#so when my assessment got pushed back another month i called my old dr office

[siristaci]

I got my

✨🌟MEDS!🌟✨

[katytheinspiredworkaholic]

Correspondence, Chapter 02

Pairing: HotchReid

Summary:  An AU where Reid never joined the FBI, but got roped into consulting for the LA field office while working and teaching at Caltech. Hotch gets his email referred from a fellow agent, and they start to work on cases together -- until they start talking on a regular basis. Regular becomes frequent, frequent becomes constant. They know nothing about each other, but they don't really mind.

Rating: Mature/Explicit (eventually)

Chapter CW/notes: Vague mentions of PTSD, spoilers for the Foyet storyline/mentioned character death. Little angsty, maybe a little OOC since Reid and Hotch don’t actually have a boss/subordinate work relationship in this story and I’m adapting that whole-heartedly. But other than that, it’s just grown men acting like dorks and Reid attempting to give parenting advice. Set in season 6, self beta’d.

Word Count: 4535

Masterpost Link

Ao3 Link 

--

Chapter 02

--

May 2010

-

Hotch does, indeed, take Dr. Reid up on his offer.

They work on a few more cases together, over the course of six to eight weeks, and each time Dr. Reid proves to be an invaluable asset. His knowledge is unsurpassed, extensive, and astounds Hotch every time he opens a correspondence email from the esteemed professor. 

Have you ever thought about being an FBI agent? He teases one night, when they’d been sending theories back and forth in emails that had become less and less formal. Dr. Reid still sent dissertation-length assessments of the cases when they landed in his niche (which was often), but their replies had turned to a messaging template instead of the business-like format Hotch is used to writing all day every day. Quick, rapid-fire messages replacing the professional grade layout that felt so impersonal, with titles and headers and enough filler to give him chronic headaches.

This was much better. Informal as it was.

I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t pass the physical exams, but thanks for the compliment. Another life, maybe. Dr. Reid answers, and Hotch finds himself smiling and huffing a laugh behind closed lips, the kind that stays caught up in his chest. He’s not sure how much older the professor is, for all he knew he could be bordering on retirement, but it was an amusing thought nonetheless.

 I would get them waved, or curve the scores. I have that kind of pull around here. Never would he speak with his agents or anyone at the Quantico office like this, and it had taken weeks and dozens of emails to get to this point. But the freedom of it was nice, enchanting, like a little taste of his life outside of the office. Just confined to the response box of his email. Despite what everyone (ie: Morgan, Prentiss, Garcia) said about him, he did have a sense of humor. He just also had a sense of propriety, and he was their boss. He wasn’t going to make light with them in the place where they catch murderers.

Don’t tempt me. I have tenure. But Virginia gets so cold, I’d freeze to death half the year. 

Didn’t you attend MIT? What did you do during winter?

Froze to death. Pay attention.

Hotch outright laughs, and then snaps his mouth shut and looks out the open blinds of his office. Everyone has gone home, for the most part, but he doesn’t need JJ or someone else hearing him and coming to check on him. He hasn’t been getting much work done since Dr. Reid started replying to his emails that evening, and the little half smirk on his face is something he doesn’t think he can school as he rereads their conversation over and over. 

Apologies. Next I’m sure you’ll tell me how you had to walk to class uphill both ways in the snow.

No, I took the bus. And Froze. To. Death. I live in sweaters, and I’m from Las Vegas, I’m not meant for the cold. 

Las Vegas? Really?

Born and raised. My mother still lives there. 

Hotch’s eyebrows raise at that, apparently he’s not so old that his mother is still around. His own parents are gone, have been for years, but that’s under different circumstances and really not a situation he likes to reflect on.

Must be nice, only being a few hours from home. Do you go back often?

As little as possible. I should really visit my mother more, but that’s hard for reasons I won’t get into. I do write her, though. A letter every day, although not much happens around here for her to get invested in.

As in a real letter? Not an email, or a phone call?

She doesn’t do well with phone calls, or computers. Letters are more personal, anyway, and she likes being able to have the paper in her hands in my own handwriting. It’s the least I can do, not going home unless I absolutely have to. 

This is the most the man has ever spoken about himself, in a personal manner instead of an academic one, and Hotch isn’t quite sure how to take the evolution. It feels like a shift in their dynamic, an opening that could lead to a deeper level of friendship and -- it’s been a while since he’s had that. Allowed himself to have that. After Foyet, and even before when Haley started pushing for divorce and Hotch responded by isolating himself as much as he could to keep his work unaffected, he’d had trust issues. Hotch is man enough to admit that. 

But speaking with an old professor on the other side of the country might just be the stepping stone he needs. Who knows, maybe they’d even get the chance to meet one day.

I just grimaced at my own triteness. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give you such a maudlin review of my life story.

No, that’s okay. I don’t talk much about myself, so I wasn’t sure how to respond. Work and home are kept very separate for me. It’s an unhealthy coping mechanism, I know, but it works as best as it can.

In your line of work, I can only imagine. You do what you have to. 

Hotch pauses in their conversation, looks at the clock and the stack of paperwork he still hasn’t finished -- too busy lost in his talk with Dr. Reid -- and feels an itching in the back of his mind he wants so desperately to scratch at. To give into. Lists of things he knows he should talk about, but doesn’t trust anyone enough to do so. Hotch really isn’t sure he can even trust Dr. Reid with them.

At least, not yet.

Thank you. And thank you for entertaining me, as well. 

Anytime.

--

It’s not a month later that Hotch is sitting at his desk, after hours, once again. Head in his hands and his phone still warm, overworked from the hour-long phone call he’d just endured with his ex-sister-in-law, Jessica. 

Jack was being bullied in school. She’d had to attend the parent-teacher conference about it instead of him, because he’d been on a case in Florida for over two weeks. Which really just highlighted to Jack’s teacher what his home life is like and she expressed her worry. Adamantly. Jessica was in agreement, and she once again wanted to have the conversation on if Hotch returning to work at the BAU had been the right choice after Haley was killed. He’d taken his sabbatical for 30 days, passed his psych evals -- which didn’t mean much, he helped write the qualification questions -- and Jack was doing well with his therapist and in school.

Or so he’d thought. Until today. 

That ‘conversation’ turned into an argument, because Hotch gets defensive when someone questions his choices in regards to his family, and as much as he knows that she is right -- he feels awful about how it devolved. Jessica has gone above and beyond in taking care of Jack, to allow Hotch to return to work, and she is the last person that deserves the brunt of his frustration. He only has himself to blame, and he doesn’t know what to do. Who to turn to. Who might have answers for him, if there even was a correct answer for his situation. 

The Foyet case is classified. His assigned therapist is so easily played he hasn’t returned to her in months. 

Hotch just wants someone who won’t see through him, even when he pushes back.

He wants to talk to someone who he doesn’t want to push back against.

Who he trusts.

Dr. Reid, I need help with something no one seems to have an answer for, but it’s of a personal matter and not a professional one. Would you mind lending me your services?

Hotch sends the email before he can take it back. It’s late in Virginia, but Dr. Reid is four hours behind him in California and there’s a high chance he might still be in his office. He seems to keep longer hours, for an old professor. 

He won’t admit it to himself, but he feels a tightness in his chest as he awaits an answer. All the paperwork from the Florida case is completed, there’s nothing keeping him there at the office any longer. But it’s too late to go pick up Jack from Jessica’s, and he doesn’t think he would be welcome to come sleep on her couch like he often does on nights like this. When he wants to be there when Jack wakes up, and tonight he longs to do just that. But he isn’t sure he can even look Jessica in the eye right now.

So he sits there, and watches his computer screen, and feels himself distance from the ache in his bones. Knowing if Dr. Reid doesn’t answer him, he would have to spend however long it would take to compartmentalize his apprehension, once again, and go home to his empty house and not think about how he is failing in raising his son. In being a good father. 

The soft ping of his inbox is his single solace in the storm of his thoughts.

Agent Hotchner, You know I’m always happy to help, in any way -- personal or professional -- if I can. What is it you need an answer to?

That tightness releases, but it also gives way to the worry building up in his chest. An overwhelming, crushing amount of it that he didn’t realize was climbing higher and higher the longer he’d been left alone with his thoughts. Drowning in trepidation. Everything he doesn’t want to have pressing on his mind when they are hunting down serial killers, working with criminals that would see it as a weakness and exploit it without batting an eye. 

But this time, Hotch knows this is becoming something he shouldn’t try to hide away. 

Child psychology. Trauma, in particular, and the effects on children after the fact. 

It’s enough to describe what he needs answered, without telling too much of what happened. It’s still hard for Hotch to think about what happened, to fully realize what they had gone through. What had happened to Haley, what had happened to him. What Jack will have to grow up knowing nearly happened to him. What he almost witnessed.

(626)-595-0387 I have unlimited texting, and tend to stay up very late at night. Also, I have a feeling that you might want to keep this off government regulated emails. I’m not a practicing psychiatrist, mind you, but anything I can do to help you I will be more than happy to offer. 

Hotch is stunned. Whatever he expected, that wasn’t it. He’s near speechless, staring at the phone number with a Pasadena area code, and hesitates in moving their correspondence off of the email platform. A drastic change in dynamic and expectations, but… it would be nice, to be able to message the professor whenever he wanted. The ease of access an alluring thought. 

Another soft ping in his inbox has him looking up from where he’d been glancing at his cell phone in contemplation.

Also, it goes without saying, but everything we talk about in our conversations would still be confidential. I have no one to tell them to, anyway. 

Hotch huffs out a sound that could have been a laugh, and he’s surprised he even can manage that. But he’s barely thinking about it before he’s picking up his cell phone and typing in the number Dr. Reid had given him. []6/3, 22:46[] This is Agent Hotchner.

He sends it, pauses in thought, then keeps typing.

[]6/3, 22:47[] You can call me Hotch, since this is outside work. Agent Hotchner just reminds me I’m abusing bureau resources for personal gain.

The whole interaction is causing this clawing, hot feeling in his chest that might be nervousness in risking the change in their work relationship, or residual guilt from the fight with Jessica about Jack, or just… the fear that Dr. Reid will tell him he is fucking this up and he should never have returned to the FBI at all. Because there are days, like today, where Hotch really starts to think that might be the case.

[]6/3, 22:49[] I figured as much. No one else actually messages me after 6pm except you and some of my more zealous students. 

[]6/3, 22:51[] And although I don’t think you’re abusing anything; in that same vein, you can call me Spencer. This is just two friends having a chat, nothing more. 

Hotch appreciates the gesture, finds himself almost smiling about it -- but then he remembers what he has to relay to ask what he wants to ask the other man. And he isn’t sure where to begin. 

So he just -- begins at the start. The case where Foyet fooled his whole team, posing as a victim, and managing to get away. Slipped through their fingers. Gotten away with murder and insider FBI information and more than he should have ever been able to access. Dr. Reid -- Spencer, please -- doesn’t say anything as he relates all of this, and Hotch commends his patience. Because from the start, this isn’t about child psychology at all. But it is certainly about trauma, and that becomes apparent when Hotch throws caution to the wind and describes what happened to him in his own apartment. Paraphrasing and dropping out intimate details, but explaining what happened is still brutal even stripped to its bare minimum. When Foyet had broken in, and blitzed him, and tortured him as he stabbed him nine times in the chest. Precise, practiced, indicative of letting him live with the knowledge of what that monster masquerading as a man could do. 

The details begin to bleed through the more he types. The more he remembers.

How he’d had to put his ex-wife and son into protective custody. How it hadn’t been enough. His late night obsessions all for naught. And finally, a brief -- or as brief as it can possibly be, for as brutal an event as it was -- summary of what happened when Foyet had found his family. How he had killed Haley, how they had stopped Foyet and Jack had been spared witnessing anything. Even the fight inside Hotch’s own house. He doesn’t… well, Hotch doesn’t plan on describing that and keeps it at bay. He barely remembers it. Blurs of fists and broken furniture and rooms he has memorized from years of memories flying by as they tore through his home like a hurricane. 

But he gives enough of a picture. Enough that, though he doesn’t say as much, Spencer probably knows Foyet didn’t make it out alive. Can guess it was by Hotch’s own hands. 

Which leads them to now -- to the part Hotch needed help with more than anything. His past and his trauma Hotch has a lot of practice dealing with, knows how to handle it alone. As he always has. But the part he doesn’t know how to handle?

He is raising his son on his own. His ex-sister-in-law, Jessica, has been a godsend and is helping with Jack so Hotch can be at work. His lifeblood. His identity. Everything he’s ever worked for. He almost left; Strauss had offered him an early retirement package that was too good to pass up, but he had in the end. Because being an FBI agent, catching the monsters that plague their world, that is what he does. And that’s what Jack knows him to do. 

It helps Jack, Hotch found, to know that his dad is out there catching men like the one that took away his mom. He probably would have taken the loss a lot worse, if Aaron had left the bureau. 

But he’s messing up. Hotch feels that in his bones. He’s gone so much, Jessica is taking on the role of parent instead of Aunt more and more, and Hotch does not want to turn into that father that shows up once in a blue moon and pretends he never left. He’s worried that what Jack’s teacher, and Jessica, had said is true and Jack’s home life isn’t going to be healthy for him. It’s going to make him suffer.

That what Jack has gone through, Hotch doesn’t know how to address correctly. 

It’s near a half hour later that he’s gotten the entire story out, and Hotch realizes that even though text is probably going to be easier to have a conversation like this… he probably could have written it in an email and saved them both some time. He apologizes at the error, because it’s late and his head isn’t quite screwed on straight whenever it comes to matters with his son, and he just… he’s at a loss. Doesn’t know what the right course of action is, or if there even is one outside of a professional’s opinion. 

Then Hotch waits for a reply.

It feels like hours, but in reality is only a couple of minutes. 

[]6/3, 23:22[] Hotch, the fact you are so worried about your son and how your actions have affected him through all of this, is all I really need to know about you being a good father. The consideration you are showing him is not something every parent can do, in the face of what happened to you and your family. You do not need to worry about that. You love your son, and that is the most important factor right now.

[]6/3, 23:25[] Secondly, I’m so sorry that this happened to you at all. You and your son sound like you have such a strong bond, and I know that’s what must have helped you through such a difficult time. It’s apparent that you love him very, very much. 

[]6/3, 23:29[] I don’t have a lot of friends that ask me the hard questions like this. Not that I don’t want them to, I just understand why, because I can recite statistics all day and give you textbook answers easily. Which I know you were hoping would give you a black and white response to your question. But in this there isn’t one, sadly. I know you are worried and I feel like you don’t need to be. And I don’t know how to express that in a way that won’t make you detest me. 

[]6/3, 23:32[] Your son just lost his mom, and you just lost your ex-wife, and there’s not going to be a straightforward path to healing. Everything you say you have done for him? It’s perfect, it’s exactly what you should be doing, and don’t stop. That’s all you can do and all you should focus on, in truth. Listen to what he tells you and watch for what he doesn’t, and hug him, because you are a great dad -- and this is coming from someone who did not have such an example. 

[]6/3, 23:33[] And I am very sorry about Haley, Hotch. I truly am. 

Hotch doesn’t even answer him for a good few minutes. It is a lot to process, to read through, and he does read through it more than once. But every single time he reads that final text, his eyes sting hotly and he has to blink back emotions he thought he had waded through plenty on his 30 days of leave. Apparently, not enough.

It’s so much, and yet he wants more. It’s not enough in the sense that he wishes Dr. Reid -- Spencer -- would keep talking to him. Keep telling him he’s doing a good job. That he hasn’t failed his son. 

That for once, he’s handling something right.

With a breath that feels like it shudders through his chest a little more roughly than it should, Hotch slowly types out a response that doesn’t even begin to feel anything close to adequate.

[]6/3, 23:41[] Thank you, Spencer. I could never detest you, in the slightest. Everyone keeps telling me I’m not screwing this up, but 

He pauses, not sure if he even believes what he’s about to type. 

