Rhiannon Lee (rhiannon_lee) wrote in birthrightrpg, @ 2021-12-20 09:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | noah restic, radek jeppersen, rhiannon lee |
A Clean Break
Who: Rhiannon, Noah, Radek
When: Day of the Swap (Early Evening)
Where: Radek’s Home, Dragon Ridge Drive (Macdonald Highlands, Henderson, NV)
Ratings: Low
After Noah’s car pulled to a stop on Radek’s property, Rhiannon eased out of the passenger seat and checked out their surroundings over the roof. Dragon Ridge Drive sat at the farthest southern reach of the Macdonald Highlands neighborhood in Henderson. It abutted the Sloan Canyon conservation area, an area she knew because it contained historic petroglyphs, and because its ecosystem of grey foxes, mountain lions, and red-tailed hawks was Were-friendly. The temperature hovered around a brisk 48 degrees, but a southern wind whipped across the valley, coming in gusts that stung her cheeks.
Both the wind and the pain in her wrist she’d readily accept over her social discomfort with the situation. Rhiannon was uneasy asking for help on an ordinary day. It was ten times worse now that she’d been stripped of whatever mystical quality made her a hunter in exchange for a constant, unintentional wiretap of other people’s thoughts.
It wasn’t a steady stream. Here and there, as she came into contact with people, disorganized fragments shot into her head with no rhyme or reason. Rhiannon couldn’t tell if she was a passive recipient, or if she’d started reaching out and taking them, like a compulsion she couldn’t shake. On the way over, she tried a variety of tricks to stop it, thinking maybe it would salvage some of Noah’s privacy, things like meditative breathing and putting Karma Chameleon on a loop in her head.
Neither worked.
Noah was trying to keep his thoughts in an orderly, quiet row out of consideration for Rhiannon’s current situation, but it was extremely difficult. He was concerned about her; there was always an undercurrent of risk and danger due to her status as a hunter, but that was amplified by the sudden loss of that strength and the vulnerability that entailed. He vacillated between not wanting to underestimate her ability to take care of herself and wanting to encase her in bubble wrap. And now he was without his own power for the third time in the span of one year, and would need to separate himself from his girlfriend in a few days’ time due to the impending full moon. He was not particularly looking forward to that for a multitude of reasons.
As he stepped out of the Honda and swept his gaze over the large home this doctor resided in, he glanced over at the brunette as if he could read her mind, too. His eyes fell on her injured wrist, the sight of it pinging something unpleasant around the general vicinity of his stomach. Noah wanted to say something comforting, reassuring, but platitudes weren’t either of their thing and it wasn’t really in his wheelhouse, anyway, so he tried a different tactic. “Maybe he has some good drugs he can give you,” the pyrokinetic offered.
Radek was in the surgery preparing the x-ray equipment and other supplies for the expected arrival. The surveillance system located close to the entrance to Dragon Ridge Drive had advised him of an unknown vehicle having passed that point and the doc glanced up at the small monitor. He vaguely recognised the passenger, but not the driver and returned his attention to the task at hand. He had already put a call through to two of his nursing team to put them on standby as he was concerned there could be mishaps for any number of clients, given the apparent lack of warning this swap seemed to have had. He didn’t have any were of the avian variety on his patient list, but he shuddered to think what might have eventuated had one of those been soaring when they had suddenly found themselves no longer a were. At least for Brian it had been relatively innocuous, but the potential of him having caused a conflagration in his sleep was something that had caused Radek to send word through to their young computer guru to monitor for on the news services. “Anything odd, unusual, that seems out of place,” he had said.
“How does that differ from what I’m always monitoring?”
“Well I guess it doesn’t, but just be aware there has been an event that might cause a sudden increase, and we need to be on the lookout for any who might be injured.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it, I’ll let you know if I find anything out of the ordinary in the already extra-ordinary,” the young man had replied before disconnecting the video call.
The soft buzz of the sensors telling him of the vehicle’s arrival in the cul-de-sac had the immortal run an eye over everything before heading into the examination room and across to the door. The small access door to the ‘pool house’ was tucked away at an angle in the large wall that ran around the perimeter of the property, and Radek observed the two as they finally headed toward it. A number was quickly entered into the keypad to deactivate the security locks and Radek took a last look at the screen before moving across to open the door.
