i wear my heart on my shirt

[ethnobotany]

WHO: Beverly Crusher
WHERE: The Inn, her house, fountain square, the spring
WHEN: August 15-20
OPEN TO: every section is OTA
WARNINGS: Mentions of: death, terrorist attacks, being held hostage. She'll be having delirious flashbacks and I'll update warnings as needed based on threads.

---

August 15th is mostly a normal day for Beverly. The luncheon is nice, the only difference to her day. Otherwise, she spends the day at the hospital doing her duty or at her house, working in the garden or inside. It's while she's in the garden that she begins to notice how... off she feels. It isn't much at first, though she wobbles a bit when she tries to move and can often be found leaning over with her hands on her thighs and her eyes closed. Sometimes she's even very obviously leaning against the fence itself for support, and she isn't entirely sure she can manage to make it through.

Eventually, she manages to get back into the house. Just inside the door, she calls out, "Jean-Luc―" and falls to her knees on the floor.

The 16th hits her hard. Visitors may be welcome to stop by while she's sick, but she may or may not be lucid. During those lucid moments, she's chilled and feverish and very obviously ill, but she can at least hold a decent conversation. When she isn't lucid... less than pleasant may not accurately describe her condition. She paces when she can pull herself out of bed, and when Jean-Luc will allow her to. While stuck in bed, she rolls and tosses, not entirely aware of her surroundings, and can be heard mentioning something called the "Ansata" or "Cardassians" with a tone of distate mixed with fear. Someone lucky might even hear "Q" in a tone of quiet loathing. The unlucky may hear something else in a tone of cold and very real fear: "It's the Borg."

Early on the 17th, she starts escaping. It's never for long, but any time Jean-Luc needs to use the bathroom or make tea or food or check on her garden or even closes his eyes for half a second she takes the opportunity to flee. She's fast for someone who's as ill as she is. Clearly there's a lot of built-up energy inside her. Either that or she's literally running on empty and will drop to the ground in the next instant. Either way, she ends up in places like the Inn or fountain square. One time, she even makes it to the spring, where she ends up cooling herself off by swallowing a bit of it at some point. By the end of the day, she's back in bed.

For the 18th and 19th, she stays in bed for any visitors who might want to come by again, but this time Jean-Luc is stricter about her confinement. It's just as well, though she isn't in any frame of mind and hasn't the strength to escape again. By the 20th she has miraculously recovered and after lunch, she heads back to the Inn to see if she can find anyone who visited or might have heard that she was ill so she can reassure them that she's fine.

Comments

[pretendtoneedme]

"Uhh, no, just flesh and bone here." Some of which is pseudo-synthetic, but he's not going to mention that. He's also not going to mention the bits in his ears that could be termed "cybernetics" by the loosest definition; she can't see them and he's pretty sure no one in the village even knows he has them save Nat and possibly Steve and Wanda. And right now the priority is Beverly, who is acting in a way that is magnificently un-Beverly-like, and he's got no doubt she's sick. The last couple of days have been lousy with people dropping like flies, showing all the classic signs of a fever delirium with an added alarming rash. It doesn't match anything he can remember from S.H.I.E.L.D., and even with kids in elementary school he's never seen this specific combination.

Clearly, Bev can't stay out here, not even supervised. At least both her house and the hospital are relatively close, but he's not sure which would be the better place to take her. "You're in the village - you almost went into the fountain. Come on, we've gotta get you inside and lying down, you're delirious."

[ethnobotany]

Getting her back to her house is likely the better option at this point, if only because someone else is in there and will want to see that she's all right. Considering that she's barely lucid at all, she won't be much help in letting him know that.

"I'm fine," she insists, unaware that she's very clearly not. "I thought I saw a drone and if the Borg are here..."

She lets the sentence trail off, rubbing a hand over her face. She's tired and her mind feels muddied. Wait. That drone didn't get to her while she wasn't paying attention, did it? The breath catches in her throat and she suddenly starts scraping at her neck, frantically running her fingers across every inch of skin between her jaw and her collarbone on both sides. If she doesn't feel anything, that's good. But if she has been assimilated, there would be puncture wounds. She has to find out for sure.

