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justagalwhowrites · 1 year ago

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Lavender - Ch. 14

Tommy comes into the clinic and you offer your medical skills to both him and Joel. Continuation of Lavender Ch. 1-13 found on Tumblr here.

Pairing: Joel Miller x Female Reader

Warnings: Descriptions of injuries and treatment of injuries from canon-typical violence. No use of Y/N. Minors DNI!

Length: 5.4k

Sunday, October 4, 2009 - 3 months later

You came out from the exam rooms and frowned. It took you a second to place the song just starting on the speakers in the waiting room.

“Marta!” You said. “Is that Back in the U.S.S.R.?”

“It is indeed,” she leaned across the front desk.

“I haven’t heard that song in years!” You resisted the urge to dance in a waiting room with half a dozen patients as witnesses. The CD case was sitting on the desk and you gaped at it. “Is that the whole White Album? Where did you find that!”

“I didn’t,” she smiled. You smiled too, shaking your head. “Andrew told me to keep my mouth shut about it until Sunday afternoon. Said you’d need it.”

“He’s a sneak,” you said.

“He also said you work too much, that you need to stop changing his schedule and that you need to stop conspiring with Jess,” her smile shifted to a smirk. “But I don’t think I was supposed to tell you that today.”

“Oh I’m sure he’ll tell me himself later this week,” you rolled your eyes, still smiling.

“You’ve got one in exam four,” she handed you a chart. “And Kristen is in with one in exam seven when you’re done there.”

“Well, as long as we have The Beatles,” you said, tapping the file on the countertop in time to the music before heading back to the exam rooms.

It was a small miracle that Jess had actually kept Andrew away from the clinic that day. He’d been almost unreasonably protective since Joel had left three months earlier and with your birthday the next day… You didn’t want to disrupt his life any more than you already had. He needed to do things like have a day off. His life was on track.

The day after Joel left, you didn’t move. Andrew came by to make sure you were still alive. His knuckles were banged up. You stared at the wall. You slept. You stared at the wall some more. Andrew came back Monday morning, letting himself in your apartment and all but dragging you out of bed.

“You can come to our place or you can go to work,” he said, standing at the edge of your bed, your face pressed against his stomach as he ran his hands over your tangled mass of hair. “Those are your choices. You need to get cleaned up, you need to get out of bed, you need to eat something. You’re not going to just rot here.”

“I’ll go to work,” you said softly.

“Then let’s get ready for work.”

He walked you to the school, stood outside until he saw you go in the doors to make sure you didn’t just turn around and go back home. You didn’t go get your cup of bad coffee or stop and say hi to other teachers. You just went to your classroom and stared at the wall. Unlike in the schools before the outbreak, they’d let you paint your room. Andrew had helped. There was a solar system in one corner and a forest in another and flowering vines that framed the cracks in the cinderblock.

Your room was the only one in the building like this. The FEDRA teachers were different than the teachers you were used to before. Everyone decorated their rooms before, doing everything they could to keep students engaged. From what you gathered for the regular schools in the QZ, that was still the case - or as much as it could be in the end of the world. But at what amounted to a military school for orphans of the war on humanity, the bare necessities were all there was. It was part of why you decided to teach at this school. Someone, you thought, needed to be invested in these kids. Why couldn’t it be you?

So you’d decorated your room. Made a bookshelf and stocked it with things you picked up on the black market that had been brought in by smugglers and let the kids borrow what they wanted - everything from old copies of Scientific American to the Harry Potter books (you were still disappointed you’d never find out how those were going to end.)

As you stared at the vines you’d painted four years ago, you decided that you couldn’t shut down on these kids. They had no one. You couldn’t just be one more person to leave them. You could be the one person they knew loved them.

You made yourself smile as your students came in. Just because you didn’t matter to anyone else doesn’t mean that they didn’t matter to you. They were worth it.

