Chapter Text
"We found her in the woods lying almost face-down in a puddle of her own blood. It had soaked into the dirt. It's a wonder the scavengers hadn't found her. We tried being careful of her injuries, but there were so many of them…"
Maria watched the two young, wide-eyed men recount the turn of events that had brought them back from their patrol early.
"Well, I'm glad you two got her back when you did, otherwise she would've been dead, and dead does mean food for the scavengers." Maria said pointedly. "That being said, I'm not going to send you back out, but you need to radio the other teams to let them know what's happened so they can be on the lookout."
"Already done." The taller of the two said quickly. He had dark hair and a more muscular build from years on the run. The masseter muscles in his square jaw flexed when he clenched his teeth. "I radioed while Freddie addressed her injuries. We'll need to tell them that we're not coming back though."
"Smart work to both of you. I'm glad to see training has left you prepared for a situation like this." Maria smiled, but she was tired from the stress and shock from earlier that day.
"Well, Aryn and I couldn't just leave her. Each of us had to do rotations with her at least once last year, plus, isn't she Dina's girl?" Freddie asked. His build was smaller than Aryn's, but none weaker. He pushed a hand through his greying brown hair, though he was much too young to be having grey spots as he was barely out of his teens. That was what their world did to young folks though, Maria decided.
"I would take extra special care to not bring that up to either of them. In fact, it's best to keep this as quiet as possible, and that includes refusing to disclose who you found. As far as you know, she's a stranger." The older woman said very seriously.
"Yes ma'am." They both said in tandem, bending slightly at the waist in a bow.
"Good, you both are dismissed, then."
"One more thing, though." Freddie spoke up and Maria raised her eyebrows to indicate her full attention. "We… uh, when I was securing her wounds…" he frowned and swallowed. "Maria, she was bitten at least four times and all of the marks looked more than a week or two old. That's why we brought her back. If she was going to change she would've done it already. I've never seen anything like it."
Dread and worry flooded all of Maria's senses and she straightened. "You didn't happen to mention this while you were contacting the other groups, did you?"
"No, I was too focused on making the call and figuring out what to do to even look over and check on Freddie." Aryn answered.
"Good." Maria said sternly. "That tidbit does not leave this room, do you hear me? If it does, it's your asses that are getting booted and terminated and I'm deadly serious about that."
Both boys looked startled by Maria's sudden and harsh change in character. "Wait… did you know about this? Is she immune?" Freddie asked.
"This is a matter of her life and safety. If she is in fact immune, who knows how that can endanger Jackson's security and stability. Keep it entirely quiet. If what you say is true, it would appear that she is immune, but time will tell, now won't it?"
"You're potentially endangering the life of Jackson's citizens!" Aryn exclaimed.
"No, I'm not. She's secure, don't worry."
"Said the retainers of the first victim." Aryn huffed.
"You said so yourselves that the bites look old. The retainers had a victim and didn't know what to do with them. Because of that, they got bitten. As you know, it's protocol to strap patients down in case a bite mark goes unseen. The doors are barred and we have cages on the windows. A lack of security isn't there. Again, I'd like to reinforce to both of you that this piece of information does not leave this room. Am I crystal clear?"
"Yes ma'am." They both looked scolded.
"Good, now go tend to your tasks." Maria said without an ounce of a friendly tone and less amusement than a funeral ceremony.
When they left and she was finally alone, Maria sighed to herself and tried thinking of the next steps. First and most concerning was the extent to which Ellie's injuries had gone. It looked like the probability of survival was… low. Even Freddie, an experienced medical aid, dared to say so. She was just thankful for the two surgeons that had come to Jackson during the early parts of the summer. They had been in practice before Outbreak Day, and they'd had many patients during the pandemic. They were lucky enough to survive. All of Jackson was thankful to have them.
Growing restless, Maria straightened and tugged on her shirt to make it lay better, then promptly left her quiet office. She needed to check on Ellie, even if it was to watch the doctor pull bits of metal out of her or stitch a hole up or maybe set a bone, she truly didn't know. She had only seen Ellie for a brief period before she was rushed into medical care.
She was so pale and thin. It was a wonder she was even living. Maybe she… wasn't living anymore…
Maria shook her head, trying to get such negative thoughts out of her mind, but increased her pace towards the recovery homes anyway. Ellie was like her niece. Joel was like her father and Tommy was Joel's brother. Even if she was no longer supporting a relationship with Tommy, Ellie was still family.
They wouldn't have bandaged her up if she was dead.
That thought helped ease her worries a little bit, but her pace was kept constant as she hurried along. She didn't stop until she was on the front porch of one of the houses dedicated to operation and recovery.
