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“Nope, get your butt back here, Daryl. You’re limping.”
He felt his pulse start to quicken. Damn it, when would that stop? He’d already hung out with and eaten dinner with her a ton of times and held her hand!
Maybe he’d feel better after they finally, you know, kissed.
Yeah, maybe...maybe he should buck up and finally kiss her. It’d been long enough, so she was probably waiting for that. And he really liked her. And trusted her.
“I’m just going to lightly palpate here, okay? If you feel any pain or discomfort, tell me.”
Damn, he loved how she talked. Didn’t know what half the stuff meant if it was medical, but he just loved hearing her voice. She’d been raised in North Dakota before she went to Maryland as part of her Navy medic training, then after she was out of the military, had gone to Virginia to do her residency, where by chance she ended up in Alexandria after shit hit the fan.
Whoa, that tickled! He tried not to laugh, but it just came out. Giggling back quietly, she said “Sorry, didn’t realize how ticklish you are.”
She never lost that Midwestern accent and he loved that about her. And how she would just bust out into that medical mumbo jumbo made it all the more interesting. But it was even better when she tried to copy his own accent, because it just sounded so damned cute.
But shit, why was she now feeling around there, and why was she crouched down like that?
“Damn, woman!” comes out before he can stop himself.
“Mind out of the gutter, handsome – but if you feel self-conscious or unsafe, please say so,” she tells him, and immediately stops what she was doing.
He shakes his head and mumbles back “M’sorry. You’re just makin’ sure I ain’t hurt too bad.”
She smiles at him and resumes her examination, saying “Your comfort level is still important, though. Tell me if you need me to stop at any point.”
The tricky part was trying not to think too much about how close she was to his...you know. But hey, if she had to examine his hips, she had to examine his hips.
That was the other thing he loved about her. She didn’t pressure him when it came to the physical parts of their relationship. Everything about what they had felt easy, smooth, natural, safe. Like breathing or some shit.
“Now, from where did you fall exactly, Daryl?” she asked, brows low as she concentrated on what she was doing.
“Whoa, get a room, guys,” Glenn suddenly snickers from the hallway, his arm covered in road rash. When did he get there? Why wasn’t he in his room??
“C’mon, get out of here, man!” Daryl shouts, embarrassed. Hopefully, the look he was giving him was saying “Not in front of her, Glenn!”
“Glenn. It’s impolite to peek into an exam room that isn’t yours,” she gently chided him. “I’m evaluating to see if we’re dealing with a complete or subluxation,” she explains, sounding completely at ease. But what the hell was sub-lucks-ay-shun? Was that bad?
“Denise, I have your patient!” she calls out sweetly. Then she looks at Glenn again and asks, concerned and curious “Glenn, did you receive those abrasions during the run?”
Okay, well that one was easy. Glenn had road rash from falling off the bike with him, so abrasion must’ve just been the fancy medical way of saying road rash.
“Glenn, what are you doing?” he heard Denise shout from down the hall. Her footsteps made their way back and she too looked into the room, where Y/N was still kneeling.
Oh what the fuck, why was Daryl getting so embarrassed at nothing? She was kneeling to examine him because he was limping, nothing more! Why was he getting all stupid about it?
Denise nudges Glenn’s shoulder. “Do I have to rat on you to Mrs. Rhee?” she puts it to him. Finger extended, she wags it and orders “Back to your room, we gotta clean up that arm.”
“Sorry, D-man,” Glenn apologizes to Daryl as he’s lead away.
“After you’ve dealt with Glenn’s abrasions, I may need you both,” Y/N calls to Denise.
“Aye aye, captain!”
Daryl swallows. Y/N seems to sense his nerves and assures him “It would be a very simple maneuver, if we even have need of it. I do need to palpate closer to the pubic area, however, I apologize.”
You can handle this, Daryl, she’s a doctor he tells himself. Also...what “maneuver” did she mean?
“Now this may feel unpleasant when I press here –”
Shit, definitely did!
“Okay, that is certainly tender then. Now call to mind the worst physical pain you’ve had in your life, Daryl. I would like you to compare how that felt to this, and rate it for me, 1-10, with 10 being the highest pain level.”
“S’fine,” he sputters out. Holy fuck that hurt!
“Sweetheart? You’re a little too tough for your own good sometimes, aren’t you?” she answers knowingly. She’s rubbing her gloved thumb along his fingers and it’s making him feel all funny in his stomach. Damned butterflies.
She stands back up and tells him “Now, I’m going to leave the room for a moment. I need you to pull down your pants and check your underwear for any signs of blood coming from either your penis or your rectum. Then tell me through the door, a simple yes or no.”
