Follow Up Check Up Who: Micah and December Where: The morgue When: morning
Micah had struggled with leaving Nic in the morning, but work called and as a result he’d had to leave and head back to the hospital. He was going to get used to Nic being around if he wasn’t careful. Even now he was thinking of how he’d rather not sleep than sleep alone. It was the thought that clouded his mind as he tried to get caught up on the charts from the night before, making it difficult to read. So much that he read one three times before realizing what he was looking at and the name written on the top. Still holding on to it he took a different direction, headed for the morgue.
He knocked, but mostly followed after. “December?” he called, hoping the night coroner was still around. If he’d read her chart right, he wanted to make sure her bite wasn’t infected. Animal bites did that. December hadn't been there over night, but had come back in to see about more clean up and paperwork. When someone was calling for her, she looked up. "Micah." she greeted the doctor. "Something up?" she asked. Doctors didn't usually wander down her way.
"I have a chart on you? Animal bite?" He asked, clearly confused as he headed her way. When did she come in contact with animals? Not to mention the outbreak of bat bites, which had ended very badly.
"Sure." December said, gesturing to her arm. "It's fine if you don't count the pain, and I'm not. If you really want to take a look you can, but we're all good here." she assured him. She didn't really want to have to explain herself, since she had no proper explanation.
Micah looked at her arm then her then back at the chart. That wasn’t expected, but what other option did he have other than going with it? “I do count the pain,” he told her, moving up closer to her, and taking her arm to study the dressing first. “Scale of one to ten, how bad is it?”
Depends on the scale, doesn't it, doc? December thought. "I don't know. Five?" she suggested. "It hurts when I move it, the stitches pull a little, and it's my arm, so I move it all the time. I'm taking painkillers, though, so it's fine."
“The idea there would be to not move it,” Micah pointed out, undoing part of the bandaging to see what the stitching looked like, half expecting to see Liam’s handiwork even if he knew that Liam hadn’t been at work. “What got you?” he asked, checking the redness and swollen area around it for anything beyond the typical signs of healing.
“Sure. You try doing autopsies and other shit with one arm.” December said, rolling her eyes a little. “It’d my dominant arm. There isn’t an option to just not use it.” she told him. “And I don’t know, it was dark.” she added. “I got shots and shit to keep it from getting infected.”
“You take some time off,” Micah said, giving her his stern doctor look, which sometimes did the job despite the fact that he wasn’t a stern person in general. “Wasn’t a bat was it?” he asked, though those bites hadn’t looked like hers. He redressed it, content with how it was healing for now.
December made a face. "I'm the only one here with the actual training to do the hard shit." she told him. "And no, not a bat." The bites were simply too small for a bat, but he was probably concerned because of all the fucking dead bodies in the wake of those little bastards. "Afraid I'm going to drop dead?"
“And the dead aren’t rushing off on us,” Micah said, giving her another look. “You can argue with me, but technically you’d have a doctor’s note to rest some.” He glanced up at her when she mentioned dropping dead, but didn’t give into the bait. “Just worried about infection.” Which was the best explanation they had so far for what had happened to the bat bite victims.
December sighed, looking away a moment. "How long would you be recommending?" she asked. Maybe he was right. Maybe she did need a few days. She'd come in in the case of an emergency, of course, but...maybe. He probably wasn't wrong, anyhow.
Micah looked at her arm, then her and frowned as he leaned in more. “For your arm I’d say a two days max, maybe some ice to ease the swelling, but you look exhausted. When did you sleep last?” She was paler than usual, which had him worried about infection more. He leaned in and rested a cool hand against her forehead checking her temperature in the oldest way possible.
December shrugged. "I haven't been doing a lot of sleep lately. Too many autopsies to perform." she admitted, though it was grudgingly. She stayed still for his temp check. "It'd been insane down here."
He was only satisfied with the fact that she seemed cool rather than warm, but everything else brought out the stern version of Doctor Micah. “Not okay. You look like you’ve been through the ringer, and while all of us appreciate your work, you can’t keep doing it if you burn out.” He motioned towards her arm. “The won’t heal properly until you rest. All you’re risking right now is an infection and popped stitches. Home. Now. Don’t come back until Tuesday night at the earliest. I’ll post a guard outside the door if i have to.”
December opened her mouth, then shut it again. "One condition." she told him. "You call me in if there's an emergency. If you agree to that, I'll go home and stay there til Tuesday."
“If by emergency you mean I have a sudden outbreak or half the dome dies, then yes. I will call you. For now, home, ice, bed. Sleep with it propped on a pillow if you can to help with the swelling which will help with the pain.” Micah kept his stern look before it shifted into a smile. “Rest December. Take care of you. You’re more important than the dead.”
“I mean like, murder, or another mysterious death. But I get it. Home. Ice. Bed. Sleep.” she agreed. She hated it, but she’d do it. Part of her recognized that she probably desperately needed it. So, she stood back up, and gave him a half smile back. “See you around, Doc. Tuesdayish.” she said, starting out of the morgue. Yeah. Maybe this was for the best.
She could concentrate on game plans for hunting vampires.