(THO) CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Amy didn’t question the first day she wasn’t called in.

Brockton Bay’s hospital system was a mess at the best of times. Schedules changed without warning. Shifts were shuffled last-minute. Paperwork got lost. And she, more often than not, was expected to be the fallback plan. So a day off wasn't unthinkable, just rare. 

But the second day, her nerves were on edge. And by the third, the silence had started to feel intentional.

At first, she went through the obvious explanations. Maybe it was a system glitch. A clerical oversight. Maybe even a well-meaning but still annoying PR stunt to make her seem ‘less overworked’ in the public eye. Something Carol might’ve cooked up to prevent potential controversy.  

Then, she called the hospital. No one answered. She sent an email. No one got back to her. She even went in person on the fourth day, but one of the nurses waved her off with a polite smile and said, “You’re not on today, Panacea. Admin’s orders.”

That was the moment it was confirmed to her that it was intentional.

So when she got home, she got out her phone, pulled up her inbox, and started scrolling through the backlog of ignored notifications. Buried halfway down, timestamped two days ago, was an email from the department’s administrative liaison.

Brockton Bay Central Hospital

Adjustment to Schedule

She clicked on it, hoping to finally get some answers regarding the situation. The body of the email was a clipped, formal message, and below it was an attached PDF.

You are to be temporarily removed from medical rotation, effective immediately. Per executive request and override authorized by the Mayor’s Office. 

Duration: Indefinite. Reassessment to be determined.

She read it twice.

Then again.

The mayor?

Amy wasn’t even angry at first, just confused. Since when did the mayor get involved in hospital shift rotations? What did it matter to him if she worked through exhaustion? If she burned herself out making other people whole?

And why now?

She wasn’t naïve. She knew she was valuable, but most politicians only remembered her when they were in need of her powers or a headline. Pulling her out of the hospital made no sense, even with the city-wide decrease in criminal activity. Yet, the mayor had decided to remove her from her daily hospital duties.

And more than that, Carol hadn’t said a word.

Amy sat back in her chair in her room for a long time, staring at her screen.

Then she did something she rarely did. She texted her mother.

Amy: Did you know the mayor pulled me off hospital rotation?

The response came within a minute, faster than expected. Carol was usually busy around this time. 

Carol: Yes. It came through PRT channels. It was requested by Gojo Satoru. I approved it.

Amy stared at that for much longer.

Gojo?

It made even less sense.

She hadn’t even seen him since the night he’d shown up by the vending machine. He hadn’t tried to call, hadn’t left a note, hadn’t so much as reached for her in any way. And now, apparently and randomly, he decided to go over her head and speak to the mayor about her. 

And Carol agreed?

That was the real shock. 

Carol, who had guilt-tripped her for years with soft smiles and gentle corrections. Who told her time and again that the city needed her. That power came with responsibility. That she couldn’t afford to stop because other people couldn’t afford to wait.

The same Carol who had fought her on reducing her shifts to something manageable, who made her feel like resting was selfish.

So why had she said yes this time? How did Gojo convince Carol Dallon to sign off on something Amy had never been able to argue for herself?

Amy closed her phone and set it face-down on the table. Her fingers hovered over its edge for a moment, then pulled back into her lap.

She should have been furious. She should have stormed into someone’s office and demanded an explanation. Who just rearranged someone’s entire life like that without asking? Who did that and why? 

But she didn’t feel angry.

What she felt was something stranger. Off-balance. 

Because this wasn’t how things went. People didn’t give her breaks. They gave her needs and suffering, and asked her to fix them. That was her role in life. That was how it had always worked.

But Gojo hadn’t asked her for anything.

He hadn’t demanded. Hadn’t insisted. Hadn’t even spoken to her since that one, strange conversation.

He just made things happen. 

And now, here she was, four days into a break she didn’t ask for, still waiting for the weight to fall on her shoulders again. For someone to remind her that it was over. That she had to go back.

Except a part of her—that traitorous part of her that had been on the rise recently—didn’t want to. And she was solely tempted to listen to it.