Day 20: Dr. Wilson's Office [Doctor's Office 6]

[damned-doctors.livejournal.com]

It was silly, but Wilson was nervous.

Mental health was by no means his specialty. It was true that he more or less had to act as a counselor for his patients. Most of them had terminal cancer. The dates were never any good. Two years, one year, six months, three months. He could speak to people about dying well enough, but this was different.

Hopefully he would get the hang of it. He took solace in the fact that he had a bit more experience than some of the other doctors. Such as, oh, House? He wasn't sure what the chief of staff had been thinking when he hired him. It made him wonder if the administrators were as insane as the patients.

Even though therapy didn't start first thing in the morning, Wilson had made sure to be there extra early anyway. (He had to make up for House, who would undoubtedly be late.) His office was also cleaner than it would normally be - first impressions were important, after all, and that was probably even more true with mental patients. He heard the intercom, which meant his first patient would be heading in soon. He straightened in his chair, though his nervousness caused him to grab a random doodad off of his desk and start fiddling with it.

[ ooc: For Adelheid, Cliff, Dias, Eric, Hikaru, Riza, Scar, and Seimei. ]

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[damned-doctors.livejournal.com]

Wilson saw where her eyes were focused. She wasn't even familiar with that sort of telephone. "You can take a closer look if you want," he offered. She couldn't hurt anything with a telephone - and he doubted she would, anyway. Even if she was coming to trust him, it was going the opposite way as well.

"What do you mean by lost time?" he asked. He considered pulling out his cell phone and showing that to her, but it might be a bit too much of a shock.

[gun-fire.livejournal.com]

She sat forward in her seat when he gave his permission, though she wasn't entirely pleased with herself that he had guessed her interest in it. She turned it, studying the face of it. Buttons, not a dial.

"I just meant that . . . You asked if I had experienced black-outs, or lost time. I wanted to reassure you that the answer is still No." She tapped a short fingernail against the telephone chassis. The plastic sounded different.

She wondered briefly if firearms were any different here, at this time, but she decided the design couldn't be so different that she wouldn't know how to use it.

Frowning, she sat back again. What must be think of her now? The telephone looked worn, so it wasn't a very new design. How did he suppose she had avoided it?

Well, it didn't hurt to ask. "I know you can't go into details, doctor, but how do I seem to you? Why am I here?"

[damned-doctors.livejournal.com]

She wasn't faking. The way she examined the phone was truly as if she had never seen one before. It was like all those what-if questions on exams: if someone came from another planet and you had to explain something to them, how would you do it?

Wilson frowned. She wasn't an alien.

Considering she had just asked for that opinion, it was almost tempting to say that. Wilson was sure that House would have, had he been in his place.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "There aren't many places I know of where you wouldn't know what a telephone was." Perhaps in one of the particularly horrible third-world countries, but she didn't look like she came from one of those.

"It doesn't make much sense, does it," he said, more to himself than to her.

[gun-fire.livejournal.com]

His self-directed remark gave her some hope, though she wasn't sure why. What good would it do for him to believe every word of her plight and the plight of all the patients here? She still didn't fully understand the situation she was in--who could?--but she was fairly certain any steps he made in her direction could be swiftly undone by those who disapproved. And though he seemed genuinely to care, she doubted he would make a stand in the patients' favor.

But it couldn't hurt to be honest, she kept telling herself. At least--it couldn't hurt at this point.

"It's not that I don't know what a telephone is," she corrected. "I'm well acquainted with their operation. However . . . it would seem I'm more familiar with an earlier version."

[damned-doctors.livejournal.com]

"Hmm. All right." That meant she didn't think she was from too far into the past. "What did it look like? How did it worked?" If he got a detailed enough description, he might be able to figure out the general time period.

It would have just been easier to ask her what year she believed she came from, but Wilson hadn't thought of that.

[gun-fire.livejournal.com]

He had jumped too quickly into those questions for him to be taking this particular situation seriously. She was certain he took her seriously, but certainly he didn't believe the real reason she wasn't up-to-date with the telephones.

But she knew she couldn't get very far with lying, and losing his trust would be far too costly in the end.

"Well," she began, somewhat defeated, "they were larger. More detailed, with more metal." She eyed the phone on his desk again. "The cords were straight and the numbers were on a dial."

She'd have gone on to say she supposed they worked in the same manner, but the intercom interrupted her, and she paused to listen. When it was finished, she stood in anticipation of her nurse, then extended her hand towards Dr Wilson (in a non-threatening manner).

"Thank you, Doctor. I appreciate your efforts."

[damned-doctors.livejournal.com]

That made sense. There weren't many sorts of telephones, after all. Either way, she seemed rather impatient with speaking to him, anyway, and the intercom sounding meant that they were going to be cut off no matter what.

"You're welcome," he replied, shaking her hand firmly before withdrawing. She had definitely been one of his more pleasant patients, which he was thankful for.