#johanna hilda fanfic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-hilda-librarians-wife · 5 months

Text

Sketchbook Week Day 7 - Cellularity

Summary: Trolberg General Hospital is a lovely place to work in. Unless you piss the pathologist off, of course, in which case it's hell. But she is hardly ever even seen in those white corridors, anyway, and apparently her mood has gotten better in the past few months since the new paediatrician had been hired.

That day was an unfortunate exception to Dr. Underhill's new wave of goodwill, though.

Notes: Written for @sketchbookweek Day 7 - Alternate Universe

‘Oh if we give people a free/AU day, they’ll surely make good use of it!’. WRONG. HOSPITAL AU 🧠🫀🫁🦴🧑‍🔬🔬🏥🏥🏥 🏥🏥🏥🚑🚑🚑🚑🚑🚑🌡️🌡️🌡️🌡️🌡️🥼🥼🥼🥼🥼🥼📋📋📋🧪🧪🧪🧫🧫🧫🧬🧬🔬🔬🔬🔬🔬🔬💊💊💊💊💊🩹🩹🩹🩼🩼🩺🩺🩺🩻🩻🩻🩻🧠🫀🫁🦴

That being said, content warning for discussion of health conditions, cancer, hospitalisation… all that stuff. Nobody actually suffers, this is silly fanfic, but keep that in mind if those are sensitive topics for you <3

-> The reference numbers scattered throughout the chapter are all things that I thought might be nice to explain. You can find the notes at the bottom of the fic, though they will be easier to read if you do so in ao3 (I put return to text options there)

Read it on ao3

When anyone asked Kaisa the reason why she’d picked this job, there were many different answers she was used to giving. She wanted to help people. It was all terribly interesting. It was the area that felt the least overwhelming. She just had a natural affinity for it. None of them were lies, and she’d gotten good at choosing which sides of the truth to reveal to each person who asked her, depending on how close they were. But the embarrassing truth that she was never going to admit anyone, was that she’d chosen pathology, simply put, because cells were pretty. She’d chosen it way before she could rationalise any of those other explanations. Way before she’d even realised her path had been traced, back when she was still so certain she’d follow in her tutor’s footsteps during histology class.

It couldn’t be helped. One look into a microscope and she’d been a goner. Those blasted hepatocytes would always be remembered as the thing she fell in love with the most quickly in her entire life. Though not by much.

So here she was, at this crossroads. Because she’d chosen this specialty - before she’d seen its other merits - for its beauty. Because for all that this might sound silly, the fact that she was in on this hidden, miniscule world and therefore was the only one who could find answers to truly essential questions sent her reeling every time.

But how the fuck was she expected to explain what was going on with the cells if there were none of them?

Kaisa huffed, giving up on the endeavour of finding a single useful cluster after she’d already run through the entire slide with no luck. Only useless blobs of stringy colloid [1] - which, okay, did look pretty but was not at all helpful - and the odd cell here and there. It was not, in any way, shape, or form (and it’s worth mentioning that a pathologist knows a lot about shapes and forms) enough for a diagnosis. And that’s because she knew what she was looking for, because truly, a child with a single thyroid nodule, irregular outlines and microcalcifications? She knew what that reeked of. And so did the paediatrician, who had immediately ringed Kaisa about it. She’d picked up the very second it had rang, of course. Kaisa didn’t much like using her cellphone to actually talk, but for her she always did.

And it had been a good thing, too. Always helped to know what to expect of the new slides that came in. Most doctors in the hospital liked to think of pathology as a magic lab you could send your problem to and just have it miraculously disappear, but contrary to popular belief Kaisa was not some sort of magician. She was not going to guess which card you picked. Nor was she going to throw around diagnosis without knowing the first thing about a patient’s case.

She shouldn’t have to, at least. But anyone would be hard pressed to remember a single time she’d gotten her verdict wrong, even when the information she’d been provided with was nowhere near sufficient.

Perks of having chosen the superior area of medicine.

That, and talking to nobody.

Which was clearly not working for her at the moment since she had to hastily turn off her microscope’s light to strut down Trolberg General Hospital’s not-so-busy corridors (admissions were on the lowermost floor), people in scrubs and white coats moving out of the way at the inpatient look on her face. She wouldn’t ever knock over anyone, of course. But they didn’t all necessarily know that, and would probably rather not try their luck.

The silent halls began gradually filling with sound as she moved out of the labs area. One floor down, to the surgical wards; now there were companions, friends and family of those admitted spread across some of the chairs lining up the walls, hushed conversation over the phone as someone delivered whatever news they had to the family members that weren't able to be present. Another flight of stairs and she was at the clinical wards, this one with corridors much more busy not because of companions, since patients there usually didn’t stay for long - for good reasons, get your mind out of the graveyard, Christ’s sake - but rather because of the rustle of nurses and technicians going from ward to ward. Kaisa rather thought that one blond woman she saw walking around was a nutritionist. Must be lunch time for them.

She really wouldn’t know. She’d been so caught up in going through every millimetre in all the slides from that damned fine needle aspiration (fancy way of saying you reverse-injected someone’s throat, that was) that she’d completely lost track of time and internal cues of hunger.

Come think of it, that may just play a part in why she was so damn pissed. Maybe she should take a break. The case wasn’t filed as urgent. She could easily go to the cafeteria, get her blood sugar levels back to normal, and deal with that issue later like a cool, controlled person.

She didn’t do that, of course. Kaisa knew very well what her hurry was about, and it wasn’t lunch time. Instead, she went down the last flight of stairs, where the clinics were, and marched straight up to radiology, uncaring if the patients all waiting to be called for their consultations, sitting or standing calmly near the walls, thought she was mad as she walked around with her white coat flowing behind her like a cape.

Oh, hell, she’d forgotten to close it all the way through again, hadn’t she?

The point was, when she’d arrived at the imaging centre, she’d worked herself up to such an unpleasant-looking state that no one so much as tried to stop her from strutting right in. ‘White coat effect’ means more than just blood pressure rising when you’re around. It was why she still wore it to work even though there was nothing to get dirty with at the lab.

Well, to avoid contamination too, she supposed. But it was mostly to Look Cool and to Open Doors, and everybody knew that.

The secretary let her know right away where the doctor was. All the aspiration’s slides had come with Lloyd’s stamp under the analysis request, so there was luckily no doubt about who she had to go to for this.

He had locked himself away in one of the report rooms, and was understandably startled once Kaisa opened the door up without as much as a knock to warn him. Light from the corridor immediately flooded the dark room, making him shield his eyes since he’d looked back at the sound of someone entering. He didn’t even have the time to ask her what was going on before Kaisa reached beside the door frame and turned on the ceiling lights.

“Come on, man!” It was the most emotion she’d ever heard him put in a sentence. Perhaps she should attempt to blind him more often.

Unwilling to remain there any longer than strictly necessary, Kaisa picked the folded request from her pocket and extended it towards him. “Did you do this FNA [2]?” The question was redundant given his stamp and signature were both present, but an accusation being the first thing out of her mouth sounded like it was a step over ‘rude’ and already inside ‘might get you kicked out of the imaging clinic’ territory. The younger man reached out to grab it and attempted to read even though he was still blinking from having to adjust his eyes so suddenly to the brightness. Even so, it took a couple moments longer than Kaisa would have deemed reasonable for him to give an answer.

“Hmmm, yeah?”

“Yeah?” She repeated a bit mockingly. “There isn’t a period at the end of your sentence. I’m only asking to be polite, what is yeah? supposed to mean?”

He rubbed the back of his head, with its ridiculous monk-like haircut. The man didn’t look shameful, only tired and more than a little annoyed at Kaisa’s presence.

“I mean, I asked for the cytology. But I didn’t do it.”

There was an answer already ready at Kaisa’s tongue. It went something among the lines of ‘what the fuck do you even think cyto means [3] if you don’t give me any damn cells to bloody look at?’ The plan was, however, foiled by the last part of his sentence. Her mind screeched to a halt

“What?”

