Picking up the Pieces [Dorks+Open]

[Leila Gold]

Note: This thread takes place after Say a Prayer.

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The first few days after the surgery, Leila was too tired to do much. She slept most of the day and slowly started to eat real food again. Dr. Jordan had given her a lot of information to go through about how to live with a new liver and what sort of steps she would have to take to maintain a healthy lifestyle. There were pills and rules and all sorts of new arrangements that she was just getting used to. When she got tired of all that, she'd flick on the television to see what was on.

The day that she found herself getting into Days of Our Lives was the day she decided enough was enough. She yanked the stupid hospital phone over to her and lifted the giant white plastic receiver to her ear. It took a moment to remember the number, since she normally just selected it out of her contact list on the cell phone (which had run out of service at the turn of the month and she hadn't had time to renew it yet). But after a few minutes she finally managed to dial in the number.

After making a few phone calls to a couple of friends and asking them to spread the news, she sat back in her bed. Now she only had to wait for someone to arrive so that she could start talking to everyone.

It was time for another party. Albeit a quieter one, but a party nonetheless, to celebrate continuing life and recovery. And everyone was invited.

When the door opened, Leila turned toward the door with a huge smile. "Come in!" she said, gesturing. "Thanks for coming! I was getting remarkably bored here, you have no idea."

Of course, her boredom might have been lessened if she hadn't spent so long in those first few days shooing everyone away so she could sleep, but she tended to forget that with all the new excitement.

[Benjamin Rhodes]

Ben had specifically made lasagna for Leila. He knew they hadn't been the tightest of pals since...well ever, but he figured a casserole full of cheese, meat and pasta would resolve this problem once and for all.

He hadn't made any plans to come with Cobalt, something he regretted, frankly but Cobalt said he had some things to settle first so Ben shrugged it off and drove over to the hospital alone. Well, with the casserole dish of lasagna sitting in the passenger seat at least.

Entering the room, he was delighted to find Leila looking cheerful. She still looked like she could use some more rest but all in all, the young woman looked healthy and that was what was important.

"Thanks for inviting me!" Ben said, placing the casserole dish in the corner of the room before walking over to Leila and giving her a hug. "I do hope Terrence is taking good care of you." The psychologist took a jibe at his hepatologist friend. "I bet you've been. You look good." He said, as though they had been friends since forever. Tone down the motherly instincts, Benjamin Rhodes. Your ovaries are showing.

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt was more than happy to hear that Leila was bored enough to want visitors back again. So when she called him to come see her, Cobalt moved around what little work schedule he had and made his way to the hospital. He briefly thought about calling Ben, but he figured that he would show up, seeing as Leila mentioned she was inviting a fair amount of people. So that afternoon, he made his way to the hospital feeling much better about it than he was the last time he'd been to the hospital.

When he came in the little room, he was surprised to see Ben already there. He quickly suppressed what would undoubtably be a stupid looking smile and turned his attention to Leila. "Hey, kiddo. How you feeling?" He gave her a gentle, one armed hug, "You're looking much better."

He glanced over at Ben and gave him a quiet smile. "...Hi." Well. That was stupid sounding.

[Yulia Sokolov]

Yulia was incredibly thrilled that Leila was doing better. She had been in the waiting room for the surgery, and now that she was back since the world was now seemingly right again. She was not going to loose another best friend to something she could not help, not that she had really lost the other one as it turned out. However she could bring that topic up at a different point, because she’d definitely be talking to Leila about it. However right now she just wanted to go see her friend since she was now available for company.

So as soon as she was out of work she set out. She still was lacking in a car and license. However she had been getting some work done on her leg, which allowed her to run for a little while. That was just what she did. She set course for the hospital, and it wasn’t until she get there that she realized that she forgot to bring anything. After a quick swear in her mother tongue she went into the hospital gift shop. Finally, after much picking over the things available there she settled on one of the shiny tin balloons. It was just a giant smiley face, but she figured that would do.

After that Yulia got the room number she needed and headed up. As soon as she found it she nearly burst in, half out of breath excited as she was. “Leila!” She grinned to see her friend conscious and not yellow.

“How are you? I brought you this balloon, and hello you two.” She smiled at both Ben and Cobalt, happy to see them both as well. She wondered if their fight had resolved any, and then just figured that it must have.

