entrancelogs | I'm trying not to sleep

Entry tags:

I'm trying not to sleep

Who: Clara & anyone! (totally open)
Where: Around the mansion
When: The week after the shadow event
Rating: TBA
Summary: When you have a terrible shadow event, it's time to stay busy to forget about it
The Story: Clara is beyond humiliated.

She's lost a great deal of her pride, she's fractured almost every single relationship she's formed in her time here, and she's at a loss as to what she needs to do to make herself feel better. So the best solution in her mind is simply not to think about it and stay busy. She can't act like any of the things her shadow said never happened, of course, but she doesn't have to linger on it. There's too much hurt there for her, and it's best to just build up some walls on the inside and close it off and away. And sleep? Forget about it, there's way too much time to have thoughts loiter on everything that went wrong, or have pesky dreams slip in, and that's definitely not something she wants to have happen.

On Tuesday, she has plans with both Luke and Owen, and despite not being up to her usual spirited nature she's grateful for the chance to interact with the both of them without shadows present.

On Wednesday, she thinks she has self-defense lessons but also spends a good portion of the day sprawled out in the sun at the beach. She's not usually a beach dweller and she doesn't usually sunbathe, but she thinks it's the perfect place to read through some Jules Verne. Journey to the Center of the Earth was a childhood favorite, and it makes her feel safe and nostalgic so she's grateful that the library has a copy on hand just waiting for her.

On Thursday, she spends her time out in the gardens, working on both drawing and painting. Her lessons with Whale have left her eager to continue practicing, working on a drawing of white roses which she has every intention of painting red by the end of the day. If someone happens across her, she's more than likely to grab hold of them and convince them to pose for her so she can attempt a more complicated subject.

Friday finds Clara holed up in the library, a stack of books on space piled up around her. She's sitting cross legged on the floor, and the pile of books towers above her, constantly wobbling as if they're about to topple at any given second. There's fiction, non-fiction, and even some picture books at her side. She started the day out reading for research but now has an old, worn copy of The Little Prince in hand. It brings back memories of her mother, and those are always good to hold onto when she's having a difficult time.

The rest of the weekend is spent either at the swimming pool or her room. The pool she's never really used before, so it's nice to just float around and stare up at nothing in particular. It's a funny feeling, just aimlessly floating, doing nothing for hours on end. She almost feels guilty for it, but it's a nice break from being cooped up in the library. When she's in her room she's working on painting her walls, trying to complete constellations for the night sky she's painted across every single wall. She's not much of an artist, but this has given her something to do in her time here, and the project is almost complete. There's even a little TARDIS painted right up above her bed.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I try." She rolls her eyes, acting entirely affronted by his remark. "Better be an idiot with training than without." She takes a large piece of pancake and shoves it in her mouth, still looking entirely put out by his comment as she chews.

She swallows, then points at him with her fork. "You better keep it strictly professional, especially if Martha's around."

"You mean I can't flirt with both of you at the same time?" Owen pretends to be disappointed by this revelation. He's not terribly professional with Martha, either, when it comes down to it. "You're ruining all my fantasies, Clara. I'm terribly disappointed."

"Oh, I don't care about at the same time. In the same room? Definitely not." She shakes her head, waggling her fork in his direction as if he's terribly naughty. Which he is, and he knows it, so she's quick to drop her fork on the table and look at it as if it's just offended her even though she was the one moving it.

"Looks like you'll just have to get new fantasies. Ones that don't involve Martha and I with you in the clinic."

Owen, to his credit, at least refrains from asking if he can have fantasies that involve Clara and Martha in his bedroom. "Well, I can't flirt with both of you at the same time if you're in different rooms," he points out reasonably. In fact, being professional is something that Owen doesn't do in general when there are attractive women in the room, much to the dismay of all the women he's ever worked with (not that many of them have complained). "But all right, I'll try my best to behave."

"You better." She laughs, slouching down in her chair. She can only imagine the kind of reactions he pulls out of Martha, if he acts this way toward her. Actually, that brings about a good question. "Is this how you speak to her? Martha, I mean." She cracks a grin, wondering if Martha's slaps hurt or not. She's willing to bet Owen's gotten one or two in his time of knowing her.

