InsaneJournal

Who: Faiza Hussain and Lorna Summers
Where: the clinic at the ranch
What: Faiza's trying to fix Lorna's brain
When: Monday morning
Warnings/Rating: PG
Status complete

Lorna was nervous. It wasn’t anxiety related, for once, she was just antsy about this doctor’s visit. She wanted Faiza to be able to help her. Ever since she was a kid she’d had anxiety issues. She’d tried a bunch of different prescription drugs with different side effects until she was a teenager. Her current method of smoking a joint when she got too upset wasn’t ideal, and she knew it wasn’t, but compared to some of the other things her doctors had told her to live with she felt that marijuana was the lesser of all available evils.

Still, she was very interested in turning her legitimate medical need for the stuff into a horrible lawless vice if it meant she could live like a normal person. Or at least get one step closer to that impossible goal.

She might not be able to do anything. Faiza had warned her of that to start, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t try. She was waiting at the clinic at the ranch. It was a nice neutral location and had plenty of equipment should something go wrong.

Lorna hopped out of Alex’s truck, thanking him for the ride before she started in toward the clinic. She smiled at Faiza when she stepped in, waving nervously. “Hi.”

“Step in. How are you feeling?” Faiza gave her a gentle smile.

“I’m okay. How are you?” She smiled back and took a seat. She had her current crochet project in hand, but mostly she was just squeezing the fabric. It felt appropriate to her that it was Scott and Emma’s baby blanket she’d brought along.

“I’m great! I’m ready to do this when you are, duck!”

Lorna nodded. “Yeah. But I really don’t want to see it.”

“I know, sometimes you don’t like that.” She squeezed Lorna’s shoulder and then guided her to a seat. “I can blind you while I do this, if that’s all right?”

Lorna didn’t like the sound of that, but she nodded. “Sure. Just don’t mess it up any worse in there, the place is a mess.” Despite her lame jokes, she was holding on pretty tight to the little baby blanket.

Faiza’s hands started to glow softly blue. “It’ll be fine. I can manipulate you at the subatomic level. You won’t even feel a thing.”

“Okay.” Lorna said with a nod, keeping her eyes closed. “Whenever you’re ready, Faiza.”

And just like that, Lorna’s head was removed from her body, and her brain exposed. “I’m not really any sort of brain surgeon, but I can look for abnormalities.”

“Sure. I don’t know what a normal brain looks like, and I don’t know if mine will look any different. Plants are easier, for sure.” She relaxed a little. “Did you do it, then? I can’t see, now.” It really didn’t feel like anything.

“Yours looks pretty abnormal, duck.” Faiza’s tone was joking. “Lets see here...”

Lorna giggled and slowly released her death grip on the blanket. She used her powers to locate the proper hook and did her best to crochet without looking.

“Not bad,” Faiza murmured. “The crochet. Your brain chemistry is definitely off. Are you taking any medication?”

“Just marijuana when the symptoms are bad. I’ve done a lot of the prescription drugs and I always get side effects that are worse than what they’re treating.” She made a face. “It’s the least disruptive to my normal life, even though it’s not very effective at its job, since I’m careful not to smoke before or during work unless it’s an emergency.”

“You need something that will...well it’s like rerouting a fuel supply, I suppose.” Faiza tried that, altering the natural course of chemicals.

“You know more about it than I do. I can’t organic chemistry. I’m great at most math and science, but I’m just useless at chemicals.” Which was kind of ironic, really.

“Well I did do some reading up and I consulted a friend of mine who’s an expert in these matters,” she admitted. “Let me put you back together...we’ll see if this helps you at all. I didn’t change much..I wouldn’t want to make you not be you.”

“I’d appreciate that.” Lorna noted. “I kind of like me.”

“”I rather like you myself,” she replied, and with a snap of her fingers Lorna’s vision returned. “How do you feel?”

"Basically the same,I guess." Lorna shrugged. "I don't think you messed anything up."

“Well, I hope it helps with the panic attacks. You might still feel them coming, but be able to control them and ignore them. Maybe even stop them.” Faiza was vaguely uncomfortable with what she’d done, but the one thing she was certain of was that her powers couldn’t really screw anything up. Fixing things, however, wasn’t always what someone ended up wanting.

Lorna shrugged again. “I guess we’ll see.” She smiled at Faiza. “Thank you for trying, no matter how it turns out.” She put her hook and project away. “I brought you some soup, to say thanks. Alex said he’d put it in the break room fridge for you.”

“Thank you! I’m quite famished.” She gave Lorna an impromptu hug. “Everything will be all right. Promise.”

Lorna hugged her back. “I know. One way or the other. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Sure thing! Do you need a lift?”

She shook her head. “Nah, Alex brought me here, we’re going to see a movie after this. My other day off is for Mac’s wedding, so we need to get our time together in now.”

“Oh! Have a lot of fun then,” Faiza walked Lorna to the door. “And call me immediately if you feel anything weird, alright?”

Lorna nodded. “I will, I promise.” She stepped outside and waved as she went toward Alex’s truck.