We'll Take Good Care of You

“You learn to tell the difference between a cough and a warning bell. One draws breath. The other takes it away.”

I stepped out of the cramped examination room, its sterile scent clinging to me like a second skin—alcohol wipes, latex gloves, the faint metallic tang of disinfectant that never quite left your clothes. The air was close, despite the hum of the ageing air conditioning unit somewhere above, pumping out a lukewarm breeze that did little more than stir the dryness in my throat.

The clinic was caught in the usual late afternoon flurry, that peculiar mix of weariness and urgency that descended once the sun began to shift its angle. The waiting area buzzed with low murmurs, punctuated by the sharp bark of a child's cough and the rhythmic tapping of a restless foot against tile. A toddler, red-faced and inconsolable, wailed in his mother’s arms, the sound bouncing off the pale-green walls like a siren no one could switch off.

I made my way towards the waiting area, each step a quiet echo against the linoleum floor—scuffed from the daily tide of shoes, prams, and walking frames. The overhead fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, casting their harsh, unforgiving glow that made everything—every wrinkle, every smudge—seem just a little more worn, a little more real. I caught sight of my reflection in the glass pane of the receptionist’s booth as I passed—dark rings under my eyes, hair coiled into an efficient but tired knot, the curve of my mouth hovering somewhere between focus and fatigue.

As a physician—especially one who had left behind the crisp mountain air and quiet certainty of Zurich—I’d long since learned that medicine here in Hobart was less about diagnoses and more about bearing witness. In this part of the world, people didn’t come to doctors lightly. They carried their pain quietly, like stones in their pockets. I often thought of them that way—silent carriers of grief, anxiety, hope. Each patient was a world unto themselves, shaped by histories I might never know in full. My role was less gatekeeper of cures, more translator of suffering.

"Clyde Thompson," I called out, my voice even, though the muscles in my lower back ached from hours of leaning over examination tables. My throat was dry, but I kept my tone neutral, unwavering. The kind of steadiness people needed from you—especially when they were frightened.

My gaze swept the room and settled on a figure who shifted slowly in response. He looked to be in his late seventies, wiry but stooped, with skin drawn tight over sharp cheekbones and a threadbare coat draped over his shoulders like armour. As he pushed himself upright, a cough broke loose from deep within him—dry and violent, as if his lungs had been scraped raw. It was the kind of cough that made people turn their heads, made you think immediately of all the possible shadows hiding in the spaces between ribs and air.

I felt it then—that familiar tightening in the chest. Concern, yes. But also resolve. The unspoken contract I’d made with myself every time I slipped on a white coat. This was going to be one of those cases. Not spectacular. Not tragic. Just quietly human. The kind that burrowed under your skin and stayed there.

I drew in a slow breath, trying not to let it show. The weight had already started settling across my shoulders, as it always did. A burden, yes—but one I accepted with a strange mix of pride and trepidation. Because that was the truth of it: in the quiet corners of everyday existence, life was being fought for. One breath, one diagnosis, one conversation at a time.

"This way, please," I said, managing a smile that I hoped was reassuring, though I could feel the tightness around my eyes, the subtle drag of exhaustion pulling at the edges of my expression. I tilted my head towards the small room at the end of the corridor—a modest space, unremarkable in appearance, but one that had become both sanctuary and battlefield. Within those four walls, I’d faced pneumonia, grief, bronchitis, denial, hope. Illness didn’t just manifest in symptoms—it crept into people’s voices, their silences, their posture—and I’d learned to meet it head-on, day after day.

We moved slowly, Mr Thompson and I. His gait was heavy, unsteady, as though each footstep was a quiet negotiation between willpower and weariness. He leaned slightly to one side, favouring a hip that no longer moved freely, the sole of one shoe dragging just enough to make a soft, scuffing sound against the corridor floor.

The hallway ahead of us felt longer than usual—stretched out by the pace, the moment, the weight of the air between us. Doors lined the passage, each concealing another life in motion. Behind them were snippets of other struggles—a low murmur of conversation, the metallic clatter of a stethoscope against a trolley, the faint, rhythmic beeping of a vitals monitor. In a way, it was a symphony of vulnerability, each note a reminder of the human cost of illness.