You threw yourself into your work. You picked up extra shifts at the clinic. Before, you had Sundays and Wednesdays off but now, you were there every day. Elias had talked to you twice already about burnout but you’d just shrugged him off. All you cared about was finding something that forced you to keep going, something that made you feel something besides hollow. The clinic and the school could be those things. You’d make them be those things.

You quickly knocked on the door of exam room four before letting yourself in.

“Hi there,” you smiled, without looking at the patient for a moment, just opening the chart. You froze.

“Hey Kid.”

The door closed and latched behind you. Dear Prudence was playing.

“Hey Tommy.”

You stood there looking at each other.

“I didn’t think you’d be in today,” he said eventually. “Thought you didn’t work on Sundays.”

“I do now,” you shrugged. “I like keeping busy. There are no other doctors here right now but I can do a quick eval and see if a nurse can handle what you need or…”

“No,” he waved you off. “I don’t have a problem with seeing you if you don’t have a problem seeing me. Wouldn’t blame you if you did but…”

“I don’t,” you said quickly. He smiled. It reminded you of Joel in a way that made your heart ache while making everything seem lighter. You went to the sink and washed your hands, looking over your shoulder at him as you did. “How’ve you been?”

“Tryin’ to stay out of trouble,” he said. “Don’t know how good a job I’ve been doing at that though.”

“Not one of your considerable talents, I will say,” you teased. “What brings you by today?”

“My inability to stay outta trouble,” he smirked.

You laughed

“Alright, let’s see it.”

He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of one side of it. There was a makeshift bandage around his bicep and you frowned. The blood was dried and the bandage looked like it had been on for far longer than it should have been.

“Well that’s coming off,” you frowned. “And it’s probably going to hurt. The hell have you been doing, Miller?”

He just looked sheepishly at you while you unwound the dressing, trying to do so as gingerly as possible. He still winced as the dried blood and discharge pulled on the open wound.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Tommy?” You shook your head, looking over the injury. “The hell didn’t you come see me sooner?”

“It didn’t seem that bad at first,” he said. “But it hasn’t been getting better and…”

“Yeah, it’s infected you idiot,” you rolled your eyes, dropping the bandage in the trash. “When did you get this?”

“Last week?” He winced. You sighed.

“And why was someone shooting at you last week?” You asked. He went to respond and then glared at you.

“Never said I got shot,” he said.

“Yeah, I’ve had a partial shoulder shot, Tommy,” you glared at him. “I know what they look like. Who was shooting at you and why. Please tell me I’m not conspiring against FEDRA by treating you right now…”

“It wasn’t FEDRA,” he rolled his eyes. “Just… had a run in with some bad people is all.”

You looked at him for a moment.

“It wasn’t in the QZ was it?”

He paused.

“No.”

You groaned.

“What the fuck, Miller?”

“Can you spare the lecture, Kid?” He asked. “Can you fix my arm or not?”

“Nope, I’ll have to cut the whole thing off.”

He rolled his eyes. You sighed.

“Yes, I can fix your arm,” you said. “But it’s going to be a process because you didn’t come see me sooner. It needs debridement, I’m going to do some fairly intensive antibiotics because right now your shoulder is a goddamn Petri dish for a super bug and I want to nip that in the bud and then you’re getting stitches. And I swear to God Tommy if you don’t follow my directions for wound care…”

“You’re not as scary as you think you are, Kid,” he smirked. “But I’ll listen to ya.”

You glared at him but went and got what you needed from the supply room and scrubbed in before gloving up.

“You’re lucky I like you,” you said, sitting next to him on the exam table as you injected his arm with local anesthetic. He winced. “Otherwise I’d just do this without numbing you up just to teach you a lesson.”

You got out a scalpel and forceps, testing his arm after a minute before starting in on the infected tissue.

“That’s disgusting,” he sounded a little sick.

“Yeah, well, this is the price you pay for being a dumbass,” you said, focused on his arm.

