Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Preston paced the length of Glassman’s office. It took quite a few steps, past large windows that suffused the room with late morning light. It was a very nice office. “Kind of short notice, isn’t it?” she said, face pinched, words tight and precise.

Dr. Glassman shrugged. “It’s the end of the match period for first year residents. Andrews checked, on a hunch. Dr. Caron didn’t match, so we gave her a call.”

Preston turned on her high heels and leaned forward to plant both hands on Glassman’s desk. “She didn’t match because she’s a huge liability,” she argued. “Murphy’s a legal cake walk compared to that girl.”

“It wouldn’t kill you to use her name,” Glassman said, still slow, still calm, still as immovable as granite. “If Dr. Caron can finish her medical degree, she’ll change the world. And it will happen here.”

“Seriously, Dr. Glassman, are you trying to run a hospital or a freak show? What’s next, Doogie Howser? Mr. Peabody?”

“Point taken,” Glassman conceded. “But Dr. Caron is neither a child nor a dog. There is nothing about her record that suggests she will make anything but an excellent doctor. It’s a huge prestige move.”

“It’s a hugely controversial move. We’re already, pardon my bluntness, on edge waiting for Murphy to screw up, or even to attract the blame for one of the many things that can go wrong in medicine even if nobody screws up. Caron could instigate a lawsuit by walking down the hallway.”

Glassman sat back in his chair to fidget with a pencil. “I interviewed her myself via video conference last week. I plan to meet with her in person before I present her to the board.”

Preston shook her head. “Not without a chaperone, you won’t. Who knows how she could influence you. We don’t even really know the extent of those people’s capabilities.”

Glassman sat up so fast his chair squeaked on its hinges. “Those people? I really don’t like the way you said that. That’s the kind of mindset that leads to Auschwitz.” He added, “Besides she’s here right now. I sent Shaun to keep her busy until we had a chance to talk to you.”

“Fine, but I will observe the interview. You want Professor X working at this hospital, we will all make sure everything is by the book.” She fixed her eyes on Glassman. “Why Shaun?”

“Think of it as a test.”

Alex perched on the edge of one of the molded plastic chairs that lined the hospital lobby, uncomfortable in her brand new dress shoes, the kind she generally never wore. She held her bag on her lap like a physical manifestation of her mental shield, which was, she supposed, kind of ridiculous. Make a good impression, she told herself. She tried running her confidence song through her head, Lin Manuel Miranda’s image dancing across a stage, YouTube blurry. I’m not throwing away my shot, she thought to herself.

A young man in blue scrubs walked right up to her. He had a mop of dark hair, an aura that, while a common shade of buttery yellow, had some atypical refraction patterns, and an odd way of not quite looking in her eyes. Which was fine. She had a little trouble looking people in the eye, too. She’d just learned to be less obvious about it. “My name is Shaun Murphy,” the young man said in a high and oddly inflected voice. “I am a surgical resident at this hospital. I was sent to keep you busy until Dr. Glassman is ready to interview you.” He paused. “You like blue.”

She looked down at herself. Cobalt blue shirt, navy slacks, blue patterned canvas bag. Her face broke into a smile. “I do like blue.” Autistic, she recognized. Surgical resident. That boded...well.

Dr. Murphy frowned slightly. “Alex Caron,” she said, by way of introduction. She didn’t offer to shake hands. He glanced in the direction of her hands, wrapped as they were around her bag, but made no comment. Relieved. That makes two of us, Alex thought, but kicked up her shield a notch to avoid being rude.

“We will go to the surgical department. I will ask Dr. Melendez to give you something to do so you will be busy.” He turned and walked in the right direction, expecting that she would follow. After a pause, she did, though she had to jog a couple of steps to catch up. So she would be busy? She puzzled out his phrasing while he led her down the hallway.

They passed a couple of people in the hall. She moved well out of their way, almost pressing herself against the wall. Obvious, she realized. Her nerves were distracting her from keeping up appearances. The more normal you look, she reminded herself, the more people will take you for granted, and the easier everything will be.

Dr. Murphy spoke without turning back to look at her. “You’re acting like you’re nervous. Do I make you nervous? I sometimes make people nervous.”

“I’m waiting to be interviewed for my last chance at an having an internship year. You are not making me nervous.” She bit her lip. “Also I don’t like tight spaces with people in them.”

The elevator doors opened on a nurse, a lab tech, and a nursing assistant pushing an occupied wheelchair. “I don’t like them either. We will wait for the next one,” Dr. Murphy said. The doors closed. After five seconds, he pushed the button again.

He turned to look at her for a second, then away again. “Dr. Andrews said you read minds. Are people’s brains like books?” She was surprised into a laugh. He flinched at the noise.

“No. Not usually. Looks more like a web, one jumps from association to association. Mind reader is kind of a silly term, isn’t it? Telepath is almost as bad, though. Mixing Latin and Greek roots, how are we supposed to ever be taken seriously by academics? I suggested legilimens, but it never stuck.” She glanced over at him. “Sorry. I babble when I’m nervous.”

Dr. Murphy did not answer her for a moment. Too many words in a row, she supposed, a little regretfully. She would try to do better. “Harry Potter?” he said, finally placing the unfamiliar word. “Dr. Glassman used to read that to me.”

The doors opened on an empty elevator. They stepped in. Dr. Murphy pressed the button for the fourth floor. “I read your article. ‘Template reconstruction: A promising method for restoring function after traumatic brain injury.’” He paused. “I didn’t understand it.”

Alex shook her head. “I’m not surprised. The writing is awful. English lacks words for a lot of what we do, and I’m a visual thinker anyway.” She rocked from heel to toe, realized she was doing it, stopped. “It’s in a pretty small, specialized journal. I’m surprised you found it.”

Dr. Murphy continued to stare at a point about seven feet off the floor, in the direction of the elevator doors. “It’s on Medline. I looked it up when Dr. Glassman told me you were coming.”

“Why?” He didn’t answer, but she could feel a little spike of anxiety from him. Rephrase? “It’s okay not to understand something.”

“I am supposed to make small talk. I wanted to have something to talk about.” The doors opened onto the surgical floor.

“Very sensible,” she said. So far, he just seemed socially naive and possessed some odd mannerisms, though, she supposed, no odder than some of her own. They were more alike than they were different.

“Can you see what I’m thinking now?” He said, out of the blue. That wasn’t unusual. It usually came up pretty early in conversation, though the tone was usually either apologetic or belligerent, not so blandly matter of fact.

“No. You’d be able to tell. And I wouldn’t without permission.”

He tapped his hands on his pant legs. “You have it.”

“Umm, what?” Silence again, and the little anxious spark. “I have something,” she tried again.

“Permission.”

Well, there was a new one. “Doesn’t the idea of someone else knowing what you’re thinking bother you at all?” Ouch. He not only didn’t answer, but he started patting his thighs with his fingertips again. Shit. She dropped back against the wall, hitting it with a small thud, and leaned there, looking at her toes. Giving him time to get over whatever she’d said. It took, she didn’t know, over two minutes, long enough for her to briefly forget why they were standing there. Rephrase, or let it go. It was important. So rephrase.

