Veronica Smyth (n_o_social) wrote in btvsal, @ 2010-02-24 18:06:00 |
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Current location: | Roni's Office |
Current mood: | calm |
Entry tags: | patience kowalski, place: la, veronica smyth |
Another Doctor Visit
Who: Roni and Patience (Open to Continuation)
Where: Roni's new office
When: Thursday, Feb. 11th (late afternoon)
Patience had been meaning to set up an appointment with Dr. Smyth for a while now, but try as she might, life always seemed to get in her way. She smirked a little at the thought as she rushed to the woman’s office. As could be expected of Patience, she was running late. … She was also mildly irritable, but that was more due to the pregnancy. Or, she hoped so, anyway. Was she an irritable person? She grumbled, hating the jumbled mess of emotions that was running through her… and alert of the uneasy feeling in her stomach. Maybe she just needed some crackers? Which, incidentally, she took with her everywhere now, as well as a bottle of water.
She made her way into the waiting room and was surprised at the sight of a secretary. “Uh, hi. I’m Patience McConnell, the four o’clock appointment? I’m a little late…” Hopefully Dr. Smyth wouldn’t mind. She did tell the woman she was chronically late, right?
The secretary ushered Patience in, and Roni was sitting at her desk, as usual. It didn't surprise her that Patience was six minutes late by now. The girl was chronically late. It was part of why she always scheduled her as her last appointment. She wanted to make sure that the girl didn't get her time shortened. When Patience did come in, she looked up and smiled at her. "Patience, have a seat," she said to her as the girl walked inside.
“Thanks,” Patience replied with an uneasy smile. She sat down and smoothed her hands over her jeans clad thighs, before crossing one leg over the other. She could already tell she wouldn’t be able to sit still for very long. “I’m sorry I was late.” She chuckled weakly. She wasn’t fond of making people wait. Well, except for maybe Pat, but that was for entirely devious reasons. She pulled a bottle of water from her bag and took a small sip. God, it really had been a while, hadn’t it?
"It's alright," Roni said to her. It was sort of expected, even though she knew that Patience didn't like that about herself. "How are you doing today?"
Patience bobbed her head from side-to-side thoughtfully, “A little… uhm. Unsettled, I guess? I dunno. A lot of stuff’s happened recently, so… yeah. Unsettled.” She placed a hand over her stomach and rubbed it absently.
While Roni herself knew about the death of Lucy Van Warren (who didn't?), she didn't know that Patience knew her. "Tell me about that stuff that's happened," she said to her.
“A couple of things…” God, what did she start with first? “Uhm. I’m pregnant.” She gave Roni an ‘I’m just as surprised as you’ expression, and continued: “And a…” God, how did she describe her relationship with Lucy? “My little brother’s girlfriend died. Was killed, actually.”
"Well, congratulations that you're pregnant," Roni said to her. "I'm sorry to hear about your brother's girlfriend. Was she the girl that's on the news?"
“Thank you,” she murmured, before nodding slowly. Pat had been right, of course. She really did like Lucy more than she let on. For a lot of reasons, but primarily because she made Ash happy, and now that… was gone. Life was a tenuous string for Patience, she felt it acutely because her string had been cut … and repaired. “Lucy, like The Beatles song? Wanted to ring her neck more than once,” she admitted with a laugh, “but she was a good kid. My brother…” she winced and leaned forward, feeling an uncomfortable twinge somewhere in the pit of her stomach. “I’m worried,” she admitted.
Patience looked very worried about her brother, which was not good for the baby right now. During these early months, she really needed the least amount of stress that she could get, certainly not what was going on around her right now. "This is going to be a trying time for him. How exactly is he taking it?"v
“Badly,” Patience replied irritably. She gave the doc an apologetic look and expanded on that: “He just … he looked so broken, like no amount of time could ever really fix it.” She licked her lip thoughtfully, “He’s capable of things… I’m not afraid of him, what he has inside him … but I am afraid for him, if … that makes sense?” She was getting worked up about this, she realized, and so she took a breath and leaned back again.
Roni did nod when she said that. She had a brother herself that was actually similar to Ash, more than she'd let on to a patient, but, to be sure, she definitely understood having a brother with so much power that he could hurt himself or others. "It makes more sense than you realize," she said, looking down for a moment before looking back up at Patience. "Do you think you could convince your brother to come here? Most people respond well to therapy, and it might be good for him, if he's willing to come."
Probably not the reaction that Roni was hoping for, but Patience laughed at the suggestion. A full-on, side-splitting laugh. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t think I can convince him to do anything at this point.” She licked her lip and thought about it for a moment, “I guess it doesn’t hurt to try. God knows it’s helped me.” My, was that a compliment?
Roni actually wasn't shocked by the laughter. It wasn't like people hadn't reacted to the idea of therapy like that before. She didn't even blink. "It can't hurt to try, though. He sounds like he might benefit from it."
Patience brought one leg up to her chest and hugged it. “Thanks, Doc. If he… ever comes around,” she smirked briefly, “I’ll refer him.” She heaved a sigh and placed a hand over her stomach. “I get the feeling the baby’s gonna be a kicker,” she murmured, feeling him tumbling around in there. He couldn’t seem to settle, either.
Roni smirked at her. "Then maybe he'll be a soccer player or something if he's that much of a kicker," she joked with her. Having kids was never something that Roni had particularly tried for. She didn't want to happenstance wise pass along her family's 'gifts' to another generation after seeing what it had done to her brother, after all.
“I think Pat would just be ecstatic when he’s big enough to kick a football around. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised he got him one while he was still a newborn.” She laughed briefly and shook her head, before falling silent for a moment. “I feel selfish for being happy.”
"It's not odd to feel that way after the death of a person and seeing someone go through a lot in their grief," Roni told her. "It's not a bad thing to feel happy during a time like this. People grieve in different ways and for different amounts of time."
“Have you… ever seen someone get so lost in the grief that they never really recovered from it?” She wasn’t asking for personal history, or patient history… just asking, like a part of her felt that Ash wouldn’t come out of it, no matter how hard she fought for him. Preparing for the worst.
Roni nodded. "It does happen, on the rare occasion. Most people are able to recover, though, although, for some, it can take time, months or even years, to recover properly. That's why therapy can help out a lot during the process. It can help speed up the recovery a little."
Okay, so… all Patience had to do was talk Ash down from his black-potentially-world-ending cloud and … ask him to go to therapy. Yep, that was going to be easy. She, however, was going to remain hopeful, no matter how much that small part of her nagged that he was slipping away. She wouldn’t listen to it now. “It definitely helped after I died,” she joked weakly.
Roni gave her a slight smile. "Therapy can help with all sorts of situations," she told Patience. She just hoped that Patience's brother would be amendable to therapy. Some wouldn't go no matter how much they needed it.
"Yeah, yeah… I guess so,” Patience murmured, as she rested her chin on her knee. The baby was starting to sooth and she smiled contently. Maybe she should try not to get so worked up from now on? Heh. Not likely.
"Of course, you have to be open to therapy for it to actually do any good," Roni pointed out to her, not so much to her, but for Ash's sake. He'd have to want it for it to work.