I stole another glance at Mr Thompson as we walked. From a clinical perspective, he was showing the signs—wasting, laboured breathing, pallor that bordered on concerning—but that wasn’t all I saw. His face told its own story, worn and marked by time, not just by illness. Deep-set lines traced years of resilience; his jaw, though slackened slightly by fatigue, held the memory of someone once formidable. His eyes, shadowed and glassy, caught the light for a moment, and I saw it—the flicker. That quiet, stubborn will that some patients carried like a talisman. He wasn’t ready to surrender to this yet.

We reached the examination room. I opened the door and stood aside, letting him pass through first. It wasn’t a grand gesture, but it mattered. "We'll take good care of you," I found myself saying. The words felt instinctive, but they settled into the room with unexpected gravity. It wasn’t just something I said—it was something I meant. This wasn’t about fixing what was broken. It was about honouring the person in front of me, whatever stage of the journey they were on.

He lowered himself slowly into the chair, his movements deliberate, cautious. I waited—always wait, never rush. There was dignity in giving people time.

I took a moment to centre myself. The chair opposite him, the equipment neatly arranged on the side table, the familiar rustle of paper on the examination bed—all were small comforts in a profession defined by unpredictability. But this moment, this beginning, demanded more than routine.

This wasn’t about symptoms, not really. It was about listening to the space between words. It was about seeing past the chart, past the diagnosis. I turned to face him fully, breathing in once, then letting it go slowly. In this quiet, clinical space, I was more than a doctor. I was the steady presence in the storm.

Pierre often said I carried the weight of my patients’ worlds on my shoulders. Perhaps he was right. But standing here, meeting Mr Thompson’s tired gaze, I didn’t feel burdened.

I felt grounded. Needed. Exactly where I was meant to be.

"Would you excuse me for a moment, please?" I asked, the words slipping from me with practised ease, though inside, I was anything but composed. Mr Thompson—frail, breathless, his frame barely held together by will and worn cotton—nodded gently. The way he looked at me, full of unspoken trust, twisted something in my chest. Vulnerability clung to him, yet he bore it with quiet grace, a dignity that made turning from him feel almost like betrayal.

I stepped into the corridor and let the door click softly shut behind me. For a heartbeat, everything seemed suspended. The muted lighting gave the hallway a sterile, almost dreamlike quality. The distant murmur of the front desk, the occasional creak of old pipes—it was all still there, but muffled somehow. As though the world was holding its breath.

The cool surface of my phone against my palm felt heavier than it should have. Not just a device, not just a tool—it was a key, a tether to something far larger and more dangerous than the clinic’s antiseptic routine. The faint scent of alcohol swabs and sanitiser clung to the air, ever-present, a sharp reminder of the invisible war we were waging with microbes and time. But this… this was different.

His cough—harsh, wet, and far too deep—wasn’t just a symptom. It was a warning bell. A sound I’d begun to associate with something far more insidious than seasonal influenza. Something new. Something we didn’t fully understand, and perhaps were never meant to. Among my colleagues, the theories were still veiled in cautious language, but in the corridors between science and silence, there were those of us who whispered different truths.

The Fox Order. What had once sounded like the invention of a desperate mind had become my reality. A network of eyes and ears, of truths buried under layers of bureaucracy and fear. We didn’t claim to know everything, but we knew enough to recognise a pattern. And this virus—this creeping shadow—was no ordinary outbreak.

I took a breath, slow and deliberate, then unlocked my phone. My thumbs hovered, hesitating not out of doubt, but from the understanding that once the message left me, there would be no undoing its consequences. "Does The Fox have wings?" I typed. The coded question. The signal. Not just a query—it was an alert. A pebble cast into dark water. I stared at the screen for a heartbeat longer, then pressed send.

A pause. Then her reply: "Maybe."

That one word—ambiguous, almost dismissive—tightened every muscle in my back. Penelope Lister, ever succinct. She never wasted breath. Her messages were puzzles, shaped by necessity. But “maybe”… maybe was never just indecision. It was a warning. A signal to move carefully. A suggestion that our leader might be compromised, or worse, that someone was watching.

The silence of the corridor now felt loaded, every creak in the walls a possible step, every shadow at the edge of my vision a watcher. My heart beat faster, a measured percussion beneath my ribs. I pressed the phone to my chest, grounding myself.

