[FIN] Getting Out

[Gwennythe]

She wasn't entirely sure she knew what day it was.
That was kind of disconcerting; moreso, and related, was that she didn't entirely know how long ago the mission had been, or which days she'd been awake and which she had mostly, or entirely, missed...

Tambrey was aware, however (and in no small part because she was allowed to be in a wheelchair and not in her bed) that today, she could /finally/ get some time out of the infirmary. Not a lot of time. But some.

She'd requested several of her pokéballs as soon as she'd learned she'd be allowed to venture out for a bit, and had arranged, with Aulus, to go to the training rooms.

Somewhat strangely, given the bug's typing, Tambrey found that she'd /missed/ Jubilee... She had rather gotten herself used to handling the little thing since capture, though she hadn't realised how much she'd gotten to enjoy the Joltik's presence...
So, the little yellow creature was, in fact, allowed to ride on her shoulder, with only a little bit of wariness on her trainer's part.

With five more pokeballs settled in her lap, Tambrey waited to be allowed to actually, properly, get going to the training rooms.  

[TawnyAngel]

Remaining in the infirmary was becoming a real trial. He was still sleeping a lot more than normal but not enough to pass all the hours of the day easily, and the cocktail of drugs he was still on made it hard to focus on reading or games. It was a relief therefore when Westron suggested he accompany his partner on her first trip out since this latest disaster. Given neither of them was up to much physically they'd agreed to head to the training rooms with some of their Pokémon, give them a chance to stretch their legs... or wings, or other locomotive body parts.

Dressed today in slightly less scruffy sweatpants (black) and a vest top (also black) plus flip-flops Aulus felt a little less pathetic looking than he had on his last outing. He might have lost weight, have lost a limb, and look as pale as Tam usually did but at least his attire said more 'I am going somewhere to do something' and less 'I just fell out of bed'.

Trying to look as though he felt perfectly confident Aulus headed over to Tam's bed, coming to a halt just outside the privacy curtains. "Knock knock, you ready?"  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey had forgone shoes (one foot was still a little awkwardly pinned anyway, and what was the point when she couldn't walk anyway, bound to the chair for now, as she was...), but she was dressed in similar, purposeful fashion.
She'd rather insisted she be allowed that, at least; shorts, a grey, long-sleeved top, and a blanket that she could. at least, remove if she did begin to feel too hot, though she'd found herself more growing cold easier than she could retain heat before. Tambrey had put that down to her own weight loss.

She, at least, looked better than when Aulus had first come to see her, though that really, probably, wasn't so surprising; it might have been hard to look 'worse'.

She smiled as she heard the voice outside, and found herself nodding despite realising, of course, that Aulus couldn't see in at that point.

"Yeah! I'm dressed and everything!" She called, not too loudly- she liked Jubilee, but she was -still- an electric type... "Jube's out too!" She added after a moment, perhaps to make sure Aulus didn't startle her or something; a somewhat paranoid view to take of the pokémon, but still... Electric and all...

Jubilee, hearing the familiar voice, wasn't startled at all, and then added a quick, cheerful chirping noise as a greeting.  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus pushed the curtain aside slowly, a small tired looking smile tugging his mouth up at the corners. "Hello there ladies, shall we head off then?" Tam looked... pretty awful, but slightly less so than she had yesterday. He thought so anyway. He waved his hand at the door. "Uh, do you need a push or anything?" If so he would probably have to employ Char, he didn't imagine that trying to push a wheelchair one-handed would end well.  

[Gwennythe]

That was tempting... She rather realised it would be Char pushing, and she did get tired out fairly easily, but...
"Maybe, um, see how it goes? I think I'm going to be using one of these for a bit longer than last time somehow, so I'd better get used to them..." She reached for the handles encircling the rims and rolled herself forward a little... earning a delighted squeak from the tiny tick pokémon... For Jubilee, all of this was still a 'new thing'... She wasn't keen on 'always-sitting-or-laying-down Tambrey' compared to her usual trainer (even when she'd been hurt last time, the agent had recovered rather speedily, and had been on crutches fairly quickly- she'd hardly seen the wheelchair, let alone gotten to ride in it with Tambrey.
She thought the wheeled chair was rather fun to be honest.

"Anyway, hello there; how are you doing today?" A query and an answer to his question about getting going, as she rolled herself forward a little further; apparently intending to talk and roll.  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus nodded agreement; it made sense and he knew that he for one didn't like to accept help, he wouldn't accept it if he had any other choice.

As they made for the door Aulus pondered Tam's question. "I'm alright," he said eventually with a small shrug; there was no point in going on about things that weren't about to change. "Improving I guess. You? You look a bit less like death today." Presumably why she was being released for a couple of hours.  

[Gwennythe]

"Still on painkillers?" Her eyes found where the arm should be, and she wrinkled her nose slightly- she still wanted to read up, herself, on such things, but she wasn't sure if she should bring that up; still it was a rather impossible thing to just ignore totally; same Aulus, but the arm definitely had gone...

