Who: Remy 'Thirteen' Hadley doctor13 & Nina Pickering inner_wolf What: Catching up When: Early October Where: Staff Lounge Irvine General Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Thirteen is abrasive as always. Discussion of patient death. Status: Closed/Completed GDoc
~*~
Being on-call used to mean Thirteen could expect to show up at UC Irvine's ER for a trauma or have to sacrifice a night's sleep thanks to needing to take care of business with a patient who needed emergency surgery. She'd been able to plan for things. The teaching hospital wasn't too far from her place; Thirteen could always determine how long a procedure would take since she memorized the staff roster every night. No one had to tell her who she'd have at her side. She had known as if she were some mystical psychic who knew everything.
It'd helped with her mystique quite a bit.
She'd gotten thrown into the rotation of floating doctors after signing on to take care of Level 1 Traumas for the entire OC.
That had been the end of her certainties. No one guaranteed she would get any sleep. Ever. There was no access to staff rosters for floating positions due to security reasons. Too many terrorists in the world for that to be easily accessible by the public. Thirteen wasn't even guaranteed to have all the equipment on hand she needed to complete whatever procedure they expected her to perform upon arrival with a slipshod patient history, accident rundown, and vitals rattled off at breakneck pace by some overeager surgical resident who only hoped she'd let them cut with no regard for the patient at all.
Making her way to the staff lounge, Thirteen threw herself into a chair with a bounce, tossing her legs over the arm as she looked around to see who was in. Looked like at least one person was familiar to her. The nurse from the Merriman case was there. She looked nice. Thirteen remembered she'd been a great asset to have on her side during that case. It'd not been an easy one. Kids never were. Seeing a familiar face who wasn't someone she hated? That was enough to get a slight grin out of her as she let out a bald statement to the room at large.
"I wish they'd call me in for something other than watching a patient die."
It wasn't her fault if two nurses left after she said that. The truth hurt. That was why it was called 'brutal' when it wasn't sugar-coated with honey-flavored lies.
~*~
Nina smiled a little as the nurses left, while the doctor may be abrasive she was honest and if they expected to go their whole careers without experiencing death then they were in the wrong business.
“If they call you in then it means that you’re the only hope of the patient not dying. From what I hear if you can’t save them nobody can” Nina said, “An...interesting reputation to have. You must be one of the most stubborn doctors around here. It’s no wonder we worked well together”
Nina wasn’t foolish enough to believe in fate or divine intervention when it came to illness and the like but she did believe that some doctors were better than others and that could have an impact on the lives they touched.
“Rough case?” she asked, Nina herself was in the terminal ward that day but at least there you were somewhat prepared for death unlike the ER.
~*~
"You could say I cultivate a unique persona. There are few around here who even know my name. Pretty much? I'm Doctor Thirteen and I don't quit until they're dead."
She had enjoyed working with the nurse quite a bit. It had been nice to feel as if she were accepted with all her quirks being taken into consideration. Thirteen knew it wasn't easy to deal with her. She wasn't someone who cared how well she came across to others. There were too many other, more pressing priorities in her life for her to really give a flying fuck what the world thought of her as an individual. People lived or died based on decisions she made in the ER on a literal daily basis.
Thirteen was more worried about lives than winning Miss Congeniality.
"This one was a man with three young children. None of them thought they were leaving here without him. His wife left a widow and her children left without a father. Couldn't have done more than I did. He was too far gone. Men make the worst patients."
Women typically showed up to the doctor at the first signs of lingering illness while men had a tendency to keep waiting to see if it would 'go away on its own' as if that were a common occurrence for disease. Thirteen had wanted a better education program put into place years ago for people who experienced issues with their digestive health. Heart disease and pediatric cancer won out over Irritable Bowel Syndrome and colon cancer though so her requests were shoved to the back burner and she made regular trips to do all she could while knowing she was only there to watch someone die.
~*~
“Is that what you prefer or just what people have taken to calling you?” Nina asked, “Personally I like Doctor Hadley but it’s your choice” she added with a smile. Yes, she’d done her homework on the doctor who had worked with her. She’d been curious, she liked her and she was obviously a very good doctor. She may come across as short and somewhat cantankerous but Nina didn’t take it personally. They were in emergency situations, there was no room for ego’s or hurt feelings.
