Harlan Hospital

Nurse Gael Sandoval finished organizing the box of supplies and tried hard not to cringe as Doctor Miriam Linderman went into her spiel with yet another family. He'd heard it before as she'd turned people out, but it never got any easier to hear. She used to be such a compassionate woman. The end of the world had changed her.

"I told you this when you first arrived. This isn't a colony," she told the family standing in front of her. "And it's not a free clinic. You pay us. Food, medical supplies, and weapons, whatever you have that we need. We treat your wounded and then you leave. Get it? You leave. We don't house you. We don't feed you. We don't arm you or provide transportation. We just treat your wounded. There're maps over there. Take one. It's got all the colonies that've been rumored between here and the west coast. The ones marked with red have been disproved. Overrun by mutants or slavers, or just plain didn't exist. The rest... well... your guess is as good as ours. Good luck."

Lia ducked instinctually at the sudden explosion. "Hopefully we didn't alert anyone to our presence with that," she grumbled, climbing back into the driver's seat. "We set?" she asked.

Seabay nodded in the back. "Set here. Zack? Josh?"

"Sure," Zack answered, hunting around like a plastic bag or something for Josh. "but we might want to get where we're going soon."

Lia suppressed an eye-roll. "Yeah, kinda doing my best there," she answered Zack as she started the car forward again. "It's a little difficult given the state of the roads and the roadblocks and all." Despite the cleared wreckage, the road continued to be difficult to navigate, and the teenager had to take it rather slowly to avoid the multitudes of chasms and cars littering the way.

"Is Josh getting any worse?" Seb asked worriedly.

"I think maybe he is," Zack answered as quietly as he could manage, mindful of Josh's pounding head. Josh leaned forward, drawing slow deep breaths, his head compressed between his hands.

"You mean... like swelling of the brain and stuff?" Seabay asked, gripping his seatbelt with white knuckles. Where on earth would they find help for anything serious now? Hospitals weren't like they used to be.

"Any idea which way?" Lia asked as they neared an intersection. She looked back at Josh and Zack, as they generally seemed to be the ones to indicate where they were headed. Whatever sign there had been was long rusted over and now illegible. Still, the idea that what they had left behind them might catch up soon nagged her. The fact of the matter was that everything the others were discussing was starting to worry her. Josh would be fine. He always was... right?

"I mean his head hurts like it's going to explode and he feels weak and sick." Zack answered, moving to the back of the SUV to the first aid packs again.

<I'll be fine,> Josh's voice assured Lia, though not aloud at all. He didn't dare move or speak. Not if he wanted to hold himself together.

"Which sounds like swelling of the brain," Lia answered under her breath, deciding on a right turn. It seemed as good a way to go as any. "Eeny meenie miney mo!" At least the road here was clearer, and she was able to accelerate. "Seb, any idea on how we can help him?" she asked their pseudo-medical expert.

"So maybe just that concussion still," the blind teen stated, hoping he was right. "Might not be anything else." He wracked his rain for what he heard nurses say while he was hospitalized. "Um... anything that reduces inflammation? We got anything like that, Zack? Prednisone or something?"

Zack came back with two hypos in his hand. The first he injected without objection. "Yeah...I've got some of that," Zack told Seb. When he attempted to inject he second, however, Josh gripped his wrist, "We have to, Josh." Zack told him quietly. "You're already weakening."

Were those... lights ahead? "I think I see something," Lia announced, speeding up even further despite her better judgment. It wasn't much longer before they were within reach of a large, grey building. It seemed to be falling apart, but perhaps it was still inhabited. "Hospital!" she said gleefully, driving quickly up to the door and slamming on the breaks. "You're all very welcome."

"Anything good?" the blind boy asked Lia. "Good, Zack. It's... the only thing I can think of. I mean, brain surgery was done by the Egyptians, but that's still something I don't know if we could... well, I bet they were better at it than any of us could be?"

A young-ish male in blue scrubs met the SUV, "You can't park here," he said when Zack opened the door. "Emergencies only."

"This /is/ an emergency," Lia answered without missing a beat, opening Josh's door. "Come on, Josh-o. Out." She hoped these people could help.

