"How long are you going to keep this up?"

"Keep what up?" The woman sitting on the hospital bed tilted her head to the side, an insidious smile forming on her face.

"This! All of this!" The young doctor gestured helplessly around the room, the exasperation in her voice causing the other woman's smile to widen.

"Listen, I don't know what kind of sick game you're trying to play by coming here, but I don't want to be a part of it. I thought you were done with this ."

"Sarah." Her voice was sickly sweet, but there was a hostility behind it. "I'm not here to play any game. I'm simply here because I'm sick, and this is where sick people come."

"No. There are eight hospitals within twenty minutes of here. Eight. So why did you come here? And why did you ask for me?"

"I told you; because I'm sick. And you're a doctor."

"No. No. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm done." Sarah turned and stormed out of the room, ignoring the other woman's persistent calls. She could feel everyone's eyes on her but she didn't care; she was too overwhelmed

Sloane Fisher. They'd known each other since middle school, and the resulting seven years of Sarah's life were infinitely worse as a result. She'd never done anything to upset Sloane, and yet the insults and threats and violence just kept coming, over and over again for almost a decade. And then finally, everyone went off to college, and she thought she was rid of Sloane. That was until she started getting texts and calls, at all times of day and night, threatening her like before. She changed her number twice, then got the police involved but nothing was done. So she just had to put up with it for another two years until Sloane finally got bored and presumably found someone else to terrorise.

And now, here she was 6 years later in a bed in the ED of Chicago Med, one of dozens of hospitals in the city, asking to speak to Sarah.

She made it to the break room just as the anxiety became too much, and the tears began to fall as soon as she pushed the door open. Why did this have to happen now? She'd come so far from where she was all those years ago in college. She wasn't paranoid and alert all the time, and she was learning to let go of her unhealthy coping mechanisms. But of course, that would all be taken from her. Again. That was how Sloane worked after all.

Sarah sat down on the sofa and tried to slow her breathing, all the while waiting for Sloane to burst through the door and attack her. Instead, when the door eventually opened, Dr Charles was standing on the other side, watching Sarah carefully, a look of concern on his face.

"Dr Reese…"

She looked up at him and wiped her face with the back of her hand.

"Are you… Are you okay?"

"Hm? Yeah, I'm fine."

"You don't look fine." He paused. "I heard you shouting at that patient just now. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." She hesitated. "Especially not with you."

Her harsh words stopped him in his tracks. He knew they'd had some disagreements in the past, but he didn't feel they were major enough to affect their relationship in this way.

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that this will be just like with Miss Lake. Sloane did some terrible things to me, and by all accounts could be diagnosed as a psychopath, but of course, you'd rock up here and say that her actions are forgivable because she's mentally ill."

"Whoa whoa whoa, Sarah slow down. I've never even spoken to this woman, and I don't intend to make a judgement on her without hearing what she's done. Whatever it is, it's clearly affected you to a great degree. If you want to talk about it I'm more than happy to listen to what you have to say."

Sarah forced a smile, then took a deep breath.

"We met in middle school, sixth grade when we had most of our classes together. For some reason, she decided she hated me. And I don't - I don't know why. But everything I did was wrong, and she made sure I knew it. She'd taunt me, call me names, all the usual childhood bullying. Then we got to high school and things got worse. Where I grew up there weren't many high schools around, so we ended up together again. She became violent and threatening, and I was hospitalised multiple times because of her. The police were involved at one point during my senior year, but they didn't do anything..."

Her voice trailed off as she realised how much she was sharing. It wasn't a lot, but it was more than she was used to.

"I - uh, I don't want to share all the details if that's okay. I just… I'm not ready."

"That's okay. And remember, I'm not here to judge you, I'm here to help."

She breathed a sigh of relief, already feeling bad for the way she'd snapped at him earlier, then continued, her voice shaky.

"After the incident with the police, she backed off a bit, and then we went to different colleges and I thought it had stopped. I didn't hear from her for months and then suddenly she was back. I'd wake up to texts from unknown numbers threatening me and my family, and then - and…"

"Hey hey hey. Breathe."

She took a deep shaky breath.

"I had to take out a, uh, a restraining order, and…"

At this point, she couldn't hold it in anymore. The first wave of tears hit, and she cried with a certain rawness, all her old wounds reopened. She was left gasping for breath, each sob knocking her down further until all she could do was cling onto Dr Charles for comfort. He felt helpless, unable to do anything but sit with her until this passed. He'd seen her upset before, but never like this, and he was shocked at how much pain was inside her, just eating away at her every day. From what he could tell, she'd never spoken to anyone about it; instead, she'd just repressed it until she was able to cope from day to day.
A few minutes passed, the two of them sitting there, the silence broken only by the occasional quiet sob as Sarah slowly calmed down. Eventually, she pulled herself away from Dr Charles and wiped her face with her with the back of her hand.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was tired, and she looked defeated, her shoulders slumped. "I shouldn't have snapped at you. I just -"

"There's no need to apologise. I'm really sorry for what you went through, but I'm proud of you for opening up to me." He paused. "How long have you been living with this?"

