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crossing_lostrpClarice was nursing a slight hangover by the time she shuffled her way through the boarding tube and into Commercial Class. Last night’s would-be date had bombed--like the other two she had attempted during her trip to Sydney. It wasn’t even for a good reason; but it was the same reason every single time. Just like back home.
When they found out what she did, they were fascinated. When they found out that she took it seriously, and would never be comfortable in a non-front-lines profession, they were troubled. When they got troubled, they either ended the date early, or drank some more and asked more questions. What about when she got married? Would she give it up then? What about when kids came? What about then? When potential one-night stands turned into a Spanish Inquisition about her life and career, and then degenerated into snide and dismissive comments...it was far better to go up to her hotel room alone no matter how hard-up she was. Clarice didn’t settle. So she got to be lonely a lot.
Men outside her field couldn’t handle her career because they saw a divide between law enforcement and civilians that somehow bled over into their private lives. To them, she was a “cop” and thus “other” and probably suspect. Men inside her field were usually more conservative than their civilian counterparts, and didn’t like the idea of a teeny li’l woman competing with them. Those who tried--and there had been an obnoxious many for about her first year--seemed primarily concerned with “taming” her. Both sides wanted her to shed her degrees and her qualifications and everything she’d done to get through Quantico, and ignore her own principles, family tradition and the kind of work she’d been born for, in order to go do something “safer” and more “womanly”. You couldn’t be a lady and a cop at once, as far as men seemed to be concerned. Of course...she could have been just spectacularly unlucky. Either way, she felt kind of screwed at the moment.
The last one had ended especially badly; she had felt sorry for herself up in her room and drunk too much from the in-room wetbar. Her dreams had been full of darkness and the smell of damp earth, corpses, and tannic acid. She had woken shaking again, and held herself, and then stared at the empty patch of moonlit blankets beside her, wondering in a moment of weakness whether all this crap she went through was worth it.
Maybe she should lie about her job next vacation--or just not tell people. But in the end...that would backfire.
/At least it would have gotten me a date to the damn opera, though,/ she thought bitterly as she lugged her bag down the aisle. She had the book she had been reading--Moreno’s /Arguing Euthanasia/, nearly finished thanks to her partial insomnia, in one hand. She was almost to her seat when some beefy blond asshole came shoving past her on his way to his. The book, of course, went sailing into the air. “Dammit!” She watched in horror as it went right past the ear of a thin dark-haired man in a seat ahead of her, bouncing off the chairback and landing unceremoniously at his feet.
This was definitely not her year.
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[Methos] "Good death" (tag Clarice)
Date: 2006-01-18 08:53 pm (UTC)Truth be told, he hadn't examined the modern case for and against euthanasia in a long time. After five millenia his thoughts on the issue were fully-fleshed and (hopefully) immutable. Then again he'd thought that back in the days of the Horsemen too, but at that time his beliefs had been heavily skewed by the insanity and bloodlust Kronos had encouraged in all of them. Mortals would die sooner or later, so why not give them a helping hand? Standards of living had been extremely primitive in the Bronze Age, full of pain and starvation, but they had been wrong nonetheless - and it wasn't like any of them had entertained such self-righteous thoughts at the time. Their reign had been about terror, intimidation and greed.
"Good death," Methos commented quietly, drawing the woman's gaze once more. He shifted in his seat so he faced her across the aisle, carefully concealing his inner thoughts. "That's what the word meant in ancient Greek - or thereabouts. Eu is 'good' and Thanatos.." I.. " - was the personification of death."
He stuck out a hand, hoping to meet her halfway. The reading material might be a little heavy, but talking to someone might actually make the flight pass more quickly. "Adam Pierson."
[Clarice] "Good death" (tag Methos)
Date: 2006-01-18 09:00 pm (UTC)"Ah don't know if there's such a thing as a good death," she admitted as she sat back. "Though I think sometimes killin' someone quick does clearly qualify as the lesser of two evils. Especially when it's what they want."