At the last second, he switches tactics entirely. Feels a flood gate open. Just one, solitary floodgate in the vast Hoover Dam size wall he keeps up from the moment he shrugs into his suit jacket at home until he sheds it all away at the end of the night. In the confines of his home, with six physical locks on the door and two different digital security systems. With a weapon carefully concealed and childproofed in every room. With steel reinforced windows and no exit save for the front and back doors. A fire hazard, but a good precaution against anyone who would try to break in -- like Foyet had. 

[]6/3, 23:41[] ...I find it so hard to believe them. In some ways it’s hard to believe you, too, but that’s not personal. Your words have resonated more than anyone else’s, if that’s any consolation. Even more than the therapist they assigned after everything. 

[]6/3, 23:45[] My sister-in-law flat out told me I was failing my son, being away like I am, and his teacher believes his home environment isn’t healthy. He’s being bullied in school. I don’t know what to do.

Hotch types it all out and sends it. 

The reply is instantaneous.

[]6/3, 23:46[] Yes, you do. You know exactly what to do. 

And then there isn’t any further elaboration.

At first, Hotch is confused. He feels himself being pulled from that precipice of self-loathing and despair. Tugged by a string. The confusion forces him to look at Spencer’s response, nine words long, and decipher what they mean. 

Trusting his first instinct, once more.

[]6/3, 23:49[] I have to talk to Jack. 

[]6/3, 23:54[] You have heard all of this from everyone other than your son. He may be young, but he is going to know the answer better than his teacher or his aunt. Talk to him, before you start nailing yourself to a cross. You may find the answer to the situation a much easier fix than you are anticipating.

Hotch considers this, thinking about his son. Six-years-old now, first grade, smart as a tack, curious and kind. But so strong, a foundation that even he found himself clinging to sometimes, in the face of the storm of everything that had happened to them. Which is not healthy, and Hotch learned to not do that to him. To instead find solidarity in their relationship, withstanding the storm together. As they always have. 

[]6/3, 23:57[] He’s not one to let a bully have his way. He knows that’s not right. Maybe he has another strategy.

[]6/4, 00:01[] He’s young enough that trying to befriend his abuser would be a good tactic to counter the situation, does that seem like something he would do?

[]6/4, 00:02[] That sounds exactly like Jack. Hotch replies, with a smile finally easing on to his face -- and it feels lighter now. Easier to hold.

[]6/4, 00:04[] He sounds like a sweet kid.

[]6/4, 00:05[] He is. I’m very proud of him.

[]6/4, 00:07[] You really are a great dad, Hotch. I’m not just saying it to say it. 

That crushing, overwhelming feeling has ebbed to nearly nothing -- and with a sudden rush of vertigo it is replaced with gratitude for the old professor lending him his evening hours. It flashes warm and sudden and Hotch isn’t used to that, either. 

[]6/4, 00:08[] I would never expect you to, but thank you.

Even he feels lame for thanking the man for saying such a thing.

[]6/4, 00:10[] You don’t need to thank me, I barely did anything.

[]6/4, 00:11[] But if you ever need to talk, about anything really, I’d be more than happy to do so. 

[]6/4, 00:13[] I promise I can be good at that. The listening part. Day or night, it really doesn’t matter. I’ll always be around.

Hotch pauses at the offer, and then types slow and hesitant.

[]6/4, 00:16[] What if I just want to check in on a friend?

[]6/4, 00:16[] I am also around for that. 

The answer is sudden, without hesitation, and Hotch feels a smile start to ease the muscles in his face. Soften the edges once more.

[]6/4, 00:18[] I wouldn’t mind someone to talk to after a long day. It’s been a while since I’ve had a…

He pauses again, not quite sure if he remembers how to do this without pressing in too fast. Committing to too much, not sure what he is able to give of himself. But he’s already shared more with Dr. Reid in two months than he has with David in the past two years. 

Hotch makes a decision, for himself, for the first time in a long time.

[]6/4, 00:18[] ...It’s been a while since I’ve had a friend outside of the bureau. 

[]6/4, 00:19[] Do I still count if I’m a consultant?

[]6/4, 00:19[] You absolutely count. 

His own message makes him smile, and there’s a beat between messages where he hopes he made the older man smile as well. 

[]6/4, 00:22[] I’m never short on topics of conversation, I warn you. So unless you want a lecture on quantum physics -- how do you feel about chess?

[]6/4, 00:24[] I’m getting the feeling you’ll wipe the floor with me.

[]6/4, 00:25[] Oh, without a doubt. But the desktop app also has a chat feature.

[]6/4, 00:26[] Look at you, all modern and with the times.

[]6/4, 00:28[] My home phone may be a rotary, but even I can’t scoff at the vast reach of online chess. 

[]6/4, 00:28[] So what say you?

Hotch pauses, one final time, and considers the night; the conversation, Spencer’s advice, the way talking about what had happened helped ease the weight of it more than he’d ever anticipated. Then he thinks of the source, of what started it all, and how -- once again -- Dr. Reid was right about a number of things. But one thing in particular. 

[]6/4, 00:32[] I’m going to take your advice and go to my son. But tomorrow night, after he’s in bed, I have many hours to myself.

[]6/4, 00:35[] By no coincidence whatsoever, my evenings are always free. Care to show off those FBI honed deduction skills? My best chess opponents have ironically been FBI agents.

[]6/4, 00:36[] Oh, I’m terrible. Trust me.

[]6/4, 00:37[] I promise I don’t care. Your company is worth however many short games we can endure. 

Hotch smiles, despite himself, and this time doesn’t try to hold it back.

[]6/4, 00:39[] Then, it’s a date.

-

(tbc...)

-

Tagged list: @spencehotchner @ssa-sarahsunshine @gothamapologist @reidology @marsjareau @dragon-snaps-fandom​ @emmyraebird @just-an-emo-rat​​​ @aaron-hotchner187 @dk18077 @more-heid-pls @fakin-it-til-i-make-it @merpancake

[wonderingscientist]

The Storm Before the Calm

Chapter two: Conversations

Word count: 1685

Tw: misgendering

Nitori fidgeted with the charm on her phone strap as she watched the scenery zip past the window of the shinkansen. She was excited to be seeing Ariga again but at the same time a small pocket of anxiety sat in her stomach as she thought of what was to come.

           She’d have to tell her parents fairly early on, there was no avoiding it. Sure when they talked just before she left to university both her parents had seemed largely ok with the whole thing, there was a difference between them accepting her while she kept everything under wraps and them accepting her transition.

          Queerness was acceptable to many so long as you didn’t ‘indulge yourself in those behaviours’ and when you did do something like finding a partner or transition it was ‘selfish’ and ‘detrimental to the family unit’ and a lot of people got a lot less ok with it. Her parents were probably a lot more ok with thinking that they had a son that cross dressed in his private time than dealing with the fact that Nitori was soon going to be visibly their daughter that they didn’t used to have that was dating another girl.

       Nitori pushed those thoughts out of her head. She didn’t have to cross that bridge just yet. She had thankfully dodged the bullet of explaining to her parents why she was suddenly back in town in the middle of the university semester by staying at Kanako’s place.

          Nitori turned her thoughts to her upcoming meeting with Ariga. She was excited to see her friend again as it had been almost eight months since she had seen Ariga. The two of them had talked throughout the semesters sure but Nitori hadn’t actually seen her in person since she left to university. Plus she was excited to for her friends transition.

          Nitori stared back out the window again, this time with a smile on her face. She fidgeted with her phone charm as the excitement welled up inside her.

  ******************************************************************************

 Anna paused in front of the door for a second, swallowing a lump of anxiety. The name of the door plate read Saito Kenta, Senior Administrator. After a second or two of anxious waiting Chii reached from behind from Anna and knocked on the door.

           After a few seconds a gruff voice called out ‘come in.’

           Anna looked back at Chii and they smiled supportively and gave her a nod. Anna reached forward and opened the door and the two of them entered the room.

           Saito sat hunched at an old looking computer on a plain wood desk surrounded by filling cabinets. He looked up as the Anna and Chii entered the room and the two of them bowed to him. He nodded at them and gestured to the chairs facing him and his desk.

           ‘please, sit’ he said.

           Anna and Chii took a seat each and Saito looked between the two of them

           ‘So what can I do for you ladies’ he asked

           ‘well sir, we’ve come to talk to you about the potential of having another student moving into our dorm room with us…’ Anna began but trailed off trying to pull her thoughts together and find a way of phrasing the next part of the request.

           ‘Ah yes Miss Suehiro, I have been informed of your room arrangements,’ Saito said and turned back to the computer, ‘what is the individuals name so I can arrange the room transfer?’

           Anna swallowed anxiously has the conversation started to deviate from her mental plan ‘Nitori Shuuichi, sir’

           Saito did some quick typing and then frowned at his computer. ‘It says on our records that Nitori Shuuichi is a boy,’ Saito said and looked sternly at Anna, ‘Miss Suehiro am I to understand that you’re requesting a boy move into the girl’s dorm, because that it unacceptable.’

           ‘Not exactly Sir,’ Anna started and she could feel her hands shaking, this wasn’t going to plan, ‘you see..’

           ‘Nitorin is transgender.’ Chii saw Anna was flustered and took the reins. ‘She is listed under the school records as a man but she is in fact a girl.’

           Chii looked to Anna and she smiled and gestured for Chii to continue while she collected herself.

           ‘Nitorin is looking to begin her transition,’ Chii continued, ‘And we all agreed that it was unsafe to do so in the men’s dorms’

           ‘I know it’s highly unusual and it normally wouldn’t be done,’ Anna said, ‘but Chii and I are friends with her and we would have no issue sharing a dorm room with her.’

           Saito looked between the two of them. Anna fidgeted nervously.

           'This isn't some elaborate ruse to get your boyfriend to move into the dorm with you is it?' Saito asked, a slight accusation in his voice

           Anna and Chii's faces both went dark with anger, and Chii opened their mouth to say something. Anna gave her hot headed friend a warning look before she answered herself

            'I guarantee you Nitori Shuuichi is not my boyfriend'

            Saito seemed to think about it for a few more minutes, typing on his computer and reading whatever had come up.

          ‘Very well.’ Saito said, ‘University protocol states there must be a year of transition before anything like this is allowed but as you both know Mr Nitori and are ok with him moving in then we can wave that requirement.’

          Anna and Chii both stared daggers at the administrators seemingly deliberate misgendering of Nitori but said nothing.

          ‘I will lodge the transfer forms, but he will need a psychological evaluation before he is allowed to move dorms,’ Saito continued, seeming oblivious to the hostile stares, ‘now is there anything else?’

          Anna shook her head and the two of them stood and left the office.

          Chii waited until they were out of earshot of the office before breaking down laughing, shooting Anna an amused look

          'What?' Anna asked but Chii just continued giving Anna the amused look

          'What I told him was 100% the truth, she isn't my boyfriend at all,' Anna said and shrugged, 'it's not my fault that he's a bigot’

 ******************************************************************************

 Nitori pushed open the door to the bakery and cafe, the bell on the door jingling. At the sound of the bell several voices chorused a welcome to the store. Ariga turned to the door to see who had entered and then turned back to the back of the shop.

           ‘Mum, Nitorin is here!’ Ariga called out, ‘I’m going to go on break’

           ‘Alright darling.’ Ariga’s mum called back.

           Ariga turned back to Nitori and grinned, gesturing her to a table in the corner. Nitori grinned back at Ariga. Her hair was longer now, almost to her shoulder and she wore a green long sleeve winter dress with grey leggings. The most noticeable change, however, was how Ariga carried herself. Where before she was awkward, nervous and uncertain, she now held herself with confidence and surety and she looked so much happier. Nitori felt a slight twinge of jealousy.

           ‘You look amazing,’ Nitori exclaimed.

           ‘Thank you,’ Ariga said flushing slightly at the compliment

           ‘what was all that fuss last year about you not making as cute of a girl as me, because it’s not true’

           Ariga smiled broadly ‘God mum was so angry at you,’ she said and laughed ‘I had just come out to her and her reaction was get angry at the person making me feel bad.’

           The two of them smiled and laughed at the memory.

           ‘See and I told you that you had nothing to worry about,’ the voice of Ariga’s mum cut in from beside them, surprising them. Nitori and Ariga too focused on each other to notice her approach.

           ‘It’s so nice to see you again Nitori,’ Ariga’s mum said with a smile and then pulled her note pad out from the front of her apron, ‘Now, ladies, what can I get you two?’

           The two of them ordered their respective drinks and Ariga’s mum left to make them. The two of them made small talk while waiting for their drinks. It didn’t take long before they had been place on the table.

           ‘How as university been treating you?’ Nitori asked

           ‘Good all things considered,’ Ariga replied, ‘classes have been going well and I haven’t run into too many problems with teachers and my transition.’ Ariga made a face, ‘I’ve had one or two bad students but they’re mostly just harmless idiots’

           ‘That’s good to hear’

           ‘Also that reminds me.’ Ariga said and reached into the pocket and pulls out two cards, ‘This is the details of the clinic that I go to and the psychologist that I saw for my assessment.’

           ‘Thanks Ariga.’

           ‘Hikari!’ Ariga’s mum called from the kitchen, ‘We need you off break.’

           ‘Coming mum!’ Ariga called back and then turned back to Nitori, ‘Sorry got to go.’

           Nitori raised an eyebrow at Ariga before she could run off. Ariga flushed a little, embarrassed as she realised.

           ‘Right, I forgot to mention,’ Ariga said as she pulled her apron back on, ‘I have a new name’

           ‘It’s a lovely name,’ Nitori said, ‘I guess I’ll see you next time I’m in town.’

           ‘Drop by anytime.’ Ariga replied smiling, ‘it was nice seeing you, and next time we should catch up when I have more time.’ Ariga turned and walked hurriedly back to the kitchen.

           Nitori made her way to the counter to pay, and as the staff member rang up her drink Ariga’s mother appeared from behind the counter.

           ‘Today’s drink is on the house,’ she said, ‘it’s not every day that Hikari’s best friend comes to visit and I feel bad that you two couldn’t chat for longer.’

           Nitori bowed and thanked her and then turned to leave the cafe. As she made her way from the cafe to the train station she pulled one of the cards from her pocket and dialled the number written on it. The phone rang for a few seconds before a woman’s voice answered.

           ‘Yes hello,’ Nitori said, ‘Is this Dr. Funai’s office?’

[defiblover27]

Cross hairs

Newest edition to the series.  Want to give fair warning that this is one of the more graphic and bloody stories that I have written.

*******************************************************************************************

Clara was spending the day in the city with her boyfriend.  They had only been together for 3 months but she believed he was the one.  Her boyfriend Dan always wanted to show her where he grew up and they finally got the chance to.  Dan came from a rough neighborhood but he heard that it was turning around in the past couple years.  They were walking down the street he grew up on and came to the town house he lived in as a kid.  They stood there as Dan told her stories of sneaking out in the middle of the night.  Clara turned around and looked at Dan and hugged him thanking him for showing her his history.  Suddenly a grey car drove by slowly, the passenger window rolled down and the man fired multiple gunshots at Clara and Dan.  All that Clara could hear were the loud bangs and she screamed in fear.  As the car sped away she tried to talk to Dan.  He had a blank stare and fell to the ground, there were 4 gunshot wounds that went through his back. Clara tried to scream but couldn’t, she looked down and say blood coming out of her abdomen and shoulder.  She passed out at the sign of the blood collapsing to the ground.  A woman inside of her house called 911 and informed them that two people were just shot and are down on the ground.  Within a minute and a half a police officer was on scene due to the bad neighborhood.  He got out of his vehicle and rushed to the victims.  He had his right hand on his gun and used his left to check for a pulse on Dan.  He could barely feel anything and then checked Clara.  “Squad 11 to dispatch I need additional units and immediate medical to my location.  Two victims with multiple GSW’s.”  Dan still had his eyes open and was breathing quickly in a panic.  “What’s your name kid?” the officer asked.  “Dan...Please you have to help Clara” He replied while struggling to speak.  Another police officer arrived on scene and rushed to help.  At this point they had the block blocked off and turned their attention to the victims.  