“You’’re giving me permission to, um, see what you’re thinking. That scares most people.”

He started walking toward the nurses station, apparently unstuck. “Talking scares me. People say things to me and I don’t understand. I do things wrong and they get angry. I say the wrong thing. People get angry then, too. ”

“I’ll think about it.” She caught herself staring at her toes. “But I do promise not to get angry if we don’t understand each other. Deal?”

“This way,” Dr. Murphy directed. Alex followed. A young black woman in a doctor’s coat was leaning on the nurses station, typing something into her tablet. Murphy waited at her shoulder for her to notice him. Eventually she turned around. “Hello, Shaun.” She looked behind him, toward Alex. “You have a friend,” she said.

“This is Dr. Caron. She is not my friend, she is interviewing here. I am supposed to keep her busy. Where is Doctor Melendez?”

“Claire Browne,” Claire said, reaching around him to extend a hand. Alex stepped back and started to mumble a flustered apology. Should have been prepared for that one, she chastised herself.

Dr. Murphy corrected Claire. “Dr. Caron does not shake hands. I think it is because she is a legilimens.”

Alex couldn’t help it. Nerves also gave her the giggles. She covered her laugh with one hand. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, still stifling a giggle.

“A what?” Claire said. “Are you autistic like Shaun?”

“No,” Alex said. “I’m a telepath.” Funny how after fourteen years, her tongue still stumbled on the word. Like it was something to be ashamed of. Either she would be dismissed as a nut, or she would become instantly frightening and alien.

Claire took an infinitesimal step backward, but recovered her composure almost instantly, putting on a smile that, after another beat, became genuine. “You’re that Dr. Caron! I wonder how Glassman got that past the board.”

Alex worked on looking harmless and charming. “He hasn’t, yet. I’m here for an interview.”

Dr. Murphy bounced impatiently on his toes. “Where is Doctor Melendez? I am supposed to keep Dr. Caron busy.”

“Oh, Shaun, I’m sure that’s not what they meant,” Claire corrected. Oh, that was what he had meant by busy. Oh dear. He was probably supposed to have given her some innocuous tour of the hospital, maybe gotten her a snack from the cafeteria. She might not be welcome here. “Dr. Melendez is trying to get a patient declared incompetent so her mother can consent for surgery. The patient has had anaesthesia awareness twice. Says she’d rather die than go through it again.”

Dr. Murphy turned to Alex. “If a patient were aware during surgery, would you know?”

Alex blinked. This was a new place, surrounded by people who she wasn’t used to and who weren’t used to her, and her exact job description had landed in their laps. Because the universe was infinitely unfair. “Of course. That would be obvious, why?”

“Because I am supposed to keep you busy. Where is the patient, Claire?”

Dr. Browne shook her head. “My day just got a hundred percent weirder. Follow me.” She stopped outside the patient’s door. “The patient is a nineteen year old female. Two months ago, she was in a car accident, splenic rupture, damage to her stomach, diaphragm, GI tract, broken pelvis. She’s back from rehab with intestinal blockage, signs of infection. We need to do a resection, maybe a colostomy. She’s had two major surgeries with full awareness resulting in PTSD.”

Dr. Caron blew out a breath. “Well I know how I’d like to handle this, but I’d rather not get fired before I’m hired.”

Someone new stepped up behind them. Alex took a quick step to one side to maintain her personal space. “Legal won’t declare her incompetent. Claire, have you tried to talk to her again?”

Dr. Browne took his elbow and steered him to face Alex. “This is Dr. Caron. Dr. Alexandra Caron. She’s here for a match interview.” She’d slowed down, emphasized Alex’s name.

Melendez didn’t even pause. “Isn’t it a little late for match?”

Dr. Browne continued. “Dr. Caron would like to make herself useful while she waits for her interview.”

“You think you can get her to sign the paper, be my guest,” Melendez said, so quickly she was pretty sure he hadn’t caught Claire’s name drop. Or he just honestly had no idea who she was. “I hate to see a kid that age die because she won’t undergo a simple surgery.”

“Dr. Melendez,” Alex tried.

“What, I’m very busy.”

“I think I might be able to solve the anaesthesia awareness issue. If you’ll back me up.” Get the foot in the door.

“We’ll see. Wait, what was your name again?” He paused to recall it from memory. “Absolutely not! What the hell is Glassman thinking now?” The delayed reaction was always the most fun. Not. He turned around. “Who brought magic crystal girl in here?”

“I was supposed to keep her busy,” Dr. Murphy said.

Magic crystal girl. Alex had never used a magic crystal for anything in her life. Unless you counted sugar. Sugar was a crystal. Not magic, though. She excused herself from the argument. Everyone was busy snipping over her head as though she were a thing, not the first time that had happened, but tiresome just the same.

She thumped into a chair and pulled her bag around in front of her to hold as if it were a stuffed animal. Childish.

Another thirty seconds of arguing, then Dr. Murphy walked over and sat down, leaving one empty chair between them. “I was wrong about the word busy. I did not know it had another meaning.”

“Sorry. About the fighting, I mean.”

“People talk about me too. I scare patients. Sometimes there is too much stuff happening and I get stuck. People don’t trust me to do the right thing.”

“Sometimes neurodivergence stinks.”

“Different brain?” He took the word parts apart, took a guess.

“Yeah. I mean, you’re autistic, right?”

There was a longish pause before he admitted, “Yes. But I’m not stupid.”

“Of course you’re not. Do you think you would be as good at what you do if you weren’t autistic?”

“I don’t know.” His phone vibrated in his pocket. He checked it. “They want you upstairs. I will take you there.”

Saved by the bell. “Thanks,” she said. “Hospitals are mazes. Takes me forever to learn how to get around.”

“I memorized the map. Do you want to see it?”

Not one to let up, was he. “Umm, no, I’ll just follow you.”

Back to the elevator and up to the sixth floor. Quiet, for a bit. Murphy probably thought he had offended her. She took another deep breath. “I can fix the thing with the anaesthesia awareness. Maybe the PTSD too, at least temporarily. Kind of right up my alley. I mean if they let me.”

“They let me make a femur out of titanium and put it in a patient. No one had done that before.” He paused. “It was Claire’s idea.”

“That’s a good sign.”

The elevator door opened. This floor was bright and spacious, lit with floor to ceiling windows. She studied a ceiling fan for a moment. “You want to show me what the femur looked like?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. It’s good practice anyway, and then you’ll know what to expect if we have to do this in an emergency. Picture it as clearly as you can.” She lowered the screen just enough to pick up an image. Standing inches from him, it didn’t have to be too much.

He had chosen to remember the femur in situ, sitting in its nest of muscle and tendon. It turned in three dimensions, showing where the blood vessels had been reconnected in precise detail, with the feeling attached to each part of the image of how it had been put back together, and how long each step had taken. His pride in his accomplishment colored the image, and she couldn;t resist projecting appreciation in response. Fortunately, he didn’t panic at the touch. There was a separate image, of soda bubbles at the back of his head. “That’s me,” she said, coupling the words with a quick image of herself.

