#Gil is like absolutely not I am going to fill the rehab pool with ice and throw you in it so hELP ME

[softquietsteadylove]

Hey hey! Love your doctor au!

My request: two patient coming in but they are highly aggressive and hallucinating very badly and suddenly They start attacking Thena. Lucky for her Gil sees this and protects her!

"Hey!"

Heads turn as one of the ER beds starts rattling. It's the last in the line, and Thena's voice travels out to the rest of the room as she tries to restrain her patient.

"No! No, they're everywhere!" It's a young male, late high school or perhaps early college age. He's tall, well built. He and the patient next to him were picked up in a convenience store parking lot on some form of substance.

Thena tries to hold his arm still. She wasn't even as far as getting blood pressure when he started thrashing. "Take it easy!"

"No! I have to get out of here!" The kid starts flailing even more, maybe not even aware of Thena yet.

"Oh my god," Ajak gasps as she sees it, waving to the security guards stationed closer to the main door, "help her!"

The two rush over, but the kid is full of adrenaline, and the other one needs restraining too, up and screaming about locusts in the air vents.

"Thena!" Ajak runs over to her but skids to a halt. The patient is hallucinating, high on adrenaline and whatever else, in no state to be approached, that's for sure.

"Don't," Thena grunts as she tries to get the kid's hands off her face as he begs her to shut off the air in the room. He grips the collar of her scrubs, "provoke...him..."

Ajak looks around the room, but it's been a quiet night. All their interns are on other cases or on break. Even then, she doesn't know if any of them would be able to overpower this particular patient alone. "Where's Gil?"

The other nurses are already scrambling for the check in log, seeing if he's in the building or on a run.

"I'll even take Kingo."

"Gil's checked in as of 7 minutes ago."

"Get him here!"

The page goes out for active paramedics to triage. Ajak goes to the patient that security did manage to wrangle and gets a sedative into him. She looks at Thena every few seconds, anxiously keeping an eye on her situation of trying to talk down the more nervous one.

"You'll choke if you don't close your lungs!"

"Thena!"

Thena claws at him as his hands close around her long, slim neck. It's easy for his palms to press into her windpipe. She claws at his hands, his face--anything she can reach.

"Get off her!"

Gil charges over, barrelling towards them. The kid still doesn't blink, but Gil wastes no time, with no concern for being too rough with a patient. He grabs the back of the kid's neck, making him reflexively reach to stop whatever is causing his pain. Thena drops to the floor and gasps for air.

Gil throws the kid with one hand--tosses him like a doll into the wall behind them.

Thena draws air into her lungs desperately, coughing and sputtering as she holds her sore throat. She feels Gil lean down to her, his hand on her back, enclosing a safe space for her as she regains her bearings.

"Thena, hey, look at me," he whispers. It's gentle, as is everything with Gil, but she can hear the urgency in it. He's scared. "Please, Thena."

She pulls her head up to look at him, although the blurriness in her vision is a red flag. She blinks at him, feeling his hands on her cheeks. He pulls her closer to him, letting her lean against him. Adrenaline drains out and the heaviness of fatigue replaces it.

Gil holds her head under his chin, his hand on her arm and the other arm around her back.

"Everyone okay?" one of the security guards leans down to ask them.

Gil's glare sends him a step or two backwards. "Where the hell were you?"

Before security becomes the next target of Gil's undeniable strength - and surprisingly frightening temper - Ajak comes over. She puts a hand on Gil's shoulder, meeting his eyes to ask permission from him.

Reluctantly, he loosens his hold on Thena. It's enough for Ajak to pick up her fallen stethoscope and use it for herself, listening to her heart, listening to her breathing. She touches Thena's neck ever so gently.

"I'm fine," Thena protests, but it's a little wheezy sounding, and Ajak can see the redness where bruises will form in all shapes and colours.

"Fine my ass," Ajak glares at her, and finds that even Thena knows better to argue with the mother hen of the ER. She pats Gil's shoulder, "take her to the bus to get some cold compacts on that neck. I'll handle things in here."

"But-"

"Thena," Ajak snaps her fingers and points at her, silencing the doctor completely. Ajak nods them away, taking Thena's stethoscope with her. She'll get it back after Ajak is satisfied that she's been cared for.

Thena sighs, feeling Gil close in around her. She presses a hand to his chest, "I can walk, Gil."

He looks at her desperately, and her heart pulls.

"Really," she whispers, at least allowing him to help her to her feet. Her knees have a little bit of a wobble to them, but she's the Goddess of War, and she doesn't hobble away from anything.

Gil keeps an arm wrapped around her on the way to the ambulance, passing Kingo complaining to Ajak about what 'I'll even take Kingo' meant. "Hey."