Aware of what that must have sounded like, Lloyd raised his hands before Kaisa could start screaming at him. The sooner he got rid of her, the better. It was way too bright in there for his tastes.

“I let one of the students do it.” He said it as if it were a good thing, but Kaisa actually thought she was about to faint. “There’s this quiet little guy that shadows me often. I thought he was ready to give it a try. He’s already in his third year, you know. Was scared shitless, but it worked out in the end.”

Many thoughts swarmed Kaisa’s mind all at once, all fighting for a chance to reach her mouth and to maybe influence her to hit the radiologist’s extremely punchable face. Third year is far from old enough and are you fucking talking about David?!, but the one that came out instead was:

“You thought it’d be a good idea to let him practise it for the first time on a ten year old?”

Lloyd blinked, but it was the only show of emotion in his face. His brows, eyes and mouth remained as inexpressive as ever.

“Oh, the kid was ten? I didn’t really read the examination request all the way through.”

TIldy was going to be so very upset if she got expelled from the hospital for attacking a fellow doctor. Her left eye twitched. She bit her own tongue to try to keep it from spilling something that she’d come to regret. Her hands balled into fists. Yes. Tildy would be very upset indeed.

“Yes.” Kaisa said through clenched teeth. “The patient is ten.”

Lloyd seemed to take a moment to consider the information, though Kaisa doubted he was using more than two neurons to do so. It took him no longer than five seconds to lose whatever train of thought he'd been running after (if there had ever been one at all) and raise both eyebrows at her. Only slightly, of course. No one would ever be able to accuse him of emoting any more than was strictly necessary.

"So?"

"I mean, it went well. He told me he'd gotten the patient to cooperate and had done what had been requested. By the looks of it, you got the material, didn't you?"

She had gotten the material, which was something he should give more thought to. It meant she had several useless pieces of glass to spare, and she really wouldn't mind using them to play target practice with him.

"Did you-" Kaisa spoke slowly in hopes that a little bit of breathing would ground her. "Instruct him on how to do it properly, and on what to ask the patient for? Because the cellularity in the slides you sent me is shit. I can't see anything. At all."

The man shrugged. "Well, I didn't just send him to test his luck. I let him watch me do it several times."

"But was he present when you talked to the patient? Does he know you need to ask the patient to, I don't know, stay silent? Or to not swallow? Or to not breathe too deeply when the exam is being done?"

"Well, no. I tell them that before they go to the ultrassonography, and the boy usually stays there. But, you know."

The sentence was left there. Right there. Kaisa began popping her fingers joints. Raven would be beyond annoyed.

"I do not know." She growled, and Lloyd just sent her a level look.

"It's very instinctive to ask for these things." He completed, to which she took what she hoped looked like an intimidating step closer. It was hard to feel in charge near most of her coworkers, but Lloyd's energy was so perfectly described by 'wet and pathetic' that it helped matters along for her.

"Well, clearly it's not instinctive!" She poked pointedly at the exam request with his stamp, his signature, and what she now understood to be David's calligraphy. "You know what's instinctive, though?" He shook his head, letting the tiniest bit of apprehension show by the bob of his cricoid cartilage. "To speak, breathe deeply and swallow when you are ten and someone's sticking a needle in your throat!"

The message finally seemed to have come through his thick skull, and he moved to his monitors to close the thorax radiographies he'd been looking at (someone had a pretty nasty pneumonia, apparently) to look for images and notes on that exam in the system. Kaisa wondered if he'd ever done a tomography on himself. She doubted the rays would have managed to have made it inside his head.

Maybe that was exactly the problem, though. Maybe he had been smart once and all that radiation had just melted his brain into something gooey and bright green. Heavens knew it was entirely likely.

"See the nodule?" He asked once he had found the young boy's file, and all the exams that had been performed on him in it. "It's not markedly hypoechoic, which is good. But the contours aren't precise and there are some calcification foci. What do you think?"

She thought it looked black and white and blurry. People who understood ultrasonography were either able to see stuff that other people weren't, like they were medicine's shrimps, or were just straight up making that shit up to make everybody else feel dumb. Kaisa saw a black ball in the middle of a light grey streak, thank you very much.

"I think the nodule's image matters very little to me right now. I need the material."

"Well..." Lloyd rubbed at his chin, looking entirely disinterested. "That's gonna be a problem. I already told him to send you all the slides that could be used."

"I only got four!"

"Yeah, the other ones were hemorrhagic [4]. You wouldn't have seen anything either."

Kaisa took a deep breath, and was proud of herself when the exhale didn't come out a scream. She also put a fingertip to Lloyd's chest and told him in no uncertain terms what he had to do, and what she'd do to him if he didn't go through it.

She was also proud of herself for that.

.........

It was a common misconception that hospital food only sucked for patients. Kaisa had no idea where it had come from, since it seemed very cruel from the people who had actually promised to only ever help them to have good food and only give them access to the soggy, saltless one. No. Hospital food was just all around trash. They all blamed the nutrition department for it; they were right to do so, too.

It wasn't like they didn't have other places to eat (the hospital staff, that was; the patients truly had no choice). They were in the middle of a bustling city, there was no lack of dining options in the blocks surrounding the hospital.

Did they ever go to any if it wasn't a special occasion? No. Because the laziness to even leave the building during their working hours united them all and made them hostage to hospital food.

"Hemorrhagic." Kaisa mumbled under her breath as she toyed with a roasted baby potato on her plate. "Fucking erythrocytes. They shouldn't even be real cells."

"What are ye whining about this time?”

There was a clatter as Edmund not so gently placed his tray on the table, sitting down on the spot right in front of her. He looked tired, and Kaisa would have worried that his morning had been too harsh except that tired was just how he usually looked. She threw her hands up in the air, not really caring that she probably sounded like a toddler.

“Red blood cells! They’re a pain, they don’t-”

“They don’t even have nuclei, yeah, I know, we’ve had this conversation a couple of times before. It’s never about them, though. Which slide is kicking your ass this time?”

Kaisa crossed her arms and slid a few inches down the back of her chair. The cafeteria was mostly empty, way past its rush hour. That meant the food was no longer as fresh, but Kaisa preferred that over the insufferable noise of every physician in the place talking all at once. It was mostly the technicians who ate at that hour of the day; they were eons more bearable. Especially because they didn’t try to engage her in small talk.

Edmund being there didn’t bother her, though. She hadn’t gotten truly close to many people regardless of how long she’d been working at that same hospital, but the infectologist was someone she was reasonably sure she could call her friend. Him, and the psychiatrist as well, she had to admit, even if she’d known her for a long time before; madwoman had grown on her like an MRSA colony [5]. Which unfortunately didn’t mean she wasn’t stressed enough to prefer not to speak to anyone.

“None.” She lied. “It’s nothing. You’re looking far worse for wear than me, though. What is it?”

Though she was under no illusion that he was convinced, Edmund took the bait. That meant, of course, that he must be bursting to talk about it. Which he did, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, his food remaining untouched while Kaisa took the opportunity to continue eating hers.

“I think I’ve got a case of spotted fever.”

She raised an eyebrow, barely finishing her chewing before speaking. “Why the suffering over it? You like these weird diagnostics. If you already narrowed it down to spotted fever you can begin treating it, right?”

“Yes!” He laid both hands flat on the table surface. “That’s not the problem! The problem is that he could have been diagnosed and treated long ago if his GP had been moderately inquisitive. Wanna know how I found out?”

Kaisa nodded, though she knew she’d end up hearing it no matter her answer.

“I asked about any recent travels and the patient, unprompted, showed me a picture. Of himself in a forest.” Edmund leaned forward towards her, lowering his tone of voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Holding an Amblyomma sculptum.”

Nodding slowly, Kaisa leaned towards him across the table as well, keeping his gaze and a deadpan face. When she was close enough that she could feel the man’s breath across her chin, she whispered with the same solemnity as he had.

“Your little bug names mean nothing to me. [6]”

“Wow!” He leaned back in a swift motion and crossed his arms. “See if I ever let you show me a ‘pretty eosinophile’ again!”