Sara and Dave arrived on scene with their bags and equipment.  Sara went over to Clara and began to assess her injuries.  “Ma’am can you hear me” Sara called out to her.  There was no response and Clara had already lost a large amount of blood.  Sara took out her shears and cut right up the middle of her black blouse revealing her white lace bra and blood covered abdomen.  She took out gauze and tape and attempted to control the bleeding.  Dave was attending to Dan when suddenly Dan’s eyes rolled back and his body went limp.  Dave felt for a pulse but couldn’t find any.  He instructed one of the officers to start CPR as he grabbed the ambu bag.  Dave cut off Dan’s blood soaked shirt and cut off his blue jeans.  Dan was exposed to only his boxers and shoes as the police officer compressed his chest.  Dave had the other officer take over ventilation as he began an IV and placed the electrodes on his chest.  There were 4 distinct gunshot wounds that blood was still pouring out of.  Dave pushed an epi as the monitor showed asystole and did all he could to stop the massive bleeding.  After two rounds of compressions Dan converted into V-fib so the AED pads were attached to his chest. Dave charged the unit to 300 joules as CPR continued.  They backed away as the first shock was delivered.  Dan’s back arched off of the ground slightly and came crashing back down.  His heart rate remained in V-fib so CPR was continued and the unit was charged to 360 joules.  As the unit charged Dave checked his pupils which were fixed and dilated.  The second shock caused his arms and legs to flail outward.  This time as his body settled the monitor showed asystole once again.  Dave decided to stop resuscitation efforts due to the massive blood loss and his pupils being unresponsive.  The officers instructed Dave to leave his body uncovered as they had to take crime scene photos and called the coroners office.  Dave went over to Sara to begin helping with Clara.  Sara had already inserted an IV and removed her clothing other than her under garments. They placed her on the stretcher and loaded her into the ambulance to transport her to Mercy hospital.

Dave drove this time with Sara in the back.  She placed the electrodes and put a pulse oximeter on her her left hand.  Her respiration’s were shallow and she wasn’t getting enough oxygen.  Sara placed an oxygen mask over her face as they rushed to the hospital.  Clara was only 5′1″ and a slender build with small breasts.  She had black hair and brown eyes, she hadn’t regained consciousness at all since seeing her own injuries.  There was one gunshot in her right shoulder, one in her right breast, and two in her lower abdomen.  Sara was concerned that the bullets may still be inside Clara and may have caused internal damage.  Clara remained stable for the duration of the drive and was unloaded upon arrival.  They transferred her onto the trauma table as Sara gave the team the report.  “23 year old female with 4 gunshot wounds from a drive by shooting.  Major loss of blood and had been unconscious since arrival on scene.  Boyfriend was the other victim who was pronounced dead on scene.”  The massive blood transfusion protocol was initiated as the team set Clara up to their own monitors and paced another IV in her arm.  Dr. Micheal ordered a set of X-rays to find the location of the bullets and an ultrasound to find any internal bleeding.  The X-rays were placed on the light board on the wall and they could see that all four bullets were still inside of Clara’s body.  The ultrasound of her abdomen showed a ruptured spleen.  It was at this moment that the team knew that Clara was on the thin line between life and death.  After listening to her breathing through his stethoscope Dr. Micheal decided to place a chest tube in her right side to help stabilize her breathing.  He made a small incision just below the side of her breast and inserted the tube.  Dr. Micheal called for a surgical consult to assist in removing the bullets and assess the ruptured spleen.  As Dr. Micheal was hanging up the phone Clara’s heart monitor started alarming as she went into V-fib.  A nurse began CPR on Clara as another snipped the front of her bra revealing her small breasts.  The bra fell to the side as the nurse moved on to cutting off her panties.  Dr. Micheal took a laryngscope and intubated her securing the tube with white tape.  As CPR continued Clara’s small breasts shook side to side.  “Let’s charge to 300 and prepare to shock.”  The two orange gel pads were placed on her chest and when the unit was charged Dr. Micheal placed the paddles on her chest and shocked her.  Clara jolted on the bed as the electricity coursed through her body.  There was no change in rhythm as CPR was resumed and the unit was charged to 360.  The second shock caused Clara’s arms to flail out to the side and fall off the bed.  There was once again no change as meds and CPR were administered to Clara.  Which each compression her ribs caved in slightly and her stomach extended out.  The defib unit was charged for a third time at 360 as the surgical consult walked in.  The shock caused Clara’s short legs to jump off the bed slightly and her feet to turn in towards each other.  This time the monitors showed asystole as Clara’s heart stopped beating all together.  A different nurse took over CPR as Dr. Micheal informed the surgeon of the situation.  The surgeon decided to conduct a thoracotomy.  He made an incision in her left side just below the breast and placed a rib spreader.  A large amount of blood poured out of her chest as CPR continued.  It took a couple minutes for the surgeon to gain access to Clara’s heart.  Once gaining access internal compression were delivered.  The heart was still full of blood and had no clear signs of trauma.  Each squeeze of the heart showed up on the monitor but the heart refused to beat on its own.  Another set of meds were delivered and Clara converted back to V-fib as the internal paddles were charged to 10 joules.  The circular paddles were placed onto her heart and a low thud was heard with discharge.  Clara’s body twitched slightly on the table from the direct shock.  Compressions were continued and the unit was charged to 20 joules.  The second shock had the same response as Clara’s hands curved upward slightly.  CPR was continued as the unit recharged and more blood was hung on the IV.  The third shock caused Clara’s head to fall to the side as her heart converted back to asystole.  Suddenly blood started coming up through Clara’s intubation tube.  The surgeon placed the paddles down and took out a penlight.  He pulled back Clara’s eyelids and found that her eyes were fixed and dilated.  The surgeon and the team knew that this young girl was dead.  “Time of death 7:35 pm.”  The majority of the team left the room as two nurses cleaned up the code.  The rib spreaders were removed as well as the wires.  The electrodes, chest tube and intubation tube were left in Clara.  Her eyelids were shut and her bloody body was covered with a white sheet.  Finally a toe tag was placed on her left foot and dangled in front of her small wrinkled feet.  The lights were turned off as the team left and contacted her family and police department.

[rohobi]

Pulse 03 | (m)

Kim Taehyung | Medical AU |  Smut | Angst | Trauma | Patient death | Medical Jargon | Medical Inaccuracies | Mature Content | Multi-fandom Medical Team |

COUNT: 8k Words  CHAPTER SUMMARY: ❝There are wounds that never show on the human body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.❞ LISTEN ▶ 

↳ INDEX → CHAPTER 4

↣ SEOUL HEARTS HOSPITAL | Dr. Kim Taehyung

Changing into a new pair of blue scrubs in the bathroom, Taehyung asks himself at which point did everything in his life go wrong. He was so tired. So fucking tired and so fucking unhappy and so fucking miserable. He’s been hiding it behind a smile, burying it deep within him.

A pain like no other. 

He scrubs his face with a cleanser he thinks belongs to Dr. Yoongi, hoping that it might make him feel grounded in something other than misery. But no matter how hard he scrubs, the feeling’s still there. 

Like scum.

Patting his face dry with a white face cloth, he takes a deep breath. It might as well tattoo itself across his face, nothing could take it away. Sadness made its home in his bones a long time ago and now he was living with the consequences of it.

The memories of a happy life he once had, grew into shards of glass over time, cutting him up in the inside. Why can’t he go back to that time? Why can’t he be that person he was? Why does he feel so damn guilty all the time when he was just trying to be a good son for a mother who’s on her way out? 

The wounds he sustained, ripped open at every reminder of you, are his worst enemy to date. He wonders if his mother’s aware that everytime he smiles, the ingenuity of pretending to be happy tastes like rotten fruit on his tongue.

He could never be happy again, as neurotic as that sounds, he doesn’t think he deserves to be. 

He hates himself.

Staring at his face in the mirror, he takes another deep breath as he stands up straight. He adjusts the lapels of his pristine white coat while brushing his teeth with his other hand. At least he enjoyed his job, the patients were usually older adults who reminded him of his grandmother, it was nice being around people who liked him. Lots of broken bones.

It was ironic, a doctor who could mend broken body parts for other people, lived uncomfortably with a broken heart.

One he broke himself.

One he could never mend on his own. Taehyung wondered if he would get any category one acute surgeries tonight. He loved the cases from ED. Traumatic neck of femur fractures -the greater trochanter fracture in particular were fun, he enjoyed being the specialist whenever he ran down. He loved the spinal injuries and the tibial fractures, knees and shoulders.

Bones. He loved them. It was the best distraction from life that he knew. Taehyung had always been really interested in Emergency Medicine but he could never do it, knowing it was your speciality and knowing you’d never want to see him again. 

He tried to respect that, he tried to respect the distance you wanted but sometimes, he just wants to know if you're okay. If you're happy. If you're loved. If you ever kept his child. If someone took up the space in your life that he used to. He's too afraid to act on those curiosities, to cowardly to come forth, too ashamed in himself for letting people control him, too ashamed for never standing up for himself, too afraid of the consequences his family offered if he did not follow their orders. He was a coward. Rinsing his mouth out, he frowns at himself in the mirror. This was the real him, the real Taehyung, the real person who never put up a pretence, someone who was unhappy and in pain every single day. But who else wasn't in pain. He adjusts the red, blue and green pens in his front coat pocket and wraps the bright red stethoscope from his pocket, around his neck. He turns the light off before closing the door behind him. Checking his pager, he clips it on to the waistband of his pants before pushing through the doors with his shoulder. Dr. Yoongi, Taehyung’s bestfriend, waits in the hallway for him with a coffee and an apricot danish for Taehyung. “Morning loser,” Yoongi says, handing him a bag and a coffee, “Got you a coffee that resembles your taste in woman.” "Morning? It's like 8pm," Taehyung smiles, sipping the bitter tasting beverage. “Yuck, Yoongi, my taste in women is not bitter.” Yoongi smiles. “You know, she called me last night, told me you hadn’t come home in a month, that true?” Sighing, he rolls his eyes. “I sent over the divorce papers, I’m only going back there if it’s to pick up those signed documents.” “Sounds about right,” Snorting, Yoongi wraps his arm around his shoulders. “You’ll finally be free from her? How do your parents feel about letting you loose?” “I haven’t told them yet,” Taehyung looks away from Yoongi, gesturing to start walking to work. “I’m pretty sure they’ll disown me. Anyway, enough of that, ready for a good night?” “Sure, we’ll talk about it later," Yoongi sips his own coffee. "I’m more than ready for a good shift actually. I've slept for 12 hours. Had to lecture the new guppies about social hierarchy yesterday, I swear they get loopy when they have rotations at Forest Lake. What are they putting in the water that makes them dumb?” “I don't know, whatever you’re drinking,” Biting into his pastry, Taehyung smiles wickedly at the blonde boy as he marches down the clean white hallway towards the Orthopaedic medical doctors office.

* * *

They stand in the office, preparing to do rounds on the ward. Taehyung’s looking at the list of patients he needs to visit experiencing post-operative delirium and constipation. He has students working with him tonight and Taehyung was fully prepared to dump his workload on them for “experience”.

Yoongi is signing discharge letters for patients leaving in the morning, writing prescriptions for pain relief and documenting orders for the morning nurses. The ward was quiet this evening, leaving a settled and peaceful evening for the nurses on shift but Taehyung wasn’t about to use the ‘q’ word in front of them.

“Shall we see our patients now?” Taehyung smiles, grouping up his 6 tired orienting medical students. “Why are you looking at me like that guys? Doctors rounds are fun and educational.”

“At this time?” One of his students snort laughs. “Not on this ward, it’s just old people-

-shut up Taemin,” a short girl says, she crosses her hands over here chest, rolling her eyes at the boy as she does. “You’re being disrespectful. Dr. Taehyung, please lets visit our patients. Quicker we can do this, quicker we can go home,” Younggi smiles up at him, “And I’d personally really love to see their progress.”

“Jesus Christ,” Yoongi curses under his breath. "Fucking brown noser."

The student ignores Yoongi as she stares back down at her black leather loathers.

“Every patient is your grandmother, try to think like that,” Hitting the top of Taemin’s head with his clipboard, Taehyung instructs a third student to push the trolley of patient files with them as all 6 students follow him down the ward hallway. Taehyung discards his coffee in the rubbish bin on the way. “Okay, because I know you all want to go home and sleep, let’s work in a team. Sound good?”

They all smile. Walking over to the trolley, he gives each of them a patient file. “What do you want us to do with these?”

“There’s six of you, pair up,” he says, watching them look at each other in confusion. “One of you will be assessing and the other will be scribing. You have two patients each, remember to switch.”

Taehyung folds his arms over his chest, they all look at him scared. “Oh come on, when my best friend in med school was in third year, below all of you, she was diagnosing aneurysms and scrubbing in on operations and you guys can barely talk to a patient without crawling in on yourselves. Get a grip, all of you.”

“But ...without you?” Taemin asks. “Can we do that?”

“I’ve worked with all six of you this month. Closely and together as a group. You’ve all grown so much and I believe that you all will make exceptional doctors. Believe in yourselves?” he says, watching them all smile, “So, look at the patient files for five minutes before going in, be polite and think before you speak. If you can't answer their questions, use your confidence and come and get me. I hope that doesn't actually happen though because you all should know the answers. Go on now.”

They all smile at him, clearly happy with the assignment.

“God, Taehyung,” Yoongi groans from behind him. “You still do that? You treat them like babies. That's why they get dumb.”

Taehyung rolls his eyes as he watches the students head off to their retrospective patients. He’d given them all stable patients who had questions regarding the postoperative process. Nothing they can’t answer but it was always a confidence booster for his students and he loved seeing them go home happy.

“Yoongi, this is why I am the educator on this ward and you’re an asshole,” Taehyung picks out the last couple of folders before walking into the 4 patient room, handing one to Yoongi.

Yoongi sanitises his hands, pulling out his favourite black pen before following him in into the cubical.

