Don't Leave (Vae)

[Oliver]

It was getting harder and harder to leave the Hospital. For more than 6 years now it had been a place of hope, a place where Oliver could go to steady some of the fears that circled his heart like sharks waiting for their main meal. He had now come to associate the sterile white walls and smell of bleach with everything that was possible in life, and for a short while he had clung to these beliefs since his father had first been admitted shortly after his nineteenth birthday. Oliver’s polished brown loafers trod a well-known path through the maze of pristine tunnels that would lead him to his dad, his grey eyes clear like an early winter day and downcast as though the cold shower of rain would start at any moment.

The visit hadn’t gone as well as suspected. His father’s morphine had been upped that morning, making him groggy and unreceptive to visitors. Oliver had never felt so shut out, so alone, and he knew it wasn’t his father’s fault but at the same time he started to feel that pang of resentment to whatever higher power existed, if any at all. How could there be, reasoned the quiet young man as he sat solemnly on the chair outside his father’s room. How could there be anything to watch over them like a shepherd if it let all the good members of the flock die as slowly and painfully as his dad was dying?

Letting out a long breath seemed to take with it all the last shreds of faith that Oliver knew had started to run out a long time ago. He had to come to terms with the fact that his dad just wasn’t going to get any better. In fact, now they were asking him to make peace with his dad and just ‘enjoy the time you have left’. Was it possible? To enjoy waiting for a loved one to move on to a place where you couldn’t follow? To look into the eyes of your three year old neice and lie to her when she asked where Pop was? Oliver leaned back in the chair and let his head rest against the pallid wall, his guard completely broken down and his eyes stinging as he closed them.

Yes. It was getting harder and harder to leave the hospital. But now it was mainly because Oliver wasn't sure if his dad would still be here when he came back.

[Vae]

The hustle and bustle of the hospital was a comfort to Vae as well. It was especially nice when she got the rare opportunity to take over a shift for one of the other interns and make her rounds during the light of day. This was when the hospital felt alive to her, like it did before she had been forced to admit that she was not superhuman and that she was fallible just like everyone else. It was a place of healing, of hope and desperation, of recovery and release, and most importantly of action. There was action here, not just sleeping people who needed their medicine monitored and their status checked in on from time to time. She was grateful for even that much interaction with patients, of course, considering she would never make it out of her internship and she was really only taking up space for a 'real' intern, but being a part of the living during actual business hours was so much more real.

As she wandered through the hallways now, patient file open and balanced precariously in the crook of one arm with the last dredges of a non-fat low-sugar all-caff no-whipcream cappuccino, double shot espresso, clutched deeply in her other hand. Her deep navy scrubs and the light grey sleeves she wore underneath set her apart from the ugly more vibrant patterns of the nurses and marked her as a student, though for the moment she was shadowing no one, she was in charge of the floor, and she felt very strong and powerful as she made her rounds. It was almost like being a real doctor.

There was a click and a swoosh as she entered Mr. Fields' room with a well-oiled quickness that spoke many hours of practice coming in and out of hospital rooms. As she turned to deposite his file into a holder by the door she also dropped her empty cappuccino cup into a trash can, all in one motion. She then turned around and for the first time noticed that the older patient had a visitor and it was only then that she acknowledged him, giving him a smile.

"Oh, hello! I didn't know anyone was in here," she said as she approached Mr. Fields' bed and picked up the metal clipboard that denoted the daily records for the patients rather than their entire medical history like the file she had just brought in. As she spoke to Oliver she kept her eyes trained on the folder, processing numbers and doing calculations and comparison with computer-like speed and precision. "Are you a relation of Mr. Fields'?" she asked curiously, making a mark on the clipboard to show she had been there and glancing at the clock in the room to mark the time. When finished she deposited the clipboard back into its place, pinned her pen back to her shirt by way of the clip at the top, and leaned one hip against the plastic end of the elder Fields' bed as she eyed the younger.

