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heauxplesslydevoted · 3 years

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Everybody Talks (Ethan x MC)

Summary: At a conference hosted by the American Medical Association, Ethan stumbles upon an unpleasant conversation about his girlfriend.

Warnings: None

~v~

Ethan watches as his girlfriend owns the room. At the American Medical Association conference in their own city of Boston, in the large ballroom of The Ritz Carlton, he quietly observes from the corner as she excitedly chats with a Dr. Catherine Stanley, a renowned surgeon from Columbia, while everyone within an arm's reach of her is drawn in by the sheer magnetism of her presence. He’ll never get tired of watching her like this. Naomi is completely in her element. Whenever she’s in a deep conversation about medicine, her posture loosens, her nose crinkles, and her voice takes on a pitchy breathiness the more and more excited she gets.

So caught up in thinking about her, Ethan doesn’t even notice that she’s walking up to him until she’s within a few feet. She smiles brightly as she leans against the bar. “You’re not mingling.”

“You’ve known me for over three years now. I’m not one to mingle.”

“Come on, there has to be someone here you want to talk to.”

“You.”

Naomi rolls her eyes. “Mhm-hmm, you’re so charming, Dr. Ramsey.”

“I’m being very serious. Why wouldn’t I want to talk to the keynote speaker?”

When Naomi found out they wanted her to speak at the conference, she was almost certain they meant to speak to Ethan and that she accidentally answered a phone call meant for him. But they in fact wanted her, the newest and youngest head of the diagnostics team. Her meteoric rise up the ranks of Edenbrook had made quite the splash in the medical community, where everyone knew everyone. Whether she realized it or not, Naomi had become a wunderkind and everyone wanted a piece of her.

And while she was nervous, Ethan couldn’t be more proud of her. Naomi is brilliant, and it’s about time more people were rewarded with being in her presence long enough to see it.

Naomi groans and runs a hand along her midsection. “Don’t remind me that I’m giving a speech soon, my stomach is already in knots.”

Ethan holds up his tumbler of whiskey, angling the glass towards her. “Want some liquid courage?”

“No, eating or drinking might make it worse. I won’t feel better until I’m on the other side of it.”

“In the three years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen a shy bone in your body. Where are the nerves coming from?”

“I’ve never done something like this,” Naomi responds. “I’ve never given a speech in front of hundreds of people–maybe even more, this place is packed. Public Speaking is the only class I ever got a B in in college.”

Ethan gasps teasingly. “The horror.” He chuckles softly as Naomi pokes him in the rib. Moving closer, Ethan clasps a warm hand around Naomi’s shoulder, massaging gently. “You’re going to do just fine. Better than fine, even, you’re going to be amazing. You’re smart, charming, funny, and eloquent, and the directors knew what they were doing when they chose you to speak. And besides, nearly all of Edenbrook is here to support you. Lahela might’ve even snuck in a camcorder.”

It's a slight exaggeration, but a lot of physicians practicing at Edenbrook belong to the prestigious association, and did not want to miss the chance to see one of their own speak.

“Ugh don’t remind me. It’s easier speaking to a crowd of nameless, faceless people. What if I forget my speech? What if my accent becomes super obnoxious and no one can understand me? What if I trip on stage?”

“You could always picture everyone naked, I’ve been told that it helps.”

Naomi blanches at the suggestion. “No, I don’t want to picture all of these people naked.”

“Good, because that was a trick suggestion,” Ethan murmurs. He rests his forehead against Naomi’s, his lips hovering mere centimeters from hers. “The only person you should ever be visualizing sans clothing is me.”

“Lucky for me, I get to do a lot more than just visualize.”

The happy couple share a kiss before Ethan nuzzles his face into the crook of his girlfriend’s neck, whispering quiet words of encouragement and affirmation.

On the other side of the bar, a group of women watch the jarring public display of affection play out. Ethan Ramsey was notorious for hating medical conferences, never engaging or interacting with people. He was also known for being perpetually single, so to see him so open with another person felt like foreign.

“I still can’t believe the two of them are together,” Dr. Nicole Harrington whispers to her group of friends as they gawk at the pair. While she works in New York, it’s hard to not be aware of the story behind Dr. Ethan Ramsey and his young protege Dr. Valentine, especially since she’s in touch with so many Boston-based doctors. “I can’t believe Ramsey is so open with her.”

“I think they’re cute,” Nicole’s friend, Monica coos. “I’m a hopeless romantic.”

The third member of the party, Greta stays silent. She’s one of the two people within their group with actual ties to Edenbrook, her husband having been attending there for almost 8 years now. Her husband Ashland keeps her up to date on all the ins-and-outs of hospital gossip, and she knows all about Ethan’s messy entanglement with his former resident.

“He wasn’t even like this when he dated Harper Emery,” their last friend Angelica whispers. As a neurologist herself, she’s worked alongside both Ethan and Harper for a long time, and while the hospital knew of their relationship, if you weren’t looking for the extremely subtle signs, you’d never know they used to be together. For years, at that. But for some reason, Ethan can’t seem to go 5 seconds without being near Dr. Valentine. Within the walls of Edenbrook, it's becoming harder and harder to see one without the other. “And she’s Harper freaking Emery for Christ’s sake.”

The conversation pauses as someone on stage taps the mic, gathering everyone’s attention. Out of the corner of her eye, Greta watches as Ethan plants another kiss on his lover’s forehead and she disappears in the crowd before she’s introduced as the evening’s guest speaker.

Ethan doesn’t know why his girlfriend was ever so nervous because as soon as she accepts the microphone and starts to speak, he’s transfixed.

His tunnel vision is split when he hears an aggressive whisper from a few feet away. Frowning, he turns around, fully prepared to demand that whoever has the gall to interrupt Naomi’s speech should shut the hell up, but he stops when he realizes that they’re talking about her.

“She’s been a member of the AMA for what, 3 seconds and she’s already giving speeches? Are we in the freaking Twilight Zone?”

“I guess it pays to keep Ethan Ramsey’s bed warm.”

Greta scoffs, finally acknowledging the conversation. “Ashland tells me everything about the two of them, and it’s all so messy. She’s been leading him around like she’s dangling an apple in front of a horse since she got to Edenbrook. He gave her preferential treatment her intern year, and miraculously she gets the coveted fellowship on the Dr. Banerji’s team. He gets promoted, and surprise, surprise, he gives her the team, wrapped up in a neat little bow. Never mind the fact that she should be nowhere near leading a team, she killed a patient her intern year. So for him to be...parading that young girl around is tawdry and disrespectful to the hospital.”

If this was a cartoon, Ethan is almost positive his face would be very red and steam would be wafting out of his ears because that’s how angry he is. The audacity of these women to stand a mere 8 feet away from him and trash talk the woman he loves is disrespectful on so many levels.

Obnoxiously, he clears his throat, garnering their attention. The only one with the decency to look slightly embarrassed is Monica, as Ethan catches her cheeks flushing under his harsh attention.

Angelica stands up straighter, “Chief Ramsey, we were just–”

“Participating in a misogynistic diatribe against a fellow doctor,” Ethan finishes. “Question, did any of you graduate at the top of your classes from a top 10 ranked medical school?” No one dares respond. “Out of the 4 of you, did you guys save Naveen Banerji’s life while he was dying of sepsis? Have you spent your after hours holed up in the NICU with your patient’s newborn baby? Any of you face a near death experience and come back to the scene of the crime in order to help more people?”

Ethan’s eyes narrow at Angelica and Greta in particular. “When Edenbrook nearly shut down, I don’t remember seeing your face as we worked tirelessly in the free clinic Dr. Banks, nor do I recall seeing your husband Mrs. Park. I don’t remember him lobbying to politicians or attempting to secure funds during fundraisers, but I do recall seeing him show up at parties without you to flirt with nurses.”

Greta balks at Ethan’s words, clearly not expecting him to unleash such anger. “Dr. Ramsey, I’ll have you know that my husband–”

“Is spreading vicious gossip and lies about a doctor with higher ranking than him. Dr. Valentine got her spot on the diagnostics team fair and square. She was the number 1 intern so Naveen picked her. When I left the team, she was the last tenured member at the time, with the most experience in how a team of such magnitude ran. She was the best pick for the job.”

“Over the course of her time at Edenbrook, she has more than proved that she earned her seat at the table, and to suggest anything else is an insult to her strengths and talents as a doctor, as well as my judgement. To suggest that I do not know to remain professional while I’m at work and the only reason she’s in the position that she’s in is because of our private relationship isn’t just a lie, but a dangerous and slanderous one as well. And if someone so much as ever implies it again, I will slap them with a lawsuit so fast their head will spin, and the closest they’ll ever get to practicing medicine again is slapping Band-Aids on kindergarteners.”

The group of women receive a threat loud and clear And they remain silent not wanting to be at the receiving end of anymore of his wrath.

Ethan sighs heavily. “Well, now that this pesky conversation has come to an end, I’m going to continue to listen to Naomi’s speech. The one that she was hand selected to deliver, while the rest of you are in a position to do nothing more than watch from the crowds.”

With the catty group of women stunned into silence, Ethan smiles, his work complete. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, ladies.”

They watch as he downs the rest of his drink before sauntering off. Once he’s gone, Monica huffs out a shaky breath. “Well...I’ve always said there’s nothing more attractive than a man defending the woman he loves.”

~v~

Tags: @mvalentine @choicesaddict5 @professorkingslay @maurine07 @aka-calliope @bluebellot @whimsicallywayward15 @blossomanarchy @takemyopenheart @jamespotterthefirst @fanmantrashcan @whatchique @ao719 @x-kyne-x @colourmeshy @paulfwesley @the-pale-goddess @writinghereandthere @ramseyandrys @perriewinklenerdie @aworldoffandoms @thatcatlady0716 @drakewalker04 @canknot @hatescapsicum @lapisreviewsstuff @senseofduties @badchoicesposts @ethandaddyramseyx @chasingrobbie @zodiacsign1 @choices-lurker @my-heart-beats-for-ya @adrian-motherfucking-raines @riverrune @edith-eggs1 @thatysn @bellcat2010 @blainehellyes @cecilecontrera @junehiratas @choices-love-affair @openheart12 @caseyvalentineramsey @desmaranj @nazario-sayeed @aestheticartsx @ruinedbypixels @nooruleman @rookie-ramsey @uneravine @choicest

#choices: stories you play #playchoices #open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan x mc

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flyonthewallmedstudent · 3 years

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Re-watching House as a Physician. Pilot Episode. Neurology in the young.

I’d actually recommend this as an exercise. Re-watching this as a means to motivate studying. It’s truly terrible watching it. So much so, that you want to do it properly or throw shit at the TV.

If I had students and we couldn’t physically see patients I’d probably tell them what episode to watch and we’d go through the cases together. Go through all the things the team does wrong. Then discuss the things you don’t know yourself.

Because that is actually how you learn best. Recovering from your mistakes. Identifying gaps in knowledge.

Unfortunately, all my current students are final years and they do have to see real patients.

Opening episode: 29 year old female, no past medical history has expressive dysphasia then a first seizure. How do we know it’s expressive dysphasia?

IN the episode, the patient notices she’s having trouble getting words out, and is able to write. Then has a seizure. Wilson actually has a good introductory statement here. House finds the case boring, this really isn’t boring. If it doesn’t excite a physician it should certainly terrify them. A la house of god, rule number X = Treat the dying young. With urgency. The majority of patients I see in IM are in their 70s-90s, have predictable issues like metabolic syndrome, heart failure, arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation, infections like community acquired pneumonia and dementia. These are my bread and butter.

More often than not, my primary role is to ensure a dignified end of life care. Many of them come in already at death’s door or will be imminently there. To continue to push them through medical treatment when they no longer have resilience to go through them, is to prolong suffering.

You can’t predict how someone young will respond even to the most aggressive of treatment. You give them every chance you have. OFten if the young are sick, it’s really bad. With the elderly, a common cold can make them really sick as their body is in decline.

Young patients with a single organ system issue will usually go to a subspecialty. Actually any medical subspecialty or IM in general is considered “diagnostic medicine”. It’s just different flavours of it.

1st seizures: - it’s rare to have a second. - usually the cause of underlying seizures is infection - follow-up is clinic with neurology. It’s rare to require further. - we could go into differential seizures, but that’s a whole other post in itself

(Epilepsy only occurs if you have a number of them and this is rare)

In the case of House, they jump straight to cancer like webmd.

Before they do much, she jumps straight to radiation therapy. This is completely unrealistic. This sort of thing requires multidisciplinary teams to pour over all her results and discuss the best way forward. Chemo and radiotherapy are notorious in the general public for having crazy toxicities. For obvious reasons.

It’s weird re-watching these, where medicine is no longer a foreign language. Actually, it’s watching someone for whom English is a new language and they haven’t really gotten it yet. The tense and grammar are all wrong.

I watched the Queens Gambit - holy fuck is chess a foreign world and language. I know the basics, but none of the strategies. Sicillian sounds like a great name for a tasty pizza. Or something else.

Anyways, it takes a whole lot of time before they get to differentials.

Honestly, you would be getting to these the minute you hear the presenting complaint. Then considering how to rule them in and out. For students, always have the surgical sieve in mind.

Differential diagnosis of expressive dysphasia in a young woman are then addressed in the episode. here’s what they consider: - Aneurysm and stroke (haemorrhagic stroke in this case if we’re talking aneurysm), incidentally most common cause of berry aneurysms is high blood pressure. this is a decent consideration. but you would have seen it on imaging from the start.

- CJD = very much mad zebra. I wouldn’t even suggest this. You would if it was rapid onset dementia or behvarioural changes and they came from high risk areas (eg ate burgers in the UK in the 1980s and 90s). But rapid meaning weeks to months. Not sudden onset within minutes. It’s more stroke. - Cncephalopathy: requires an LP to go over this, and she doesn’t present with a fever either. regardless, important to consider. would always consider an LP in addition to imaging. - Wernicke’s: only consider if they have a nutritional disorder like severe, chronic anorexia (which she doesn’t have) or heavy alcohol use. This is caused by thiamine/VitB1 deficiency. A thiamine level test takes days or weeks. We would never wait for a thiamine test to come back, you’d treat IV thiamine straightaway. I mean it’s vitamin B. This is a terrible differential to consider so near the top. She also doesn’t really have the other symptoms.

Then there’s the more obvious differentials they didn’t bother to consider: The greatest mimic for a stroke particularly in young women is migraine. You can have similar neurology, but it’s often associated with a headache. If we wanted to chase zebras in the young, you could consider a PFO (holes in the heart that are congenitally there) and thromboemboli causing stroke. (In other words, you develop a clot, normally the lungs will pick up the clot like a filter before it gets to the brain. But the clot can bypass the lungs via holes in the heart and give you a stroke). This is always the consideration in cryptogenic strokes (in which you have a young patient without any reason for having an atheroma causing stroke). Risk factors for thromboemboli can include the oral contraceptive pill (estrogen can be thrombogenic) and then long periods of immobility, think long haul flights or trauma to the long bones or surgery. IN rare cases, those who had particular types of heart surgery as an infant, like a Fontan’s. But this is very niche mind you. And they’re often already on preventative therapy. Infection is a key thing to consider, where there are risk factors. she’s not immunosuppressed or done any exotic travel or eaten raw foods she shouldn’t have eaten (raw pork, bad sushi etc.). It’s a shame they didn’t mention it early. THere’s a few infections that go to the brain but you’d often have these in mind with the risk factors as stated before. THe imaging is often a giveaway

Learning point here - always eat cooked pork! Finally, cancer. But it’d be obvious on imaging if you’d already developed seizures or focal neurology, the lesions would already be large enough to pick up. the sad part to many brain tumours is that they’re already very large by the time of presentation. Beau Biden for instance, presented with acute confusion before his diagnosis, preceding that he had weakness and altered sensation (the lesion was likely too small at the time to be picked up on imaging and was diagnosed as a stroke).

I would rarely be referred brain tumours, the emergency department will have scanned the brain and seen something that would prompt referral to the neurosurgeons. When you’re young and have a lesion/tumour, any team will try everything, including majority surgery, to salvage what life is left. it is very tragic.

Anyway, stopping here. Already too much stuff to dissect and unpack from just the first episode alone. Note that I’m in IM, no doubt a neurologist or neurosurgeon will have different opinions on this episode. Ha.

#medblrs #medblr #house

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magnoliapip · 3 years

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Potential Open Heart Love Interests Who Were Wasted

By now, we all understand that Pixelberry has wasted every single fragment of potential that the Open Heart series had. Frequently overshadowed by aimless plotlines and unbalanced attention toward the four love interests we had is the vast array of potential love interests the OH series could have had. This list is the top 10 (yes, 10) love interests PB wasted. This means that this list will not be discussing the wasted potential in the four love interests we were handed (Bryce, Jackie, Rafael and Ethan).

Please note that some of these (especially toward the bottom) are included more for fan service than for actual wasted potential. Also, these are all my own opinions. Please feel free to share your own! There may be spoilers below. Viewer discretion is advised!

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#10 -- Baz Mirani

Not introduced until Book 2 of the Open Heart series, Baz is the friendlier and more outgoing of the two Doctors Mirani. One of the top in his field of immunology, Baz manages to balance his intellect with an easygoing nature. A relaxed positivity that almost comes off as too much. He was never really around enough, nor did he have the right interactions with MC in the series to feel like a fully developed love interest. However, after having the options in another PB book Laws of Attraction, it might have been interesting to see how it would turn out if MC could hook up with Baz.

#9 -- June Hirata

Also not introduced until Book 2, Dr. Hirata is a ruthless force to be reckoned with. A cunning behavior psychologist and brilliant neurologist, one can never really know what to expect from June, though this is mostly because no one can tell if her actions are genuine. After MC is told how June “earned” her place on the diagnostics team, it becomes clear that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants. Honestly, the prospect of having that directed toward MC...yeah, I want it. Badly. The only reason she isn’t higher on the list is because of her social inconsistency..

#8 -- Zaid Mirani

One of two senior residents introduced to the MC in book 1, Zaid is partly responsible for managing the interns. Zaid is the more blunt of the Mirani twins and can come off as an ass. He’s also shown to have a softer side that comes out in increasing increments throughout the series culminating in a touching moment in book 3. Once more, Zaid isn’t someone the MC interacts with a whole lot throughout the books, acting more as a recurring character to pop up once or twice a book, but I think that is a crock. I wanted more Zaid and I’m sorry we didn’t get it.

#7 -- Elijah Greene

A fellow intern at Edenbrook Hospital, MC meets Elijah in book 1 along with the rest of their group of friends. Elijah quickly becomes a steadfast friend and even a roommate. Clearly a brilliant doctor with a future in research, Elijah balances this with his upbeat personality and love of science fiction and gaming. Characters like Elijah often get relegated to the realm of being a best friend and it might have been nice to see him opened up as a possible love interest. He’s fiercely loyal, as seen by his defense in book 2 at the baseball game, and is steadfastly determined to get where he wants to be. There’s a lot to be admired in Elijah, but considering PB dropped his canon love interest, Phoebe, I shouldn’t be surprised that he was never an option anyway.

#6 -- Sienna Trinh

Sienna is literally the best.

I should just end it there because anyone who has read the series knows, but for the sake of this list…Sienna is an ally of MC’s right from the moment they meet, when Sienna helps get MC out of a sticky situation. This perfectly encompasses Sienna’s character. She spends the entire series taking care of everyone but herself and being just the sweetest, kindest, most amazing baker and chinchilla mommy that exists. After what happens in book 1 and book 2 with both of her canon love interests, well, #Siennadeservesbetter. And I think her fellow dolphin would have been the perfect person for her.

The only reason she is so far down on the list is because she does make such an incredible best friend.

#5 -- Harper Emery

The female older mentor to match Ethan. Harper would have been in a more compromised position, not just being a direct superior to MC like Ethan, but also being the Chief of Medicine for the hospital. As an admin, watching her toe the line between desire and propriety would have been just *chef’s kiss*. Instead, her role was consigned to being the family member too hard on their younger charge, projecting what she wants but can’t have onto Aurora. Now that I think about it, that last sentence makes me want it even more.

Besides, it would have been another female love interest rather than the one that we seem to get every book and a woman of color at that.

#4 -- Landry Olsen

I know what you’re thinking but just hear me out for a second and then you can eviscerate me in the comments.

Landry is a character that has me torn in more ways than one. First, I love the twist in book 1 where we see him for who he “truly is”. It was unexpected and a lovely change.

That notwithstanding, I was also deeply saddened to see yet another promising story not come to pass. See, there aren’t many characters like Landry who are so incredibly awkward but also come off as friendly. It was a lovely change of pace and it would have been amazing, just the sweetest, to see MC bring Landry out of his shell. MC could have helped Landry gain confidence to do far more than talk to the girl across the bar. Before the end of the book, he would have been having a full ass conversation with Ethan and maybe even mustering up the bravery to ask MC out. All of the pieces were there, either as platonic friend or love interest. Instead, Landry lived long enough to see himself become the villain. But my friends to lovers slowburn adoring heart will always have a piece longing for what could have been. Judge me if you will.

#3 -- Tobias Carrick

Originally introduced in book 2 to be to Ethan what Mass Kenmore is to Edenbrook, Tobias’ story takes a flip once book 3 comes around. Immediately compelling from the get go, Tobias shows a charming competitive nature sprinkled with arrogance, grey morality, and a devilish side. Tobias’ personality would either be completely in line with MC or completely against MC depending on how you tend to play the game. Both are completely valid and interesting options. Even before the infamous beet puns in book 3, Tobias made me want to know more. Tobias was the ultimate character in the Open Heart series that would have made a perfect one night stand. Alas, it seems we’ll never know more and must stick to the fantastic fanfiction writers on sites like this to sate us.

