"It's a miracle!"

"Thank GOD..."

"Thank Doctor Strange!"

"Thank you so much."

"Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU."

"Great job, Stephen."

After the operation was complete, felicitations were given, hands- gloved, or otherwise were shook in great appreciation.

"Outstanding work today, Strange."

Local bystanders- including nurses, interns, and intrigued doctors, gathered in numbers, glued their eyes to the clear walls of the operating room, seemingly obliged to give their own acknowledgement to the esteemed Doctor Stephen Strange. 

"We appreciate it."

One by one, the incoming, the inevitable, white lab coats surrounded his exit, his escape, and wouldn't dare let him leave before demanding an explanation of how he successfully completed another one of his 'miracles.' Thankfully, shaking their hands and basking in human gratitude was a fair enough answer. As Stephen rushed his "thank you's" and "you're welcomes" he was able to slip out of the vicinity and blend into the bustling halls of inexperienced physicians, and short white skirts hanging tight to the thighs of skinny blonde nurses.

"You did good work here, doctor."  

He let the echos of their applause drone into his numbing ears. His face was turning red and his eyesight was watering quickly as he passed another janitor closet- he couldn't dare have another run in- being caught once; his tear-stained face buried heavily into the corner of the peeling white walls, streaked with blood red stains he clawed into an hour earlier. Whatever the surprised guest had said to him in his hour of shock, holding out a forgiving hand, to help the doctor pick himself up, he was beyond the ability to hear a mortal response.

Quickly, the good doctor had found his way to his private office (after missing it twice in his haste to leave the ghastly crowd of fans he considered his colleagues). He fumbled with the knob, forgetting to unlock the door using the key he was given after the hospital graciously granted his position back. Momentarily loosing his mental stability to hide himself away from the onlookers who whispered, whispered behind the doctor of inability to open a simple lock. He looked at his assigned name written in gold, cursive, letters beside the door, as a distraction from them as they walked away. 

When the hallway grew silent,
to the best of his perception, his eyes glued to the name tag, "Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange" he melted the knob, letting it burn into liquid lava into his hands, the pain being nothing foreign to him. Letting the door open and close without his ability to physically touch it was only an invitation brought to him by a higher force. 

He walked, pacing himself. His shoes leaving dark prints on the carpeted floor. Using his breathing techniques, before he wasn't allowed to use any oxygen at all. Covering himself with his lab coat, the same one that waiting obediently for him on his chair, and placing his head on the vertex of the greying walls for leverage, he closed his eyes, opening them only at the times to let out the waterfalls, right on schedule.

Voices called to him.

The pleading ones he knew all to well. Asking him to come back. To protect. But they weren't saying they would forgive. He shut them out quickly with the last of his mental strength, and welcomed the voices who knew would hit the spots, that would hurt the most. 

They had gotten to him.

And they will always get to him. For however long a soul will last, from there, to eternity, and whatever comes after. That was his master's bargain.

Such was the fate of the doctor.