Susanna Langdon (susannalies) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-10-17 19:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | cal, cal and susanna, day six, susanna |
Responsibility
Characters: Cal and Susanna
Setting: The Clinic, afternoon
Going to see Cal wasn’t really at the top of Susanna’s list of things she wanted to do, but it had to be done. She hadn’t spoke to the good doctor since they’d met that day in the gym, and she was just a little concerned with whether or not he might push on the whole memory thing. She just needed a bit more time to really work out how she was going to play that. Sometimes she wondered if just coming out with the whole truth might just be easier, but the thought never lasted longer than a split second.
She couldn’t put off going to see him any longer, though, and after returning her laundry to her room and putting it away, she went back down the elevator and the little bit down the hall to the clinic. Taking a step inside, she stopped there, eyes scanning to take in the medical facility while looking for Cal. “Good afternoon,” she greeted him when she finally spotted him.
If Susanna was hoping to avoid that particular topic, she couldn’t have picked a better day. From the fight Kasper had been in to the new arrivals cropping up on the terminals to Carmel’s visit, Cal was finding himself up to his elbows in work that he knew was going to be his and his alone. He couldn’t turn to Becka for pharmacology, wasn’t about to burden her with trying to bring Violet down, and still didn’t know how to bring up the offer he’d made to counsel Kasper. Somehow, Cal didn’t have to guess that Becka and the acerbic older woman wouldn’t be best friends.
Still, he was owed credit for how tirelessly welcoming his smile could be as Cal stopped writing, looking up at Susanna’s arrival. “People on a scavenger hunt today or somethin’?” he joked in greeting, “Because I’ve been gettin’ more traffic down here than the turnpike into Atlanta.” Chuckling at his own joke, Cal was quick to gather up his papers and put them aside, scooting his chair back to give him room for a proper lounge. “How’re you doin’, Susanna? And what brings you by?”
Susanna’s brows rose a bit at the joking, but when he explained, she smiled faintly. “I’ve never been to Atlanta, but I can imagine,” she said simply in reply. When he pushed back to lounge further in his chair, she took that as permission to come further in, and she took a few steps closer to his desk. “I’m doing well, thank you, and it’s nothing particularly urgent. I... Would you mind if I closed the door?” she asked. “It’s personal, and I’m afraid I’m not comfortable with the prospect of anyone walking by overhearing,” she explained with an expression that edged toward sheepish.
Shaking his head at her concerns, Cal reached for his water idly and tilted it for a drink before answering. “Nah, go on ahead,” he assured her, ending his sprawled posture sooner than he would’ve liked. But if she was here to see him in an official capacity, which everyone was, then he could at least act the part of a doctor. “Only time that door’s open is when I don’t have a visit, so consider the privacy to be in full effect,” Cal went on, setting his glass aside. “What’s on your mind?”
At his answer, Susanna turned back to close the door. She didn’t care for having to discuss this with him at all, but needs must, she thought with a mental sigh. “I do appreciate that,” she said, though she couldn’t stop the thought that if he did not adhere to confidentiality, there would be hell to pay. The trust relationship between doctor and patient was a sacred one, and she could imagine that he wouldn’t last long here if he didn’t respect it. “Well, it seems I’ve already managed to misstep, letting my hormones get the best of me. I do not believe that I have contracted anything, but I was wondering if it would be possible to test for it, and how long one should wait before doing so?” she asked without even a trace of shame, though perhaps a tiny bit of embarrassment.
Cal couldn’t help a flicker of a smile, though there was nothing cruel or malicious in it. Instead, he shook his head as if he could dispel her embarrassment. “I think it’s a pretty common misstep when there’s a group of us put together who haven’t seen the other gender in lord knows how long,” he assured Susanna easily, “But I get why you’d be concerned. Now, testing’s a pretty simple method for most worries, though there’s a few things that’d take a bit more invasive methods to check for? But like I said, for most of ‘em it’s simple; we take a blood sample, I get it picked up by the folks in charge, and we wait to hear back.”
He was still waiting for Leandro’s results, though Cal figured that the amount of oversight this place probably required made things like that lesser priorities. “The real problem is that with some diseases, there’s an incubation period before it’ll show up on bloodwork. Your best bet to rule some of those things out is to have whoever you were physical with submit to a test as well,” he advised, “And, obviously, to use protection in any future encounters. But if your partner goes for a test, there’s better odds of catching any threats to you already present in their system.”
Susanna gave a little laugh at that. “Certainly,” she agreed easily. She did not feel any true embarrassment over having slept with anyone, but it was an appropriate response to discussing it, she reasoned. She nodded slightly as he explained. “I think a blood test will suffice for the time being,” she said once he finished speaking. “And you bring up my other question. I am on birth control, but as far as I know, they did not provide condoms as a contraceptive. Have they stocked any down here?” she asked directly. She would speak with both Ryan and Reece about being tested, just in case, but she really did not expect anything to crop up. Her biggest concern was not knowing who Ryan had been with the other night before coming to see her, because the more she thought on it, the more she believed he had been with someone else.
Cal had to wonder over that, since he’d definitely been given a stash in his room. Maybe they’d tailored such things to the individual occupant, if Susanna still had her birth control? “As far as I knew, condoms were pretty standard with the rooms. Maybe it’s just for the guys,” he ventured with an uncertain shrug, “But I had a box waitin’ in my bathroom when I got here.” Which was the classic dilemma of safe sex; it seemed dangerous to encourage it, but it was still better than thinking people would abstain for lack of protection. Which clearly wasn’t the case. “If you need some, I’d be fine with giving up my supply,” he offered with a laugh, “No innuendo intended, either. And would you want to have me draw that blood sample now?”
