Disclaimer: I do not own any of the official Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan characters.
The Surgeon's Lament
"Now remember Hanji," said a tall bespectacled man as he tugged the bell pull at the fashionable upper city house, "you have come to observe, and to learn from your observations. Lady Dawk's condition is delicate so please behave yourself."
From her place beside him, thirteen year old Hanji Zoe took a deep breath, grateful to be on her very first house call. And at the house of nobility to boot!
"Yes, Papa."
The door opened and they stepped into the foyer. Dr. Zoe handed the butler his card and he was greeted with a stiff, yet warm nod.
"This way, Doctor," the old man beckoned. Hanji stood in the massive entryway staring up at the ceiling which sported a chandelier that she doubted would even fit in their carriage.
"Woooooooooow!" she said, raising her voice throughout the entire exclamation and letting out an indulgent giggle when her voice bounced off the walls and returned to her.
"Miss Zoe," came the warning tone of her father. She halted her experiment and ducked down to pick up her doctor's satchel (a gift from her parents after she had successfully removed a bullet from the shoulder of a local thug, patched him up, and sent him on his way) and hurried after him, nearly tripping over her own feet in the process.
They were led to the library where their patient was seated in her wheeled chair, enjoying a game of chess with her son.
"Doctor Zoe, Your Grace," the butler announced, "And his daughter, Hanji Zoe."
Her son stood, bowing to the two, then with the careful care of a devoted child, took hold of his mother's chair, turning her to face their visitors.
"Thank you, Nile," she said quietly with a warm hand on his arm. He regarded her with a soft smile.
"Your Grace," said Dr. Zoe as he stepped forward, setting his own bag down on a marble table before her, "you are looking well today."
"I feel well," she replied, "it is my back that deteriorates, not my spirit."
"That is good," he murmured, pulling out various instruments with which to check her health, "many in your position would have fallen into melancholia by now."
"There is too much for me to be thankful for," came her response, pausing while he checked her heart, "My husband and children first and foremost."
"You are indeed blessed," he agreed. Satisfied with her vitals, he nodded up towards the dark haired young man at her side, "have you a girl, My Lord?"
Nile Dawk took a sharp breath inward, and before he could respond, his mother laughed lightly. "I'm afraid Nile suffers from unrequited love. Have you a prescription for that?"
Dr. Zoe shook his head, returning his things to his bag, "The heart is an untamable beast, I'm afraid. There won't be a doctor alive that could cure love."
Though the boy in question showed no amusement at his elders' joke of his plight, a snort escaped Hanji's nose, catching the attention of the duchess.
"Ah," she said lightly, eyeing the studious girl, "a little doctor!"
Hanji stepped forward, gripping her own black leather bag. "Yes, Your Grace."
Lady Dawk observed her, entertained by her appearance. With her chestnut hair pulled up atop her head, spectacles on her eyes and her boyish figure stuffed into the costume of a young man, she was a sight to behold indeed. Though she wore the clothes of her male counterparts, she was still well dressed, the image of her father, a professional, a girl with a passion for medicine.
"And just what is your expertise, Dr. Hanji?"
Nervous in the woman's presence, yet thrilled that a duchess had any interest in what she had to say, her cheeks grew warm and her shoulders came up in time with the grin that spread across her face.
"I mean to fix the human body."
Nile scoffed. "is there something wrong with it?"
Hanji stepped back, momentarily offended, but brushed it off. "If there wasn't, we wouldn't be here."
Her father cast her a warning glance, but it went unnoticed.
"What I mean to say," she went on, "is that there are many ailments, physical troubles separate from disease, accident, or other trauma that come with possessing a body such as ours. We don't yet know why some, such as yourself Your Grace, fall victim to these. I intend to not only discover the reasoning for these conditions, but to cure them as well."
Lady Dawk looked on in wonder. "What an intelligent girl you have, Dr. Zoe. And so ambitious!" she turned her attention back to Hanji, placing one of her delicate hands under her chin, "and just how do you intend to conduct your research, doctor? And furthermore, how do you intend to cure all of these people?"
Hanji stood up a bit straighter, "I intend to become a surgeon, of course."
Dr. Zoe froze. For a moment, neither Nile nor his mother spoke either, the room thick with a tension Hanji herself did not realize.