Yoongi watches Taehyung sweeten up to the old lady covered in a mountain of blankets as he reads over her notes. “It’s lovely to see you again Dr. Taehyung, how are you?” she smiles, gazing up at Taehyung like he was the sun and she was the moon. Yoongi watches his little hands rub up and down on her purple, green and pink crochet blanket on top of her. “I’m better now that I have seen you,” he winks and she laughs softly. “I’m here to talk to you about your bowels. The nurses tell me you haven’t moved your bowels since the operation three days ago.” “Ooh my dear, a lady never does number 2 and tells,” She widens her eyes at him. “But yes, I have not. Those wicked nurses have been trying to get me out of bed, I’m just too old for this, doctor. It hurts too much.” Taehyung sits on her bed, cupping her hands. “They’re doing that for you. Exercise is good for recovery, especially since you’ve had a hip replacement. Quicker you’re up, quicker you can go home and be with your kittens.” “Oh is it?” she opens her mouth in a little ‘o’ that makes Taehyung giggle. "My kittens, oh I miss them terribly so." “Do you usually take medication for your bowels?” he asks and she shakes her head. “How about we try some?” She frowns. “I’m not taking any more of your pills doctor. I'm quite content with my remedies but the nurses won't let me take my herbal remedies and rubbing crystals. What can I do?” “Some of your remedies can have a dangerous effect on the medication we give you here, that’s why you can’t take them,” Unwrapping his stethoscope from around his neck, he smiles softly. “What about kiwifruit?" "What about kiwifruit?" “Kiwicrush. It’s a little shot of kiwifruit that helps you move your bowels, it's like a natural remedy, I assure you that it tastes very good,” he informs her, she nods hesitantly. “I’m going to listen to your stomach now, my stethoscope is a bit cold so don't be surprised okay?" "Okay," She nods again. "I'll try the fruit doctor." "Good, Yoongi please make a note of that," Placing the diaphragm of his stethoscope on her abdomen, he listens for any present bowel sounds. Yoongi draws a little picture of abdomen in her files as he examines her, watching Taehyung’s face for an answer. Taehyung frowns, shaking his head for Yoongi. Yoongi then draws a cross through it. Yoongi writes the prescription in her drug chart for kiwicrush and signs her notes before closing them and slipping out of the cubical to tend to the last patient in the room for him. “Everything okay?” she asks, a worried expression drawn across her face. “You frowned, am I dying?” “Oh don’t be silly,” Clasping her hands again, he smiles tenderly. “It’s just that I am a bit worried about your bowels at the moment, and getting you up seems to be the best option right now. I’m going to ask the nurses to give you some pain relief before getting you up tomorrow morning, just so it’s a little easier for you and then, I’m going to ask you to give it your best shot. Mobilising will be very good for your stomach Maurine.” “You sound like the nurse,” She laughs, smacking the top of his warm hand. “I’ll try for you. So, please, call me mama. I’m too damn old to be called anything else.” Standing up, he lifts the blankets up to her shoulders, making sure her toes are covered the way he knows she likes. He turns off the overhead light, leaving a small night light on for her. “Alright mama, you have a pleasant sleep, okay? I’ll see you in the morning.” She hums her response as she turns her attention to the window beside her. She stares at the moon with a gaze he can only describe as suddenly haunting as the soft hues of light accentuate an unspoken fear drawn across her face, something Taehyung feels uncomfortable about. “What are you staring at mama?” he whispers, following her gaze out the window. "Are you okay?" "I am okay for now," Standing by the window, he presses his hand to the cold surface as he feels the wind brush against the surface underneath his palm. She laughs softly under her breath from behind him. “It’s a full moon. The wolves are out howling for blood. I’d be careful on such an auspicious night Dr. Taehyung, who knows what might happen.” He turns back to her. “It’s always an auspicious night when one is in a hospital mama, anything could happen here too.” Leaving her cubicle, he pushes the hand sanitiser on the wall into his palm, rubbing the dollop into his hands as he walks down the hallway. “You know, the other patients call her a witch,” Yoongi says, walking beside him with the trolley, patient file on top as he hurries with writing the last note. “Her notes say that she chants under her breath at people, gave me the shivers reading it but you seem close with her, so good for you. If you get hexed, let me know.” “You shouldn’t talk about people like that Yoongi,” Taehyung laughs, walking towards the nurses station. “You’ll be the one hexed. So, what was that patient's primary concern?”

Looking back at the notes, Yoongi says. “Another patient needing laxatives. Typical for this ward. I don’t know why you don’t just prescribe laxatives post operatively anyway. Saves so much time.” Taehyung shrugs, leaning against the station. “I would if it were me doing it. It’s Dr. Minho. He thinks the best laxative is water and exercise.” Yoongi snorts. “He sounds out of touch with real patients.” “He’s a good doctor Yoongi.” “We’re all good doctors until we’re proven that we are not.” Settling in the nurses station, Yoongi starts nibbling at the cake the nurses left out, as Taehyung leans against the station. It was dark, the nurses had turned off the hallway lights so patients could settle to bed. The nurses station was empty as nurses eat their dinner in the fishbowl behind it. Their laughter flutters nicely out from their office into the long empty hallways. Taehyung’s ward was the only department in the hospital who did night doctors rounds. It was the only department in a rush to discharge people, shift them back home for recovery and it was good for student practice. “Dr Minho’s on tonight, floating between orthopaedics and urology by the way. You in ED tonight?” Taehyung asks, “I hear it’s been really busy down there.” “I’m the floater tonight,” Yoongi shakes his head. “We’ve got too many staff on down there. Too many damn know-it-all students too.” "Isn't that good though for the acuity?" he asks and Yoongi rolls his eyes. Looking over Taehyung’s shoulder, Yoongi sighs. "Speaking of the devils." The first lot of students walk towards Taehyung, file outstretched waiting for his signature to co-sign. “Younggi,” Taehyung says, reading over her exceptional penmanship. “Next time, just draw the lungs if you assess them. What is your plan? What do you want the nurses to do?” She smiles, looking at her partner. “Regular repositioning in bed, PRN asthma medications when symptomatic and lots of pillows for comfort.” "As if they aren't doing that already," Yoongi snorts behind Taehyung. "Your kids need to spend a week with the nurses, that'll make ‘em work." All the students arrive back and Taehyung reads through their notes, signing his name at the bottom. Congratulating them on their first lot of assessments. “Now, that is how we’ll do our night rounds from now on. In the morning however, it will be different. I will be assessing your assessment skills on morning ward rounds. One at a time, in front of all of us." They all groan. “Oh shut up, if you don’t like it, drop out,” Yoongi cackles, “You with the orange hair, put the folders back in the office and if you groan again, I’ll steal the muffin I saw in your backpack you had on earlier.”

Taemin, the boy with the orange hair, disappears to do so. "God," Taehyung says, yawning into the crook of his arm, "Why is it so settled tonight?" Yoongi laughs. "Trying to avoid the q word?"

"What's the q word?" a student asks. Know it all Younggi fills her in. "It means quiet, he's asking why it's so quiet tonight." Taehyung sinks against the station, dropping his head onto his hands, a loud groan falling from his lips as Yoongi leans up and smacks his head. "You didn't tell your stupid fucking kids not to say that word did you? Great." "Did I say something wrong Dr. Taehyung?" she asks, insecurity suddenly plaguing her usually confident demeanor. Taehyung stands up, turning to face her. "That word is a cursed word. We don't use it here."

"Oh. I'm sorry?" Re-emerging with his phone in his hand, Taehyung gasps loudly as Taemin walks towards him, face focused on his phone. He was 100% against students using phones on the ward at all times, often challenging them to stay engaged. “Taemin, you know the rules, I don't like phones on the ward- -you're gonna wanna hear this though. A code black has been triggered at Forest Lakes Hospital,” he looks up at the two senior doctors, suddenly pale faced. “My girlfriend’s a nurse there and she’s just texted me “FLH called a code black, it's not a drill, I am fine.” oh god.” "What's a code black?" one of the students asks much to the chagrin of the other students. "That some sort of medical emergency alarm bell?" Taehyung and Yoongi trade vacant looks. “What?” “It’s probably just a drill,” Yoongi says, picking his nails. “They always do them over there. They’re close to a military camp, lots of North Korean defectors get treated there. A code black is a bomb threat kids."  

Taemin looks up at Yoongi. “With all due respect, there is no way in hell that this is a drill. Look,” Turning his phone screen to Taehyung, a picture of ambulances rushing patients out, all wearing equally terrified facial expressions as they pile in the back of the trucks. “They’re evacuating people.”

“Are you sure you aren’t being pranked?” Younggi asks, hovering over his phone to check. Taehyung watches her double tap the picture, her face suddenly growing pale. 

“Doesn’t look like a prank does it?” Taemin whispers and they all watch her retreat back as she shakes her head. 

And then, all of their phones vibrate, pinging with texts, tweets and calls.

All 8 of them, pull out their phones.

Yoongi and Taehyung’s pagers go off. Ward phones start ringing. Grabbing his phone out of his coat pocket, Taehyung opens the first notification on the screen and the picture makes his heart stop; a wing of the hospital was on fire. A wing of your hospital was on fire. “Dr. Yoongi,” a nurse runs out, all the nurses following behind her. “Did you check your pager? Am I calling it in?” “Call it in please. Get your manager to remove all the patients in this ward. Orthopaedics is the mass casualty ward for this hospital kids. Whoever is the ward co-ordinator tonight in the nursing team, call all the other nurses, get them to come in immediately and cancel every single elective operation scheduled for tomorrow,” Yoongi says, reading his pager. "I want this ward cleared of patients within half an hour. I assume from the distance, patients will be arriving soon. So, let's do this quickly and properly according to your emergency protocol." “Why do we need to remove all the patients?” a student asks and Yoongi frowns at him. “Victims do better psychologically and physiologically where other victims are. Hence, why we need to get everyone out now and get the ward prepared for incoming patients.” “How many do you think we will get?” he asks again, his eyes widening in fear. Looking up to all the students and nurses pooling out from their office. Taehyung's hands suddenly begin to tremble by his side. “In this case, probably a lot.” “But you never know.” His heart begins to pound harshly against his ribs. Adrenaline surged down his body at the prospect of all those incoming patients; at the thought of you being in that building. “Text your families that you're okay.” Yoongi announces, pulling him out of his thoughts. Putting his pager in his pocket. Looking up to each and every nervous face in front of him, he grabs the department phone, immediately pressing the emergency number and holding it up to his ear. His hands are shaking but the only one who notices is Taehyung as a voice loudly screams into the receiver. Everyone in the room watches Yoongi's eyes widen and his head nod before hanging up again. "Fuck, it's real. All of you go, get ready. Remove these patients and clear this fucking ward right fucking now." "What about us?" Younggi asks, as the ward lights turn back on and nurses begin to frantically run around them. "What do we do?" “Text your families right now, none of you are going home tonight." ↣ FOREST LAKES HOSPITAL | Dr. Y/N The first blast hit the far west side of the hospital, where the VIP recovery ward was located, as you had run back into the dark and desolate, abandoned looking Emergency Department. You could smell the fire, you could even see it’s smoke boil up from the building in the northern windows of the ER. You ran harder. You were panting, completely solely running on adrenaline.

Your heart raced out of your skin as you looked in every room. In every bay. In every office. You were running completely on instinct and your instincts were telling you, someone was left behind. And you don’t leave people behind. No, not you. The force of the blast rumbled the entire floor, it was weak, a warning of what was yet to come and had you not been standing by an empty bed, it would have knocked you clean off your feet. Falling onto the white bed, plaster from the ceiling fell and the room seeped into darkness as the electricity completely cut out. No generator back up or anything provided you with a light to see in the dark either.

You coughed into your hand as you inhaled the plaster. 

“Hello, is anybody here?” you had screamed, coughing as you run through the hallway you’ve memorised by heart. “We don’t have much time, is anyone here?”

A voice muffled behind a door screams loud and clear out for you as they bang their fists on the hard wood. “PLEASE SOMEONE, I’M STILL IN HERE!” You were right. "HELP ME, I’M STILL HERE, OH GOD I’M STILL IN HERE, HELP ME PLEASE! DON’T LEAVE ME!” Running down another hall, you hear a terrified scream from behind the controlled drug room. Someone remained like you had thought, banging on the door for their dear life. The door shook from the sheer force of their desperation to get out but the lock made it impossible to break free. “I’m still here,” they sobbed, banging on the other side of the door, “Please save me.” You don’t think as you run towards it, punching in the code for the room and forcing the door open with all of your might. The doctor on the other side had tears down his face, falling straight into you. It was Jungkook. Idiot doctor and housemate, your Jungkook. "Y/N," he sobbed, looking completely broken. "I thought I was going to die." “Well, I’m glad you’re alive and all but we need to go, right now." He looked distraught and terrified, but of all, he looked relieved. Grabbing his hand, you run with every inch of strength you can muster out, of that goddamn building. He holds your hand tightly, practically dragging you as he runs faster, jumping over shattered glass and plaster. 

You hold images of Sunny in your mind as you pick your feet up. You hold the sound of her laughter and her cries, her singing, her screaming. You think of Taehyung, his smile, his embrace, his warmth. You think of a life you still think you can have. You think of punching Taehyung in the jaw when you see him next, you couldn’t die today knowing you haven’t. No, not today satan.

You run towards the clearing. And the automatic doors... ...they don't open. “What the fuck, why won’t they open?” you ask, waving your hand up to the monitor. “Fuck, I thought these would open in an emergency?” Jungkook bangs against the glass. Jimin and Seokjin look up, prompted by the loud banging. Ramming his shoulder into the glass, it doesn't budge. He throws everything close to him at the doors, again, it doesn't budge. They’re stuck. Irene holds back the boys from running over to help you. They had parked on the far end of the carpark to be safe as they waited. You both stare at the red lights of the ambulance in the night. “We need something heavy to smash it.” you say, “We’ll get out, don’t worry.” “How can I not fucking worry?” Jungkook shouts, throwing himself at the glass doors. “It’s just fucking glass, why won’t it break?” “It’s shatterproof material Jungkook.” Looking for an emergency button on the doors and falling short, “I’m going to find the emergency axe thing Jungkook, keep trying to pry it open okay?” 

You were certain that there was an emergency axe somewhere, you had seen it before and wondered if you'd ever need to use it and for what. Slipping on blood, you fall to the floor as the ground continues to shake beneath you. "Where is it, come on Y/N, think." Getting up again, you run to the hallway leading off to the operating theatres and that's where you find the axe, contained in a glass box, nailed to the wall by a fire extinguisher. Punching the glass, it's splinters piercing your knuckles, you grab the axe. You were certain that when this adrenaline stops fuelling your attempts to survive, everything is going to hurt. But you don't have time to think about that as you run back. Jungkook's running into the doors, kicking and screaming at it, continuously bruising his shoulder. “I’m not dying in this fucking building.” "Jungkook," you shout, he turns, eyes glinting in happiness at the sight of the axe. "I have no strength, you smash it." He takes it happily, immediately hacking at the door. "I need to get out." he chants, each time the axe hits the doors. "I'm not dying today." The axe cracks the glass but it doesn't shatter like you thought it would. He hits it again and again, only cracking it. “What the hell is this fucking thing made of?” "Jungkook," Turning to survey your area, you grab anything hard enough to throw through the glass. "Jungkook, move out of the way." "What?" He turns, watching you throw a vital signs machine straight into the cracked glass with a strength you didn’t think you had, shattering it completely. He watches in slow motion as the glass shatters and falls to the linoleum floor. He screams happily as he throws the axe into the reception to their left. He grabs your hand as you run over the ocean of glass pooling onto the sidewalk as you both run into the carpark. The ambulance was so close, yet so far away. The fresh air hits your lungs as you breath it in and then out. You were free. You would be okay too. 

Jungkook turns to you, smiling widely at you. “I’m free!”  "Kim Seokjin! Park Jimin!" you scream, running towards them, "Open the back doors!" But they never hear you, and that you are grateful for because what happens next would've definitely hurt him too. 

The second blast hit as you were running out of the building with Jeon Jungkook. The force of this blast, much bigger than the first, had thrown you in the air and onto the soft grass by the car park, metres away from the now swaying ambulance, winding you. Jungkook had fallen onto the hard concrete pavement of the carpark beside you, hands falling on shards of broken glass, blood dripping from his forehead. He screams in agony, feeling the bone of his arm break and tear through his skin on impact.   Black coloured smoke rushes out of the burning building, covering you and Jungkook in a cloak of silent darkness. It chokes you, filling your lungs with it’s painful toxin as you try to breathe. Jungkook looks at you, expression pleading, lips moving to form words you can’t understand. Everything is blurry and dark and deep and your falling into yourself as black spots fill your visual field. You can’t hear anything but a loud ringing in your ears, you can hear the faint scream of Jungkook at the back of your brain but you can't process what he's saying. He looks at you desperately, is he hurt? That's a stupid question. You know you should get up but you feel compressed, stuck to the ground, and you can’t breathe, feeling winded as though your lungs had lost their ability to take in oxygen. You try to get up, falling back to the ground. Were you hurt too? You look over to Jungkook again, watching him battle his demons, forcing himself to get up and to you. You watch as if it were in slow motion as Jungkook pulls himself up, rushing over to you as he cradles his left arm in his now dirty white coat. There’s a god awful whirlpool of horror in his brown eyes as he runs over to you, you may have saved him but he definitely earned it because he saves you right back. You pull yourself up as much as you can before his arm wraps around your waist, holding you up as you both run to the ambulance. You look back at the building, still standing with flames and smoke boiling out the windows. You knew it wouldn’t last long until it collapsed or forced to the ground by another and much larger explosion. You didn’t want to be here for that. Blood dripped from your ears and down the sides of your soot covered face, building materials you couldn’t identify laced through your hair, shards of glass embedded into the skin of your arms. You felt like you had been punched in every soft part of your body. Jungkook looked equally as dishevelled. Waving you both over, Jimin and Irene rush you both into the back as Seokjin revved the engine. Minutes pass of complete silence as you rush. Isn’t that weird, after something so huge, there was just silence? No piercing screams, no sirens, no pleas for help, just fire, fear and silence. Pulling themselves in first, Irene and Jimin sit opposite each other, strapping themselves in.   The third blast hit when you were trying to close the doors behind you. The blast wave hit the truck, pushing you into the back of the truck, shattering the windows, prompting Seokjin’s immediate acceleration as Jungkook toppled straight on top of you.  