"Maybe," I whispered, testing the word aloud. It tasted metallic in my mouth. It wasn’t uncertainty—it was controlled ambiguity. A reminder that the line between fact and fiction, truth and manipulation, had all but disappeared. I was still in my scrubs, still within the four walls of a medical clinic, yet the air around me felt thick with espionage, tension crawling beneath my skin like static.

And yet… there was no room for panic.

I inhaled again, drawing the breath deep into my belly, holding it, then letting it go. The calm face I was about to wear wasn’t a lie—it was armour. The assurance I’d offer Mr Thompson was as real as any medicine I could prescribe. Because amid the swirl of conspiracy and threat, the one thing that could not falter was care. Human to human. Doctor to patient.

I slipped the phone back into my pocket, its weight now a quiet presence at my side. Whatever storm might be gathering beyond these walls, my path remained clear. The Portal Defence Corps, with all their murky ties and whispered agendas, wouldn’t stop us. We’d continue. Quietly, deliberately. In the shadows if we had to.

And when the time came, we’d bring truth into the light.

With one last breath, I turned the handle and stepped back into the examination room—my face composed, my posture steady. The world might be shifting beneath our feet, but here, now, I would remain the constant.

Stepping back into the small, clinical space, I fixed a smile onto my face—one I’d worn many times before, a mask of calm professionalism layered with just enough warmth to feel human. A physician’s smile: confident, compassionate, and, at times like this, quietly deceiving.

"I'm terribly sorry about that. Urgent family matter," I said, my voice laced with the sort of apologetic tone that came naturally after years of balancing truth with necessity. The lie settled awkwardly in my mouth, but it was a gentle one, a protective fiction. Not for him—he didn’t need the truth of what I’d just done—but for me. It was easier to maintain composure behind small, necessary deceptions.

"That's fine," Mr Thompson rasped, the words barely escaping past a deep, convulsive cough that gripped his body like a vice. The sound filled the room, harsh and irregular, echoing off the walls with a rawness that tightened the muscles in my neck. It wasn’t just a symptom—it was a warning, and every reverberation of that cough seemed to spell out the letters of a diagnosis I didn’t want to confirm.

I took another breath, quieter this time, trying not to let the unease show on my face. There was something about the cadence of this illness—the sudden onset, the severity, the way it drained even the most stoic of patients—that sent a chill through me. The dread that had begun in the hallway returned, sharper now. Had someone seen him cough? Had he been reported?

In this new world, a simple act—a cough in a public place—was enough to set bureaucratic wheels turning. If the wrong person had noticed, if the Portal Defence Corps had been alerted… it could mean quarantine, forced removal, or worse. Not just for Mr Thompson, but for anyone within his proximity.

"What can I help you with, Mr Thompson?" I asked, softening my voice, trying to balance professional concern with something more human—an anchor in the rising tide of fear. Part of me was desperate for a straightforward answer. Part of me simply needed to hear something normal.

"I seem to have caught this very nasty cough," he replied, the words landing between us like a faint plea. He wasn’t exaggerating. His eyes were glassy, skin tinged with the faint pallor of oxygen deprivation, and every breath came with effort. Still, he tried to smile, as though he feared being a burden.

"Do you know who you might have caught it off?" I asked, leaning slightly forward in my chair, my hands clasped in front of me. It was a thin hope, but I held to it—desperate for a name, a location, some thread I could follow to trace the path of the virus and maybe, just maybe, contain it.

"No, I live alone and don't get out much," he said. His voice was thin, but there was certainty behind the words—a kind of resignation. A life of solitude, not by choice perhaps, but by habit. I pictured his small flat, most likely quiet save maybe a television murmuring into the void. Isolation might have protected him, but it had also made him invisible.

"Are you sure? You haven't visited or been visited by any friends or family in the last week?" I pressed, my tone more insistent than I’d intended. I hated pushing, but I needed something to work with. A name. A face. Even a rumour.

"No, I don't think so," he said again, the same quiet insistence that turned my hope into a hollow echo. My stomach knotted.

"Clyde, please. Surely there must be some community event you went to. Some visitor?" The name slipped from my lips instinctively, a deliberate softening. I needed to reach him—not just as his doctor, but as another soul in this tangled web. My voice was low, imploring. Help me help you.

"No, I am..." His reply broke off, swallowed by another violent bout of coughing. I could see the effort it took just to keep upright. Each wracking spasm seemed to hollow him out further, leaving behind only breathlessness and exhaustion.

