(Disclaimer: I don't own Trauma Center in any way, shape or form.)
It was over. It was all behind them. Or at least that was what Elena kept telling herself.
With the eradication of Cardia, Stigma as a contagious disease was functionally dead. Hospitals around the world had been given containment and treatment briefings, deployed with great success. The FBI had come down on the Kidman Family like a ton of bricks, dismantling the Mafia cell thoroughly. With Master Vakhushti dead, Parnassus had quickly fallen; most of the group's members had surrendered, and those that hadn't were quickly put behind bars by Cynthia's testimony. Professor Wilkens was even well on the way to recovery, his lucidity and memory improving by the week.
Six months ago, such a tidy resolution would have buoyed Elena's spirits. She would have been working her way through the rooms and halls of Caduceus USA, doing everything that needed to be done, making sure everything was spotless and perfectly organized for the doctors to work their next miracle.
Instead, she was in the nurses' break room with only the ticking of the wall clock for company, staring into a lukewarm cup of coffee. Her fingers tapped against the handle, one by one, counting off their victories, mentally striking off the links between them. It was over. Nobody was going to ask her to-
The door latch snapping open startled Elena so much she let out a strangled yelp, knocking over the coffee and sending it flowing over the tabletop.
"Sorry!" Leslie Newman said, giving Elena an apologetic grimace as she entered the room. "I did knock."
"It's alright, Leslie. I was miles away." Elena smiled for her co-worker, then towards the other woman who entered behind her. "Oh! Doctor Tsuji! Did you need more for something?"
"Not really, I'm just here to see you." She sat down and placed her pager on a dry patch of table, crossing her legs neatly. "And please call me Kanae."
"Yes, Doctor Kanae." Elena chuckled at herself for including the title, but caught herself looking back and forth between Leslie (who had taken half a dozen hand towels from next to the sink and was mopping up the brown puddle) and the doctor, wondering what was going on. It was rare enough that one of Caduceus' surgeons stopped by the nurses' facilities. After all, they could always page for a pair of hands to come running, and as the office banter went, their break room was much better equipped. And now Kanae was asking to be called by name, Elena would have wondered if she'd forgotten her own birthday, if it weren't completely the wrong time of year.
...No. She was wondering where she was going to be sent next, if they were asking so nicely.
"What did you need to see me about?"
"You've been spending a lot of time in here," Kanae said matter-of-factly, fixing her glasses. The lenses flashed, briefly obscuring her eyes. They always seemed to do that, many of the nurses had wondered if she actually practised the fidget.
Elena blinked, suddenly feeling worried. "I'm sorry, Doctor Tsu- ...Kanae, I was sure I always punched out."
"It's not your hours I'm worried about." And that was the exact reply Elena had been worried about. "You're always in here by yourself."
"I like the quiet," Elena said simply, looking over at Leslie as the other nurse finished wiping down the table and settled herself. Her usually expressive face was set in a new expression Elena found unreadable. "It helps me focus myself between jobs."
"That's a pretty big change in behaviour for you," Kanae noted. She paused, pursing her lips slightly, then seemed to realize she was diagnosing Elena instead of... whatever it was she came here to do. "I'm sorry, I just like to know all the nurses working here and giving their all for their patients. How are you feeling, Nurse Salazar?"
Elena put a smile on again. "I'm feeling perfectly well, Kanae."
"Bullshit."
"Newman!" Kanae's reproach was a loud snap in her ears, but Elena barely heard it, looking at Leslie and wondering what she had done to get a response that emphatic.
"Well it is!" She insisted. Leslie paused, clearing her throat, and then tried again. "I'm sorry, Elena, I didn't quite mean it like that. You've been through a lot lately and we just want to make sure you're in good shape. How's your routine?"
Ah, this was starting to make sense now. With the hours the nurses put in, even a small upset at home could leave them looking a bit peaky. Elena brightened up as she replied. "I've been taking care of myself. I have an hour after I get home to eat, then take my tongue swab and get some sleep. I get eight straight every chance I get."
Her companions nodded. Elena knew she'd checked all the boxes: getting plenty of rest, keeping up with her saliva tests (that had already saved her some grief once, she wouldn't have had nearly enough time to find and get to Doctor Vaughn if she hadn't found her hormone levels fluctuating so early), keeping a steady routine to make her apartment somewhere comforting to go back to after a busy day.
"How about dreams? No nightmares or night terrors?"
A single innocent question from Leslie, and Elena's blood turned to ice. She could practically feel her pancreatic pump unit reacting, sensing the spike in adrenaline her panic caused and augmenting the organ's natural responses.
"I..."
"I'll save you the trouble – I can see your pupils dilating from here," Kanae said, not unkindly. "Please be honest with us, Elena."
Doctor Tsuji interacting with anyone on a first-name basis within Caduceus's walls was almost unheard of. The gravity of the conversation hit Elena again, sucking her stomach down to about her navel somewhere.
"I have nightmares about all the battles I've been near. Battles with people." A needed distinction between that and battles with Stigma and other diseases, given her workplace. "They're frequent, but I don't recall them waking me often." That was as close to untruth as it got without actually being a lie. Yes, the screaming and cold sweats were relatively rare (...as in weekly,) but far more often the horror stayed with her whether she was conscious or not, blurring the line between the two and being banished only by the bright morning sun filling her apartment with light, letting her see with her own eyes that she was alone in her room. "I'm fine, I promise."
"Absolutely you are," Leslie agreed. "FINE: stands for Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional."
