Fredcat (panthera_uncia) wrote in regulation, @ 2008-03-08 23:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | anthony goldstein, backstory, fred holden |
Who: Anthony Goldstein & Fred Holden
What: Fred gets all torn up by the she-bitch wolf from hell when she goes to execute her and is forced by colleagues to go see the Doc
Where: Regulators infirmary
When: Early Months of 2006 (a few months after Anthony came to work for the Regulators)
Rating: PG
Status: Closed; Complete
Things got tricky sometimes being in the critter department. What counted as a person and what didn't? Most of the time it didn't matter a whole lot to Fred because usually she was executing things that were firmly in the critter category, not the being category. Sometimes it did come up. There were goblins and centaurs who didn't always approve of wizarding law or being forced to abide by it. And then there were the lycanthropes. Werewolves, specifically. That's all anyone knew of in Britain and they were a pain in Fred's arse, to be honest. The few times they'd been slated for execution through her department they tried to beg for their lives. She figured they thought she would be soft because she was small and female. They never really counted on her being more apathetic to their plight than others usually were. She'd always tell them they shouldn't have hurt people, shouldn't have been a danger and should have found ways to keep others safe from them. The story was always the same, either it wasn't their fault or their didn't mean to do it but either way they were really nice people. Always. And it ended the same. Usually.
Today a werewolf had been slated for execution and she just did not want to die. She didn't want to die so badly she tried to take Fred on. It was a losing battle, really. You just couldn't pit what was essentially a sick animal against a healthy one. That didn't mean she didn't get some scrapes in and Fred's entire right arm was bloody from being gouged out by the woman's claws, in the human sense. Trimble wasn't around and those who were insisted she go see the Healer. If she didn't they'd check up on her and make a mess over it. Her only real option was to go see Goldstein and be out of his sight before she was too healed up. He'd only come in a few months prior and the last thing she needed was the new guy asking people why the executioner could heal like some sort of comic book hero. After all, their werewolves didn't heal fast enough for them to notice the difference.
The infirmary was completely empty and that meant that Anthony was bored. He could study, of course, but wasn't particularly in the mood. In the few short months since he'd joined the Regulators he'd been kept fairly busy. Field agents didn't have an easy time of it. Most missions seemed to end with someone in the infirmary. After a particularly close call, he realized that the standard regimen of healing spells wouldn't suffice and came to accept his role within the department. These people dealt with creatures and phenomena that the magical community was unfamiliar with at best and completely oblivious to at worst. It was far better to have one Healer at their beck can call rather then go to St. Mungo's where the staff would endlessly debate the proper course of action. Some of the things he'd seen seemed to have sprung from Loony Lovegood's head and into reality. Still, it was best to take a scientific approach and not jump to any unnecessary conclusions. Unfortunately for Anthony, he'd been forced to improvise quite a bit due to a lack of any proper documentation on the things that the Regulators dealt with. How was one supposed to heal a wound caused by a creature that was rooted in myth and legend...even among the notoriously strange magical community? What sort of infections would he have to combat after a bite or scratch? This lack of knowledge infuriated him as much as the chance to discover new things delighted him. He made a mental note to ask Trimble about expanding his library. He couldn't afford any mistakes. Lives were at risk, after all.
He stood up to refill his coffee. The movement caught the attention of Chayim, his huge English Mastiff, who raised his head hopefully. "I told you already. I'll take you to the dog park after work so you can stop looking at me like that." Chayim sighed and flipped onto his side, stretching out fully on one of the infirmary beds.
The gouges on Fred's arm weren't quite so bad by time she got to the infirmary. The bleeding had slowed to something not quite so alarming and hopefully it wouldn't close up just yet. She figured it'd been a while since she ate so maybe she didn't have the energy for her body to heal itself. It was likely a vain hope, but it was one Fred was clinging to. "Stupid bloody bint. Claw my eyes out next time why don't you?" She muttered to herself all the way down the corridor, feet shuffling.
Entering the infirmary Fred noticed a problem immediately. Dog. Dog's hated Fred on a massive scale. They always smelt the cat on her and decided she was something to be chased and thrown around or something to be hunted and torn to shreds. That was a bad, bad thing. "Hey, Goldstein?" See, the trouble was unless she saw the dog she couldn't claim to have a fear of them or something. Without visualisation she couldn't even explain how she knew there was a dog. Telling the Healer you could smell the dog in the place wouldn't go over well. As it was Fred was hovering in the doorway, refusing to enter until she pinpointed the dog's whereabouts first.