She tightened the screen around herself again. “See, nothing to it. And you have an amazing visual memory.”

“I’m a savant,” he said, in the same tone as he might have told her how tall he was. “That was fun,” he added. The lack of internal censor was growing on her.

“Yeah, it kind of is”, she admitted. “They’re probably waiting for us.”

He walked her the rest of the way to the office door. Two men and a woman waited. One of the men was Glassman, the other she didn’t recognize. Murphy opened the door for her. “I brought Dr. Caron. She is smart and kind. I hope you hire her.”

Well, that was kind of sweet. She set her bag down to look more professional, but immediately missed its weight.

An older Jewish man stepped from around his desk and gestured to a chair. “I’m Dr. Glassman, in case you don’t remember me. This is Dr. Andrews and Ms. Preston, head of our legal department.”

“I remember you.” She bowed slightly to each in turn, in lieu of handshakes. “I’m Alex Caron. Thank you so much for the chance to meet with you.” She had rehearsed this part of the interview many times in her head, almost scripted it.

“Shaun seems impressed,” Glassman said. “Did you get a chance to see the hospital?”

“Only surgery. There was a bit of a miscommunication. But I can tour the hospital any time.”

“Did Shaun misunderstand my instructions in some way?”

“I wasn’t inconvenienced.” Trying to shut down the line of questioning.

Andrews spoke next. “He’s an interesting person, isn’t he, Dr. Caron. Brilliant, in his way.” The tone implied immediately that his way was not good enough. Her skin prickled. She took her seat, pulled a file folder out of her bag and handed it to Glassman.

“I brought samples of some of the documents we created to use in Chicago. They’re EPIC compatible. Consent form, imaging markup pages, some abbreviations we use on charts.” She laid a flash drive on the table. “I’m not some cowboy making everything up as I go. Anymore.” She paused. “Look, I know I’m at least as much a fancy new piece of imaging equipment as I am a first year resident. It’s important to me to learn how to be a real doctor, do real rotations. But I’m also realistic. And I want us all on the same page.”

She turned to Preston, the lawyer. “I’ve been wrangling with the courts since I was twelve years old. You’ll find I’ve gotten quite good at it.”

“So I’ve read.”

Glassman perched on the edge of his desk. “I hoped you and Shaun would hit it off. You could be good for him.”

Andrews elaborated, “Maybe get him to behave more normally.”

“You thought she could fix him?” Glassman said, carefully neutral tone disguising anger. She wondered if Andrews could tell.

“I wasn’t aware that he was broken,” she said.

“Right answer,” Glassman said.

Preston also sat, sort of, on a chair arm. Misuse of furniture seemed to be epidemic around here. “I just got a call from Melendez about the young lady with the bowel resection. He still wants me to declare her incompetent, but he was going off on a tear about you, too.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

She stood. On high heels. Alex tried not to be jealous. “Maybe you should. You told Dr. Browne you thought you could solve our problem, and I think this solves both of them. We get to see how you work, and we may be able to get ourselves out of yet another legal bind. Think of it as an audition.”

“I need permission to be in the surgical suite with her. Probably inside the sterile field.”

“Granted,” Andrews said. “Chief of Surgery,” he clarified. “If Melendez won’t work with you, I will.”

She wasn’t particularly sure she wanted to work with him. He had that calculating, possessive quality she remembered from unpleasant run ins with half a dozen agencies best known by their initials, or not at all. But beggars couldn’t be choosers.

Chapter Text

The bowel obstruction, correction, Julia Lawrence, who had a bowel obstruction, was supposed to be Claire’s patient. However, she seemed determined not to be. She was an infuriating patient; largely silent, stubborn and sulky when she spoke at all, and unwilling to even discuss her need for surgery.

Her mother was no better. She seemed to have an infallible knack for saying exactly the wrong thing, inserting some threat or subtle insult the moment Claire managed to get Julia to say more than three words in a row to her. And Melendez insisted she get that signature.

Julia’s mother grabbed her elbow as she walked down the hallway, intending to check labs for another patient. “Dr. Browne,” she said.

While Claire wasn’t thrilled with being manhandled (womanhandled?) by a near stranger, she put on her best smile and turned to face the older woman. “Ms. Lawrence, can I help you with something?”

“I was thinking.” She hadn’t released Claire’s elbow from the death grip. Her manicured nails dug in a little through Claire’s coat. “What if I were to just sign the paper with Julia’s name? I know what her signature looks like.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Claire said.

She pulled Claire toward her. “Julia’s not in her right mind. The flashbacks, they make her crazy, she can hardly tell what’s real and what isn’t. We could just tell her she signed it herself.”

Even in the very idea weren’t unethical in itself and likely to get her fired, Claire wasn’t interested in participating in what seemed like just the latest in a string of power plays between mother and daughter that had been going on for far longer than Julia’s current crisis.

She allowed her face to go hard. “Let go of me now.”

“Fine. If she dies, I will sue the hospital.” She turned and strode back to her daughter’s room.

I’m sure you will, Claire thought. Legal had informed her that the mother already had no fewer than three lawsuits pending, though none against St. Bonaventure, yet. She retrieved the labs and took them to the front desk to read, first catching the nurse’s attention. “Could you find a way to catch Julia Lawrence alone. I’d like to get her permission to exclude her mother from the room for a while.”

“Problem?”

“Only that I’d really like to punch her in the mouth.” She set down the labs. “She just offered to forge her daughter’s signature on the consent form and gaslight her about it.”

The elevator pinged. Claire glanced up to see the chief of surgery, the president of the hospital, and the little psychic girl, looking as though she might be heading to her own execution. Little psychic first year resident, she corrected in her head.

“Dr. Browne, Ms. Lawrence is your patient, correct?” Andrews said.

“Mine and Dr. Melendez,” she clarified.

“Please take Dr. Caron in to visit your patient. She believes she may be of assistance in getting the consent for surgery.”

“Okay,” she said, dubiously. “She’s a very stubborn woman.”

Andrews continued, “Dr. Caron has not yet signed a contract with the hospital. Do not leave her alone with the patient. Clear?”

“Crystal,” she replied. She gestured the newbie to follow her to the patient’s room, but stopped a few feet from the door to turn to her assigned newbie. Dr. Caron certainly looked the way she had felt on her first day of her first rotation, that combination of eagerness and frank terror so clear on her face she could almost feel it. She gave the girl the rundown. “Julia Lawrence is severely depressed, possibly suicidal, and she’s been having frequent flashbacks. I think the hospital environment triggers them. She’s at the limit for the amount of opiate we can give her and it’s not touching the abdominal pain, at least by her report.” She stopped to think of what else she needed to say. “Her mother is a piece of work. Any excuse we can have to get her out of there works in our favor. Do not leave the consent for surgery form anywhere she can get to it.”

Dr. Caron nodded understanding, then summarized, “Severe depression, PTSD with flashbacks, mom is a bitch. Got it. Have cannabinoids been tried for the PTSD?”

“If they have, it’s not on the chart.”

