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"No, no, you hold it like this, and I jam it up your ass if you get it wrong again!"

The redhead man Virginia was addressing pulled back uncomfortably at her threat, as did the gaggle of men and women surrounding her. Probably a good idea - she already looked cranky enough this morning. Even before you considered how the layers and layers of deodorant and febreeze couldn't quite mask the telltale scent of whiskey that wafted off her clothing as she sneered at the group.

Her irritation had a clear source: the man, and the way he insisted on not holding this damn scalpel correctly. It was really starting to piss her off. How many times had she covered this for him? How much of her life had been wasted emphasizing exactly where he should grip the handle, the precise location where his thumbs and fingers should be? How did he still not get it? This was maddening. A real surgeon would've gotten thrashed to hell and back if they ever tried to use his lacksidasial hold.

Perhaps that was where most of her frustration stemmed from. He wasn't a real doctor, the people around them weren't real nurses, and the patient on the table wasn't a real person. He was a dummy, and the improbably attractive men and women dressed up in scrubs around her were actors, huddled around one of the numerous sets that were a staple of the Los Angeles television industry. A bunch of professional liars, pretending badly to be medical professionals.

If this scalpel wasn't a dull prop, she would've been making good on her threats.

Yet no such luck was to be had today. Virginia had no weapons here, besides the death-glare she was shooting at all the actors - and at the director as he waved for her to come over. A Texas-sized roll of the eyes accompanied her shoving the scalpel back into the lead actor's hand as she stormed over, trying to prepare herself for the latest complaint.

The episode's director, a pudgy man with a beard he probably thought made him look like Speilberg but that just emphasized his unimpressively fat neckline, rubbed his temples in frusration as she approached. "Okay, okay," he muttered, more to himself before he addressed the brunette, "Thought we'd been through this, MacLeod. This is not your job."

"Oh yeah? Cause I thought my job was to make sure you Captain I Don't Know A Thermometer From An EKG Machine over there doesn't make an ass out of himself!" She motioned to the redheaded man looking nervously at them both. "God knows he'd be doing that constantly if I didn't step in and do something!"

The director sighed. "No, as a Technical Consultant, your job is to consult. It's not to storm onto my set and yell at my actors."

It wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation, and if she wasn't so hard to fire right now, it would have been the last - but alas for both of them, he was stuck with MacLeod. "Look, Kowalski said he needed you to take a look at the terminology on one of the scripts, so... could you maybe take care of that? And not come back while we're shooting, please?"

"If you're gonna tell me to fuck off, just tell me to fuck off."

"Fuck off."

"There, see!" She threw her hands in the air, then clapped them together at stomach level. "Was that so fucking hard?!"

With that little display and plenty of unamused looks from the crew, Virginia stormed off, making for the crafts table rather than the writer's room. She needed a goddamn drink, but in lieu of that, she'd take some cake, or some snacks, or something. Anything that didn't involve talking to some asshole who wanted her there about as much as she wanted to be there herself.

Hard to say why she'd even taken this stupid job. No, that wasn't true - she'd taken it because the Hero Program was insisting she do something besides hit the gym like a sack of bricks or drink herself to sleep during her free time. Something about her mental health. When she'd finished stifiling her laughter at that oxymoron, the gunslinging doctor had reluctantly agreed to take up a position as a technical consultant for a few weeks, working on a medical drama with an endorsement from some Hollywood bigshot.

Sauntering up to the table and grabbing a donut, her eyes scanned the crowd and noticed the reason that they'd picked this particular show. At the same time as she was working on it, so was a certain fire-haired girl. Nova. Or, as they'd told her when both women got to learn each other's identities, Francine Bell. Quite possibly the most obnoxiously nice girl in California, an actress far prettier than Virginia could hope to be who had her own little part on this show, for a little while. Someone to watch her, maybe make sure she didn't shoot anyone. A real pisser, really. She didn't talk to Bell much, but every time she did it felt like she was drowning in some suffocating sea of pure niceness that made her battered skin crawl with repulsion.

And because this day could only get worse, Bell seemed to spot her. Virginia groaned internally as she prepared to be forced into social interactions with the girl.

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When it came to tv shows, Francine knew her stuff. She was easy to work with, kept up that cheerful look and most importantly she looked good in the costume she'd been provided. This particular show, The Concierge mostly concerned a private doctor in a ritzy neighborhood but every now and then it would veer in to an actual hospital setting. Her character for the brief run of her contract was a rival love interest for the brother of the titular concierge, and he was a pretty fun guy to play off of. Super nice, handsome, lots of connections.