Kaisa also returned to her previous position, except this time her right elbow was on the table and she was pinching the space between her brows. “Ugh, sorry, Ed. I didn’t mean it in a rude way, I’m just not in a good mood today. And I really do have no idea what that name means.”

For all his talk, Edmund was a patient man. Not that he’d ever admit it, but he was. He opened (though ‘open’ might be too strong of a term for the subtle expression on his face) a compassionate smile for her

“It’s one of the tick species that transmits the Rickettsia rickettsii.” He answered, and Kaisa patted herself in the back for not calling him a nerd for throwing another scientific name at her. “Now will you tell me why you’re grumpier than normal?”

“I- yes, well, I suppose I should.” She sighed, not even bothering to protest the accusation. It was hard even for her to bear herself at the moment. “I’m just frustrated because the cytology samples for a patient I wanted to diagnose as soon as possible came with very low cellularity. Couldn’t see shit. And when I went to Lloyd to talk about it, it became clear that it was his fault. He let a student do the aspiration for the first time without any supervision whatsoever. So now we’ll have to wait two more weeks [7] to redo it and see if I can get some decent slides.”

“Hm.” Edmund played with his food more than he ate it. Kaisa had a good inkling that he was probably wishing it was a sandwich instead of an actual meal, but didn’t want to eat one in front of his coworkers. Had to set an example, and all that. “Well, not Lloyd’s smartest idea - not that Lloyd ever has many of them - but I guess the student had to begin somewhere.”

“Somewhere didn’t have to be a ten year old.”

The infectologist lifted his gaze to her, suddenly looking a lot more excited. Which never bore well, of course.

“Oh, so this isn’t about the slide, is it?” He asked with a mischievous twinkle to his eyes. Kaisa squirmed in her seat in front of him.

“What else would it be about?”

Humming in fake contemplation, he rubbed his chin before answering. “Maybe, just possibly, it could be about the new paediatrician who someone has oh so kindly been trying to befriend?”

Kaisa almost choked on her food. Almost, because her mouth hadn’t actually been full, so it would have actually been an achievement if she’d done so. She was certain her cheeks were getting red, no doubt giving her away.

Fuck, this was the major downside of having friends. She’d thought she was being subtle.

“Edmund, I’m a professional!”

“Of course you are.” He said, a little more seriously. “And honestly, you need to get rid of this idea that being a professional means not talking to anyone. It’s healthy to have people you rely on. Nothing more natural than getting close to the people you work with, too.”

Kaisa tried to look away, but he petulantly flinged a crouton at her to get her to pay attention to him.

“Listen, it’s been cute seeing you try to hide this crush-” At that point she opened her mouth to argue against the accusation that she had something as embarrassing as a crush, but he lifted his hand to ask for her silence. For some reason, she acquiesced. Probably because she knew she had no good arguments against him. “But I just want you to know you can be straightforward about it to me. I can be your wingman!”

Impaling a potato with her fork, Kaisa grumbled. “I don’t need a wingman. I need sufficiently cellular slides.”

“Which brings me to my next point.” He continued as if he had never been interrupted, completely unfazed. “You should be there for the kid’s next FNA.”

“What?” It was bold of him to suggest she leave the comfort of her lab. Very bold. “Why would I do that? I don’t know shit about ultrasonography.”

“‘Course not. But I bet it would be easier for the patient.”

“How the fuck does having another nitwit in a white coat in the room help the patient?”

Edmund rolled his eyes. He was a good decade older than her, and even though most days it didn’t feel like it, every now and then he’d act just condescending enough that she’d remember it. It made her want to deck him each time.

“Do you have kids, Kaisa? Nephews?” He asked even though he knew damn well the answer. She shook her head anyway, glaring at him. “Well, I do. And let me tell you, a ten year old patient will not be happy about going through all that again. It’s a wonder they even managed to do it the first time.”

“And you want me to do what, distract him?”

“Comfort him. You can’t do a lot but you can make sure the kid and his parents know that there is at least one doctor who truly cares about the case.”

Bastard. He had a point. And he probably knew she’d recognize it too, judging by his smug smile.

“Besides, that’s the way to know the procedure will be done correctly, isn’t it? Get your slides as soon as possible and run to your lab. Wouldn’t want to leave the patient’s doctor waiting.”

She didn’t even acknowledge the jab, but Edmund’s smirk made Kaisa hyper aware that this wouldn’t be the last time they talked about the subject.

…......

A lot of time had been lost with her whole mad dash for proper cytology samples, so after she came back to the lab Kaisa found out she was behind schedule. That sure did put a damper on her plans to sneak down to the paediatrics clinic, but unfortunately she had to admit it wasn’t actually necessary to go there.

“Hey, Johanna. Kaisa here.” She said and immediately cringed, turning her face away from the microscope’s lens and to her phone, deleting the audio she’d begun recording right away. It was an audio message in a chat they’d already begun. She didn’t need to introduce herself, for heaven’s sake.

Pressing the recording button again, she went back to the prostate biopsy on her microscope, even if only to pretend - to herself, seeing as there was nobody else nearby - that she wasn’t completely focused on Johanna.

“Hey, Johanna. Sorry for the audio message, I didn’t want to call you so I wouldn’t bother your consultations. I looked at the slides from that patient you were worried about. The ten year old with a papillary carcinoma suspicion. I’ll have to get back to you about it, though. The cellularity was awful, Lloyd will have to call him back to repeat the FNA. I’m so sorry about that. You, uh, you might want to contact the family to tell them that yourself. Both because they know you better and because Lloyd has the sensibilities of a rock. Um. Yeah. That’s all. Good afternoon.”

Kaisa sighed and dropped her head to her hands as soon as she’d pressed send. Her brain hadn’t actually registered a single thing she’d seen on that slide.

Her answer came around half an hour later - meaning she’d been right not to call - when Kaisa had actually already managed to diagnose a benign hyperplasia, write her report on it (easily the worst part of her job), and move onto the next slide. It was a couple of short messages in a row, which initially disappointed her, silly as that was. She’d sort of been hoping she’d also get an audio message back so she could at least hear Johanna’s voice. However, when she read it, she immediately decided it was better than a few seconds long recording.

Johanna (ped)

Hi, Kaisa!

Ugh, that’s frustrating to hear, but I’m sure they will understand. Thank you for letting me know, I do prefer to tell them that myself

Also thank you sooo much for checking that out and getting back to me so quickly. I truly appreciate it <3

Are you free this evening? Heard there was an italian place two blocks away and I thought we might try

Well, I might try with you, at least. I’m sure you’ve been around long enough to already have eaten there 😅

Kaisa bit back an embarrassing giggle - even if her microscope would have been her only witness - and down on her bottom lip. She’d finish looking at this slide and then she’d answer, she promised herself. It would be her first time visiting whatever place that was, and she couldn’t be more excited even if she didn’t care about the food. Though she’d never admit to Johanna that the promise of her company was the only thing strong enough to ever get her to leave her hospital-home routine.

…......

The procedure was uneventful the second time around. Not that it didn’t involve a fair bit of whining from the patient’s part, but Kaisa rather thought he was more than justified in it. Like hell she’d have allowed someone who looked like Lloyd to pierce her throat. He was a lot more cooperative than he could have been, and all in all, Edmund had been right (not that she’d ever tell him that). It seemed like Kaisa’s presence really did mean a lot to both him and his father.

Not to blow her own horn, but she kind of could see why. She definitely thought - hoped - she inspired more confidence than bloody Lloyd.

As soon as it was done, Kaisa took the slides to her lab technicians right away. They seemed to take her pleas for speed seriously, given that in almost no time at all she had the samples on top of her microscope’s stage.

No unusual architecture; the cells weren’t arranged in papillae or swirls. No enlarged nuclei, nor were they irregular, pale, or had grooves or pseudoinclusions. She searched every inch of the six slides she’d gotten and there wasn’t a single atypia, psammoma body, giant cell, hobnail cell, or anything else that might give away a papillary carcinoma. There wasn’t anything that might indicate any malignancy, truth be told. All Kaisa saw were clusters - six in her least cellular slide and fifteen in her most cellular one, thank the heavens - of perfectly normal looking cells. That, and a lot of colloid.

She breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t usual for her to get attached to cases. But she’d actually seen this patient and it was a child. She’d have been lying if she said she wasn’t hoping to find nothing. That, and she bet Johanna would also be pleased.

Foregoing her usual etiquette of not leaving her lab unless something urgent was going on, Kaisa turned off her microscope and began the path down to the paediatrics clinic. The fact that it was a cyst didn’t erase that it had been big enough to bother the patient, and that there had been small calcifications on the ultrasound. She supposed that could be a remnant of past inflammation on that area; she definitely wouldn’t know, since nobody had given her the patient’s history as per usual (though this time she wouldn’t admit it was Johanna’s fault as preferred to blame the universe for it).

Johanna would probably have to sit down with an endocrinologist to decide which would be the best course of action. Kaisa had heard that ethanol ablation [8] worked well for some of these cases, it would likely be a better option than having the kid undergo surgery. Even if that would mean having to work with Lloyd again for the procedures. Either way, whatever it was, and whatever would need to be done, it wasn’t cancer. And that was reason enough to brave the packed full corridors of the lowermost floor of the hospital to deliver the news herself.

The paediatrics clinic was by far the loudest one in the hospital. Not because of the poor children (though there was a fair bit of crying and screaming going around), but because of parents. Kaisa still remembered with terror her paediatrics rotations from her time in med school. One of them had almost made her cry.

At least the structure was uplifting, seeing as the walls were covered in drawings and all the nurses in that area had white coats embroidered with fun patterns and the doctors had decorations on their stethoscopes. They all looked genuinely alive, which was more than could be said about the workers in any other area of the hospital, really. They had the kindness of palliative care workers and the energy of emergency room physicians; Kaisa couldn’t feel more out of place if she tried.

Luckily, it didn’t take her long until she found the room in which Johanna was consulting. The door was open, so Kaisa could see her give the young girl sitting on stretcher a lollipop, meaning she was probably done there. After five minutes and a couple of words exchanged with the parent (keeping the aspirin bottle where the kid couldn’t reach was of the highest importance, apparently. Kaisa really wanted to know what the story there was), the patient and the adult walked out hand in hand, and Kaisa nodded in acknowledgement to them before walking in.

“Hey, are you free right now?” She asked with just her head stuck inside the office, immediately startling Johanna, who had been rubbing a wet wipe on her stethoscope. Kaisa laughed while the other glared at her half heartedly, and she let herself in.

“Sorry for interrupting you in the middle of your work day, I just thought I should come talk to you personally.”

Johanna hummed, putting away a box filled with flavoured tongue depressors of every colour there was. “You do that a lot.” She remarked.

By then, Kaisa had been leaning her hip against the stretcher, but her balance hadn’t ever been all that so she nearly lost it (along with all her rational thought) when she heard that.

“I- what? I thought I didn’t interrupt all that much. I’m sorry, I’ll avoid-”

Halted by a whip of Johanna’s head in her direction, she blinked when she saw Johanna frowning at her with worry.

“No, dear, you never interrupt me.” She said softly. The endearment did something weird to Kaisa’s insides which she couldn’t really explain. What was an itch in the hypogastric region [9] a symptom of? “I mean you say sorry a lot. And it’s never warranted.”

Kaisa opened her mouth, to say sorry, obviously, but caught herself before she could. Which resulted in the likely pathetic image of her standing there with wide eyes and a hanging mouth. Noticing exactly what had happened, Johanna laughed, stepping closer to her.

“It’s always good to hear from you, Kaisa. Now, what did you want to tell me about?”

Shaking her head (maybe a good waggle of her synovial fluid would do her well. Yes. That made sense), Kaisa tried to remember why she’d come down to the clinics in the first place. Oh yeah. Thyroid cyst.

“You will be pleased to hear that you guys were wrong in your papillary suspicion.” She said and watched a grin spread on Johanna’s face. “No malignant cells in sight, lots of liquid. No clue what you’ll do about the symptoms, but lo and behold-” Kaisa made her silliest dramatic voice. The atmosphere of paediatrics was contagious, apparently. “It’s not cancer.”

“Oh, Kaisa!” Taking her completely by surprise, Johanna threw herself in her arms. She was pretty sure she actually yelped, but at least her reflexes didn’t let her down and she hugged her back instead of just standing there uselessly. Her heart took to beating embarrassingly quickly, and she really hoped Johanna wouldn’t feel it.

“That is such good news! I’ll phone the parents immediately, thank you so much!”

The noise Kaisa made was hopefully a hum of ascent. Heavens knew she couldn’t manage to actually say something as complex as ‘no problem’ at the moment, busy as her brain was just trying to process the scent of apple pie and the warm softness that came with having Johanna so close. So very close. Touching her.

When the woman drew back, it was so that she could look at Kaisa’s face (blushing, no doubt) and she still held her by the elbows. To say that Kaisa felt out of her element was un understatement. She let herself wonder, briefly, if the woman reacted like this to anyone who brought her good news about her patients. She quickly decided she didn’t want to know.

“I really have no words for how grateful I am for your commitment to this case, dear. You did a lot more than you had to.”

Kaisa emitted a sound she wasn’t aware she was capable of, like her airways were constricting around something that wasn’t there. Maybe she was asthmatic and just didn’t know.

“It’s nothing.” And the way Johanna’s face was so close she could see herself in her eyes was making her forget everything else so effectively that it might as well really be nothing. She had to make a herculean effort to focus on what they were talking about. “I’ll write you the report in a couple of minutes. Just thought I should let you know already.”

Humming in delight, Johanna proved her intentions of murdering Kaisa by leaning forward and placing a kiss on her cheek. “It was much appreciated. How can I repay you?”

It was a wonder that Johanna didn’t immediately admit her, because Kaisa was certain she must look like she was going into cardiac arrest. The place where her lips had met her skin tingled, to the point where she was immensely glad that Johanna was still close enough for them to be holding each other’s arms so that Kaisa couldn’t immediately take a hand to her face in disbelief.

There was no chance she was going to be able to answer that question like a normal human being. Her brain had just given her a minus two seconds notice and fucked right off. But Johanna was nothing if not merciful, apparently, and didn’t even let the silence stretch into awkwardness before suggesting something herself.

“I’ll tell you what, Hilda has exams next week so she’ll probably be studying the whole weekend. Since that means I’ll be free, why don’t we go to that park you mentioned the other day? We could both use some fresh air, I bet.”

Kaisa nodded dumbly; that was the extent of her reaction capabilities in that moment. The other doctor just smiled, and they managed to decide they’d settle the details later over the phone. It was all Kaisa could do to put some distance between herself and the paediatrics clinic before allowing herself to fully process what had happened and grin like a lunatic.

Well. It sure would be hard to focus on cells for the rest of the day. As unlikely as that was, she’d found something even more beautiful to fall in love with.

