Will Graham (purelyempathic) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-03-15 23:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, james wilson, lilo pelekai, will graham |
Who: Will Graham and Lilo Pelekai, with James Wilson.
What: Falling ill
When: 3/14
Where: Will's house, then the hospital.
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; blood/gore/vomit/medical stuff.
Status: Complete!
Will was asleep. Or was at least trying to be. He was floating on a sea of blood, well aware that there were rocks and hidden traps, with snarling teeth, underneath the waves. Above him, there was a huge stag, face ghostly in the darkness. He shivered, curling up into a ball, confused when the waves turned to hard wood beneath him. He hadn’t remembered falling, or lighting a fire - but he was burning up, drenched in sweat. Somewhere he could hear a dog whining.
Lilo was excited about visiting Will. They were going to walk with the dogs, she was going to make some poke - life would be good. She used the key he’d given her to get into the house, humming up until the moment she saw Will twitching on the floor. “Daisy, Mareeba, go with Winston into the kitchen, please.” She all but ran over to him, trying to turn him onto his side. “Will! Baby, can you hear me?”
He heard her voice - it cut through some of the fog. “Li,” Will tried, but his voice box didn’t want to cooperate. The stag made a soft noise, turning to leave, and he squinted, trying to see. “Li?” It was the dreams!
She rubbed his back, knowing that the seizure would eventually end. Once that happened, she’d take him to the hospital in her hovercar, knowing that it was faster than any ambulance. Alien tech was pretty amazing.
Eventually most of the fog lifted, but it still felt like he had a blanket thrown over his head. His head ached; was he shaking? He heard more noise, but what eventually jarred him back to reality was a cold, sharp dog nose. Will made a face, turning away, hearing his own whimper but not having any conscious memory of deciding to whimper.
They were whizzing through the air in her red hovercar, Will in the seat next to her and her double checking and making sure that he was staying in his seat. When they reached the hospital, she hopped out and moved to pick Will up into a fireman’s carry.
Running with him in her arms, she went inside and told the doctor what was happening.
Will seemed to blink, and then he was lying down, the buzzing fluorescent lights boring into his ears and his lungs protesting. There were too many stimuli here - but the stag had gone. He squinted, surprised at the distressed noise from his own throat.
Tears were streaming down Lilo’s cheeks, but she spoke authoritatively with the doctor. She told them what was going on, and what she suspected it was. She told them to make sure they checked his brain, make sure that they checked it just to make her feel better. She didn’t know if they’d take her seriously, but she hoped so. She’d been reading up on his symptoms since he started showing them at all. He’d tried to hide, but some things were difficult to bury.
Will didn’t understand what was going on, only that it was loud and bright. He assumed from the chill and the overwhelming ice blue in the air that he was in a hospital of some kind. His throat ached, and he tried to make more noise. Was he alone?
He sat up, unbelievably, squinting, hands pressed to his ears in a show of strength he didn’t think he had. Definitely a hospital. There was someone in the hall.
After speaking with the doctor, Lilo moved into the room to sit with Will. They were going to put him on broad spectrum antibiotics right away to try to get his fever down, as well as monitor him for his sleepwalking and loss of time.
When she saw his hands to his ears, she moved to shut the door. “Is it too bright? I can turn the lights off.”
“Yes.” Will fell back, eyes closed. He felt frustrated more than anything; he had a million questions and things to say, but he didn’t really think he could. He tried to smile instead, hoping it didn’t look ghastly. “Where am I?”
She turned the light off, her eyes tearing anew when she saw him try to smile. “The hospital. You had a seizure - your temperature was one-oh-six.” Moving to sit by him, she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “You’re sick.”
Shit was his first thought. Will didn’t answer her right away, instead feebly moving his hand as well as he could to reach for hers. At least the buzzing sound was gone. “Time?” he managed, hoping she’d understand. Even if it had been a few hours since he’d passed out and gone to the hospital, it still ought to be near-evening, on Thursday. If he’d lost more time, that would be frightening.
“It’s about six, Thursday March thirteenth.” Lilo knew he’d been losing time, but it wasn’t something she really wanted to discuss with him. She knew it would only serve to make him upset, make him feel more vulnerable. “You’re on antibiotics now, they’re going to do MRI and CAT scans soon.”
That actually helped, that it was about where he’d guessed it was. He lay back, eyes closed. “I’ve been losing time.” He should have told her, in hindsight, but he hadn’t wanted to worry her. There was no guarantee that getting sick in his dreams would have led to this. It wasn’t a power or some sort of mutation; it was an illness, of that he was fairly sure.
“I know,” she murmured. She reached out to take his hand, squeezing it gently. “That, and your fevers, your headaches, the sweating, the seizures. I told them to check you for some things. I’ve been doing research.”
“You know?” Will looked up. He’d been careful to try not to worry her, and he said as much. “I didn’t want to scare you.”
She raised his knuckles to her lips. “You didn’t scare me. I just wanted to help.” But then the doctor came in, looking just like a doctor should - tie perfectly knotted, white coat immaculate. He started to turn on the light, but Lilo stood up. “His eyes are sensitive, could you leave it off?”
