Lighthouse Hospital

        The inner sanctum of the hospital is one of confusion, sadness,
desparation, and hope. Patients are wheeled in on carts by racing
emergency squads as doctors patrol the hallways, shouting out to nurses
and looking utterly frustrated with the progress that they are making. The
waiting room is packed with families and friends, anxiously awaiting news
from the rushing doctors. The walls are painted in a taunting white,
intended to make the hospital seem sanitary and hopeful, but it reminds
many of the white light of escape and the world beyond. Several Emergency
rooms are visible through windows, with patients in traction or hidden
behind curtains. In other words, this is easily the busiest place in
Beacon Harbor, especially in these grim times.

Holmes has chosen a night when there are few around - it's not crazy, the
staff is bored and inattentive, the patients are insular and incurious.
The waiting room is dull and institutional.

Kitty enters a few minutes before Seishi, with a routinely annoyed air -
just irritable enough to discourage approach, not so much so as to attract
further attention. Undoubtedly she picked up the technique from Wisdom.
She doesn't glance at anyone's face, though once or twice she glances at
an employee's badge in passing. It'd help to know if anything besides the
picture is legible from any distance. Still, she seats herself out of the
way, and waits - like everyone else in a waiting room. Though with an
absent mental count of time in the back of her head. Ten minutes from
Seishi's entrance, minus the necessary time to deal with the utility
closet and a margin for error ...

Seishi trails in some minutes later, pausing briefly to look around before
taking her own seat in the waiting room. She fusses with a magazine, not
looking at Kitty. It's impossible not to fidget... but in a hospital
waiting room, that's normal.

After a few minutes of waiting, the businesslike thirtysomething young
woman picks herself up, slips the strap of her purse over her shoulder,
and with a mildly sour look, strides toward the ladies' room. Fortunately
(all right, not fortune, but Holmes-planning), there are few people
around. With any luck, the place will be empty - no-one to observe her
slipping into the fourth stall and vanishing. She checks anyhow, and bolts
the door of the stall shut behind her all the same, just in case. If all's
well, she slips straight through the back wall. If all's not well - ah,
that's what the margin of error is for, isn't it?

The utility closet is fairly large and she emerges right into the middle
of it. Like Holmes said, it's pitch black with a big thick metal door (a
slight crack at the bottom - keep that flashlight high) and a collection
of hospital gowns, scrubs and coats, and assorted detritus from the first,
main floor.

Seishi starts her own mental countdown when Kitty leaves the waiting room.
One hundred twenty, one hundred nineteen, one hundred eighteen... More
fidgeting. She crosses and uncrosses her legs, flips forward and back
through the magazine. ...sixty-six, sixty-five, sixty-four... She puts the
magazine away, looks at the clock, smooths her hair. ...five... four...
three... two... She stands abruptly and makes for the ladies' room at a
brisk clip.

High indeed, especially in case the hallway outside is dim. Kitty slips
the light from the purse over her shoulder, holding her breath as she
flicks it on - she hasn't broken something that simple in a phase in
years, but there's always a moment of uncertainty. The coats wait for
second; first she checks for the stack of discarded food trays Holmes told
Seishi about. It's moved aside silently to let her reach the cardboard box
beneath and filch two of the blank badges, then replaced. Coats are
quicker. All she has to do is find something that won't look absurdly
large on her - Seishi isn't that much smaller. And then back through the
wall just where she came out, with an armful of white cloth.

Holmes' timing makes it so the two of them are together in the ladies'
restroom for a minimum amount of time.

Seishi is there patiently waiting, seated on the toilet. She is, in fact,
actually twiddling her thumbs.

Kitty grins outright at Seishi as she catches sight of the other woman,
and passes her a coat and blank badge without a word. The flashlight's
returned to the purse, and she rummages for her own photo to fill in the
second badge. Writing's not casually visible on most hospital badges. As
long as no-one's studying them at close range, blank but with photograph
should pass.

Unexpectedly, in room #306... there is quite the disturbance, briefly, and
an orderly goes in to deal with what sounds like a screaming woman.
/Some/one faked her meds this afternoon, didn't she? Tsk. It's only about
2 minutes, before there is quiet, and this happens enough that there isn't
even the vaguest buzz of tension leftover. In the office down the hall, a
photograph sits on the desk; a pictured family stares out a dim window.
The young boy has his mother's dark eyes.

Seishi fishes her cropped photo out of her pocket and busily sets about
rigging her own ID. Once that's done, she gets to her feet, slips on the
coat and clips the badge to it. After flushing the toilet for good
measure--though she doesn't *think* anyone else is in the bathroom right
now--and pausing at a sink to run her hands under the faucet, she goes
back out into the hallway, and, clipboard under her arm, heads for room
12A. Don't look at me. I belong here.