The glass from the window narrowly missed the intubated patient on a stroller in the middle of the ambulance, but it cuts across Irene's cheek, something she'll probably need stitches for. She wails in agony, holding a hand against her cheek, immediately applying pressure to the wound as dark red blood dripped down her neck and onto her scrubs. 

Jungkook was afraid of letting you go, and for that, he saved you again. The doors slapped against the sides of the ambulance as Jin speed through the carpark and as far away from the hospital as he could. You wrap your arms around Jungkook’s waist tightly as he held onto anything that would keep you both in the ambulance as it sped away. His dead arm curled up painfully against your chest underneath him as Jin's abrupt driving makes you swing underneath him towards the other side of the truck causing shards of glass to tear through your coat as you do. You scream in agony, feeling the shards slice and embed into the flesh of your ass. It’s sweltering, a burning pain filling you by waves as it rolls over you, over and over again. You were hurt everywhere. 

"Are you okay Y/N?" Jimin shouts at you. You clasp onto Jungkook tighter, eyebrows flexed as pain tears through your body. “Hold onto him, we’ll get you out of here!” Jungkook sobs, wailing in pure agony. The sound breaks Jimin as he watches, the once strong Jungkook, completely break and fall apart.   "It's collapsing!" Irene shouts and you all look back to watch in horror as the sound of destruction echoes across the night sky. "The hospital. Our homes. You guys could've ...that was so close." she sobs loudly, feeling the horror of what could've been you two so deeply into her bones. “Drive faster,” Jimin screams, hitting the back of the front seat. Jungkook and Irene watch the orange flames burst from black clouds of smoke, as the hospital collapses from the emergency exit they just left, “Drive fucking faster Seokjin!” He presses his foot on the accelerator with sirens blasting and red lights flashing through the graphite night as he zips away. “I’m driving as fast as I fucking can!” Irene screams when he skids around a corner, her head hitting the wall hard as he drives straight through the car park entrance sign. The sound was like nothing she had ever heard before when she looks to her right, the once dark night now full of orange light as the fire boils and consumes her home away from home. It was haunting, something Irene would never forget. 

They had only just gotten away from the building in time when fire began to rain down onto the trees, there would no doubt be a forest fire too. Everyone would be working overtime tonight. “Irene, are you okay?” Jimin asked, watching her rub the back of her head. She pulls her hand back, fingers covered in blood. Grabbing one of the only packets of gauze from beside him, he clears his throat. “Hold these to your head and hold on tight to your chair okay? We’re going to be fine.” She pants, biting her bottom lip. “Are you sure?” Jimin looks at everyone in the ambulance, he doesn't think he should dignify that question with a response, you were all safe now. “Go, Seokjin! Get us out of here!” Jungkook yelled, as he sunk his head into the crevice of your neck. “Get us to the hospital!” How you both hadn’t died was a mystery. Irene and Jimin pull you both further in by the collars of your coats, dragging your glass covered bodies further into the ambulance when Jin drives over a bridge, forced to slow down. "Irene, grab Jungkook," Jimin says, watching her pull Jungkook up beside her, strapping him into the seat. Pulling you up, he forces you into the seat beside him as he sobs. "Y/N, I've got you. You're okay now, you're okay now." He holds you close, telling you something you can’t hear but he's crying and he's crying hard. He looks like a wreck. 

Holding your hands up to his checks, you wipe away his tears only to smear blood and soot across his face, he leans into your warmth. At least the sentiment was there. “Jimin, I have no idea what you are saying,” you think you shout, dropping your hands and leaning against him. The blood dripping down your right ear stains his green scrubs. “The barotrauma ...I think I have a ruptured eardrum in my right ear. Left feels like it’s resolving. I can only just hear you kind of.” He nods, red eyes sweep over yours. “I’m very glad you’re safe” he mouths and you smile softly up at him, glad you are too. Jimin hands you a bottle of water as he pulls out the first aid kit to attend to the cuts on your face. "Call Yoongi, tell him you're okay. I know he's probably worried." Jimin smiles, lips quivering. "I did, he was scared, still is I bet. The phone cut out during the second explosion, I'm just going to have to wait to see him at the hospital." "What? I can't hear you? Did you call him? yes or no?” Jimin nods, gesturing for you to drink the water. You looked worse for wear with your bloodied and blackened white coat; ripped, crimson stained scrubs; messy hair tied in a loose ponytail; and soot covered face but you were okay.    You were feeling okayish. Drinking the water, you sag against him. Jimin dabs your fingers, brushing his fingers over your pulse, completely thankful you still had one. You look out the ambulance window to see your hospital, the once tall white and green structure, up in flames. All those years of hardwork, patients you’ve saved, lives you’ve lost, friends you’ve made, memories you’ve cherished. All gone. Seemingly in the blink of an eye.

You suddenly want to cry. 

Today wasn’t a normal day at all. As you drink the last of your water, you feel your left ear pop and then you hear the unmistakable sound of the ambulances sirens and Irene shouting at Jungkook and Jimin shouting at Seokjin to update the hospital. You could hear and you wish you couldn't. Everything happened at a lightening speed, as though it all occurred within the single blink of your eyes. Seokjin pulls out the radio, bringing it to his lips as he speeds through the intersection, sirens blazing. “Seoul Hearts hospital, this is Ambulance 22 Kim Seokjin speaking. We are currently enroute to your facility with a 32 y/o male motor vehicle accident victim from Forest Lakes. Patient is unconscious, intubated and-

-yes, we came from Forest Lakes," he stops, listening attentively to the voice on the other end that you can't quite hear. "Mass casualties ...how many have you already got?" "32?!" he shouts, "We'll you're about to get three more- He then scoffs into the radio. “Don’t interrupt me. I have nurses Park Jimin and Bae Irene, Drs. Jeon Jungkook and Y/N who are injured- “Yes, I know the hospital has just blown up, I’m looking at it in my rearview mirror right now, we have two injured doctors in the back of the ambulance as well! Possible internal trauma, possible broken extremities,” he snaps, frustration ebbed into his voice, “We are unable to take current accurate vital signs of the patient and the doctors but our patient is unstable as hell. I'll update you if things change. See you in 5 minutes.”

He slams the radio back down. “Buckle up kids, we’re driving through the city now. Y/N,” Seokjin shouts from the front, “You good?” You nod, feeling your hearing fully come back in your left ear. “I think so?” "Good, you crazy fucking bitch, don’t you ever fucking do that again or I’ll cut your legs off." You're all staring out the back of the ambulance, watching the reactions of the public move out the way for Jin and gape at the very mangled up looking ambulance. It's almost a spiritual experience being in this position, having people responsibly move out of the way for you as you zip impossibly fast through red lights and traffic. "How's the patient doing?" you turn and ask Jimin, who had been watching you the entire time. His face pale. "What’s his vitals looking like?" "What?" Jimin shakes his head, forcing himself back into reality. "Um, I haven't checked. Hold on." You watch his heart monitor, the vital sign of life beat after beat after beat. You frown at a particular beat as it moves. "His hearts not looking too good," you point out. "It's not often but his hearts skipping a couple beats." "After everything, I would expect that too. We're just lucky he hasn't got a serious cardiac illness otherwise, he's fucked." Jimin says, shifting beside you. You watch him try to breathe. It was an insidious reminder of your responsibility to save this man. He was dangling by threads, he was so close to death. You look away from the numbers on his screen. You stare at your soot covered hands. That could’ve been you. “Seokjin,” you shout, “How far away are we from Seoul Hearts?” “A couple of minutes,” he shouts back at you, “You don’t need to shout at me you know!”

“I can’t hear anything well,” you say, pointing to your ear and the dried blood around it. “I think the blast burst my right eardrum.” Irene laughs suddenly, smacking her thigh. “I hate to laugh but consider yourself lucky it was just that. When you ran back in, I didn’t think we’d see you again. Jimin ...he-” “I thought I lost you,” Jimin interrupts, not wanting to relive those moments of his life. “You’re stupid but you’re incredibly brave saving Jungkook like that. How did you even know he was in there?” “I had a feeling someone was still in there, that’s just it,” you nod, looking over to Jungkook. The boy looked frightened as hell. “He would’ve saved me too, that’s for sure.” Jungkook stays silent, eyes wide as he tenses his jaw. You watch him cradle his arm, was he hurt? Jimin looks at him, shaking his head. “She saved your life Jungkook, you could’ve died back there. Why do you consistently and constantly go against your superiors instructions? What is wrong with you- -I got locked in the drug room!” he shouts back at Jimin, “It locked behind me when Namjoon asked me to clear it, she only found me because I was screaming for my fucking life. You think I don’t already know that I could’ve died back there, I know okay! I know it very well. I called my parents while I was holding a vial of fucking ketamine, I apologised for being a shit, I told them that I was locked in a room and that I was going to die. You think I wanted to hear my mother cry?” “Jungkook,” Jimin musters, unsure what to say, “I’m sorry, I- “-I was going to swallow it, you know. With the first sign of fire, I was going to kill myself. My girlfriend ...all I could tell her was that I was sorry that I loved her… I could’ve died back there, I could’ve seriously died back there.” Jimin crosses his arms over his chest. "But you didn't because she ran back- -and saved my life." Jungkook finishes. “Oh shut up both of you,” Irene shouts, “Pick up your damn phone and tell your family, you didn’t die already. Who knows what they’re doing thinking you’re dead. Hell, if I loved you, I would be driving out here right now to try and get you out.” “Seokjin,” You ignore their discussion as you gaze back at your patient. “Are we close?” “I’m driving as fast as I can with my sirens on, Y/N,” he shouts back clearly agitated, “Just focus on monitoring your patient. And Jimin, shut up and please Irene, fucking deal with Jungkook’s arm instead of pissing him off. It looks bent as fuck from the rear-view mirror. The kid is obviously hurt psychologically and physically, stop being assholes and be compassionate.” “You’re hurt?” Irene gasps, her voice now dripping in sympathy. Her bloodied fingers reach out for him. He lets her tender touch explore the mangled arm from underneath his coat. “It’s broken. How did this happen?” You snort. “Besides the hospital blowing up and the waves that were emitted from the explosion travelling at a supersonic velocity straight through us, throwing us in the air with all that glass and onto hard concrete and debris?” “I fell on it,” he says, watching Irene open up the bag on the floor. She nods her head. “You hurt anywhere else?” He shakes his head, letting her dab the wounds on his face with saline and gauze. It’s quiet again as she works his wounds, there’s not much she can do with his arm trapped in his coat like that, he’s just going to have to wait. Irene hands Jungkook her phone to call his family before finishing up on his wounds.  Jungkook dabs her cheek with some gauze. Everyone was hurt in different ways but they were alive. 

The ambulance grows silent when Jungkook sends the group text to his parents and to his girlfriend. 

Jimin fusses over your knuckles, his mind on fire with residual grief and anger over your stupidity and bravery.  But you were okay. For now.

* * *  

Jungkook stares at the face of your patient.

He filters through the faces he knows, the patient’s he’s treated before leaning forward to look at his wrist band. “Oh it’s this guy, oh man, didn't think he'd come back,” he says, looking up at his cardiac monitor carefully, scrutinising every wave of his heart beats, “Y/N, are you aware that your patient has a past cardiac history?”

“Yes, angina pectoris,” You nod your head, pointing to his monitor as Jimin cleans your arms, “Are you worried about those PVC’s (heart skipping a beat) too? He's post motor vehicle accident, fucked himself up pretty bad. He needs surgery pretty much as soon as we get to Seoul Hearts.”

“Angina?” He frowns, prompting Irene to swap places with him beside the head of the patient. “He doesn’t have Angina, I have a photographic memory, I would’ve remembered that. He had an acute myocardial infarction a couple weeks ago and he hasn't been compliant with his medication-

-what!” you shout, interrupting him, commanding the attention of the truck as you dart your eyes into his. “This patient's had a heart attack before? That wasn’t in his medical files at all when he came in. That’s pretty fucking important information. Jimin,” you turn to the boy. “Did you get a history from the family?”

Jimin shakes his head. “Didn’t have time with the code. They still don't even know he's a patient.”

“I can see Seoul Hearts Hospital now, we’re about 2 minutes away.” Jin says, but you’re heart is racing hard against your ribs now. It’s like a dose of adrenaline and you suddenly feel so awake.

“If what I am thinking has happened, this patient probably crashed his car because he had chest pain. Irene,” your voice is shaky, everyone in the ambulance detects the urgency in your voice. You forget about the bomb. “Did you get any cardiac biomarkers from the bloods you took?”

“The ones that detect heart muscle death?” Her eyes widen as she tries to remember, clearly put on the spot as everyone looks at her. “Oh my god. I think so, like almost ...almost immediately but Dr. Namjoon came in before I got to ...I didn’t have time to check exactly.”

“What were they, do you remember? It’s okay, take your time. It’s important to remember which ones there were.”

She closes her eyes and Jungkook resets the vital monitor to get an accurate reading. “He’s hypotensive with ventricular dysrhythmia,” he says, printing the ECG out. He grabs the pen from his pocket as he reads the rhythm carefully. “Was it troponins T and I Irene? Do you remember a T?” She opens her eyes, pursing her lips at him. “I think it might’ve been but I don’t remember- -Y/N, his heart rate is 165, blood pressure is 80/40. I think he’s in cardiogenic shock,” Jimin cuts in. “Vitals are crashing.” "Good timing." you slap yourself. 

“Fuck the bloods. Holy fuck,” Jungkook circles a portion of the rhythm, spotting an ST-elevation in the electrocardiogram (heart attack), holding it up to you as Seokjin drives. “He’s having a fucking heart attack right now Y/N.” “What do we do?” Irene asks. You look back at his cardiac monitor seeing it clear as day now that the patient's heart rhythm goes from erratic to nothing. "HES ARRESTING," Jimin shouts, pulling you out of your gaze. "He’s going into cardiac arrest Seokjin!!“ “This can’t be fucking happening right now. Jimin, we need the defibrillator he needs defibrillation immediately. We need an epi?! Wheres the adrenaline?” You shout, unsure if you could jump straight onto the patient with the door open like that. It looked dangerous. “The ambulance isn’t stocked, there isn’t one in here,” Seokjin shouts from the front, “You’re going to have to do chest compressions until we get there but fuck, it could be dangerous for you with the door open so be careful.” “I’ve got this,” You close your eyes. "I can save him." “Jimin, ambu bag, right now. Get on the resps." Without hesitation, you get out of your seat as Jin turns, to straddle the patient. Holding your arms straight, you press the heel of your palm on his lower sternum, compressing it in a steady rhythm with your interlocked hands, one on the other. You hear a couple cracks almost immediately. "Irene, are you sure we don’t have any adrenaline in that bag?” She tips the back out onto the seat looking for a little vial, it all flies out the ambulance anyway. “There’s no medication in here, so no we don’t.” Jimin gently squeezes the ambu bag twice. "We're nearly at the hospital, I can see it out the window now." “Beginning ...30 compressions to 2 breaths. Jimin watch me closely," you say, feeling your own heart rip through your ribcage. "Seokjin radio report change in status.”  “Will do,” he shouts, pulling down the radio to call it in. “Hi, this is Seokjin, incoming ambulance from Forest Lakes we have a cardiac arrest in progress in the back of our truck, prepare for defibrillation on arrival in less than a minute.”  “25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30. Resps!” Perspiration drips down your dirty face as you pause your chest compressions, turning to the two to the left of you. “Irene and Jungkook prepare to wheel me out of this ambulance and in to that fucking Emergency Department. No one is dying on my watch, not if I can help it.”