"More or less, yeah." He does, after all, fancy Martha as well. "She's got a bloke back home, though," Owen explains, "and I'm pretty sure Jack would shoot me if I actually tried anything with her." So he's not quite as blatant with Martha...most of the time. Okay, some of the time.

...okay, so that's pretty much a lie, he's just as blatant with Martha. But he wouldn't try and make a move on her, nonetheless.

Having nothing else to say on the matter, she moves to stand up. The food is delicious, but it's quickly lost all interest with her, and she's feeling awkward just sitting there. "Teach me something now." She insists, holding out her hand, fingers waggling in a motion for him to get up and move in closer.

Owen stands as well, taking a few steps closer to her. "What sort of thing?" he asks, chuckling a little. "There's loads of stuff to teach, even with just basic first aid." And probably plenty of things that would give him the opportunity for physical contact, too.

The second he's nearby, she grabs him by the wrist and tugs him in closer. For no specific reason, except so he can see that she's raising up her arm and running her fingertips down along her side.

"Well, my first week here, I encountered a man that had been shot. Or stabbed, it doesn't matter which. But I had no idea how to help him apart from holding a towel against the area to try and get the blood to stop."

Her hand pauses it's gesturing at her side, and she frowns at the memory of that. She had been horrified, but the guy had ended up living. She thinks. "Show me the right way to take care of something like that."

"First, you've got four basic things to worry about with any major trauma," Owen starts with, ticking them off on his fingers as he goes through. "It's a checklist, ABCD: Airway, Breathing, Circulation, Disability or Deformity. Check to make sure their airway is clear; if it isn't, then turn their head to the side to help them breathe, get them to cough out the blood if they're conscious, soak it up if they aren't. If they aren't breathing, then you need to start rescue breathing, and if they haven't got a pulse, you need to perform CPR. Disability: if they're conscious, see if they can move their hands and feet, in case they've got a head or neck injury." He sounds professional for once, as he should - he is, after all, a damn good doctor.

"And you have time to do all that before someone bleeds to death?" It comes out on a laugh, in near disbelief, but she's genuinely curious. She thinks she'll pay too close attention to one step in that process and then ruin everything. So her mind takes in all the steps he's given her, and jumps straight toward the next most logical place to help someone with a deep wound.

"Stitches!" She takes several steps back, so she can fall and rest her back up against her bed, with her feet still touching the floor. "Those are typically doctor only sorts of things, yes?"

If not, please teach her, they seem important in a place where people keep getting themselves hurt.

"Well, the very first thing is to call for help," he points out wryly. "Then all of that, then you have to try to control the bleeding." Owen can't help but wince a little when she asks about stitches. "Doctor only in this situation," he says firmly, taking a seat on the bed, "because someone who isn't trained can't tell what else might be the problem. If it's a gunshot wound, then the bullet might still be in there, it could have bounced around and damaged internal organs. Same problem with a puncture wound - someone's got to assess the damage first. Cover it with whatever dressing you can get, gauze or towels preferably, and apply pressure."

She halfway sits up, resting on her elbows. "So I did the right thing." She's incredibly pleased and relieved by that, and gives out a contented sigh. She's so very, very glad her thinking led her in the right direction and she's not entirely hopeless.

"Think that's all I've come across here, except my near drowning that one time." And obviously, she's entirely fine. "What else do you think I should know?"

"You did," he agrees with a smile. "If it's a limb that's bleeding, you can apply pressure to certain points along the major arteries, as well, to stop the bloodflow there. Either in the arms-" and he demonstrates by pressing fingers to his upper arm- "or along the inner thigh, or the inside of the knee. Direct pressure to the wound is usually the best, though. And no tourniquets."

"Do you know CPR and rescue breathing already?" Owen asks. "Those are probably the two most important things. I mean, the mansion and the surrounding grounds are small enough that you ought to be able to get a doctor to respond to any emergency pretty quickly."

