Chapter Text
Dr Erin Gilbert was happy. The reason for her happiness was easily explained – after years and years of hard work, it all had paid off, and in the last month, several amazing things had happened, rewards for all of said hard work.
At first, she had been given tenure at Columbia, a goal she had been working hard for, ever since she had started teaching there; then, she, together with her colleagues, had secured a grant for their research department, and to top it off, she had been nominated for the J. J. Sakurai Prize, one of the most sought-after awards for particle physics.
She was happy, and so, she thought to herself once the shock had faded, of course something had to happen to ruin this streak of good fortune; she thought that she should have seen it coming as she sat in the emergency room and the doctor took care of the cuts on her arms.
She’d been lucky, they told her, that the bomb someone had mailed to her hadn’t been built correctly, and hadn’t gone off with the force the culprit had been aiming for; still she’d gotten hurt, and as if that wasn’t enough, the shock that someone wanted to actually kill her chilled her to the bone.
“Erin!” she heard a worried voice call out, looking up from the work the doctor was doing on her forearms a bit dazed; she had a moment to wonder if her best friend was actually supposed to be in here, but if anyone objected to it, they apparently didn’t dare to say so.
“Abby”, she brought out, unable to keep the tremble out of her voice; Abby rushed to her side, looking as if she wanted to hug her, but not daring to, wringing her hands nervously instead.
“I came as fast as I could”, she then said, finally reaching out after all and placing a comforting hand on Erin’s shoulder, “Patty’s on her way, too, oh my God, what happened?”
“Someone wants to kill me”, Erin replied, quite bluntly, but unable to find nicer words for it, in her shocked state, “I got a letter, well, I got several today, all of them congratulatory for the nomination and the grant and everything and I thought it’d be another one of those but when I opened it…”
“Breathe, Dr Gilbert”, the doctor mumbled in a soothing tone, glancing up from her work on the physicist’s arms and trying to catch her gaze; giving her best to regulate her breathing, Erin closed her eyes, prompting Abby to rub her back soothingly, her friend looking back at her with concern when she finally opened her eyes again.
“I don’t understand”, she finally brought out, feeling close to tears, the sting of disinfectant as the doctor kept cleaning up the cuts only making the urge to cry bigger, “why would anyone want to…”
“I don’t know”, Abby had to admit, still rubbing her back, earning a miserable look from the physicist, “but I’m sure they’ll find whoever did this and put them in jail. I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt worse…”
Just then, Patty arrived, and even though the doctor looked quite miffed at this increasing number of people in the emergency room, she didn’t say anything, perhaps having decided that, with the shaken-up state Erin was in, it would be cruel to send the people who clearly were there to support her away.
“How you doing, baby-girl?” the historian wanted to know; their respective fields at the university were as different as they could be, with Abby and Erin working in the physics department while Patty was teaching classes on history, but somehow, they had ended up being friends, and Erin was glad about it – she’d never been good at making friends, and only could call Abby and Patty that, but the three of them were close, and she was grateful to have them by her side now, as well.
“I got lucky, apparently”, she answered the historian’s question, glancing down at her arms, the doctor almost done with patching her up by now, “that bomb… didn’t go off the way it should have. But… I don’t get it, why would anyone want to kill me?”
“I don’t know, honey”, Patty replied, the fact that she used a term of endearment yet again showing how upset she was, the frequency with which she addressed her friends this way always increasing when she felt bad, “but we’re gonna do something about it, I promise.”
If she hadn’t been so distraught by what had happened, Erin might have questioned that, might have asked what exactly Patty was planning to do; as it was though, she just nodded distractedly, wincing as the doctor began cleaning the last cut which still needed to be taken care of, the woman giving her a sympathetic look before she focused on her work again.
“You’re lucky none of these need stitches”, she then said, as she got done and began covering the wounds with patches of mull and bandages, “but I still recommend no heavy lifting the next few days, until they properly scabbed over. If you notice any signs of infection, please come back here immediately. Do you want me to prescribe you a painkiller? Or something to calm you down a bit?”
“No, thank you”, Erin gave back, not adding that she had medication for her anxiety at home anyway; she feared that, once what had happened would catch up fully to her, that medication might not be enough, but she was in no mood to discuss her medication and how it might interact with anything the doctor might prescribe.
Abby gave her a worried look, but didn’t comment on her choice; instead, she asked the doctor if they could take Erin home now, a bit relieved when the woman nodded, not wanting to imagine what it might have done to the physicist, had she been forced to spend the night at the hospital.
“I know that what happened to you is very frightening”, the doctor said as Erin got up from her seat, “but let me reassure you once more that you were very lucky. This could have ended much worse.”
“I know”, Erin mumbled, even though this didn’t make her feel much better; Abby gave her a shoulder a gentle squeeze, then took tender hold of her arm as they walked out of the ER together.
Once they stepped back out into the hallway, Patty glanced around, as if she was looking for someone; before Erin could question this though, the historian’s face lit up, and Erin, despite her state of dismay, found herself curious, and followed her line of sight, frowning to herself when she saw whom Patty was looking at.
It was a woman, younger than the three of them, Erin would have guessed that she was in her early thirties; she slouched in one of the chairs mounted to the wall, peering at the display of a cell phone through yellow-tinted glasses, dressed in grey slacks and a vest of the same colour over a dark shirt, the clunky combat boots and the unruly mop of blonde locks on her head clashing quite a bit with that outfit, but somehow, she made it work.
“Holtzy!” Patty called out, and made her look up from the phone; she smiled and put her phone away, then got up from the seat, Erin unable to look away as she watched her approach, the woman smirking at her as she gave a two-fingered salute.
“You must be Dr Erin Gilbert”, she then said, not trying to initiate a handshake though after a glance at the bandaged forearms of the physicist, “nice to meet you. I’m Holtzmann, and I’ll be your bodyguard.”