Prednisone or Methotrexate?

[FadedNoel]

[The drugs in the title are cheap immunosuppresive drugs with... not so bad short-term side effects and quick action. Prednisone in particular is used for emergency inflammation control.]

Grace gets the call via Ginger to head to Sid's Doctor (and yes, she capitalizes that thought) so that they can analyze the bottle of pills, see what they are, provide some evidence as to Callum's purpose in giving them.

She starts packing immediately. Who knows how long she'll be able to pack, will be able to drive even? It'll be a challenge as is. Whitney probably wants to know what the hell she's doing out of bed, and Grace explains. There really is so little time. Going to the doctor could stretch that.

Whatever the status of the unlabeled prescription bottle she stuffs into her laptop bag, she'll be getting immunosuppressive drugs today one way or another. If for some god-awful reason Luke won't give them to her, she'll guilt-trip, or scream or... something. Whatever it takes.

Because, you see, by now, she can feel her breath bubbling in her lungs. And no matter the angel or demon Callum might be, she does trust some of what he said. A week, perhaps. She has a week. Perhaps that is what Whitney could see, and wouldn't tell her.

True, it could put some into a stupor, just waiting for death. But to Grace, every day alive is a day she can use. She believes in the future. In her own, perhaps not. But a future...

She picks out some street clothes to put on over a body that smells like she's been at the gym for hours. It doesn't take too long before the fever-sweat makes one foul again. But just the action of getting up and doing normal things -- it's like a second wind, confusing the body into thinking everything's fine. It works, until one of those nausea waves hits her, and hard, and it's a damn good thing Grace's apartment is so small. The bathroom is less than ten steps from most anywhere.

She retches watery blood into the toilet, and it mixes with the blue bowl cleaner to form a kind of fairy-purple with bubbles, swirling around. Grace thinks it might be the kind of thing Kalen might have thrust upon him (and what might he see if he did look at this? A hydra, perhaps?) It does kind of look like a hydra, with tendrils of creeping swirls seeking out their entropic balance. This is how she handles horror and death -- distract oneself with the little things.

Once she's done emptying her stomach, it hurts. The nausea abates for a short while, but the pain intensifies. Trade one horrible symptom for another. She washes her face, brushes her teeth (because her mouth has taken on the smell of blood and stomach acid and Gatorade, not to mention the taste) and it's time.

Aside from her equipment and supplies (laptop, phone, change of clothes, portable snacks, a pack of Gatorade, tissues, and of course those pills) she also brings what she's dubbed the "blood bucket" -- a trash can triple-wrapped with liners. Normally it's kept at bedside, in case the vomiting strikes when she's too asleep to make it to the bath. Today, it serves as a carrying case for all that stuff, which Whitney won't let her carry down to the car.

But when they get to the car at last, she says goodbye to the Euthanatos. It's been four days since Whitney decided to sleep in Grace's computer chair, and keep her from dying alone. Well, now she's not going to be alone. She'll be with Sid. And she'll get help. And things will be okay. This is what she tells Whitney. But the last thing she tells the girl is that if by some slim chance things turn out to be not okay, she wants Whitney to have her laptop. And if she can learn to use it, the thing's really top-notch. Bought it at the start of the summer. It's the perfect thing for a student.

Should be a decent trade for four days of care.

The ride to Luke's practice is relatively uneventful. She ends up not having to use the Blood Bucket, despite a few close calls. It helps that she's making this drive at 10 in the morning, when most people are still at school or work. When she arrives, she dons a mask before knocking on the door. It's not for her protection, but for whoever might be inside.

She asks for drugs.

And she wants to help.

[Samael]

Grace finds Luke's private practice, located just outside a strip mall in Aurora. It's one of those small, self-contained buildings that certainly don't qualify as a "medical facility" in most people's definition; it doesn't have the amenities of a hospital but it has one very essential thing.

Privacy.

Luke is waiting at the back door of the building when Grace arrives. The African-American man is just a hair under six feet, still wearing the lab coat that he's been in most of the time that he's been here to help Sid. And he's been here since he had Sid come by; he can take a bit of time off from his work at Denver Health Medical Center, calling in some sick days of his own.

He's kept the practice shut down as much as he can; the nice part is that he doesn't have a lot of patients that he sees here so it's only open sporadically in the first place. His receptionist, a nice young girl named Meredith, keeps an eye on the front for him and handles his appointments. She's still here, even if it's just answering phone calls and rescheduling some appointments. Luke informed her that he had an emergency he needed to deal with regarding some friends and Meredith is bright enough to know not to ask questions.

Luke smiles and holds the door open for Grace when she shows up, leads her through the back into the sterile room. He's set up another one for them to rest in; this one is for research and treatment. The immunosuppressants Grace are set on the table so they can study them and see if they're legit, and he hands Grace some that he knows to be safe. Cyclosporine, specifically. He asks Grace if she's on any other medications, if she has ever had high blood pressure or kidney disease, or psoriasis. He has some other immunosuppressive drugs he can provide if any of those are the case, but he wants to start with having Grace and Sid on the same one first.

He has a warm, friendly manner. He may do most of his work in the hospital system where caring is far from a prerequisite, but he prefers his work outside and he has a personal doctor's manner about him.

As for help in research, he leaves that in Sid's hands. He's just assisting her after all (though really, he's mostly just attending to the health of the two as his patients), and there is the concern that too many cooks may spoil the soup (or cure, as the case may be).

[errin]

At 10am Sid is not in the research room. She's getting what rest she can in the other room, curled on her side with her own bucket beside her head. Luke started her on the Cyclosporine on Saturday afternoon, and her symptoms have been holding since Sunday. Unfortunately, that's when the stomach pains and the vomiting began. Still, it could be worse.

It isn't, so she sleeps. She needs her strength for when she's up and about, sitting in a chair and staring at sample after sample. Frowning mostly when she does, making notes, sliding aside to get Luke's opinion on something. That'll start again a little later.

Grace isn't left waiting for long. When Sid finally comes into the research and study room, she's paler than the last time Grace saw her, with dark circles under her eyes. Her hair, once such a soft, vibrant red, is greasy and dull and lackluster, and twisted up haphazardly onto the back of her head, out of her face for when she studies things, or when she needs to throw up, or cough, or whatever.

"There's soup," she says, it's in a fridge somewhere waiting to be warmed up. Jim brought it, brought too much. She's been having trouble keeping food down, so she doesn't eat much at a time, so it's lasted a day or two or however long it's been since Sunday.

She picks up the bottle of pills, looks over the bottle as if that might hold some clues before twisting the cap off and dropping a couple pills into her hand. The bottle she passes off to Luke, to look at for himself if he wants. Sid's scientific expertise is biology, not pharmacology, so she has to look at these a different way. Matter is her newest sphere of knowledge, and so it's still a little difficult for her to do what she wants to do, see what she wants to see, but eventually she gets there.

As far as researching the virus goes, it really is a matter of too many cooks. Sometimes even Luke, whom Sid clearly trusts strongly - she's put her life in his hands and more importantly (to Sid, anyway) her safety - sometimes finds himself being shooed off. Chemical biology and its application in medicine is sort of Sid's area of expertise.

If Grace wants to help, Sid reminds her there are other areas to look into than this one. There's the license plate number Sera discovered for one. Locating the people who did this to them is just as if not more important than finding a cure.

Because it's degrading, this virus. Whatever was keeping it from infecting Sleepers is starting to fall apart and soon no one will be safe. If they can, they need to stop it at its source.