#2 -- Aurora Emery

Let me tell you, the line between #’s 1 and 2 is so thin it’s barely there. Those two are so close I almost can’t distinguish which one I wanted more. Aurora is first presented to MC and the gang as an intern who seems like she may become an antagonist of the series. As Book 1 presses on, we start to see Aurora in a whole new light. MC comes to understand why Aurora has the cold and closed off personality she does and when given the chances later in the series, Aurora opens up into almost an entirely different person as she finds herself outside of the expectations of her family.

Aurora is a brilliant doctor very nearly on the same level as MC and later seems to become a parallel to MC for what Tobias is to Ethan. Thankfully Aurora and MC’s relationship is a lot less volatile, but those brief fireworks make me really wish Aurora and MC would have officially been a thing. I feel like PB was weighing the option for a while but decided against it, much to their detriment.

However, I had to push Aurora down for one specific reason to come in the explanation for #1. And #1 is…

#1 -- Farley the Landlord

Be honest. After having Landry on this list, you thought this was a serious entry for a second, didn’t you? Just kidding!

(the real) #1 -- Kyra Santana

Kyra meets MC for the first time when Ethan dubiously introduces her to them because Kyra broke her arm in an accident. Right from the start, Kyra is an incorrigible flirt, obviously egged on by her cancer diagnosis and fear of death. Kyra has such an incredible story. Throughout books 1 and 2, Kyra is an incredible friend to MC and it breaks my heart that PB dropped her romantic storyline the way they did.

This is why Kyra edged out Aurora for #1. Going back and re-reading book 1, it’s always obvious that Kyra was meant to be a love interest. I’m not sure what stopped them from going forward with it. I’d like to think it had something to do with potential backlash for having a patient and their doctor get involved, but I think it has more to do with being a woman or a woman of color than anything else. Which is a damned shame. We stan Kyra Santana in this house and I wanted to leave with her at the end of book 2.

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So what do you all think? Do you agree with any of my placements? Vehemently disagree with others? I wrote this at 2am when I couldn’t sleep and didn’t bother to proofread before posting so you’re welcome.

Let me know below and cross your fingers for the finale of Open Heart book 3 coming later today!!

#open heart #choices open heart #sienna trinh #elijah greene #tobias carrick #harper emery #aurora emery #kyra santana #landry olsen #zaid mirani #baz mirani #june hirata

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fictionaffliction · 3 years

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Better Forgotten

Chapter Four

Summary: Dr. Ingrid Hansen is a respected psychologist struggling with the aftermath of the Snap as well as her own trauma from an accident she endured many years ago. Her world is thrown into utter chaos when she meets a dangerous man posing as a client. Dr. Strange is reluctantly tasked with protecting her, but in order to do so, he must first help her recover who she truly is. While she is grateful for his help, she has to wonder, are some things better forgotten?

Rated M

Chapter Warnings: Canon typical violence, memory loss, chronic pain, ophidiophobia, thalassaphobia

It was only when the sun rudely shone on Ingrid’s face through the open curtains that she woke up. Normally, she wasn't one to sleep in, but her sleep that night had been frequently disrupted by sudden bursts of anxious energy that shook her awake like an earthquake. She did not have a moment of forgetting where she was when she awoke, but she envied the temporary forgetfulness enjoyed by characters on television when they briefly do not remember the previous day’s events after waking. Maybe if she shared that condition, she might be given a moment of rest from the terrible sense of dread constricting her chest.

She checked her phone. No messages. Not even an email from a patient. Soren and the others must’ve kept their word and taken care of things at her office. Annoyed at the dead silence of her inbox, she threw the blankets off of herself and got up. After getting dressed and doing her makeup (which seemed to appear on the dresser the moment she realized she didn’t have any with her), she headed into the hallway.

She slipped her phone into her back pocket and was wondering where Dr. Strange might be when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned, ready to say something but yelping in surprise instead when she was met with the sight of Dr. Strange’s cloak, floating on its own in front of her. The cloak’s edge folded and waved at her, mimicking a hand beneath it. Unsure of what else to do, she waved back.

“H-hi,” she stammered, not wanting to be rude--that is, if one can be rude to a cloak. The edge folded again, gesturing for her to follow. She obeyed, careful to keep her hands clasped in front of her so as not to accidentally disturb any of the artifacts. They found Dr. Strange and Wong with a number of books surrounding them, sitting below the large circular window she had seen from outside the day before. They looked up when they heard her footsteps.

“Oh, good. We can get started,” Dr. Strange said.

“With what?” she asked apprehensively.

“Getting to the bottom of whatever the hell Loki wants with you,” he replied. “But we’ll start with those migraines.” He held out his hand in invitation.

Ingrid suddenly felt unsure. A million questions ran through her mind as she felt herself move a step backwards. The cloak scooped her up and carried her closer to them before settling on Dr. Strange’s shoulders.

“Have a seat, Dr. Hansen,” he said, gesturing to a wooden chair behind her that had not been there a moment before. She did so, still feeling uneasy. He settled in a chair across from her, Wong remained standing, watching them both closely. “When did you start getting migraines?” he asked, his tone suddenly clinical.

“About thirteen years ago,” she said. She was familiar with this conversation. She’d had it with a dozen neurologists before him.

“What prompted them?”

“A boating accident.”

“Tell me more about that.”

The conversation was practically verbatim each time she’d had it. This time was no exception.

She sighed heavily. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not go into the specifics.” It was painful to recount each time.

His eyes narrowed at her refusal. “Oh come on, Dr. Hansen, you know how this goes,” he said. She stayed quiet, keeping her face neutral but resolved. He let out a breath in exasperation. “Fine. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” He removed his gloves to reveal five long, pinkish scars etched into the back of each hand, running from the tips of his fingers to his wrists.

Staring at his hands, she nodded slowly. He kept his gloves off. “I don’t remember much,” she admitted.

“That’s okay,” Wong said kindly. “Just tell us as much as you can.”

She swallowed and took a deep breath. “My parents and I liked to go fishing and my dad wanted to go out on the water for a few days to celebrate...something.” She struggled to remember but it was hazy. The two men watched her carefully as she squinted at nothing in particular, searching her mind. “A birthday maybe? Anyway, we rented a little small boat and when we went out the weather was clear, but then...” she trailed off. The two men waited patiently for her to finish. “It got stormy on the second morning. We tried to get back to shore, but we couldn’t beat it.”

She recalled the lightning crackling across the sky as her father attempted to navigate the huge wave that slammed into the side of their boat. She heard her mother cry out for her as she reached for her hand. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks as she fought back the panic that kicked at the inside of her chest. You’re safe, she reminded herself, though safety seemed relative at this moment.

“The last thing I remember is getting hit in the back of the head and hitting the water.” she finished.

“And your parents?” Dr. Strange asked.

She shook her head. “They never recovered them or the boat,” she replied quietly, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. Wong offered her a tissue, which she took with a rueful smile. Dr. Strange and Wong exchanged a look before he continued with his interrogation.

“I appreciate you telling me,” Dr. Strange said, his arms crossed firmly across his chest. “That can’t be easy to live with. I seem to recall that you were interested in dementia treatment. Do you happen to have any memory issues?”

“You remember that?” she asked. He nodded. She was impressed. “Yeah, I do,” she admitted. The sorcerer’s eyes narrowed. “The doctor at the hospital diagnosed me with some retrograde amnesia following a traumatic brain injury.”

“Nothing shows up on any scans?” he asked skeptically.

She shook her head. “Nope. They couldn’t figure it out either. According to them, there’s no detectable reason for my memory loss or my migraines.”

Dr. Strange blinked in disbelief. “Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“Not you. Them.” He got to his feet and nodded at Wong, who nodded back and stepped closer to them. "Amnesia this extensive doesn't come without significant brain damage. It would show up on CAT Scans and MRIs." Dr. Strange made a circling gesture. As he did, the air around them cracked into a hundred prisms that constantly shifted, reflecting soft rainbows around them. Ingrid gasped, jumping to her feet. It was beautiful, but that didn’t stop her from feeling unnerved.

“What is this?” she asked, reaching out to touch the edge of one of the prisms. Her fingers slipped through it, but did not break through. Wong watched them, or rather, watched in their general direction. He did not seem to be able to see them.

“This is the Mirror Dimension. Anything inside it cannot be perceived. The only way to open and close it is with one of these," he said, gesturing with his index and middle fingers. Across them was an aged gold ring with a simple bar on top. Had she seen it on the street, Ingrid would have thought it was a subtle set of brass knuckles. "This dimension will keep us safe from Loki as we’re working. He won't be able to track us. Well, he shouldn't be able to. If he does, we'll deal with it,” he explained with a shrug.

Her eyes were wide as he went over a couple of book passages in preparation for whatever he was about to do. He looked up and took in her frightened face and felt his expression soften to one of earnestness. He put his hands on her shoulders, and the warmth and weight of them helped calm her nerves.

“Dr. Hansen, I know this is a lot to take in and it's scary, but you've got to believe that I will protect you, okay?”

“Okay,” she squeaked. “What are you going to do?”

He thought for a moment. “You know, it’s easier if I just show you.” He placed his hands on either side of her face and she felt a strange warmth seep into her skin. For a moment she thought her face was flushed, until she noticed the soft electric feeling tingles that accompanied it.

She blinked, and suddenly she was standing with Dr. Strange in what seemed to be a dark expanse of fog. Muffled voices echoed around her and she whipped her head around to look. Two adult figures passed by, their forms faded and shadowed so that their features were only vaguely distinguishable. Ingrid gasped and moved closer to her companion, who watched closely. Another group of figures huddled around a table appeared from the mist, accompanied by a chorus of “Happy Birthday”. The little figure seated at the head of the table was the only one easily recognizable.

“That's me,” Ingrid realized, taking in the mess of blond hair and the single freckle on her right cheekbone. She touched her face where it remained. “What is this?” She asked, turning to face Dr. Strange.

“Your memories,” he said simply. “Though I must say, I wasn’t expecting them to be so…”

Another faded image of what looked to be a high school graduation appeared. “Say ‘diploma’!” the muffled voice of Ingrid's mother said.

“Eerie?” Ingrid offered, watching as it faded away.

“I was going to say few and far between,” he corrected. He put a hand on her back, urging her forward. “Come on, let's see if we can find something we can use.”

The sounds of a storm echoed to the right. A small sailing boat was caught in a swell that it had no hope of out maneuvering. She heard her own voice screaming out to the shadowy figure of her mother.

“Ingrid!” her mother screamed. “Hang on!”

Fear froze her veins as Ingrid helplessly watched her own body plummet into the frothing waves below.

“No, wait!” she yelled, taking a step toward the boat that was already fading away. Dr. Strange grabbed her wrist.

“It’s just a memory, Dr. Hansen,” he reminded her.

She looked at him with wide eyes and swallowed, but stepped back again as they watched another memory unfold. This one was more vivid. Ingrid’s too-pale body lying on a rocky beach as lightning flashed across the sky and waves threatened to wash her back out to sea.

“Hey! Are you alright?” a man’s lightly accented voice shouted over the storm. An aged hand pressed against her neck, searching for a pulse. “She’s alive. Call 911!”

The memory of Ingrid opened her eyes, blinking. Her face was dazed, devoid of any expression besides the wide-eyed confusion. Dr. Strange recognized severe shock when he saw it. The faces of the people faded in and out of focus. A man dressed in a tan windbreaker was bent over her. His hair might have once been red, though age had robbed it of most of its color. A woman dressed in a flannel jacket with long caramel-colored hair joined him. A girl with long dark hair and glasses stood close behind them, already yelling into her phone.

“Don’t worry, you’re going to be okay,” the woman said. “Just hang on.”

The memory faded away and Ingrid’s face looked almost as pale as it had in the memory. Dr. Strange knew couldn’t keep her here much longer. She wasn’t prepared. He looked around quickly. “Come on, we need to keep moving.”

She swallowed and nodded, following closely behind him.

They walked, though it felt like they weren't getting anywhere. Ingrid reminded herself to trust him, but she could not stop the dreadful feeling from gnawing at her gut. They halted as they heard a different voice, very far away. It sounded like that of an older woman and as they listened closer, they could hear someone sobbing. Was she soothing them?

“Where is that coming from?” Ingrid asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Her throat was tight with terror.

“Not sure,” Dr. Strange replied as he continued forward and she grabbed his arm instinctively. He allowed it, if only because her fear was so palpable.

The mist grew thicker and darker as they continued. There were no more sounds or figures of faded family members. Ingrid felt the keen sting of loneliness and loss as she saw how barren her memories were. Suddenly, there was a hiss from the darkness. She looked about, wide-eyed. Her hands tightened desperately on Dr. Strange's sleeve as her head began to ache. Another hiss, this one louder and closer, and the sound of something moving across the ground.

“What is that?” Ingrid’s voice was shaking. There was a flash of black and grey to their left. Another hiss. Dr. Strange shoved Ingrid behind him and pounded his wrists together before he landed in a fighting stance with brightly lit orange sigils spinning about his fists.

Out of the darkness rose a large pair of red eyes that glowed with a hatred like Ingrid had never seen before. Slitted pupils reflected the light of Dr. Strange's magic as it came closer, revealing a massive snake.

They watched in horror as it reared up, its forked tongue flickering out of a mouth that could easily swallow them whole. It opened its maw revealing two gargantuan fangs dripping with darkly colored venom, a set of frills at its neck expanding as it lunged with a terrible high-pitched hiss. Ingrid screamed, not just at the beast but at the terrible, splitting pain that struck at her head as Dr. Strange spun and pulled her to his chest.

The next thing she knew, she felt cold stone beneath her body and the world was suddenly brighter, even through squeezed shut eyes. She was sobbing, from fear or from pain, she wasn't sure which. She turned with some effort and pressed her face to the cool floor, desperate for any kind of relief.

“Hansen, it’s okay, you’re back. You’re safe,” Dr. Strange’s deep voice said from above her as he put his hands on her shoulders to try and sit her up. She waved him off weakly, clutching her head with desperate hands.

“What's wrong?” Wong asked, rushing over as the Mirror Dimension closed around them. He knelt at her side.

“My head,” she whimpered. She felt the pain throb with every pulse of her bloodstream. She opened her eyes to look up at them, but found that the room was suddenly far too bright. There was a greyish spot over part of her vision in her left eye. She clamped her eyes shut against the pain again as the two men kept trying to ask her questions. Nausea roiled against her stomach as she tried not to wretch.

“Alright, let’s get you to bed,” Dr. Strange said. “Can you stand?”

Her mouth didn’t want to form the words that her brain told it to. “I-I don’t know,” she stammered slowly, struggling to enunciate.

Wong helped her sit up slowly, then steadied her as she tried to get to her feet. Her legs wobbled and she nearly fell over, but Wong kept his grip on her as she took a few steps toward her room. “Do you need to be carried?” he asked gently.

“No, it’s fine,” she slurred.

“Liar,” Dr. Strange said as his cape unhooked itself and scooped her up into its aged silk lining. She wouldn’t admit it out loud, but the cape’s magic carpet ride was certainly better than having Wong and Strange watch her struggle all the way to her bedroom.

When they got to her room, Wong hurriedly shut all the curtains, blocking out as much light as they could manage. The lamps were kept off, and Ingrid was placed gently on the bed by the cape, which dutifully returned to Dr. Strange’s shoulders as the man sat down on the bed next to her and conjured an ice pack.

“You didn’t tell me your migraines got this bad,” Dr. Strange said, keeping his voice quiet as he handed it to her.

She took it and gratefully pressed it to her forehead with a sigh of relief at the coolness against her skin. “They usually don’t.”

He and Wong exchanged a look and after telling her that he would be right back, Dr. Strange met Wong in the hallway.

“Something is very wrong here,” Dr. Strange said.

“I can see that,” Wong responded impatiently. “What happened, Stephen?”

Dr. Strange massaged his brows. “I took her into her memories and it was practically a ghost town. Most of them weren’t vivid or even whole, and then there was this...serpent. It attacked us.”

Wong frowned. “Was it a memory?”

Strange shook his head. “I don’t think so. It was too tangible, too aware of our presence.”

Wong thought for a moment, searching his own memory for a clue as to what this might mean. He clapped his hand to his friend’s shoulder. “Looks like we have work to do. You keep an eye on things here, I’m going to follow a few threads.”

Dr. Strange nodded as Wong hurried off deeper into the Sanctum.

#Better Forgotten #my fanfiction #mcu fanfiction #fanfiction #loki x oc #loki x ofc #doctor strange #stephen strange #Marvel #marvel fanfiction #loki #fanfic #mcu fanfic #slow burn #romantic plot

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fallenfurther · 4 years

Text

A drop into silence - Part 3

I decided not to leave this without a little hope for you all. I go a little into the science at the end, I hope I have kept it at the right level. I did have some fun researching stem cells. Part 1 and Part 2. Enjoy

************

The next few days were spent lying in a hospital bed, a smile plastered on his face, keeping up appearances for his little brothers. He laughed at Gordon’s jokes, smiled as Alan relayed his latest adventure on Cavern Quest and tried to reflect the air of positivity that the doctors seemed to have. His fingers stayed pink and healthy, his wounds were healing nicely, and his bones had been repositioned correctly first time. He was considered lucky. Yet deep down, beneath it all, Scott felt despair. The support of his family kept him there, kept him present and he would have drowned without them. But part of him wanted to drown. With every passing day the neurologist looked less satisfied with his progress. A week after the rescue and he was discharged with physiotherapy booked for when the cast they sent him home in was removed. The joy on everyone’s face kept him going. They were like a storm, spinning around him with such force it carried him along. Yet that night, after he’d thrown his nightshirt across the room in frustration, he let the façade fall. Scott lay on bed shirtless, placed his head on his pillow and stared at the ceiling. Only then could he let the thoughts surface. The tears silently fell, dampening his pillow. When the sound of someone entering his room came, he couldn’t stop them, couldn’t pull on the façade he’d discarded. He was thankful when it was Virgil who pulled a chair up to his bed.

“I can’t feel anything, Virgil.”

The soft brown eyes met his, a sadness in them that showed the truth.

“The doctors say the feeling could still come back; your nerves just need time to heal.”

“Screw the doctors!” Scott growled, anger filling him as tears continued to fall. “What do you believe, Virgil? You’ve seen the scans; you know the medical facts. I know you’ve spoken with Grandma, gotten her opinion. Do you think I’ll regain enough feeling, enough movement?”

Scott watched as Virgil broke eye contact. His brother was bent over in the chair, and guilt spread through him. He should take it out on Virgil. It wasn’t his fault. The tear that Virgil shed made Scott want to reach out. He did reach out, except he didn’t. His left arm didn’t move, didn’t follow the command Scott gave it. Instead, Virgil met his eyes and held his gaze. Those hazel eyes were strong and held, ready to speak the truth.

“I believe you’ll regain some feeling, just not enough for you to use the arm. You would only be allowed to fly a specially adapted plane and your days as an International Rescue operative are over. Brains is already planning on a way to allow you to fly Thunderbird One but…”

“I won’t be able to do rescues. I’ll be a liability.”

Scott’s heart broke and he knew Virgil’s was shattering beside him. International Rescue would never be the same. It would go on, because it had to, but without him at the helm of Thunderbird One, it wouldn’t feel right.

“I’m sorry, Scott.”

Scott pushed himself up awkwardly, still not used to the dead weight of his arm and twisted so he sat facing Virgil. His gaze fell on his fingers, again he tried to wiggle them, every thought projecting down the arm. Nothing. Virgil picked up the hand and shifted so it lay on his knee. Silently, he started massaging the muscles and flexing the fingers. These were some of Scott’s assigned exercises, all of which were easier done by someone else. Virgil went through every finger, bending it and flexing it, being careful of the cast that stopped at his knuckles. The tender care of his brother’s touch was lost to Scott. Closing his eyes, his body felt still. None of the movement could be felt. He had felt the tug when Virgil had pulled his arm, up in his shoulder, above where the main nerve had been severed.

“Grandma is reaching out to all her friends, asking if there is any research that has evaded her that might help.”

Scott fought the sob. Of course, she wouldn’t give up. She was a Tracy too, stubborn as they come. It brought a smile to his face, despite the tear that escaped. He felt his hand being placed on his leg and returned his gaze to Virgil. The artist’s hands fell on his bare shoulders, an act that gave Scott the strength he currently lacked.

“We’ll get through this.”

Scott gave Virgil a resigned nodded. He still struggled to believe it could get better. Virgil got up, leaving Scott’s shoulders to feel cold, only to return with the nightshirt he’d discarded.

“How about we get this on?”

*****

Scott stood in front of the mirror in just his suit trousers. The skin on his left arm clearly displayed the scars, a fresh pink colour, that reminded him that even though he looked okay, he wasn’t complete. It’d been almost three months and there was no change in the arm. It just hung there, limp. The rest of Scott’s body was still toned due his continued use the island gym. Even though he couldn’t be a member of International Rescue, the need to maintain his fitness remained. Yet as Scott stared at his redundant arm, he could see the signs of wastage. The bicep had less definition and his forearm was looking slimmer. Signing, he turned and slipped the shirt from its hanger. He’d gotten the technique now, on how to slip his dead arm into the sleeve, though he knew it would create creases in the crisp ironed material. Pulling it up at the shoulder, he pulled it round and slipped his right arm in. Again, his fingers had mastered the one handed fasten, and soon the shirt was done up. The suit jacket followed in the same manner. Sitting he pulled on his socks and shoes. He had yet to buy any new dress shoes, not wanting another reminder of what he couldn’t do. Slipping on the shoes, laces left untied, he grabbed his tie and room key. Outside Grandma was waiting. She’d flown him over and insisted on staying to help him. He regretted that he needed help, but the tie slipped from his hand and was thrown over his head. Scott smiled at his Grandmother as she tightened the knot round his neck before bending down and tying his shoes tightly. These shoes hadn’t let him down yet, but his secretary was aware of his difficulties and she was good at discreetly helping him.

“All ready. Go get them, Scott.”