[Oliver]

Oliver almost felt as though his privacy had been invaded at the entrance of his father’s doctor. He assumed she was a doctor, he had no experience in telling the difference despite his comings and goings at Sacred Heart over the last several years of his life. At the telling click of the door handle he had jerked his head away from the cool relief provided by the wall, causing his head to spin as he opened his eyes to a blurred vision of the young woman. He chirpy voice and almost cheeky stance made him want to smile, to lie. Why should he burden her with his dark thoughts and even darker mood?

“His son,” Oliver replied as soon as his thick tongue would allow him to. His eyes still shone with the remnants of the tears that had been about to impose themselves seconds before her arrival, and he felt ashamed of them and proud of them all in the one pregnant moment between her smile and the shy one he graced her with now. His sleeping father burrowed slightly under the thin hospital blanket and almost without thinking of it Oliver abandoned his pedestal by the wall to tuck his sleeping patriarch in. he automatically refilled the empty glass of water by the bed before resetting the plastic hospital jug back on top of the dresser. He looked back at the doctor, his eyes now void of any of the emotion he had almost displayed moments before and oddly still as haunting as if they were full of it.

He held out a long fingered hand, slender and betraying the fact that he worked in an office. His face was earnest and wholesome, and he forced another smile onto it to shield her from the pain that he wanted to keep to himself. “Are you Doctor Reynolds? I’d heard he had a new physician, but...” he paused for a moment, his grey eyes still on her face. “I didn’t expect someone so young. No disrespect,” he added, mentally chiding himself for his Freudian slip. She was probably older than he was and ten times more useful.

[Vae]

Vae smiled again, in an attempt to bolster the feelings of the young man before her. She had more experience with death than she cared to acknowledge, and felt that because of that experience she owed something to this young man to show him that it was perfectly alright to feel overwhelmed but that he would make it through this terrible time intact. This experience came more from her time spent working at the hospital than anything else. Though her own illness gave her some great insight into the heart of the dying, it did nothing to help her deal with their loved ones.

With those common questions referencing patient care, however, she was well versed. "Oh, I'm not Dr. Reynolds," she conceded honestly, but she reached to take Oliver's offered hand anyway. "But I am a doctor. My name is Devaedra Nyx, and I'm an intern here at the hospital." Smiling, she stepped off from the man's side to begin her customary inspection of the lines that lead to Mr. Fields' various intraveinous bags, catheters, monitors, and sensors. When she had checked that everything was in order she began to add another fluid bag to his IV, turning on the drip of the first bag before turning off the valve on the other and removing it. She then lowered the blanket Oliver had only justed pulled up in order to press the chill metal of her stethoscope to his neck and watch the clock to time his pulse.

"Did you need to speak with Dr. Reynolds about something?" she asked Oliver over her shoulder as she worked. "Or is there something I can help you with?" After a pause she added, almost tauntingly, "If I can't answer your question I bet I can find someone who can."

[Oliver]

“Oliver Fields,” he countered, reciting his surname out of habit. So she was a Doctor, he thought with an inward smile. She seemed somehow luminous, like a bright light shining through a window in a dark village. Perhaps it was because at the moment Oliver was looking for something, anything to distract him from the fact that his father was wasting away and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Maybe he was looking for something else that wasn’t tangible, even to him. Whatever the reason, as Devaedra Nyx took hold of his slightly chilled hand he felt a familiar jolt on his skin. He was instantly reminded of the artist he had brushed paths with in the North Quadrant, and his grey eyes flickered with curiosity.

He managed another smile, a feat in itself considering seconds before her arrival he had been ready to break down. “Devaedra Nyx,” he repeated softly, releasing her hand and watching with interest as she went about her duties. “No, I didn’t need to speak with Doctor Reynolds,” Oliver confessed, his voice much lighter. “I was just wanting to put a face to the name is all. I work at Parliament House, so more often than not we miss each other during the day. I happened to have today off, so I thought it’d be a great time to swing by.” He smoothed his fawn trousers before slipping his hands into his front pockets. The links of an expensive silver watch winked at the Doctor from beneath the cuff of his navy knitted sweater before Oliver relaxed his shoulders and the watch slipped under the sleeve completely.

