dr_conscience | [24th consult]

There used to be a time when I had hope in the most hopeless of situations, when I found comfort in just being there for people who knew they were dying. I tried my damnedest, but sometimes there just wasn't a thing you could do to stop it. Make them comfortable, ease their pain, sure... sometimes you could delay the inevitable, but sooner or later, it catches up with most of them. But I still had hope, still felt like I was making a difference...

But I couldn't do that anymore. Not once things changed. What I had was taken from me, not by a disease, but by a person. A person that, to this day, I still don't know the identity of. What I was doing mattered, sure, but I couldn't do it anymore. Couldn't get up and go to work and face these people, tell them there was hope, or ease their pain. They'd already given up, and I was just in the trenches. I wasn't pioneering research or organizing experimental new procedures, wasn't doing anything vital to the field. So I left.

I guess the amount of death I deal with on a daily basis hasn't changed, but it's not the same now. I'm not fighting my battles with drugs and radiation, experimental therapies, or hoping to get some poor dying soul for whom nothing has worked into a clinical trial, the latest desperate maneuver of a research team fighting in vain against something we can only just begin to understand.

I save more lives now. And when I can't, I've actually got a chance of making the killer pay.

... well, there's an involved reverie for you. All inspired by the guy I get my coffee from calling me "Dr. Wilson" this morning. It's been a long time since I've answered to that. I'm not sure how he even got wind of it - not here.

Not that it matters. I've got things to do. A city to protect. It may not be the city I know, but it's the one I've got now.

[ooc: Genre switch!! ... which means I need to post in a day or so with Wilson actually being Wilson. He left medicine when his third wife was murdered (Yay, it didn't end in divorce for once! \o/) and became a cop. Yes. He's a rough cop on the edge with nothing left to lose. What the hell is wrong with me? I blame this. ALSO HE'S OUT PATROLLING SO FEEL FREE TO ACTION.]

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[Emma had noticed the man approaching her, and had debated whether to dodge him or allow him to approach. Uncharacteristically, her indecision made the decision for her.

So she smiled at him.]

Is it that obvious?

[He returns the smile, and though his is friendly, it's hardly got the happiness in it that such an expression should.]

A bit.

[He shrugs, then.]

Not that it's a bad thing. Whole City's nothing but a collection of those lifted out of one world or another, a forced gathering of the dislocated and the lost...

[He trails off then, gazing into the distance, though whether he's looking at anything is unclear.]

[So she's heard, though she still can't bring herself to truly believe it.]

Have you been here long, then?

[Silence, for a few moments... at length, he looks back at her.]

Ages, feels like. It gets difficult to measure time here, easy to lose track of things, lose track of who you are and where you've been. Guess it's been two months since I got back. Spent six, seven months here before that.

[Emma quirks an eyebrow. He certainly has an eccentric way of speaking, though that in itself doesn't seem to be strange for this place.]

Is it common for people to be here that long?

[He shakes his head, not in disagreement, but in resignment, as he looks at the ground.]

Common enough. People are here longer, shorter; you can end up measuring your stay in years or in days. Nobody knows what it comes down to, maybe just a question of luck. When did you get here?

[Emma shivers slightly, and wraps her shawl tighter around her. Her father would have a fit if he saw her so poorly dressed for the weather. She tried not to think about that.]

Who knows? About a week in dream time, I would say.

Dream time? I take it that's your choice for this place. We all have one, or had one, at some point. It's a coping mechanism, seeing as the entire thing is just too fantastic for us to be able to believe any of it is real.

[He notices that shiver, frowning.]

A week and you haven't gotten yourself a coat yet?

I did not exactly arrive with a full purse.

[24th consult]

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