paradisalogs | Second Shot

Entry tags:

Second Shot

Who: Tess and Jennifer
What: Tess needs medical attention and doesn't trust to ask strangers unless she's got leverage over them.
When: August 26th
Where: City
Rating: PG-13 for hostage-taking, guns and medical squeamishness?

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Tess didn't work like that, generally. She was a smuggler –– she made connections, she arranged the movement of contraband, she talked her way in and out of situations, and she made sure that her work went unimpeded. While it did involve the need to put bullets in a few brains every once in a while, Tess did not do "flashy." Her unrepentant confidence was as close as it got.

What she was choosing to do was already way too flashy for her, but she was going to do what she needed to if it means protecting her life. Joel and Ellie were covered –– fuck, she couldn't even begin to process Joel and Ellie right then. Right then, it had to be all about her. It had to be about not dying. It had to be about not becoming a monster. It had to be about getting the answers that others couldn't give her.

It was about very desperate times.

She crammed a few necessary weapons into her bag and adjusted the way her handgun sat in the waistband of her pants, flipping the bottom of her shirt over it. As she tromped out of her room, it almost pained her to leave marks all over the pristine floor from her wet, dirty boots and jeans. There was nothing beautiful left in their world, after all, but it couldn't be helped now.

The whole time, her neck was throbbing. Tess couldn't tell if it was worse because it was spreading or worse because she had the time to contemplate it too much. Even so, it made her pick up her pace, racing to find the nearest clinic. She missed the one in the castle, of course –– who went looking for a clinic in a mansion? –– and found one in town.

And there she pushed the door open, striding right in. Next to all these well-fed city folk, she felt like a black sheep with her slight frame, her lean muscle and the near-endless string of bruises, scratches and marks up her arms and face.

Her eyes locked on Jennifer's from across the room, exhausted but sharp. There was a slight twitch to her jaw, almost nervous, but her hands never trembled, not even once, even when a few eyes seemed to catch the red swell of infection peeking out over her shirt collar.

"I need to be seen immediately," she said, "And don't give me any shit about waiting in line."

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Jennifer should have known it was too quiet.

She actually had several patients today- it must have been a product of her finally having adequate staffing- but keeping up with them had been a breeze. Up until the moment someone came barging in, her eyes hard. Jennifer looks the woman over, missing the hidden weapon, and addresses the woman calmly, though some sixth sense is warning her of danger, meeting her gaze back.

"If it's an emergency, I'll see you right away. Otherwise, I have people waiting."

It'll be fine, she thought. I've dealt with impatient people before. Mostly Rodney, granted, she thought with an inward smile, who could turn awfully whiny when he thought he was sick with some serious malady. Besides, she reasoned, if there was any danger, Blue would have warned her, right? Dogs were supposed to have a sense for that sort of thing, right?

She was unaware that the sheepdog, however, had chosen that moment to chase after a squirrel.

Tess didn't smile; she just nodded gravely, moving towards the doctor with intent to follow her deeper into the clinic. There was no point in letting any concern or worry show, no point in being friendly. Some women might do that –– Tess certainly knew plenty of women who would smile their way through the apocalypse if they thought it'll help them get ahead –– but not Tess.

Tess knew that the swiftest way to get what she wants is to make demands, so that is what she did.

"It's an emergency," she replied. "And I'll need a room with a door for privacy."

"Okay. I can do that. Follow me, please," Jennifer replied, taking her keys out of her pocket and unlocking the nearest exam room, stepping aside to allow the woman entry. She found herself looking over the woman as she did so; there were no signs of external injury, but Jennifer knew that it could still be serious without that.

"What seems to be the problem?"

She kept her voice level and neutral, knowing that it was her duty to find out what was wrong and fix it, not expect and demand to be treated more respectfully.

Tess stepped in, turning as she went; it was always habit to not show her back to people with authority. Once inside, she lingered by the door so that she could close it behind them, Jennifer's preference be damned.

"I want a wound cleaned with whatever anti-bacterial or anti-fungal you have –– anything. Strongest grade or harshness possible, even if it might kill me. Right now."