With startling clarity, Oliver remembered the dual pictures the artist had drawn of him. One had been a reflection of the way he was now, almost a mirror image. The other, however, had been the same person and yet infinitely different. It was the bravery in the grey eyes that he so longed to be his own that had mesmerized him; Oliver didn’t know that he would ever be quite able to emulate it. But he was willing to give it a try. “Actually, there is something you could help me with. Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Or lunch even?” He had attempted to school the almost brash note of hope in the young man’s voice, yet he wasn’t quite successful.

[Vae]

Vae nodded with understanding when he explained about Dr. Reynolds. Most people didn't see their family's doctors unless they needed to discuss a drastic change in treatment face to face, and it was the family that changed their hours to arrange the meeting. Dr. Reynolds wasn't one of those particularly snobbish doctors but she was very busy and she had one of the most obnoxious intern crews to have ever come into existence, if Vae was allowed to enter an opinion being sojealousoftheirpositionsomg as she was. (That fact didn't stop them from being obnoxious, she would hasten to point out.)

His next topic of converastion took her off guard, however. It was surprisingly rare, considering how often guys had come on to her in her life time, for a man to issue an invitation for a date or semi-date that wasn't entirely sleazy or conversely unappealing jibberish. Oliver's offer walked that respectful middle road. It was straightforward and direct without being vulgar or sounding like it lacked the decoration that some girls required. It simply sounded friendly, but the hint of hopefulness that he attempted to affect also echoed, and despite herself she turned and grinned, laughing lightly at him as she tucked his father back into bed. It was a warm laughter though, not mocking or derisive, but amiable. She stood up straight and studied him a moment, one hand on her hip and the other resting casually atop Mr. Fields' heart monitor.

"Well," she replied at last, "It's against hospital policy to have interpersonal relations with guests or their families, but if you happened to be in the cafeteria when I go on my break in fifteen..." she shrugged lightly, smiling again and this one entirely for his benefit. As she slipped between him and the foot of his father's bed she added politely. "I hope I see you there." Slipping his father's folder out of its holder, she bit her lip to keep from grinning again as she let herself out of the room and back into the hallway beyond.

[Oliver]

The denial that had already begun to creep like poison into Oliver’s consciousness at his proposal to the young Doctor almost deafened him to the melodical sound of her laughter as she made his father comfortable. For a moment he stood paused in shocked limbo, like a wild animal caught mesmerized by car headlights until her sassy pose and sparkling expression snapped him out of it. He blinked, a shy grin meeting her cheeky answer even as he felt the tingle that had started in his hand at her touch spread throughout his whole body. ‘Was that all it took?’ he asked himself incredulously. His hands remained in his pockets as he shifted her body position to watch her adjourn through the clinical white door before he turned back to face his sleeping father.

“Thanks, dad,” he said, although he wasn’t exactly sure why.

Hospital cafeterias were all the same. Oliver had a feeling that if you happened to take up the hobby of visiting them on a regular basis you’d hardly ever go wrong. There was always that salmon-pink linoleum floor, the wall of refrigerators buzzing to each other in that stationary congo line. It was here that the journey to ‘lunch’ began, and Oliver waited patiently at the starting line for the Doctor who had so graciously offered him an hour of her time. He took to watching the people that passed him. Some were obviously hospital staff who, Like Dr. Nyx, were on their break. Others were visitors with patients, pushing them in wheelchairs or carrying their lunch trays to spare them having to balance it on an arm ensconced in a cast.

Finally the young man’s eyes fell on a young woman sitting at a table on her own. She poked at some mac and cheese in a bowl with a paper open on the table in front of her. It was obvious that she wasn’t reading it, however, and even from his somewhat compromised vantage point Oliver could see the miniscule droplets falling from her cheeks onto the laminate table top. ‘Will that be me?’ he asked himself quietly. His father’s voice in his head told him that it wouldn’t. That Ollie was stronger than this. And as he stood off to the side of the growing lunch que, Ollie hoped his old man was right.

[Vae]

"I'm meeting that bloke from room 513b for lunch!"

"LUCKY!"

"I know."

