Webisode Based. Once again, the Webisode character Barney gets a mention here, and I've given him an entire name: Barnato Gould.
No ownership. No profit.
Helen Magnus is the smartest of doctors, brave and worthy on the field of battle, stalwart in her adherence to her own opinions as she deals with the Abnormals she studies – and, when it comes to understanding the Sentients around her, every bit as stupid as my people claim all the hairless ones are about everything.
She has sent 'tentacle boy' as Ashley calls him to the school for the gifted in New York, but it may well prove fruitless, because tentacle boy seems to have no inkling that he could have chosen to act differently in the past, and can choose to act differently in the future. The Professor may be able to teach Alexei to control his tentacle, but can he teach him that the fear others feel is no reason to kill them? Or that he cannot terrorize anyone into loving him? If not, I have no doubt Ashley will be forced to kill the boy one day, perhaps one day soon.
And I wonder why Dr. Magnus should send the boy at all. She is more than capable of teaching these lessons herself – indeed, many, if not most, males respond better to such lessons when they are taught by a female. We males expect the females, somehow, to know more about how the emotions work, and how the mind may be trained to a greater concern and compassion for others. She taught me so, and quite successfully, and thus I know she is capable, regardless of her issues with close interpersonal relationships.
But the murderous boy has been sent away.
When Ashley told me that she had taken the boy to New York, I thought, at first, it had been her own idea. To which, of course, she made a quip, and then departed my treatment room at speed when her mother arrived and immediately ordered Ashley to a task at the other end of the lower level. Oddly, Dr. Magnus does not seem to wish her own daughter to stand under her gaze these days. Perhaps she does not want any children by, even her own, while she introduces Will Zimmerman to her world? I know that there were none in the Sanctuary when Barnato Gould arrived, and I was years older than Alexei when I came to her, too. And Dr. Will Zimmerman is, of course, older still. Perhaps Dr. Magnus simply deals poorly with children – even her own?
Regardless, she has drawn Dr. Zimmerman in, and embedded him quite firmly in her world, and, in some ways, this is good. He can fill in some of her blind spots, about modern attitudes and popular beliefs, as well as the psychological blind spots that his training ought to allow him to recognize, and he can lift the burden of certain mundane duties from her, and from me, too. He can relieve her loneliness and distract her from the plight of her unaging life. Already I see her playing up to him when they are both present. She likes to teach, and he responds much as Barney did, even as an old, old man, with jest and bravado and a certain display of his own ego. Dr. Magnus seems rather taken with him.
Unfortunately, Dr. Magnus has not heard him expressing his opinion of the - 'overwhelming hotness' being the term he used, I as I recall - of her daughter's looks, a great compliment, I believe. If she had, she might well reconsider her own opinion of him. Right now, Dr. Zimmerman sees Ashley Magnus as Helen Magnus expects to be seen, and Ashley sees him only as her mother's not unsightly, but not automatically alluring either, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes arrogant, generally frustrating, employee who seems to be determined to psychoanalyze her whether she likes it or not. That particular determination will not serve him at all well if he continues to try to play up to Ashley as he has been doing. I must remember to suggest to Ashley that she not hit him hard enough to break anything when she discourages the psychoanalysis.
Maybe Barney did not begin by regarding Dr. Magnus as she wished, so she finds this situation comfortable. I do not know. But I do know that Helen Magnus has never been faced with the prospect of her own daughter as competition for a male's attention, either. I, and others here resident, already find that aspect of the situation uncomfortable.
Even if she is not worried, I am. For her, and Ashley, and all the folk of her Sanctuary – even Dr. Zimmerman. Something about this situation raises my hackles.