Anthony replaced the pot of coffee back on the burner and took a sip. It tasted old and stale but he didn't particularly care. He's just settled himself back into his desk chair when he heard the voice. "Yes, yes. Come on in."
If only the Healer had just been out. Fred walked in a bit hesitantly, but when she saw the mastiff only pick its head up, sniff in her general direction and then lay it back down again Fred relaxed. Her arm was a bit of a mess, the blood on it beginning to dry in places. "They wouldn't shut up until I came to see you. It's really fine, I'd prefer to just go, honestly," she explained without drawing attention to her arm herself. He was a Healer, he'd have to be a little daft not to notice what was wrong with her.
Anthony rose and set his coffee cup on the desk. He eyed her arm and sighed. Nothing around this place could be simple. No paper cuts or broken fingers. Absolutely everything was something new or strange. "Hop up on the examination table and I'll take a look at it." He waited until she complied and then took hold of her arm, examining it closely. The wound looked old, at least a few hours old. The ragged edges indicated that it hadn't been inflicted by any sort of weapon. He swiftly deduced that it only could have been cause by some sort of animal. "Well I'd prefer if people came to me as soon as they're injured but we don't always get what we want." He paused and prodded the area around the wound with his thumb, causing it to ooze slowly. "I don't suppose you know what sort of creature attacked you?" he asked hopefully.
"No, we don't," she said instead correcting him that she actually had come straight to him when it had happened. Goldstein wasn't likely to be the one to check up on the fact of her going so she wasn't too concerned with him knowing the time of infliction. Fred tried to will the healing to slow if possible. "Yeah, I know what it was. A rabid woman who turns furry a few nights a month, howls at the moon and then tears people to pieces. Bitch had bloody talons on her, I swear she sharpens those things. What's a human body need nails that sharp for, eh? Anyway, she was all human bodied and everything, she just had her nails whittled to bloody points. Kid you not."
Anthony's tongue unstuck itself from the roof of his mouth with an audible click. The filed nails made him think of Delilah, who frequently came to his clinics after the full moon. Not a particularly pleasant werewolf but it wasn't his place to judge. "Well you're fortunate that she didn't go for your face or anything," he said with a sigh. He applied a bit of gauze and strode across the room to search for the proper salve. "I should have something around here that'll heal that up nicely. I'll want you to come back in a few days to let me check on it," he muttered over his shoulder. After a few minutes of rummaging through a dizzying array of potions, unguents, and salves he returned to the table with a small blue tub. He removed the gauze and expertly applied the antibacterial concoction. "Why on Earth were you fighting a werewolf anyway?"
"She did go for it. She just didn't get it. I know you haven't been around here all that long, but I'm entirely capable to do what I do. Pissed off werewolf's not really the biggest danger posed in my position." Fred scratched at her arm, flaking some of the dried blood off her skin. She could feel herself healing. It'd take an hour, maybe three at most, and she'd be healed without a mark. Fred just hoped Anthony wasn't paying such close attention to notice. "She didn't want to die but she was slated for execution. Guess she figured if she killed me she'd get to live. It's not like they couldn't just send Aurors after her with a kill warrant as well. Only there'd be more of them at once. Besides, attacking me without the moon as her excuse, bitch wouldn't have gotten all that far anyway."
"Execution," Anthony snorted. He wanted to say more but knew that doing so would make him the worst sort of hypocrite. He too had felt the urge to kill and avenge himself. He shook his head and pushed her hand away to get a better look at the wound. Those memories were best left buried in France. "When did all this happen?"
"She maimed and killed nine people in two bloody moon cycles, Anthony. Nine fucking people. Don't snort at me unless you want to go snort at their families to their faces." Her reaction was defensive, almost volatile. If they were going to act like animals they should be treated like them so far as she was concerned. No one forced them to run loose even if they couldn't control themselves once they shifted. It was their own fault for not taking measures to protect everyone from them.
He had to go an ask the when question, didn't he? "Not long ago," was the most vague answer she could give him without having to outright lie. If she could avoid it Fred would always rather avoid the lie when possible.
Anthony shrugged. Her reaction was most interesting. Clearly Fred had quite the short fuse. "I just think that prevention is a better deterrent than execution," he muttered as he probed the muscles around the wound, checking for any tissue damage. "Or at the very least the Ministry should have sent her to prison."
"Well unless I'm very much mistaken, this wound looks like it's had more than a day to heal," he said sceptically. "Unless you tried to heal it on your own. If that were the case I'd remind you that using that sort of magic without the proper training is dangerous. When I was in Israel there was a witch who tried to repair her broken nose on her own and caused the whole damn thing to cave into her face." He sighed again and crossed his arms. "So which is it? Did you let this sit or did you try to heal it?"