“Might want to try 15 mg cannabidiol by nebulizer, since she’s NPO.”

Claire shook her head. “Might be a good idea to suggest to psych, but not before surgery. That treatment protocol is too new to predict the effects.”

Caron looked over her shoulder at the door to the patient’s room. “How much leeway are you williing to give me?”

Claire bristled for a moment. “None, to give her an experimental drug before we cut a chunk out of her bowel. What are you planning to do?”

“I’m not sure yet. Do you think she’s lying about the pain to get drugs?”

Claire considered. “No. She looks like she’s hurting. Pallor, sweating, rapid pulse and breathing.”

“Good.” The younger woman rephrased, “I mean, it’s good to know. And it’s a cheap excuse to prove I’m legit.” She smoothed her hands over her lab coat. “So, I’m going to put a block on nociception at the celiac ganglion, that will get fast results and it’s quick and not too invasive. Then we’ll see how it goes. I can block the flashbacks temporarily, but getting rid of them for good isn’t a one day project.”

“How does any of that help us get the signature?” I mean, it was nice she was thinking of making the patient more comfortable and all, but newbie needed to take the long view. “I’d think if we make her too comfortable she’ll have even less reason to sign.”

“So, um.” Caron looked abruptly uncomfortable. “It sounds like we can’t trust conventional anaesthetics to work with her. If it’s okay with you, I’ll take her down myself and monitor during surgery. If you don’t mind me scrubbing in.”

Claire was beginning to think there was a disconnect in this conversation. The girl was not going to get anywhere if she couldn’t express herself clearly and precisely. That thought brought Shaun to mind, and she almost laughed at herself for thinking it. Okay, unless she was a genius savant like Shaun. She needed to learn that, and soon. “Look, newbie, I get that you maybe see things a little differently than I do. Maybe you pick things up from patients or something. But I don’t know exactly what you can do, or how you can do it, or what your limits are. You cannot be cagey with me.”

Caron shrunk a little. “Okay. I’ll try. So, um. I can induce surgical levels of anaesthesia. With my brain. Is that clear enough for you?”

This she was going to have to see to believe. “We’ll have to clear it with anaesthesiology.”

“If you have trouble, I’d be happy to knock out an anaesthesiologist or two.” Claire envisioned newbie clobbering the chief anaesthesiologist while Claire snuck the patient in on a gurney…“To prove I can do it,” Dr. Caron finished. Had the telepath been privy to that image? She hoped not. It made her feel stupid for misunderstanding.

Caron wiped her hands on her doctor coat again. Sweating. Claire noticed that her name was embroidered on the pocket, along with a cartoon image of a bumblebee. “Last thing. Um. When I’m working with a patient, my screens have to come down. I can’t let her in and keep you totally out. Sorry in advance for any backdraft.”

Claire took a moment to parse that sentence. Nope, didn’t help. “You wanna try that one again, with a glossary?” she said.

“Screens. It’s a visualization thing. I block out most of what other people are thinking and feeling most of the time. If I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to function. Backdraft. Oh, that’s a hard one. Okay. So, when I put the block in, I’ll feel her pain, for a couple of seconds, until I can trace it to the right spot and stop the signal from reaching the brain. Since my screens will be down, you might feel something, thirdhand, if you’re standing too close. I know, TMI, right?”

“I’m beginning to get the feeling you’re a whole branch of medicine all by yourself. “So, showtime?”

“Showtime,” Caron agreed.

Claire led the way into the room. “Hello Mrs. Lawrence, Ms. Lawrence,” she said, smiling brightly and looking from one, to the other. “We’re going to be doing a procedure for which your daughter will probably want some privacy. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“I do not have to leave my daughter alone,” she said.

“Actually, you do. It’s policy. If you have any questions, please take them to the nurses at the front desk.” Mrs. Lawrence huffed and stomped out the room, muttering about lawyers.

Julia’s eyes tracked her mother all the way out the door. Tension melted out of her from the shoulders down and she sagged into her pillow. “Thanks,” she said to Claire. “So what’s on the torture schedule for today?”

Claire considered. What the hell was she going to say? Julia and her mother weren’t the most educated patients she’d ever had. The first group of patients successfully treated for Caron’s condition were a nine days’ wonder years ago, and since they had been children at the time, their existence really hadn’t had that much of an impact on the larger world, yet. “This is Doctor Caron. She a...specialist in pain management.”

Dr. Caron pulled a chair up next to the patient’s bedside. “So, I’m getting about an eight out of ten from you. Would you agree?”

“Seven or eight, yeah.”

“Nobody makes good decisions when they’re in that much pain. If I can make it stop, or at least, go down to a four or so, will you give me a half hour of your time?”

Julia seemed to think it through. “Can you keep my mother out of here until then?”

Claire nodded. “That we will.” Frankly, there was a good chance Mrs. Lawrence was going to be escorted out of the building by security after the stunt she pulled Other than that, she just stood at the bottom of the bed, wondering where all this was going. She was expecting the incense and magic crystals to come out any moment now.

Dr. Caron looked back at her for a moment to flash a tight little smile, then turned her attention to Julia. “Okay, so first thing we’re going to do is block your ability to feel pain from your abdominal area. This works a little like an epidural, but doesn’t use a needle. I’m just going to set up an interference pattern in the nerves that should keep any pain signals from getting all the way to your brain. Sound good?”

“If it works.”

“Dr. Browne, what I’m doing here is stimulating inhibitory neurotransmitters in afferent tracts at the celiac ganglion. At least that’s probably the physical mechanism.” She turned back to Julia. “I might pick up some generalized mental states, surface subvocalizations while I put the block in. Do you consent?”

“Uh, yeah?”

It took Claire about five seconds to parse Caron’s sentence, at which point she realized that newbie hadn’t once directly said she could read minds. She was really good at being cagey. Have to break that habit quick. Made the consent she’d just obtained a little dubious, but for the moment that seemed like a relatively minor concern.

“Okay, so lean forward a little. I’m going to lift up your shirt so I can find the right spot.” Caron pulled the woman’s gown forward onto her shoulders to expose her bony back.

Claire’s ears were popping, like a front was coming in. She glanced out the window at the cloudless blue sky.

“That’s just me,” Caron said, her voice dropping into a low singsong. “Still okay, Julia? You’re doing great. Nothing to it.”

Caron ran her index and ring fingers down the line of Julia’s vertebrae, stopping just above where the kidneys ought to be, blowing softly through her teeth the moment her fingers touched the woman’s skin. Claire briefly felt a sharp pain centered just above her bellybutton, but it faded so fast she might have imagined it.

Another beat. “Okay, you can lean back now. Pretty successful I think. You all right? I’m thinking you’re at about a two now. Would you agree?”

Julia nodded slightly.

Caron sat back. “All right, now can we all have an adult conversation, you think? Pull up a chair, Dr. Browne.” She added, to Julia, “I’m new here. Dr. Browne’s babysitting me. Alex Caron.”

Julia pulled her face into a scowl. “If you two think you’re going to talk me into signing, it’s not going to happen.”

