Iris has learned to maintain odd hours. Odd hours are the best time to meet her illicit contacts that help her - at exorbitant rates - obtain medical supplies that she otherwise could not get. She has also learned that people show up at night with all kinds of grave injuries that can't be explained to the doctors at Mitakihara with 'Oops, I tripped down the stairs.'
And so the best way to handle this, on a prime Friday night when most people would be either studying or enjoying the nightlife, is to not have a life. Iris sits on her couch, clicking through TV. This apartment is clean, but the furniture is cheap and everything else in it is too. The old TV and its service package are cheap, as they show her a regional prank show's latest visit to a moutain resort. Pure schlock good only for a cheap laugh.
The bowl on her living room table is cheap too, colorful orange plastic... the candy within isn't cheap, it's a decent selection of sweets. She doesn't tend to eat much out of them, they're for patients.
This is how she spends most nights; this is her clinic, she is 'on duty.' Most times she waits like this, nothing happens. Yet people show up just often enough to justify being here... because /not/ being here, for the things they arrive needing help with, would lead to very unfortunate outcomes. So while Iris has started this night alone, she may very well not /end/ it solo.
Rei walks down the mostly empty streets, carrying a wounded Usagi in her arms. The moon and the stars shine brightly overhead, casting her face in pale light. She looks down at her wounded friend, saying, "Hang in there, Usagi. We're almost there."
She hasn't been to Iris's clinic very often, but some of her friends have, and she's been here at least once. Generally someone getting wounded is traumatic enough that one doesn't forget details, or at least not important ones. So she has very little trouble finding her way to Shelby's apartment.
When she arrives at the door, she pauses. Her hands are full... how is she supposed to knock like this?!
"Ugh, Usagi-chan... do you see a doorbell?"
Eventually she settles on tapping the door with her knee, since there isn't much else she can do.
Rei is so pretty!
Usagi watches the word spin by in dizzying color. When did it get so shiny?
At the door, Usagi flops her head around. "Found it."
It's about two years too late, because Rei is already knee-knocking, but Usagi can't resist a good door bell. She flops her hand against it. Repeatedly.
"Ow." Ring. "Ow." Ring. "Ow." Ring. "Ow." Ring. "Ow." Ring. "Ow." Ring. "Ow." Ring. "Ow." Ring. "Ow." Ring. "Ow." Ring.
Bump bump bump. Iris isn't sure why that noise is coming from the lower half of the door... perhaps a pet has gotten loose? She's nonetheless curious enough to get off the couch and head for the door.
Ring ring ring. "Okay, okay, I'm coming," Iris calls out to whoever is on the other side... probably not an animal running wild, most animals don't use the door bell a dozen times. Most people who do are either incredibly pushy and demanding, or have really legitimate reasons to be annoying the daylights out of you... so she's pretty sure that whatever is on the other side is going to be interesting.
Door opened, Iris speaks in a warm tone, "Good eveni... ...no." No, someone has not had a good evening. Someone has had a blood-from-stomach evening. Blood does not normally come out of stomachs. There are very few positive reasons for it to happen.
This is not the time for warm remarks or silly jokes. "Get her inside," Iris states in an all-business tone. "On the couch. I'll start getting my things. Shut the door behind you and /then/ start telling me what happened. Is anyone following you?" Iris has a rapid-fire stream of questions, ones asked as she begins jogging toward a back room to retrieve some supplies.
Rei doesn't have to be asked twice. The moment she's past the threshold of the door she pushes it closed with her heel. As she moves towards the couch, she says, "Sorry about the doorbell, my friend's a little out of it."
Rei takes a moment to set Usagi on the couch before she starts to explain. "Well, I got a phone call from Chiba-san explaining that Usagi was in trouble. When I showed up at his apartment there was blood all over her, on the ground, and... and well it was really scary."
Rei sighs and scratches the back of her head, saying, "I gather she got stabbed in the gut with a spear. I think she's been... healed a bit, but I'm not sure how deep that healing goes? I've never seen that technique before."
Rei frowns down at Usagi. It's not the usual disapproving frown, but it's more one of concern. "I didn't know where else to take her... I'm assuming the spear was magical, but I didn't get to see it."
