grim_encounters | [dini house investigation]

Pre-lockdown always verges somewhere between controlled chaos and actual disaster, at least for Dr. Quinzel. And honestly, she doesn't mind it all that much. While Crane is off wrapping the introductory segments in front of the house, she's going through the rooms and filming a bit of in-depth history of each. There's no telling how much of this stuff will actually make the episode. Once it goes to post-production, there's always a bit that ends up on the editing room floor, for whatever reason. It's the nature of television.

They wrap that about the time Crane starts with the last minute reminders, as per usual. Murphy's already set up in their designated home base by then, so all there really is to do is the standard lockdown procedure - which is Eddie cheerfully locking them inside for the night and retreating back to the tech van.

The flurry of activity immediately preceding lockdown mostly involves going over procedure for Caroline, since she and Mellark are going to actually be helping with the investigation. She gets called away to do intern things a couple times, but the rest of the time is spent trying to get Mellark to stay on topic. He's much more interested in chatting than actually discussing how to go about doing an EVP session or anything actually useful like that. Ugh.

In any case, they end up off to the side in the room designated home base waiting for further instructions. Well, Caroline's waiting. Mellark is... talking. Still. "You nervous at all?" he asks brightly, fiddling with a strap on the camera he's going to be carrying around.

"Um, not really," is all Caroline says in reply, but it's enough to set him off chattering even more. She really hopes someone interrupts him soon.

It's almost as if Murphy has radar for Mellark's idle chit-chat, because he zones in on it almost as soon as he walks into their designated home base.

"Mellark, quiet." He very nearly barks before settling into something vaguely resembling a less annoyed tone. "Gather your gear, kids, we're going to do the walkthrough. We'll drop you off in the basement for the EVP on the way back."

He really hopes both keep their shit together for this, as apparently entertaining as crying interns can be. Eddie's never happy when he has to clean up that audio.

Caroline's very grateful for Pendleton's arrival and silencing of Mellark, even though she knows it can't last long. She's already got almost all of her stuff on her and ready to go, so it takes only a moment for her to get all set. Mellark, however, takes a frustratingly long moment to shuffle all his gear around.

"Ready," he chirps unnecessarily.

"Congratulations," Doctor Crane says dryly, sweeping into the room. "Try not to make that your crowning achievement of the evening." He gives both interns a sharp look.

Caroline says nothing, but Mellark... "No sir," he says, snapping a small salute.

Caroline grimaces and tries to quietly edge away from him. Fortunately, it really is time to do the walkthrough, so she can fall into line with the rest of the crew. Which is actually pretty exciting, if she can ignore Mellark for at least a couple minutes.

Harley's glad the interns mostly stay out of the way once the investigation proper's begun. It probably helps that Pendleton looks incredibly murderous every time Mellark even hints he might be about to speak; the lead cameraman doesn't attempt to hide his relief when Dr. Quinzel finally shoos them away and towards the basement.

She goes over the radio's specifics again while she ushers them out of the designated home base, just in case. It's not as if she thinks they're stupid, at least not Lichfield, but... things tend to be forgotten in high stress situations. Being locked in a pitch black room with a supposed ghost or several being one of such situations, and she'd rather have the interns panic and cry at them over the radio then go and forget how the damn things work and freak out even more.

Harley, however, has maintained her genuine good cheer even in the creepy pitch-black of the Dini house. "Remember to make sure both recorders are ready and set to voice-activation before you start your session," She reminds, pausing to fumble a bit with the door from the kitchen down into the basement. "And watch your step on the stairs."

Helpful, Harley.

Once Dr. Quinzel turns them loose downstairs, Caroline leads Mellark on a brief walkthrough of the basement before settling in a likely spot to do the EVP session. Mellark follows along good naturedly enough, but he gives the distinct impression that he's humoring her. Caroline hates that. She sets up the digital recorder and states her name as a baseline. With a little prompting, Mellark does too.

Caroline dives right in before Mellark can start chattering. "Is anyone down here with us?" She pauses. "If you are, please come talk to us."

And then, sure enough, Mellark cuts in. "They told us Mister Dini hangs out down here. You in here? Did you kill those people?"

"Mellark," Caroline hisses, glaring at him.

"What?" He looks confused and has a stubborn look about him. Like he's going to be a problem. "That's what we're here for isn't it?" He smiles down at her and Caroline has to grit her teeth.

