Rhiannon Lee (rhiannon_lee) wrote in low_tide, @ 2010-01-02 17:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | jenny lowe, rhiannon lee |
How to Confuse a Telepath
After two weeks of avoidance, Rhiannon walked into Lower Keys Medical Center to sign paperwork, settle up her bills with an insurance card, and ask a few questions. Because it was the easiest part, she went to the business office first. She got a dirty look when the account representative pulled up her patient record and figured out Rhiannon had climbed out of bed and skipped out, without medical clearance or check-out paperwork. Rhiannon's terse response of, 'Whatever, listen, I don't have time for this,' didn't go over well, either. There were things she wanted to get done. Receiving a lecture from a woman with press-on nails wasn't on the list.
After taking care of the payment situation, she walked outside and went around to the Emergency entrance, since it was easier than navigating the maze of windowless hallways. An ambulance out front idled and clogged up the air with exhaust, its paramedics shooting the shit before going back to the station. Weaving past them, she entered the sliding doors to the waiting room, which was pretty empty at 2pm on a weekday.
Getting information was harder than Rhiannon guessed. There was HIPAA... Privacy law, right? But HIPAA didn't apply to her own medical crisis, she insisted. Then they couldn't tell her which physicians received patients on the night Rhiannon was brought in. Scheduling was confidential... couldn't she go to the police? No, Rhiannon said, the police hadn't spoken to any witnesses except for herself, and a bad case of unconsciousness had prohibited that from yielding info. Besides, if Rhiannon knew what happened, why the hell would she be there?
When speaking to the receptionists was a bust, she pretended to leave, then waited by the security doors to the treatment area. When a woman with her arm in a sling came out, Rhiannon ducked inside, where she proceeded to politely -- but insistently -- ask the nurses questions. "Look, I know one of you remembers me. I came in with two bony things through my torso." To justify her point, the brunette lifted her shirt to show them a pink scar on her stomach, which was quickly fading. "That ringing any bells?"
When the nurse leaned forward and gaped, probably wondering how Rhiannon's wound healed so quickly, she knew she hit pay dirt. Bingo.
Jenny had only just started her shift at work and already she had a headache. So far she’d seen two women squabbling over a man that had come in with a cuff locked around a certain part of his anatomy where handcuffs really shouldn’t belong, three children screaming because their older sibling had stuffed a pen up his nose and was bleeding everywhere. Whilst it was usually quiet, she'd just been swamped upstairs with her regular patients, coming down to the somewhat more quiet ER for a break. Though none was ever to be found; when she hit the floor, she was asked to go and see Nurse James, who was hanging around the treatment rooms.
She crossed through to see the nurse who had requested her presence, opening the door - after having not seen that she had someone in there with her (whoever it was had stood away from the window) - only to see a brunette flashing her stomach to the nurse.
The nurse looked confused as anything and her eyes slid to Jenny as she registered her presence in the room.
“Doctor Lowe!” she exclaimed, “I- there’s a previous patient here- she- uh- I suppose-”
“Is there anything I can help you with?” Jenny asked, addressing Rhiannon directly. There was no recognition; this Jennifer Lowe had never met the other woman, never had a life-changing experience with her. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name... I’m Dr Lowe.”
Annoyed at the intrusion, Rhiannon swung around to let the doctor know that no, she didn't need any help, unless the doctor was hanging about the ER the night she came in. The words stuck in her throat when she saw Dr. Lowe's face. Okay, whoa. She pushed down her shirt and tried to get her bearings. Jenny Lowe. Holy fucking shit. Wait, doctor? Whatever Jenny's job had been in Chicago, Rhiannon was pretty sure it didn't come with a title in front of it. As she remembered things, Jenny was a fragile sort, not exactly helpless, but not exactly a helper, either.
What the hell had Jenny's gift been? Empath?
"Um." Rhiannon touched her forehead, trying to piece together a decent response. "Rhiannon Lee. Listen, I'm just trying to figure out what staff members did my intake a couple weeks ago. My paperwork names my surgeon, but he wasn't exactly scrubbed and waiting by the door when I came in, you know?" For the sake of cooperation and not looking like a lunatic, she lowered her voice to a reasonable level when talking to Jenny, or Doctor Lowe, or whatever. "Someone brought me in. A stranger. I just need to ask her who it was." She pointed at the nurse.
Jenny's eyebrow arched at the woman in front of her. Rhiannon, did she say? Ms Lee. There was a moment, before she then heard a few thoughts; she heard her name and how in the hell did this woman know her name? Alarm shot through her, and the confusion that came with the overheard thoughts made her take a moment, half a step backwards.