[Danny Silverman]

Danny had known that he wasn’t technically invited to this party. He didn’t really know Leila except from what Cobalt had told him, and he only kind of knew the situation. But from what he’d said about her, he couldn’t help but want to be there for her, and, more importantly, for Cobalt. He knew this was a hard situation. So when he’d called Cobalt to ask if they could have lunch, and he’d said no, because he was going to see Leila, he’d decided that it was time to come and try to help. So he’d sculpted up something, had gotten some relatively plain food—because he wasn’t sure what she could eat or felt like eating—and had gotten into his car to head to the hospital. He asked for Leila’s room and slipped inside, glancing around at everyone in there with a faint smile. There was Ben, who he nodded to, and Cobalt, whom he also offered a sheepish kind of wave. There were two women, but he assumed the one who was greeting everyone was Leila, but he really didn’t know. So instead he stepped behind Cobalt and Ben and nodded to both, shy and not quite sure what to say. He held his present in his hand--a colorful vase with several sculpted several flowers inside—a rose, a daisy, and so on. He’d never gotten the appeal of real flowers when fake ones lasted so much longer. So this was better, he’d decided. He only hoped she'd feel the same.

Hopefully.

[Leila Gold]

Leila was happy to see Ben walk in. They hadn't talked much before, so most of what she knew about him was second-hand from Cobalt, but even with whatever bias Cobalt was seeing through Ben sounded pretty cool. And he proved it as he walked in.

Leila returned his hug eagerly. "Yep, Terrence is a great doctor. I'm doing much better now. Thanks for the compliment, by the way, but I'm sure I don't look that good." She put her hand on her forehead dramatically. "I've been stuck inside all this time--my tan must be completely ruined by now. I'll have to get a fake tan and be orange the rest of my life." Sighing, she suddenly looked over in the corner. "Is that food?" she asked, craning her neck. "What'd you bring? Is it tasty?"

Just then, though, Cobalt walked in, and Leila’s attention jumped over to her former boss. "Blue!" she exclaimed. "Thanks for coming." She returned his hug with vigour, even though it had only been meant as a one-armed hug. Grabbing him around the waist, she smiled up at him. "Thanks. Ben said the same thing, so I guess it must be true. Both the optimist and the pessimist agree." Releasing him, she sat back again. "Guess what, Ben brought me food! Isn't he great? Why don't you bring him around the office more often?"

And then someone else walked in. With delight Leila waved hello to Yulia. "Hey, Lia! Ooh, pretty balloon!" She made a face at the giant smiley-face balloon. "What do you think, who looks happier?" Holding it up next to her she gave her widest smile. "I'm doing well. Bored out of my mind, but well. And one of these days I'll actually be able to get out of bed and go to the bathroom on my own. That'll be great. As it is I've got a burst of energy now that will probably die out later on. Beware mood swings. I think the nurses put a note in my chart, something to that effect. And potentially something about sudden wind gusts, but let's not go there." Leila made another face and stuck out her tongue.

When the door opened again, Leila eagerly looked to see who else had come to her impromptu party. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if there was a limit to how many people should be in a hospital room at a time, but for now she decided not to worry about that. She thought she recognized the man who came in, maybe from around town? Or maybe he was in the book club with her and Terrence. Yes, that seemed familiar. Since she didn't know him very well, though, she simply smiled and waved hello instead of offering a hug.

"Hi there! What are those?" She noticed the vase in his hand. "Did you make those? I don't even know where you would buy something like that, so I guess you probably made it. That looks really cool!" Leila preferred living flowers herself, but she also thought the sculpted ones were really neat. And she had plenty of vases for real flowers at home, so it wasn't like she was desperate for an empty vase and a nice bouquet.

"Wow, everyone came!" she said, looking around. "I was a little worried no one would want to come by. But I guess I shouldn't have worried. You guys are the best, you know that? If I had some cake, I would share it with you and we'd make this a true party. As it is, um..." She glanced around the room, her eyes finally landing on an old board game that had been brought in by someone a few days ago. "You guys interested in a game of Life?"

[Joshua Bernstein]

It was all Vincent's fault.

If he'd filed the motion for the Barnes case like Josh and Janice had requested instead of doodling rude pictures then there wouldn't have been a problem. Instead, the motion was turned in a day late because Josh had to hurriedly try and do it himself, when he'd expected to have it done already because he had asked the intern. It wasn't as if this was difficult work, and he'd not only showed Vincent how to file motions multiple times, but he'd left the intern written instructions.

He was beginning to think that perhaps having an intern was more trouble than it was worth. He certainly felt as if he was doing more work.

In any event, because he'd been stuck doing extra work he was late to the party in Leila's hospital room he'd been invited to.

At least he'd gone by the bookstore the day prior, loading up on such entertaining reads as The Annals of Imperial Rome (which was his favorite book, and therefore he expected everyone else to appreciate it) and The Twelve Caesars and Caesar and the Celts. He hoped Leila would enjoy them as much as he did.

He walked briskly down the halls of the hospital, paper bag full of books clutched in one hand. Signing in always took far longer than he liked, but he understood that it was necessary. The staff wanted to know exactly who had been by to see each patient, just in case.

The hospital was less intimidating when he was freely walking down the halls rather than being carried by Sean, or wheeled around.

Sean was still a depressing topic, however, and he turned his thoughts back to Leila.

He thought her room was getting cl....ah! There it was. He pushed open the door, unsurprised to see so many other people since the invitation to him had said celebration. He gave a delighted smile to Cobalt and Ben, a somewhat embarrassed smile to Danny (whom he hadn't seen since the picture incident, outside of temple) and a smile and nod to Yulia, whom he also didn't see much of before marching over to Leila and dropping his bag of books by her bedside.

"Leila!" He greeted the young woman, offering his hand. "I thought you might be bored, cooped up in the hospital so I brought you some reading material. How are you holding up?" He squinted at the balloons in her hand. "Very cheerful balloons you have there, are they keeping you good company?"

[Riley Adams]

When he got the call that Leila was feeling better and up for visitors, Riley took it as a reason to bake the young woman his brownies. Since she loved it so much the last time he made it, he might as well make it for now when she got better. It could last for awhile too if she kept it refrigerated so he needn't worry about it going bad if she couldn't eat it right now, after surgery and all.

So with the treat cut and stored into an airtight container, Riley drove over to the hospital. He immediately went to her room after signing in, ignoring the steely disinfectant smell and the general unease he felt walking down the too brightly lit halls. There were already people in the room with Leila, including Danny, whom Riley just saw a few days ago. A small shy smile lit up the bearded man's face before he greeted everyone with a wave. Walking over to Leila with a huge smile, Riley enveloped the tiny woman and placed the brownies by her bedside.

"So glad you look much better, sweetie." Riley pecked the young woman on her forehead before proceeding to hug his two best friends. "Hey guys." He looked over to Ben and nodded before standing beside Danny. "Hi," he grinned shyly. What was missing was only his giggle and he could have qualified as a little schoolgirl with a crush on the cutest boy in school.

"Ohh, Life! I used to play that with Mi...Janice!" Riley quickly replaced the name and figured, no it wasn't a lie. He did play the old board game with Janice...and Michael was there as well. Avoiding any emotastic moments, he looked to Cobalt and gave him the smallest shake of the head if the man had any ideas of comforting him or whatever. He was fine. Today was about Leila! "But yes, that would be fun." He grinned at Leila.

[Benjamin Rhodes]

When Cobalt entered the room, Ben was glad he didn't experience the cliched shining halo moment people kept harping about in movies when their significant other makes their way into the room. He was also safe in the fact that Cobalt didn't walk in slow motion nor did he have enough hair to flip about. Suffice it to say, Ben didn't giggle when his... boyfriend partner date the guy he was seeing walked into the room with a stupid "...Hi."

But he would be remiss if he denied any allegations as to how fast his heart beat and how big his smile got and how the urge to fling himself on the smaller man was overwhelming.

"Hi," he held his hand up in a wave and was supremely grateful for the sudden onslaught of other visitors, including his housemate and also Cobalt's old friend, Danny who suspiciously incited a blush from the resident pie man, Riley.

Ben walked over to Yulia's side, carefully squeezing Cobalt's hand in passing before ruffling the quiet blonde female's hair. "Hey love. Sorry I didn't wait for ya."

At the mention of the old board game, Ben grinned and nodded in agreement to Riley's statement. "Why not?" He shrugged.

[Cobalt Weaver]

Cobalt searched for something casual and not completely awkward to say to Ben, and upon coming up short, opted for: “Hi.” Stupid “…Er. How are you?” Okay, this wasn’t good.

Thankfully, Leila’s babbling and tight hug saved him from any further embarrassment. “’Course I’d come.” He responded readily, hugging her back as best he could, given the awkward position, “Couldn’t pass up a chance to irritate you by hovering, could I?” He grinned at her. “So… mood swings and sudden bursts of wind. I don’t see how this is very different from normal,” He teased gently.

At her question about Ben, Cobalt—without thinking—responded, “I probably will.” He stopped, turning extremely red, “…I mean. Uh. Yes.” Cobalt shut his mouth tight.

They all looked up to see Yulia with a smiley balloon. Cobalt laughed a little, “Hey, Yulia. I’m doing fine. You?”

He rolled his eyes at Leila’s question and was about to make some sarcastic remark when Danny showed up. Surprised, Cobalt gave Danny a half-wave, “Oh hey. Leila, this is Danny, he’s a friend from…” He stopped, and then sighed. Well, there would be no stopping her after this. “He’s been a friend of mine since before Hammel. Please don’t eat him.”

“…Life?” Cobalt eyed the box dubiously, but before he could voice his reluctance any further, Josh showed up looking extremely hassled with Riley at his heels. He greeted his two friends with a grin and a wave. Cobalt would have said more, but Riley did several things that gave him pause. Firstly, he almost brought up Michael, but stopped, and indicated for Cobalt to not ask further. Which he didn’t. Secondly—and far more interestingly—Riley caught sight of Danny and…looked shy? Not normal, Riley-shy. But the shy he used to get when he was looking at Josh when he thought nobody was watching. As Riley greeted Danny with the same type of “…hi” that Cobalt and Ben had used to greet each other, Cobalt raised an eyebrow at his taller friend before transferring the eyebrow to Danny. …What was going on?

Deciding not to press—for now, at least—Cobalt turned back to Leila and peeked at the books that Josh dumped by her bed. “Oh hey. These are nice.” Yet another reason why he liked Josh: he had similar taste in books.

[Leila Gold]

Oh...kay...so Cobalt and Ben were acting really weird. Weird even for Cobalt, who was pretty weird on his own. Leila gave the two a look but was quickly distracted. "You're right, I'll never change. At least you won't ever, you cranky bastard," she said, poking Cobalt in the side as the hug ended. And there he was going all red and embarassed again. Which was incredibly suspicious, and she would have investigated further if not for the potentially timely interruption.

"Oh, so this is the famous Danny, is he?" Leila turned to give Danny her "innocent" smile, which was intended to show that she meant no harm to anyone at all in the whole world. "Don't believe Cobalt. I don't eat people, he's just a drama queen. You and I should meet sometime. And talk." Forever. Leila could feel the gears turning in her head already.

Then Josh walked in and she took his hand eagerly, reaching up to offer him a kiss on the cheek. She was too happy to keep things down to a simple handshake. "You're a sweetie, Josh. How did you know I was dying of boredom? Other than that I'm fine, of course." She glanced through the books--read it, skimmed it, looked good--and turned back to Josh with a smile. "Oh yes, this is my new companion. Kevin. He and I plan to give one another make-overs later. He wants a mustache. Thanks for the books! This should keep me well occupied." She wasn't opposed to rereads.

She welcomed Riley with similar gratitude, hugging him and giving him a reciprocating peck on the cheek. It was nice of him to bend down so she could reach. She was too busy digging through the bag of goodies he'd brought and squealing with delight over the brownies to catch any strange happenings between the different members of her brigade. (One of these days she'll learn never to take her eyes off them for fear of missing something exciting.)

"Excellent, Life it is." She raised an eyebrow at Riley's comment. "Your Janice? Wouldn't she either be your sister or just Janice, or did you start getting all possessive recently?" She was babbling as she set up the board and laid out all the different pieces. She was grateful to have a nice little hospital table to work off. "Right, um...I don't think there's enough pieces for everyone, but that's okay. We'll make this work."

Looking around at everyone, she gave a huge smile. Her eyes were starting to water. "You really are the best, you know that, right? I love you guys. The best family a girl could have."

Mood swings ahoy. Beware when sap turns to anger.