"Yes, but there's a procedure." She looks away from Mellark to generally address the room again. "Are you down here, Mister Dini?" She pauses again to leave space for an answer on the recording, but Mellark cuts in again.

"Did you kill your family? And frame the butler?" Mellark's actually shouting into the room now. Caroline groans quietly. Great. Just great.

"If anyone's down here with us, could you please come talk to us?" She asks again, hoping that maybe she can just ignore Mellark and salvage at least some of this session.

"Come on out here you coward, and show yourself!" The idiot takes a break from yelling long enough to grin briefly at Caroline, then he goes right back. "If you're here, prove it!"

Ugh, no. Caroline is just reaching for her radio to contact somebody upstairs and tell them to come get Mellark and maybe shoot him when she feels a rush of very cold air. "Mellark, hang on a second--"

"Do something, or can you only hurt little kids, huh?" Mellark seems to just be... yelling for the sake of it at this point. That doesn't even make much sense. He's standing in the middle of the room and waving his arms at the air. The suddenly very heavy, frigid air.

Caroline goes to turn on the radio, but the air is suddenly so thick in her lungs that she struggles to breathe a little. And then there's a sudden, intense pain in her side. She gasps, still choking, and switches the recorder into her other hand so she can gingerly touch her side. Her hand comes away wet. She's staring a bit stupidly at her hand when Mellark stops shouting and turns to look at her.

"Caroline? Are you okay?" All his angry bluster gone, he walks over to her and reaches out to touch her shoulder. She flinches away. "Hey, is something wr-- oh my god is that blood?" He goes pale as he shines his flashlight on her hand. "It is! What happened?" Seeing the blood on her shirt, Mellark reaches out to tug her shirt out of the way to look.

That's enough to snap Caroline out of her brief... whatever that was. "Don't touch me," she snaps, backing up. Mellark looks confused, but complies. "We should call somebody upstairs. Hang on." She fumbles with the radio a little, but switches it on. "This is Lichfield. I've been injured, should we end the session early?"

Eddie's night is going as swimmingly as it ever is, out in relative safety and shoddy a/c of the tech van. He pays just enough attention to the interns to see them get the evp underway, when, immediately, he's forced to turn his attention to the investigation in the attic. The electrical issues strike again. Jesus, it never ends.

He's mostly done troubleshooting with Murph when he hears Lichfield's voice over the radio, and.... what? He swivels about in his seat to glance back at the video feed from the basement, still muted, before responding on the radio. "Injured?" He sighs, slightly exasperated. This just keeps getting better, and he can't keep that entirely out of his voice. "How badly?"

Edited Date: 2013-10-31 12:51 pm (UTC)

Oh good, she got Nygma. "Um," Caroline begins. She's not actually sure how bad it is, other than bloody.

"There's blood everywhere!" Mellark blurts in a slightly panicky voice. He's very wide eyed and fidgety.

"Not everywhere," she huffs, "but I am bleeding." She gingerly touches her side and winces. "I think I need to bandage this before we do anything else, actually."

"There's quite a bit of a difference between those two answers," Eddie replies dryly into the radio. "As in... a bandaid versus the elevator scene from the Shining."

Still, he pulls himself together, locates a first aid kit and climbs out of the van, radioing to Crane that he's breaking lockdown to check on the interns but to continue the rest of the investigation as planned. Getting in the house doesn't take much effort, as he's got the keys. Getting through the house to the basement does, however, as it is rather dark and he lacks, say, a night-vision camera.

It's a small miracle he makes it into the basement without tripping over something.

"Still alive down here?" He grumbles loudly when he opens the basement door. He flicks on the lights before carefully ambling down the stairs. If they called him down for a splinter, so help him...

Caroline laughs a little at that in spite of herself, but it doesn't sound quite right. "It's just a flesh wound."

Mellark hovers obnoxiously close, and she has to keep edging out of the way. If he tries to touch her again, she refuses to be held responsible for what happens. Fortunately, Nygma arrives quickly enough. Caroline squints at the sudden light and tries not to fidget as he comes down the stairs.

"She's bleeding a lot and I think she might be in shock," Mellark blurts out in a rush. "She's been acting really weird."

Caroline gives Eddie a long suffering look. See what she's been dealing with down here?

