Through the glass, I see the doctor enter the room with his clipboard and box; inside is a syringe and a needle, one of many before it, I've seen that same symbol on the door outside. If the green one means "radiation", labelled for the benefit of those who didn't know, then the one on the box must mean "dangerous". Not dangerous. Hazardous? As if radiation was a more deadly horror than being hazardous - I don't even think I'm radiating anything.

I might have gone insane without being able to see outside - the concept of insanity to them, I grasp, is irrationality to me. They think so differently that the first few days were a headache to get through, and when I'd gotten curious about the blinking red eye in the corner of my room, I suppose the rational thing to do was put a bullet through me. All the fear of prey, with all the audacity of a predator. At least the pain had taught me something, and being taught kept me sane.

But the doctor - the term still feels unfamiliar to me, and I get the feeling that I don't yet fully understand the act of doctoring - is a little different. Sometimes he comes in with a bunch of people to man the big clunky machines and they call him "professor", what he might be professing, I can't tell. I learn more from him than I do from trying to read the little lines and symbols on the screens of the machines though he says much less, and he's the only one who ever comes up to the glass. They treat him much like they do me, with a strange mix of fear and awe (prey and predator, again), and the only thing that makes us different, perhaps, is my ability to harm them. Don't humans harm each other? I can't tell. The boundaries of rationality continue to elude me.

Today, however, he's alone. I much prefer it when he's alone because he makes much more sense then, and we both seem to learn a bit more about each other without the distraction of the beep-clunk-brr machines.

I follow him from behind the glass, watching as he fits the needle together, arrange his papers in order, gather his thoughts in silence. The quiet is always one of awareness - no doubt he knows I observe him as he does me, but he makes no move to conceal what he's doing.

"Hand."

This is always the first word I hear from him - even when the people at the machines tell me to raise my arms, to inhale this gas, to remain calm, always, always, the doctor asks for my hand. No one else does. Obediently, I stick it through a hole in the glass; when not in use, it delivers a painful zap. A gloved hand to support my wrist, the needle into the vein - my blood is red, though it doesn't feel like it.

The syringe fills sluggishly. I wonder if he ever removes his gloves.

"Sample retrieved from SCP six-one-nine-seven…" He glances up at me. "Unnamed."

He withdraws to his workstation, but I sense a development on the horizon. Declaration of a lack of something indicates the desire for that something. Curiously enough, I'd always been content with the idea that neither of us had names, a concept previously unimportant and irrelevant to me. I am, however, now interested in one.

I can never tell what he might want with my blood, but several moments pass before I realise we are both waiting for something. For me. I will speak, and he will answer.

I tap on the glass, tink-tink-tink against the keratin of my nails. No response. "Doctor," I try, but it comes out as a whisper, my vocal cords are unfamiliar with their functioning. "Doctor," I say again, and this time my muscles cooperate.

Triumphantly, or some similar emotion, I watch the minuscule adjustments in his expression. Surprise, repression of surprise, satisfaction at his results, cooling over into impersonalism. I know not what he might be surprised about, but I am pleased at the effect.

"You can speak." The question is delivered as a statement, though why he might point out what he already knows, I can't tell. I'd never done it before, but the fact seems about as apparent as his hair being blonde to the both of us.

I run my tongue over the back of my teeth, the roof of my mouth. "Yes."

"Your request?"

The only thing between us now is a panel of glass.

"A name."

The shifting of his gaze represents surprise, I begin to identify.

"What for?"

I don't know how to respond, so I don't.

He inclines his head at me, angled ever so slightly. "If you do not have one, suggestions have been made. I was considering - the space between the stars."

His coat is incredibly spotless, the formal pants absolutely free of any personal identifying marks. The shoes look stiff, but I wonder what it feels like to walk on them instead of cold floor.

"Aether."

Aether. Aether. I inhale, summoning my strength to speak again. "Aet-" The middle sound falls from my lips in a rush of wind. "Ae-ther. Aether."

"Is it-?" Spoken tentatively, with emotion.

I nod. It feels good. Aether. Aether. I turn the word over and over in my head. It reminds me of my apparent humanity. The feeling is… different, but not altogether unpleasant.

"Yours?"

I arrest the doctor in motion with a single word.

"Mine?" Bewilderment trumps professionalism.

I tilt my head at him, an action I'd picked up not a minute ago.

"It's…" A subconscious swallow. "Albedo. You may call me Albedo."

"Albedo." I repeat. The syllabuses are easier than the "th" in Aether.

With no grasp of humanly measurements of time, I had an infinite amount of patience. Now I feel, acutely, each second as they tick by, and my blood feels redder for it.