2019-08-26 - Encounter at the Hospital

The hospital is having a relatively quiet night. There's a dull drizzle falling from the sky outside, but it seems the sort that keeps people in doors, rather than out in the rain trying to kill each other or themselves. So Alexander, in his worn t-shirt and jeans, may stand out a bit, especially as he's in areas where he probably shouldn't be. Most notably, near the doors to the hospital morgue. His expression is downfallen, and he's leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. His gaze flicks this way and that when people move around though, so he's not lost in grief, if that's what he's feeling. He seems to be...thoughtful, as much as anything.

It's a quiet day, so Abby seems unhurried as she wanders down the hallway by the morgue, carrying a few boxes of gauze, plus some paperwork tucked in between two of them. The jolly butterflies on her pink scrubs may contrast slightly with the day's somber mood, or just with the location. She's even humming to herself, but quiets down somewhat as she nears the morgue, then goes completely silent when she spots the man standing there. She looks around, down the hallway, then at the doors, then at Alexander again. "Hello," she offers a greeting with a small, amiable smile, eyebrows rising slightly. "Can I help you with anything? Or... is everything okay?"

Alexander heard her coming, so by the time she spots him, he's already looking in her direction. His overlong brown hair flops a bit over his eyes, and his gaze is dark brown and intense. Maybe too much so - he's not so much looking at her as staring, with a reptilian sort of calculation that doesn't seem very friendly at all. "No," he says, and at least his voice is pleasant enough. "And no, again." Another long pause. "A friend of mine has just died." A sidelong half smile at her. "It happens to someone every day, and you've seen it enough here, I'm sure. Ms..." his gaze flicks to her nametag. "Reed?" An amused sound. "I have another friend with that name. But with an 'e' on the end, to spell it. Isabella Reede. She's not dead," he adds, as if that's important.

Abby shifts the boxes closer to herself, though they seem light enough to carry without much of an issue. Hearing Alexander's reply, she winces slightly and her smile pinches. "Oh. I'm so sorry about your friend," she says, and genuinely seems to mean it, eyes kind and sympathetic as they dart from Alexander to the door and back. There's a flicker of recognition in her eyes, like maybe she's heared about it. "Reed," she confirms with a small nod. Her smile opens up slightly at the mention of Isabella, "Oh. Yes. I've met Ms. Reed-uh with an extra e." She emphasizes the extra letter at the end of the world, "No relation! Well, we might be very distant cousins, of course. But then, aren't we all? I mean, I'm glad to hear she's... alive."

"I am, too," Alexander says, tonelessly. "But it does not appear to have been murder. Not directly, anyway - indirectly, yes. The attack led to her death. Therefore, it counts as proximal cause, if not immediate." He blinks, shaking himself from the ramble to fix his attention on Abby again. "Did you? I'm glad. She's a good person to know. And I'm also glad that she is alive." He pushes himself off the wall and comes closer, sort of slouching in an inherently guilty and shifty kind of way. He's staring at her boxes. "May I help you with those?" A pause. "Have you worked here long, Ms. Reed?"

"I'm sorry," Abby says, again, and her gaze softens further. "There's been a lot of violence lately, hasn't there? Oh, I've only been here for a few months, I started in February. Well, I'd been here before. I mean for training and so on, besides going to the ER for actual emergencies. That doesn't count as work." She adds the last part with a small sheepish smile, and adjusts the boxes again, glancing down. "Oh, thank you. It's fine. They're not heavy at all, I just should've piled them a little better." And a little more adjusting, tilting the boxes back and forth.

"It's Gray Harbor," Alexander says, quietly. "We're statistically above average on a per capita basis for just about every type of violent crime, as well as suicide, for towns our size and with our demographics. People die here a lot. I wish they'd stop." He was already reaching out to take the boxes, but at her words, his hands freeze, and slowly retreat back to his sides. "I see. I asked because my mother used to be a nurse here. I was going to offer to say 'hi' to her for you, but she retired a few years back. You're unlikely to have known her - although I gather she does still show up from time to time for lunch with her 'girls'." His voice is dry and amused.

Abby smiles and leans down to use her chin and try to nudge some papers back between the boxes as they threaten to tumble out. This is not a particularly graceful maneuver. "Hmmm. Right! I suppose that'll explain it, but still, the numbers are one thing and actually seeing it is another... and to think I didn't I didn't want to go to Seattle 'cause it was so hectic in the ER, right?" She sighs upon saying that, straightening up again. "Ohh. I might've met her then. I came here a few times to learn while I was working my way up. But I wouldn't really know her, I'm afraid."