Eddie snorts at Lichfield's reply, then again and even louder at Mellark's. "Oh no, anything but weird." He frowns, fiddling with latch on the first aid box. "The likelihood of it being shock is about the same as her actually being possessed."

He does manage to give Lichfield a sympathetic look in his approach, even if it is a brief one. "Alright, let's see what you--" And that's about when he notices how much blood is actually on her shirt. Oh.

Mellark reaches a hand out towards Lichfield and Eddie reflexively strikes it away hard and fast enough the intern recoils from them both, rubbing his hand.

"Go back to base and wait," Eddie barks at him, then promptly and totally ignores Mellark in favor of the actual injured party here. "C'mon, Lichfield, let's see what we're dealing with here."

Edited Date: 2013-10-31 01:38 pm (UTC)

Mellark hovers awkwardly for a moment, but leaves when Caroline glares at him and makes a shooing motion. Finally. She sighs and turns her attention to Nygma and the upcoming awkwardness of dealing with this injury.

"I actually haven't seen it myself," she admits sheepishly. "I just figured I'd better call in since I went from nothing to bleeding through my shirt." She tugs her shirt up out of the way, revealing... shit those look deep. There's three cuts along her side above her hip. And a lot of blood.

"Huh. This is a little more Shining than I thought," she says mostly for something to say. This... is definitely not what anyone would expect. At least she doesn't get queasy at the sight of blood.

Eddie winces at the sight of those cuts. They're... impressive, to say the least, and he's very glad Mellark is out of the room by this point.

"You're looking a little Carrie right now, honestly. And those are going to need stitches," He says with a tight-lipped frown. He searches through the first aid kit for a moment before producing banages.

"Keep your shirt up," Is the only instruction he gives before wiping at least a goodish amount of blood off with some off the bandages; a larger stack of them get pressed rather firmly against the wounds. When he talks again, it's another order. "Hold that there as tight as you can."

"Stitches? Are you sure?" Caroline frowns a little at that. Great. What a way to start out. She keeps her shirt out of the way without really thinking about it. She's more concerned about potentially ruining the investigation and having to deal with doctors.

She sets the radio down and presses the bandages against her side. She doesn't quite manage to keep from making a noise, but at least all she does is hiss again. God, that hurts.

"I'm close enough to sure that we're not taking any chances." Eddie sounds very matter-of-fact about that in a way that doesn't leave much room for argument.

He wipes his hands off before picking his radio back up. "Lichfield's going to need a trip to the ER. I'm breaking lockdown and leaving the site but I'll call in one of the guys to cover the tech van for me. Mellark's to sit on his hands back at base and not do a goddamn thing."

As for how they'll get to the ER, well, he does have the keys to Murphy's car. He stands, and at least has the presence of mind to offer Lichfield a hand up. That is a surprising amount of blood she's lost, after all.

Caroline fidgets nervously while Nygma radios in. Oh god, the ER. Why. This is not how she wanted to spend the rest of her night. She waves off the offered hand, only to almost immediately stumble and need to catch herself by leaning against the wall. Well.

"Oh great, now I'm lightheaded," she says mostly to herself.

Well. Eddie reaches out as soon as she starts to wobble, but she thankfully does not actually fall.

"Blood loss will do that," Eddie says as if it matters - honestly, he doesn't care. There's always time for snark. Always. Still, he wraps an around around her back, below her arms to steady her a bit. "Come on, Miss Lichfield. It's a bit of a walk to the parking lot yet."

And he'd rather her not end up with a concussion or something too from falling down the stairs.

Caroline might normally take exception to suddenly being touched like that, but not falling over is really more important. And Nygma isn't a pest like Mellark. So they slowly make their way up the stairs. She'd snark back, but she's focused on staying on her feet.

As they make their way out of the basement and through the ground floor, they pass base camp. And that means Mellark. Who jumps up from the chair he was sitting in when he sees them limp into the room.

"Caroline! Are you feeling better?" He stops his worried approach when he realizes Nygma has a supportive arm wrapped around her. And frowns at them. Oh boy, here we go.

Eddie normally really isn't one to do much in the way of invading someone's personal space (unless that someone is named Murphy Pendleton, apparently, or your otherwise on a very short list) but he's really rather more concerned with Lichfield not getting hurt further than if this is... awkward.

When Mellark starts up, Eddie honestly has even less patience for the intern than he perhaps normally would, which is saying something.

