(Did you know that nightshade, petunias, chili peppers, tobacco, and potatoes all come from the same family?)

Katrina returned Calley's scowl with a glare. Though it wasn't nearly as intense as the original one she had worn when she entered the room, she tried to convey that she was still not amused with his death-defying adventures and condescending scowls. Getting a mouthful of berry juice and getting shoved over by the rabid petunia had sort of spoiled her vibe and seeing for herself that Calley was alive and unscratched it was slightly more difficult to be irate that he nearly died. Despite those facts, she wasn't ready to give up her anger just yet. She was a female and teenager and she was going to stay mad if she darn well pleased, perhaps until next week when she would randomly start talking to him again as if nothing had happened.

As Calley offered his hand, the fuming thirteen-year-old was again distracted by the Poison-Ivy-wannabe. This time she was collapsing just outside the door with a horrible expression of agony on her face. Was that normal for her mutation, or was that what your face looked like when Seizure purposely used his powers on someone. Was that what her face had looked like that summer night when she had awoken from the palpable fire coursing through every nerve in her body? Either way, she didn't feel at all jealous of what the plant shifter was experiencing.

Back to the animal shifter that was waiting for her to respond. She tried to rearrange her facial muscles from that brief moment of pity back into a frown more befitting the situation at hand. Narrowed eyes and pursed lips were all that hand was getting.

“I can get up myself, thank you.” And she did. Much too quickly as a matter of fact. Upon standing, the young illusionist felt as though she were still moving upwards and forwards altogether too fast, even though her muscles had executed their standing function as normal and she was in fact stationary. Garrett wasn't helping, with his swaying and bobbing over towards a hospital bed, he was making her dizzy just looking at him. Or maybe that was her vision that was swimming just a little. Her muscles tried to compensate for her off kilter sense of balance by leaning backwards again, but that put her in danger of falling on her backside for the second time in as many minutes. She grasped at the nearest available handhold to keep herself upright.

“Err, I guess I needed a hand after all. I got a little dizzy standing up so fast.” It was really impossible to keep glaring at the blue eyed boy in front of her when his face kept wavering back and forth like that. Instead, she switched to a simple frown that could convey either her displeasure or perhaps her confusion as to why she suddenly felt so dizzy.

Dryad was down, twitching, sobbing, and clawing. Garret was muttering disturbing things to himself, with his back turned to them: "Let's see you run around and escape now." And Katrina? Katrina was thirteen years old, and therefore, he should be above her petty tactics to make him guilty or angry or whatever she was trying to do. Example A: not accepting his hand up, and then getting all wobbly and clinging to him. Yeah. Smooth. Calley caught her, with his own little scowl.

And then he noticed that that wobbling of hers wasn't stopping, even with her grip on his arm, and those gray eyes of hers weren't looking the most focused. "Are you okay?" He asked her, concern washing in. Why was he angry with her, again? He couldn't remember. The panic from earlier that day was back, and unfocused: she was going to be okay, wasn't she? She wasn't allowed to die. There was absolutely no reason in this infirmary that she should die. She was just... standing here. She was fine. She was fine, wasn't she?

And then he realized that all was quiet on the backwards front. The sobbing from Miss Fetal Floral? Gone. The mutterings, from the Painiac? Replaced with something equally unsettling: "I-I've got to lie down myself."

Calley turned a disbelieving gaze over his shoulder, and watched as the man wobbled his way to an infirmary bed. Then lay himself down, looking like he had malaria. Or the Black Plague. Or Ebola. On the floor, the flowering mutant was still in her tight ball, but almost entirely silent. And in against his arm, Katrina was still wobbling.

Calley gapped. Mouth-open-wide kind of gaping. "What?" He finally asked, with a dumb blink. "Nu-uh." And here he was, moving into the denial stage. "Stop joking around, everyone. Not funny. Get up. Wake up. Stop... wobbling. And sweating. I am not the only healthy one left in this room. That is not how the last five minutes went down. And this is not April, so stop fooling around."

He had a feeling that his attempt at rationalizing away their sudden illnesses wasn't going to work so well. So he raised his voice, and gave a shout that sounded a little like a strangled lamb:

"DocProf? DocProf! Need your help in here!"

He tried to steer Kat towards a bed, if she would suck up her pride enough to let him. After he'd managed that, he'd come back for the plant manipulator: he still owed her a lot. More than he even knew how to define. Letting her stay curled up on the floor like that was no way to start repaying his debts.