"Ms Lee, would you like to take this somewhere more private?" she asked, sensing that maybe she needed to talk to her. If not just to sate the curiosity that had sparked with the overhearing of the fact that her full name was known. "You can tell me exactly what you need then. Nurse James, will you excuse us?"
The nurse looked puzzled before she just nodded, hurrying away and shutting the door after herself. Once the door was shut, Jenny motioned for Rhiannon to sit down and she, herself, leaned against the table, half perched on the corner so that she could watch the woman carefully. Her hands were in the pockets of her white coat.
"I doubt Nurse James can help you, she's... flaky with names at the best of times."
Rhiannon reached up, like she was going to tuck her hands in her hair, and balled them into fists above her head instead. "What the--" She laughed and tried again. "What the fuck did you do that for? I don't need a name. I just need to know if she had red hair, and there goes my chance to figure it out." Rhiannon swept an arm towards the door. God. Yeah, this was exactly what she needed, a face from the past waltzing in at the wrong moment with nothing useful to add to the conversation, just long enough to screw it up. Relax, she doesn't know how important it is. The Slayer exhaled and put her spine against an empty wall, ignoring the offer to sit.
Cussing at her's not going to encourage cooperation, is it?
"I just... I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude." Okay, yeah she did mean to, but was now thinking better of it. "But don't you think a person deserves to know who brought them into hospital after they've been stabbed?" Rhiannon brought her arms down, conscious of how threatening two raised fists could be, even if crossed on top of her head.
How important what was? Jenny frowned and nodded after a moment. "It's not exactly endearing me to helping you, Ms Lee," she agreed to the thought comment. It was easy enough for her to have made that assumption from Rhiannon's half-hearted apology. She took her hands out of her pockets and clasped them around her stethoscope, one hand on each end. The cool metal felt good against her skin.
Today was going to suck already, she knew that. "I would imagine so, but if your saviour hadn't hung around, perhaps she didn't want you to know or maybe it was just who you said; a stranger. Unless you think that you might have known them?" She tilted her head, eying Rhiannon carefully. "Why do you need to know so badly?"
Rhiannon stared up at the fluorescent light. A fly twitched inside the casing, trapped and dying. Its wings were barely visible, but she heard them with better-than-ordinary ears. She wondered how it got in there in the first place. Insects could never figure out how to get out of the dangerous places they found their way into, which, frankly, was a lot like people. "Because I think I remember who it was, only the person I'm thinking of wouldn't make any sense. She hates me and has every reason to do the exact opposite of helping me." And I have to know if it was her, so I can figure out if she's a threat.
Adjusting her boots to fit inside a square tile, Rhiannon ran over the details of the nurse's appearance in her head. That way, she could come back later, or wait in the staff parking lot until she got off work. Then she'd find out what she needed to know. Blonde hair, frosted. Dark roots. Short. Kind-of a waddler.
"Her name's Helen James, if you really need to know everything about her," Jenny offered dryly, the mental catalogue of the woman's details creeping her out a little. She shifted where she was sat, moving so that the edge of the desk was no longer jabbing into her lower back. Instead, she sat on the desk properly, her feet dangling as she clasped the edge of the desk in her hands to stop her from fiddling with things.
She lifted an eyebrow. "Make a lot of enemies, do you?" she asked, "Or do you just have that little faith in humanity?" There was a lot about this woman that was confusing her. "Is it worth me even asking you whether or not you could just ask this woman if she helped you or not?" Beat. "Though, if she's a potential threat, I could imagine you wouldn't want to just walk up and ask her..."
Rhiannon frowned. "Both. And she's not exactly easy to find." Nor was she human, but whatever. Details, details.
The similarities between her running thoughts and Jenny's responses no longer seemed coincidental to her, and after scrutinizing the doctor for a few seconds, a light bulb went off in her head. Shit. Telepath. Clemence was the empath. Rhiannon's posture straightened and she looked away from the doctor, at the sink in the little examining room. She focused on the bottles lined up alongside it. Soap. Hand sanitizer. Too bad neither of them scrubbed thoughts. She was going to have to keep her brain very honed in on particular trains of thought or get the hell out of the room, if she didn't want Dr. Lowe digging around in there and hearing other choice items, like, say, demons are real.
"Also, trust me," she added as afterthought. "I'd walk up to her, threat or not."
God, that was two people in a matter of days that seemed to know about her. Jenny took a moment before she glanced at the door. Rhiannon Lee, whoever she was, seemed to know something about her; she had known her name and now she had clocked that Jenny was a telepath.
She watched Rhiannon's gaze track around the room and wondered whether or not there were more people out there who knew about her ability. It made her feel a little paranoid, to say the least, because she could lose her job.
