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Payton

I try to steady my breathing to keep myself calm despite having been sticked. Medication helps, but it's not a cure. It will never be a cure, but I also don't know what will cure me. No amount of therapy has helped either.

I hear them talking and I look over to the side where Holly's colleagues are, writing down notes about me. Holly's gone from the room and she took Gabe with him. I feel my heart start to beat a little again.

"Payton, we know this is stressful for you, but you need to be able to rely on yourself and your own coping skills, okay? Short of us drugging you into deep sedation to keep you from being too anxious, Holly's up our butt regarding it. Do you understand what her treatment plan for you is?" Asks one of the colleagues. "W-what?" I stammer and one borrows Gabe's chair to sit near me while the other stands, holding my file that's attached to her clipboard.

"Payton, the thing is..." Her colleague trails off, placing his hand over me. "Holly is concerned about you. You've been declared a risk to yourself, okay? And you're on a psychiatric hold for a 72 hour period. You came into us, taking more than the recommended dose for your anxiety medication, but it also has little effect at helping you.

Holly wants to look at what she and we can do to help you. Other type of therapy, wether a different medication would be appropriate and what dosage that should be set, where we can place you so you can be monitored and cared for, but also how we can get you off your previous medication.

The dosage needs to leave your system fully and if you're uncontrollable, un-soothable and we give your more medicine, sedatives on-top, it's defeating what were trying to do to help you and it's not giving you a chance to try and rely on the coping skills we know you have.

Holly's trying to source a book at the moment she can go through with you as she regularly works in mental health and drug and alcohol units, but things are topsy turvy as you know with what's going on outside. This situation means were short-staffed, low on resources and time-limited.

The city's leaders and authorities are trying to rectify this situation and get it under control, but till that happens, we can tell you now that your 72 hours are going to be used up where a proper assessment has not be completed by her.

We're not in much position to help anyone."

"If it expires, what happens to me?" I ask.

"Holly has put in a 28 day extension for you as you're not well, but till the legal system gets around to that, your hold will expire and legally we will have to let you go, but you're not well enough to be let go and you can't leave the hospital due to city lock-down, puts us in a difficult position.

We don't know what's going to happen to you, but we're going to do our best to support you in the meantime and why not make things easy on yourself and us too?" She suggests.

"I-I can try..." I murmur. "That's great." The guy smiles and then I hear the door opening. Holly walks in with Gabe following behind who seems a little short of breath and wincing every so often as he moves. "She okay?" Holly asks, taking the clipboard from her colleagues.

"We gave her a low dosage to calm her and just had a quick chat." The guy responds.

"Okay, cool." She responds, tucking the clipboard under her arm and looks directly at me.

"Now, Payton, do you understand what we and you need to do? If you continue the way you do, it's going to get to the point the director will start harping at me and we won't be allowed to give you any more medication as we need to wean you off of everything to evaluate your properly, but we also don't want you to start suffering overdoses of medicine in your system.

Our only option then will be to strap you down to your bed, but fully conscious with intervals were one restraint is undone for a while and it won't be painful or uncomfortable, but it would be a rather unpleasant for you to be in and we hate feeling like were torturing people, okay, sweetie? And Gabe would have to watch, there is no where else we can send him." She worries.

I nod quickly and softly. "Can I have my chair? I feel awful all of a sudden." Gabe complains, motioning for the male nurse to move which he does, allowing Gabe to sit. He looks slightly pale, tired. Holly moves over to him and places her hand against his forehead.

"Interesting. You have a mild fever all of a sudden."

"What happened to him?" I ask.

"I don't know. Maybe all the excitement of almost the past 24 hours is catching up with you, hmm, Gabriel? Perhaps you should start to wind down. It's going to be evening in a few hours and we can bring you some dinner. I make the same suggestion for you too, Payton." Holly suggests and then I see Gabe twitch slightly and his fists hits the wall all of a sudden, him grunting.

"Hey, hey, don't break the wall!" Holly's female colleague complains.

"Can you give me, Methadone?" Gabe hisses. "Uh..." Holly trails off and then she looks back over to me, then to her colleagues.

"Someone go ask around if we have any and wether there is a gurney available. If he has a mild fever because his starting to detox, we might start to have a problem...."

"No, you're not taking him! I don't care that he has a drug problem a-and we've b-bonded as friends!" I cry. "Payton, listen to me." Holly begs, trying to hold my hands, but I pull away. "If there is a risk now that Gabe's going to start have an adverse reaction, you could get hurt and we have a duty of care to both of you.

We can see if we can get him something and he might start to feel okay afterwards which is the only way he could stay in here with you. Were pushed for space, but if there is a gurney available in the hallway, we'll transport him there."

"Or you take Payton there or to the nurse's station and let me have her damn bed." Gabe grumbles, becoming seemingly agitated all of a sudden.

"Uh, we could, but she's safer in this room, especially as we can lock the door and I wouldn't want her on display in the hallway when she's agitated and it would be unsafe for her in the nurses station." Holly responds.

"You don't think I'm having a hard time too?" He snaps back.

"Gabe, I know this is hard for you. I'm not discounting your feelings. Now, let's see if we can find you some methadone, perhaps some fever meds and in the mean time, you stay here, try and stay calm, Payton's your friend, you both can be eachothers rock and I'll send a nurse in to do some tests and withdraw some blood from you in the meantime as we do need to investigate your fever." Holly tells him and then she and her colleagues leave, pulling the door closed.

Gabe sits there, head in his hands. "G-Gabe?" I whisper. "I don't want to see you tied up." He says, starting to tear up. How am I supposed to respond?

"Payton, there is a ring on a chain I came in, wearing. Things like my wallet and it would have been stored somewhere. It's my ring my parents gave me, remember?

"Yeah?"

"Should I sell it or keep it? You weren't keen..."

"You're asking me?"

"Yes and it's not like I have any other money to my name right now."

"Gabe, it's too soon. Keep it and decide later. We're both stuck here for the next 48 hours." I tell him. "Sorry, I just really need something right now." He groans.

"What did Holly talk to you about in the hallway?" I ask.

"I don't remember. It's been about two days since I took something."

"Okay, memory problem..." I trail off, looking away as he sits there, lightly twitching and sweating. Not long after, a nurse comes in to do his bloods and has some Methadone for him. Holly found some, she's a life-saver! No gurney though. After a short while, Gabe is not looking better, but his making jokes and laughing slightly. I can't resist smiling.

"Food!" We hear a voice call and the door is unlocked, a man coming in with two plates of food and some water on a cart. "Oh, I'm starving!" Gabe grins, leaping to his feet and I climb off the bed, but albeit slightly wobbly to follow. The man hands us the plates and a set each of safety cutlery when we hear several raised voices in the hallway suddenly.

"What?" Says the man and he quickly turns his back on us and looks out the door. "U-uh, please excuse me." He adds on hurriedly, looking back to us and slips out the door. Gabe is quick and manages to snag the door handle with his hand and open it back up, holding a finger to his lips and whispers, 'come on.'

So we both poke our heads, seeing several people are standing in the hallway at front desk, arguing with a few other staff members and sadly, Holly. "What do you think is going on?" I ask.

"I don't know, but let's see how close we can." Gabe answers, slipping out, holding my hand in his. I let him lead and he has me hold the door while he positions the food cart on an angle to keep the door open even a fraction so if we have to, we can run back inside if thing's go south suddenly.