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Entry tags:

closed.

Who: Ellie (

tonsofpun) & Dr. John Watson (

hadbadays)
What: While killing time, Ellie decides to run a delivery of food and antiseptic to John's clinic, and finds something they'll both wish they hadn't.
When: D438
Where: Yakuzen Clinic
Rating: PG-13 for language and eventual body horror. ~~And some major spoilers from Ellie's canon.~~ CW for body horror.

Things are starting to become more dire around the city. Thankfully, by the time Ellie comes, the clinic is mostly empty. John must be between patients.

Normally, she doesn't drop in on people while they're working -- but Ellie can't deny being curious. It's so much cleaner than the med bay in the school, where they had haphazardly taught Ellie how to clean and stitch horrific wounds. It even smells clean.

Clutching a bottle of iodine and a wrapped sandwich, she makes her way to the back and knocks on the doorway. She puts both hands into the room first, wiggling sandwich and iodine, before popping her head in with a smile.

"Loooook, I brought presents. Need a break?"

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"Nope, I-" and then she pauses, hand in the air while she thinks about it. Did they get all the bullets out for sure? Yes? Oh yeah, they did. Joel still might have one or two floating around somewhere, but not her.

"Nope. No metal here."

"Sure?" The pause isn't very comforting, and he frowns. "Maybe I should x-ray you first to be completely certain."

"If it'd make you feel better, go for it," Ellie shrugs, grinning up at him. All x-rays sound good in her book. Worries about radiation? Not here. No sir.

"I'm pretty sure we got all the shrapnel and shit out, though."

"Yeah, well, 'pretty sure' won't do it in this case. So you'll get to see your body under x-ray too. You don't have any jewelry on you, do you?"

His lips twitch. He finds that hard to imagine.

"Just this."

She holds up the bracelet, grinning at him. They both know jewelry isn't her style. Too many things it could get caught on, too easy to lose or break.

"But if it makes you feel better, I'll do the x-ray too."

"I'm asking about jewelries because of the x-ray." He takes the bracelet, puts it in his pocket, and tucks the clipboard against his chest as he heads for the door. "Come on, then."

Nodding, Ellie follows, for the first time feeling just a touch nervous. She's never really had the whole 'doctor' thing go down other than yearly physicals and that sort of crap. Turn your head and cough. I'm going to shine this light in your eyes. Just a little tap to the knee. Good reflexes!

She shakes her head, taking an extra-fast step to catch up to John's elbow. "What do you need me to do?"

A shrug. "Nothing, really. Just change into a hospital gown and lie down on a bed and I'll x-ray you. It's completely painless. You won't feel a thing."

"... really? Well... shit, okay. If it's you, I'll actually trust you on that one."

Usually people lie a fucking lot about whether it hurts. Ellie pulls a face, shakes the nervousness out of her arms. This is going to be cool. Just remember that, Ellie.

"It's just week waves of radiation. You'd have to spend days in there for it to start doing harm."

He gives her shoulder a light, reassuring pat. It's understandable to be nervous if she's never done this before, so he can tell she is. It's practically oozing from her.

"Isn't that how they used to treat cancer?" Cancer. Shit. The thing nobody ever really worries about anymore, because natural death is so fucking rare as it is. They don't even bother treating it anymore, not that she knows of.

"All right, let's give it a shot."

"Sort of, only when treating cancer it's actually meant to do harm."

But since she's completely on board, he won't harp anymore about it. It is, after all, no big deal.

He opens the door to the x-ray room, and holds it for her.

The machine is huge, and Ellie is momentarily taken aback by it, eyes raking it over as she cautiously approaches. She hasn't felt so small and breakable in a while. Still, she heads on in, gets close.

"... okay. Let's do this."

John wanders over to a drawer and grabs a hospital gown that he tosses Ellie's way.

"I'll go out and let you change into that. Give me a shout when you're done and lie down on the bed."