NUMBERED NOTES:

1- Colloid is the stuff that’s inside your thyroid follicles! It’s where the hormones are produced & stored 2- FNA = Fine Needle Aspiration. Basically what Kaisa said earlier, you use a needle to collect some material from the nodule 3- It means ‘cell’, btw! Not sure how common this knowledge is, but someone who went through med school would know it, I promise. 4- When an aspiration slide is hemorrhagic, that means that there is waaay too much blood and not enough of the stuff you actually want the pathologist to see. Means it’s useless, basically :/ 5- MRSA stands for multiresistant Staphylococcus aureus! It is a. Very big problem. Hard to kill yk. 6- Meiri isn’t in this fic but if she were she’d remind Kaisa that ticks are NOT bugs. They’re arachnids :) 7- You can’t redo an FNA right away because the thyroid needs time to heal before you poke a needle through it again! 8- ok ok this is actually super interesting so hear me out. You can inject ethanol on benign thyroid cysts and that basically makes it dry out. You have to repeat the procedure maybe once or twice depending on its size, but the thing actually just. Shrinks. Just because you put alcohol in there. How cool is that?? 9- This is the best way I found to convey butterflies in your belly when you’re a nerd and avoiding your feelings

#you might think Kaisa’s characterization is leaning too heavily on her pre s2 fanfic self #but consider this:#med school is a literal villain origin story. Thank you for your attention.#sketchbookweek #fic: cellularity #my fic #verse: tgh #sketchbook ship #sketchbook ship hilda #sketchbook ship fanfic #kaisa hilda fanfic #johanna hilda fanfic

18 notes · View notes

the-hilda-librarians-wife · 5 months

Text

Sketchbook Week Day 4 - Dreaming of Bumping Into You (Chapter 1)

Summary: When Johanna is woken up in the middle of the night by a strange phone call, she knows she has to ask Kaisa what is happening. She just doesn’t know which is more concerning; whether it’s the words being said or the way her best friend sounds while she’s delivering them

Notes: Written for @sketchbookweek Day 4 - Secrets

Cw: mentions of drug/alcohol use. Nobody actually uses either, they’re just fucking stupid

Listen, with the amount of songs I make sketchbook edits to in my head, I have no idea why I decided to write fanfic inspired by Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High, but when the inspiration strikes you can’t argue with it yk

Read it on ao3

“Arch sorceress Pilqvist is a disloyal, unreasonable woman. It is beyond me how she has reached such a high standing inside our order when her skull is so thick I hardly think hurling a crystal ball at it would even hurt!”

Kaisa took a deep breath. The very woman who was being slandered right in front of her had taught her that filling your lungs with air was the best thing you could do when you wanted to lash out. Not that it made the anger go away, not at all. But at least it made it so one couldn't get any impulsive words out, at least not until after one big exhale. After which you could always inhale again and stop yourself from getting cursed, punched, fired, or in her current case, probably all at once.

“Tell me again how you think insulting my mentor is going to make me help you, Ingrid.”

Her voice had been calm. Slow. The appropriate tone for a library, which, even though her boss seemed to have forgotten, they were inside at the moment. Yet the witch immediately looked angry, the red that had been steadily rising on her neck reaching her sharp cheekbones.

“You must!” She shot, glaring at how Kaisa kept her demeanour purposefully disinterested, eyelids heavy and shoulders slumped over the library cart she was walking around with for reshelving purposes. Ingrid didn’t quite like how the librarian made her follow around while she did her duty either, but that was their bad for only hiring one person for that entire building. “Matilda is the only witch who ever managed to create a spell like that with so little side effects. With the amount of trolls walking around town these days, we need it more than ever! Witchkind’s safety is at stake!”

The librarian rolled her eyes, though she didn’t think the other witch saw it. Recent… changes brought to the town by Frida and her friends had made it increasingly easy to tell apart the bigoted ones amongst them all. No matter how little interest trolls seemed to have on witchcraft and its practitioners, there were still some witches who insisted that just because their magics didn’t mix, that they shouldn’t coexist.

Which was just as bullshit as it sounded.

The Committee had called upon Tildy one day, and she’d even showed up much to everyone’s surprise. They’d explained their worries, which meant that five minutes in it wasn’t a meeting anymore, but a sass session for the older woman to make them realise how stupid they sounded. They didn’t, of course, which only meant Tildy refused to give them her prized protection spell and they didn’t give up on their quest to secure it. Leaving Kaisa in her current position.

“It’s her spell.” Kaisa said as she parked her cart between two shelves and began looking for the correct place for an eighteenth century poetry book. Her opinions on the matter were exactly like her former master’s, of course. She hadn’t witnessed Hilda show off her shifting powers like a party trick when she dined at her house just to turn around and say that trolls were dangerous. But if Tildy hadn’t come through to them, great at turning people to her side as she was, then Kaisa wasn’t going to be the one to make them see the other side of things. Besides, she was tired. The last thing she wanted was to begin a moral argument in the final leg of her already tiring work day.

There was also the issue that she didn’t actually know that spell, but hey, she didn’t need to admit that to the people that employed her, did she?

“I’m not going to spill it if she didn’t want you to have it. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to look somewhere else.” She finished, not sorry in the least but trying to keep some semblance of politeness.

Ingrid twisted her lips like she’d tasted something sour. The truth, probably. Or her own stupidity. She ran a hand through her short blonde hair to make it fall back into place.

“Hm. Lineage secret, is it?”

Nah. It was a protection spell. Tildy would probably give it to anyone who asked her nicely, if they didn’t want it for idiotic and prejudiced reasons. She’d likely made Kaisa learn it at some point, but gods knew she’d long since forgotten it.

“Yes.” She lied. “Of the utmost secrecy.”

Ingrid hummed again, and Kaisa thought she got a chill in her spine when she did so. It got draughty in the library during that time of the day, she supposed. “I see.” She said in a whisper. “I suppose I’ll just have to find it… someplace else.”

The other woman walked away, all of Kaisa’s discomfort disappearing alongside her. She breathed a sigh of relief at no longer having Ingrid’s analysing stare locked on her face like it had been for the entire conversation, finally free to listen to her songs as she worked.

For some reason, though, she still felt eyes on her all the while until she finished for the day. No matter how many times she looked behind herself, she still saw nothing, so she figured it must be the lingering unease at having been so close to one of the Committee’s most unpleasant witches (she and her sister were almost tied in Kaisa’s listing, but Abigail still took the crown for that whole Void business). Kaisa let the music blast through her headphones, getting lost in it as an antidote for those moments of stress and whispering along to the lyrics.

”The mirror’s image tells me it’s home time…”

…......

A couple years before, when Hilda (whose name she did not know at the time, of course, but a blue haired girl is hard to miss even at such a large library) began showing up to ask for books and advice, so did her mother. It took them an embarrassingly long time to realise that Kaisa was the librarian who Hilda always talked about and that Johanna was the mother the girl mentioned when they were together, but once they did, it took the two women no time to bond over their fondness for the girl and her group of friends, over their routines, their tastes and struggles. After Johanna had made her promise to never again give her daughter any dangerous magical devices, that was.

They had become, at the very least, friends. And Kaisa thought that with no small amount of weight to that statement, because she really couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so sure she could call someone that. But there was a line, you see. Most friendships didn’t have that line, that boundary just within eyesight that they were sure that once it was crossed, it would no longer be a platonic friendship but a romance. Most friendships didn’t have it, because when friends trusted that that’s what they were, and that was how they would be free to express the extent of their love to its fullest, then all you can see, all around you, is that friendship, as far as you can reach.

Not them, though. Both of them were very aware of that border, well aware that their love for one another was extremely capable of taking another shape, one that would actually let them breathe freely and satiate the longing inside them.

There was a line. They were aware of the line. And they kept tip-toeing on it and jumping back each time. Scared of what would happen if they crossed it. Scared of what the other would think.

Personally, Kaisa would love to rip the blasted line out of the ground and use it as something more interesting. An aisle for one of them to walk towards the other on, for example. She’d had quite enough of catching herself sighing yearningly at the window on sunny days and squealing when her phone pinged with a message from her. And that was to say nothing of the embarrassing (-ly frequent) daydreams. She felt she’d had quite enough of pining being a woman almost in her thirties.

The thing was, taking the first step wasn’t something Kaisa was willing to do. Not right now, at least. Johanna might only be a couple of years older than her, but she felt like the woman was aeons ahead of her. She was mature and well resolved, independent and capable of taking care of herself, her daughter, and however many magical creatures there currently were in her house. How could Kaisa, in all sincerity, offer herself up for a woman like that in her current state, knowing she’d end up as nothing more than another source of trouble for her?

No. Kaisa was willing to wait. She rather thought Johanna was too, judging by how that line kept being played with. They’d get to crossing it, well and properly. But first, she wanted to get a little closer to being the person she thought Johanna deserved. A little braver. A little more put together. A little less worried about what people who didn’t give a single damn about her well being thought of her. And she was making progress, she really was. But until then, that uneasy friendship would be more than enough. She’d take it and be grateful it was even being offered, making sure to show her appreciation for Johanna’s presence in her life every single day.

Which was why when the woman showed up at the library that morning, wringing her hands together in anxiety and with a frown between her eyebrows, Kaisa immediately dropped what she’d been doing to go talk to her.

