fandom_clinic | FTEC, Evening

Entry tags:

FTEC, Evening

Natalie arrived for her shift around 6 PM, clad in a dark brown suit, comfortable shoes, and a small duffel bag hanging from her shoulder. She scouted out an empty interior office, and claimed squatter's rights.

Switching on the lights, she moved over to the desk, shifting the duffel on top. The office itself was very empty, and even the rustle of fabric echoed in the small room. She shrugged. It was more "homey" than the coroner's office had ever been. She'd at least be able to hang personal effects, and those would absorb some of the sound.

She withdrew her labcoat from the duffel, as well as the antique stethoscope Nick had given her. Next came the laptop computer. There was a network around here, she was sure, and if she looked, maybe she might find instructions on connecting. She'd become something of an addict in the past ten years...that, and she knew from experience that it was called the graveyard shift for a reason. She might need the distraction.

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Grissom stops by the clinic, entering the reception area and placing his briefcase down on a chair to extract a few things.

[Do you have time for a random thread? If not I can send him back out.]

Hearing the rustle of papers and feeling the presence of mortal, Natalie emerges from her office, moving to reception. She smiles. "Hi. Can I help you?"

[ Yup. Have at. ]

Grissom turns, giving the new staffer (doctor he presumes) a smile of greeting.

"I think so. I was doing some cleaning, and realized that I still had a few journals that belonged to some former Clinic employees. I know that James... Dr. Wilson has moved on, but I thought I might return them to the Clinic anyway. I've already read them, so they're not much use to me."

He holds them out for Natalie to take a look at.

Nat purses her lips and takes the journals, eyes dusting over the titles. "I'm sure we can add them to a professional library or something," she says, somewhat at a loss. Shaking off the initial confusion, she tucks the journals under her left arm and offers her hand. "Dr. Lambert -- Natalie," she says by way of introduction.

He takes her hand, shaking it firmly.

"Dr. Grissom -- Gil," he replies with a slightly wry grin. "And I'm sure the journals can go back into the dusty corner from whence they came, never to be seen again."

"Well, they are a bit dated," she says with a chuckle. She places the journals onto the reception desk, then shoves her hands into the pockets of her labcoat, furrowing her brows. Leaning against the high counter, she asks, "You're a professor up at the school?"

"I am. I run the Sociology department, but I also do some consulting work with the DC Police Department on occasion."

He stick his hands in his pockets, a little uncomfortable, just because that's how he is.

"And I assume you'll be working at the Clinic now. What's your specialty, if you don't mind me asking?"

"The dead." She pauses, allowing the sentence to take effect, then smiles. "I'm an ME -- or at least I was before I came here. I worked with Toronto's finest until a few weeks ago."

"Really," Grissom says excitedly, for him anyway. "I paid for my doctorate by working as a coroner in Los Angeles. That was before you needed a medical degree, and it became more of a political desk job."

He gives her a smile at her mention of Toronto. They had some good facilities up there, last thing he'd read.

"I ran the graveyard shift at the Las Vegas Crime Lab until last August," he says with just a hint of wistfulness. "I'm sure we have some similar war stories."

Nat smiled. It was nice to find someone other than a vampire who might understand some of the stranger things she had seen in her work. "Las Vegas?" She chuckled. "And you came here? Major change of scenery...and workload."

"Yes," he agrees with a bit of a laugh.

"Although I believe Fandom has proved to have an even higher frequency of unexplained phenomena than Vegas, if you can believe that. My specialty is entomology, so I go to the mainland occasionally for scene analysis on higher-profile cases. Their reliance on the resources of the federal system came back to bite them in the ass with all the re-structuring and re-prioritization of the past few years."

He shrugs. "Major change of scenery for you as well, though. Fandom's smaller than Toronto by a few hundred thousand residents."

A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. "True. A friend suggested I might be in need of a...change." She shrugged. "So here I am. Still on graveyard shift, but that's just as well. I can only handle so much change at a time."