She looks up at him, amused suspicion written all over her face. She knows that if she asks what she wants to, it could be taken in one of quite a few different ways. So she hesitates, but figures he'll get a kick out of it and so she just goes for it. "Is this one of the things where you plan on using a hands on demonstration?"

A pause, and she falls back to lay once again, laughing. "There's such a thing as too keen, remember."

Owen does laugh, because, well, it's a pretty safe sort of assumption to make with him. As Clara flops back on the bed, he's struck again by how pretty she is - not that she isn't attractive all the time, of course, but it really comes out when she's laughing or smiling (which is a good deal of the time anyway, for Clara). Yeah, he might have a bit of a problem here.

"I'm not!" he protests. "Well, all right, I'm probably too keen quite a lot of the time, but I'm being totally professional about this. There are dummies for that sort of thing - actual dummies, before you make any cracks about my intelligence. You have to use them for CPR, else you run the risk of breaking someone's ribs while you're learning. And they're good for both things."

Edited (WHOA WRONG ICON) 2013-06-23 05:56 (UTC)

She rolls over so that she's resting on her side, her head supported in the palm of her hand as she looks up at over at him in disbelief. He's actually being entirely professional about this, not one hint of innuendo in there, even with her baiting him so she can scold him for being inappropriate.

"Probably should say I know a bit about it, took a course at the community centre when I started working for the Maitlands. Haven't ever had to use it, so I don't remember every bit and piece, but I figure it's the same as riding a bicycle, it'll all come back to me when I need to use it."

Hey, even Owen can't be inappropriate all the time (although he certainly tries). She really wants to learn so that she can help save lives, should the opportunity ever arise, and he admires that enough to take it seriously. "It's mostly just a lot of making sure you keep everything straight in your head, all the steps you need to do and the counting and whatnot." He quirks an amused eyebrow at her. "Did they tell you in your courses that 'Another One Bites the Dust' is a good song to keep in mind when you're doing chest compressions?"

"Like...Queen? Really?" She's shocked that sort of thing actually works, but if a real doctor is telling her these things, then maybe he's not just trying to pull a reaction out of her. She sits up all the way, leaning in so she can give him a nice and critical stare.

"Didn't mention anything of the sort. What sort of medical school did you go to, exactly?"

"A proper one," he protests. "Got top marks, too." No, really. He might act like an idiot often, but Owen's much brighter than he looks. "Look - you want to do between a hundred and a hundred twenty chest compressions a minute. The song's got a nice steady rhythm to it, and it's around 110 beats per minute. As long as you stick to the tempo, you'll be right on track."

And despite her strict no singing rule, Clara finds herself doing it twice in Owen's presence. She doesn't quite remember the whole song, but she hums the beat well enough, eventually finding words to slip in here and there. She stumbles over them, and laughs mid-singing, but it's with a motion for him to lie back that she leans forward to actually put the theory to the test.

Owen's not much of a singer, either, so he's hardly going to judge Clara for her singing ability. Instead, he does as instructed, grinning up at her. "Don't crack my ribs," he cautions her, though he's mostly teasing. "Proper compressions are meant to be about five centimetres deep, but it's best not to do that if you're practicing on a live test subject. If you're performing breathing as well, you want to go thirty beats to two breaths." Not that he's expecting her to do that part right now.

She pauses mid chorus to put a finger against his mouth and get out a firm ssh. And then she picks up singing again, moving to sit beside him so she can have better access to very gently use both hands to push against his chest in time to the beat of the song. She's not trying to do proper compressions, mostly because she really is afraid of cracking a rib, she just wants to get the timing down right first. Start small and work her way up.

"There you are," he murmurs quietly, not wanting to throw her off. "It really is just like riding a bicycle." Well, sort of, although it's also entirely different, as remembering how to ride a bicycle is dependent on muscle memory - but that's a technicality, and Owen's not going to apply it to the metaphor at hand. The point is, she's doing a good job.

She doesn't quite remember exactly how many compressions are needed, but she stops around twenty or so, which is good because she's done singing. And since the next step after chest compressions is the breathing, she leans in, her face so very close to his. She hesitates, unsure if she should. But eventually she leans down so their lips are just almost touching, and she smiles.

"Think you'll make it?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject