ph_logs | [Open] All the Leaves are Brown

[Open] All the Leaves are Brown

Who: Sally Boyle and you!
What: Arrival, opening up shop, a few odds and ends.
When: From now until it is no longer useful!
Where: Jack's Marina and around town.
Warning(s): Illicit substances, references to the death of a child, possibly more. Will update as needed!

-I've Been for a Walk-

To Yorick's credit, he did his best to lead Sally through the motions of getting settled in Pumpkin Hollow. He was kind and patient and a silly old thing. And yes, the town is cursed, room at the inn, work options, food vouchers, blah blah, that's all well and good but the whole time Sally had only one thing on her mind.

Where is Gwen?

The very minute that Yorick and Mayor Poe turn her loose again, she forgoes the tavern entirely and makes a beeline straight for the beach. Huddled in the sand, she sits and watches the docks with her rail-thin legs hugged tightly to her chest, hoping to see the ferryman return with her infant daughter.

Part of her hopes he doesn't. Because that would mean...

But if she isn't here, then what happened to her? If Sally didn't survive the crash, where does that leave Gwen? At least if she was here, they wouldn't have to be apart. Sally could find a way back... for both of them. Or maybe make a new life for the pair of them here. But what if little Gwen didn't get that chance?

It will be a while before the ferryman returns, but he will bring Guinevere Boyle with him. However, Sally doesn't know that. So she will wait here on the beach even as night falls.

-He Knows I'm Gonna Stay-

It takes a few days, but once Gwen arrives and Sally signs up for work as a physician, the pair are finally settled in. (Sally makes it clear to Mayor Poe that her expertise is in pharmaceuticals and she is, first and foremost, a chemist, but that she's got a lot of experience with first aid as well.) It's a small place, but it's theirs. A small drugstore and simple clinic with a small apartment on the upper floor. It has a study, but Sally converts it to a nursery.

Thus, the Blackberry Apothecary is born.

Basic clinic services and injury treatment is available here, along with all manner of helpful medicines made from local herbs.

And maybe some more interesting things if you ask the right questions. She does, after all, remember the recipe for Joy.

-California Dreamin'-

With Gwen strapped to her chest and a bag slung over her back, Sally ventures out into the woodlands to collect necessary herbs and flowers for her apothecary before the chill kills them off. Sage and rosemary, ginseng and yarrow, foxglove and poppy. If anyone approaches her while she's out foraging, she'll spit out a customary Wellington Wells greeting like a reflex.

"Lovely day for it!"

-Wildcard-
Always open to ideas!

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Hawk's been getting the lay of the land for the last little bit. He's still looking a little scruffy, but he's feeling a lot better than he has for the last forever. Actual decent food, a nice soft bed, not having to share his space with ignoramuses, no unexpected wake-ups. It's the first full night's sleep he's gotten in over a year!

Or, y'know, it would be, except for the nightmares.

He does swing by the apothecary's on his way in to get groceries, though. With any luck he won't have to deal with another blemish on the face of the medical profession.

"Knock knock," he calls as he sticks his head in the door, "is the doctor in?"

"She sure is! Lovely day!" The woman inside has stylishly close-cropped brown hair that's a bit lighter in the front, a perky and informal English accent, a ridiculously petite frame, and a baby strapped to her back. "Welcome in, what can I do for ya?"

"Oh!" he startles just a little bit in pleasant surprise. A lady doctor! What will they think of next!

"Lovely doctor too!" he chimes, making his way over to the counter, "Hawkeye Pierce- I'm one of the doctors that just got here, wanted to see about stocking up for my clinic. Feels like I'm introducing myself to everyone these last few days- I'll have to make myself a sandwich board to wear around town."

He leans an elbow on the counter, rakishly.

"So what are we working with here. Eye of newt or something with names people outside the medical profession can't pronounce?"

Sally lets out a bright laugh at the compliment. Ooh, flirty. That's fun. Ever since coming here, it's been nothing but a parade of beautiful men coming into the shop to call her pretty. This is a great island, curse be damned.

"Why thank you! You're not bad yourself, if you don't mind my saying. And yeah, it's like that when you first show up, but it's a small town. You'll be a household name in two shakes."

She joins him at the counter, casting a look at her stock. "Mmm, it's a bit of both. I'm a chemist by trade, but my gear and resources are very limited, so I do the herbalism thing too. Works in a pinch if you know your stuff!"

The island has been a decent procession of beautiful people for Hawkeye, too, all things considered.

"Oh I do mind, but I won't hold that against you if you let me hold something else against you," wink.

"Let's hope so, I'd hate to find out I don't deserve my infamy back home. Now for-" he starts, but then stops when her back turns a little.

"Is that your kid?" he asks, voice suddenly lower and a little more... reverent?

