Summary: Naomi has weird priorities and you find that perhaps discussing your respective shames when you're dying isn't a good idea.
You've never felt this vulnerable before. Not even during the hardships you faced earlier in life, not even when you had drains attached to yourself and Tyler helping around, not even when you slept for three days, not even when your lungs had been polluted by Adam's false words; none of them matched up to the feeling of fragility currently installing itself in your nerves and veins.
It could have been because you weren't too aware of his surroundings and weren't facing the direct threat of his imminent demise, or because you could help yourself against the harm coming your way; whatever it was, it's different now. Today, you're helpless, writhing in literal agony and much too aware of that fact to be able to ignore it.
The door opens gently without a knock, making way for the sound of rubber shoes on the linoleum floor. Dr Naomi Kimishima doesn't look too scared about what's going to happen, bearing a resting face unhidden by the mask that should be watching her scrubs, but perhaps it's just a façade: you've known each other for, what, four hours at most? You met today, discussed a bit in front of the prying eyes of her director and another doctor you can't bring yourself to entirely trust (must be his skull-patterned tie), she observed you do some surgery and now she has to operate on you. You may have missed a step – or several – there.
"How are you holding up?"
Good question. Your chest has been set on fire and it seems like the flames aren't about to let up. You can barely breathe without your lungs acting up in compassion with your heart. You just want to cry in pain, but doing so in front of another surgeon seems like a good way to add onto your current vulnerability. You're also half-naked, you don't need even more fragility.
"Dumb question, I know," she adds with a smirk. "Of course you're holding up, since you're still conscious."
Kimishima remains by the operation table, arms crossed. There should be something weird and embarrassing about being shirtless in front of such a beautiful woman you barely know; but you can't find what, at the moment.
"…I'm worried Nurse Thompson's feelings for you will prevent her from doing her job," she suddenly tells you, her smirk suddenly nowhere to be seen. "Are you sure she can handle this?"
Well, you may have forgotten to think about her until now. Not that it's out of disdain (God, you'd never even think about daring to do that), you've just not even considered the matter like Kimishima has. The habit and trust you've put in her have to be responsible for that.
"Don't worry 'bout Angie… She's the best there is," you force out of his throat, retaining a cough in.
"She's Blackwell's daughter, right?" Kimishima asks again, a hand on her chin and her eyes slightly lost in the vagueness of the short-sighted horizon. "I hope she's as tough as her old man."
"…Huh?"
Okay, you may have a misplaced sense of priorities, sure; but you can be fairly certain that now is not the time to discuss Angie's biological affiliation to the creator of GUILT. It sounds fairly ironic too, considering you're lying in bed infected with it right as you speak.
"I took a few jobs for Delphi back in America, under an assumed name," Kimishima starts explaining. "I can't stop time or anything, but my Healing Touch was enough for them to pay top dollar. They needed me to keep GUILT subjects alive long enough to complete their research…In a way, that GUILT inside you wouldn't exist without me."
Well, seen that way, she isn't entirely wrong (even then, her reasoning sounds like a stretch, she wasn't the one to have the idea for GUILT or the messed-up intentions behind it)… But still…
"Wh-why are you…?" You cough before you can finish his sentence, your airways burning along.
Leaning against the wall, Kimishima crosses her arms back together with a pained expression on her face (at least, from what you can see through the veil of tears constantly coming to cover your eyes and without the glass that usually strengthen your flawed vision).
"After you raided Delphi's American Eidoth facility, I cut a deal with Caduceus Europe…" You start clutching the sheets around him in an attempt not to scream your heart out, the pain suddenly flaring up. "I gave them a GUILT sample and my Healing Touch in exchange for full immunity." She marks a pause. "…This is how I've chosen to atone for my sins."
Your time's running short. Better shorten this conversation as soon as possible.
"N-no…" You eventually manage to push out of your strangled larynx, not without first fighting against another coughing fit. "Why are you telling me this…?"
Kimishima smirks back as she replies, "trust is an essential component to the doctor-patient relationship."
"…Yeah, but it's usually…" You're somehow finding yourself amused at her response despite the context and how even the slightest attempt at laughing makes you cough. "…the other way around…"
"You may have a point," she chuckles.