Scott couldn’t help the small chuckle at his Grandma’s enthusiasm. He’d taken to doing more Tracy Industries work, so he didn’t just spend his time watching, worrying, and envying his brothers when they were out on rescues. They were all being careful, his arm a subtle reminder of why they must be cautious. Yet at the same time, when in the heat of the moment, they could forget it and they had started to push themselves again. They had just returned from a rescue before he had left last night, so goodness knows what could happen to them while he was away.

“Thanks Grandma. Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself in New York?”

“Oh, don’t go worrying about me. I’ve plenty to keep me occupied. Anyway, we need to get you to your meeting, can’t be late now.”

“I’m the CEO, they can’t start without me!”

Grandma looped her arm in his good one and started guiding him towards the exit. She was one of the strongest women he knew and as he peered down at the top of her head, he absorbed some of that strength. It was his family that got him out of bed each morning, his family that got him through the pain that rose when he found himself staring up at Thunderbird One, or when he went to the supply cupboard and saw his spare uniform. His family kept this grounded pilot going.

*****

The previous day had been tough, and all Scott had wanted was to be flown home so he could sleep in his own bed. However, Grandma had insisted that they stay another night and spend the day in New York. One gaze into his Grandmother’s hopeful blue eyes, her hands clasped together, and he relented. Maybe he needed some time away from the island.

“So, where are you planning to take me today?”

Scott smiled down at the older woman, who had her arm in his and was pulling him towards the exit. There was an energy in her that reminded him of Alan.

“Actually, I was hoping you’d agree to meet a friend of a friend I met yesterday. She’s currently doing some research you might be interested in.”

Scott’s heart stuttered in his chest. He knew what she was referring to and he tried to stay calm. There had been so many false leads, so much promising research that was still in the earliest of stages. They had even investigated bionics, though Scott wasn’t too keen as some of the early work was less than successful in the long run. He also had Brains working on an exosuit-like device that would be able to move his arm for him, but the prototypes were still bulky and hard to control. If Grandma thought it was worth his time then he would go, he just wouldn’t get his hopes up. The car out front took them to a skyscraper, and they were met in the lobby by a smartly dressed woman who embraced Grandma.

“It’s good to see you again Sally, and you must be Mr Scott Tracy. My name is Charlene Russell, I’m a neuroscientist and it’s my research that might be of interest to you.”

Scott shook her outstretched hand, noting the glance to his useless one. They were then led up to an office where they were subjected to a presentation. Scott didn’t miss the eagerness radiating from his Grandma.

“…so, as you can see, the rats regained full use of their legs after the treatment. When it comes to the same in humans, we have been given permission to start some trials in extremely specific patients, mainly in smaller less complex neurological deficiencies. We harvest the stem cells from the bone marrow, as well as the testis in men. Unlike earlier therapies we plan to harvest multipotent stem cells, so they still obtain the ability to become most cell lines. We have managed to find a combination of signalling proteins, hormones, and growth factors, which push human stem cells to become neuroectodermal cells, which is the first stage in the development of the nervous system in a foetus. We also have the right combination to produce neural stem cells. Our treatment involves injecting these cells into the area around the damaged nerves to allow the cells to trigger repair and in some cases, even bridge the broken strands allowing signals to pass along the nerves. It can take a few treatments to get the best results, but in our trials so far, patients have regained more function than expected from normal treatment alone.”

Scott sat straight, trying to take in all the science that was being thrown at him. The take home message seemed that they could repair damaged nerves in some patients. But would it work for him? He dared not hope for full movement but even some. If he could just feed himself and tie his shoes. To not have to rely on someone else for the simplest of things. It would ease the worry he saw in Virgil’s eyes.

“Do you think it could help me?”

“Well, Sally kindly shared with me your medical scans, and considering the nerve damage is limited to a few small areas, with the main break being at the top of your arm, this type of therapy has the potential to help. This therapy is very individualistic, and outcomes can vary, but if we could get even a few stem cells to bridge the gap at the top of your arm then that could restore some function, even if it’s just sensations of touch or pain.”

Even the feeling of touch would be an improvement. Currently he often bruised or cut the skin on his left arm because he couldn’t feel it. He had once left a trail of blood through the house when he’d cut his finger on something and hadn’t noticed.

“You said only a few selected cases could undergo the treatment, would I fall into this category?”

“Currently you don’t, however we have just been granted permission to try the therapy on a person with a similar injury in their leg. I believe we could apply to allow you on a trial as we could use your data in conjunction with theirs to assess the therapies potential in humans. We would have to apply straight away as the sooner after injury the treatment is preformed the better the success and you are already close to three months post injury.”

“Do you think we could get permission?”

“Yes. I believe the fact that you are Scott Tracy will help with your case too.”

“Then let’s do it. I have nothing to lose.”

Charlene smiled at him and Scott couldn’t help but mirror it.

“I’ll go fetch all the appropriate paperwork. I’ve had one of the medical teams on standby ready to do the required examinations and tests on your arm. These will have to be repeated at a late date for confirmation. Also, if you consent, they are also able to do the tissue harvest to start the process of extracting and culturing your multipotent stem cells. This would mean we could move quickly into starting treatment once permission is obtained.”

“So, I’m going to have a bone marrow harvest and you said something about testis in men, what does that involve?”

Charlene looked a little sheepish.

“Yes, the doctors will take a small slither of testicular tissue. They have assured me that it won’t affect your ability to have children and involves making a small incision with minimal scaring. The doctors will explain all the risks later, though from what I’ve heard most men don’t complain, especially if the bone marrow harvest is done first or at the same time.”

Scott swallowed, but nodded. There were always risks with new procedures, but this might be his best shot. There was a chance, a glimmer of hope if bureaucracy didn’t get in his way. Then he was Scott Tracy, CEO of Tracy industries and still considered Commander of International Rescue to most of the world. When had a bit of paperwork ever stopped him from getting what he wanted?

#sensorysunday #thunderbirds are go #Scott Tracy #Virgil Tracy #grandma tracy #sensorysunday2020 #whump #aftermath #recovery #numb #hope #medical trial #his family keep him going

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its-flicked-switch · 5 years

Text

Transitive Property of Equality

All of the moments leading up to the COTP, candlelight confessions, and the revelation of miracle baby #2. This work remains canon with the events of S11, filling in the gaps of Mulder and Scully’s relationship and their leap of faith forward for the future.

SMUT to be found in all the places you would expect.

Rating: Explicit

This story is my baby.

I initially drafted this work to be 10 chapters - one for each of the S11 episodes, but that quickly expanded into 20 chapters. With that being said, posting the full length of this work on Tumblr seems ... excessive, so I’ve made the decision to just post the first chapter and link the rest. In the future, I will post my longer works here just as I publish them on AO3 and ff.net, but with my Tumblr account being new, posting 60k+ all at once would be madness. Should you read this first chapter and be interested in reading the rest, it’s linked here.

CH 1: THE PLACE WE CALLED HOME

Post 11x01 - My Struggle III

Mulder takes Scully home.

SCULLY

It's true what they say about doctors being the worst patients, but to be fair, my medical history is extensive and complex. Providing a full and accurate medical history would take hours and most likely result in a psych consult, so I've learned to only ever disclose what is absolutely necessary. Being a neurologist myself, I can appreciate my doctor's concern, but she doesn't have all the of the facts and wouldn't know what to do with them even if I gave them to her. So for the second time today, I sign myself out of the hospital against medical advice.

After reviewing my MRIs, there is little doubt in my mind that the impulses driving my abnormal brain activity were somehow generated by my implant. The dull ache and burning sensation that coursed through the base of my skull and down into my neck just before losing consciousness doesn't fit the etiology of any known medically based seizure.

Eighteen hours later my neck still aches, but for an entirely different reason. One that may or may not be related to the visions I have received from Willam.

The man who entered my hospital room earlier this evening is someone that Mulder recognized as working for the syndicate, but our sources within the FBI have yet to formally identify him. All of this should frighten me more than it does, but at the moment, all I care about is getting out of here and going home to sleep in my own bed.

By the time Mulder and I leave the hospital, it's close to midnight. He hasn't let me out of his sight since he returned from Spartanburg. Under normal circumstances, I would find his zealously overprotective behavior to be suffocating and would insist that he give me space, but tonight I don't have the energy to fight him nor do I think that it would matter even if I did.

The force of my assassin's hands has left me stiff, sore, and hoarse, limiting my responses to brief and very brief. So when he asks me if I'm hungry, I merely nod, settling into the passenger seat and resting my eyes as he merges into traffic.

—

I don't remember falling asleep, but I must have because when I come to we are pulling up to the house.

"Mulder," I croak, "I thought you were going to take me home?"

As soon as I say it, I regret it. Although I haven't lived here in close to four years, the house is still technically mine. I tried to sign it over to him after we separated, but he refused to sign the papers.

"This will always be your home too, Scully," he says softly, not meeting my eyes.

I didn't mean for it come across as a dig, but it clearly has.

Great. As if today wasn't shitty enough.

"I'm sorry Mulder, I didn't mean … I'm just exhausted, and I don't have any clothes here."

"I stopped by the impound lot and cleaned out your car, so I have your keys and overnight bag. They're in the trunk."

I clearly slept through that pit stop.

"Oh … okay … thank you," is all I can manage to say.

"It wasn't a big deal. Common. Let's get inside. I think there might even be something that's eatable in the fridge," he says placing his hand on my thigh and giving it a light squeeze before exiting the car.

We climb the porch stairs together in silence. Once inside, he places my overnight bag at the bottom of the stairs and then makes his way into the kitchen.

"I'm going to start some tea. That should help soothe your throat."

"Mulder, you really don't have to—"

But he cuts me off before I can finish, raising his voice.

"Stop thanking me and telling me that I don't have to take care of you. If I hadn't come in when I did, that man would have killed you … you do realize that right?"

The look on his face stops me cold.

"Do you have any idea what that would have done to me?"

Grabbing the top of the one the kitchen chairs, he shifts his weight and looks down at the table in an attempt to calm himself. At first, I say nothing. Mulder is one of the most controlled people I have ever known. Even with everything we've been through in the last 25 years, I can still count on one hand how many times he has raised his voice at me in anger.

But anger isn't what I see now. What I see now is pure, unadulterated fear.

"I'm sorry Scully, I didn't mean to … I just—"

"It's okay," I say, interrupting him. "I buried you once — so yes, I have an idea." It comes out low and raspy, strained by events of the last 24 hours, but it silences him nonetheless.

As my words register, his eyes return to mine, and the fire in them dissipates.

Loss is something that we are both intimately familiar with.

Sighing, he releases his hold on the kitchen chair.

"I know you can take care of yourself, Scully. You've always been able to do that, but we still don't know for sure who sent him or why. Until we know, more I don't want you staying alone. If something happened you … something that I could have prevented … I would never forgive myself."

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

"Are you sure you're not hungry?" he asks softly. "I have some yogurt in the fridge if you just want something light."

"No, but I will take some tea."

He nods and turns to turn on the stove, filling up the kettle and placing it over the burner.

"Why don't you head upstairs and take a shower. I'll come up in a minute with your tea and change the sheets."

"I'm sure they are fine."

"I haven't washed them in a while. I usually just sleep on the couch."

His tone is soft but final, and his message is clear. He's going to take care of me, and I'm going to let him because he's not taking 'no' for an answer.

—

Mulder wasn't kidding. The bed is made and looks as if it hasn't been used in months, but other than that, the room we once shared has changed very little in my absence.

My eyes are immediately drawn to a picture he has framed and prominently displayed on what was my bedside table. It's a picture of the two of us that I have never seen before. As I take a closer look, I recognize the scenery and the clothes we are wearing. The trip to the Keys had been a surprise anniversary gift. He must have had the film developed after I moved out and had it framed.

The realization causes a lump to form in my throat that is painful to swallow in more ways than one.

"There are some clean towels under the sink," he says, startling me as he enters the room behind me.

Although it's clear that he noted my interest in the picture, he doesn't say or do anything to draw attention to it, and for that I am grateful. I can hear him stripping the bed as I retreat into the bathroom.

It's not until I turn on the water and begin to disrobe that I realize that I have a problem.

Somewhere between the seizure, car accident, and struggle with the mysterious assassin, I have lost the ability to put my arms behind my back. I silently curse at my bra for a few moments before relenting and shutting off the water so that I don't have strain my voice to speak over it.

"Mulder?"

There's a periodic moment of silence before he responds.

"Yeah?"

"Can you come in here for a minute?"

"Um … yeah, sure, Scully, just ... give me a minute."

Within a few seconds, he's at the door.

"What's wrong Scully? Are you OKAY?"

"Yes, I'm fine, I just … I'm having trouble with the clasp, can you undo it for me?"

He steps into the bathroom and freezes.

"Jesus, Scully."

I'm half naked, but that's not why he's cursing.

"Is this from the accident or from …?"

His fingers gently trace over the bruising as he spins me to take a closer look.

"I'm not sure, but I can't quite get the … can you …?"

"Yeah."

He unclips my bra rubbing his hands lightly over my low back and shoulder blades until he reaches the tops of my shoulders. My back is to him, but his eyes meet mine in the mirror.

"I knew it was bad, but I had no idea it was this bad. Do you have any pain meds?"

"No … I'm okay … just going to be sore for a couple of days."

He doesn't believe me, but he doesn't press the issue either. Instead, he kisses the top of my head and leaves the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

I half expect him to be lingering around when I get out the shower, but he isn't.

The bed is covered with fresh sheets, and the clothes from my overnight bag are laid out at the edge of the bed. If I weren't so tired, I would probably be more embarrassed by the fact that he found one of his old tee shirts in my overnight bag. Although we've been separated for nearly four years now, I still find myself sleeping in his clothes. I silently curse myself for packing something so intimately personal in an overnight bag prepared to use on company time.

"Scully?"

"Just a minute," I say as I gingerly finish dressing.

When I open the door, he's waiting on the other side with a steaming cup of hot tea.

"Thank you."

He smiles.

"Got everything you need?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Okay. Well … I'll see you in the morning. If you need anything, I'll be down here."

For a moment, we just stand in silence, neither of us knowing quite what to say.

As I gaze into his eyes, I realize that what I want more than anything is for him to come to bed and wrap his arms around me, but I have no right to ask that of him. I threw that right away the moment I left him, so instead of asking him to stay, I allow him to kiss my forehead and then watch him walk away.

—

I wake up to hands on my body.

I want to scream, but I can't because there is no air in my lungs.

Panicked, I kick, claw, and fight for my life, but my efforts are fruitless. Everything is moving in slow motion, and I am powerless to stop it. That's when it hits me … I'm dying … this must be what dying feels like. Unable to fight any longer, I surrender to fate and still my body. Just as my field of vision begins to darken into a black blur, I hear a familiar voice. A voice that clears the fog and fills my lungs with air.

He releases me quickly, narrowly avoiding getting headbutted as I bolt up out of bed.

"SCULLY … SCULLY … It's me … It's just a dream. It's me. Mulder."

I'm gasping for breath and unable to speak, but relief floods me as my vision clears.

"It's just a dream, Scully," he repeats softly. "I'm here. You're safe."

Once he sees that I have oriented back to reality, he wraps his arms around me, pulling my head into his chest.

I try to swallow the sob before it leaves my throat, but I can't. The tears quickly follow.

"Shhhhhh … It's OKAY. I'm here. You're safe."

This only makes me cry harder.

He lays us down gently, cradling my head against his chest — taking care to not to apply too much pressure to my bruised and battered body.

Neither of us speaks for quite some time.

When the tears subside, and my breathing normalizes, he's the one to break the silence.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I sniffle, trying to clear my nose and throat so that I can speak. I've made a mess of the shirt he's wearing. It's so wet in places that it's sticking to his skin, but I don't care, and I doubt he does either.

"I couldn't breathe."

It's likely not the detailed explanation he was looking for, but it's the only explanation that is required.

He takes a deep breath and pulls my body more tightly against his.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you, Scully."

"You can't promise that, Mulder. No more than I could promise it to you."

"I've gone to the ends of the earth for you … killed for you … and I would give my life for yours in a heartbeat. You know that."

I do know, but this conversation is quickly heading in a direction that I'm not ready to go. Not tonight. So I don't respond with words. Instead, I snuggle into his chest, wrapping my arms around him and intertwining my legs with his. I don't want to live like I'm living on borrowed time. I want to go to sleep in his arms comforted by the fact that I still have tomorrow to say all the things I need to say. So instead of making confessions of heart, I close my eyes and surrender to sleep as I listen to the beat of his heart.

#the x files #xfiles #xfiles season 11 #msr fanfic #mulder and scully #transitive property of equality #xfiles plus one #scully pregnant #atths_twice #cotp

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nothingeverlost · 4 years

Note

Thanksgiving prompt Storybrooke Verse. Their first thanksgiving with their baby. Does Moe show up?

This takes place almost a year after anything I’ve written in this verse. I wrote one small drabble with her finding out she’s pregnant. I still want to write his reaction and her pregnancy.

Ayla, the baby’s name, is Scottish and translates to mean "from a strong and resilient place"

_________________________-

“Do you hear that, sweetheart? Our first guests have arrived.” Belle leaned over the cradle and checked the diaper before picking up her daughter. It only took a minute to put her in something dry and slip on the dark blue dress with the turkey on the skirt. A soft blue headband and blue booties finished the outfit. “You look so beautiful, my Ayla.”

Belle took her time walking down the stairs, her daughter nestled to her chest, and listened for signs of who had arrived. With the sound of clinking glasses she had a pretty good idea.

“Happy Thanksgiving Mal.” Her husband and his best friend each had a finger of scotch in a tumblr. Nick set his down when she came in and reached out for her.

“There’s the two most beautiful women in the world.”

“Trying not to feel insulted over here, Nicodemus.” Mal rolled her eyes. “Lucky for you my godchild is here to distract me. Pass her over, dear, we have some catching up to do.”

“Of course.” When they’d discussed godparents for their child Belle hadn’t been sure Mal would be interested. Ruby was enthusiastic from the moment she’d learned that Belle was pregnant. Archie was a natural with children. She’d never seen Mal with a child younger than thirteen. It had surprised her when Mal had asked about the theme for the nursery and had proceeded to spend a month of weekends painting a mural of dragons and castles and an enchanted forest on the walls. It was so real it looked as if one should be able to walk into the trees and feel the fire from the dragon’s breath. While no one would mistakenly call her ‘cuddly’ Mal took her godmother role very seriously. She’d shown up at the hospital an hour after the birth and had visited at least once a week since then. “Is there anything I need to check on the kitchen, Nick?”

“Nothing, love. I have a handle on everything and your pies remain untouched like I promised even if a slice would have made a nice breakfast.” This year, he’d insisted, he was in charge of dinner. It was barely a month since she’d given birth and she needed to rest when she could. She, of course, insisted that she was fine but let him have his way. He had worried and fretted through her pregnancy and delivery, and felt better when he had something to distract him.

“I’ll get the door, then.” The three short rings meant that Ruby had arrived. Belle smiled when she heard Nick saying something about ‘supporting the head’ and Mal snarking back that she knew how to hold a baby, thank you very much.

“Hello my favorite mother.” Ruby didn’t wait for anyone to answer the door, but was letting herself in. Archie was more hesitant, but that might have been the loaf of bread in one hand and platter of cookies in the other. “Where’s the baby?”

“Mal beat you to her.” Belle hugged her friend before taking the bread from Archie. The ring on Ruby’s finger was still new enough that it was a pleasant reminder each time she saw it. Now if only she and Archie would set a date.

“You know it took me forever to get used to saying Nick instead of Mr. Gold. I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to saying Mal.” Unlike Belle who’d never taken any classes for Mal, Ruby had taken art classes all four years in high school. “If you start inviting Principal Mills over I’m done, Bells. I can’t take it.”

“You’re safe there.” She thought of the many times she’d heard Nick grumble about the principal. There were probably few people that were less likely to be invited over. She looked at the door. Despite the invitation she’d given her father he was probably as likely to show up as Mills. In the two and a half years since she’d moved in with Nick he hadn’t visited, not for a holiday dinner and not for her wedding.

“Are we expecting someone else?” Archie asked. Belle paused for a moment and shook her head.

“No, it’s the five of us plus Ayla, though she won’t be eating anything.” Or rather she’d be having her own version of leftovers second hand. She had only set the table for five, though she had an extra place setting ready on the sideboard just in case. She hoped no one would notice. It was futile to hope that Nick wouldn’t see and understand, though. “Let me show you where that can go, Archie.”

“Thanks.” He followed her into the kitchen. Setting down the cookies and pulling a bottle of wine out of his coat pocket. “How are you feeling? Are you sure it’s not too much to have people here? We would have understood if you’d wanted Ayla’s first Thanksgiving to be just the family.”

“Her Thanksgiving is just the family.” She stood up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. He was unlike anyone Ruby had ever dated and Belle was grateful both for his friendship and his love for her best friend. “And I’m feeling fine, if not a little sleep deprived.”

“A coworker had a baby last year. She said it was like going through residency again, and I remember how little sleep I got then.” He shook his head. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“You can explain to Nick that I’m perfectly healthy and he doesn’t need to worry, but you probably mean help with dinner and everything’s taken care of.” She had thought that once Ayla was born her husband would be able to relax a little. He’d been so tense throughout most of her pregnancy, an overreaction to their first loss and his general overprotective nature going into overdrive. But the delivery had gone smoothe and they were both healthy. She wanted him to relax and enjoy himself more.

“I see it in the parents of some of my patients when they come for follow ups. The kids are fine, they’re acting like normal healthy children. But the parents are still in that place that we go when we love someone so much that the idea of loss is crippling. I think maybe subconsciously it’s the idea that if they let themselves relax and believe that everything is safe now they won’t be prepared if something does happen.” Archie fussed with the end of his scarf. “Sometimes when you’ve been alone for a long time and you let someone in the idea of them not being there someday is terrifying.”

“Ruby’s not going anywhere.” She squeezed his hand and tucked away his observations to think about later. He could be silent for hours, but when he spoke it was always clear that he listened to everything around him. Sometimes he seemed more psychologist than neurologist.