"I waved my wand and fixed it, she's fine now, obviously," He snaps in response. Bread boy can frown all he likes, as long as he does it out of Eddie and Lichfield's way. "Sit the fuck down, Mellark, and wait for Pendleton."

He pays very little attention to Mellark past that. Pendleton, however, is a lot speedier than Eddie anticipates. By the time they make it to the front door he hears a near-echo of himself in Murphy's voice, somewhere behind them back in base camp.

"Sit your ass back down," Murph growls at the intern with even less apparent patience than Eddie did.

Caroline giggles very quietly when Nygma snaps at Mellark. It'll probably be waved off as blood loss making her goofy, and that's probably contributing, but seeing Mellark get put in his place is deeply satisfying. Especially since her current state is entirely his fault. That was some Zak Bagans bullshit.

She looks over her shoulder at the sound of Pendleton also snapping at Mellark. Unfortunately, the sudden change in perspective makes her dizzy and she stumbles again. "Sorry," Caroline says with a grimace.

"Woah, ok," Eddie mutters quietly when Lichfield stumbles again, and he's glad he had the foresight to keep an arm around her. "It's fine."

Every once and a while, it strikes Eddie how little he knows about Murphy. It's not hard to tell from the very grimly calm way the lead cameraman eyes Lichfield's bloody shirt that he's rather accustomed to the sight of blood. "Ouch, kid." He starts, though quickly turns his attention back to Nygma. "What happened?"

"Hell if I know," Eddie says with a very careful shrug. "We'll go over it after she's been taken care of at the hospital."

"I'm not sure what happened either," Caroline says slowly, "but I never moved out of frame once we started the EVP session." That's something, right? This ought to be good television, at least. She tries not to wince at the reminder that she's going to be spending the foreseeable future stuck in the emergency room. She also carefully doesn't think about how her injury and the subsequent breaking of lockdown mean she's probably not going to be invited back. What an impression to make, huh?

Eddie beams at her a little for that, but it's dampened by the whole her bleeding thing. "I'll go over the footage when we get back."

"I'll go over the footage while you're gone," Murphy corrects matter-of-factly. "And take my car."

Murphy's searching his pocket for his keys is halted suddenly when Nygma produces them from his own jacket and jingles them obnoxiously. "That was the plan. I'll call with updates."

And with that, he goes back to leading Caroline out and to Murphy's shitty sedan.

Caroline is startled awake by the sound of Nygma's voice, though she's not sure what he actually said. It's been a very long night. But here they are, on the road leading back to the Dini house. She sits up a little in her seat and stretches.

"Sorry, I guess I fell asleep," she says after a moment. Bleeding everywhere and then waiting around in the emergency room really take it out of a person. Especially someone who hates hospitals and doctors as much as Caroline does. But Eddie was nice enough to go back with her, even though that had to be boring as hell. She reaches out and grabs her orange juice. She sips at it as she watches the Dini house loom into view and tries not to think about much of anything.

"It's alright, it was a long night," Eddie says with a shrug, finishing off the last of a sausage mcmuffin. It's not as if he's not thoroughly worn out, himself; spending all night in an er is a particularly taxing kind of waiting, no matter how many crosswords one has.

The parking lot's as quiet as a graveyard when they pull up. Eddie figures Murph's probably in the tech van while the investigation wraps up, or at least he assumes he is. He's careful to kill the engine and exit the car as quietly as possible - lest they still be recording - toting a bag of various breakfast foods and a couple drinks that will likely vanish very quickly.

He knocks once on the tech van door before opening it and peering in. Only to find... nothing but a post-it in Pendleton's handwriting. Gone to finish filming, will be back. Alright. He glances briefly back at Lichfield before asking, with no small amount of curiosity himself, "Want to see the footage?"

The food gets set just inside the door, and Eddie climbs up inside the van, gesturing for Lichfield to follow.

Caroline's actually awake enough now to start on her McGriddle or whatever it's called and her side of hashbrowns. Which is really a singular hashbrown. McDonald's, you make no sense. When they pull up into the completely silent parking lot, she gets out as quietly as she can. They might still be filming, and it's... just not the kind of quiet you want to break, really. But maybe she's being silly. She slowly follows Eddie to the tech van, taking another bite out of her breakfast. The van's empty, which seems a little odd.