Xavia was dead to the world, it seemed, laying where she was on the floor amid the withering remains of her mutations. Her face seemed to have smoothed out into a blank, almost peaceful expression, and the only indication that she was yet alive, was the tell-tale lift and fall of her belly, and the deep, even breathing.

Mind you, it took a little while for the twitching and any jerking of her prone form to stop, but it did stop eventually, and now it would be hard to tell if she was going to awaken. It seemed, also, that Calley was the last one standing in this chaos, he sure didn't have it easy at the moment.

After hearing all of the commotion, and the yell from Calley, the Doc-Professor came to investigate. The old man lifted his eyebrows in surprise as he was met with the fetid smell of belladonna, and paused to kneel down and pick up a deteriorating blossom. His eyes then settled on the form of the downed woman, passed her to Calley and Kat, and further passed toward Seizure, before he opened his mouth to speak one simple question... "What on earth happened here?!"

After that was uttered, he would, of course, move to help the quartet out. Calley and Kat were the first to be relieved, Kat recieving a gaze of concern at her wobbling state. He then tended to the plant girl, having seen that Seizure was already sitting himself on a bed. All were asked, barring plant girl, if they were okay. "Someone please tell me what happened here!"

What was it with this madness? Garrett sat and stared at the floor, his eyes boring holes into the tile. Who was he? He had felt the joy of hurting the young girl. He had. There was no putting this off on some red specter. He alone was responsible for what had happened. DocProf had come out of the office and was attending to the girl and Katrina, who seemed to be in a state of shock. If he had hair to pull out, he would have. He was at the brink now, but of what? He felt as if there was a great chasm before him and he felt he should jump.

Jumping had a good side and a bad side. the good side translated into freedom , independence and identity. The bad side meant that he would definitely have to move out of the Mansion for a while. Either way, sitting here in this scene of chaotic confusion was only going to unsettle and rattle him further. Fresh air, peace and seclusion were what he would have prescribed himself had he been a doctor, rather than an insane kid in a lab coat. He removed the coat and dropped it on the bed next to him.

He stepped out of the infirmary and lingered at the door, turning around. " Sorry for my behavior." That was all he had to offer. He looked at the four of them and then began walking down the hall to let the static clear.

>>>What? Nu-uh. Stop joking around, everyone. Not funny. Get up. Wake up. Stop... wobbling. And sweating. I am not the only healthy one left in this room. That is not how the last five minutes went down. And this is not April, so stop fooling around."

Calley was sounding awfully alarmed. She was just a little dizzy, really. There was no need to be so concerned, unless it was for the others who were acting strangely. Katrina looked around, or tried to. The colors in the room swirled as her gaze moved past, especially the purple-red stains that seemed to twist themselves across every surface in the room.

>>>"DocProf? DocProf! Need your help in here!"

Really, there was no need to shout quite so loudly. The doctor was just in the next room, which actually seemed to be much closer than the bed. It would be nice to rest on one of the beds. She wouldn't have to keep trying to stand that way, and she wouldn't have to keep accepting help from the silly boy who had almost gone and died without her permission. He wasn't allowed to die, didn't he know? Steering toward a bed, that was allowed, but dying definitely was not on the list of acceptable activities for a Saturday afternoon. Some people should really be more careful.

DocProf reappeared moments after Calley had so loudly and frantically called his name,
>>>"What on earth happened here?!"

He gave Katrina a concerned look, and asked if she were okay before moving to the plant girl on the floor. Katrina nodded in response, which sent the colors of the Docs face dancing through a beautiful kaleidoscope pattern. She was okay, just dizzy from standing up to fast. She'd recover. The unconscious girl, she was the one that needed help. Unconsciousness was never a good sign.

>>>"Someone please tell me what happened here!"

Hadn't he already asked that question? Didn't Calley answer him or something?

Garrett spoke up then,
>>>"Sorry for my behavior."

Ah, there was the explanation! Just what the doctor ordered. Trust Garrett to get to the point and answer all the questions. He was so reliable that way. Once he finished his task of explaining the situation, the bald man removed his coat and headed for the hallway. Clearly, his work here was done.

Katrina glanced over at the prone plant girl. She seemed to be back to normal now. She still had berry juice all over, but no leaves any more. The young wobbling girl was unsure whether that was a good sign or not. With plants, losing all one's leaves was nearly as bad a sign as humans who were inexplicably unconscious.

