Is The Doctor In? || Carter + Emily
Carter was staring at her computer screen with a blank expression and watery eyes when someone standing over her shoulder dropped a stack of paperwork on her desk. The sound of the papers rustling pulled her from her reverie and it was only then that she noticed her computer was displaying its animated screensaver rather than the program she’d been using to work on a report she’d been assigned. She sputtered out a few syllables, but by the time she’d thought of anything much coherent to say the deliverer of the manila envelope was gone. Carter figured it was better this way, for her not to have a chance to kill the messenger. Instead of looking around to try and find whatever office worker had so rudely dropped them off to her she slipped a finger under the top of the folder and opened in. Tucked inside she found an itinerary of appointments to speak with a Dr. Emily Hayes, apparently the psychologist the station had contracted to work with her.
With a slight huff Carter jabbed at the power button on her computer’s monitor. Her first appointment was scheduled that day, and by the looks of it she was going to be late. She swiveled her chair to the side, leaning forward and stretching her arm forward to grab ahold of the crutch her physical therapist had commanded her to use to aid her injured leg. She tucked it under her arm before straightening the jacket she wore. Office clothes were stiff and uncomfortable and altogether unfamiliar to Carter. She’d had to buy herself some when she was told she was being barred from the field, along with something black to wear to Cory’s funeral. She made her way to the elevator, her crutch thumping each time she took a step with her wounded leg. She was deliberately louder with the crutch than she needed to be. It was needless and she knew she wasn’t proving anything, and had she been doing it to make a statement she wouldn’t know that it was meant to say herself.
The noisy thumping of the crutch only desisted when she entered the elevator. She leaned against it as she rode the lift down to the first level, her lips pursed and eyes like daggers at the crutch itself. She might have the patience to use it for a day or two more before “accidentally” leaving it at home and driving to work herself despite her physical therapists caution that it might still be too early to drive comfortably. She was forced to take a cab to her appointment, like she had taken to the station that morning. Carter read the address to the driver and it struck her that the street was one she was familiar with. The office was situated in a residential neighborhood. During the ride Carter thought that perhaps the office might be just on the edge of the homes and a block of businesses, but instead the cab stopped in front of a home.
It was a bit of a struggle to exit the cab with her purse and crutches in tow. She warned the driver against helping her with one cold look and stood outside the car on her own. She shut the door after fishing out a tidy little bundle of bills and tipping the cabby generously. He had been quiet and not asked about her walking aid during the drive, and for it she deemed him deserving of a little extra pay. Carter leaned her crutch against the top of the railing of the stairs having to stretch to do so and struggled up the stairs to the porch that led to a door that clear marked itself as the office and not the home. She cursed under her breath, lifting her skirt and checking the bandage on her thigh to make sure her sutures hadn’t burst or bled through the bandages.
Carter was already late when she opened the door. She peered into the room and it was professional and homey all at once, a combination she didn’t quite understand the workings of. She pursed her lips and fished her file out of her bag. She needed a signature to prove that she had shown up, and that she would show up for the next dozen or so sessions. She was glad her attendance was all that was required for the signature and not her participation. This woman didn’t know Cory, and she wasn’t a law enforcement professional. She would know facts out of a book and correlating medications, but she would never understand her patients on a case-by-case basis.
“I’m looking for Doctor Hayes,” Carter informed the orderly looking blonde woman she found in her company in the small, private office. “I have an appointment. I’m Officer Emerson. I apologize for my tardiness; I wasn’t informed of the arrangement until just this morning. I came straight over. Is the doctor in?”
