Who: Christine Palmer and Stephen Strange What: old friends meet again When: now Rating: Green
Another day, another dollar, Christine thought to herself as she scrubbed her hands clean. Or correction -- another payment on her student loans. One day she'd be free and clear, one day.
And then she chuckled to herself because that would never happen. Sure, she was an excellent surgeon, gainfully employed but she was an ER surgeon, and she kept wanting to work on uninsured patients, much to the chagrin of the administration.
Maybe she should have listened to Stephen, gone into a more exclusive (read: lucrative field).
Stephen. Now there was a name she hadn't thought of in a while. Okay, that wasn't really true. He flitted through her mind at random points, not unlike his actual presence in her life. The last time she'd seen him was on television, during one of the last alien attacks. It'd been a shock to see him fighting along Iron Man, of all people, but she wasn't actually surprised.
Stephen always had to be better than everyone.
Stephen Strange was meanwhile casting a very elaborate spell, summoning the names of various entities to bind a dark entity in the basement, where all the other dark entities were creeping around. There were many things on his mind, big and small. The largest was the safety of the universe, the smallest was where he was going to portal to, to get tonight's dinner. Nagging at him was the feeling that he was missing something with Jane's treatment. That there was something overlooked that begged for an additional consult, or his mind would never let it go.
He needed someone he was used to consulting with. Someone who was used to quick assessments, and ones that were usually accurate even when she asked for his second opinion.
"I'd say stay put, but you're not going anywhere," he told the new occupant of the Sanctum's basement, and he went upstairs, locking the huge door and casting wards over it. He located where Christine was and portaled directly into Metro General hospital.
He did it quietly, the cape floating him through and placing his feet on the floor with absolute silence. Not sure where to begin with an reintroduction, Stephen chose to wait for Christine to turn around.
Still muttering to herself about interest rates and crooked governments, Christine turned around and walked right into one Stephen Strange.
"Jesus!" Her mouth opened wide in surprise and she stepped back, wobbling on her now unsteady feet. Speak of the devil, she thought to herself as she scanned his face. Same old Stephen, the arrogance practically his eye colour.
"You know," she said, "that cape is so last year. And really? Really? You can't pick up a phone, let me know you're not dead or something but here, in a sterile room , you just whisk in, and make me have to rewash my hands." She glared. "Thanks. I wasn't planning on working today or anything."
The cape instantly drooped as though its tender feelings were deeply wounded.
"If you weren't in such a rush," was Stephen's dry but amused response, "then you wouldn't bump into people behind you. It could have been anyone. Didn't I tell you about that before?"
He nodded over to the sinks with a smirk, and quickly explained his reason for being there, "I need to fill you in on an unusual case I'm consulting on, while you're washing your hands again. Strictly confidential, between you and me."
"So great to see you too, Stephen," she responded with fake cheer. Sometimes (okay, most times), it fell on her to remind the good doctor that humans had little rituals like 'manners' and 'conversation'. She was okay with that role, chattering on.
"Oh me? Yeah, it's been pretty busy. I got myself a new place, down in Tribeca, and yeah, don't laugh, but it was a great deal so I went with it. Parsons is still trying to snag me for his private clinic but it really feels wrong to work for that man. I swear, he has money symbols on his boxers." Her hands were almost clean again, and she reached for a towel. Thankfully, she had just finished a surgery, or else she was sure he would follow her in.
"It's almost like you're trying to prove some sort of point," Stephen said with a squint.
He moved alongside her, leaning while one side of the cape moved out to rest against the wall much like an arm would.
"Let's go down the list," he replied, in his usual dry tone of voice that he used when there was an agenda he was honed in on, a task that needed completing. "Tribeca's been purged by gentrification. Not a horrible choice. As for Parsons, what happened to wanting to help the little people who need it most? You know, the ones that keep coming in with bullet holes, you patch them up, and they're back again with more bullet holes. Oh, and it's great to see you too. Now, about that consult...."