"Tell us if he's any good, will ya?"

"I said I was meeting him for lunch, girls, honestly! What sort of woman do you take me for?" Vae gave the nurses a scandalized look but laughed and shook her head as she walked off. She stopped into her locker room long enough to grab her wallet and a few bills and check her appearance over in the mirror. She did little to her appearance except pull her hair out of its customary work ponytail, which left it to fall in copious waves across her shoulders, and added a dab of lip gloss to her pout. She looked herself over, not entirely impressed but what the hell, he had been attracted enough to ask her with her hair thrown back and her lips coated with nothing but cappuccino. Oh! She grabbed a breath mint. Close one.

The cafeteria was bustling when she arrived and he didn't see him around. She skipped to the front where her typical lunch was already waiting for her, and she grinned and slipped a five into the back pocket of one of the servers with a wink. "Thanks Steve!" she called to the man. Gay as a picnic basket but he always got her her lunch early. Too bad, too. He was a cutie!

But he wasn't the only one.

Lunch in hand she turned to inspect the cafeteria for the fourth third time since arriving and at long last spotted the impeccably groomed brunette hair she was looking for. Slipping with practiced eased through the crowds, she very casually drew alongside him in line and leaned every so slightly until her arm brushed his companionably.

"I recommend the chicken caesar salad," she told him, lifting her own salad as an example. "It's superb!"

[Oliver]

Oliver turned his head just as his ‘lunch date’ arrived, his fortuitous nostrils absorbing for the first time the intriguing scent that accompanied her. Refusing to blush as her arm brushed his Oliver smiled, allowing his troubles to be swept under the rug in his mind at least for now. He had actually managed to ask a girl out and she hadn’t laughed and sent him packing for the solace of the school library, so he had to be doing something right. Right? As was his habit whenever he was standing still in any place for more than 5 seconds his hands had found his pockets. He withdrew them now and grabbed a tray from a nearby pile, still smiling.

“It looks pretty good,” he said, although his eyes hadn’t strayed from the young woman’s face so it was hard to tell if he was talking about her or the salad. “I’ll just grab something to eat, and then I’ll meet up with you. Would you like to get a table?” Smiling again, Ollie turned and made his way through the crowd and ploughing steadily through the line until he had his very own chicken caesar salad and two bottles of fresh OJ. He wound his way through the sea of small cafeteria tables until he arrived at the one she had selected in the middle of the room. Setting his salad and the bottles on the table, Oliver put the tray on the spare table next to them and sat down, his knee accidentally bumping hers under the ‘hospital-fairy-sized’ table.

“Hey,” he greeted her as though they hadn’t met in the line a few minutes ago, unfolding his napkin and placing it to the side of his plate. “I got you a drink,” he said in reference to the two very obvious juice bottles. “Apparently there’s a flu epidemic on the way, and I guessed that working here you’d need your vitamin C.” Throwing in a smile for good measure, Oliver was surprised just how happy he could be with sitting here and conversing with a complete stranger like he was. The more he tried to open up, the easier he found it became and as he used his plastic spork to mix up the dressing in his bowl he lifted his grey eyes to hers.

[Vae]

It didn't take Vae long to find an open table. Not only was it a hospital, and hospitals weren't particularly notable for having great food, but it was in the middle of a weekday and though the lines were long people didn't seem to be hanging out in the cafeteria for long. So she settled down at one of the many empty tables after checking to be sure it didn't rock much. (And who could blame her if she chose one of the small ones?)

She opened her salad but didn't begin eating until he had arrived and had begun to dig into his own food, just to be polite. She grinned at his thoughtfulness about the flu and the vitamin C, which was considerate even though she was so chock full of antibiotics, antioxidants, and anti-whatevers that there was no way the Flu was getting in here unless it was going to be a real fighter of a bug. But more Vitamin C could never hurt and anyway she liked orange juice well enough. She supposed it would wash down stray bits of lettuce better than anything. (She just hoped the pulp didn't get stuck in her teeth and make her look silly!)

