Disclaimer: I most definitely do not own Saving Hope or The Vampire Diaries and don't make any money from anything I write.

Mostly because I haven't published any of the non fanfiction books I've written. I might make some money from them if I tried getting them published, but I don't make any money off of what I write/publish here.

I'm sorry this was late, it would have been posted yesterday, but it wasn't. Sorry.

So, only reviewer, you've been wondering if Katherine is alive in this. I'm going to say yes, because the only reason Katherine died in the show (the first time) was because of the cure and Silas, none of which happened here, but I'm not sure I'm going to put her in this except for maybe a few mentions, but I haven't decided yet.

Chiwi-luv, I definitely wasn't going to have the Salvatores in this more than just a few mentions. I like them sometimes, but others they can be a bit… well, you've seen the show.

Sorry to any readers who do like them, you're entitled to your own opinion, but so am I and usually I'm OK with them, but sometimes they can be a bit much and I wonder why Elena puts up with them, and that's my opinion.

And on with the story.

Chapter 6

Caroline and Bonnie woke up the next day around noon to see Elena rushing around.

"Woah, where's the fire?"

"I woke up late and I've got to get to work. How long are you guys here for? We didn't actually talk about that yesterday," she asked sheepishly, putting her shoe on and brushing her hair at the same time.

"We're here for the next two weeks," Bonnie told her with a smile. Elena smiled at her best friends.

"That's great!"

"Yeah, we can do more shopping, more sight seeing – oh! We can meet your doctor!" Caroline exclaimed enthusiastically. Elena froze, staring at her friends wide eyed. Joel. They were staying two weeks. Meaning they'd meet him. They'd realize he was a doppelganger, and Joel would find out too, and then the Mikaelsons might find out and then- "Elena? Are you OK?"

"Yeah," she said, trying to force her smile from before back on to her face. "Why wouldn't I be? Everything will be great."

Caroline and Bonnie shared a confused look, neither of them being convinced by her attempt. Something was wrong.

"I've got to go now, but I'll be back later. Meaning early morning." With that, she rushed out to get to work on time. Maggie had texted her saying that Reycraft had been promoted to chief surgical resident and that he was really not good with the whole 'private talk' thing.

-TVD/SH-

She walked into Joel coming out of the on call room.

"Hey," she greeted him with a smile. "Did I miss anything fun yesterday?"

"Well," Joel said with a grin. "I can't talk about here, but I did go to a CME with Kinney yesterday and end up cutting off a woman's leg with a pair of bolt cutters." He was fully prepared to hear her call him a liar like Maggie had last night and was surprised when she simply raised an eyebrow.

"Sounds fun. What happened?"

"A friend of Kinney's got trapped under a truck. Amputation was the only way to get her to the hospital in time to save her life and I had to improvise when we didn't have a bone saw," he told her.

They came across Alex and Joel stepped in front of her. Elena stood back and watched, not wanting to interfere. A month and a half, she'd been working here, and she knew that despite dating Maggie, Joel still had feelings of some kind for Alex. Whether or not he still loved her or it was just residual attraction, she didn't know.

"Hey, Alex. Do you have a second?"

"I do not," Alex denied.

"Hey, I just… I want to be friends again." Alex let out a sound of confused disbelief and Joel looked down before continuing. "I'm sorry, I made it weird."

"OK," Alex said.

"OK?"

"Yes."

"So, you'll stop avoiding me?" Victor came out of the OR behind Joel.

"Dr Pratt needs help," he told Alex. She brushed passed Joel and Elena joined him as he turned to watch her. The two of them followed her in.

"Spoke too soon?" Alex asked her.

"I keep on losing sight of the cords," the older doctor told her with a sigh.

"Sats are falling, you've got to bag him," Joel told her. Elena nudged him slightly with her elbow.

"Stop backseat doctoring, she knows what she's don't," she told him. She could see Alex smirk slightly as she helped Dr Pratt.

"Your resident is right. I don't need to bag him yet." Alex adjusted a bit more. "There it is, right there. Hold that. Tube." Joel handed it to her and she inserted it. After a few seconds, the patient started coughing.

