By Force

Plutonium was shoved unceremoniously into the colorful waiting room of Dr. Mind's office, looking extremely annoyed. She did not want to be there, nor did she need to be there. Her pet "iguana" Beaker told her that she had insomnia, but she didn't believe him.

The Ponyville scientist pushed her glasses back up to their proper position with her hoof and huffed. "There is no way I'm staying here, Beaker..." she said to the green lizard next to her. Her eyes narrowed. He responded by whipping her legs with his tail until she sat down on one of the couches.

"Ow! I'm going, just stop!" She tried to dodge his tail, tripped over her own hooves, and fell into one of the beanbags. After trying to get out for at least a minute, she just gave up and crossed her hooves over her chest. Now she was more annoyed than before. "This is all your fault, Beak..." Pluto huffed, adjusting her glasses again.

The lizard just ignored her and helped himself to some cookies. The yellow unicorn sighed and levitated the plate of cookies away from him. "Sweets are not for lizards."

Beaker crawled over to her and sat down next to her. She glanced at him and turned away. "I'm still mad at you." They sat in silence for a couple minutes when Plutonium finally said, "This is a rather drab waiting room..." It was drab to her; she was colorblind. The iguana tapped her on the glasses with his tail to say that she was wrong. He could see colors perfectly fine because he wasn't exactly an iguana. He was an iguana/chameleon mix, which meant that he looked like an iguana but had the camouflage abilities of a chameleon. In fact, the room was so colorful that he was having a hard time which color he wanted to be.

Pluto brushed his tail away. "Okay, I realize now that that was a stupid comment. Now don't touch my glasses."

Clear Mind was humming away in her office, filling out paperwork for one of her clients. She brushed her mane out of her eyes, the black and pink curls tangling into a mess of color as she focused. Signing carefully at the bottom of the paper, her quill had just returned to the table before she heard voices coming from her waiting room.

Cheerily, she stood up and poked her head out of the office door to see a mare and a lizard sitting on one of her couches. It was a rather bizarre combination of companions, but she wasn't judging anyone. Thoughtfully, she contemplated what it would be like to have a lizard as a pet, and as the thought sat on her mind, she waved at her new client.

"Hello!" she said. "Welcome to Dr. Mind's Psychiatry and Therapy office! I'm the Dr. herself! Pleased to meet you!"

Pluto narrowed her eyes critically at the doctor. Her casual personality that she had when she was alone faded completely, only to be replaced by her normal narcissistic, sarcastic one.

"Yes, hello..." she responded with an air of arrogance, climbing out of the beanbag and levitating her lizard onto her back. Perky people annoyed her. "This is quite an... interesting place you have here, Doctor." She looked back at her hoof and shook it out of the beanbag. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Beaker change from one shade of grey to a different shade of grey. She assumed that he had just blended in with his surroundings, rendering him virtually invisible to the normal pony eye. He was shy around strangers, and the sudden appearance of the doctor had startled him.

Clear watched the lizard disappear from view from out of the corner of her eye, and she smiled a little before directing her full attention to her new client.

She heard the sarcasm lining the mare's voice, but she chose to ignore it. "Yes, it is, isn't it? My sister helped me pick out the stuff when she was a little younger, and it's my little reminder of home. I live upstairs now, but this is a bunch of the stuff from our apartment. She's in college now, Straight Mind."

Smiling, Clear gestured towards her office. "Come on in and have a seat. Your little friend can join you as well, if he'd like. I won't bite."

"I would prefer not to, but if I must..." She let out a loud sigh to emphasise how much she didn't want to be there. Pluto slowly made her way past the doctor with a toss of her mane and took a seat in a chair, crossing her hooves over her chest.

Beaker reappeared on the arm of the chair and curled his tail around his claws, waiting for the doctor after realizing that she wasn't going to do him any harm.

Attitude problems. Clear made a mental not to try and not set off whatever ticked this pony, following her in and shutting the door. This one wasn't in the mood to be in a better mood, it seemed, so Clear put on her more serious face and slipped behind her desk. She pulled a set of papers from a drawer with her magic, settling the documents in front of the new pony as the pink aura faded away.

"Alright, I'm going to need you to fill out this form with the basics. Name, date of birth, residence, current physician, and the reason for your visit," she said, getting down to business. "I always let my clients know in advance what I charge. I start out with about 884 bits for an evaluation, then about 457 bits a session for your first three visits. Afterwards, it's completely free, no loopholes or sneaky tricks. I only charge enough to run my equipment and live. My main goal is to help you. That's it. Are you okay with this? If it's too much, we can work out a price. I'm flexible, and those numbers tend to scare some ponies. I give my services free to those who can't pay."