"Oh, sure!" She goes to climb into the van after Nygma, but has to set her stuff down first. She's still not particularly steady on her feet. Caroline clambers awkwardly up into the van and scoops up her breakfast.

Eddie settles into his normal spot, scooting over far enough that Caroline could fit behind him and actually see on the monitors. There's another set of post-it nots on his laptop, with the timestaps of the beginning, end, and apparent actual activity during the interns' ill-fated evp session. He'll have to that Murphy for that later.

He digs one of those parfait cup things out of the bag of food, thoughtfully picking at it while starting the playback of the segment Murphy's helpfully cut for him. It starts off just as Mellark and Lichfield enter the basement, before they even begin.

...And by the time it's over, Eddie's gone very quiet. His lips are pressed in a thin, pale, angry line, and his dumb breakfast thing is momentarily forgotten. "Well," He clicks his tongue and inhales sharply. "It looks like that went..."

He can't quite figure out what to end that with. Eddie's never been much of a believer, so the idea of taunting a ghost isn't something he finds particularly objectionable on principle alone. But that Ghost Adventures bullshit is not the sort of show Crane is running, and frankly, Eddie would not work for them if it was. It's surprising how quickly and deeply angry Eddie is for this. Footage maybe ruined. An intern, a competent intern, injured - Harv's likely going to be very far from happy about that. Oh, boy, and he's still likely got to explain things to Crane and Quinzel.

Joy.

Caroline has to lean on Nygma's chair a bit, but she tries to stay out of his personal space. The footage is... surprisingly tough to watch. Partially because of the weirdness in seeing herself on film, but watching Mellark trot out the Bagans antagonistic bullshit is even more infuriating when she knows what's coming. She almost drops her juice when she watches herself choke on air. And then... yep, there it is. Nothing really visible but blood soaking through her shirt suddenly.

"Yeah, it sure did," Caroline says belatedly. It's occurring to her again that she's unlikely to be invited back after this... fiasco. She couldn't work around Mellark and she ended up injured badly enough to pull the tech guy away for most of the night while he babysat her in the emergency room. That's... she'd be hard pressed to think of more ways to mess up at this point. Well, she could have fallen down the basement stairs or something, she supposes.

Eddie scratches at his chin for a moment, eyeing the frame he'd paused it on. He rewinds and rewatches the injury again, giving it a close enough examination that he's...fairly sure they might have something worth showing, Mellark's stupidity aside. And Mellark will be dealt with.

"We've got something for Crane, at least." He furrows his brow and picks at his yogurt cup thing again, trying to at least sound considerably less angry than he still is. He's not angry at her, after all.

The Dini house investigation has been... unusual. Not the house itself particularly, but crew members ending up in the emergency room isn't exactly the norm. Which is good, because Dent would throw a fit if it were. In fact, he'll probably throw a fit about this anyway.

Once they finally wrap up and leave the house, Crane notes immediately that Murphy's car is back. He makes a beeline for the tech van, hoping to get some answers out of Nygma. He's single-minded enough right now to forget to knock first. Jonathan just pulls open the van doors and, sure enough, there are Edward and Lichfield. "Do you now?" he asks, climbing into the van in his usual vaguely arachnid way.

Lichfield startles and turns to look at him, and Crane gives her a once over. She's pale, looks very tired and somewhat unsteady on her feet, and is still wearing a shirt soaked in a surprising amount of blood. "All right Nygma, what the hell happened?"

It's both fitting and fittingly eerie that Crane more or less appear when Eddie mentions his name, as if summoned. Fortunately for Eddie, he's been around the good doctor long enough that this doesn't really unsettle him anymore. He barely even looks up from his computer or his food.

"I do," He answers without missing a beat. "Footage and breakfast."

Eddie pauses to pat poor Lichfield on the shoulder. She's had a very long night.

"Mellark botched the evp session." Eddie starts, chewing a bit on his plastic spoon. "Zak Bagans-style, antagonizing frat boy bullshit. Once he got going though something happened to Lichfield. Some kind of contact, I don't know - that's your particular purview, not mine - but she ended up with three deep cuts down her side."

And then, Nygma's helpful enough to swivel his laptop around to give Crane a good view before starting up the footage for him.

