Fifteen Bells: [ACTION/WRITTEN]

[simplestgift]

[Archie woke up yesterday.  How is this new?  Well, after getting some fairly critical stab wounds from Grell, he was put on a ventilator and kept under sedation for a few days.  The ventilator was exchanged for a less impressive-looking concentrator yesterday and he was taken off sedation.  He spent yesterday sleeping anyway, since anesthesia doesn't generally leave you bright-eyed immediately afterward.

This morning, he is talking and eating Jell-o, which is a new experience. The most important bit comes written on the journal network in wobbly handwriting courtesy of the heart monitor clipped on his finger.]

I have been informed that I may have visitors. I'd like to know everyone is all right.

Kennedy

[Anyone who comes in will find him looking predictably weak and pale but lucid and in good spirits, or possibly catnapping after a dose of painkillers.

OOC: Purely for the sake of mercy, Archie is unaffected by the event.]

Comments

[Voice]

[simplestgift]

I...don't remember which one I read, actually. Both are after my time.

Re: [Voice]

[consultmybooks]

I'll bring both.

You can pick your favorite.

[Voice]

[simplestgift]

Thank you. [It makes him think of his nurse's stories from when he was a kid, mostly.] Might you also bring Iliad?

[Phantastes being a fairly slim book.]

Re: [Voice]

[consultmybooks]

[His tone is dry, but amused.] Ambitious for a man on pain medication, aren't you?

Yes, I can bring Iliad.

[Voice]

[simplestgift]

Oh, I've read it a hundred times. I could probably recite half of it. It's the other half I'm worried about.

Re: [Voice]

[consultmybooks]

Which half?

[Sounds of movement. A door opening and closing.]

[Voice]

[simplestgift]

No particular half. The text I remember isn't all consecutive.

[He'd been facetious, anyway.]

Re: [Voice]

[consultmybooks]

A collective half.

Still an admirable effort.

[simplestgift]

I didn't mean it literally.

[consultmybooks]

You should have specified.

[simplestgift]

Beg pardon, then. And thank you.

[consultmybooks]

You're quite welcome. I should be there soon.

[simplestgift]

Thank you. [He leaves the journal open, but turns away from it, exhausted and ready to catnap until Giles arrives.]

[consultmybooks]

[Giles will hang up once he reaches the library.

He'll arrive at the Battle Dome clinic about half an hour later with the requested books.]

[simplestgift]

[Kennedy was asleep, but wakes when Giles arrives. He yawns and stretches as much as he can in his situation.]

Good God, I've been awake for a day and I already can't wait to leave this place.

[consultmybooks]

You have my deepest sympathies, Kennedy. [Giles sets the book down on the table and takes a seat.]

Hospitals and clinics in general can be impossibly dull, when they're not in the middle of a war zone.

[simplestgift]

Even when they are... [He's not going to follow that train of thought. He picks up the top book and leafs through it briefly.]

Have you ever read The Hobbit?

[consultmybooks]

One of my favorites, actually. Always preferred it to the trilogy.

[simplestgift]

I've heard it's excellent. I'd like to read it, when I'm out of this infernal prison.

[Come to think of it, he tends to wind up in prison infirmaries. That is a rather unsettling thought.]

[consultmybooks]

You heard rightly. Start with The Hobbit first - some like to insist that The Fellowship can stand on its own. They are most incorrect.

Although we do have someone from The Fellowship wandering around. I suppose he might think differently.

[simplestgift]

...Beg pardon?

[Archie hasn't heard about anyone here being fictional yet.]

[consultmybooks]

Frodo Baggins. Nephew of Bilbo on the Took side.

But he's not very important as far as The Hobbit is concerned.

Last I heard he had a camp outside the village.

[simplestgift]

[consultmybooks]

I hope you're not planning to make that face if you ever meet him.

That would be quite impolite, Kennedy, and I don't think he'd understand why.

[simplestgift]

What...no, never mind. [He's going to lie back. This is all making his head spin. Oh wait--McCoy said there was an experiment. Maybe it's supposed to make everyone act crazy.]