A tour of sorts [[Combeferre]]

[adifferentlife]

Sybil was serious about her offer to show Henri about the city should he wish, and the hospital and college in particular. There's a cafe at the college she's suggested they meet at, a place where the tea is finally acceptable after a year of her patronage. It's a beautiful day, there's a crispness in the air that can only herald the onset of autumn. She loves this weather, it's her favourite time of year, and something she's very glad still happens here in Darrow.

She has a table outside, a pot of tea sitting half-empty in front of her. The sun is warm enough that she's slung her cardigan over the back of her chair in a manner she considers rather haphazard even still. Her notes for pharmacology lay in front of her, mostly untouched. It's too nice a day to study and she's rather looking forward to the company she's been promised.

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[adifferentlife]

The doors open with their customary swish, and Sybil tugs a badge out of her pocket that has a rather stern looking image of her on the front as well as some other information. Clipping it on, she leads him to a desk, smiling at the security and offering his name in order to have a temporary one handed over. "May I?"

Sybil doesn't wait, clipping the badge to his vest and patting it to make sure that it sits straight. As much as she still smiles, she's in her element now, her already straight shoulders straighter and her chin that bit higher. "I thought we might start in the short term ward, and then move on toward radiology and -ography?"

[jaimemieux]

The hospital's interior was starkly clean, unnaturally so under the harsh electric lights that still felt terrible foreign to Combeferre. He understood now the importance, of course, having read about germ theory and the like, though he still marveled at how the staff ever managed it. Medicine was messy business. And that messy, human, business happened here, in a building made of glass, and metal, and tile, that seemed the furthest thing from the living and the breathing?

Here was one more thing he would have to get used to, then.

But at least he had a guide. Tearing his gaze from the walls and ceilings, Combeferre smiled as turned his attention back to Sybil and she pinned the badge to his shirt. If she had been lovely before, now she was radiant. "Yes, certainly. That sounds wonderful."

[adifferentlife]

"Is there anything specific you have an interest in?" She had meant to ask it earlier, and realises now that she's been remiss in finding what he wishes to do, planning instead what she finds fascinating. "We have time, and this place is large, though I am told nowhere near as much as some place that exist."

[jaimemieux]

"I would not know where to begin," Combeferre confessed ruefully. He scanned the lobby once again, but found no answers there. "I do not even understand- where do doctors see their patients?" He smiled crookedly. "I fear I am wholly reliant on you to guide me."

[adifferentlife]

"Then I shall do that." She touches his shoulder, nodding down the hall. It's exciting and yet a bit trepidatious, wondering if she'll show things that he will appreciate as much she does. There's a great weight but one she is willing to bear.

"This is the short term patient ward," she says as the door slide open at her swipe. "The people here are often in for observation when we are unsure of a diagnosis, or need medicine for a brief time or are recovering from surgery when it will take more than a few hours."

[jaimemieux]

Much of the room was sectioned off with curtains, though a few were open, revealing empty beds or, in one or two cases, a doctor or patient talking quietly. Aside from the metal and bright lights, this, at least, reminded him of the hospitals he had known, where calm doctors examined nervous-looking patients who perched on uncomfortable beds. He nodded, eyes alert and curious. "You mentioned another ward - something-ography?" Now that sounded wholly unfamiliar.

[adifferentlife]

It has all become familiar to her, the way patients are assigned, the nurses and doctors on rounds, the beds and rooms that seem lavish compared to her own hospital experiences from home where as many men were fit into a room as possible. "Radiography. Downstairs. I thought I might show you X-rays and some of the other scans that let us see inside the body without invasiveness."

[jaimemieux]

Combeferre's eyes lit up. "X-rays! Yes! I have read about those. What a simple thing, and yet so utterly remarkable." He laughed a little and ducked his head, only belatedly halting his outpouring of enthusiasm. "I would very much like to see that."

[adifferentlife]

"They are, but there is also a danger in them," she says as she smiles at a curious looking nurse at the desk as they pass. "Hello."

