Log: Rachel/Cecilia (backdated)

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Rachel makes an appointment with Cecilia to see if medical science can solve her problems.



A major problem with not knowing whether she knew this Moira (or Madelyn, or Hank or...) was that Cecilia didn't know whether she could call them when she ventured outside her medical comfort zone.

Even with the combined knowledge of Clarice, Laurie, Amelia, herself and now Jean, there were areas of medicine that fell out of their reach. Or, at least, her reach. Since the Dark Phoenix had returned them to this world, she'd done her best to read up and become a walking, talking medical library. But that was taking time, and in the interim, there were things that popped up that had to be deal with.

Like this. When she'd first heard what Rachel wanted, Cecilia tried not to panic. But neuro and psych had always been intimidating things that were far, far beyond her grasp.

Still, as she entered the exam room where she'd situated the newly returned Rachel (another thing that left her some combination of relieved and terrified, come to think of it), she pushed everything down inside of her and tried to be professional.

"Okay," she said with a smile, resisting the urge to hug Rachel one more time. "Start from the beginning."

The redhead peered up at her through her too-long fringe, dark circles, mussed hair and entirely bedraggled appearance lending to the air of frustrated doom and gloom that seemed to permeate the air about her.

"Okay. So the world went down the crapper," Rachel said, voice slightly sandpaper-y as she kicked her heels against the examination table. "And I ended up spending some time (hanging out) in the Astral Plane with Jim (because yay for continued survival). But then we came back, which, y'know, great. (Kinda.)" A flash of irritation passed across pale features, gone long before Cecilia could examine it in any detail, and the younger woman took a deep breath before continuing.

"Anyway, things started to get... weird. (Weirder.) And I started hearing voices in my head. Like, actual literal and distinct voices talking to me. So I thought, hey, I'm finally losing the plot. Actually going crazy." Totally believable at the moment if one considered the slightly manic gleam in verdant orbs. "But then I also discovered that I had whole pockets of knowledge hidden in my head. Things I've never known before. Like three different types of engineering, carpentry, embroidery (and jewelry making)... And then things really went nuts when I started feeling things. (Physical sensations) of someone hitting me or talking in my ear or jabbing me in the side. There were visions too, (which is so not part of my N.)"

Rachel shrugged and looked back down at where she had the edge of the examination table in a white-knuckled grip. "Prof said there was no TP or TK interference. So a friend of mine suggested I have an MRI done to see if anything kooky is going on up there... Something, something. (Eloquent.)"

The entire time Rachel was talking, Cecilia had been trying to ignore the churning feeling in her stomach. She wasn't just out of her element - she was out of her world, and maybe out of her mind. As many times as it had been explained to her, the doctor still couldn't conceptualize the Astral Plane. It hadn't been easy before she'd been forcibly turned into an inter-dimensional traveler, and it wasn't any easier now.

"Okay," she said, because she was expected to say something. "That was good advice, and we can definitely take a look. I'm not sure..." She looked down at Rachel's hands, unsure whether the telepath would deck her if she tried to take one into her own. "And you've talked to Haller about this? I don't – has he had any residual effects from the Plane?"

"He seems the same. (Sane.) Sane enough for him anyways. I did ask him about the possibility of a multiple personality disorder, but he said it was unlikely. (But not impossible.)" Rachel shrugged again. "It's not surprising, though. I kind of grew up in the AP and therefore interact with it differently than most people do so... Spending that much time up there again could've fucked shit up more for me? (Doug said I aged like five to ten years since M-day.)"

The psion wrinkled her nose, clearly at a loss and then crinkled her eyes at the doctor. "Yeah, I know. It's all (kinda) crazy. Sorry to dump all this shit on you like that."

"No, no, it's fine." Unable to help herself, she reached out and took Rachel's hand. "It's not - well, no crazier than anything else that happened." She withdrew her hand and crossed her arms. "And we'll figure it out, and we'll deal with it, and it'll be okay." There she went again, trying to be everyone's rock and doing the exact thing Wade had cautioned her against. As if she could help it.

Once released, the pale hand reached up to scrub tiredly at an eye ringed with dark circles. Rachel managed a small, if empty, appreciative smile. "Thanks, Doc. I know it's just a shot in the dark at this point. Maybe I have huge brain tumour or, or something got rattled loose during the whole mutants-go-boom thing. But if it's an entirely psychiatric problem, well... (I'll eat your stethoscope.) I wish the Prof were feeling better." Or that Jean was old Jean. Or that her mum were around. Maybe there would be less groping around in the dark and feeling like she was sinking into the depths of insanity.

Rachel let out a huge sigh, then tempered it with a weak grin. "Need anything else from me before we do this?"

"Nah. I mean, I'll bring you a gown, and no jewelry or metal or whatever, but..." Cecilia shrugged. "I wouldn't worry too much. That's what you can do." She knew it was easier said than done, and she smiled at Rachel's reaction. "I know, I know. But seriously, whatever the outcome, we'll have a better sense of what's going on.

"And honestly, you know, if it is some kind of..." She flapped her hand around, a gesture perfectly suited to her vague words. "Some psychiatric thing. Charles is still plenty smart, and he's seen all kinds of things. And I'm – well, I got through med school," she grinned, "so there's that."

"Got through med school," Rachel parroted teasingly. "She says that like it's the easiest thing to do ever. (Like they hand them out like candy.) (Why didn't *I* get a medical degree too?)"

The redhead groaned and slapped her palm to her forehead. "Don't mind me. We should just... yeah."

She undressed obediently, thoughtfully hiding her concealed weapons in the pockets of her pants and shoving the gauntlets up her shirt and bundling everything into a ball. The hospital gown (not paper, thank goodness) hung off her too-thin shoulders without doing much to protect her modesty, but Rachel didn't seem too bothered by it as she lay down on the (metal thingy).