[pretendtoneedme]

"No drones." The Borg sounds familiar, like something he'd heard in a half-remembered conversation a long time ago, and the vague tickling of the phrase isn't enough to get him to investigate it any further, especially not with Beverly so clearly out of it in front of him. "There's no tech here at all, no electricity or anything to run a drone." All right, that's not... entirely true, not with those pods around... and Clint takes a quick glance up to make sure that he's being truthful with that statement, because they all know something is going on, and honestly he wouldn't count drones out of question in being used to spy on them. But there's nothing to be seen; not surprising, given the tech available on drones. If they're being used, they're flying too far up to be visible to the human eye, which rules out her actually seeing one.

And, for now, that's not something that's important. What's important right at the moment is getting Beverly away from the fountain before she drowns herself on accident, especially since it looks like she's really starting to lose it with the way she's moving her hands everywhere. Clint grabs those hands to make her stop, looking her straight in the eyes as he tries to pull her slowly to her feet so she doesn't lose her balance. "You're sick, Bev. You've got a fever, you're imagining stuff's there when it's not. I'm gonna get you home so you can lie down and fight this off."

[ethnobotany]

His reassurances only go so far with her. A part of her knows she's never spoken of the Borg here and if no one is from her time period, then they wouldn't have any clue what the Borg was. Lily wouldn't have mentioned the cybernetic species or the first time Q shoved the Enterprise into Borg space during that year Beverly was at Starfleet Medical wouldn't have been such a surprise. So she frowns more, her fingers scraping until he grips her hands and pulls her to her feet.

It's a good move, forcing her to focus on him rather than everything that's going through her head. Still, she isn't going to give up on it so easily. Just because she can't feel anything doesn't mean nothing's there. She might not have hit the right spot.

"Can you check my neck?" she says slowly, but firmly, as though she's purposefully taking her time to make sure she gets the words out properly. "I need to be sure that there aren't puncture wounds. They'd be fairly small, maybe a centimeter in diameter, and a few centimeters apart. Just two, but the skin around them would be turning... gray."

They can get her home after she's sure.

[pretendtoneedme]

The added specificity is appreciated, but really not needed when it comes down to it. "Your neck's fine," Clint immediately answers; no, it wasn't long enough for him to minutely inspect every square millimeter of her skin, but given the signs she identifies, he'd have to hang up his nickname if he couldn't spot any of them if they were actually there. And with all the moving around and slow thrashing Bev has been doing since he spotted her, he's definitely seen every inch of her neck at some point today.

But it's obvious she's not about to go without checking herself - medical people are all the same, they always want to be their own doctors, they're as bad as him with his gear - and that's about as much as Clint is willing to humor her on this. She's already nearly fallen into the fountain once, and he's not about to give her another opportunity. She might try and fight him, but Clint drops her hands to bend down and sweep her up in a fireman's carry, positioning his arms so that if she does start to lash out, she won't be able to get up much speed and take him out on accident. "Come on, Bev, you're going to bed." The bag he dropped will be left there until he's seen that she's all right - it'll keep for a bit.

[ethnobotany]

The extra set of eyes looking at her neck seems to calm her down a bit and she lets out a relieved sort of sigh. Good. If he doesn't see anything, that means there's nothing there. She's fine. She hasn't been assimilated without realizing it. She's not going to turn into a drone.

Her relief is two-fold; she's glad she won't be turning into a drone and that she won't be a walking reminder to Jean-Luc of a time he'd likely prefer to forget.

When Clint leans over to sweep her off her feet, she's more surprised than anything. He's lucky for that and the fact that she likes him enough not to protest too much. So the most he gets is a surprised yelp and a slight struggle that doesn't really do much of anything. In fact, being in this position is going to give her something of a headache, but that's preferable to a lot of other things. Like kicking him in the face.

Once he gets her into the house, she'll direct him to her room, where he can set her down in bed. Not that she looks terribly pleased to be here, but it's probably a good thing he has kids and is immune to any sort of pouting or sulking.

"Thank you for taking me home," she offers, still looking a bit sulky.

[pretendtoneedme]

Clint's used to dealing with Nat and her injuries; after that roller coaster ride of fun, Bev is honestly no big deal to him. At least it's not possible for her to snap his neck with her thighs. She can pout all she likes and try to fight as much as she wants, but she needs to be in bed and resting, not making herself even sicker by worrying and fretting. At least the walk isn't long - barely a couple of minutes, since she lives almost right next to the fountain.

