Gwen Dailey; Oracle (digitaldelphi) wrote in musingslogs, @ 2010-10-08 11:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, oracle |
WHO: Gwen and Eve
WHAT: Second meetings, not much longer than the first
WHERE: Emergency room of the hospital Quinn was taken to
WHEN: Way, way, way back after the vigilante meeting kerfuffle
WARNINGS: None
NOTES: A million mea culpas for not posting this in a timely manner. D:
Gwen made it over to the hospital as fast as she could, which wasn’t nearly fast enough. She didn’t often go out of the house and if she did, never strayed far from Bathos. There was little reason to have a car and she was usually content ordering a van to pick her up. Tonight was a night where she regretted not having an accessible vehicle on hand and she cursed every second that it took to get to the hospital.
When she rolled through the emergency room doors her tired eyes roamed over those still seated, not entirely expecting to see Quinn there. If she had been there, there would have been much hell to pay. But the familiar face she was looking for was absent and so she continued on to the desk. Her eyes lingered on the woman in back, obviously standing out and obviously not caring. That’s what happened when you wore a mask in the middle of an emergency room.
Only in Seattle.
When she reached the desk and she gave her name and who she was looking for, but dropped her voice down . She wasn’t sure what name Quinn had given the ones who took her here but she knew they didn’t know her name. She inclined her head slightly to see if she could spy the woman in black before raising her voice just enough to be heard. “I’m sorry, is this right place? I was just so. So much is going on and I. Did I hear them right? They said she was shot?” Acting was never in Gwen’s cards but she didn’t have to fake the worry, she didn’t bother to hide how frantic she was.
By that time the florescent lights had become a familiar pulse, one that resonated dully within her chest, a thrum through eyelids against her eyes -- each beat was a headache, a constriction that forced her back down against cracking plastic chair, a rusting, flaking remnant of hail-and-well-met gone bad in the very centre of the humanity oblivious to that existence, to its need. Eve was forgotten to purpose, to anything outside the realm of the hubbub streaming like ants-without-queen in and out and back again of the cubicle that housed the girl. Masked she might be, but her fingers fanned across her face as another mask, her chin resting within her palms, elbows skewed on knees as though head were too heavy to carry -- this was no prowling tiger, nor domesticated kitten whose scratch of a demand went unheard. She was waiting, for the catch to slip free, the cage door to open and to run and run until the whole bad thing were slewed off like stained clothing beside the tub. Her irritation was a tide that tossed itself again and again at the waiting room, at the desk of nurses who talked in soft voices and said nothing at all of use, at the doctors who stalked the halls like they knew things -- at the whole business that brought a child in here -- and it rose and plunged again to the green-clad worker of a doctor who emerged with a snick-rattle-slide of curtains against the rod and stepped out importantly, unaware of the thrashing-crashing resentment sent his way.
“Doctor -- next of kin is here,” the nurse’s arm was a flag, a baton-passing across a waiting room of people, and as he stood beside Eve, his stethoscope swinging a tick-tock-out countdown of barely contained disdain for her dis-order, he looked down.
“See. You can go now.”
Gwen heard the small exchange and once the nurse assured her that she would be notified when she could see the patient, she wheeled back to the masked woman’s direction. She took in the picture she made, unhappiness and anxiousness radiating strongly as she moved closer. “You’re the one who brought her in?” It was a question without reproach, simply wanting to be certain. She spared a glance toward the doctor and then she gave the woman a slightly sheepish look. She’d be more forthcoming once the doctor wasn’t there.
Palms on knees, ready to surge upwards, a roar of a movement and off out -- even trailing dried blood like breadcrumbs -- Eve turned her head to the woman-on-the-wheels. Same voice, same chair as the woman at the ball approached with the oncoming inevitability of an executioner. There was something less solid, less firm about a kid -- especially a kid more concerned with a bullet than faces, voices, the clear and flat certain reality that a hospital waiting room made things become. An adult, one whom the nurses spoke to with clear relief in the gestures, the motion to the cubicle, was another prospect entirely. Sitting back in the chair, uneasy --
“I’m not waiting around on anyone else.” The words curled out, lazy-defiant -- the woman was angry, even with a mask pulled low over her features. It didn’t take more than the rigid line of her shoulders and the bite and catch of her voice to tell that.
Gwen had the recognition in nearly the same moment. The eyes, the voice, the grace and ease with every movement, even with her a little worse for wear. It was the woman from the ball although now she cursed herself for not having a name to go with the face. The grim and angry tone of her voice was expected - welcome even. She didn’t understand why the woman was compelled to stay, glad that someone did but still unsure as to why. The anger was something she could understand and it calmed her enough offer a small nod to the door. That was the way out, and Gwen didn’t mind or care if she took it.
“Thanks,” she offered simply. She only seemed to be talking with the most absolute of necessities to this woman whenever they met. Please move your dress. Thanks for being here. She never had much more reason to talk, no need for useless words, and she figured the woman preferred that more than idle chit chat.
Eve didn’t stay for thanks, didn’t ask questions about how the kid was doing -- nor who this woman was and why she didn’t seem surprised to be speaking to a person in a mask. If she were Wren or Robin, perhaps then -- but too often had the police officers strolled in through the sliding doors, all radio feedback and the flare of lights in the background, exchanged a few words with the nurses to a swell of Eve’s rising panic -- and then gone. Time to leave, time to run, to scrub off the unnecessary blood of a night gone completely wrong -- she rose silently, with not even a glance toward the curtained bay and began to run. Not even the nurses, the ‘hey, you need to fill out a-- !’ at her back stopped her. Eve was gone, in the way of things that could make themselves a part of the night almost as quickly as stepping out into it.
Gwen watched the retreating figure with some interest, but not too much. She wondered who she was, wondered how to reconcile the woman from the ball and the woman in the emergency room. But the thoughtful moment was a few seconds at best and Gwen turned her attention back to the situation at hand.
She had more important things to worry about than unmasking. At least for now.