Page 54 of Dark Shaman: The Lost Treasure
She looked at him down her nose. "If we were a couple, babe would have been okay. But we are not, so you can call me Hildegard, nurse, woman, or female depending on the context. If we become friends, you will be allowed to call me Hildie."
"Can I call you Hildie now? You can pretend that we are friends. You know, fake it until you make it kind of thing."
She was contemplating his request when his stomach growled loudly.
"Fine," Hildegard said, standing. "You can call me Hildie, but I reserve the right to rescind my acquiescence. Let me get you that gourmet broth. Chicken or beef?"
"Surprise me. I like to live dangerously."
"Indeed." She walked out the door and stopped by the doctor's office. "He's hungry. Can he have broth and Jell-o?"
Julian looked surprised. "He couldn't have transitioned already."
"I know, but he's hungry."
"You can give him clear liquids, and if he doesn't throw them up or lose consciousness again, you can give him solids."
She was about to turn away but paused. "Do you want to administer the test to see if he's transitioned?"
Julian shook his head. "It can't happen so fast. In my opinion, this is a temporary pause, and he will go under again. Perhaps I missed some underlying health problem, and his body halted the process because it was risky for him."
Surprisingly, Hildegard's worried response was visceral. She didn't want anything happening to Tim. "Perhaps you should check on him after all. Maybe I missed something."
"I will. But first, let's see how he reacts to the food."
In the kitchen, she pulled out a cup of beef broth from the freezer, put it in the microwave to defrost, and thought about her strange reaction to Julian's hypothesis.
It had been easy to joke and tease when she thought that Tim was out of danger, but if Julian was correct and this was just a temporary reprieve, then things could still go wrong.
Everyone had their armor, and Tim's just happened to be made of snark. But underneath, he was just as scared as anyone else in his position would be.
You always did have a soft spot for the broken ones.
Hildegard chuckled to herself. "Tim is not broken. Just dented. And dents can be hammered out."
"With him, it might require a sledgehammer," Julian said from behind her.
She hadn't noticed him walking into the clinic's kitchen. "Can I get you anything, doc?"
"I'm just getting myself coffee." He refilled his cup from the carafe. "The microwave is done, by the way. I heard it beeping from my office."
"Oh, I know. I was waiting for the broth to cool down." That was a total lie, but she didn't want Julian to think she had been preoccupied with talking to herself.
She pulled out the hot container, placed it on a tray, and added a cup of Jell-o.
Stopping before Tim's door, she knocked before entering this time, giving him the courtesy of warning before opening it. "Miss me already?" she asked.
"Desperately. I've been composing sonnets in your absence."
Tim had adjusted his position a little.
"Do you even know any?"
"Shakespeare's overrated." He watched the tray she put on the serving table. "A feast worthy of a king. I may waste away to nothing with such fare. A shadow of my former self." He didn't make a move to take one of the two spoons on his tray, and she wondered if she should offer to feed him or let him try to do so by himself first.
"You know what's weird?" he asked.
"What?"