"Oh, behave!" Sally teases, lightly batting his shoulder with the back of her hand.

At the question, though, she looks back at Gwen. "Oh, yeah! That's my little girl, Gwen. We came together, which is, ah. Well, it's bittersweet, but I'm glad we're together."

"I never do," Hawkeye warns. But sorry, Sally, he's laser focused onto Gwen and has already shifted into baby talking.

"Hi little lady!" he coos, beaming, "you're a cutie, aren't you. Who's the best little apothecary assistant?"

Oh, right, pharmaceuticals, what he was here for.

"Sorry, always nice to see a happy kid. Alright- what are we working with in terms of drugs for heart-rate? Like adrenaline or atenolol? Oh- and sedatives? You don't have a box of halothane back there, do you?"

As is her way, Gwen mostly stares at him as if the sight of him surprises her, but smiles and giggles at the baby talk.

"No worries! Let me have a look." Sally turned to her shelves, fetching bottles. "Let's see, adrenaline yes, atenolol isn't one I've heard of. Wrong era, probably." She quickly accepted that people are from different time periods here shortly after her arrival, so she's casual about it. "Halothane I'm working on. I really need better lab equipment, everything here is dated. I'm from 1964, for the record. Right now, it's just laudanum and an old school methyl ethyl ether unfortunately, but I will absolutely keep you posted. Trying to move away from opium."

"'64?" he asks, "hell- you're further ahead than I am, I should be taking recommendations from you."

He looks over the bottles, nodding as she speaks.

"I can work with ether, we had to make do sometimes when our supplies got low. Good call though- we definitely don't want to be handing out opium willy nilly. What else does the chef recommend? You got like antibiotics back there?"

"Ah, well. I was from a pretty isolated place, so maybe word just didn't make it 'round. Wretched little archipelago called Wellington Wells. Let's see, antibiotics..."

Sally moves to a different shelf, leaving Gwen facing Hawkeye from her sling on Sally's back. She makes a raspberry at him.

"Gwen, darling, you shouldn't say things like that about our new friend!" Clearly a fart-sound is a dire insult, after all. "So, I have a few herbal anti-microbials and a tetracycline I was able to extract from farm soil... Penicillin is still a work in progress. Gotta wait for the exact right type of mold to grow on a particular kind of fruit. It might be a while."

"You didn't get the uh- the journals in?" he asks, solely out of curiosity. Medical journals made it as far out as Korea for experimental techniques and case studies, and. Surely the war didn't last until '64, right? John Jay said it only ran for three years.

Hawkeye makes a mock-offended gasp and blows a raspberry right back at her.

"You're a gem, that'll do. What's the mould look like? I've only worked with it out of a vial, but if any of my groceries go bad with the right kind of mould, I'll bring it over."

"Probably not. Like I said. Very isolated. I think the train stopped running to the mainland in the 40's. It was--- a very bad place where everyone was absolutely batty on psychoactive drugs. I still know how to make them, actually."

Better to deflect and talk about the funny bits. Well, they're funny out of context at least.

"Tends to be green, either vibrant lime green or seafoam, and grows in a circular pattern, kind of like when you drop ink in water. Tends to grow on melons and other fruits. That doesn't narrow it down much, so it has to be tested. My friend Eddie is working on a greenhouse, so I was gonna ask him, but it never hurts to have more than one pair of eyes!"

"Not what I thought the future was going to be like, but hey, if you have to be batty on something, probably better to be on drugs than high on patriotism."

Hawkeye turns a page to note down what Sally says, nodding.

"Oh hey- I know Eddie, real swell guy. That's good to know- I don't know how much fruit I'm gonna be getting in my groceries, but I'll see what I can do. You need a hand with anything else? Don't know how much use I'll be but I've got a still up and running if you need alcohol for a tincture or something."

"Oh, we had plenty of patriotism too. It's just that in 1947, something very, very dreadful happened, and people couldn't cope. So we started making drugs to make them forget and be happy and it got out of hand. People died for it." It's not the whole sordid affair, but that's the gist. Hawkeye doesn't need her sob story on the first meeting.

"Anyway, I can't think of anything else I need at the mo', but I'll be sure to let you know!" Sally's smile returns quickly. "By the way, you settling in alright?"

Well, he guesses it wasn't the Black Dahlia case. And that was two years after the war ended, it probably wasn't bombing- he remembers the previous years before it, the black-outs, the news stories of the blitz on the radio. But she changes the topic, and so he leaves it where it is.

"Oh, it's been great. I'm half considering seeing if I can find any fleas to make myself feel more at home. Maybe give myself dysentery for old time's sake. It's so homey here I don't know what to do with myself. This is the longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep I've had since I was a kid."

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[Open] All the Leaves are Brown

He Knows I'm Gonna Stay

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