Kimishima, however, almost loses the amused smirk right afterwards, her eyebrows frowning.
"I had my reservations, of course. Doubts… about whether I deserved to keep operating." She glances at him. "Look at us… You've saved countless lives, and you'll die if I can't save yours…" Her chuckle is saddened, this time, the smirk reeling of bitterness before it finally goes away entirely. "But I've realized something: as long as I'm still needed, I can be a doctor. I want my life back, just as much as you want to live. We both need to keep fighting."
You're about to add something, that she's right, but her glance brushes against your exposed skin. Her lips turn upwards again as her finger points out the two scars that are already here.
"Does Nurse Thompson know about that?"
You gulp, breathing in a panic from flaring physical pain and sudden mental distress. Yep, you've forgotten about them once again despite seeing them no later than this morning.
"She…"
"She doesn't, right? It's not even written in your medical profile. You've obscured it out."
You've got no answer. Kimishima's found you out and it's not even been five hours. Talk about having a very bad, terrible, no-good day…
"…I corrected it."
"…Huh?"
"I changed it. I know it's not very legal; but I've seen the other scars on your abdomen and there has to be some advantages to having eradicated almost all of cancer types, isn't there. You've had your fair share of surgeries already, haven't you, Stiles?"
"I…"
"I've also read in your profile about your prescriptions. On what day do you do your injections?"
"Thursdays…"
That still doesn't give an answer to any of the interrogations you're getting assaulted with, but it's getting somewhere, you suppose.
"Why are you doing this…?"
"Doing what?"
You don't know anymore. You're both stalling while the pain is eating you alive and something's fiddling with your internal organs, the questions keep piling up. Why is she discussing all of that now? Why are you both still here? Why is she helping a man she's known for so little as if you've been friends for years?
"All of this…" You're breathless, mind and heart full of smoke.
"I've known someone like you before." Kimishima sounds solemn, if not sad, as she glances up. "I never got to know his name, or where he came from, since he worked with me when I was with Delphi; yet I cling onto the hope that we'll come across each other again, someday." She sighs. "I have no real idea of how painful your ordeal must have been, Stiles, and I'll never claim to be able to; but, as a doctor, if I can help you, I will."
You sigh, both in relief and to alleviate the demon's emprise on him (in vain). You don't have the luxury to hesitate and have many more reasons to believe in her: if she's bluffing, then she's damn good at it, because her words shot right through your heart. Something tells you she couldn't have made it up, just like that story of having worked under a false identity for Delphi only to be redeemed by Caduceus Europe.
Do you know each other, now? Maybe. You're in no state to overthink things, your brain going at record-beating speeds to give itself the time to gather everything that goes through your mind right now. You feel like you do, now that she's given you all of her life story and every part of it sounds like she really wants you to trust her no matter the price. Better bite the bullet on purpose rather than risk getting hit by it.
Your fingers are still clutching the sheets. You gathers what's left of your voice, a hand on your chest as she gets close to the breathing mask he can eye with the corner of his sight.
"…I believe in you, Kimishima…" You cough again, his body trying to reject something it cannot on its own. "I can trust you… with my life."
Your surgeon's gaze softens as yours blurs out while her hands gently pick up the mask. You believe you can see a soft smile on her lips.
"Thank you, Stiles."
Then, reprising her role as the doctor and him as the patient, painting herself in a serious hue once again.
"…See you on the other side."
Her slender fingers pull her chirurgical mask over the bottom half of her face before the sleeping gas enters your system and your sight blacks out once and for all.
"Show me your stomach," Angie asks you with a needle and bottle in hand.
"W-what…?!"
You stare at each other, with you dumbfounded and her determined. This has to be the least understandable, most sudden question she's ever asked you.
"That's where you inject this, right?" She shows you the bottle's label, revealing a very familiar name. "Dr Kimishim's told me you did your injections on Thursdays."
Did you tell her that? Maybe. It's hard to remember things when you were engulfed in pain at the time.
"Ah, yeah, but… I can do it myself, you know…"
Angie seems doubtful as to your statement.
"I believe you've told Director Miller you couldn't even lift a scalpel when he asked you if he could show something."