Jungkook and Irene look at each other as the ambulance comes to a halt outside the Emergency Department at Seoul Hearts Hospital. Turning off the engine, Jin runs around the truck, pulling down the ramp and grabbing the end of the stroller.

You can ear the screams of agony inside the Emergency Department from here as doctors rush in bright yellow aprons, blue gloves and white face masks towards your truck. 

“Let’s go, get out Irene and Jungkook,” Seokjin yells, pulling the stroller towards him and down the ramp with Jimin shuttling beside it. “Let’s move team! Keep doing compressions Y/N and hold on tight.” 

[betweensceneswriter]

Island Hopper (Jimjeran Book 2)- Chapter 14 : Ache

Claire continues to work on the Field Ship and finds herself getting to know John better and missing Jamie...

Previously on Island Hopper

To the Table of Contents

At breakfast the next morning, I found myself at the same table as Dr. Saul.  We smiled at each other across the table as we attempted to fuel ourselves for the day with a breakfast of rice, fish, and breadfruit.  I found myself longing for a bowl of Jamie’s steel cut oatmeal—what he called ‘porridge’—chewy and satisfying especially when topped with brown sugar and powdered milk.  Thinking of him made me feel even emptier than I already did.

“It’s a shame that there’s not time for follow-ups,” the kindly doctor remarked, his brown eyes a contrast to his stark white hair.  “Some of the teeth I had to pull yesterday could actually have been saved if I had time to do a crown.  But with such a short time to visit, if a cavity goes deep enough and can’t be fixed with an amalgam filling the tooth has to go.”

“I feel the same way,” I replied, pushing the dry roasted breadfruit around my plate.  As much as I tried to tell myself it was just a starch like potatoes and that despite its name it wasn’t supposed to taste like either bread or fruit, I couldn’t bring myself to eat it if it wasn’t drenched in oil and salt.  “I guess Arno is lucky to have a nurse practitioner there, though we don’t have a dentist… speaking of which, Dr. Saul, do you think I might be able to observe an extraction?  A toothache is one of the things that makes people miserable, and I’d like to be able to at least help them if they’ve got a horribly abscessed tooth.  I don’t want to make it worse for them by cracking a tooth off in their jaws.”

Dr. Saul smiled.  “You’ve got to become a jack of all trades out on these islands, don’t you?”  He looked at me curiously.  “My wife was a nurse before we retired.  I’ve tended to come on these adventures without her, but I keep on wishing she would be willing, for a short time if not several months, to serve out on one of these islands.” He smiled.  “Then I’d finally have time to do dental work the way I’d like to, and she could be my assistant if she wasn’t otherwise occupied.”

All too soon it was time for us to take our dishes to the galley, call out “kommool tata” to the cook, and head to our respective stations.

We had docked on Jabor, the islet with the largest population on Jaluit.  I was surprised to see how westernized the little town was, like a miniature Majuro. Instead of palm trees radiating out from the dock, there were some paved roads and some coral gravel roads, houses, a couple of small stores, and a school.  It seemed like every spare inch of space was covered with either a building or road.

The ship still had a large delivery of boxes to offload and copra to pick up, but it was obvious that the residents had less need of the medical services we provided.  Dr. Saul, however was quite busy, so during my patient breaks he was able to coach me through several extractions.  He showed me how to grip the tooth and rock it back and forth in its socket to loosen the bone and detach the ligament before removing the tooth.   Preparation, he said, was extremely important and would prevent the tooth splintering on removal.

He also demonstrated what to do if a tooth cracked on its way out—how to flush the cavity and make sure to extract the other pieces, to close the opening with a few stitches, as well as giving the patient instructions to rinse their mouths with salt water until fully healed.  

John had a bit of a weak stomach, so he was quite grateful to relinquish the assistant spot to me, and instead manned the fort in the clinic to come get me if I had a patient and handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste to curious children peering into the dental operatory.

Because Jabor was so well-supplied and urbanized, the ship only spent half the day there.  At our lunch break, the boat left the dock and pressed north to another island in the atoll a 45-minute journey away.

After we’d filled our plates, John and I found a shady spot on the upper deck to eat, as far away as possible from the bags of copra piled high on the main deck so that the rancid odor no longer overpowered us.  It was getting worse as the trip progressed and the supply of smoked coconut increased, though if we ever got a breeze at night, it seemed to blow the smell away.  However, in the past few days the ocean had been remarkably still and currently the only disturbance on the water was the white “v” of our wake.

“Where are we going now?” I asked John.

“Imiej,” he replied.  “It was where the Japanese were based during World War II here.” John pointed ahead to the far end of the long green island parallel to our course.  “There are ruins of barracks and an old Shinto shrine there, as well as wrecks of boats and airplanes that divers come to see.”

“I knew that Guam was held by the Japanese during World War II,” I nodded. “I hadn’t realized that the Marshall Islands were, too.”

“It’s taken a while for us to travel toward independence,” John smiled. “In the 1880s during the imperialism rush, Germany claimed the Marshall Islands.  They put in a trading post here on Jaluit.  After World War I, Germany lost the territory and we were given to Japan.”

“As if your nation was something that could belong to anyone other than her people?”

John inspected his fish and selected the perfect bite to pair with his rice.  John was handsome, refined, and distinguished, and yet he looked just as at home eating coconut rice and barbecued fish with his fingers as if he was using utensils in a fine dining establishment.  

“Well, Claire,” he said, smiling patiently, “Though a small nation does not have much control of her destiny, what can be accomplished viewing history with bitterness?  Our histories make us who we are.  During that time, we gained Japanese immigrants, and although many were repatriated to Japan after the war, if they’d intermarried, they were allowed to stay here.”

“I was thinking Ogawa sounded very Asian,” I responded.  “Our general store out on Arno is owned by an Ogawa. And a few of Jamie’s students have a blend of Marshall and Japanese features.”

John nodded.  

“A lot of late World War II was fought in the Pacific, as I recall,” I said.  “The US liberated Guam from the Japanese before the war ended.”

“The Japanese base here on Jaluit was bombed during World War II. The US took the Marshalls in early 1944, and the war didn’t end until a year and a half later.  After the war we became part of the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands.”

“Forgive my ignorance,” I said.  “But are the Marshall Islands still a territory of the US?  Guam is.”

“No, we gained our independence in 1986,” John said with a smile. “Thirty-two years ago.  We might still be considered a protectorate of the US—they provide defense for us, and the US postal system delivers mail here as if we were a territory or state.  Considering that we only have 55,000 people in the entire nation, we aren’t any sort of superpower.”

I set down my plate and leaned forward toward John. “I’m missing my husband,” I said.  “Tell me how you met.”

John’s face brightened.  “I think it was my first day of College Writing,” he said.  “I like to do well in school, so I was one of the few people sitting toward the front of the classroom.  The next thing I know a very large ri-palle with bright red hair sat down by me.  Sorry,” he said, “Ri-pālle means…”

“No need to translate,” I said.  “That’s Jamie’s name for me half the time.”

John looked amused. “He calls you Ri-pālle?”

“Aet,” I nodded.  “As in ‘itōk Ri-pālle.’”

He shook his head in amusement.  “That Jamie… always kakūtōtōik—teasing. Sometimes,” John said, “the teasing hides a deep hurt… He has mentioned his family, of course.”

I nodded.

“The loss of his father in particular,” said John. He started to ask me a question, then stopped himself. “Has he mentioned me?”

I shook my head slowly.  “But John,” I explained, “I have only known him a little over two months.”

John stared at the wake of the boat. “Jamie was just the opposite of everything I’d seen every day since I was a kid. Red hair instead of black; curly instead of straight.  Tall instead of short.  Big instead of petite. You can see I’m bigger than the average Marshallese because I’m half white.  And having never met my father, I was drawn to Jamie. It was like I was seeing the other half of myself, the other half of my identity.” He paused.  “And I was coming to grips with another part of my identity as well, deciding whether it was safe, whether I was ready to come out of the closet.”

“It’s a big decision,” I responded.  “My best friend Joe is gay.  Coming out to his mom was the hardest thing he’d ever done.  Of course, she gave him a big ol’ hug and said, ‘Honey, I’ve known forever.  I just wondered when you were going to figure it out.’” I remembered the glassy look of tears in Joe’s eyes when he’d told me that story, when he’d shared how freeing it was to be able to be real with his momma.

“Sometimes it’s hard to stay home and make that change,” I said. “Joe moved across the country for college, and he’s settled in Colorado.”

John looked straight at me. “At times I feel certain that moving away is what I need to do to really be able to be myself.  But I’m tied to this place.  I just haven’t been able to leave.”

  The peaceful camaraderie of our boat journey quickly came to an end when we docked at Imiej and soon the staff of all the offices were back to work. By the end of our second work day, I had reached a level of efficiency that reminded me of my days in the ER, funneling patients through as quickly as possible, assessing their needs and providing care in a prompt manner.  I missed the relaxed, communal nature of my practice on Arno but it was also stimulating to rush again.  There was a part of me that recognized that sensation of stress and responded by shutting down the social part of my brain and triggering the professional part.

But after dinner, when the field ship was heading across the still sea toward our next destination, the atoll of Ailinglaplap; the part of my heart that longed for connection couldn’t help but ache.  I crept up to the top deck again and sat by the railing, gazing out toward the east, opposite the final rays of the setting sun.  Somewhere over those black, still waters lay the island of Majuro.  And beyond that was Arno and Jamie.  I hugged my knees to my chest and closed my eyes.  

I’d been homesick at camp before.  I’d had that baby ache when I longed to be a mother.  And I’d missed Frank when I first came out to Arno.  But missing Jamie hurt all over.  I pictured him coming home to me, his face beaming at the sight of me, imagined him after a morning jog, entering our apartment with a smile on his face, sweaty and hungry for breakfast and me, and the look on his face as he determined which to have first.  I thought of him getting dressed in the morning standing by the closet in boxer briefs—how just the sight of him: damp curls around his ears and neck, the lines of his back and visible tone of his muscles could draw me to him as if nothing else existed, unsatisfied until I had seduced him, until I had tasted him fresh with the scent of soap, until I had made him moan and say my name, gasp and blink his eyes in awe and then chuckle, speechless on our bed.

I thought of being held—in that bed, on the couch, in the hammock, standing in the kitchen doing the dishes with him hugging me from behind, his breath in my hair, his body a solid wall of security behind me.  I thought of talking in our bed in the darkness of night, the pleasure of telling stories of our childhoods and discussing things that mattered to us.  There was continued joy in the discovery of who Jamie was, and with each new revelation of his thoughtful character, I thanked providence for bringing us together.

Someone cleared his throat behind me, and I startled at the sound, at first concerned but then grateful to realize it was Dougal MacKenzie and not one of the deck hands who I occasionally found leering at me.

“Well, young lady,” he said, coming over by me and sitting down on a box. “Here you are, outside at night alone again.”  He chuckled, so I began to think I wasn’t in trouble with him. “We havena had many opportunities to get acquainted, but I thought I might take a moment to check with you and see how you are doing.”

I was grateful I hadn’t succumbed to the impulse I was feeling right before he arrived which was to start crying.  It was probably good to be distracted.

“I’m definitely keeping busy, Mr. MacKenzie,” I said.  “I’ve seen so many skin ailments and infections galore and given out at least a third of the boil prevention kits I brought along with me.”

“Indeed?  That’s good….”  We sat in silence for a moment before he began again.  “So you and Jamie have been married a month now?” he asked.  

“Yes, sir,” I responded.  “It was our anniversary when you radioed us.”

I could barely see his face with the sunset fading behind him, but I had a sense that he was smiling.

“Miss Beauchamp,” he started.  “I mean, Mrs. Fraser.  There are moments when I regret not speaking out against your marriage.  It was a sudden decision, and I have wondered whether by not forbidding it, I allowed the two of you to move forward with a life choice that will prove painful to both of you. I hope it wasn’t a mistake.”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t a mistake, Mr. MacKenzie,” I insisted. “As much as it seemed sudden, Jamie and I had a connection from our first meeting.”

“Truly?” Mr. MacKenzie asked.  

“I love him, sir,” I said.  “I was just sitting here thinking of him.  It may have been being reprimanded for my behavior and realizing what it would mean to lose him that was the catalyst, but I believe that we would have ended up dating and marrying if life had continued as it was.  I was falling in love with him, and he said he wanted me from the beginning.”

“So I don’t need to second guess my decision to let you be married? I often consider my sister Ellen when I think of the lad.  When she died and then Brian left, I knew I needed to provide for him.  He needed a man, an example, to get him back on the right path.  And though I think I’ve been firm with him and demanded much, I hope it has not worked for ill in his life.”

“Jamie is a very hard worker, sir,” I said.  “And yet gentle and kind too.”

“Well, I canna take any credit for the gentle and kind part,” Dougal laughed.  “Nor do I think that it was all Ellen’s doing, as sweet as she could sometimes be. I think it was his father, Brian. Though I don’t know what sort of tenderhearted person would leave his son and daughter when they were still grieving their mother and brother.”  He faded into silence.

“Jamie was lucky to have you, sir,” I responded quietly.  “And I’m grateful to you, too.”

He pushed himself up from the box.  “I promised Jamie I would keep you safe.  So you’d better come down with me and get settled in your stateroom for the night.  And in the future, if you wish to have time alone after dark, perhaps you could knock on my door and mention it to me.  I can stand guard at the stairs.”

Before the man could move away, I hugged him.  “You’re family now, Mr. MacKenzie,” I explained.  “Thanks for trying to take care of me.”

He patted me awkwardly on the back, and I followed him downstairs, smiling as I entered my room.  The hug hadn’t been from Jamie, but it would do.

On to  Chapter 15: Hugs and Kisses The days drag on and on, but the ship is heading back toward Jamie…

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/more-parents-seek-adhd-diagnosis-and-drugs-for-kids-to-manage-remote-learning/

More parents seek ADHD diagnosis and drugs for kids to manage remote learning

Susan McLaughlin’s 12-year-old daughter, Isabela, was a straight-A student before the pandemic. Isabela, who lives in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, excelled at science and math and was already getting high school credit for algebra.

But when her school shut down in March and classes shifted to Zoom, Isabela’s grades took a nosedive. She signed on for her virtual class from a desk piled high with books, papers and stuffed animals and then spent hours trying to clean her room instead of focusing on schoolwork. She found herself “paralyzed” by assignments, McLaughlin said, but she wouldn’t tell the teacher over email that she was struggling, as she would have done in person.

“It was meltdown after meltdown after meltdown,” said McLaughlin, 53, a mother of three from Delaware, Ohio, who works in a high school with chronically truant children.

McLaughlin recalls one time in April when Isabela, who was already diagnosed with severe anxiety, was given a language arts assignment and “fell to pieces.”

“She was crying and screaming and hyperventilating and started to get some tics, moving her head and flapping her arms. She had never had them before. That’s when we started to consider that it might be ADHD.”

McLaughlin spent months trying to bring more structure to Isabela’s day by writing lists, schedules, timelines and checkboxes. But as someone who was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder herself a decade ago, McLaughlin realized that she was seeing the same behaviors in Isabela. She thought, “I’ve got to nip this in the bud.”

Isabela is being evaluated by a psychiatrist, a process that takes several hours and requires her teachers to fill out questionnaires about her behavior. McLaughlin hopes that with an ADHD diagnosis, Isabela will be able to get a prescription for a stimulant medication — such as Ritalin, Adderall or Vyvanse — to alleviate her symptoms.

“I know it’s super controversial sometimes. But I’ve been medicated for a long time, and I can’t function without taking it,” McLaughlin said. “If I don’t take my medication, I see an immediate difference in my ability to manage complex tasks, clean the house, get up and cook dinner. So I’m hoping it will have the same effect on her.”