"We /have/ an emergency," Seb snapped from inside, unbelting and shifting over to try helping Zack with Josh. "Some nutcases attacked him."

"Right. Okay. What do we have?" the male asked, stepping back to let them out. Zack helped Josh out, crying out when his brother's legs gave out from underneath him. "Okay, I need a gurney out here," the man called back.

Quickly, an older blonde female and a heavy set male, each dressed similar to the first man, hurried out with a gurney. "Come on, you can fill me in on the way," the man told the other three, but quickly amended, "After one of you move that thing. We'll be in bay two."

"Seb, care to do the honors?" Lia asked the blind teen wryly.

Zack took Hattie by the hand, grateful when she simply exited the vehicle with him. "I think maybe he better come with me," he told Lia, rolling his eyes.

Seabay and Marta followed Josh ad Zac out of the back and the blind teen fumbled about to find and help lift Josh. "Lia, only if you want the thing totaled. Or wrapped around a pole," he quipped back. "We'll meet you inside."

Lia grimaced, though of course it had just been a joke. "I guess I have to do everything around here," she called back to the others before climbing back in to the SUV. She silently hoped that /these/ people were ones they could trust. They'd had enough intrigue and two-facing and back stabbing for one night.

"Okay, who wants to tell me about your friend?" the male said, leading them inside in the wake of the gurney.

"Marta, follow," the blind teen commanded. Gripping Marta's harness, Seb shrugged. He was going to leave it to Zack to explain. He didn't know how to describe werewolves in a way that sounded like anything but fiction.

"He got attacked by some strangers a couple towns back," Zack answered honestly enough, he thought. "Ended up with his head split in a couple places and some pretty serious bruises and things. I'm not sure how bad those are, but I know he's been sick to his stomach and his head's exploding since."

"Is this the first time he's lost consciousness?" the man asked, writing down the information on a clipboard.

Seabay shrugged, just trying to keep pace. His legs ached. He wasn't up to so much activity in a burst like today, and it was making him limp when he moved. Luckily Marta was big--he leaned on her.

"No, he's been kind of in and out," Zack answered. "Look, can we get him a wheelchair so he can keep up. I don't want to fall behind, but I don't want to leave him behind either."

"Marta will lead me to you--I'll catch up," Seb assurred. "Besides, Lia needs to catch up."

The man stopped and eyed Seb critically before waving for a wheelchair to be brought over. "Sorry. I didn't realize...." he said softly. "We can wait for her a moment," he suggested to the teens. "it'll be a few minutes before we have a doctor available to look at your friend anyway."

The blind teen waved for them to not worry. "I'll be fine. Josh is the priority. Like I said, Marta will lead me to you. And f Lia catches up to me, I can guide her." Though he sat on the wheelchair with a grateful sigh. "I'm just a bit tired, Zack. Don't worry--you know what Marta can do."

Lia had to drive through a few times to find the area where the SUV was supposed to be parked. "Stay girl," she instructed the vehicle before turning back toward the building. It was eerie to look at the thing against the dark of night, even if it was supposed to be a beacon of hope.

Finally making her way back toward the building, Lia resolved to at least see Josh healed. If asses would need to be kicked here as well, well, asses would be. Until then, she'd have to trust them with her friends' and her lives. "I'm coming, I'm coming," she told the group as she saw them standing in the hallway. "How's Josh?" she then asked.




A woman in a white lab coat approached, a hint of a scowl upon her face. "What do we have, Sandoval?" she asked, looking at Seb curiously as she reached for the clipboard in the man's hands.

"Patient's in bay two," the male nurse who’d first addressed them answered, handing over the chart.

The doctor looked it over quickly, then turned to the others, eyeing them critically. "You're all family?" she asked skeptically.

Lia nodded her head without hesitation. "Yup."

Marta sat by her master, leaning against his leg. "As much as family survives these days," Seabay admitted. "But yeah think of us as one."

"Yes, ma'am," Zack answered quickly. "I'm Zack Jenson. This is my sister Lia, and my brother Zen."

He knew better than to use Garrity, given how it had been compromised before, and he wasn't about to risk using Sebastian's name, either.

