Page 6 of Resist Me Not (Bloody Desires #4)

Chapter four

WALKER

“ D octor Hammond! What a surprise. And what are you doing here today?”

Crap. I should have known Doctor Aldrin would catch me.

I spin around in the hallway of the rheumatology ward with as innocent a smile as I can muster.

“Doctor Aldrin! Hey! Oh, you know, there’s some credentialing paperwork I need to handle, make sure I’m ready for all the right certs coming up, grabbing my, um… onboarding packet?”

She raises a naturally ginger eyebrow at me above the rim of her glasses, and I know I have failed her bullshit meter spectacularly.

Doctor Aldrin is in her usual wine-colored scrubs and white coat.

Her ginger hair is chin-length and mildly wavy, and while she has a youthfulness about her and can be as soft and kind with patients as anyone I have ever worked with, she is a forty-seven-year-old mother of three boys and takes no shit from anyone.

Being in civilian clothes in front of her makes me feel like a first-year resident again, especially when her voice drops as she replies.

“I am fairly certain all of that is either already taken care of or available for virtual access and submission.”

“Yeah, but, um… I wanted to double check.” When she stares at me silently, I blurt, “And to see Noah! But a friendly visit! No doctoring.”

Doctor Aldrin eyes me for a moment longer but eventually relents.

“I am sure he will appreciate that. But Walker?” Urg.

First name basis from Doctor Aldrin is like full name treatment from your parents.

“No doctoring, seriously. Noah is my patient, and you need this downtime. Not only for certification study either. You were close to burning out at the end of your residency. Pushing yourself to exhaustion does not help your patients. Or your social life.” She really is the best mentor, because as badass as she is, she knows how to push that work-life balance thing everyone is always raving about.

“Wouldn’t your boyfriend prefer to have this time alone together?

He was saying all these same things to you, wasn’t he? ”

And then some. “Turns out he isn’t suited to be partners with a doctor.

And before you say ‘I told you so’ because I work too hard, believe me, there were other issues.

” I try to not reach for my cut, which is healing nicely but still visible.

My hand flinches toward it anyway and Doctor Aldrin notices, drawing her eyes to my sliced cheek.

“All for the better! I have a date tonight. See, I can people normally outside of work. And I am taking it easy. I promise.”

“Good.” She eyes my cut one moment longer but then pats my arm and continues down the hall. “See you not too soon , Doctor Hammond!”

“Will do, Doctor Aldrin!”

She wasn’t my direct attending physician during my residency but still ended up being the doctor I most turned to for advice, given she is head of the rheumatology department where I’ll be doing my fellowship.

I’ll finally be shadowing her long term, which is all I wanted for this next stage in my career.

She is the best when it comes to immunology, but there is also a personal element to why I would have done anything to have her as my mentor.

She did her fellowship here with the doctor who saved my life when I was six.

She was in the room when I flatlined. I didn’t grow up in this city but outside of it in one of the suburbs.

My family doesn’t even live there anymore, but I always knew I wanted to work at this hospital.

Some people might find it weird to work in a place where they technically died for one and a half minutes, but for me, it’s invigorating.

It reminds me that while you can’t save everyone, you can always try, and there is always more we can learn to save more people down the road.

The crazy thing was when I started my residency Doctor Aldrin remembered me. She remembered my name, knew the age worked out right, and asked the first day we met:

“Were you that little boy who almost died from child aspirin?”

I'd had the flu persistently for way too long, and my asthma attacks were getting dangerously bad and more frequent.

My parents were at a loss and took me to the best immunologist they could find: Doctor Weiland.

Here. We didn't know the specifics yet of how immunocompromised I was or what my triggers were.

Then I started to have my worst attack yet.

Doctor Weiland saved my life, but it was Doctor Aldrin who realized the aspirin my parents had been giving me to reduce my symptoms was the cause of my worsening asthma.

It wouldn't trigger an attack for everyone, but it was making me worse instead of better.

If it hadn't been for both of them, I wouldn't be here.

Noah is one of Doctor Aldrin’s current patients, who I got to know during my residency.

While deciding on my fellowship and specialty—though I had long since been set on my path—I shadowed Doctor Aldrin for a couple days and met Noah while he was in for a checkup.

He’s six, just like I was. A six-year-old boy with lupus, which wouldn’t normally be life-threatening.