The two were in the middle of a scene in the neighboring studio, the stage was set in a very nice mini-mansion, a big glass window in the tropically-decorated home looked over a fancy pool with a waterfall and Francine sat across from him in a gorgeous blue party dress that she'd just have to buy from the studio later. He was dressed in a black suit. The redhead leaned in closer to show him a website on a prop phone, miming pointing out herself in photographs.

"... Right there we're in the middle of a shoot, we traveled all the way to Maui just for these scenes. Fan-tastic place, and it'd be so cool to go back there..."[/color] Her natural cadence and California accent were swallowed up by a New York tenor, she gave the other actor a sly smile and a wink. They leaned in closer, he was about to give his line before the dramatic interruption and his phone rang in his pocket. A bit early but he rolled with it.

"Hold on, this looks important. It's my brother, he's..." The phone number wasn't one in his phone, it probably wasn't anything, but he played it off up until the director shouted out.

"Cut! Good take you two. Clarence, nice save, Frankie I'm loving that accent. We're gonna break for--" The director, a slim man in his fifties, was interrupted by the sound of yelling from in the hallway. If they'd been a few moments earlier whoever it was would have ruined it! "The hell're they yelling about over there? Anyways, lunch break, y'all clear out for a bit. Good work, keep it up and we'll have this season done a little early!"

At that the crowd of studio staff dispersed, some heading to the break rooms or the lounge while most went out to their cars to get away from the studio. And who did she happen to run in to but her new consultant?

Virginia MacLeod was a gun toting super hero doctor, or something along those lines. They hadn't interacted much before the hero program put them in contact, she was kind of a hermit and Doc Holliday was almost the opposite of Nova. Nova was a charismatic, cheerful, optimistic savior type but Virginia was really more of a dark spooky vigilante. But the woman had saved plenty of lives and that was good enough. Francine had piped up that the show she was in production of needed a medical consultant and the next thing you know, here she was. It was a good thing no one on set thought the towering doctor was here by relation to her, because from what she'd heard she was miserable to work with. Didn't mean it would keep her from popping up by the snack table to serve herself up a small salad.

"Hey there, Virginia! How's it going? Learning lots about showbiz?"[/color] Frankie asked cheerfully, looking up at that sour face and giving her a nice warm grin. It was kinda hard not to cough though. The overwhelming cloud of perfume-trying-to-hide-booze smell was almost worse than always-smells-like-booze Charlie on the other set. "I heard you've really been butting heads with the director and the other actors. Do you, uh, need to talk? Maybe work something out? or take a break? C'mon, I'm here to help. Everyone working on this show's super nice, I mean except for Steve but you don't even have to work with him. I know it has to be a big switch from actual medicine to Hollywood medicine, maybe I can help!"[/color]

It was worth the offer at least, Francine offered her another smile after brushing some strands of bright red hair out of her face and selecting a particularly nice looking apple off of the snack table. If she ended up running her mouth she wouldn't get much of it eaten anyways. "I need to go outside anyways, I heard it feels perfect today."

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Cute, perky, and intolerably sweet. Yeah, that was Bell, alright. Struggling to not say something nasty, Virginia stuffed a donut in her mouth as the other heroine spoke. Munching on slightly stale dough and chocolate frosting as sprinkles stuck to her upper lip was the only thing that prevented her from digging an ever deeper hole for herself.

The redhead offered to talk - because god knows she was plenty good at that. The girl could go on for hours, filling in the holes in conversation that Virginia’s own grouchy tendency towards silence tended to create. Maybe there were a perfect pair to team up, then - Virginia could just stand there looking irritated, and Francine could do all the talking for both of them. And apparently she could also shoot lasers out of her ass, so… that was probably useful.

Christ, her life had gotten weird lately.

Swallowing a bite of mediocre pastry, the gunslinger shrugged. “Californians are assholes, I guess,” she muttered, repeating a concept her father had often emphasized. The man wasn’t exactly a fan of people on either coast - just that Texan bias at work, she supposed. “Uh…. where you going?” Truth be told, she could probably use some time away from this set. Maybe go get some lunch, or just screw off to the beach, hang out in the water, steal a few glares at some of the girls running around in bikinis.

