like a heartbeat drives you mad

holly wood 27 year old georgia native. former first year resident turned medic at fairvale medical clinic

[drhollyxwood]

holly wood //quick navigation

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[drhollyxwood]

alexandranavarro·:

Another look at the mountain of work that lay ahead of her and Ali was already looking to call it quits for the day without even getting started. Still, it was better than the alternative if anyone knew her skill level that could be used elsewhere in the town. The last thing she was ready for was healing and taking care of others, when she did so badly at taking care of herself or those that she cared about. Her parents were gone, along with the rest of her family at this point, and the only people that she knew were still breathing— she’d tried to leave them behind before the virus broke out. 

It wasn’t going to work, that much she knew even when she started the process but it was the only step that made sense when nothing else did anything for her broken heart. At least distance meant that she didn’t have to face the hurt constantly. “Well, if you’re offering.” She shrugged with a bit of a smile. “The extra hands might make this somewhat possible to accomplish, or at least get things started in case anyone else is ever as delirious as I was to attempt this. Luckily it doesn’t have to be done all in one day.”

           “Al— Alex.” Ali still wasn’t ready to hear her name quite yet, not after hearing it from Javi of all people in this place. She offered out her own hand in return, shaking the other’s with a solid shake before letting go to step back once more and inspect the hell that she’d given herself. It still beat being back on the outside where the only job to be done was not die. “I wasn’t going to call you the crazy cleaning lady, not without implementing myself in the process since I’m the one that volunteered for this job first,” she countered easily.

“nice to meet you alex.” it’s actually surprising that saying that feels less like an automatic response and more like something genuinely felt if only because  meeting someone new was a refreshing change of pace - a break from the same old, same old of what her life had recently become.

new person meant clean slate, someone who didn’t know a lick about how holly had been before - hopeful and happyish even in the face of a world turned nightmare - someone who didn’t expect optimism and sunny smiles, someone who would take her awkward stiltedness and forced smiles at face value instead of trying to get her to open up.

it was freeing in a way.

“you volunteered?” her eyebrow rose speculatively before she shook her head eyes once again flittering around the messy space “was this before or after you were actually made aware of the state of the place?”

spying a small pile of worn cleaning supplies perched on a nearby table she made her way over as she spoke to grab what she needed, never one to stand around idly and wait for instructions, she’d always been more the kind to tackle a task head on, and this barn it was definitely a task...and then some.

“because if it was after i may have to start questioning your sanity.” a joke, one that feels odd on her tongue now that she’s no longer used to levity of any kind, just smiles that feel hollow and thoughts she can’t bring herself to share weighing her down so hard they feel like they’re choking her “please tell me whoever sent you here greatly undersold how big this project was gonna be.”

[drhollyxwood]

astridmiddleton·:

astrid allows a grin to grace her features - she doesn’t exactly look for holly, outside of ‘medical reasons’ ( usually to try and con her way into what limited supply of medications they have, which rarely works since holly is all about rationing her supplies for the greater good and trying to find home cures for things like migraines and cramps ) but she has to admit the wry sense of humor is a good look for the blonde, one she hadn’t exactly been expecting. 

“but if i stage a coup,” astrid deadpans, “how will i ever get away with everything? kit may have managed it, but i am just not equipped for life on the outside.” that, at least, was the truth - she’d done what she had to to survive, and she was risking her placement in this place constantly, but she’d also never make it out there again. she was too comfortable. 

“stella’s the hot one, right?” she asked, even as they shuffled forward. “with the all american husband and the kid who likes knives?” really, there weren’t unattractive people in fairvale - it was almost like a requirement to be at least a 7 or better to live there. “i bet i could find a way to convince her. make the runners find more fucking coffee. or maybe we could con people into growing coffee beans themselves - who says you can’t crop whatever you want in georgia?” 

