The Beginning of the End (Zombie RP) discussion

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In honesty, Atty hadn’t considered what it may feel like to Emma when he’d told her she could call him by his name, and just his name, but upon her giving him the same permission, the man started to wonder if it felt the same to her. It felt...different. It was usually never a big deal—names were what people were supposed to go by. But the relationship between the doctor and the officer had always been restricted, limited specifically to their professions. From the moment he’d pulled her to a shot out when he’d realized she was a doctor and could help the fallen to the moment she took him into surgery and removed the bullets that’d buried in his body that very same day; it was always professional, always restricted...always kept in a safety net that there would never be a thing more between the two.

But now? Now he was to refer to the doctor as Emma; now he was to interact with her as a person rather than as a nameless professional. It was...unsettling, but not exactly in a bad way—or maybe it was. Fuck if he knew; it was stupid to even feel anything by being told to call someone by their name. Stupid, yet here he was with an unnerving feeling fluttering in his stomach. The man was a bit too dumb to recognize the feeling as the classic and terrible feeling of butterflies.

Shake it off. You have a job to do. The most common statement to flow through Attican’s head, the command to ignore everything but his job to protect and defend. On the plus side, the doctor--Emma had given a modifier to him using her name. It was limited to outside the walls of the hospital. Good. Because, well, beyond their first interaction in the field and their current situation, the two never saw one another outside of the hospital. Things wouldn’t change. She was, probably, just telling him to call her Emma because he’d told her she could call him by his name. It was a curtsey, nothing more. Good, very good. Nothing to feel weird about.

He’d offered her a small smile when she’d thanked him for taking his time to take her home, again suggesting that she was taking him away from his job. First off, he was technically off the clock, and depending on if the doctor provided his captain with an update on how little care Atty was taking of himself, he may be off for quite some time. Besides the point. Emma had also forgotten that, even if he were on the clock, this would be his job—escorting her home and watching over her, that was his job—his duty. He was to protect her. It was amazing to him how, the majority of the time, the citizens he was assigned to watch over thought that they were taking up the time of an officer, like protecting them was not as important as the other things they could be doing. People need to understand that an officer’s job is to be there for them, all of them. Each one of them is as important as the next, the same going for Emma.

Though at the moment, the only one that Atty was concerned for was, in fact, the doctor. He had never been good at multitasking. He was an all or nothing sort of man, so Miss Tullen was where all his chips laid; she had become his primary focus, his only focus.

Once the elevator doors opened and the two stepped in, a quiet settled between them. He came to notice there was no music; was there generally in this elevator? There was, right? His brows furrowed slightly, eyes going to the top corner of the elevator where was the black semicircle, the camera. Typically, a little red light was shining to tell that the thing was on and active, but just like the music, the red light was off. The cameras had been tampered with. With each new piece of evidence that came forth, Atty came closer and closer to making the absolute decision that the guy who’d attacked Emma was skilled beyond an average criminal. Government trained. The way the guy handled the bullet in his leg without a single grimace, the way he’d put Emma down without actually injuring her, the way he’d managed to get him and the girl in and out without anyone noticing—now the possibility that he’d came back and took care of any footage that’d been taken of him and the girl? It stunk of professionalism on some sort of level. On the plus side, they had blood samples of both of them, and if either worked for the government, Atty and the others on the force would know within the next few hours.

There was only one comfort in all of that; the fact if the man had wanted to kill the doctor...he would have. She was alive because he’d allowed it. Maybe he wasn’t a cold blooded killer; the two were just a couple stuck in a bad situation that required some drastic measures. On the run, perhaps? From who, then? Or maybe they were undercover, and they had too keep that way? Or maybe they were bad people—but if they were all the way bad, Emma would be dead. The ding of the elevator pulled Atty’s gaze from the dead camera to the garage that the elevator opened up to. It was poor planning on the contractor’s part, considering it made it extremely easy for people to get directly in and out of the hospital. Nevertheless…

”Atty.” It was a whisper, nearly the softest he’d ever heard his name said. His gaze went to Emma, features softening on their own. That same weird fluttering in his stomach seemed to have traveled to his heart, the thing seeming to be thrown off pace for a second or two. What was that? Emma’s eyes were wide, almost like she was shocked. Had she seen something? Someone? The defensive side kicked in, readying Atty to protect, but Emma continued her words "Ahh, is your car to the left or to the right."

His newly tensed muscles relaxed slightly. She hadn’t seen anything; it was just her wanting to know which way they needed to walk. Well, after getting Jackson to the hospital, during some of the down time while waiting for the boy to recover, Atty had moved it from the emergency bay parking to the garage. It should be to the… “Right,” he told her, nodding his head in the direction they needed to go.