“Is it the possiblity that you might have a colostomy?” Claire asked.

Julia shook her head. “I want to die.”

Dr. Caron replied, “Yeah. I know. Look, some of my best friends have been right where you are. Hell, I’ve been close. Giving up’s just not in my genes, I guess. I’m not willing to let you give up without at least making sure you understand your options.”

Julia glared at Caron. “Do you know what it’s like to live the worst moments of your life over and over and not be able to make it stop?”

Alex looked her right in the eye. She paused to take another breath, then answered, “Yeah. Mostly secondhand, but yeah. We can tackle your flashbacks. You wouldn’t be the first person I’ve worked with on that. But really putting them behind you will take more than just my help, and more than a day. I can knock them down for a little while, right now, give you breather. And I can make absolutely sure what happened to you before doesn’t happen again.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t even...just the smell here, being here…” Julia started to breathe faster.

“Eyes on me,” Alex said. “Come on, Julia, look me in the eye. Breathe with me.” She paused, then added matter of factly. “Claire, could you back up a couple of feet?”

Claire moved to rest her back on the front wall of the room.

“Thanks. OK, Julia, just hold on to me. Right like that. Claire?”

“Yeah.” It felt awkward, standing far enough away to have to raise her voice.

“Could you keep watch for me? Don’t let anyone touch either of us and don’t let mom in the room. Should be pretty straightforward, but if I’m nonresponsive for more than fifteen minutes, double glove and check our vitals at 5 minute intervals. If you don’t like what you see, give me 20 mg of phenobarbitol IM. You won’t need to dose Julia.”

“Got it,” Claire said. “Fifteen minutes, then vitals at 5 minute intervals, phenobarbitol if you’re…”

“If I get really tachy. 180 or higher. I usually hit around 140 bpm, but I’m a little nervous, so I may be close to that already.” She returned her full attention to Julia. “Okay, Julia, I’ve got you, but I need confirmation before we start working. Do you understand what’s going to happen and are you okay with it?”

“You’re in my head.”

Caron nodded. Claire was starting to feel like she was intruding, even though she’d been asked to stay. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No, don’t leave me!”

Caron continued, “Okay Julia, you’re going to feel like you’re falling for a second. Bear with me and everything will settle down and we can get to work, okay?” Her tone was oddly matter of fact, like she was just talking a patient through any other ordinary procedure.

“Okay.”

That was the last time either of them spoke. She’d checked her watch to note the exact time, then dialed Melendez on her cell phone. “Hey,” she said, quietly, not sure if she could disturb the two of them.

“What’s up? Did you get the signature?”

“Working on it. So, I’m stuck in the middle of a Star Trek episode in here, you think you could get me 20 mg of phenobarbitol intramuscular?”

Melendez barked a laugh into the phone. Claire smiled, since he couldn’t see her. She liked making him laugh. “For the patient?”

“For the intern. Apparently that’s her safety net. We’re not close to the time limit she gave me, but I’d like to have it on hand.”

“Will do.”

Then she was bored. Dr. Caron was being exceptionally boring. She just sat there, fingers pressed into a spot near the pulse point of Julia’s wrist, head down like she was praying or had fallen asleep. Claire wished she had brought her tablet to catch up on charts. Inactivity wasn’t her thing.

After eight minutes, Caron took a sudden breath, rubbed the back of her neck, and said, “Shit, I have got to remember to check my posture when I do deep work. Can you hand me the consent form?”

Claire looked around for it, passed it to her. Caron continued. “Julia? Hey, we’re back out here in the real world. I know it’s kind of dull, but we’ve got paperwork to do.” She picked up the pen and carefully printed a couple of extra lines onto the form, then initialed them.

Julia blinked. “That was pretty weird.”

“You get used to it. So, the form says you only consent to the procedure if you are put under outside the surgical suite, by me, and I stay with you the whole time, except when I’m scrubbing in. No one will do anything to you while I’m washing my hands. Does that work for you?”

Julia sighed. “I just don’t know. I almost...well you know how my mom is.”

“Is it okay if I talk about that with Dr. Browne?”

“Yeah.”

“So, were you aware that Julia and her mother hadn’t spoken for a year when Julia had her accident? Mom is very controlling. Being under her thumb indefinitely is a big stressor.”

Claire thought a moment. “Julia, you’re an adult. You don’t have to put up with her being around all the time. If you want her access restricted, we can make that happen. You don’t have to see her at all.”

“That would be...a big relief.”

The door opened. Melendez walked in. “Hey, Claire, I’ve got that phenobarbitol you ordered...hello, Ms. Lawrence.”

“Julia.”

“Hello, Julia. You ladies having a good conversation?” Which was Melendez for “Did you get the form signed?”

Julia held out her hand for the clipboard. Claire handed it to her. She read over Dr. Caron’s additions, then bit the end of the pen thoughtfully. “Ok, that works.” She scribbled her signature and handed it to Melendez.

“We have a room open at three. We’ll get you in then.”

“You should get some rest,” Claire told Julia. “I’ll make sure the front desk knows not to let your mom in. Dr. Caron?”

“Coming.” Caron stood to follow her. Claire noticed, but didn’t mention the subtle stumble, the way she caught herself against the wall. “I’ll be back a little after two to get you settled in,” she told Julia, then followed Claire out the door. As soon as they were out the door, she scrubbed at ther face with both hands. “Ooosh,” she said, half falling against the doorframe. “That was a rough one. I’m starving. Is it lunchtime?”

Claire caught Shaun’s eye as he walked down the hall. “Dr. Caron and I are heading to the cafeteria. You can come along if you’re free,” she told him.

“I have not eaten.” Shaun replied.

“Great. Let’s get some lunch.”

Chapter Text

Shaun followed Claire and Alex to the cafeteria. He noticed, not for the first time, that he spent most of what passed for his social time with women. Well, women and Dr. Glassman, but that was different. Men did not tolerate him as long. He worried that was because women thought of him as a child.

Dr. Glassman told him he could say no to the therapist he had called a life coach, but he didn’t mean it. Sometimes people tell you that you have choices you really don’t have. That wasn’t fair. He had to think. The therapist was vanilla Eos and hairspray, clicking high heels and hair that wasn’t a real person color. Too much gold in the cornsilk.

Claire and Alex weren’t talking. He watched them while he walked beside them. Claire usually talked all the time, and in the short time that he had known Alex, she hadn’t shown herself to be especially quiet. He watched them, looking for behaviors that had names, that he could catalog and put together into a label for a feeling, a prediction for how they were likely to behave next, the skill Claire’s brain did for her effortlessly, automatically, and the skill Alex’s brain didn’t have to do at all, he thought. She would just know. That would be easier.

Claire kept looking quickly over at Alex and away. She pressed her bottom lip between her teeth, twice, and once took a breath as if she were going to talk, but didn’t. She was not smiling, but her forehead didn’t have wrinkles. Shaun wanted to write his observations down, but he didn’t want the women to get too far ahead of him.