🩺

"mother nature might have one or two things to say about it” she answers with a raise of her brow and a slight tilt to her head “depending on the species coffee beans need a certain kind of climate to thrive in - high altitudes, subtropic weather patterns - its why brazil is...was the single largest producer of them in the world.”

she almost slips into what merrick had on more than one occasion teasingly referred to as her ‘lecture mode’ reciting facts she’d read with almost word for word clarity, sighing and shaking the impulse away self-consciously as she reels her nerdish impulses back in stepping closer towards the counter when the line moves “in theory though with controlled heated greenhouses and agricultural workers with magical green thumbs we probably could produce smallish crops ourselves but somehow i don't see anyone putting it at the top of their to do lists despite the benefits.”

she places her order once she reaches the front with astrid by her side, a latte with one shot as opposed to the three she'd used to order pre-apocalypse and with what she suspected was powdered milk instead of fresh, still the bitterness of the unsweetened coffee would be enough to undercut the artificial taste of the milk and even subpar coffee was better than no coffee at all.

she waits for astrid to finish placing her own order before she steps back from the counter to wait turning to the girl beside her, keeping up the chatter mostly because it was doing wonders for drowning out the other less than inane and idle thoughts floating around in her head “been keeping out of trouble? i heard you needed to pay the clinic a little visit the other day - should i be offended that you didn’t stop by and see me?”

[drhollyxwood]

stellcgarcia·:

stella follows quietly, obediently - she can see the tireless effort holly’s put in to trying to make the place a home, though she suspects it’s the same thing she’s been doing. cleaning and busying herself to avoid grief. burying her pain with immaculate floors and fresh baked goods. stella chose to knit, to sew, to try and create and bring something into the world ( and god, how it ached that she couldn’t bring someone new into the world now ) while holly tried to fix it, to clean it, to make it presentable as if that would fix it. 

“you can have her whenever you want,” she offered with a kind laugh, accepting the mug of tea with a grateful smile. “she’s getting more and more curious every day - i know they don’t exactly have the most normal curriculum at the school, but i swear she’s getting too smart for her own good already.” 

she had debated teaching her herself - ‘home’schooling her as best as possible - but it was important that she socialize with what few other children there were. fairvale was small, but if they were going to be there for any amount of time, they needed to make connections. friendships. 

“she’s been asking when she can come see you again,” she told holly, “but i know you’ve been preoccupied. i didn’t want to overwhelm you, since she can be a lot.” asking questions nonstop, a thousand miles a minute. and holly - she was one of the only ones nora had known before, which made her even more comfortable around the other. “but you name the time, and you can definitely take her. i know noah and i would appreciate a date night of some kind soon.” 

🩺

she hands stella her tea and slides into a seat across from the other woman, her own mug clutched in her hand more a palm warmer than anything else. she’d grown somewhat accustomed to supplementing her caffeine intake with the leafy beverage now that coffee was more difficult to get her hands on (at least in the doses she was used to anyway) but it still wasn’t her first choice, her taste buds never quite taking to the beverage the same way they took to beans.

“preoccupied” she repeats, lip tilting upwards in a lightly self deprecating smile, that was definitely one way to put it, some one less kind then stella might use words like avoidance or denial but the other woman had always had a delicacy of speech about her, even when they’d been cafe buddies back in boston - stella had been kind words and gentle advice with everyone she dealt with no matter how resistant or combative holly had witnessed them being with her in return.

“she’s never been too much - enthusiasm is never a bad thing in children.” enthusiastic and curious, clever and quick witted even at her age, nora had always been a delight and she’d taken to her from the moment stella had introduced them.

holly loved children, had chosen paediatrics as her speciality for that exact reason and had hoped one day (before the world had plunged into chaos and pain) that she might be lucky enough to have a few of her own and if she had, she would have been blessed if they had turned out anything like stella’s daughter “whenever you like really - next week? it must be difficult for you and noah to spend quality couple time with the duties you both take on around town - if i can help you add a little more romance into your life i’m more than happy to.”