The neighborhood they'd commandeered to build their community in and around consisted mostly of larger houses, and each of the four houses that was used for medical needs consisted of no less than four bedrooms, plus, temporary beds could be placed in the living room if it was ever needed. Everyone hoped it wouldn't ever come down to that, but in a world like theirs, they needed to take precautions and be ready for the unexpected.
Maria straightened her clothing again before knocking on the door of the home she was confident they took Ellie to. When the door was answered, a man of an average height and slightly shaggy blonde hair answered. He smiled at her.
"Ah, Maria! It's good to see you."
"It's good to see you too, James. Is everything going well?"
He nodded, then gestured for Maria to enter. "Come in, come in, and yes, everything is fine. If you're talking about Ms. Williams, I'm afraid we're still waiting to see if she'll be fine. If this was the modern world, we'd need to give her blood, but because we currently have no way of testing blood types, she'll have to do all the hard work on her own." He politely closed the door behind her once she'd entered the house. It was still early in the day and the gentle light filtered in comfortingly through all eastern facing windows, though it was especially prominent in the kitchen.
"What are her chances of survival?" Maria asked quietly, matching the environment so she wouldn't wake any of the other patients that resided in the house.
"That's hard to determine currently as Suzan is still working on getting her all patched up. I think she's about to win the new record between us when it comes to pulling shards and shrapnel out of a patient."
Maria's eyes widened. "And how many would that be?"
James gave her a slight shrug to keep the tone on the lighter side. "So far, I believe she's up to twenty bits of shrapnel and sixteen shards, but that could've changed. Ms. Williams was smart to not have tried removing them herself, otherwise there was the potential of unstoppable bleeding. There is hope yet for her, we just need to stay positive and work diligently."
It took Maria a few moments to absorb everything. "How far have you gotten?"
"Suzan is almost done with her upper half, I believe. We haven't turned her over to examine her back, though. I was the first to work on her, but we traded places so I could check on the other patients. She's been itching to do some surgical work. Giving stitches is her favorite thing to do when it comes to the medical world, so I let her take over. It's been about two hours now. Would you like to come visit?"
"Of course, if that's not too much to ask. Thank you both for taking her in. As I'm finding out, Ellie is quite the task. I just hope she'll be alright."
James nodded again. "As do we. The best thing we can do is remove all foreign objects and keep them clean once they've been stitched up." He gestured for Maria to follow. "Oh, would you like anything to eat or drink before we go in?" He stopped to ask.
Maria smiled. "It was kind of you to offer, but no thank you."
He bowed slightly. "Of course. Please follow me. I must let you know though that I need to tend to other patients, so I'll have to leave once you're in."
She hummed. "It's no worries. Thank you for letting me see her."
He nodded politely but said nothing else.
Together, they walked mostly in silence through the downstairs hallway, and after passing two doors, one on the left and one on the right, they came to what was easily assumed to be Ellie's room. The second door on the right.
James knocked, then entered and Maria followed.
The room smelled of antiseptics and blood, and a radio in the corner played music at a soft volume, though what genre it was, Maria was uncertain. James slipped out without a word and soon it was just the three of them, Ellie included.
"Oh, good morning." Suzan smiled as she worked on removing a chunk of metal from Ellie's stomach. She didn't look up until the chunk was deposited in a metal tray containing a plethora of other metal pieces in all different shapes and sizes.
"Good morning." Maria forced a smile. She couldn't pull her gaze away from Ellie. She looked so… broken and small. "Is everything going well?"
Suzan hummed. "So far so good, however, Ellie is a curious patient."
"How so?"
The surgeon wiped the blood with a cloth drenched in antiseptic before making any move to stitch the hole up. "Well… I've come across five bite marks, all of which appear to be healing rather well. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but because you are a member of her extended family, might you know if she's immune to the Cordyceps infection?" She looked up briefly again, then went back to work.
Maria's shoulders sank slightly at the question she knew was coming. These were doctors and they'd know if she wasn't telling the truth. They had the evidence and the knowledge to know that the answer was in the affirmative, but they needed to ask for what used to be 'legal reasons'.
"She is." Maria sighed and took a few steps forward, rounding the bed in which Ellie was laying and found her right arm. "She was bitten I believe when she was around fourteen or so, and when Joel took her in, they burned the scar with chemicals. She had this tattoo done to cover the burns when she was around eighteen. Initially, Ellie was to be taken to the Fireflies for dissection in hopes of creating a vaccine, but Joel cared too much for her and brought her back here instead because they intended to kill her." She carefully felt the scarred skin, then reached down to hold Ellie's fragile feeling hand. She was cold, but a faint pulse beat beneath her skin, which brought immense relief to Maria. "It's important that this information doesn't get out."
