Characters of a Minor Sort (jesschars) wrote in btvsal, @ 2009-10-21 13:04:00 |
|
|||
Current location: | LAGH |
Current mood: | working |
Entry tags: | fransisco ortiz, place: la, ~liz todd |
Add Another to the Team
Who: Frank and Liz
Where: LAGH Cafeteria
When: Monday Evening, Oct. 19
Thank God for small miracles, Liz thought. She'd just FINALLY finished a long, seemingly endless shift at the hospital. Far too tired to trust herself behind the wheel right now though, she'd decided to hang for a bit in the hospital cafeteria, pounding down as much of the horribly strong coffee as her body would stand. It had been a hard day: she'd lost two patients, neither of which she could have done anything about, but it still never made it any easier. Especially when she had to pass one off as 'spontaneous neck rupture'. It made her sick to so blatantly lie to the family, but what could she say?
Frank himself was already sitting in the cafeteria, also coming down from another eighteen hour shift. If he didn't love the work, he would have ran into private practice screaming for mercy. Even without hearing the occasional shot in the air like in the army, this was still murder. When he saw Liz, he gave her a slight wave.
"Hey Frank..." She said with a sad, tired smile. "You done now too?" She asked, mostly to make small talk, as it helped with the falling-asleep thing. "Long-ass shift for me, no doubt."
"Yeah, spent way too long in the ER, not that I'm sure how that's different from any other day that I'm here," he said with a slight chuckle. "What about you?"
"Same. Lost two patients today too. Never an easy thing, especially when you have to talk to the family and tell them things you don't necessarily believe." She wasn't getting into it, but damn, did that bother her.
He nodded. He knew all about losing patients. You didn't have a day in the ER without losing someone. Just not how it worked. "All sorts of excuses that they come up with nowadays, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Tell me about it." She scowled, "This city is so messed up... I don't wanna say too much, but... how many 'spontaneous neck ruptures' are we going to have to pass off before people start actually thinking we're full of shit?"
"They probably never will," he said with a slight shrug. He had worked plenty of nights to see enough of them. "People's necks don't do that. I've seen pretty much every injury imaginable and I know that necks don't do that."
"So... what do YOU think causes it?" She asked, trying to feel him out a little. Hell, this guy'd been in war zones. He could be valuable to her cause.
"Something else," he said, not saying. He didn't want to be seen as the kook of the ER. "Someone else. I really don't know for sure."
"Funny how many of them mutter things about people with fangs, and yet it always get written off as frantic, half-conscious babbling." She said with a snort. "Makes me sick."
"None of us really know what's out there, do we?" Frank asked. "Nothing we can really do about it but try to treat them, though. Not call them crazy."
"Exactly. Maybe if ONE DAMN PERSON would listen to them, and not think they were babbling, we could work harder to stop this." She looked him in the eye, a challenging look. "Frank, between us. I need to know: what do YOU think of all these unexplained injuries?"
"I...I really don't know, Liz," he admitted. "Someone attacking people? Can't just be one, though. Too many people coming in with it." He looked at her. "What do you know?"
"I know people are dying. Of severe BITES. Not 'neck ruptures'. And if you can look me in the eye and tell me you don't at least SUSPECT what's biting them... then honestly? You're not even a third as smart as I gave you credit for." She sighed, closing her eyes. "We've all seen it, Frank. The 'V-word'. But nobody wants to admit this shit exists. And I'm tired of it."
"Because no one wants to sound like a lunatic," he admitted to her. "You and I both know that. Do I suspect? Of course I do. Every time I see what look like teeth marks in some poor kid's neck but have to write up some ridiculous excuse called 'neck rupture.'" He sighed. "But without proof, what can you do?"
"Do you trust me? Respect me enough to take my words as truth, even if they sound far-fetched?" Liz asked, a blonde eyebrow rising slightly.
"I'm willing to believe anything at this point," Frank said to her. "I'll trust you."
"I've seen proof. Alice and I both have. The supernatural exists, Frank. In my own family, it exists. And I'm tired of tiptoe-ing around it. There are people out there, people who fight those things, to protect all of us. And they're suffering, damnit, because there's no place they can go to get proper help, without having to make things up." She gave him a pleading look. "I want to help them. And I want your help."
"Alice, too?" If she was in on this as well, then he couldn't just shake it off. Alice was respected by everyone in this hospital. "I trust you, but, can I see some sort of proof? I hate to sound like that, but I'm a person that has to see with my own eyes."
"Oh... damnit." Liz laughed, wondering if she could think of some other way, rather than have to call on poor Meredith AGAIN. "Well.. I had a vampire kind of... put on her game face for Alice.. but believe it or not, she's a friend. I don't wanna have to keep using her for show-and-tell." Still, there had to be a way. "What about... if I could introduce you to a man who's made a career of fighting these things?"
"Well, that might help," he said to her, not really sure what a 'game face' was, but decided to go along with it for now. Probably something to do with when they got ready to eat.
"The man I'm dating... he trains the people that literally fight off the very things that kill our patients. I promise you, he can answer ANY questions you have." Wesley was a wise choice to involve, she knew, as he could be discreet and as subtle as possible.
Frank nodded. "Fine, I'll talk with him." He couldn't help but feel skeptical, but, at the same time, it would explain a lot that he had seen in the ER since starting work here.
"Alright. Look, take this." She gave him a small piece of paper that had Wesley's name and number written on it. "Call him this evening. Tell him you're one of my co-workers, and I told you he could talk to you, tell you what you need to know."
He took the paper and nodded. "I hope that you are right about this," he said. "Well, I'd rather you be wrong, considering the consequences, but you being right would explain so much."