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singillatim2023-10-24 09:23 am
2. Well, I might call you Doctor.
Who: Harry Goodsir and OPEN
What: Doctor's hours
Where: Harry's cabin, around town
When: Anytime during October, early November
Warnings: TBD
It's taken some weeks—including the awful voices and even, ironically, the words of Cornelius Hickey—for Goodsir to finally act on advice he'd given to Edward Little when they'd first arrived.
He starts by placing a notice on the board. Then he starts scavenging the town for all the medical supplies he can find, consolidating a store of them in his cabin. What he does manage to find, in combination with the contents of his surgeon's chest, isn't nearly as much as he would like, but it will do.
He has learned much, these last few weeks. That disease and infection is caused not by miasma, by tiny animalcules that may be spread by various forms of contact, and that wounds must be kept clean—disinfected—thus averting festering and gangrene. That there are compounds in food that keep the body healthy, and that not all foods contain those compounds. He tries not to dwell on the lives he might have saved with that knowledge on the expedition, and to focus on the here and now. As he said to Little: to live, and do what good he can.
And to try not to let his hatred of Cornelius Hickey consume him.
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Alas, in Goodsir's day, the connection between smoking and lung cancer has not been fully made. And as yet, he hasn't come across this information in his reading or in casual discussion. Still, he understands that some people find it a noxious habit. And while he thinks he grasps what March is asking for, he can't believe that this is the solution the man hit upon.
"If it troubles others, surely you could at least indulge when alone? Or outdoors?"
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"Yeah, 'course--no lighting up in the community hall like a hippie, that's--" instead of a thumbs up, this time he gives an 'OK' sign "--already on. But what if you wrote a little 'it's totally fine' as a catch-all anyway? Something like--I'm spitballing-- 'Holland March is a good guy and people need to stop giving him shit for tobacco use because it's a perfectly normal thing to help with the extreme stress of everyone stuck in Canada and also we're all going to die anyway so who fucking cares if he smokes, signed Dr. Goodsir, royal boat surgeon and local smart man?'"
His brows raise. That's pretty good, right?
"You can zhuzh it up if you want."
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It takes a moment—not least because Goodsir has a little difficulty in parsing March's ... idiosyncratic (to him) speech. But then he finally works out what he's being asked for and—
He can't help it. He starts to laugh.
"Mr. March. If people are going to object to your tobacco habit, I can't really see that any statement of mine is going to stop that. Even if it is, as you say, harmless. You are at liberty to smoke and others are equally free to find it noisome."
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"Wow. I gotta say, I'm really disappointed." He doesn't actually seem that disappointed, still fairly deadpan. He does, however, sit in a chair whether Goodsir wants him to or not, fully making himself at home. He's digging a crumpled pack out of his pocket.
"I really thought we had something, you and I."
He pulls out a cigarette--thankfully unbroken despite the crumpled state--and offers the pack to Goodsir if he wants one.
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Still smiling, Goodsir shakes his head, a polite refusal of the cigarette.
"In this matter, Mr. March, I'm afraid you'll have to take your knocks on your own."
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He has two options: politely leave, or outstay his welcome. He leans a little further, gold zippo being fished out next.
"What's with you boat guys, by the way?" Outstay his welcome it is. Cigarette in his mouth, he lights it and continues. "Big coats, bushy facial hair, European. You all know each other, right?"
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The description makes Goodsir smile. "We were part of a British expedition into the Arctic, departing in the year 1845," he says. "Lieutenant Little was second-in-command on one of the ships—HMS Terror—and I was assistant surgeon on the other, Erebus."
A pause. "And Mr. Hickey was a caulker's mate on Terror."
His dislike for Hickey is plain.
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"Mr. Hickey was a what?"
His hand moves to his chin, trying to look very very thoughtful and interested.
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Oh, of course. March probably knows even less about ships than Goodsir did.
"Assistant to the caulker," he says, all innocence. "A sort of specialised carpenter—responsible for the caulking of the ship's hull. To keep it watertight, you see."
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His cigarette has a log of ash at this point. March glances around, looking for the nearest ashtray. Cup? Plate? Gotta be somewhere, but barring that he'll just tap it out on the floor, big whoop.
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There is a nearby saucer, in fact—left over from a cup of tea that Goodsir had earlier.
"I—I suppose you could say we did," he says. "We all arrived at more or less the same time, although—it's difficult to understand, but we were brought from different ... times."
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"But you've got a body curious."
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Goodsir takes a deep breath, and decides to just go for it.
"I ... have died, or will die soon, back in the place I came from," he says, "and Mr. Hickey has already seen that come to pass."
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He's not sure what he's expecting. The idea of the fantastical being real has settled into his brain just fine now that he's had a month or so to handle it, but the Doctor's deep inhale is no where near enough time for March to either steel himself or expect the other's confession.
Now Goodsir really has a body curious. March hates that he's leaning forward a little, one hand moving under his chin. He shouldn't be this into it, but it's scratching that itch that occasionally flares up and reminds him he likes a good case to solve, an interesting mystery. The same voice that's an awful lot louder now that his alcohol supply is dwindling.
That doesn't seem right, people being dragged from different times like that. On the other hand, the date on his driver's license in comparison to the era this guy's from is proof it's entirely possible.
"You look pretty alive to me." But this Caulk guy claims something else. March frowns, entirely too confused.
"Think he's lying to you?"
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"I feel—well, the plain truth is that I feel more alive than I had done in months," Goodsir says, and there's that dry humour. "But I don't think he's lying. And I don't pretend to understand what this might mean. Say a man is brought here from the moment of his death, yet there are others who accept his death as fact—does that mean he will in time be returned to that moment? I don't know."
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"You think we're going to go back home?"
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"I don't know," Goodsir admits. "It seems likely, given what I have learnt about my own possible fate, but perhaps there are other possibilities. All of this suggests that Time is another dimension within which we can move, just as we do through space, and I admit I can't fully grasp all the implications of that."
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... Yeah, it's fidgeting.
"That's pretty far out." Healy showing up and being from the future sounds like a fucking nightmare. He imagines it's the same.
"He just telling you the winning lottery tickets, or is he spilling everything from the future after after you...?" 'You know. Die.' This is awfully invasive, but Goodsir doesn't seem to mind so far.
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"He's told me a little," he says. "Though he's not from so far in the future that there's much to tell—so far as I can make out, at any rate."
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He's gonna miss these when they're gone.
"I think the Aurora's trying to fuck with us," he confesses. "Or maybe not the Aurora, but whatever brought us here. Maybe this is part of your own personal cuckoo set up."
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"You think there's a consciousness behind all this?" Goodsir says. That's got his curiosity up. "Not merely some strange accident?"
He considers a moment, then adds, "It would have to be a strange accident indeed to have brought three of us here not only from the Arctic, but the self-same expedition."
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"I don't know. I think hocus-pocus is all hippie bullshit. Praying to the moon and burning bras." He tilts his head to the side.
"But... It's not like I've got any other explanation for the voice in our heads all calling us Interlopers and the magic lights in the sky. Do you?"
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What in God's name is a bra? Or a hippie, for that matter?
Still, at least the question is in English.
"No. I ... I confess, I thought for quite some time that the—those thoughts were those of my own conscience. Until I understood that we were all victims of it."
sorry for the delay <3
"You think you'll figure it out? You want to figure it out?"
no worries!
"Yes," he says, and the answer comes without hesitation. "That is—I want to. Will I—will we? I can't say. But some mysteries don't sit well with me, including this one."
A pause, then: "Why Russians?"
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