Chapter Text
“And this will be your office,” the Doctor showed her the room, it was a little dusty and looked barren. The shelves were empty and there were several pots where plants once lived but now only ghosts remained. Her name, however, was already on a wooden panel slotted next to the door right below the room number. In simple, stiff, white type: Vanessa Kimball, MD.
“Anyway,” the other Doctor kept walking. She barely got to peek in her office before he was on the move. She caught up with him and continued on the tour. “I’ll introduce you to the other neuroscientist we have on staff after she’s finished with her consultation, you’ve already met the other neurosurgeon when he hired you, and there’s me of course,” The man she was following around was a little shorter than her, he had clean cut black hair, and his eyes were a muddy green color. She was older than him, but he still lead her like he was deserving of this authority, no matter how minor being in charge of a tour was. His name was Dr. Leonard Church Jr., although the receptionist who took her up to his office told her to never say the junior part and avoid saying his first name while she was at it.
“Here she is,” Dr. Church tapped his foot as the other neuroscientist exited the conference room, Kimball looked on as Dr. Carolina Church noticed her impatient younger brother and approached them.
“Ah, you must be Dr. Kimball, nice to meet you,” Carolina shook her hand and smiled, but it was a militaristic smile that had no warmth, it was like it showed up only out of duty. She had much brighter green eyes than her brother’s, she was also a little taller than Kimball, and had her reddish-orange hair tied up in a very professional looking bun. Everything about her made Kimball want to take a step back.
“Yes, you must be Dr. Church,” Kimball hated being caught up in these niceties, she was never one for shaking hands and pretending to know one another. But this was a new hospital and she had to make a good impression.
She smiled back. “Call me Dr. Carolina please, it makes it easier for the staff to know which one of us you are speaking about,” she responded mechanically, as if she had said this a thousand times before.
“Of course,” Kimball said letting go of Carolina’s hand.
“Now if you'll excuse me,” Carolina dropped her smile and headed back through the halls like she was on a mission.
“There you go,” the other Church turned to her and cleared his throat, “Now if you'll excuse me, I have other matters to attend to, I will leave you to move into your office.” Without saying anything more or even allowing her to reply he turned and left. She could see the family resemblance.
She was left in the middle of Chorus Hospital’s bright white hall, except, not quite white. Something she noticed during her interview process, there was a line of deep blue paint that ran along the wall close to the floor and a line of red paint running near the ceiling. This was apparently a choice made to keep the hospital bright with a splash of color on the off-white walls.
She had just met the Church siblings. They were exactly as she expected. They were just the kind of people who could take on an outbreak and remain professional. Kimball could never do that. She bit the corner of her lower lip. She could never do that.
Vanessa Kimball worked hard to earn her doctorate. She worked hard through residency. All her life she worked and worked, constantly looking to the next step. Her father always joked that she couldn’t do things the easy way, she can’t just be the first person in her family to graduate from college she has to go and get a doctorate as well. She was excited to take charge in her newest job as the head surgeon of the neurology department. If only she had gotten this job at a different hospital.
Chorus was, well, who hadn’t heard of Chorus by now? At first it was a just your average semi-urban hospital, large, but not too large. Nothing to write articles about. This was until the outbreak last year. The team of neurologists and neurosurgeons and a few other individuals reportedly kept the disease at bay and only three of the possible hundreds of patients living in the ward fell victim to the disease. Other hospitals were not as lucky and looked to Chorus for what to do. They were talked about in neurology circles as heroes, the staff who saved the day. The staff Kimball was now supposed to lead. They were already dismissing her and she had just arrived. She tried to clear these thoughts from her head as she made the old pots new homes for small vining plants and started unpacking her boxes of books. She was a leader, she reminded herself as she dusted the shelves. Public speaking as that leader? Well, that was hurtle she would have to jump later.
After an hour of cleaning she headed in the direction of where she remembered Dr. Church showing her the break room was for a bottle of water. “I can’t believe this-” Kimball stopped a few feet from the open break room as the voice of Dr. Carolina carried out through the door.
“Don’t fucking start, you guys made up years ago for fuck’s sake,” that was unmistakably Dr. Church, who sounded like he had less of a stick up his ass than before, “And it’s not her fault she was called in.”
“It’s not her, it’s just Wash won’t have anything prepared for it,” Carolina ranted, “He already does so much for us, what with his crazy hours and the wedding.”
Kimball heard the voices coming closer as the siblings turned the corner, “She already rolled the character, he could always make her an NPC-” Church stopped when his eyes met Kimball’s, “Ah Dr. Kimball,” he cleared his throat and stood up much straighter.
“Are you talking about Dungeons and Dragons?” Kimball didn’t know where the courage came from to ask that and to basically admit she was listening in on them.
“Uh, well,” Dr. Church looked around, avoiding looking at Kimball.
“Yes,” Dr. Carolina admitted, looking right at Kimball without any attempt to hide anything about herself, “Do you play?”
“Yes, well, I used to, when I moved here I had to drop out of my old group,” this was not the conversation she was expecting to have on her first official day at the hospital.
“Would you like to join our group?” Carolina offered.
“What?” Church said it before Kimball could.
Carolina didn’t look at him, and although her expression didn’t change, something about it did for Kimball. Carolina did look serious about the offer, “We have a character created already, but the person who was going to play them has been sent out on another unexpected tour.”
Kimball was not sure what the best decision here was, “Yes. I would love to.” She heard herself say before she could really decide.
“We meet Thursday nights, I’ll stop by your office later with the details and see if it will work with your schedule. Come now Church we have an exam to do,” she nodded to Kimball and continued walking. Church looked incredibly confused, and watched his sister walking away as if she was a stranger. He looked quickly at Kimball, as if he had suddenly remembered she was here. He then looked away just as quickly and followed his sister to the exam room.
Kimball looked back at the siblings disappearing once again in the hallways of people and once again wondered what she had gotten herself into.