I sat still, watching him closely. My stethoscope lay idle on the counter, but I didn’t need it to hear what his body was telling me. My medical training buzzed with protocols and assessments, but none of it could outweigh what I felt—that instinct that every seasoned doctor comes to rely on. This was serious. Possibly fatal. And possibly contagious.

But more than that, he was alone in it.

Professional concern gripped me, but it was entangled with something deeper. Empathy, yes—but also a sharp, almost maternal protectiveness. He was someone’s father, someone’s neighbour, someone who’d lived through seasons I hadn’t even been born for. And now, perhaps, he was a harbinger of something darker creeping through our quiet community.

Each unanswered question was another reminder of how connected we all were—through touch, breath, movement. Through silence. Through stories untold. I had only my questions, and my will. But it had to be enough.

I was more than a doctor in that moment. I was a sentinel—standing in the quiet space between what was known and what was feared.

The unexpected sharp knock at the door jolted me, snapping the air like a whip and shattering the fraught stillness that had settled over the examination room. I flinched instinctively, every muscle taut, the sound landing like a cold blade against already frayed nerves. For a beat, I couldn’t move. My body remained frozen in place, caught somewhere between medical focus and primitive fear. The knock hadn’t just startled me—it pierced the moment, bringing with it the scent of something foreign, something ominous.

My heart thundered in my chest, the rhythm loud and insistent, as though my body were already preparing for flight. I glanced at Mr Thompson. He looked up at me with weary eyes, oblivious to the spike of alarm rippling beneath my skin. The cough still clung to him like a second breath, his presence frail and vulnerable.

My feet carried me towards the door, but slowly, cautiously, as if the space between myself and the threshold might protect us a few seconds longer from whatever waited beyond. The clinic was supposed to be a haven—clinical, yes, but safe. Predictable. Yet in that moment, with the echo of that knock still reverberating through the air, it felt anything but.

My palms had grown clammy, slick with adrenaline, and I could feel the dampness gathering beneath my collar. I pressed one hand flat to the wall beside the door, the cool surface grounding me for the briefest moment. "I'm with a patient. Can it wait?" I called, keeping my voice firm, even as unease bloomed deep in my chest. I didn’t dare open the door. My mind conjured too many possibilities—none of them good.

Silence stretched on the other side. Then footsteps. Faint shifting. I leaned back against the wall, closing my eyes briefly to focus on my breathing. In. Out. Even. Measured. A trick I'd learned long ago during high-pressure emergencies.

I wiped my damp hands on the fabric of my trousers, the gesture automatic but useless. "Please go away, please go away," I whispered under my breath. A feeble mantra. The sort of whispered plea one made to an indifferent universe.

But the universe, as it so often did, remained unmoved.

The door handle turned with slow, deliberate weight. Not a knock this time, but an assertion. I stepped back on instinct, retreating even as my spine straightened, body tensing for confrontation. The door swung open with a soft hiss, the sound deceptively calm considering the storm it carried in.

"I'm sorry, Glenda. The men insisted it was urgent," Michelle said, her voice low, measured—but her eyes told a different story. Worry. Guilt. The quiet alarm of someone caught between duty and discomfort. She lingered for half a second in the doorway, eyes flicking between me and the figures behind her, as if to warn me without words.

Then they entered.

Two army officers, both crisply turned out in immaculate uniforms, stepped into the room with the quiet precision of those accustomed to having doors opened for them. Their presence was immediate, almost intrusive. Medals glinted on their chests beneath the unforgiving fluorescent lights, but it wasn’t decoration that struck me—it was the weight they carried. The energy they brought. These were not men on a courtesy call.

Their faces were unreadable, all lines and restraint, the kind of practised neutrality that usually preceded difficult words. They belonged to a world that should have stayed out there, beyond the glass front doors of the clinic. Yet here they were, their boots silent on the linoleum, their eyes already scanning the room like they’d been trained to assess threat and vulnerability in equal measure.

I swallowed hard, willing my voice to remain composed. "Thank you, Michelle," I said, my tone carefully balanced between professional courtesy and unspoken apprehension.

As she stepped back, I moved automatically, shifting my body to place myself between them and Mr Thompson. It was subtle, unspoken—but deliberate. My stance wasn’t aggressive. Just firm. Protective. I didn’t know what they were here for yet, but my instinct was immediate: guard the patient. Always.