Susan McLaughlin and Isabela Burgeson do schoolwork.Maddie McGarvey

Growing problems

McLaughlin isn’t alone in seeking an ADHD assessment for her child during the pandemic. Two dozen children, pediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists and researchers all described a crisis among children suffering from inattention and tanking school performance.

Data from specialists involved with diagnosing and treating ADHD show just how much parents are struggling to get help: They are flooding an ADHD support line with questions, and ADHD diagnoses and prescriptions for related medications have soared.

“Covid has been a tipping point that has pushed some families to get help,” said Dr. Melvin Oatis of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, who said the stress of the pandemic, the shift to remote learning and social isolation have created “anxiety-provoking” conditions that affect students’ attention.

Experts warn that children who appear to have symptoms of ADHD should have thorough evaluations to rule out other conditions or stresses related to the pandemic before they seek medication.

“Our concern is that pediatricians and families be very careful to not simply list the symptoms of ADHD, but to look at the child’s history and use differential diagnosis to make sure we have the best possible explanation for the symptoms,” said Dr. Arthur Lavin, a Cleveland-based pediatrician who has served on several national committees of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Related

In the meantime, parents are seeking any help they can find. The number of parents calling a help line set up by CHADD (Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder), a nonprofit that supports people with ADHD, rose by 62 percent since the pandemic started, the organization said. Traffic to its website last year grew by 77 percent compared to 2019.

“We’re getting a lot of calls from caregivers who are working at home alongside their children and starting to see more issues with their behavior than they did before,” said April Gower-Getz, CHADD’s chief operating officer.

They’re certainly trying to get their children evaluated more frequently. The Child Mind Institute, a New York-based nonprofit that helps children with mental health disorders and their families, recorded a 20 percent increase in the number of appointments to discuss medication last year compared to 2019. The “lion’s share” of the appointments were to discuss medication for ADHD, said Dr. Harold Koplewicz, the institute’s founder.

And more parents are getting their children diagnosed and treated with medication for ADHD.

Athenahealth, a technology company that creates practice management software for health care providers, published research in May, drawing on data from its customers, that showed an increase in patients ages 13 to 17 who received new diagnoses of ADHD. From the week of March 9 to the week of March 30, the proportion of visits by teenagers that involved first-time ADHD diagnoses rose by 67 percent. There was a similar spike among teenagers — particularly boys — who received prescriptions for ADHD medicines for the first time.

The cases also seem to have picked up in recent months, said psychologist Keith Sutton, director of the Bay Area Center for ADD/ADHD. He said he had a “sharp increase” in inquiries during the fall.

“Before the summer, everyone was just trying to get through those months,” Sutton said. “Then, in October, when grades were coming back, parents were thinking we’re in it for the long run, something is going on here and we need help.”

Isabela Burgeson thrives with in-person schooling but has been struggling during virtual learning.Maddie McGarvey / for NBC News

Why now?

Experts attribute the increase in inquiries to a variety of factors, including the loss of structure and accommodations in the classroom setting.

Parents are also seeing their children’s troubles during school hours firsthand. Dr. Devang Patel, a family medicine physician in Illinois who specializes in ADHD, is one of several clinicians who said he is fielding more requests from parents for medication for their children.

“When the problem was in front of the teachers, it wasn’t really the parents’ concern,” Patel said. “But now they are at home trying to make their kid sit still for just half an hour and seeing how difficult that is.”

Children also miss the school environment, which helped ameliorate such issues. Dr. Jenny Radesky, a Michigan-based developmental behavioral pediatrician, said she has started prescribing stimulants for children as young as 5 and 6 this year. Their ADHD symptoms were manageable in supportive classrooms with flexible teachers, sensory tools and clear routines. But when those structures went away in March, their symptoms flared up.

“I’m watching kids who used to love school become unenthused and unmotivated,” said Radesky, who said she was worried about the long-term impact of virtual learning. “They need the social environment at school to learn how to regulate themselves. Without that, they are really struggling.”

Related

Parenting challenges

Sasha Harris-Cronin’s 8-year-old son, Z (he chose his own name when he was 6), who is in the third grade, was diagnosed with ADHD in 2019 but didn’t start medication until last August.

Before the pandemic, Z’s school provided accommodations, like seating him directly in front of the teacher, where he wouldn’t be distracted, and making sure he ran around outside during recess.

Harris-Cronin said the shift to Zoom for Z was “awful.”

“It was so difficult. There were so many tears,” she said. Z missed the structure of school and couldn’t focus on Zoom classes. He would take an hour to write four words of a writing assignment. Days would go by when he got “absolutely nothing” done.

When she and Z realized that they were “looking down the barrel of another year like this,” they visited a psychiatrist, who prescribed Ritalin and Metadate.

“It was mind-blowing,” Harris-Cronin said. “He wrote a poem the first day. It’s not a miracle cure. But boy, is it an effective tool.”

Finding relief

Jahkim Hendrix, 18, of Atherton, California, suspected that he had ADHD for many years. But he didn’t get formally evaluated until late last year, during his senior year of high school. He had been falling behind academically the previous year, and when the schools closed in March, it didn’t take long for him to “give up completely.”

“The teacher would be speaking and I’d go blank,” he said, adding that students objected to putting their cameras on for their teachers, which made them — and him — even less accountable. “I would mute my teacher and go on TikTok and stay there for hours. That’s what sustained my attention.”

He barely passed his junior year of high school, and his grades slid from Ds to Fs as he started his senior year last fall. He and his mom, who was also diagnosed with ADHD as a child, decided it was time to seek help. It took two months to get an appointment with a psychiatrist, who evaluated him for over five hours in mid-December.

In late January, he was diagnosed with ADHD.

“I cried with relief,” he said. “I have always been told I have high potential but low performance, and I didn’t know why. Now I have a name to the thing that I’m facing, as well as tools and resources to help me.”

Worried doctors

Many experts said parents and clinicians need to be extra cautious about diagnosing ADHD during a pandemic because a child might show more signs that meet the criteria for the disorder. A diagnosis simply needs six or more symptoms listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the book of mental disorders recognized by the American Psychiatric Association. They include making careless mistakes, struggling to stay focused on tasks, having trouble organizing activities, not following through on instructions, avoiding schoolwork, losing items and being easily distracted.

“The pandemic has substantially disrupted the routines of every family, and that is going to make a good number of children feel like they can’t pay attention so well,” said Lavin, the Cleveland pediatrician. “ADHD might be one of the explanations, but only one. But the stress of a pandemic may also cause inattention.”

Medical experts say someone with ADHD was very likely to show signs before the pandemic began. Both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommend lengthy evaluations that take in children’s full developmental histories, surveys parents and teachers and compares symptoms to peers their own ages and genders.

A 15-minute office visit with a pediatrician isn’t long enough to rule out other causes of inattention, such as anxiety, depression and problems at home, said Sutton of the Bay Area Center for ADD/ADHD.

Susan McLaughlin and her daughter, Isabela Burgeson.Maddie McGarvey / for NBC News

Lengthy dependence

As many schools remain closed, some experts said they were concerned about the long-term impact of remote learning for young people with ADHD, particularly teenagers.

Maggie Sibley, a psychologist and researcher at the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital, has written a research paper, accepted by the Journal of Psychiatric Research, showing that symptoms are worsening and stress levels are skyrocketing among adolescents and young adults with ADHD during the pandemic. That has prompted numerous problems, including social isolation and disengagement from class.

“A person with ADHD typically has fewer friends and less social activities in their calendar,” she said. “A lot are getting their only social interactions at school.”

Students with ADHD were at particular risk of depression and dropping out of school, the study concluded.

“If you are in a situation where you are experiencing chronic boredom, getting poor grades in school, socially isolated and stuck in a house, it’s a recipe for depression,” Sibley said. While suicide isn’t an inevitable result, “we have to be vigilant down the road, especially since we know from research that when people with ADHD get depressed, they are more likely to make suicidal gestures because of their impulsivity.”

Susan McLaughlin will find out whether Isabela has ADHD at a follow-up appointment with the psychiatrist on Tuesday. While they wait, Isabela continues to battle with her assignments, particularly on Thursdays and Fridays, when class is entirely self-directed.

“I just want her to be everything she can be, a happy, well-adjusted 12-year-old — or as well-adjusted as anyone can be at this point.”

[star-trekkin-across-theuniverse]

Vital Signs, Pt17

Word Count: 2315 Tags: @to-pick-ourselves-up-7 @outside-the-government, @jimfromsales, @donnaintx, @enterprisewriting @supermoonpanda @rayleyanns @sistasarah-sallysaidso

“Thor says the mess of Loki’s face was your doing?” Agent Romanoff asked as she breezed into the infirmary. I had been back on the helicarrier for a few days and was working with Dr. Carson to get the infirmary back online, and develop some new protocols and standards in light of the Agent Coulson incident. I smirked over my clipboard.

“What can I say? I have a great teacher.” I had been expecting her to touch base with me later, but wasn’t opposed to starting my training again right away. She looked me over. I still looked like hell. The burns from the explosion had scabbed over, leaving my bare arms looking like alligator skin. On my left forearm, the handprint of frostbite from Loki was discoloured and peeling. It could have been so much worse, but it was still tender.

“What’s the handprint?” She looked puzzled.

“Motherfucker gave me frostbite while he was trying to come on to me,” I responded, “I think.”

“You think he gave you frostbite?”

“No, I think he was hitting on me,” I made a face. She burst out laughing.

“Oh my god, I would have paid money to see that, Richmond!”

“It was about as creepy as you’re thinking,” I admitted. She started laughing again, and sat down in a chair, giggling. I tilted my head to one side and gave her a questioning look.

“I’m sorry, Richmond. It’s funny. And there’s been precious little amusing over the last week.” She held up her hand in surrender, “Are mornings or afternoons better for you for training?”

“Probably mornings. I go to the gym to run in the mornings already.” I flipped to the bottom of the clipboard and checked the schedule. “In 2 weeks we might need to change to afternoons though, as we’re starting to run a doctor’s night shift. I’m scheduled for the first rotation.” She nodded as I spoke, and then flipped open her phone and flicked across a couple of screens.

“Okay, I’ll plan to meet you every morning. I’ll text you if I’m not onboard. But for the time being, I think Fury wants all of us sticking around. He’s also ordered complete physicals for everyone that was on the ground, so be expecting that. Stark is pissed, and wants his usual doc to submit a report. Fury wants them done by SHIELD docs here.”

“Awesome,” I sighed. The last thing I needed was my first real encounter with Stark to be spent locking horns over a physical. I kind of felt I’d earned a freebie because of Loki, but I’m reasonably sure Director Fury wouldn’t see it that way.

SHIELD was calling it ‘The Battle of New York’. To me, that sounded like a professional wrestling extravaganza, but I wasn’t the one naming battles. I would have called it ‘The one where I got blown up and the world found out about aliens and superheroes all in one day”, which was quite a mouthful. Probably a good thing I wasn’t in charge of naming the battles. At any rate, the result was that the training for non-agent SHIELD staff had become more rigorous, and the gym was now busy all the time, and not just with remedial learners like myself.

Romanoff stepped onto the treadmill beside me during my last kilometer, and ran along side me.

“How is your shoulder?” She asked when I stopped. I took a long drink from my water bottle.

“Surprisingly good, actually. They replaced the tendon with a cadaver tendon. I had full range of motion within days. And New York didn’t wreck it, amazingly,” I admitted. I stepped off the treadmill and did some stretches.

“You gonna get your ink fixed when the burns heal?” She asked. My national team tattoo had been a ‘Battle of New York’ casualty. One of the burns covered half of it. I shrugged.

“Depends on the scarring. I’m hoping the scarring won’t be bad, they aren’t deep. It’s really only like a really bad sunburn; I don’t think I’d even qualify them as second degree. Anyhow. It depends on how tender the tissue is. In short, vague response is vague,” I offered. She smiled.

“You’re pretty fucking tough, Richmond.” She walked over to the mats. I followed.

“If you’re going to compliment me like that, you can call me Lex,” I winked.

“Then maybe you could start calling me Natasha,” she countered. We spent the next hour working on the basics before hitting the showers and heading our separate ways.

Dr. Carson was waiting for me in the infirmary when I walked in. He was funny, in a particular and quirky way. Fortunately, we were mostly on the same page, so as weird as he maybe seemed, I found working with him to be refreshing because he could almost read my mind. He had a stack of charts on the desk and was looking annoyed.

“We have a pile of physicals that Fury wants done, and some of these agents have either never had them done before, or haven’t had them done in ages. There’s a Captain Rogers who is due for a physical and dude is almost a hundred years old. Or there’s a typo in his file. I’m going with a typo in his file.”

“It’s accurate, actually. That’s Captain America, the guy they dug out of the ice a few months ago in Russia.”

“Was this in some sort of memo?” He looked completely baffled.

“Not really. I guess you kinda had to be here. He’s had a physical though; I saw the report on it when he first was found. The nurses on board can do a lot of the assessment, to be honest.”

“I’m not comfortable with that,” he cut me off. I raised an eyebrow. It was the first time we’d disagreed. While I’d been working as a nurse, we’d pretty much run the infirmary.

“These nurses are trauma trained, and have advanced physical assessment skills,” I countered.

“They are nurses.” He sounded finished. I was not finished, however.

“Oh hell no, you did not! I’m sorry, but I worked in this exact infirmary as a nurse. I know the nurses here and I know what they are capable,” I argued, getting angry. He shrugged.

“I’m still the Chief Medical Officer, so get used to my rules. You can take care of these assessments. Fury wants them done by Friday. Apparently some of these are going to be tricky. I hear Romanoff is scary,” he shuddered. I smirked and wondered how his last hand-to-hand exam had gone. I took the pile of charts from him and sat down to sort through them. I decided to track people down instead of phoning or messaging them. Agent Romanoff had led me to believe they were all still on board. And at the very least, I knew she and Steve both were.

I headed to the bridge first, and waited for Fury to finish giving orders to a couple of agents before stepping forward.

“Sir. I’m looking for Stark, Barton and Banner to book their physicals. Any recommendations?”

“Stark and Banner are in the lab. Barton is probably on the range.” His answer was a dismissal.

“Sir, Dr. Carson noted that it’s been over a year since your last physical. He was hoping to personally take care of that for you,” I smiled and walked off the bridge. Fury cussed under his breath. If Carson thought Natasha was scary and he hadn’t met her yet, he wasn’t going to enjoy my impression of a woman scorned. I made my way up to the lab and scanned myself in.

“Dr. Banner, Mr. Stark. We met before, well, before. I’m Docto-“ I started. Stark approached me and cut me off.

“Call me Tony.” He shook my hand. My mouth dropped open. Dr. Banner approached me and also shook my hand.

“Bruce, please. I’m afraid I don’t recall meeting you,” he introduced himself again.

“This is Cap’s girl, the one who won that big archery wager against Barton,” he explained. Bruce looked frustrated.

“Dr. Alexandra Richmond,” I offered. He smiled and released my hand. Tony stepped back behind a table and started flicking his hands across the computer console. Holographic screen popped up around the table. My jaw dropped. We could seriously use that tech in the infirmary.

“We’re doing science, Dr. Richmond. Wanna play? What’s your pleasure?” He offered. I turned to take in more of the displays.

“This is incredible. We need this in the infirmary. Could you program it to overlay an MRI on a person? Give a full sized view?” My mind had taken off with all kinds of applications for the technology that Stark was so casually using.

“Kid’s play, Richmond. Can I call you Alex? What does Cap call you? Not your bedroom name, but you know, if he sees you in the hallway.” Tony really was exactly like the hyperactive child he’d been described to me as. He bounced from thought to thought with a dizzying speed.