She grinned though.
"Oh thanks," Tambrey knew it was fairly honest though; she probably had looked like death, and probably did look a bit better today "I do feel better; less 'like death', more like 'death warmed up'... Well, with my blanket anyway." She joked and waved the corner of said blanket a little, before resuming her rolling.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Warmed up is good," Aulus replied, turning his mouth up at the corners in a smile-esque expression. He held the door open for her to get out of the infirmary and then turned down the hall towards the nearest lift, keeping his pace slow for both their sakes. "Yeah," he said eventually, "and some other crap too, you know, the stuff they had us on after the thing with the Bacon Bird. That'll be stopping soon though, apparently it's really not good for you long term." So long as he didn't start to react badly to it they'd give him occasional short courses of it after the first surgery in an attempt to speed up the integration of bone and metal.

"What about you?" he quizzed after a moment of silence.  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey looked... a little rattled for just a moment.
She, in fact, rather wanted to -request- to go back on, and stay on, the same stuff he'd just talked of... However, the somewhat prolonged use due her determination to be on the last mission, apparently, jeopardized that wish... She hadn't really gotten to talk about it yet with the medical staff.

She certainly didn't like the idea of having to spend longer recovering as it was, but the treatment after the Keldeo mission had rather spoiled her in expectation... Of course the 'miracle drug' was too good to be true; she was a scientist- she /knew/ that- and yet there had been, and still was, a bit of a hope gnawing for it, having seen the results before...

"Uh..." She hesitated as she rolled toward the lift.
"Well, I'm on tiny doses of a lot of stuff and larger doses of more stuff, and they wouldn't let me eat or drink for ages, but now... Well, they make me take some tablet or another with most everything I eat." She probably should have been paying more attention to it- occasionally she did- but her mind kept occupying itself with a lot of other thoughts; genetic projects, her own recovery, nightmares, Aulus' arm, the state of Pygi (thankfully healing better than she was, but she worried that the bird -had- been hurt at all) and wishing she could spend more time with Rory... The latter had been often busy, though, of course, and she understood that.
"How is Hayes?" She wasn't sure why thoughts of Rory prompted that, but Hayes was a good person who Aulus would likely know the state of better than anyone else; it was hardly a secret how close the two of them were, and she found herself curious about the elite's recovery.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Ah." Aulus smoothed his hand back over his hair, his mouth turning down again and his scarred features creasing with concern. "He's doing better." He was, he was going to be okay. "They've ruled out any blood clots now but he's pretty concussed still, kind of out of it. He had some nasty internal injuries too and cracked ribs but... yeah, he doesn't look so much like death anymore either. They want him in for observation for a bit longer though." Aulus privately suspected that the medics were being more careful with Alex because he was more valuable than the rest of them; elite Agent and department head and all. This of course was just fine by Aulus, paranoia on their part meant that if anything did start going wrong they'd catch it quickly and fix it.

He'd said he'd keep him safe this time. He'd promised. He'd promised Tam he'd watch her back too and look at both of them. Look at all of them come to that.

"Uh... but what's the look out on your leg?" Aulus asked, halting outside the lift and pressing the button to summon it. He kind of hesitated to ask in case it wasn't good but he wanted to know and if it was bad maybe Tam would want to talk about it. Then again she might not; he certainly didn't, not about the- the thing itself. He had a plan though, if Tam or Alex asked he was going to start talking about the procedure; it would interest both of them and save him from talking about anything that was too personal, too painful for the present.  

[Gwennythe]

"That's good... That he's doing better, not the, uh, concussion..." She nodded a little. "Fell out of the sky... Same as Pygi and me; hope," what was the bird's name? It was something important, something she'd once named a stuffed toy after... Ah! "Darwin's okay... Pygi was all ruffled up... Shredded wings. She'll be flying again sooner than I'll be walking though..."

Tambrey rocked herself back and forth a little as they waited for the lift, and had the look of contemplating her answer. She tried not to make the glance at his arm that she did, though she felt he'd understand.
"Um... It'll heal. It'll take time, but it'll heal, and I'll have to use crutches for a long while once I can even get upright... and then a stick- you know- like a cane, probably, for balance for a bit after that... I really don't want to be so... limited for so long," she admitted after a moment "but it'll heal." Give or take a little bit of a limp, maybe, she supposed, and assuming no further complications.
She found herself smiling suddenly, with a bit of dark mirth; a little grim smile, but still...
"It's my foot really, and it'll scar. But that'll match the rest of the leg, I guess... Already got lightning marks..." She remembered the first time she'd seen the zig-zag shapes running up her calves, and the repulsion and just overall... flinchiness she'd felt at seeing them.
They'd faded over time, really, but they were as clear as day to her... and now one foot was going to have the scars from surgery too...
"Not getting a fancy new one." She smiled, a subtle indication of the situation regarding his arm; she remembered talking before, drugged and tired and out of it as she'd been.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Not sure about Darwin, I should find out." Alex would want to know at some point and he wanted to know now he thought of it, he had no idea if the bird had been injured or not but he was willing to bet quite a lot that he had been.