To emphasize, she put one hand to the collar of her shirt and held it back, showing just a sliver of the infected region. Somewhere still under her shirt was the wound itself, but all around it the skin was flushed angry red, bubbling white pustules developing just under the skin. Dried blood crusted on the skin, too, smeared and spattered by her shirt, and Tess knew she was playing a very dangerous game by disclosing it.

Maybe she should have just stolen the goods herself, but how was she supposed to clean it alone?

"I won't give you anything that kills you," Jennifer said firmly as she moved to wash her hands, then put on rubber gloves before she even went to examine the wound. "An infection may take a couple of days to clear, but I'll take a look and see what I need to get you started on..."

She went up to the woman and took note of the skin around the wound- flushed, bloody, blistered, raw.

"If you lift your shirt up, I can clean it. I don't suppose you know what kind of infection it is?"

Edited 2013-08-28 01:50 (UTC)

She reached for the buttons on her over shirt, stripping off the over-layer with ease; as she moved, she felt the cool metal of her handgun press against the small of her back, still underneath her undershirt. That, she didn't need to take off –– it had had its sleeves torn off and the collar went missing a long time ago, so only a ragged inch of olive fabric kept it around her shoulder. Her clothes in general were always threadbare and torn, splattered with the grime and dirt of the city and the odd place where she'd scrubbed blood out of it.

In this pristine clinic, with a doctor with clean hair and scrubbed skin and pressed clothing, Tess felt like a refugee from another time.

"I don't have a few days," Tess replied, pointedly.

She raised an arm to draw back her hair and better show off the wound. It was bad –– Tess was sure it was the kind of infection that would have led to an amputation back in 2012, maybe a losing a cavernous chunk of flesh and tissue at best. The bite was unmistakably human, with those blunt teeth and jaw placement, but the entire area had bubbled up with fat pustules, grossly exaggerated veins and a fair bit of swelling. The blood that had been in the center had mostly dried by this point, flaked off against her shirt or swallowed up by the swelling.

The kind of shit you needed gloves for.

"It's fungal. Do you know what this is?" she said, keeping a hint of a threat there, testing the waters.

Tess knew that people who revealed this kind of bite to anyone in her time were liable to get shot, and with that in mind, she kept her free hand behind her back, in easy reach of the handgun.

Jennifer was about to ask if the wound could truly be that bad... when the woman lifted her shirt up and Jennifer was able to take a closer look at it. It was like nothing she'd ever seen before, and she had seen a lot of strange infections and parasites during her time in the Pegasus Galaxy.

Stranger still was the part where the bite appeared to be human- surely a wound like that had to originate from some creature?

However, resolute, she went over to one of the supply cabinets in the room, searching through her supplies, then pulled out a bottle and a clean bandage and began to carefully clean the wound. It would sting, she knew, while the disinfectant she'd chosen did its work, but it was important to do as much as she could to clean it.

"It's like nothing I've ever seen," Jennifer admitted. "I may have to call for some help if I can't find something that works on it. Or remove the infected tissue... it looks really bad. I don't think it's going to spread, though."

She didn't know.

Tess would have breathed a huge sigh of relief if it didn't mean having to supply more information if she hoped to get it fixed. She watched the doctor like a hawk, dark eyes fixed on her unblinking, in case there was a reason to fight at any moment. Christ, when had she last been seen by a civilian doctor? 2015? 2016? Tess couldn't remember. She'd fallen off the grid somewhere around then, anyway, and no one went to the military medical system if there was even the slightest chance of being connected to CBI.

Still, she cringed every time Jennifer touched her with the disinfectant. It was hard not to, given the cordyceps developing under her skin –– a living fungus, sentient somehow, knowing to head for the brain.

"It's a few hours old," Tess replied, tentatively, and then added: "And there won't be any calling for help. Nobody can know about this. Do you understand?"

Jennifer could feel herself being watched closely, and felt herself becoming increasingly uneasy. Something was setting off alarm bells in the back of her head. Nothing about this situation seemed right- why the demand for privacy? Why the threatening tone? Was the woman a recent arrival, carried straight from a battle or wasteland of some sort? The state of her clothing and general lack of cleanliness certainly spoke to that... but Jennifer knew just as well that it could be the castle's work, too. Not everything it did was benign.

