I sigh deeply in relief. All of a sudden, my vision blurs and I fall down on my butt. The stress of the situation finally catches up with me. I’m a sweaty mess and I'm fucking exhausted. Not to mention this blood will never wash out. I look over to the woman's face, now seeming less anguished. Her chest rises and falls slower now, looking far more stable. 

"You may live to see another day, miss. You're lucky I was here."

With my treatment complete, I can now leave with no regrets. As a doctor and a good Samaritan, I did all I could. Whether she lives or dies now is not within my control. Though if I were to guess, I do think she'll make it. Given, the recovery period will be hell, but she'll survive. The thought is enough to elicit a smile from me.

“Just one more thing to do.”

Across the way I see a faint light. The phone she was holding earlier is still on, albeit with a cracked screen. I make my way over to it. Apparently, it’s still on the ‘phone calls’ screen. I can see that her call from earlier was to a ‘Lara <3’. I think I recall her mentioning that name? I redial the number and wait.

A few rings later I hear a woman’s voice answer.

“Hello? Mom, are you okay? God, I was worried sick!” She waits for an answer but I give none. “Hello? Mom, are you there?”

I consider how to reply. I didn’t expect it to be her daughter. So much has happened. She needs to know, but I don’t want her to panic. Okay, I’ll just keep it simple. I get close to the mic so that my voice will be heard. 

“1669 Spring Street. The alleyway. Get her help, she’s injured.”

“What? Who is this? What happened?”

I hang up the phone and leave the rest to her. If she doesn’t come in person, she can at least call 911 to this spot. 

I change into my non-blood-soaked clothes and continue on my way. This detour only took around 30 minutes so I can still make it to the restaurant, I think. Sure, my wife will be fuming, but better late than never. Naturally, this will have to stay secret. I'll need to come up with some convincing excuse for why I'm wearing my work clothes under my jacket too. 

"Ah, this is going to be a headache..."

As I'm walking up the length of the woman's form, she finally stirs. Her head turns toward me, her eyes looking at me but not really seeing me either. She's delirious, no doubt. Given her current predicament, I don't fear her this time around. For that reason, I don't immediately make a run for it. Instead, I turn to meet her gaze.

"Th-Thank...you." She tells me softly.

I'm taken aback, unsure of how to respond. I watch her carefully. To my surprise, she has enough strength to lift her hand toward me. As soon as I see it my instincts take over. Grabbing my packed bag tightly under my arm, I move. Despite my own fatigue, my legs carry me in a sprint as far and as fast as I can away from the now-conscious giantess. 

"W-Wait..." She tries, reaching out and barely missing me.

I don't even consider hearing her out. Even an exhausted, terribly weakened Gulli woman has the strength to crush me in her grip. What in the world could she be thinking? That I was robbing her? Worse, if she felt me climbing on and off her body, I can only imagine what perverted things she thinks I was up to. 

It only takes seconds to get far out of her reach, and yet I still keep going all the way back to the broken pipe. I jump up and get right back to where I should have gone in the first place. I'm about to leave when I hear another sound coming from behind me. Within the safety of the metal pipe, I peer out to the woman once more. 

"You idiot! The seal will come loose!"

This woman, still barely conscious, is trying to get up. It's slow due to her wound, but she powers through it. Sitting up and using the wall closest to her, she keeps her hand on her stomach. I hear some groans and grunts as she ascends back to her full height before my eyes. Not a moment later her legs buckle and she falls over against the wall, grazing her bare shoulder. I'm honestly amazed by her willpower.

The entire time her back is to me. I think she's either too out of it to hear me or simply ignoring me. With a few more shaky steps, she almost reaches the street. She stops short, slumping down against the wall of the building for support. It becomes clear to me now that she wasn't going to wait to be found. The darkness of the alley would've kept her hidden only until daybreak. Who knows what could have happened to a woman as attractive as her while on the ground and defenseless? From her new position she’ll definitely be seen by the next passerby, hopefully another good Samaritan.

My sense of urgency returns while I'm watching her from all the way over here. I have a wife who is no doubt wondering why I'm over forty-five minutes late. I should leave now. It looks like this is no longer my problem. The fact that the woman’s capable of moving is a good sign. My worry slowly fades.