"That's... well, that could be worse," he continued as he stepped into the lift. "We'll all have an impressive collection once we heal up... scars I mean." He had his own little lightning marks, they stood out quite starkly when he was tanned. He'd rather have another few ragged scars across his face than those marks on his arms and legs... make that arm; arm and legs. Well that was something approaching a silver lining he supposed. "Well if you need stuff done around your room just ask Char; he already keeps my life in order, he'll be happy to help." The Charizard would need to do more than he usually did now anyway, it wasn't exactly going to be easy to clean and tidy with one hand.

"But.... Yeah. Cool new arm." Aulus gave Tam another deliberate smile that didn't manage to reach to his eyes. "If all goes well they're going to do the first surgery on me at the beginning of next month. They need to ah," he waved his hand in the vague vicinity of his right side, "put in the fixture and leave it for a few months so the bone integrate.... I've got a diagram somewhere if you want to see." A lot of the time he had been able to focus he'd spent researching the process, and while he now knew pretty solidly how it was going to work he had also perhaps got a bit too caught up on the potential compilations.  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey nodded... and then found herself adding...
"Getting harder to explain this stuff to my Mum. Used to say 'wild pokémon', camping mis-haps... She thinks I'm a research assistant with some one, out in the field... Seeing her less since promotion. A -lot- less..." She wrinkled her nose again, a little unhappy at the thought; mostly it was circumstance keeping her away- injury and all that, being hard to explain.

"Thanks," She broke the trend with a more genuine, if tired, smile, grateful "may take you up on that for reaching cupboards and things at first if's okay?" To be honest, she suspected Aulus -really- needed the Charizard more if just for the fact he was more company around the room...

She nodded as he described the process, picturing a bicycle trapped by a growing tree, though she didn't vocalise the image for Aulus; that probably wouldn't be so appreciated...
"If you like... I could spend some time looking into it too? I'm not really a tech' girl, but I've got a pretty good understand of how nerve-endings and things work... and there's Faleen; she's done integration work before..." Admittedly, chips, pokémon, or lobotomizing former pokémon champions... But still, as she understood it, that was nerve-impulse work of another kind.
"A diagram'd be cool."  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus gave Tam a wry smile as the lift began to move and shook his head. "I gave my family a terrible excuse when we got back from.... You know." She knew. "Uh, anyway. I kind of ran into my brothers in Camphoreon before I'd thought of a good excuse for vanishing for more than a month to send to the all and... I kind of ended up telling them that I was part of a secret team that fights Team Rocket." He hadn't yet told them about this latest development but they were half a world away, maybe they didn't need to know until he had a new arm in place. They'd all be furious but they were accustomed to be furious with him by now. His father kept asking him when he was coming home.

"And yeah," he nodded, "Char loves helping out so, no problem.... Let's see." Frowning one of his classic 'I am concentrating' frowns Aulus fetched his dex out of his pocket. Manipulating it with just the one hand was difficult to say the least, holding it and operating the screen at the same time and all... in fact it was turning out to be kind of impossible.

Aulus swore under his breath and passed the dex down to Tam, only just resisting the urge to shove it at her. "It's unlocked; just go to the pictures folder, I think it's called schematic #1? It's uh, yeah. Interesting I guess. There's one called x-ray too which is... an x-ray. End result will be a little bit like that." He was aware that he was sounding kind of stupid at the moment but all of this was was hard to talk about even if the techniques and technology involved were cool. "If you want to do some research...." Aulus paused, trying to decide what he actually did feel about that. "Uh... well... sure. I mean, I'd like to know what you think but don't feel like you have to or anything if you don't want to. I'm going to talk to Faleen... kind of hoping she might want to work on building it."  

[Gwennythe]

Vanishing for a month, yes... That one had been interesting to find an excuse for...

"A secret... I, uh, see..." Tambrey, despite the serious subjects currently in play, couldn't help but find it a rather amusing excuse.
"That's... kind of brilliant actually." She considered it; the appeal was there for the rather 'comic-book'-like nature of it, but practically... if a family member happened to catch Rocket paraphernalia about him, Aulus could blame it on that, if they'd bought it...

She'd watched him struggle with the 'dex and resisted the urge to offer to do it; if he -could- do it, he would, if he wasn't able to... Well, here they were. Vaguely, she wondered if she should offer to switch on the vocal commands option, but then, those could be rather annoying all on their own...
She found the described images without issue, but found herself blurting something out before she could stop herself.
"Huh, looks kind of like a dalek plunger..." Her cheeks coloured slightly, and she offered a "Sorry" as she realised what she'd just said.