“Shit” Nina said with a sadness in her voice, that poor family. She shook her head with a sigh, “They don’t like showing what they think is weakness. It’s ridiculous really with all the silent killers out there now, you’d think the ones with obvious symptoms wouldn’t cause as many problems but they do. I’d kill my boyfriend if he ever had a complaint that he didn’t get checked out but then it’s different when you see it everyday I guess” Though there were things on television and in the papers too so some people were ignorant by choice.
~*~
Few people asked Thirteen if she preferred the number over her name. They seemed to take it for granted she was called by a number. She herself loved the anonymity factor of the number. All her cares were stripped away so she was no longer Remy Hadley, Dying Doctor, and only Doctor Thirteen, Internal Medicine Specialist. There was nothing better than feeling as if she could shrug off the mantle of her life by getting rid of her name. Thirteen was as much a new identity as it was a new identifier.
"I love it. Being Thirteen. I'm not Remy Hadley with all her life to deal with or Doctor Hadley with the expectations of who that woman was when she first left med school or just Remy who has her own proclivities after hours. I'm only---Thirteen. I'm a doctor. I'm interchangeable yet I'm explicitly my own at the same time: a prime number. The only way to get Thirteen is to be Thirteen."
She shrugged. It made sense to her.
"I never claimed to have the most normal thought processes. I'm an odd creature for most to handle."
Thirteen was very much a creature in her eyes, too. She had lost a part of her humanity somewhere along the line while working with the patients she saw day in and day out. Too much death had marred her opinion on life. People who thought doctors were unaffected by their jobs were fucking morons. Doctors were people too. They had feelings, dreams, hopes, and even nightmares. All of her dreams felt as if they were nightmares and Thirteen would have paid with her soul -if she had believed in a soul- to get one night's rest without any dreams of any kind.
It'd been too long.
~*~
Nina would never assume, for all she knew the young doctor could have taken it as an insult and she wouldn’t want that. But she had clearly stated her preference so Nina would now honor it. “Thirteen it is then” she said easily with a smile, “I think a lot of us have odd thought processes we just don’t tend to share them all that often”
She couldn’t really say much about odd creatures considering for one night a month Nina was an entirely different and dangerous creature herself. Maybe that was why she found it easier to not take offence or maybe she was just more laidback in general. She wasn’t sure but it worked for her.
~*~
Picking up nuances in a conversation was a particular skill of Thirteen's and she could tell the nurse meant more than what she said. There was an understanding in her which came from some sort of shared kinship. It was unlikely the woman had any lingering illness -dying people had a look to them- though it was possible she had the sword of Damocles hanging above her head for entirely different reasons. Everyone had their own burdens to bear. No one's life was perfect no matter what they wanted others to believe.
"Talking about private things makes me irritable. There's a disconnect for me from the outside world and this one, here, in a hospital where I'm more than myself. My profession is its own identity for me. I can be a doctor here. I'm not a doctor out there in the world. I like the anonymity as I said. What about you? What's your weird quirk?"
She left it without saying she could tell the woman had one. There was no reason to mention it when it was apparent. People understood one another because they could relate through shared circumstances. Those circumstances were not always identical. Many times empathy was achieved because someone was simply kind. The nurse was too practical for Remy to believe her to be nothing more than some bleeding heart. Thirteen wondered if she'd get an answer or a clever push-back.
Either way?
Thirteen figured it was worth asking. It was pretty rare she met someone she wanted to know anything at all about.
~*~
Nina smiled, she personally didn’t have the same disconnect between the outside world and the hospital but it seemed to work for Thirteen so who was she to judge. Every person handled things in a way that worked for them.
“Me?” Nina replied before deciding what the hell and taking a chance at trusting the doctor, “I’m a werewolf once a month. And I kid you not” she added, once a month Nina turned into a creature who would kill just as easily as Nina helped. It was strange to think such violence existed within herself, as much as she wanted to view the wolf as completely separate it was still her. A strange part of her but still her.
Sometimes the dreams gave you a shitty deal.
~*~
Thirteen weighed the pros and cons against one another. She hated losing control which meant once a month? She'd be in misery. Pop culture painted werewolves in a terrible light. That would mean she'd have to deal with hiding who she was, lying, possibly even having a total disconnect from the rest of humanity in order to preserve her secret. Persecution wasn't something she had a burning desire to experience. On the other hand, she would likely have better physical perks along with a set of animal instincts which were likely quite formidable.