"Easy," Victor warned her from between her and Alex.

"It's fine," Dr Pratt told him. "It's just a reflex. A little more…" she continued pushing it in and down his throat, the patient continuing to cough.

"OK, use the stylet," Joel told them.

"Quiet," Pratt told him sternly as Elena and Alex have him a look. "Nearly there… that's it. I got it."

"Nicely done," Joel congratulated.

"Joel."

"Out." Then Pratt looked at Elena. "She can stay." Joel opened his mouth but Elena interrupted.

"I did tell you to stop backseat doctoring," she told him, giving him a pointed look. Joel raised his hands in surrender before backing out of the room.

-TVD/SH-

"I mean, one second he was all sweet and nice and he made my patient feel really comfortable," Maggie ranted at Elena, getting a soda out of the fridge. Elena sat at the table as she threw herself down into the chair. "Then the next he's brushing me off and telling her I need to do better and then he tells me that he can't get away for a weekend trip with me! He just had a trip, with Kinney! I just don't get it!"

"Maggie, I doubt even he knows what's going through his head sometimes. Relax. Everything will be fine, you two will get your weekend," she reassured her friend with a smile.

20 minutes later, Elena caught sight off Joel and went over.

"Hey," he said, smiling at her. "How did surgery with Pratt and Alex go?"

"Well, I was mostly watching and handing things over," she told him. "The patient died, but there was nothing that could have killed him." She frowned slightly, remembering. Mentally shaking her head, she recalled the reason she had come over in the first place and jabbed him lightly on the ribs. Joel feigned pain holding his side dramatically with a betrayed look on his face, making Elena bite back a laugh. "Why won't you go with Maggie?"

"I can't get away this weekend," he told her, not giving her anything else. Elena have him a look.

"She's your girlfriend, Joel. You can get away for two days."

"I'm working!"

"I'm sure Kinney would give you some personal time," she told him simply, missing the slight grimace on his face before it faded. He opened his mouth to give an excuse but Elena spoke up again before he could. "She's your girlfriend Joel. Spending time together is part of a relationship, so you," she pinned him with a pointed look, "are going to spend time with Maggie this weekend. It'll do you both some good." She walked off without waiting for a response, leaving Joel staring after her, shocked. He shook his head and went to find Maggie for their surgery.

-TVD/SH-

Elena was helping in the ER when she was told that all surgeries were being put on hold and the clinic was shut down.

"It's because of Garcia, right?"

"Yeah," Zack said. "The doctor from the plane picked up whatever he had and now we're worried about an epidemic."

"So why haven't they closed the hospital doors?" she asked confused. Zack shrugged.

"Higher ups are more concerned with publicity," Alex said with a scowl as she joined them. "I've asked Melanda to make sure Charlie's safe, but the board representative won't let us lock down the hospital."

"Well that risks everyone," Elena said with a frown. "Surely the best way to keep whatever this virus is contained is to lock the doors. The paramedics who drove them here haven't left yet, right?"

"Nope," Alex said with a frustrated sigh. "I did tell him that, but he's still not letting us lock down the hospital."

-TVD/SH-

Joel walked into the empty room, expecting someone to be waiting. He sighed when he saw that it was empty and took a seat to wait. 10 minutes later, he was fiddling – because of course he wasn't playing with it – with a half blown up balloon as Alex walked in. She sighed annoyed, catching his attention, looking up as Alex have him a look.

"What do you want?" she asked, straight to the point.

"What do you mean?" Joel asked, confused as he got to his feet.

"Well, I was paged to the OR, so what do you need, I'm busy."

"I was paged to the OR too. Everything's on hold." Victor walked in, pulling on some gloves.

"What's going on?" he asked confused. "Did you page me?" Alex took her pager and looked at it as Elena walked into the room.

"Hey guys, what's going on? I thought all surgeries were on hold?"

"They are," Joel told her.

"Them who paged me?"

"I did," came a voice from the door. Everyone turned to look. "I paged all four of you."