Breakfast, eh? Jonathan spots the McDonald's bag and reaches in, pulling out a... something. It's a breakfast sandwich of some kind, which he unwraps and digs into as Nygma explains. He glances at Lichfield, who looks distinctly unhappy. Crane raises a hand before she can add anything. "It can wait," he says shortly. "Eat something." She looks down at the half eaten sandwich in her hand with dull surprise, then nods and takes a bite.

Edward's sharp enough to have the footage ready to go for him, and Jonathan watches with interest. Sure enough, Mellark completely fucks up the EVP session, as much as Lichfield tries to keep him on track. And then she's just... suddenly bleeding. And she's not near anything that could have injured her. He's a little disappointed that she's unlikely to come back after this. A competent intern that might even attract supernatural occurrences would be a blessing.

Crane turns back to the very weary looking intern and raises an eyebrow at her. "Anything to add?"

Lichfield nods and takes a deep breath. "Right before, uh," she glances down at her side, "right before I started bleeding, it got very cold."

"Cold?" It's August, anything less than sweltering is impressive.

She nods again. "Freezing. And the air got really heavy. Um, you can see on the tape that I can't breathe for a moment there. I was just... choking on air." She fidgets and sips at whatever she's drinking. Crane tilts his head just enough to see that it's orange juice. Good.

Well that is certainly very interesting. Hopefully she can be coaxed into retelling that on camera. Crane turns to Nygma and raises an eyebrow expectantly. Well? Edward always has something to add.

Eddie chews on his thoughts while Crane talks things over with Lichfield. Ghost stuff... is really not his forte. He's there to make sure what they document is usable and, more importantly, debunk things as they pop up. When a piece of evidence does actually manage to stump him, well... that's a rare thing. And that's exactly what's happening right now.

"I can't unquestionably prove she was definitively attacked by some kind of entity with what we've got. But," he adds, raising a finger. "The thermal cam verifies a temperature drop in the room. Keep in mind, this is a very old basement, part of which was used to cold storage, at one point. The sudden temp drop is interesting but not really abnormal on its own. And the wounds... that's more dramatic, if more problematic because of it. Those things combined with the fact she was very clearly neither injured or in a position to by injured by anything else in the room, I think what we have is good enough to show it wasn't staged."

That's about as close it 'it's a ghost' as Nygma can say, really. He's not done though. "I want to dismiss Mellark. Personally." He pauses long enough to finish off his food before continuing on, frowning. "As much as the injury and the dick-swinging makes for good tv, he very nearly killed the investigation. And I want to tell him to hit the road myself."

Crane listens to Edward's analysis, mostly filing it away for later. He's sure they'll be reviewing everything very thoroughly, even moreso than usual. The remarks about the other intern, however, get his more immediate attention. And Lichfield's too, he notices. "I believe that can be arranged," he replies, smirking.

Lichfield perks up at that. "Can I watch?"

Jonathan raises an eyebrow at her. "You and half the crew, I don't doubt."

She giggles briefly, but the good humor drains out of her quickly. Lichfield looks very subdued, beyond just the exhaustion. Crane could cheerfully strangle Mellark at this point. The first competent intern they get, and the other intern goes and ruins everything. Great.

"Of course," Eddie grins, turning his gaze back over to Lichfield - and she looks... worn out doesn't quite cover it. He furrows his brows. "For the love of god, Lichfield, sit down before you fall over."

It's not a second later that Harley suddenly bounds into the van, and energetically enough one would hardly guess she's missed a night of sleep. Eddie's used to Harleen enough that he doesn't startle much.

"So are we firin Mellark yet?" She chirps brightly, digging into the McDonald's bag until she catches sight of Lichfield. Harley's eyes go a bit wide. "Holy--! You alright?"

Caroline is mostly focused on not falling over, so she startles a little when Nygma addresses her. Oh right. She looks around, but doesn't see anywhere to sit really, other than on the floor of the van maybe. Well, she could go sit in the back door, she supposes. She glances at Dr. Crane briefly, but he just nods in a vaguely impatient and dismissive manner. Okay.

She's just turning to make her way over to the door when Dr. Quinzel comes bounding in. Caroline almost drops her orange juice. She blinks kind of stupidly at the question for a moment. "Um, yeah. I'm- I'm fine."

"I saw how many stitches you got," Eddie says with an incredulous look over at Lichfield. He's fairly sure fine is not a thing she is, right now.