“Don’t get my hopes up,” Rhiannon said to Noah. As they waited for the door to open, she stared at the rectangle in silence, the only clue to her internal mood being a tightness in the way she stood, with her shoes lined up together and her wrist resting on a palm. After a moment, she closed her eyes and whispered, “I’m still a marksman and a boxer with a black belt. Just say—.” The door opened. “—Heyyy.”
Rhiannon bit her lip and made introductions. “Radek, this is Noah. Noah, Radek.”
Noah shot Rhiannon an uncharacteristically chagrined look, an apology for his former line of thinking forming on his lips. Of course she was more than capable, definitely more so than him. If he was taking a deeper mental inventory, he supposed there was a part of him that was still shaken at the reality of losing someone and actually caring about it. She was unquantifiably more important to Noah than Ivan ever was, and it made everything, no matter how comparatively mundane, feel like a threat. At the sight of the doctor, he nodded. “Hi,” he spoke, somewhat distractedly. He tried to focus on the situation at hand by glancing beyond Radek, to what he could see inside the pool house.
Radek took in the pair at the door and stood back to usher them into the room that served as both a waiting area and examination room. To the right was an area with some multi-functional furniture that had served as both seating and sleeping space for those who’d accompanied patients who had needed more than just some remedial treatment. If the walls of this rather simply adorned area could talk, there would be many in law enforcement who would love to listen, such were the clientele of the doctor. Radek led them both past the space on the left, where an examination table and some cabinetry lined the wall, and into the surgery, where the x-ray equipment was already set up on the other side of the slightly narrower, custom designed examination table, that had on numerous occasions served as a theatre table. There was the obligatory small step, to accommodate an easy access for any patient that required it, and he patted the bed where he would like Rhiannon to place herself.
“I take it you are not entirely familiar with what a human body will usually succumb to?” he asked, given his knowledge of the resilience, strength, and healing abilities of a bloodline hunter. “I cannot tell for sure without an x-ray, but the way you are holding your arm, and the swelling, it could be either a fracture, or break, or simply a particularly nasty sprain,” he offered.
The brunette sat on the table. “Yes and no,” Rhiannon said, following Radek’s movements. “I work with boxers and I’ve known as many volunteer hunters as people like me, so… I’ve got an idea how the body works. Mine is just usually stronger. And I don’t trust my assessment of pain right now. I mean, what if that’s messed up, too? I got knocked down and I took the impact on my hand. You know, locked arm.” Rhiannon demonstrated with the uninjured one. “I’m lucky I didn’t dislocate my elbow.”
“Yes, indeed, a very common injury.” During this process he had observed her, and her arm, and had deduced it could be a break, given the swelling, but not being equipped with x-ray vision he advised he would be taking one immediately. He looked at Noah and suggested, “you might like to wait out there for a few minutes?” before looking at Rhiannon and asking, “and do you know if you are pregnant?” given he had no wish to be facilitating any potential harm to the possibility of an unborn child.
Rhiannon snapped her fingers. “I knew I forgot to tell you something,” she said, cocking her head in Noah’s direction.
Noah listened to the exchange between Rhiannon and Radek silently, standing off to the side and feeling disconcertingly out of place. While this wasn’t exactly a traditional medical setting, he didn’t really ‘do’ doctors. They tended to ask a lot of questions, for one. And the newly acquired Were-ness made him overly aware of the smell of antiseptic and whatever heavy duty cleaning supplies were employed in keeping the space sterile. As he looked around at the various tools and equipment that surrounded them, though, he couldn’t help but wonder curiously about how an operation like this made money and what kind of overhead that existed. It seemed well suited to fly-by-night types, though, which he supposed would include himself. It was only the word ‘pregnant’ that broke him out of his slight reverie, and he almost stepped back and upset a shiny metal tray, stopping himself in time. A snorting sort of laugh bubbled up when she addressed him, and his gaze flicked over to the doctor’s face as it transitioned into a poorly disguised cough.
“Uh, yeah, I’ll wait out there,” he finally spoke, gesturing behind him with his thumb. He shot another glance at Rhiannon. Way to bury the lead, Noah thought pointedly, one corner of his mouth lifting upward in a subtle look of amusement that he knew the hunter would recognize.
