hh_mirror | Application: Dr. Claire Saunders (a.k.a. "Whiskey"), "Dollhouse"

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Application: Dr. Claire Saunders (a.k.a. "Whiskey"), "Dollhouse"

((I'm taking Claire from the end of s2e1, "Vows;" obviously there are spoilers for the last couple eps of s1, where we learned a bit about her history.))

Claire Saunders was running out of excuses.

Imprinted phobias be damned. She drove, crying and shaking and white-knuckling the SUV's steering wheel, as far as a tank of gas would take her in the general direction of "away from the Dollhouse." She finally stopped for the night at a rundown motel on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Claire has no pop culture references, or she might have noticed the place's resemblance to a key set in "Psycho." Never having seen any Hitchcock, however, she opened the door of the motel, to find not Norman Bates, but the Hogwarts Sorting Room.

"What the..."

Maybe her flight from the Dollhouse was just a hallucination. She'd heard the Attic described as 'like a nightmare you can't wake up from;' surely the kind where you run and run and never get anywhere would qualify? Unconsciously Claire rubbed the scars on her forehead and cheeks, half expecting Alpha to leap out of the shadows with a blade.

She braced herself, put a hand against the writing desk to stabilize herself, and noticed the application. Curious despite herself, she picked up the quill.

State your full name.

"Currently? Dr. Saunders. Claire. Claire Saunders. Before that? I went by "Whiskey," when I wasn't busy being - number one. Before that...I don't want to know what my name was before that."

1. What is your favorite cheese? Why is it your favorite?

"Hmm. Do I have a favorite cheese? Did Topher bother with anything that detailed? Whatever. Swiss seems appropriate. Full of holes."

2. Who would you kill first, Barney or Carrottop?

"I'm a doctor. "First do no harm" and all that. Well, technically I never took the oath, but I feel deeply bound by it nonetheless."

3. What time is it where you are?

"It's "right now." Where I'm from, there's only ever "right now." Actives have no conception of the future, you see, and the past - the past can be taken away from a Doll at any time. For better or worse."

4. If you were Albus Dumbledore returned from the dead, which member of the Order of the Phoenix would you sexually harass? How would you harass them? If you are Albus Dumbledore, please answer as if you were Sirius Black.

Claire thought of her last encounter with Topher, her sick, doomed seduction scene, and laughed and laughed - a grating, slightly hysterical laugh - then took a swig from a silver flask.

"Next question."

5. If you are pushing to be in:

A. Slytherin - please state the clever, witty name of the bar in which you bartend, in the dark.

"The Infirmary. I'm not really programmed for clever or witty."

B. Gryffindor – Debate whether Harry should ultimately end up married to Fred or George. Use examples from a variety of world mythologies to bolster your argument.

"Marriage isn't exactly my department. The whole idea of permanency is not exactly my department."

C. Ravenclaw – You guys are supposed to be smart. Explain why my desk is inundated with paperwork at all times, even though I’m constantly disposing of it.

"You work for a major corporation engaged in a shadowy conspiracy to rent out the products of highly unethical bleeding-edge medical technology? Just a guess."

She pushed her hair out of her eyes. "I can give you the best bit of advice I've ever gotten. All those reports you so diligently write up every day, conscientiously including every detail of anything likely to produce problems down the line? Nobody reads those. Just let it go. Live in the now."

D. Hufflepuff – Prove you are not useless.

That laugh again.

"I'm fully qualified in a variety of medical fields, from first aid to major surgery. I've also got quite a nice line in computer skills, strangely enough. Though I've also got a whole raft of phobias designed to keep me stuck in place, but I am - I was - working on that."

6. Offer a bribe to the members of this community so that they will not squib you. Items used in bribery do not necessarily have to belong to the person offering the bribe. Do not threaten us rather than offering a bribe. A threat indicates you either don't really want to be here, or don't have enough sense to answer the question properly. The hat will automatically squib you, regardless of other votes, if you do.

"Lollipop?"

She reached into the pocket of her sensible skirt and produced a handful of colorful candies.

"Hello? Is anyone there? I filled out your little form here. Just one question: Is any of this real?"

I have read the

hogwarts_hocus faq, and understand it is a crazy, cracktastic sorting community and RPG. ___Dr._Saunders__
I have read the

hogwarts_hocus rules and agree to abide by each and every one of them. __Dr._Saunders__.
I agree to be a good sport and not get my knickers in a bunch. _Ha._No_promises._
One day, ~~marmalade~~ Rossum will rule the world. ___Dr._Saunders__

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Not my department. We don't have a lot of interdepartmental communication in our workplace." Claire shrugged. "DeWitt is in charge of the entire facility, so ultimately I guess it would be her."

That wasn't the kind of answer Simon was looking for. He accepted it anyway. He imagined it was the kind of thing a person preferred not to think too closely about, for their own sanity, once they got free. He was happy River had moved on. Moved forward.

So he changed direction slightly. "Whereas Hogwarts is run by a Furby."

"A...Furby?" Claire drew back in surprise, grinned. "Like the toy, you mean? Is that a metaphor?"

"She's a toy? I thought she was some kind of, er, small animal." Definitely not a metaphor. Simon was a little embarrassed, though, now.

Claire's cheeks turned pink. "Well, I don't know, really; I never had any toys. Maybe somebody based a toy on your school's principal?" Whatever she is, she thought.

