Safety In The Storm • •

[loudoun euan urquhart]

Loudoun hadn’t seen his brother since Christmas. It wasn’t really that long, but he hadn’t expected to see him again until December rolled around and Loudoun made the annual two week trip back home to Edinburgh and Scotland. Beyond Skype calls it was really the only time Loudoun saw his family, but they spoke regularly throughout the rest of the year. His brother, William, had been published in research journal at the end of last year, details about the work he did for medicine and science, and now he was stateside to give a few talks and meet a few people. A lot of what his brother had discovered and accomplished went over Loudoun’s head – he poked around with people’s thoughts and dabbled with a different breed of science – but he was thrilled at William’s success; he deserved it. From what he gathered from their last conversation before he brother took a flight to America, it meant more opportunities for funding into his research and the possibility of gaining other well known researchers to join his cause, if he could convince them while he was in the country.

William was giving his final talk in New York City on Monday, but was spending the weekend with his little brother and playing tourist. He said he needed to pick something up for his wife and son or else he’d never hear the end of it. Sick of flying, he was coming into the city by train, and had given Loudoun all the details ready for what ought to have been his arrival early Thursday evening. Loudoun had gone ahead and gotten cover for his Friday classes where necessary and instructed some of the others to use the free time to work on assignments that he was expecting on his desk the following week. He couldn’t leave his brother wandering around alone while he taught a few college classes. As important as his job was to him, Loudoun wouldn’t even have been alive if it wasn’t for William. Loudoun literally would give up everything for the man he was more than proud to call his brother.

Loudoun had his afternoon planned out. He wrapped up teaching at three on Thursdays, and then headed out to pick up a few groceries and things in so they could survive the next few days at least. He couldn’t drink alcohol himself, but he grabbed a six pack for his brother since Loudoun wasn’t the type to force those around him to stay sober just because he had to be that way. It wasn’t until he reached Grand Central that he actually bothered to check his phone and that was when he saw the message from his brother. The train that was supposed to be arriving in the next twenty minutes had been delayed by two hours due to a technical issue or something. He sighed, wishing he checked the damn thing earlier. He was here now though, and if he trekked back to his apartment it would only be time to leave again by the time he got settled. He had a book in his bag and he could probably grab a coffee to kill some time while he waited. He walked in the direction of the small coffee shop and fired a message back to his brother. His eyes were so focused on his phone that he bumped into the woman in front of him in the queue waiting to be served. “I’m so sorry. I’m getting as bad as my students.” He waved his phone and then put the damn thing away again. Of all the things he could have been doing, he was caught up in one of the twenty-first centuries biggest problems!

• • •

TAGGED! Freddie Bailey West
WORDS! 623!
OUTFIT! Happy & Handsome!
LYRICS! Recollect (Shapeshifters) - - - Hands Like Houses
NOTES!

[Freddie Bailey West]

Every year around this time, Freddie found herself boarding a train and heading back to where this journey really began. Malcolm had been a beautiful person and had been in her life for as long as he'd been able to. She could never forget the man she'd loved and married but she knew he would have tore into her and haunted her ass for the rest of her life if she hadn't moved on. He was actually a big reason behind accepting the offer in New York. He wouldn't have wanted her to wallow in some small town, letting life pass her by; even if said small town could use a doctor like her. Malcolm would have wanted her to get out there, dip her feet in as many ponds as she could. Freddie wasn't that girl but she was adventurous enough to accept a job offer in another state. And that brought her to New York where she'd been so busy with work that she occasionally forgot to have a life.

It was okay, really. She wasn't sure she was ready to get out there just yet, even if the friends she did have, all said she should try her hand at it; that she might be pleasantly surprised by what she found. She always said maybe, she would think about it but she never really did. She figured if it was meant to happen, it would and she was leaving it up to fate to decide. It was stupid, sure but it got her through the nights that left her a little more depressed than she ever wanted to admit and when the single glass of wine at the end of her shift wouldn't cut it for her. She transferred all her important patients to other doctors after speaking to them and getting the approval for the time off. She would only be gone a full day but she wanted to safe rather than sorry. Leaving Thursday night afforded her the time she would need to spend with Malcolm's family, have a good cry and sit out on the dock before hopping back on a train and returning to the city on a late Friday night trip.

