I went to bed feeling pretty pleased with myself, but of course, that's when everything gets disrupted once more.
'Oh my God, not again', Ella mumbles when we're woken up by loud knocking on the door.
Despite the vastness of sleep, I decide to jump out of bed and put some clothes on right away, before they decide to drag me away before I get the chance again.
I'm just zipping up my jeans when the door gets thrown open.
'I'm telling you right now, I'm not going anywhere without my shoes on!' I yell out before I even see who it is.
'Sure, doc, but hurry. It's going to be a long night.'
I look back quickly in surprise when I recognize Cal's voice. He doesn't usually work at night.
'What's going on?' I ask as I plunge down to tie my shoes. There's a slight moment of hesitation before he answers.
'Some chick from Alexandria burst in and shot a bunch of people.'
'What?' Ella and I ask at the same time.
'Who?' Ella adds.
'I don't know her fucking name, do I?' he responds shortly.
'What does she look like?' Ella asks agitatedly. 'Was it Enid?'
I can hear the hope mingled with fear in her voice. I know how much she misses her friends. But if Enid were here, she wouldn't exactly be in any kind of good position. Anyway, I can't imagine the timid girl bursting in here, guns a-blazing.
'I haven't seen her', Cal says, sounding impatient. 'Are you ready, Chris?'
'Yes', I say, jumping up. 'How many people injured? Anyone killed?'
'Three dead, five injured. Two seem critical, but what do I know?'
'What about the woman from Alexandria?' I ask anxiously.
'Alive', he says dismissively, making it clear he won't be answering any other questions. 'Now come on.'
'Ella, you get dressed as well', I order her as I make my way to Cal. 'And have the guard bring you to me. I'm going to need help.'
'But...', she argues.
'Please, El', I say adamantly. I know she doesn't like blood, but she's helped me before and I'm going to need more hands if I'm to take care of 5 severely injured people.
I don't wait for her answer and pray she'll do as I asked while I follow Cal. We don't go to the doctor's office. Instead, he takes me downstairs.
'Too many for our office', he explains shortly. Our office. He says it casually and even in the midst of everything it occurs to me that the two of us have become somewhat of a team in the time I've been here. I'm glad it's him that came to fetch me instead of Simon. Thinking back to what happened with Walter, I hope that maniac won't be anywhere near.
'Oh, shit', I exclaim when we walk onto the scene. They've dragged the victims of the shooting into a room where workers usually sleep on mattresses on the floor. I guess they've been sent elsewhere and I hope they'll be receiving new mattresses, because everything is covered in blood.
For a moment, I'm frozen. There are too many patients and only one of me. Cal was right, two of them are definitely critical. Another one looks bad as well. The other two don't seem to be hit in critical places, but they'll need attending to as well.
'Chris?' Cal says, snapping his fingers in front of me to get my attention. It seems that he's been talking to me, but it went straight past me.
'What did you say?'
'I said, what do you need?' he repeats. 'I had them bring your stuff here. Can I help?'
'Yes', I say, walking further into the room to assess the patients.
'I'm going to need help', I say, sinking down next to the first patient that seems critical. He's groaning in pain and there's another man next to him, pressing a blood-soaked t-shirt down on the wound on his abdomen. 'Is there anyone in this place with any kind of medical experience?'
'I know somebody that used to be a nurse, I think.'
'Great, find them and get them here.' Then I turn to the guy putting pressure on the wound.
'Put some more pressure on that, try using your knee. And make sure he keeps as still as possible. I'll be right back.'
I move on to the next injured guy as Cal walks off to find the nurse. As soon as I sink down next to him, I can see he's beyond saving. Someone has cut his shirt open and a woman is trying to stelp the bleeding, but though it was working for the other guy, here the blood keeps running. He coughs and blood spurts from his mouth, painting his chin red. The woman looks up at me with panicked eyes.
'What do I do?' she asks desperately. I don't want to tell her that there's nothing she can do. I don't want another Walter. But it's clear that his lung has been punctured and I don't have the time or the resources to do anything about it.
'I'm sorry', I say, grabbing her shoulder to comfort her for a moment. 'You need to let go. When you're ready. There's nothing I can do.'
'What?' she asks, tears forming in her desperate eyes. 'No! Please, you have to-'
'I'm sorry!' I say again. But I have no time for this. I get up and make my way to the next patient to assess the damage. A woman with a bullet wound in her shoulder. She's clearly in pain, but she's not in any danger. She looks relieved when I tell her that.
'What can I do?' someone asks from behind me. I get up from the floor to find Cal and a short woman that seems just about a decade older than myself. Her straight, black hair is pulled back into a tight bun and her dark eyes are full of focus. This must be the nurse.