The two started to walk, though Atty had drawn near immediately distant. The worst part about big car garages, people could be hiding any fuckin’ where. Seriously, a bitch could be in the car right beside you, reading to turn it on and run you down, or someone could be lurking under your car, prepared to slice your ankles when you get to the door. It was one of the worst places to have to worry with security, and considering Atty already knew for a fact that the hospital security lacked seriously, he had all that much more to worry with. He reminded himself that if the guy who’d hurt Emma wanted her dead, she probably would have been already. She’d played her role in this all, most likely. But...what if he was wrong? What if the guy had meant to kill Emma and misjudged how long he’d held her throat? Easily could be the case...no matter what Atty’s gut was telling him.

“Ah...” realization started to ping at Atty as they neared the police car that was designated to him, “I almost forgot...the car’s a little dirty.” By a little, he actually meant the back seat was soaked in Jackon’s blood, and the driver’s side looked like it had been painted with the stuff from where Atty had touched and sat. “The passenger seat should be okay, though.” He walked to the other side of the car and opened the door for her. “Just don’t tell anyone I let you ride up front.” He offered a rather sincere smile as he waited for her to get in.

The garage was not necessarily empty, it being so late at night but cars still filled the spots in rows. Most of the employees had gone home, the night nurses being on duty for any emergencies. Usually, Emma would be one of the doctors that stayed on for the night shift. She would eat something before her shift at the downstairs cafeteria and then monitor the halls. She had a routine, people she visited, the specific patients she paid extra attention to due to their condition. All of this she did without worrying that there would be someone at home missing her, waiting for her.

As they walked together to Attican's car, she wondered if anyone would even care to hear about what happened today. Would they care or just laugh it off, a common human reaction when one did not know how to respond. Her parents weren't even reachable most of the year and Emma never had any siblings, nor was she close to any relatives. But, she wasn't lonely, going home to a quiet, nice and comfortable home seemed ideal and most welcoming at the moment. However, something tugged at the back of Emma's head, a bit of acknowledgement that no one usually worried about the doctor.

Attican's voice snapped Emma out of her thoughts and back into her immediate surroundings. "I almost forgot...the car's a little dirty," he said to her, pausing as if he was failing to mention something more. Emma tried to peer into the back through the tinted windows but failed to notice anything. He was being considerate, although people who usually said those things never really had a dirty home, they were just being polite. Attican opened the car, a small click sound came from behind the, the locking mechanism releasing its pull on the lock. "It's fine, I am sure that..." once he opened the door and she took a peek at the back she noticed the blood stained seats. There was an iron smell that escaped the car and noticing her own surprise, she quickly made sure to regain composure on her face.

It wasn’t like Emma had never been around blood or wasn’t used to the sight or smell of it. She was a doctor after all, one who had dealt with numerous amounts of surgeries in her career. But, she just hadn't expected 'a little dirty' to mean that there was blood from Jackson who had been injured that morning and taken to the hospital in this car. She had not seen how the patient had come in, she only saw him wheeled into the emergency room, she half expected he had come in an ambulence.

Emma sat down and tugged at the seat belt to secure herself, "I am sorry, I didn't know that you had taken Officer Jackson all the way here, I thought you had come afterwards. I am fine with the blood, don't worry, I have a good cleaner at the house you can use in order to get blood stains out." She had noticed the bit of blood that was on his shirt and jacket, she herself had gotten the girl's blood on her, the one who had been shot and then disappeared after she had been treated. But, she had left those clothes in her office for the hospital's laundry department to clean it, Emma barely realized she was still in her scrubs. Well, after getting out of surgery, she didn’t have time to change, then she had gotten attacked and afterwards all she wanted to do was go home.

"My house is on South Street, just a few blocks from here," Emma said as she pulled the car door to close it. She let her eyes wander over to Attican as he got everything in order to start going in the direction of her house. He looked calm, and resourceful, this entire time she had been relying on him for help, trying to get a grasp of this situation. Emma wondered if all officers were this reliable, but she was glad that Attican had even accepted to come with her. She secretly wished he was worried about her, more than just doing the work that he was supposed to perform. It wasn't like she was expecting anything from this or from him, that wasn’t on her mind at all. It was moreso that she liked this feeling of being protected, being rescued from danger, something she constantly did for others. Emma sat back in the chair and relaxed, slowly but surely the anxiety she had felt earlier was disappearing.