Disclaimer: I still don't own Saving Hope and Vampire Diaries.

I'm back everyone! Thanks chiwi-luv for the reviews. I know, Elena might have to be doing a lot more putting them in their place too. I can imagine the guys faces when sweet compassionate Elena Gilbert gave them their talking to

Chapter 4

"Elena, just don't go in today," Caroline said, Bonnie agreeing with her. "You just saw a guy commit suicide, I'm sure Dr Kinney would understand if you missed today."

"Caroline's right, Elena. You should stay home today."

"Guys, I can't," she said, picking up her bag. "I've been through worse when we were still living in Mystic Falls, and I still have a job to do. The sick and injured aren't going to take a day off, so neither am I. Besides, I wasn't the only one there."

"Right, hot Dr Goran." Elena shot her friends a look, but nodded.

"Joel saw it a lot closer up, and he hasn't been through what we have. I need to check he's OK."

"Elena, he's a doctor, I'm pretty sure he's seen death before. He'll be fine. What you need to do is take a day off and relax."

"Nope. Talk to you guys later." With that, she left the chat, picked up her phone, and left her apartment.

-TVD/SH-

She got to work 15 minutes later and walked through the ER doors, changing in the on call room before walking out to see to some patients. She saw Joel and Zack just in front of her and walked up to them.

"Hey guys."

"Hey," they said at the same time.

"What happened to your hand?" Elena asked, worried, seeing Joel's hand bandaged. Zack had a small smirk on his face while Joel shot him an annoyed look.

"As I was just telling Miller, nothing happened. My hand is fine."

"That's a pretty bold lie, considering the fact that your hand is wrapped. Did you break it, or is it a sprain?"

"My hand is fine, just leave it alone!" Joel immediately felt bad for snapping at her and sighed. He was just about to apologize for it when they reached his patient. "Looks pretty straight forward but you're going to have to do the reduction."

"Really why? Because of your hand?" Joel glowered at him as he smirked. Elena rolled her eyes.

"Guys stop it. Joel, we can see that your hand is broken, there's no point denying it. If you want, I could help you out today?" Joel nodded quietly, before pushing the curtain open. Zack went to see to other patients since Elena would be taking his place helping Joel, after telling her about the patient.

"Mrs. Byrd. I'm Dr Goran."

"Are you the surgeon, am I going to need surgery?"

"Well, hopefully not, as long as we can properly reset the bone. Uh, let's do a hematoma block, 20 mikes of lidocaine." The last part he said to Elena as he turned to her.

"I'm doing 25 just to be safe," she said as she went around him to the patient. "I can hear you rolling your eyes, you know," Elena said as he did exactly that.

"OK, so just try and relax," Joel told Mrs Byrd. She nodded slightly, closing her eyes as Elena injected the lidocaine.

"I feel ridiculous," she scoffed, annoyed with herself. "In front of the whole church and my choir was in the middle of 'amazing grace'." Elena heard Joel sigh slightly from behind her. "And what do I do? I get too close to the alter steps and fall ass over teakettle."

"I'm sure they don't think any less of you," Elena comforted her.

"Ow, Ow, Ow," Nadia gasped.

"Oh, OK, let me do that, please," Joel said, coming around to her side.

"I've got it. It's OK, Nadia. It's just a local anesthetic. How does that feel? Any pain?" Nadia shook her head. "OK, I'm going to ask you to relax." She placed the syringe down and went to her other side. "Now this bit is a little freaky alright, but you just keep breathing, OK? You're going to be fine."

"Be careful." Elena glared at him slightly before turning back to her patient, deciding to chew him out for treating her like an amateur later, after checking he was OK after last night.

"Here we go." She took her hand in hers and straightened it out, pressing slightly for a few seconds, Joel watching. "Good, how's that?"

"Yeah. Feels good."

"Good," Elena said with a grin. Joel started at her for a moment, caught by her smile, before mentally shaking his head clear of those thoughts. What the hell was going on with him around this woman?

"OK, let's go get an X-ray and make sure it's right."

"It'll be just fine," Elena assured both her and Joel.

"Nadia, I'm just going to take a quick look at your legs." He was met with the go ahead from Nadia. "Obviously because of your spinal injury, you're not going to feel any pain here but-"

"We just need to make sure you didn't break anything else in the fall," Elena finished for him.

"OK. Can someone go tell my friends I'm OK? They've been in the waiting room a while." Nadia asked as Joel started making the checks. The two doctors turned to see the entire choir gathered outside the ER in the waiting room.

"Is that the choir?" Joel asked her as he turned back to checking her legs.

"Yeah."

"Yeah, someone will go and tell them that you are just fine." Joel got to Nadia's foot and she yelped in pain. Elena stood straighter by her side and Joel looked at her in shock. "Can you feel that?"

"Oh, no, I … I can't have," she said, shaking her head frantically. He pressed down on her foot again, causing her to shout again.