"Why not?" she wanted to know, trying to keep a note of impatience out of her voice, shoving aside bad memories of images of her friends telling her she was useless. "I could get this taken care of a lot more quickly if one of my colleagues came to help. Or if I was able to ask if anybody recognizes this so I could figure out the best way to treat it. Please... don't make this any harder than it has to be."

Edited 2013-08-28 03:04 (UTC)

"Because I told you to," Tess replied sharply.

Even if Jennifer didn't know, her colleagues might. Tess wasn't about to take any chances, and she certainly wasn't going to condone it.

"I'll tell you anything you want to know about it as long as you tell no one. I need this taken care of. I don't have jack shit in the way of supplies. I don't care if you burn it off, or hack it off, or... Fuck, I don't care what you do. I just need this gone before it kills me."

Tess paused, and tried to take on a nicer tone.

"Please."

Jennifer gave the woman a look of disapproval- which didn't stop her from continuing her cleaning. She had a job to do, and this wasn't the only time she'd been under intense pressure from someone to treat a patient and done her job despite her misgivings- when the Runner, Kiryk, had kidnapped her.

"Look. You're new to Paradisa, right? Whatever kind of world you came from... no matter what kind of battle you were fighting... you're not in danger here any more. Nobody's going to hurt you, you have to trust me on that." She let out a breath, coming to a decision. She would keep it to herself for now. "Tell me what you know. If talking to anybody aside from me about it makes you that nervous, at least make it easier for me to help you."

Tess opened her mouth to reply but was cut short by a cringe –– Christ, did it hurt. She was sure that she'd rather be in a million fistfights and be shot a couple dozen times before being infected, even if it killed her.

Infection was going to kill her anyway.

She grit her teeth hard and tried again.

"What does it matter if I'm new or not? If it doesn't get taken care of within... thirty-six hours, maybe, it's going to kill me. It's a fast-growing fungus. Cordyceps. Do you know what that is? It's fucking dangerous. And it'll spread."

She turned her grey eyes to Jennifer again. She felt like she'd backed herself into a corner on this one; what did she expect? To walk in, get the worst of it scraped off and get some magical injection? Stroll back into Joel's room later, climb back into his arms and pretend she'd never left?

Desperate times.

But Tess didn't write cheques she couldn't cash.

"People where I'm from get executed just for reading positive, and I will kill you if you so much as try to execute me. Or tell anyone who might try. That's how dangerous it is. I don't know how to stop it. I don't have a fucking clue."

"That's nothing I've ever heard of. And stop saying I'm going to kill you," Jennifer said, a pronounced bite of impatience in her voice. "I don't let people die."

Her mind went back home, to Atlantis, to a dying Rodney with a parasite trapped in his brain. She hadn't given up on him, not even when he'd resigned himself to death. She wouldn't give up on anyone, even if they were a stranger.

"I'll put an anti-fungal on it. I may need to cut away some of the dead tissue and give you a skin graft... which, again, would be a lot easier if I had some help," she said pointedly. "But since I've never heard of this fungus, I have no way of knowing if any particular drug I try is going to be effective unless I have time to study it. I don't think you need to worry about it spreading, at least..."

"I don't know anything else!" Tess replied, hotly, "If anyone knew, they wouldn't be shooting infected people!"

She could only assume that the reason why tissue didn't get cut away and a skin graft slapped on in her world was that no one lived long enough for that to happen. But what the fuck did Tess know about treatment, anyway? Tess smuggled guns and drugs and supplies and all kinds of contraband for a living, she put bullets in thugs' heads for looking at her funny, and she surrounded herself with the scariest, most selfish people in the city because those were the kind of people who made the best allies. Tess could start a massive gunfight and crouch down behind a crate for cover like she'd done nothing at all. Tess was the queen of the fucking Boston underground.

All that, and she was panicking over an obviously nervous and edgy doctor in a private office. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest with every poke and prod and the gun cool against the clammy skin of her back, and god, was it ever a foreign feeling.

Like an animal backed into a corner, Tess asked defensively: "And what makes you think it won't spread?"

What kind of world did you come from? Jennifer wondered, worried in spite of herself. Was it a lawless land, one where society as she knew it was gone, where medical treament was almost nonexistent, if shooting someone was preferablee to trying to save them? However, she bit back questions.