'He's losing a lot of blood', I say, walking over to the next patient. The woman I just checked on can wait, we need to treat the people who are at most risk first and the guy next to her is bleeding profusely from a shot in his leg.
Who did this? I wonder for a moment. Who managed to get in here and create this carnage?
But there's no time to think about that now. I have a job to do.
'Have you ever treated a gunshot before?' I ask her.
'Yes, I have', she tells me.
'Good, then you can get started here. Make sure to check if the bullet has gone through, if not you need to remove it. Then clean thr wound and get started on stitches. You got that?'
'Yes, ma'am', she replies. 'Where are my supplies?'
'Cal will get you anything you need', I say, looking over at him for approval. I'm glad to see he nods. But before he walks away, I pull him over for a quick word.
'He's not gonna make it', I say, nodding to the second guy and the woman by his side who's still futily applying pressure to the wound. 'Can you find somebody to take care of her and... take care of him?'
Jam a knife through his skull. The last thing we need right now is someone turning in the midst of all this.
'Yes, ma'am', he repeats the nurse with a little smile. I let out a short laugh, then walk over to the last patient. He's clutching his side, but on closer inspection, the bullet only grazed him. He can wait.
Ella appears just when I get up to get back to the first and most critical patient. She looks around frantically at all the chaos, but I grab her shoulder firmly to make her focus on me.
'I'm gonna need your help, okay? We're going to save a life.'
---
The guy with the gunshot in his abdomen ends up needing surgery. For as much as that's possible... Because we need to stop the bleeding internally. It takes the rest of the night, but somehow, I manage to cut him open, stop the bleeding and sew him up again. Ella assists me where she can and I've been ordering around everyone else within earshot too.
While I work, some guy named Jake comes up to me and tells me he used to be an emergency response officer, and he asks if he can help even though he's pretty rusty. I talk him through the process of properly cleaning and bandaging a wound, so he can get started on the guy that only got grazed by the bullet.
The nurse, whose name is Myeong, I've learned, comes up to me occasionally to discuss something. While I'm operating on my patient she manages to take care of the shot in the injured guy's leg and then of the shot in the woman's shoulder as well.
When I'm finally done, I'm exhausted. But it's not over yet. The patient seems pretty stable, but he's lost a lot of blood, so I have him transported upstairs to the doctor's office and ask Cal to find somebody with the right blood type so we can give him a blood transfusion. While they're working on that, I check the other patients and I'm glad to find that Jake and Myeong have done a good job.
I hand out some medication to all the patients to reduce the chance of infection and tell the two least critical patients they can recover in their own rooms. I ask some Saviours to take the guy with the wound in his leg to take him up to the doctor's office as well, because he doesn't look too good and I'd like to keep an eye on him.
I know I have to get started on the blood transfusion but when all the patients have left the room, I take a short moment to lean against the wall. I let out a long breath and my eyes fall onto the mattress where the guy that didn't make it was lying. Somebody took him out and then carried him away. I could vaguely hear the woman that was with him crying, but I was too focused on my patient to really take notice. I do hope somebody was there to comfort her, though.
'Have you had anything to drink tonight?' Myeong asks, handing me a water bottle.
'Can't remember', I tell her. 'Thanks.'
I gulp the bottle down eagerly, realising that I probably didn't drink much every since I woke up.
'Impressive work you did there', she compliments me. 'Didn't think that guy was going to make it.'
'Thanks', I say, wiping my mouth after I finish the water. 'You too. Cal says you used to be a nurse?'
'Yes, I was an ER-nurse for 12 years before the world crashed.'
'Really?' I ask excited. 'How have we not met before? What do you do here?'
'I work in the kitchen', she says, sounding a little bitter. 'I offered my services to the last doctor, but he said he didn't need my help.'
'Why not?' I ask skeptically. 'Seems to me any medical knowledge should be taken advantage of, right?'
'Not sure', she shrugs. 'Racist? Sexist? Or maybe he was just worried he'd be expendable with somebody else around that knows their way around the medical field.'
'If that was his reason, it didn't do him much good from what I've heard, did it?'
'Nope', Myeong says, betraying only the slightest hint of satisfaction.
'Well, I'd love your help', I tell her excitedly. 'There's much more work here then there ever was at Alexandria and it's only smart to have more than one person trained in medical skills, isn't it? Maybe we could even train Jake.'
'If you can make it happen, I'm all in', she says, getting excited as well.
'Sure! I'll talk to Negan about it, see what he-'
'Chris.'
I turn around and find myself looking into Ella's eyes. There's a weird expression in her eyes that I can't quite place.
'What's up?'
'Can I talk to you?' she asks, sounding a little impatient.
