First responder, second love

Chapter 4

    "Please don't hurt me, I'm begging you." I am holding my legs tight to my chest. And I'm keeping my eyes on him; I won't lose him out of my sight. Meanwhile, my eyes are filling themselves with tears and my vision is getting a little blurry.
    "I won't tell. You can just go, and I won't tell anyone," I promise him, but he's not saying a word. He's just standing there on the other side of the room, looking at me with his hungry eyes; like he knows what he wants to do with me. He steps closer to the hospital bed, and I feel my body preparing itself for the pain that's coming.
    "We're going to have some fun," I hear him say. Right when I want to scream in the hope someone would hear me, he puts his hand around my mouth. I try to scream from behind his cold hand, but nothing is coming, nothing at all. Tears are rolling down my cheeks and my throat is getting sore from the screams I am trying to make. And I'm losing hope by the minute. But then I hear it, a voice coming from behind him. I try to focus my hearing.
    "Sammy, Sammy, open your eyes. Sammy, you must open your eyes," someone is saying loudly, and I do.
    "Alex, Alex, are you really here." I touch his face to make sure he's real.
    "You were having a nightmare," I hear him say, and then I realize it wasn't real. I look around the room. Nobody is with us, it's only me and Alex. No rapist, no murderer, only us.
    "You're safe Sammy," Alex says to me, his hands are still on my shoulders, and he's looking at me with concern.
    "I'm okay, I'm okay," I reassure myself. I see Alex nodding his head and he lets go of me.
    "What were you dreaming about?" he asks. I look at him with real tears in my eyes and he nods his head again. He knows the answer without hearing it from me.
    "Did you hear me scream?"
    "Yes, I did. I was walking by and heard noise coming from your room, so I came to check on you. And don't worry, you weren't that loud, just loud enough for me to hear."
    "Okay, that's a relive."
    "You shouldn't worry about that, you know. It's understandable that you are a little freaked out, and that you would have a few bad dreams about what happened."
    "I know, doesn't mean I like other people to hear me scream."
    "Why, because you're not allowed to show weakness?" I know how ridiculous it is, me not allowing myself to show weakness. I got hurt, someone tried to kill me. It's understandable that I'm freaked out, but that doesn't make me weak. I must stop thinking that I'm fragile, that feeling fear makes me a weak person, because it doesn't. I'm still alive because I fought. I stayed still in that ambulance, I called for help, and I listened to the firefighters who got me out of there. Yes, it was scary, and I was terrified, but I got through it. The patient escaped, but I can't chance anything about that. And he is probably never coming back to LA, he's not that stupid.
    "You're not weak, Sammy," Alex says, and then I realize he's using my first name. He's calling me 'Sammy' not 'Kinsley', and I'm wondering why. I look at him and a smile appears on my face.
    "What?"
    "You're calling me Sammy."
    "Do you want me to stop?"
    "No, I'm just wondering why."
    "Well, it felt weird to call you by your last name in this situation. I'm a friend at this moment, so I should call you Sammy like everyone else."
    "Thank you, for being my friend."
    "But I won't make a habit of it. I like calling you Kinsley."
    "Got it." I look at Alex and I see a little smile on his face. The first time we met each other wasn't that great. I couldn't stand him for a very long time. I thought he was a little arrogant, and he was acting like he didn't care about the patients he was supposed to help. But after a while I figured him out, and I realized it was a way to protect himself from getting hurt. He got let down by a lot of people in the past, even by the people who were supposed to take care of him. His father was a drunk who liked to hit his wife, he even hit Alex sometimes. And at school, teachers weren't that fond of him, even though he tried very hard to keep up. But with taking care of his mother and his younger siblings, school was sometimes a little too much. All of that didn't stop him from fighting for what he wanted. He had set his mind on becoming a doctor, a surgeon, so he needed to stay in school.
    "My shift is almost over; do you want me to stay?" Alex asks.
    "No need, go home and get some sleep."
    "So, you're good?"
    "Yes, I'm good, Alex Karev."
    "I'll be here in the morning," he says, and he walks out of the room. I lay down on the cushion and stare at the ceiling. I need to get some more sleep, but I'm scared to see that face again. I know it was just a nightmare, but it felt real. I cover myself with the sheets and close my eyes. I try to think of good things, having fun with my friends, Alex who's calling me by my first name and about Ben. Because even though he's not here anymore, thinking about him might make me feel safe. I feel my body getting tired, and my mind is finding a place where it's good and safe, right on the couch in my apartment together with my friends and Ben.
    "So, you're good to go. There was nothing to see on the scans of your head, and you just need to rest, but you can do that at home," the doctor says. She's standing next to my bed and writes something down in my charts.
    "So, you're ready to go home?" she asks. She stops writing and puts the pen in the pocket of her doctor's coat. A strand of blond hair is hanging beside her cheek, and she puts it away behind her ear.
    "How long?"
    "You need to take your rest."
    "But for how long?" I ask her again.
    "If I give you a number of days, will you listen to it?"
    "Would you?"
    "Sammy, promise me that you will listing to your body. Take your rest if you need it, and by that, I mean your body, because your mind will just say that you can go back to work at any moment."
    "Meredith, you would do the exact same," I tell the blond doctor.
    "That doesn't make it a good thing," she reacts with a smile. "I'm glad you are okay Sammy, you really scared us."
    "Just like you did when you put your hand in a man's chest, while there was a bomb or when you almost drowned."
    "Like I said, I'm not a good example of someone who plays it safe." We both laughed a little, because we know she's right. She went through a lot, but she's still standing. She's an amazing surgeon, a caring doctor and a good mother. I just don't know how she's doing it.
    "I will page Holly, so she can take you home," Meredith says, and she goes out the door.