Elena searched Leslie's face for that familiar grin, for any trace of a joke, but found none. She opened her mouth to give a rebuttal when Kanae cleared her throat.
"I think we already owe you an apology, we're all so used to dealing with patients it's hard for us to talk to friends any more," she said. "Elena, you used to fill your quiet moments, not embrace them. You haven't been yourself since you get back from the Parnassus raid."
Elena's nerve gave out and she looked down at her hands, holding her empty mug again to avoid wringing her hands. "I guess I'm just not used to a routine again. I was so busy everywhere in the world for a while there I forgot what it's like to have time to think."
"Please be honest with me, Nurse Salazar. If that was the case, you would spend your time with Doctors Vaughn and Blaylock. Are you having trouble working with them?"
"No!" Elena caught herself, looking up even as her grip tightened on the mug. She took a deep breath before speaking again, Doctor Tsuji hadn't even mentioned reassigning her. "No, we still work together well. I feel like I've just needed-"
BANG
Elena jumped again, this time sending her mug through the air to bounce along the linoleum floor with a series of dull thuds.
"That's called shell shock, Elena." Leslie was shaking her hand out gently after having merely slapped the tabletop. "You've been shot at more times than you've been shot up, and I'm counting the pump. Just talk to us. Talk to somebody. I don't like seeing you like this."
Elena finally realized what the expression on their faces was. Sympathy. They weren't even hiding it, she just didn't recognize it.
"I can't." When Leslie looked wounded, Elena silenced her by taking a deep breath, trying her best to force the words out. "What right do I have? Doctor Vaughn and Doctor Blaylock do all the hard work. They have their hands in the patient, their fingers on their pulse, they're the ones who are one nicked artery away from ending a life and getting something themselves from blood spatter. All I do is stand back, read my notes and point. And every day they're in here, still doing surgery, still working long hours, still saving lives, and they can move on. What right do I have to be scared? They were one false move from setting Cardia loose, why am I still scared of bullets that weren't even headed my way? They're not scared of being in hazard containment, why do I have nightmares about being in a dark room with strangers? How dare I... I..."
She was out of breath, he jaw quivering, the back of her eyes prickling. She looked down at her hands, tightly fisted on the tabletop, the white-knuckle grip on herself making her nails bite into her palms. She didn't look up as she heard a chair scrape across the floor, nor as she felt Leslie's arm around her shoulders.
"I-I'll be alright," Elena insisted, sniffing. "I just need a-"
"Shut up and cry, dumbass."
Elena couldn't say she wanted to cry right then. In fact, she knew Leslie would try and encourage her too and had tried to steel herself. But in this case, willpower simply wasn't enough. She buried her face in Leslie's shoulder, gripping the front of her uniform and trying to hold together enough dignity to just sob hysterically without crossing the line into howling like a lost little girl.
She vaguely heard the other two women talking, perhaps Kanae chastising a choice of words, but she didn't bother adsorbing it. It felt good to just let everything out for once. It wasn't even her feelings she was letting go of; her shame for not measuring up to her idol, the worry she might not be the best assistant she could be for him, the permanent lingering fear that her experiences had left her with were all still there. Just being able to pour out going so long with nobody knowing how she felt was... Cleansing? Relieving? She couldn't find the right word, but it helped.
Soon enough, she felt the overflow of emotion settle back down. With one last heavy sniff she sat up to see Leslie trying not to giggle.
"Sorry. That last one sounded like that kid who got antibiotic gel up his nose," she explained. "How do you feel?"
"...Better," Elena decided aloud. "Much better. Your blouse..."
"It's nothing," Leslie said, swatting at the damp patch like she could brush it away. "I just itched myself while washing my hands or something. It's not like tears can contaminate anything that I won't be wearing scrubs over it for."
"That's a dangerously cavalier attitude to have, Nurse Newman," Kanae said pointedly. She fidgeted with her glasses again, still making them flash as she looked at Elena. "You're in no fit state to be seeing anyone, Nurse Salazar. Take a personal day, I'll make arrangements to cover for you. I want you to go straight home, leave your blinds open, turn on every light in your bedroom and get some proper sleep."
Elena managed to smile. "Is that a prescription?"
"Yes, and unless you follow it to the letter, I'll have to put a note in your records." Elena instantly knew that wasn't a joke in the slightest, but she couldn't blame her. People trusted their health and well-being to Elena's judgment, she needed to be at her best every day. Insomnia and emotional imbalance weren't very conducive to that.
"Come on, Elena, I'll walk you out." Leslie stood up, beckoning Elena to follow. She waited until they were out in the hall and they could hear Kanae on the phone to the director before she continued. "You have my number, right? I'm in dispensary all day, so I'll sneak my cell in there. Don't be shy about about wanting to talk, alright?"
"Alright." Elena nodded. Somehow, stepping into the small staff elevator with just Leslie at her side was a little bit easier than it had been before.
(Let me explain where I'm coming from here. As much as I love Elena, even I'll admit that towards the end of the game some of the things she says are a little... well, dumb. This is just me exploring the idea of those moments being a result of not really coping with everything she's going through, even if she manages to seem okay from the outside. I was going to make the a one-shot, but there's almost certainly several chapters of story in this now I've started.
Also, I know I've taken a few liberties with Leslie's speech, but even with only three speaking scenes in the entire game she strikes me as someone who'd be a little rough when she;s not in front of somewho who will write her up for it.
Please leave me a review if you enjoyed the story, or even if you didn't - we all get better with feedback!)