'Sure?' I say questioningly. Then I turn back to Myeong. 'You got any energy left to help me set up the blood transfusion? I think my sister could use a break.'
'Yeah, I'll head upstairs, see if Cal found anybody yet. 'See you in a minute.'
I nod at her thankfully and then focus my attention on Ella as Myeong walks away. Ella's crossed her arms and her eyebrows are furrowed into a bit of a scowl. I figured she wouldn't be too happy about helping me, but I didn't really notice she was mad at me until now.
'You alright?' I ask her. 'You can go back to bed if you want, I've got it from here. I'm sure Negan will give you some time off.'
She doesn't react to what I'm saying but moves in a little closer and lowers her voice.
'What are you doing, Chris? You didn't have to save that guy, nobody would have blamed you if he'd died. They didn't really think you could save him in the first place.'
I flinch a little at her words. I assumed she was angry about getting pulled out of bed to help, but I wasn't expecting this.
'What are you talking about, El? It's my job to save people.'
'He's a Saviour', she hisses at me. 'Negan's fucking soldier. He would kill us or any of our friends if he got the chance and we just spent the whole fucking night fixing him up.'
'What was I supposed to do?' I hiss back. 'You think Negan wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't made an effort?'
'No, I don't think anyone would have noticed if you'd have made just a little bit less of an effort', she continues in an angry whisper. 'But you had to go and be some kind of miracle worker. Did you even spare a single thought for our friend from Alexandria that's now rotting in a cell? Do you care whether she'd alright?'
'Of course I care', I snap at her. But an uneasy feeling takes a hold of me. Because the truth is that ever since I walked into this room, I haven't thought much about her at all. I got swept up in the work. All I thought about was taking care of these patients the best I could.
'Well, is she alright?' I ask Ella. 'Do you know anything?'
'Yes, I asked around and I'm pretty sure it's Sasha. I overheard this guy describing her. She's okay, from what I've heard, but I doubt she will be when Negan's done with her.'
Sasha... I don't know her that well. I remember seeing her at the party that Deanna threw to welcome Rick and the others, a few months ago. She looked like she was competely overwhelmed and she never really seemed to relax entirely. That's not too surprising. I heard she lost her brother only shortly before they reached Alexandria. She finally seemed to be doing a little bit better, but that all stopped when Negan came into our lives...
Abraham was the only one I'd ever seen bring a smile to her face. They hadn't been together for long. But his death clearly devastated her. It doesn't really surprise me that she's the one that pulled this crazy act.
A tight knot forms in my stomach when I think about what Negan might do to her. He's not exactly the forgiving type. Maybe I could talk to him. Ask him to spare her life. But maybe that would destroy all the credit I've built with him...
'And what's all this talk about running a fun little hospital unit here?'
'What?' I ask Ella confused when she pulls me out of my thoughts.
'I heard you talking to that woman. You wanna ask Negan if she can work with you? And you wanna train some other guy? It really sounds like you're planning on...' she looks around herself for a moment and lowers her voice some more, 'staying here.'
'Well, that's what we want everybody to think, El', I say annoyed. I start to make my way to the door. I need to get upstairs and get my patient on the blood transfusion.
And I'm done with this conversation with Ella. Because I don't want to lie to her. And the truth is that my talk with Myeong wasn't part of any kind of tactic. I love my job, I've always loved my job. And I got excited about working with another professional, ideas about building out the medical unit popped into my head. But that would involve staying here and off course, that's not what we want. I just got swept up in the heat of the moment.
'You sounded real convincing', Ella says accusingly.
'Thank you', I say shortly, though she clearly didn't mean it as a compliment. 'Look, I need to get upstairs and you should get some rest, okay? I'll try to speak with Negan if I can, ask him to go easy on Sasha.'
'You think he'll listen to you?' she asks skeptically. There's no guards around, but I decide to make my way back to the doctor's office anyway. I wasn't thinking about any kind of tactic, but my actions tonight might just push Negan to get rid of the guards altogether. If this doesn't prove my loyalty, I don't know what would.
'I don't know', I tell Ella as we make our way up the stairs. 'But honestly, if he doesn't, can you really blame him? She came in here to kill a whole bunch of people, what's he supposed to do?'
I don't really notice that Ella has stopped in her tracks until I look to the side and don't see her there. When I turn around and see the disbelief on her face, I immediately regret my words. Why am I defending him?
'Do you hear yourself?' she asks me, her voice full of disdain.
'I just...' I don't even know why I said that. If he does something horrible to her, of course I'd never support that.
'I'm just tired', I tell Ella. And myself. As an excuse. 'Go back to bed, I'll see you later.'
Then I leave her behind before she can confront me with any other uncomfortable thoughts.