“Hey, Anna, good morning.” She greeted in a soft tone of voice, making her startle slightly upon noticing Kaisa’s presence. The librarian had approached her from behind, but even so she thought the behaviour was slightly off. She was never this jumpy, was she? “Everything alright?”

There were a couple of moments when Kaisa genuinely wondered if she was talking to the wrong person. Maybe there was some bizarrely accurate Johanna lookalike in town now and she just hadn’t been aware. The point was, a full twenty seconds must have passed in which Johanna said and did nothing other than stare at Kaisa with that same frown she’d walked in with.

“Johanna?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” She answered at last, but her voice didn’t sound at all certain. “I’m… it’s alright. Thank you for asking. But what about you?”

Kaisa quirked an eyebrow. As soon as Johanna had been broken out of her unexpected stupor, she’d begun leading them to the library’s break room, where the workers could go should they need some water, coffee, or just to sit down and not to interact with people for a bit. So essentially Kaisa’s personal personal winding down and chugging coffee corner. They’d been there many times before, chatting until after the library’s closing hours about anything at all. However, when Kaisa was about to sit down on one of the ancient armchairs, she turned back to see that Johanna was still standing by the doorway, looking at her feet and shifting her weight between them.

“Is it okay if we stay out here?”

Her lifted eyebrow melted into a frown as Kaisa walked out of the break room again.

“Well, sure we can, but what’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Johanna said, too quickly. “We’re okay, I promise. I just popped by to ask you if you were fine.”

Kaisa’s heart did a flip inside her chest. Which was very uncomfortable, considering a structure tied to so many vases wasn’t supposed to be moving around much at all. The words sounded reassuring, but they hit her as anything but. When she saw Johanna walk in like that, she’d assumed something had happened and that she could help, even if only by listening to her. Now the thought at the forefront of her mind was that she’d messed up somehow. Because she hadn’t even considered that they might not be fine, but now she sure as hell was doing it.

“What, me? Sure I am.” She closed the break room door behind herself, figuring that if the idea of going in there made Johanna uncomfortable she should eliminate the possibility altogether. “I mean, I am normal. I woke up at the normal time and came to my normal job that I do every day. Little pissed that I just had to ask a group of teenagers to be quiet, but that’s it. I’m not sure I understand your question.”

Johanna still wouldn’t look at her, which was off putting. Kaisa was the one who liked to look away when they talked, only because it made it easier for her to concentrate on the conversation, but she could always feel Johanna’s eyes on her. This time, Kaisa actively tried to catch her gaze, wondering if looking at her eyes would give her any explanations to the way she was acting, but without success.

The woman cleared her throat. “It’s just… last night, when you called me. You sounded a little… out of it. And I wanted to check that you were fine and safe.”

Kaisa blinked. Stared at her. Continued staring at her until Johanna finally looked at her face and saw her own confusion reflected back. She looked a little embarrassed, a light pink colour painting her cheeks and the bridge of her nose.

“I didn’t call you.”

“What?”

“Johanna, I didn’t call you. As far as I’m concerned, the last time we talked was when we went to the bake shop two days ago. When was this call?”

Now, the librarian wasn’t trying to gaslight her. She didn’t think Johanna was crazy, much less a liar. But neither was Kaisa an amnesiac, so she’d probably remember calling the woman she was head over heels for; there had to be a logical explanation for this.

“Roughly at three in the morning, I think.” Johanna answered, looking uncertain in the face of Kaisa’s conviction even though she sounded actually sure of the time she was informing. Kaisa snorted.

“Well, I have no idea who that was, but I can assure you you’re not looking at them.”

“But it was your voice.”

“Anna, I go to sleep at nine thirty and wake up at six. I do that religiously, because otherwise I become a massive bitch come morning.”

“Well-” Johanna looked like she was getting uncomfortable in a different way now, being put in the spot like that. Kaisa softened. She’d assumed that assuring her that she wasn’t responsible for whatever that was would make the situation easier on her. But come think of it, being phoned by a stranger that could pass as one of your closest friends couldn’t be too soothing either. “I thought you might not remember because, well, you sounded-”

Kaisa nodded for her to go on once she looked insecure about whether she should finish that sentence. Johanna did so with a whisper.

“Affected?”

Johanna looked at her expectantly, making Kaisa feel bad that she could offer her nothing other than even more confusion. She’d need to make herself more clear if she wanted anything out of the witch.

“Sorry, affected by…?”

“Well-” Johanna rubbed her neck, looking around them, and the ceiling, down again. Everywhere but at Kaisa. “I don’t know. Alcohol. Drugs. Something like that. Not that I’m judging!” She put her hands in front of herself immediately, and if she took the chance to really take in Kaisa’s face she’d see how that possibility was even weirder to her than it was to Johanna. “But I was just worried about how you might be. So. Yeah.”

Kaisa wanted to be helpful. She really did. But Johanna had just asked someone whose ideas of reckless behaviour ranged from waking up the dead to skipping dinner to eat jorts, and nowhere in that spectrum was partying hard and using any sort of substance. It was hard to even take her worry over her seriously, which was a shame, since under any other circumstances Kaisa would have been over the moon with such a treatment.

“Johanna. Look at me.” She did. “Under what circumstances can you imagine me getting high at three a.m.?”

It was her right arm instead of her neck that she rubbed in anxiety this time. “Well, none, but-”

They stared at each other, Johanna with an anxious look and Kaisa with a compassionate one. Eventually, she sighed.

“You’re right. It must have been a dream.” Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, gosh, this is so embarrassing. I’m sorry, Kaisa.”

Her friend laughed, glad that apparently there wasn’t even a problem to be solved. Maybe now they could have their coffee and some regular chatting.

“Don’t stress about it. I should be flattered you’re dreaming about me.”

Kaisa walked back into the break room, heading straight to the coffee machine to brew a new batch. In doing so, she failed to notice how Johanna still lingered by the doorframe, watching her for any signs of untruthfulness or discomfort.

Through gritted teeth, the woman whispered to her own ears only. “You have no idea…”

…......

Kaisa got deja vu often. She supposed it was a mix of her brain loving to make associations and the fact that all witches had some future telling abilities, even if hers were quite weak, so she supposed there were some things in her life that she had seen before, even if at the back of her mind, a simple suggestion made by that more magical part of her consciousness.

That particular image, however, she was very sure she had seen before, and when, and where. It had been at that same place, at the same time, the very day before.

This morning, however, when Johanna spotted her, she clutched her purse strap closer to herself, making Kaisa halt her approach. She only ever did that when she was scared.

Was she scared of… Kaisa?

The thought hit her like a knife between her shoulder blades, but she still put on a smile for her. She didn’t get any closer, though. It was best to let Johanna approach her.

She didn’t. She stood there, two metres away like she was talking to a stranger. The knife twisted inside her.

“It happened again.” She said, sounding surer than she had the day before. “I was awake. I checked. Nothing happened when I pinched myself and my fingers and clocks looked normal. I wrote a note saying it was real and it was still there when I woke up this morning.”

Kaisa sighed. “Anna, I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t call you. I certainly didn’t get drunk, or high. It must have been a prank of some sort.”

Johanna’s mouth twisted, like she was trying to bite something back. “Yes. It must have been.”

The witch dared to take a step forward; only one, though, because Johanna immediately tensed. Someone else might not have noticed it, but Kaisa couldn’t not.

“Are you… angry at me, Anna?”

Her voice was harsher than Kaisa had ever heard it before when she answered. “No. Why would I be angry at you for something you didn’t do?”

“I have no idea, but you sure as hell sound like it right now.”

“Why do you look tired?” Johanna snapped, shoulders squared back though the displeasure at acting like that was written clearly on her face. Kaisa gaped.

“Because I am borderline anaemic and wake up every day at six, maybe? You can’t really be mad at me right now, Anna. I know it must be weird to be prank called in the middle of the night and everything, not to mention whatever the hell they’re telling you to get you this worked up, but I didn’t do anything!”

