allthatgoes | another untitled AU! not the same AU as previous 'untitled AU,' though I did start a followup

Rating: G
Word Count: A mere 789, because I wanted to finish before having to relocate
Characters: Robert, Dawn, talking about Alice (mentions of Andy, Iz, Anne and Rupert)
Summary: Follows this by Scout. Late 1950s, AU.

"Well, I'm not a pediatrician."

"That's what's bothering you?" Dawn Capio (officially Dawn Capio-Ainsworth, but her college never bothered with the full name, and so it was falling out of use) gave her companion a doubtful look. "You're being bothered by the fact you're not a pediatrician. That is why you think it's a bad idea for you to take over the care of this girl -- what's her name, did you say?"

"Alice. Rupert and Anne's niece, Isabella and Randolf's daughter."

"Do I know them?"

"You may've met once or twice. Randolf and Isabella, I assume you mean."

"Yes. I remember Anne and Rupert, they came for dinner."

"Indeed." Dr. Robert Capio, who was in his late two hundred and nineties, had been facing down his seventeen-year-old great-great-great niece, who sometimes assumed the role of his twin sister (or rather he assumed the role of her twin brother, who hadn't lived with the family as a child due to his own severe illness; the cover story had been universally accepted with no issue) due to the circumstance of their shared birthdate and similar appearance, for about twenty minutes. The issue was over taking on a quarantined patient with a special circumstance: she was about as human as Robert and Dawn.

Which was to say, not really human at all.

Robert had seemed uncomfortable with it at first, and Dawn had made it her mission to find out why. She'd come up with plenty of ideas, ranging from that he didn't want to care for someone related to friends, fearing it was too personal, to that he was afraid of spending too much time with one person and not having enough time for rounds. His current role, after all, was the Robert Capio who was her cousin, the younger child of her father's parents -- a respected doctor in his mid-forties. Robert's role as seventeen-year-old Bert appeared only occasionally, and was for the purposes of getting to attend school yet again and start another practice. Seventeen was far too far away from that, though. He would have to be at least twenty before entering medical school yet again, so for now, he was always Dr. Capio, son of Bertram Capio (who had also been Robert), younger brother of Dawn's father Colin.

But Dawn was apparently entirely in the wrong.

His reason was stupid.

She had at least hoped for the longshot of him finding one of their species with long-lasting tuberculosis post-acquisition of wings (as she was sure he would put it, though he might have said pthisis instead, or perhaps even scrofula, which was at that point in development of the English language technically wrong for Alice Fitzwilliam's present condition) too tempting a research prospect, and he wouldn't have wanted to give less value to the actual life involved. It also would have been a tempting research project he could never have published.

But while Robert must have been curious, it wasn't even that reason.

It was a dumb reason.

She told him that. "That's a dumb reason."

"Is it? I think it isn't. I'm not a pediatrician --"

"She's a year younger than me, you said."

"Yes."

"That's nearly adult. Definitely adolescent. Adult-bodied."

"But a teenage girl seeing a general internist isn't really proper --"

"You are such a rot-brain, Robert, nobody cares about what's proper, you're probably the only person who can help her right, that's what Daddy said you said --"

Robert made a face. "I am not a rot-brain." The argument was made more pathetic by the fact that while she both looked and acted seventeen, he looked about forty-five and felt like he was acting a combination of sixty and twelve.

"Yes you are."

"I never have been."

"You always have been." Dawn, for her part, did a good job of being both childish and mature at once, having begun to think of Robert as her equal instead of her elder at around the age of twelve. After all, he was so old his age didn't even count, and when he wasn't trying to look like anything he looked like he was in his mid-to-late teens, which clearly made him equal to her. Robert had never taken issue with this. It was easier to be siblings that way -- it was second nature now to feel like siblings even if they weren't actively pretending to be.

"You're the rot brain."

"What a low blow! Insulting a lady."

"You're an Honourable, not a lady. You're too young to be a lady."

"Oh, shut up." Dawn made a face at him. "So are you going to take the job, or not?"

He was.