"C'mon, Angie, that was because he wanted me to run around the place two days after surgery…"
"I'll admit you've got a point there. I'm willing to bet he's never had a surgery done on him," she giggles. "Now, since you're a patient, you can let a professional nurse take care of it, right?"
"I…" There's a strange heat in your cheeks, right now. "I guess so…"
You slowly lifts the blanket covering the rest of your body, careful to the IV in your wrist, then fight against early shivers when pulling up your gown. She doesn't say anything, simply helps you because you really are still that weak.
It seems like you haven't had someone to take care of your hormonal issues since you were a teenager. As such, it's strangely soothing to watch Angie putting her usual hot blood aside to delicately disinfect your usual injection spot, open the bottle, fill the syringe and proceed with the injection itself. You can't say it affects you as much as it used to. You have the feeling you should be embarrassed about it, and yet all you feel is relaxed and soothed… Why wouldn't you trust the nurse that has helped saving countless lives, including yours, and one of the few persons who knows your secret, after all? Silly you.
"And done!" The nurse proudly states as she bandages the spot and cleans everything up.
"Thanks a lot, Angie."
"That's the least I can do. You're the patient here, after all."
"I suppose you're right… Still, it feels wei—"
You get interrupted by a knock on your door, in whose direction Angie turns her head.
"Yes?"
Naomi enters the room, dressed in her lab coat and heels clicking against the linoleum of the room.
"Angie, do you mind if I have a one-on-one discussion with my patient?"
"A-absolutely not!" The nurse rapidly puts everything back into the case she got them from, before getting up and almost bowing to her. "I'll see you later, Derek!"
"See you…" You wave at her, watching your assistant leaving in a hurry while putting your gown and blankets back on.
The door opens and closes again.
"She really likes to help, doesn't she? It's easy to see why she chose to become a nurse."
"Yeah… I feel like she may be a little too preoccupied with that, though…"
"Perhaps you're right. If that's the case, then, you'll have to tell her yourself."
"I know… You didn't tell her before the operation started, right?"
"I thought you'd have wanted to do it yourself. Should have I?"
You chuckle awkwardly, the memory of having to break it off to Angie coming back in weird, shifting waves.
"I'd have rather done it on my terms, so you did the right thing."
There is a short silence that follows where the two of you don't look at each other. You're busy staring at your IV drip instead.
"Derek," she suddenly speaks up, prompting you to face her yet again. "do you remember our conversations from before?"
"I have a vague memory of you having worked for Delphi, but I also don't remember telling you about when in the week I injected myself, so… I don't really know. Why?"
"Oh, just out of curiosity." That doesn't sound quite like the entire truth. You nonetheless don't verbally question it. "I may be a little too curious for my own good. I did ask you very indiscreet questions, after all."
"Isn't that the point of the doctor-patient relationship?"
"You have a point yet again," Naomi replies with a chuckle. "Even if you do remember more than I thought you would."
"I have a very weird memory."
"If you say so."
Her face grows more serious as she stares at the IV stand, gaze cold and slightly unfocused.
"You know, by saving you, I feel like I've also helped this guy."
"The one you worked with while at Delphi?" Like Naomi thought, you do remember more than you thought you would. Honestly, it's hard to forget when you've heard that wondering if you were going to see the sun rise up tomorrow.
"Exactly. Just like with you, I ended up discovering it on accident, but I never told him as I never felt the need to. To be fair, he never became my patient either, fortunately…"
"I see."
Naomi shakes her head, reprising her smile with her hands in her coat's pockets.
"I'm chatting so much, I almost forgot why I came here. How are you doing?"
"Honestly?" You scratch the back of your head. "I still feel like death warmed over, but I suppose it can't be worse than it was before."
"You're quite the honest man, especially for one whose recovery is steady and quicker than anticipated."
"Is that a good or a bad thing?"
She seems quite amused at his answer.
"That's an excellent sign of recovery."
You lie back into his pillow, sighing.
"I didn't get the time until now, but thank you, Naomi."
"I only did my job, no need to thank me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have more doctor duties to attend to… and I think a certain nurse would absolutely love to talk with you some more. See you later."
"See you…"
Perhaps you can quickly get to know someone even if it's just been for a few days. At least, it seems so to you, now that you watch her leave.