"Six years."

"Six years? Sarah, that's an awfully long time. Have you ever spoken to anyone about this?"

She was quiet for a moment, avoiding eye contact.

"Oh, Sarah." He gently placed his hand on her shoulder, a small act of solidarity.

"Listen, this, uh, this isn't important. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have- "

She stood up and rushed to the door, stopped for a second to look back at Dr Charles, then left with no idea of where she was headed.

"Sharon, can I talk to you for a second?" Sharon Goodwin, the hospital's Chief of Services, turned to see Dr Charles standing a few feet away from her, anxiety and concern written all over his face.

"Sure. Is everything okay?"

"Uh yeah, everything's fine. This is actually about a patient."

"Oh, of course. Go ahead."

"The patient in treatment 2, Sloane…" He checked his notes. "Fisher. I'm concerned about her presence here."

Sharon looked up at him bewildered.

"Why's that?"

"She has a, uh… a history with Dr Reese. I'm afraid I can't go into details, but the authorities were involved, and a restraining order was put in place. However, that was six years ago, so it's-"

"Expired, yes. How much of an effect do you think her presence would have on Dr Reese?"

"Well, based on the conversation we just had, I'd say quite a big one. She was like a completely different person talking about what happened."

"I see." She paused, considering her options. "I'll try and work something out. Thanks for bringing this up Daniel."

"No problem. Keep me updated, yeah?"

"Of course."

"Thanks." He smiled at her, hoping their conversation would get something done, for Sarah's sake.

A few hours later, Dr Charles caught up with Sarah again. She seemed lost in her own world, drifting aimlessly around the hospital, but she looked better now, her eyes filled with more life.

"Hey, Sarah."

"Dr Charles!"

"How are you doing now?"

"I'm, you know…"

"Yeah. Listen, I've got a psych consult down in the ED. You wanna tag along?"

"Uh, yeah sure."

"Great!"

The two made their way downstairs, Sarah's anxiety growing the closer they got. She knew it was irrational - there was no way Sloane could hurt her here, not with all the security - but she was still terrified; she'd been tormented by Sloane for years and knew what she was capable of.

When they got to the ED, she found herself being led to Sloane's room. She trusted Dr Charles but felt that this was a bit much even for him. Before she could say anything, he was already in the room, chatting happily with the patient. She peeked around the door and found to her relief that Sloane was gone and had been replaced with an elderly woman.

"Dr Charles?"

"Yeah?"

"I just need to… check something. I'll be back in a sec."

"Okay. See you soon."

Sarah turned away from the door and made her way to the nurses station.

"Hey, Maggie."

"Hey, Sarah! Are you okay now? You seemed a bit upset earlier."

"Huh? Oh yeah, I'm fine now. I actually wanted to talk to you about that. Do you know what happened to the patient in treatment two?"

"I think she was moved, but you'd have to double check with Goodwin."

"Okay, thanks. Do you know where she is?"

"I'd check her office; I haven't seen her round here for a while."

Sharon was sitting in her office trying to work out the finances for the ED when she heard a knock at her door.

"Come in." The door opened to reveal Dr Reese standing timidly just to the side of the door frame, evidently having been waiting for an invitation to come in. She slowly walked over to Sharon's desk until she was standing opposite her, then took a deep breath.

"Ms Goodwin, I was wondering if you knew what happened to one of the patients in the ED, Sloane Fisher?"

"Oh yes, Miss Fisher. Yes, she was transferred to Lakeshore Memorial about 45 minutes ago."

"Oh." Sarah was lost for words - she hadn't expected anything to come of her conversation with Dr Charles.

"She put up a fight though. It took almost half of security to get her out of her room. She kept screaming about you."

"Can I ask, uh - why was she moved?"

"Dr Charles raised some… concerns he had about her and your history, and I felt it best to send her elsewhere, in order to protect you."

Sarah was almost instantly on guard again.

"What did he tell you?"

"Not much. Just that there was a history of problems between the two of you, and that you had to take out a restraining order against her. The rest of it isn't my business, but your safety is."

Sarah smiled, unsure of what to say aside from a quick thank you.

After her chat with Goodwin, she went back to the ED to continue with her shift. Dr Charles was waiting by the elevator, happy to see her looking slightly more relaxed. The two talked for a bit, then went their separate ways. It was only an hour until she was done, but with the anxiety she was experiencing, it felt like years. Despite the security measures that had slowly been introduced over the last six months since Dr Charles' shooting, she was still worried that Sloane would come back, this time for more than just a little talk.