The Art of Anaesthesia

Nios

"Okay. It's a hospital. We're on a date at a hospital? We're not going to go watch people die or something, are we?" It was a very suspicious setting for a girl who was obsessed with death to frequent.

"The interest is nae with things that are dying. It's the sense of finality in actual death, rather than the transient limbo of dying. But it's no jist a hoaspital, it's a medical museum," Dr Cohen explained after leading Nios rather a complicated way through more than a few alleys to get to this hospital. "An ah come once a fortnight. An now ah've brought you here."

"As a test?"

"Aye."

"It'll be educational then, right? You'll be able to tell me about everything in detail?"

"Of course, if ye want tae know the details," Cohen said, "Mibbe ye willnae have a strong enough stomach."

"I don't have any kind of stomach," Nios said, and then Cohen tugged on her elbow and proceeded up the steps to the old building, which looked Victorian in its architecture. "You're very pessimistic about how much credit you want to give me."

"Is better tae be safe than sorry," Cohen repeated the idiom. Nios couldn't really fault her, she supposed. She would like to be careful as well, and there would have been no chance of her trying to get Cohen on a date with her if she hadn't already let slip that she was a convicted mass-murdering synthetic from the future. That was all there really was to know about her.

"I do see some gory things on the TARDIS, you know," Nios said, touching her arm where Cohen had tugged on it a moment ago. "Does this place still function as a hospital?"

"Nah, the building isnae up tae code. It's git asbestos."

"You mean it's not safe?" Nios stopped walking halfway through the front door. With Cohen already inside the building, she was stuck propping the door open with her foot.

"It's fine unless the walls or roof collapse." Nios was still reserved. "Are ye even affected by it?"

"It's not me I'm worried about," she said, eyeing up the structure of the building. "And you say you come to an asbestos-lined building every two weeks?"

"Yes, and I am a doctor with hypochondriac tendencies," Cohen reminded her, doing a different accent for a moment, which threw Nios off guard. She dropped it right afterwards. "Is fine. Yer very sweet tae worry. Are ye gunnae come in?" And because Dr Cohen held out her hand – her actual hand – Nios couldn't in the moment do anything other than accept the invitation. And she had never held a girl's hand before.

"What was the accent?"

"Would ye believe us if ah told ye ah often git told people cannae understand what ah'm sayin?"

"That's actually quite believable, yes."

"Erm, excuse me," somebody addressed them. It was a receptionist, or a guard or something; somebody there to limit entry into this alleged museum. "Do you have any ID?" Cohen dropped Nios's hand.

"ID? Reggie, are ye being serious?" she stared at him, and he faltered.

"I… well fine, Cohen-"

"Dr Cohen."

"Dr Cohen," he corrected himself, "But who's she?" Nios then proceeded to witness something remarkable, because Cohen couldn't lie, and though Nios would very gladly slide in and say she was a medical student or a foreign surgeon on a visit (or any range of possibilities), she knew Cohen would hate it if she did. So she stayed quiet, as did Cohen, who glared Reggie into submission. "Okay, okay…" he waved them in.

"What kind of museum requires ID?" Nios asked Cohen quietly.

"It isnae really a museum, likesay, but more a private medical collection fae doctors and students," she explained.

"So you lied?"

"Ah didnae lie, it's still a bunch of old exhibits. They're jist catalogued more astutely." Nios wondered if Martha had ever been there. Perhaps maybe once.

"There's no one here," Nios said, "Did you scare them all off?"

"Ah'm no that scary. D'ye think? Are you scared of us?"

"Uh… what's the right answer?" Nios asked carefully. Cohen didn't say anything. "I'm not scared of you, but you still make me nervous. You definitely frighten James Elliott though, and that's quite an achievement since he manages to put up with Sally Sparrow. She's quite annoying."

"He's obsessed with her, ah think it's weird. Christina and Darling make fun of him for it."

"Really, though; people sometimes say I'm scary, but you're definitely something special."

"Is that a compliment?"

"I… yes," Nios said uncertainly, because she didn't know if it was a compliment. More just a comment. Cohen didn't seem to mind. "So, anyway, changing the subject away from you being terrifying: why do you come here every two weeks?"

"Ah dinno, it's jist routine, an ah like it, helps with work. When ye see all of these genetic abnormalities, likesay, it's easier tae speculate about what might have happened tae a dead body. Since often they git brought to us in unusual conditions. Makes it easier tae think outside the box, ken? It is more a joab about lateral thinkin rather than much else."

"It is?"

"Has tae be when ah dinnae know the species of at least half the 'specimens' ah git brought. Ah, looky at this tapeworm," Cohen's attention was drawn towards a long, slimy white string in a jar of liquid. "Ah've git a tapeworm."

