Play@YSDC

Laurent is led to a small room. He doesn't see where Dr Clermont goes but presumes it is probably somewhere a bit smarter than this cramped dirt floored hut with a few empty cots. But he slumps down to sleep nonetheless.

-----

In the morning, Laurent is woken by probing rays of sunlight forcing themselves under his eyelids. His silent struggle is interrupted by Dr Clermont who blunders into the hut,

'Come, come young man. I will introduce you to Dr Beliard and we can see how Marise is doing.'

-----

Wending through the corridors of the hospital, Clermont eventually leads Laurent to a side-room at one end of a mostly empty ward. Outside the room a squat man in a white coat is pacing. When he sees Clermont his face briefly lightens but quickly returns to a frown. Clermont introduces him to Laurent as Doctor Edouard Beliard, director of the hospital. He looks like a St Joe native but carries himself with the confident air of the mulatto elite.

'L'enfant is not well mon vieil ami,' he notes with a sigh.

The three enter the side-room, the blinds are drawn and it feels stuffy, unusually hot. Marise is lying in the bed, shrouded in bedclothes. She seems shrunken, grey. Laurent can just about make out the slight movement of her chest as she breathes but otherwise she is completely still. Even compared to last night she looks worse.

The two doctors stand beside the bed looking at Marise.

'And you haven't found anything on the tests?'

'No, nothing. As far as the blood tests go she is completely well, yet...' he gestures at Marise's corpselike appearance.

Clermont glances at Laurent then leans in to Dr Beliard,

'And she isn't, you know?'

Beliard shakes his head.

'We still have to take some x-rays, that might reveal something.'

-----

Laurent feels quite out of place as the two doctors discuss theories and tests that he doesn't understand. Eventually Clermont turns back to him,

'Laurent, you know, there is not any more you can do for her now. Marise is in good hands here.'

Dr Beliard places a hand on Laurent's shoulder. 'We will do all we can for her.'

"There is still something I can do for her," says Laurent. "I can be with her, like I promised her. The healing of her mind is as important as the healing of her body, and I can help with that."

'Well, quite...how noble,' says Clermont. The look on his face is a mixture of admiration and pity.

The two doctors leave Laurent alone at Marise's bedside while they go off to talk outside. He can't make out what they're saying the the tone is one of worry and concern. The girl continues to lie there asleep or unconscious, the only movement her shallow breathing. He takes her hand and it feels hot, feverish. Touching her brow she's burning up, little beads of sweat run down her clammy skin.

-----

After some time two orderlies arrive with a wheeled trolley to take Marise for an x-ray. They won't allow Laurent to accompany her and they call a nurse from the main ward who leads Laurent down to a refectory where they are serving a simple breakfast and he sits alone at a long table nibbling distractedly.

Laurent eats his breakfast, knowing he has to in order to keep going. He is worried about Marise, and he prays that the doctors can help her.

While Laurent sits alone at the table, lost in his thoughts, in his worries about Marise. Someone slides in to sit beside him. Closer than seems strictly necessary to Laurent. It's a young man, perhaps seventeen or eighteen. Fresh faced and friendly looking. He tries to catch Laurent's eye and eventually gives up, clearing his throat, and asking him 'What are you doing here?'

"I'm Laurent Toussaint," says Laurent. "I'm a friend of Marise Lavigne. I brought her here, and I promised her I'd stay with her as long as she's here."

The young man looks interested, he hold out a hand in greeting. 'Léon, pleased to meet you. I work in the kitchens.' He leans closer and whispers conspiratorially, 'Is Marise the girl that arrived in the middle of the night?'

"Oui, that's her," says Laurent, shaking his hand. "Did you hear the doctors saying anything about her?"

Léon gives Laurent a sad smile. 'They say she is sick and getting sicker, they do not know why she is so sick.' He looks sympathetically at Laurent. 'Do you want to see where they do the radiographie? We can look at her scans.'

"Sure, merci," says Laurent.

Léon and Laurent wind through the labyrinthine corridors of the hospital until they eventually come to a small door off a courtyard that Léon opens in an exaggerated manner, like he's in a spy movie. Inside the room is full of boxes and bits of unidentifiable equipment. But in one corner there's a large machine - it looks like a massive telescope hanging from an armature off the ceiling, but instead of pointing to the stars it is focused on a narrow hospital bed. Léon grins and points at the machine, 'Radiographie!'