Christine sighed. And then sighed again. And one more time for good measure, so Stephen could fully understand that he was being infuriating.
Still, she crossed her arms in front of her chest. If she didn't answer his question, he'd just keep staring at her awkwardly in a way that made him superior and her not and just...no.
"What's so special about this consult?" she asked, exasperated. Noises were going off in the hallway, and it took everything in her not to rush and check. Short-staffed like always, she'd been helping with some of the general practice stuff.
Actually..
"Talk and walk. I gotta do rounds."
Oh, Stephen understood it. The problem was that it amused him that he could get under Christine's skin so easily, so he wasn't going to do anything to change it. That would mean doing things like apologizing for what happened in the past. He considered the possibility of being allergic to two things: being wrong, and apologies.
Skipping ahead, he was staring at her with only mild superiority. He did need an extra set of eyes on this.
As the cape pushed him upright away from the wall, he gestured with one hand for her to lead the way and started talking. His clothing changed to average clothing - a hoodie over a t-shirt and jeans - so he wouldn't look like he was an escapee from a cult. Or perhaps to save him from her jokes about that.
"The consult is for a noted astrophysicist," he began to explain, walking side by side with her. "She just happens to be dating a Norse demigod. She's developed leukemia, and it's the sort that shows past high dose radiation exposure. Six months, if she's lucky. I realize you're not oncology. But I know for the past few years that you've seen people coming in, not realizing why they feel so sick."
Christine furrowed her brow. A Norse demi-god and a noted astrophysicist? Now, she wasn’t usually one for gossip, but that was a dead giveaway if there ever was one.
"So Dr. Foster has cancer." And of course, like usual, Stephen was right: she had seen a lot of unusual cases going through the ER recently. Some, she'd referred on and stayed slightly involved. Other times, she didn't and watched them walk away with strange symptoms, only to hear of their death later on.
"Was she there? That last battle?" Christine grabbed a random flipchart and scanned it, her brain going a million miles. "You know, the amount of radiation poisoning we saw here..." She shook her head. "Threw us all off. Not something I've really seen, outside of medical texts... and some of it actually was treatable, which blew us all away too.". She gave a little jazz hand motion. "Let me guess: it's all magic. Or alien. Definitely not cult."
Stephen nodded, smirking knowingly at her as though he knew she would catch on quick. From a medical perspective, they were usually on the same wavelength. It was easy to tap into again.
"Alien. Not magic, not a cult," he explained, taking a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and wasting no time putting it on her flipchart. Whatever else she was looking at could wait. "I don't think she was in New York at the time. Jane hosted a alien energy source inside of her body. The more I've been looking at it, the more I think it bears some similarities to what you've experienced. Take a look at the numbers, and tell me that it doesn't look similar to some of the exposure you've seen before with the salvage workers."
If they could unravel this, perhaps with Stark's tech, they might be able to help not only Jane. Which was why Stephen was doggedly pursuing this on top of the not a cult activities that were consuming his life these days.
Christine's eyes widened. Ignoring the paper at first, she balanced her flipchart on her hip. "In her body hey...". She also ignored the obvious sex joke.
Those were lost on Stephen.
Tapping her toe, she glanced at the paperwork, muttering things to herself. "How is this woman not dead yet?," she asked with a shake of her head. "I mean, you're right - I'm no oncologist but if it's metastasized into the lymph nodes already..."
She frowned and read over the paperwork again. "This. This is weird and does look like some of the other survivors...but I'm telling you, I don't actually know why some of them made a full recovery and others didn't."
Too late, Stephen managed a smile about the obvious sex joke but he left it forgotten on the wayside. There were other things to focus on, and time was short as usual. He always felt like time was a commodity that they didn't have, and Jane's time was running out.
