attitude | quietly killing the time

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meredith grey

quietly killing the time

With everything that's happened on the island as of late, Faye Valentine's concern about her health has ranked low on her list of priorities. A little bit of fatigue and soreness isn't much to worry about; delayed menstruation is probably just time catching up with her at last, now that she's arguably settled, and now that there's enough air to manage a breath or two. More important than her problems is attending to Dean, watching over Castiel, overseeing everything that Edward does. It at once runs contrary to her nature, and yet doesn't at all— to watch over others hasn't been Faye's modus operandi since she was a child, the years thereafter spent too wholly on herself, on making sure that no one would stamp her out of existence. That she wouldn't be shackled to a debt she never asked for. But it had been her nature, once, to watch out for others.

Maybe that's what makes the transition easier than what anyone might expect.

She passes a shallow breath between her teeth, steps into the clinic when she knows Dean isn't around, hand lingering on the wall and unsure how to do this, how to ask someone about her health when she hasn't truly set foot in a clinic or hospital for years.

"I know I didn't set up an appointment," Faye says uncertainly, leaning over the counter, "but I was hoping someone would have a few minutes to talk to me about some symptoms I've had recently."

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The woman is one Meredith has seen around before, one of the many island residents that's lingered for some indefinite period of time; she never remembers when most people show up, only that they eventually become part of the landscape, recognizable but unknown. This one, though, well, she's pretty hard to miss.

"I can," she says, "absolutely. You don't need an appointment. It's... usually pretty quiet around here." Getting up from her seat, she finds a pen and clipboard as she speaks, pinning a fresh intake sheet under the clip, then heads for one of the clinic beds. She prefers the privacy of the one furthest from the door, since this place is low on walls. "I'm Dr. Grey. Why don't you come over here with me?"

There might be some women who feel comforted by having a doctor of the same gender, but Faye only finds herself incredibly self-conscious, a faint dusting on pink on her cheeks as she steps inside. There's a familiarity to the feel of the room, even though it isn't half as confining as her hospital room was back in the day. Half-expecting to start to hear beeps and whirs, Faye's glad for the click of her heels breaking the silence as she steps further inside.

"Thanks," she says, getting that out of the way as she nervously tucks her hair behind an ear. "I'm Faye. Faye Valentine, assuming that matters for records. And I don't have anything incredibly serious I'm coming to you with; I'm just looking for some answers."

Meredith makes a note of the name, nodding. It doesn't make a difference to her, at least not in the immediate sense, if it's a serious matter or not. She's here to help either way, and besides, it's not like she has a half a dozen other patients screaming for attention. At the end of the day, as bothersome as that can be, as boring, it also has its advantages. Every individual counts, after all, and here, at least, she has the advantage of being able to give them the attention they merit. "Well, any that I can give, I'd be happy to," she says, stopping at the edge of a bed. "Serious or not. Really, ask away."

Taking the cue and hoping she isn't misreading, Faye hops onto the side of the bed, the motion easy before she leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees, a tongue briefly and nervously darting over her lip. As far as her past goes, she hasn't had a good history of exposing it to doctors. She hasn't had good experiences in hospitals, clinics, any of it. But the people of the island have yet to let her down, and there's a kind look to Dr. Grey's eyes besides.

Plus, if there were anyone in the clinic Faye really had to look out for, she has the feeling that Dean would've told her by now.

"So, to give a bit of background," she says first with a nod, waving her hand dismissively. "I used to smoke occasionally, went on for a couple of years; I've since quit. And I'm seventy-eight years old. Spent over fifty years in cyrogenic freeze." The last sentence is glossed over as quickly as Faye's able, not a topic she wants to linger on for long.

"And I'm wondering if I'm starting to go through menopause."

Meredith's had some unusual cases in her time on the island — and even more back in Seattle — but this, she has to admit, has to be one of the weirdest. For a moment, she's not even sure she heard correctly, her hand stilling on the page.

If nothing else, Faye looks really good for her age.

"Okay," she says, considering that. On one hand, she figures, if Faye was cryogenically frozen, then her body probably remained in stasis, so her internal functions would be appropriate to Faye's apparent age and not her true one, but on the other, she has absolutely no experience whatsoever with that kind of technology. There's every chance that Faye's hypothesis is correct. "I would think that would be possible, in your circumstances. What... have you been experiencing that leads you to think that might be the case?"

"I don't know many people in my situation, either," Faye offers with a slight grin, one that belies the tension that she feels underneath, the slight nausea that worms its way to the surface now. An answer's decently within her grasp, and somehow that leaves her feeling unbalanced, even if it's one she's brought herself here for in the first place.

It's not that she wants children. Not really. She can't imagine herself ever being in a position where she's ready for that, mentally or emotionally, and certainly not here of all places. But there's a difference between avoiding something and having it taken away.

The thought leaves her slightly hollow.

"Anyway," she says with a shrug, curling on the bed and pushing her hair out of the way. "Symptoms include... fatigue. Nausea. Most importantly, it's been well over a month since my last period."

The thing with symptoms like that, Meredith notes readily, is that they could just as easily mean the opposite, or they could have nothing at all to do with menopause or pregnancy, a side effect of any number of things from excessive stress to various illnesses. She doesn't want to start making guesses until she has more information. For one thing, she doesn't even know if Faye's sleeping with anyone; pregnancy may not even be an option, if only because she's not sure even this place is cruel enough to spring that on a woman without giving her something to enjoy in exchange.