"Because you're getting actual treatment, for one," Jennifer replied calmly. "For two, I've never known anybody here to die of a fatal disease. I don't think I've ever so much as seen any of them spread. So you have a chance here. But I still need to find out more information."

She thought of her journal... shut up inside a desk drawer where it usually was when she was working, as she wanted to do everything she could to respect her patients' privacy and not have it accidentally pick anything up. Temporarily forgetting herself, she began moving towards the door to fetch it anyway, thinking perhaps Simon, backed by a further 500 years of medical knowledge, or Dr. Banner, from a different Earth than her own, would know what cordyceps was...

Edited 2013-08-29 04:12 (UTC)

Tess stiffened when Jennifer started moving, any reassurance at the promise of actual treatment squandered in her own panic. In a heartbeat, her fingers closed around the grip of her handgun and she pulled it out of her waistband. Another heartbeat, and she had it trained on Jennifer's back.

"I said don't," Tess growled. "Don't fucking go anywhere."

Desperate, desperate measures.

Jennifer froze, her hand about to push the door open, turning slowly to find a gun pointed at her. Her eyes widened with fright, and she backed against the closed door, her gaze locked on the weapon.

Suddenly, her quiet day had turned threatening. She tried remembering her fighting lessons, what Ronon and Teyla had told her to do when she had a gun trained on her and was unarmed herself, but that was a lifetime ago, and her brain didn't seem to want to dig the information up. Tried to remember wrestling a gun from Golan, but the memory was gone. She shook a little.

"... Okay. Okay," Jennifer said, her voice trembling, "I- I know you're scared. But I'm trying to help you. It doesn't... it doesn't have to be this way..."

Tess did not want anyone else to know. Not everyone would be patient or understanding. Not everyone would be flippant to the idea of pandemic, and Tess suspected it would only get worse as she revealed more.

"I'm not fucking scared," she replied, dropping her voice a touch. She had to tense her shoulders to keep her hands firm, her grip even, and the pain roared through her shoulder ruthlessly. "I'm just doing what I need to. You can help me by getting rid of the cordyceps. Anything that looks infected."

No, she's fucking scared. She just can't show it like a normal person.

"Put the gun down." Jennifer tried to keep her voice firm and steady, but there was an edge of fear to it that was obvious. "Please. Put it down, and I'll do what I can."

Should she run? No, there wasn't enough room for her to push the door open and get out of there. She'd be shot before she could get it open. Should she cry for help? No, the silence told her the two of them were alone in the clinic- and that might make the woman shoot, anyway.

"Shooting me isn't going to get you cured."

"I'm not gonna shoot you if you just leave this between us," Tess warned. She lowered it, though, taking her supporting hand off the base of the gun, aim drifting towards the ceiling.

Damnit, Tess, she told herself. This girl is practically shaking in her boots and she still needs to save your life.

If that was possible, anyway.

Jennifer stood, indecisive. She could try to run still, even if there was a small chance she was going to get away unscathed. She well knew that if she were to be shot, there were plenty of skilled medics around to help her heal, and if she were to die, well... she would come back. Her assailant wouldn't get away with it for very long.

But it wasn't worth it, she thought. No need to tempt fate, not right now. This still did not need to end in bloodshed. She didn't need to die to prove a point.

"...Okay. Fine. I-I'll do what you want."

Part of Jennifer hated backing down, didn't want this woman to think that throwing weapons around was the way to get what she needed, that backing off was making her look weak.

But she knew what her job was, too. She wasn't like John or Ronon or Teyla. She couldn't fight her way out of this room. She had to play to her strength- heal this woman, and she might just walk away alive.

"...Lie down on the exam table." Her voice was still trembling, but she resolutely moved further into the room, back to the supply cabinets.

If it weren't such a high-tension moment, Tess might have breathed a sigh of relief, but she couldn't afford to do that right then. She kept the gun in-hand, finger laid against the side of the gun and completely off the trigger, but just having it close was comfort enough for her.

Besides. If things went completely wrong and she had to book it, she at least wanted the gun on-hand so she could finish herself off, avoiding the whole mess of leaving someone else to do it once she was already "gone", so to speak.

"Good," Tess replied, as firmly as she could muster. "No anesthetics. I don't care if it hurts like hell or has me screaming, I'm not being put out."