"It is my firm belief that surgery, that operating is the future of medicine. There is only so much we can learn from a cadaver. And even then… the body is already dead. What saving can be done there?"
Lady Dawk had gone pale, and Dr. Zoe swallowed.
"You intend to cut people open." It was Nile that spoke.
Hanji blinked. "You can't very well operate on a person without seeing their insides, My Lord."
"You wish to cut people open."
"If we could just see the root of the problem, then we could make headway in fixing it. Think of how many people's lives would change if our own hands were able to do what elixirs and tablets are not! Think of the world we could live in if there was a cure for any ailment!"
Hanji's bag shook in her hands in time with her excitement. There was a mad passion in her eyes as she spoke, rambling about the possibilities she had formulated in her head time and time again, the hours she had poured over the dead bodies, learning from their deaths and memorizing every part that was housed inside the shell of flesh.
"Hanji!"
Her father's sharp tone cut her off and she shook her head, coming out from her lecture.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, "my daughter has an insatiable thirst for knowledge, but her social graces suffer for it."
Colour returned to Lady Dawk's face and she pulled the comb from her hair, allowing her inky tresses to flow down over her shoulder.
"If she is right, I might walk again."
"Your Grace she is thirteen and her ambitions are far bigger than she is."
"But if she is right. If she is ever right."
"Mother!"
She didn't answer, and Nile turned his attention to the girl standing next to her father. "Are you crazy or something?"
"I'm not crazy, I'm advancing medicine."
"That's not an advancement you crackpot, it's mutilation! It's sadism! It's desecration of the human body! No one knows why my mother can't walk but I'm not about to let some skinny little girl with a knife go digging around inside of her!"
"That's enough, Nile."
"I could though," Hanji protested weakly, "if…if you give me a few years of research, I could…"
"Hanji please wait for me outside."
"No."
The doctor was silent, but his jaw was set. She rarely disobeyed so openly, and he would wait for the reasoning he knew would come forth.
"I cam here for knowledge." she set down her bag, snapping it open and retrieving her notepad, quill, and ink blotter, "and I will observe as agreed upon. I forgot myself, father. For that I apologize."
He nodded in acquiescence, apologizing again to his patient and continued with the remainder of his exam, his daughter scribbling away furiously, noting what he dictated, as well as her own speculations. Though her mind was running wild with the possibilities of what had caused Lady Dawk to lose the function of her legs thirteen years prior, her mouth was silent. Her father was a good doctor with a reputation that kept him in high esteem with the better half of society. She wouldn't destroy his career to satisfy her own curiosity.
Inside the carriage, Hanji barely waited for the coachman to close the door before she exploded.
"Why can't we operate, Papa?"
He had expected this, and he removed his top hat, setting it beside him. "Hanji, you can not suggest such indelicate things to the nobles. They don't like to hear those sorts of things."
"But Her Grace said—"
"Hanji—"
"I heard her, Papa! She said if I were right, that she could walk again. She would give me a chance!"
Of course she would give Hanji the chance. The Duchess of Sina was a kind, optimistic woman who had faith in the unusual and unknown, a rare trait for a woman of her station. Above all, however, despite her cheery disposition and her insistence that she did not submit herself to meloncholia, the good doctor knew that she would have given anything to waltz in the arms of her husband again. She wanted to allow her son, the insecure and slightly awkward heir to the dukedom to lead her to the terrace while she reached up and plucked a flower from the vines that climbed up the walls.
She had, at one time, wanted another child. It was after her third, however, that she had been confined to the chair and had not risen on her own since. There would be no more children in the Dawk household and she did well pretending not to despair over it.
"The practice of mutilating the human body in the name of medicine is not allowed, Hanji. You know that."
Hanji sniffed. "Is it still considered mutilation if a life is saved?"
"What if the life is not saved?" he countered. "What if you were to fail?"
"I won't fail."
"You will," he promised, "A baker does not bake every cake perfectly, a horseman can not break every horse. And as a doctor, you will learn that not ever life can be saved."
A tear rolled down her cheek and she brushed it away with the back of her hand. "You and mother always tell me the sciences are predictable. That is what makes them so dependable."
The doctor nodded. "Sciences are predictable. The human body is an exception to that. I do not know why."