She also wouldn't be dying of Huntington's Disease.
That was the kicker for her.
"I'd take that over my own bullshit. I have Huntington's Disease. The hospital administration knows. A few members of the staff know. I don't talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. I will literally vivisect you if you try to tell me how sorry you are for me or how I don't deserve this. No one deserves this. I'm not special. It just is what it is and that's all there is to it."
She crossed her arms tightly over her chest while she looked the nurse over with a painful attention to detail.
"You don't look like someone who turns into an animal once a month. It's only for one day? I thought the full moon lasted three days. Seems like you're the one getting the raw end of the deal to me."
~*~
Technically she wouldn’t know she was in misery, when Nina had first turned she hadn’t been aware of anything going on. It was like she was asleep, but now she took the potion she was more aware. She had very little control but was more aware. It was kind of a blessing and a curse in all honesty.
Nina knew about Huntington’s and knew it must be a terrible thing to live with hanging over your head but she respected Thirteen’s view of it.
“Well I’d be sorry for anybody, naturally but I’m not going to tell you that you don’t deserve it. Nobody does as you say but that changes nothing” Nina said letting the doctor scrutinise her.
“Well thanks I think. Not sure how somebody is supposed to look” she smiled, “One night of change but the day before and after my senses are heightened” she explained, “I don’t work the night of a full moon or the day after” It was too much, her sense of smell was too high for the sensations a hospital gave out.
~*~
"Is it contagious? I've heard the legends. Silver bullets and all those sorts of things. In the stories, if you get bit? You turn. Is that real or did you inherit by right of birth."
Thirteen was able to suspend disbelief better than anyone in the industry. She was the exception to every rule. People who lived so-called normal lives thought there was no such thing as magic. They had never seen a patient with a death sentence get up and walk out on their own or a person dying of organ failure suddenly bounce back with a vengeance for no medical reason at all. Prayer was attributed to many medical mysteries. Thirteen liked to think it wasn't anything of that sort so much as the world was made up of more than the general public knew.
She'd met a man who was researching reanimation whether he wanted to talk about it or not. Thirteen was rude, brash, and abrasive, but she was no one's fool. There was no reason for her to think the man was doing anything other than reanimation studies in spite of the fact such studies were not approved by the AMA. Research, real research, couldn't always wait for the appropriate channels to catch up to them. Thirteen would have fought for the chance to do her own study if she'd been so inclined.
Research simply wasn't her calling.
"It's fine if you want to tell me it's none of my business. I respect people's privacy more than most. I'm only curious."
~*~
“I wasn’t born this way” she said, “You know about the dreams right? In them I was scratched by my boyfriend who was a werewolf and as a result turned me into one too. Then the scratch scars appeared here and boom werewolf” Nina said pulling up her sleeve to show the marks on her forearm.
“I don’t mind answering questions, I’d just prefer it if it was kept between us” she requested, “My friends know but it’s not something I advertise. Obviously” she smiled wryly, she dreaded her patients finding out and either freaking out or looking at her with fear or pity. “I can’t blame you for being curious. I’d be the same if someone just told me they were a werewolf”
~*~
Dreams turning someone into another species was new to Thirteen. She'd heard of all kinds of items being delivered. Some people physically changed. It could make sense to her a person could change drastically if their dreams were drastically different from their present reality in Orange County. Her own dreams had taught her little about herself beyond she was fucked in every life.
"I'm good at keeping secrets. Honestly? I wish my dreams gave me some new reality. All they give me is knowledge of an education I won't ever get, cases I'll never work, and the knowledge I'm destined to die from Huntington's Disease in every lifetime."
Thirteen wasn't worried about fairness. There was no such thing as 'fair' in the game of life. She knew that better than most. Her wish was to have had a chance to explore a different type of life. It would have been nice to have seen how someone who wasn't dying got to live. Sometimes she dreamed of a world in which she threw it all to the wind, chaos in action, a whirlwind of living before she got caught up in dying.
It wasn't much, but it was something.
"Thank you for sharing. It's nice to know some people get a little something from their dreams other than a new book or a strange trinket. For now? I have to get out of here. I'm going to try to sleep for a few hours before I'm back in another ER. People never seem to stop needing a doctor."
Thirteen waved idly as she stood to leave, prepared to fight her way out of the place regardless of whatever supposed emergency they wanted to throw at her to keep her on site.