[drhollyxwood]

oliverterrencewood·:

He’s never seen a heart break. He’s seen the before and the after, the change in people, but he’s never seen the moment it breaks. Looking in Holly’s eyes, he wishes he could take it back from her. Tell her it was a cruel joke and take on the burden of her never forgiving him just as long as she still, somewhere in her unbroken heart, believed that Merrick was out there, alive, and would find her way back someday.

But instead he watches Holly shatter.

“I buried her,” he whispers, voice so low it physically hurt, “in Riverside. Next- under the tree in your backyard. I- I didn’t know… I don’t even know if she’d like that spot, I just- I’m so sorry.”

He wants to cry. So fucking bad, he wants to cry. But Holly isn’t crying yet and he has no right to cry in front of her; not when he cost her Merrick. If she had to choose, he has no doubt she’d choose her sister. Her baby sister. He’d even forgive her for it.

“We met on the road,” Oliver continues. “She was looking for you, I was looking for both of you. Riverside seemed to be the best- we never went too far.”

His hands are shaking as he reaches for the dusty backpack that slumped on the floor. He can barely work the zipper on the front pocket. When it splits open, the contents practically spill out into his hands. A battered notebook, bent along a curve for being in the pocket for too long. 

“This is hers,” he nearly chokes as he stares down at it. His fingers linger over the torn up edge of a sticker then traces the final swoop of the K in her name. Hers. Her hand. Her thoughts. Her prayers. Her final testament.

“She wanted me to save this.” And that right there almost does him in. The way she threw the backpack at him, the way she left him holding the last of her while she sacrificed herself. As if things would make up for her death. As if she didn’t think anyone would rather she save herself. 

“She- I can’t…” he shakes he head clear of it, holding back the impending collapse until he isn’t here telling her sister that she’s dead. “It’s for you. I think it’s for you.”

🩺

just for a moment she’s suddenly furious, so angry she can barely see straight, and she swallows back the denial that wells in her throat. she almost doesn't take the notebook when oliver tries to hand it to her and when she does finally reach for it she has to fight the urge to tear it to shreds.

(later she'll read each and every word, soft fingers caressing paper smooth pages until tears mingle with the ink streaking the page)

because words were meaningless  -it was actions that mattered, actions that counted for something and merrick’s actions had led to her death.

and its such a merrick thing to do - to jump head first, to never think her actions through, to not give a shit about consequences because she's never been the one who had to deal with them...to just leave holly behind to clean up her  mess...

to just leave holly behind...

there's a noise resonating around the room that sounds something between a strangled sob and a whimper and it takes a second for her brain to comprehend that it had escaped from her own mouth and just as quick as her anger sparked to life it fizzles away leaving nothing but a cold sense of grief in its wake.

“i have to... i have to go home...its dark - underground - its dark and there's no flowers and she wont like it.” merrick had been scared of the dark, her tiny feet padding into holly's room at night and slipping under her covers and she’d made her promise to protect her like only an older sister could, she’d believed holly could keep her safe.

but oliver doesn't know that, he hadn't been there when she'd been six years old and afraid of the monsters hiding in her pitch black wardrobe, or when she'd been thirteen years old and broken hearted for the first time, he hadn't attended every one of her softball games sitting front row, yelling out encouragements and he hadn't known exactly where to look every time she'd packed a bag and told everyone she was running away.

(he’d been there to bury her though)

“she'll want...she'll want flowers. and i...” her eyes sting and her cheeks are wet but she makes no move to wipe them clear just continues rambling mostly to herself “mom and dad i have to...i have to find them, they need....they need to know.” but she cant move, its like cement has been poured inside every inch of her body and she's frozen...a statue slowly eroding away until there’s nothing left but jagged stone and the impression of a work of art that had once been beautiful but now decayed.

"ollie...i...i have to go home...you have to take me home...i belong there...i belong there with her."