[Danny Silverman]

Danny wasn’t all together sure he should have come to this, but when Leila greeted him, he relaxed enough to smile at her. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, shyly. “You can take the flowers out and put in real ones. I just hate it when flowers die, so I thought it might be nice.” And he went to set them down, completely forgetting that he hadn’t introduced himself. He waved as Josh entered, and then Riley did, and he brightened perceptibly. He didn’t know that Riley’s grin was unusual in any way, but it was nice to see. He smiled shyly back up at him. “Hey.” And then he blushed and turned to wave at Ben. However, he did notice the way Ben said hi to Cobalt, and an almost…well, mischievous look appeared on the small man’s face. Hm. And the way Cobalt was reacting? HM.

Of course, Cobalt also handled the introductions better than he did. “Cobalt and I lived at the same orphanage,” he chimed in. “And you’ll like Life, Cobalt! Haven’t you played before? But don’t worry about it. It’s not hard. Should we have teams?” Then his brow furrowed as something else the other man had said sank in, and he leaned to mumble to his oldest friend, “She doesn’t really eat people, does she?” She seemed nice enough, and he smiled back at her when she smiled at him.

“I don’t know if I’m famous,” he mumbled. “But yeah. That’d be…fun.” Actually, that smile was kind of making him nervous. He shied back next to Riley, except for when Leila’s eyes watered. Then he stepped forward with a tissue before retreating again. He didn’t know her all that well, so he didn’t quite know what to say to the rest of it. He was sure he’d love Leila once he got to know her, but right now he was just a visitor trying to be there for his friend and get to know the rest of them.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"Just a suspicion." Josh replied to Leila's teasing question. More than a suspicion, really; he'd been bored enough when he was recovering at Sean's to bicycle to the mall while heavily drugged. He assumed that being stuck in the hospital while aware and with hospital staff hovering constantly must be enough to drive her mad. Particularly since Leila was an active young woman, not one to be happily confined.

As he'd never noticed Riley's reaction toward him, almost a year after meeting the landscaper still oblivious to the fact that there had ever been a crush, he certainly didn't notice that the other man was acting coy with Danny. And in any event, he wasn't actually certain whether or not Riley and Stephen were still an item. Much like Danny he did notice the awkward flirtation between Ben and Cobalt, though this was due as much to his own experiences with sexually--charged friendships; he was still pretty sure that their falling out had everything to do with lowered inhibitions resulting in unexpected sex.

However, he said nothing of this, instead offering Cobalt a grateful smile for approving of his book offering. "They're some of my favorites." He admitted, feeling cheerful thanks to his gift being accepted so graciously by both Leila and his friend.

It was entirely possible that he had subconsciously picked up on their father/daughter dynamic and thus felt that Cobalt had some say in whether or not his gifts were acceptable.

"Teams is an excellent idea." He grinned at his fake twin in appreciation. He hoped that their impromptu photography session hadn't made things awkward between them forever; not when they'd just begun to be friends again.

[Riley Adams]

Danny's shy smile was met with a softened one on Riley's face. Glad for Leila's enthusiasm over his offering, Riley settled into the background happily. He let everyone speak over him until Leila brought light to his stumble.

"Um..." he laughed nervously. "No...well, I'm always possessive of my own sister I was just...um," again he laughed nervously, scratching his bearded jaw. "Not important." He waved a dismissive hand and joined the conversation when it turned to the boardgame.

"I'm good with teams too." Riley nodded with a smile, avoiding turning to Danny as he suddenly found the floor all too fascinating. Then he looked up at Leila and grinned. "If you don't mind, we could team up."

[Benjamin Rhodes]

Cobalt's response had Ben chuckling and he shook his head. No reason to be awkward. They were among friends. Who still didn't know that he and Cobalt had started...something. He might have to start the ball rolling since he knew the shadow manipulator wouldn't unless threatened. By Leila.

Should he though? He suddenly realised, besides Yulia, he really didn't know the other occupants of the room. Not as well as he knew Cobalt and even then he didn't really know the older man all too well. So his thoughts reverted to their original course. Say nothing.

The smile on his face didn't leave though as he stole glances at Cobalt as he interacted with people he was obviously comfortable with while Ben stood by Yulia. And when Leila started tearing up and Danny handed her the tissue, his smile softened. He was sure he was going to love Leila eventually, much like Danny was sure of it.

"Teams sounds like a good idea." Ben piped up after Josh.