Her stare grew harder, those brown eyes suddenly reminding her solid mountains, peaks so high one couldn’t ever hope to reach. But then moisture began to gather at the corners, and Johanna looked down quickly. Just not quickly enough for Kaisa to not have seen it.

“You never do, do you?” She whispered and walked quickly out of the library, leaving a befuddled librarian behind herself.

…......

One of the things Johanna missed the most about living out in the wilderness was the quiet. Since they’d moved to Trolberg, she’d hardly ever managed to have a single night’s sleep that was as peaceful as when the only sounds that could be heard during the night were of the owls and cicadas, the forest’s own little lullaby for its only two human inhabitants to hear. It wasn’t like Trolberg was some big metropolis where they were subjected to the noise of traffic jams and drunken yelling in the early hours of the morning, of course. But it wasn’t the same. There was always an odd motorcycle, or the footsteps of their upstairs neighbour, the sound of a television when someone in their building turned to it after having trouble sleeping.

And, for the past two nights, there had been the blasted ringing of their landline.

The first time, she’d found it beyond weird. Nobody ever called them at that time of the day (well, night). But the phone would have kept ringing had she not picked up, and she didn’t want it to disturb Hilda. So Johanna had dragged herself out of bed, mumbling and rubbing at her eyes, and walked to the kitchen to simply tell whoever was at the other side of the line that they had the wrong number and hang up.

It didn’t go like that, however. Because as soon as her ear was on the speaker, a voice she knew slurred her name.

“Kaisa?!” She’d whispered with urgency, figuring from the time of the call and from her clearly subdued voice that something was wrong. “What’s the matter?”

She hadn’t answered for a couple of seconds, but Johanna knew she was still there. She could hear her breathing.

“I’m in love with you.” Kaisa sighed eventually, in a dreamy voice. “That’s the matter.”

Since the whole point of picking that call at all was not waking Hilda up, Johanna had to make a lot of effort to be silent when she choked on air at that statement. Her face heated up immediately and she gripped the phone’s handle, looking around herself to make sure there was no one near and listening. As if that would help. If either Tontu or Alfur really wanted to listen in, there would really be nothing she’d be able to do about it.

That was not how she’d imagined this conversation going.

“What?” She whispered into the microphone. “Kaisa, that’s lovely-” She mentally slapped herself. What kind of reaction to ‘I’m in love with you’ was that? Kaisa deserved better. But then, Johanna had also thought she deserved at least a face to face confession, though she should probably consider herself lucky to be getting one at all. “- but why are you telling me this right now?”

“I can’t tell you this.” Kaisa continued, which Johanna hardly thought could be considered an answer to her question. Her voice was distant, the cadence unlike it had been in any of the times they’d been together previously. Still, Johanna knew it to be her voice. She’d recognize it anywhere. “I can’t tell you that I want you close at all times. I can’t tell you that you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. I can’t even tell you I want to know everything about you. Because I’m not… not ready. You deserve someone better than me, and I’m not ready.”

Her tone wasn’t emotional. For all that she was saying, she didn’t sound like she was making a confession, but like she was listing facts. Johanna was sure her face must be completely red at that point, her heart picking up a speed she wasn’t entirely sure was healthy. She still had just enough reason to be able to tell that none of that sounded normal.

“Kaisa, love, tell me what’s going on.” She urged. They’d hung out not a full 48 hours before. Kaisa had been acting normally around her and showing no signs of wanting to confess an avalanche of deeply buried feelings. Something had to have happened.

“I know it’s selfish of me, but I want to be with you anyway.” Another string of words that sounded like they barely had any thought given to them as they were pushed out of Kaisa’s mouth. It wasn’t an answer. The witch had probably not even heard her. “I want to wake up with you and cook with you and come home to you at the end of the day-”

Oh, gods.

“I want to be someone you can call yours-”

Kaisa was high, wasn’t she?

“Kaisa, where are you?” Johanna attempted once more, even though the confessions didn’t stop coming from the other end of the line. “Do you need to be picked up? Are you safe? Are you home?”

Nothing. Well, not nothing. A lot, really, but only a lot of sappy feelings that had nothing to do with Kaisa’s current state at all.

It must have gone on for half an hour. Johanna didn’t know how to make her stop, and figured that at least she knew Kaisa was fine as long as she was speaking to her on her phone. There was of course also the fact that she’d waited for so long to hear those things that she was too selfish to hang up now, even if these were far from the circumstances she would have preferred. After she’d seemed to run out of things to say, Kaisa asked in just as distant of a voice.

“What do you think?”

Johanna took a deep breath. She’d sat down on the floor at some point, the landline’s cable extended to allow her to do so.

“I think you need to rest, my dear.” She uttered softly, still worried. “We can talk about it when you’re better.”

The line went silent. Kaisa had hung up.

Johanna still sat there, cradling the phone’s handle and looking straight ahead with an unfocused case for a few more minutes. She had no idea how to process what had just happened. Kaisa had just said everything Johanna could have asked for in her most self centred fantasies, and more. But she didn’t feel ecstatic like she should. She felt hollow. Because of the context, she felt foolish, even. That night, she’d gone to bed and her only thought had been ‘what now?’

But then she’d showed up at the library, and Kaisa had acted exactly as she would have any other day. Like nothing had happened. Like she hadn’t gotten high as a kite and declared her undying love in the dead of night. And she’d been so sure of it too, without any signs of any unusual activities the night before, even. Johanna had let herself be convinced it was only a dream. That would have made sense, right? Only in dreams did people’s crushes confess to them like they were writing a love letter. In Johanna’s case, only in dreams did people confess to her at all. She should have known better.

Except it had happened again the night after that. Johanna had made sure to check everything that could give away that she was dreaming, but everything around her looked perfectly… real. Except for Kaisa. Her voice drifting from the phone, saying how much she craved to have her near, couldn’t possibly belong to reality. And yet, it did.

Not that any of it had helped matters when she’d come to talk to Kaisa about it. Depending on what substance she’d been on, it would have made sense for her to forget what had happened. That wasn’t the issue here; had it all been handled differently, Johanna should have been happy to wait for as long as the witch needed for her to actually admit her feelings. But all she’d been met with was vehement denial. Maybe she was ashamed, but going so far as to imply that Johanna was wrong, or lying? Implying that it could be a random prankster had her at the end of her rope. As if Johanna could ever mistake Kaisa’s voice for anyone else’s. At that point it was as entangled in her mind as the sounds of the forest or of her pencil on sheets of paper.

All of that only allowed her to arrive at one conclusion. That it was deliberate.

For the third night straight, Johanna forced her legs to take her to the kitchen. Her head hurt; it had been difficult to fall asleep again after the calls, leaving her exhausted physically as well as emotionally. She hoped it would be something different this time. That maybe Kaisa had come to her senses and would admit that she was drunk, or high, or just plain sorry.

She hoped for anything other than what she got.

“I’ve fallen for you harder than I thought I could. I didn’t know I could like someone this much.”

Johanna groaned. Groaned. Because somehow her biggest dream had turned into a nightmare in the matter of three days. Was loving her such an embarrassing thing that it could only be mentioned in the dead of night? No, that wouldn’t make sense. Kaisa would at least act coy if that was the case, give her the slightest indication that she did mean what she’d said or that she even remembered what she’d said. For her to sound like that, to say all that, and to vehemently deny it only left Johanna with one conclusion.

For two nights, she’d withstood that. It had to be some sort of joke, and a cruel one at that. To force her to hear everything she wanted, only to see that it changed nothing come daylight. It was torture. And it was clever. Clever because it hit exactly where it hurt, because it would drive Johanna insane while leaving Kaisa safe in her bubble of plausible deniability. All that was left to assume was that Kaisa had actually found out that Johanna had feelings for her and was using it to make fun of her. Maybe she wouldn’t do it when she had full control of herself, but apparently whatever she was using to make her sound like that made the allure of the prank too sweet for her. And then, come morning, she must remember it and deny ever using anything at all, either because she knew what she was capable of under the influence or because she was well aware of the game she was playing and wanted to continue at it.