She got to the station a little bit early because she was always nervous about potentially missing her train. She hadn't done it yet of course, but that didn't stop her from worrying. That was all she needed; to miss her train and have both hers and Malcolm's families fretting that something had happened. Although, Freddie was thinking of making this her last year of going there for the anniversary. It was too depressing and she was sad enough around this time of year. She didn't need help getting to that two bottles of wine point. Seeing that her train was going to be delayed by at least thirty minutes, Freddie headed straight for the little cafe and waited in what had to be the longest line she'd seen in a while. That was probably not the case at all, but it had been a while since she'd gotten her own coffee around the hospital. Someone was usually going and she tossed a couple bills over for someone else to grab her addiction. Settling in for the wait, she pulled her phone free to shoot her father a quick text message about the delayed train and nearly lost the phone in her hand entirely being bumped from behind. She really had to keep a better grip of it! Turning, she smiled and chuckled softly. She shook the blackberry in her hand with a guilty smile. "A crime we're both guilty of it seems."

Tag || loudoun euan urquhart
Words || 612
Clothes || Coming Soon!
Music || Fight Song --Rachel Platton
Notes || <3!

[loudoun euan urquhart]

After nearly losing his life there wasn’t a single thing Loudoun took for granted anymore. He also couldn’t say he missed the things he had been forced to give up either. He could go out with friends and not find himself staring longingly at the whiskey behind the bar; his poison of choice before he had been critically ill and waiting by the phone for the hospital to call with the good news he needed if he wanted to make it to thirty. None of that mattered to him anymore. Loudoun had his health and, fingers crossed, at least another fifty years to go before he played chess with the Reaper again. He was happy to fight for that the same way he had fought the first time around, skipping the fast food and sticking to the healthy options when he dined out with faculty members and friends. He wasn’t going to waste the second chance he had been given. It was far too precious and too many people weren’t fortunate enough to have them.

When his ex-girlfriend had broken his heart in the city that never sleeps, Loudoun had been oddly excited. He had lived to have his heart crushed. It was such a powerful feeling and one that overwhelmed him. However, his brush with death had made him a fighter and he wasn’t about to lock himself away and drown his sorrows with the only beverage his apartment held; orange juice. He had picked himself up and built a life for himself in New York City, getting a job at the university and teaching bright young minds all they needed to know about the world of psychology. After everything he needed to do more than sit in a chair and be paid by the hour to listen to other people and their problems. Teaching had been the next best thing for him with everything he knew and could do. Loudoun loved it, and it was remarkable to him that he rarely caught himself missing Edinburgh when he had vowed, once upon a time, never to leave his hometown, let alone Scotland.

Loudoun was still traditional in so many ways and there were pesky things about modern life that really got to him. E-books, for example, he couldn’t abide by, and students typing during his classes was something he forbade during the first week of every semester. He liked technology but he couldn’t be sure if they were making notes or gossiping on Facebook, and Loudoun could not tolerate rudeness. That was why he was annoyed at himself for it when he bumped into the lady in the line. “Twenty First Century for you. We’re prisoners to own electronics.” He commented, slipping his phone away, silently glad to get rid of the thing after it caused enough trouble for now. Loudoun was just glad neither of them had also been served with their order yet or else they might have ended up wearing it! Now, that would have been unforgivable to him. He had been raised so much better than that.

• • •

TAGGED! Freddie Bailey West
WORDS! 514!
OUTFIT! Happy & Handsome!
LYRICS! Recollect (Shapeshifters) - - - Hands Like Houses
NOTES!

[Freddie Bailey West]

Freddie had always known she was going to become a doctor when she grew up. She worked her ass off from the time she was very little when she had still been only playing at doctor; a game she hadn't given up through out the years. Hitting high school hadn't changed much, except maybe how the game was played but she had always been a stubborn and studious person. Her academics came first but that didn't mean she hadn't done her fair share of partying, too. It had just never been quite at that same level as everyone else; not that she had cared about that. While her classmates were chugging back beer and yelling about shots, getting pregnant and failing tests, Freddie was at those same parties, drinking silly little wine coolers, dancing and laughing with her friends. It might have meant she landed herself with an interesting reputation but Freddie knew who she was.

And the girl she had been wasn't the woman she was. People were allowed during those years to figure themselves out. That was the whole point of those teenage years. Freddie had been letting loose a little more since moving to New York. Like everyone else, she wasn't the girl she had been during those years. In many ways she was of course, she was still studious and stubborn. But in other ways she'd definitely gotten better with age like a good scotch. Not that she drank excessively. She limited herself a couple glasses of wine; a little bit more during this time of year but otherwise she wasn't much of a drinker. She had promised her husband that she wouldn't fall down that never ending tunnel, that she would continue to live her life and that was exactly what she was trying to do.