“Ruby’s going to McDonalds if there isn’t food soon. I’m starving.” Ruby had apparently braved the idea of calling her former art teacher by name; she came into the kitchen carrying Ayla.

“Nick has some bacon wrapped scallops in the oven, they should be out in a few minutes. Archie, let me have your coat.” She took the coat and scarf to hang them up in the closet, leaving Archie and Ruby alone with the baby. She wouldn’t complain if holding the infant made them want one of their own.

“Anyone need more wine?” Nick made the offer. Mal and Ruby were the ones to accept.

“I’d love a glass but Ayla would not,” she teased, looking at the sleeping infant in her arms. She’d be hungry soon. Belle, on the other hand, was stuffed from the meal. It was a good thing breastfeeding burned so many calories.

“We should go. We’re leaving early in the morning for Boston.” Though Archie had moved to be closer to Ruby he still spent a week each month in Boston for surgeries and consultations. Ruby usually went with him.

“I believe I’m ready to leave as well.” Mal sipped her wine unhurriedly. Within minutes there was a flurry of good-byes and Ayla being passed around for cuddles. While Nick was the one to close and lock the front door it was Belle who lingered over the light switch for the porch light.

“Sweetheart?” His arms wrapped around him from behind as she looked out the window. Even the light didn’t penetrate more than a few feet of the darkness.

“I thought he might come this time.” She had invited him in person, showing up to the flower shop days ago. Nick had been watching Ayla, so he hadn’t yet seen his grandchild. She thought that might have been enough to get him to come.

“I’m sorry, love.” His arms tightened around her a little. Their daughter stirred in her arms.

“She’s perfect, Nick.” She pulled away from him just enough to turn around, the baby cocooned between them. Belle reached up to rest a hand on his face. “Nothing’s ever made me as happy as loving the both of you. I wanted him to see that, maybe to understand it.”

“You could take him some leftovers, visit him at the shop.” His lips brushed her forehead. She knew what it took for him to make the suggestion.

“No.” She shook her head. “Ayla is half yours and you’re all of mine. He doesn’t get to accept pieces of us. I’m not going to hide what matters and if he ever wants a relationship with his granddaughter he can’t pretend you’re not part of it.”

“Maybe someday.” Nick’s hand tightened on her arm for a moment. She knew he would do anything if it made her happy, even tolerate her father, but he had no love for the man. They’d only met twice, that she knew of, but the air around both of them might as well have been filled with daggers.

“Maybe someday,” she repeated with a sigh. She reached out and turned off the porch light. Between them Ayla started making suckling motions with her tiny rosebud lips. “I think someone’s hungry.”

“Go on up, I’m going to make sure everything’s put away.”

“You’ll be up soon?” He could get lost in his brooding thoughts sometimes, when she wasn’t there to tease him out of them.

“In time to put Ayla in her bassinet,” he promised.

Belle changed her daughter into a sleep sack and fed her while sitting on their bed. True to his word she was just finishing up when he came up the stairs. There was a nursery directly across the hall, but for the first months they’d decided to keep their daughter closer, and the bassinet was at the foot of their bed.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” Once Ayla was settled and the lights were out they curled up together in bed, his front to her back and his arm around her waist. Feeling him so close reminded her of how much she missed making love with him, and how glad she’d be when she was ready. “I’ve never had so much to be thankful for.”

“You’re the one that did all the work this year and made magic happen, Belle. I’m the one that’s thankful.” His voice was low, and slower than usual as it was when he was trying to keep the sound from breaking.

“Do you think even one minute of that would have been possible without you, sweetheart? Everything I did this year was possible because I had you.” She pulled his arm tighter around her. “You’re everything I need, Nick, and everything I want.”

#rumbelle fic #verse: storybrooke high #my fic #red cricket #Anonymous darling #thanksgiving fic

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blueyesandleatherjacket · 4 years

Text

The Fallen, 8/17

Volume: 1.

Number of parts: 8/17.

Pairings: Nine x Rose.

A/N: Tagging @thebookster on her demand.

“We've all fallen, but at the same time we're not broken. There is the hint that we are going to get up again.” - Amy Lee.

CHAPTER 8:

“So, you’re fresh from the war. Damaged. Broken. Shattered. And you meet that girl. Rose Tyler. She’s showing you that life is worth fighting for. Traveling with her makes you feel alive again. Until her life is threatened. You sacrifice yourself for her to life.” “Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing.” Nash shrugged. She had to pretend that she couldn’t understand the beauty of such a sacrifice. The concept of giving a life to save another should have been unknown to her as an assassin. Giving a life to save the one of the persons you loved was out of her reach though. She never had the chance to meet her soulmate but she had people she would die for. “But it doesn’t go as planned. You feel something is wrong…” “No, that’s not how it went. I just realised I didn’t want to leave her or my ship.” “Your time machine.” “Oh, she’s so much more than a time machine.” “A space ship.” “You’re so far from the truth.” “Anyway, the Doctor was gonna change into another man…” “Yep. And I was gonna die. And I had that irrational and universal thought that I wasn’t ready to die, that there was more to live. I made the wish to be sent back on Earth to stay around the woman I love.” “Even unsure that she would follow you?” “She was left with a new man. She trusted me, my daft old face… He certainly was prettier and younger and funnier to make a perfect match with her but he still remained a stranger. What would you have done?” No response. “I wanted to stay in her life but I woke up in Manchester with that deep conviction that something was wrong.” “Because you sensed that you had half of that Bad Wolf left in your mind.” “And since I could feel the other half around, it meant Rose still had it in hers.” “Which could be fatal to both of you.” “You’ve got it.” “So that Bad Wolf has quite amazing abilities. Meaning you’re some kind of superhuman now. You’ve got the control of Time and you can change whatever you want to. You’re also a telepathic being and you can access people’s mind and create a real mess in there. Change someone’s history, create false memories or erase it all.” “That’s not exactly how it works. There are rules.” “Who cares for the rules when you’re that powerful?” “I have a consciousness. So does the Bad Wolf. You can’t use its power for personal or evil purposes. Time Lords made the rules. They engraved it in their genetic codes. Anyone meddling with Time would go mad.” “Time Lords are megalomaniac. How could they not go against the rules?” “Oh, some have tried. And they paid the price.” “What about you?” “I ran away from home as soon as I could. Their philosophy wasn’t for me. I had my own dreams.” “What now?” “I intend to leave this place, find my Rose and survive this almost human life. Quite boring, I know.” “And the Bad Wolf?” “I only possess a part of its power. I can’t do much. Need my other half to be able to really do something with that power. Unless…” The Doctor voluntarily chose to stop his sentence there, to show a hesitation. Nash would get more curious if he wasn’t giving her all the answers. Or pretending to giving her the answers. He couldn’t forget that she was manipulated by Jeremy Backfire and that his goals weren’t clear enough. No need to give him what he desired by mistake. Better not give them Rose and the other half of the Wolf. He would die protecting them. Dying was exactly the card he was gonna play. So far, the Wolf and him had worked together but he was always in charge, except for some incidents that had happened now and then. The Wolf was remaining hidden for its own safety. I t was just fixing the damages Nash was creating to its human shell when she was done. He would have died a long time ago without this power, which ironically was also killing him. “Unless what? Is there another card you wanna play? You think that talking all the way through that session will save your ass? We can’t even tell what’s true and what’s not.” “It’s up to you to believe me or not. But just so you know, I am fully human and humans can’t handle the power currently stuck in my head.” “Which means?” “I’m slowly dying. The power is burning everything in me and you’re speeding the process up with your methods.” Nash smirked. Maybe she believed him and was concerned for him deep down, but on the outside, she had to act like she didn’t. She had to pretend it was a trick when the doctor inside her wanted to check his words and save him. She couldn’t see it, the power burning his mind and causing rage fits and complete blackouts when he was alone in his cell. He was holding on pretty well so far but he didn’t have much time left. They would realise it soon enough. “Nice try, Doctor.” That new voice turned his blood to ice. Jeremy had been there all along the session and had witnessed their exchange. That explained why she was so tensed and acting like the Quiston Assassin she had once been. Well, you never ceased to be an assassin. You just learnt how to hide this part deep inside you. The Doctor was well placed to know that. Jeremy was done with these games. Now was the time for round two. If the Doctor didn’t want to say the truth, he was gonna talk to his other self, the one he was keeping hidden all the time, and there was only one way to force him out. He came in the room and dismissed Nash who obeyed wordlessly. He pushed the machine to the maximum. However, the Doctor was strong and he resisted. Him and his Wolf were a powerful team. Powerful enough for Jeremy to fly off the handle. The yellow room wasn’t enough. He had to hit harder. The Doctor was breathless. All his body was suffering from the electricity that had just gone through it. He laughed in Jeremy’s face instead of complaining and raging. He was rewarded with a punch in the face. It added more to his physical pain but didn’t affect his mood. He was determined not to let Jeremy win, no matter the cruel things he had in mind to torture him. It was certain that he wouldn’t like them at all. Jeremy was furious. He turned around, opened a drawer and pulled out a needle. He checked the label on it. They had invented a special mix for him. One that wouldn’t wear off in the minutes that followed the injection. One that would keep him awake but unable to move or speak or think. The fluid was injected straight in his jugular vein and slowly followed the course of blood to spread in his whole body until there was nothing of him that could react to Jeremy’s threats. When the Doctor was completely paralysed, Jeremy called a bunch of his subjects to transfer the patient in another room he had never seen before. It looked like an OR, with red walls. There was a metallic table in the centre where he was strapped down. He couldn’t move at all but they were taking no risk. His head was placed in a surgical vice? All around him, the walls and furniture were immaculate, sterilised. There was a whole collection of tools for surgery, all perfectly sterile and waiting to be used on a new Guinea pig. Behind the strong smell of bleach, there was the smell of terror, of blood, of urine. Many had been taken there before him and many had suffered from irremediable damages. Today, the Doctor was gonna get familiar with the red room. Here, they weren’t gonna flood his brain with electricity. They were gonna go further. They were gonna explore the brain itself, for real. Jeremy Backfire was nowhere close to being a neurologist. That was gonna be a disaster. “Well, Doctor, it’s about time we use brand new methods. Forget about the soft ones Nash was using on you. Now, I’m taking the control of your case.” Jeremy slipped a finger down the collection of tools, seemingly looking for the proper one to choose. His mind was already set on the scalpel but making the choice last was playing on the Doctor’s nerves. Everything to make the unwavering man drop his mask of confidence he was wearing so proudly. “See, Doctor, I want something from you and I’m ready to get it at any price.” Jeremy placed his cold hand on the Doctor’s face and folded his ear to clear the way. The scalpel stroked his skin, just above the ear, and cut the tender skin deeply. Blood flowed and ran down his neck. Jeremy put the scalpel down, grabbed a drill and tested it. He pressed the trigger a couple times to make sure it was working. Then he drilled a hole in the Doctor’s skull. The patient was conscious. He was feeling everything and couldn’t defend himself or scream. A brain surgery without anaesthetics. It was gonna push him beyond his limits and forced the Wolf to come out. Exactly what Jeremy was wishing for. He inserted a little sensor in the hole. The Doctor didn’t see it properly but he felt it. A sensor inside his brain. It could have been a sensor to monitor his brain’s activity but he sensed that it was for another purpose. Another method of torture that needed two holes and two sensors, one on each side of his head. He had been scared of death once. Right now, he surprised himself to think that it would be a relief. Jeremy wouldn’t give him that. “Oh, now, you’re scared, big ears,” commented Jeremy, amused. “Excellent. That’s the right attitude. It means you’re gonna give me what I want.” The Doctor did, and not because he chose to. Actually, he tried to resist as much as possible but being electrocuted straight in the brain was proved to be efficient as a torture method. The human abandoned the battle in less than ten minutes. The pain and death threat hanging above its host’s head compelled the Time Entity sleeping in his mind to come out and protect him. So far, it had been too weak to even show up but it had found out that feeding on the evil vibes and negative emotions that were filling this place was more satisfying than feeding on a Time rift like the TARDIS needed. Being in a human body didn’t only have drawbacks. It could now take control and show that damn man who was the real boss around here. The Doctor’s eyes turned gold and a loud growl came from his throat. In the second, all the restraints and sensors vanished in golden particles and the Doctor, possessed by the Wolf, was on his feet. The cuts healed themselves. Jeremy stepped back, a smirk on his lips. He was scared of course. He knew partly what the Wolf was capable of. It was better not to make it angrier. It was mad enough at the moment. “There you are.” “Oh, so I’m the one you expected to see? You happy? Good. Because that’s the last thing you will ever have done in your miserable little life.” The Wolf took another step toward Jeremy. It wanted to lay its hands on him and feel his body disintegrating as it erased him from time and space, as he reduced his whole existence to dust. It had been provoked, but it also had been given the strength to finally be in charge. Wiping Jeremy away would also wipe Maxence away and that wasn’t an option. It had to reduce Jeremy to nothing and yet, keep him alive. There was one simple way to have its revenge on him and run away from here to find the real Doctor. “You think we didn’t plan it all? That we didn’t take any measure for the day you would come out again?” “Oh, you’re getting clever.” “Always have been.” The Wolf snorted, “What do you want from me?” “Do you even have to ask?” “Pure politeness.” Because the Wolf was already in his head and looking for the information it desired. Which wasn’t complicated. Humans were open books. They didn’t have any lock or any barrier to protect their minds. If they knew what was living among them, what was coming for them in the future, they would protect themselves better. At the moment though, it was an opportunity. “Hm. Humans are predictable but you have the merit of being different. On some points at least.” That hospital was only a façade. They were using this asylum to hide their real activities. Their basement had been turned into a lab and a prison for non-terrestrial species. The place was protected by all the human technology available at this time and it was doubled with some alien technology. They were capturing every alien specimen they could find and experimenting on them to get as much information as they could get. Worse than Van Statten and Torchwood. Jeremy had even offered himself some upgrades with this data. And one day, he had heard about the Doctor. “You want me. You want my power to rewrite yourself. My power and my immortality. Basic.” “I want the Doctor and I can’t reach him without you.” “You want to use me to get him?” The Wolf scoffed. “The Doctor left me on Earth, stuck in the mind of his now human former self who didn’t want to die. Do you think he cares about the bomb I am? If he did care, he would have taken me out of here and you wouldn’t have known a thing about it.” “He hasn’t come because he doesn’t know. We caught you before you could do anything and this place intercepts most of the calls. Telepathic or not. You did call him but if he got the message, he never came around.” The Wolf clenched its fist and a golden glow travelled through his veins. The anger burnt in its hosts body and mind. If it had any limit, Jeremy would have crossed them. It was about time to break the man once and for all. “You can’t have me or my power. I won’t let you. And if you want the Doctor to come, draw his attention with something big. Big ball of troubles. He loves that.” “I don’t remember giving you the choice.” Jeremy wasn’t losing his impertinence. “I can’t do anything to neutralise you completely and force you to obey, but I can still break your human shell.” “Go on, try.” Jeremy smirked. The Wolf pressed a hand on his face to reduce his brain to a puddle of grey cells, to make a vegetable of him. It should have seen it coming but it was one of those grey zones. The moments always in flux. The ones where a decision needed to be made. And Jeremy had just taken his when the Wolf chose to attack instead of submitting. There was a whistle caused by a flying object and the Wolf felt a distinct sting in his thigh. A needle. “YOU THINK IT’LL STOP ME?” it roared. It was really mad now. It began the process of killing Jeremy from the inside. Its other hand grabbed his throat and lifted him from the ground. He was struggling against the hand strangling him, his feet dangling in the air, but his face showed a clear victorious expression. “I was just the distraction,” he panted. The door of the room flew open and someone shot five times. The Wolf roared louder as the five needles jabbed in its back. It let go of Jeremy to run to the person who had dared shooting it. But it found itself unable to move anymore. It was losing its power, its control and slowly being numbed by the drugs he had been given. The Doctor couldn’t take over for the moment so the Wolf fought. In vain. It fell to its knees, to Jeremy’s feet who was watching him with a victorious smile. “I always get what I want, Maxence. You should know that.” Those were the last words the Wolf could hear before it completely fell to the ground, beaten by the high dose of modified drugs they had shot him with. Nash would have a furious Wolf to deal with on their next appointment. It wasn’t gonna forget or forgive that. Jeremy would pay for that. Not from the cell. It wanted to face this asshole when it would get his revenge. Just for fun. It would carve it in its memories to never forget. It would laugh about it. However, it would have to wait until later. The nurses chained up the Doctor’s body again and dragged him to his room. Since he was deeply asleep, they didn’t even bother carrying him. Dragging him was less tiring. They threw him in his cell and took away the chains before they left and locked the door behind them.

To be continued...

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astudyingreer · 5 years

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The Hands That Remember | Chapter One: Henrik (FULL)

*This novel is a Patreon-exclusive. The next chapters will be for Patrons only!

A novel about Henrik, and what made him who he is today. | Henrik is relaxing on his shift when a patient begins to exhibit strange, but eerily-similar symptoms.

TW: Hospitals

The makeshift table in Henrik’s on-call room was a little too short for him—he sat on the footstool-chair bent like a caveman with his legs spread, leaning his elbows on his knees and his curls falling in his face. The stack of books that held the chessboard was only about a foot and a half off the ground, and very unstable, but it worked in a pinch.

Henrik’s dark eyes were impossibly focused on the board, watching every indecisive movement of Lena, one of the neurologists on his shift, sitting on the floor across from him. She leaned on one hand and hovered her other over the pieces, finally deciding on a rook and moving it four spaces.

“When do you think they’ll give you your table back?” she asked. Her hand moved involuntarily to steady the board as it rocked precariously on its book-stand.

“It was not really mine, I only borrowed it,” Henrik sighed. “But I hope it is soon. This is very inconvenient.” His nose scrunched in concentration, then he moved his own piece.

“You could just sit on the floor.”

“I do not think so.” Henrik exhaled deeply, sliding his fingers under his glasses to rub his aching eyes. He was an hour away from the end of his shift, and even though it was only ten o’clock he felt as if he could fall asleep right there. He couldn’t imagine how Lena was feeling—she was far more busy than him, but she never lost her optimistic energy.

Henrik steepled his hands, watching Lena bite her lip as she contemplated her next move. It took every ounce of strength not to point out the most prudent move her on her part—moving her knight to protect her bishop on the left side—but he stayed silent. They had been practicing that: keeping his mouth shut. Lena always said, “Don’t you want to win?” but he didn’t have the heart to tell her he would most likely win no matter how much help he gave her. He was very good at chess.

Finally she moved—unfortunately not the smartest move—and he quickly took one of her pawns, eliciting a soft groan of frustration from her. She sat up and crossed her legs, stretching her arms up and behind her.

“Why do you always shut yourself in here?” she finally asked. “Why don’t you just sleep? You’re obviously quite tired, honestly I don’t think I’ve met a doctor who doesn’t sleep every chance they get.”

Henrik chuckled. “I am not tired.”

“That’s a lot of bullshit.”

“Let me say that again,” Henrik noted. He drummed his fingers on his legs as he waited for her to take her turn. “I do not want to sleep.”

“What, you have nightmares or something?” she said with an easy chuckle, glancing up at him from the board. Then she sobered a little at his hesitation to reply.

“I do not have nightmares,” Henrik replied finally, shrugging his shoulders. “I just, ah… do better when I am busy.”

“They’re not going to let you operate if you’re exhausted, Henrik,” she pointed out, and her tone had grown more gentle. “You should take another nap soon, really. We can always finish this later.”

Henrik just shrugged again. “Perhaps.”

The game continued in silence, like it usually did. Thankfully Lena wasn’t a talker… much.

Henrik reached to move his piece and brushed the board, nearly toppling the entire set-up as it began to slip off the book. They both reached out to grab it with lightning speed, and Lena laughed.

“I can’t believe they took your table for the charity display,” Lena complained, though it was good-natured. “This sucks.”

“Again, it was not mine. And I think you are just bitter,” Henrik remarked. There was a hint of smugness in his tone as he picked up his paper cup of cold coffee, taking a sip. “Because you are not as well at chess as I am.”

“‘Good.’”

“What?”

She shot him a smile, moving her piece with pointed confidence. “‘Not as good at chess as I am.’”

“Ah, fuck off,” he muttered, shaking his head. This only seemed to fuel her triumphant expression and she laughed, straightening her scrubs as she fell back into a comfortable slouch on the floor.

The door of the on-call room suddenly opened and they both looked up, seeing Marvin peek his head in with a strangely-guarded expression. His eyes met Henrik’s and wordlessly the surgeon stood up, picking up his coffee with him. It was best not to act first and ask questions later with Marvin—he was an elusive personality, very quiet and mysterious, but he had very good judgement.

“What’s up?” Lena asked, eyebrows knitting.

“I will be back,” Henrik told her, though it wasn’t much of an explanation. Quickly he slipped out the door, closing it behind him. He could already an odd tension in the air as he turned toward Marvin.

“It’s one of the patients,” Marvin said in a hushed tone, his bright eyes darting down the hallway. “You should take a look.”

“You should page a nurse for that,” Henrik told him, but Marvin quickly shook his head.

“No. No, you need to see for yourself.”

The pit began to open in Henrik’s stomach as he saw the solemnity of Marvin’s face—his friend was never worried, about anything at all, but now he seemed truly shaken. It was hard to repress the dread that was rising in his chest as he followed Marvin to the PACU.

They passed the occasional gurney or nurse in the hallways, but for the most part a strange stillness had fallen on the hospital. Usually Henrik’s liked this part of his shift, and probably would have enjoyed the quiet, but his mind was racing with all the different things that could have shaken Marvin this much.

Finally they came to a recovery room near the end of the hall, and Marvin checked for onlookers before quietly opening the door and slipping inside. Henrik followed.

The first thing that Henrik noticed in the room was that all the machines and monitors were off: there was no display, no fluid dripping through the IV, and no soft noises coming from the equipment. If this was not enough of a concern, the patient seemed unaffected—in fact, he was conscious, eyes open and trained on the ceiling from where he lay.