Michelle lingered a second longer in the doorway, then closed it behind her with a soft click. The room was sealed now, heavy with tension. My heart beat faster again, but my face remained composed.

The presence of these men shifted the air, the fluorescent lights suddenly too bright, the space too small. The contrast between their clipped authority and the fragility of the patient behind me could not have been starker. This wasn’t just an interruption. It was an incursion.

As the door shut behind them, a quiet certainty settled in the pit of my stomach. Something had changed. The line between medicine and the world outside had blurred. The storm was no longer at the gates. It had entered the room.

As Commander Jim Larsson and Bruce Foggarty entered the room, the air shifted—tightening, as if the very walls were holding their breath. The tension clung to everything, a damp, unseen fog that pressed in around us. Even the fluorescent lights seemed harsher now, casting stark shadows that exaggerated every crease and corner of the clinical space.

Larsson moved with the unmistakable bearing of a man accustomed to control. His presence dominated before he’d spoken a word. The uniform, pristine and sharply tailored, bore the hallmarks of rank—medals arranged with geometric precision, insignias glinting beneath the overhead glare. His name—Larsson—stood boldly above his heart, as though the fabric itself issued a command. Every movement he made had the air of premeditated authority. He didn’t ask for respect. He expected it.

But it wasn’t Larsson who made my breath catch in my throat.

It was Bruce.

Foggarty. The name struck like a match against dry memory, flaring with heat and complexity. His face, more weathered now but unmistakably his, pulled me back in time with merciless precision. He looked older, yes—lines deeper, eyes wearier—but the core of him remained. I saw it in the way he entered, measured and quiet, as if he too felt the dissonance between his role and this moment.

The past crashed over me—quiet meetings beneath dim lighting, whispered phrases layered with subtext, shared glances across crowded rooms where truths were forbidden. Back when The Fox Order had been less myth and more necessity, Bruce had been there. A fellow traveller in that careful dance we all performed. A potential ally. Or so I’d hoped.

Now, with the veil of operational secrecy still drawn tightly over us, I had no way of knowing. No certainty. Was he still one of us? Or had the shifting allegiances and growing paranoia swallowed him whole, turned him into something else?

Only his eyes, when they found mine, hinted at the truth.

“Dr De Bruyn, please step aside," Commander Larsson’s voice cut through the haze of memory like a blade through silk. Sharp. Unyielding.

I didn’t move at first. Instinct pinned me in place—instinct to protect the man behind me, to shield him from whatever was about to unfold. I felt Mr Thompson’s shallow, uneven breath behind me, heard the soft rustle of fabric as he shifted in the chair. He didn’t speak. Perhaps he understood something had changed. Perhaps not. But I understood. I understood too well.

I met Larsson’s gaze for a moment, resisting the urge to challenge him outright. That would do no good. Not now. Not here.

It was Bruce’s glance that made the decision for me.

Subtle. Swift. A flicker of expression, hidden from Larsson’s view. But I caught it—because I knew what to look for. His eyes found mine, and in that fleeting connection, I saw it: the tension, the conflict, the warning. He didn’t want this. Not like this. But it was happening all the same.

"As you wish," I said, the words leaving me with a weight I didn’t let show. My voice held, calm and composed, though inside I felt the quiet fracturing of yet another boundary between what I could control and what I could not.

I stepped aside with measured grace, shifting just enough to clear their path, but not so far that I didn’t still feel like a sentinel.

"Test him."

The words landed like a hammer on glass. Simple. Commanding. Irrevocable.

A chill raced across my skin. Not from the temperature of the room, but from the cold precision in Larsson’s tone. There was no warmth in the directive—no allowance for nuance or humanity. Just protocol. Just control.

Bruce moved forward, the device in his hand small and unassuming. From a distance, it looked like a medical tool—something benign, routine. But we both knew better. It was a diagnostic instrument wrapped in policy, shaped by fear. A modern-day sword of Damocles in a plastic casing.

Everything in me rebelled. I wanted to reach for the device, to snatch it from his hands, to demand a moment more to assess, to understand, to care.

But Bruce stopped me.

Not with words. He didn’t need them. His glance—again—found mine. And this time, it held. A head shake. Subtle. Measured. Intentional. The barest tilt, but unmistakable.

Don’t.

It was a plea. A warning. A quiet signal in a room too full of noise.