And he's thankful she is that close, since even though she can't hurt him, Bev's still fussing enough that she's starting to squirm out of his hold or come close to hurting herself, since he's not using his agent-training to pin her to not being able to move. She's in more danger of twisting or pulling something than he likes to admit, and he's glad when he finally gets her in the door and he can put her down. He could probably figure out which bedroom is hers easily enough, but it seems like an invasion of privacy that she wouldn't appreciate. "Go ahead and get in bed. Do you want me to get you some water, or something else?"

[ethnobotany]

Honestly, Beverly wouldn't be half this bad about resting if she weren't so sick with fever that delusions kept invading her mind. Usually, she's much better about taking her own advice; even if she's a doctor, she knows when to take care of herself. She's no use to anyone if she's too sick to function.

But that hasn't quite sunk in yet. She's a little too off balance still, so when Clint makes the offer of water, she sighs and then nods. "Water would be great," she says and though she seems content, for now, to let him get it, she doesn't get into bed just yet. She's... waiting. And also marginally confused enough that figuring out which bedroom to get into just doesn't seem right. But she'll head towards one of them once she's got a glass of water in hand.

Or when she forgets that she's even got company.

[pretendtoneedme]

The plan is simple, and that's probably why it winds up failing. Simple plans just often do for some reason. Get her some water, get her in bed, make sure she's at least dozing before he leaves (and if he's still there to watch, maybe jimmying the lock to make sure she can't get out again, not without someone actually removing the lock. But even in just the short time that it takes him to fetch the water, Bev's already slipping back into that delirious state, and he curses under his breath at her actions.

"Bev? Hey, come on, you're wandering, snap out of it." Clint'll go for that hand that's not holding the glass, with secondary target being the shoulder so he can pull her around to face him. She's still swaying a lot more than he'd like, and he also wants to make sure that she doesn't whack herself into anything and make herself worse.

[ethnobotany]

On the plus side, she does at least seem to come to herself a bit when he tries to snap her out of her wandering thoughts. On the down side, she still doesn't look quite herself. With the cup of water finally having been procured, and assuming he'll let her, she'll finally turn in the direction of one of the rooms.

Unfortunately, it's not hers, not that she's aware or that it's easy to tell the difference. They hardly have any decor at all right now, so for all anyone can tell, including her addled mind, this is her room, not Jean-Luc's. He's out at the moment, though she has no idea where, and at least it'll make for an interesting tale when he does turn back up again.

"Bed," she says simply, finally seeming to take Clint's earlier request in hand as she climbs up on it. "Thank you for the water." And for finding her and dealing with her and a lot of other things she'll tell him eventually.

[pretendtoneedme]

Clint's sharp eyes don't miss much, and when Bev stumbles into one of the bedrooms, he can pretty easily tell it's not hers - primarily because there's no hairbrush lurking around anywhere he can see. He can get by without one, but he's known too many women and some men with long hair in his life to not be certain that a hairbrush is essential equipment when you have hair like Bev's. (They seem to have been lucky that a lot of them were left in the inn's storeroom, probably from that fake Christmas thing, but that supply has probably run out by now.)

But it's a bedroom and a bed, and this house isn't one of the smallest in the village, so it probably doesn't matter if it's the one that Bev has claimed as hers in specific. All that matters is getting her in bed and getting her to sleep. He relieves her of the cup as she climbs on the bed, setting it on the little table that serves as a nightstand, and reaches for her boots. She'll be a lot more comfortable if she's not sleeping with those on; he likes those kinds of boots and even he agrees with that statement. "Try and get some sleep. Do you want more water?"

She might pick up - later - that he's far too used to dealing with people who are ill (or wounded).

[ethnobotany]

She gives her head a slight shake, wincing even at that. Apparently her head just doesn't want to cooperate. Maybe a little sleep really will do her some good. Her boots disappear somewhere along the line and she settles against the bed. No, she'll be all right. Jean-Luc won't be far. It'll be fine.

"No, thank you," she says in response, curling up on her side. "I think I'll just sleep for the rest of the year."

It's a joke, mostly, but at this point no one really knows if she will or not. This sickness might be like the others or it might be completely different. She just has to hope that it won't last long. Still, for now, Clint gets his wish. Her eyes start to close, though she'll fight the urge to sleep until she's stopped inconveniencing him. Whenever that ends up being.