the daily differential

[number_unlucky]

I feel so alone, I'd said to Foreman in the locker room as he stood there with that same damn accusatory look on his face. I'm tired. I'm going to go home.

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[so_near_an_end]

Cecilia's shift was Saturday afternoons, not Sunday. However, she'd been in the compound for breakfast and thought she might pop by to see if Dr. Bashir or Dr. House might be in need of her assistance. Of course, Cecilia sincerely doubted Dr. House would care for her help; she'd gotten the impression he might feel her ever-expanding stomach was becoming a liability. Perhaps it was, but Cecilia was determined to carry on with her clinic duties until she was closer to the date of her delivery.

Standing at the counter, she began to scribble a note to Dr. House about the triage kits needing replenished when she heard someone calling out.

"Coming," Cecilia called, immediately assuming her ward sister tone.

Briskly, Cecilia headed toward the voice. The woman on the bed was not a patient, or rather hadn't been one during Cecilia's shift yesterday.

"Can I help you?"

[number_unlucky]

Okay, I was in med school when Pirates of the Caribbean came out, but that didn't mean I didn't have time to gawk at Keira Knightley. I could make time for that. But somehow I hadn't heard anything about her being pregnant, or showing up here in this not-hospital, looking for all rights and purposes like a nurse without scrubs.

"Uh," I said, and cleared my throat. "Hi." And I pulled my PPTH badge out of my pocket with shaking hands. "Dr. Remy Hadley--do you know when I was admitted?"

[so_near_an_end]

"Dr. Hadley," Cecilia repeated, looking over the information on her badge. The poor woman. Obviously she had just arrived.

At least she had arrived on a part of the island that would seem somewhat familiar, considering her given profession.

"I'm afraid you haven't been admitted." The smile that had curved Cecilia's mouth began to fade. "I quite realise how this is all going to sound but I assure you it is the truth. You've been brought to an island. It's called Tabula Rasa and I arrived here myself in the same fashion. One moment, I was in the tube station and in the next I found myself on the beach."

[number_unlucky]

She really was that good-looking in person, though I wasn't about to hit on a woman who was pregnant, especially not when she was telling me that--

"Excuse me," I said after a second, "but what do you mean by brought? Was I kidnapped? Are we all held for ransom?"

Like my father'd pay that, and he's the only person I know with money.

[so_near_an_end]

"No," Cecilia said quickly, laying a reassuring hand upon the doctor's. "That isn't what I meant at all."

Not for the first time, Cecilia wondered how it was things came to pass on this island. What a queerness to it all! Though she had been here for some time now, even she could not get over the myriad curiosities.

"You weren't kidnapped. It was more as if you were...summoned, if you will. No one is being held for ransom, although some days it may feel like it. We cannot leave, only when the island chooses to send us back from whence we came."

[number_unlucky]

This was really damn awkward. I chewed on my lower lip for a moment, feeling like I was in some kind of movie where only I realized that I wasn't part of the show. It sure didn't feel like someone had spiked the E with something, even if Keira Knightley could very well show up in any hallucination and be welcome.

It felt too real, too sane except for the situation, to be a high.

"This..." I said, feeling almost nauseous from the impact of sheer weird shit, "I'm sorry, this is just really, really weird. Is this the government? Who did this? This isn't like Guantanamo Bay or anything..."

[so_near_an_end]

"You needn't apologise to me," Cecilia said kindly. "I understand entirely how disconcerting this all is."

Worrying her lower lip for a moment, she contemplated the doctor's questions. Though Guantanamo Bay wasn't familiar in the least, Cecilia understood her meaning. "If it is a government, no one here is quite sure which one it would be. I feel I should warn you, though, you will meet people here who previously had only existed, to your knowledge, in books or films. My husband and I once attended a ball given by the Bennett sisters and Mr. Darcy!" She laughed a little at the memory; Robbie and she had simply been beside themselves.

Remembering herself, Cecilia offered the doctor her hand. "Forgive me for forgetting myself. My name is Cecilia Turner."

[number_unlucky]

Turner. That had been the Orlando Bloom guy, but Cecilia wasn't Keira's piratey self. I needed to just give up on this making sense. "Ms...er...Turner, did you say fictional people?"

Right, change the diagnosis to mass hallucination. At least I wasn't alone in it. I shook Keira's--Cecelia's--hand. "I suppose a single man in possession of a good fortune wasn't any longer in need of a wife."

[so_near_an_end]

"Mrs," Cecilia corrected warmly. "It was Tallis, but Robbie and I wed here a few months ago. We...knew one another from home." In more ways than one, though that was a story fit for another conversation, she expected.

"I suppose not," she smiled, and gestured to the clinic. "We're in a building called the compound. This is our clinic, run by Doctor Beckett. Doctor House oversees the students. I'm the sole nurse, but we do all right. We've even opened up a second clinic elsewhere on the island."

[number_unlucky]

"Congratulations," I said, and smiled slightly. It was a stiff smile, but I did mean it--if people could be happy in this kind of situation, whatever it was, good for them.

She was giving me a rundown of where I was, and it made enough sense, until a name filtered through all of the information. "Dr. House," I said, without thinking about it. "House has students?!"

[so_near_an_end]

"Thank you." For all the headache and heartache this place seemed to rejoice in foisting upon its inhabitants, Cecilia would forever remain grateful to the island for reuniting her with Robbie. Their happiness was due to the island's whims.

"Yes, Doctor House." She smiled. "You know him." It wasn't a question; familiarity was plainly etched upon Doctor Hadley's features. "He's a rather brilliant doctor, you know."

[number_unlucky]

"Oh, I'm aware," I said, a little shell-shocked. "I suffer his brilliance daily, and suffer really is the operative word. He's my boss. At home. Was my boss. I...that doesn't make sense either."

[so_near_an_end]

While Cecilia respected Dr House, she had seen enough of him to understand how off-putting some people may have found him. "I'm certain your suffering is only leading you on a path to greatness," she said, for Cecilia had found that embracing the positive in situations such as this were paramount. "None of this makes sense, you'll find. But I promise eventually you'll come to be at peace with it all."

[number_unlucky]

"That's what I'd like to hope," I said, with a dry laugh. Sooner rather than later, too, though it was looking like any plans I might have had--for anything at all--were completely sidelined. "At least I know it's all nonsensical from the beginning, right?"

[so_near_an_end]

"Yes, at least there is that," Cecilia said with a small laugh herself. "Well, I must say that you've taken to the news much better than most tend to do around here." She gestured to the badge that Dr Hadley had shown her. "Though when one is in your line of work, dealing with the unexpected is old hat."

[number_unlucky]

I swallowed for half a second, then said, "Well, it's not worse news than other things I've heard lately, so there's no point in raging against it. Though the unexpected is more expected when it happens to someone else."