"I'm sure you would," Jenny muttered before she slid off the desk, planting herself on two feet. Firm on the ground.
"How did you know?" she asked, "Who are you?" It would be easier to cut around the crap: if Rhiannon knew Jenny was a telepath, then she knew that some of her thoughts would have been overheard. She felt a little strange, too, like Izzy in the coffee shop, like something wasn't quite right but Jenny didn't know what it was. She hadn't had a chance to speak to Izzy about it. She kind of wished she had been able to, at least the blonde had been willing to talk.
And if Rhiannon told her how she knew Jenny's name, clocked her as a telepath, then Jenny knew she'd be able to get the information Rhiannon needed without her needing to stalk the nurse on the way home.
"I told you," she said, not budging from her post at the wall. "I'm Rhiannon Lee. And for a telepath, you're not so good at hiding your gifts, Miss... repeats whatever I think out loud." Her eyes, which looked heavy in their makeup, went to the nametag on Jenny's white coat. Doctor Lowe... Quite an accomplishment, when the other version of her had been so scattered, so totally mangled by all the thoughts running around her head, that she barely kept herself sane. Apparently this dimension had been kinder to her.
"Probably most people would pick up on it, if they believed in supernatural things, which I do." Rhiannon's brain tried to go a particular way -- horns, claws, teeth -- but she forced it back to the room they were in. Physical observations. Like the stethoscope the doctor wore around her neck, allowing her to hear the things her brain didn't pick up like short-wave radio. "Don't look so suspicious. I'm only here for one reason and it's got nothing to do with you."
"Well, I've never had anyone who's so sharp as to pick up on it." Jenny was a little defensive, a frown flickering over her features. "I- I can't control it properly, it's like, the thoughts that are on the surface are flung out there and I just pick them up." She tapped her fingertips on the table. She ignored the thoughts of horns and claws and teeth. Kris - her room mate - had killed a vampire, stabbed it in the heart with a wooden stake and watched it turn into ash in front of her. Jenny knew about the supernatural, how could she not?
She shook her head. "I'm just- I met someone else who seemed to know too the other day. She - I- one more question and then I'll see if I can't find out whether or not the woman that brought you in was a red-head, save you stalking Nurse James after work." She paused. "How did you know my full name? I've never met you before, that much I know for sure." She glanced at her name-tag as if she had forgotten what it said. Dr Lowe. Nothing else, no mention of her first name.
A sigh, not irritated or tired but contemplative. Rhiannon rubbed her lips together and asked herself what was the harm in telling a piece of the truth? Sure, the doctor might call the psych ward on her, but she didn't think Jenny would do that. Besides, Rhiannon could tear out of a straight jacket or restraints in a few ticks of a stopwatch. Elbow a few noses and she was free and clear. "The thing about the supernatural... Or even the seemingly impossible... If you believe in part, that means you've got to admit the possibility of all, right? Psychic phenomena, time travel, past lives, alternate universes."
Rhiannon put her foot against the wall and pushed away from it. The dry wall creaked under the slight pressure. "Here's a hint. It's one of those." She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jeans. She wished she had cigarettes in it (there were now two partial packs above the refrigerator in her house, just itching to be burned). She wished she could smoke in a hospital. "You've got better control of it than you think. You should give yourself some credit." She went to stand by the sink and picked up a box of tissues. The paisley pattern was purple and pink. It was one of the only items in the room that wasn't hawking a brand of medication.
"Alternate universes?" Jenny echoed before she thought about Izzy, thought about how the woman had felt like her mind hadn't quite fitted into her body, a mis-match as it were. The possibility of alternate universes had been one that Jenny hadn't thought of before, often wondered about, sure, what if there was a version of her out there that didn't have this ability? Maybe she hadn't gone to an asylum as a child. Perhaps she'd had a normal childhood. Maybe her brother wasn't a loser. "Cool."
She paused and then looked at Rhiannon, puzzled. "I should? Huh." Did that mean that Rhiannon had known another version of herself? That was an interesting thought. A part of her wanted to quiz the woman on what had happened, what she was like elsewhere. But she refrained. "I'll go find out if that woman had red hair, if you'd like?" she asked. It would be easier than Rhiannon going after the nurse who had looked more than a little... freaked out at the sight of whatever Rhiannon had shown her, presumably some kind of injury? It didn't seem prudent to ask too many questions.
"That would be great." Rhiannon tossed the box between her hands, prepared to wait in the examining room while the doctor probed the nurse, either verbally or with mental powers. "Deanna's got freckles," Rhiannon said. "About this tall. Classy looking, but with the world's foulest mouth." She wouldn't be surprised if Deanna had worked the word 'cunt' into conversation while at the hospital. It seemed to be a favorite of hers, for more than one reason.
