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

[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.]

[consultmybooks]

[Well, Giles is affected by said experiment, and it is indeed causing him to speak with much less regard for Kennedy's current state than he might otherwise show.

He's having fun with it, though.]

Need some more morphine?

[simplestgift]

God yes. [He reaches for the button.] And a glass of whiskey.

[consultmybooks]

[Giles beats Kennedy there, pressing it for him.] Unfortunately, I think McCoy would frown on that even more than he normally would, state he's in.

[simplestgift]

He said there's some sort of experiment. [Oh, sweet relief. After a while in bed, everything hurts, not just the wounds.]

[consultmybooks]

Oh, yes.

You've spoken with him, then? Buffy is under the impression that he's missing his "Bonesness". Not having spoken with him, I couldn't exactly comment.

It sounds as though she's right, though. Granted, it was Buffy that tipped me off in the first place.

[simplestgift]

"Bonesness" is an excellent way to put it. He's lost all soul and emotion whatever.

[consultmybooks]

Sounds as though she's hit the nail on the head, then.

...Buffy hasn't quite lost anything, not really. But she is rather less, um, sparky than she normally is.

Of course, she could just be bothered about McCoy...

[simplestgift]

Perhaps. You're a bit more loquacious than usual today, you know.

[consultmybooks]

Am I? Hadn't noticed.

Well...[Giles waves a hand uncertainly.]...no, I suppose I had.

Am I bothering you? No one else has minded, but no one else has been on serious pain medication.

[simplestgift]

No, I like the company. But don't mind me when I'm completely lost in the middle of one of your sentences.