Pluto rolled her eyes behind her glasses and took the paper, filling it out in the clear hoofwriting of a scientist. At the bottom of the page, at the "Reason for your Visit," she wrote: My lizard forced me to come here. He thinks I have insomnia. But what does he know? HE'S JUST A LIZARD. The last part she angrily scratched onto the paper, nearly tearing a hole through it.

She shot a glare at Beaker and took in a deep breath, pushing her glasses up with one hoof and handing to paper back with the other. The yellow mare cast a smirk towards the doctor. "Of course I can pay the price. I'm not broke,"

Clear shrugged. "Have to ask every time, Ms. Plutonium. Some ponies need it. Now... Insomnia... Certainly a medical issue, if that's really the problem. And your, um, lizard brought you here?"

She looked curiously at the animal, her head cocked to the side.

"You must be really strong-willed to do that," she said, praising the lizard. "Good job."

The unicorn returned her attention to Pluto, taking in the state of her physical appearance. There were definitely bags under her eyes, and she looked tired. Maybe it was insomnia.

"How much sleep do you get at night, on average?" she asked, pulling out a notepad on her clipboard.

The mare snorted out a laugh. "I'm too busy to sleep at night. Besides, even if I wanted to, which I don't, I wouldn't be able to. My mind runs constantly."

She paused to brush her styled mane out of her face then continued. "But I can usually sneak in a nap or two if I need it during the day. And yes, my lizard is very strong-willed."

(Sorry for shortness >.<)

(No probs. Apologies for possible future shortness)

Clear paused and looked up. Carefully, she levitated her glasses from the desk up onto her nose, getting a better look at the mare sitting before her. Glasses weren't a necessity, but sometimes she just needed a clearer look at the world. Also, they made her look smart, which she was, and not so, what was the word Ideal had used? Slutty? Granted, she was being rude and Clear didn't think she looked that attractive in a white doctor's coat, but the glasses also made her look more serious, which some ponies were skeptical to believe.

"No sleep? At all?" she asked skeptically, peering at Pluto's eyes. Her bags didn't look that dark. "Ms. Pluto, if what you're saying is true, you could develop serious brain damage and other health risks, such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes, severe headaches, depression, and, in extreme cases, death. Can you give me an exact number? Five, six, even seven hours a day can mess with your health."

(Just a little thing, Pluto's glasses are special. She can see out of them, but others can't see in. I should have mentioned that. :/ )

"An exact number? I would say...about 5 on a good day." Plutonium scooted her chair backwards and made a faxe, not enjoying the other mare in her personal space. She reached up and adjusted her glasses and gave the doctor an annoyed look.

"You don't think I know that?" she responded coolly. "That's precisely why Beaker brought me here. He's worried about me."

Clear was rather taken aback by Pluto's approach to her help. She was pretty certain the lizard had brought the mare here for other reasons than her lack of sleep; there really wasn't much else to do than inform the afflicted of the consequences of no sleep.

"I can see you're not really looking for help or advice, Ms. Pluto, but I honestly doubt that you would have come just because your lizard made you. You yourself know that something's wrong. He's right to be worried for you, dear. Lack of sleep can also make ponies really crabby because, you know, they feel like crap. I was an insomniac in college, but what pony isn't? It was certainly not the best time of my life."

She leaned over her desk, leaning her forelegs on the smooth wooden surface and supporting her head with her hooves.

"I am trying to help you, Pluto. If you don't want it, we can just talk, or get some food, or something like that."

Clear winced a little when she started talking about food. She had a bad history of disorders and illnesses due to poverty and being too preoccupied with taking care of sisters and dealing with grief. They ranged from anorexia to depression to true insomnia, and she often passed out due to mental and physical exhaustion when she had been a teenager. To this day, she still had issues with eating food, which explained why she was so skinny, but she liked cake. Cake was good.

Her icy façade fell slightly at the doctor's spiel and she frowned. After a moment of looking to Beaker and back to the doctor did she actually say something.

"Okay, fine. Maybe I do need some help..." Pluto said softly, looking down to the floor. She hated showing weakness, but sometimes it was necessary for special purposes, like this one.

"And just for your information, I'm always like this. This 'crabby', as you put it."

Clear leaned closer to Pluto, her expression dead serious.

"Ms. Pluto, I need you to answer me honestly, because this could take our conversation in many completely different paths. Do you want to stay the way you are? Do you want ponies to view you in this way? Because if not, I'm certain this will be a difficult path to go down, but you can do it. I don't think you're a bad pony, dear. You're like my sister was, tough on the outside, which is perfectly fine. We just don't want to go overboard with that."

