You must wonder what we're doing here in your part of the world.

[bestsir]

Who: Harry Goodsir and anyone who promised him some stuff, or hell, if you just want to bug him in the coroner's office in the hospital, so literally anyone.
What: Dr. Goodsir's office hours. Bring him things, come to chat, or tell him to clean his overgrown curiosity cabinet out of the hospital posthaste.
Where: Harry's office and impromptu lab in the basement of the Riverview hospital.
When: Anytime in July.
Warnings: Harry's doing an autopsy with Victor Frankenstein. Potential for grossness having to do with critters.

The truth is, there isn't that much for the Riverview coroner to do on a good week. There was a brief increase in activity after the business with the cult, but otherwise Harry is very much left to his own devices.

Hence letting his naturalist's instincts out to play. He now has a pet eyeball-eating lizard (he is still trying to work out a system of nomenclature and is hoping someone might have some ideas) and a couple of moths in a jar, a lot of botanical specimens, and some assorted feathers, bones, and other items that he's collected or that have been brought to him by friends.

When he's not attending his classes at the university, you'll probably find him here, working or studying. He does go back to the communal housing on a nightly basis, but he keeps very late hours. Come see.

Comments

[jolting]

Victor had to think about it for a moment. He wasn't familiar with all things that had to do with Earth, as it wasn't his native world.

"Sounds a little familiar," he said at last, "but honestly, my cursed memories didn't make me much of a history buff. I'll have to look it up at the library later."

[bestsir]

Harry nodded. It would have been easier if Victor had known of it, but needs must.

"I sailed with that expedition in 1845 as assistant surgeon and naturalist aboard HMS Erebus. Between her and her sister ship Terror, we sailed with 130 souls." He stared at the floor. He'd rehearsed variations of this story in his head several times, but the actual telling was no easier for all that. "We became trapped in the ice for two winters, then abandoned ship to try and walk to safety. I cannot say how the expedition ended, but I can tell you that before it did, the survivors became ... desperate."

He sighed. "I did not know that one can be wounded in the soul, and yet that is how I feel at times, when I am reminded of what happened. Not always, and not every time I work in here—" a gesture around the morgue, "—but there are moments of—weakness, I suppose."

[jolting]

Victor listened as the other doctor told his story. It was a familiar one. Maybe not in exact details, but he heard of people being trapped and desperate to survive and knew what would happen next.

"It's not a weakness," Victor assured him. "Or if it is, I'm just as guilty of it as you. I don't know how familiar you are with my story, but it haunted me. And then it became too much and I was terrified. I've since healed, but it takes a while. Don't be too hard on yourself."

[bestsir]

Harry looked over at him and smiled faintly, sadly. "Thank you," he said. "I do know your story—that which has been written, that is—and perhaps that is why I felt I could tell you mine. Or some of it, at least—for the entire tale is quite long and ... difficult."

[jolting]

That got him to smile a little. "Then I'd say we know enough about each other's stories." There were just some things that were too difficult to speak of to just anyone. James was the only one who knew every piece of Victor's story, for example.

"If you want to learn the rest of your story, I'm sure you can," Victor said after a while. "But I can tell you from experience that how others tell it doesn't matter as much as how you decide to live it."

[bestsir]

"A wise observation," Harry said, and it really was a way of looking at his situation that he'd never thought of before. "I had thought by coming here to erase what had happened to me, but I begin to see that it is impossible to do so."

He rubbed his chin absentmindedly; one of the first things he'd done on getting settled in Riverview was shave the beard he'd grown and trim his whiskers back to what he considered his normal state, a literal attempt to erase the last three months of his life in Nunavut and, in turn, his shame.

"And perhaps to erase, to forget, is not the blessing one might think."

[jolting]

His lip twitched a bit. "It's really not," he agreed. "What you went through is terrible and horrifying, but it's yours. Getting rid of it would be like getting rid of a part of yourself. Believe me, you'd still feel its absence even if you don't understand why."

Victor was quiet for a moment, then gave an assuring bump of their shoulders. "That cultist member over there could help us a lot. When you're ready, we'll get back to it and see what they can teach us."

[bestsir]

Harry nodded, took a deep breath, and straightened up.

"Let us continue, then."

[jolting]

Victor nodded and followed Harry back to the table. He wondered if it helped at all that the body wasn't very human once they started looking inside. It had some of the expected organs: heart, lungs and stomach, but they were oddly shaped and in slightly different places. And there were some organs that Victor could only guess what they were and what purpose they served.

"We should go through medical records," he suggested, "so we can see if there were any other cases involving beings like this one."

[bestsir]

"One of my predecessors in this role left a great many records, but not very well organized," Harry noted, a little peevishly. "But I do agree; it would be worth delving into them to see if there is anything related."

He peered down at the corpse again, noting with some interest the attachments of the additional limbs, and the variations in the muscular and skeletal structure,

[jolting]

"That's all right," Victor shrugged. "We can chip through them. It'll give me a good reason to come down here and check on your growing menagerie."

[bestsir]

Harry chuckles. "Should you wish to endear yourself to Phoebe, be sure to bring a fish head or two. She is hardly what you would call tame, but she is much more inclined to be friendly when she is fed."

[jolting]

"I'll keep that in mind," Victor promised. That was one thing Storybrooke was short on: exotic wildlife. Though he supposed all the other oddities filled in the hole well enough.

He helped Harry finish up the initial examination. They would learn more once they did some testing on the being's organs. "You probably have to go through a lot of these," Victor mused. "If you find you need any more help, you know where my office is."