And so I stayed still. Rooted. Watching. Trusting the bond that had never been spoken aloud, but which now tethered us in this room of watchers and the watched.

This was our world now—a world of uncertain alliances, of roles worn like disguises, of silent pacts forged in the tension between duty and conscience.

I stood there, a silent witness, every muscle drawn tight as wire. My jaw clenched so hard I could taste blood, metallic and sharp on my tongue—a visceral reminder of just how much it cost to remain still. The instinct to intervene, to put myself between Mr Thompson and the cold reach of authority, pulsed in my veins. But I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Not without risking everything.

Bruce’s hands moved with practised efficiency, though the warmth that once defined his touch was absent. There was no malice in his actions, but there was no comfort either. He tilted Mr Thompson’s head gently but firmly, exposing the delicate, parchment-like skin of the old man’s neck. The testing device, compact and clinical, pressed against him with impersonal resolve. The contrast was jarring—machine against man, protocol against personhood.

I closed my eyes, unable to watch any longer. A silent prayer escaped into the space behind my eyes, unspoken but desperate. Let it be negative. Let this not be the beginning of something worse. The seconds ticked by like drops of water in a leaking pipe—slow, steady, unrelenting.

Then it came.

The beep—a short, sharp chirp that cut through the room—and the mechanical voice that followed, devoid of emotion, yet echoing like a decree passed down from some higher tribunal.

"Test result negative."

The breath I’d been holding escaped me in a rush. Relief surged through my chest, flooding my limbs, but I didn’t let it show. Not fully. My eyes fluttered open and I blinked rapidly, willing the threat of tears away. There wasn’t room for sentiment. Not here. But still, my knees nearly gave out from the sheer release of tension.

Bruce exhaled, almost imperceptibly, and when our eyes met, I saw the same wave crash through him. In the flicker of a second, our shared relief formed a brief, invisible bridge—between doctor and covert ally, between past and present, between the person he once was and the man standing in front of me now.

"It is indeed a negative result," Bruce said aloud, his voice composed but laced with something deeper—exhaustion, perhaps. Or quiet gratitude. He turned toward the Commander, assuming the role they expected of him, donning that professional mask we’d all learned to wear too well.

The air in the room shifted again—just slightly. The tension didn’t vanish, but it loosened its grip enough to let breath return. And yet, despite that reprieve, the solemn set of Bruce’s shoulders reminded me this wasn’t over. A single negative result didn’t erase the world we now lived in. It was a stay of sentence, not a pardon.

Then something changed. Subtly. The atmosphere thickened again, like the pressure drop before a storm. Silence filled the space—not empty, but full. Weighty. My chest tightened. The air itself felt reluctant to move, as though waiting for something.

Larsson was still. Thoughtful. Too still.

His silence dragged on—three seconds too long, then five—and by the time he finally spoke, I already sensed the outcome.

"Mr Thompson. Please come with us."

His words were polite, measured, even softened by the semblance of respect. But make no mistake—it wasn’t a request. It was a command disguised as courtesy. My stomach dropped.

Mr Thompson shifted in his seat, visibly confused. His hands gripped the armrests loosely, his frame sagging with weariness. He looked from one face to another, mouth opening as if to speak, but no sound came at first. When he did finally manage a hoarse murmur of protest, it was met with nothing but silence.

I couldn’t let it go unanswered.

A swell of something fierce rose within me. Not outrage—righteousness. A need to protect him, to defend the principle that had brought me to medicine in the first place: that people should never be taken without explanation. Without dignity.

I ignored every internal warning. Every whispered word from Penelope urging restraint. My own fear tried to clutch at me, but I cast it aside.

"What for? You heard it yourself, the test result was negative," I said, my voice steady but cold with defiance. It wasn’t just a question—it was a challenge. A demand for clarity in a world increasingly blurred by force and fear.

My heart pounded. I knew what I was risking. But I didn’t care. Not right then. Some things had to be said.

Bruce flinched, ever so slightly, and his voice came quickly, a hushed warning packed with desperation: "Glenda, don’t." The words stung—not because they rebuked me, but because I knew they came from a place of protection. He was trying to shield me. From them. From what might come next.

But I couldn’t retreat. Not now.

My eyes locked with Larsson’s. A silent standoff. I knew I couldn’t win it—but I could make him see that I wasn’t afraid to stand my ground. That I wouldn’t fade into obedience just because protocol demanded it.

