Content warning:

In this chapter, the main character is seeking treatment for a forced claim bite. The care he is seeking is analogous to the care for a sexual assault or intimate partner violence in our world. 

This chapter may trigger people who are sensitive to discussion of sexual assaults or intimate partner violence or people who experience panic attacks. 

The Anastasia Anderson Clinic 

Johns Hopkins, Department of Endocrinology

Baltimore, Maryland.

Eight days post-assault

Gabriel Cooper sat on the edge of a vinyl-cushioned chair, looking around at the waiting room. Painted in a soothing blue, it featured soothing art prints on the wall and soothing music playing softly through the speakers. He was not soothed. 

He was the only person in the waiting room, which was both a blessing and a curse. No one to see him in his current state, but no one to distract him from thinking about how he’d ended up in his current state, either. He laced his fingers together in front of him and balanced his elbows on his knees, the left one of which was bouncing nervously up and down. 

A door opened across from him and he jumped, but it was only the clinic’s nurse. Of course it was only the clinic’s nurse, he pointed out to himself, annoyed that he’d betrayed his nervousness.

The nurse called out, “Mr. Cooper?” Gabriel looked around and then felt even more like an idiot. There were no other people in the room, let alone no other Coopers. Who did he think she was talking to?

He stood. “That’s me. Gabriel Cooper.”

She stepped aside and gestured at the door. “Right through here, please. We just need to get your weight and height, and I’ll take your vitals, and then Dr. Caris will be in to check on you. I’m Teneisha. Do you remember me from last week? Is it alright if I call you Gabriel?”

Gabriel looked at her. Apple cheeks, laugh lines, freckles, long salt-and-pepper box braids. Her face was… Kind. Dr. Caris, too, had been kind at his last visit, although more brisk than motherly.

Relax, Gabriel. You’re safe here, he coached himself.

“Yes, ma’am, I remember. Thank you,” he said to the nurse, and then wondered why he had thanked her. Wondered how someone could lose all their social skills in the space of a week.

***

Teneisha Haynes studied her patient appraisingly. His gorgeous auburn curls hung limply, just brushing the tops of his shoulders. They needed a wash. His skin was pale and there were dark shadows under his big, pretty green eyes with their long lashes. Why did males always get those to-die-for lashes? 

Gabriel Cooper's lips were pale, dry, and pressed together tightly as if he were bracing himself for something, which, undoubtedly, he was. Under the tattered cowl-neck sweater he was wearing, his slender shoulders were hunched, and his strategically ripped skinny jeans hung a little loose on his hips.

Probably hasn’t been eating or sleeping.

At least the shell-shocked look had faded a bit since she’d seen him last. It was hardly the first time she’d seen an Omega in this condition, but it never failed to break her heart. She thought about her beautiful Beta daughter and raised a fresh prayer of gratitude that this, at least, was one thing she would never have to worry about.

“You look a little better today, Gabriel. How are you feeling?” Teneisha gestured for him to step onto the scale and then made a note of the number on her tablet.

“I’ve been pretty nauseous. And I can’t scent anyone, but Dr. Caris told me that both of those things would happen.”

Teneisha nodded as she reached up to reset the scale. “That’s right, baby. And it’s temporary, which I’m sure she told you, too. Those are unpleasant but normal side-effects of the claim reversal protocol. We’ll get you some medication to help with the nausea.”

She clucked her tongue as she compared numbers on her tablet. “Now listen—you’ve lost a little over four pounds since your first visit. I know you may not feel like eating, but you need to keep your strength up. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. You’ve been on meds for a full week now, so your hormone and pheromone levels should be about where they’ll remain for the rest of the treatment course–it’s not going to get any worse than this. There’s nothing else going on? Just the nausea and the anosmia?”

“I’m tired. But I haven’t been sleeping well, so that’s probably all it is.” 

Teneisha nodded again. People did not tend to sleep well after someone physically and biochemically assaulted them. “I understand. Well, it may not feel like it, but that’s good, sugar, if that’s all we’ve got going on. Sounds like you’re tolerating the treatment very well, and that’s what we want. Okay, we’re down here, second door on the right.”

She opened the door to exam room two and indicated the paper covered exam table on the right. “Just climb up on the table for me.”

Gabriel complied.

She reached into a drawer and handed Gabriel a paper exam gown. “I’m going to get you to take off your shirt and put on this exam gown. You can leave your boots and jeans on. Do you want me to step out?”

