OPEN

[formersurgeon]

Who| Joan and OPEN!
What| Joan working in the detention center infirmary, keeping her head down
Where| Detention center infirmary
When| After D11 battle, before Snow's assassination
Warnings/Notes| Mention of violence, injury, death, and STDs



When Joan woke up in the Capitol, it was the first time in a long time that she had been brought back to life in Panem. Tough conditions and mandatory training in District 13 had made her whip-thin and wiry. Exactly how much her time with the rebellion had transformed her became starkly apparent when she woke and found herself soft, still thin and athletic but without the strength and toughness she had acquired. It gave her a strange sense of loss. She had struggled with the rebellion, with the initial attitudes of her erstwhile superiors, with being tested and punished, with finally reaching a sense of mutual respect and working hard to be ready, to be useful. The memories remained, but the physical proof was gone.

She fully expected to be interrogated, tortured, brainwashed. Sent to kill her friends. And maybe that would have happened months ago. But now they just sent her to work in the infirmary with a promise that any subversive activity would not go well for her. They needn't have bothered. Joan knew that her position at that time wasn't one where direct conflict would help anyone. And she would never take advantage of her role as a doctor to harm people. They must have known that, since she'd patched up many enemies in the Arenas.

There was one subversive act that she did indulge in, however. The moment she had access to scissors, she hacked off her hair, giving herself a rough utilitarian pixie-cut, like the one she had sported in 13.

Now she moves through the infirmary, quiet, her eyes downcast, taking care of the people who come in sick or injured. With other detainees she's gentle, kind. With their captors she's spare and perfunctory. She's keeping her head down and her ears open, and hoping some opportunity to reconnect with the rebellion presents itself.

Comments

[pimpcanes]

"Both legs? Why, are you planning to amputate the wrong foot?"

But he undoes his boot and peels away the sock.

[formersurgeon]

"I need to see both of your ankles for comparison," she says, absolutely serious despite the barely veiled contempt. "So I can tell if your ankle is swollen, or if it's just always that fat." She points to the other foot. "That one too. Shoe and sock."

[pimpcanes]

"Oh my, a doctor with catty bedside manner. I expected a bit more professionalism." Tom smirks, aware that he's a complete hypocrite - his tenure with the Peacekeepers has been largely marked by a combination of showboating and pushing the boundaries of acceptable workplace behavior. However, he affects a softer look as he takes the other shoe off.

"You know, lass, I would like to clear the air about our...last encounter. I understand your bitterness, but you must know that was my first Arena, and I had heard no mention of a revival at the end."

[formersurgeon]

"Right," she says dryly. "Because that makes it all better. And you've been such a good guy since then." Joan's tone is soft but no less cutting. She crouches and takes a look at both ankles, one then the other, then touches them, one then the other, probing them with clinical detachment, determining where the swelling is.

"Hmm." She stands up, tilts her head. "Do you have any burning when you urinate?"

[pimpcanes]

"I haven't killed you since, have I?" He plays innocent, knowing full well she isn't apt to buy it and feeling a little sour that not a single person here has looked sympathetically on him for acting, as he saw it, perfectly pragmatically in the Arena. Damn hero-types.

His head jerks up. "Hardly at all."

[formersurgeon]

Joan knows full well that he's playing innocent, and that he's fully aware that she's fully aware. He isn't fooling her, and she doesn't dignify the statement with a response. Instead, she continues with her dry, matter-of-fact doctor tone.

"Have you been experiencing white, yellow or green discharge from your penis?"

[pimpcanes]

"No, and even if I believed you could diagnose that by a look at my toes, I'd take that medical problem to a real doctor, not a lass whose license was yanked away." He raises his eyebrows.

[formersurgeon]

"Your ankle," she corrects him, entirely ignoring the dig at her qualifications. By this point she's been a doctor here in Panem for almost as long as she wasn't a doctor at home, and as far as she's concerned, him saying she isn't a real doctor is more petulance than anything. She continues, maintaining the brisk no-nonsense tone.

"This particular swelling is suggestive of gonococcal arthritis. It's possible you're asymptomatic otherwise. Unless the point of infection was anal. Have you had any homosexual encounters in the past three to six months?"

[pimpcanes]

Petulance? Black Tom? Never.

"Past three to six? I might have, with protection." He smiles back at her, Cheshire-like, secretly steaming. "I'm a terrible Catholic."

[formersurgeon]

"Shocking," she says, dry and mildly sarcastic. "Considering your gleeful attitude toward murder. Considering that one actually makes the ten commandments."

She takes his chart and flips through it. "Now...I'm going to need a CBC and a synovial fluid analysis." She puts the chart down again and goes to the supply drawers, opening up one and taking out a couple syringes, one with a small needle and one with a considerably larger one. "It will just take a minute. The results...well, I'd like to promise they'll be back quickly, but, as you can see, we're pretty short staffed."

[pimpcanes]

"I'm aware."

He folds his arms and shakes his head. "You're here to look at my ankle, woman. You won't be getting a drop of my blood or any other fluid. Maybe you should send a qualified doctor my way, and he can help me file a complaint about you wasting time for your short staff."

[formersurgeon]

Joan folds her own arms and stares him down, cold and unflinching.

"I looked at your ankle. Man. And that's my assessment. If you want to refuse treatment, that's your right. But here at the detention center? You're looking at the qualified doctor. If you want someone else, then you can go somewhere else. I'm sure you have access to plenty of other medical facilities that are better staffed, including with doctors who own penises, and who have a lot more time to waste on you."

[pimpcanes]

"Your assessment is wrong and intended to harass." Tom starts to slip his socks and shoes back on. "Which is why I'll be reporting you for wasting precious time. Good day, Ms. Watson."

[formersurgeon]

"Because they're going to believe you over me in matters of medicine. Good luck with that." She takes the clipboard and heads out of the room. "And do your partners a favor and wear a condom," she tosses back over her shoulder, not stopping to wait for a response.