“Your bedside manner is shit, Kid, anyone ever tell you that?”

“You’d be the first,” you replied, depositing some of the tissue on a sterile cloth and going back in. He laughed. “Hold still or I will take off your arm.”

He looked straight ahead for a moment while you worked, eyes narrowed, trying to make sure you were getting all the infected tissue while not taking any of the healthy with it. But after a few minutes he looked at you.

“So how’ve you been?” He asked.

“Busy,” you said noncommittally.

“C’mon,” he said. “You know what I’m askin’.”

You were quiet for a minute.

“He told you then,” you said eventually.

“Yeah.” He was still looking at you. You resisted the urge to cry. You couldn’t fuck up your sterile field.

“Well, I’m still here,” you shrugged as you deposited more tissue on the cloth, giving the wound a final look. You grabbed the saline and went back to it. “May not want to tell him that, it’d probably be a let down.”

“Look, Joel’s a fucking asshole but he’s not that much of a fucking asshole,” he said, sounding a bit defensive. “He wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

“He said he never wanted to see me again,” you irrigated the wound and looked it over again. “A lot easier to do if I dropped dead or left town.”

Tommy didn’t say anything. You put the saline away and got out the suture kit.

“I’m going to stitch you up now,” you said. “Let me know if you feel anything, I can add to the anesthesia…”

He just nodded and you started stitching.

“How is he?” You asked after a moment. Tommy paused a moment before answering.

“Survivin’,” he said eventually. You nodded slowly.

“He going outside the QZ too?”

“Not sure I should be telling a FEDRA doctor anything about that,” Tommy said wryly. You glared a him. “But yeah. He is.”

“Tommy,” you groaned. “Jesus Christ…”

“You think I can control a damn thing that man does?” He asked. You glared at him. “We both know he’s going to do whatever the fuck he wants, whatever he thinks is the best thing for everybody because no one else can take care of shit like Joel fuckin’ Miller can…”

“Been sitting on that feeling for a while there?” You half smiled.

“Something like that,” he muttered.

You finished stitching his arm and gave him a shot of antibiotics.

“That’s going to start clearing the infection,” you said. “But I’m sending you home with pills, too. You take every single fucking one of them or I swear I will come and shove them down your throat like I’m drugging a dog. Bacterial infection is a shit show here as it is, I will not let you make it worse because you create an antibiotic resistant strain of super bacteria by not completing your meds…”

“I’ll take the drugs, Kid.”

“Good.”

You wrapped his arm and sat back, looking at your handiwork.

“Come in like that again and I’m not giving you the anesthesia,” you said, cleaning up your supplies.

“Well there’s some incentive for you,” he laughed, shrugging back into his shirt. You threw away the trash and your gloves and leaned against the counter, arms crossed, watching as he buttoned his shirt.

“How often are you leaving the QZ?” You asked.

“Don’t exactly have a set schedule,” he said, cagey.

“Tommy.”

“Bout twice a month.”

You nodded slowly.

“And how often are you getting fucking shot at?”

He laughed a little and gave you a cocky smile.

“Bout twice a month.”

“Jesus Christ…” you muttered.

“They’re bad shots, Kid.”

“Not that bad.”

You sighed.

“I’m only saying this because I know you’re going to keep going out there regardless of what I say about it,” you said. “But next time one of you is hurt and you don’t feel… comfortable coming to the clinic, please get me. I’ll come to you, you can come to me, I don’t really care. Just please don’t get yourselves killed because you’re stubborn idiots.”

“That go for my idiot brother, too?” He asked, watching you.

“Course it does,” you said. “Just hit him over the head with a frying pan after taking a thorough medical history so he doesn’t have to see me when I treat him.”

Tommy snorted, shaking his head as he got down from the exam table. He looked you up and down, a sense of sadness on his face.

“He’s an idiot, Kid,” he said, meeting your eyes. “I love him but he’s the biggest fuckin’ idiot I know.”