After taking all the necessary precautions with lead aprons, framing, ‘zapping’, repositioning, and then ‘zapping’ again to obtain the two angles he wanted to see, Radek cleared that equipment away then loaded the results onto the screen. His soft hums and head tilts were obvious to any observing him, his finger pushing his glasses up his nose as he enlarged the image slightly, and checked between the first and second image. After some more close examination of the full extent of both images he turned from the monitor and smiled at Rhiannon.
“Good! It’s a clean break!” he declared happily, which could seem slightly odd, given the situation. “Both ends of the distal radius, your main bone in arm, seem to be in a good position, so we won’t need to do a reduction,” he declared happily, then added, “of the bones that is, the swelling?” He paused and shook his head as he stepped toward one of the cabinets and removed a small wrap from what was a freezer. “The swelling we need to reduce so a cast can be made, so in the meantime you wear a splint, and apply the cold for twenty minutes only, then remove for twenty minutes, then return,” he told her, gently placing the rather different appearing wrap on her wrist. “When you have it off your wrist, you put it in freezer, so it can then work again.”
Rhiannon nodded, her free hand drifting up to her forehead at the news that it was broken, even if cleanly. ‘Fuck,’ she thought, doing mental math at the number of weeks she’d be healing, then pausing and recalculating the time because she was presently in an ordinary human body. ‘Celeste’… Rhiannon didn’t care if magic was capable of shrinking the healing timetable by two days or two weeks. Shorter was shorter.
“Got it,” she murmured. Radek might as well have told her she had internal bleeding. Her eyes cut to where Noah had gone on the other side of the pool house. “It’s Marsh, by the way,” she told Radek, loud enough for both men to hear her. “I switched with Marsh. Do you know him?” Perhaps falling down and hurting a limb was the universe’s bizarre way of giving her an aching injury to complement his.
Noah knew he would be too restless to sit down, so he hovered just outside the ‘exam room’, listening to the intermittent bursts of noise from the X-ray machine. The phone in his pocket had ceased vibrating for the moment after the initial flurry of text messages from other people in similar predicaments. Part of him wanted to ask Brian more questions about what was to come with the impending full moon; part of him didn’t want to know. As it was, he didn’t have to strain his ears too much to hear Radek’s diagnosis of a broken wrist. Noah winced. Fire or no fire, he hated that there was nothing he could directly do to help.
Radek thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I don't think I have made the acquaintance of this person," he replied. "What is his ability that you have inherited?" He had been distracted from the main group text with the news of Brianna’s situation, and had also been in touch with Gabriel regarding his whereabouts. It was a little disconcerting to hear of the young sorcerer losing his powers, but he was pleased he would be returning to see if he could assist James with any possible reversal. At least he knew the character of the one who had inherited those abilities of Gabe and had found it slightly intriguing at how there were similarities between the two individuals. All these thoughts were streaming through his mind, rapid-fire, as he moved with practiced ease to treat the fracture.
"And did you know him before this unfortunate event?"
“Yeah. He works at Lucky’s. He’s with Ronnie, I think. Hey, Noah…?” Rhiannon’s attention alternated between Radek’s work on her puffy, purplish arm and the silhouette of Noah pacing around. “C’mere.” There was a persistent, dull ache in her wrist and an occasional sharper jab with any movement. She reminded herself to hold still for the doctor. “Um, Marsh, he’s a telepath. I’m sorry, I thought I mentioned that. I got kind of turned around between which texts went to the whole group and which were just between me and him.”
He looked up at the sound of his name, and Noah crossed the threshold back into the room, crossing the space until he was by Rhiannon’s side. His hand brushed over her noninjured one as he watched Radek closely, a silent offer if she wanted to squeeze his. There was a strange undercurrent of something that he was feeling, not quite deja vu but a vague familiarity that was difficult to pin down. “How is it?” Noah asked her quietly.
“Broken, but it’s clean.” Rhiannon briefly captured his hand and gave it a squeeze. The pain wasn’t bad enough to need it, but she imagined their roles being flipped, how she’d feel wandering around without anything to do. Because she’d been at the gym, there wasn’t any jewelry on her fingers or wrist, but it struck her sharply that she’d have to watch out for that now. To distract herself from the idea of a moon on the way, she eased the phone out of her pocket, waited for face recognition to work, then handed it to Noah. “Can you text Tasha and tell her what’s up? Tasha’s my roommate,” she said, filling in Radek.