"Nadia, you're feeling pain in your foot."

"That's impossible!"

"I'll need an MRI of Nadia's spine, Dr Gilbert," he said as he looked at Nadia in shock.

"I know. You tell her choir, I'll get the MRIs." Joel looked at her. Elena raised an eyebrow at him. "Get to it, Dr Goran." Joel raised his hands in a sign of surrender as be backed off. Elena turned to Nadia with a smile. "Let's get you those scans."

-TVD/SH-

Half an hour later, Elena was looking at Nadia's MRIs on the tablet screen when Joel came over to her.

"Hey."

"Hey," Joel greeted. "What do the scans show?"

"See for yourself," Elena said, handing over the tablet. The two of them looked over it together.

"There's no-"

"No spinal injury," Elena confirmed.

"I thought she was paralyzed?"

"And she is," Elena told him. "Car accident, 2 years ago. Her husband died and she was diagnosed with a burst T10. Paralyzed from the waist down."

"Yeah, but her T10 is fine, so she's either delusional or she's faking it." Elena gave him a look. "What?"

"Joel, this injury is in her medical records, signed off by a doctor. The injury existed."

"She's feeling pain in her legs, Elena."

"It may just be-"

"Please don't say anything about miracles," Joel said with a sigh.

"I was going to say that the injury must have healed and the paralysis might be conversion disorder. She lost her husband in that car crash, Joel, that has an effect. In her case, the paralysis. Probably best to get a psychiatric consult. Maybe Gavin." They were interrupted by singing coming from their patient's bed just as she was about to ask if he was OK after yesterday. Maybe not the best time to ask, but while they had a moment she thought she'd ask, but obviously that was now out of the question. They both turned and looked. The entire choir surrounded Nadia in her wheelchair and were singing. Elena smiled and walked over, Joel following her. They both stood in the doorway.

"I'm not Christian, but it's almost like you can feel the Holy Spirit when this happens."

"Yeah, well, could you ask the Holy Spirit to take it outside please, we kind of have work to do."

"Oh, they're just trying to cheer me up!" Nadia said with a smile.

"Come on, Joel," Elena said with a grin, starting to clap along. "Loosen up for five minutes." He met her eyes and was almost tempted to do as she asked, but shook it off

"We have to put a cast on this woman's arm!" Elena gave him a look.

"We can wait 5 minutes Joel. Sometimes a little singing and hope is what people need."

"She's right you know," Zack said from Joel's other side.

"Zack, Elena-"

"Look around you, Joel," Elena interrupted. "Nadia's not the only one enjoying this." Joel sighed and gave in, because she was right. Other patients in the ER were smiling or clapping along, or singing or humming with them. He waited with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall, watching. More often than not, his eyes would drift over to Elena, who was smiling widely and clapping along. After a few minutes, the choir stopped and Nadia started thanking them all.

"Alright, guys, I now need to put her arm in a cast, can you please wait outside on the waiting room, thank you." The choir started filing out, wishing Nadia good luck. Joel put the cast on her arm to help it heal, then went to the break room. Elena stayed in the ER helping other patients and keeping Nadia company.

An hour and a patient with a twisted ankle later, Elena came back over to Nadia.

"How are you feeling?" she asked kindly with a smile.

"My legs are tingling, like pins and needles all the way down. Is that normal?" Nadia asked.

"Your muscles have atrophied," came Joel's voice from behind her. Elena turned her head slightly as Joel came over to Nadia's side.

"Yeah, I know I shouldn't complain, but… it kind of hurts."

"Nadia, I just had your chart sent over from St Mike's. This image here was taken two years ago, after the accident. You had a spinal epidural hematoma in the T10 vertebrae." Elena looked at the image.

"Well I knew I had something," Nadia said, looking confused. "That sounds about right." Elena took the tablet from him, which he allowed. She looked at the next page.

"The surgeons did a spinal decompression," she said, reading the information. "It says here that it went well, the swelling went down, but you were still paralyzed."

"They didn't have an explanation for that," Nadia told them. "They just said it happens that way sometimes."

"You didn't request a second opinion?"

"I put my faith in the Lord," she told them both. "And look! Now he's healing me!" she laughed, looking down at her wiggling toes. Elena smiled with her.

"Mrs Byrd," Joel started, sitting next to her. "I have the responsibility to get your diagnosis right here. I mean, getting your legs back after two years, it isn't possible."

"And yet it is," Nadia said with a slight smile and a raised eyebrow, as if saying him to contradict her.

"Ookaay." He paused. "Well then I will find you something for the pain."

"Hmm."

"In the meantime, I will review your files and see if I can recommend a course of treatment." Nadia smiled as Joel left. Elena pat her on the shoulder and followed him.

"Joel!" she called. He turned and stopped, looking at her.

"What's up?"

