PHD #409: The Big Sleep
The Big Sleep
Summary: Sawyer awakes in Sickbay. Trask and Johnny Gossamer are there to greet her.
Date: 11 Apr 2042 AE
Related Logs: Arrested Development (Sawyer is taken); Nobody Expects the Areion Inquisition (Sawyer is interrogated); Illegal Seizures (Trask speaks with Vandenberg)
Referenced: Avalanche (Sawyer visits Trask in quarantine)
Players:
Sawyer Trask 
Recovery Room - Deck 10 - Sickbay - Battlestar Cerberus
Post-Holocaust Day: #409
A much more quiet area of Medical, this elongated room is also lined with beds. Each is similarly outfitted with privacy curtains as necessary and even the paint on the walls has been lightened in an attempt to help lift spirits. Chairs are readily available all over the place so that visitors can pull one up to talk to the patients during their recovery. Near the entrance, visiting hours are posted with a very conspicuous 'No Smoking' sign.
Condition Level: 3 - All Clear

The transport from Arieon landed just after witching hour, how apropos. They were met by medical and a team of heavily armed marines, but thankfully only the former was necessary. They say Sawyer got one good puff off her first cigarette in over 72 hours before the adrenaline wore off and exhaustion set in, and she was stretchered back to the recovery ward. Now she sleeps, curled on her side with a precautionary IV stuck in her arm. Her wrists show signs of chafing and the angry red bumps of a heat rash from where there were restraints, and her lips are deeply chapped as if she spent a great deal in the sun. Other than that, she just has dark circles under her eyes from a desperate lack of sleep. And so she's sleeps.

That is until until the dreams catch up to her. With a deep gasp of air that gets let out in a bitter cry, Averies is suddenly scrambling on the thin mattress, digging her heels into it to scrunch herself up against the pillow. Her eyes are open and wild, but she sees nothing in this room.

"'Okay, baby. Get some clothes on'," Trask quietly commands in the tone of a pulp noir, hard-boiled detective, before slipping into a more narrative manner to add, "Stella smiled. 'Since you asked me so nicely, I will'," is tacked on in a more flirtatious, feminine way, "'Turn around, please.'" BAM! Back to hard-boiled. "'Turn around, like Hades,' I said. 'And get a knife between my shoulder blades?' Stella st…" The sentence drops dead as a corpse when Sawyer starts screaming like a woman about to become one. The blonde dame claiming distress in the book is dropped on the bed in favor of the blonde dame in the bed who really is in distress. "Hey! Hey-hey!" the man gently calls to reassure her, to let her know that he's here, that she's safe. Hands move in a manner to echo those sentiments.

This is not a hospital bed. This not a pillow she's cringing back against. The hands that comfort her are not Trask's. Sawyer's back in the cell, and they're reaching to tote her away again, back to chamber and the noise. For in a dream, all things are amplified. Including fear. "It is not! No. Twice in half as many." Her quaking hands lift to try and cover her ears, heedless of the fact that the tape of her IV is pulling and peeling in protest.

This is not the kind of panic and abject terror in a woman that Trask is used to combating, which is why it's a good thing that trained medical personnel are on the premises. Much to his dismay, the man is brushed aside to merely watch with a mingling of helplessness, anxiety, and concern. "She… she just started screaming…"

A pair of nurses stream in, taking their place on either side of Sawyer's bed. They acknowledge Kal's words with nothing more than a crisp nod as they seek to untangle Sawyer from the sheets and the throes of her disquiet. Instead of just sedating her, they seek instead to wake her fully with quick words and a brisk shake, calling her name. When they're through, Sawyer's stretched back out as she should be, IV reinserted. Eyes that were once wild are now hooded and drowsy, a fine sheen of sweat on her forehead and tears dewing at the corner of her eyes. And out they scurry, because there is nothing more they can do.

The journalist lulls her head to find Trask with her slit gaze. "What day is it?"

There is a brief pause as everything that just transpired is processed. When Sawyer speaks, Bootstrap blinks a few times, as if that will somehow organize his thoughts. "The day that Johnny Gossamer cracks the Claire de la Lune case." Except the worn-cover novella is now on the floor, having been kicked off the bed during the thrashing. With the nurses now gone, the man draws closer, tentatively reaching for one of the blonde's hands. "Also known as April 11th, Twenty-Forty-Two AE." The worry has yet to abate from his face.