"Most people come to Fandom for a 'change'," he replies simply, looking a little concerned for Natalie. He wonders if she has any idea that acclimating to a switch in sleeping schedules would be a lot easier ~~minus the sunlight thing~~ than what she'll certainly be faced with in the next few months in town.

"Did you just move to town? How are you liking it so far?"

Nat nodded. "I took the basement apartment over at the Mauvaise Chance," she answers. "As a matter of fact, I'm still settling in. The town -- it seems nice enough, if a little quiet." She pauses. "And a little young."

"The campus tends to dominate the town, which is easy given the size of the island. There are a few adults around, however," he adds with a laugh. "Mostly school faculty, and the various business owners."

He looks a little distracted for a moment, but shakes it off. "I should offer... if you ever need to use a non-medical lab for anything, we have some excellent resources at the school. I've been able to do some interesting work here. Call my office, if you do - I can get you a day pass."

"I appreciate that," she says, watching him. She noted the slight shift in his attention, and the equally quick recovery. "I've been to the clinic -- I have a few lab items stored there -- but I've yet to see anything else of the school."

"I can guarantee that it's not like any other educational institution you have ever come across. There's literally a programmable Danger Shop, capable of... well, almost anything."

"So all this...and the paranormal?"

Grissom lets out a small sigh of relief.

"Oh good, so you have heard about the zombies, and sentient snow, and... everything else. Not that I'm not sure that you could handle it; you're probably more prepared than most, considering your background. But the adjustment period can be rough. I can admit I had some issues with it."

"I've had a...case or two in my time," Nat says. "I'm surprised you didn't find one or two in Las Vegas."

His eyebrows arch just slightly, the only sign of shock on his face.

"Well, human beings are sometimes capable of atrocities that rival the activities of even the most vile, paranormal predator," he shakes his head a bit, obviously reflecting.

"But I've discovered the other side of that coin as well. Some of my students, and the residents of town, have more unusual backgrounds than what I am accustomed to, but I've learned a lot about my own humanity through them."

He cuts himself off, uncomfortable with revealing too much about himself. No need to go into that pesky Hathor incident, for example.

A sadness flickers in Nat's eyes, and she quickly blinks it away. She forces a smile. "Sometimes those are the hardest lessons."

Grissom brings a hand to his face to adjust his glasses, letting a few, airy chuckles escape his throat.

"You know, one of my favorite quotes was always Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition."

"And then I found more truth in the follies of juveniles, and in what I had believed to be merely myth, in a few months here, than what years of science had revealed to me."

"You go into the sciences, thinking science has all the answers. Then, somewhere along the way, something happens and you realize that nothing has all the answers; your reality gets kicked on its...ear." Natalie folds her arms across her chest and shakes her head with an ironic snort. "And here I thought I was the only one who had suffered that particular type of shell shock."

"I think I've had more than one experience at this point that has led me to that conclusion," he says dryly, but not without some humor.

"And shell shock has become a relative term."

Natalie raises her brows. "Escalation? I mean, one event stranger than the next?"

"No, not really. I think you rapidly come to a... line of demarcation, when it comes to acceptance of the bizarre and unexplained. Once you have met DEATH, and it is actually a rather pleasant entity to know, what else is there to truly fear? It certainly eliminates the need for a lengthy acceptance period of the unusual."

"And the paranormal isn't the only thing, that can change your mind about the role of science in your life," he adds vaguely.

She narrows her eyes and watches him for a moment, studying his features for some underlying message. She'd met death and crossed the line, coming back a wholly different person. At that point, Nick's search for a cure became her search for a cure. Eventually, she nodded. "It can indeed, Dr. Grissom."

"Well, I shouldn't take up any more of your time."

He takes a business card with his office number on it and hands it to her. "Take me up on that offer to use the labs. Nice to meet you, Dr. Lambert," he says with a nod, turning to go.

"And you, Dr. Grissom. See you around." Natalie smiles and watches him leave.

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FTEC, Evening

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