Alex had her arms crossed and was looking at the floor and walking so close to the wall she could touch it. When they reached a long stretch of hallway without doors, one elbow trailed along the wall. She was not smiling either, and was paler than he remembered. This constellation of symptoms looked enough like something he might see in a patient that it was easier to identify. She looked tired, and like she was trying not to throw up.

They arrived in the cafeteria, which was busy. More than half the seats were filled. It was ten minutes after noon, and members of the staff who were not directly involved in caring for patients often ate lunch at this time. It was a not so favorite time for Shaun to eat, given too many trays slapping onto tables, clicking and tinging silverware, thumps of glasses on tables, ringing cash registers, and half a dozen or more conversations in earshot. Too much noise and movement for him to get his brain around.

Shaun stalled. Alex didn’t just stall, but took a step backward and half leaned, half fell into the wall. Claire turned to both of them. “I don’t care if you’re not on payroll yet, I’m taking you to the physician’s dining room.”

Neither Shaun nor Alex were inclined to argue. Unfortunately, the physician’s dining area was a smaller room and almost as busy. Alex dropped into a chair by the door, still curled up slightly. She braced her elbows on the table and rested her forehead in her hands. Shaun asked, “Are you sick?”

“Low blood sugar,” she said. “Ate my snacks on the way this morning.”

Claire jerked her head at him in a way he had learned meant, “Come over here,” so he did. They were stopped in front of the refrigerator. Shaun opened it. No ginger ale. But seltzer water. He took an empty glass, filled it halfway with seltzer, opened a bottle of apple juice and filled it the rest of the way. Claire was talking but he forgot to listen to her. If it were important he hoped she would repeat it later.

He returned to the table where Alex sat. “Sip this,” he told her.

She pulled the drink toward her and sipped. “Thanks,” she said, quietly. “I’ll be fine in a minute.”

Shaun returned to the refrigerator to select a bottle of water for himself, leftover ham and potato casserole, and a cup of grapes from the salad bar because he should eat fruits and vegetables. Claire had collected a plastic wrapped sandwich and a couple of clementines. She set a clementine down in front of Alex. “Melendez is going to be pissed when he gets around to reading the changes you made to that consent form.”

“Well, if he balks, Dr. Andrews said he’d take the case.” Alex peeled her clementine in one long ribbon, then left the ribbon of orange peel in front of her on the table. She should throw it away, Shaun thought.

“Really?” Claire leaned a little forward. “I’d love to watch the two of them get into it.”

Shaun said, “Why do you want to watch people fight?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I guess I...Dr. Melendez is…”

“Arrogant.” Shaun finished for her.

“Yeah. So is Andrews. I’d kind of like to see him bring Melendez down a peg.”

“I don’t trust him,” Alex said. “Andrews I mean.” She had lowered her voice.

Shaun thought about the Chief of Surgery, who he generally avoided. “Dr. Andrews does not like me. Dr. Glassman thinks I need a therapist so I will be normal so Dr. Andrews will like me more,” he told them. “I do not want a therapist to tell me what I have to do.”

“I don’t think,” Claire said, but she didn’t finish her sentence.

A beat later, when it was clear Claire had abandoned whatever she had been about to say, Alex said, “A therapist won’t make you normal anymore than they’d make me normal,” Alex said. She looked a lot less ill, now, and the drink was gone. “They might have some ideas for how to fake it better, though.”

“I make mistakes. I don’t understand people. But I am learning how to be better. I am teaching myself.” He wasn’t sure he wanted to eat, but he made himself put a grape in his mouth.

Claire said, “Does this have to do with the robbery? I’m not sure even I would have handled that well.”

Shaun shook his head, then reached up to tousle his own hair. Claire almost never commented when he stimmed anymore, and he was pretty sure he had caught Alex making repetitive gestures of her own, so he didn’t try so hard to suppress the urge. “I don’t want to talk about the robbery. But Dr. Glassman wanted me to let somebody take care of me before that. So no.”

Alex looked behind him, where the rest of the chairs and people were, and also where the food was kept. “Shaun, could you get me a glazed donut and one of those containers of cottage cheese and, um, a water? I don’t think I really should get up yet.”

“I can get it,” Claire said, and left him sitting with Alex.

“Something happened to you while I was gone,” he said.

“I happened to me,” she answered. “I always carry Gatorade and animal crackers in my bag. The bus ride was longer than I expected, so I ate them. Dumb.” She nibbled her clementine. “Meant I didn’t have them when I really needed them.”

“You made a mistake. But you are allowed to take care of yourself. No one thinks you can’t.”

Alex shook her head. “Plenty of people think I can’t. I don’t live on my own, but that’s partly money. I live with a host family for now. My options are kind of limited, since anywhere I live has to be on the bus line. Preferably a short bus ride from here. I’m going to have to figure out when the buses are least crowded. Probably have to get here at the crack of dawn and leave late at night.”

“Cars are expensive,” Shaun noted.

“Oh, I can’t drive. I still have a seizure once or twice a year, usually when I get stuck someplace crowded. So no license for me.”

“I can’t either.” Shaun admitted.

Alex giggled, but she did not toss her hair back. So probably not flirting. “Maybe we both need somebody to take care of us.”

“I don’t,” he said, firmly.

Claire returned with the food. “Thanks so much,” Alex said. “I’m usually not such a baby. I should have taken that whole thing with Julia a lot slower, but sometimes stuff just lands in your lap and you have to run with it, you know?”

“She had a flashback, right?”

Alex nodded over her cottage cheese. “About to. You don’t shut those down fast they just ricochet around in there and...we needed the signature.”

Shaun stared at her. “Did you make her sign the paper?” That would be bad wrong not okay and she could not be his friend anymore because people should make their own decisions…

“No!” Alex said, cutting off his train of thought. “No. After we dealt with the flashback, I offered to make sure she wouldn’t wake up during surgery. And I made it clear that I could follow through. That I could and would do what I said I would do. She signed the paper because she trusted me.”

“I’d wondered, too,” Claire said.

Alex made a face even Shaun could see the frustration in. “Don’t wonder, ask,” she told Claire. “And I will follow through, no matter what Melendez says.” The pile of wrappers grew in front of her as she finished each thing. She looked down at it. “I’ll pick it up when I’m done, Shaun, I’m not a total slob. Um.”

“I will be patient,” Shaun said.

“I do worry about that, though,” Alex admitted.

Claire took a sip of her drink. “About what?”

“Coercing people without knowing it. I mean,” her cheeks turned pink and she ducked her head. “You fall in love a little every time. I mean not every time, but every time you go into deep rapport, trauma work especially. And you know, you get used to that if it happens all the time. But my Tuesday is the other person’s craziest thing that ever happened to them and that’s really dangerous. People act like they’d jump off a bridge for you. So you have to be really careful not to take advantage. And you can’t ever break your word.”

Claire considered, “So you couldn’t date somebody you had…” she trailed off.

“We argue about that all the time. In my case,” she waved her left hand, showing a plain gold band. “He’s deployed right now, but we’ve been together since we were teenagers. So dating isn’t really on my radar.”

