♡ Like Espresso ㅡ Shot One
Warnings: mention of blood, death
There’s blood under your watch.
Under the flickering fluorescent lighting of the unisex bathroom, the ring of flaking red-brown where the band of your watch usually sits feels like a silent accusation. You wish you couldn’t remember whose blood it is, but you do. You always do.
The water is a hot penance as you scrub, watching as the drain-bound swirl momentarily darkens the basin of the sink. Not good enough, it says. Why didn’t you try something else? Why didn’t you do more?
The sink shuts off. The paper towel dispenser whirs.
You step back out into the chaos. Out here, there’s the ever present rush of the ED – the hustle of nurses, the cacophony of coughing, sniffling, crying. South bay seven is being cleaned. Bright red still streaks the tile, the gurney – you look away.
The nurses station is empty outside of Lena, who peers at you over her glasses as you approach. “Holdin’ up alright? That looked like a tough one.”
She’s trying to be sympathetic, and she is – you appreciate it, but all you do is tug your badge so that the scanner can read it, throwing yourself into the lab results of another case. Lena takes the dismissal for what it is and doesn’t push further.
Busy clicking through a lengthy toxicology report, you can hear the brief murmur of Lena’s voice, the response also from someone familiar – and you look up just in time to watch as Jack steps away from the desk.
“Let me know if anyone comes in for the gentleman in South seven,” you tell Lena as you stand, and though she looks likes she wants to say more, all she does is nod. The next hour and a half pass in a blur of reading lab results to various rooms, fielding questions that range between offering comfort and being realistic – routine.
“I don’t know how you do it,” a weary, grateful looking mother clutches both your hands and squeezes with a warm relief that makes your chest tight. She’s one of the lucky ones, that ugly thing in the back of your head whispers. She gets to take her kid home. Not like –
“I just do what I can,” you tell her. It’s a neutral sentence that you use more often than not. No feeding into an ego, no trying to boast skill levels that you don’t have yet. You truly do what you can, where you can, when you can.
She squeezes your hands again. “Well keep it up,” she tells you. “We need more people like you.”
The smile you give her doesn’t feel quite right, even after you leave her to wait until her child wakes up, ECG beeping steadily in the background. Returning to the nurses station, you move to start all over again, fingers flying across the keys.
Footsteps approach. There’s the span of a shadow over half of your desk, and then the thump of something being set down. You pause, blinking.
The cup is the familiar paper of the cafeteria, stamped with the hospital’s logo – steam curling from the lip of it. You look up to find Jack watching you.
“You look dead on your feet,” he says, nodding to the cup. “Can’t have one of my residents going down when we’re this busy.”
“We’re always busy,” you murmur, and catch the upward twitch of the corner of his mouth before he turns.
“When you’re done with that, come find me,” he calls. “I could use your eyes on something.”
There are other residents he could ask for a consult, you know that. He knows that. There’s a compliment in there somewhere, but you know better than to acknowledge it. Jack Abbot doesn’t do favorites.
You tip the cup to your lips.
