there is no end to what a living world will demand of you

“Uh, uh, uh,” Olivia challenged, her index finger sticking up and swinging a flat no from side to side as they walked, “I believe what you meant to say was that I am the tough target. No target has ever been this tough.” She liked to consider herself a hard cookie – one left out on the counter and absorbing every bit of air until she turned rock solid. Until no amounts of warm milk would soften her. The childish comparison felt quite…fitting. No one wanted to eat those cookies, just as no one stuck around for long after they realized just how fucked up her head really was. So omitting parts of herself, even to Gwen, had become the go-to tactic. Yes, she’d be a hard cookie – but at least the chocolate chips would makes someone stick around. And Olivia was, unfortunately, so tired of being lonely. So fed up with the emptiness in her home, in her heart. Maybe this desperation was what had her opening up, even mildly, to Gwen. What had her showing the chocolate and few almonds that still lingered here and there. Hidden. Frightened. The softest pasts of her were reserved for those she trusted – were reserved for Gwen, mostly. At any rate, no one deserved  those portions, that sweetness, more than her friend. Her dearest friend ( even before the apocalypse ). 

“Not yet. I was planning on asking you tonight but you went and ruined that surprise now, didn’t you?” She clicked her tongue, let a tsk slip past her. “What am I supposed to do? Nothing screams ‘I love you’ quite as much as a corpse. Honestly, I’m stumped.” Ollie’s eyes observed as Robo’s leash became shorter, and he was called back to calm down. She understood that – keeping the enthusiasm on a leash. She understood the importance of containment. All good things turned to chaos ( of course, Robo’s form of chaos would undoubtedly involve muddy paws at best but still ), and Olivia had placed leash on her own neck just to remind herself to stop – to remind herself that this temporary joy would be gone someday ( or at some time in the near future ). “Oh, no, the reason we don’t go on dates is because you eat all my french fries – how the hell am I supposed to function in the classroom without sustenance?” Ah – there her mouth went. First Ritvik, now this. Her leash certainly needed to be shortened even more. Ollie did what she did best – continued on without paying the passing comment much mind. Maybe Gwen wouldn’t notice. Maybe she’d simply be deaf to the words. She could only hope ( and her cynical head had never been any good at that ). “No one,” she replied dismissively “just a ghost.” Appropriate, considering the man had fucking vanished like one – okay, so maybe it was more than bitterness residing inside of her. "Ew, Gwen, I did not want to know details about your sex life and all the kinky shit you’re into.”

“Mmm, I don’t know.” She smiled smugly. “You’d be surprised how hard it is to build rapport with someone who is in four point restraints and trying to bite your face off.” After considering the relevance of the scenario, she chuckled. “Well, maybe that’s more of a universal experience now than it was back then.” Olivia was one tough nut to crack. Maybe that was part of Gwen’s fondness for her. Over the years, she’d never been able to hold onto many friendships. People were fascinating ... until they weren’t. Once Gwen had figured a person out, the appeal seemed to wear off. She’d still be the person to call when you needed help ( a ride to the airport, questions about spider bites, etc. ), but even others who’d felt that closeness with her over the span of a few months could feel the distance within her. It was an impossible position--eternal loneliness paired with tenacious solitude. There were few people who captivated her long enough to become permanent to her and, among those left, she had only Callum and Ollie.

After all this time, there was still a lot about Ollie that was a mystery. “Classroom?” She asked before thinking better of it, stopping herself from inquiring further. Sometimes an uncomfortable silence was requisite to get a person to open up. At the response, ‘no one,’ Gwen frowned but pressed no further. If Olivia wanted her ghosts to haunt hallowed grounds, Gwen wouldn’t force her to let them slink through iron bars, spreading ectoplasm in their wake. They’d known each other almost TWO YEARS now. She knew when to be patient with her friend and when to push.

“Oh, my god, Olivia.” She laughed. "You are fucking terrible.” The over emphasis and formality of her friend’s name was enough, Gwen hoped, to get her to take it easy on Callum for a few. Or at least  “Be good and I’ll tell you my funniest foreign body story from the ER days.” Gwen smiled wryly, knowing full well she was baiting Ollie with the same sort of garbage articles people had shared on facebook like ‘you'll never guess what your favorite food says about your sex life’ or online quizzes that determined which pokemon you were most like. “And you won't guess what ended up where.” A playful dance of her eyebrows mimicked the humor in her tone as Gwen threw a smirk at the friend at her side. It was part of the fun of working in an ER; nobody had a better story and at least Olivia had a fucked up enough sense of humor that Gwen didn’t feel like she was VIOLATING her delicate constitution. Most survivors tended to laugh and joke about things they’d once found abhorrent, but the same folks would’ve scoffed if they’d overheard the raven haired nurse jokingly tell a coworker, covering her patients for lunch, not to let someone CODE before she got back. The ER was made for adrenaline junkies and, at least for most people, codes felt like you were DOING something. Transient abdominal pain in a patient who’d been in last week and was determined to be drug seeking? You could give them compassion, assistance, but you couldn’t fix their REAL problem in a four hour ER visit. NO, but with codes you could either fix them or you couldn’t. The act was a well-choreographed team dance and if you couldn’t save a life, well, they were dead by the they got to you and you’d done all you could.