Usagi tries very hard to glower at Rei. I'm not out of it, you're out of it!
She blinks, and tries to focus.
"I have a tummy ache." This was Very True.
"He was Not Awake. She was all 'GRRRR.' Mamo-chan has warm hands." She nods. This is exactly what happened! She is helping!
"Your friend probably has a really good reason to be out of it," Iris calls back. A mechanically female voice chimes in: <Blood loss can lead to erratic behavior.>
By the time Usagi is on the couch, Iris is returning with a white bag, complete with red 'plus' symbol, and moving to join the pair there. "A spear? Oh dear." Her mind's voice is busy asking herself: Who the heck uses a spear today? Maybe it was a Belkan Knight? Some other kind of knight? Some crazy person from a local dojo? Some crazy magical person from a magical dojo with magical spears, if Rei's insights of what kind of spear are to be taken at face value and then twisted into utter nonsense?
Usagi's input seems delirious to the self-proclaimed 'doctor', who takes her wing-hairclip off. It expands to display a 'screen' of sorts on its crystal and speaks in that same voice as earlier: <Preparing to scan patient.>
Iris offers some soft-toned reassurances. First to Usagi, "You're going to be okay, just keep talking." Then to Rei, "You did the right thing. We'll do the whole crime investigation thing later, helping your friend comes first."
Then she begins slowly waving the hair-clip a few inches above Usagi... and not much comes up until she gets to the stomach. <Single puncture wound. Size and angle consistent with intentional strike from implement purpose-built for piercing. Bleeding stabilized by multiple methods. Alert! Doctor! Significant blood loss detected!> Sometimes the Intelligent Device is more like an Obvious Device.
"Your tummy might feel funny for a minute, like a bit of the sun is trying to tickle you," she advises Usagi before her hands begin glowing with a white light, the crystal on her hair-clip glowing brighter. Iris lays her hands mere centimeters above the spear wound, beginning to pour cleansing energy in... and it is indeed a bit tingly, and kind of warm.
Rei steps back as Iris approaches, not wanting to get in the way. "Right... well... I didn't really feel like I had time to look things over."
She places her hands on her hips and says, "Thanks for helping her. She's a bit annoying and careless sometimes but she's important to us."
Rei listens to Usagi's helpful explaination of events, and Rei shakes her head at her, and then says to Iris, "So, bloodloss, huh? That explains it. Judging from Mamoru's floor it looked like there was plenty of lost blood."
Rei takes a moment to watch, curiously, what Iris is doing. She's seen this doctor work before, but well... Usagi's her friend. She can't not look. At least not unless Iris tells her to get lost or something.
It occurs to her that, in Usagi's current state, being tickled by the sun might actually sound fun.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Her arms fly out. "Not a spear! A curvy pointy spear!" She's a horrible pantomime, but she tries, then whimpers because owies. "Can I have a pretty band aid? Like with bunnies or cartoons? Do you have lollipops?"
She's fidgety and wiggley, which hurts, which makes her even more fidgety and wigglier. So she tries for Distraction!
"You're very pretty. All twelve of you." Wait there's only two.
"You did the right thing," Iris insist-repeats to Rei. "Life-saving emergency choice first, then sleuthing. That said?" Her hand-glow continues as she keeps talking: "I have some bad news. Your friend..." She pauses, then finishes, "...is still going to be annoying and careless."
Iris then takes on a playful smile. "She's also still going to be important to all of you, and still be your friend." <Vital signs stabilizing> , Valkyrie Wing chimes in to be more clear on this point.
Then Iris answers the question. "Yes, blood loss. In ancient times, it was thought that blood-letting cured several ailments. In other words... we can narrow down the attacker's identity. They're a very, very 'old school' doctor, and guilty of medical experimentation and malpractice." Well, she has answered it with something absolutely ridiculous. "So you start with the quacks and work your way down to the hacks and hoodwinkers until you find out who did it."
