souffle_girlek | (no subject)

(no subject)

Oswin reminds herself, firmly, that she agreed to this.

She agreed to meet a doctor (not a Doctor) and talk. She agreed to come at a specific time to do this.

And a specific place.

And her pride kept her from saying that really, she'd rather walk over hot coals than go back into the infirmary if at all possible.

So Oswin arrives at Alana Bloom's new office looking more like an inmate facing execution than someone looking for help.

Actually, inmates probably look more relaxed. Any more tightly wound, and she'll fly apart in bits.

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Alana's new office isn't hers at all, but one of the interview rooms set aside in the infirmary for the purpose. Still, she's brought a plant in to try to make it more welcoming, a philodendron, which she set out on the desk.

Standing up from her lean on it, she motions for Oswin to come inside. "Hello, Oswin," she says. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." She avows, a blatant lie as she steps precisely into the room. She doesn't wring her hands, because she's telling herself firmly that wringing her hands is not okay.

"I... really haven't done this sort of thing before. Well. Other than... last time."

"Oh, I hope I can put your mind at ease, then," Alana says, gesturing for Oswin to sit in one of the plush chairs which face each other. She picks up a yellow legal pad and a pen from the desk. "It should be a simple enough session, taking inventory. Just a few questions I ask all of my patients."

"Doesn't sound too hard." See, she tells herself, you can do that, easy questions today. She tucks her feet up underneath her when she sits.

She should have brought her computer pad. She didn't, because that seemed rude, but her hands feel empty.

She doesn't think about why that is.

"Good," Alana says, and straightens the skirt of her iris-printed wrap dress before sitting down in the chair opposite Oswin. "Now, standard questions include your history with alcohol and drugs, how much exercise you get, and social supports. So let's start with the first one. What is your history with alcohol?"

"... I used to serve it?" She offers, not quite understanding what 'history' means. "On the Alaska, I mean, and once here - Bar likes to give the job of bartender away.

Alana eases into a small smile. "I'm going to assume that means you're not an alcoholic," she says, a touch sheepish. She makes a quick note on her paper. "How much exercise do you get on a weekly basis?"

"... Define exercise." She's not trying to be difficult, truly she isn't.

She just doesn't know if 'climbing Tahno like the tall sexy tree he is' qualifies as exercise.

"Activity that gets your heart rate up for an hour or so," Alana says, tapping her legal pad with her pen. "Anything that makes you sore the next day."

"Then yeah. That happens. Um... some weeks more than others?"

Depends on who she runs into, really.

Alana takes another note down, nodding. "Now I get to ask you about your friends here. Do you have many people that you hang out with, and how frequently do you do so?"

"Um..." That's something she tries not to examine too closely. "There's a few? But they... none of them live here."

They have lives to go back to, lives that are important and have things that need doing and...

"I can entertain myself though."

"Do you frequently isolate yourself?" Alana asks, after making another note.

"... I wouldn't say frequently."

She'd say it's the exact right amount.

It's not as if she does it for fun - it's necessary.

Alana pauses to skritch something out on her legal pad. "Why do you feel the need to do that, do you think? I'm not passing judgment here, I'm just curious."

The tension that was slowly receding ratchets up again - her posture straightens, the set of her shoulders tight and braced.

"Anything can come here."

"Like the Doctor," Alana guesses, nodding. She taps her pen twice. "And you're hiding from things that might come?"

She shakes her head, denial fierce.

"My rooms are defensible." That's not hiding, that's taking sensible precautions.

"How often do you find you need to defend yourself?" Alana asks, completely non-judgmental. "Being on edge all the time and hyper-alert has to be exhausting."

The tone is reassuring.

But she remembers the the before all of this.

She knows the correct answer.

"Not often." She aims for breezy.

She squarely hits 'lying through her teeth'.

Alana opens her mouth to say something, and shuts it again, making a soft humming sound. "Do you sleep well, Oswin? Do you wake up at night? And how much sleep do you get?"

She tries to remind herself. She tries to remember that she's here for help, that these things have to be asked, and answered. That there's no way the doctor can know what's going on without asking.

Already on edge, she taps her fingers against the arm of her chair, the patterns burned into her memory over a year in captivity.

"I sleep enough, I guess."