Kitty gives Seishi something of a head start, concentrating on washing her
own hands - to hospital standards, actually, thirty seconds, which also
takes care of the head start in question. She is, after all, headed toward
the obstetrics ward, coat and badge in place. Uniformed.

12A is as described - empty and quiet. Everything's going smoothly
until...Kitty gets to the obstetrics area and someone is at the computer
terminal, an intern of some kind, young, wearing a coat and ID, looking at
something on the screen intently and making occasional mouse-clicks.

Seishi goes into room 12A and pushes the door not quite closed behind her.
She settles into a chair, sliding a pencil free from the top of the
clipboard, and starts writing. Hopefully, to anyone looking in, she'll
look like nothing more than what she's supposed to look like--a hospital
employee catching up on work. Of course, the blank form she's writing on
has nothing to do with hospitals--it's from an insurance agency--and what
she's writing won't make sense to anyone who can't read Japanese katakana.
But hopefully that won't become an issue.

Kitty glances over the intern's shoulder casually, with a touch of
impatience in her frown. Moments like this are why she took the time for
cosmetics: look old enough to take seriously and underslept enough to
consider biting heads off... "Going to be long?" It's just a touch
peremptory, restrainedly so.

The intern quickly minimizes the window when Kitty gets closer and lets
out a strangled 'yelp'. "Uh...yeah...just...give me a minute." he
stammers, slightly sweaty. He then makes a few cursory looks at a couple
of files, logs out and hustles away. Looking at porn at work. Tsk tsk.

The orderly who went into #306 comes back out, grumbling slightly. He
calls to the desk, "Takin a break. Martha's back in bed," and heads off,
leaving the floor entirely.

Seishi keeps waiting, and writing. Assuming someone who could read
katakana came along, they'd find the insurance form being busily filled in
with improvised haiku about the hospital, Holmes, and insanity, in various
combinations. Some of them are damned witty, truth be told. Although the
one with 'maybe I should leave him there' was kind of mean.

As if Kitty's complaining. Half her work the last ten years would've been
significantly more difficult if people weren't so vulnerable to
temptation. "Just get a cable modem or something," she mutters to herself
as he departs, anyhow. Embarrassment is such a useful thing to inflict.
And there's where the folded paper in her purse comes in: the couple of
passwords she's collected over the last two months. Tonight's victim -
well, so to speak - will be one Jason Richter. She doesn't have his
password; she /does/ have SMTP syntax in her head. Easy enough to forge
his address as the origin once she's got a foothold in the hospital
systems. 'Dr. Allen is off duty tonight because he is ill. Thus, the
patients' IV drips which are up for renewal will be handled by Nurse
Galloway. She will be making rounds at,' check the clock and add fourteen
minutes, 'for all patients still unreviewed.' And add the signature; she
knows Richter's, or she wouldn't have picked him - and send. Enjoy
yourself, Dr. Ballantine.

Interns interns interns. Nurses. Aides. Orderlies. There are more here,
than in other areas of the hospital. Ballantine pops out of what was once
Melanie Newton's office, clipboard and pen in hand, muttering to himself
quietly. He's got to make his rounds a little faster tonight, ahead of
Jenny. He makes a beeline for the lockdown area, his lips set in a grim
line. He pays little attention to all else, his grey eyes like flat discs
of steel behind wire-rimmed spectacles. On the desk, the photograph has
been placed face down.

Ballantine then zooms straight past the window, not even glancing in at
Seishi, his footsteps loud in the corridor.

Seishi removes the page from the clipboard, folds it neatly, and, getting
up out of the chair, sticks it into her jeans pocket. May as well not
tempt fate. The clipboard gets tucked under her arm once more, and then,
after counting five, Seishi steps out of the room and heads along the
hallways in the same direction as the doctor she is assuming, from various
descriptions, is Ballantine.

Kitty, down in the obstetrics ward, logs out herself - neatly, not
messily; no stray processes or loose ends. The paper is folded again and
tucked back into her purse, and she starts her withdrawal in good order.
It's up to Seishi now.

The hallways are not empty, but they're not busy, which makes it easy to
follow Ballantine, but also means Seishi has a little more risk of being
spotted if he looks.

It's unorthodox, but no one tells Ballantine no, not here. Not in this
place. A young blonde darts out of his way; he makes his way to lockdown,
but uses his override keys, and leaves the door open. Damn Allen, for
being sick. Damn him. But a part of him, well it's happy; he'll get to see
her, just for a little. Things are coming along. They are.