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Francine hadn't expected much, but the gruff 'Californians are assholes' wasn't it. She puffed out a cheek and crossed her arms indignantly, shooting back with "I'm Californian and I'm not an asshole!"[/color] but Virginia had done a decent job of dodging the question. She shook her head and let out an exaggerated sigh.

"'Ginia what are we gonna do with you? I know Dale isn't the best director in the city, he's not Spielberg or anything, but he's a good guy, ratings are up from last season and we're streaming a ton on Netflix! Just... try to lighten up a little okay? People are starting to talk and not the kind you want. Trust me!"[/color] Now did Frankie expect Virginia to take her advice to heart? No not really, but she had to put in a little bit of effort. It was really nice having someone nearby who understood how much work her other job was, or even knew she had one, someone who could cover for her if something happened and she had to disappear for a few minutes. She didn't want her miserable... or making the rest of the crew miserable either. Frankie straightened her hair and adjusted the stylish belt around the dress and moved on to the next topic of the day.

"So, since you're staying in LA I thought maybe I could help show you around town a little more, some of the places around here are a little more expensive than the others, especially here around the studio. The really good ones are hidden unless you just want me to buy lunch. It's not like our side hustle pays that much,"[/color] She said, pulling out her phone in its slim orange case and flipping through her preferred foodie app for a decent place. What did Virginia even like? Frankie wasn't going to be hungry for a while yet... "So how's the place you're staying at? Like, a motel right? And you're gonna be staying here a while, isn't that gonna get annoying?"[/color]

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She knew damn well that Francine was a Californian. The potential offense didn’t bother her much.

Sure as hell filled gaps in a conversation like a Californian. Going on about the rest of the cast and crew, and Netflix, and of course, about how Virginia was rapidly outpacing Dale as the least liked person on the set. Yeah, that didn’t surprise her. Throw her into a group of Army boys with raging testosterone who responded best to snark and pushback, and she did great - toss her into the ring with a pack of Hollywood types, and she failed spectacularly. Not wired to deal with that type, she supposed.

Francine seemed to deal with it far better, and what’s more, she offered to get Virginia away from this situation where she was falling on her face so much. God, that’d be nice. Much nicer than her ‘motel’. Or more accurately, the backseat of her old Ford pick-up. She was plenty used to sleeping in awful conditions, so that hadn’t been much of a change - but she sure as hell wasn’t about to admit that she was effectively homeless in LA, solely because too much of her money was going into bad decisions to really afford a place. Rents out here were insane.

“Yeah, alright,” she grumbled, wiping some sprinkles off her nose. “Could use real food. You know any good Indian places? I was in Berlin for a bit and there was this one place near the base that was, like…. god-tier.” She’d have killed to find tandoori chicken that was as delicious as that hole in the wall back in Germany.

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Sure Frankie could hold a conversation with herself (and occasionally did depending on who she was rambling at) but sometimes it would be nice to get some input from the other party. But whatever. Virginia was gonna have to try a lot harder to drag HER down, that was for sure!

But she did finally pipe up about lunch. Indian food? Not her favorite, but... Frankie typed a few letters in to her app and let the autocomplete finish the weird Indian name she always messed up the spelling on. "Indian food, I'm not a super big fan, but I do have a place I usually go when someone else wants it, it's this place called Nirlep Indian Cuisine or something. I just need to get out in to the sun, I've been inside all day, it's already two thirty I'm starting to get claustrophobic in here. And it's not even a small studio!"[/color]

Okay so an army girl was probably gonna think she was a frail little flower petal for saying that but whatever, she was already on her way to the door, presumably with Virginia in tow. They'd be taking her car of course; she was NOT being plastered all over the Enquirer riding in some beat up old truck. The sleek orange sports car sat glittering in the sun, freshly waxed and polished that morning and with her purse safely tucked away in the trunk. She sat down in the driver seat and turned the key in the ignition, the aggressive rumble of it starting up pure music to her Beverly Hills ears. She patted the passenger seat with her free arm and hit the button to start the hatch roof folding down in to the back"It's a nice day out so I'm putting the top down, go ahead and get in. You can fix the seat how you need to. It's just a few minutes up the road. I heard they have a lunch special that's to die for."[/color]

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Claustrophia? Feh. Virginia was pretty sure that Frankie didn't know the meaning of the word. This set wasn't the most wide open place in the world, but compared to the backseat of a Humvee or interior of an overloaded transport helicopter, it was as big as the Ponderosa. Yet more evidence supporting her growing hypothesis that the redheaded superhero had lived just a little bit of a sheltered life up until this point. Maybe. Just slightly.