"How much is enough, if you don't mind my asking?" Alana asks, making another note. "I'm here to help you. I only have your best interests at heart."

"Enough, I guess. If I wake up I don't need more, or I'd be asleep still." She hedges, still tapping.

"Five hours? I don't know."

Alana nods, taking down another note. "Would you mind keeping track of your sleep over the next week? I'd like to see how many hours you're getting."

"... I can do that." She'll just give the job to one of the bots, that'd be easy.

"What pattern are you tapping out on the chair?" Alana asks, tilting her head.

She freezes for a second, as if only just now realizing she was doing that.

Then she repeats the pattern, imagining her keyboard, what the keystrokes would be.

"Lock codes."

Alana pauses for a moment, processing this. "For your door?" she asks, her lips thinning out. "That sort of muscle memory must be a pretty strong coping mechanism. Do you need me to play Carmen?"

"For the facility. Lock them all down. They can't get me if they're all locked in." She corrects - she took her fight on the offensive, making them rue the day they gave her access to their system.

"I understand," Alana says, nodding. She sets her pen down. "That's the most effective way to ensure that they couldn't get you. But you don't need to defend yourself against them anymore. You're here now, and you're safe."

"Back in the infirmary, yes." And that's fine, that's fine, she remembers how she got her this time, she remembers the path and the reasons behind it.

"Does the infirmary work for you as a meeting place?" Alana asks, lacing her fingers together around her knees. "I want you to be comfortable, and feel safe."

She comes within a breath of relenting. Within a breath of babbling out relief and terror at being called out and begging to meet anywhere that isn't here.

"I'm fine." It's a strangled, terse pair of words, an utter lie. But she's not that broken. She's not. She can do this properly.

"All right," Alana says, inclining her head. "Just remember that it's up to you that we do this. You are the one in control of this session, and what we talk about. I'm only here to direct you if you like."

She picks up her notes again. "I'd like to go back to the issue of isolation again, if you don't mind. And I'd like to give you some homework: hang out with some of your friends this week. It only has to be for an hour or so, just enough to check in."

Oswin gnaws on her lower lip, considering. That should be do-able. Should be.

Might not be.

What if it isn't? It shouldn't be hard, but... what if? What if she can't manage to go out for a week? It's happened. She'd like to say not often, but... well. She's a master at self-delusion, she knows that.

"Um." She doesn't want to fail, if she fails does that mean it's over? How many chances does she get? She should have asked. She forgot to ask.

So in the face of a fairly simple request, Alana gets an expression of near-panic.

"Oswin?" Alana asks, tilting her head. "Are you quite all right?"

"... Sure. I..." She chokes on the lie, grimacing. She can hold it together. She can do this, and not fail, and hold it together.

Right?

"Forgive me for saying so, but you don't look all right," Alana says, lacing her fingers together in her lap again. "Is it the assignment?"

After a long moment of debating whether or not she should just try to fake it harder, she nods, dropping her gaze to the floor.

"Well, let's talk about that," Alana says, leaning forward. "What about the assignment makes you nervous?"

"It should be fine. I... it should be fine." The answer feels inane, she's genius, damnit, she shouldn't be down to repeating herself. It makes her angry, that her brain can't seem to snap out of this loop.

"But... if it isn't..."

"If you can't quite manage to hang out with your friends this week, that's perfectly fine," Alana says, shaking her head. "You can try again next week. There's no penalty for failure for this."

Oswin looks up to stare for a long moment, searching for the lie, the trick. Evidently she doesn't find what she's looking for, as her shoulders slump with relief.

"Oh." The word lengthens, shuddering. "Oh, okay."

"I will try to never give you more than you can handle at any given time," Alana says, sitting back in her chair and making another note. "But I do want to push you out of your comfort zone. A little at a time."

"Okay." She takes a deep breath to try and settle her rattled nerves "I'm. Sure. That'll work."

She's not at all sure it'll work, but at least a failure won't be disastrous.

The corners of Alana's lips lift slightly. "I hope so," she says. "Now, I think that might be enough for today. Make sure you treat yourself for coming out here."

Oswin nods, not entirely convinced she did well today. For right now, doing it, however poorly, will just have to do.

"Will do. I... thank you." For not giving up on her, despite her glitches.

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