Instantly a chill came over Henrik. The patient’s eyes were open, but they were glassy and disoriented. His face was drawn, skin clammy and colorless, and he had kicked all the sheets off of his bed. When they entered, his eyes moved to them, though none of his other features even shifted. They bore right into Henrik, as if looking past him to the wall beyond and yet connected directly with his own eyes.

Fear had never been Henrik’s enemy. He had learned to manage, control it… push it down and prioritize rationality and levelheadedness. But the sight before him sent waves of needle-like prickles down his spine, and his skin felt as if it contracted against his muscles in hideous dread. The room seemed ten times more still than before.

“I have seen this before,” Henrik murmured. His mouth was suddenly very dry. “In… in Jameson.”

“I wasn’t sure, but I thought…” Marvin took a long breath. “I thought you would know.”

That… experience barely entered Henrik’s mind anymore—he had almost shut it out completely, as best he could, but now it was all coming back. That same glazed-over stare, the first day before it all began. The sleepless nights and violent episodes, all the suturing and recovery, the blood, the lies, oh god, the surgery…

That looming monster of complete incapacitation suddenly crept up the back of Henrik’s mind and he moved mechanically into action. “We need to get him off morphine immediately,” he began quietly, almost to himself. “He must be sedated—“

“Maybe I should just put him under,” Marvin suggested quietly.

That phrase sparked a reaction in Henrik and he turned quickly. “No. If he is not wake-able, and the doctors cannot explain it, it will raise too many question. We have to sedate him.”

“So what, you’re going to order sedatives for a guy that was successfully recovering from surgery half an hour ago?” Marvin urged, lowering his voice as someone passed close by outside the room. “This could be nothing.”

Henrik shook his head. His heart was pounding. “It is exactly the same—“

“Look at me, Henrik.”

Henrik complied, tearing his eyes away from the patient. Marvin reached out, grabbing his shoulder tightly with a very rare urgency.

“Whatever it is,” he said. “You won’t let what happened to Jameson happen to this guy. Hell, I won’t either. And you know what to do this time.”

Henrik shook his head wordlessly, biting his lower lip. “Why would be back…?”

“We can figure that out later. Just let me—“

Suddenly the room was filled with a cacophony of beeping and humming as all the equipment started back up at once. In the same instant the patient drew an even but heavy breath, his hands tightening into white-knuckled fists. His eyes regained their life and darted around in sleepy confusion until they fell on the two standing by the door.

“A-Are you the nurse?” he asked blearily.

Henrik felt his chest unravel. The breath he had been trying to draw whooshed into his lungs in an instant, and he looked to Marvin. His friend nodded, slipping out the door to find a nurse.

Henrik watched the patient with tentative dread, waiting for something to happen or go wrong, but it never came. The man only laid his head back down and closed his eyes in vague discomfort, his hand going to the fresh stitches at his side.

It had looked so similar. Exact. That look in his eyes, the sweating, the… deadness. It couldn’t have been nothing.

Maybe Lena was right. He did need sleep.

---

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leigh-kelly · 5 years

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(More Hospital!AU)

The morning of Oliver’s doctor’s appointment, Santana is a nervous wreck. She hadn’t slept much the night before, getting up every hour or so to google something that she might want to ask Dr. Morgan, and the whole thing has her so close to the edge. This is her sin. The little boy she gave birth to way too early. If something is wrong with him, she feels like it’s all on her and she just doesn’t know how to cope with that. For her part, Brittany is so good. She gets up and lets Santana stay in bed—even though she’s not sleeping—and gets breakfast for Liam before the twins are even up.

It’s just a lot for Santana to cope with and she has no idea how she’s even going to manage the cab ride to the doctor’s office, let alone the consultation. She knows for a fact that Oliver isn’t developing as quickly as Max, she knows that everything is more obvious because he’s an identical twin and all she fears in the world is that Dr. Morgan is going to tell her that her son is not okay. Special needs she can handle, special needs is totally fine, but what if there’s something terribly wrong with her sweet little Oliver and he’s not going to be okay?

“Baby?” Brittany comes into the room where Santana lays with the covers over her head. “I know the boys are still sleeping, but I think we should get them up or we’re going to be late.”

“Okay.” Santana sucks in a deep breath. “I’ll wake them up. My boobs are killing me, it’s time for them to eat.”

Brittany is good. She’s so good and Santana wishes she could ever express to her just how much she means. She leaves Santana alone because she just knows that Santana needs her time to cope with her anxiety and leaning over the bassinet, Santana gently wakes up Max and Oliver. Oliver cries a lot when he wakes up, and it always hurts Santana’s heart to hear it, but once she has the two of them latched on and she leans against the headboard, she feels like it’s going to be okay. Oliver is strong, Oliver is amazing, and she shouldn’t have to worry about him when he’s so clearly going to catch up to his brother.

Santana spends a long time kissing Liam and Max goodbye when her mother gets there. She just never wants to spend more attention on one of the boys so she’s very careful to divide her love among them. When Oliver first came home, Santana had worried that Max wasn’t getting enough attention, but she’s corrected that, she’s tried so hard to make sure that just because maybe Ollie needs a little more, she’s not neglecting the other boys that she loves so much. Brittany is the love of her life, but Liam, Max and Oliver are something else, they’re the love she never believed she could have, they’re so much of her heart, and she never wants to make any one of them feel like she doesn’t love them as much as the other.

“Are you okay?” Brittany asks Santana, once they’re in the backseat of the cab with Oliver strapped to Santana’s chest.

“I’m so scared, Britt. I don’t even know how to control myself.”

“I’m scared too. But Dr. Morgan is the best neurologist in the city, which pretty much means the best in the world. She came so highly recommended by everyone at the hospital that I can’t be worried she won’t do what’s right by us.”

“I just never want anything to happen to our son. He had surgery so young...”

“I know, but he’s thriving.” Brittany squeezes Santana’s hand. “If we didn’t have Max to compare him to, we probably wouldn’t be worried.”

“But we do.”

“I know. And today he’s going to get an MRI and we’re going to see how much his brain is developing. You’re going to feel so much better after we do that.”

“I really hope you’re right.”

They get to the office and Santana paces the floor of the waiting room. She hates that Dr. Morgan is running late, she hates that even though their appointment is right when the office opens, she’s still not there. Brittany trues to calm her down but it just doesn’t work. She’s an absolute wreck and she won’t be settled until someone tells her that her son is okay. In moments like this, she hates being a surgeon, she hates that she knows about worst case scenarios and she hates that she’s been the one to tell them to parents. She’s afraid of some kind of karmic retribution that will take it out on Oliver and she kind of wants to throw up.

“Oliver.” The receptionist calls out and Santana wants to jump out of her skin. “Dr. Morgan is ready.”

Brittany carries Oliver into the exam room and Dr. Morgan is waiting there. She’s supposed to be the best neurologist in the city, but Santana sizes her up. She can tell that there’s a scowl on her own face that Brittany tries to soften with a squeeze of her hand but she just wants the doctor to know that she better do exactly what is right by her son. She’s a doctor, she’s not a parent that is clueless and can be taken advantage of. She doesn’t know if she accomplishes that all with a glare, but she sure hopes she can.

“Dr. Lopez, Dr. Pierce. It’s so nice to meet you.” Dr. Morgan extends her hand. “And Mr. Oliver, it’s so nice to meet you too.”

“We’re so glad you could see him.” Brittany speaks. “We know you have quite a busy schedule.”

“I know you were recommended by Holly Holiday, I’ve seen a few of her neonatology patients.”

“She did Oliver’s surgery.” Brittany tells her, while Santana remains silent. “And she says you’re the best.”

“I’m good at my job, but I don’t need the flattery. Why don’t I check Oliver out before we do an MRI?”

Dr. Morgan shines a light in Oliver’s eyes and he cries, making Santana flinch. She knows she’s made patients of her own cry with exams, but it feels different when it’s her own son. Brittany answers most of the questions about Oliver’s development, leaving out the comparisons to Max, while Santana stands over the baby and tries to make him feel better. When it comes time for the MRI, Santana holds back her tears when Dr. Morgan straps Oliver down. He keeps wailing and even with Santana and Brittany in the room, they can’t do anything to calm him. Brittany holds Santana’s hand and it’s the one thing anchoring her during the procedure which feels like it lasts hours. She knows this is just the first of many that he’ll need throughout his life and all that she can hope is that it will get easier as time goes on.

“Okay.” Dr. Morgan says when they are back in the exam room and Santana holds Oliver to her breast, comfort nursing him. “From the MRI, it looks like the brain bleed has healed really well.”

“I’m so glad to hear that.” Brittany breathes a sigh of relief and Santana looks up from the baby.

“His development is slow and that’s a concern for me. He’s too young for me to diagnose him, but I want to keep an eye on him, meaning you come see me every six months. Watch him carefully, I want to know if his limbs are stiff or if you notice any flopiness. I expect that his development will continue to be slower than his brother’s, but I suggest you don’t compare the two.”

Santana knows that Dr. Morgan is looking for signs of cerebral palsy in her son but can’t diagnose him at such a young age and she feels sick to her stomach. She doesn’t want her sweet baby boy to have a hard life and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t do everything in her power to make it easier. When they leave, she just feels so exhausted and as Oliver sleeps in her arms, she knows she wants to take him up to bed when they get home. She knows that she should talk to Brittany, but she also knows that her mind is racing and she just needs a little time to process.

Luckily for her, Liam and Max are napping when they get back in the house so she’s able to excuse herself from her mom and Brittany and go up to the bedroom. She lays Oliver on the bed beside her because she doesn’t want him far away and she actually manages to fall asleep like that, even if she has nightmares once she does. She knows that she tosses and turns but when she wakes up to the sound of Oliver’s cries, she lifts him into her arms and cries herself. He’s okay, he’s going to be okay, but the stress of the morning has really gotten to her and she just needs to release it.

“Hi.” Brittany opens the door. “I just wanted to come up and check on you.”

“I’m sorry I was useless at the appointment.” Santana sniffles. “It’s just hard for me to give up control to another doctor.”

“I understand that.” Brittany comes over and sits on the edge of the bed, leaning over to lift Oliver’s hair and look at his scar. “He has a long road ahead of him.”

“You know, my mom used to say that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. I don’t know if I believe in God, but if there is one, I really think he’s given us a little too much.”

“You’re the strongest person I know, Santana. Even if you have really bad anxiety, I know you can handle a lot.”

“You had to watch Liam have skin grafts, we sat through his second surgery, you were there for my third. Now this perfect little boy, we have to watch him for what I know are symptoms of cerebral palsy. I’m so scared about it.”

“If he has cerebral palsy, we’re going to get him the best care there is. I’m not afraid of it.”

“You’re not?”

“He’s our son, are you going to love him any differently?”

“Of course not.”

“Then that’s what matters. Look at him, Santana, he’s perfect, you made these two beautiful things.”

“They really are something else, aren’t they?” Santana sniffles and looks down at Oliver.

“They completed our family. I know we didn’t plan for twins but I can’t imagine not having them.”

“Neither can I. No matter how tired I am or stressed about all the stupid stuff at work, I look at our boys and just feel so grateful.”

“Me too.” Brittany wraps her arms sound Santana and holds her close. “Do you want me to take him downstairs so you can keep resting?”

“No, I’m reading to see Liam and Max. I’m sure Max is hungry.”

“I gave him a bottle while you were sleeping, he’s okay. It’s nice out today though, maybe we can take a walk?”

“I’d like that a lot. I know Li has been itching to go to the park.”

“He’d be thrilled if you told him that.” Brittany laughs. “Let’s go.”

Santana hands Oliver off to Brittany, knowing she really hasn’t had the time to cuddle him that she has, and they go downstairs. Liam is coloring intently at the table and Max is sitting in his little seat, squeezing the stuffed giraffe that is attached to it. Santana kisses her Liam on the head and then she bends down to get Max, watching how he smiles at her. She loves that the twins smile now, she loves that she gets to feel their joy in her presence and she squeezes him to her chest, just wanting to feel him in her arms.

“Mommy Noodle, why was you sleepin’ in the day time? Do you have to go to work?”

“I don’t, Sir. I was just having a little rest. But now that I’m awake, I was thinking we could go to the park.”

“Yay! I love the park! I can show Ollie and Maxie all the stuff! Can they go on the slide with me?”

“They’re still too little for that, bud.” Brittany ruffles his hair. “But maybe by the time summer comes, they’ll be able to go on the swings with you.”

“Summer is in a long, long time.” He pouts. “It’s still cold.”

“It’s getting warmer and summer will be here before you know it.” Brittany promises him. “But for now, Max and Oliver will really like watching you play.”

“Mommy Noodle, will you go on the slide with me? I like it better than going alone.”

“If that makes you happy, then I’ll absolutely go on the slide with you.”

Together, Santana and Brittany get the boys ready for the park and each of them take a carrier with one of the twins. Santana has Max strapped to her chest and before they even make it to the park, he falls asleep. She wonders when they’re going to stop sleeping so much, even though she knows a lot about kids, it’s different when they’re her own, and when she looks over at Oliver, he’s sleeping too. Liam is wide awake though and he skips between them, so excited to finally be outside after what feels like the longest winter.

They get to the park and true to her word, Santana goes down the slide with Liam. Brittany, in one of her amazing moments of forethought, had thrown the double carrier in the diaper bag and Santana helps her situate the two sleeping babies in it before she goes off with Liam. It’s been so long that she’s just been able to play with him that it feels so good for both of them and she sees Brittany stand up to take pictures. Being out in the cool late winter air feels so freeing and after such a stressful day, Santana feels like she could cry in relief. Then, while she’s chasing Liam around, her phone rings in her pocket and she peeks at it to see that it’s Shelby.

“Okay, Liam, time out. It’s Dr. Shelby on the phone and I need to answer it.”

“Hurry up, Mommy Noodle, hurry up!”

“Li, give Mommy a minute. Why don’t I push you in the swing?”

“Okey!”

“Hello?” Santana answers, feeling really nervous to talk to her.

“Hi Santana, how are you?”

“Just a little out of breath, sorry, I was running around with Liam.”

“Is this not a good time? Do you want to call me back?”

“No, it’s fine, I’m here. What going on?”

“The lawyers met today, it looks like they’ve been able to reach a settlement. In the settlement, the Franks have agreed not to sue you personally and they get their money. I met with Sue this afternoon, and you’re cleared to come back to work. I know you’re supposed to be on nights this week, but—”

“Nights are fine. I had taken off today for Oliver’s appointment, but I can come back tomorrow?”

“You can come back tomorrow. I’m scheduling you to cover the emergency room like I’d originally planned.”

“Okay, I’ll be there. Thank you, Shelby.”

“Thank you for being patient while this whole thing was worked out. I’ll see you tomorrow before I leave.”

Santana hangs up the phone and she goes over to the swings where Brittany is somehow managing to push Liam, even with two babies attached to her chest. To make things easier, Santana steps in and takes over the pushing. Brittany looks at her, waiting for her to talk, and Santana takes a deep breath.

“They settled, they’re not going to sue me. I’m going back to work tomorrow night, so I guess I’ll adjust for just one night before the weekend and then I go back to days next week.”

“You lucked out on only getting one night, huh?” Brittany laughs a little.

“I lucked out in a lot of ways. My job is safe. God, Britt, I feel so much better.”

“I feel so much better for you.”

Once Liam is tired out from the park, Santana carries him home when he complains about walking. Brittany makes a pork roast for dinner and as tired as Santana is, she knows that she has to stay up so she can sleep during the day and be prepared for the night shift. She calls her mom, who is perfectly fine with coming back in such short notice, and then after they eat dinner, Santana and Brittany do baths and bedtime. Santana will still come upstairs to do the night feedings so when she does the last feeding before bed, she kisses the babies goodnight and smiles down at them. Liam falls asleep even before books and Santana can see that Brittany is fading fast too.

“I’ll stay up with you for awhile.” Brittany offers, though her eyes look exhausted.

“Don’t, you’ll be tired in the morning. I think maybe I’ll go to the 24 hour Target and buy things we don’t need to keep myself from falling asleep on the couch.”

“I’m glad you got a little nap in today, hopefully that helps.”

“I hope so, the switch is always the worst and to do it for just one night kind of sucks. Saturday is going to be hell.”

“We’ll have a low key day, you can sleep for awhile, I’ll take the boys somewhere in the morning.”

“You’re the best wife, I hope you know that.”

“I’ve just been there, I know it’s brutal.” Brittany shrugs then yawns.

“Go to bed, babe, I know you’re tired.” Santana kisses her lips. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Once Brittany is upstairs in bed, Santana goes outside to get a cab and goes downtown to Target. Married life is such a different experience than when she was single and worked nights and she laughs at herself as she puts dish soap and paper towels in the cart. She has a few hours before she has to feed the boys so she wanders aimlessly around the store, ending up in the clothing section. She stocks up on bigger underwear for Liam and then she finds herself looking at new clothes for him. The twins have so much, people sent so many gifts when they were born, but Liam is growing so fast that she can’t help but pick out new things for him to wear. She and Brittany love Cat and Jack, so she ends up putting a bunch of t-shirts in the cart before she’s off to stock up on diapers.

It’s one o’clock in the morning when she heads home and she leaves everything by the doorway so she can go upstairs and be there when Max and Oliver wake up. She sits on the edge of the bed, murmuring to Brittany to stay sleeping, while she feeds them and hums softly to them and then she goes back downstairs to start organizing everything she bought. She feels absolutely exhausted but if she can just stay awake until five, she’ll be in decent shape for getting some sleep during the day. The time finally comes and she feeds the boys one more time before she crawls into bed next to Brittany, tucking herself into her body. She’ll only get to sleep like that for an hour or so before Brittany gets up, but it’s totally worth it even for the short time.

She sleeps through the morning, not even hearing her mom or the boys downstairs, and when she finally wakes up, it’s two o’clock and her breasts are killing her from not nursing or pumping for so long. Santana brushes her teeth and washes her face and she throws on clean scrubs before she goes downstairs to see what’s going on. Liam is watching Paw Patrol and Oliver is in her mother’s arms while Max sleeps in the bouncy seat.

“Mommy Noodle, you sleepeded for so long! I already taked my nap.”

“I was pretty tired.” Santana laughs. “But I was thinking Ollie might be hungry.”

“He is.” Maribel hands him over to Santana. “I knew you’d be up soon, so I didn’t want to feed him.”

“Thank you for that, Ma. Hello, my sweet boy.”

Santana settles in on the couch to nurse and she watches as Liam shouts along with his show. It’s kind of weird for her, knowing that she won’t be around for bedtime tonight, but she knows she has to get over it. Shelby probably worked her shifts this week and it’s different for her as a single mom with an elementary age daughter than it is for she and Brittany who have each other.

“You must be excited to go back to work, mija.”

“I really am, I’m just glad you’re have this whole thing behind me, and Shelby has started looking for a new surgeon, so it’ll lighten the stress that’s been hanging over the department.”

“I’m glad to hear that. And you’re doing okay?”

“I’m getting by, honestly.” Santana sighs. “I have my moments, but it’s just part of who I am.”

“I don’t tell you enough, but I’m so very proud of you. You’re an amazing doctor and mother.”

“Ma.”

“Take the compliment.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Santana spends time with the boys. Liam yells when she has to go to work, but she promises him that they’ll have the whole weekend together and then she’s out the door. She figures she’ll get there early enough that she’ll have enough time to pop into Brittany’s office before she has to be in the ER and she’s glad she’ll be able to see her. She goes upstairs and Brittany is just packing up, undoubtedly anxious to see Liam and the twins and Santana leans on her doorframe.

“Hey you.” Brittany grins. “I’m glad I got to see you.”

“Me too, I wasn’t sure if you’d be gone.”

“I took a few extra minutes on my rounds tonight, one of my skin grafts isn’t taking is quickly as I’d like.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Just watch it. It might have to be redone, but I won’t know for a few days. How are you? Are you rested?”

“I woke up around two, so I’m pretty rested. I know covering the pit means no time to sneak in a nap in an on call room, so I’ll survive.”

“I know you won’t sleep enough when you get home, so I’ll do the night shift tomorrow night with the boys so you can take a pill.”

“Thank you.” Santana comes toward Brittany’s desk and kisses her lips. “I’ll see you in the morning?”

“I’m sure we’ll be up.”

Santana goes down to the emergency room and gets started seeing possible surgical patients. Before long, she’s doing an appendectomy on a ten year old girl and after not being in surgery for the last week and a half, it feels good to snap her gloves back on. She thinks of all the overnights she used to work where she didn’t get to do a single surgery, so having one to start off the night feels good. After the Frank incident, she feels like an emergency appendectomy is exactly what she needs to get back in the game and it goes off without a hitch.

Once that’s done, the rest of the night is quiet and she finds herself counting the hours until she can go home. When she’s busy, she never feels that way, but since it’s dead, she just thinks of how nice it would feel to be sleeping beside her wife. When the night is finally over, she’s tired, more tired than she ever was when working an overnight shift before three kids, and she grabs her stuff and goes out on the curb to get a cab. She’s glad she doesn’t have the car, glad she doesn’t have to drive home in her exhausted state and she gives the driver the address and is glad to be home in fifteen minutes.

The lights are still out when she goes into the house and she’s surprised that at 6:30 none of the boys have woken up. She creeps up the stairs, trying to keep it that way, and throws on a clean pair of scrubs and takes a sleeping pill before she crawls in bed next to Brittany. Almost subconsciously, Santana thinks, Brittany pulls her close, and even though she knows very soon Brittany will be out of bed, she savors the time she has in her arms.

“Why won’t Mommy Noodle wake up?” Santana hears Liam screaming in the hall, hours later. “I want to see her now!”

“Li, she didn’t come home until just before we woke up, we have to let her sleep for a little while longer.”

“But it’s daytime and I already eated my lunch!” She listens as her gets increasingly upset, clearly at the point where he needs a nap.

