Dresden Academy

Who: Abernathy Ford and Dr. Quinn
When: Near the end of the spring semester 2010
Where: The infirmary
What: Abby gets her ear checked out after this incident.
Rating: SFWish. Language.


She sat nervously at the end of one of the beds in the nurses office. They were occupied often enough when magic backfired. She'd been here more times than she cared to admit as the result of a fight.

This was a little different.

More nervous than she would normally be, she tucked her hands in her lap and waited for Doctor Quinn to come back and examine her ear.

The doctor eyes Abernathy with the sort of exasperated fondness one could only feel for a patient she saw often. Abernathy had been in and out of the office many times, usually dragged there by a teacher. Today she entered alone and looked terribly squirrelly.

"Let's just get this over with," she replied. She'd said that before more than once. She crushed her fingers together and tried to remember to breath. It was probably no big deal. Just a burn on her cheek and a buzzing in her ear.

Matilda clucked her tongue at Abernathy. "And what have you been getting up to?"

She could hear the doctor, but she had to strain a bit to make out some of the syllables over the continued buzzing. It was almost as if she was laying against a pillow and that one ear wasn't as effective. "A quod exploded near my head."

Matilda examined the burn. "I don't think there's any permanent damage here," she said. A bit of a burn salve would heal it up in a day or two.

"My ear's buzzing," Abernathy interjected, nervous to have it checked out, but too anxious not to try.

The doctor removed an otoscope from the holder attached on the wall and approached Abernathy's left ear. Peering inside she canal she could see that it was swollen and red. She couldn't see the damage clearly, but it was certainly irritated.

"How long has it been since your head introduced itself to quodpot?"

Abernathy couldn't help the little laugh that escaped. That's why she liked Dr. Quinn; her sense of humor smoothed over a lot of awful situation. "Yesterday."

"You might have come before then if only to have me check that burn." She shook her head gently while putting the otoscope away. "All right then, Abernathy. Come sit over here." She directed Abernathy to a separate table where she kept the hearing test equipment. "Can you tolerate the headphones?"

Abernathy looked skyward for a moment and frowned. She took the headphones and put them over her ears. A hearing test. Great. "Haven't had one of these since kindergarten." The rim of the headphones stung on her left ear where the burn was, but she could deal with it just to take the test.

Dr. Quinn nodded and played a low tone on the left side. "Did you hear that?"

Abernathy lifted her hand near her left ear, which was how they did it when she was a kid. Then she nodded, because the doctor was asking her if she heard it, which she only derived from context since she couldn't really hear her around the big, clunky headphones.

The doctor played a few more tones, increasing in tone, sometimes switching ears just to make sure Abernathy was paying attention and actually hearing them.

Abernathy listened carefully as each tone increased from low to high. She raised her hand in front of the ear where the tone played. At some point though the tones stopped on the left side; it was clear to Abernathy that the doctor was still playing them for her. She just couldn't hear them anymore. Her face grew more stony as Dr. Quinn continued testing. It was worse than she thought. She took the headphones off and winced at how much the burn actually hurt.

Matilda's frowned deepened. It was good that Abernathy had lost that much hearing. Even though the injury was recent, hearing was a very difficult thing to heal. "I hate to say it, Abernathy, but I think you're looking at some real damage here."

"Well fuck me." She rubbed at her face absently as if that could make things better, make this go away. Pranks and fun were fine, but Adelaide had made her partially deaf. The problem was that if she made a big deal of it the chances were just as great that Headmistress Hulett would blame her for having this stupid feud with Adelaide in the first place.

The doctor laughed against her better judgment. It broke a bit of the tension and she wasn't about to reprimand Abernathy for having such a reaction to bad news. "I think it would be best if I spoke with your father. You should probably see a specialist as soon as you can get in."

Abernathy had nothing to say about her dad getting involved. Bill Ford didn't often fuss over his children, but any time one of them had to go to a doctor he was all over it. Abernathy was over feeling sorry for herself and swinging back towards feeling angry. "Thanks Dr. Quinn," she said politely and stood up. "I can talk to my dad; you don't need to contact him."

"Please see that you do." Matilda moved Abernathy over to a cabinet of potions. "This will help with the burn," she said removing a bottle and handing it to the girl. "Slather it on before you go to bed and when you wake up in the morning. If it starts to ache you can put more on. Take a few ibuprofen to help keep the swelling down. You should put some on now and try to keep the burn clean."

She sighed, but took the salve gratefully. "I'll put it on as soon as I get back to the dorm." She didn't thank the doctor again, but nodded and headed out. She couldn't stomach any more bad news today and she thought the walk back to the dorms might help clear her head.