The troll leaves and you wobble, walk hesitantly to the nearest wall and slide to the ground.

The room is familiar to you at this time, even after the only three months you have been working here.

It is actually pretty good that you feel comfortable in the place, because otherwise you are sure that you would already be in the middle of a panic attack at least.

'God, not that. Anything but that.'

Breathing deeply you try to stabilize yourself.

The drops of rain falling outside are still a murmur that comes through the walls.

You make an extra effort to try to relax and your head stops spinning for a few seconds.

Sometimes your instinct makes you do strange things, and having a big heart for others doesn't help much. You can do many things; you can learn whole chapters of entire medical texts just by reading them two or three times. You can comfort and encourage patients of all kinds, you can know how tense a person is just by looking her in the eyes.

… other simpler, more 'normal' things… those can be more complicated for you.

You have never been able to speak in public without getting nervous, or behave appropriately in a formal event. You can not be the first to speak without start stuttering so much that it's impossible to understand you. You can not dance with someone in public either. You're good at following the rhythm at parties or social events, but it's exhausting. Too much constant attention and forced smiles and uncomfortable chats with strangers.

Wasted energy and stressful experiences, in your opinion.

You have wasted your energy and time in useless things many times throughout all your life; in solitary nights of study and insomnia, and others of uncomfortable parties full of drunk teens, and your long shifts of simple work in cold and silent hospitals, just like the one you have here.

Well... you usually have here.

Sometimes you think you are still in time. You think you still could forget everything and let yourself go; you could ignore the injustices of this world and simply continue with your work like everyone else, or forget about everything and go to some deserted bar each night, like so many people you have called 'friends' throughout your long student life.

'Wait… No.'

By this time your head is not spinning so much, and the nausea of nervousness in your stomach has faded slightly. Enough to realize what you're thinking and instantly erase those thoughts from your head. Never. That would be like abandoning yourself to the mercy of society: simply stupid.

The white wall on which you lean feels incredibly cold despite the general warmth of the room. The silence is remarkable, so much so that you can still perfectly hear your nervous and accelerated breathing as if it were the clearest thing in the whole world. This situation continues until you hear the small creak of the door of the room opening and the still-pale face of the receptionist pokes in, asking if you are fine with a voice that you can barely understand through beating of your dizzy head.

You hardly find the strength to get up and nod slightly.

Aradia fever goes down soon after.

This human medicine is strange... but it is working. First the fever went down and then the cough started to improve, and then she started eating again. Now she does not feel so hot anymore, and for the first time in a really time she is starting to play and laugh, and she looks happy, a-and for the first time since everything started she seems fine.

Really fine.

Aradia had never been sickly before; she would have scratches, she would have wounds from playing outside, in the earth that she loved so much since she first heard the human word 'archaeologist'. Dear 'Gog', it had only taken ONE of those human stories about rescuers and treasures, and hidden palaces and powerful enemies, and she had gotten that special glow in her eyes that had not disappeared since then.

The Handmaid really expected her to change over time and maybe choose something to do that was easier, and further away from humans...

But then she saw her playing and squealing between earth and rocks, and suddenly everything changed.

Now she does not look the same as before, but she's definitely much better. And if that means that the medicine is working and that she needs to go back to that place and threaten another idiot and rude human to get more and keep her healthy, then she is more than willing to do it.

Still... somehow, it's strangely relaxing to know that she's getting better...

The adult troll has been looking at the paper that the human gave her from the moment she began giving the medicine to Aradia. She is not sure why she really gave her her phone number, but there it is, and she has it. She is sitting in the room where she and Aradia and Damara sleep, in the simple and cheap rental house they share with other trolls without a better place to go, looking at it. Watching it.

It's kinda like a memory: a trace of doubt that reminds her that the human really helped her. Not pretend. Helped.

Not that she is proud of having to use the knife on the other human, but the thing is, that girl was a bitch, and she has had enough bad experiences with humans to not be able to stand them anymore. She knows how dangerous they can be sometimes, but the girl did not seem dangerous, in fact if something she looked more like an fuckass.

The human in the white coat, on the other hand… She was completely different.

There was something in the way that woman spoke; clearly too nervous, but struggling to hold herself and still do it... that made her strange and strangely interesant at the same time.

The Handmaid holds the small paper with the human phone number scribbled in dark blue.

Doubtful. Distrustful. Confused.

"くそ (fuck) " the troll mutters, for once without worrying about what she says or how strange she must be sounding. It's not the first time she thinks about that, and it's not the first time she does not know what to do.

Maybe she could ignore everything and hope things keep going well...

Maybe she could... call her...

The Handmaid blinks slowly, alien eyes of dark burgundy irises looking through the dim light of the small room, as she raises her head to look at its old walls of worn paint for a moment.

Determinated.

She needs to talk with that human soon.