I do not own Doctor Strange - I cannot even control Christine in my own interpretation.
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Nobody questioned the decision to call in Neurosurgeon Stephen Strange for a case like this. Though he had officially left the hospital's employ some eighteen months earlier in response to his traumatic injury, he had made a comeback as a consultant and he was still the best they had in many parts of the field. That he had become much easier to converse with after his hiatus, did not make the matter worse either.
The hospital management had considered offering him his job back, some even suggested that they had offered, but he was not back. Rumour had it that he was a spiritual leader of some kind, but few believed it as he was not spiritual by any stretch of the word. That he was on call for the Avengers was a popular theory, as well, seeing as he had been seen on more than friendly terms with Tony Stark at parties, and the two of them more than once seemed to 'talk shop' so to speak, if briefly. Maybe geniuses naturally just got along. (No one pointed out the obvious and rather glaring flaws in that theory.)
With all the rumours going around, no one reacted when Doctor Strange showed up at the hospital dressed in blue robes and a large red cloak, no one but Christine Palmer, whose wide-eyed reaction was found peculiar by many of the other hospital personnel at the time. Didn't she know him well, even now? They were seen together frequently, so why the shock? Chalking it up to probably having to do with a late night gone too far and some shame about it, or something along those lines, no one even remembered the actual reaction they had noted, just a day later.
Christine was not surprised that they had called in Stephen for this case (even though she was the one most often doing so, she was by no means the only one to occasionally request his help) nor did it even much register with her that he was dressed in his blue robes and carrying the Cloak. She was used to him looking like that, after all, and while it awarded him plenty of curious glances, she barely noticed on the best of days. Besides, today she was distracted as soon as he showed his face.
She actually - later on - marvelled at how no one else noticed. It was subtle, she supposed, but still. They were doctors, for goodness' sake! Tidy and otherwise well as he looked, Christine could not stop staring at his face when she first ran into him. Thin as it was, as if made by a thoroughly sharp instument, Stephen had a long, clean cut across one of his pretty cheekbones, and a bruise over the opposite eye. She could not spot more injuries, but she felt it was not unfair to assume that there were some, underneath his very covering clothing.
Both visible injuries had been expertly cared for, and were likely more than a few days old - a week, maybe - which was why they were so subtle; they were already fading, but she could still not understand for the life of her why she was the only one to notice. More inportantly, what had Stephen been doing?
For once, when he came to the hospital, they hadn't had any time to talk, and she had no opportunity to ask. They had already planned for another public date a few days on, and she hoped they could talk then. Coffee after the event, maybe?
It was not until two days later, late at night in bed, that it came to her. That woman they had lost at the operating table: the woman Stephen had told her was his mentor. She had died from being viciously cut with extremely sharp blades. Sitting up sharply as if awakening from a nightmare, Christine gasped. What had Stephen gotten himself involved in? How could she have forgotten that that happened? How dangerous was sorcery, really? With what felt like a large lead ball in her stomach, Christine lay back down in her cold, solitary bed. She had quite a few questions to ask, she knew that now. Much as he had shared facts and trivia about magic, she realised that when it came to his actual, day-to-day life, she didn't really know anything.