"You have!? Shouldn't you see a doctor? A doctor who isn't yourself?" Nios said urgently.

"Ah dinnae mean inside us – like, at mah flat. Much smaller."

"Is it alive?"

"Of course not. Ah couldnae care less about something if it's still alive." It was a whole range of parasites and Nios felt squeamish looking at them, which was unusual for a few reasons. Not in the least because she, being entirely inorganic, could never contract any kind of parasite. Although, Elle was sort of a parasite. She tried to avoid looking at them and let Cohen have her fun, thinking it was lucky that everything in there was sealed away in glass cabinets.

"Did you autopsy the synth in the end?" she tried to change the subject again.

"Eh, no."

"Did Darling not let you?"

"She did."

"And you didn't?"

"Ah wis gunnae, likesay, as sortae something tae do when ah'm bored fae fun-"

"Right."

"-but then, eh… it seemed weird. Plus, what are ye like, a bunch of wires? Isnae that interestin, no offence."

"Why was it weird?"

"Just, eh…"

"Hey," Nios implored her when she kept trying to avoid answering.

"Because ye came and asked me out, that's why. It'd be like ah wis cutting you up, an ah dinnae want tae cut you up," Cohen explained.

"Wait, but," Nios went to lean on what was next to her, not realising that what was next to her was a cabinet full of baby skeletons. When she saw this she moved and lost her train of thought for a second. Cohen was looking at a particularly obscene two-headed baby skeleton. "But… what about when you're with, you know, other humans? You cut those up all the time."

"Yeah."

"So…?"

"It makes things weird. Because ah spend too much time thinking about innards. Not that it ever gets to that point a lot. Besides, ah doubt this is gunnae work out."

"What?" Nios's heart plummeted. Metaphorically speaking.

"Yer already freaked out."

"Okay. Well. Personally, I am a bit… yes… but just because this… pickled human penis-"

"It's a pig penis."

"Right… just because the penis freaks me out, that doesn't mean you freak me out. I sort of get it. Death happens to all you humans, you're very fragile, and it's always struck me as unusual that you generally try to forget that you're ultimately going to be decaying, unconscious lumps of old meat either buried in unnaturally acidic soil or aggressively burned into dust and kept in a jar… but, erm, your passion for all this stuff is definitely adorable."

"Adorable?"

"Yep. I'm sticking with 'adorable.' And you can look at all these oddities and I'll look at you, because you're why I'm here. Not the preserved deformities," Nios said. "But I do like listening to you talk about it all."

"Ah like yous talking about decaying, unconscious lumps of old meat," Cohen said.

"I'll try to talk more about old meat, then," Nios said before she realised how weird that sentence was. Then she went and made it even weirder by pointing with her thumb at the pig's genitals, "Like this penis. For instance." Cohen laughed. Nios had no idea what she was doing. "Although, I have been doing something recently, involving meat."

"Involving penises?" Cohen started to walk to a different part of the building.

"No, not… well, I don't know, it was alien, it could have had a penis I suppose…" she hadn't asked Jenny the particulars about kaggon anatomy. "Uh… Jenny was teaching me how to cook. It's like, an ongoing thing."

"What? But ye cannae even eat!" Cohen thought this was amusing.

"Yeah… I guess. But it's quite interesting, really, the whole process, and it takes a lot of time and effort. And it almost feels wrong to eat food after it takes so long to make," Nios said.

"That's weird." Cohen was smiling.

"What?"

"Ah dinno. Jist you. Unusual. Are all synthetics unusual?"

"Apart from the obvious fact that they're synthetics?"

"Aye."

"The ones I met seemed quite normal. They don't cook. They don't even read. They weren't doing anything, just sat around 'enjoying' freedom but they didn't actually use their freedom. Now they live on a paradise moon somewhere in the future," Nios said, following Cohen around and trying not to pay attention to a set of incredibly realistic wax models depicting late-stage venereal diseases.

"An ye didnae want tae go to a paradise moon so now yer skulking around a medical archive with me."

"Exactly, why would I want to be anywhere else?"

"That wis likesay kinda smooth."

"Thank you, I'm trying really hard."

"Dae ye ken, there's this museum in America where they've git a giant colon completely full of faeces an it's eight feet long and twenty-seven inches in circumference."

"How does that exist?"

"Hirschsprung's Disease. Tae do with nerves no working proaperly so ye cannae pass faecal matter. He actually died trying tae do a shite. Ah'd love tae go tae that museum one day, but ah'm no very good with new places. Too much information tae process at once." Nios was staring at her.

"Just say the word."

"What dae ye mean?"