"Elizabeth Clayton," Alexander supplies, which might indeed bring to mind vague memories of an older woman, Scandanavian-sturdy with gray hair, an air of practical good cheer, and an interest in other people that occasionally goes past 'motherly' and into 'bossypants'. Alexander seems very little like her, although there's the ghost of a smile on his face as he watches her wrestle with the boxes. "Please let me take a few. It would be inconvenient for the hospital if you walked into a wall because you were trying to juggle all of these at the same time. Just two?" His smile isn't what you'd call winsome, but the offer seems sincere. "And I'd say that we're still not Seattle busy. Just...more than you'd expect."

"Oh, maybe. I'll be sure to keep it in mind anyhow," Abby says with a smile after mulling the name over for a moment, brow creasing in thought as she tries to place it beyond a vague memory. Eventually, she relents. "Well, you can take the top two then, if you'd like. Just be careful with the... papers. I should've put those somewhere else." The boxes really aren't heavy, just a little unwieldy. But she flashes him a wide, sunny smile. "Walls are just about the safest thing you can walk into, in a hospital. It's an odd week that ends without me covered in bruises," she cheerfully announces. "And no, it's not nearly as bad as Seattle, it's just more than I expected."

Alexander takes the top two boxes and holds them neatly down by his waist. He does sneak a peek at the papers, a casual, curious motion, but his eyes soon return to her with their frank, too-intent stare. Her wide smile gets a ghost of a response. "This way, you avoid walking into anything, Ms. Reed, and hopefully reduce your bruise count for one week." He nods. "It's been a bit of an intense couple of months, even for here. Are you natively from Seattle, then? I don't recognize you, but then I probably don't know everyone in town." He gestures with his free hand. "Lead the way to wherever we're taking these?"

The papers just look like boring inventory requisitions and assessments of some sort, something that's likely in a computer somewhere but someone just wanted to have printed out and signed. Abby shakes her head, her gaze earnest, still softened by sympathy it looks like. "That must be it, then. There were a few weeks that were just a disaster," she says with a shake of her head, eyes opening wide only to flinch at the recollection as she starts down the hallway. "No. That was just where I'd also applied for a job. I'm from Elma," she says. It's a town of about 3000 people, just twenty miles or so inland from Gray Harbor. Much closer to the opposite end of the scale from Seattle.

"Elma." Alexander pauses a moment, flipping through his mental files. "Interesting. Don't meet many people for whom Gray Harbor is a step up on the population scale." He walks along beside her, his shoulders hunched, eyes scanning the hallway as if someone might jump out at them in the well-lit halls. "Why Gray Harbor, Ms. Reed? Simply because it's where you did your training, or did the size appeal? Or was it our beautiful harbor and frequent murders that caught your eye?" It's hard to tell if that's a joke or not; his voice and eyes remain solemn, fixed on her as he follows where she leads.

"I've noticed that," Abby says with a smile as she walks down the hallway in the general direction of the ER for now. She nods and offers smiles and "Hi!" to anyone they run across along the way. "Lots of people from all kinds of places, even New York!" She says that with a hint of perplexity to her voice, but shrugs the question. "I did most of my classes in Olympia. But there was an opening here and - well, the size thing too. I thought about Seattle. I visited a couple of hospitals, but I got the impression you never really ever knew anybody. It was too busy. There was just too much of everything, if that makes sense. I looked into other places, but they were either too small and too close to Elma. Or too far away." She glances over, curiously. "You're from here, then? What do you do, Mr...?"

"Gray Harbor draws people to it," Alexander says, with a shrug. "For various reasons. People like you. And me. People who stand out." He doesn't say hi to people that they pass, although a couple of them - the lifetime townies - through him looks that range from the irritated to the downright suspicious. Admittedly, he does sort of look like a homeless person who just wandered in. "I've been here most of my life, yes. Alexander Clayton." He supplies the name, then smiles, faintly. "I'm an investigator, of sorts. Do a little of this and that to supplement it." A longer pause. "You're a cheerful sort of person, Ms. Reed. Do you like it here?"

"I know, but there's a difference between moving here from Elma and from New York city," Abby comments, only to add with a smile a moment later, "Though I guess it's a lot cheaper. And not so enormous." Her fingers drum lightly on the boxes now as she cuts into another hallway, tilting her head to glance in Clayton's direction when he announces he's an investigator, as if contrasting the image of the man with whatever mental picture the word 'investigator' conjures up in her head. After a brief scrutiny, her smile and head-tilt seems to suggest the two go well enough together. "Investigator? That sounds exciting. Do you investigate crimes? Or other mysteries? Or is it more just trying to catch someone cheating and that sort of thing?" She deflates slightly at the mere mention of the latter possibility. "Sure, I like it here. And I try to be! Most people in here have enough troubles as is."