[drhollyxwood]

oliverterrencewood·:

Greedily, he clutches the inhaler in his hand. Like it’s precious something precious, like gold or diamonds or… like something suddenly scarce in an apocalyptic world. Like it is precious. And he fights the urge to use the entire can immediately, to relish in the feeling of truly open lungs for the first time in so many months, but he paces himself. A few good, hard shakes, a deep breath through his mouth as he depresses the canister. Hold, hold, hold. 

He takes a second hit, probably sooner than he should, but this isn’t exactly his normal medicine - which he may never have again - and the familiar feeling of chemicals in his lungs is somehow so comforting that he can’t stop himself from clinging to it for just a minute more.

“Thanks,” he says somewhat shakily, somewhat guiltily, as he caps the inhaler and slips it into his jacket pocket. Holly just nods, rubbing her hand over his back and all he wants to do is collapse into the arms of his oldest sister, his friend, but he can’t. He really can’t. 

Not when Merrick, her real sister, her real best friend, can’t.

“I… Holly, I have to tell you-”

Fuck, how is he supposed to do this Merrick? How?

“Merrick is… she… Holly, she didn’t make it.”

the hand gliding along his back stutters to a stop, flinching into the fabric of his worn t-shirt and she blinks up at him, once, twice as she feels her eyes moisten and a fog descends around her mind.

he's wrong, he has to be - he can't know that - he can’t...

"no she did, she did make it, she's just lost ollie, but we'll...we'll find her" but the look in oliver’s eyes speaks of something more than just lost hope and pessimistic ramblings. there's grief, so much grief and pain and fear and hollys whole body feels like reacting to it. a scream welling up in her throat she has to swallow back as the urge to grab him, to shake him and beg him to take it back overwhelms her.

"you don't....why would you...how..." her hand shakily drops from his back, and she can't think straight, cant find sensible enough words to ask for answers (holly she didn't make it, she didn't make it, shedidntmakeit), the breath expelling from her lungs and she thinks maybe she might never be able to breathe properly ever again "tell me you’re wrong...please tell me you’re wrong. tell me you don’t know.”

[alecstasy]

my anonymous friend sent me this and i thought this was really beautiful

[drhollyxwood]

oliverterrencewood·:

“No, I lost my inhaler a while ago,” he admitted and his throat tightened even more. With the sob still being held back, with the cough building in his lungs, the need to expel everything and nothing at the same time. 

“You can’t tell anyone,” he pleaded and god, it was so selfish of him to talk about this instead of- selfishselfishselfish

“Please,” he continued. “It’s… it looks like the virus. When it gets bad and I can’t breathe and my mouth bleeds and I’m sick, people think it’s the virus. No one can know. Please.”

He’s not sure how much she took that in though because once she starts talking about Merrick, her entire body comes a little more to life. Her eyes light with hope, her back straightens with determination, her mouth almost smiles.

And he can’t take it. He really can’t. She doesn’t know and he has to be the one to tell her. And he hates this. He hates Merrick for doing this to her. To him. To them. 

It’s going to break him but it’s going to kill Holly.

“I- Holly, just… I need to sit down. Can we sit down?” he asked, just prolonging the inevitable. 

🩺

"of course...of course we can." she shakes her head, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and leading him to the small sofa in the corner of her office. she helps him sit down before sitting beside him, one arm wrapping around his back as her hand lays over his chest...over his heart where she feels the erratic beating against her palm (too fast, much too fast, skipping beats everyso often), thoughts of merrick pushed to the side, as she berates herself for concentrating on their absent sibling when oliver clearly needed her attention more - stupid of her, so stupid and blind.

"just breathe with me okay? in and out - concentrate on the air filling your lungs." she's not sure what set him off, his illness or her mentioning merry. had she shocked him so much that she'd just sent him into the early throes of an attack? was it anger at her or fear for their sisters safety? was he worried she'd place her responsibilities as a town medic over her need to protect him? 

she wouldn't, she couldn't - not ever.

