MADISON'S POV.
"Hey." I smile.
He stands at the door, not moving and when he doesn't smile back I start to worry.
"What's wrong?"
He raises a brow. "You're in a hospital bed."
I relax, relieved everything else is okay.
"Well, it's not a real hospital, if that's any consolation."
"That actually makes this situation a lot worse."
"Well then will you just believe me if o say I'm fine."
"No."
"What?"
"Well you hadn't been fine long before and you never told us."
He has a point.
"Okay, how about this, I promise if there's something wrong with me from now on, I will tell you. So we can settle for, 'I will be fine'?"
He nods and finally strides over to me and crouches to pull me into a gentle embrace. When he finally pulls away he lingers there for a moment so I close the space between us first by pressing my lips gently against his. I feel his shoulders relax and he leans into the kiss more. And right there and then I knew everyone would be okay. The sense of ease and safety that washes through me is almost overwhelming.
We finally pull away and although he stays crouched down on the floor next to me he doesn't let go of my hand.
"Why did you come in last." I ask.
"I wanted to be with you alone." He answers.
"How are you feeling though, honestly?" He asks. I rocks uncomfortably on the backs of his heels on the floor and I wonder how long he'll last before his legs begin to cramp.
I pat the bed and he lifts himself up to sit next to me on the bed, while never releasing my hand.
"I'm f-"
"You promised." He cuts in.
I did promise. I promised to tell him honestly how I felt.
"Honestly?" I ask and he nods.
"Honestly, I've been better, a lot better actually. Dawn kinda explained to me what was wrong with me, but I couldn't really concentrate." I sigh.
"Are the meds working? For the pain?"
"I'm not sure. Everything still hurts, especially the stitches but maybe they're supposed to hurt more. I guess I was moving around a lot earlier so they must be working."
"It just feels like they're not?"
I answer with a shrug.
"This place, it's-" I'm not sure I have the words to describe it.
"Thanks to you we found a safe haven. This place has food, medication, electricity. It's a total jackpot. They save people here." He tells me.
Something still seems off about this place and I can't quite put my finger on it.
"Whats it like here? The people, the food..." I ask.
"The people are ... kind but oblivious. Arrogantly oblivious. It's annoying but you can't snap because it's not really their fault." He seems to struggle to choose his words carefully.
I shake my head in confusion.
"I'm not sure I understand."
"Most of the people here haven't stepped a foot outside since the beginning of all this. They know what they need to. The city is roaming with walkers and it's dangerous and most importantly they don't question it. As long as they get their food and water, they won't question it. It's mostly all families here."
"Everyone's nice?"
"Well I think it's only fair to excuse the odd dickhead every now and again I can only imagine their cabin fever." He adds.
I chuckle.
"Plus you met Dawn, but I have a feeling she's just a dickhead regardless."
"Couldn't agree more."
"She has a lot of rules." I state.
"Yeah."
"Do they matter?"
He nods. "I suppose so. Everywhere needs to have some sort of system or they'd all kill each other.
"True."
"I feel the need to ask you specifically not to break her rules. You tend to do shit like that a lot."
"Really?" I mock surprise.
He smiles but it doesn't last. "If you break her rules the consequences aren't pretty."
I'm about to ask what he means by that but he moves on quickly.
"The hospital is huge. It looks kinda small on the outside for a hospital but they actually have like five stories. Some of them are underground. Those are cleared off for staff members only."
"We'll don't we all work here now? She said we had to do jobs to earn our keep, making is staff, no?"
"Mads, I can see exactly where you're going with this. Don't go down there."
"You're not curious?"
"Of course I am. And I'll go down there in a while once people grow less suspicious of us. I don't know if you've ever heard of the word subtle before but it's pretty much the key to sneaking around here unnoticed." He remarks sarcastically.
"Maybe in a few days we should sneak-"
The sounds of the door opening silences me and once it's pushed open Dawn, Maggie, Rick and a doctor walks in.
"How are you feeling Madison?" The doctor asks.
"Well, you don't need to call the priest just yet." I joke.
"I heard you've been vomiting and you have the sweats. This is normal after this particular operation." She explains.
"You operated on me?" I ask.
"Yes."
"Are you a real doctor?"
"Madison!" Maggie scolds.
"What?" I defend myself. "They just said they used medication in me that mightn't be right and it's making me sicker so excuse me for asking a related question."
I hear Carl snort a laugh and when Dawn glares at him he tries to cover it with a cough.
"I'm a real doctor. I worked here before ..." she answers irritated.
"Apologies then. And thank you, I suppose. Are all the doctors here real? Did they work with you here before ?"
"The other doctors are trainees"
"So, no?"
"Madison!" Maggie scolds again.