Seishi therefore trails at some distance, and occasionally pauses and
makes as though to check someone's chart and note details on her
clipboard--more haiku. Ninja Burger this time. Oh, look, he even left the
door open for her.

One, two, three... four doors, and hey... the door across from where Sera
stayed, ever so briefly. The door next to last. That last door, on the
right? It's Hell on earth, but Ballantine doesn't go /there/. Instead, he
wanders right into this door, leaving it ajar, as well. His voice lifts...
so very gentle, so very not like what so many know of him. "How's my
girl?" he wonders, and approaches the beds.

When he goes into a room, Seishi finds an excuse to linger a good ways
down the hall, within sight, but well out of hearing range... which might
be good or bad. She's moving closer, but slowly, carefully checking
*every* door now and taking lots of notes. Hmmmm. How to turn 'utter
bastard' into five syllables...

'An utter bastard'? There are muffled words exchanged down the hall; one
of the patients in the room is particularly lucid at the moment.
"Lavender's blue, dilly dilly," comes a childish giggle. The nightlife of
the ward goes on, oblivious to the crimes perpetuated behind locked doors
and drawn curtains.

Thank God Seishi can't hear. It wouldn't do anything for her state of
mind. Busy, busy, wasting time... c'mon, Ballantine, get your butt out of
there. Much more of this is going to look suspicious.

Finally, he emerges, and makes some notes on two charts that are placed in
the window rack as he moves to close the door. When he walks away from the
door, he's gently wiping at his eyes. The man... /isn't/ a monster,
really. He's just desperate.

Seishi studiously finishes making some more notations on her clipboard;
she's run out of haiku ideas, and is just playing word association. She
goes through a couple more doors this way (door - portal- infinity - blue
- duck egg?), waiting for Ballantine to get out of sight.

Ballantine pauses at a door, and looks /back/ slightly, then he does a
slight double-take. Emotions briefly contend - he's seen her before,
but..not in this context, who could she be...a tiny light of suspicion
touches his eyes...

A patient whose jaw is slightly slack, his forehead slightly flat, perhaps
a bit encephalic, clearly lost, cuts between Seishi and Ballantine.
"I'm...looost." he gums. "Nur...nur..nurse where is my r..rooom?"

Seishi bites her lip briefly, torn. It only lasts a moment. She's seen
which room it is. She'll come back. "Come with me," she tells the patient,
as gently as she can manage. "I'll help you find it. What's your name?"

The patient mnnghs. "...Johnny." he mumbles. "Room. 12. A." But there's
nobody in 12...oh. This is /him/.

Addled already, and with so many other things to do, Ballantine blinks,
staring at the patient briefly. He mutters something gruffly, glancing.
She's got a badge; probably one of the newer ones. Damn kids. He stomps
off down the hallway. He's obviously not well, not thinking; he left his
override keys right in the lockdown door.

Seishi's dark eyes spark with recognition and deep exasperation, but she
manages to keep most of both out of her face. "It's this way," she says,
gently taking hold of his forearm as though to guide him along. "I'll take
you." And when we're there," she thinks cheerfully--if one could think
through one's teeth, she'd be doing it--I'm going to *kill* you.

The good doctor is so very tired of all of this; his steps down the hall
are heavy, tired. He heads back for Melanie's old office, and shuts the
door behind him with a vaguely louder-than-usual slam.

Holmes shuffles along stupidly next to her, so well that she has to
/search/ for signs of him, and only the hours and hours she's spent with
his face that lets her see any vestige of it. They lose Ballantine
quickly, but Holmes stays in character a moment longer. /Then/ he says,
under his breath, "Double back and check the names he's keeping them
under, and try to remember the last thing on the chart, if you can read
it. I'll meet you back at the apartment."

Seishi nods once, and lets him go, watching him for a moment before she
turns and makes her way back up the hall to that one particular door.

"Sinclaire, Therese" and "Novelli, Miriam" are the two names. Therese's
dosages of Lithium and Thorazine have dropped a little, but Miriam's are
right up there. Currently, she's sleeping with both Prince Valium, and Sir
Trazadone. Lucky Lady.

Seishi grits her teeth and dutifully copies it all down, in katakana as
before, marked with a roughly-sketched kanji figure in the margin. Once
she's got it all down, she hesitates a moment, tempted to look in. But she
doesn't. Instead she turns back, pausing to thoughtfully remove the keys
from the door on her way out. Musn't leave them where the patients can get
them.

In the room down the hall, locked away from the outside world, Melanie
Newton sleeps a dreamless sleep, silent and still, and Claire sits up,
dark eyes wide. No more a child, this woman lives locked away, something
of an autist, but so much more dangerous. "Lavender's blue," she whispers,
blinking slowly, her smile vacant, vapid.