He tiptoes through the room and peaks through a further door. Then he signals to Laurent that the coast is clear. Through the door is a little room, there are various desks and benches but the most striking part is a lightbox mounted on the wall from which several x-rays are hanging. There are images of what Laurent can tell are someone's skull, their chest, their abdomen and pelvis, and various limb bones. Looking closer at the films they are all marked Marise Lavigne.

Laurent studies the images. He doesn't know much about medicine or anatomy, but there's something about them that doesn't look right.

OOC:   Have a roll to interpret the X-rays? Seems like a Human roll and you can risk an Insight if you want.

Not being a doctor, Laurent isn't completely sure what he's seeing.

Roll to understand the X-rays (human die only):
1d6

Laurent can't really make out much from the x-rays. The bones all sort of look right but he's not sure he'd know if they weren't. Certainly nothing seems obviously broken. While he can recognise the images of the lungs and the abdomen he has no idea if there's anything abnormal there - the films are just mysterious shadows and lines that mean nothing to him. The only thing he does notice is something in an x-ray of Marise's abdomen. He can make out the bottom end of the ribcage, the spine running down the centre, and the pelvis at the bottom of the image - in many ways human anatomy isn't that different to the skeletons of pigs and cattle he's seen in the fields. But in between all those bright white bones, in amongst the various shades of grey that Laurent assumes are bowel and liver and kidney and whatever else is in there, he sees something else. It's almost like two x-ray images have been superimposed on top of one another. There's the white bones surrounding the abdominal cavity, but then there's more bright white signal in the middle of the image.



Like there's more bones inside the abdomen. Laurent traces a white curve down the left hand side of the image, multiple white blocks like a delicate spine, and on the right of the film there are longer blocks of white, almost like tiny leg or arm bones. It doesn't seem like they're just the remnants of food as far as Laurent can tell. They seem to be joined together somehow. Part of some kind of whole.

Could there be another little life inside Marise? Is she pregnant?

"Is that...a baby?" Laurent wonders aloud.

Léon peers at the x-ray, tracing his finger along the curve of white bands, 'It's either a baby or she's eaten something really big for dinner!'

As Léon is looking over the film, there's a noise from the adjoining room and the far door starts to open.

"Hide," whispers Laurent, tapping Léon on the shoulder. Then he slips behind the door.

Léon ducks out the external door, leaving Laurent alone in the room as the door opens and a man in a white coat walks through. Laurent is able to remain in the shadows behind the door and the man doesn't seem to notice him. He collects up the x-ray films of Marise and takes them back out the door he came from, muttering 'Mon dieu,' under his breath.

Laurent follows Léon to catch up with him.

Leaning against a wall of the small courtyard, Léon has a sympathetic look. 'So, mon amie, I don't mean to pry but is she your girlfriend? Is it your baby?'

"Non," says Laurent, with a tinge of regret. "Her boyfriend was Eddie, but they broke up a few weeks ago. I'm best friends with Marise's brother, and I do love her, but there has been nothing between us yet." He tells Léon about the doctor's startled reaction. "I don't think this is a normal baby. We should track down that doctor and see where he takes the x-rays, and maybe hear what he says about them."

He shrugs, 'Maybe your doctor friend knows something? He may be taking them to him, non?'

Léon leads Laurent back through the maze of hospital corridors to the ward where Marise is being treated. They don't see any sign of the man with the x-rays. As they walk, Léon explains he's the x-ray technician but the doctors will be doing the interpreting of the x-ray films.

Laurent can see through the small window that Dr Clermont is alone in the room with Marise. Léon hangs back at the end of the ward, 'This is not my place, mon amie.'

Dr Clermont seems to be examining Marise. He has a strange looking implement, it's like an old ear trumpet but narrower. He has the wide end pressed against her belly with his ear against the narrow end.

Laurent watches carefully. He's not sure what the device is, but it seems to be something the doctor uses to listen to the baby. It could be something like a stethoscope.

Dr Clermont continues to move the instrument around, listening, and occasionally shaking his head. He doesn't seem to notice Laurent but after a few minutes of watching through the window he feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns to see that Léon has gone, and the round shape of Dr Beliard is standing behind him with a friendly if slightly sad look on his face. 'What are you doing lurking out here?' he asks.

OOC:   Yep - it's a Pinard stethoscope

"I was worried about Marise," says Laurent. "How is she doing, Doctor?"

Dr Beliard just gives Laurent that sad look again, 'Let us talk to Louis, non?' and he leads him into the room.

Marise remains immobile, asleep, or unconscious. The only movement the shallow rising and falling of her chest. Dr Clermont looks up as they come into the room. 'Edouard, Laurent,' he nods. Dr Clermont looks tired, his face is drawn. The years beginning to show on the old man who seems stooped and moves more slowly and painfully than Laurent ever remembers.