"just wait here for a second, keep breathing, i wont be long." she slips away from him and out of her office and slips down the hall to the stock room, searching quickly through under-stocked cabinets until she finds what she needs - albuterol - not many but enough, enough that the one she slips stealthily into her pocket wont be missed.

she practically rushes back into the room, closing her office door quietly behind her as she re-joins her brother on the couch and pulls out the medication offering it up to him like an apology, or a promise. "i wont tell anyone ollie, no one needs to know - i can take care of you when you need it, i wont let anything happen to you - i swear i wont."

[drhollyxwood]

alexandranavarro·:

Prayer didn’t work for her. It never had before, why would it be any different now? “It seems that way considering what people are asking for and how little they’ve actually done to make it happen,” she responded, eyeing up everything that was in disarray and looked like it had been for years before she opened the doors. As much as had been done in the months before her arrival, Ali knew that they needed to do more to fix things up around the farm if they wanted to keep it going. 

Her expertise wasn’t in farming, but livestock— that she knew how to take care of which was why she elected to work here rather than in medical. “That was the plan, but now it seems like I might be in over my head.” It felt overwhelming, but it could also give her a space to work without fear of running into anyone or come face to face with some issues that she hadn’t worked through yet. A brief smile touched her lips at the other’s offer. “I’d appreciate it, if you have the time. I know there isn’t really much free time to go around, but I’ll take any help that I can get.”

🩺

funnily enough holly had more free time now then she can recall ever having before, the people in her life - merrick, ethan, her parents, logan - had often told her that she needed to slow down and it seems she’s finally taken a little of their advice - she wasn't always studying or working or devoting her time to the 101 other pursuits she'd previously filled her time with, she took the time to relax when she could and even occasionaly slept for longer than three hour intervals - only it had taken a literal apocalypse to get her there.

“there are twenty four usable hours in a day if you organize it right and the clinic won’t let us work a shift longer than ten of those unless we’re in emergency mode - compared to what i’m used to that’s practically a walk in the park.” and to be honest she really had nothing else left she could do to the pass the time, neither logan nor lori really needed her at home, she wasn’t rostered on at work again till tomorrow night and if she tried to muscle in on fletchers shift he’d at the very least try to glare her into submission or threaten to cut off her coffee supply and she’d scrubbed and organized her own home so much by now that she was fairly sure eventually she’d start doing damage. “this was my last stop for the day and i haven’t got any big plans for my afternoon off, so honestly, you’d be doing me a favour - i could use the distraction.”

she placed her supply bag down next to the barn door and out of the way, turning back to the woman and holding out her hand slowly “i’m holly by the way - in case you wanted to pin a name to the face of this crazy cleaning lady.”

[drhollyxwood]

alexandranavarro·:

who: open to anyone @thecatastrophicstarters when: just after getting settled in camp / mid-june 2020 where: fairvale barn

         “You’re fucking kidding me,” she muttered under her breath. Her voice was paired with an exhausted sigh as she approached what was going to be her place of work for as long as she stayed. “Please tell me that this is some kind of joke and the actual barn is somewhere else in town rather than it being this,” she spoke with a wave of her hand at the mess of tools and supplies that were strewn about everywhere. It looked as if it had been raided and everything thrown back down wherever they wanted to leave their things. There was no order or organization which meant that her duties only grew about ten-fold. This is what you get for not telling the whole truth, she scolded herself, but knowing that she was far from ready to be in the midst of medical and patch others up. “How does anyone get anything done here?” 

🩺

“by relying on a wing and a prayer mostly.” holly had gotten turned around some where between the farmhouse lodgings she’d been making a house call to (a sprained wrist from one of the younger agriculture workers who may or may not have been drinking on the job if his breath was anything to judge by)  and the once shut-up-tight barn she’d now stumbled into, glancing around at the disarray that surrounded her and the woman who’d just huffed out her frustrations. 

thick layers of dust covering almost every inch of surface, rustic wooden flooring that looked like it hadn’t been swept in a decade and nothing seemed to have a proper storage place - it was too big a job for one person to undertake and holly had to wonder why this woman had been seemingly thrown into the deep end without any help.

it was the perfect kind of job for someone with too many thoughts they wanted to be free of and some very slight compulsions when it came to cleanliness.