"I live in a machine that can travel anywhere in all of time and space at will?" Nios reminded her, "Maybe it can be our second date. Or third date, because… not that I'm freaked out, or anything, because I'm definitely not, but maybe I would rather than not everything we ever do revolves around gross medical stuff."

"Yer bein incredibly optimistic about the future, are ye no?"

"I just mean that there's only so many mutant homunculi a girl can see at once."

"Ye will no like us flat then."

"You don't have any dead babies, do you? Because there are quite a lot of dead babies here."

"Ah've git this two-headed one but is actually fake – they called them 'bouncers' because they're made of rubber. Antiques now, came from sideshow attractions, likesay. No real one though. Mibbe some day. Ah've mostly git alien stuff." That was a huge relief. Then Cohen got excited. "Ah, maybe ye ken what some of it is? Ye could tell us."

"I doubt that I know anything," Nios said, then hastened to add (when she thought of it a few moments later), "But if you want to invite me to your flat to have a look, I'll hardly refuse."

"Who's tellin ye tae say this stuff? Dae ye have an earpiece in? Like oan telly?"

"No! I'm just really good at, like, date-stuff." Cohen didn't look convinced. "I'm trying very hard."

"Mibbe too hard," Cohen said while looking at her feet.

"No one is feeding me lines, promise."

"Yer jist that cheesy on yer own."

Nios laughed, "I suppose I am."

"…just around here, I think…" Nios heard a male voice say quite distantly. Cohen had gone back to looking at an exhibit which appeared to be an enormous and very old cyst, and going by the great amount of attention she was paying it hadn't heard any other voices. This was not surprising, considering Nios had far superior hearing to any human (other than Rory.)

"I've told you, Reggie, you have to be firmer about who gets let in, this isn't a tourist attraction," said a sour, female voice. "And I'm getting tired of that girl acting like this is her own personal playground, there's something wrong with her. And now she's bringing guests?"

"We have to hide," Nios said quickly, estimating that they still had a few minutes until the people searching for them caught up.

"Eh?"

"Hide," she hissed, "People are looking for us. You. Me. I don't know."

"What dae ye mean?"

"The man from the desk, and a woman, she said she's getting tired of 'that girl acting like this is her own personal playground' and 'bringing guests' and he should be firmer about who he lets in," Nios semi-repeated what she had overheard, "They're not too close yet."

"Ah cannae hear anythin."

"You're not a synth," Nios told her. "Where is there to hide?"

"Uh… this way," Cohen took her hand and pulled her away from the cyst exhibit, Nios keeping a keen ear out for any approaching curators or security guards. Maybe there were some especially valuable medical specimens in there they needed to protect, but Nios was hardly interested in anatomy. Except for Dr Cohen's hand touching hers, that was some anatomy she cared about more than a little bit. Cohen dragged her past all manner of curiosities and when she glimpsed a few of them she was nearly sad she didn't get to look in detail, and have Cohen explain all sorts of medical wonders to her. "The sealed archives should be over here – they're no open tae viewings, ye have tae put in a request if ye wannae look at any of the journals. How strong are ye?"

"Excuse me?"

"Strong."

"Quite strong," she said, "I could probably pick you up with one arm."

"Good. Although, dinnae pick us up."

"Why are you asking if I'm strong?"

"Because ah'm no, and the door might be locked."

"Wait, we can't break into a locked room," Nios whispered, still trailing after this girl who suddenly had quite a lot of power over her. "We should probably just sneak out." Cohen stopped.

"There's a fire exit," she answered after a moment, "Ah like tae learn where all the fire exits of buildings are. C'moan."

Nios could still hear voices coming up on them when Cohen finally stopped outside of a door. Surprisingly enough, the door wasn't locked in the end, and Nios pushed Cohen inside and into the darkness. It took that long to realise that Cohen was mistaken about where they were and that it wasn't any archives at all, but rather a large storeroom full of all manner of cleaning equipment. There was even a floor buffer in there and a whole range of chemicals to keep the place spotless.

"Oh. Ah guess ah'm wrong."

"Oh well," said Nios quietly. Cohen was still holding her hand. "There's a window up there we could climb through, if you want to sneak out."

"We'd better sneak out. Ah cannae bump into Claudia while yer here, it'll give her an actual reason to stop letting me come here."

"Who?"

"The woman ye heard, she's the curator, doesnae like us, cannae do anything about it. But… ye know, it is sortae against the rules fae ye to be here," Cohen whispered. Nios heard voices approaching.

"Quick, sit down," she said, "So they can't see us through the glass in the door." It was a very dark room and the glass was quite heavily mottled, but she suspected the light coming through the window she had spotted might illuminate the interior of the store room enough that their silhouettes would be seen.

"Will they no try tae open it?" Cohen came to sit down.