Next thing he knew he was standing alone in the room. Y/N calls to him from outside to mention that “If you could use some help, either myself or Denise can assist you, or Glenn if you would feel more comfortable with another male.”
Thank God Rick or Glenn wasn’t in there to tease him mercilessly, because Daryl got red again as soon as she mentioned the word “penis.” And God save him if Carol or Abraham could see his face. What was he, a 14 year old boy again?
“Daryl?”
“I’m good, m’good!” he quickly says, and he carefully tried to shimmy his pants and boxers down, a little too conscious of the fact that she was on just the other side of the door. “Um, it’s...it’s fine, there ain’t none of...none of that stuff goin’ on,” he awkwardly tells her.
“Now please leave your pants where they are, but pull your under garments back up, okay?” Wait, she was gonna see him in his underwear? It’s fine Dixon. She’s a doctor! “Are you able to sit down, Daryl?” she asks him through the door.
“Um, n-not really.”
“Okay, let’s keep you standing then. You’ll see I left a small blanket by the table there, that’s for you to use to cover yourself if you feel uncomfortable being in your skivvies.”
She was so damned smart and thoughtful. How the hell had he gotten so lucky? And how the hell had he not had the balls to kiss her yet?
“May I come back in, or do you need more time?”
“Nah, it’s all good.” He does end up grabbing the blanket, though.
The door clicked open, and she walks back into the room, giving him a playful wink. He really liked how she smelled. It wasn’t a perfume that she wore or nothing, it was just how she smelled.
“Daryl, I would like to have Denise come in and to take another look and give a second opinion about your injury. Would that be alright with you, or would you prefer that I simply discuss it with her? It’s up to you,” she assures him.
“Denise is cool,” he shrugs.
“Remember, you are allowed to say ‘no’ if something makes you uncomfortable.”
“Nah, she’s cool. My hip though, not so much,” he joked, wincing when he tried to put weight on the injured side.
“Oof, careful sweetheart,” Y/N coos, steadying his shoulders before quickly jogging to the doorway and calling out “Denny, please come on in when you’re done, I’d like your opinion!”
“On it, babe!” gets shouted back, and Y/N then turns to Daryl again.
“This injury,” she asks him plainly and simply, but not coldly. “Was it a result of you and Glenn falling off your bike?”
He swallows. “Maybe?”
“Please describe what happened as best as you can recall for me, Daryl.”
“We, um, we was ridin’ along when we almost hit this fuckin’ cat, the damn thing dashed out from under some broken down car to get away from a walker. I swerved, but we were on this patch of leaves and we slid out.”
“Okay. How about the event of falling, especially how your hip or leg was injured.”
This was embarrassing. He’d been riding for over a decade and still made this mistake. “I was tryin’ to keep it balanced, but it didn’t work out and I felt this tug, I dunno.”
“And do you remember hitting your head at any point during the fall?”
“Maybe? Nah, not that I can remember.”
She nods, then asks as if it were nothing “Were you wearing a helmet at the time, or riding without at the time?”
...He didn’t want to answer that question truthfully. And that was an answer for Y/N in itself.
“Alright. I’m going to do a quick sweep, because sometimes in the event of an emergency, it can be easy to not realize that we’ve hurt ourselves until much later, and with head trauma this would be especially worrisome. Do you have any head, neck, or shoulder pain right now?” she asks next, carefully moving her fingers along his scalp then swiftly along down his neck and across his shoulders, then finally his spine. She’s standing on her tippy toes.
Daryl finds himself subconsciously groaning at how nice and gentle her hands felt. It was almost like a massage. Then, his stomach flutters and he turns even redder than he’d been before after she giggles softly in response and presses a chaste kiss to his temple.
“You only get that because you’re cute, Daryl,” she murmurs. “But if none of that was painful, I’d say we can rule out any head trauma and avoid fitting you into a cervical traction collar, thank goodness. I don’t think you’d fancy that too much.”
She grabs a tissue out of the box, folds it up into a square, then – what? She put the corner into one, then into the other ear. Then into his nose? Um...
Her sweet laugh fills the room again as she lets him know that was “A quick check for cerebrospinal fluid, just to be safe.”
Cerebro-who fluid? Daryl had no idea what that shit was, but Y/N did and he loved that.
Her posture becomes more relaxed as she further explains to him “The presence of cerebrospinal fluid would be indicative of basiliar skull fracture or otherwise trauma going as deep as the dura mater, which would be just...awful!” She closes her eyes and shakes her head in horror at the idea of whatever the hell she was just describing. A bad concussion, maybe?
