Her Shadow Could Always Keep Her Small

[Narrator]

Katarina's latest routine check-up is the usual impersonal gamut of blood draws and prodding, questions and measuring. Nothing Katarina hasn't endured multiple times already though the good doctor seems almost like she's not being as rough in handling Katarina as she normally is. It's when she's examining the scales on her lower back that she lets out the dreaded "Huh?" of having discovered something noteworthy, which probably serves to fill Katarina with concern if not outright dread, followed by the click of the tape recorder being turned on. "Approximately 2 centimeters of medial spread, 1 centimeters caudal, possible increase over previously observed rate around healed and partially regrown section of... straight laceration." she pauses for a moment, then finishes her dictation and turns the tape recorder off.

"This is much cleaner than the usual scabbed mess." she asks, leaning in closer. It looks almost as clean as when she biopsies a scale with a scalpel. "Have you been cheating on me with another doctor, Miss Kane?"

[Katarina Kane]

"Yes, Doctor. I went to my normal specialist in Catalina, right next to the plastic surgery clinic," Katarina deadpanned.

"No, Agent Ryn assisted removing some of the...excess scales, this time," she clarified after a moment, seeing the doctor nonplussed.

[Narrator]

"Did she now?" she says in the tone of somebody who just found a missing puzzle piece. "I'm sure that was an experience."

"Whatever she did, she did a better job taking care of you than herself, that's for sure."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, it's hard to reach one's own back, I'm sure you'll find," Katarina said, shifting her wait awkwardly on the bed.

"She usually stitch herself up, then, rather than come in here?"

[Narrator]

"I have to imagine and it suits me just fine. The less time she spends in my infirmary the better." she says, finishing her examination and letting Katarina pull her shirt back down.

"I had the dubious honor of examining her when the CIA first dropped her into our lap. She came with a a debrief on some black ops shit in the middle of fucking nowhere Mongolia, pulled her out of some already decimated arms dealer and human trafficking camp. I've been in Afghanistan with the Red Army and I have never seen grown men - special ops soldier - high-tail it out of a room faster than when they dropped that half a swig of water of a woman off with us. You tell me who really needed rescuing that day and I tell you to be very careful about Agent Ryn."

"Never any good samples to be had after she's through with something..." she adds muttering more to herself than Katarina.

[Katarina Kane]

"She's had a rough time of things," Katarina countered. "I think she was abused when she was young. Is it any surprise she's a bit...feral?" Katarina said, jumping to her partner's defense.

[Narrator]

"Perhaps not. And she's gotten better. Marginally. I'm just telling you to be careful and turn her advances down gently. Not for her sake but your own. She's fragile like hand grenade with no pin, da?"

[Katarina Kane]

"I have a few tricks of my own up my sleeve, Doctor," Katarina said, with a huff. "She's alone, and she's scared, and she doesn't know what she's doing. I can handle that, hand grenade or no hand grenade."

[Narrator]

"You do you, Miss Kane, but some things are left alone for a reason." she says before seemingly changing topics and her tone is that of someone sharing some fascinating trivia. "Did you know our muscles could snap our own bones if our brains didn't stop us? What do you think it would take for someone who can do that to themselves to realize they're hurting somebody else?"

[Katarina Kane]

"Why, doctor, you didn't tell me the new Trivial Pursuit cards had come in. What a wonderful new hobby I might have while I'm stuck in here.

And I don't...." she said, more hesitantly this time. "I don't...think knowing how much she's hurting someone is a problem with Ryn. She seems...well versed in that area."

[Narrator]

"It's not about skill. You shove someone in the mud with nothing but Kalashnikov and handful of bullets, they will learn very well. Then they come home and still all they know is how to put bullet through someone. And eventually they will."

[Katarina Kane]

"That's a rather negative attitude about things, doctor. You would think someone in the medical profession would believe in the ability to heal."

[Narrator]

Dr. Chasovnya shoots Katarina a glance. "I believe in my ability to mend. The healing they have to do themselves and not everyone can."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, I appreciate your concern, and I'll take it with all the advisement such a statement deserves," Katarina said, with a frown.

"She...has she exhibited any...strange tendencies I should be aware of?" she asked, trying (and failing) to go for casual. "For fieldwork, you know. To be safe."

[Narrator]

"Of course." she says, going along with Katarina's purely professional concern.

"She's damn near taken the fingers off of people she doesn't want touching her. Either she doesn't understand the concept of long-term consequences or she simply doesn't care. Trying to convince her or disparage her form something is about as effective as talking to a wall. She tunes out things she deems unimportant and if you don't think that's strange then you haven't seen her just sit somewhere and wait for hours without moving a muscle. You'd think she's disassociating but she's there, just not engaging. But most of all, don't look at her eyes. Just... don't."

[Katarina Kane]

"...Did she suffer trauma to the eyes? Is that why she hides them so? Because that would make a lot of sense, really; the sunglasses as a shield protecting herself from getting hurt again; some possible disfigurement or something being an open sign of weakness she is trying to hide."

It's a good thing HIPAA didn't exist in the past, nor in the creepy world of ghouls and goblins Katarina found herself thrust into.

[Narrator]

"If you pressed her on it she'd tell you it's for everyone else's sake. She thinks it marks her as unwelcome among humans, so take from that what you will."

[Katarina Kane]

"Like scales running down your back. Or a voice that kills," Katarina pointed out.

"I assume you've given her a similar talk about me?"

[Narrator]

"Indeed. She might have her reasoning backwards but I don't think she's wrong."

"And warning Agent Ryn about anything would require her to listen. Either she has no sense of self-preservation or she knows exactly what she's capable of enduring and I'm beginning to think it might actually be the later. Unless we're talking emotionally, in which case I would refer you to my earlier comment about hand grenades."

[Katarina Kane]

"Honestly, doctor, if she won't listen to your bedside manner, then who on Earth would she listen to?" Katarina deadpanned.

"It seems very clear to me that this is a young girl who has suffered through an extreme and life-altering situation. And who clearly did not get the support she needed to help recuperate. And that she is, in her own, horribly flawed way, trying to help other people avoid that same fate. Perhaps she's more in tune with her emotional capacity than you give her credit for," she added, armchair philosophizing.

[Narrator]

"Push her again and see what happens." Dr. Chasovnya simply says. "The only capacity I've seen from her is that of incredible harm, to herself and to others."

[Katarina Kane]

"I am capable of taking care of myself," Katarina said. "And I could do that before becoming...whatever it is we're trying to keep me from becoming," she said, with a cool nod.