"They're sneaking around," Nios answered, still listening, "Not speaking anymore. I can hear their footsteps. They won't know we're wise to them. And I can hold the doorknob so that they won't be able to move it and they'll just think it's a locked cleaning cupboard." They sat next to each other in silence for a while, with Nios paying attention to the exterior of the room while trying not to be too captivated by Dr Cohen, who was looking off into space. "I'm sorry," Nios said eventually.

"What for?" Cohen was perplexed.

"Well, what if you got banned from here? Because of me?"

"If ah git banned it'd be because of me, no you. And ah would jist ask Darling tae pull some strings. She values us enough that she would do anythin to keep me working at my best."

"You're not angry at me?"

"No, I like ye too much fae that." Nios smiled, and they sat listening. It took perhaps ten minutes for Nios to be sure the people searching for them had passed by enough that they were probably safe – at least safe from being overheard. Nios still felt guilty about the situation, as though it were her fault because she was the one not authorised to be there. But she could always have 'borrowed' some psychic paper from the Doctor if she had been told where they were going. Or maybe Martha had some ID somewhere that didn't have a picture of her on it Nios could have swiped.

"Ye know, ye dinnae seem like a mass murderer," Cohen said eventually when the silence between them grew quite heavy. Nios didn't know what to say in response to that. "Oh, sorry, should ah not have brought that up?"

"It was quite jarring, that's all. I'd do anything to take it back," she said quietly.

"Did they no deserve it at all, then?"

"I don't think they deserved to die," she continued, "And it wasn't just them – my 'owners', I mean – I was on public transport and… I don't know. I suppose I was angry. I don't think that's an excuse. I guess I'm lucky I wasn't taken and destroyed."

"Would they have done that?"

"It's standard protocol for a malfunctioning synthetic. And I think killing nearly thirty people constitutes quite a large malfunction." It took Cohen nearly an entire minute to think of what to say next. Nios was still listening.

"Well, ah'm glad they didn't destroy you," Cohen touched her hand.

"I'm quite glad they didn't destroy me, as well."

"Ye know," Cohen looked at their hands, "Ah thought ye would be cold."

"I'd hardly be a very good copy of a human if I was cold. They make synthetics and not androgynous robots for a reason; to be close to human."

"Ye cannae tell yer a machine. But, there's something ah've been wondering."

"Go on?"

Cohen deliberated what she was going to say for a while, until finally asking, "Dae ye have an off switch?" Nios laughed.

"That's what you want to know?" Cohen nodded. "Well, yeah. Have to have an off switch in case of faults." Again, Cohen looked like she was thinking about something and wondering whether or not she should say it. "Do you want to know where it is?"

"Is it somewhere, likesay, personal?"

"Not really. I'll show you where it is as long as you promise not to push it. I don't want to fall unconscious here. It's a bit slippery though, so you'll be careful, won't you?"

"Ah'm no in the habit of knocking girls unconscious oan dates."

"No, no, I don't think you are, it's just a bit of a major Achilles heel that I have an off button. I must trust you quite a lot…"

"Where is it, then?" Cohen asked. Nios took her hand and directed it gently to the back of her neck, where the rather difficult to see off-button was located right where her hair stopped. Cohen had to lean over to reach properly and her fingers brushed it lightly. "Am ah touching it?"

"Yeah. Be careful. It's sensitive." Nios did not think that Dr Cohen was going to try and switch her off for a moment, but she didn't let go of Cohen's hand to give her an opportunity to betray her trust. "You have a lot of callouses on your hands, don't you?" Nios said softly, enamoured by Cohen, who was much too interested in the off-switch to realise exactly how close they now were with her leaning into Nios in the gloom.

"Aye, from all the autopsies."

"Hey?"

"Yeah?"

"If you think you're in the middle of, you know, a 'moment', is it really uncool to ask permission to kiss somebody?"

"Erm – I – uh – what? Ye mean me?" Cohen was so startled she very nearly made actual eye contact.

"Because I totally want to, only I'm not very good at any of this or picking up signs for when you're supposed to do what thing in order to aptly and non-verbally convey the message that you like someone. A lot."

"Is this body language cues? Ah'm nae good at that, either, dinnae worry. Things are easier when people jist explain what they're thinking."

"I'm thinking about kissing you. Is that alright?"

"After ye've seen all this and we're stuck in a cupboard waiting to sneak out of a window?"

"Why not? You see, I don't scare easily. You haven't been giving me enough credit."

"Then… it's alright." So Nios leant in and kissed Hayley Cohen initially very gently, and it still made her envision an entire row of fireworks in her mind's eye soaring into the night sky and exploding rapturously, and beneath her lips she felt Cohen smile and kiss her back one more time in the dark.

"So how about that second date, then?"