“I had a soldier once who was leaking CSF; but don’t ya know, we had no idea he’d gotten injured that badly until they noticed it running down his nose since the other signs were non-indicative.” Another sigh and a shake of her head. “Now, I didn’t palpate any cranial abnormalities, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight without making sure.”
And she was telling him all of this as if her explaining it made all the sense in the world. Hot damn, he found that adorable. And generous. What would a redneck like him know about...whatever all that stuff was?
She didn’t even realize how damned smart half the stuff she said sounded. And if she never took her hand off his cheek, he wouldn’t complain.
Denise bursts into the room a second later, saying “So, did he tell you about his and Glenn’s lack of helmets on the bike yet, or did I just spoil the surprise?”
Glenn must be in the hallway because he calls to Daryl “Sorry man, she’s good.”
Y/N’s expression is amused, and she replies good-naturedly “I was working up to that point. I got a crush on this one, Denny, you know how that is.” She’s now examining his wrists and shoulders. Oh, never mind, now it’s the lower back. So efficient!
“Hey, Dixon!” Denise says loudly, and points to her head. “Helmet. Wear one. I don’t want either of you having to get scraped off the road and into a Tupperware container, got it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good,” she breathed, blinking and realizing just how commanding she’d suddenly been. “Hm. Hey Y/N, I could get used to hearing ‘Yes ma’am.’ Was that the best part of being in the Navy?”
“Definitely wasn’t the vacation time,” she snorts back.
Denise next rubs her hands together and says “Alright, what am I looking at?”
“Daryl, is this okay?” Y/N whispers to him, checking again that he felt comfortable with the exam. He nods, and returns the little squeeze she gave his hand.
“Denise, I want your opinion when you examine the proximal...” and whatever was said after that was beyond him. Proximal this, distal that, something about a femoral head, and an ill-ee-ack something or other and an ace-et-ab-yoo-lum. Daryl really enjoyed hearing Y/N talk about that stuff. It’s just that she was passionate about it, and so good at it!
“Daryl?”
“Mm?”
She lowers one brow and smiles. “Did you hear a word I just said?”
He blinked. “What was that again?”
“We need to re-position you, and it may cause some pain. A joint reduction of this kind is normally done under waking sedation.”
“Reduction?”
She rephrases it “Joint relocation. I can’t believe you rode home even with a partial dislocation, that must have been excruciating.”
He might have shrugged again in response, but he also found himself standing a little taller as he brushed it off. “Ain’t no big deal.”
She held her grin in as she called “Glenn, please come in now.”
First, she and Denise removed his boots while Glenn held his leg steady. This was definitely not how he pictured the first time she’d help him undress would be like. N-not that he’d imagined that too much, but sometimes it just happened, you know? She was sweet and smart and pretty and smelled nice.
And next went his jeans, which had been by his knees, at least. Daryl grumbles. Was this what them frogs in science class felt like?
He really wished he’d worn clean boxers today.
“You look good, man,” Glenn whispers. Daryl just grumbles again in response.
Y/N gave brief instructions, and on three they all lifted him and got him lying on his back (soo-pine, she called it). And oh fuck, OW!
After making an apology for the pain, she apologized once more that she had to now push aside the blanket far enough so that she could position his leg up and grip his thigh and calf. She left his private area covered, but his whole thigh was on display.
“Okay then, our culprit is ready for re-positioning. On my nod, you please push, and you please hold steady,” Y/N says to Denise and Glenn respectively. “And Daryl, please start counting down from seven.”
“Seven?”
“You betcha, seven seconds should do it, handsome,” she responds cheerfully.
Why seven, though? Well, she was the doctor, he guessed.
He starts the countdown “Seven, six, fi – oh flyin’ fuck !”
Shit, that hurt like a bitch, OW! “Mother-fucker,” he hisses, unable to stop himself from cursing. Oh wow, but it already felt so much better. “Holy shit, woman.” And he had to admit, that also wasn’t the way he imagined saying that phrase to her the first time she had him panting in relief.
“Now, tell me how many times I tap each toe, as I tap them, please. Denise, Glenn, thank you for your help.”
“Rest up, dude,” Glenn tells him.
“I’ll bring you by some painkillers and clean socks in a few minutes, okay?” Denise says, trailing behind Glenn out the door.
He looks back at Y/N, so diligently doing whatever the hell she was doing, tapping his foot and ankle and calf. “Making sure the sensation is still there,” she explains. “And this one should be familiar,” she announces before placing her hand below his knee and quickly bopping her other hand on it like a hammer.
“The reflex test, cowboy,” and she proceeds to do it by his foot as well. “Daryl? I don’t think you know just how lucky you are that we were able to fix that so easily. Injuries like that could put someone out for months back in the old world. You don’t even appear to have any associated fractures or tearing, it’s, it’s just miraculous.”