"Yes. For some people, the pull is particularly strong, it seems." Alexander shrugs. "Who do you know who came here from New York? And I gather it's certainly a lot cheaper." His faint smile widens as she asks about investigating. "I investigate crimes, yes. Mysteries, yes. Cheating and other boring things...rarely. And usually only in the course of the others. People's sexual lives are rarely interesting. Crimes are interesting." He shifts the boxes to his other arm. "So. You are happy for other people? Because they have enough troubles?"

Abby hoists the boxes higher and leans forward to prop her chin on the top one. "Well, there's a detective. Oh, and there's someone all the way from England!" That last seems even more puzzling to her, but she soldiers forward with a tiny shrug and a smile. "That definitely sounds more exciting than sitting in a car taking pictures of people coming out of houses with bed hair. Or hackng into their Tinders or whatever." She assumes that's what detectives do, or whatever. "Well, I try to be happy for me, first. It just doesn't cost me much to try to brighten other people's day if they look like they could use it. And most people look like they could use it."

"There are a couple of people from England that I've met, of late. One's a horror writer. The other is," Alexander falls silent for a long time, "interesting. Haven't talked to him. But people talk. It's a small town." He gives her a tiny shrug as if in response to her own. Her conception of detective work brings some life to his eyes. "There's a fair amount of sitting outside of places waiting for something interesting to happen, no matter what. And a lot of research. Listening to people. Following them, sometimes. But you'd be surprised how many people will just straight up tell you things you want to know, whether you have any right to know them or not." To the last, he makes a thoughtful noise. "A kind sentiment, Ms. Reed. It's likely good that you're in the job you are. It is hard to be cheerful when one is in pain."

"Oooh. A horror writer. I think that's the one I met," Abby says after a small pause, brow knitting thoughtfully. "Everyone's a little interesting in their way, I think. Sometimes it just takes a little more digging." She steals a sidelong glance his way, mouth crooking slightly in a pensive expression, partly a smile. "Other people just don't mind sharing all kinds of things, right? I don't think it's about having a right to know them. It's just everyone defines private differently, don't they?" And then, in a whisper. "Well, we have laws defining that sort of thing here, but most people." Crossing the ER, she comes to one of the nursing desks and sets down her pile of boxes atop the desk with a small puff of breath and a friendly smile for the nurse sitting behind it. "Here they are. The right size this time! And Mr. Clayton here has another two so that should be enough, right?" She plucks the paperwork and turns it around, sliding it across the desk. Then she rests, hands on her hips, eyeing Alexander. "Unless you're on the right meds! But I do what I can when more meds aren't a good idea."

"Dante Taylor," Alexander supplies the name after a bit of thought. Then nods. "I think so, too. That most people are a little interesting if you dig for it." Then he adds, deadpan, "Although, curiously, people often object to you going through their trash to find the interesting bits." He hands over the two boxes he's been keeping when they reach the counter. When Abby turns, hands on hips, he turns to look at her. "I don't usually take medication. I don't like what it does to my head." Then his back pocket chimes, and he pulls out a cell phone, snorting with amusement. "Ah. Miss Reede has been shooting people." A pause. "Charity paintball. Not real guns." He shows her a quick picture of three smiling people, sweaty and speckled with paint.

Abby counts all the boxes, hers included, leans in to check the paperwork, then gives the other nurse a thumbs up and a smile. She arches an eyebrow at the mention of digging through trash. "I suppose there's a difference between people telling you things and just snooping through their trash for it. Maybe you could dress like a raccoon? Then they'll just think you're a loon, not some kind of creepy stalker." Isn't she helpful? And optimistic. And faintly sarcastic. "It probably depends on the medication. The pain can do things to people's heads, too," she says that with a small sigh, turning to look down the hallway and watch the day's quiet traffic of patients and medical staff. As the phone comes out, Abby leans in to look at the picture. "Oh, that looks like fun! It's nice to see Miss Reede out and about and looking so well already." There's just a hint of puzzlement to her voice.

"Do you think that would work?" Alexander asks her, regarding the raccoon costume, with every appearance of sincerity. "...wait. Sarcasm. And people already think I'm a loon. Probably not, then." He looks briefly disappointed as he fires off a couple of texts, then puts the phone away. "Pain clarifies. Medication muddles." At her puzzlement, he adds, "Miss Reede is sturdier than she looks. I'll tell her you said hello - but I should go and meet her, now. It was nice to meet you, Miss Reed. Let me know if you require my services; the older nurses can tell you how to get in touch with me." As well as his town nickname: Crazy Crayton, and a warning to stay away from him. Still he offers her a brief nod, before turning and making his way out of the hospital. There's no attempt at any sort of parting beyond that.