Not risking being injected with something and killed or knocked out, that was. She hoped she had the adrenaline to goddamn cope with it, regardless.

Jennifer swallowed an angry retort. Her captor- because that's what this woman had become now- was the one in control of the situation. One of the other lessons that had been drilled into her was don't do anything stupid. Not that Ronon always followed that, she thought ruefully, but it was a good place to start for someone who was often unsure of herself in normal situations, let alone a crisis like this.

And then, despite herself, despite the fact that she was being held at gunpoint by someone she wasn't entirely sure wouldn't shoot her the moment she was done, Jennifer felt a sudden sharp pang for home. Where Carson and Sam and Jack had gone- even Todd, whom she'd been developing something of an odd friendship with. They were all gone, and here she was without them.

Carson would have done this better, she thought bitterly. He probably could have talked her out of it by now and had the whole clinic here to help.

Then she chided herself. Now was not the time for self-loathing. So she resumed her cleaning, then followed the woman's instructions and began preparing to debride the wound.

"I'm going to cut away some of the dead tissue, then put the strongest stuff I have on it. That's about all I have at my disposal right now."

Jennifer realized, at the back of her mind, that she had a bit more of a window to run now, but she'd resigned herself to treating this woman, feeling she had a better chance of survival that way. Besides, she reasoned, someone might come along soon and make it a non issue.

Edited 2013-08-29 23:03 (UTC)

Tess nodded, mentally preparing herself for medical torture. She was too afraid, in all honesty, to allow herself to be given any drug –– she couldn't take any chance that she'd be put down or incapacitated. Even if it would mean an easy death (or at least one easier than eating lead) it would mean someone having to claim her body.

That would be fucked up, she knew. Joel somehow having to claim her body, where she went and got herself killed by a stranger, instead of him.

She shouldn't have walked out on him. She shouldn't have taken advantage of his exhaustion, shouldn't have waited for him to fall asleep and crept out of his arms. She should have waited and let him done it at the last possible moment, even if she was thrashing and the humanity was vanishing from her eyes.

But no, instead she had to put herself in a shitty situation. She had to take a risk, even with good intentions.

If she got out of this without being arrested or executed, Joel was going to smack her around hard enough to make her wish she was dead, and Tess would still vastly prefer it.

"Take off everything," Tess said, feeling like she was repeating herself. She wasn't even sure why –– Jennifer seemed just as afraid of her as Tess was of herself. "Even if you have to take away healthy tissue, I don't care. Get all of it out."

Joel was going to kill her.

He'd woken up alone with nothing but a creeping sense of panic and dread. Again. As a result, the first unfortunate stranger he'd come across was a little battered and unconscious, but not killed by the grace of his having been in Paradisa long enough. The body was just outside the castle somewhere while Joel made his way into the medical facility, information he'd gathered just minutes ago. At the pace he was going, it didn't take long before he found the right area.

It wasn't just about the risk Tess was putting to herself, it was about what might happen if she'd already turned. God, she was so fucking reckless. She just had to go and pull one last stunt instead of just letting him do what she said she'd let him do. He stalked his way through the halls with a backpack full of items and a severely pissed off look on his face, which helped when it came to nobody getting in his way. He was able to track her down quick enough.

Just in time, from the looks of things. There was his partner, holding up the doctor at gunpoint, but she wasn't anywhere near turned. She didn't even look like she was close to it. For a moment Joel just stared at the scene he'd intruded upon, radiating quiet fury. He was also sort of relieved, honestly, but he wasn't about to betray any of that.

"She's not gonna have a steady hand if you threaten her, Tess," he growled. "Put the gun away."

Edited 2013-08-30 21:46 (UTC)

Tess was startled. That, if anything, spoke to the state of her nerves right now: the movement at the door prompted her to pivot and train her gun on Joel. A heartbeat later at the doctor just in case she needed to emphasize that she was fucking busy here with a hostage. And then, because it was goddamn Joel, she lowered the damn gun entirely.

Not away, though.

"God damnit, Joel," she hissed, "I am handling this."

If he could be angry, she could too.

Jennifer had been preparing to tell the woman she wasn't going to go that far- an open sore that big needed a skin graft if it were to properly heal, as it was too big to staple or stitch shut, and she wasn't about to let her go walking around with a gaping, open sore on her chest- but all that was driven out of her mind by the appearance of another stranger.