"I see," the doctor sighed, shaking her head. "And she is?"

The little redhead looked shell-shocked and the doctor considered ordering her to a bay as well, prompting Zack to put an arm around the child protectively.

Lia looked at the doctor as if that should have been obvious. "We had prolific parents."

Seb smiled and shrugged.

"I see." the doctor said again. "Well, here's the deal. This isn't a colony. and it's not a free clinic. You pay us. Food, medical supplies, and weapons, whatever you have that we need. We treat your wounded and then you leave. Get it? You leave. We don't house you. We don't feed you. We don't arm you or provide transportation. We just treat your wounded. There're maps over there. Take one. It's got all the colonies that've been rumored between here and the west coast. The ones marked with red have been disproved. Overrun by mutants or slavers, or just plain didn't exist. The rest... well... your guess is as good as ours. Got it?"

The nurse, Sandoval, visibly cringed as she launched into her spiel. It was obvious he hated it.

"Is..." she looked down at the chart, "Joshua...the only one of you who needs to be checked out?"

Seabay stiffened at the doctor's attitude, then nodded. "Yeah, just Josh. The rest of us can manage. What do you need? We might have some stuff to trade, at least."

"You'll get whatever we can afford to give you," Lia said quickly. She was tired and cranky, and she didn't like hospitals, especially not ones set in a post-apocalyptic setting. She knew she should be grateful for this place, but... well, she would prefer to simply not have had a use for it. "But we'll leave. And just Josh. Like Zen said," she added quickly, trying not to stumble over Seb's made-up name.

Marta growled softly, feeling Seabay's discomfort and sensing their group's upset.

"Good," the doctor said, moving off to bay two without another thought for the others beyond, "Pay the clerk and wait in the waiting area for now."

"Sorry," Sandoval told the others once the doctor had disappeared into the bay. "I'll help you guys get settled, then check in on your brother for you."

"Zack stays with him," Seb insisted. "You don't trust us, I'm sure. But we don't trust you, either."

"I'd love to let him do that," Sandoval sighed, “but I'm not sure Linderman will allow it." He looked at them, his expression sincere. "I'm sorry."

Seabay snorted. "You want him to let you do anything if he wakes? You keep Zack with him. Or else he'll fight you. And you won't be able to help much," he pointed out. "No parents, remember? Zack can calm him."

Lia's eyebrow raised. "Or, I can stay with him, then. Your choice. Who'd you rather have, the loud, obnoxious teenage girl or the respectable, calm boy? I definitely wouldn't be able to calm Josh when he woke up the way Zack can," she then agreed with Sebastian.

"If he refuses treatment, they simply won't treat him." the nurse sighed. "Linderman's not very sympathetic anymore, I'm afraid."

Zack didn't bother trying to debate further. Instead, he marched to bay two and entered, only to be backed out by one of the gurney pushers. "Look, kid, the doc said wait in there, you wait in there." the man argued.

Seb made a face. "Then we take him and move on because you're useless. Hell, anywhere else they let a parent stay with a hurt kid. You pick one of us or we move on."

Slight as she was, Lia went to the gurney-pusher and faced him square-on, folding her arms as if she were daring him to try something. "If I'm to pay for services, then I'm going to get services worth paying for. Let Zack in." Lia demanded.


"For God's sake, he was concussed. You'd need him as calm as possible anyway,” Seb pressed on, “and sedating's stupid when he needs to be assessed for his awareness."

The nurse hesitated a moment, then hurried toward them, telling the others, "Wait here." He pulled the gurney pusher aside and whispered something to him. The argument was brief, ending with the nurse reaching around the gurney pusher, taking Zack gently by the arm, and guiding him back into the room. Moments later, the doctor and the nurse were in the hallway having the same argument, ending with the doctor going back in, but nobody else coming out. The nurse came back to them. "Okay...they stay together." he said, drawing Lia back toward Seb. "You were right. Our regs are stupid." he admitted with a shrug. "However, Linderman's promised to have my head, so I hope you've got another seat in that SUV when you pull out."

Lia shrugged off the nurse. "Don't touch me," she growled, then settled a moment. "But thanks. And sorry for the trouble." Though there wouldn't have been any trouble had these people not started it.