“if you’re planning on sprucing this place up, i could give you a hand if you like?”

[drhollyxwood]

stellcgarcia·:

stella laughed quietly, holding up two fingers - “scouts honor,” she said, though they both knew her concern came not just from a psychiatric mind, but from her heart. it would be one thing if she could see any sense of holly’s grief in a healthy manner - talking about it, or trying to find a way to cope - but she buried herself in work, in running her body ragged, in trying to fix everything else around her. 

( honestly, it was like looking in a mirror sometimes, even as she told herself she was coping with al’s death - by helping holly and oliver with their tragedy, she could try and wrap her mind around her own a little better. ) 

“i’ve been teaching nora how to knit, because she’s been watching me make her a quilt of her own, and she wanted to make this for you,” stella offered, holding out a simple scarf that nora had struggled to put together and stella had tidied up. her daughter was whip smart - smarter than even she was - and while her fingers were still too small to truly be able to grasp the needles properly, it was the safest version of the art she could show her so young. “i know it’s seventeen thousand degrees outside now, so i told her you might not want it for right now, but she insisted that her first piece go to you.” 

🩺

one of the worst things about grieving was how highly strung her emotions felt almost all of the time, holly for the most part tried to keep a handle on her extreme, often inappropriate reactions to things but sometimes they snuck up on her anyway.

some thing as seemingly innocuous as a fluffy pink scarf knitted by the hands of an innocent child is enough to bring unshed tears to the corner of her eyes as she runs her fingers along the soft material “it’s lovely.” she murmurs, watery blue eyes never straying from the knitted creation  as she inspects the woollen loops she’s sure nora worked tirelessly to perfect “let her know...tell her i’ll wear it all the time, no matter what the weather is.”

she needs to take a moment to compose herself, still refusing to meet stella’s eyes even though she can feel the other woman’s steady, concerned gaze practically crawl over her skin.

she leads the visiting woman through the house, past the immaculately clean lounge room (scrubbed every day from top to bottom, another task she occupies herself with when sleep becomes a distant memory) and into the kitchen (equally sparkling), busies herself with plating up fresh made sugar cookies and pulling out two tea mugs “i haven’t had much of a chance to spend any time with her lately - soon though, if you don’t mind, i could take her for the day, do something fun?”

[drhollyxwood]

dysdaimcns·:

no one is a stranger to loss at the end of the world, and given enough time, it becomes easy to spot the signs of grief, no matter how quiet it is. he can’t quite relate to the enormity of her grief, and in some fucked up way he’s maybe even a little envious of her. when anthony had died, he’d buried his grief with the man in the backyard of their home so he wouldn’t have to carry it with him.

‘ an unfortunate side effect of building a society is having to abide by the laws of order. ’ he glances around the seating area, tilting his head towards an empty table in the back. ‘ do you have time before your shift? if you don’t mind sharing a table with me, you could go grab a seat while i get the drinks. ’

technically her shift didn’t start for another hour or so, she’d planned to head in early if only to hide away from the world in her office for a while, but she could fade into the background in the back of the diner just as easily as she could locked away in the clinic so she shrugs and nods a little in agreement at mateo’s suggestion “if you’re offering to buy my drink, i think the least i could do is sit with you awhile.”

she heads to the table he’d gestured to, sliding into the seat closest to the wall, her foot tapping rhythmically as she glances around still nervous and unfortunately out of her comfort zone despite how unobtrusive and out of the way she now is until the younger man joins her, sliding a large take-out coffee cup in her direction she grasps like a lifeline as she thanks him quietly “so are you after medical advice or just someone to shoot the breeze with - because i’ll warn you now, i’m only really competent with one of those things...in fact take a stethoscope out of my hands and i'm pretty much hopeless.”

merrick had been the superstar when it came to charming people, holly had always fallen short on that front.