Then Usagi brings up a problem. Lollipops. "I do, but not while you're recovering from a stomach wound. These will be for /after/ you've healed, highly illegal doctor's orders." An aside to Rei, "Take the candy bowl away if she reaches for it." Iris is busy with hand-glow, after all. When praised, Iris giggles. "Thank you!" Her head then shifts a few inches as she repeats, "Thank you!" This process repeats a few times, and even Valkyrie Wing gets in on it with a few <Thank you>s of its own in a calm, mechanical tone. "All fifteen of us are delighted you said that! Because of that, yes, bunny band-aid for you."
'All twelve of you?!' thinks Rei. Oh geeze. Does she really see twelve people in the room?
Though while Iris responds with a polite 'thank you!', Rei responds... in a very Rei fashion.
"Well of course! I'm the beautiful miko of Hikawa Shrine. I've been in magazines, you know!"
Rei at first is worried when Iris says she had bad news, but upon hearing what it was she smirks. "It's a chronic condition. I just hope it doesn't become terminal." Yes, at this point she's just using words that she probably heard on a TV show or something.
The ridiculous thought of someone blood-letting Usagi, and her going along with this, does earn a giggle from her. Seeing Usagi in the state she was in was stressful, and it's only now that she's starting to feel herself relax.
Rei starts glancing towards the candy bowl and at Usagi, nudging it away from her. "Yeah... probably not a good idea as she is now."
Heeeey. So what if she's annoying? It's her charm! But yay, bunny band-aids! "Yes, pretty. You're welcome Ms. Dr. Shelby Comma Iris, and you two floaty voice! Rei knows she's pretty always, but even if she doesn't I'll still tell her so thbthbt." It's hard to raspberry when one was recently shishkabobbed.
Her arm flops for the now out of reach candy. No food? This is...TORTURE! Her face reflects this. "How am I supposed to live without food?!"
Her distress goes further. They want to know who? But if she tells them who, Rei will get Mad! Rei only gets mad at her, but is very scary when she gets to the capital M Mad!
"Don't get Mad at Kyouko-san, please?" She's crying, because the thought is scary. "She didn't mean to, promise, I was just stupid and clumsy, like I always am. Please? It wasn't her fault. Please?"
"It is terminal, yes." Iris turns dead-serious, tone flat and firm. "Life expectancy is roughly..." <Eighty-five years, plus or minus a decade in most patients>, Valkyrie Wing completes the sentence for her. Iris makes a deep nod to Rei. "So you should make your plans, if you had anything you truly need to do with your friend. You can probably buy another year or two if she's put on a regular schedule of Hikawa Shrine treatments," Iris barely has any idea what the shrine is, but it sounded good to her in her mind.
At first, Iris keeps up with Usagi's remarks. "That's Doctor Doctor Shelby Comma Period Hyphen Iris to you," a 'retort' made with a sudden smile and giggle returning... and she did indeed repeat some words in that 'correction.'
Then things turn not so funny. It's not a quack or a hack, or a hoodwinker or bamboozler or charlatan. It's someone with a name. Kyouko. Iris doesn't know who that is, but she quickly moves to intervene as Usagi begins crying. "Sshh... it's fine, nobody's going on the war path right now," Though she might encourage Rei to go on the war path in private later on, because /puncture wound from some big stabby or slashy thing on Friday night?!/
"And it's not 'no food', you'll be fed. You'll even get to play a candy game later on, when we watch TV. It's like a drinking game, only your parents won't kill all thirty-eight of us for it if they find out. We just can't do it right now, need to let you heal up first, okay?"
"Who is Kyouko? I thought it was someone from the Dark Kingdom," says Rei. She certainly doesn't remember anyone from the Dark Kingdom named Kyouko. "Wait.. you mean Mamoru's friend? With the red hair?"
She's seen a Kyouko once. She was certainly magical. Mamoru went and made a big deal about how hard her life was, and asked Rei to help her if she could...
If it was that Kyouko, well... Rei isn't sure what to think about that.
"So now you're telling me it was an accident?" Rei frowns. There's nothing about this that she likes. "You're going to have to explain a lot to me once you get better, Usagi."
Don't go on the war path? Ugh. In roman myth, Mars was known as the god of WAR! Warring is kindof her thing! She makes war and does war and wars here and there! Yet at the same time she feels compelled to listen to Usagi. Just... somehow it seems right to listen to her, regardless of how clumsy and silly she is.