"You know what's amazing prevention? Not letting uncontrolled beasts out to attack people in the first place. They die or they turn, there's not a lot of in between there. It's not like she didn't know what she was, she'd been a werewolf for years. She couldn't afford Wolfsbane but she didn't do anything else to prevent her from tearing the limbs off a little girl, did she? So what's your prevention suggestions, huh?" To be honest, Fred didn't even like kids that much. Personally, she didn't have the patience for the whiny runts, but that didn't mean she didn't get mad when people went and picked on them or hurt them for no reason. "The activists would be just as pissed off over sending her to Azkaban as they are over her being put down, but no other prison can hold a werewolf, not built for it, and even then she's still a danger anyway." Better dead than wandering even in a cell, really.
Were all Healers this nosy or was it just Goldstein? Sure she'd give him points because he was probably damn good at what he did normally but she was here under protest so her perception had dwindled down to him taking too long for her comfort. "Alright mum, I've got the point. No trying to heal it on my own and no letting wound fester. Can't you just stitch me or heal me or cover me in goo and let me go or something?"
"I'm not disputing that this incident was anything other than her fault," he said calmly. He wasn't about to get into an argument over werewolf rights with a patient. It simply wasn't professional. "Perhaps the Ministry could start offering free Wolfsbane on the full moon? I don't know. I'm not a policymaker, I'm just a Healer. It's my job to save people. Even werewolves."
Anthony sighed and decided to just let it go. Clearly there was something she wasn't telling him but that wasn't a huge surprise. People often lied to their healers and doctors. He had no idea why that happened but it seemed to happen quite a bit. She didn't seem to be too concerned with her injuries and nothing he said or did was likely to change her mind. "We're finished," he said, covering the wound in a clean bandage. "Come back the day after tomorrow so I can check on your progress. I'll track you down if you don't," he said with a smile.
Fred's jaw dropped. He did not just suggest they hand out free Wolfsbane. "One day I'll get you figures and you can do the math. Between how many werewolves we just know about, plus the cost of making Wolfsbane for them all for a week, which you hopefully do remember has to be taken for a full week. The Ministry doesn't have that much money to just throw away. If they had that much extra money floating around I'm sure there are other things people would want them to spend it on anyway." Who wanted their government taking all its money to waste on things like werewolves, after all.
With a stunningly sweet smile Fred told him, "Have fun tracking me down then, doc. Really, nothing personal, but I wouldn't have been here if they boys didn't go and whine like brats and threaten to throw me over their shoulders to get me to come down. My body can take care of itself." She really hoped that he didn't go an test any of that blood that'd be cleaned off her for infections or anything. Fred wasn't sure if he'd even recognise her strand of lycanthropy as lycanthropy or if he'd just think she had some strange disease. Either way, she'd prefer to not find out.
Anthony shrugged once more. "I'm not trained to think in terms of cost, only in lives. And of course I realize that it has to be taken for a full week." He very nearly rolled his eyes. Any first year trainee would know that.
This time Anthony did roll his eyes. "Fine. Whatever. If you're not going to take your health seriously then neither am I." With that he returned to his desk and took a sip of his stale coffee. "We're finished here," he muttered dismissively as he opened up the Daily Prophet.
What kind of bullshit excuse was that? He wasn't trained to think in terms of cost? How did he think people got helped? How did he think he saved lives? Someone somewhere paid for it. Idealism was dangerous sometimes. "Right, well, when you find a sugar daddy to foot the bill you can go hand out Wolfsbane to every werewolf in Britain."
Note to self: wear long sleeves for a few days. That was going to be torture. Fred hated bloody clothing and unnecessary cloth made her restless, itchy and cranky. She was going to have to in order to cover her healed arm, though. "Why don't you just let me worry about the state of my health, doc." She tried not to sneer because she knew she was being an awful bint over it all. She had to be one of the worst patients to possibly end up with around there. He should have gone to work in St. Mungo's. "Have a nice day, Goldstein," she said with a wave over her head as she headed for the door. Stupid bloody werewolf bitch. Next time Fred was going to attack them first.
Anthony completely ignored the jibe about finding him a sugar daddy. People often made fun of his way of thinking. He, however, was proud of himself for not having become jaded and bitter.
"That's the plan." He didn't even bother to look up from his magazine. Why she'd even bothered to come in was a mystery. People like that had the bad habit of not listening to their healer. It usually came to bite them in the ass at one point or another. It was of no use trying to force the issue though.