It was easy to detect who was a survivor of Cheyenne and who was a raider; raiders enjoyed the fight. For the rest of them, they all mostly wanted to scavenge and hope to hell that nothing blocked their path. It was obvious that either that figure ( whom he didn’t really get to see all that well with the lack of lighting ) was a survivor or a very tame raider. When Gwen pushed herself out from under the bed, grabbing at his arms, it took very little effort to grab her and hoist her the rest of the way up to her feet. He immediately kissed the top of her forehead, a rather protective and short kiss, before reaching down to pet Robo. He immediately grabbed out a small piece of food and gave it out to him; this was a job well done for Robo. Callum wasn’t around for long but Gwen did a great job training him and whether that was instinct or not, he was grateful for Robo and his natural wish to protect Gwen.

However, as proud and relieved as he was, it couldn’t last long with the siren wailing around them. He knew the sound wasn’t in their building but the traffic around Cheyenne was going to be heavy and it was going to be heavy FAST. He could feel his adrenaline kick in and his mind was already flashing towards the various options they needed to decide on. “I’m honestly surprised that an alarm can even go off these days. It’s been years..” He shook his head, “Could it be a camp? Does any camp have that sort of alarm system?” He thought it over, his expression clearly puzzled. “No, that can’t be. It wouldn’t make sense.”

There was no point in trying to figure it out; they needed to act fast. “The undead are gonna be everywhere in a few minutes. I’m not sure if trying to go back is smart. But I don’t know this building well and I’m not sure how it’ll hold up if they try to get in here.” He looked at Gwen, suddenly hating the thought of allowing her to come. It’s selfish, he knows, but he wishes more than anything that she was back at camp, safe. Well, as safe as she could be. “We could board this place up or maybe we can try to get roof access and see what the streets are looking like.”

Empathy was an emotion that came naturally to Gwen, but even still it was a practice. Those born with pianist hands and music in their souls still required intention, diligence. If the emergency room had TESTED her capacity for compassion time and time again, the apocalypse had run her through the wringer. The tenuous grace she’d had for the raiders had already been pulled taught as a piano wire and when they’d attempted to snuff out the flame on Callum’s light, the wire had snapped. Taking with it her lingering understanding of their experience and all but destroying her pledge PRIMUM NON NOCERE; DO NO HARM. She’d silenced that very note with two angry shots penetrating deep into raider flesh. Callum circumvented all moral integrity for her and though she felt it would grieve him to know it, she knew she would make the same sacrifice of principles for his safety and health above all else. He would do the same for her and–as the siren scared their guest away–she was grateful that neither one would find need to prove their mettle this day, on top of everything else.

Callum’s swift response and comforting kiss was earnest and held the urgency of protection in its wake. Even the sudden and well-earned reward for the dog that was as much her family as he had become Callum’s lacked a softness in the auditory assault that beat ear drums like experienced taiko drummers, making Gwen’s eyes water. “Yeah, I can’t even think of what one would be sounded for?” Gwen’s words came slowly, mind distracted by the BLARING SOUND as the cogs behind her eyes turned, parsing out and eliminating the possibilities. Like in the ER, differential diagnoses were eliminated through tests and observation. Generally, diagnoses were made by first determining what something was NOT ( 35 year old with chest pain? It’s not a myocardial infarction, it’s not an unstable rhythm, it’s nothing pulmonary…here we go ! Acute pancreatitis. Bravo team. And so forth ).  

“Could it be the capitol maybe?” Certainly they’d have some sort of storm warning system, she wondered silently. “Tornadoes … or, not earthquakes maybe, but something else?” Even well accustomed to the shrill beeping of heart monitors, dropping O2 sats, call lights, and the thick, old school candybar cell phones ER nurses carried, the sheer force of the alarm sound interrupted her concentration, making it difficult to move thoughts through her voicebox, past lips and into words–her voice straining over the sound of the alarm. “I think we should check from the roof.” She called over the siren, before her mind registered that the sound had ceased, its echo still ringing in her ears. “Shit…do I have tinnitus now or is that thing really done?” Regardless, the roof still seemed the best course of action if they hoped to discover its purpose. “What do you think?” Brows knitted together as she looked up at him, a nonverbal question mark on her face above those large brown eyes.

           her arms CRADLED a child , a dirty blanket wrapped around it. she had heard a cry from a run down car - && with the luck they’ve had with the alarm , && with raiders , she went to investigate , help out the family. but she only came back with a sleeping infant , legs striding quickly through the halls of the medical center ; trying to find anyone that would help her out. she stopped a passerby for the third time that day , body bopping the child. “ tell me you have or know someone who knows how to help a child … because i’m swimming in unknown waters over here. ”

In the ER, there were two patients that almost universally tensed the muscles of every healthcare provider in the department: pregnant woman and babies. After awhile, Gwen had learned not to DREAD infant patients--discovering that, generally,  their presence was the result of a nervous parent, but a relatively healthy baby. After the outbreak, Gwen had rarely seen an infant--sick or not sick--and the prospect of a pediatric patient had become much more adrenaline inducing than it ever had been before. The ER was patch ‘em up, ship ‘em out to a higher level of care. All she’d had to do was stabilize them enough to get them going to a children’s hospital. Now, she was her best and only resource. 

“Bring him here.” She told the other woman, recognizing the tension they both carried. “Here--” Gesturing to one of the exam tables, Gwen took her stethoscope from around her neck and grabbed a folded blanket. “--get them undressed. Where did you find them? What seems to be the matter?” Gwen made quick work while, speaking, assessing the infant’s skin ( pink, warm, and dry--good, good ) and eyeballing its belly for retractions that would signify respiratory distress as she listened to its lungs and heart. “What do you know about this child?”