Kingo notices Gil walking by, notices the ghostly silence of Thena hovering beside him, and notices them on their way to their ambulance. He nods.

Thena sighs again, testing the tenderness of her neck for herself, "I can't take the rest of the night off, you know. We sent all those damned kids home because it was so slow."

Gil shakes his head, guiding her gently by the shoulder to the back of the vehicle and holding her hand as she steps up into it. "If only they'd been able to tell us what they were on. We could have known they weren't marijuana high but something more dangerous."

Thena shrugs her shoulders as she takes a seat on one of the benches, "these things happen."

"Yeah, but it happened to you," Gil argues with a deep set frown, pulling the doors closed behind him as he sits next to her, "that's the problem."

Thena moves silently, letting him turn her back to him in the small space. He pulls at the collar of her scrubs gently, afraid to so much as brush his fingers against her already damaged skin. "It could have been worse."

"Sh," he whispers, collecting her hair out of his way oh-so gently, "let me work, Doctor Thena."

She puffs through her nose in a soft laugh, turning her head to let him continue his examination. She can feel just the tips of his fingers travelling around the bend of her neck and the curve of her shoulders. She lets him turn her again, keeping her head angled as he examines the front damage.

Gil tugs her shirt as needed, although there's no hint of blunt trauma anywhere even as far down as her clavicle. He runs his fingers along the prominence of the bone, casting shadows along her ghostly pale skin.

Thena's breath hitches.

"Sorry," he whispers, not asking if it's his cold hands or if it hurts or if it's just a sensitive spot for her. He moves back to her neck, with clear marks already of where those hands had closed around it. He hovers his fingers near it but doesn't dare make contact. "Hurt?"

Thena stays quiet, and she's obviously thinking about lying to him about it. But he brushes his thumb along her jaw and she deflates, "a little sore."

Gil nods. He can imagine it's sore; it's going to bruise something awful, that's for sure. He reaches into a drawer and pulls out an ice-gel pack. "You should get something on that to help the blood flow."

Thena smiles, letting him press the cold against her neck for her. She sighs faintly at the relief of it, her hands coming to rest on his wrist as he holds it for her.

"Really scared me, y'know."

She opens her eyes, and he has that same heart wrenching look on his face. He looks like a puppy left out in the rain. She imagines she goes tender in the eyes as well, leaning her cheek against his hand on her neck.

Gil reaches up with his other hand, brushing her hair away from her face. "I've never been so terrified as when I saw him holding you like that."

Thena's eyes drift down between them. She can't imagine what it would have been like for him to arrive on a scene like that. She remembers the fear that had gripped her during the car crash incident that had Gil fainting in her ER. She...could have handled that better, in retrospect.

Thena's eyes flutter as Gil pulls her forward, pressing his lips to her temple (the way she had done for him that time, and then run away and refused to talk about it).

"You know I'm not leaving your side for the rest of the night."

Thena smiles, half-encircled in his warm, strong arms in her half-turned position. Their knees knock together, but she turns her smile into the inside of his wrist to hide at least some of it. "You have a job to do, Gil. We both do?"

"Kingo will cover for me," Gil says a little more easily, and Thena lets out a faint laugh this time. It's still a little thinner and gaspier than he would like, but it's still her laugh. "You said it was a slow night. And you have - what - seven more hours? I'm not letting you do that alone."

"Ajak is in there alone now, I have to get back to her!"

"Okay, okay," Gil pulls away with a lopsided smile. He lifts the compress, checking if it did anything. The redness of her skin has improved at least a little. "Okay, fine, I admit it's pretty surface. No need for a full on neck brace or anything."

Thena claims and savours her victory.

"But you still shouldn't strain your voice tonight," he continues as they both stand to go back inside. "Let Ajak or me do most of the talking. And I'm filing a complaint about those security numbskulls."

"Don't file a complaint," she scolds him as he helps her down from the step at the back of the bus. "HR will drag it on and on and on."

Gil frowns, his hands settling on her hips as he keeps her with him for a second longer, "I find their failure to do their jobs pretty serious, Thena."

She shakes her head at him, resting her hands on his hips to match his posture. "It's their job to protect both patients and staff, not me specifically, Gil."

He pouts at her.

"Don't look at me like that," she smiles, slipping her hands away but tugging at one of his belt loops to pull him with her again. "I'm already letting you follow me around for the rest of shift. I can only make so many exceptions for you."

"You?--making exceptions for me?" Gil scoffs as he walks in beside her, "you're lucky I haven't thrown you over my shoulder and walked out with you."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Don't tempt me," he whispers, shrugging off his work hoodie and laying it over her shoulders. She looks at it but he puts his hand over it, not willing to accept it back for the rest of the night, "Doctor."