'You saw the...?'

'Oui, and I can hear it as well,' he hold up the stethoscope.

'How far do you think? Thirty two?'

'At least. She is a slim girl. I wouldn't be surprised if it was thirty eight even. How could I have not seen it?'

Dr Beliard comes forward and places his hands on Marice's bare abdomen. Laurent feels an involuntary surge of...disgust, or jealousy. The doctor presses hard into the flesh, probing with his hands.

'Oui, oui, nearly term...'

'But it is killing her, you can see that?'

'Oui, of course. But there are...considerations, you understand that?'

'I do - but look at her Edouard!'

The two doctors continue back and forth, talking as if Laurent isn't even there. He can't understand half of what they're saying. They seem to have some kind of conflict about what to do for Marise.

"Are you going to do a Caesarian section?" asks Laurent. "How can this be? She wasn't even showing on the way here."

Dr Beliard frowns but Dr Clermont stops their discussions and gives Laurent a wan smile as if he's just realised he was there.

'Oui, well, you shouldn't have to know about such things at your age but young girls can hide these things when they need to.' Shaking his head and wiping his brow he mutters, 'I should have realised sooner. I asked her, but she denied it...' He trails off.

'But it is a little more complicated than that is it not, mon amie?'

'The pregnancy, it is obviously causing Marise harm - I've seen it many times before although...well, not quite like this...'

'Oui, but this is St Joseph, not Paris, you know we cannot just...'

'But it is killing her Edouard! If she is at term that would be...acceptable?'

'It is not me - it is the church! At term, yes, it would be acceptable. But we do not know how far this foetus is - we do not have any facilities for premature births here - if it were to get out...!'

The two men restart their arguing. At core it seems that Dr Clermont wants to perform a caesarian-section and believes this will help Marise while Dr Beliard is afraid that the baby will not survive and it will be considered he has carried out an abortion - something that is very much against the law in St Joseph.

"If it's at least 32 weeks, and possibly 38, then the baby can survive," says Laurent. "Whereas, if Marise dies, you'd have to deliver the baby anyway to try to save it. I don't want her to die. I think we can save both of them. Is there any way to determine how close to term she is? Can we ask her?"

Dr Clermont shakes his head sadly, 'Marise hasn't regained consciousness since we've been here Laurent,' he looks meaningfully at Dr Beliard, 'You are right that the baby has a good chance of surviving...' he shakes his head again, 'But it does not look good for Marise whatever we do...'

'The decision is finely balanced!' snaps Dr Beliard, his urbane exterior dropping for a second to reveal a degree of irritation and perhaps even fear.

OOC:   If Laurent wants to persuade them for one approach or another you could roll for it.

"Her only chance is a Caesarian section," says Laurent. "If you don't, she'll die for certain. The baby has the same chance of surviving either way. Please, save Marise!"

Roll to convince them (human die only):
1d6

Dr Clermont looks long and hard at Dr Beliard, holding out his hands in an open, imploring gesture. The other doctor mutters in irritation, 'You do not understand what you are asking of me, of my hospital!'

He walks away from the bed, pacing to the window and looking outside. He turns and looks back at Laurent's pleading expression. 'We can take her to the operating theatre, get a better look at what is going on. That is all I can promise.'

'Thank you Edouard, I...'

Dr Beliard grunts and marches past Laurent, out of the room. Brushing past him roughly.

'I must prepare for surgery,' says Dr Clermont. 'If there is anything you wish to say to Marise I suggest you do it now before it is...well, I suggest you do it now,' and he exits the room as well, leaving Laurent alone with Marise.

Laurent kneels beside the bed and clasps Marise's hand. "Marise, I love you," he says. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I hope you can. I should have said it sooner. You have a wonderful future ahead of you, so please stay alive. I know things seem awful, but there is a way through. If you don't want to marry the baby's father, I'll marry you and claim the baby as my own. I pray to God that you survive, and that He makes you healthy again."

Despite Laurent's impassioned outpouring of emotion there is no change in Marise's shallow, ragged breathing. Her eyes remain closed and there is no sign that she has heard him or responded to his voice...perhaps, maybe, the slightest movement in her hand, the weakest of squeezes? Laurent doesn't know whether he is just deluding himself. But he feels nothing more and is still kneeling there beside the bed, holding Marise's limp hand tightly as the orderlies arrive and wheel her off to theatre.

He stands in the doorway and watches her go, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Anxiety certainly, but something more. Dread.

OOC:   Moving here.