fandom_clinic | The Clinic, Thursday (6/10)

Entry tags:

dana scully,
ftec

The Clinic, Thursday (6/10)

Scully was -- well. Geeking out. There was no other word for it. She was ~~playing~~ using the mass spectrometer to examine a portion of the venom sample that Karla had volunteered, in the hopes of creating an anti-venom.

She was also muttering aloud. "...glutamic acid, with cholinesterases... but that's probably just to facilitate cross-membrane transport. Which does support the idea of a predatory evolution of the fang...."

The nurses were keeping a safe distance and pretending they couldn't hear her.

[open and OCD up!]

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If all you need is a little help and a lollipop.

Talk to the mad scientist. If you can rip her away from the autoclave and microscope.

Right, so Henry's doctor at Hopkins had been bugging him about checking in at the island clinic for weeks so they'd be prepared to treat him if anything happened. Something about the potential for drug interactions from the new treatments, his higher than usual injury rate, and, oh yeah, the fact that he still traveled in time uncontrollably.

He'd been ignoring it like the mature adult he wasn't until this morning, when a brief jaunt to 1992 and a misunderstanding involving a few thrown rocks had left him with a bloody gash on one shoulderblade. He didn't think he needed stitches, but he also wasn't convinced he didn't need stitches. Better to let a doctor decide.

His clothes were a little dusty -- side effect of being dropped unceremoniously in the dirt when he traveled -- but he was fully dressed when he came into the clinic, a red spot spreading across the back of his gray t-shirt. "Hello?" he called. "I think I might need some stitches."

Scully stopped her work, then took off the gloves she'd been using and headed back out to the front of the clinic. She gave the newcomer an inquiring and hopefully reassuring look.

"Hello. I'm Dana Scully, the aide on duty." Intern. Fully certified doctor. But those might be harder to believe. "Would you like to step over to an examining room?" She glanced over at one of the nurses. "We can take a look at your injury there."

"Dana," Henry echoed, raising a hand in a wave. He was a little surprised by her age, but he'd been on the island long enough to know students filled in for a lot of jobs that were usually held by older people here. "Sure. It's my back" -- he twisted to show her the spot on his shirt. -- "I don't think it's deep, but I can't reach it right and it's bleeding a lot."

He went to follow her back to the exam room.

"How did you do this?" Scully asked in concern, switching on an examining lamp, and bringing over a stitching tray with alcohol swabs. "And can you raise your arm, or should we cut off your shirt?" She paused and looked over at the nurse. "Please start a file for-- I'm sorry, I forgot to ask your name."

"Henry DeTamble," Henry supplied, rattling off the spelling of his surname with the air of one who had done it a lot. He winced only slightly as he took the shirt off. "And that is an interesting question. If I said I got hurt time-traveling, you would say...."

He looked at her hopefully.

Edited 2010-06-10 14:07 (UTC)

Oooo. Time travel? Scully blinked. "You're from another time, and got hurt when she went home?" she guessed, walking around to look at his injury, then wincing. "Or do you mean something else?... It's deep. This is going to sting when I clean it, so brace yourself." She took one of the swabs and carefully started cleaning up the site of the injury, frowning as it still seeped blood. "And you're right about the stitches."

"No. Well, I am" -- he kept forgetting this was 2010, not 2003 like it should be -- "but I have a medical condition that causes uncontrollable time travel. Somebody threw a rock at me while I was on a trip."

He put both hands on the edge of the exam table, muscles tightening against the sting. "Ready when you are. I do or I don't need stitches?"

"You do. Are you okay with a local anesthetic?" Scully asked, then took a breath, kerflummoxed. "And I'm not going to ask you to repeat what you just said, because I know what you just said. But-- I do have to ask how that works, if only so I don't set it off here."

"Local is fine," Henry said. "It's ... a genetic disorder. Supposedly related to epilepsy, except my seizures take me into the past or the future. My doctors at Hopkins have been bugging me to come in, but .... had to wait until there was blood."

Stupid of him, he knew. "Use the kind of stitches that dissolve? The regular ones get torn out when I travel."

"Certainly." Scully took a breath, concentrating hard to keep her own mind in the here-and-now, and picked up the needle to administer the local. While she waited the minute it took for that to take effect, she prepped the needle with dissolving thread. Epilepsy; with a new, dangerous twist. "So you've had this all your life?" She leaned forward and said, "Tell me if you feel anything more than a tug with this, and I'll increase the dosage."

"Since I was six," Henry said, holding his breath as the needle tugged through his skin. "... that's not too bad. You have good hands."

"Thank you," Scully said, most of her attention focused on the stitching. "I have lots of practice." Mostly on Y-incisions, but the rest? All Mulder, all the time.

Six. That was so young. Horrible to think about a little kid just vanishing into thin air. "So the doctors at Johns Hopkins have been studying your condition for a while, then." Stitch, stitch, stitch, hold the wound closed, stitch. "When was the last time you saw them for -- treatment? If there is one?"

"I have a geneticist in Chicago," Henry said. Talking helped him not to think about the stitching. "I've been working with him for about 10 years. He came to a dead end, suggested I come out here. I see them every other week or so."

He managed a wry smile. "Their conclusion at the moment is that it's extremely freaking weird. Which is a step up from not believing me at all, so."

Bored of talking about himself for the moment, he added, "Where'd you get your practice?"

It was fascinating. Scully would love to read a journal article about that, although it would feel strange and possibly invasive, knowing who it would be about.... so it was just as well she had no idea where she would look for that.

"Um." She paused to adjust the angle of the needle, and carefully said, "My best friend has a thing for climbing over barbed-wire fences." Which was even the truth. "I'd already taken several First Aid courses, so I just moved on to actual paramedic applications. I'm going to be a doctor."

"Good luck," Henry said politely. "And tell your friend to stay off the fences."

He added, almost absently. "The people at Hopkins think this clinic should have my medical records. I have a bit of a penchant for injury."

Understatement.

"They probably have the right idea, if you're prone to injury. The other doctors here should know to expect that you might vanish out of here the next time you got hurt." Scully carefully tied off the last stitch, and then reached for a bandage. "You said someone threw a rock at you? I'm guessing you just appeared out of nowhere, and they reacted?"

"Landed on a construction site," Henry explained. "They saw a naked guy reaching for a coverall and .... reacted with the first thing that came to hand. Not the worst thing somebody's done"

Taping the bandage in place, Scully said, "You can put your shirt back on," herbrain still preoccupied. Which may be why she blurted: "Naked? Your clothes don't go with you?... is that why the dissolving stitches?"

That had to be the most inconvenient ability she had ever heard of.

Henry smirked over his shoulder as he reached for the shirt. "That's it, yep. I had to have a tooth pulled -- kept losing the filling. Thank God I have good vision."

He would not disagree about how inconvenient it was, though by his reckoning he was still better off than Jono.

"I'd say so, yes," Scully responded, shaking her head, still befuddled. "I've come to accept that people here have abilities I've never heard of, or imagined, but the specifics still keep surprising me." She wrote down a few notes on his file, and said, "You're probably used to this, so you know to keep your stitches dry, feel free to use over-the-counter painkillers for it, and if the scratch starts to feel hot or you run a temperature, come back in." She clicked her pen, then cocked her head. "Is there anything else I can do for you today? Aside from the usual lollipop?"

"I think that's about it," Henry said, gliding toward the door. "I like cherry lollipops."

Checking in way early, then back around 7pmEST.

All venom examinations done with permission of Clinic head, and venom donor! Don't try this at home.

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The Clinic, Thursday (6/10)

Mod a nurse!

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OOC