Radek looked at her and nodded in appreciation at the context. The information that this Marsh was a telepath, and now this woman had that ability had Radek wondering who else had swapped what with who. He glanced at Noah, the solemn face a familiar one on those who were feeling helpless, disconnected, and unable to protect when medical assistance was being provided. “Could you pass me that tray?” he asked, having often found that being able to contribute in even the smallest of ways sometimes gave some sense of connection for the disconnected.
“Yeah, here you go,” Noah nodded, half-turning to locate the tray in question and handing it over to Radek. He took the phone from Rhiannon and brought up her text messages, locating Tasha’s name. He typed up a quick explanation of their whereabouts and his girlfriend’s injury before giving the device back. He was grateful for both distractions, no matter how brief. “There doesn’t really seem to be a clear pattern to the ‘swaps’ that I can tell,” he remarked. “Except that most of us already know each other, at least in passing. I switched with a Were,” the pyrokinetic added.
Radek nodded as he took a bandage from the tray and opened a small vial that was clearly not a commercially pharma product, the mixture a combination he had perfected over centuries of studying remedies and different tinctures for common maladies. “In between the applications of the ice you can apply this,” he told them both. “It will aid in reducing swelling and also has some anesthetic properties. Just don’t drink it.”
As he prepared the splint he pushed his glasses back up his nose and looked at Noah. “So the were, what has he woken with today?”
“Oh…kay.” Damn, did she look that rough? Rhiannon couldn’t imagine having the desire to drink a bottle of topical anesthetic, but even shampoo and conditioner advised people not to use the products internally. “Thanks.” She watched Radek handling the splint, but peeked at Noah, wondering if he would put his ability out there for a stranger.
He shot a glance back at Rhiannon as he deliberated on whether to answer that question or not. A good portion of the people included in that group text already knew about what he could do. Calling it an open secret was probably an understatement. Noah’s gaze dropped back down to the splint. “Pyrokinesis,” he said finally, before looking back up at Radek to gauge his reaction. And then he gestured curiously to the vial that looked like it would be more at home in an old time apothecary than a modern medical practice. “What’s in that, exactly?”
Radek nodded slowly, then looked at the vial in his hand. “Exactly?” he repeated, looking at the tincture and sighing. “A lot of time and testing,” he replied, “with various plants and mineral extracts, from the turmeric to the ash of a combination of leaves and stalks of certain grasses blended in a mortar and pestle created from the marble of an era long gone.” He’d carried that mortar and pestle with him for numerous centuries and loved it dearly, being one of the few items he insisted on keeping close.
“How are you feeling? This change for you, it will entail some discomfort in a few days, with the Cold Moon fast approaching.” He paused, looking from him to Rhiannon and back again. “Have you ever witnessed a change?”
Rhiannon smoothed the tip of her finger along one eyebrow and remained quiet. She wasn’t sure if Noah had, but she’d seen it plenty of times (and was planning to be there for it unless Noah ghosted her). It would be different from watching Cian or the Weres she’d hunted or met in the course of it. It would be more like the girl, Willa, whose first transformation she’d seen after she was bitten at fourteen. Rhiannon had her family to thank for that visual. They thought watching what it did to people first-hand would hammer home the importance of shooting wolves on sight.
The inquiry into how he was feeling seemed like a much more loaded question than the one about his abilities. The only person Noah talked to about the inner emotional workings was Rhiannon. He half-subconsciously brushed his hand over her back briefly before answering. “No, not personally, but I have come across a Were before after they had changed. I don’t know if there’s really a way to fully prepare for it, but…I guess I’ll see how it goes.” He couldn’t help but wonder how expensive marble from an ‘era long gone’ was.
The immortal nodded. "Little can," he agreed with Noah. "The process of a were's shifting is one of those most mysterious and amazing things to witness, but less fascinating to endure. If you want to ease the aftermath I can have a potion prepared for you. It won't make the process less … dramatic, but it can hasten the recovery." He lifted the ice bandage to check on the position of the wrist and the swelling, grunting softly as he returned it to its position.