“He’s not,” you half smiled at him. “But I appreciate the thought. Try to make sure he stays in one piece? Look out for him?”

“I will,” he said, leaning in and giving you a kiss on the cheek.

You pressed the bottle of antibiotics into his hand and watched him leave the exam area, staring at the door he left through for a moment before going to the next exam room.

Your birthday was a Monday. It was hard to not think about the year before, the day that Joel and Tommy made it to the QZ. You’d thought, for a while, that it was a sign that the day might not be cursed. It could hold the best and the worst of life, it didn’t matter. It felt less good now.

This year, a long workday helped. Your students were particularly well behaved for a Monday. You weren’t sure if they sensed that you were off or if it was just a coincidence but either way, you were grateful for it. The clinic was good, too. Enough patients to keep your mind occupied and body moving, not so many that you were overwhelmed.

“Not a bad day all things considered,” Andrew said as you finished with your last patient’s chart a few minutes before 10. The White Album was on again.

“It was not,” you said, perching on the edge of the desk. He leaned beside you. “Thank you for The Beatles, by the way.”

“Course,” he kissed your temple and you rested your head on his shoulder. “Knew you’d need it.”

“I come bearing cake!” Jess sang as she came into the clinic, plate in hand. “Andrew said it wasn’t really that kind of birthday but I figure hard days are an even better excuse for cake so…”

“Any days are a good excuse for cake,” you smiled.

“My sentiments exactly,” she smiled back.

The three of you walked to your place and you put on the AC/DC album that you kept at the apartment specifically for when Andrew was being a jerk about your music or needed some cheering up.

“Awww, real music,” he said as you cut the cake. “You DO care!”

“Don’t read into it,” you shook your head and smiled a little, passing out plates. You poured each of you a beer and you gathered around your small table.

“To an honestly not bad birthday for the shittiest of birthdays,” Andrew raised his glass. You shook your head.

“If society ever returns, you’re not giving a toast at my wedding,” you teased.

You’d only gotten halfway through your beer and your slice of cake - Jess, as it turned out, was a talented baker - when there was a sharp knock on your door. The three of you looked at each other, frowning. Andrew gestured for both of you to stay put and tiptoed to the door. He checked the peephole before opening it, holding the door against his side so whoever it was couldn’t see in.

“Are you the Kid?” A woman’s voice you didn’t recognize asked. “I was told to come here and get the Kid, it’s urgent…”

You got up and went to the door, ducking below Andrew’s arm. He groaned.

“You couldn’t just stay at the table…” he muttered.

A woman, about 10 years older than you, was standing there. Her lip was swollen, blood at her arm where her shirt was torn. She looked you up and down, assessing you.

“You’re the Kid,” she said instead of asked it this time. “Jesus, you are young.”

“I’m 31,” you said defensively.

“Huh,” her eyes lingered on your hair. You’d put a ribbon on the end of your braid. “You look younger.”

“Thanks,” you said wryly. Andrew pulled you back against him, his hand on your shoulder possessively. You crossed your arms. “I take it you know Tommy?”

“And Joel,” she said. Andrew’s hand clenched you harder. “They need help and Tommy said I should come to you…”

“No,” Andrew said before you got a chance to respond. “I don’t care what shit they got themselves into…”

“I don’t think I was asking you,” the woman said. “Look, I don��t have time…”

“How bad is it?” You cut them both off. She looked you over again. You sighed. “Before the outbreak would you call an ambulance or drive to urgent care?”

“Ambulance.”

You shoved past Andrew and went to grab the go bag you kept stashed under your bed for emergency situations where they called you into the field from home. The woman had followed you inside. Jess waved awkwardly from the table.

“Celebrating?” The woman asked.

“It’s her birthday,” Jess nodded in your direction. The woman winced a little.

“Sorry about that.”