"Alright," she says, nodding. "Any hot flashes? Back pain?"

Pursing her lips, Faye shakes her head, more to hint at how clueless she is about this than anything else. She's glanced through as many books as the bookshelf gives her, but the thing about each symptom is that there's nothing about them which stands out so much from what Faye might feel on the job.

There's just that spotting, Faye thinks. She's never had her period simply stop before.

"No hot flashes as far as I can tell. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat, but that's usually from the nightmares this place gives me," Faye replies, her tone light as she threads her fingers through her hair. "Some back pain, though."

Gaze skimming over the room, Faye turns to Mere with a sudden thought, her voice low. "Doctor-patient confidentiality extends to other people working in the clinic, right? Or it can?"

"Of course," Meredith says. "This stays between us." She has to wonder which of the doctors it is Faye's worried about hearing all this secondhand. She's not without cause, when Meredith knows well how gossipy a hospital can be, but she isn't given to blabbing herself — not about patients, at least. With the heads up, she knows not to bring this up to others even with Faye's name left out of it (but then, that wasn't too difficult to figure out; it's hard to keep things confidential when the patient's case is so unusual). "Which leads into my next question pretty well. Are you currently sexually active?"

"Pseudonym?" Faye asks as she nods towards the file, eyes hopeful as her hands shift to wring on her lap, the press of her thumb down the center of her palm all that keeps the tension at bay. She has no real reason to be half as suspicious as she is, but something tells Faye that Dean wouldn't want to hear this news from anyone else. Probably wouldn't want to hear this kind of news at all. They've never discussed the idea of having children, but all Faye knows is that if the thought of never being capable of having any of her own is already leaving her unsettled, Dean will end up feeling that at ten times the capacity.

She's seen how he is with Cori.

"Anyway, yes. Very. And no, we don't always use protection," sighs Faye, running her fingers through her hair. "But I mean, if it was... if it was that, I'd have expected a scare a long time ago."

Meredith almost laughs, though she's conscious enough of how wildly inappropriate that would be to keep herself from doing so. She and Sean have slipped up more than a few times themselves, and though she occasionally gets paranoid about that, she's never had a real scare in all these years. That, in itself, is kind of worrying, but given that children aren't something they want or have really discussed, she won't let herself think about it too much. It doesn't matter now.

She writes herself a little note to change the name on the file later; around here, confidentiality is more difficult to maintain, so that's a fair enough request. "Well, these things can be... unpredictable," she says. "It's all a matter of timing. And chance. Is your cycle usually pretty regular, would you say?"

"Mostly," Faye considers, thinking back and ticking off the dates on her fingers. If nothing else, the dates stand out thanks in part to the debilitating pain, and in part thanks to the complaints that she hears from Dean's end whenever she's out for the count. "It can be thrown off if I'm feeling a lot of stress, but apparently the bar for stress is pretty high for yours truly."

Pausing for a moment, Faye clarifies. "His brother disappeared recently, the man I'm with," she says, deciding to throw caution in the wind. Might as well have the doctor know which nurse she's talking about. "That's the biggest source of stress lately."

Meredith nods, thinking through that. She's not precisely friends with a lot of the other doctors, but she knows enough about them to have an idea who Faye is talking about now. Dean seems like a really sweet guy in his way, too, and it's always rough to lose anyone, especially family.

"That can take a lot out of you," she agrees sympathetically. "It's entirely possible that's a big part of it. Stress can have that effect. But with the other symptoms you mentioned, I'd like to look at other options. If I could get you to give me a urine sample, we can test that and we should be able to get more answers."

There's something undeniably sweet about this doctor, Faye thinks. Sweet without being overly cloying in the way that some doctors are. No need to hold Faye's hand too much through the process, no need to whittle everything down to the tiniest of details. Just simple instructions and a frank assessment of how sound Faye's own thinking is. She can come to appreciate a woman like that, Faye knows, all too rare in hunting circles.

"Guess I've done worse things for an exam than pee in a cup," Faye concludes, the tension in her shoulders easing a bit. "Mind if I ask what you'd be testing it for?"

"Well, there are shifts in chemicals and hormones in your body when you undergo menopause," Meredith says. "I can have one of the lab people test the levels of various things to see if the sample indicates that's what's going on or if there's any suggestion it could be something else we need to look out for. Have you had any pain in your uterus, anything out of the ordinary like that?" Pregnancy is a possibility, as is menopause, but they're not the only things they have to watch out for. She doesn't want to overlook the possibility of cysts or other such difficulties that could cause similar symptoms, but she doesn't necessarily want to bring it up yet either. Faye doesn't seem like the kind of patient who needs to be handled delicately, but she doesn't need a list of baseless diseases to worry about either.

It all makes sense, as much as anything medical tends to make sense to Faye. On the bright side, she reminds herself, the chance of being manipulated in a free clinic is next to none. They've got nothing to gain from it. No money to swindle. Licking her lips at the thought, and asking herself as ever if that kind of security makes this island worth it, she nods.

"Sounds great to me. I haven't had any pains that I know of," she remarks with a shrug. "So I guess that means we'll have to wait and see what the numbers say."

"On the bright side," Meredith says, "there are a lot of scientists and very few patients. Results tend to come through pretty fast." She steps back, gesturing for Faye to step down. "We should know by tomorrow, or at least have a starting point." She doesn't want to make her wait any longer if she can help it, which she can, one of the few things she can say in favor of this place.

"If you'll follow me this way..."

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quietly killing the time

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