‘Potion.’ Rhiannon’s tooth caught the inside of her lip. “You could talk to Brian, too,” she said. “Or my friend Frankie. He turns into a little cat.” She indicated a small creature. “Silver lining, they say it doesn’t hurt as much for a bitten Were to shift during the full moon as it does at other times. Aside from the first time, I mean. I guess your body’s got to figure it out.” She gave Noah a careful look. Careful, because she knew he was not into sympathy, or having something else in control of him.
Noah exchanged a glance with Rhiannon when Radek mentioned a potion. He was certain that after his last time ingesting one, he wouldn’t have to deal with them again, despite the doctor’s best intentions in offering it. “Maybe,” he conceded, though he couldn’t help the somewhat guarded tone in his voice. If the reverse were true and he could read her mind, he would have agreed that she had it right: it wasn’t the prospect of pain that he was hesitant about, but rather the uncertainty of how much control he would have over his actions during the shift. “So I take it that you treat more than just humans?” Noah asked, partially in a bid to push the subject back away from himself.
Radek shrugged lightly and nodded, his attention on preparing the splint to the precise size for the hunter's forearm. The materials of this age were far more accepting of modification than those he'd used to try and hold together shattered limbs of soldiers centuries earlier.
"My patients know they can trust me to keep their secrets," he replied as he undid the Velcro on the cradle that would fit around the forearm. He again lifted the ice bandage to inspect the site.
‘As tight-lipped as before,’ Rhiannon thought. As far as she knew, Radek had never disclosed the specifics of himself, though it wasn’t impossible to piece together a few clues given the things he said. It might have frustrated her, initially, that he asked but didn’t give, but it was just as well to Rhiannon now. That same reticence to share information could work in their favor. She didn’t want Noah’s situation, or hers, getting past their circle and making them more vulnerable.
“I think it’s a ‘do good or do no harm’ situation,” Rhiannon said. “He’s a doctor. If you come for help, he helps. Even if you have pointy teeth. Right?”
The immortal gave a small nod, which could have been to do with his satisfaction at the progress in reducing the swelling, or in response to her comments. With his attention fully given to the fitting of the splint he offered an answer. "I ask only because it can of course make a rather large difference to both the diagnosis and treatment of an ailment or injury. An individual with little to no active circulatory system is less susceptible to bleeding out than to the onset of shock, and the healing abilities of a lycanthrope also allows modifications to a treatment plan if an injury simply needs cleaning, resetting and time."
“Right,” Noah nodded, his expression neutral but there were small tell-tale signs of slight amusement. “Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that.” The setup sort of reminded him of a mob doctor but with a wider customer base. He wondered how payment worked in a situation like this.
Radek smiled as the fitting of the splint progressed well, the cushioning providing support and restriction that would allow for adjustment as the remaining swelling subsided.
"Now, with you having experienced a break earlier in your life, I don't have to tell you of the necessity to keep this arm stabilised, and to reduce the usage, am I right?" he said to her, smiling as looked over the top of his glasses, and added, "and if my experience tells me anything it is that you will struggle to follow any sort of medical advice as until now you've had no real need to heed it. But now you do."
“Which is it?” Rhiannon met his eyes over his glasses. “You don’t have to tell me because I’ve been injured before, or you do because I probably won’t listen?”
"All are applicable," he returned.
The corner of her mouth curled upward. She sat still while he worked and averted her eyes from the injury. “Trust me. I want it to heal. Even if it isn’t about fighting right now, no hunter wants to walk around wearing a splint. I might as well put a neon sign over my head: attack now, hit me here.”
Noah turned to Rhiannon, feigning a look of disappointment. “So no rock-climbing next week, then? Darn.”
The doctor thought of Brianna and what she would be going through right now without her powers and nodded with a small grimace. "Until we find out more I suggest all who are finding themselves in another's world might want to press pause on their regular activities. We have no idea how this will resolve, if at all," he pointed out. "At least we know we have some who will stop at nothing until they find answers. Let's hope it's sooner rather than later," he sighed, eyeing the splint and giving a nod of satisfaction.
“You can count me in that number,” she said, inching forward until she was able to slide off the exam table. “Telepathy or not, this whole not-a-hunter thing isn’t going to work for me.” Rhiannon knew a lot of people didn’t sync well with their gifts or didn’t use them, hunters included. She was in the minority who felt the other way. “Thank you. How do people pay you?”