She took a sip from the festive holiday mug on her desk, swallowing the completely black coffee without so much as an eye twitch. She put her hoof out to the lizard in a friendly way, smiling.

"What's his name?" she asked.

"His name is Beaker..." she replied softly, not wanting to take her voice about a whisper. Shdidn't say anything wlse for a while, ehich created a long and awkward silence. Finaly Pluto opened her mouth and said in a hoarse voice, "I do want to sleep, but I want to stay tough. I can't change that..."

Clear shrugged, giving Pluto her space back and nodding at Beaker.

"That's completely up to you, my dear. So, with the insomnia, I need to get a list of what you do on a daily basis. Is that alright with you? With that information, we can shift things around and start improving your sleeping schedule, giving you a better recovery time and easing you back into a healthy sleep cycle. Your bed could also be an issue... Hmmmm..."

She nodded slowly and started talking.

"Well, I don't have a daily schedule that I follow to. I pretty much just do whatever I needed to do for that day. Of course it varies. Some days ppnies will come to me so I can fix their broken items, and sometimes I work solely on my experiment all day. And before you say something about my diet, I eat when I get hungry."

Pluto reached over and pulled Beaker onto her head. It looked odd, but it made both of them more comfortable.

"What experiment is this?" Clear asked, leaning forwards again. "I'm curious. Experiments are rather fun to attempt, after all. What's your profession? Sometimes, that has to do with it as well."

She took another sip of her coffee and started sifting though paperwork, sticking them in alphabetical order in her filing cabinets.

Pluto made a careful note of the doctor's peculiar organizing habits and continued.

"I am a scientist and chemical engineer. I also double as a mechanic if needed. So my experiments are mostly chemical based." She paused and said with a wry smile, "That's quite an interesting organizing habit you have there. It seems to me that it nearly borders on obsessive compulsive tendencies..."

She had a theory that perhaps the psychiatrist was OCD, which would be quite ironic and funny..

Clear froze, the papers fluttering down into the files, ironically, in the right folders.

"No," she said shakily. "It's just easier to keep track of patients this way, in case one of you bursts in with an emergency and I have to dig up a file to call an emergency number and arrange a hospital visit. I learned that the hard way about a year ago."

She sighed and turned back to Pluto, shutting the drawer with a little more force than was necessary. No one needed to know about prior issues. She even kept most of that stuff from Straight Mind. Some of those issues included a minor case of OCD, anorexia, depression, and more.

"Speaking of the chemicals, what is the purpose of the experiment, and what are you using? some of the fumes can be keeping you awake as well."

"....Sure. Anyway, I use mercury a lot, and neon, ammonia, chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, dry ice, occassionally sodium chloride, gold and silver extract *lists a bunch more and I'm too lazy to put them all down but some elements and metals, and sometimes plutonium*"

"Mmm," Clear said absently, jotting down the list. "Chlorine, ammonia... your problem might also lie here. Do you experience frequent headaches, Ms. Plutonium?"

She flicked at the end of her mane, looking up at the wall and absently noting that the patch in the right hoof corner was a shade darker white than the rest of it. It irked her, but she shrugged internally and turned away from it, her mind switching to the plate of cookies out in her waiting room. Hardly a confection touched.

"I'm sorry, Pluto, but I'm going to have to ask you to shorten your descriptions. Our session is almost over, and I still have to set you up for an appointment with a radiologist to x-ray your head: to make sure there's nothing wrong internally."

"Headaches? I used to have them often, but that's actually gotten better."

She pushed her glasses up, starting to get a bit nervous. On the inside, of course. There's no way she would physically show all these emotions. "A radiologist? I assure you, Doctor, there is absolitely nothing wrong with my brain. There can't be. My IQ is through the roof!"

Unfortunately, her nervousness did show. When she got nervous, she got giggly. Pluto quickly covered her mouth with her hoof to try and stifle the giggles, but that didn't help. Knowing from experience, it's nearly impossible to hide giggles.

Clear watched as Pluto attempted to stifle her giggles, taking a quick note about it before shutting her notebook.

"I'm certain it is, but with toxic basic materials like Chlorine and Ammonia around you frequently, it's merely a precaution. I'm almost positive there's nothing wrong with your head, but I want to be completely positive."

She smiled, but not before leaping to her hooves and pulling up the blinds, letting in the sunshine. Her room was getting a little chilly.

She blinked and squinted through the sudden brightness of the room, still giggling. Eventually she stopped, but kept her eyes narrowed. Beaker fidgeted on her head and hopped down to move into a patch of sunshine. He sat down in it, and it almost seemed like he was smiling.