May I: The Other Side of the Door

Two hours ago, he had carried her into the emergency room. She had let out that heartbreaking cry again when he had picked her up out of the seat.  His voice was gentle as he had soothed her; his fingers running through her hair. She began crying again, which made the minutes seem agonizingly long—despite a minute walk through the doors.

A blonde haired nurse poked her head up from behind the desk. She had a kind smile that faded when she saw him carrying Gillian in her arms. She asked him a few questions as he set her onto the gurney. Another nurse with black spiky hair, who had brought the gurney in, took Gillian’s pulse.

After the blonde haired nurse had asked what relation he was to her, he responded with “Her boss.”  At the time, he didn’t think to say friend—but it was just as well. She had asked him a few other questions and then whisked Gillian back, promising to take good care of her.

For about an hour, he had paced back and forth. He had contemplated calling Emily to let her know where he was, but he could see her driving over here in panic. Gillian had become a second mother to her. This was definitely something that could wait until morning.

Loker, Torres and Reynolds—the only thing they needed to know was that Gillian was taking a personal day—or quite a few. He still wouldn’t know until the doctor updated him on the exact nature of what they were dealing with. 

After getting nothing new out of the nurses that were at the front desk—besides that Gillian was still in with the doctor—he had finally resorted to sitting; watching the clock, going through the rather collective magazines in the waiting room.

Finally the doctor that had seen her four days ago, emerged through the doors. It didn’t take long to abandon the magazine on the desk. “Dr. Lightman.” The doctor greeted him with a firm handshake, nodding.

“Dr. Tucker.” He greeted, shaking his hand back. The middle aged man with dark brown hair, oval face—looked rather tired, relieved, bothered all rolled into one.

“I’m just going to get right to it.” Dr. Tucker jumped in, rubbing at the edge of his brow. “Gillian . . . I talked to another doctor—Dr. Henries and we both think that Dr. Foster is experiencing what we call PTSD—among other things. I take it you already knew that, since as a psychiatrist you’re able to recognize some of the signs. Upon examining her, I found that she has developed pneumonia, since we saw her last. She’s also mildly dehydrated and has a severe case of exhaustion”

Cal processed through the information; putting it in the back of his mind that he should have tried sooner to get through to her, but he knew that somewhere, she knew what she was doing. Despite the fact that she was sleeping in her office, he could tell that she hadn’t been sleeping. Except for he had ignored it. He had ignored it all.

“Okay—so that explains the high fever that she developed rather quickly during the night—but how does something like pneumonia not get diagnosed?”

Opening the file in his hand, Dr. Tucker looked over the notes. “When she came in four days ago, her blood count was at a pretty normal range. Due to the immense stress as well as the lack of sleep—even in a healthy body like Dr. Foster’s— it was most likely unable to fight off any sickness that it was subjected to when she left. Even then, because she was brought in before it got any worse . . . we were able to start treating her with antibiotics and fluids.”

“That’s the good news. What’s the bad news that you’re not saying?” Cal inquired, his eyes shifting back and forth.

Dr. Tucker pursed his lips together for a moment, looking quite thoughtful. Tucking the file under his arm, he answered his question. “I want to keep Dr. Foster here for a couple days. I left her a list of psychiatrists that she can talk to—including our head psychiatrist, Dr. Henries. “Opening the file again, Dr.Tucker pulled out a paper and handed it to him.

“How did Dr. Foster take it when you gave her this?” He asked, holding up the paper.

Shrugging with a small smile, Dr. Tucker closed the file. “She reacted like any doctor would—she understood why I was obligated to give it to her, just as much as I understood why she didn’t want to stay when she signed the release form.” A nurse with red hair called over to him. “If you’ll excuse me. I need to check up on one of my patients. But I fully expect you to be here at the crack of dawn. We’ll talk more then.” He half-joked. They shook hands and the doctor disappeared behind the wooden doors.

Gathering his coat from the chair that he had been sitting in, Cal realized that it was quite the downpour, with massive amounts of lightning that lit up the sky, and thunder that rattled the otherwise quiet early morning.   

Despite it, he had found a rather close parking spot that he didn’t have to walk too far. He kept his hands in his pocket as he left, then unlocked the door quickly and got in. Putting the keys into the ignition, the engine roared to life. Quickly brushing off the stray amount of water, he backed up and sped off towards home.

When he got there about forty five minutes later—due to the continuing rain—he quickly unlocked the door to a dark house. He clicked on the light, and took off his coat, only to see that Emily was fast asleep on the couch; she must have waited for him to get home.

Hanging up his coat on the rack, he adjusted the blanket around her body and turned off the light again and walked swiftly down the hall and closed the door behind him.