Another stranger who was likely armed, to boot, if his full backpack was any indication- no resident of Paradisa needed to walk around with provisions. But he also knew her captor. Tess.

Jennifer knew she should have been wary, at the very least, but she felt a surge of hot anger coursing through her, and before she could stop herself, she failed at the don't-do-anything-stupid role.

"Hey. Someone want to clue me in on what the hell's going on here, or should I just be a nice docile hostage and keep on with what I was doing?"

Edited 2013-08-31 00:25 (UTC)

He stared down the barrel of a gun and then stared at Tess for a moment too long when that was done, checking over for any small sign that she was doing worse. He wasn't sure how long he'd been out (stupid to let himself drift off like that at all and let her slip away) but she looked, more or less, exactly the same. Neither more or less infected than she'd been upon arrival.

"You should probably just keep being a nice docile hostage," Joel muttered unhappily to the doctor without looking over at her yet. "And keep on with what you were doing."

Which was what, exactly? Removing the tissue, from the tail end of the conversation he'd busted in on? Would that work? He turned to train his dark and angry eyes on the unfamiliar young lady, as if that would answer that nagging question at all.

Back to Tess.

"She's gonna strip it out?"

"Assuming you haven't scared her off, yes," Tess snapped, to the point. She glanced back at Jennifer for a brief moment, as if sizing her up, and then she scowled. "When has anyone ever tried this as a solution?"

And not bled out, that is. Tess was sure some idiot somewhere tried cutting off their arm to save the rest of them, but she didn't have a damned clue if it had worked or not.

All she knew is that she would rather face a whole line-up of patrolling soldiers and get caught in a condemned building in a goddamn prohibited zone than do this. At least she knows she could pay off soldiers –– she can't pay off a hostage and an infection.

And then she moved the gun between her hands, taking it by the barrel so she could thrust it in Joel's direction grip-first. She hated losing control, but hey, they wanted a docile hostage, didn't they? Tess trusted Joel wouldn't let the woman get past the door if she tried to run for it.

"But I'm not getting injected with anything. I'm just going to grit my teeth through it." She glanced back at Jennifer again. "Just cut it all out. As deep as you need to go. Like I said before, I don't care if I bleed out or whatever, cut it all out."

Who needed a clavicle, anyway?

Jennifer inwardly sighed with relief when the woman handed the gun over. That didn't make the situation any less dangerous, though, she realized- the man was still a big unknown, and her captor could still have other weapons hidden on her person. But some of the tension seemed to be diffusing, despite the fact that they were speaking about her as though she weren't in the room- and as though she were still perfectly willing to treat this woman.

Was she?

Jennifer considered. She might be able to make a break for it now, but then again... the man could easily chase her down and stop her without harming her badly. She could refuse further treatment, but they might kill her- anyone who had no problems threatening and pointing a gun at a doctor, someone who was willing to have skin tissue cut away without any sort of anesthetic, would likely have no problems shooting her in the back as she ran and going to find another medic before anyone found her body.

"... I must be insane," Jennifer mumbled to herself, moving toward the sink, discarding her rubber gloves, then washing her hands before putting a fresh pair on and gathering her tools, making sure both of them could see that she was simply gathering disinfectant, a scalpel- everything she needed except anesthetic.

"I'm not cutting that entire patch of skin off," she then firmly told Tess. "It's not safe without a skin graft prepared. The wound would be way too big to staple or sew shut, and there's no way I'm letting you leave here with a big hole in your body. It would get infected, and the idea is not to let you die. So I'll cut off as much dead tissue as I can stitch, and put my strongest antifungals on the rest. They won't work immediately, but a consistent treatment with them should clear it up."

Edited 2013-09-02 23:19 (UTC)

No, he didn't mind holding the lady's gun for her. Joel took it in his grip like it was second nature for him to do so and listened to the ebb and flow of their exchange, torn between backing Tess up and slowing things down. He wanted to point out that it looked like they had the same amount of time that they'd started out with, which was apparently plenty, but he didn't want to take the risk of the infection leaving the building at this point.

