orangetoughguy

Eden finishes a bulk of her paperwork a bit early; keeping on top of it always helps to make everything go so much smoother at the end of the day. Besides, this particular patient had been not only nice but pretty thoughtful, so she wanted to make sure that he was okay.

She comes into the room with an extra cup of jello that she snagged off the food carts earlier and a blood sample kit, just in case he needs another sample taken, although she doesn't suspect he will. So far everything's come back fine.

She pops her head into the room. "Oy, yeh still awake?"

By coincidence is it orange jello? Let's just say it is. When he spots Eden coming in he offers a little smile.

"Still awake," he nods once, the casual kind with a tip up of the chin, "still workin'?"

It was the only flavor that wasn't lime, and the green kind make Eden think of snot. She gives him her own lopsided smile back.

"End of me shift. Considerin' yeh're the only person who gave me the time of day and there's nothin' at home tonight, I thought I'd stop in and drop this off. 'sides, had to bring back yehr updated paperwork." She clips the paperwork to the end of his bed and gives him the jello.

"By the way, yeh got a name?"

"Come on, just me?" He finds that hard to believe only because she's young, cute, and foreign. Guys kill for that, especially the ones who think the Irish are spitfires by birthright.

Oh god that question again. He gave his first name to Cameron because she was the first to ask, the first to put him on the spot. Now he has to decide between spreading the truth for consistency's sake or making the web more complex than it needs to be. His surname's not up for grabs but more importantly, Freddy doesn't have a sheet. It's Larry who concerns him. Wait a second.

"Yeah I got a name--" He spoons up some jello. Can you hear what he's saying, Eden? Yes? No? Then he continues on talking. "But I gotta ask you somethin', my partner and I we kinda don't have a dime to get outta here."

"People in the hospital usually aren' nice to the people takin' their blood." She shrugs. "And I'm not exactly a fan of most people anyway." Cute isn't a word most people use to describe Eden, although spitfire might be.

She doesn't hear the name as he's shoveling orange jello, but she just raises her eyebrows. "Yeah? Yeh're new to the City, right? What're yeh lookin' for?" Eden has a bit of a soft spot for new people: she's been dumped in a new place where she doesn't speak the language before, she knows what it's like.

"Shit I don't see why."

He does.

"You keep people alive."

Mm delicious orange jello. Ah right, the stuff Freddy actually wants. He doesn't argue her remark that he's new to the city because as far as he knows he's not. He's been up and down California enough times to know. What he doesn't know about what Eden really means can't hurt him, right?

"Jeans. I'm done with suits," he tells her, assuming she saw how they came in.

She laughs a little. "I don' keep people alive, I just test blood. But thanks."

And she pauses.

Considering all they have is hospital gowns and blood covered suits, she can understand the need for jeans. "Me older brother, I've got some of his shite, I'll pass 'em over to yeh. Hope yehr friend doesn' mind jeans and really baggy shirts." Although on the other guy they might not be as baggy as they were on Matt.

"Sometimes a blood test is all it takes," he counters.

Hey hey hey they might not be as baggy on Freddy either. Honestly. Still he does take Eden for someone who can size up a guy just by looking at him. He hopes his intuition about her is right because running out in jeans too small (or too big) would be ridiculously embarrassing. As for Larry, he looks over to that side of the room then back to Eden. He waves a hand.

"Like he's got a choice?" Freddy asks with a grin.

She snorts a bit. Yeah, sometimes it is, but hell if any doctor will give her credit.

Well, House would. To be fair.

Matt was only 5"8, and there are belts around, somewhere. "Before yeh get discharged, I'll come by with some shite. Don' worry."

"Thanks," he nods to her then only a breath later continues, "you like what you do here?"

Eden sets her kit down and sits in the chair next to his bed, reclining back into it casually. "Yeah," she says. "Didn' get much a chance to this this sort of shite back when I was in Ireland." By much a chance, she means any chance at all, considering what she did do back in Ireland, but that's neither here nor there.

"Makes me think. It's better than sittin' at home and stockpilin' C4 and watchin' bad TV, for fuckin' sure."

Bing.

"What'd you do there anyway--"

Well, that answers that. If he was drinking water he'd be spitting that shit out right now. Green eyes stare at Eden but he tries to tone that down right away, from wide to just uh, staring. Also blinking those dirty blonde light brown whatever the fuck color his lashes are.

"Sorry?"

Eden isn't ashamed of what she was, and it's no great secret, either. The fact is that there's no British police here to give her shit, no Ulster Volunteer Force, nothing really, except her, about the troubles. Eden's secrets are far more personal.

"I was a gunrunner for the Provo, for four years, before I landed here. So I probably wouldn' stock up on C4 or shite like that," even though she actually does have a stock of C4 in the City, "but basically, this shite? Not exactly the kind of thing I'd have done back in Belfast."

"Big change, huh?"