But from the corner of my eye I catch Rick fighting a smile.
"What? I'm just asking some questions. That's allowed, right?" I ask the doctor.
She nods. "That's allowed. I can assure you Miss. Smith, I've trained the doctors here myself. They're good at what they do so you don't need to question their medical skills. You have the best care possible right now."
"But your doctors gave me the wrong medication."
She's silent for a moment and the room fills with an awkward tension.
"Sorry, why don't you continue what you were saying before." I apologize, feeling guilty for putting her on the spot. I'm sure training all these doctors was hard enough on her as it is.
The doctor looks down at a chart in her hands and proceeds to discuss my condition.
"So overall you should recover quickly. It was a rough operation so you'll need your rest. As well as that you're body needs hydration so those IV's will remain for the next few hours. We will give you painkillers to help with the scarring and pain and you must take them twice daily. If you prefer we can give you a morphine drip instead but it is stronger."
"No that's okay. The other option is better." I assure her.
Both Rick and Maggie take in every word she says and I know they're going to hold me against everything that doctor is telling me to do. The next few days will be torture.
"When you start to eat again you can only consume things like soup, broth etc." She explains.
"You got to be kidding me! Everyone here is talking about the food here and how good everything tastes. There's foods here that i've never even heard of." I moan.
Maggie and Rick have a hard time keeping a straight face and Carl starts to laugh so I shove him off the bed. This just makes him laugh harder.
"The soup tastes really good." Maggie encourages.
"You're just saying that to make me feel better."
She doesn't reply so I know that's true.
"For the next few days you will consume nothing but these soups, drink them frequantly and then in a few more days you can follow a diet that contains carbohydrate foods. Deal?" The doctor amends.
"Deal." I sigh.
The thought of food turns my stomach and I feel the blood drain from my face. I close my eyes and lean my head back in the pillow, concentrating hard on not throwing up.
"Ms. Smith?"
"Miss Smith, are you-"
I feel bile rise up my throat and my hands bolt for the buckets next to me, getting it just in time to throw up in.
I groan into the bucket. I'm so done with this place.
"We're gonna take a few blood tests later and then do an ultrasound just to check everything is okay." The doctor tells me.
"Also, when your near full recovery you should do some yoga with the yoga club or something it will help your physio after the operation."
I stare at her waiting for the punchline to the joke but it never comes.
"You actually have a yoga club? ....."
"Yes."
"Any other questions?"
"So many?"
"Regarding the operation and your treatment?"
"No."
"Okay. Well then I must leave. I have other patients." She scrawls something into the chart and places it on the bottom of my bed.
"Recover quickly Miss smith." She smiles kindly before leaving the room.
"This place is pretty big huh?" I say to Dawn.
"Yeah."
"How did you find it?"
"It was always in the city." She responds. "Yeah but how did you find yourself in the position that you're in now. I mean you weren't a doctor here. You were a ...?"
"Cop."
"Awh-" I point between her and Rick.
"Best buds."
Dawn just glares.
"So? How did you-"
"What makes you think you can ask me questions like this?" She retorts.
"Well that's actually how a conversation works Dawn. I ask one question, you answer and then you ask a question and then I answer."
"Well the problem is, Ms. Smith, I don't like you and I don't want to have a conversation with you."
"Woah. I'm offended, how ever will I sleep tonight? Now I'll just be tossing and turning all night thinking of the ways I can kiss your ass to make you like me a-"
"Enough Mads." Rick interrupts.
I huff. "So Dawn, Can I go and check out this place?" I ask.
"You can barely walk Einstein."
"Well, this is a hospital, find a wheelchair or something." I snap.
She sighs but leaves to find one.
"You shouldn't speak to her like that. She's been helping you." Maggie says while helping me to sit up properly.
"She speaks to me like that too." I argue.
Dawn walks back into the room with a wheelchair and Rick wraps his arm around me, helping me into the chair. That's was only mortifying but nobody says otherwise.
We travel all around the hospital on my new wheels, meeting new people and discovering new rooms. Carl was right, the people here are arrogantly oblivious. People explain to me about their jobs and that they have heard about me.
Yeah, I'm the girl who stabbed some guy with a syringe.
I am toured around every floor apart from the last one, underground.
"Thats it for the tour today" Dawn finally says.
"What about-" Maggie starts.
"I said thats it." Dawn cuts her off.
"Why? Whats downstairs?" I ask.
"Nothing." She lies quickly.
"You have a whole bottom floor with absolutely nothing on it ?"
She nods.
"Then I suppose you mind us exploring it if there is nothing to see." I challenge her.
"Nobody is going downstairs! End of disscussion!" She shouts.
We'll just see about that Dawn.