"Mr Thompson, this way please," the Commander repeated. This time, there was no edge of suggestion. Only inevitability.

He reached for the old man, helping him up with a surprising gentleness that felt almost theatrical. A performance of compassion. But I saw what lay beneath it. Power, cleanly exercised.

Mr Thompson didn’t resist. He simply went, his eyes dim with confusion, his limbs heavy with fatigue. His silence said everything. He knew he had no choice.

And then they were gone.

The door clicked shut behind them, and the quiet they left in their wake was suffocating. The kind of silence that didn’t soothe—it demanded. It held the echoes of things unsaid, the ringing absence of justice.

I stood alone in the centre of the room, pulse still thudding in my ears, questions circling like vultures above a battlefield.

Something had shifted.

And there would be no going back.

As I made my way to the door, each step felt heavier than the last—an effort not just of movement but of will. The weight wasn’t just physical; it was layered with emotion, tangled and impossible to unpick in the moment. I could still feel the presence of Mr Thompson in the room, the echo of his confusion, the silence he left behind like smoke in the air. The simple act of closing the door behind them should have brought resolution. Instead, it felt like a betrayal. Like I was sealing something precious away—my conviction, my defiance, the piece of myself that had dared to speak against power and was now unsure if it had made any difference at all.

The door clicked shut with soft finality, and something inside me cracked.

A wave of defeat surged through me, quiet but overwhelming, leaving behind a residue of bewilderment that clung to my thoughts. But why? Why him? Why now? The result had been negative—clear, undeniable. Yet his removal spoke to something darker, something beyond logic or reason. The kind of action that made you question whether facts held any weight at all.

Hot tears welled, unbidden, slipping down my cheeks before I could stop them. The saltiness stung, a bitter confirmation of how raw I felt. I swiped them away quickly—more out of instinct than pride—refusing to let them leave a visible mark. Emotion had its place, but not here. Not now. Not where it could be mistaken for weakness.

In the stillness, my voice startled me.

"This is not the first time, nor will it be the last time."

The words fell flat against the walls, barely louder than a whisper, but they grounded me. A mantra carved from memory, from every moment I’d had to stand firm in the face of the inexplicable. It offered no comfort—but it did offer truth. And in times like these, that was enough.

My legs, no longer buoyed by adrenaline, began to tremble. The strength that had carried me through confrontation drained away with frightening speed, leaving only the echo of it behind. I reached for the edge of the examination bed, missed, and then—suddenly—I was on the floor. My knees struck first, then my side, and I landed in an inelegant heap of bones and breath and clenched fists.

And I stayed there.

For a moment—maybe longer—I allowed it. No pretence, no posture. Just stillness. The floor was cool beneath me, the tiles pressing into my skin like reality itself. I closed my eyes, not to sleep but to shut out the world, to find a sliver of quiet in the dark.

There was no clock in sight, no sound save for the low hum of distant voices beyond the corridor. Time became fluid. My only measure of its passing was the slow easing of the knot in my chest, the gradual loosening of my fingers.

Piece by piece, I began to reassemble myself. Not the polished version I showed the world, but something sturdier. Something honest. The resolve I’d thought splintered was still there, buried under the dust of that encounter, waiting to be unearthed again.

Eventually, I rose.

It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t even particularly steady. But it felt like something significant—a gesture, a choice. I smoothed the creases from my clothes, adjusted the collar of my coat. Small things, but necessary. Rituals of readiness. Of resolve.

I stepped towards the door and opened it, the hinges giving a soft groan as the corridor’s light spilled in. It cut long, thin shadows across the room behind me—stark reminders of the moments just passed. But I didn’t look back.

I walked.

Down the corridor, past rooms where other lives played out in quiet dramas of their own. Each step echoed faintly, a steady rhythm in the quiet. My shoulders still carried the weight of it all—Mr Thompson, the Commander, the questions I couldn’t ask aloud—but beneath that burden, something had solidified.

A flicker of determination.

A quiet certainty that no matter how obscured the truth might be, no matter how many veils of authority or fear tried to conceal it, I would keep searching. Keep questioning. Keep standing.

For my patients. For the truth. For the fragile humanity that hung in the balance between procedure and power.

And as I neared the waiting room, I straightened my spine just a little more. The world hadn’t changed—but I had.