Susanna’s brows raised in surprised at that, wondering just what in the hell Reece and Ryan had been thinking if they’d been provided condoms. Sure, she hadn’t been thinking at the time, but really? And Reece had the gall to give her a hard time. “Perhaps it is, as my birth control was provided, but as we’re both aware, pregnancy is not the only concern.” And there was no way in hell she’d have slept with either of them if she hadn’t had at least some form of contraception. She chuckled at the offer, shaking her head. “Innuendo was not read into that until you brought it up, so thank you ever so much for the image, doc,” she teased him lightly. “But no, thank you. I will just see if they were provided some and go from there. And, yes, we can go ahead and take the blood sample now. I will encourage him to get his own blood test, as well,” she assured him.
“Alright then,” Cal agreed easily, nodding to the examination table, “Hop on up and give me a shot at a vein, this’ll just take a sec.” Almost literally, too; given the familiar ease Cal had with both his craft and the clinic as he bustled around, snapping on a pair of fresh gloves and fitting a needle with a vial to catch Susanna’s blood sample. He moved to the table quickly, ready with a band of latex to tie off her arm, as well as another and a gauze pad for after he had the sample.
At his direction, Susanna moved over to the examination table, pushing to sit up on it, her legs dangling over the edge from the knees down, feet still clad in her ballet shoes with her one pair of thick socks over them. It was hot and sweaty, but there was a lot of comfort to be had in the familiarity. As he came over, she held her arm out for him to get the needle in place. “I don’t imagine it would take more than that,” she said lightly.
Cal chuckled as he headed over, setting the needle aside just long enough to tear open an antiseptic swab and wipe it across the crook of Susanna’s elbow, then set it in a catch pan. “Not unless I was new at this, bloodshy, or an impostor who talks a good game,” he joked with her, lining up the needle and pushing in. “Make a fist,” Cal instructed once the needle was in, glancing down at her footwear fleetingly before his eyes were back on the needle in Susanna’s arm. “Some odd kicks there, what’re those, dance shoes? Ballet?” he asked, trying to remember if she’d said as much when they first met.
“I would be quite disappointed if any of those were the case, Cal,” Susanna said in a mock-serious tone that was clearly teasing. She made the fist as instructed, and there was no reaction from her to the needle pushing past her skin. She smiled when he noticed her footwear. “Good guess, since they’re all covered up,” she said approvingly with a little laugh. “Yes, they are. They’re my reward for having done the journal post. I’m forcing myself to break them in properly before actually dancing in them, though. It’s been close to two years since I danced, so it’s taking all of my willpower,” she admitted as if it were a secret.
Smiling wider at Susanna’s words, Cal watched the vial intently as a little jet of blood pumped with the curling of her hand. “Dated a girl in college who danced, I saw her doin’ that one time to break her shoes in too. I remember wonderin’ why she was lookin’ to slide around the floor in her socks, and her just laughin’ at me,” he shared easily. “ A’course, there’s not too many more doomed relationships than a premed student and a committed dancer.” There’d never been any time together, and what little there had been was mostly arguments about the absurd punishment she’d put her body through. “And... relax,” Cal said then, separating the needle from the vial and setting it in the pan, then pressing the gauze into the injection site. “Hold this, I’ll tie you off, and you’re good to go.”
A memory stirred at Cal’s sharing of Christmas a handful of years ago, her first one with John, but she pushed it away. “I’d have laughed at you, too,” she teased easily. “But I understand about it having been a doomed relationship. A committed dancer truly does not have much time for such things, and there are not a great many people who can understand and appreciate the lifestyle. I imagine it’s much the same for someone studying medicine,” she mused. She relaxed her hand, then, bringing her other one over to hold the gauze in place.
“Yeah,” Cal agreed with a shrug, “They all were, though. Played center on the basketball team, so between that and the med classes I ended up havin’ about five minutes a week to myself. If there’s a woman out there who could deal with that schedule, I must’ve missed her.” He hadn’t really minded, though; not until prison, when all he had was time. Tying off Susanna’s arm with the latex strip, Cal was quick to pull his gloves off and add them to the pile of medical waste, bringing her blood sample to his desk and writing quick initials on the label. “But as fascinatin’ as it is to hear me jaw ‘bout that? You’re all set,” he joked, “And I’ll let you know when I get word back on this sample.”
A better person than her might have said something encouraging about that, but Susanna merely gave him a small smile that she hoped passed as sympathetic. As he walked away, she got up from the table, giving him a nod. “Thank you. I do appreciate it,” she said simply before crossing to the door. “And I do hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I won’t have to see you down here again,” she said, nodding once more at him before taking her leave.
Cal chuckled again, arms folding over his chest as he moved to lean on the examination table, watching Susanna go. “That makes two of us,” he said as she left, “In an ideal world? I’m constantly bored down here. But take care, Susanna, I’ll be in touch.” Because as nice a change as all of this was, Cal would be a fool to call it ideal. “Momma didn’t raise no fool,” he said to himself, head shaking as he moved back to his desk and settled in. This mountain of work just kept getting higher...