"Dr Pratt is showing symptoms," the board representative, Brian, said. The CDC representative, Hibbs, continued.

"High fever, respiratory distress, seizures," he listed.

"We moved her to the ICU," Brian told them.

"The intubation," Alex said, looking at the other three who had been paged. "It was a difficult airway."

"Was the patient coughing?" Hibbs asked.

"Yes," Victor answered.

"And we were the other four people in the room," Joel finished off.

"Correct."

"You're all under quarantine."

After the two left, Alex broke out the thermometer and took Joel's temperature. Elena waited on a chair opposite them. Victor was standing looking at his phone screen, most likely looking at a list of further symptoms.

"Shortness of breath, check. Sore throat. Check. Myalgia and other boob specific symptoms. Check."

"You have non specific symptoms?" Joel interrupted.

"Normal," Alex said, before handing the thermometer to Joel. "Do me."

"What if this is it?" Victor asked, worriedly. "What of we're going to die?"

"We're not going to die, Victor," Elena reassured him. "Just because we were in the same room doesn't mean we caught the virus."

"Normal," Joel said, before going over to check Elena's temperature.

"See? Normal," Alex said to Victor. Elena waited patiently as Joel checked her temperature.

"Normal." He went over to Victor, who allowed him to take his temperature as he continued his conversation with the women.

"I can't die right now! I've got too many regrets. You don't want to know what the last thing I said to Shahir."

"Yeah, you're probably right about that," Joel said as he checked the reading.

"Victor, you need to stop, OK? You don't even have any symptoms."

"Um, actually…" the other three looked at Joel, who was still looking at the reading.

"Actually what?"

"99.7," he looked up at them. "You have a fever."

-TVD/SH-

An hour later, Caroline and Bonnie called her.

"Hey guys," she greeted them as cheerfully as she could.

"Elena!" they both said. "What the hell is going on over there?!"

"It's nothing –"

"It is not nothing!" Caroline exclaimed. "They're talking about a new infectious disease! Are you OK?"

"Yes, we're fine, everything's thing to be fine."

"You're not infected, right?" Bonnie asked, worried.

"I'm not showing any symptoms yet," she told them. Over in the middle of the room, Joel and Alex were having a conversation which, by the tones of their voices and the fact that they were getting louder, was getting rather heated. "Listen, I've got to go, I'll talk to you guys when I get out." She hung up the phone.

"Are you kidding me?! Excuses, are you listening to yourself! You can commit to anything, or anyone!"

"Including you," he said quietly.

"Yes, including me. We were living together and it still wasn't enough for you to make an actual commitment!"

"Hey, you were the one who walked out on me!"

"Because you cheated on me! You wanted out, and you didn't have the guts, so I walked."

"Great, so you dodged a bullet!"

"No, I didn't Joel, you broke my heart!" The two stared at each other for a minute, Elena watching silently, before Alex started again, this time quieter. "Any time that something gets serious with you, you run away. You live your life in fear. You think that you're this big fearless cowboy, but the truth is… the truth is that you will never take a risk. Ever." They stared at each other again for a second before Joel kissed her. Alex pushed him away and slapped him hard. Elena winced. That must have hurt. Alex's phone started ringing and she answered it. "Melanda… what about Charlie?... Is he still being zapped?... We're fine…" In the OR Victor started coughing causing all three of them to look at him. "He's coughing, you need to send a team down here." It was about an hour later when Reycraft came in with a smile.

"You're free to go."

-TVD/SH-

Elena came out of the hospital and immediately saw Bonnie and Caroline in the dissipating throng of people and smiled. Both girls ran over and all three of them hugged.

"We're so glad you're OK!"

"I told you I would be," she said smiling as they pulled apart. She listened to Caroline talk for about 10 minutes before she noticed Bonnie looking over her shoulder, looking slightly confused.

"Isn't that Elijah?"

Oh shit.

So, I have a question. Where on earth did he get a balloon in a sterile room?

You've read the chapter, please leave a review. I love knowing what you guys think.