---

Gillian woke up, feeling rather strange. Her body felt heavy, her headache had returned and she felt weak. The last thing she remembered was having some crazy dream about Cal making chicken noodle soup. Although it felt real, she could sense that she wasn’t lying on her couch any longer.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she was greeted with partial darkness. It was quiet, and she recognized that she was lying in a bed, with thin sheets and a blanket on top of it. Her pulse was being taken by the monitor on her finger.

The curtain was drawn, which gave her privacy. She sat there for a moment and sighed, before she threw back the sheet and blanket. It wasn’t the proudest moment, when she realized that she was once again dressed in what she called: the paper thin cover.

Shivering she sat up slowly and turned off the monitor, as not to alert anyone. Clipping it on the sheet, she tied the gown tighter, in order to avoid any gaps and grabbed the bag of fluids, before peeking around the corner of the curtain.

She could tell by the heavy breathing, that her neighbor was fast asleep. Going into the bathroom, she closed and locked the door behind her.

The walls were white, and so were the tiles. There was one sink, shower and a mirror. Now she knew how her patients felt. Shuffling over to the sink, she grasped the edge of the white sink.

She hadn’t looked into the mirror in almost four days and she knew that she probably looked horrible. Lack of sleep, the nightmares that wouldn’t end, and especially that Ava had asked her to look over Sophie—practically threw her over the edge.

It was too much. She felt her chest start to tighten and realized that she was starting to have a panic attack. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to breath in and out slowly. She opened her eyes and found herself looking straight into the mirror.

Her hair was slightly messy, bags underneath her eyes. Before she could go on, there was a knock at the door. “Dr. Foster?”

“Yes.”

“Just making you were in there.” She guessed it was one of the nurses, coming to check up on her. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah. I’ll be out in a few minutes.” Gillian offered, and then sighed. With one last look, she did everything that she needed to; her hand on the knob, she took in a much needed breath, before unlocking it.

She considered not to come out, but figured that would allow the nurses to knock down the door. When she was first starting out and had a job at a hospital, she actually had to do it. The patient was scared and had locked herself into the bathroom. They finally had to call her down when the patient started freaking out and said that she would only talk to her.

It didn’t make total sense how that patient had been feeling, but now she did. A nurse with blonde hair greeted her. “Guess I don’t have to ask how you’re feeling.”She held up the monitor that had been clipped to the sheet.

Gillian shrugged, handing the IV bag back to her. “Call it—doctor intuition.”  The nurse gave her and small smile and helped her back into bed. She let out a small shiver, hoping the nurse hadn’t seen it.

But she had. She helped her put the covers back over her body. The nurse informed her that she was going to take her vitals and pulled out the thermometer to take her temperature. “I wish all my patients would have great as friend as yours. You were lucky that he brought you in when he did.”

“What makes you say that?”

She pulled out the thermometer from her ear. “You had a temperature of 104.2 when you came in this morning.”

“No wonder I look like death.”

Smiling gently, she introduced herself as she put the thermometer down. “I’m going to take your pulse now.” With that, she placed two fingers on the side of her wrist, to find her pulse.

Gillian focused on taking deep breathes and the nurse was done in no time. She wrote something in her chart and Gillian shivered again. “Your pulse looks good. I’ll be back in another half an hour to take your vitals again. I’m Samantha, by the way. I’ll be taking care of you for the remainder of your stay here.”

“Gillian.” Nodding, she offered; looking at the chart. “Only my patients or clients call me Dr. Foster.” Samantha looked over at her. “Noted. You don’t think I could have a peek at that, do you?”

She closed the file and tossed it to the side. “Since you just woke up, I’m sure you want to know why you’re actually here.”

“Yes.”

“You were brought in with a high fever, mild dehydration and a severe case of exhaustion. Dr. Tucker found that you were showing symptoms of pneumonia and possibly PTSD.”

“PTSD?”

“Have you been sick recently with a cold or the flu?”

“Last month, I had a little bit of a cold. How long does Dr. Tucker want me to stay here?” She had every right to sound irritated. The hospital was the last place she wanted to be right now, and considering that she had been diagnosed with PTSD that meant she would talking to someone later on.

“At least a couple days. But I would definitely talk to him in a couple of hours, when he comes around to do his rounds. He can fill you in on everything—as well as answer any questions might be thinking about.”

Gillian sighed, relaxing back into the pillow. Samantha was gathering the thermometer and the file into her hands. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. If you need anything, push the red button down and someone will come help you. I should be on for another four hours and then I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, so I should be around for a little bit longer before the nurse change. Try and get some sleep. It’ll help the time pass by a little faster.” Nodding, Gillian sunk back into the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.