And with that, he makes for the door again.

Ellie catches it with a nod, holding it in her hands as the door slides shut. The flimsy gown isn't enough, and as she begins to shuck her clothes off, she has to remind herself not to take her switchblade with her. No metal. It feels strange to bare her arms and legs, to go barefoot, makes her all too aware of how vulnerable she can be without her weapons and gear.

She hops up into the bed-type platform, laying down and smoothing the gown around her thighs, wishing it were pants.

"Okay! Ready!"

Laying her head back down with a thump, she blows out a nervous breath, reminding herself that it's just John. And really, she should get used to this stuff. There's probably going to be a lot of it in her future.

Once outside, he purses his lips and crosses his arms, tapping his foot into the floor as he waits. Hums a little tune to himself. When she finally calls, he actually jumps a little before he swiftly turns around and steps back inside, closing the door behind him.

"You feeling okay?" he asks and steps over to get the machine ready.

"A little nervous," she admits with a half-laugh, remembering to breathe as she rests her head, looking up at the ceiling. She feels ridiculous in this gown, helpless.

"What if this is how I find out I'm an alien in disguise?"

Sarcasm aside, her smile hardens.

"I guess I've gotta get used to this stuff. Tests."

He snorts. "Yeah, I think that's a good idea."

At least the x-ray doesn't take very long. Because I have no idea how this shit works and can't find a satisfying description, or any description at all (Google why have you abandoned me) I'll leave it vague and you'll just have to deal with it. He won't leave her hanging.

"All done. You can get up now."

Ellie keeps her eyes shut and tries to stay still for most of it. As much as she trusts John (and the fact that it doesn't actually hurt) she still ends up in a cold sweat, breathing shallowly as she holds still long enough for the x-ray to go.

Pulling the skirt of the flimsy down down, though it's plenty long enough to cover her, she eases herself to sit up.

"Can I see 'em?"

It was very obvious she never wore anything but pants. He tried very hard to not be amused. Really, he did.

"Yeah, of course. Just give me a chance to go print them." He rolled his eyes - not that he was annoyed or anything - and made for the door. "I'll just be a minute."

Ellie nods. She was quieter than usual, a mark of being nervous. She really wasn't sure what in the world she was nervous about. The bite, maybe. It had seemed like such a cool idea, but now she wasn't sure she wanted to know what it was going to look like.

She traces the spores on her arm until she comes back, looks quickly up and drops her hands with a nervous smile.

"How's it look?"

"Take a look," he says as he puts the prints up on the wall, one with the full body, one of the upper half and one of the lower half. "No metal, at least."

Edited 2014-06-26 18:15 (UTC)

Hand on her arm, Ellie comes up by his side, going still as her eyes sweep over the prints. Though she only has some vague idea about what she's looking at for most of it, it's weird seeing her bones, tracing old injuries.

It only shows her bones, but it's weird seeing the evidence of how many ribs she's broken. Though they are healed by now, her ribcage show the specific scarring pattern of abuse, and even Ellie can spot it.

What draws her eye is the bite. It's not just imagination. The area around the bite is darker, and it extended up into her shoulder, across her chest, up her neck to her skull. Next to the others, it doesn't look right.

"... oh, fuck," she whispers, her heart dropping. It's definitely not her imagination. Something is in there.

Something is in there, indeed. John had noticed it right away, and would have pointed it out if she didn't notice on her own. But of course she does. That's no surprise at all.

He notices the change in her demeanour, and the words only strengthen that. He puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezes lightly, and offers a crooked smile.

"You definitely need that MRI scan."

Ellie takes a deep breath, nodding quickly, several times. His hand is welcome on her shoulder, an achoring presence as she fights the urge to scratch at the skin of her arm, to feel around and try to see what the fuck is underneath it.

Holy fucking shit. What's inside her?

Finally she looks up, steels herself.

"... yeah. Let's not wait on that."

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