Wilson nodded, making sure to shut the door behind him. “Of course. I’m Dr. Wilson, and I’m overseeing your case. We’ve got you on a broad spectrum antibiotic now, but your girlfriend had some pretty plausible hunches. I’d have been giving you an MRI either way. Are you ready for that, Mr. Graham? If you’re at all claustrophobic, I can move you to an open MRI.”
Will didn’t particularly like that the doctor had just seemed to appear; it still felt as though he was walking in a storm. “Not claustrophobic,” he managed. Small spaces felt soothing, contrary to many of his neurological persuasion; there was no one in them but him, after all.
“I actually find the MRI kind of soothing,” Wilson chuckled. “How’s your head? May I take your temperature?” He wheeled over a machine to do just that, smiling. He seemed to genuinely be trying to put Will and Lilo at their ease.
“Yes. And foggy.” He didn’t feel nauseous or anything quite so noticeable, just a sense that he was missing things. “Still hot.” Surely the antibiotic would help if it was bacterial.
Wilson took Will’s temperature, nodding to himself. “You still have a fever, it’s why you’re hot. But it’s down to one hundred and one, so that’s ... much better, obviously.” Looking at Lilo, Wilson nodded. “If you want to get something to drink, the MRI should take about a half hour to forty-five minutes. But you can stay as long as you like. Visiting hours are more loose for emergencies.” Wilson wouldn’t tell.
Will tried to smile at Lilo again, hoping it was better this time. “I’d like to hear about your hunches,” he said, though it hurt his throat to say so much. He had to know what was going on.
Lilo bit her lower lip. “Meningitis. Either viral or bacterial. Bacterial would be more rare, but ... it’d cover all your symptoms. Temporal lobe epilepsy could be the cause as well, but it wouldn’t explain your fever.” She took a deep breath; she’d always wanted to be a doctor. “It’s not a mental disorder like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder because of your high fever and hemispatial defect. You keep leaning to the right when you write things down.”
Wilson blinked. “... you think it’s right-sided anti-NMDA encephalitis. But that would be extremely rare, normally that isn’t discretionary in terms of lobes.” It was as good a differential as any of the doctors in his dreams had given.
“I know. But I do,” Lilo shrugged. “I think it’s ... not entirely ... do you dream, Doctor Wilson?”
That made the handsome doctor whistle. “I do. Yes. Okay. Now I know that we’re dealing with dreams, everything’s possible.”
“What happens with encephalitis?” Will knew Lilo well enough to know which hunch she thought was most logical. He needed to be involved, though; he needed to not be lying here like driftwood while others decided things for him. Even others who loved him.
Lilo let the doctor answer. “It’s basically inflammation of the brain. It would explain literally all of your symptoms - the headaches, the fever, the aches and pains, sleepwalking, loss of time, hallucinations, passing out. It could all be explained that way. We’d just have to figure out if it’s bacterial or viral in origin. It’s not secondary encephalitis - you’d have noticed it when you were a kid.” Wilson put his hands onto his hips, his standard I’m Explaining Things pose.
“Where does it come from?” It made sense, the way he put it, but he had to know. “In dreams, I’m a profiler. Anything along that line?”
“Stagnant bodies of freshwater, toxoplasmosis - bacteria that’s found in all animals but mostly cats, the same bacteria that’s found in malaria, a certain bacteria that’s found in meats that aren’t regulated by the USDA - it’s why we Jews weren’t meant to eat pork. Those are the bacterial causes. Viral, it’d be caused by the same viruses that cause herpes, polio, measles. I’m guessing it’d actually be bacterial in origin since you don’t have any of those other things.”
Lilo’s mind was churning, and she murmured to herself. “Offal.” The Ripper, as Will had told her, had taken offal from his victims. People certainly weren’t regulated by any government body, and Will had certainly not been playing in stagnant water or cat poop.
Will had just reached the exact same conclusion. “Offal,” he murmured, looking up at Lilo, hoping his eyes weren’t as wide, weren’t as haunted-looking as he somehow knew they were. It all made sense - the Ripper, Abigail’s warning, the cases in his dreams, Hannibal’s love of meat - Hannibal. Hannibal.
“I knew it,” was all he murmured, feeling sick all over again.
She moved to hug her boyfriend, wrapping her arms lightly around his shoulders. She knew enough about his dreams to understand inherently, to understand what he was thinking. “Go get your MRI,” she murmured. “It’s all speculation until they see it on a scan.”
As usual, she was right. Something did occur to him, though, before he allowed himself to be wheeled away. “Winston and the others?” It might have sounded stupid to anyone else, but he hoped Lilo had had a chance to talk to them. Explained to them what was going on. He didn’t want his dogs to be afraid.
Lilo smiled. “Kirsty’s checking in on them periodically. I told them what was going on, that you were going to the human vet for a while.” She kissed Will gently before he was wheeled too far.
Will nodded, relaxing. At least his dogs were taken care of. And safe. Though he’d owe Kirsty an apology later, he was sure of that.
They wheeled him away, and he tried to relax. He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the sounds and the lingering, newly cloying fear that was infecting him in the spaces the fever left behind. It all made sense. Hannibal. Abigail hadn’t wanted to tell him. And that night in the ambulance had been like a higher plane - that they’d been able to communicate so far beyond words that Will had somehow known.