“People always want to make me do things different,” Shaun said. “I walk wrong. My voice is wrong. My hands are wrong. Even when I am right about something I see people think I’m wrong and they don’t listen. They can’t see when I’m right because I always look wrong.” He could feel his heart rate increase again and reached up to rub at his hair.

He felt something complicated with sad and liking and a little bit of how his bunny felt to him and he scrubbed at the fuzziness at the back of his head. Alex said, “Sorry. Slipped a bit,” and he was just worried, but less.

Claire gathered her things. “You two are peas in a pod,” she said. “If I’d tried to be like everybody around me when I was a kid, I certainly wouldn’t have made it here. Looking after a couple of savants.”

“I don’t need looking after,” Shaun said.

“I’m not a savant,” Alex said.

“Mmm hmm you two keep telling yourselves that. I’ve got things to do,” Claire told them. “Meet me back up in surgery. And Shaun, don’t let her wander around alone right now. She still looks about to fall over.”

“You will not fall over, you are sitting down,” he told Alex.

She stood, gathered the remains of her lunch, and dropped them neatly into the trash.
“Claire doesn’t want to be afraid of me, but she is, so she’s covering it by acting mothery. It’s fine.”

“No it’s not.”

“Shaun, you can’t make people feel different about you. And if you can it’s not right. You want them to accept you being you, you have to accept them being them.”

Shaun put his own lunch things away. “We should go upstairs now. Have you scrubbed into surgery before?”

“No. I’ve...no, not in a hospital. I was allowed to observe a couple of times as a student. I want to reread my notes on anaesthesiology before I meet with the surgical team. Gotta look like I know what I’m doing.”

“They will ask you questions. You should know the answers.”

“Exactly,” she confirmed. He followed her to the elevator like Claire said, and they returned to surgery.

Chapter Text

There was a small doctors’ lounge on the surgical floor.  Alex sat alone at the table, sipping Gatorade and taking notes from the anesthesiology text she’d found on the bookcase.  Her watch alarm beeped at her.  Time to find Julia’s surgical team.  She snapped the book shut, but crumpled the page of notes into her pocket.

Dr. Melendez met her in the hallway, Shaun trailing a few feet behind him.  He had the consent form in his hand.  “What does this mean exactly?” he said.  His tone wasn’t what she expected.  It was as if he actually wanted to know what she had planned.

“I can get the patient into Stage 3 anesthesia reliably, with my brain you might say, and keep her there.  You can think of me as an anesthesiology trainee or as an unconventional anesthetic, or both, whatever makes the paperwork easier.  You’re the surgical attending on the case, right?”

Melendez nodded.  “I want to know what I need to be aware of and how changing the form of anesthesia might affect the patient.”

Alex fiddled with the notes stuffed into her pocket.  “What changed your mind about me?  I mean, a couple of hours ago you were sneering about magic crystals.”

“I reviewed the literature.  And I spoke to your clinical supervisor.  I will need to see proof of concept before you try whatever this is on a patient, as will anesthesiology.”  It was a relief to know Melendez could adult when he wanted to.

“Proof of concept?” she prompted.

“I need to see how your technique works before I authorize using it on a patient.”

That was actually pretty sensible.  “So you’d like me to anesthetize a member of the staff?”

Shaun stepped forward.  “I volunteer.”

“Of course you do,” Alex said.  “We can’t use you if you’re scrubbing in on the surgery though.  You’re likely to be a little tired and spacy for about an hour after.”

“I will take the next surgery.”

Melendez led Alex and Shaun into an empty exam room.  “Claire is scrubbing in on this one with me.  I’ll collect her and Susi and be back in a minute.”

Alex turned to Shaun.  The surgical intern was rocking back and forth, heel to toe, and staring at a spot about a foot over Alex’s head, but he was paying attention to her, so she jumped right in.  “So you’re taking the place of the patient.  You’ll need to get monitors on like you’re having surgery.  EKG, BP, pulse ox, all of them.  You okay with taking off your shirt in front of everyone?”

Shaun took a moment to study the lights in the ceiling.  “I can take my shirt off.”

“For science, right?” She teased.

“For the patient,” he corrected.  He took off his lab coat and hung it on a peg, then unbuttoned and removed his shirt.  “The room is cold.”

Alex bent to open a cabinet near the floor.  “Have a blanket.”  She tossed it to him.  “It’s easy to forget how cold it is for patients when we’re dressed in all these extra layers.”

“Lie down on the exam table and we’ll get these monitors on,” she said.  There was a little spike of anxiety from him, but he hopped up on table, still in his shoes.  “Maybe you’re a little worried,” she suggested, keeping the question mark out of her tone.  It was hard to balance his dislike for questions with her carefully practiced habit of asking people questions she knew the answer to.  He didn’t answer her not quite a question.

“I’m sure we can find somebody else to stand in for Julia,” she said.

“I am fine,” Shaun lied.

“Okay then.”  Alex handed him the pulse oximeter, dangling it by the cord until he caught it and clipped it to his finger.  She passed him the blood pressure cuff the same way.  He put it on while still sitting up, then lay down on the table, scooting into position.  The moment he was horizontal, the level of fear in the room shot up.  He crossed his arms tight across his chest.  “Shaun, can you tell me what’s wrong?”  Shit, another question.

He flicked his gaze from point to point around the ceiling, almost rolling them.  “Don’t know.”

“Show me what’s wrong...if you want I mean.”  Not asking questions led to all kinds of weird sentence constructions.  Roll with it, she told herself.

He nodded sharply.  She stepped closer to the bed and thinned out her screen a little.  “Just think it through.”

It wasn’t Alex he was afraid of at all, oddly enough.  He actively sought out what he pictures as her “soda bubbles,” relaxing into the contact easily.  The image that came to mind was lying shirtless and unable to leave surrounded by several other people, Melendez (respected/feared) and Claire (admired/friend/pretty) especially.  She gave the image words for him.  “You feel vulnerable in front of your colleagues, especially without your clothes.”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

“Let’s get the ECG attached quickly, then, and we’ll cover you up with the blanket.”  She slipped on a pair of gloves and collected the leads and the warmed gel.  “Okay, think about something complicated and emotionally neutral.  I know, trace all twelve cranial nerves in the direction of signal transmission.”  She kicked her screen back up, but still took a careful centering breath before feeling along Shaun’s sternum to find the fourth intercostal space.  Her fingers prickled and the space inside her head seemed to increase in size.  She pointedly ignored the sensations, as well as the rotating three dimensional image of the underside of the brain Shaun was inadvertently projecting.  Once the leads were placed, she backed up.  “Shaun, check the lead placement.”

He raised his head and ran a hand lightly over his own chest.  “The leads are placed correctly.”

Alex flipped the blanket over him just as Melendez returned with Claire and she presumed Susi, who was a short, slightly heavy woman only an inch or two taller than Alex with shiny black curls and smile wrinkles that belied her currently sour expression.  Alex bowed slightly in Susi’s general direction.

Dr. Melendez introduced them.  “Susi, this is Alexandra Caron, she’s a new first year resident.  Alex, Susi Garcia.”

