continued, "I need to study it now before it wears off. Need blood samples. Lots of them."

After her not so good explanation, Holiday began trying to move again.

Edited 2013-11-06 00:58 (UTC)

"We need to get you to a doctor!" Shepard exclaimed, her voice worried. "You're sick, you need medical attention." She wouldn't lecture - not until she had Rebecca in the care of a doctor, anyway.

"Come here." Shepard was stronger than she looked - she wrapped her arm around Holiday's back to help support her. If need be, she'd carry her.

Oh wait no. "No, no, no. I know what's wrong. I am a doctor, remember?"

Holiday tries to pull away, but it's no use like this. "I'm just weak... And I got a make over, but it's the side effects. This is all side effects. I just need to figure out how it happened and recreate it before I'm infected again. I can make this permanent. I just need time."

"You look like death," Shepard pointed out, frowning. "Even doctors need medical attention. You could be dead before you figure out how to reverse it."

Yeah, sorry, Shepard is gonna keep steering her in the direction of the nearest medical clinic.

"Can't reverse it. Not yet. I need it." Holiday wheezed and struggled, but to no avail. She was weak and knew it, but she also needed to explain things. It was important. Too important.

"I'm cured," she tried to tell her, "I'm cured. I need to know how. Find out what it was. I need to recreate it. Make the symptoms livable. Make it permanent." Help Rosalind with her technology. Bring the cure back home. It was too important.

"Cured of what?" Shepard gave her a baffled look, still steering her carefully down the street in the direction of the clinic. "This isn't livable, you can't walk!"

"I can change it." Maybe. Probably not, but that didn't matter. It was the cure that mattered. It was right there. Shepard had no idea how long Holiday had been looking for it, what she sacrificed for it, for Rex, for Beverly.

"Nanites. The EVOs. I can change it. I have the cure." And now even she can tell that she wasn't talking right. Holiday was getting too tired and it took her a second to remember where she was.

"You won't be curing anything at this rate," Shepard pointed out logically. "Not when you can't even stand up on your own two feet. We'll get you to the clinic, have them keep a sample of your blood, then whatever you need to do, you can do it once you're better."

She didn't even bother to point out that whatever it was Rebecca was trying to cure, didn't exist on the turtle and she wouldn't be able to get the cure back home anyway.

"Six needs to know. He should be here. He'll keep the blood safe. It's too important." Kind of leaning on the verge of passing out at this point, Holiday was still trying to hold strong until she could take a few blood samples herself. Shepard just didn't understand how important this was, that's all.

"I need lots of samples. Promise. It's too important."

"And lots of samples will be taken by the doctors at the clinic," Shepard insisted. "Whatever it is you need to cure, it doesn't exist here, anyway. Let's keep you alive so you can get home and figure it out there."

"It does. It will." It's important.

But Holiday goes quiet and stays that way as Shepard hauls her off to wherever they're going. Samples will be taken. Tests will be run. It'll be okay.

At least she's not struggling anymore, that's a good start. Futile as the struggling was, still. She pushes open the clinic door with a grunt.

"Need some help here," she calls out - hopefully whoever's on duty isn't too busy.

All it takes is the word "help" to get McCoy running back to the front office, Shepard's voice or not. What he finds is the Commander supporting an older woman that looks ready to collapse.

Tricorder already in hand, McCoy begins scanning the woman while he lifts his eyebrow up for Shepard to start explaining.

"This is Rebecca Holiday," Shepard points out, though actually she's not sure if McCoy knows her at all. "I found her outside like this, I think it has something to do with the phasing that was happening."

Holiday has enough strength to glance up to McCoy, but not enough to see Shepard or understand most of what she's saying.

"Tests," she breathes out. "Blood tests. I need them for later. Lots of them. Blood tests."

Great, another riddle with no answer, at least not with his instruments. The patient--Doctor Holiday, a girl he has met before under much better circumstances--rambles on about blood tests. Well, obviously, McCoy gripes to himself as he finishes his initial sweep of her body.

The readings he's receiving are alarming to say the least, and seem highly improbable if he wasn't standing a few inches from her. He immediately ushers Shepard to follow him into a private room and set her down on the examining table. Since she seems so damn desperate for those blood tests, McCoy grabs three empty vials and begins inserts it into an instrument that can efficiently pulls blood without fuss or muss.

Of the Commander, he pantomimes writing in the air, requesting something he can use to communicate a little more effectively than his eyebrow dance. That only works with Jim.

"She keeps talking about a cure for something, like somehow this sickness of hers is a cure?" Shepard shakes her head, rummaging around for a datapad or something - the best she can come up with is a clipboard and pen, though, which she hands over to McCoy.

"What's wrong with her?"

"More than that," she mutters to McCoy. "They're important. As many as you can."

It takes another moment for her to speak again, but she can definitely answer the question of what's wrong with her. "Bleached. Pigmentation's gone. Nanites were broken apart with others, white blood cells mostly. The bonds are gone. We keep them in a clean room; they can't ever leave. I've been exposed. It's temporary, though. It can be recreated... I just need the blood samples..." She calms again, starting to lull away, but trying desperately not to... Never said Holiday could answer that with English.

"A cure?" McCoy snorts as he gets his medical scanner out for readings. "Can't say it's much of a cure if it's killin' her. Her immune system is failin'--Practically non-existent. And there are foreign bodies throughout her system, in her blood."

Unfortunately, Holiday's little speech doesn't mean much to McCoy, except for that part about nanites. Now that certainly widens his eyes. "Yer infected with nanites? My God, for how long? How are you still alive?"

Damnit, this situation is not good. Nanites has been hard enough to get rid of when he was on Earth at the Academy; on a backwater turtle there is little he can do. For now, though, he takes out a hypospray, turns it to one of several immunizations. With a hiss, the liquid is injected into her cartoid artery. Another click, and he dials up a different concoction. "I can't remove the nanites, but I can at least give your immune system a fightin' chance while we analyze your blood."

And true to her request, he begins grabbing more empty vials to extract blood. "Look, I'm only going to take as much as I deem healthy. Won't do us any good after all this if you're just a dried up husk."

Edited 2013-11-24 15:19 (UTC)

The husk comment makes Shepard wince imperceptibly, but otherwise she just stands there, arms folded across her chest, brow furrowed with concern. "What are nanites?" she asks. It's not a word she's ever heard, before, though it doesn't sound like it's anything good, especially judging by McCoy's reaction.

"Deactivated them," she mumbles, beginning to finally slip out of consciousness, but trying to hold on. "Had them for five years. Everyone has. I'm one of the... lucky ones... Bonded to our DNA. Can't be cleansed. Just... have to turn them off."

Holiday does actually smile when McCoy begins to draw more blood from her. That was good. That was perfect. It just needed to be kept safe now. It would work out.

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[Open] To die. To sleep.

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I finally spelled Shepard wrong. Gold star for me.

THAT IS A PRETTY GOOD RECORD!

\o/

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