"Thank you," she accepted, undoing the cap of the OJ and taking a sip. She then grinned and turned to her salad, crunching the lettuce with her fork to be sure that the first bite, which was very important, was of the perfect consistancy and had the perfect combination of lettuce, dressing, chicken, and crouton. As she worked she glanced up at him and tried to guess something about him in the way that he looked.

"What do you do for a living, Oliver?" she asked curiously, unable to place him. She thought he looked young enough to still be a student, and indeed he had a studious look about him. Academic. Bookish. One might even say nerdy. But beyond that there was an intelligence communicated in his features that couldn't be denied, and a care for people that was even better expressed in his actions. The OJ was an example, and the way he comforted a father who was so doped he probably didn't even know who his son was. The little things, she noted, were the things you learned to pick up on in her line of work, and without enough time to get to know people through talking alone.

[Oliver]

“My pleasure,” the bespectacled guy smiled back at her over the small expanse between them, abandoning his fork and shaking his own bottle of citrus-flavoured goodness out of habit. He took a sip, glad for the way it cooled and calmed his dry throat at the same instant. His voice had been very close to cracking but the chalk-like quality now abated he felt almost whole again. Assuming the salad would help with what was left that needed filling, he began shovelling amongst the greens with his spork and a renewed appetite. He paused in his contemplation of whether to indulge in croutons or chicken first off the mark, leaning back in his chair and pushing up the sleeves of his navy knit.

His job? It wasn’t really all that interesting, and Tina was always on his back about how ‘he would never meet a woman if he was shuffling through boring old papers all day long’. He supposed, however, that she was making conversation. Was she? Or was she trying to find out how much money he earned? Things would, decided the poor guy as he took up his spork once more, be much easier if women were less difficult to understand. Preferring in the end of his mental calculation that it would be nicer if she were just interested rather than being picky/bossy/nosey, Ollie relented. “I work at Parliament House, in Burgess,” he admitted somewhat blandly. ‘Secretary to Mr Nate Ellis at your service.”

With a perfunctory cock of his eyebrows that was all-too-shortly lived and made it seem like he was somehow apologising for his good paying position, Oliver shrugged. “It pays the rent; I live with my sister Tina and her baby girl. Tina doesn’t work, and it costs money to make sure dad gets the attention he needs and deserves and so I work long hours, get paid a lot less than I should and am very poorly treated.” He smiled, indicating that the last line was his attempt at a joke. He took a bite of salad and finished chewing before allowing himself to look at Devaedra. “What about you, Devaedra?” He instantly realised that in his idiocy he probably shouldn’t ask a Doctor what she did for a living when he had met her at the hospital and was having lunch with her in the hospital cafeteria.

“I mean,” he corrected himself, lifting a long index finger to push his glasses more firmly onto the bridge of his nose, “What do you do when you’re not doing what it is that you do.” Just shut up and eat, he seemed to hear his dad saying in the back of his head. You’re acting like a damn fool. Just be yourself. Oliver thought it was rather unkind of his father to tell him to be himself when Oliver Fields wasn’t really all that exciting to begin with.

[Vae]

Vae felt for the poor man. She had made just such a faux pas before and knew exactly how stupid it made you feel. But Vae had never been the type to let those moments get under her skin - since they happened to everyone she tended to think that they were only big deals if you made them out to be - and this time was no exception to the rule. She made no note of it and continued on easily. "Just the usual type of thing. I go out with friends. I dabble at piano and fixing up my apartment. I play a mean game of Scrabble." Oh and I pose nude for an artist when I'm not working at the hospital. Somehow she didn't think that last tidbit was the sort of thing you dropped in over lunch.

"What about you?" she asked. "What do you do when you aren't being underpaid and overworked." She smiled here, to show she appreciated his joke even though she hadn't entered that fact earlier. In fact, she thought his job sounded pretty exciting to her. He was probably privy to all kinds of classified information, and politicians were always getting into amazing scandals. (She hoped he didn't send any personal e-mails from work - that's how they all got caught!) She would never trade her own job, but she certainly thought his was one she would like to hear more about. Maybe sometime she would ask him for more details.