“If you’ll take a nap, you can go lay with Mommy while she sleeps.” Brittany tells him and Santana smiles into her pillow, even as sleep threatens to pull her back under.

She feels Liam get into bed with her and she just pulls him close to her as she falls back to sleep. She knows she’ll have to wake up soon, but for as long as Liam is sleeping, she can remain in bed, content to dream. When she feels Liam stir again, Santana opens her eyes and just looks down at her perfect son, waking up from his nap. He’s definitely less grumpy than he was when he was yelling earlier and even though it’s late in the afternoon, she feels like she’ll have plenty of time with him until bedtime.

“Mommy Noodle, you ‘wake.”

“I am awake, Sir. Did you have a good nap?”

“I cuddled with you!” He grins. “I misseded you so much.”

“I missed you too, but we have all tonight and all tomorrow before I go back to work.”

“Look who’s up.” Brittany opens the door, holding both Max and Oliver. “Hi Mommy.”

“Hi, love. Hi, my sweet boys. Are you hungry?”

“I held off on feeding them, I thought you might be sore.”

“Thank you.” Santana smiles. “Come in bed with us, we’d snuggling.”

Brittany climbs up on the bed, passing the twins to Santana, and she pulls up her scrub shirt to start nursing them. Liam has his head against her shoulder and Brittany holds her hand and it’s just the nicest thing to be cuddled up with her whole family. Once she’s done nursing, Santana figures she should get up and brush her teeth and wash her face—though she doesn’t change out of her scrubs—and when she’s done, she takes Oliver from Brittany and they all go downstairs.

“I want hot dogs for dinner!” Liam declares and both Santana and Brittany laugh. He always wants hot dogs for dinner but they can’t comply <i>every</i> night.

“No hot dogs tonight.” Brittany tells him. “We’re going to have pork chops.”

“But that’s yucky!”

“Li, we talked about this, you have to try things.”

“But I like hot dogs!”

“Liam.” Brittany puts her foot down. “No hot dogs.”

Liam and Brittany argue a little while Santana takes the twins to do their tummy time. Oliver is getting a little better at it, crying a little less, and Santana appreciates that. She knows that he needs to build up his muscle tone and though she longs to scoop him up when he cries, she makes him stay on his stomach beside Max. She and Brittany have talked about it, and they know that the worst thing for him is to have his every whim catered to. Brittany had confessed to Santana that she’s wanted so badly to do it with Liam when he was small and healing but she’d done research that advised her against it. They’re sticking with that with the twins and even though it hurts Santana’s heart, it’s for the best.

“He’s doing better today.” Brittany lays down on her stomach beside Santana after Liam stalks off to the playroom, still mad about the hot dogs.

“Yeah, it’s just a little crying. I can handle that. I’m sorry I slept so late today, I really meant to get up but I was so wound up when I got in from work this morning that I had to take a pill.”

“Honey, you worked an overnight, you don’t have to apologize to me for sleeping.”

“I know, but it’s Saturday.”

“And we have Sunday. I’m just happy you’re back at work.”

“So am I. I know legal kind of sucks, but it’s settled, I don’t have to worry about my malpractice.”

“Good.” Brittany kisses her cheek. “I knew it would be okay.”

“I just didn’t know what to expect. It’s been such a tough few months, I kept imagining worst case scenario where I had to leave and lose the thing that keeps me sane. Or, one of the things that keeps me sane.”

“It’s okay that surgery is what keeps you sane. I think it does for me too. Cutting and fixing and being a hero make everything else fall into place.”

“I will tell you this though.” Santana cocks her head to the side. “Surgery used to be the only thing that made me happy. That’s not true anymore.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear that.”

#brittana #hospital!au

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baekhyuns-abs · 5 years

Text

His human, his protector [9]

(gif not mine credit to the maker)

Two updates in a day? You betcha.

Mentions of physical abuse and dark themes

Don’t be shy, I don’t bite

Previous chapters

Masterlist

“I’m Daniel.”

She didn’t care.

The male nurse didn’t care for her weeks ago until she opened her mouth during the induction with subject 10 - now called the self healer. She hoped he wouldn’t bother her again after her cold and abrupt rejection of his coffee date but as she slipped on her lab coat she realised she was mistaken.

She looked at him, his eyes hopeful but she remembered the look of evil in them when she had witnessed him battering subject 10 - the very subject she had saved - till the point he was close to being too fatigued to heal himself.

She forced a smile through the disgust and pushed aside her fear of what she had witnessed in Richard Francis’ ‘office’ days ago.

“Nice to meet you.” She lied.

She clipped her level 4 identification to her lapel and headed out of the locker room hastily.

She felt tired, drained. Her emotions were jaded and her body felt heavy, no amount of coffee could make her feel energised and ready to work. She had done her first set of night shifts, all of which were boring, triesome and completely uneventful since she had retrieved the stick from Wesley’s locker. She was back on her days again, her body accumulating to the change slowly.

It was hard to come to work, it was hard to continue acting unphased by everything knowing what she knew. There was a breeding drug, there was sexual abuse as well as physical and it depressed her, the fact that she was aware of these new happenings yet was just has helpless as she was before to do much about them.

Richard had become a ghost; she hadn’t heard off him since she had left that apartment building. She was naive enough to hope that the so-called infiltration date was sooner rather than later. Every new blood sample, every tick of the clocks got tedious and she slowly began to lose hope. She feared the worst, that Richard was a test that she had failed and she was soon to be murdered or that he had been killed himself.

She swiped her card, heading down the first corridor of unfortunate subjects, their numbers printed on the doors so primitively - 04... 94…

Security details stood obediently at the doors, their expressions almost dead. She avoided looking at them as she carried on through to her floor. She placed her card against the reader as she came to her restricted access patients, 21 and 99.

As the corridor doors clicked open she made a move to step inside when a chillingly familiar voice caught her attention.

“Good morning, nurse.” Doctor Lendal called behind her and she could have cried.

She felt gripped by fear all of a sudden, her mind spinning. What if he knows? What if he knows?! She was repulsed by her doctor and the things he did and enjoyed doing to the subjects but because of that fact, she was completely frightened of him. Along with her traitorous actions against Nova and her loyalty to another cause she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to do what it took to make her disappear.

“I was hoping to catch you.”

She turned around and grimaced as he sported his surgical coat. That could only mean one thing - theater. She didn’t know still what they did during surgeries on the subjects but the bloody rags and organs that followed the procedures.

“The tests on experiment 10 have been reviewed by the board and they are impressed with the findings and your level 6 clearance has been granted.”

She didn’t know how to be happy about that news. She was moving up in the company and in any other environment it would be amazing, goal achieving but this was Nova, the higher up you go the more blood there is on your hands. She forced a smile to her doctor, hoping the look in her eyes matched his of greed and corruption.

“Thank you.” She gusted with a sugar coated voice as she inwardly cringed.

“They should have your new ID card at the registration desk by the end of the day, but you still have access to level 6 facilities and data with your current one.”

~~~

She headed downstairs, heart feeling heavier the more underground she got. She was the only nurse under Lendal that now had access to subject 88 - the teleporter. She hated to fear him, but she did, she couldn’t help it. The look in his eyes was inhuman, the creature underneath his skin extremely close to the surface.

Nova did that to him, we did that to him.

She stepped inside after showing her ID card to the extensive security team in the vault. They searched her name and upon seeing that she was a newly designated level 6 nurse she was let inside the cell accompanied by 3 guards. She couldn’t help but wonder why. If he was tame to women she shouldn’t need armed officers but she guiltily felt comforted by their presence as she met the penetrative dark gaze of subject 88

“Hi…” She spoke softly, her heart beating quickly. “I just need to do check ups…”

The plump lips of 88 stretched into a smirk and he wordlessly stood from his crouch and it was the tamest he had been since his last check up.

“C-can you come to the line?” The edge of the kill zone.

“He can’t understand you, you know.” One of the guard’s voice was amused, his tone patronising.

She didn’t spare him a glance as she kept her eyes focused on the deadly human experiment in the furthest corner from her.

“It won’t hurt…” She tried to convey her sympathy with her eyes, her apologies and sadness for him. “Just come to the line.”

88 smiled even more at her, his expression mad and it made her red. He stood straight, turning completely to her and she held her breath.

“Are you going to say please?”

The rustle of shocked security details behind her sounded as they fidgetted where they stood, outstanded and suddenly horrified at the fact that 88 had just spoken. His voice was light yet deep, unused and rusty and she exhaled. He had never spoken, no one knew that he could, his vocal cords hadn’t been altered when he was first taken in but he never used his voice.

Shocked but pleasantly so she nodded. “Please come to the line.”

His skin didn’t flash, didn’t disappear every few seconds as he moved towards her. He was stable as he approached with such ease it negated how he was chained up so heavily by every limb.

“I just need a blood sample.”

She could see by the way he walked leisurely to the line as instructed that there wasn’t a need for a physical. She couldn’t believe it, the ‘monster’ that everyone talked about upstairs with such malice and disdain held his arm out obediently as he stood still, gift stable as she took his dark blood. A closer look at him now she could see the traces of humanity in his face, the tanned skin that shouldn’t have developed from a life indoors, and his flickering eyes - from red to brown as if flickering from one creature to another.

But all the while he was still and she regretted being afraid of him in the first place.

88 looked menacing she couldn’t deny that but at the same time she couldn’t see him as a monster. He looked the furthest away from human but knowing that that was a product of Nova’s own making - it made her more sorry than scared.

“Okay.” She drew back her needle and just like he had been instructed to many times he placed his finger where the needle once was and applied pressure.

She didn’t realise how nervous she was until she applied the protective cap over the needle, her fingers shaking. 88’s eyes narrowed as they zoned in on her trembling hands and his iris’s bled back into red. They looked back at her face, the animalistic stare she had seen once, boring into her again. Sorrow and agony filled her every pore, as if she was feeling everything he felt.

She scurried back from the line her legs feeling weak as his lips laxed into a straight line and his skin began to flash. She sidestepped security and out of the cell without a look back. Her heart hammering and her lungs claimed with fear.

~~~

“This is scan 45…”

The MRI technician spoke monotonously as he pressed the right buttons to activate the massive machine behind the glass. She held her breath as she watched slowly as subject 99 began to slide into the large body scanner. A neurologist stood in front of her, blocking her view of the brain scan as it began to formulate on the screen. But she wasn’t focused on that, more on the male on the metal slab.

Subject 99 had been hauled from his cell, his protests evident from the state of the security guards as he entered the room for his scan. He was shoved on his back on the scanner, his legs and arms being bound down, his forehead too with a leather strap around his head - keeping him still.

They scanned him regularly, seeing a part of his brain that lit up when provoked, telling them all that he should have a gift, yet they never saw a glimpse of it. There was nothing that moved, nothing that shook or changed in the room as they tried to poke and prod him till he was bleeding - he refused to give in, show the doctors what he had shown her in the showers…

She had made a promise to not tell anyone that she had seen the ice he had made, that his gift was there and he could use it. Telling the doctors and technicians that he had a gift would relieve him of his pain and suffering - save his life as she knew Lendal wanted him dead. But he had chosen to live in secrecy and pain and although she wanted it to stop, she prayed every day that Richard Francis would do what he promised and save them both.

“His brain activity has changed… Said the scientist.”

She looked at him, her interest peaking and her fingers and toes crossing, hoping it wasn’t for the bad.

“The patterns suggest depression.” He muttered, gesturing to the brain on the screen. “Interesting…”

Her heart sank and she itched to be on the other side of the glass, to hold him; to free him.

“How can he be depressed?” Lendal scoffed, his voice void of anything but humour.

Her thoughts turned putrid as she looked at the doctor, hatred filling her.

“We could try electroshock therapy…” The neurologist said in response. “It’s proven to be very effective on other experiments.”

Horrified she looked back to him. That’s illegal; but so was everything else that took place in the building. She had read about shock therapy, it was old, outdated and ruled out by every medical professional in the western world as nothing but harmful and completely cruel. It sickeningly made sense that the medical law didn’t touch the doctors and scientists at Nova.

She felt sick.

“Does it matter if he’s depressed?” Lendal gibed with a quirk of his eyebrow.

“We might be able to get the results we’re looking for.” He appealed with a knowing tone. “Before you write him off.”

As Lendal thought about it with a nod he gave the order that had her frozen with alarm. No, no, no, no; she didn’t even know they had shock therapy, she couldn’t believe it. As they took 99 out of the MRI scanner they cuffed his arms together again, this time he looked at her. He looked at her as she stared at him with evident worry and it set his teeth on edge, a growl rumbled through his chest before he could prevent it.

Jarring pain erupted through his chin as a guard whacked him in the jaw with the grip of his gun as a warning.

She jolted at the action, her heart jumping to her throat and 99 looked back at her, his mouth bloody as he spat out blood from the hit.

He couldn’t smell her like he usually could, her feminine scent that ignited his senses in all the right ways. There was a wall between them and it set him on edge. He knew the two men in that room with her, the human men that he wanted to harm. She was in that room with those foul smelling men and he didn’t like it.

“Have you ever witness an electro shock therapy session before, nurse?”

She tore her gaze away from 99 as he was hauled to his chained together feet and to Lendal who had asked her a question. With a feeling of dread she knew what he was about to put her through.

“No.” She croaked, shaking her head.

Lendal smiled and it made her blood boil. “Well then, come with me.”

With every step she took, her stomach lurched. There was a room he took her to, a room he instructed security to take 99 to the therapy room. 99 trailed behind them, the clanging of his chains a reminder. She turned to look at him every few steps finding him looking at her with his never changing unreadable look.

“In here, tie him to the table.”

Lendal opened the door to a room that was dark and smelt like singed hair; it knocked her sick. She stepped inside as instructed, her conscious screaming at her to leave, to run, take 99 with her and never come back. She looked around the scarce room, the walls that were barren of any window, any hospitality, just there to contain the muffled screams.

A small dial machine was in the center of the room next to the slab of a bed and she was pushed aside by guards who hoisted 99 on it. He locked eyes with her, and she felt helpless, useless as his eyes conveyed a message she couldn’t read. All she could see was the anger, the animosity and it made her stomach knot.

He was chained to the leather cuffs on his back and doctor Lendal and the neurologist manned the dial and the electrodes.

“Okay, nurse.” It was the scientist that addressed her. “Come here.”

Dread kept her rooted to the spot. She couldn’t wrap her head around it, around the concept that they weren’t kidding about electrotherapy - it was happening, they did it. This was her welcoming to level 6 clearance. Subject 99 tied to a metal primitive slab with thick leather bonds, his body tensed for something she prayed he had never felt before.

“You need to put this in his mouth to protect his teeth and tongue.” He handed her a black rubber pad as she came to the table.

She looked down at it, swallowing thickly at the chilling teeth marks embedded into it. You can’t!! Her mind screamed at her, her morals crumbling as she looked to the male on the table. He looked at her, the hate seeping into his gaze. His nostrils flared as he took in her scent - it soothed him - but it was crippled with fear, the tangy scent unagreeable for him; he didn’t like it on her.

A grunt flew past his lips as he started to fight against the restraints and he heard her drew in a breath. The pungent security guards cocked their guns but he paid them no attention.

You need to lay low… You can’t do anything that gives you away… You have to do this, you have to help the doctors do their jobs until Richard does his...

I’m sorry.

She took a step, cradling his chin softly with her free hand, keeping it firm yet gentle as she coaxed him still with a touch. His skin was smooth, cold beneath her hands and she wished she was touching him under different circumstances. She pressed down on his chin, forcing his mouth apart as she placed the pad between his teeth. She hoped her face was as stoic as she envisioned in her head, with Lendal’s calculative eyes on her she couldn’t afford to look anything but indifferent.

Please Richard - she begged for an unlikely intervention - come now. Please. Come now…

But he didn’t and her heart momentarily stopped as the electrodes pressed against 99’s temples.

There was a ringing sound, the lights flickered and the spine chilling sound of shooting electricity buzzed. A muffled gurgled groan of pain and her blood curdled at the sound and watching his muscles contract through his skin as the electricity flew down his body. His face reddened and the veins protruded from his neck and arms as he fought against the restraints.

She took a step back, visibly horrified and she could see Lendal analysing her from where he stood, pressing the electrodes more firmly to 99’s temples. She couldn’t find it within her to care as she watched the undeserving 99 on the table writhing in pain, his teeth clenched tightly on the pad in his mouth. Tears streamed down his cheeks in defeat and the noises from his mouth stirred something within her.

Her eyes shot to his fingers, the way they twitched rapidly but no ice, no evidence of his gift slipped from them. It was incomprehensible, the effort and strength he must have to prevent his gift from being revealed. The control he must have had was impeccable; yet when he was with her, it slipped, surprising them both. The fact that she seemed to have kept it to herself was even more surprising for him.

But now, under considerable pain all he could think was that the kindness she had shown him thus far had been an illusion - a trap. The looks of kindness, the soft touches that made his body react in ways he had never felt - so sexual - had been a cruel manipulation to weaken him.

Pain shot through his brain, his body numbing yet hyper aware all at once, his body tensing and contracting with the electric shocks. He could barely breathe, his mouth seizing up and his nostrils flaring; angry, betrayed.

She felt awful, she felt ill and she longed to hold him, to protect him from the evil minds of the two doctors.

It was only 20 seconds but it felt like eternity - the ‘therapy’ ceased. Lendal removed the electrodes, placing them on a hook besides the dial.

“He shouldn’t cause you any trouble.” Lendal began, his voice full of arrogant satisfaction that was sickening. “He can be taken to his cell.”

His body was limp, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he tried to regain his breath. The guards unstrapped him from the slab and hauled him up by his arms.

“You can go too, nurse.”

She needn’t be instructed twice. She followed the guards who held 99 tightly as they headed towards an elevator. She felt dirty, the worst she had felt in her life as she stepped inside with them, knowing she had took part in that, hurting when she should have been protecting. She unlocked the door to his cell and the guards tossed him inside as if he was a sack of potatoes.

“You can go back to your duties… I can sort him out.” Her voice was level, surprising herself and the guard opened his mouth to argue but she spoke first. “Look at him, he’s in no state to attack me.” She just wanted to be alone with him, make sure he was okay, tell him she was sorry...

The two details looked at each other in unison, nodding and walking out of the cell. “We’ll be down the hall.”

The door closed behind them and she turned back around.

Subject 99 was on his front, on the cold floor and her every being filled with remorse and sadness. She watched as his torso raised and fell with every deep breath he took, his shoulder blades straining due to his uncomfortable stance on the hard ground.

She crouched down, her hand hesitant and quivering as she reached for his strong forearm. “I’m so so--”

A flick of a switch inside of his head and he was growling at her, his hand seizing her throat quickly. He lifted himself up, sending her crashing onto the floor, his crushing hold around her windwipe making her squirm beneath his robust body. She gasped for air she couldn’t find and clutched onto his wrists frantically.

His dark eyes drilled holes into hers, his look of loath and anger pinning her down with fear. He felt betrayed and he wanted her to know that, he thought she was kind, he thought he could trust her.

Pain erupted in her back at the unforgiving floor and tears pricked her vision, finding it difficult to see. “I’m sorry…” Her words were croaked, forced and barely audible but he heard them.

His knuckles were whitening as he choked her and his brows furrowed. Part of the animal in him wanted to harm her, wanted to make her pay for tricking him but his senses screamed. He didn’t hurt this human, he shouldn’t hurt this human. His hold on her throat eased enough for her to draw in a ragged breath and his knees slid beneath her legs, his instincts coming to a front as he drew in her scent.

“I had no choice.” It was a whimper as her emotions were raw and true.

She felt disgusting for aiding in his torture and if he was to kill her she knew she would deserve nothing less. She just prayed that Richard kept his word - to save them all, save 99 give him a life.

99 looked at her face, looking at her tears and the feeling of guilt tugged at his conscious, something in him. Protective instincts rose that he couldn’t understand. Curiosity he couldn’t understand. He had never been this close to her before, and as her chest heaved beneath him, her breasts pressing against his chest he realised with growing curiosity that he had been hungry for this moment.

He let go of her throat and she relaxed, her hands on his wrists ceasing as they fell loosley to the floor. His arm supported his weight by her head and his other hand didn’t leave her skin body. He ran it down her chest and he could see the widening of her eyes as he pushed aside his anger and let his interest take hold.

Her neck throbbed where his hand had been clenched around it but she had a bigger problem when she felt his lethal hand cup her breast. He should want to kill her but instead he wished to massage out the pain he inflicted around her throat, apologize, and it confused him. She could have screamed for the guards, he knew that they would come at the sound of a distressed female voice, but she lay there, submissive waiting for him.

Speechless and scared she lifted her hands to gingerly push against his chest. Her warm touch on his skin turned him on and he liked it.

His anger was diminishing the more he took her in, the way he palmed her breast through her scrubs had him feeling something he wasn’t accustomed to - but he didn’t shy away from it.

At his complete mercy she couldn’t bring herself to do anything to stop him he bent his elbow and his face grew ever so closer. Oh my god. His face tucked itself into the crook of her neck and she held her breath. What was he going to do? Her mind was spilling, her face warm as she involuntarily began to blush and heat up beneath his half naked body.

99 sniffed her skin, his nose running up and down her throat and she stayed as still as she could.

She had heard rumours of a lab tech being killed after getting to close with a patient, how they had bit down on a jugular and ripped it out without hesitation. She clenched her eyes shut, preparing for pain, but it never came. The weight of him vanished, the hand on her breast lifted and he was no longer knelt between her legs.

“You--!!”

She gasped at the sound of another male voice, loud, clear and filled venom. She sat up quickly, her heart hammering in her ears and panicked. 99 was on his back and looming over him was Daniel, the nurse. He kicked his torso and he doubled over, winded.

“You felt like taking advantage of her, huh!?” Kick.”Just because she’s nice to you!?”

She leapt to her feet. “Stop!”

He ignored her, his foot coming into contact with 99’s nose, blood pouring - innocent blood. “As if she would ever want to fuck you! You fucking worthle--!”