“You can stay, it’s fine.” Gabriel pulled off his sweater and folded it, then shook out the paper top. “Opening in the front or the back?” 

Teneisha felt the urge to hover over him and help him into the gown, but his notes said that he was struggling with touch, so she held back.

“Opening in the back, baby. So, Dr. Caris will be in here in a moment, and she’ll introduce you to Dr. Anderson today. Dr. Anderson is wonderful, and he is always extremely respectful of his patients, but he is an Alphan male. You should know that beforehand, because I know that can be difficult.”

She watched Gabriel’s face and saw him grow even more pale. She couldn’t blame him, but Alex Anderson was the last person on earth any Omega had to fear. Calmly, she met his eyes, their pupils contracted in instinctive alarm, and said in her most reassuring voice, “I know this is hard right now, but I have known Dr. Anderson for a long time, and I trust him completely. He’s helped hundreds of Omegas who’ve been through forced claims. He’s on your team. He won’t touch you without your permission, he’ll listen to your requests, and you can ask him anything at all. He won’t mind, I promise. He loves questions.”

Gabriel nodded stiffly and Teneisha pressed on.

“We deliberately scheduled you as our last patient for today, so there’s plenty of time for all of us to talk. Dr. Caris and I will both stay in the room with you the whole time Dr. Anderson’s here. Will that be alright?”

***

Gabriel nodded again, but shivered in the papery exam gown.  His pulse ratcheted up and a cold trickle of sweat ran down his back. The edges of the room wavered in his vision. He felt icy and hollow. He took three deep breaths, counting the length of his inhalations and exhalations as he tried to fight off the dread creeping through him.

Teneisha wheeled a vital signs monitor over to him. “Okay, open up for the thermometer, baby.” Gabriel obeyed and closed his mouth over it, trying to ignore the sharp plastic edge of the thermometer sleeve cutting into the underside of his tongue.

“Now hold out your finger for me.” 

He did, and the nurse clipped the pulse oximeter onto it

“I’m ready to put the blood pressure cuff on now. I’ll only be touching your upper right arm. Is that okay?”

“It’s fine,” Gabriel mumbled, breathing as she lifted his arm and wrapped it, closing the velcro cuff with a little crunch. She turned on the machine.

In the end, it wasn’t the nurse’s calm chatter or the thought of the Alphan doctor or even the fact that his back was exposed and vulnerable in the boxy paper shirt… It was the squeezing of the blood pressure cuff that did it. 

It felt too much like that rough hand that had pulled his arm behind him and shoved his face into the fake leather ottoman.  The blood drained from Gabriel’s face. He compulsively spat out the thermometer and jerked the clip off his finger without even intending to, trying to get free of all encumbrances, struggling to breathe, shoulders climbing, gasping. 

The world compressed into a tunnel around him.

“Uh-oh,” he heard Teneisha intone with concern. Her voice grew muffled, as if coming from a distance. “Gabriel? Gabriel, baby, it’s okay.” She quickly ripped the cuff from his arm. “Gabriel, I think you’re having a panic attack. It’s okay. This is just adrenaline. You’re safe. Try to breathe. I know it’s scary, but this won’t hurt you. Nobody’s going to hurt you. You’re safe. I’m right here with you. This is going to pass. I’m going to wait right here with you. Try to take another breath for me.”

A wave of nausea crashed through Gabriel’s system and he gagged. “Going… To be sick!” he panted miserably. 

Like lightning, Teneisha whipped a small garbage can away from the wall behind her and held it in place for him. He retched into it, his body expelling the traces of the next-to-nothing he had eaten all day. Tears streamed from his eyes as painful spasms wracked his abdomen. He was mortified, and ill, and so, so tired of all of it. 

Leaning his forearms on the edges of the can, he sobbed and heaved until there was nothing left.

“I’m so sorry,” he managed when the dry heaves finally eased and he could lift his head again. The panic attack was slowly receding. 

"Think of five things that you can see.  Think of four things that you can touch. Think of three things that you can hear," he muttered to himself, trying to pull himself back into the present.

“That’s right, baby. Do your breathing. It’s fine, you’re fine,” Teneisha assured him, hovering but not touching, radiating so much compassion and understanding that it felt silly to be panicked in her presence. In creaky stages, he let his shoulders down.

“You’re all sweaty and you’ve got your pretty hair all stuck to your face. Can I pull this gorgeous head of hair back for you?” she offered.