The medical description of the procedure was brutal. This was gonna be pure torture for her if she wasn't out. He kept one eye on the doctor at all times and tried to make an argument for anesthetic.

"Maybe you should let her put you out first, Tess," Joel cautioned. He didn't sound like he was one-hundred percent certain of his own idea, but he didn't like the alternative very much. "I'm here now. I'll be watching everything she does."

Not to mention, he had about five different kinds of guns on him total. He'd been in Paradisa long enough to understand why nobody was coming after them yet, as much as he kept listening and waiting for an army to kick down their door on instinct. They were the anomalies here, but they couldn't take any risks with this.

"Very carefully."

Tess wanted to kick both their asses.

Hadn't she made it clear to Jennifer that she didn't care if it threatened her life, she needed it gone? Wasn't it obvious to anyone but her that any standard infection she could get in her open wound was going to be a million times better than the one she already had? Didn't she just say she wasn't going to be injected with anything, just in case it wasn't something she would wake up from?

Tess wasn't about to call Joel a traitor –– that word was reserved for people she'd put bullets in –– but the look she threw him stopped just shy of it. What a rat, she thought.

She'd beat herself up for her own hypocrisies later, walking into a clinic and then acting like she hadn't gone of her own volition.

"I'm not being put out," Tess insisted. "I can't do consistent, I need now. Prepare a fucking skin graft now, if that's what it takes."

(Tess had no idea what a skin graft entailed, obviously.)

"I don't have time for this!"

Panicking a bit? Panicking a bit. God, she wished she had bullets flying by her head and Robert's thugs screaming at her and soldiers marching by her hiding place, anything but pristine surgical rooms and know-it-all doctors and partners with much better compartmentalizing skills than her own.

Edited 2013-09-03 03:22 (UTC)

"I can't whip up a skin graft out of thin air! That would take a long time, longer than you're probably willing to wait for," Jennifer replied, her voice starting to rise with anger, but she fought it down. Tess didn't necessarily know that, but she was starting to get frustrated. "Look. I'm doing the best I can with what I have in this room and the little information you've given me. If you're not going to let me leave to get more help, and you can't accept that I won't cause any more harm to you than I have to..."

She drifted off. She'd been about to say "you may as well shoot me and get it over with", but that would likely have been a mistake, even with the man there to talk some sense into her captor. Provoking them was not on her list of priorities.

"I can't do more than what I've told you. I won't. Bottom line. Take it or leave it, but I can tell you right now that any other medics you might find would tell you the exact same thing I'm telling you." Jennifer took a shaky breath. "At least tell me why you're going to this extreme. Why is this fungus so dangerous?"

For fuck's sake, Joel was about ready to pistol-whip Tess into the unconsciousness she was refusing to accept. She did have time for this but she was losing her head and forgetting it. Any amount of time she had before, she had now. An unchanged infection was impossible to argue with.

He understood her misgivings about injections, and in fact he had plenty of his own. He felt a strong urge to start a fight with her about how she ran off when she should've stayed -- but what was done was done. They were here now, with a doctor hostage in a facility that was, most likely, given all the evidence put together, not hostile. Joel took a step towards Tess and pointed a raised hand in her direction, anger written over the pure tension that was his entire demeanor.

"Look, I get it," he started, stuffing down the pain that would accompany what he was about to say on auto-pilot. "You don't trust her. Neither do I. But I've got my eye on her and I think she understands the consequences of killing you with an injection instead of doing everything she can to help us. You think this young girl is ready to die for you? You took your chances when you left the room, now take one more."

And he was pissed off, he was so fucking pissed off that she'd done that, but he had to stay on track. Joel finished up by giving into the docor's final word without addressing her question. Instead, he shot her a troubled side-glance that amounted to: It's bad. Later.

"Fucking Christ, Tess, let's just listen to her if we're gonna use her. The bite looks the same."

Edited 2013-09-03 22:46 (UTC)

Tess found herself sliding from her chair, right onto her feet –– what the fuck did he know about being bitten, standing there and lecturing her? So what if it hadn't changed –– it could change. She could be still contagious. She could still be fucked. Every instinct she had screamed to fight and then get the fuck out there, if Joel wasn't going to back her up.

But still, maybe it was less desperate times and more desperation at this point. Someone (or something) had taken time off the table.