“Call me Alex if you want,” Alex said.  “So, we’ve gotten Shaun set up on monitors.  I figured we might want to practice where everyone is going to stand, since I’m an extra body at the table.”

“So you want to do some psychic thing that’s supposed to put a patient under instead of using conventional anesthesia, is that right?”  Susi crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side, a dubious gesture.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

She huffed.  “I don’t think Dr. Murphy’s a good model.  Because of the autism.”

Alex shook her head.  “Autonomics work the same.  It won’t be an issue.  I know, I’ve done both.”  She took a place at the head of the bed.  “This works best if I can get to the contact point at the base of the skull, but anywhere will do in a pinch, even a foot.  So the first thing I’m going to do is ease Julia into normal sleep.  Once she’s down, I’ll block the connection between the sensory systems and higher brain functions, paralyze the somatic nerve tracts and monitor anesthesia until it’s time to bring her around.”

“First you show me you can take Dr. Murphy down.  Then we’ll talk.”

“Fine.  Give me five minutes, then I’ll be able to multitask.  We’re going to get started, Shaun.”

“Okay,” he said, his voice just a little squeaky.

“Close your eyes.”  He didn’t want to, someone might sneak up on him, not safe.   It’s okay, you’re safe.  He closed them, reluctantly.  She shifted focus, attending to the pattern and rhythm of Shaun’s mind.   Just breathe, she told him, entraining the rhythm of her own breaths to his, slowing them down.  She found the small projection just below C1 with her fingers, visualized twisting patterns of light, each carrying different information to different places.  Shaun followed her, an impression of consciousness, as though he were looking over her shoulder.

Since he expressed an interest, she took a moment to point out the nerve tracts to him, which in her mind’s eye were golden rivers of light.  She sampled a couple until she found the correct ones.  Sleep now, she projected, at the same time damping the streams that regulated wakefulness.  Once he was down, she took her time to isolate the sensory and voluntary motor tracts and block each one, checking Shaun’s breathing and heart rate each time, which took some time since there were so many to block and cross check.  In theory, telepathically mediated surgical anesthesia should have a lot of advantages, but in practice, the setup was fussy and tedious.

Finally, she felt comfortable dividing her attention.  She opened her eyes, still keeping track of Shaun’s vital signs.  She checked her impressions against the data on the monitoring equipment behind her.  “Dr. Garcia, would you ascertain depth of anesthesia?”

The anesthesiologist pinched the skin on the inside of Shaun’s elbow, checked the monitors, then rubbed her knuckles, hard, up and down his sternum.  No response on the monitors.  “No echo,” Alex said, not that she’d be understood, but she was trying to get a standard vocabulary going.  “That means I didn’t feel that.  It’s another indicator.”

Dr. Garcia nodded, then flashed a light in Shaun’s eyes, leaning forward to peer at his pupils.  “Well, he looks good. I don’t think he’d appreciate it if I cut him to be sure. How long will it take to bring him out?”

“Couple minutes.”

“Do you have to keep your hand under his head the whole time?”

“I can break contact for thirty seconds to a minute safely.  Ok, so, last thing, everybody gather around Shaun.  Stand where you will during surgery.”  Dr. Garcia took a place directly behind Alex, crowding her a little.  Claire stood on one side, just above Shaun’s waistband, while Melendez stood almost directly across from Claire.  “Ok, this is pretty close quarters,” she said.  “So, raise your hand if you plan to freak out when I project instead of speaking.  It’s a bad habit, I’m working on it, but at this range it’s really hard to control.”

No hands went up.  Reassuring, if true.

“Okay, I’m going to bring Shaun out now.”  She released control of the sensory and motor tracts first, then encouraged him to wake up.  Shaun’s eyes blinked open.  She made sure the blanket was tucked around his shoulders.  “I’m going to help you sit up, Shaun,” she told him, guiding him up by his elbow.  “You did great.  Claire, you want to run a quick neuro exam, make sure I didn’t leave anything unbalanced?”

Shaun felt his sternum with his palm, gingerly.  “I think you left a bruise,” he said.  “What else did I miss?”

“Nothing that interesting,” Melendez said.

Alex supposed she should be glad that Melendez found her little trick boring.  It was better than scary.  Nobody ever got burned at the stake for being boring.  She stepped away from the two of them to collect Shaun’s shirt and lab coat and passed them to him once Claire stepped away.  “Think we can do this?” she asked Melendez and Garcia.

“I’d still like to administer conventional anaesthesia, once you convince the patient to fall asleep,” Garcia said.

Alex shook her head.  “That would be worse, not better.  For me it would be like...doing surgery blindfolded.  All the landmarks I use would be suppressed.  Almost impossible to find.”

“All right, but we have everything set up for conventional anesthesia, in case your technique fails.  I don’t want to be floundering.”

“Of course.”  Being treated like a competent member of a team was fun, almost intoxicating.  Shaun hopped off the bed, behind her.  “Tell me about the surgery,” he said to her on his way out.

“I will.”

“Claire, you and Alex bring Julia Lawrence up to surgery.  The two of us will meet you there,” Melendez told them.

“Got it,” Claire said, then watched the two of them go while staring a bit too frankly at Melendez’s butt.

“He’s cute,” Alex said.

“He’s mine,” Claire said, her mouth twisting into a wry smirk.

“I’m married.”  Alex waved her ring hand at Claire again.

They turned toward the elevators.  “You are too young to be married.”

Alex huffed.  “I’m twenty-five.”

“You look fifteen.”

“Don’t remind me.”  The elevator doors slid open.

Claire stepped into the elevator and pushed the button.  “We’re going to get a paper out of this.  You should be the first author.  Don’t let Melendez steal your by line.”

Ale took up her customary spot leaning into the back corner of the elevator.  “Ok, but Shaun gets an author credit, too.”

“Fair enough.”  Claire kept her eyes fixed on the numbers above the elevator door.  “What do you see in him?”

The elevator doors opened.  “What do you see in him?” Alex challenged.

Claire considered, twisting the free end of ponytail thoughtfully.  “I guess I see a bit of me.  I haven’t had an easy time getting here and sometimes I feel like all I do is prove myself over and over.”

“Same,” Alex said.  They walked down the hall to Julia’s room.  “We’re not exactly the same, but we’re fighting a lot of the same battles, and not just with people who don’t want to take us seriously.  We’re both kind of fighting our own brains.  You’d be amazed if you could see how hard Shaun works all the time to stay focused and act normal around all this hospital chaos.  He’s not weak, you know.”

Claire nodded.  “I think I know that.”

They were outside Julia’s door.  “With me it’s just people.  People are...pretty overwhelming for me all by themselves.  But with Shaun it’s fluorescent lights and transient odors and squeaky gurney wheels and unreadable faces all turned up to eleven.  We’ll both be fine once we have enough seniority to make the system accommodate us.  He’s brilliant and I’m the first one of my kind out the gate, which means everything I do is innovative by default.  It’s getting through this trial by fire that’s hard.”

“Time to prove ourselves again,” Claire said, opening the door to Julia’s room.

“Game faces on,” Alex agreed, and followed Claire into the patient’s room.