Sawyer splays her fingers, making them comb together with Kal's. A bit more lucid, that touch is now a comfort instead of a perceived threat, and with that comfort, she closes her eyes again. The lids are just too heavy to stay open. "That puts it at what? Eighty hours give or take? You boys are slow." There's a shadow of a smile at the corner of her cracked lips. "I'm so tired… but I don't want to sleep. I had a bad dream." Her voice is small.

"Take it up with Command," is the feeble protest, Trask's own fingers tightening as they lace with hers. "I reported you missing on the 8th. Told 'em to check with your buddy Kincaid in case he knew something I didn't. Twenty-four hours later, I was informed where you were." A small frown forms, the silence drawn out. Asking her what happened really isn't productive. Telling her everything will be okay is trite tripe. Also? Totally not his style. "We'll get those frakkers," he quietly assures, anger transmogrified into a cold determination.

There's a band around her wrist of the hand he holds, almost perfectly two inches wide save a little wiggle room, because wiggle the Blonde did. A matching red bracelet is on the other arm. "You need to open back up the News Room for me. People need to get back to work. Tell them I'm taking a few days off." There are a few heavy blinks, but finally her eyes settle back open and her smile curls up a bit more. "So, that begs the question. Why are you here?" It's more or less the same question he asked her back in quarantine, though Kal doesn't get the cool yellow suit now that the situation is reversed.

Rascally, Kal quips back, "See, I thought you would've said something along the lines of 'I'm surprised you even noticed I was gone' — BUT, since you asked, something about how no one should wake-up alone in a hospital." Which is pretty much the reason she gave him when he posed the same question, albeit delivered with a somewhat flippant headshake and eyeroll as if to say he really wasn't paying attention, although he really was. The smile that follows assures that, as does the fond regard in his eyes. Nodding about the News Room, "I suppose I'll be telling 'em that Sawyer Averies will be issuing a statement at a later date. 'No Comment' is like dropping chunks of meat in a sharktank."

"My passcode is eight seven five six three," Sawyer mutters quietly. "Look for me. Make sure nobody got into my files. I keep my desk locked and you know where the rest of the stuff is." Her thumb twitches lightly, brushing over the crook of his knuckle. "You know, I've still got a lot of waking up to do." She tugs on their conjoined hands, not so subtly hinting she wants him closer.

The curving of his mouth is faint but tinged with a certain mischief. Perhaps because he overrode the electronic lock to get into the News Room shortly after speaking with Vandenberg. Child's play, really, for someone of his skill set and experience. Dismantling and reassembling her desk actually took more time and effort. "I got into your files," he admits, vaguely amused, "and put 'em somewhere safe." Hand tugged, Kal complies, using his other one to snag the chair that's been home to his ass for the past hour. "Johnny Gossamer's in for a rude awakening," he notes in what must seem a non sequitur statement.

Sawyer turns her head on the pillow, settling her cheek against it so she can watch Kal through bleary eyes as he pulls over the chair. Her grip on his hand is weak, but only because she's gotten so little rest in the past three days. "Why's that? Gossamer, I mean. I know why you took the files." Because she told him to in case of emergency.

"Because Stella Starr's not the only one lookin' to hit 'im with the big sleep." Only now does he seem to realize the book isn't where he set it down. With furrowed brow, he blinks a few times, eyes darting side to side as the dramatic re-enactment of the displacement carries on in his mind. Trask cants his head, peering to the floor. Ah-ha! There is his precious. Reaching it without letting go of Sawyer's hand isn't proving to be so easy. "I swear, I leave the Deck for a few years and my arms shrink." No more dragging knuckles for him.

Sawyer's smile has settled into nothing more than little apostrophes at the corner of her mouth, and she releases the light tension she has on his fingers so he can retrieve whatever it is he's after. Ah. A book. He's been reading to her? That knowledge seems to sink in, and she relaxes a bit more into the hospital bed. "That Gossamer. Shall we see how the story ends?" Not that she'll make it that far, she already looks like she's ready to doze back off. In fact, her eyes drift shut while her hand remains palm up on the bed for his. "Then I'd like a cigarette. And a bath. But not a shower, a real honest to goodness bath…"

"As if there's any other," the man scoffs in regard to the private detective, not letting go of the blonde's hand. Instead, he sprawls out and slinks further down the seat, using his free hand to keep him on the chair. *FWAP!* Bootstrap's boot finds its target, and he starts dragging the book into arm's reach. "It always ends the same, but that makes it no less worthwhile."

And so it is that Kal continues to quietly read aloud, more than content to let Sawyer drift into a deep sleep, but never the big sleep.

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