Even after ten years with that autoimmune disease, the survival rate is upwards of 90%.

But they caught it later into its onset, thinking it was other things before it finally clicked for physicians at another hospital and he started coming here.

Lupus is one of those things we don’t really know the cause of.

Genetics. Great, but which parts? Environmental factors.

Cool. Which ones? And how can we someday prevent anyone from getting it?

That’s what I want to strive toward learning, because life is already unfair, and too many people die young who don’t deserve to.

“Hey, kiddo!” I rap my hand on the open door only after peeking in first to make sure Noah is awake and not in the middle of anything important. He’s playing Pokémon with his older sister Emma, so I think I’m safe.

“Doc Walk!” Noah announces and sits up taller in bed.

He came in for a checkup.

He hasn’t left since.

“Finally, someone else to let this dorkus win,” Emma teases, stopping after whatever battle they had finished and setting her Nintendo Switch aside.

Noah has his own Switch, and Pokémon Scarlet is their go-to game whenever Emma is visiting. She’s ten, maybe eleven now, and a really good big sister who never lets Noah feel like he isn’t the same snot-nosed little brother she’d tease if they were home.

“Nah uh!” Noah snaps back. “I let you win! Rapidash could easily beat a Gastly!”

“You wish.” Emma gets up from the chair she’d pulled over beside the bed to give Noah a sudden—but very gentle—tickle attack.

He doubles over laughing, but when he quickly gets out of breath, she stops.

She is a really good sister.

Their parents often give them time alone, so I don’t see either of them around. I enter fully to grab the chart from the end of the bed. A quick peek isn’t technically doctoring.

Noah took to calling me Doc Walk on day one. He had trouble pronouncing Hammond without it sounding like Ham ‘N.

“What am I, a ham ‘n cheese sandwich?” I’d teased.

“Ha! Doc Ham ‘N Cheese!”

“Oh no, no. I am not answering to that.”

“What’s your other name then?”

“My first name is Walker.”

“That’s not a name!”

“Why not?”

“No one’s named Runner or Crawler.”

He had me there. “I do walk the walk and talk the talk.”

“Doc Walk!” He’d laughed harder. “Like Doc Ock!”

And it stuck.

“Pretty sure I wouldn’t have to let anyone kick my butt,” I say as I scan through Noah’s chart. “My last Pokémon games were Black and White 2 .”

Noah giggles. Those games are twice his age, but I’ve seen these two with old Nintendo DS handhelds, so I’m betting they’ve played their parents’ hand-me-downs.

Much as I try to keep a smile in their presence, the latest readings and notes aren’t great. Noah’s seizures have been getting worse, which means he’s due for an MRI today to see if we—if Doctor Aldrin—can learn more by looking at the neurological side.

That’s the problem most people don’t understand. Just because an illness presents itself one way with one person, doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone. Just like how treatments and medications don’t work the same way for everyone. We’re too different and every new case is a puzzle to solve.

But an MRI at six? That sucks.

I was six when I had mine. Yep, that same six years old as when I almost died. The aspirin made my asthma worse and caused complications, but the initial trigger was a panic attack from being in that big metal box.

I shake off a cold chill from the reminder and keep my smile in check as I return the chart.

“Doctor Dana said I have to go into this big tube thing today,” Noah says. Dana being Doctor Aldrin. Aldrin was tough for Noah to say too and kept coming out like Aldi’s, although that one may have been on purpose. Maybe Ham ‘N Cheese was too.

“I see that.” I stand on the opposite side of the bed from where Emma is once again sitting. “In just a little bit, huh?”

Noah nods. “Mom and Dad are talking with the radio guy.”

“Radiologist,” I infer. “His name’s Greg. Really nice guy. He’ll get you through it fine.”

“Is it, um… is it scary in there? They said it’s going to be really loud.” He is obviously trying to not make eye contact with his sister, but I know she won’t tease him about being a scaredy cat until after the MRI is over. She’s good like that too.

“It is noisy, but that’s why they give you headphones and your choice of music.”

“But is it scary ?”

That one I answer the only way I can. I lie. “Not at all. Do you know who Captain America is?”

“The superhero?”

“How did he become a superhero?”

Noah thinks. “He, uh… he was small but was good and wanted to help people, so they chose him to become big and strong!”