The faint blush was charming, and Simon found it a little reassuring too. He wasn't the only one feeling awkward! "It's possible," he said thoughtfully. "That someone made a toy based on them. Or that their species masquerades as toys, as a protective strategy. I've ... seen weirder things, at this point." He grinned. "I'm not making the best case for Hogwarts' reality, am I? But you'll see for yourself, anyway."

"Well, technically speaking, this is my first hands-on encounter with reality outside of - of home. For all I really know, the whole world out there could be like this," Claire pointed out, and cleared her throat. "Just, if I accidentally give offense, tell me, okay? Because it will be accidental. Promise."

"It's a deal. You've got to promise me the same though, okay? I'm sort of good at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Or the right thing at the wrong time. There's ... very seldom a right time." He shook his head. "For what it's worth, once you're done with this interview process? They let you off campus whenever you like. You can see the more mundane world outside Hogwarts."

Claire nodded. "Field trips? That might be a good way to go." A memory surfaced; Boyd Langton's voice, saying baby steps. "With this school as a safe home base. Ahh, this school is safe, right? Relatively speaking?"

Simon hesitated. "Mostly. It's mostly safe."

Unconsciously she touched a scar. "Like most places, I suppose. No matter how secure you think a place is..."

"Like most places. Yes." He was quiet for a moment. A sort of respectful silence. Presently he said: "You want to know the whole purpose of this interview process? It's to figure out what dorm you should live in." The corner of his mouth quirked. "I wish I were joking, but I'm not. Would you rather live with heroes, villains, drunkards, or ... " What was Hufflepuff for? "People who call a grocery store a 'foodlibraries'? Plural, foodlibraries."

Claire chuckled, surprised. "Foodlibraries? Is that even English? ...Tell me more about the drunkards. These days I might fit right in." She pulled the flask from her skirt pocket and shook it. "Emergency supplies. For medicinal purposes."

((Heee, she's a 'Claw all right.))

Simon tried not to look overly worried. He probably failed at this. It was his own personal opinion that for a person whose brain had suffered unspecified tampering by an unscrupulous organization of unknown origin, alcohol might not be the best choice in self-medication. But he knew better than to say so, and his sympathies were with Claire (god knew she deserved a drink or twelve). "Ravenclaw it is, then. Most doctors end up there anyway. It's my house as well."

"Thanks. What do the doctors do around here, besides drink? We can't all work in the school infirmary, can we?"

"No, we can't. Nor would we want to. This is why I don't work here. Most of us use the time to concentrate on pet projects we might not have been able to pursue before we came here. There's more to learn, too, since the technology here is different." He meant magic, but he wasn't going to call it that, not yet. "But this isn't a school specializing in medicine. To learn much about that, we'd have to go farther afield. Which ... is actually something I'm looking into," Simon admitted. "When I have workable intel -- if I get workable intel -- I'll share it. There's another doctor who does work in the infirmary, a neurosurgeon from Scandinavia." Earth-that-Was geography still fascinated Simon. "There ..." He frowned. "I want to say there are more doctors than that, here. I think I remember it." Dimly. Through a butter haze. "There are more people with doctorates, I do know, but not MDs. Some of them teach here, or assist with teaching. Long story short: Ravenclaw's where you go if you're entitled to call yourself Doctor, medical or not."

"Sounds about right then. Maybe I can come up with a pet project."

"Or two, or three. It seems to me that getting acclimated to the world outside the, ah, 'Attic' could be considered a project in its own right, so I hope you won't feel pushed to do too much, too fast. It's been that way for River -- my sister. She's here with me, also a Ravenclaw. Where she was, before, was not a good place."

"I know how that one goes," she said. "And she's got a good brother here to be a safety net, so she's lucky there. Is she very much like you, your sister?"

As ever when he spoke of his sister, Simon acquired a sort of prideful glow. "We're similar, only she's much smarter."

Claire smiled, surprised - Simon didn't strike her as any slouch in the brain department.

"Must be some kind of gene pool you've got going on there, then," she said.

Simon nodded, accepting the implicit compliment as equably as he could. He'd long ago learned that false modesty never went over well, where the assessment of one's intellect was concerned. Downplay it, maybe, but never pretend to disavow it; that just made people uncomfortable. Socially inept he might be in other respects, but Simon was decent at dodging the egghead stereotype. (Lifting weights probably didn't hurt there either.) But all he said in direct reply was: "River is really something."

On reflection, he added, "I hope you'll get a chance to meet her, actually. She's ... a little busy lately," he admitted with some chagrin. "But the place where she was, and the place where you were ... well, there are definite differences, but I think the two of you probably have some things in common. And it might be good for her to talk with someone like you. She's brilliant and amazing and she's doing really well, but she's still a kid." Not quite as put together.

Claire nodded. "I'd like that. If she's been - free - for a while now, it's possible she'd be more help to me than I could be to her. I'm just starting to feel my way along here."

"Mm," was Simon's diplomatic reply. He wouldn't speak ill of his sister, but he was fairly sure that the sunshine-and-rainbows world she and her boyfriend seemed to inhabit was not going to equip anyone for dealing with reality. They were creating their own Garden of Eden while the rest of the world went on living after the Fall. Still, it was better than the hell River had been in, and that was all Simon really cared about. "Everyone does better with a safety net."

"Yeah. As long as you don't get tangled up in that net. I mean, barring the occasional purely freak occurrence, I was perfectly safe where I was. Physically, I mean."

Application: Dr. Claire Saunders (a.k.a. "Whiskey"), "Dollhouse"

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vote: Ravenclaw

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