Finally, she appears to have finished everything she wanted to. Her expression is soft as she pulls over the chair right next to his bed and takes his hand in hers. “What’s killing me is that I forgot to wave goodbye before you went on that run today,” she confesses quietly.
He hates it when she’s sad! “S’okay, Y/N. I mean, I forgot to wear my helmet.”
Her eyebrows raise. She wasn’t dumb. “Forgot, or?”
His face warms for probably the tenth time that afternoon and he sheepishly admits “Maybe I just didn’t want to put it on...”
“Daryl, I love you. Please wear it, if only for my sake?”
Sorry, she what? She...did she just say that to him? That was the first time she’d said that! That was the first time either of them had said that! Holy shit, woman!
He feels sweaty. He feels shaky. Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit. And holy shit again, because her cheeks just got dark, too! He didn’t know what else to do, so he does the only thing that is in his mind.
He lifts her hand, still tightly holding his, and kisses her palm.
She bites her lip.
Oh no, did he do something wrong? Why were her eyes getting all wet? Stupid Daryl, stupid inexperienced redneck, clueless idiot bastard hick trying to be all romantic with this smart, beautiful doc –
Happily, his little inner monologue of insulting himself gets cut short as she laughs. Laughs!
“You have no idea how often I’ve been thinking about you kissing me.” Was she actually flustered? Had he done that good? “Somehow, that was better than all the different ways I imagined you first doing it. And believe me,” she adds, “I’ve been considering it all four months we’ve been together, and I watched ‘A Walk to Remember’ the other night,” she chuckles, wiping her eyes with her free hand.
And what? They’d been together for four months already? Shit that went by fast. “W-wait, c’mere, I gotta, I gotta kiss you proper, then.”
“You ‘gotta kiss me proper?’”
“Yeah, on the mouth,” he nodded, trying to sit up and waving her over with his free hand.
What was that expression on her face now? Good God, Daryl’s heart was gonna jump out of his throat at this rate. And oh good God, did he really just try to wave her over so he could give her a kiss? Their first kiss?
“Daryl?” she lets him know gently. “I know we’ve been going slow, so a kiss is a big step. A proper kiss, that is. I don’t want to make you feel trapped by kissing you when you’re already so vulnerable.”
Holy shit, he loved her, too, didn’t he? Why didn’t he think those words until now?
Y/N chews on her thumbnail for a moment then adds “And it’s not ethical in the slightest for a doctor to behave romantically with a bedridden patient,” throwing him a wink and a smile that made him grateful the blanket was back over his hips.
“So what you’re gettin’ at is: once I ain’t your patient no more, I can kiss you.”
A shrug.
“What about a medical exemption or somethin’?” he then attempts.
It was worth a shot, I mean hey, he was just glad he’d found the balls to ask.
She blushes again. “Daryl. Once we’ve got you up and walking out of here without significant pain. Is that term acceptable?”
How the hell did he love her so much and not realize it until now? Hot damn.
“Woman. Then you best believe I’m gonna be dancin’ out of here.”
Now, Daryl didn’t think anything about what he just said, he just sort of said it. She, on the other hand, seemed to forget how to breathe. When he notices this, he also forgets how to breathe.
And he sure as hell can’t go about remembering how to when she starts to lean in towards him. Her hand presses to his cheek. Her thumb grazes his bottom lip. And she leans even closer, mouth slightly parted...
And then comes knocking sounds at the (still open) door.
“Hey, um...is now a bad time?” Denise whispers awkwardly.
They turn and look at her. She’s got the painkillers in her hand and something else. “Here’s the meds, some clean socks, and I also grabbed you some, um, some nicotine gum and a magazine, Daryl. I’ll just...leave it. Right here,” she stutters, placing the bottle, the pair of socks, and the gum on the counter. “This is really bad timing, but, um...Rosita just busted her hand pretty good, and I need an actual medical doctor with field combat experience’s opinion on something.”
Y/N is already up at the counter. She’d just rummaged through the drawer and behind some stuff before she found whatever it was she was looking for. A notepad?
What’s that notepad for? She quickly scribbles something, rips it off and hands it over to Daryl, and in a flash has him take three of the pills with a long drink of water before handing him a piece of the gum and the magazine.
With a quick squeeze of her hand she tells him “I’ll be back, alright?”
And then he’s left alone. At least his pulse is settling back to normal, he guesses.
He’d almost finally kissed her!
But what was that paper she gave him, what was it, some kind of prescription or whatever? Why in the hell was she writing one out if he was gonna be stuck there anyways? He held it up and read it...
Oh.
It was a prescription.
For “(One) medical exemption.”