Haller, Cecilia, and Indifference

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Haller stops by the medlab for a check-up. There is no smalltalk. There are no feelings. There is a mention of grilled cheese.

"Hello. I need a physical."

"Good to know you still know your way around, Haller." Cecilia turned around to face the man whose entreaty had broken the silence of the medlab. Her tone was as dry as it could be, since she figured he could handle it. "Although," she gestured with her head toward an exam table, "you certainly move fast."

"If you were sincerely complaining about a lack of smalltalk, I'd know you were from a different universe." The tall man moved to the table obediently, giving Cecilia a cordial nod. "And to be honest, I was waiting for an appropriate gap in Medlab scheduling."

"Oh?" Cecilia grabbed her lab coat off the back of her chair, then followed Haller. She realized it was the first time she'd seen him since his return, and so she stood in front of him trying to discern if the astral plane had changed him too much. "Explain."

Haller shrugged, bearing her scrutiny with the grace of one long familiar with medical exams. "Dropping off the face of the earth for four months and returning with mild changes to a dissociative disorder is apparently alarming. I've already spoken to Laurie, and of everyone who works here you're by far the least inclined to care." He paused, then added, "I mean that in a good way."

"No, I got that." She couldn't keep the amusement out of her voice. "I'm taking that as 'I appreciate how placid you are' and not 'you are a cold fish, Cecilia,' but either way, sure." She shrugged, then turned her back on him in search of an otoscope and an ophthalmoscope. "Any major medical cause for concern? Headaches, pains, whatever?"

Unasked, Haller matched her search by removing his shirt and pulling a smock from one of the table's drawers. The movement brought his ribs, spine and shoulder blades into sharp relief, even under the fluorescent lights. "Let's just say I appreciate your well-defined priorities. And no, nothing alarming. There's some fatigue, but that's to be expected."

"Sure." As if Cecilia had any idea whether that were true or not. Instruments in hand, she turned to look at him. "Skinny as always, I see. We'll have to weigh you." She placed the -scopes on the counter and move toward him to wrangle the blood pressure cuff. He was quieter than she remembered. Well, not quieter. More subdued, maybe. It didn't bother her. "Scoot to the end of the – yeah, there you go."

Haller consented to the manhandling with a passivity that verged on waxy flexibility. What he was instructed to open, he opened; where he was instructed to look, he looked. There wasn't even a flinch when she slid a needle into his arm.

"So," Cecilia said, looking up at Haller from his arm, where she was now holding a cotton ball, "you – hold that there – you haven't asked how I'm feeling." It was a statement-of-fact, not an accusation.

Haller pressed his fingers against the ball so Cecilia could secure it with adhesive, raising an eyebrow. "Do you want me to?" he asked.

Cecilia was silent for a second. "Not really," she admitted with a shrug. She turned her back on him and went to the nearest sink to wash her hands.

He nodded, smoothing over the ripples in the tape. "If you wanted to talk about it you'd be talking about it already. And I don't particularly want you to ask me, either. It's why I waited until you were on call. I think we both just want to do our job and get on with things. For whatever reason some people won't accept that as a valid reaction to a life-changing event."

"Oh. Good." Cecilia nodded. She grabbed a paper towel, then turned to face him. "Happy to be thought of, in that case."

Haller studied her for a moment. "The professor is concerned I'm not socializing," he remarked.

"Well," Cecilia tried to look indifferent, but the corners of her mouth quirked. "That sounds like a Charles problem, doesn't it?"

"Yes. But Charles hasn't entirely recovered from his stroke, so it doesn't seem appropriate to argue with him or distress him." He fixed her with a slightly-too-unblinking gaze. "You don't seem like you're interested in forced socialization, either."

"Forced socialization?" Cecilia raised an eyebrow, then looked away from Haller. His stare was a little intimidating and had she not cared for him at all, she would have found it intensely creepy. "Is that how you flirt now?"

This observation broke the unnerving eye-contact by eliciting a faint snort. "It's nice of you to assume David was ever good at flirting. But no. We both live in a place where people habitually knock on your door with food or drag you out for social activities. They do it because they mean well, but it gets wearing. Especially if you just want to get on with things." Haller shrugged; the movement articulated the bones in his too-thin frame like an anatomical model. "I was thinking that if we set something up between ourselves people wouldn't feel as concerned. Nothing romantic, just something to meet expected social requirements. Lunch or something."

"Yeah." She smiled back at him, pleased to have gotten some kind of response. "Okay. Sure. Lunch or something. Two dispassionate people sitting in silence eating grilled cheese or whatever." She'd been on worse dates. (Not that this was one. She'd been joking about the flirting.)

Haller gave her a faint smile; while it may have been more habit than sentiment, it at least shifted a few facial muscles. "Thanks. I appreciate the opportunity to put the professor's mind at ease a little. Hopefully you'll get something mutually beneficial."

"Oh, sure," Cecilia waved a hand dismissively. "With Jean's attention elsewhere, we're a little busy. A chance to sit in the quiet and not be bothered is all I want."

Haller nodded. "In this weather lunch outside might be nice. I'll bring my laptop if you bring yours."

Cecilia smiled and nodded back. "Yeah. Okay."

"Okay. Then it's a date." Haller extended a hand, casually exercising his telekinesis to retrieve his discarded shirt. He began to pull it over his head, then paused.

"Except not."

"Darn," Cecilia said dryly with an eyebrow arched. "No casual, meaningless sex afterwards? How disappointing."

The telekinetic, arms over his head and half inside his sleeves, hesitated. He considered the stunning Puerto Rican, then dropped his eyes to his own underweight frame that currently had all the sexual charisma of a toast-rack. He met her gaze again, one eyebrow raised. "I guess we could. Do you want casual, meaningless sex?"

"No." Cecilia's eyebrows went even higher. "God. No. Haller. I mean, tha–no."

Haller's nod wasn't so much a nod of relief as the nod of a man whose universe had once again resolved itself in a logical fashion. He finished pulling on his shirt. "I was going to say, if you're legitimately out of any other options there this reality is weirder than I thought."

Cecilia snorted. "Thanks, I guess?"