“Uh, Steve calls me ma’am when he sees me in the hallway. Lex is fine. Not Alex.” I was having a hard time keeping up. In the moment that had passed since he’d asked me about my name, he’d brought up an MRI on a full size holographic screen. I walked over to it and reached out. Amazing.

“So this is patient X, who was recovered from the scene of a car exploding during the Battle of New York. She is approximately five foot eight, and 155 pounds, 27 years ol-“

“Oh my god, how did you get my MRI?” I tapped the air where the scan of my brain was and it moved out into another window, zoomed about ten times. I reached forward and turned the scan sideways, and then pushed along side the image of my ear, breaking into my brain. Amazing. I could see the swelling of the brain, and what part was damaged by the concussion. I noticed a small area of swelling in the occipital lobe and turned to Tony.

“Can I get deeper into this?” I asked him. He smiled and came around the table to stand beside me. He flicked his hand so quickly I couldn’t tell what he was doing, but before I could blink, the area I’d spotted was isolated and magnified.

“Shut up,” I breathed. I moved my hand to turn the image again. “No wonder my vision has been blurry.” I turned to Tony absolutely gobsmacked. His grin was like a maniacal child hopped up on candy on Christmas morning. He just nodded.

“You picked that up fast. I’ll talk to Fury about trialing it in this infirmary.”

“So cool,” I shook my head. “That’s not why I’m here though. I need to schedule your physicals.” Bruce rolled his eyes and went back to the computer console. Tony laughed.

“I have a doctor. I’m fine,” Tony dismissed me.

“Yeah, I know. But Fury is insisting. Look, if you come by first thing in the morning, I can have you in and out in 20 minutes top. Just a tiny bit of bloodwork and a quick look over,” I offered.

“Will it be you doing the assessment, Lex?” Bruce looked up.

“Yes. The new Chief Medical Officer is insisting I personally take care of you all,” I confirmed with a bright and very false smile. Bruce looked resigned.

“I could just forward you all my previous research?”

“That would be awesome for a baseline, but I need to post-battle assessment too, unfortunately,” I apologized. He nodded.

“Just you then. Maybe get Tasha to come too, just in case,” he agreed. I nodded and made a note in my schedule app. Tony grabbed my phone from me.

“This isn’t Stark tech.” He gave me a look, “All agents are supposed to have Stark phones.”

“I’m not an agent, I’m a doctor.” I took my phone back. “And when will you be joining me?” He made an unhappy face, took my phone and booked himself in. I flipped through the week and nodded.

“No poking around my heart,” he said.

“I promise.” I excused myself and headed toward the range. Barton was practicing with a handgun, but had his fancypants quiver strapped on, and his bow was lying across the counter in front of him. I sat down and waited. I knew he hadn’t missed me coming in, so I took the opportunity to catch up on my emails while I waited. He took his time.

“Looking for a rematch?” He teased.

“I know I was lucky,” I laughed. He sat down beside me and yawned.

“I heard you had surgery on the shoulder.” It wasn’t really a question.

“Yeah,” I said, and we slipped back into silence. We sat that way for what felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes. I turned to face him.

“Fury has ordered a physical on each team member who was on the ground,” I cut to chase. I didn’t know Barton really well, but I had figured out he wasn’t a big talker and he didn’t like to dance around things.

“You around this afternoon? Around 1500?” He asked. I nodded, amazed. I thought he was going to be so much harder to convince. I knew Steve and Natasha were going to be easy to schedule. Squaring away Barton put me on top of the world.

“Thanks, Agent Barton.” I stood to leave. He put his hand on my arm. I flinched a little as his hand grazed the frostbite.

“Clint. I heard you messed up Loki’s face. You’re my new best girl,” he winked. I smirked and headed back to the infirmary, wondering if Dr. Carson realized that asking me to take care of the heroes of New York was really not a hardship.

[ecotone99]

[SF] The Disturbing History of the Brainchip

(Based on my comic stories)

A History Report from 2084

The practice of Brainchips is looked back on in the Western world as atrocious and dystopian. For a few decades, the rights of people were stripped, and privacy was non-existent. As unpopular as it was, the adoption of the Brainchip came to solve America's problems. The only country to still implement the practice today is China. The events that led to the Brainchip being illegal in the U.S. came to be one of the most famous stories in the world.

The 2040s in the United States of America was marred by violence, poverty, and corruption. A fourth of the population lived in poverty, partly due to the Boronavirus pandemic of 2039, while the wealthy grew ever richer. Crime rates were at an all-time high, with 1 out of every 600 people murdered. People sold and bought on the black market high-tech weapons that could destroy entire neighborhoods, such as laser cannons and gas bombs that could affect areas up to a 200-yard radius. The lower classes, fed up with the wealth gap, destroyed mansions of the elites with such weapons. Fertility rate dropped to its lowest point, due to people not wanting to bring children into such a cruel world. In such desperate times, the U.S. looked to China for example on how to solve this crisis. China had enforced Brainchips on citizens ages 12-65 starting in 2042, and consequently crime rates went down by 90%. As horrible as it was, China proved that it worked, and the U.S. government began to devise plans to impose the Brainchip on its citizens.

A Brainchip is a flat, 1-centimeter long device surgically implanted in the brain to detect criminal thoughts. First invented in China, citizens between the ages of twelve and sixty-five were forced en masse to get the procedure over two years. The government had wanted to start implanting the Brainchip as soon as people were born, but early experiments had shown that young children’s brains did not receive the chip well, with many having permanent brain damage. The Brainchip was specifically designed so that it can only be accessed once it’s “activated” -when it detects serious thoughts of committing a major crime. Then, a local police station would be alerted, and a police officer would be hooked to a simulator that would be connected to that Brainchip to assess the situation by reading the criminal’s thoughts. If the criminal was about to commit the crime right then, the Brainchip would be allowed to connect to their nervous system, letting police officer control the person’s movements. The criminal would be apprehended, although they would receive a lesser punishment than if they had actually committed the crime. It seemed like a good idea, but many countries condemned China. That is, until the United States became the second country to impose the program on its citizens and achieve similar results.

At first, millions emigrated the country and refused to get the Brainchip since it was voluntary. Conspiracy theorists believed that the government would use it to secretly listen to people’s thoughts or control people’s actions. But after seeing that many people who got the chip willingly had their lives undisrupted since they would not ever commit a crime, other people started accepting it too. Plus, it was revealed that the people who did not get the Brainchip had drone cameras that can barely be seen by the naked eye placed in their homes, and people preferred getting the chip to being watched. The program was a success; crime rates were drastically lowered. France, Britain, North Korea, Mexico, and Iran, after seeing the U.S.’s success, followed suit over the next decade. Of course, the famed incident known as the “Star City kidnappings” changed everything, from the support of Brainchips to our understanding of physics and human capabilities.

On the night of June 18, 2064, eleven children between the ages of twelve and sixteen disappeared in Star City. Star City has one of the highest crimes and chipless rates in the nation, so kidnappings weren't uncommon. What was so strange was that the next day ten of the children returned to their homes. When questioned, they refused to answer where they had been or why they ran away. Even when they drank truth serums, they gave the same answers. The kids did not seem to have any relations with each other, besides the fact that they were top students in their schools. The one who didn't return was a 14-year-old white girl named Lela Younip. A month passed without any progress as to what happened to the kids or where Lela was. Then, she was found late one night passed out on a sidewalk. She was brought to a hospital, where they found nothing wrong with her besides that she was extremely fatigued. Like the other kids, she did not give direct answers when the authorities asked her where she had been. She said that no one had harmed her even as she broke down in tears. The story interested many people in the city. Many suspected that someone had hacked the eleven children's Brainchips and was mind-controlling them, but there was no way to know for sure unless their chips were removed. A seemingly unrelated incident also happened that night. An abandoned hospital on the outskirts of Star City collapsed on a man, injuring him gravely. A girl, later revealed to be the 12th victim, called the emergency responders for him.

Another month passed. One day, a building in Star City was on fire. Lela was seen flying to the scene, blasting a window with her hands with a pale blue stream of light, and lifting the people inside the building down to the ground at a distance, as if an invisible force was moving them. The whole thing was captured on video, which went viral all over the world. "She was like a real-life Supergirl," said witness Karen, mother of 3. Reporters flocked around Lela, eagerly demanding to know how she got her powers. She answered that a "nice man" who would like to remain unnamed had given her them. She remained elusive to more questions. For the next few days, she continued helping the police, flying around the city looking for crime and helping to capture criminals using her laser hands and telekinetic powers. She became famous through worldwide media attention and multiple videos showing her using her powers. The world's excitement, however, could only be satisfied through answers. A week after she revealed her powers, the military arrived at Lela's house, wanting to take her away for testing and questions. She quickly quitted the house and flew far away. It was quite hard to catch a girl who could fly at 50 miles per hour and push helicopters away with a wave of an arm (there were no casualties), but eventually, after three days of arduous efforts, they managed to capture and sedate her. It was illegal to forcibly remove someone's Brainchip, but they were granted permission by the government to remove Lela's Brainchip since it was such a special case. Besides, it would reveal if Brainchips were faulty. This is the released transcript of the interrogation of Lela by Detective Cadmus:

Date: August 16, 2064 11:30am Cadmus: Good morning, Lela. My name is Tim Cadmus. How are you feeling? Lela: I've just been through an invasive surgery against my will, sure I’m fine. Can we please skip the pleasantries? Cadmus: Alright. Where were you on the night of June 18, 2064? Lela: I don't want to talk about it. Cadmus: You don't really have a choice. You have to tell us the whole truth, or you can be charged with obstruction of justice. Lela: Okay, chillax. I was walking around my neighborhood, listening to that old song Fireflies by Owl City with my Waterpods. Cadmus: You don't have to be that specific. Lela: Then a man kidnapped me. Cadmus: Name? Lela: Dr. Heisen. I don't know his first name. Cadmus: Where did he take you? Lela: Spring Grove Hospital. It's a very deserted place. That’s where the other kids were taken, too. [Cadmus slides onto the table a paper with photos of ten children.] Cadmus: These kids? Lela: Yep. You’re missing someone. There were 12 of us in total. Cadmus: Who else? We only know 10 other kids. Lela: His daughter, Annabeth, was also kidnapped. No one knew since there was no one to report her missing. What a pity. She's my friend. Cadmus: We will investigate that later. What happened at the hospital? Lela: All 12 of us woke up in a simulation, but we didn't know that, since it was set on unaware mode. Cadmus: What happened in the simulation? Lela: It's a long story so I’ll summarize it. We had to compete in a last-to-survive competition. We each woke up in our own glass cube in a large white room. There were four trials. When each trial started, the floor beneath us would disappear and we would drop down somewhere. If we completed the trial, we would faint and reappear in the glass cubes. The first trial was to find our way to the end of a hedge maze. The second trial we were paired with a partner to go through four rooms, in which we had to fight robots, answer riddles, and go through our fears. The third trial was in a hospital where we had to fight doctors trying to kill us, and we also had our heads transplanted with basketballs. In the fourth trial we dropped down into the outside. There were six people left. It was like the Hunger Games. We had to kill each other and be the last one standing. There were some weapons where we dropped, but Annabeth, Michael, Ferb, and I ran away together to a cave. We didn’t plan on killing each other. A few hours later that stupid shank Drake and someone other girl that he paired with found our cave. He yeeted a knife and he sank in Ferb’s head, killing him. Then Annabeth threw a large rock at the girl, smashing her head in and killing her. We ran as far as we could. We slept under some trees as night came. But Drake found us while we were sleeping and chopped off Annabeth’s head. Michael and I heard the sound and ran away until we were cornered at the edge of a cliff. Michael stood in front of me as Drake charged at us with the axe. He hit Michael’s stomach and they both fell over the cliff, but I held on to Michael’s hand and saw that Drake was holding on to Michael’s leg. Michael told me to let go, since he was dying anyway. So I did. They fell to the ground where pointy rocks impaled their bodies. It was finished. I was the only one left. My vision became blinded by whiteness again, and I woke up in a white room. This time I knew it was real. I was lying in one of those hospital recliner chairs. I took off my Sim helmet and tore off the wires connecting to my brain and body. The other kids were already walking out the door. I called for them to wait, but I stood there, unable to move. The other kids did not help me. They walked out without looking back, like they were being controlled, too. Cadmus: Hold up- was this because your Brainchips were hacked by Dr. Heisen? Lela: Yes. Cadmus: That's unnerving. I thought... Lela: It is. Brainchips were never a good idea. Let me continue. After the room was emptied, Dr. Heisen came in. I wanted to run, but I couldn't. He explained to me that he had hacked all our Brainchips from his computer and connected his to ours. He was able to listen to all our thoughts and control our movements if he wanted to. He said that he put us in the simulations because he wanted to test for someone who was mentally and physically capable of receiving superpowers: flight, telekinesis, and energy beam emission. Cadmus: Amazing. Did you agree to have these powers? Lela: Err, no. But that's because I was confused and scared. After I got powers, I was extremely grateful for them. Cadmus: How did you get your powers? Lela: It’s from a little device planted in my brain. After that, we went outside. He told me how to use my powers. I flew to the roof of the hospital, then over the woods that surrounded it. It was the greatest feeling. Then I extended my arms toward a large rock, raised my hand, to which the rock flew up, and blasted it to pieces with lasers. So you see, everything turned out fine. None of us were physically harmed. No further questions. Cadmus: Everything is not fine. Many of those kids have trauma from what they've experienced. Lela: Sucks for them. Cadmus: What happened during the month you were held captive? Lela: Gosh, you say that like I was chained or something. Unlike right now, not that these chains can hold me. It wasn't like that. I was mostly alone and had books to read. He was very nice. He was training me to be a superhero. Cadmus: You talk highly of a criminal. Lela: I don't like to see it that way. Everything he did was for the advancement of humanity. Cadmus: Lela, do you know what Stockholm syndrome is? Lela: No. I don't have any defects. Cadmus: Sometimes when a person is kidnapped, the hostage may begin to trust or sympathize with their captor. Lela: (pause) How does this apply to my situation? He wasn't keeping me there. I could have flown off if I wanted to. Cadmus: Why didn't you? Lela: There wasn't any reason to. I was happy. Cadmus: Really? Your parents say you have had panic attacks since then. [No reply.] Cadmus: You escaped eventually, didn't you? Lela: Yes. I missed my family. Cadmus: You destroyed the hospital with Dr. Heisen in it. Lela: That was an accident. I was angry. Cadmus: Why were you angry? (No answer) Why were you angry, Lela? Lela: (crying) He wouldn't let me go. Cadmus: You said you were free to leave. Were you lying before? Lela: I'm not lying. Cadmus: I think you are. You aren't telling the truth about what happened there. I'm going to tell Mr. Covid to get a vial of truth serum. Lela: No! Don’t make me relive it! Cadmus: You are not leaving until we know everything. Lela: (quietly) You should get out. Cadmus: What? Lela: I'm afraid I'll hurt you. (loud breaking sounds, audio cuts off)

Lela escaped the facility after that, causing minor damage, but the authorities had what they needed. The police were sent to Dr. Heisen's house (they knew who he was from the hospital collapse), but he was long gone by then. The Brainchips of the other 11 kids were removed for their safety. For a while, things returned to normal, but then Lela left home for months and was spotted in various places from Canada to Mexico. The world knew what she was doing. On October 29, 2064, Dr. Heisen was found dead in a forest in Georgia. People celebrated his death and were happy that justice was served. Lela then returned home and continued to help people in her city. She also led the popular StopTheBrain worldwide movement that advocated for the outlaw of the Brainchip since it was proven to be able to be hacked, but it was not to happen in her lifetime. When Lela was sixteen, she died from seizure caused by the chip in her brain. It was not compatible with her brain after all. This sparked outrage and grief across the world, and protests sprouted calling for the abolition of the practice to fulfill Lela’s wish. Most countries to implement it outlawed the practice so that children turning twelve wouldn't have to receive the chip, but people have to pay for the surgery if they want their Brainchip removed, and the system is still in use today. And thus is the story of how one girl’s death changed history.

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