Sybil swipes a badge past the door, waiting for it to beep and swish open. She can't help but steal a glance at Henri as it does. There's a delight in experiencing some of the technology that exists in this place. "The rays themselves are dangerous, and whilst a small amount will likely not cause harm, prolonged exposure to them would be ill advised."

[jaimemieux]

Combeferre nodded, remembering much of this from the books he had read. "Pierre and Marie Curie made that discovery, yes? They built their x-ray machines, and then used them so often that they were poisoned. Killed by their own invention. Mary Shelley would be unsurprised." The last he said in a thoughtful murmur.

[adifferentlife]

"You like Shelley?" It is a surprise, but a pleasant one for Sybil. She bites at her lip to stop the wide smile. "I loved Frankenstein. I read it when I was too young and likely had far too many wakeful nights because of it. But I read it again after I came here and it seemed so very different."

She leads them down a hall to an elevator, another swipe of her card required before she can choose the floor beneath them. "It is like that, yes. There are safeguards, and other technologies that can be used, but x-rays are still the simplest for showing bone problems."

[jaimemieux]

"Shelley is… interesting. I had a friend with a particular fondness for both Mary and Percy, and he gave me Frankenstein to read years ago." Combeferre said with a curve of a smile, remembering Prouvaire's eagerness to share the novel as soon as he had read it himself. "I enjoyed it." Beyond that, well - the obsession that a certain sort of English poet had for all but dripping feeling on the page in blood was not quite to his taste, though he could admire their artistry. Despite that - or perhaps because of it - he had an easy time imagining the woman beside him as a girl, eagerly reading by candlelight in some hidden corner, and paying the price in childhood nightmares. "You must have infuriated your parents," he teased with a twinkle in his eye.

His thoughts returned quickly enough to science. "Remarkable, then, that the discovery endures, after all this time. What other kinds of scans exist?" Sybil had mentioned something about other devices, but had not elaborated.

[adifferentlife]

Her parents had indeed wondered about her choices in books, among other things, but in the end had usually decided there was little harm in her sometimes odd habits. "I suppose that I did. But I think in some part they enjoyed it."

Sybil knew that her sisters and she had all been different and had each presented their own challenge, and that their parents had loved each of them very much. It was a relief, in many ways, to have come from the family that she did.

"There are, and a great many. The CT is based off the same radiography as the XRay, there's nuclear bone and blood imaging, but I think you'll find the Magnetic Resonance Imaging the most fascinating. There are some happening today too."

[jaimemieux]

"And - could I see some of this Magnetic Resonance Imaging?" He knew it wasn't an entirely simple thing he was asking, for he was no doctor here, and knew nothing of the technology involved. They may have been in a hospital, a place of healing, but this was not his world. He wondered if it ever would be.

"You have learned much in your time here," he noted, real admiration in his voice.

[adifferentlife]

"MRI," she says with a smile, and nods. "If we're lucky, yes. I've a friend in that lab too, and she should be working this morning. As long as she doesn't mind, it should be fine."

Sybil can't contain her smile, nor the flush of her cheeks. She has learned a great deal and it's something she's proud of. "It's been a rather lot of work, but I admit, I love it. Even when it seems a mountain of knowledge I'll never be able to scale, and I'm frazzled from examinations and all the things I have to remember and how different it all is, I still love it."

[jaimemieux]

“Your determination is commendable. It might have been easy to take some other course of study, or to have found some other profession that has not changed so much in the intervening years. I am sure you have many talents, after all.” He had not meant the last to sound so flirtatious, and blushed faintly. “And yet here you are. I will find myself in need of your insight before long.”

“MRI,” Combeferre echoed the word, committing it to memory. “And this machine shows a different look inside the body?”

[adifferentlife]

"I think another thing my parents would have told you is that all of the Crawley girls are remarkably stubborn." She says it with a measure of pride, knowing that it was a decent enough quality when it meant sticking to what they truly desired. "I will admit, worked as a nurse when I first arrived but was out of my depth. I had to hear it from a Doctor before I moved myself to an Aide and started studying more fervently. If- If there's any advice I can give, I would be more than happy, but I'm sure that you'll manage well yourself."