Then he heard a voice saying “Will you be able to get into the MRI alone, Mr. Graham?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and strong arms helped him onto the bench.
It all passed in a blur, and he couldn’t sleep. There was nothing he wanted more right now than to close his eyes. Instead of sleeping, though, he felt the lasers lightly scorching his skin, heard the dull wump of the machine. He wasn’t afraid of the space, but he wanted to be back out in familiar territory. He hoped it would happen soon.
Wilson let him know how much longer it would be after a few passes of the scanner, and he made sure an attendant wheeled Will back to his room after telling them to leave the light off and keep the door shut. Of course he was sensitive. Half of his brain was swollen to a point that had to be agonizing. It was clear as day, and Wilson didn’t want to wait for someone to double check the scan. He ordered the antibiotics and some painkillers for Will as he walked back to his room.
He got out of the scanner and back into the bed, and then time blurred again, but he was fairly sure it was due to sleep this time. It was dark now, and quieter, and Lilo was asleep in a chair.
He cleared his throat, immediately wincing painfully given how dry it was. “Lilo.”
She sat up immediately, roused by his rasping. “Do you want some water?” Her own voice was quiet, thick with sleep. Sitting up, she went to get him some ice water without being asked, returning within a minute. “Here.”
He did appreciate it, and it at least helped his throat when he took a sip. “Thank you.” Will was able to talk enough, at least. “I fell asleep, right? Any news?” He would try to keep to short words and sentences, but he needed to know. The suspicion was screaming at him, and it was hard not to focus on his hunches. His worries. Hannibal.
“You fell asleep, yeah. They gave you morphine and antibiotics and something to bring your fever down. ... it’s bacterial encephalitis, Will. The right side of your brain has been pressing against your skull.” She reached out to stroke his hair gently, reassuringly. “You should only have to be in here a couple more days.”
So she’d been right. Will chewed on that knowledge for a long minute before choosing to focus on the positive first. “You knew.”
“I observed, then I did research. I ruled out things it couldn’t be until only a few things were left. I had a hunch.” She ducked her head and blushed. “I wanted to be a doctor when I was a kid.”
“You might have saved me.” Will didn’t like owing people anything, but she was an exception. It was different when someone loved you.
He closed his eyes. “I wonder what else the Ripper made besides sausages.” It was maybe ghoulish, but he found himself remembering Hannibal’s dinner parties. The beautiful and neurotically precise plates, with just the right amount of jus and spice. The craft beers, the wines, the delicate desserts. How much of it had been those girls?
“Was he a good cook? You can make anything out of meat,” Lilo sighed. She knew; she loved it herself. But she’d probably lay off it for a while. This was making her stomach turn.
“Fantastic. He’s a good cook here, too.” Though the idea of eating anything Hannibal had cooked immediately made him retch. Will coughed, looking for something to vomit into, finding a bucket of some kind on the table next to his bed. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, head still swimming.
Leaping up, Lilo looked for some sort of bucket. “I’ll go buy lots of Boca burgers,” she murmured. She still stroked his forehead, even as she held out the bin, worrying her lower lip. “Wait, doesn’t he have a kid? Is she... is he like that here?”
Will retched into the bucket, feeling awkward but too tired to care. When he’d finished, he lay back, eyes closed. “Not a child, no. His lover. Also his sister. Abigail was ... uneasy.”
“But isn’t Abigail his daughter’s name?” Lilo moved to get a washcloth, running it under water in the sink in his room, then wringing it out so she could put it on his forehead.
Will sighed in something approaching sybaritic joy when she put the cloth on his forehead, but he had to laugh cynically. “They haven’t been father and daughter for months. She’s his adopted daughter anyway.”
That made Lilo’s brown eyes widen. “Oh. Well, that’s ... better, I guess. As long as she’s legal, it’s not like it’s something he can be arrested for.” She sat down on the side of Will’s bed, lightly massaging his temples to help with his headache.
“No, he can’t.” Will sighed, closing his eyes again. “I don’t know what he might be here. Abigail couldn’t tell me, which leads me to think that she didn’t know.” If Hannibal was a killer here, he feared for Abigail before anyone else.
“She’d know if he was here, wouldn’t she?” Lilo’s eyebrows knit together in concern. “But honestly, we’ll worry about that when you’re healthy again.”
The door opened quietly, with Dr. Wilson pushing another bed into the room. “Here you go Lilo, perfect for your sleeping purposes while Will rests up.”
Will hadn’t expected that they’d allow her to stay, and managed to look up at the doctor. “It’s okay?”
Wilson just grinned. “I’ll say I approved it, that it’ll make your recovery faster. Trust me, they won’t care if it means they can increase their turnover.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s fine.”
“If it’s okay with Lilo, then.” He didn’t want to assume that she’d stay; she had her own things to do, of that he was sure. Will closed his eyes again. “Thank you, Doctor.” For his help, for his reassurance, for everything. Hopefully he’d actually feel better soon. Whatever Hannibal had been trying to do, he hadn’t succeeded.