Inhale, Exhale ~~ [Tominnie]
@sweetheart-minnie
Tom was fine.
Despite this, Jean Denim had sent him to the hospital after he’d stumbled out of the house fire coughing up a lung. He had assured her it wasn’t anything, his mask had malfunctioned for a few seconds, but that was all. She wasn’t hearing any of it and had practically boxed his ears into an ambulance where he had sat sullen until the doors had opened and he had hopped out.
There was a part of him that was glad for the ambulance and A&E distraction. It meant he couldn’t think too long or hard about how he’d failed. That was the funny thing about Swynlake: most of the time the calls he get ranged from medium urgency to rather low urgency. Since coming here, he’d put out a few minor fires, yes, but mostly he’d saved cats and dogs from trees and delivered a handful of babies...
Not today. Today, Tom had gone to a house fire that had burned the house down to its floorboards and amongst the rubble there had been two bodies. Two people that Tom hadn’t been able to save. And sure, there had been others and it wasn’t all on him, but it felt like it was. He’d tried hard, spent too long in the smoke and embers--
Now, he was standing awkwardly, a little shell shocked in the lobby of the A&E, refusing to be taken to a bed every time someone came to grab him.
“They can go before me,” he kept saying pointing to person after person in the A&E. They were all here for a more legitimate reason than he was. He’d be fine. He was tough. Didn’t even to smoke, unlike Philly. He felt a little lightheaded and his throat was burning, but that was all.
“They can--” he said as he saw the shoes of the next nurse approaching, but stopped when he looked up at the rest of them and recognized them “--Nurse Minnie?” The surprise in his voice was probably unjustified, considering that she worked her, but nevertheless, he was surprised to see her.