"Some with cash, some with kind, and some simply keep a keen eye out for things of interest," he replied with a shrug. "I have an interest in ancient items, in particular blades, both modern and of bygone eras. I had someone bring me one, fashioned from glass, just last year. Unfortunately his carrying of the item wasn't voluntary but we were able to extract it without inflicting the harm that was intended." He gave a small frown and grimaced at the recollection of removing the broken and heavily barbed blade from Derek, and then having to treat the young vampire for the poison that was encased in the hollowed blade. It, and the handle, still sat in a locked case for safekeeping.
He smiled as he looked at the two of them. "I don't do this for financial reward, and believe me, I have clients who keep the overheads of my clinic well covered," he told them reassuringly. "The opportunity to help, and learn more about the physiology of my patients to improve my knowledge and techniques is worth more to me than you can imagine."
Noah stood next to Rhiannon, silent and contemplative as he processed that. He had money that he could use to pay, though of course the majority of it had been acquired back when he was killing indiscriminately. And while his income stream had narrowed a bit since re-examining his methods, he wasn’t too worried about making ends meet. He was, however, newly intrigued by the subtext between Radek’s words. “You like to mix the modern with elements of ‘bygone eras’, right?” It was half observation, half question. “That’s interesting.”
“Many an ‘old wives’ tale’ has carried into these times,” the doctor replied, nodding slowly. “Our abilities to diagnose have benefited greatly from today’s technologies, giving us insight where before it was guesswork, but treatments of eras past can stand up to the tests of time in many cases,” he continued, indicating Rhiannon’s splinted wrist. “Bone, or wood was fashioned into a splint, fastened with leather at times, and is a far cry from today’s materials, but the treatment concept is still standing in good stead.”
“Well, whatever works,” Noah replied with the ghost of a shrug. The most important thing to him at the moment was that Rhiannon healed up. If Radek was competent, he supposed it didn’t matter the methods, or how and when he had learned them. But it was patently obvious to the pyrokinetic that there was more than met the eye, and it was more curiosity rather than distrust that had him asking questions.
She appreciated Radek’s willingness to help people, but was keen to return the favor. “I have something you might appreciate,” Rhiannon said. Having gotten a look at Radek’s operation, she intuited that trades were better than cash, which would be a drop in the bucket compared to whatever wealth he had amassed or whoever was funding him. “It’s a 19th Century steel bagh nakh. It’s a weapon from India,” she added for Noah, in case he wasn’t familiar. Rhiannon held up her fist. “There are folding blades coming out from the sides and shorter, curved ones over your knuckles. It’s supposed to mimic a tiger claw. I actually got it from a Were I knew when I was in Chicago. They got a kick out of it, the whole idea of a human putting on blades to emulate an animal. It has koftgari work on it. Anyway, it’s yours if you want it.”
Radek's eyebrows rose at the offer of the unusual weapon, the mention of koftgari work in particular. "It would be of interest, if you are willing to part with it," he replied, a small twitch at the corner of his mouth. "I don't currently have this in my collection, and I do admire the intricacies of that most ancient of Persian arts."
“Sure,” she said. “I’ll get it to you ASAP.” It was a beautiful piece, and should have been in a museum or part of a treasured collection rather than wrapped up in a hunter’s trunk. There was little likelihood of her using it in a fight. Rhiannon checked her pockets to make sure she had everything she’d brought into the pool building. “We’ll get out of your hair.”
She gave Noah’s arm a squeeze to let him know she was ready. “Take care.”
Noah nodded, his fingers briefly covering hers as he looked from the completed splint back to Radek. “Yeah, thanks.” He felt a wave of relief to be leaving. It wasn’t anything against the doctor, but there was something about his current environment that made him feel restless. He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved his car keys.
As usual Radek gave instructions on care to be taken, saw the pair out, and secured the front door once the vehicle had departed the cul-de-sac. The clean up was quick and perfunctory as the doc half expected more patients to be requiring medical support given the circumstances. No sooner had he finished messaging Brianna than his phone buzzed and a text message appeared,
- boss bit bad
- arm ripped open
With a brief glance across to the house he turned back from the door, sent another message, and started preparing for his next visitor.
In an upstairs window the figure of a woman was silhouetted in the curtained frame, observing the doctor turn away. The screen of the phone in her hand emitted a soft glow and she glanced at it briefly, then returned to her observations of the city's skyline.