Yes, from Belfast, Ireland to Los Angeles, California. Well, somewhere in California as far as Freddy knows. For now it's best for his recently transported mind to keep thinking of it that way. Make the transition slow and smooth.

"You have to be good at it, not bein' just a nurse or anythin'," he nods to Eden, not that he has anything against the nursing profession. He just happens to know Nurse Eden would be lower on the totem pole for a hospital hierarchy compared to Lab Tech Eden.

"Big enough," she says. She had a hard time adjusting, at first, getting used to the fact that there was nothing here from her world or anything here, even, from her country, whether that country was the one she came from or another Ireland. Confusing.

She raises an eyebrow and laughs a little. "Don' let a nurse hear yeh say that, they'll cut off yehr morphine drip." Maybe not, but nurses already get compared to doctors more than they care to. "I've got a bit of a knack for it, is all."

He raises his index finger to pursed lips, modeling a classic secretive shushing gesture to keep that secret just between Eden and himself, and maybe the old guy in the other bed who probably can't hear them while he takes his old guy nap or whatever.

"Can't blame you for doin' what you're good at," Freddy shakes his head. In other situations that statement wouldn't apply at all on principle, but even then he can understand a little bit as to why people pursue the paths they do. At least, he wants to believe there's undeniable reason for it, whether it's upbringing or shit circumstances or who knows what. "Thoughts on," he pantomimes smoking a cigarette, "in here?"

Fucking no, but it's worth asking, right?

Eden smiles a bit, but then her eyebrows go up. "Not 'less yeh fancy having yehr face explode when the fire comes in contact with yehr O2. All I can get yeh is a nicotene patch, but I hear those don' nearly work as well as a cigarette does." Eden wouldn't know, she never really liked smoking much.

"Once yeh're mobile, though, if yeh don' mind half the world seein' yehr rear end, yeh're welcome to try and convince someone in charge that yehr O2 stats are high enough for yeh to go get a smoke outside. Still pretty warm out there, yeh probably wouldn't get shrinkage or anythin'."

"Shit I didn't even think of that."

About the O2 or the shrinkage. He laughs though. Freddy likes the mouth on this one, a bit gruff, a little bit trashy. He especially appreciates the trashy part, not because it's coming from a girl but because he's trashy too. Not the glitter-gutter contradiction sold on Sunset Boulevard either. A bit more like Fresno meth taken through a Belfast car bomb.

"Alright, you got a point," Freddy relents.

"Really, that's more why they don' let people smoke in here than the health shite." Well, that's how House would put it, anyway. She's sure. Maybe. He has a nice laugh, it makes the corner of her mouth tilt up. Most people don't appreciate Eden's mouth, or they ignore the colorful descriptions she adds to almost every other word.

"I'll get yeh a pack of cigarettes, slip 'em in with the jeans." There will probably also be a tupperware full of food, but that's only because Eden cooks way more than she and Frankie can eat.

Freddy's lucky to be from a time when smoking indoors hasn't been practically banned all across California. He returns that tilt up, mirroring the expression...followed by a wink.

"Marlboro Golds if that ain't too much trouble." This he says to her under his breath, even though no one else would hear them. In the back of his mind he does wonder why Eden is letting him get away with this much. He makes no grand illusion about pulling any wool over her eyes. Freddy knows she's making an exception here which is starting to stretch in his opinion.

Gosh, Freddy, are you really going to start doubting why this girl is being nice to you?

It's not that she holds any illusions about him, or even about a friendship with him. Eden just has a tendency to gravitate towards newcomers that remind her, in part, of herself. She's read his chart - she knows why he was in the hospital. She makes no excuses for why he would possibly come in that way, unless he was in trouble - either he asked for it, by getting involved in something, or he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the wrong place where you end up that badly fucked up is somewhere you knew you shouldn't have been. Eden's been in both situations moer than once.

"Oy, don' get too picky, boyo," she drawls. But that's really nothing, honestly. "And yeh can' smoke em in here, so fuckin' promise that. Wouldn' want another surgery to fix yehr face." Both from the explosion and from when Eden would break it for doing something so stupid.

Considering how he showed up he can't help holding the skepticism. None of it makes it to his expression or his tone though, and he definitely knows better than to ask her why. It's the same reason why he hasn't asked Larry why he took a bullet for him, maybe that'll come later. Not in a public hospital room, Christ.

"I will not light one up in here," Freddy says to her the same way a religious man would swear to God. He doesn't want surgery on his face, thanks. He likes his face.

"Good." She stands up, picking up her kit. "Do what the nurses tell yeh, yeh'll be out of here and on the street before yeh know it." Although Eden is hardly one to advocate for staying in the hospital, considering she left AMA the last time she wound up in the hospital bed herself.

"I'll see yeh around, yeah?"

The same hand waves at her, friendly, casual, natural.

"See you, Eden."

If they mean in hospital stay terms, probably. Beyond that? Freddy really doesn't have a fucking clue.

1st

Doing the rounds...again and again;

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