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

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

((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__

Comments

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

((Here, have a Whedon character!))

Simon perused the application with acute sympathy. "It's never too late to take the Hippocratic oath," he said, with a warm smile, when he'd finished. "How do your phobias affect your medical work?"

And who gave them to you? Hopefully not anyone with a fondness for blue gloves.

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

Claire smiled back, instinctively feeling comfortable with this man.

"They enhance it, actually," she replied. "One of the few places I feel mostly safe is the...facility...where I work. And focusing on work takes my mind off the scary things. So I've tended to camp out there long-term for a while now."

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

"Ahh." That made sense. The hesitation (and the vagueness) surrounding that facility didn't escape him, either. "Is that going to be a problem now that you're away from that facility, do you think? Most of us who end up here tend to stay awhile."

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

Claire shrugged. "Probably. But that's why I left in the first place, facing my fears and all that. It'd be too much to expect that to be a problem-free process no matter where I ended up."

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

"That's a good way to look at it." And reassuring to Simon, who had been bracing himself against the possible prospect of the applicant flipping out, River-style. "And this isn't a bad place to be, to work on those kinds of issues." That said, the next question was going to be a delicate one. "You said you left. Did you intend to wind up here?" Do you know where you are? "Or was there some place else you had in mind?"

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

"I didn't have anyplace in particular in mind." What with the never having actually been anywhere else, she added to herself. "And I'm not quite sure where 'here' is. I thought I was going to be checking into a motel for the night."

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

This time his smile was rueful. "I guess I'm the welcome wagon, then. Welcome to Hogwarts. I'm Simon. I'm also a doctor, though I don't work here." Keeping it short, and as unscary as he could, without straying into condescension. "This used to be a boarding school for gifted kids. Now it's a sort of a safe haven for misfits from various points of origin, only it still calls itself a school. I'm afraid there isn't much consistency or sense around here, but the chaos makes it safer, in an odd sort of way. No one cares too much what you're doing or who you are, as long as you don't wreak wholesale havoc."

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

Claire laughed briefly, again with the bitter edge to it. "Sounds in many ways remarkably like the place I just left, then. Although mine likes to call itself a House rather than a school." She held out a hand. "Claire."

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

He shook her hand with wry ceremony. His encounter with Andy Bernard had made him a little self-conscious about handshakes. "Should I ask what got you the nickname 'Whiskey', or is that better left alone?" There was genuine curiosity in the question, and a touch of humor, but also compassion. He wouldn't press if she didn't want to tell.

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

"It's - from the military call signals. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot?" Claire looked away briefly. "I wasn't always a doctor. Before I had a...consistent purpose in my life, I went by Whiskey. It's not quite a real name, but close enough."

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

"Okay." The word wasn't judgement of a satisfactory answer; it was simply signal that he didn't demand further clarification. "There are lots of questions I could ask you, and probably some other people here will ask whatever comes to mind, whether it's any of their business or not. That's part of the intake process, which is about as logical as the rest of the system. But I think right now, the most important thing is to answer your question. At the end of your application, you asked: 'Is any of this real?' I want to assure you that it is."

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure you wholly believe that it is," she said neutrally. "But I've been in situations where people's perceptions or, or interpretations of reality aren't - they don't quite -" She waved a hand helplessly.

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

"I'm not surprised." From the application alone, he could understand she'd been through a lot. "And I can't rationally, empirically convince you that it's real. But you didn't seem to be looking for that kind of proof when you asked, either."

He shook his head, amused at himself. He knew his popcorned self had been in this situation once before, though of course he couldn't know it in his own memory, only as an anecdote told him by someone before. Only that time it'd all gone differently. Simon wasn't one to make the same mistake twice if he could help it.

"I'd advance the hypothesis that even operating in a worst-case scenario, within which none of this is real, you're still better off treating it as though it were, for all intents and purposes. And some of it really is going to seem surreal, if not unreal."

Like ... the Baby Sun. Oh, god.

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

"If I am in the Attic, there's nothing I can do to get out," she mused, following Simon's logic. "In which case, the best thing is to live in the now. Yes, there is definitely going to be a resemblance to the place I just left. Is that a good thing or a bad thing, d'you think?"

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

"The Attic," said Simon, slowly, "doesn't sound like a good thing."

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

"It's not. It's a prison, but not so much for the body." She tapped her temple, then shivered and forced a smile. "Let's just work on the assumption I'm not in the Attic, okay?"

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

This sounded far, far too familiar. Too much like what'd happened to River. Leaving aside the squicky preoccupations of the Whedonverse Simon muttered something in Chinese, something that did not sound particularly happy. "Who runs the Attic?"

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

"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."

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

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."

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

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

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

"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.

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

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.

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

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."

[ilikemyscars.livejournal.com]

"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."

[superfraternal.livejournal.com]

"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."