She grabbed the nearest thing she could find - a sedation needle for emergencies. Without thinking, without a moment’s hesitation she had lunged forward, stabbing Daniel in the lower back, pressing the murky liquid into his skin. He paused his attack, his legs stilling. He whirled around, his expression shocked and confused. He looked at her, her alarmed expression and then down as he reached around and pulled out the syringe.

“What…?” His voice was slurred as he eyed the now empty and bloody object in his numbing hand.

The feeling traveled all over his body and before he could utter another word he tumbled to the floor.

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msoutherngirl-blog · 5 years

Text

Transverse Myelitis

This past winter, February to be precise is when my symptoms began and I knew without a doubt something was terribly wrong. It started out as stiffness in my knees and progressed over the next week to my calves, then my feet and thighs. It was terrifying trying to continue to function that way, but I have bills to pay the same as everyone else. I couldn’t not go into work, it was not an option. For several weeks I suffered through it assuming it was a pinched nerve, taking ibuprofen and trying to tough it out. Nothing was getting better.

After two months nearly had passed of living this way I broke down and made an appointment to see my Doctor. I wasn’t even sure that I should drive myself at that point as I could no longer feel my feet even on the pavement much less a gas or brake pedal. My parents came to get me, thankfully they live close and I was able to start the slow process of taking care of that ‘pinched nerve’.

My primary care physician referred me to a neurologist here in the small town I live in and wanted me seen right away so a few days later, parents in tow, I went to the appointment that did nothing but make me angry. You see I am not a barbie doll, not afraid of a cheeseburger, however, I had no idea what was coming next. Once called back and in this ‘room’ a term we will use loosely since it looked more like a closet to me, to be honest, He took one look at me and even before attempting to do a TENS type electrode nerve test on me, he stated that I should go home, lose a hundred pounds and come back then to be seen. First, I wasn’t sent to see him regarding my weight. Second, I have a TENS unit at home that I use for arthritis in my knees weekly and have never had a single issue feeling it. I was furious. So was my mother who was in the room with me at the time. Needless to say, we walked out, as we did I told my mother that if I got a bill from him I’d march it right back in there and feed it to him. What can I say, he pissed me off?

*My angry face*

My mother had an appointment of her own a day or two later with our family doctor and told him what happened when he asked about the referral. He was not in the least happy either and promptly referred me to an orthopedist. I made calls for that specialist and as he would not be in my town for a good month plus, I made an appointment to go see him in Huntsville, Alabama. After a few minutes chatting and checking my balance etc, he ordered my first MRI. At LAST, I thought I was getting somewhere. Maybe this time I wouldn’t have to fight for my own well being? The first MRI was for the lumbar spine as it was assumed that after the Xrays came back showing no pinched nerve perhaps there was a disc or something going on. Oh boy, was I in for a party!

Now let me preface this with - Read it ALL - not just my initial experience but the whole MRI journey. I have often referred to it as MRI Hell. The first MRI was to be done in my local hospital. Simple enough I thought, the machine was weight limited at 350 pounds, plenty past my personal weight so no problem! Or at least that is what I thought. We arrived at the hospital nice and early, filled out all my paperwork, and waited patiently for them to call me back. I walked back with the technician chatting a little as we made our way into the room and there it was. The tiny opening they claimed would house a person up to 350 pounds. Ummm only if they are seven feet tall. That thing was tiny. I thought I am here, let’s suck it up and get this over with though, so I tried. I lay on the table, pressed my arms as close to my body as they would go and as she began sliding me into it my shoulders hit the opening. It was like being pressed into a sausage skin. I pressed the little panic button and she answered over the intercom as if everything looked just peachy. “Are you okay?” she asked as if she couldn’t SEE me being rolled into that tube. “Nope.” I replied flatly. “Nope, not happening. Get me out of here. There is no way I can lay in here for an hour I can’t move and this isn’t going to work.” I could feel the panic welling up in my chest with every inch further she sent me into that thing. It was horrifying and I am not a big baby.

Out in the sign-in area, the lady there asked if everything was okay and I explained to her the issue. Thank heavens for her because she explained to me that the imaging center at the hospital in Huntsville had the larger bore machines and that perhaps I could be seen there. Thank heavens is all I can say. Not only do they have a nicer facility but they have machines rated to 550 pounds that are far newer and take half the time for the exact same image. Easiest twenty minutes I have ever spent as a burrito. It would not be the only, however.

Once the images were ready, I went back for my follow up with the spinal doctor only to hear him tell me that there was nothing there. All was well and the issue must have resolved itself. ‘Since I wasn’t having pain, only complete numbness SURELY there couldn’t be anything wrong with me...’ Right? WRONG. If you know there is something wrong, if you truly FEEL like your body is not your own, you have to be your own best advocate. Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s all in your head just because they would like an easy answer to get to their next case. Had I done that, I could be paralyzed right now as I type this. The only pain at that time that I had was a small spot on the lower part of my spine just above my tailbone. It just felt like it was bruised or something. It wasn’t excruciating. I wasn't in tears from it, after all, I was numb. I still stood my ground insisting that something was NOT RIGHT. The numbness had subsided a little after my primary doctor gave me a steroid shot, but it hadn’t cleared up and I knew in my heart this simply was not right. It scared the hell out of me thinking that all these people thought I was crazy and by this time I think even my parents were beginning to wonder if I wasn’t making some of it up to avoid yard work that desperately needed to be done.

Apparently, I pushed enough because he ordered a second MRI. This time it was of the thoracic spine. I knew when the imaging was finished his time that something was there. I was not crazy. When the technician came in to take me out of the machine, she brought another person with her. The two of them were very specific about me taking my time to get up and not allowing me to rush or merely get right up. With the look on her face and the clear empathy for my struggle to get up and lay still for the procedure, I could tell there was something this time that had not been seen before. This time within a couple of hours I got a call from the specialist telling me that he was immediately referring me to a Neurologist and I would be seen in a matter of days.

Now for the scary wake-up. The morning of my Neurology appointment I got up went to work and came home in time for my parents to pick me up and take me once again to Huntsville. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I was still hoping it was something that would be the easy shot and rest and you’re all fixed but that was not to be. We walked in and I filled out my paperwork, when they called me back my mom offered to go with me but I didn’t know of a reason since it seemed like I finally might have an answer. After all of the frustration and tears, all of the struggling for three months by this time, I was finally going to get something done. It felt like relief until the doctor walked in and scrolled through my MRI in detail as I watched. I still don’t recall everything he said as he went through it all so quickly, thoroughly, but quickly. When the words “immediately admitting” and “hospital” sank into my ears panic set in, it was all I could do to tell him my family was in the lobby and they needed to be in the room.

When they came in, he went through it once more. Your daughter has a large lesion on her spinal cord. This is called Transverse Myelitis, it is nothing to leave or put off on treating. One of the larger ones(lesions) I have seen. This is usually seen in people who have Multiple Sclerosis. She needs to be admitted to the hospital today for 5 days of high dose steroids and rounds of testing. He continued about a spinal tap, blood work, a number of other things and the only thing I could think about was my dog at home. How Buddy would never understand if I simply disappeared and I burst into tears. In all of this, my first thought was for my sweet boy at home and how I could not just leave him. Yes, the test listing scared me, but the last time anyone I know was in the hospital for something treatable, was my Aunt. She went in for a simple procedure and they instead punctured her heart which resulted in months in the hospital and her death. I just kept seeing her, I couldn’t stop the tears.

He gave me until the next morning to check into the hospital as he needed to get a room for me on the neurology floor. Which also gave me some time with Buddy who my parents agreed to take home with them while I was in the hospital. Mom even sent me updates and pictures of him which eased it a bit, but since I rescued him, he had never really been away from me his whole life, so it was a bit like handing my child to people he barely knew. He was all set though, dad even made him pancakes.... spoiled much? Okay back to the initial path to my diagnosis.

I was dehydrated, so the IV was not easy. Luckily I had some great nurses while I was there and they took good care of me. For 5 days I was given a full bag of steroids daily which made even water taste bitter. It was in no way pleasant, I can assure you that. I will, however, say the worst part was the spinal tap. I wouldn’t wish that one many people, but let’s be honest... we all have that one person who we wouldn’t mind huh? *chuckles*

On the fourth day of steroids, my doctor came in to check on me as he did almost every day there and said the preliminary spinal fluid test seemed clear but it was still being sent to the Mayo Clinic as that is a requirement for such tests. I was exhausted all of the time. I slept the majority of the time I was in the hospital and more when I came home. Transverse Myelitis can take anywhere from 6 to 36 months to fully heal once treated. Some people regain all their faculties and others have lasting deficits. It is also an illness that although it is rare affects less than 15,000 people a year, can recur in very rare cases. I hope that I am NEVER that lucky. Once was enough for me to be that scared out of my mind.

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calliecat93 · 3 years

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ST: TNG S5 Watchthrough Episodes 14-17

(Trigger Warning: The episode Ethics contains the theme of suicide. While I will try to not go too in-depth, as it is part of the episode I will be discussing it. If this topic makes you uncomfortable or is triggering to you even in the slightest, please skip the section of the watchthrough. Thank you)

Conundrum: So we have us an amnesia episode. Who’s the poor individual who gets hit with it? Everyone! Yes, some weird scan thingy causes everyone to lose their memories. They still know how to perform their jobs and all that, but otherwise, they remember zilch. I’m kind of mixed on how they did it. Overall, they are intelligent and calm about the situation, which on the one hand feels unrealistic. You’d expect far more panic and tension if you suddenly found yourself on a ship among people you don’t know. On the other hand at this point even without their memories, they’re probably used to weirdness like this (the S4 episode Clues had a similar thing happen) and it’s kind of refreshing to see people handle a situation without becoming paranoid assholes. Also… they make some kind of awkward Troi/Riker/Ro love triangle. Troi has some familiarity with Riker due to their past, which makes sense… but why add Ro to the mix? The only time they really interacted outside this episode was Ro’s intro, where Riker was a hypocritical asshole who made her take her earring off. They really don’t seem to agree and I guess the writers went ‘well they argue… so it must be love’! Which… no, going with this with Ro makes zero sense and it really makes it feel like Riker is playing both women, which both feel OOC for him, and even taking amnesia into account makes him look worst. Why does S5 want me to hate Riker? Otherwise, it was fine. Just kind of eh. Again we kinda sorta did this plot already (differently but still) and it doesn’t become hard to figure out who the one behind this is when you realize that they’re the only one getting prominent screentime who isn’t a pre-established character. Still, it’s just alright, but yeah that love triangle nonsense, while by no means the worst I’ve ever seen, really was unnecessary. 2.5/5.

Power Play: In this one, Troi, Data, and O’Brein get posessed on an Away Mission (Riker almost did as well, but it flew away before it could posess him). They take Ten-Forward hostage which includes Worf and Keiko, and later Picard. This had to be fun for Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, and Colm Meaney since they ge to act all evil… though Spiner’s already done it with Lore, but still XD So it was fine. It was tense and had some disturbing moments like Posessed!O’Brein forcing himself on Keiko. Dear God I hope the Enteprise has a counselor (aside from Troi since she was partially involved in this) cause neither of them deserved that. It was also scary to see Data acting like… well, Lore pretty much. Seeing Riker, Crusher, Geordi, and Ro trying to figure out how to save them without anyone getting killed was also interesting, it’s the first time we’ve seen a hostage situation like this in a ST show (Space Seed in TOS kinda counts, but that was an entirely different scenario and was more ‘hostile takeover’ than ‘hostage situation’). That’s honestly all I’ve got/ IDK, S5 has just been painfully average thus far where none of the episodes have been particularly bad, but only like… three so far (Ensign Ro, Disaster, Unification) have kept me interested. Maybe that’ll change here soon bu it’s just like ‘…it’s fine but I feel nothing otherwise’. 3/5.

Ethics: I again point to the trigger warning above. The episode contains the theme of suicide (though it is NOT carried out) so if this topic at all is uncomfortable/triggery, please skip this section. So what happened? An accident has left Worf paralyzed. Crusher has called in a neurologist while Worf, believing that he can no longer be a warrior in his condition, wants to be killed. Needless to say, we’re dealing with some heavy stuff in this one. We kind of have a similar thing going on as in Half a Life where Worf wants to die as according to his Klingon beliefs, his life is over since he is paralyzed. He asks Riker to help commit it as he’s his friend and naturally Riker is appalled at this. Picard breaks it down for Riker and that while we don’t understand it we should respect it… but again we’re talking about assisted suicide. I get what Picard is saying but just… no. The episode makes it clear that we’re supposed to be conflicted, however, and in the end, Worf decides against it due to both an experimental procedure and because Riker uncovered that Alexander would be the one who’d have to assist in the suicide if Worf did it. Needless to say, Worf ain’t letting that happen. It does make Worf’s feelings clear, however. His anger, his fear, it’s very hard to watch Worf in such a state. The neurologist, Dr. Russell, offers him a procedure that may work… but it’s a procedure that is still in the experimental stage and turned down by Starfleet Medical. Needless to say, Crusher’s not exactly happy with the idea of using a medically untested procedure on one of her patients… but to be fair, Worf has refused all other treatment and the use of implants and with suicide the only other option, I can see why Russell would be willing to offer. But at the same time, it does come across her just using this as an excuse to use said treatment which also has plenty of risks on said patients life/further well-being, and Crusher telling her off repeatedly is very satisfying especially at the end when Worf almost died due to her, and she seemed more concerned with noting it than what her actions caused and said that Crusher was jealous. Yeah, Russell sucks. It does bring up a lot of medically ethical questions, however: is it right to use an experimental procedure on a patient when all other options have been turned away or are available? Especially when said patient is suicidal or when it comes to said patient's beliefs? I side with Crusher at the end of the day especially since Worf is very lucky to have survived/recovered his mobility afterward, but the questions are still ones to point out. Then there’s poor Alexander whose on the verge of losing his father and Worf not wanting him to see him like he is and… God yeah. Just as I complain about the lack of impactful episodes, this one comes in. It’s a very tough episode with everything going on with Worf, the theme of medical ethics, and it’s heavy on the emotions. IDK how well I can say that the episode portrays it, but it certainly hit hard and brings up a lot of questions for the viewers. It certainly reaffirms how much I love Crusher XD 4/5.

The Outcast: /sighs/ Okay… how to go about talking about this one? In this episode, we meet a species of aliens that don’t use gender identity, and if they show signs of identifying as male or female, they undergo ‘treatment’. One of these individuals is Soren, who identifies as female and falls in love with Riker. So… there are many things that this can be associated with, but this was made as a gay rights episode. Now… let us remember when this was made. S5 was airing during the early ’90s. This was not a good time for gay individuals. We were very much anti-LGBT+ in those times and the AIDS epidemic where they were scapegoated as a public menace still being rampant didn’t help. In many ways, doing this episode was a bold move and I can respect them for at least is trying to tackle the topic seriously. If there’s any franchise that you’d expect to tackle these kinds of issues it would be this one. But the question is does it hold up 30 years later? Well… unfortunately, no. First, if they really wanted to get the gay rights message across… why was Soren played by a female actress? Maybe it was the only way they would have been allowed to do this, but because of it, it keeps a heterosexual angle that causes the message to be lost. We also don’t have any regular/reccuring characters as queer which would be pretty important to have in this episode. Considering that TOS took the risk with making PoC equal to white people at a time it wasn’t at all welcomed, TNG not doing so with LGBT+ individuals is rather unfortunate to put it nicely. Not to mention it sticking to standard male/female stereotypes as the norm when breaking them down to Soren, as well as Worf’s sexist/bigoted comments. That’s no even going into other identities such as transgender and non-binary. I’d really like to know what they think of this one considering the themes. As I am a bi/demisexual cis woman and this was meant to be a gay rights episode I will look at it as such and from that POV, the episode does not at all look great in a modern light.

Maybe I’m just far too nice and should be harsher on this, and I’m not gonna lie I’m horrible at addressing these things so I apologize if any of this came out wrong. But between this and The Host, it’s clear that the show was ill-equipped to handle LGBT+ topics. But at the same time, back then even considering addressing the topics in any way would have been risky. I do believe that there was a good faith effort and maybe in some ways, it helped when we improved later. It’s always hard to say if people should tackle topics they don’t understand or not. Naturally, it’s rage-inducing when they get it wrong, but it can also open the door to getting people to learn and to improve. Maybe this was needed in the ’90s and they did it the best way that they could, and maybe the fact that we can look at it and go ‘we know better’ is a sign that we’re better than when we were 30 years ago… or again, I am far too nice/too much of a doormat and I give the benefit of the doubt way too much. People who are more knowledgeable/know how to address this far better than I have here have likely done so and I’d encourage others to read more into those perspectives. Regardless, the episode overall is okay I guess. I certainly felt horrible for Soren at the end as she’s taken to undergo ‘treatment’ and Riker trying to help her get out of it. Her speech, wanting to just be treated as a person and not be treated as horrible due to who she is during the trial did really hit me and is why I think that the show did mean well. If she wanted to identify as female and be with Riker, she should be free to and then how she was forced to conform to her society’s views at the end when Riker tried to save her, it’s just... hard to watch. I wish that the ending was more optimistic/hopeful but I can’t say that the message wasn’t loud and clear. It very much reflected society at that time, and in many ways it’s still relevant today concerning how society treats those deemed outside the norm. But it also has issues due to the execution as I already mentioned, and I can only hope that Modern Trek (Discovery, Picard, soon SNW) and whatever they do in the future are/will be better at handling these kinds of themes because there’s no excuse to get it wrong in today’s time. 2.5/5.

I hope that I addressed things properly concerning the last episode. But it’s now done. We have nine more to go for the season. Let's see how it turns out.

#st watchthrough

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samosoapsoup · 3 years

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Living with a Visionary

For more than fifty years, my wife and I shared a world. Then, as Diana’s health declined, her hallucinations became her own reality.

By John Matthias

January 25, 2021

You would think it was a performance of some kind. When she wakes up, if she has slept at all, she tells me about the giants carrying trees and bushes on what she calls zip lines, which I am able to identify as telephone wires. Beneath the busy giants, she explains, there is a marching band playing familiar tunes by John Philip Sousa. She is not especially impressed by either of these things, and the various children playing games in the bedroom annoy her. “Out you go,” she says to them. Then she describes the man with no legs who spent the night lying beside her in bed. He had been mumbling in pain, but nobody would come to help him. She remembers her own pain, too. “I could hardly move,” she says.

And she can hardly move now. Her legs are stiff, her back is cracking as I lift her out of bed. Although still clearly in pain, she gives me a sly look and gestures with her chin toward the flowerpot in the hallway. “The Flowery Man,” she says. “He’s very nice.”

She is fully articulate, in many ways her familiar self. She asks me if I saw the opera. I’m not sure which opera she means; we’ve seen many over the fifty years that we’ve been married. She means the one last night in our back yard. She describes it in detail—the stage set, the costumes, the “really amazing” lighting, the beautiful voices. I ask her what opera was performed. Now I get another look, not a sly one but a suspicious one.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

I say that it’s not a matter of belief but of perception. I can’t see what she sees. She tells me that this is a great pity. I miss so much of life. I used to have something of an imagination, but I’ve evidently lost it. Maybe she should start spending time with someone else. Also, she knows about my girlfriend. The one in the red jacket. There is no girlfriend, but there is a red jacket hanging over the back of her walker. Suddenly, she forgets the girlfriend and remembers the opera. “Oh,” she says. “It was ‘La Traviata,’ and we went together with Anna Netrebko before she sang.”

Now I have my own brief vision. Diana is only twenty-one, I am twenty-five. We have just arrived in South Bend, where I am teaching English at Notre Dame. A friend wrote about us in those days as having appeared to him like two fawns in the grove of our local Arcadia. Diana wore the clothes she had brought from England, including her miniskirt, and people in cars would honk their horns and stare. In London, where we had met, it had been the middle of the nineteen-sixties; at our Midwestern college, it was more like the fifties. A former student told me that when I held classes at home, for a change of scene, he and his classmates took bets on who would be lucky enough to talk to her.

I see her walking in from the kitchen with tea and her homemade scones. College boys—only boys were admitted back then—lift china cups balanced on wafer-thin saucers. Some have never eaten a crumbly scone or sipped tea out of such a delicate cup. Diana is often told she looks like Julie Christie, and my students all want to be Omar Sharif, Christie’s co-star in “Doctor Zhivago.” Some write poems inspired by Lara, Zhivago’s muse. Diana smiles at them, greeting those whose names she remembers. Hello, Vince. Hi there, Richard. She dazzles them. She dazzles me.

Art was her passion. Later, she earned an art-history degree and became the curator of education at our university’s museum. She devised a program of what she called “curriculum-structured tours,” ambitiously proposing to organize museum tours that would be relevant to any class. This she did—chemistry students learned about the properties of seventeenth-century paint, psychology majors studied portraits for signs of their subjects’ mental health—and eventually she exported her innovations to other college campuses. Because of her, students began looking seriously at paintings and sculptures. They followed her hand, pointing out some luminous detail; they listened to the music of her voice, her British accent slowly becoming Americanized over the decades.

Diana trained a new set of gallery interns each year, teaching them about all there was to see and find in the museum’s art. She loved them dearly, and they loved her back. She had been conducting tours for thirty years when a former intern, Maria, came by the house—ostensibly on an errand to collect some of Diana’s library books. Really, she wanted to talk to me. She explained that Diana had started seeing things. The first time Maria noticed it, Diana was showing a class of French students a reduction of Charles Louis-Lucien Müller’s “The Roll Call of the Last Victims of the Reign of Terror,” from 1860. It’s a very busy painting, with dozens of figures waiting to be transported to the guillotine. Diana told the students that at the center of “The Roll Call” was a man named General Marius. But General Marius wasn’t there; he was around the corner, in a painting called “Marius and the Gaul,” about which Diana had written her thesis, many years before. She was speaking in French, and at first Maria thought that Diana had got tangled up in the language. Surely it was her words, not her reality, that had become so confused.

