Who: Abernathy, Sam and Nurse Ducote
Where/When: The nurses office. Tuesday after classes.
Rating: SFW, some language
Summary: Abernathy is still having hearing problems after the quodpot incident. Sam is there for moral support.


She sat nervously at the end of one of the beds in the nurses office. They were occupied often enough when magic backfired. She'd been here more times than she cared to admit as the result of a fight.

This was a little different.

More nervous than she would normally be, she tucked her hands in her lap and waited for Nurse Ducote to come back and examine her ear.

Adrien Ducote searched through his drawers to find his otoscope, he had not used one in some time as it was a typical muggle tool but this was a special case. Once he found it he turned back to Abernathy, a student he frequently saw with minor scrapes and bruises, sometimes the occasional concussion. "There we are Miss Ford," he said. "Are you ready for you're examination?" he asked before prodding.

"Let's just get this over with," she replied. She'd said that before more than once. She crushed her fingers together and tried to remember to breath. It was probably no big deal. Maybe it was just taking a little longer to heal.

Nurse Ducote was gentle when he pressed the otoscope into her ear and took a peak through the other side. With a little sigh he straightened up. "Miss Ford, what exactly happened again?"

She could hear him, but she had to strain a bit to make out some of the syllables. It was almost as if she was laying against a pillow and that one ear wasn't as effective. "A quodpot exploded near my head."

Sam couldn't help but grin at his friend. "It's called a quod AB," he told her shaking his head. He couldn't help himself; he had been worried about AB's ear since it happened and insisted on going with her to the nurse.

Nurse Ducote went back to his desk and grabbed a pair of head phones. "Put these over your ears," he said. "We need to test your hearing, I think you might have done more damage than you thought."

Abernathy looked skyward for a moment and frowned. "I don't give a... whatever." She'd been about to say something entirely different, but she remembered the nurse was with them. She took the headphones and put them over her ears. A hearing test. Great. She offered Sam the tiniest reassuring smile. "Haven't had one of these since kindergarten."

Sam smiled back nervously trying not to look shaken. He was there for support after all.

Nurse Ducote played a low tone quietly in her left ear. "Did you hear that?" he asked.

She lifted her hand near her left ear, which was how they did it when she was a kid. Then she nodded, because he was asking her if she heard it, which she only derived from context since she couldn't really hear him around the big, clunky headphones. She listened carefully as each tone increased from low to high. At some point the tones stopped, but it was clear to Abernathy that he was still playing them for her. She just couldn't hear them anymore. Her face grew more stony as the nurse continued testing. It was worse than she thought.

Sam trained his face to stay stoic as he saw AB's facial expression change and listened to the interaction between the nurse and Abernathy. There wasn't much he could do but sit and watch.

Finally Nurse Ductoe removed the head phones from Abernathy's ears. "I'm sorry Abernathy," he said gently. "The damage may be permanent, you've lost some range of hearing in your left ear."

Sam's face fell for a moment but he forced himself to pull it together before looking back to Abernathy. "You gonna be okay?" he asked quietly.

For a second she didn't care who was present. "Well fuck me." She rubbed at her face absently as if that could make things better, make this go away. Pranks and fun were fine, but Adelaide had made her partially deaf. The problem was that if she made a big deal of it the chances were just as great that Pendragon would blame her for having this stupid feud with Adelaide in the first place. "No. I'm not okay."

"We can contact your father and try to see if we can get you in to see a specialist," Nurse Ducote suggested. "The good news is that it's only affecting one side and perhaps with a hearing aid you can get some of that loss back, but I'm not expert," he admitted.

Sam reached across and took AB's hand. "That sounds promising," he tried to sound reassuring. "I'm sorry," he said more quietly.

Abernathy had nothing to say about her dad getting involved. Bill Ford didn't often fuss over his children, but any time one of them had to go to a doctor he was all over it. The idea of having to wear a hearing aid revolted her much more than she was willing to admit presently. And then Sam's hand was holding hers and she wanted to slap him away. She didn't, sighed instead and shook her head slowly. "Yeah. Sounds great." She couldn't fight the defeat in her voice and she was surprised at how frustrating this situation had gotten.

"We could always charm a hearing aid so that you don't know it's there," he offered weakly. He sat back again, letting go her hand.

Nurse Ducote nodded. "That's true, they've been working to make hearing aids more invisible," he said. "Even muggles are getting good at disguising them."

Abernathy was over feeling sorry for herself and swinging back towards feeling angry. "Thanks Nurse Ducote," she said politely and slid off the end of the bed. "I can talk to my dad; you don't need to contact him." She looked pointedly at Sam to get him to follow her out into the hallway. She'd need him to distract her from pummeling Adelaide into a pulp.

"You're welcome, take care of yourself Abernathy, and please, no loud music, no loud sounds, and try to avoid exploding quods," he said kindly. He handed over a pair of ear plugs. "Try these if it gets too loud."

Sam took the hint and hopped up from his seat. "Thanks Nurse Ducote!" he said waving to the nurse before following Abernathy out into the hallway. This was going to be one of those long nights. He wanted to be there for her though.

The first thing Abernathy did was punch the wall and then let off a diatribe of curse words that would make the most foul mouthed blush. She kicked the wall for good measure and then stopped turning to Sam with a huge frown. "Don't leave me alone and don't let me anywhere near Adelaide." It was a quiet plea and hopefully one that he could keep. "I need to go call my dad."

Sam nodded. "You wanna go down town or out to the woods after you call Billy?" he asked kicking at the ground.

"I need to break something." Abernathy didn't understand the stages of grief, or that you could even grieve for something like losing part of your hearing. But she knew why she had skipped all the other emotions and went straight to anger.

"Might I suggest something off campus so as not to get expelled? And perhaps some safety wear?" he gave her a half smile, knowing it probably wouldn't do any good.

"Off campus. Yeah. Whatever." She kicked the wall again for emphasis. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

"Kay," Sam nodded and matched her pace as they walked through the school. He was already thinking off where they might be able to get their hands on some mashable, breakable things without getting into trouble.

Tags: !complete, melchor ruiz