"Still," she said, "nothing can be learned if we don't try."
"Do you know what would happen, Hanji? If you were to fail."
"She would die."
He nodded. "She would die. And you would be executed."
Hanji's eyes widened. "Why?"
She was a smart girl, but her intelligence often blinded her to the world just outside her door.
"If a duchess, or anyone of importance were to die at your hands, on your table, you would be arrested, tried, and convicted of murder."
"But—but, it's not murder if the operation is done with intent to save a life!"
"Intent matters very little when you are covered in blood and a peer is dead before you," her father told her factually, "this is the world we live in, Hanji."
"But we are doctors!"
"And I believe you will grow to be one of the best," he replied, "but please, consider the limitations of our technology. Surgeons are not looked upon kindly because their patients often do not make it off the table."
Hanji took a breath. "If cutting people open is illegal, why do we even have surgeons?"
"It is not illegal," Dr. Zoe mused, "it is…fluid. The authorities will turn the other way for small, simple operations or when the deceased isn't considered to matter."
Her jaw clenched. How crooked. She had received many of the bodies of these failed surgeries and if she wasn't mistaken, her parents paid a hefty sum for them. No one bothered with the Zoe girl and her research on cadavers. Autopsies, though looked down upon, were not as heinous as poking around a living person.
"I want to change that," she stated, slapping her fist into her open palm, "I want to save anyone, no matter their station."
Dr. Zoe sighed. She had so much to learn. "Come now, sweetheart. Mother will be expecting your report on your outing. Let us think about what we have learned today."
Hanji looked up at her father. "May I include my thoughts on the young master?"
He quirked a brow. "How does your opinion on Lady Dawk's son connect to the observations of Her Grace's condition?"
She shrugged. "I dunno. But I think he's got something lodged up his bum that might need tending to." She then held up her hands, shaking her head, "but I'm not going to be the one to do it!"
Dr. Zoe bit back a laugh. "You may omit that from your report," he replied, keeping his voice even. When she crossed her arms and set her face into a deep frown, he leaned forward in his seat, beckoning for her to come close that he might whisper to her.
"But you may tell Moblit about your findings," he told her with a wink, knowing the unnecessary distress it would cause his young apprentice.
This set her at ease and she sat, swinging her legs back and forth, for the remainder of the ride.
When they arrived at the house they shared with their practice, Moblit Berner, a fifteen year old boy with a warm smile and a particular talent for memorization, waited for Hanji in the foyer.
"MOBLIT!" she cried, launching herself at him, jumping atop his back, "I have something amazing to tell you."
"And I have a surprise for you, Miss Zoe," he told her, hooking his arms under her legs and shifting her weight against his back as he carried her into the back room.
She let out a shriek when she saw, on the table, a human shape covered by a sheet, all thoughts of the uptight Nile Dawk forgotten. He cried out in protest as she wiggled her way off of his back, throwing the cloth off of the corpse with a loud, yahoo!
"A gift," he offered, "for your very first house call."
"Wow!" she breathed, looking at the dead man before her. His skin was grey and wrinkled, but not from age, "did they pull him from the river?"
"Yeah," Moblit replied, pulling over the cart of instruments, "I happened to be passing by. They said he wasn't worth much. Someone recognized him as a thief so they would have just put him in an unmarked grave anyway."
She paused. "So… no one knows how he died?"
He fitted her with an apron as she reached for a scalpel and with a soft 'calm down, Miss Zoe', he pulled a small wooden stool from beneath the table that she might have better access to her work.
"I think we're about to find out."
Tying off his own apron he turned, preparing to assist her in her work as he so often did when her parents had no work for him. "Miss Zoe—"
His words were cut short as when she made her first incision, blood squirted up from the body, splattering across her face and dripping from the lenses of her eyeglasses.
"Oh," she said, frozen in her place with a grin wider than her cheeks would allow, "this one's feisty."
Moblit sighed and stepped forward, wiping her face with a cloth. She didn't wait for him to finish, trying again and making her second cut. Again they were met with a stream of blood but this time it was Moblit who caught it.
She chuckled and handed him a magnifying glass. "Now we're twins."
He accepted the tool without a word and in that moment he knew that despite her unprecedented genius, Hanji Zoe would be the death of him.
And then she would cut him open.
For science.
xxxx