Sybil means the compliment, and likes the way that his cheeks show a hint of colour. She takes the opportunity to be forward herself, having decided at some point that she would like to spend another day with him. "Perhaps if you are lucky, you'll find out for yourself."

It's almost a challenge to bring her attention back to the medical equipment in the rooms surrounding them, but the whirring of machines is distraction enough. "It uses magnetic fields to get pictures of the body that are unlike anything I've seen before. If you're lucky you may get to see a brain. You can hear it running now, that buzz and whir down the hall."

[jaimemieux]

Combeferre chuckled. "I might manage on my own, but I think I would find the endeavor significantly more enjoyable with your assistance. If you would allow it, of course." He allowed himself a flash of a grin, barreling on before he could lose his nerve. "Perhaps you might allow me to buy you dinner, and share something of what you have been studying. Or... anything else you might like."

Honestly, he was glad for the speedy distracted. Perhaps he had read her wrong. Perhaps she was only being kind, offering a tour out of politeness, or professional camaraderie at best. He did not think this was the case, but, well, Henri Combeferre had never claimed to be an expert on women.

And so instead of worrying about whether or not he had just made a complete fool of himself, he struggled to imagine the whirring machine that waited so close by. "C'est vrai? Le bon Dieu." He exhaled. "Pictures of the brain."

[adifferentlife]

"I would be happy to," she says quickly, perhaps too quickly she wonders after? Sybil has never understood Mary's ideas about leading on a potential suitor, it has always felt too much like lying to sit quite right with her. That he's asked has set off an entire flock of butterflies in her belly, a feeling she's nearly forgotten. "To have dinner, that is, and to help you. Both, I'd be happy to do both."

The MRI is nearly forgotten, the clunk of the machine reminding her. "Should we go see what they are scanning?"

[jaimemieux]

"Good. Wonderful." Now, Combeferre couldn't stop grinning, and he ducked his head with a small laugh. "But please, lead the way, mademoiselle. I- I hate to think what the inside of my head looks like right now, of course. Thoroughly addled, I am sure." He clasped his hands behind his back, fingers twining together with nerves. Even now that she had responded, his head was spinning, as though to make up for his uncharacteristic boldness earlier.

[adifferentlife]

It's sweet that he's so pleased by her answer, almost as if he didn't expect her to wish to spend more time with him. It's not a reaction she's used to and it charms her entirely. "Then we won't scan yours today, I promise."

Sybil taps at the door before pushing it open and saying hello. The woman working smiles at her and after a few quick words she nods to Henri. "We can watch, if we promise to not touch anything."

[jaimemieux]

"I promise," Combeferre said, offering a warm smile to the stranger. Almost immediately, this vow proved more difficult than expected. The machine's monitor glowed faintly with a strange image, its controls varied and strange. Childish as he knew it was, some part of him wanted to press every button, just to see what would happen.

Keeping his giddiness in check (a feeling that, admittedly, had to do with much more than hospital technology), he settled for studying the machine from afar. "When would a patient need to be studied like this?"

[adifferentlife]

It is an urge Sybil doesn't feel. She knows the machines do a great many things she doesn't understand, and wouldn't dream of touching anything unless she were instructed. "Usually after other scans have been done and been inconclusive or shown little. It's sad, but usually it's the worst cases that get seen here. Those who have severe breaks that have torn muscles, tumours and growths, strange headaches that have no cause."

[jaimemieux]

Combeferre nodded eagerly. "But with this, they can find the answer, where before only mystery and hopelessness awaited in such cases." The other woman gave him an odd look, but he barely noticed. X-rays were miraculous in their own right, and surely a help to doctors, but a good physician could learn a lot about a broken bone without one. This spectacular machine could provide information that even the best doctors could only guess at without it. "What do the scans look like?"

[adifferentlife]

"Yes," she says, the one word weighted with understanding. Sybil has known those who wasted away to nothing for no reason that any could ascertain. She nods at the attendant, sure that she will have to offer a better explanation later. "Could you show us?"

A nod and then the images pop up as they've been scanned already, one moving into the other in a way that is not yet seamless. That will take more work by the woman at the controls. There's a darkness in the bone as it turns and that can't be ignored. "There. You can see something."