Some days it was so strange for him not to be around, even after all this time and other days it was as if he was nothing more than a fond memory. There had been a few times when she'd been reading something he would have loved in a medical journal and turned to tell him. Only he wasn't there and he would never be again. Freddie spent more time during those days wondering if she would ever really be able to move on from her husband's death. And then there were the days when she knew without a doubt that she was in a better place than she'd been before. Which was another reason why she was going to say this was the last year for making this trip. She could honour her husband in so many other ways and having to go to his parent's and relive those last days every year just wasn't healthy. They might hate her for it when she finally told them but she also knew it was time to do it.

"It's really a shame most of us have our entire lives in them. There's so much out there." Freddie said with a shake of her head. She didn't know about this man but she needed hers more times during the day than she could count. But then, it was the only way to reach her when paging her over the speaker system in the hospital wasn't an option. She was a busy woman and needed to do it between the maternity ward, the emergency room and the surgery theatres. That didn't even include her spare minutes in her tucked away office, doing all that paperwork she needed to sort through at the end of her proper shifts. There was still all the things she needed to do when she was called in because one of her patients went into labour and couldn't have anyone but her. She built up familiar relationships with the women she called patients, she made sure they were comfortable with her so she understood and welcomed the phone calls in the middle of the night.

Tag || loudoun euan urquhart
Words || 658
Clothes || Bright Brunette
Music || Fight Song --Rachel Platton
Notes || <3!

[loudoun euan urquhart]

If there was one thing life had taught Loudoun it was that plans and dreams can change. He didn’t think he’d end up teaching psychology when he first started studying it. He thought he’d have people who paid him for his help, who he saw by the hour, who he worked with to help through their problems. He had the office with certificates hanging on his walls, calling him a Doctor of the subject, but the people who came by asking him for help were students of NYU. There problems were with essays, and projects he had assigned them. They asked him about the things he spoke about in lectures and seminars, and no one sat on his couch and spilled their deepest, darkest concerns to him and expected him to delve into the corners of their psyche for answers. He offered them only extensions and further reading, sometimes simplified complicated ideas into something applicable to everyday life so they might easily understand the concept. No one paid him for the extra time, but that was only because he was salaried by the college, and his office hours were a part of his duties as a professor. Loudoun didn’t think he would enjoy teaching as much as he did, but then he knew everything had changed after his brush with death. So much had been looked at with new eyes, and a fresh outlook. He had come out of surgery a different man, a better man he liked to think.

Not that he had been some terrible human being to begin with. And he was still flawed now. Loudoun just didn’t take so much for granted now, and he wanted to make the most of the time he had. He had learnt how precious life was and there was so much he still wanted to achieve before the reaper came back for another shot at him. Loudoun knew he couldn’t go crazy and try to blow through things on his bucket list like he might die tomorrow. His body was in good health right now, but it was still fragile. He had to be careful with how he treated it, and what people he let near him. Getting sick was a rough ride and led to cancelled classes, or other professors taking his classes. It wasn’t exactly romantic or fun to vet someone’s medical history on a first date or night out, but Loudoun had to consider a few things like that when he let someone into his life.

“There really is. A whole world, in fact.” He said, remembering how many times he’d been off the grid without reception when he’d travelled. He hadn’t thought about checking his phone once then. Everything else around him had held his attention instead, and he had been entranced by the beauty of the natural world instead. He might set his classes a challenge to see if they could leave their phones and monitor the changes in their behaviour and feelings. It would work well for some of his students, he knew that. “And yet we didn’t even need them not so long ago.” He might have been showing his age a bit, but growing up the only phone Loudoun had was on a table in the hallway of the Edinburgh house he called home. It was incredible – and a little scary – how fast technology had embraced the world.

• • •

TAGGED! Freddie Bailey West
WORDS! 570!
OUTFIT! Happy & Handsome!
LYRICS! Recollect (Shapeshifters) - - - Hands Like Houses
NOTES!

[Freddie Bailey West]

Freddie understood the need to celebrate a person's life, remembering them and all they'd accomplished in their lifetimes. There were cultural traditions all over the world connecting the dead to the living. It was beautiful but at the same time, everyone grieved and remembered the dead differently. Freddie loved her family, she really did but these trips out of the city every year broke her heart all over again. How was she supposed to heal, to move on when she was thrown right back into it as if her husband had only passed yesterday. What she would have preferred was to take a couple days away, hide away in her apartment with the alcohol she rarely, if ever touched. She wanted to spend that particular day working through a bottle at random from her barely touched bar, then spend the next couple getting over the hangover that would be the result. Freddie hoped one day she wouldn't feel like drowning herself every year but she would also like to at least do it once. Down with the families, she could only work her way through a bottle of wine and talk about the "good old days". No one wanted to talk about how life moved on, how things were different than they were, how no matter how much they all wished, they couldn't bring him back.