Suzan threaded a needle to be used for more stitches. "Of course. Patient confidentiality is one of our most top priorities despite the loss of tradition. In a world like this, a known immunity is dangerous. Perhaps later, and this is completely up to you and her, plus it's also entirely hypothetical at this point, but we could study her immunity should we come across the machinery to do so. None of it would be placing her life in danger." Suzan said with hope.
Maria found it in her to smile at that. She had a feeling that question was coming too. "If everything goes well and Ellie is okay with it, yes, so long as nothing that ends up happening endangers anyone in Jackson. That includes both you and James.
The surgeon smiled, then took a few steps forward to continue working on removing foreign objects from Ellie's body. The last hole was sealed, now she needed to find a new one to take on. "Thank you, and of course, safety would be the complete and of utmost priority. I'm only talking blood tests and maybe scans if we end up with the equipment, but that's not something to gun for right away. We don't even know if she'd be willing to let us run tests. That question will come much, much later. She has a lot of healing to do, both physically and mentally." Her eyes turned back to her tray of tools as she found what appeared to Maria to be another shard of metal. A scalpel was selected, and Suzan wasted no time making the proper incisions to remove the entity.
Maria watched her for a long moment, contemplating the request, but instead of inquiring further, her thoughts traveled more in Ellie's direction. By that point, Suzan was reaching for a pair of tweezers to extract what she was after.
"Do you know how much she weighs?" Even Maria wasn't quite expecting the question to manifest.
"No ma'am. Perhaps when she's up we can weigh her. I have worries about her weight too. It'll be difficult getting food in her if she's unconscious, but we have our ways and I promise they're not inhumane." Suzan said a little bit absently as she pulled the long shard from Ellie's torso. Blood welled in the open wound, but the surgeon was careful and quick to stop it.
"Any idea on when she'll wake up?"
"It depends on how quickly her body can generate enough blood to pull her out of her unconscious state. Sadly, James and I both agree she's hypovolemic to a mild degree, which is not good, but luckily it seems her body shut down more mainly due to other factors because it seems she was forced into 'survival mode'. Her chances of survival are… fair, I'd say." Suzan meticulously cleaned the wound, then reached for her needle and line.
Maria's eyes softened with a worried frown. Her eyes traveled away from where the surgery was taking place, and up to observe Ellie's features. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"For now, the only thing you can do is be here for her. Patients who are in this state often benefit from a familiar voice or touch because they can still hear and feel. They just can't talk or respond in any other way."
With a gentle touch, Maria reached up to run her fingers through Ellie's hair. "She can hear us?" She asked quietly. A frown marked her features when she noticed the flecks of grey in Ellie's hair. About three inches of new growth was clearly losing its color and was starting to look like… well, what Joel's hair looked like before he died. The revelation caused sadness to clench around Maria's heart, knowing Ellie was only twenty-one years old.
"Most likely, yes, though we're uncertain as to how much she can hear and sense. I am using anesthetics to keep the pain down in any incision site we make just in case she's not completely unconscious." Suzan reassured as she continued her work.
Maria nodded, but she couldn't pull her gaze from Ellie's hair. She ran her fingers through it a few times before pressing a palm to her cheek. Everyone hoped she'd make it, but it seemed the chances were low. Suzan and James were positive people, and they often told the more positive side of a situation despite being completely open about what was going on.
Without a second thought, Maria bent close to Ellie's ear. "You're not alone. You're my family and I intend to keep it that way. I'm going to visit once in the morning and once in the evening until you wake up, okay? You need to work on waking up." She urged quietly in the private moment, and she pressed a kiss to Ellie's forehead before straightening.
Suzan kept her eyes on her work, but a soft smile touched her lips. "She's lucky to have you. I don't mean to be assumptive, but it seems you're the only one she has left."
Maria nodded solemnly. "Aside from Tommy… yeah, I am."
"Should I expect a visit from Tommy soon?" The tall brunette asked kindly.
"I haven't told him yet, but I'll need to do that soon before he hears it from someone else. I'm not sure anyone aside from the two patrolmen who brought her here is aware of who she is. As you know it's not uncommon for injured and dying strangers to be brought here for care. I'll also need to tend to the curious minds. Even in this broken world, humans are still so nosy." Maria smiled as she let her touch linger then fall away from Ellie's bare skin.
"I suppose on that note, you'll be going?" Suzan didn't sound displeased nor pleased at the prospect. It was a simple curiosity and Maria knew that because she smiled softly.
"Yes, I will. I also have a few other things I'll need to attend to before the daylight runs out."
The doctor nodded and smiled back. "No worries. Godspeed and good luck. Come back any time to see her. I'm sure she'll appreciate it."
"Of course, and thank you." Maria nodded, then prepared herself to leave. She reached out and gave Ellie's hand one last squeeze before departing.