simon_doctor | (no subject)

(no subject)

Jordie,

I don't know whether I just did something spectacularly stupid or just avoided doing something spectacularly stupid. Possibly both.

How's your week been?

Simon

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No, it's not." Jordie just sounds mild.

Beat.

"All right. From what I've told you so far, what do you see as the problem?"

"Well." Jordie runs a hand through his hair. "How often do people show up in that infirmary offering a second line of treatment?"

In an unconscious near-echo of the gesture, Simon rubs his forehead again. "I don't recall it ever happening before. Not without speaking to one of the doctors. Of course, that could just mean it's happened before and gone unnoticed."

"...has anybody died?"

"That I suspect we would have noticed. No."

"Any reason not to post signs saying don't feed the patients without asking a physician?"

"I may do that. I'm not sure that would have stopped this particular case, but it might stop others."

"You think that's maybe a better place to go before you go for the private army?"

"The trouble is, there's two different problems. Keeping people from unintentionally endangering the patients, and ... dealing with this man in particular."

A little quieter: "You didn't see him, Jordie. When I say he was angry ..."

Jordie waits.

"Have you ever talked with someone and ..." Trying to find the words; his hand makes a small grasping motion in the air, palm up. "And just felt a tremendous potential for violence? Like they're consciously holding back from punching something?"

"Yeah," Jordie says.

His expression doesn't change.

"It was like that."

He rubs a hand across his mouth, half-consciously.

"So why?"

Calm.

"Was it aimed at you? Did he know the patient?"

"No. -- Yes to the first, no to the second. He didn't know the patient."

Beat.

"I'm fairly sure it was aimed at me. For not having taken sufficient care of the patient's pain."

Jordie's brow furrows.

He doesn't say anything.

(Simon's into frontier medicine; standard protocols may not have been available.)

He glances up.

"It's a complicated situation." Quietly. "He came to us directly from his own treatment facility, and we didn't have access to his medical file, and I didn't recognize the drugs he'd been given already. I was worried about unexpected interactions."

Jordie's expression clears, and he nods.

"Still." Low. "Understandable. If that wasn't clear."

"Very much so. I'm sure he thought his actions were completely justified."

Jordie shrugs.

"Then unless the pain persists -- " Which hopefully won't be a problem, he thinks. " -- what makes you think he'll come back for you?"

"It shouldn't," he says, shaking his head. "The, ah, unauthorized experiment worked fairly well, so I've prescribed THC going forward."

Beat.

"... I don't know," he admits. "Maybe I'm getting rattled over nothing."

"If you thought he was going to get violent, that's not nothing." Jordie shrugs. "Next time tell him the experiment worked, that it was helpful, and that you're sure he doesn't want to kill anybody so he needs to run it by a physician first. And make sure someone else is there with you."

"Hao. I did intend to tell him all that." He sighs. "I started in the wrong order, I think."

Jordie's mouth quirks; it never quite resolves into a smile.

"Some things never change." Peaceable.