[drhollyxwood]

honeycatastrophic·:

Admittedly, coffee had been an evil Honey had developed in college and never quite shaken. Moving at the speed of news called for getting by on little sleep - which did come in handy lately. Still, a lot of people were going to be going cold turkey before too long, and Honey knew she was among them. It would be wise to ease off while it was an option, but…

Honey glanced back over her shoulder, already shrugging. “I imagine anything familiar can be comforting in times of strife.“ She wasn’t going to hold it against anyone who was lining up for coffee. Like her, they were enjoying the treat while they could.

Pivoting fully, Honey offered a hand. “I’m Honey. Your face seems familiar, but.. forgive me for blanking on a name right now.” She had the grace to look apologetic in time with the words. 

it’s a reflex, part of all those etiquette drills and good old fashioned manners her mother had always been adamant holly lean on that has her reaching out and taking the woman's offered hand, polite smile on her face “holly. i spend a significant amount of time at the clinic so that’s probably where you’ve seen me.” hiding out and drowning herself in work so she doesn’t have to feel anything would probably be a more apt description than ‘spends a significant amount of time’, but one doesn’t just unload all the nitty gritty on the first stranger to turn in their direction - at least thats what the voice inside her head that sounds suspiciously like whitney wood is warning her.

the line in front of them moves minutely but holly doesn’t want to get her hopes up thinking she’ll be away from the crowd any quicker than she first thought she would, instead she studies honey, trying to place her face. she’d been doing less intake since oliver had arrived but she can remember every person she’d examined and processed before then - honey had not been one of them “have you just recently arrived or have you been around town awhile? i’ve been...distracted lately, a lot has been slipping my attention.”

[drhollyxwood]

sydney-grayson·:

One of the best things Sydney has come to appreciate about this place in the few months of was the coffee shop. Granted, there was plenty more to appreciate, like the people, or the safety provided or literally anything else that was less materialistic as coffee, but it was early, and she had just finished her morning jog. Caffeine was a necessity that she had thought long ago was nothing more but a thing of the past.

 Rusty waited outside, properly leashed to a pole to prevent him from running off, not that she really had issues with him like that. She had trained him well enough. It was merely for the townspeoples’ sake. Because she was polite. 

The woman in front of her spoke, and it took Syd a moment to realize her comment was directed at her. “Huh? Oh sorry. Yeah. But it does add a nice touch of normalcy, don’t you think? Could almost make you forget what’s going on, huh?” Almost, but not quite.

🩺

"a little." probably as close to it as holly was ever going to get at any rate. "i think in order to achieve true normalcy they'd need to let me set up shop in one of those corner booths and turn the other way while i inhale pot after pot. i’m not sure fairvale has enough supply for that.”

she was fairly sure the woman she was speaking to (melba maybe? or adelaide? she knows it was something metropolitan sounding) was someone she’d seen around town with fletch a time or two, who’d arrived a little after she had with a dog.

which was admittedly an oddity merrick would have gotten a kick out of if she’d still been...if she’d been in town. her gaze flicked up to the spot said dog was tied up out on the street in front of the diner, and holly wonders briefly just how morbid it’d be to ask the woman how it was she’d managed to keep a helpless dog alive out in all that chaos when most couldn’t even manage to keep the people they love from coming to harm.

she jerks her head in the canines direction instead, deciding idle small talk was honestly much better than indulging her moroseness, especially when she was still waiting for the caffine hit that would make her feel slightly more human “you could probably bring him in with you, y’know. i don’t think anyone would mind and he seems fairly well-behaved.”

[drhollyxwood]

hadley-maurine·:

“You’re not bringing me down.” It took far more then the girl’s fraudulent smile and a slightly pessimistic outlook to ruin her day. If anything she sympathized with the girl. Pessimism and fake smiles were Hadley’s specialty, even before shit hit the fan. Opening her mouth to continue when some of the woman’s words finally processed. Caffeinated? “Hold on”, she said dropping the subject. “You don’t mean you guys actually have coffee, do you?”