"I'm not going to go out for revenge, but I do need to resolve this, Usagi. If there's something tying the Dark Kingdom to Kyouko, then she might be in serious trouble, so whether we fight her or not I still need to find her."
Iris mentions a candy game, and Rei smirks. "Careful. Usagi-chan might eat your whole bowl of candy."
There are suddenly too many punctuations in Dr. Shelby's name for her to keep up with. "Remind me of those when I'm not stabbyied?"
The TV Candy game sounds glorious... "I'mma eat you out of candy and hoooome. All forty-seven of you."
She remembers, she likes Iris! And bonus points for adding to ridiculous numbers! Then her face turns Serious. "Papa won't kill you. You aren't A Boy. He may kill Mamo-chan." Her voice stages a whisper. "Did you know he's a boy? Papa will kill him because he has boy parts." She nods, so very grave and solemn. "So Papa won't know he exists. Because he's a jerky jerk face but he's been a very nice jerky jerk face." She nods again, Serious Business. "And pretty. And warm hands." And thunderstorms!
"Ask Tuxedo Kamen." This is to Rei, now. She's not confusing, she makes total sense! "Kyouko-san isn't herself but is, but when she's herself and is, I don't want people being mean at her!" She has Very Strong Emotions about this. But Doctor Doctor something comma hyphen what Shelby Iris is very soothing and she's not completely teary now.
"If you're going to go investigating, take one of those." Iris points Rei toward a small side table with cell phones on top of it. They, like much of the rest of this place, are cheap. "Disposable. I use them to tell a patient's friends about any important updates. You can also use it to call me if you need something." Rei might actually already know this, but Iris doesn't know that. Iris has told various Sailor Senshi about this aspect of the Highly Illegal Clinic's operations, but 'Sailor Mars' isn't the same as 'this mystery person who showed up on Friday night' in her mind.
"And that's okay if she goes through the whole bowl. In fact," she suddenly smiles down to Usagi, teasingly challenging her: "I bet you can't do it, even once you've healed up right. You versus all one eighty-seven point thirty-eight of us, we'll see who wins the game." Speaking of warm hands, Iris' dim, then are pulled away as she slumps and lets out a deep breath.
"There... you'll be fine now. You're going to stay here for observation tonight, with some follow-up treatments in the morning, but we'll get you going as soon as we can, and then we'll find out who's not killing anyone and not being mean at anyone and all of that. Sound good?"
Rei shakes her head at the 'boy' conversation. "That guy is an unrelenting and incorrigible flirt, but you know... he's alright." It's hard to think that Mars once thought that he was Nephrite, as things are now, but confusion happens sometimes. Especially when everyone is keeping secrets.
Tuxedo Kamen is mentioned. Well at least that guy is reliable. "Sure, Usagi-chan. I'll ask him." All things considered he might be a good witness. Maybe. That depends on how much he was around for and... Rei starts to rub her head. Having all this incomplete information is so frustrating!
Rei looks over to the phones as Iris points them out. She reaches over and takes one, looking it over. "Yeah, sure." Did she get this explaination before? Well if she did, it's been long enough that she might've forgotten. "I should probably go. I don't think I can be much use here. Also, I need to go back to Mamoru-san's place and see if he's okay."
Rei starts to head towards the door, but she turns around and says, "Thanks. For all of this. I can't tell you how much it means to me."
Awwwww... there's only point=three-eight of one of them? This is very sad! "I'll help find the other Point Something Two! To go with the hundred and twelve others!" And then she realizes her Honor has been challenged. "I can eat anything! And lots of anythings! Hah!"
Wait, Rei. What?
"He was good earlier even though I bled on his floor..." She still feels so guilty for that.
Will Iris play games with her while she's feeling better? Or will she be too busy being a Not!Doctor?
But Rei is leaving!!! Sad Face!!!
"BY REI I LOVE YOU ALWAYS DON'T BEAT UP TOO MANY PEOPLE ON YOUR WAY HOME!!!!!!"
Ouch. She shouldn't yell for awhile, even if she did feel better.
"Owie."