[Oliver]

The soft flush that had encroached on Oliver’s complexion in the seconds following his descent into momentary insanity ebbed away, aided by the large swig of orange juice the guy had just taken. He smiled as she listed her hobbies and interests, impressed when she mentioned the piano and Scrabble and laughed in spite of his shy nature. He smiled into his salad, stabbing a few croutons and matching it with chicken while she asked him about himself. He chewed thoughtfully, wondering that same question himself. The truth was nothing, really. He played with Jacey, hung out with Tina and worked. Visited his dad as often as he could before visiting hours finished up, and then went home to watch the news.

God, he was boring!

“Err,” he stalled, trying desperately to think of something that made him seem less of a dull doofus and more of an interesting ‘lets see him again’ type of guy. “Yeah, pretty much the same kind of things, really. Hanging out with my friends, taking my niece on outings, reading,” Boring, boring, boring! “And on Sunday nights I direct a ghost tour through the Museum. You know,” he floundered miserably, “Because it’s so old and creepy inside at night.” Right, he heard his dad again. Leave now before she admits you to geriatric care.

“Of course I’d totally kick your butt at Scrabble,” he nodded slowly with a sly glance.

[Vae]

Okay, Vae was an open minded kind of girl, sure. She was sweet enough to try to like people in general and did her best not to cast people out of her acquaintance just because they didn't have a personality as glaring and outgoing as her own. But a ghost tour? Did he do this for free? She got the feeling he did. Because why would someone who could afford to support his sister and her baby daughter, as well as himself, bother doing a crappy little once a week job that probably paid by way of the dust build up on ancient artifacts. She tried unsuccessfully to hide the dubious expression on her face. Oh that was so tease worthy. He should be warned how bad she was going to tease him for that should they meet again after today. It was only fair.

But before such a tease could leave her mouth he threw down the Scrabble gauntlet. Oh no he di'in'. "Nononono, you don't understand," she replied, grinning and setting down her fork for a serious talking-to on this subject. "I," she told him, gesturing to herself, I am the agilest amateur literal athlete abiding in Valir, and would clearly triumph in any valiant contest we should embark upon." She held up seven fingers, to explain her over formal tone, her eyes narrowing in a mock glare at him. "Seven letters. Count 'em. I am the master and can't be beat!"

And suddenly she realized how incredibly un-geeky leading a Sunday night ghost tour was. So she casually leaned back in her chair, reached for her orange juice, and gesturing with the open bottle she added, "Not that I'm, y'know, a nerd or anything. But I would totally pwn you in Scrabble." She raised her drink to her lips, still muttering, "Pwn!" to show just how bad a victory would be.

K. Maybe she was a little nerdy.

((Author's Note: Embark only having six letters was intentional. ))

[Oliver]

Wondering how the hell his lie about being a ghost tour guide had managed to slip past what he had thought to be such a quick-set mind, Oliver relaxed. His hand reassumed the activity of shovelling salad into his mouth, albeit in a gentlemanly manner but it would have been obvious to the girl that he was with that he was hungry. Oliver, it seemed, was always hungry. His sister seemed to think making quips about him being ‘a growing boy’ was amusing enough to keep him docile and to a certain extent she was right. The bespectacled bloke just settled for eating in silence as he enjoyed Vae taking his Scrabble bait.

Oliver grinned, the first expression of such that had passed his face in who knew how long. His run of he mill smiles and smirks and general look of goodness aside, the grin he offered the good Doctor opposite him was half wicked, half apologetic and with a genuine air of arrogance that was not only totally out of character for him but that wasn’t completely ill-fitting either. In jest he raised seven digits of his own, leaving his spork dug into his cos lettuce in a mirror image of her own hands.

“E,” he started, “M-B,” three fingers down. “A-R-K.” The last finger standing was the pinkie on his right hand, which he wriggled at her cheekily. “And this little piggy played scrabble with me on Saturday night.” He abandoned the piggy in all it’s glory, pushing his glasses up along the well-formed bridge of his nose in a gesture that was now so natural to him that he no longer realised he was doing it.

“Loser buys the pizza.”