They could only move forward and bring his memory with them. Freddie kept him close to her heart, keeping their rings on a necklace she never took off. Their families didn't know how long it had taken her to finally take her ring off her finger. And even then she couldn't toss it in the back of a drawer to be forgotten. She kept busy with work, tons of work. There were a lot of women out there having babies and she needed to deliver them. Then there was the work she was doing for grant money, writing papers and trying to get the obstetrics department updated. It wasn't bad but it wasn't nearly as state of the art as it could be and she wanted to see that it got there. She didn't take much time for herself, was probably running herself into the ground but Freddie always made sure to take a night out every once in a while and decompress, go out with some friends and just enjoy the city. She was, after all, only twenty-eight, still had plenty of life ahead of her and she wanted to experience it.

"Curious, isn't it?" She asked. "Every time our knowledge of things expands, technology to serve this new information is created and we grab onto it as though life itself depends on it. Generations before us got things done without needing to capture it for a news feed no one really gives a damn about." Freddie shook her head, getting carried away a bit. "I mean, it's a little hypocritical of me to complain, considering my phone is practically glued to me but my team need to be able to reach me if something goes wrong or if someone needs reassurances." She added with a small laugh. Unlike the teenagers snapping a picture of their salads before only eating half of it at lunch, she was a doctor and her patients were the ones who needed the most assurances; and half the time it wasn't even her own patient's calling her up, it was their significant others.

Tag || loudoun euan urquhart
Words || 574
Clothes || Bright Brunette
Music || Fight Song --Rachel Platton
Notes || <3!

[loudoun euan urquhart]

Loudoun did his best to try and keep out of people’s heads. It was very difficult not to read someone when psychology was a subject he had dedicated a good portion of his life to. He was the first person to notice someone’s quirks, anxious ticks, and often he never knew if it was a good idea to tell them or not. That was the fascinating thing about people; everyone was different. Some loved hearing about how they had these little tells that gave them away even when they thought they were playing an Oscar winning performance. Then there were others who hated knowing because it made them so aware of it that they did it more, or drastically changed and did something even more obvious to the people around them. He would tease and joke with his brother about it, but then his brother was one of his best friends. It wasn’t a family dinner unless they were jabbing each other in the ribs with elbows or threatening to throw mom’s mash at each other when she wasn’t looking.

The hospital had offered Loudoun therapy when he was going through his surgery and recovery. He had laughed, but only because he had already been forcing himself to think everything over as though he was rested up on the couch, asking himself the questions that he would have asked a patient. Ultimately, he turned it down, but he believed it was worth it for anyone else. If he hadn’t already known the thought processes and been helping himself from the start then he most definitely would have needed someone to talk to who wasn’t a doctor who also shared his DNA. It was just different for Loudoun because of his education and his family. The support and the medical attention had been there from day one. In fact, that was how he had been diagnosed so rapidly. His brother was using him as a guinea pig and something hadn’t been right. If the situation had been any different it could have been months later before Loudoun really began to show any physical symptoms of his failing liver. It could have turned out to be a different story entirely for the man who now thought teaching was one of the best decisions he had ever made.

Loudoun listened carefully, his hand finding his pocket for something to do. “Ah, but at one point, those generations before us didn’t need to exist beyond the borders of their towns. Everything was contained to their smaller worlds in our big world. It was enough for them, and obviously they didn’t need to know about something in a different time zone because it had absolutely nothing to do with them.” He said lightly, wondering how on earth some people didn’t just die from the sheer boredom of doing the same thing day in and day out with the same people. “This big city lifestyle is nowhere near as old as people think. New York might have a history, but it was once a tiny place compared to what it is today. Hard as it is to believe.” He shrugged, knowing that not everyone wanted a preaching history lesson or talk when they were waiting in line. Sometimes, Loudoun got caught up when he was vocalising his thoughts. It was a bad habit he couldn’t break.

• • •

TAGGED! Freddie Bailey West
WORDS! 564!
OUTFIT! Happy & Handsome!
LYRICS! Recollect (Shapeshifters) - - - Hands Like Houses
NOTES!