“Hasn’t been a day worth celebrating in a while,” you shrugged. “Don’t know why that should change now.”

Andrew grabbed your arm and you frowned up at him.

“You don’t need to do this,” he said. The woman stiffened, sizing him up. You ignored her.

“Yes I do.”

He pulled you in for a tight hug and sighed.

“Don’t let it destroy you.”

You gave him a stiff nod and hurried out into the night with the woman.

“Where are they?” You asked, walking quickly to the stairs. “Their apartment?” The woman nodded once. You started down the stairs and you looked her up and down. “Can you run?”

“There’s a reason I was the one to come get you,” she said.

You took off for their place the second you were down the stairs, glancing back to see that the other woman wasn’t far behind.

It had been months since you’d ventured into this part of the QZ. You’d actively avoided it. You tried not to think about the fact that it had been more than three months since you’d last seen Joel but you knew it would hurt. His picture was still on your bedside table. You thought about him all the time - when you found a clever line in a book you’d share if he were reading beside you, when you remembered the way he’d touch you without thinking about it because touching you was the most natural thing in the world, when you tried to channel his blunt way of moving through life when something about the QZ was especially frustrating. You’d missed him desperately before he came to Boston. It was worse now. He was so close, close enough that you could be touching him in just minutes and he’d never been further away. You were worried you were going to be stuck like this - longing and alone - forever.

And you were still running to his side.

The woman let you into their apartment. Joel was flat on his back in the middle of the living room floor, Tommy beside him with a towel on Joel’s side.

“Hey Kid,” Tommy said sheepishly. He was bleeding, too, what looked like a shallow knife wound on his ribs. You glared at him, going to the other side of Joel and dropping your pack next to him.

“I just patched you up fucking yesterday, Miller,” you said. “And this is what you do?”

“Can you lecture me after you save this asshole?” He asked.

“Move the towel,” you ordered. “I need to see what I’m working with.”

He obeyed, pulling the cloth away and revealing a bullet hole in Joel’s stomach.

“Son of a bitch,” you breathed. “You just had to fucking go outside the QZ again, didn’t you?”

“I know, I know,” he said. “Please say you can fix this…”

“I sure fucking hope so,” you looked between him and the woman. “Which of you is better with blood? Both with seeing it and have lost less of it?”

“I think I’ve lost less,” the woman said. Her fingers were winding around themselves. She was nervous.

“Good,” you said. “Tommy, move.” You grabbed the bag and went to where he’d been and looked at the woman. “You… I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”

“Tess.”

“Tess,” you repeated once, nodding. “You’re with me. Go wash your hands like you just swam in a sewer and you’re about to eat a sandwich. Tommy, I need light, a fuck ton of light. And boil water, I’m going to need sterile water.”

They both rushed to obey while you assessed the situation. Joel was unconscious. You tried really hard to not think about the fact that it was Joel who was unconscious. The bullet wound was your primary concern. You checked his pulse. It was a lot weaker than you wanted.

“Tommy,” you called. “How many towels have you gone through?”

“Three, I think?” He called back, running in with flashlights and depositing them next to you.

“Shit,” you muttered. Tess came back from the bathroom and you pulled a pack of gloves from your bag. “Put those on, hold pressure on the wound. I need to go scrub because I need to get in there.”

You pulled off your button down shirt leaving just your tank top below and left Tess there, trusting her to follow your instructions. You were still fighting not to panic about the fact that it was Joel bleeding out on the living room floor. You focused on the water running over your fingers, the soap, anything but whose life you were about to try to save.

Tess was holding the towel against Joel’s stomach when you came back in and you pulled on gloves, getting on your knees beside his body.

“This is going to be messy for multiple reasons,” you said, looking between Tess and Tommy. “Either of you ever drawn blood before?” They glanced at each other but were silent. “Either of you happen to know his blood type?”

“You don’t?” Tommy asked.

“Why would I know Joel’s blood type?” You looked at him like he was crazy.