“Will she be okay, do you think?” Her voice came out sounding a little scratchy. Perhaps she should not have yelled so loud before. Calley had perhaps deserved the shouting, but now it seemed like she was losing her voice and her mouth felt really dry. A drink would be nice, but the sink seemed like a rather long and swirl filled journey away from her comfortable hospital bed.

“Could I have some water please? I'm kind of thirsty.” She blinked at the faucet with ill focused grey eyes, as if it would help the water get to her mouth sooner. “And maybe some water for her too,” she pointed with and unsteady finger in the plant shifter's general direction. Water always seemed to help when plants were losing their leaves; maybe Miss Withering Leaves was feeling a little dried out. She might need some dirt, too, actually.

>> "What on earth happened here?!"

The DocProf was not being as useful as usual. Since he'd walked out of the room for approximately five minutes and come back to this lovely scene, the question was understandable. The double punctuations implied by the rising tone of his exclamation did not in any way help Calley to calm down, though. Calley had a happy place. It was far, far, far away from here.

>> "Someone please tell me what happened here!"

He jumped the second time the grey-headed man asked, blinking over-dilated eyes. "It wasn't me. I don't know. She fell over, he started mumbling to himself, Kat started wobbling and--and yelling, and wobbling, and--"

>> " Sorry for my behavior."

"--And he's leaving, 'cause that's useful, and--" Was he hyperventilating? Probably.

>> “Will she be okay, do you think?”

His empathetic nodding made up for in enthusiasm and hair-shaking what it lacked in any evidence as he helped Kat onto a bed. She was cooperating with his guiding. Somehow, that didn't actually make him less concerned about her. She'd gone from the yelling and the posturing and the yelling to the wobbling and the compliance and the bleary-eyes wandering around the roo--

>> “Could I have some water please? I'm kind of thirsty."

"Yes!" He snapped to attention. Water: he could get water. He could definitely get water. That water was so got, it was getting.

>> "And maybe some water for her too."

"Sure! Yes! Right! Water!" The teenage boy skittered sink-wards. He'd lost his tiger escort at some point. When had that been, exactly? He wasn't quite clear on that.

Water. Water. Sink! He turned the faucet on, then began looking for a cup. A cup. A cup.

There were no cups.

...

There were no cups.

Therewereno--

...And that was about enough of that. Slate shoved the wriggling mass of panic to the back of their mind. That done, he opened a cupboard above the sink, and relieved it of a paper cup. Just the one: contrary to what Katrina had suggested, he did not actually think that the plant manipulator particularly needed watering at the moment. The DocProf was seeing to her, in any case. Really, this is what he got for attempting to compose a term paper for biology in the back of their mind. As he carried the cup back to Katrina, he took a few calm seconds to review their most recent memories. ...Ah.

He handed the cup to the young illusionist, then reached down to lift the small plastic waste bin by the bedside up onto the bed with her. "Swill," he instructed, "and spit. I somehow suspect that our foliate friend may have played a part in your current state." As she did that--as she had better do that, or he would have a very solid frown for her--Slate searched out a towel, and dampened it in the sink before carrying it back. "I would suggest washing the additional juice off of yourself, as well."

To the knowledgeable tweenagers in the room, it would be quite obvious that Calley was no longer with them. To every one else? Truly, what a relief it was that Calley had finally gotten his head back.

Seizure had done it, had put the young woman in a catatonic sort of state. It was temporary, of course, but for now she was dead to the world. The only sign of life, that she yet lived, were the movements of her eyeballs beneath her closed lids. Ahh, and the sweet scent of roses started to hang in the air, intermingling with the metalic scent of dried blood, and the clean scent that often accompanied places of infirm.

Her mouth was lax, and her breathing came without hitch. It wouldn't take a long time for her to reach her dream state, which would then cause her limbs to twitch against her, and sighs to bubble from her full lips. But she rested now, and that was the important thing. Down for the count.

Not much can be said about her current state, not much could be read into the situation, except maybe what might be going through the minds of the people surrounding her.

>>>"Swill," ... "and spit. I somehow suspect that our foliate friend may have played a part in your current state."

Spit? But she wanted to drink it. The young girl frowned at Slate whose serious tone and increasingly impressive vocabulary had unmistakably taken the leading role in the body he shared with Calley. Where did he think he got permission to frown like that? Not a solid frown though, more like a wavy, kaleidoscope frown of dizzying disapproval. He should have been keeping a closer eye on Calley, making sure he didn't do anything stupid to get the both of them killed. Really, she would have expected him at least to be a little more responsible.