Not too long after Maria’s visit, Diana returned home one day looking tired and depressed. She sat down on the sofa next to me, took my hand, and said, “The students tell me that I’m seeing things that aren’t there.” I admitted that Maria had already told me about this. By then, Diana had begun treatment for Parkinson’s disease, taking a standard cocktail of medicines in small amounts: levodopa combined with carbidopa, in a drug called Sinemet. She had received the diagnosis only because her doctor couldn’t otherwise explain her onset of general weakness. Aside from fatigue, she had virtually no symptoms, and her behavior had been absolutely normal while taking Sinemet. Now she confessed that she was seeing things at home as well. She pointed at a wadded-up sweater on a chair across the room. “That’s not really a cat, is it?”

I asked her what else she saw. “Little people,” she explained, “like Gulliver’s Lilliputians.” Objects had been changing shape—“morphing” was her word—for some time, but recently things had begun appearing out of nowhere. We saw a specialist in Chicago, who, like the neurologists Eric Ahlskog and Oliver Sacks, called these “illusions.” We suspected that the hallucinations were a side effect of Sinemet, and, after consulting many books and articles, Diana and I began to titrate her medication ourselves. Most Parkinson’s patients end up doing this, experimenting with how much they take of each medicine and at what time. There were new delivery systems for the basic mix of levodopa and carbidopa, and we tried them all, along with a number of adjuvant therapies.

At first, Diana could identify her illusions as such, and sometimes even dismiss them. (“Scat!” got rid of the cat.) The things she saw were not always frightening. Many of them seemed inspired by her work in the visual arts. Visiting a neighbor, Diana enthusiastically described a painting on a blank wall where, we later learned, one had been hanging until several days before. Her knowledge of eighteenth-century art may in part explain her delight in seeing topiary figures cut into very large trees, where I saw nothing but leaves. Some of the visions she told me about were clearly breathtaking. “If only you could see this,” she said.

I couldn’t see what she saw, but I could see her. She was somehow growing more beautiful—or beautiful in a new way. Everyone noticed this. Never one to use much makeup or even visit a hair stylist, she would wash her face in the morning, put up her hair or let it hang at shoulder length, and come downstairs to start her day. Her striking good looks belied the condition that would bring her down. It was Julie Christie all over again, but not from “Doctor Zhivago”; she was the aging Christie of Sarah Polley’s movie “Away from Her.” Adapted from Alice Munro’s story “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” the film is about a woman with Alzheimer’s disease. Her decline is slow, until it is suddenly fast. Diana watched the movie without anxiety. She had not, so far, suffered any significant memory loss. When I reminded her that decades earlier my students had compared her to the actress, she laughed. During a trip to Chicago to see her doctor, we had been approached by a man on the street, who said, “I just have to tell you how beautiful you are. Forgive me for intruding on your day.” We got into a taxi, and Diana growled to me, “I sure don’t feel very beautiful.”

For two or three years, Diana’s condition was manageable through modifications in her medications, and through her ability to recognize the hallucinations for what they were. At the art gallery, she avoided confusion by writing out scripts for her tours. She managed to retire when she was scheduled to, not before. It was shortly afterward that her hallucinations began to increase in frequency and intensity. She insisted that the topiary trees were the work of giants, and she described the giants’ elaborate uniforms. Plays and operas were staged in our back yard, spontaneous parades appeared in the streets.

It became harder and harder for her to understand that her visions were not real. She sometimes asked me why these events were not written about in the paper or covered in the news on television. In the house, nothing held still: objects danced on the mantel, the ideograms on our hanging scroll of Chinese calligraphy flew around like butterflies. At the beginning, many of these transformations had given her pleasure. More and more, however, they annoyed and alarmed her. Three women were “hanging” in her closet and refused to leave. The Flowery Man roamed the house. There were rude people who masturbated into a dresser drawer and had sex on the living-room sofa.

When Diana could no longer shake these things off, she began to surrender to them. She slowly ceased to see them as hallucinations. I had read that it did not help to deny the reality of these visions, so I stopped doing that. I began trying to deal with them as if I could see what she did. Friends were encouraged to make the same allowances. For a while this helped. A fifth person at a dinner for four did not pose a big problem once you got used to this kind of thing. I informed the members of Diana’s reading group that she might refer to people who weren’t there, and they, too, made the adjustment.

One day, she shouted for my help. A housepainter in white overalls, she told me, was painting over the portrait of one of our daughters that hung on the living-room wall. The man didn’t speak; none of Diana’s human apparitions ever spoke, though their mouths would move without sound, and sometimes they would respond to stern rebukes. I could say things like “I’ll see the painter to the door.” But often the damage had been done. In the case of our daughter’s portrait, it continued to exist, for Diana, partially erased. She referred to the painting as “the half-faced child.”

Some medications work for Parkinson’s patients with hallucinations, but for Diana they all seemed to make things worse. In November of 2019, a new kind of confusion about both space and time took hold. One morning, I found her with her suitcase packed, ready to travel. When I asked where she was going, she wasn’t sure. “Away,” she said. She wasn’t sure why. But, she insisted, “we certainly can’t stay any longer in this person’s house, in a place where we don’t even speak the language.”

Christmas approaches, and I return to the present tense. Everything that happens after this feels like it’s still happening now. Slowly, through the winter, Diana’s benign hallucinations become terrible and threatening presences. (Meanwhile, in China, a new and deadly virus is unleashed on the world.) Diana loses her ability to sleep, a common and debilitating feature of Parkinson’s. Because she is either sleepless or tormented by nightmares, I am also unable to sleep. For a while, I am able to soothe her and offer comfort, but often her dreams continue unabated when she wakes up. Eventually, I am simply incorporated into them. When I ask her if she is awake, she says she does not know.

Her eating also becomes a problem, and I know that she is not getting proper nutrition. I use the blender again and again, counting calories, mixing in anything containing protein. She is getting very thin. I sleep only when she sleeps and eat a quick sandwich as I cook for her. She looks at me one morning and says, “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

Because Diana hides things, then promptly forgets where they are, I often find myself searching for her medical-insurance cards, her driver’s license, some kind of I.D. with her picture on it. She sends me on a wild-goose chase all over the house. This drawer. That closet. But I can never find what we need. The hallucinated people begin to take on more life than the living. And they have names. Not generic and rather charming names like the Flowery Man but monosyllabic American names like Bob, Pete, Dick, George, Jack. No one seems to have a surname. “Jack who?” I ask her. She gives me a straight look and says, “Jack the Ripper.” She keeps asking, “Who’s in charge?” I wish I knew.

In March, as the pandemic descends on the Midwest, I try to explain why she cannot go out or see friends. She doesn’t understand. I don’t dare leave her alone, even for a short trip to the grocery store. She begins going outside when my back is turned, and she frightens some of the neighbors with things she claims to see. I make rules. No phoning friends after 10 p.m. No going outdoors after bed or going downstairs for breakfast in the middle of the night. I finally move to a bed in a separate room.

With the country in lockdown, I can no longer reach Diana’s neurologist in Chicago. Local doctors help us refill some of her medications over the telephone, but have nothing to offer that might help the dementia that is now clearly part of the picture. My most recent reading makes me wonder whether she might have not Parkinson’s but something called Lewy body dementia, which produces vivid hallucinations. Its terrifying symptoms are believed to have led to the suicide of the actor Robin Williams. Diana talks about “jumping in the river.” (The St. Joseph River is only a few hundred yards from our front door.) Neighbors offer to do some shopping for us, but as the pandemic gets worse I hesitate to ask them for more help. When I finally make contact with two or three “senior helper” organizations, I am told that all their programs are on hold. I can do nothing but try to continue on my own. I begin taking pills myself—sedatives washed down with glasses of Merlot. We are living on cans of beans and prescription drugs.

There are still moments when Diana is very happy. Sometimes, she seems to be in a state of bliss. She stands at the open doorway and gazes into the sky. I stand behind her. “Look!” she says. “Why can’t you see?” I tell her that I’m trying, but maybe need some help. She becomes angry and shouts, “The gods! The gods!”

One day, I find Diana clutching a balled-up blanket to her breast. “What have you got?” I ask her. “A dead baby,” she says. I have never seen such terror in her eyes. I have never seen it in anybody’s eyes.

At some point—a day later, two days later—police arrive at the door. In the street, an ambulance is flashing its colored lights. The three policemen at the door have masks on, and I’m initially frightened by this, because I don’t know that many people are now wearing them. Someone has called the police about a lady who lives here who may need to go to the hospital. I stand there gazing stupidly at the policemen. They ask if they can talk to the lady. I tell them she’s my wife. Diana is on the sofa, more or less catatonic.

When I step onto the front porch, I notice some of our neighbors watching from their yards. I am asked questions about Diana and who has been looking after her. I begin to fear that I’m about to be arrested. Someone suggests that maybe it would be good for her to be completely checked out in the E.R., and possibly admitted for a day or so. The next thing I know, two of the ambulance men are bringing a stretcher up to the porch. One of them asks if he can talk to my wife. Finally, I’m able to say something. I say no. They are immediately suspicious. To my amazement, I hear Diana saying, “I’ll talk to them. It’s O.K.” They ask her what’s wrong. She describes a few of her hallucinations. She’s worried about what’s happened to the dead baby. What dead baby? I try to intervene, but already she’s explaining that she had the dead baby in her arms just a moment ago. Perhaps it has rolled away. She gets down on one knee and reaches under the sofa. “Oh, good,” she says, reappearing with the blanket. “Here it is.”

While the medics are conferring with one another, Diana suddenly says, “I think I should go to the hospital.” The ambulance guys seem delighted by this. Diana is put on the stretcher, and the ambulance disappears. No one asks what I think should be done. No one asks me to come along. In the confusion, the blanket has been left on the front porch. When everyone is gone, I take it inside.

That night, Diana is admitted to the hospital for observation. I won’t be able to visit her, because of covid restrictions. I am frantic: they’ll get all the Parkinson’s meds mixed up, they don’t know her schedule. What will happen if she misses a dose of Sinemet?

What transpires in the next days and weeks is sometimes vividly clear and sometimes swirling in a surrealistic fog. At some point, it is decided that I, too, should be examined in the hospital. In the E.R., I am told that I am suffering from exhaustion, malnutrition, and dehydration. I end up on the same floor as Diana. By the time I arrive, she has told everyone that she is a movie director working on a documentary about art therapy in hospitals. From my bed, I explain to her doctors, who are different from my own, as much of her medical history as I can. I am allowed to talk to Diana only by phone.

Social workers keep appearing with documents for me to sign. My daughter Laura and I have agreed, in theory, that eventually Diana will have to move into an assisted-living community. A new facility for patients with dementia has recently been built near Laura’s house, in Worthington, Ohio. Laura wants to take Diana there, and I have to admit that I am no longer able to look after her. I am barely able to look after myself. I sign the papers giving Laura power of attorney for Diana and me. There are decisions to be made, bills to be paid, and I am flat on my back in the hospital.

Covid is tearing through the country. The hospital is filling up with patients, my bed is in demand. My doctors ask if I want to be sent home or to spend three days in the psychiatric hospital associated with the general hospital where I am being treated. They talk about rest, recovery.

Where I end up is not a health spa but more like a boot camp. Before I am moved, all my possessions are taken away. No shoelaces, no belt. At the new facility, I am given a handful of large and small pills every three hours. At night, all patients are on suicide watch. I barely sleep. While I am in the psych ward, Diana is driven in a long-distance ambulance to the care facility in Ohio, where, after a fourteen-day quarantine, she will now live. How Diana deals with this news, what she understands and doesn’t understand, I do not know. She still thinks she is directing a documentary film. I am not allowed to see her before she leaves.

In the second psych ward where I find myself remanded, I am the oldest patient by far. The program of endless group therapies seems designed for adolescents. At seventy-nine, I am too weak to do many of the things demanded of me. When I do not immediately respond to the pills I’m given, there is talk of electroconvulsive therapy. I object, and an online hearing is convened, where a judge concludes that, although I must stay beyond the hospital’s mandatory seventy-two-hour observation period, I do not have to undergo shock therapy.

Meanwhile, I am terrified of covid. Locked out of our rooms for most of the day, we are all in one another’s way, and patients share a common bathroom. One day, I am required to cut off my beard. Looking at myself in the mirror, I discover the corners of my mouth locked in a permanent grimace. The beard has hidden this from me: I can’t smile.

I try to explain to the staff that there has been some kind of mistake, that I need to rescue my wife, who has been taken to Ohio. The things I say to the nurses and therapists must sound mad. When I am finally allowed to see the chief psychiatrist, I hear the desperation in my voice. I watch the unbelieving faces of everyone around me, and wonder how often Diana saw the same incredulity in my own face.

Somehow, our family lawyer gets in touch with a woman named Mary, a registered nurse and “personal health-care advocate,” who is the one to finally secure my release from the psychiatric facility. I am asked to sign some papers that I haven’t read, and then I am free. On the way home in an ambulance, driving back the same way Diana came, I consider asking the attendants riding alongside me if they have heard of the Flowery Man, the topiary trees, the little people—any of Diana’s hallucinated cast of characters. For years I have tried as hard as I could to see these things, to share Diana’s view of the passing world. In her absence, returning to the home where I must now begin to live by myself, I long all the more to understand the reality that she inhabits.

When covid insinuated itself into the facility in Worthington, Ohio, in November, I had been at home for five months. For a couple of weeks, I had managed to communicate with Diana through screens. This confused her, though, so we started using the telephone instead. The last time I saw her face was on Zoom. She told me that she had something beginning with the letter “C.” Then she suddenly smiled her wonderful smile. “What a sweet little girl,” she said, following a hallucination with a sharp turn of her head.

Diana almost survived covid. After testing positive, she spent several nights at the hospital, but was sent back to her facility with a normal temperature and a negative test result. For a few days, I was able to imagine seeing her again, even touching her. I had it all figured out. I would be among the first in line to be vaccinated, among the first to embrace a loved one who had been unreachable for so long. I didn’t care how many hallucinated people came along, as long as Diana was around to see them.

Then her blood-oxygen level dropped. She was not likely to live through the night. Laura put the phone to Diana’s ear, and I read the first poem I ever wrote for her—about waking together in a small Left Bank hotel in Paris before we were married. Finally, I started reading from a book of poetry I had written about her struggle. The dedicatory poem is about the Greek goddess Artemis, known by the Romans as Diana. Its final lines return to Diana the mortal, my wife:

If she could change, she Might be like the woman called by her Roman name Reading in a book beside the fire in my own house. She has come down all these years with me

I couldn’t continue. “You’re doing great, Dad,” my daughter said, “but she wants to know about the Flowery Man.” So I told her everything I knew. ♦

John Matthias, a professor emeritus at the University of Notre Dame, has published some thirty books of poetry, fiction, memoir, translation, and criticism.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/02/01/living-with-a-visionary

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magioftheseas · 6 years

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How about kamukoma/komahina aspects of dr3 that you would add/change?

Ack, I really need to get to the rest of these. Well, what better time than the present?

Well, all the same, here goes! It got a little long so it’s under a read more for now.

Happy Valentines Day. :D

Now, this could go one of two ways: they either met or they didn’t. If they don’t meet then obviously there’s not going to be much additions in dr3 save for…a few things.

I like the idea of being the world’s fucking biggest tease and having either them juuuuuust missing each other (like Komaeda leaves after talking with Matsuda just as Hinata arrives to talk to Matsuda) or having them bump into each other briefly, Komaeda quickly apologizing and hurrying on his way as Hinata stares after him, a little starstruck and then asking Matsuda about him, irritating Matsuda even more than he usually is.

“Is that one of the elites?”

“Do you value your life and sanity?”

“W-What?!”

“Stay on subject, you reserve course gorilla.”

But if they do know each other:

The fountain is one of their meeting places, too. And they either met from Komaeda lugging around a bag of soda and needing to sit down or Komaeda ending up crashing into the fountain due to a prior explosion of bad luck. The latter would be funnier, especially since Hinata would meet Nanami the same way (though she just walks into it like an idiot), and Hinata just complaining “why doesn’t just talent itself fall from the sky”. (Side note: I need to find a way to work in Izuru getting into the fountain, too. Somehow. Some way.)

Their relationship is initially curt with Komaeda polite if distant only to get irritated with how pushy Hinata is (due to being worried about him). Hinata gets snappy too and they’re like huffy children, more so when Komaeda finds out about him making friends.

Despite that, they meet again for various reasons that Komaeda relates to bad luck (broken soda machines, getting chased by dogs, losing a button in the fountain), and despite the tsuning at each other, they actually talk quite a bit at length and despite being annoyed with him, Hinata finds himself engrossed in Komaeda’s speaking, even when it causes twinges in his chest when Komaeda parrots toxic ideals that Hinata had, too, internalizes. They actually talk about Komaeda’s class, and Hinata is initially blindsided by how Komaeda utterly lights up when talking about them. He sees that light dull more the class mistreats him, but Komaeda never tells him anything’s wrong so Hinata’s just left with a bad feeling.

Honestly, basically their relationship in that Not Tomorrow fic I wrote like…in late 2016. Yeah, pretty much that. Minor tweaking may be a thing, but I can’t really think of anything major.

Actually, what would be a new major change/addition involving KomaHina in dr3 that I’m thinking would be a scene that shows them in the island simulation together because it’s such bullshit that we don’t get any “can you hear me?” scene even if the OVA (which is Valid) rectified that.

But what happens is Hinata getting a headache suddenly and ending up in tears because of it, making Komaeda give him a handkerchief while fretting over him. Hinata waves it off in part because he’s not sure what’s even happening there.

It’s because of Kamukura crying through him because FUCK THAT SCENE. He’s not crying about Nanami, mind you. Hell to the fuck no. But he is crying about being forced to forget someone.

Maybe the tears were brought about by Komaeda rattling a bunch possible talents for Hinata like in his first FTE and one of the ones he mentions is Ultimate Neurologist.

So KamuKoma… KamuKoma, KamuKoma, KamuKoma…

So Kamukura really only knows about Komaeda because Matsuda rants about having to take care of him but they don’t exactly meet until later.

That’s not to say they were never involved with each other.

I’m keeping in the shooting scene but the circumstances are WILDLY different. It would have to lack the pastel due to the situation (the real tragedy of this whole thing), but I still wouldn’t mind it happening.

But here, the two encounter each other because Kamukura has been observing many moments of despair from a distance. Just, a distance, and even though he personally detests Junko, despair continues drawing him in so he tries to watch from the shadows where even she, presumably, wouldn’t notice him.

So like, around the same time that Junko dropped off Nanami in the torture dungeon, Komaeda’s infiltrated the place due to good luck (and he brought a gun) and has just been wandering around. His wandering leads to a room where he’s forced to watch Nanami die slowly from behind a screen. Due to his isolation from the class, he had no idea this was happening so it’s a shock, to say the least.

That said, Kamukura ends up drawn in because what Komaeda showcases is despair but it’s a strange kind of despair he’s never seen before, and that startles Komaeda, to say the least.

Classmate’s suddenly dying before you and some rando shows up immediately after?

Yeah, that’s fucking suspicious so Komaeda pulls the gun on him. He hesitates for a moment, confused by Kamukura’s appearance, before interrogating him if he’s involved with any of this. He’s not getting any answers as Kamukura just stares at him.

And then, Kamukura asks him how many people he’s seen die and if that’s why his classmate dying so horribly didn’t phase him as much as it would any normal person. When Kamukura starts making accurate guesses about it, Komaeda gets more and more hysterical as he seems to realize who this person is.

Since he’s not exactly in a good state of mind, he giddily wonders “would this bullet even graze someone like you; do I have the luck for it; what would come from that” and Kamukura stops, giving him a cold glare.

Komaeda flinches and ends up pulling the trigger since his finger is already on it. The gun is jammed, but Kamukura takes it, tells him that he, too, has luck, and shoves him back before shooting him.Komaeda hits his head pretty hard, but he’s still conscious even as he bleeds from it. He’s really dizzy, vision blurring and distorting. Since he isn’t bleeding from what should be a bullet wound, Kamukura tosses the gun aside to investigate and pulls out the bullet-lodged student handbook.

He mutters that it seems Komaeda is truly “beloved by luck” and Komaeda grips his arm as tightly as he could. Due to head trauma, he can’t really speak coherently, and he does stumble over his words severely as he tries.

“U-Ult…im…ate… H… Hope…”

Flushed with excitement, he’s then completely out of it as Kamukura checks his hair. Kamukura’s fingers brush against scars that he recognizes belong to Matsuda, and his inkling of an idea of who this was is confirmed.

Sighing, he scoops Komaeda up to be treat him later. He’s unconcerned; the head trauma will likely block Komaeda’s memories of this event, and he tells himself that this is just because Matsuda would be irritated by him if he leaves one of Matsuda’s patients for dead.

Komaeda is still muttering into his suit and bleeding all over it, but he doesn’t really care about that. He regards the classmate’s corpse with a sigh of “how boring” before carrying Komaeda off.

He doesn’t flinch when Junko happily greets him and tries to talk to him through the various monitors. He ignores her as she acts shocked and hurt, even unaffected when she brings up Nanami as some “poor tragic heroine” that had reportedly been friends with the person Kamukura used to be and that it’s like something out of the novels or anime.

Kamukura brushes it all off, focused on getting Komaeda to safety.

“Aah, right, you didn’t know her so she’s as good as some insignificant stranger, huh?”

“…Y’know, Kamukura Izuru, I’m reaaaaally curious how you’d react to the death of someone who does matter to you. Upupupu… That kind of despair…”

“I really want to taste it for myself…!”

After Kamukura treats him, Komaeda later wakes up alone in a hospital room, hopelessly confused as to what happened to him, but feeling weirdly excited when he thinks about it. But, oh, what horrible luck, he just can’t remember it at all!

#KomaHina #KamuKoma #dr3 spoilers #Me throwing shade at kamoonamz because I hate it and everything it stands for #Magi answers #yuzuria #head trauma #Magi headcanon #Magi ponders fic ideas

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