“Weren’t you studying for that doctor exam when you were…”

“Yeah, I didn’t go around memorizing everyone’s blood types!” You closed your eyes for a second. This was going to take a small miracle. “Doesn’t matter. I’m O-, either of you O-?”

They shook their heads.

“Why’s that matter?” Tommy asked.

“Because I’m basically a walking blood bag,” you said, cracking your neck. “And he’s going to need a transfusion…”

“How are you going to transfuse him while operating?” Tess gaped at you.

“Fucking carefully I guess!” You snapped. “This is going to be a first for me, too, but unless you guys want to move him to the clinic and get potentially executed by FEDRA for leaving the QZ…”

“Right,” Tess nodded. “Right, OK…”

“Any other emergent injuries that I should know about besides the gunshot wound?” You asked. They were silent. You took a deep breath and nodded. “Alright, let’s do this. Tommy, I need light.”

He held the light over Joel’s stomach and you palpated his stomach, finding the bullet.

“Tommy,” you glanced up at him. “I’m not sure how unconscious he is, but if he starts moving, you need to hold him down. I don’t have anesthesia and I can’t have him thrashing around when I’m wrist deep in his abdominal cavity. If the call is light or holding him still, drop the light and hold him down, got it?”

He swallowed hard and then nodded. You picked up the scalpel, took a deep breath, and cut. Tommy made a gagging sound and you ignored him. You located the bullet quickly, lodged in the large intestine. All things considered, he got lucky. It had missed the pancreas, the stomach and the small intestine.

“Tess,” you said as you got ready to extract the bullet. “I need you to try to monitor his pulse. If it gets any fainter, we’ll have to start a transfusion now. Once I start pulling the bullet out, the bleeding could get a lot worse.”

You pried the bullet free, trying to move it as cleanly as possible down the path it had entered his body through - easier said than done without the proper tools. And he did start bleeding more. You just hoped it wouldn’t be too bad.

“I need gauze, from the kit, in the sterile packs.”

Tess moved quickly ripping it open. You yanked it out and stuffed the wound, giving you time to repair the damage to the large intestine without flooding the abdominal cavity with blood. “He’s getting pale,” Tess warned.

“Pulse?”

“I think it’s OK…”

You nodded, swapping out gauze.

“Tommy,” you said. “I need that water…”

He grabbed the still warm kettle, handing it to you. You splashed some on your skin. It was hot but didn’t burn. You cleaned the area and watched to see if he was still losing blood, if there was a repair you’d missed. You were pretty sure you’d caught everything.

“Good news,” you pulled the gauze from his body. “Damage was pretty minimal and it was a simple repair. I’m going to close him up, then we can just tap into me and finish this up…”

You stitched him up quickly and yanked the gloves off before switching them for a clean pair.

“In the bag, there should be a needle pack, alcohol wipes, some tubing and a tourniquet,” you said. “I need all of it.”

Tess moved quickly again, handing you the supplies. You didn’t have a bag to transition the blood from you to Joel, so you were going to have to settle for a direct transfusion. It wasn’t something that was ever really done anymore, but you’d read enough about it, you were pretty sure you could figure it out. You got everything set up and sat down, your back against the couch, before putting the needle in your own arm. You removed the tourniquet and blood started flowing from you into him. You slumped over a bit, finally able to take a breath. You kept his wrist in your hand to monitor his pulse.

“He should be largely out of the woods,” you said. Both Tess and Tommy visibly relaxed. “He’s going to need to take it easy for a while. Tommy, those antibiotics I gave you yesterday? Give Joel the same dosage. Track how many you give him, come by the clinic sometime this week when I’m there and I’ll give you another bottle.”

“Thank you,” Tess was watching you. “For doing this. Your friend was right, you didn’t have to…”

“Yes I did,” you closed your eyes and leaned your head back against the couch. “But I would have anyway.”

