sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

[MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

WHERE: Anywhere; multiple locations
WHEN: Apx. 13-18 November
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Serious illness and reactions to such

IMPORTANT NOTES: This is the first of two mingles. Please see the timing and general event details here.

Illness Presents and Putting Heads Together will have their own top-levels in this post, but you may make separate top-levels for whatever you like! Anything is welcome, as long as it tangentially relates to the Worried/Sick plot.

Please keep in mind the established plot details, but creative license is welcome and encouraged as long as it doesn't step on toes.

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Rinoa's smart enough not to grab people when they're upset or sick, and she's definitely not going to force Peggy anywhere. But she is hopeful at least that she can get through to people. It's the least she can do. She's been able to stop Squall from doing anything stupid so far, so at least she doesn't have to talk him down, but it's not as easy to do that with strangers.

"Ma'am, you don't even have shoes on. I understand, I really do, but you will get the best care here. What will happen if you're so sick at home and can't get back to help when you need it?" She'd hate that to happen to someone. The truth is she's likely to offer to check on her if she can't stop her, just to make sure everything is okay, but she's hoping it won't come to that.

Peggy opens her mouth, about to argue that of course she has shoes on, and that the girl shouldn't be ridiculous, when she looks down and sees nothing but socked feet. Grimacing, she hates that she's made to be so helpless.

"I suppose it would be a bad idea," she says, beginning to wobble a little as she reaches out to steady herself on the nearest wall, "going out in only socks. It's a bit chilly, no?"

"It is," Rinoa agrees quickly, because maybe that's reason popping through and that would be nice. She reaches out when
Peggy wobbles but can tell the older woman probably wouldn't appreciate contact at the moment so doesn't touch her. She seems a little prickly, which Rinoa can understand, she gets prickly while sick too. "Getting colder every minute, and it's warm inside."

She forces a smile. "I hate being sick too, I'd resist doctors until the very last minute." Rinoa's stubborn when it's her own health on the line. "But this is kind of a big deal for all of us, you know? So we have to handle it by working together." And in some cases that was wrangling sick people, like her, or sick people staying in one place.

Peggy hides her mouth behind her hand, not wanting to cough right into someone's face, but it is a rather pressing concern if she doesn't do so. The hacking fit finished, her body feels wracked with the ache and she concedes with a nod of her head, allowing herself to be dragged back in.

"I've gone to work with a rebar hole in my gut," she complains, because this is ridiculous. "This is just a fever, I ought to be just fine."

Rinoa's so grateful that she feels a little dizzy with it. She's had very little sleep or food so she really has to worry about that eventually. She can't help others if she's about to drop. But this was a small victory that she's going to be grateful for. She leads Peggy back in and gestures to see what bed she left.

"You have?" Rinoa's eyes go wide. She doesn't know what a rebar is, but that sounds dangerous. "How did that happen?" If she can distract Peggy by asking her about stories, she will absolutely take that bullet. The woman seems really competent, and Rinoa's had no strong female figures in her life since her mom died. She gravitates to them with no small amount of shy longing.

Peggy waves a hand dismissively, as if the very idea of the rebar being anything more than a pesky little issue is ridiculous. "I can assure you that what I was escaping was far worse," she intones, still having nightmares and chills about the zero matter that Whitney Frost had yielded.

She grumbles mildly as she's led, hating that she's being put back to rest, even if she knows this is the smartest thing to do. "I fell, quite a ways, and it went straight through me. It made sleeping and eating and talking and breathing quite awful." And that was to say nothing of her personal businesses in the loo.

Rinoa gestures to the bed and offers Peggy some water. They have it stationed regularly around for people to use. Keeping everyone hydrated was paramount to keeping them alive, she was told. "You were running from something that was worse than that? That must have been intense." She's been in dangerous situations too, where there seemed like there was no good way out. She'd been in a coma for awhile, for example, and almost frozen alive. But this sounded difficult in another way, in a day-to-day struggle way.

"This isn't really that though. Injuries like that you can heal from given time. We're going to need a cure for this illness, it won't go away on its own from what I've been told." Injuries could heal, but sickness could linger until she died. And Rinoa really didn't want anyone to die. "My boyfriend's sick too. He's sleeping over there." She glances in that direction and then back to Peggy. "Sometimes we just have to trust the doctors."

"Once it touches you, there's nothing in the world worse than it," she assures, reaching for the water and clutching it like a lifeline, clinging tightly to it to before pressing the cup to her forehead, like she can stave off the fever like this.

She makes a pitiful sound when it does just a little, but not quite enough. "Which is your boyfriend?" she asks, glancing through the sickbeds and noting how very many there are, here.

Rinoa wishes it could do more. She's pretty sure even if a cure comes soon, recovery is going to take a long time. For everyone. She glances over to where Squall is and points. "That's Squall. We haven't been here very long." Even now she looks at him with such love and longing, her heart full like it could burst at any moment.

"I found out here that he's been six years without me, we were separated by other worlds before this one. We're still trying to sync up, and then this happens." It's not moving them backwards, but it's not moving them forward either. Rinoa blushes, realizing she shouldn't have talked to Peggy about that. "I'm sorry." She's spoken to no one about it, which isn't very healthy. "Here I am talking about my problems when you have plenty of your own."

Peggy looks over to the young man, feeling pleased for the young girl for having someone like that, her jealousy subdued and well-worn. She's come around to the fact that while Steve is here, there's no future for them, not when decades separate them now.

"Six years?" she echoes, confused. "I've only done the two, I can't even begin to imagine what that's like." And there's that creeping, awful horror. Could she be here for another four years? Could she be trapped like this, her life on pause or completely derailed?

"Not trapped here six years, but stuck in another world, kind of like this," Rinoa says on a sigh. "To me, no time passed, to him, all that time has." And he swore that he still loves her and needs her, and she believes him. Squall would never lie to her. But it's a lot to process for a young woman in her first relationship. They only just started to be a couple, and now there was this gap that she was trying to close, but it still existed.

"He says nothing changed for him, he was always trying to get home to me." Which was very, very sweet, and the way she looks at him now said how real that was to her. Yet she is sad too, underneath it all. "I'm not sure I'd be that strong." Rinoa wants to believe that if she knew she could get home to Squall, she'd keep fighting for that goal. But she gives up a lot easier than he does. She always has. "Sorry, I doubt that listening to teenage angst is what you want to do with your free time."

"And he remembers it," she latches on, since that seems to be the clear thing in all of this. If no time had passed at all, that's one thing, but she speaks about it like there are memories to be had. She breathes out slowly and tries to reconcile that.

"I'm not entirely sure how to feel about the idea of going home and recalling all of this. It's so different," she says, pressing a hand to her feverish forehead, trying not to list and sag to the side, but her energy is beginning to flag.

"Yes, he remembers all of it." Rinoa glances back at Peggy, uncertain why that's so important, until she continues to talk. Oh, that makes sense. "No one seems to have said they remember when they go back home. So I guess it may not be something you have to worry about." But who knows. It could happen. Anything could happen.

"Why don't you lie down? I'll get you some more water. Everything is going to be okay."

[ooc: maybe wrap here or on yours? :)]

Peggy nods, even though she's not so sure what she's nodding about, simply that it sounds like a very good idea. Breathing out slowly, she squeezes Rinoa's hand, wanting to make sure she can at least show her appreciation.

"Thank you, for taking the time with me," she says, with a weary smile.

[ I'm good to wrap here! ]

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[MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

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