He leaned in and said under his breath, "I think you should request a more in depth case study. I want you in on this. You've seen the first step in the process and I know you, Christine. You've followed those cases whenever you could, whenever you were still left as the admitting physician. If you didn't, then you wouldn't know that some of them made it."
He straightened up and looked around, and for just a split second, he almost looked wistful at what once was and could never be had again. It was gone in an instant. There was no use looking back. Nostalgia was a trap he couldn't afford to be bogged down by.
“Why do you always catch everything,” she asked, more to herself than Stephen. She had continued following up, even encouraged some of them to the free clinic where she liked to donate her time. It was remarkable seeing how some bodies just ...bounced back when there was no reason at all. And she would like the opportunity to get closer to some of this medicine…
Sigh. Was there any sense in arguing with Stephen? Ever? Even before he’d asked, she knew very well that he’d already seen the end of the conversation. Where she caved. Like always.
Because at the end of the day, that no-good pretentious asshole was her best friend. The same ungrateful friend she nursed to health, knowing full well he wouldn’t appreciate it.
And here he was. Asking for help. So how could she say no? Plus, she’d always wanted to meet the Avengers.
“You already know I’m going to say yes,” she finally said with exasperation. “I don’t know why you’re even bothering asking. So.” She threw her hands up in the air in defeat. “Yes. I’ll help you with your consult. Set it up through ….whatever magic or telekinesis or wifi links you have.”
Stephen smirked. It was the sort of smirk that made someone want to slap it off his face or that could be oddly endearing in its infuriatingness.
Oh, he knew. And he knew about more than Christine fully realized. Yet.
"It's a network, but there is some excellently funded wifi involved. A network you're going to need access to, immediately."
He opened a nearby cabinet full of blankets, opening a portal in it and pulling out a Welcome To Hell package. The portal closed at the same time he closed the cabinet door. It was held out to her.
"Tell me if you had any of the following temporary symptoms today, after waking up. Headache, fatigue, brain fog, a feeling of displacement or disconnection. It might have presented as being thrown off balance for a few seconds, before fully recovering."
As usual, he knew something more, but wasn't saying.
Christine looked at him, startled. “Not anything I thought was weird. I mean, I did just start my 72 hours, so I’m always a little fuzzy in the mornings when I have to, you know, get up for work and -- “ She stopped suddenly, the package in her hands feeling very hot.
“Oh god, Stephen. You’re going to tell me something I don’t want to hear, aren’t you.” Huffing, she put back the flipchart, and pulled out another one, rather violently. Scrawling her name on the med request, she continued to do so, closing each one loudly and even more angrily.
“Why can’t you just say it? Tell me what you want me to know instead of talking in circles. Now what’s wrong with my life?”
Stephen knew, since the spell he cast over the city that let him know of a new arrivals had pinged off Christine earlier that morning. And he knew her anywhere.
"Mmm, yeah," he said, looking a little amused. If you couldn't annoy your friends, what fun was there in life? "You're going to want to look through that package as soon as you have a free moment. Read the pamphlet carefully. Yell at me on the network about it, later."
He started to turn and mumbled to her, "And yes, it's real" before he walked into a supply room. The room lit up with a bright flash of fiery light before door finished closing, and it was a safe bet that Dr. Strange had left the building.
Christine gave another huff and stamped her foot for good measure. A few nurses walked by, giving her a side-eye glance, but she ignored them. Always with the grand theatrics. Truthfully, Stephen wasn’t any different now than he was before -- he always had to be have panache. But this?
She was about to pick up the pamphlet when her pager went off. Busting out into a sprint, she shoved the paperwork in her back pocket, running for the crash cart. It wouldn’t be until hours later that she finally had a chance to look at the paperwork, and once she did, all thoughts of a quick nap dissipated.
Goddamnit, Stephen.
Of course. Of course this was a parallel universe. Her first hint should have been how nice he was. In her reality, he was even more of a prick.
Frick.
The least he could have done was suck her into a universe where she had no debt. That would have been the nice thing to do.