quietly killing the time

[attitude]

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."

Comments

[attitude]

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?"

[drownondryland]

"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?"

[attitude]

"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."

[drownondryland]

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?"

[attitude]

"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."

[drownondryland]

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."

[attitude]

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?"

[drownondryland]

"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.

[attitude]

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."

[drownondryland]

"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..."