It's Sunday and the boy does not move when she enters the room, not even the slightest twitch. She wonders if he might be dead, but doubts that he is. She suspects that were he to die, she would know before she saw his corpse. She checks his pulse because it's protocol. His heart is beating fine, but hers is beating quickly. Strange, she thinks. Her purpose was not a sentimental one, but she's still unable to detach the young man lying on the cot from the Toby she's worked so closely with.
(It's Thursday when she sees them for the first time-- doctors. Doctors in big white labcoats with small brown clipboards and steely narrow eyes. Doctors with jobs in the city and jobs in the country and patients all over London. Real doctors. She's never seen a real doctor outside of books and photographs. Her father doesn't really count, as he hardly practices medicine anymore. Besides, he doesn't look like a doctor. These people look like doctors.
The doctors are stepping out of a carriage. She isn't nearly as impressed by the carriage as she is by the doctors. The carriage is stopped in front of their house, something that has never happened before, but what matters most to her are the two doctors walking up to her gate. What does it mean? Is someone sick? Despite her tendencies to avoid the romantic, she can't help but hope they're here because they have need of her services. After all, they're real doctors.)