Had Gumb wanted to die? Perhaps he had. She winced a little, thinking of it. "Not bein' a medical doctor, I can't comment on the mechanics of it. I guess it comes down to whether allowing prolonged suffering is worse than killin' someone with their permission. I don't think it is...but something like that's really situational. Like cops knowing when they have to shoot to kill."
...woops. That had slipped out a bit too easily.
[Methos] "Good death" (tag Clarice)
Date: 2006-01-19 12:24 am (UTC)"Circumstances can mean a lot, however hindsight is always 20/20," Methos observed wryly. "There is very little in life that we don't second-guess, no matter how mundane, and only a sociopath wouldn't give such an act due consideration both before an after."
He looked down at his armrest and wondered how a slight young woman like this had gotten to the point where she needed to examine the issue so thoroughly. She had mentioned reading other books on the subject after all, and the reference to Hell followed by the policeman's dilemma seemed to indicate more than an academic familiarity with the issues.
"I have had some medical training and can assure you that a physician's task is not made easier because they have longer to consider their options." Methos looked up and met her forthright gaze head-on. "When a patient is terminally ill and has said his or her goodbyes, yet is still in pain and might remain so for days, weeks, even months - what should we do? Sedation can only go so far, and prolonging life in such a case can harm those left behind just as much as the patient. But a doctor is sworn to preserve and protect life, as are law enforcement officers."
[Clarice] "Good death" (tag Methos)
Date: 2006-01-19 06:50 pm (UTC)He was interesting. He didn't mind talking about something real, something controversial and visceral, straight off the bat. Clarice didn't like small talk; it had always struck her as a waste of time. Pity I should have to meet him on the ride home, she thought with an ironic twist of the lips.
"You'll have to excuse me for being a bit fixed on it," she laughed a little self-consciously. "I had a conversation with my boss on the term before leaving, and it's been buggin' me ever since. We could talk opera, instead."
[Methos] "Good death" (tag Clarice)
Date: 2006-01-20 05:01 pm (UTC)A stewardess brushed between them, checking that all the lockers were properly closed before take-off. An announcement stating that the plane would be manoeuvring onto the tarmac etc etc came over the tannoy. Methos shrugged apologetically until it was over - there was no point in fighting for volume with such a long journey ahead.
"So," he continued, his curiosity about this young woman's story peaking his interest. "In your study of euthanasia, do you think there's much difference between a mercy killing and assisted suicide?"
[Clarice] "Good death" (tag Methos)
Date: 2006-01-20 06:29 pm (UTC)And it hurt like hell to watch, she thought with a shuddering breath. "You're making the decision for them. When you have to do that for a human, their is a question of their will as well as their welfare. Which, as anybody observant knows, don't always coincide. A perfectly healthy man may go to a doctor and demand assisted suicide out of despair; said doctor is pretty much obliged not to comply. A terminally ill person may demand that they be kept on and on, in suffering, comatose, for as long as life support will sustain them. Legality may tie the doctor's hands, but what does his oath say? These are hard, hard questions. The person not prepared to face them squarely can't possibly be prepared to engage in that kind of work.
"By comparison, assisted suicide is fairly straightforward. Will and welfare coincide fairly closely. The patient wants it, and the doctor's determined that denying him or her that is essentially countenancing torture. Handled carefully, it's pretty clearly the right choice, in my opinion anyway. It still scares the hell out of people, though. You can't help but be a little troubled by it. Probably because so many people think this life is all there is."
She trailed off as they taxied out for landing, staring out over the tarmac. Wondering how many of those ethical judgments applied to suicide-by-cop.
[Methos] "Good death" (tag Clarice)
Date: 2006-01-22 01:53 am (UTC)Clarice's earlier comment about cops who shot to kill came back full force and he wondered whether he'd just joined the dots she was so obviously trying to hide. Interesting.
"There are at least two forms of assisted suicide though," Methos said consideringly, trying to phrase his reply just-so. "The usual scenario is a terminally ill person who wishes to die with dignity, but lacks the means to commit the act him or herself - but their wish is unequivocal and clearly stated. Others, however, may not be able to admit what they are looking for even to themselves - so they place the burden of their death upon the shoulders of another, often in such a way that the chosen executioner is forced to perform an act they would never accept under normal circumstances."