Gabriel nodded weakly.  “Just please, don’t touch my—" He gestured with one hand to his neck and upper back. "I just can’t… I’m weird about it now… I’m so sorry.  I’m sorry I threw up,” he repeated, “I’m so embarrassed.”

Teneisha sucked her teeth dismissively, smoothing the hair off of his sweaty forehead, pulling it away from his face, and deftly knotting it behind his head with a hairband she produced out of nowhere. 

“Gabriel, baby, I am a registered nurse. This is my job, and I love it. I’ve been doing this for almost thirty years, and I have seen and smelled everything a body can do. This is nothing. You go ahead and be sick. You’ve got all kinds of hormones and meds running through you and you’ve been through something hard. You’re doing wonderfully. Don’t apologize to me or anyone else. And don’t you be embarrassed! You’re a survivor. We’re gonna get you through this, you hear me? This is as bad as it gets––it’s all up from here.”

Leaving Gabriel in possession of the little plastic trash can, Teneisha went to the sink, dampened a paper towel with cold water, and handed it to him. “Here, wipe your face with this. It’ll make you feel a little better. Come on, now.”

The exhausted Omega took the towel and swiped at his sweaty forehead and cheeks. The coolness made him feel slightly more anchored in his own body.

“I want to hold your hand for a second. Would that be okay?” Teneisha asked. 

Gabriel nodded, surrendering to her experience. She seemed to know how everything worked and he had forgotten how anything worked. When she took his icy hand in her warm and pillowy grasp and squeezed it lightly, she infused him with a little of her strength. 

“Believe me, Gabriel,” she said in her certain-to-the-point-of-sternness voice, the perfect antidote to the chaos he was living in. He needed to believe her. He found that he could. Teneisha continued, “It will get better. So much better. A lot of Omegas have sat on this table with me, far too many, and I have seen them in a lot of pain and a lot of fear, but I have also seen them heal up and move on. You got yourself here so quickly that you are miles ahead of this situation–there’s no question you’re going to recover, okay? Dr. Caris and Dr. Anderson are going to fix you right up, alright, baby? Did you talk to the psychologist already?”

He nodded. “Yes ma’am. I’ll be doing therapy twice a week. My first appointment is tomorrow.”

“That’s excellent.” Teneisha gave his hand an approving squeeze. “That’s really important, too. It’s gonna help you a ton. Do you need the trash can anymore?” 

Gabriel shook his head, half-smiling as he shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything left.” 

“Then I’ll be right back.” Teneisha knotted the bag and took it out of the room, then returned a few seconds later to put a fresh plastic liner in the can and set it close to the exam table.

“I’ll keep it ready for you over here, just in case. That you had nothing in you to chunk up is part of the problem, honey. You need some food in your system with these meds or they’ll upset your stomach. Besides that, low blood sugar is notorious for making panic attacks more likely. If you're not eating, you're probably not drinking, either, and that'll dehydrate you and make you feel bad. The suppressants messing with your hormones are to blame, but they’re a necessary evil. Here.” She held out a little paper cup. “Here’s a little cup of water. Come on over here to the sink and rinse your mouth out.”

Gabriel slid down to the floor and obediently went to the sink to rinse his mouth. Teneisha remained next to him, one hand hovering next to his arm, ready to catch him if he went down. She ushered him back to the exam table, and he climbed back up.

“That’s better. Now, take this sucker. It’s nice and sour and it’ll help the nausea.” She produced a lollipop from the pocket of her colorful scrub top and held it out for him. “Look at me now, sir. Look in my eyes and promise me you are going to eat three times a day while you are on these meds.”

Gabriel looked into her deep brown concern-laden eyes and promised, and tried to mean it. He could do better. He would try.

Unwrapping the sour apple lollipop, he stuck it in his mouth to prove his sincerity and to avoid hurting Teneisha’s feelings. The blend of sweet and sour was unexpectedly pleasant even if he had no appetite, and as he sucked on it, his stomach settled a little. Teneisha knew her stuff.

Teneisha nodded approvingly. “Alright, that’s better. I’m going to go tell Dr. Caris you’re ready for her so we can get you seen and scheduled and get you on out of here so you can eat and get some rest. But before I go, do you have anyone staying with you right now? I didn’t see anyone in the waiting room.”

“No, I didn’t want to tell anyone… until I knew something. Until I knew what would happen.”

“Are you close to your family? To your mama?”

Gabriel nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”