"We need to talk about yesterday." Joel sighed.

"Look, I'm fine, OK. I'm good. I've lost patients before, it's kind of part of the job. There's not one doctor who hasn't lost a patient."

"Joel, I was there too," she reminded him. "I saw the look on your face."

"You're worried, I get it, but there's nothing to worry about. I'm fine, otherwise I wouldn't be here." He paused, looking at her. "How are you? After yesterday?" weekend raised an eyebrow.

"You think you can get away with not talking about your feelings, then ask me about mine? Oh no. An answer for an answer. When you're ready to talk, I'm here." She walked off, Joel looking after her.

-TVD/SH-

Elena looked towards the shouting. Dr Reid – or Alex, as she'd insisted she call her – ran into her fiancé's room. Dr Kinney stood outside for a few seconds before walking away. Elena walked over and stood in the doorway. Alex was crouched by his side, crying. She went in and put a hand on her back. Alex took a deep, unsteady breath.

"Hey," she greeted softly. Alex looked up at her, tears in her eyes, sniffling. "Come on." She held out her hand, which Alex took. Elena helped her to her feet and over to a chair by Charlie's bed, sitting next to her. "What happened?" Alex took another deep breath before letting everything out, explaining that once Dawn had pulled the plug last night, she had started looking into making a legal appeal. She told her about the lawyer Dr Tolliver had told her about who had been the only one to ever win an appeal.

"And it didn't work. I can't do anything, Elena. I love him, and I can't do anything." Elena hugged her as Alex started crying again. Melanda looked in and saw them. She came over and joined the hug.

-TVD/SH-

Elena returned to the ER where Nadia and Joel were. Joel was sitting on the edge of her bed. She had just left Alex with Charlie under Melanda's watchful eyes.

"I'm not going to lie to you," Nadia started nervously. "This is harder than it looks." She was trying to move her legs, trying to get out of her wheelchair.

"You haven't walked in two years," Elena told her kindly. "It's going to take a little time." Joel looked at her, Elena ignoring him in favor of the patient.

"Dr Gilbert is right," Joel said. "It's going to be a process."

"Yeah, I shouldn't push it, is what you're saying, right?" Joel nodded. "I can't help it. God is working through me!" this last part was said with a laugh as she moved the legs she had had no feeling in for two years.

"Nadia, I would like to talk to you about what you're suffering," he said suddenly, making both Elena and Nadia look at him. "What you're actually suffering. Have you heard of something called conversion disorder?" Elena met his eyes, before he looked back at the patient.

"No," Nadia said, confused. Joel continued.

"Sometimes after a trauma, we'll do anything to protect ourselves." Joel got to his feet. "If it's something we don't really want to deal with... Like the loss of a loved one. We might make a story. Something to deflect our attention from what's really going on." He walked around so that he was standing in front of her as he spoke. "You lost your husband. Alfred, right?"

"Yes?" she said, sounding half angry, half confused.

"We think that the pain of losing him was too much for you," Elena continued. "Your paralysis might be a result of you trying to distract yourself from that pain."

"All the grief you felt," Joel said. "Did you ever talk to anyone about it?"

"I talk to God," she said. "Every day."

"Did you ever talk to anyone professional about it?"

"I… I had too much going on, too much to deal with. The loss of my legs, my wheelchair, I, I didn't have time to think about… about…" she started crying. Joel kneeled down in front of her as Elena held her hand. Nadia squeezed it tightly.

"It's not going to be easy to get your legs back, physically or emotionally," he started. "But listen to me. We have a great councilor here at Hope Zion." Elena smiled. Maybe he and Gavin were finally starting to get along. "I'm going to put you in touch with him." 15 minutes later, Elena watched as Joel set Nadia's feet on the ground. "Now, you're going to try your first steps in two years." He held out his hand.

"You really think I can do this?" Nadia questioned them both. Elena smiled and nodded.

"Yes."

"I know you can," Joel told her confidently with a smile, holding out his hand. "Now give me your hand." He stood, holding his arm out. Nadia hesitated. "Give me your hand." She slowly put her hand on his arm, Elena holding her other arm. Together, the three of them got her to her feet, moving her forwards. Tears started falling down her face as she laughed joyously.

"God is with you," she said, smiling widely. "You and your wife." She again both their eyes widened dramatically in shock, both stumbling over denials of being married or even being together at all. "God will show you. The two of you are to be together. The Lord had his way of making things right." That were both stunned into silence.

-TVD/SH-

Elena had just been getting ready for bed when there was a knock on her door. She went to open it, expecting Caroline and Bonnie after they had said something about her not being alone after the suicide, but saw Joel instead. He looked up at her, hiding the nerves.

"Joel! Hey."

"Hey. You said we could talk…" Without another word, Elena opened the door wider and let him in.

OK, so that's the end of the chapter. Hope you enjoyed it. Don't forget to review