It was a joke, and Johanna was at the butt of it. She had to remind herself of this. Because otherwise, she’d never have been able to finally, on that third night, hang up on Kaisa while she uttered the most lovely words Johanna had ever heard.

…......

Everything had changed since the last time they’d talked. Johanna didn’t invite her out anymore. She didn’t stop by the library to see her ‘just because’. She didn’t go anywhere Kaisa frequented at all, at least not while she was there. She didn’t even answer her texts or pick up her phone. And the worst part was, Kaisa didn’t even know what she’d done. She knew she needn’t worry for the other woman, since the trio was at the library often and that gave Kaisa a chance to ask Hilda about her mother. Given that the girl had taken to glaring at her before saying Johanna was fine, thank you very much, she was left to believe she must have screwed up somehow, even if she couldn’t figure it out.

She’d resisted all of two weeks under these circumstances before she’d caved. Her mind screamed at her that she was being stupid all the while her feet were taking her to the apartment complex where she’d spent so many enjoyable evenings drinking tea and giggling over nothing, but she ignored it. Johanna should be the one to reach out to her and tell her what she’d done to deserve being ghosted like that, should look at her in the eyes and tell her how Kaisa could be better for her. But she hadn’t done so, and Kaisa couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted her best friend. And if that meant swallowing her fear and her pride, well. She’d been the one to screw up in the first place, hadn’t she?

Probably.

At least she’d resisted the urge to buy flowers before heading there. The art of toeing the blasted line lied at the mixed messages peppered in every gesture that could be interpreted as romantic, and she rather didn’t think there’d be anything mixed or up to interpretation about giving another woman a bouquet of white roses.

Kaisa knocked on her door, knowing that the woman must be home since it was still early enough for her to have interrupted her self-imposed work hours. She’d managed to sneak away from the library earlier than usual precisely for that reason, even if Johanna didn’t go out much either way. Her voice came from the other side, a soft ‘coming!’ muffled by the wall between them. When the door was opened. Johanna was wearing a carefully crafted serene expression. Which melted away immediately at the sight of Kaisa.

To the witch’s absolute horror, Johanna stepped away from her.

“Oh.” She breathed, her voice guarded. “It’s you.”

What the hell is that supposed to mean?, she wanted to scream. Instead, she frowned and nodded. “Yes. Hi, Anna.”

“What do you want?” Johanna snapped, crossing her arms. She didn’t sound or look pissed, though, only sad and even scared as she looked at Kaisa’s feet rather than her face. And tired. Very tired.

So was Kaisa, if she was honest. She hadn’t woken up feeling truly rested in weeks.

“Well-” Kaisa struggled for something to say. Johanna had always been the more well spoken between the two of them. She’d truly thought that she’d arrive here and only have to listen to her explain what was going on. Having to actually voice anything hadn’t been part of her plan. “Isn’t it obvious?”

The woman’s face snapped to her at that, anger in her eyes. Kaisa had never seen her like this. But then, she supposed, she’d never hurt the woman before either.

“If you’re going to tell me the same thing as the last times, just give up.” She stated, making sure her shoulders were set back, voice a lot less unwavering than she would have liked. “I’m not going to let you treat me like this.”

Kaisa gaped at her. “Wait.” She lifted a hand, suddenly feeling anger rise up in her own chest. “This is still about the prank calls you’ve been getting?”

No matter how strongly Kaisa felt she was the one who should be offended here, Johanna’s furrowed brows and pursed lips told her very clearly how affronted she was that Kaisa would have the gall to react the way she did.

“Stop it. I won’t hear you out if you’re only going to lie either. You should be going.”

“Yes, I really should, shouldn’t I?” Kaisa snapped, surprising both of them with the fire in her voice. She truly wasn’t able to help it in the face of Johanna’s coldness. For her friend - and calling her that now felt like a mockery to what they had - to toss her away like that without even hearing her out, she could only have been looking for a reason to fight with her. Just waiting for an excuse to get rid of the witch. Well, Kaisa wasn’t about to get in her way.

She turned her back to her and walked back the way she came with all the certainty she didn’t feel, letting the hurt drive her away. She’d thought Johanna was the better one between the two of them. She thought that she’d at least have been given a reason, an explanation, or a proper conversation instead of just being accused over nothing for the woman to justify throwing their friendship away to herself. Didn’t matter, though. Not anymore.

The sound of her shoes on the building’s staircase was loud as she stomped away. Loud enough to drown out the sound of Johanna’s sniffles.

…......

The phone rang, like it always did, at three in the morning. The headache that had been her companion for many days now screamed at the sound. Johanna was already awake, of course. Her body had developed some sort of pavlovian response and she now always woke up exactly at 2:55 a.m., anxious about her daughter being startled out of her slumber by the ringing.

She got up from the couch wearily, and picked it up. After a couple of seconds of looking at it, she actually brought it to her ears. After the third time, she’d taken to leaving it on the counter for about half an hour, before placing it back onto the hook. It wasn’t like Kaisa was ever interested in what she had to say, anyway, so it didn’t really matter, and Johanna was afraid she’d ring again if she just hung up on her. But she’d actually showed up that afternoon. Hadn’t acknowledged what she’d been doing, sure, hadn’t apologised or offered a semblance of an explanation. She’d even yelled at her, considering the standard low volume that her voice usually had. But maybe that meant she was willing to rethink, willing to maybe take a step back and undo this mess. Maybe she’d come to her senses at last, maybe she’d stopped using whatever had been making her act like that.

With foolish hope, Johanna dared to listen to her voice one last time.

“Hi, Johanna.” Said the dreamy, far away voice. So not sober, then. “I love you. Every time you smile at me I feel like I’m flying-”

She wanted to scream. Nothing had changed. Nothing would change. And Johanna was exhausted, from this dance, from this heartbreak, from not knowing when was the last time she had slept peacefully without being woken up by this blatant and cruel ridicule.

She listened. Johanna actually was pathetic enough to listen to twenty more minutes of Kaisa saying exactly how she felt every time they were together, because she wasn’t sure she’d ever hear that voice again. And when she could finally bring herself to, she put the phone handle on the kitchen counter, and opened one of the kitchen drawers.

The scissors were exactly where she always left them. They were only ever used to open up food packages, but that didn’t matter. They managed to cut the landline’s cable just fine.

…......

It had been a long time coming. Truly, what had led her to believe a woman as lovely as Johanna would want to give her the time of the day? Maybe she’d enjoyed it for a couple of months. She might have only been doing it to be charitable, making an awkward loner like Kaisa feel like she had someone to rely on. But it hadn’t lasted, because how could it? Kaisa was who she was, and nobody could stand her for long. Eventually, people realised they couldn’t change her. They realised she was too annoying, too boring, too offputting to stand. And if Johanna had chosen that way to break them off, did she really have the right to be angry? She’d probably been giving her signs she didn’t want Kaisa nearby for ages, but Kaisa never took a hint, did she?

It made sense, now. Johanna didn’t blush when Kaisa complimented her because she liked it. It was because she made her uncomfortable. Her eyes didn’t widen when Kaisa asked her out because she was pleased. She’d merely been caught without an excuse to refuse. She didn’t tease Kaisa about her quirks because she found them charming. They were either attempts at getting her to change her habits or straight up jabs, hidden behind sweet words and a honeyed voice.

There was no line. There had never been a line. Kaisa was just delusional and pushing for something she’d never have. Kaisa was unlovable. She knew she was unlovable, and had accepted that a long time ago. It was her own fault for letting gentle touches and soft spoken affirmations convince her otherwise, her own fault for being so utterly incapable of making alright decisions, her own fault for only ever having bad ideas.

Gods, she was drained.

#Being a Gomens and ofmd fan means I am now traumatized by gays who are in different stages of noticing and dealing with their feelings #and refusing to talk about it.#Angst day in sketchbook week means I get to get it out of my system <3 #sketchbookweek #sketchbook ship #sketchbook ship hilda #sketchbook ship fanfic #kaisa hilda fanfic #johanna hilda fanfic #cw: drugs #cw: alcohol #my fic #fic: dobiy

11 notes · View notes