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“Damn it,” says Albert for the third time in as many minutes, his stethoscope held at the ready, “I might spend most of my time cutting up stiffs, but I'm still a medical doctor, and I’m telling you right now: restricting your lungs further with a binder when you’re already having difficulty breathing because of the bruising on your ribs is about as good an idea as you, presently, executing flips on a trampoline.”
Cooper, sitting on the table in the empty conference room they’ve commandeered for Albert’s secondary examination, shudders at that image and then winces at the pain the motion causes. With a sigh, he says, firmly, “Albert, I’ve already explained that this is a topic of concern for me with these people. They’re simple country folk and not aware of—“
“—the fact that they’re bigots?” interjects Albert, scowling. He has no illusions about small-town life; for all the facelessness of cities, rural life harbors even more horrors and ill-informed small-minded idiocy, simply because everyone’s too afraid to disturb the sluggish status quo.
“—not aware of the fine points of gender,” finishes Cooper, with a sharp look at Albert. “While I understand your hesitancy towards the inhabitants of this fine town, if you are to oversee this case you will have to make some allowances for country life, including letting me cause myself slightly more discomfort than I already might.”
Albert growls, “I did take the Hippocratic oath, you realize.” Automatic, he wishes for a cigarette to ease the building tension, but goes on, “And that means hell no. Wear your overcoat, for god’s sake, no one is going to notice.”
“The doctor already knows,” says Cooper, evenly. “Suspicion is sure to be fueled, given how quickly rumor travels here, and they’ll pay closer attention.”
“How can you defend everyone here when you know exactly how they’re going to react if they find out?” Albert asks, exasperated, and puts the buds of his stethoscope in his ears without waiting for an answer. Bending forward, he presses the stethoscope to Cooper’s chest through his shirt, and grunts, “Breathe.”
Cooper does, and makes a pained noise; Albert, forging on, shifts the stethoscope and repeats, “Breathe,” listening to the off-kilter sound of Cooper’s lungs in the face of three slugs, point blank range.
When he’s finished, Albert tugs the buds back out and says, “I’d say that country hack shouldn’t have even let you up out of bed, but then I know what you’re like when you’ve got your mind set on something, so I’m not sure I can actually lay the blame at that dunderhead’s feet.” He also knows exactly how Cooper feels about doctors at the best of times, and these times are certainly not that.
Cooper's eyes are dark with worry when Albert meets his gaze, and weighted with a fatigued sort of awareness; like he knows precisely how this disagreement is going to end.
Quietly, and rather more gently than he’s argued thus far, Albert says, “Coop, you really can’t.”
Cooper’s eyes close, long lashes falling in tired acquiescence, and Albert straightens, takes to putting his medical kit away. “All right, Albert,” says Cooper at last, and reaches for his jacket and coat just as Albert suggested.
His shoulders remain set, and his lips stay pressed into a thin, unhappy line.
Albert gets it, he does: Cooper’s in a place where everyone thinks of him exactly the way they should, without the accepting-but-not-understanding caveats like he’s got back at the home office in Philadelphia; with Gordon Cole who still slips up and says ‘she’ when he’s in a hurry, and agents from other departments that circulate in after years of absence and boggle at Dale-not-Dalia.
Albert himself keeps to morgues and laboratories for similar reasons, as Cooper is well aware.
But having that taken away—the certainty that no one’s going to look at him the wrong way, with the wrong set of assumptions—Albert knows that hurts; and it irritates him, right down to the core, that Cooper would jump so readily to these people’s defense when in the end they’d still probably vilify him, and not just because he’s odd and clever and too full of joy for his grim profession.
Pathology lends itself to never having to make apologies, and so Albert doesn’t, not as a rule; but just this once he mutters, “Sorry, Coop,” and hurries to snap his case shut so he can help Cooper on with his coat.