"Thanks." Rhiannon pulled a piece of tissue out and set the box aside. She twisted and wrapped it around her index finger, just fiddling for the sake of it. Too bad she can't send other Jenny any trade secrets. The thin paper broke and released a tiny cloud of particles into the air.
"Alright, just- wait here. I'll be right back." Jenny turned on her heel and started towards the door. Her hand touched the handle when Rhiannon's comment drifted into her head, but instead of turning and commenting, she just looked over her shoulder and offered her a smile. She slipped out of the room, leaving Rhiannon and that interesting train of thought behind.
It was easy enough for her to track down the nurse, pulling her aside and having a short conversation with her, giving just enough information for the nurse to give her a brief description of the woman. She didn't remember much, but what she did remember bought up enough of a picture for Jenny to discern that yes, she had red hair, and that she'd made quite a spectacular entrance into the ER.
A couple of minutes later and Jenny was turning to head back to Rhiannon, a chart being pushed into her hands that she glanced over as she walked towards the room. She glanced through it, pushing the door open slowly as she spoke to an attending. "Send him for a chest x-ray and I want an EKG done as soon as possible. Though it's probably just a physical reaction to shock, considering."
She looked in the room as she came in fully, shutting the door behind her. "Considering what happened to you, you heal fast," Jenny commented off-handedly. "The answer's yes. What that means for you, though, I don't know. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
Rhiannon's jaw shifted as her back teeth ground together. Deanna was here and she came from the same place Rhiannon did. That didn't make sense, because Rhiannon had staked her weeks beforehand. Deanna was here and she had saved her life. That also made no sense. "No, not particularly," she said. And yet yes, she had wanted it to be true, for Deanna to have intervened, but she couldn't figure out why.
The rhyme or reason as to who came from Chicago also eluded her. In fact, it pissed her off. People had been left behind to go about their lives, un-split. Good people. Others, like Deanna, got dumped here alongside Rhiannon, so she had to ask herself whether or not she was a good person. If this was a punishment. Don't be stupid, Rhi. Let it go.
She dropped the remnants of the tissue in a trash can. "I'm not exactly normal," she said, going back to Jenny's comment about quick healing. "And I'll probably wind up back here at some point. You guys shouldn't bother looking for any physical reasons, next time. Some things aren't strictly physical." The tissue had left her fingers feeling oily, so she wiped them on her thighs. "I gotta go."
Jenny's eyebrow arched a little at Rhiannon's comment about being not normal. It seemed to be a trend regarding the people in her life. First there was Kris, now this Izzy person that she had met and Rhiannon? This woman who had known her somehow, but hadn't elaborated on how.
"Well, next time I'll be sure to just let them patch you up and leave your release notes on the edge of the bed." Her hands slipped into her pockets, a security blanket as much as anything as she commented on Rhiannon's unscheduled release - her escape, as it were. She smiled. "Hopefully we don't see too much of you in here. You wouldn't wanna become a regular."
She wet her lower lip and then tipped her head towards the door. "Stay safe," she offered, almost without knowing why. It wasn't like this woman had been particularly amicable towards her. "I hope you sort things out with this... woman."
Stepping aside and away from the door, Jenny just motioned for Rhiannon to go. All in good time. If she was supposed to find out how that woman knew her, then she would, but obviously that time was not now. All in good time.
Rhiannon smiled at the floor. It didn't light up her face, as some of them could, but it was a conscious effort to be more approachable. It wasn't the easiest thing for her -- opening up, that was -- not until she knew people. And she had, if she investigated her feelings, a hesitance to know Dr. Lowe, because it hurt a little, in the same way it hurt knowing that Joseph didn't remember her, and that Kris wouldn't either. Her friendship with Jenny had been brief, but she'd felt responsible during that time. Protective of her and what they'd both lost. Trying to put her history beyond her and move forward was a tricky thing when it kept rising up in front of her. It made her wonder if she was supposed to forget it at all.
"Don't worry about me. I'm pretty good at landing on my feet. Or at least," she took a breath, "Pulling myself up by the bootstraps when I don't."
She walked past the doctor. "See you around, Jenny."
Jenny smiled. "Yeah, I can imagine," she turned her head to watch Rhiannon leave. "See you around, Rhiannon." She had a feeling that that would certainly be the case. Things in Key West were changing, not that she knew how or why, but there was definitely something changing.
It took her far longer than it should have done to realise that she had, once again, been addressed by her Christian name as opposed to her title, but by the time she had thought to ask, Rhiannon had gone and Jenny was left standing in a treatment room, wondering just what was going on.
One thing she knew for sure, though, was that everything was going to change. Maybe not immediately, but a change was definitely going to come.