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."