The memory of Connor Macleod's decision to ask Duncan to take his head ambushed Methos with a vengeance then, an act that ran contrary to every survival-obsessed bone in his body. If that wasn't assisted suicide he didn't know what was, but at least they'd gone to the trouble of talking about it.
"In such a case I would have a hard time thinking of the suicide as sane.. and every sympathy for the poor sod they tangled in their crazy web."
[Clarice] "Good death" (tag Methos)
Date: 2006-01-23 06:55 pm (UTC)She exhaled slowly. "Ah suppose. And others...have gone so far off the rails that they...."
(Have to be put down like mad dogs because they're killing and skinning women like some sort of postmodern fucking Ed Gein, and are currently occupied with chasing my ass through the dark with a Desert Eagle and nightvision goggles so that he can peel my scalp off and wear my hair like a wig--)
--she swallowed. "...can't be trusted with any decision regardless." For the safety of others, if nothing else.
But even with the overwhelming knowledge that she'd done the right thing...even when she was doing it...Clarice still remembered looking down and seeing what she'd wrought on another human's body with her sidearm--and being horrified.
"Ah suppose that those who get responsibility for someone's life dumped on them like that wouldn't be worthy of the burden if they weren't damn well troubled by it," she said thoughtfully.
[Methos] "Good death" (tag Clarice)
Date: 2006-01-23 11:23 pm (UTC)Where did he fit along this scale, he wondered. To think of what he'd been like three to four thousand years ago, yes, from his current perspective he would put his past self down quite happily - he and his brothers. In a way he had exorcised that time of insanity by participating in the death of his brothers, but now.. Now he still killed as a matter of course. Not so frequently, and rarely of his own choice, but if that Immortal in first class chose to challenge him after landing and there was no way out he would follow that challenge through to the letter. Every single challenge could be deemed both serial murder and mutually-assisted suicide, if one were to interpret it that way.
Death was a way of life, to him, for all that he could not embrace it himself. Did this trouble him, even now? Not really. Only in the sense that each challenge could potentially end his own life. Training to take the head of another was part of his daily routine and the only burden was the time it took to deal with yet another damned youngling looking for a Quickening high. He'd never taken responsibility for anyone's life save his own, and that was a fact.
So was he unworthy? Again and again and again? By Clarice's logic, he assumed so, but Methos was no Darius. He might run and hide whenever possible, but he wasn't about to throw in the towel to live the life of a virtuous hermit. This was his life, such as it was, and it wasn't about to change. No new tricks for this old dog, even if Macleod had somehow managed to reawaken his conscience. He couldn't escape his nature, and he didn't want to.
"Indeed," he repeated, a strange smile on his lips.
How interesting that after all this time, a mortal with a morbid turn of thought could make him so philosophical.
[Clarice] "Good death" (tag Methos)
Date: 2006-01-24 08:09 pm (UTC)"Too bad the law's never going to address this issue square-on like it should anyway." Had that been the case, her dad wouldn't have had to die like he had.
[Methos] "Good death" (tag Clarice)
Date: 2006-01-25 05:19 pm (UTC)"If it helps, I don't think the law would ever be able to legislate on this issue comprehensively enough to make a difference," he said while shifting in his seat, trying to angle his long legs into a more comfortable position. Eventually he groaned melodramatically and gave up. "Every case would have its pros and cons, not least with regard to the patient's wishes - or victim or suicide, whatever is the case. I can't see that any flow chart would be able to calculate the best course of action in a split second, or even over a longer period. On the other hand, that does leave us in limbo."
[Clarice] "Good death" (tag Methos)
Date: 2006-01-25 07:49 pm (UTC)"I suppose I'm trying to solve the unsolvable again," she admitted with a little laugh, then sighed. "And find myself for the millionth time just...frustrated. Neither human ideals nor human law can fully cope with the way the world really is around matters of death. Otherwise we wouldn't have terminal patients beggin' to no avail for a gentler passing."
Like her gut-shot dad, too strong for his own good.