"Okay," Cece said, putting the bundle of Rachel's clothes into a plastic crate she could take out of the room. "So, you're gonna need to stay still - I'll pipe some music in or something, but try not to move. How are you with tight spaces?"

"(Not a fan)," was the immediate reply. "But I'll deal."

"Ha. 'Attagirl." Cece grinned. "Okay. See you on the other side."

***

Rachel re-entered the lab sitting on thin air, lacing up her boots with her ankle holsters on her lap. She came to a stop next to Cecilia, wrinkling her nose at the images on the screen that she was scrolling through. "Oooh, brains."

"Not as fun as the real thing but still pretty neat," Cecilia turned and smiled at her. She'd been staring at Rachel's scans for some time, but brains just weren't her forte. "So, good news or okay news?" She grabbed a cup of coffee she'd placed next to the computer, then looked back at the screen.

"Good news," Rachel decided, propping up one foot on the edge of the bubble and strapping on a holster to tuck under her pant legs. She eyed the scans, registering some vague understanding, but very little comprehension of the images. "What's up, doc?"

"Well," Cecilia shrugged, "nothing physical. I mean, I can't see anything on these, no major tumors or anything that obvious. Your brain looks pretty normal, especially given the whole... timestream, astral plane mystery thing that you went through." She took a sip of her coffee and frowned at how tepid it was. Then, she glanced back at Rachel, all smiles. "I mean, I'm not a radiologist, and I'm gonna have to send your scans to someone who actually, you know, reads these for a living. But based on what I know, nothing that's..." She struggled for a word. "Well."

"Catastrophic? Life-threatening? (Obviously fucked up?)" The redhead guessed all wry smiles. "And the 'Okay' news?"

"Well," Cecilia looked back at the screen and tapped some keys, "it's not nothing nothing. See - oh, here, okay. Look." One image of Rachel's brain popped up, and Cecilia clicked to expand it. "This was you, resting. No movement, no tasks, no stimuli. And you can see here and here," she grabbed a pen and used it to point to areas on the scan, "that these parts of your brain are working like they normally would."

She glanced at Rachel again. "So, here's the thing." Cecilia dropped the pen, rifling through the drawer next to her. "Your brain's doing more things than it should be doing, like... oh, got it." She pulled out a laser pointer. "Like, all the time." She switched the pointer on. "So, when you're at rest, these areas shouldn't be this active." She used the laser pointer to circle a few spots on the brain. "And that's like that no matter what you're doing, and it's... I don't think that it's bad, I promise, I don't. But it's surprising."

The younger woman was frowning at the scans by the time Cecilia was halfway through her explanation. "I guess it kind of makes sense?" She said quietly, though it seemed like her heart was thundering in her ears while the ghosts' voices started increasing in volume, each trying to be heard over the others. "I mean, my brain feels full." (She was starting to really hate that phrase.) "And won't shut up." (Which was why there was also very little sleep to be had.) "Which translates into that, I guess?"

Rachel heaved a loud sigh, trying to tamp down on the rising frustration (and distress). "Maybe it's a powers thing. The first time I came back, my TP got ripped to shreds. Maybe it's just... (more fucked up now)?" But the voices were interacting and that made zero sense. I made negative sense, even. She was no closer to an explanation as she had been when it had first started. "I give up."

"Hm." Cecilia closed her eyes, considering all of that. What Rachel described wasn't - well, it sounded like a serious psychological issue, but that was before she even considered the whole issue of the astral plane. "Emma Frost," she said after a few seconds. "That's who you should talk to about powers stuff." Before, she would have referred Rachel to Jean. But Jean was an unknown quantity now, and Rachel's background was too complicated to explain without risking the unraveling of their new universe. "I mean, you know me. The astral plane's really not my thing."

"Yeah but it's not really a powers thing either," Rachel replied. (Plus she hadn't seen Emma since her return.) It had been enough knowing she was alive. The other psion was a busy woman. (No shit.) "My TK and TP are pretty much the same as... (Before). The ghosts don't seem to be coming from anywhere (any one) else. ( It's worth considering, though.)"

Pressing fingers against her temple, the redhead growled low under her breath and squinted at her MRI scans for a while more before shaking her head in another futile attempt to dislodge the heavy feeling in her head. "The astral plane isn't most people's thing." If anything, it was Rachel's thing. "But thanks for trying anyway?"

"Ha. Wish I could have been more help." Cecilia glanced back at the computer screen for a second, then looked at Rachel. "I'll send them off - might be something I missed. And the meantime, might as well bug Emma. In the meantime..." Cecilia shrugged again. "She's who we've got."

"Yeah, I guess." She dropped to the floor, TK bubble disappearing as she tucked the last of her personal arsenal away (cobbled together from bits and pieces she could scrounge up in this world). There was an abrupt pressure at the small of her back which sent her forward with a muted sound of surprise. But this time, the end game seemed to be her arms coming up to curl around Cecilia's shoulders in a loose hug. (That, she didn't mind so much.) (But still. Awkward.) Fucking weird ghosts. "Uhm. Sorry? (Thanks.)"

Cecilia didn't do nearly as well muting her own surprise. Not that she'd known Rachel for long, but she hadn't really thought the younger woman to be that affectionate. "Hey, no, it's okay." After a beat, she raised her arms and hugged Rachel back. "I'm glad you're back, you know? And we'll figure this out."

"...'Kay," the psion sighed, briefly tucking her forehead against Cecilia's shoulder. The physical contact felt good, even without drawing from her emotions. (No reason to deny ghosts if this what what they wanted.) If she spent a few extra moments just holding on to the doctor, well, Cecilia was too good of a person to bring it up.