Tommy brought you a glass of water and you chugged it, trying to pay attention to how long you’d been transferring blood and how strong Joel’s pulse was. His color was getting a bit better. Tess and Tommy were talking in hushed tones in the kitchen but you didn’t care.

You hadn’t realized how long it had been since you’d seen Joel without tension in his face. He was soft and beautiful like this. It reminded you of life with him in Texas, when the biggest problems you had were whether or not Sarah should do regular soccer or travel soccer. You had to resist the urge to touch him, kiss him. Fuck, you loved him. You’d always be stuck loving him.

You decided to enjoy it. You doubted you’d have a chance to see him like this ever again, so you quietly memorized his face, the flecks of gray coming into his beard, the creases around his eyes, the precise arch of his nose. You looked away for a moment to check the status of his incision - relieved to see that it wasn’t oozing blood - when the hand that was in your fingers started to move.

You tightened your grip on him - not wanting to disturb the transfusion - but watched his face. “Tommy,” you called over your shoulder, still watching Joel. He and Tess both rushed over, the three of you watching as Joel slowly came round.

His eyes found you first and you braced yourself for his wrath, but it didn’t come.

“Hey Baby,” his lips tugged up at the edges. “Did I die? What are you doin’ here?”

“Not dead,” your heart was racing. “You’re very much alive, despite your best efforts.”

“He doesn’t remember,” Tommy said. “Why doesn’t he remember?”

“He will,” you said. “He’s just out of it. He probably won’t remember this at all, which is just as well…”

“Always remember you…” he muttered. He tried to sit up but you pushed him back down. His eyes drifted over you. “Even dead you’re so fuckin’ pretty…”

“Not dead, Joel. Giving you a blood transfusion right now,” you said. “And you just had surgery. You need to lie still for me, OK?”

“Knew you’d be a doctor,” he mumbled, closing his eyes again. “My girl the doctor…”

“That’s me alright,” you said, feeling light headed. You looked up at Tommy. “Hold him down for me? I think he’s got enough blood now and I can’t stand losing much more…”

Tommy listened as you stopped the transfusion and got everything cleaned up. Joel was unconscious again, but no longer bleeding out.

“He’ll need to be monitored for the next 48 hours,” you said, writing out some basic care instructions. “Anything goes to shit, Tommy, you know where to find me. And don’t forget about the antibiotics. We can’t have him getting infected…”

“We can pay you when we cash in from this run,” Tess said, her hands in her back pockets as she watched you. You frowned.

“I don’t want your money,” you said.

“I’m not comfortable owing someone,” she replied. You read between the lines. She wasn’t comfortable owing you, Joel’s ex. Something told you that Tommy hadn’t mentioned the specifics of your relationship to Joel. And Joel had moved on. Of course he’d moved on. There was a stabbing pain in your chest that you’d have to cry about once you were out of here.

“You don’t,” you said, desperate to go home. “Really. Hippocratic oath and all that…”

“There has to be something you need,” she said.

You looked at her, thinking for a moment before settling on something.

“Can you take me outside the QZ?”

A/N: Soooooo please excuse any and all medical errors in this sucker. I word for a living (that's right, I write all day at work and then I get on my personal laptop and write all evening because why not.) I know jack crap about anything medical beyond what some googling does and the fact that I binged watched both Grey's Anatomy and E.R. at the start of the pandemic. This is probably a medical disaster area but just act like I know what I'm talking about, OK? It'll be way more fun that way.

Thank you as always for reading! We're into the QZ era of the story which I might be weirdly excited about given the realities of it. I have lots planned for this chunk of the fic and I hope you all enjoy it. I love love LOVE reading all your comments and seeing what you respond to and connect with. Thanks so much for sticking with this story! I love you all!

Taglist (just comment below if you want to be added!): @paleidiot @ayamenimthiriel @ginger-swag-rapunzel @drewharrisonwriter

#fanfic #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you

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