Jun 23 20:15:03 106 PA - Leonard and Maya talk
From Chronicles
The laboratory is mostly high technology and shiny. Around the walls, machines of various types lurk, including a large double fronted cooler and something that looks as if it will hold small vials of liquid and then spin them. In the centre of the room, a large metal table stands, without a spot of dirt on it. To one side, a couple of computer screens and a keyboard, clearly connected to the computer on the floor beneath them. The door and windows to the corridor outside have blinds for privacy, and the only natural light comes from the high windows in the wall. The walls themselves are painted pure, clean white, the floor is tiled with white tiles. Overall the room is clinical looking, and a peg behind the door holds several white coats.
Leonard is much more ambulatory with this visit to the hospital than his last. The favoring of his right leg is still visible, but only just so, and his stride is hindered very little. With any good fortune, the early evening hour will find a lull between the more routine daytime activities and the midnight craziness of emergency services.
Maya's lab is where he is directed for his followup, and she is there, finishing the patient before him. "Here is your prescription, and you should see an improvement in a few days." The piece of paper is handed over with a warm smile and Maya sees him to the door. Leonard's arrival is greeted with the cooler professional smile, and she steps back, indictating the patient's seat with a wave of her hand.
"Good evening, Maya," Leonard's smile is warm despite the professionally cool response, "and you were right. I lived." A touch of humor to potentially soften the harsh, medicinal air as he steps to the indicated seat and settles upon it.
Maya nods, giving him that quick smile as she picks up the file, flicking through it as if to remind herself. "And how is the leg?" She asks, settling in her chair, her hazel eyes lifting to regard him steadily. As if they'd never been friends.
Leonard rolls his shoulders slightly as he looks to his leg, swaying it idly for her review. "The knee is healing well, and I can walk on it with little trouble, now." His gaze then lifts to meet her hazel regards. "It's the rest of the damage that I'm more concerned with. I was an idiot... I probably am still, but I didn't want to upset you."
Maya glances at his knee, reaching out a hand to examine it, her forehead wrinkling. She sits back, giving him an abrupt nod, "You keep going like that, and it will be fine. Again, don't over do it, take the pain killers." His second comment brings those hazel eyes to his face. "No, I imagine you didn't." She replies slowly, "I'm not entirely sure what you expect, but my work isn't a place I want to discuss personal things."
"I've avoided the pain killers for the most part," Leonard admits, "to help keep me from overexerting too much. I realize this is hardly the best venue for a personal conversation, but I wasn't sure that I'd be welcome were I to show up unannounced."
"There are no rewards for being a hero when it comes to pain and the more exercise you get the better." Brusque and professional, Maya scribbles him a prescription, offering it to him. "I don't recall that I ever refused to speak to you outside of work but if you have something to say, you have another ten minutes of my time." She glances at the clock.
Leonard takes the offered prescription and folds it into a pocket. "It seemed more an appropriate punishment for being a dumbass than an attempt at heroism. I am sorry for insult to and insinuation of your friendly nature, Maya. I rather miss it, now."
"I wouldn't want to lead you to think it was more than friendliness." Maya replies slowly, returning her gaze to him. "I accept your apology." She leans back in her chair, lifting a pen to turn over in her hands. "Leonard, I don't understand what you're thinking when you do some of the things you've done..."
"That was..." Leonard exhales a sigh, glancing her way and even meeting her eyes, "ego? Pain? It seemed far easier to just ignore everything but what I wanted when nothing else worked. What I thought I wanted, at least." A roll of his shoulders follows. "At times, I'm not certain what I was thinking, if I even was."
"I ...see." Maya leans forward, resting her elbows on her desk and giving Leonard a steady look. "Someone told me that you tried to have someone assassinated, Leonard." The words are not a question and yet they are. "I won't ever sleep with you. I don't sleep with friend's boyfriends or their exboyfriends. Ever."
Leonard's lips purse and he shakes his head. "I know, Maya, and it wasn't just about you sleep.. What?!" He is a little slow to catch the statement and/or question, focused as he was upon the personal matters. Now his brows arch. "Whom would I assassinate? I've not done anything of the sort."
Maya watches him closely before she replies. "No, it wasn't just about sleeping with me. It was about the other things you were doing." She turns the pen over in her hand, watching his reaction with thoughtful hazel eyes. "Ahriman. You sent a shadow creature after him?" It is a question.
Recognition is evident in Leonard's countenance, and he nods without hesitation. "Yes, following his killing of a very unsettled man outside of the Guild tower. There was no assassination intended, merely retrieval. The darkly has already attempted to maim or kill me once because of that." His words are even and flat. "I've not pursued him since, nor has he accosted me fruther."
Maya rests her chin lightly on the pen, held between her hands as she watches him. "He said that the man wished to die." Those words are another question, her tone lilting at the end. "Interesting." She sits back, dropping her hands into her lap again. "I don't know, Leonard."
"He was very distraught," Leonard shrugs once more, "but he might have honestly wished to die. Does that give the right of euthanasia to anyone who is able? Others were attempting to treat him when Ahriman made that irrelevent. Now it is all moot, given that the authorities seem to have no concerns, so I let it drop."
Maya's face is troubled, her forehead wrinkled. "The right to die is complicated." She comments softly, reaching out to put the pen down on the desk. "I can't judge what happened but it troubled me to hear that you might have tried to kill someone. It reflects on the changes... the shadow creature, Leonard?"
Leonard lifts a brow at the question. "What of it, Maya? I called it forth to perform a task, which it did, and then let it be on its merry way. There was no collateral threat, as Tirzah tried to claim."
"I don't know enough about them to judge but shadow doesn't sound like it is on the light side..." She shakes her head, leaning on the desk again. "What do you want from me, Leonard?" The blunt question is spoken with her gaze on his face.
"A shadow to find a shadow seemed appropriate." Leonard rolls his shoulders once more before shifting to the other topic, with much more inflection and interest. "I'd prefer something other than a cold shoulder, but I understand if a warm hug is no longer viable. Somewhere in between?"
"Rebuilding trust takes time and effort." Maya hesitates, a flicker of a glance at the clock before she carries on speaking. "I have the former, and could put in the effort. But what changed? I mean, why do you want my friendship? I'm not sharing a room with your girlfriend, I've made it clear that I won't sleep with you...so why?"
Leonard notes her glance, but does not share nor mention it. "Is there something wrong with wanting to keep... or remake friends? I thought that we were friends before, and I dont see that anything has changed in that regard.
Maya watches him closely, before she nods slowly, sitting back, her arms moving across her chest in an oddly defensive movement. "Alright. We'll try it." The words are offered without a smile, her eyes holding caution.
"I don't expect that all will be as it was," Leonard rises from the patient position, "not overnight, at least. You've always been tolerant, if not supportive of me, and I didn't realize how much I appreciated that until it was absent."
Maya rises too, keeping the desk between them. "Things take time." She comments, before opening her file and glancing down, "And now I have a whole clinic running ten minutes late. I'll see you in the club, I guess?" A glimmer of a smile, a peek of the old warmth for a second.
Leonard nods, returning the smile easily. "I hope to see you, and I'm sorry for delaying everyone's schedules," more mirth creeps into his words as he adds, "but you're well worth it. Don't work /too/ hard, Maya." Following that, he turns towards the door to allow the hectic hospital like to recommence.
Maya watches him go and gives a tiny shake of her head, the corner of her mouth quirking. "Next!" She returns to work, her mouth curving into a welcoming smile as a mother of a small child with a rash walks up to her door. "Come on in..."