"Good luck. I doubt we'll meet again."

With those final words, I head through the tunnel to the restaurant. 

The rest of the night goes mostly as planned. After a long earful from my understandably-upset wife, she eventually goes back to her cheerful mood. She waited for me all this time, sipping on expensive wine. She seemed tipsy which may or may not have helped my case. Obviously, I kept the story of what happened to myself. The only evidence was the blood-soaked clothes hidden under my jacket, which is not uncommon for an ER doctor. 

I did need an excuse for my tardiness so I fed her a half-lie. Blaming it on the sudden appearance of a Gulli, I explained that I had to hide until they left. It's an unlikely but reasonable story. Thankfully, she didn’t suspect a thing. We enjoyed our meals and celebrated five years of being together, and many more to come.

The next day is the weekend. After a long week and an incredibly stressful impromptu surgery, I'm beat. Without a shred of guilt, I spend the day in bed beside my wife, doing nothing but eating and watching TV. I lazily flip through the channels while she comes and goes around the house. As I do every afternoon, I check the news for anything interesting. My eyes bulge when I see an all-too-familiar face.

"No fucking way."

I lean forward, turning the volume up to hear this. The reporter is going on about a ‘mugging gone wrong’ last night involving a city councilwoman. The crew are at a Gulli hospital with the woman from yesterday. She's sitting up in bed, smiling for the camera. It’s clear she’s trying to put on a brave face for the viewers. Anyone can tell she's been through the ringer with just a glance. 

The reporter asks her how she's feeling after the attack. He seems interested in hearing it from the source.

"I'm shaken, to say the least. Walking around at night was never something I thought twice about--this city is usually so safe. I'm just thankful to be alive."

He goes on to ask her about what the doctors said. Something about being helped before she got to them.

"Y-Yes...The doctors found that someone had treated--er, partially treated me before I made it to the hospital. They took care of the worst of it, buying me the time to get proper help from the amazing surgeons here at St. Paul's. I can't thank them enough."

I scoff. Of course, they're 'amazing' when they only had to do a third of the work. I shake my head and continue listening.

The reporter asks her to repeat what she said. The part about being helped. The woman looks at him carefully as if considering something.

"I don't know what happened or why they did it, honestly. My purse had a lot of valuable things in it, and yet nothing was taken. Sure, I lost my necklace, but...I'm still grateful. It's not an exaggeration to say that they saved me."

She then turns to the camera for a moment, as if somehow looking through it right at me.

"Thank you. Though I'll never know your name, I hope my ‘thank you’ is no less personal. Please find me if you're willing to chat sometime. I was wrong about people like--" She tries to find the words. "I don't care about your background; you're a hero in my eyes."

She smiles before turning back to the reporter.

"That'll be enough. The doctors tell me I need to rest."

The reporter leaves her alone, concluding his breaking news report with a police sketch of the mugger and a hotline to call for any information about him. No longer interested, I turn the TV off and pull the covers up over me. My mind replays the events of the other night.

Despite my actions, my views on Gullis haven’t changed much. The way she said 'your background' leads me to believe that she knows full well that a Lilli saved her. I don't doubt that we’d have a pleasant conversation, possibly even with some sort of compensation, but that's nothing I'm interested in. I don't do what I do for the attention or the thanks of my patients. I do it because I want to--because I believe it's right. In the heat of the moment, I wasn't concerned with her race, nor mine. 

"I only wanted to make the right choice." I suddenly think aloud.

"What was that, dear?" My wife asks me, entering out bedroom and slipping under the sheets next to me.

"Hm? Oh, nothing. Just...thinking about a patient."

"Always so worried about others, I love that about you. This patient--will she be okay?"

"Probably. Last I saw her she was looking much better."

"Good." She snuggles up into me. "Saving others is never a bad thing."

My mind flashes back to the vial I saw in her purse. The look on that poor woman's face sealed securely inside it, now reduced to the property of another. I shudder just thinking about it. I'm reminded of the kind of person that woman really is. Hearing her on the TV just now, I'm no longer sure what to believe.

"Yeah. I guess so. I...hope so."