Eager to gather more proof, she shrugged and followed, tossing her half-eaten donut off into a bin as they weaved through the crew and filming equipment to reach an exit. Before long, they were outside, and Frankie naturally led Virginia to her own car, rather than letting the gunslinger drive her around in some beat-up old truck with an iffy transmission. That was a reasonable enough decision; less so was the paint job that greeted her eyes as they approached the vehicle.

Oh boy.

"It's... orange." Her obvious observation was more an expression of shock than anything else. And here she thought something couldn't get any more orange than Frankie's hair. Life, uh, found a way. "Yeah, yeah, that is definitely orange."

The doctor tried to swallow down repeating the same comment over and over, instead focusing on pulling on her aviators as Frankie put down the top. Stupid sun was blazing in her eyes and trying to blind her in this damn over-sunned city. With a sigh, she hopped over the door, proving herself decently nimble for as lanky and muscular as she looked.

With a thud she plopped down into the seat, enjoying the comfort of some far better seating than what her truck posessed. She glanced over at the girl who was about to be driving her... and noticed in surprise how the controls were set up. Well then. "You drive a manual? Really?" Her eyebrows raised. "I'm not complaining, stick-shifts are what god intended, but... seems rare around here."

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Virginia was suitably stunned by her choice in vehicle. It wasn't a surprise really; people who weren't used to the glitz and glamour of Beverly Hills would look at her ride and see a car they couldn't afford with a lifetime's worth of saving. It was sleek, powerful, beautiful, and it's paint job bright as the person driving it.

"Yep, it's orange all right! My favorite color. I had it pink a few months back but it wasn't really my style y'know? It looked TOO girly. I'm planning to take her in soon to get some flames on the side. Or maybe checkers? Something cool like that,"[/color] Francine replied as she whipped her baby out of the parking lot and in to drive. And then Virginia had another comment!

Francine flipped her Ray-Bans out of her cup holder and on to her face with a smile and a style that oozed confidence. She was in her element. Top down, hot sun shining, styling and profiling... She didn't even mind being in the studio dress. "I think that's the nicest thing you've said to me yet, 'Ginia, thanks! I could've gone with the automatic model but there's just something cool about getting the engine up there all by yourself. Feels more powerful that way! So anyways, like I was talking about in the studio..."[/color]

Francine talked as the engine boomed, the little sports car whipping like a knife in to the busy Los Angeles street and falling in to place behind a refurbished 1950s Cadillac that sparkled in the sun almost as much as her own car. "I know you're really smart when it comes to medicine, you saved lots of people's lives, but what makes for good medical practice doesn't always make for good TV; you've gotta have the little breaks from reality to keep things interesting. Like, really you're not going to have a blood test and get back the results in twenty minutes, they took three weeks at the MNRU to get mine back, right? And like, lighten up just a little. It's just a TV show, y'know, you don't have to stress so hard over it. Have a little fun! The cast is pretty fun to work with if you don't threaten to hit them.

And hey, thanks for taking this job with me, yeah? I know you probably have stuff you'd rather be doing instead of hanging out with li'l ol me , but it's nice having someone around who knows I shoot lasers and sometimes I'm gonna take a little while longer in the dressing room when one of my exes decides they wanna be a supervillain,"[/color] Francine said, offering her co-pilot a pat on the leg and a big smile. She had to at least try, right?

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You don't have to stress. Alright, Frankie definitely didn't know her that well. Behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses, she rolled her eyes yet again at the very concept of not having to drive herself up a wall with stress over things that probably didn't matter too much in the long run. 

The rumble of the cars around them started to give Virginia a slight headache as they drove - the vehicles weren't actually that loud, but to her sensitive ears, it was like being in the middle of a packed firing range. The only evidence of this pain was the way she rubbed her temples and grimaced just a bit, and expression that she hoped could just as easily be written off as her general sense of annoyance at... everything in this city, really. She'd made it abundantly clear that Los Angeles was not a city that endeared her even slightly.

She shrugged as Frankie thanked her for taking this job. "Program told me I needed actual work anyway," she grumbled in response. Turned out that 'sitting around drinking and sleeping' didn't qualify as a real career in their eyes, and she was still a bit too young to go waste away in retirement. God, Virginia hoped she never saw days like that. "Probably gonna get fired at this rate, so I guess that was a fucking bust, huh?"