Harley doesn't look entirely convinced, either. She frowns very intently at the blood on Lichfield still. "I'll get ya another shirt, toots, I think I've got a spare in the car."

Caroline just shrugs kind of sheepishly at Eddie. She's okay, really. Just tired and a little depressed at the moment. She smiles a little at Dr. Quinzel. "Oh uh, thanks, but you don't have to..." She trails off awkwardly and finally goes and sits down, dangling her feet out of the back of the van.

She twists back around in time to see Crane eyeing her thoughtfully. "Would you be willing to wear that," he gestures at her bloody shirt, "on camera? To retell what you just told me."

"Oh! Of course." Caroline is pleasantly surprised at being asked to do anything else after ending up in the ER trying to do her first actual assignment.

As it turns out, the biggest hurdle to dismissing Mellark is... Pendleton. Eddie gets locked into a discussion with the head cameraman that very nearly turns into a legitimate argument before Nygma manages to convince him to relent. Mellark is obnoxious, but his biggest offense didn't actually do anything to Murphy. No, Mellark likely cost Eddie a competent assistant, and that's not something he forgives. It certainly helps that of the two of them, Eddie is marginally less likely to actually scream obscenities at Mellark and potentially get them in trouble with Harv, and they both know this.

Eventually, Pendleton grudgingly settles on just watching.

Even as he's stomping out of the Dini house to find the intern, he's not sure what he's going to say. He knows he'll come up with something really fantastic for this... but it might not be until later and, unfortunately, he can only do this once.

He finds Mellark lurking near the tech van, most likely looking for Lichfield so he can chat at her. What the intern finds instead is a very stern-faced Nygma pulling him aside.

"Do you have all your things?" Eddie asks immediately.

"Yes, I was -" Mellark starts. He's cut off before he can get any further by an unmistakable shut up gesture from the lead tech.

"We'll send your check to the address you provided," Eddie replies coolly, already starting to shepherd Mellark away from his precious tech van.

"What?" Zopf blinks. He looks surprised enough that most people, or at least people who haven't dealt with him, might feel bad.

"You're fired, Mellark," Eddie finally snaps, sneering down at him. "That stupid cock-swinging stunt of yours got someone hurt, ruined the evp session and nearly cost us the entire goddamn investigation. I want you off the property and gone. Don't call. Don't use us as reference. Just get off my set. Right. Now."

Edited Date: 2013-11-09 12:49 pm (UTC)

When Nygma goes off to find Mellark, Doctor Crane gestures to Caroline to follow him. She stares kind of blankly at him, but gets up and limps after him. He leads her a couple of cars away, where he unlocks the rear driver's side door and gestures at it. Caroline blinks up at him.

"Sit," he says shortly. "It wouldn't do for you to pass out before the show, now would it." He arches an eyebrow at her and smirks.

Caroline sits, but doesn't swing her feet in. She idly pokes at the gravel with one foot while they wait somewhat awkwardly. Crane looks over some paperwork that he got from... Caroline isn't actually sure when those appeared. But then, she's pretty out of it. After a while Mellark makes his way outside and towards the tech van, and Doctor Crane shifts slightly so that Caroline is out of Mellark's line of sight. She smiles gratefully up at him, but he either doesn't see or is pretending not to. Oh well.

Eventually Eddie comes storming back out of the Dini house and makes a beeline for Mellark. Crane doesn't even pretend to be doing anything but watching with interest and amusement as Nygma starts yelling. Caroline is grateful no one can see the huge grin on her face. She probably looks a little terrifying right now, to be honest, between the grinning and all the blood.

"I - what?" Mellark sutters out, clearly beffudled.

"Fired." Eddie repeats sharply. He's glad when Mellark turns to leave, shoulders sagging, but Mellark goes in entirely the wrong direction. "Where the hell are you going?"

Mellark frowns back at him. "I was going to talk to Caro-"

"No, you're not," Eddie corrects firmly. "You're leaving now, or Murphy is going to escort you away personally."

If asked Eddie couldn't even say he's not very grateful that Mellark gives in and slinks off sadly. The ex-intern doesn't even notice Pendleton shadowing him as he leaves. Once he's gone, though, Eddie makes a beeline for Crane. And... apparently Lichfield, who he doesn't notice until he's right at Crane's car. "Enjoy the show?"

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[dini house investigation]

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