The young girl did swish her mouth out, or swill as Slate had called it, and spit the slightly discolored water back into the cup. Her mouth felt a little better, but her throat was still parched like a desert in a drought. She also used the damp towel he handed her to wipe off the extra berry juice.

DocProf looked like he was lifting the plant girl up to a bed. He had a wobbly concerned look on his face as the skin on his arms made contact with the plant girls' skin. He looked like he must be concentrating on more than just carrying. It was getting kind of hard to look at him though. The lights were awfully bright in that area of the room. She turned instead back to Slate's face. His was rather bright also, as if her eyes were open too wide and letting in too much light. Perhaps it would be easier to close her eyes than to have to blink so much.

With her eyes closed and her speech blurring the ends of her words together just a little bit, she addressed the serious toned boy, “You should have been more careful. You could have both died and then what would I do?”

The DocProf's voice was louder than her own; clear, steady, and full of authority, “From what I can see, she's over used her powers. Her mind has been under a great deal of stress, and her central nervous system has received a bit of a shock. I've repaired any damage to the CNS, and it seems that all she'll need now is rest to recover her energy. She may have some post traumatic stress issues, but we'll have to see what she's like when she wakes up again.”

Who was he talking about? Was someone electrocuted or something? It certainly wasn't her. She was just feeling a little woozy. Possibly she was coming down with a flu or something.

Someone put their hand on her head, then shone a light in her eyes. This was followed shortly by something small and cold pressed against her chest. The hand on the head was okay, but the light in the eye was unnecessary. Not that she cared enough to protest at the moment. Sleeping seemed like a better idea right now.

As the scent of roses filled the air, Slate spent his time frowning equally between Katrina and the DocProf. Katrina's eyes seemed to be losing more and more focus; though she had washed out her mouth and cleaned her face of the remaining juices, he strongly suspected that she had ingested some of the dark liquid. Should he induce vomiting...? How does one induce vomiting? Would that be wise? Hence his reason for frowning over at the DocProf, who was clearly the one who should be dealing with this. His own healing was faulty, at best; if the plant woman had broken Katrina's arm, he would be able to help. This? He did not think he could help with this. He needed a professional to handle this. It was Katrina: she deserved someone much better than him to attempt her healing.

Particularly as her eyes were closing, and her voice beyond slurred.

>> “You should have been more careful. You could have both died and then what would I do?”

...There was no appropriate response to that. Therefore, he simply ignored the question, and divided his efforts between frowning at the DocProf harder and claiming the wash cloth from Kat. She had missed a spot of the juice, there. He tried to wipe it off.

>> “From what I can see, she's over used her powers. Her mind has been under a great deal of stress, and her central nervous system has received a bit of a shock. I've repaired any damage to the CNS, and it seems that all she'll need now is rest to recover her energy. She may have some post traumatic stress issues, but we'll have to see what she's like when she wakes up again.”

The man seemed to finally catch the glint in Slate's eyes, and the drifting look on the young girl's face. He came over and began a physical exam. It was about time.

"I believe she was poisoned," Slate said, his gaze drifting back to the woman who smelled of roses. Calley might feel some sort of obligation to her. Slate? Slate did not.

Slate, in fact, felt something quite different.

(Posted with permission from Dryad. Her character is still unconscious.)

Katrina let her eyes close and her thoughts drift. The thoughts weren't really coherent ones, just random flashes of memories that were as kaleidoscopic as her vision had been just a few moments ago. She remembered a tiger with blue eyes, she remembered yelling, but couldn't remember why she was so angry. There were triangles written on notebook paper, their sides labeled with letters of the alphabet. If a tiger is angry and chases the triangles, how long is the hypotenuse? She tried to watch the tiger darting back and forth, her eyes flickering under her eyelids, but he was too fast. Eventually the tiger got dizzy from running in circles and fell over. Katrina laughed. Silly tiger.

>>>"I believe she was poisoned."

Haha! No, that's not it. He just fell over. He'll be good as new after a short rest.

The doctor finished his examination of the thirteen year old with a deep frown on his face, “Belladonna. How much did she eat? Never mind, with the amount her eyes are dilated, it must have been a sufficient amount to cause her serious harm. We're going to have to pump her stomach.”

Now, what good would that do? The tiger hadn't even eaten anything.