Seabay glanced at Lia and shrugged. "We might. You can guess we need a consensus." He rubbed Marta's head, and the dog settled a little... though she was still wary.

The dancer wasn't ready to answer this man yet. She wasn't about to make a decision on this, particularly not on her own. "How long before we know anything?" she asked.

"It's not your fault," the nurse said with a sigh, taking a set in the waiting area. "and it's hard to say. It depends on how severe his injuries are and how much they need to do to stabilize him. I'll go back in a short while and see how things are going, assuming of course she'll let me back in."

"Well, if she doesn't let you, one of us'll be barging in and making more of a fuss, I'm sure," Seb pointed out.

"Okay," Lia answered simply, plopping down into a nearby seat. There was the matter of payment to figure out, but she wasn't about to go volunteer items yet, not when they may see that eagerness to part with anything as an invitation to demand more. "We'll be here."

“Okay,” the nurse sighed. “I’ll find out what I can. Meanwhile, here’s the thing,” his voice dropped so that only they could hear him. “Don’t offer any payment. They’ll take what you offer and demand more. Let them state what they want and lowball if you can. You’re going to need whatever you’ve got and we still get shipments from the military base right now to help us out. Also, and this is important, if they try to talk to you about Operation Fresh Start…say no. You don’t want any part of it. Remember that.” That said, he turned and hurried toward the medical bay to check in on their brother, hoping they’d heed his warnings, as he didn’t dare offer them a second time.

Just outside the small waiting area Tanya, a tall, dark haired, obviously pregnant teenage girl, argued with a female nurse. "Look, I don't care about a fresh start. I just want checked to make sure the baby's ok., then I want to get the hell out of here. Damn. Give me a break. "

The female nurse was insistent. "Operation Fresh Start is all about helping girls like you produce stronger, healthier infants. The doctors, nurses, and technicians involved have a vested interest in ensuring that you and your infant receive intensive individualized attention. All you have to do is sign the forms and waivers and let us take you to Our OFS facility."

"I don't give a damn what it's about, I said no, ok? Now will you stop harrassing me and just get the fucking doctor, please? " Tanya shouted. Why weren't these assholes listening?

Gael halted on his way to check on the boys, veering instead toward the young woman. "Hey, Ling, let me handle this one?" he asked. the nurse threw her hands up in the air and nodded.

"Follow me," he told the pregnant girl. He led her to just outside the waiting area then said to her quietly. "Look...you can't be here in your condition. It's not safe. They won't take no for an answer with you. Now, here's what I need you to do. I'm going to hand you some paperwork. Sit down with it in there like you're going to fill it out. Count to ten. Slowly. Then get up and head toward the bathroom. The cameras stop before you get to that door, so what you do next is run...straight out the exit and keep going until you can't see the lights of this place anymore, okay? Get as far away from here, and for God's sake, stay away from the base behind us. Do you understand?"

He turned from her then to go check on the boys, only to be met halfway by Lindermen, who walked back to the waiting area with him to give her update to the teens waiting there, nodding slightly in approval when she saw the girl with the OFS clipboard in her hand. "They had to take your brother down for and MRI and some other tests. The younger boy accompanied him. It's likely he'll go from there to surgery. You should probably find a place to stay and check back in the morning." Turning, she addressed Gael. "Send the OFS patient straight to Correlli once she's dong filling out the forms." She walked away brusquely then, not waiting for a reply.

Gael watched her walk away, disturbed but uncertain why. Sure, her attitude and her willingness to throw the pregnant teen to OFS bothered him, as always, but there was something else. Then it hit him. They couldn't do MRI's anymore. Their equipment for that hadn't worked in months. "No," He whispered, his eyes going wide. "Oh no." He hurried to the bay, but found it empty. Glancing up, he spotted the military personnel entering through the main doors. Running back to the waiting area, he blurted, "Nevermind counting. Run. All of you..."

Tanya didn't need to be told twice. Dropping the clipboard, she ran like hell, waddling down the hall with her hands on her protruding abdomen. She didn't have a fucking clue where she was going, though. She got there on foot. How was she seriously going to outrun anyone for any damn distance?