🩺

“i wouldn’t exactly be wasting my time in line for tea or hot cocoa.” holly shrugs, smirk tugging at the corner of her lip as she remembers her own reaction to finding out the town supplied a steady stream of ‘real’ coffee for those willing to spend their tokens on the beverage.

she’d just about damn near fell to her knees and wept on the sidewalk outside the diner the first time she’d walked by and smelled the scent wafting out the door, and while the town didn’t exactly have enough supply for her to imbibe it like she used to (even though lori was usually willing to part with one a day to keep holly ‘hydrated’) there was enough “it’s rationed, most people are only allowed to order one or two a day, but if you need it, and judging from your reaction i’m gonna assume you do, it’s here.”

[drhollyxwood]

oliverterrencewood·:

are you real… real… realrealreal

Oliver buried his head against his sister’s shoulder, the world echoing in his ears and sending shocks through his brain in a way that didn’t feel real. But this was. This was the world now and the fact that he could hold her and smell her, and her blond hair was the same as his, and her voice was how he remembered-

He hugged her tighter, fighting back a sob that was starting to harden in his throat. Holly was here. He was here. 

And it was all wrong.

“Hi,” he said with a relief he didn’t know he could feel at the moment. “I didn’t- I didn’t know you were here. They brought me back here and asked me to wait for another doctor but-”

She let him go quickly and he could see how she scanned his body, looking for injuries in that sister-doctor hybrid way he remembered so well.

“I’m okay,” he insisted before she could start prodding. “A few scrapes and bruises but nothing bad.”

🩺

he doesn’t look okay. and it’s not just in the way that most people these days look less than themselves either and her hand cups his cheek gently bringing his eyes up to meet hers so she can gauge him out for herself, unable to take his reassurances at face value.

“are you sure? what about your breathing?” her voice dips low as she questions him, knowing how he feels about his condition, how he likes to keep his health issues private “have you been using an inhaler? have you been able to find one?”

there’s a stray piece of hair resting over his forehead and she reaches up to brush it back into place with a fond smile, makes a note that he'll need to get it cut soon, before reluctantly stepping back to give him space, reminding herself that he isn’t as comfortable with casual displays of affection in quite the same way as her and merry are.

merrick...god she doesn’t know how to tell him that she’s not here safe with them yet, but she needs to, her younger siblings had been close practically from the moment they’d met and holly knows that there’s probably nothing oli wants more then to see mere again.

“merry’s not...i wasn’t with her when everything happened and i haven’t been able to find her- not yet.” she’d looked, she’d left notes hidden back home in riverside in case the younger girl made her way back, instructions in places only mere would think to find them “but the recruiters and some of the supply runners know who to search for and maybe now - now that you’re here...”

[drhollyxwood]

astridmiddleton​:

times like this, astrid missed her phone. waiting in lines at starbucks had been a normal part of the new york socialite existence she’d made for herself, but she could at least be scrolling through instagram, working on a post to showcase the new jumpsuit she’d bought the day before, or flirting with guys on tinder. instead, she had nothing to occupy the empty buzzing in her head, the desperate need for caffeine the only way to break up the monotony of inventory. 

“until they start letting us keep coffee in our own houses,” she replied, fighting off a yawn, “i don’t see that happening. shouldn’t they like, stagger shifts around town better so we don’t have to fucking wait in line like this?” 

🩺

“you mean you haven’t been getting those sachets of what's supposed to pass as caffeine in with your rations?” this, or in fact conversations like this with people she didn’t have a relationship with besides that of patient/doctor interactions and the occasional impromptu meet up when they were sharing the same spaces around town were infinitely easier to deal with then it was to confide in the people who loved and cared for her.

the people that now looked at her like they were waiting for her to break.

“maybe you should bring it up at the next town meeting, threaten another revolt if some serious change isn’t put into practice.” the small lift of her lips is barely there but for a second it’s real “stella’s probably the only council member you’d be able to get on your side but she can be fairly persuasive.”