Tess looked between Jennifer and Joel, breathing hard. She swallowed hard and tried to piece together an argument, but nothing could trump the fact that the wound hadn't changed, not at all. It was the same collection of pulsing infected tissue as it was before, no better or no worse. How could anyone argue that truth, etched on their own body?

Besides... Joel had always been good at shouting her into submission. He put up with her bossing him around all day, but when push came to shove, he was an immovable wall.

"Fine," she spat. "But if you even think of leavin' the room, I will fuckin' throttle you, Joel."

It would be difficult in death, but as before: hypocrisies could wait.

Jennifer let a quiet sigh of relief escape her. She was still very annoyed and more than a little scared, but things finally seemed to be getting under control. She also caught the message from the man's- Joel's- glance at her. Now wasn't the time, she supposed. She may never find out the truth, and found herself wondering again what sort of world they came from. What sort of infection was so bad that a doctor would rather break their oath and deliberately hurt or kill another person to stop it from spreading?

You placed some trust in me when you burst into my clinic and hung around, Jennifer thought suddenly, actually amused a little despite herself. You may be talking about me like I'm not here and like I'm liable to do something to you at any moment, but both of you have had plenty of opportunities to hurt me and haven't done so.

More thoughts for another time, so Jennifer pushed them out of the way, tying her hair back.

"Lie back down." Her tone was calm and professional now. She was a surgeon, and there was a patient. When everything else was stripped away from the situation, that's what it boiled down to.

For a minute there, Joel was gearing himself up to yell some more. Instead he exhaled on an unsteady sigh when Tess said fine, though he wasn't relaxing one bit. He couldn't relax, because if the doctor slipped Tess anything other than anesthetic or botched the procedure it was on him now. He was gonna watch her like a hawk, but he wasn't a fucking doctor.

There was no way to be sure she was doing everything right. He figured his best plan would be to give her no reason to be on anything other than on her best game. Shoving a gun up against her back to make a point would just make any "accident" look more legitimate. He moved aside, giving her plenty of room to work, but he stayed in Tess' line of sight by the chair and sent a worried frown in her direction when things started up.

"I'm not goin' anywhere," Joel told Tess, while she was still awake, in a tone that was almost soft underneath a shitload of carefully controlled anxiety. And then, said to himself and possibly low enough to be unheard by anyone else: "I gotcha."

He then raised his voice to an audible level and spoke directly to the doctor, finally. Their best chance was to be as business-like as she was being, so his next reminder was phrased as if it was the simple truth of the matter and nothing else.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you twice that her life is your own. You already got that message loud and clear."

Edited 2013-09-04 01:27 (UTC)

Tess wasn't sure it was possible to feel so vulnerable, shoulders tensed and toes curling in her boots.

She held her gaze on Joel a moment longer, until it was too much and she needed to withdraw into herself and focus on herself. Almost mechanically, she boosted herself up onto the exam table, scooting midway down and busying herself with stripping off her undershirt entirely. No point in leaving it in the way or to get mucked up, though Tess imagined she'd just replace the damn thing if she made it through this. The bra could stay; it was so threadbare that it would probably come off with a tug, anyway.

(And, just to make a point, instead of discarding it on the floor with her purple denim shirt, she whipped the undershirt at Joel to catch. Asshole. You hang onto it.)

"Better not," she muttered, laying down and bracing herself.

Goodnight, Tess.

"Crystal."

Jennifer was breathing hard through her nose. Being addressed directly and spoken to like a person didn't help her mood much; things could still go way wrong, if she did anything they didn't like, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"I was chief of surgery of a scientific expedition back home. I've taken care of dozens of wounds like this."

That probably meant nothing to them, but Jennifer went to work anyway without further comment, placing her tray of tools and an empty pan nearby, expert hands cutting away the skin, moving into that place at the back of her mind that allowed her to fully concentrate on her work. Now, more than ever, she was thankful that she was able to achieve that state of mind. It had saved her sanity and steadied her hand many times, especially during her first major crisis, when Elizabeth had been so gravely wounded.

It seemed to be no time at all before she was threading a needle, stitching the wound, and finally finishing it up with a heavy bandage and dose of antifungal on the rest of the awful, angry red skin.

"There. It's done."

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