Chapter Text
Day 1 - 1:30 PM
It's cold, dark, and clammy in this room. Nothing is particularly visible to you, but you reach out to grasp the wall, pressing your elbow and side up against the panels--panels? You slide down the farther you walk--the walls are wet. As your feet drag behind you, the floor starts to crumble. You reach out once more. Beep. Beep. Beep. A tone dings behind you, or maybe to your left--you turn your head, thrusting out your arm--the room brightens to a shocking white!
Your eyes adjust to the familiar fluorescent lights of the hospital. In your gloved hand rests a scalpel, and on the table in front of you a patient lies still, blood seeping out from underneath them. The monitor stops beeping--one long tone rings out. Nobody else is in the room with you, this is your mistake. You hear it again, that beeping sound--is the monitor still...? No, the patient is dead. You reach out to the power switch and turn it off-
Click.
You let out a sharp exhale as you open your eyes, staring up at your ugly, uneven popcorn ceiling. Your alarm clock has been going off for three minutes now, and you're sweaty, the thin flat sheet sticking to your legs under your comforter. You wonder why you even put it on the bed.
"Shit, shit.." you mutter, lifting your body with your elbows and awkwardly dragging yourself to your nightstand to turn the piercing alarm off. Without the noice, there's a ringing in your ears that's bothersome. You find the remote to turn your fan on and let it drown out the silence.
Without a roommate to talk to, you don't need to say anything else as you get ready for the day. The shower turns on slowly, stuck at a temperature only slightly above freezing. You jump in and out as quickly as you can without neglecting any important parts of your routine. Drying off quickly, you scrub-up at home, preferring to get right to work once you'd arrive. A long sleeved white shirt under black scrubs. Your wet hair falls in messy waves around your face, the cold water still clinging to the strands. It's uncomfortable, but it'll be dry by the time you get to the hospital.
You check the time--1:45. Just enough time for you to throw on a jacket and race down the apartment complex stairs to your crappy red Honda Civic and drive to the hospital. The heat outside has already half dried your hair by the time you hop in the car, and with the windows down, your hair is fully dry when you arrive. It's not the neatest, but no one's trying to win a fashion contest working in the ER. Once you arrive, you pull into a parking spot and walk with a bit of pep into the hospital, trying to make it before you're technically a minute late.
You arrive at the ER with perfect timing, dropping your stuff in your locker at 1:59. The only things inhabiting it are an old sandwich at the bottom and a dusty mirror on the side, and now, your coat and bag. You switch your outside shoes to your work shoes and turn on your heel, taking a deep breath as you embrace the smell of sanitization and latex. This place had become as familiar to you as your old college dorm room. Peeking across the hallway, you spot Robby preparing for a code--you didn't catch what it was, but it looks serious. You step into the action to help, calm and collected.
Day 1 - 2:00 PM
"Afternoon," Robby nods to you in acknowledgement. He looks pretty busy, walking while talking, waving his hands around and pointing at this and that. "It's always good to see you come in. We've got a six year old drowning case en route, and there are new intern students around--Mel King over there," he points to a gentle looking woman with a braid of blonde hair and large frames. You smile and she reaches a hand out to shake yours, and of course you oblige. "Yep- Mel. Victoria Javadi is another student, and Santos is.. somewhere..." Robby does a quick scan, spots her, and points her out, an authoritative looking woman with her hair pulled back neatly. He hangs onto the first letter of each name like he's still trying to learn them. "And.." Robby approaches you and leans in, lowering his voice, "keep an eye on the other kid for me, with the sad looking face. Having a rough first day," he mentions, pointing to the slightly lost looking guy who had clearly just changed scrubs. "Whitaker, you're with us," he calls out, and the guy whips his head around, gives a quick, sharp nod, and rushes over to the group of people around you.
"Whitaker, Mel, this is one of our third year residents." You nod along, looking at the two student doctors. They both seemed pretty unique in their own ways.
"It's nice to meet you guys," you begin, "I usually come in from two to twelve-thirty-ish. If you have questions or need help you can come to me." Whitaker looks down at you and nods, and you can tell his mind is slightly absent behind his frantic appearance. You don't look very old, so at least you probably don't come off as too intimidating. Mel repeats your name and the time you had stated to herself.
A sudden crash through the doors cuts your introduction to the students short, and being wheeled in on a gurney is the six year old girl you were expecting. She looks to be in rough shape. Glancing at the people here--Robby, Collins, the two students, and Mateo, you decide to separate from them and guide the family in tow somewhere less in the way. Overcrowding the space in the trauma room wouldn't be a good idea. You look to the old woman and young girl and reach out your two hands, gently but firmly steering them towards the edge of the room, away from the commotion, and attempt to get a coherent patient history. Everything is rushing by quickly--the time, the compressions--you think that you overhear Whitaker asking if they could use the LUCAS to perform automatic compressions, but the response you hear is heartbreaking: the girl is too small to safely be placed under the LUCAS.
In the midst of their working, a tense silence falls over the room and scattered whispers behind you meet your ears. It's not going to be a good outcome--you can tell that much. You turn around to see the shocked, disassociated faces of your colleagues and the students, some of them slowly looking to Robby. He walks up behind you and gently places a hand on your shoulder, and in silent understanding, you step away, honoring his request to watch out for the young man who he'd mentioned. Just as Robby had to you, you reach up and place your hand softly on the small of Whitaker's back, looking up at him with a gentle, held-together expression, and guide him out of the room first. The beating of his heart is so strong that you can feel it through his back. As you leave the room, you hear Robby's solemn statement: "Okay, we are going to stop now."
Day 1 - 3:00 PM
The staff debrief begins tensely. You stand with students on either side of you, and the student named Mel looks almost shattered. After the debrief you're about to turn to her, but you notice that Langdon seems to be someone watching out for her already. You turn to Whitaker instead. Just as you were about to speak to him, the screaming out in chairs begins and stops abruptly, with a flustered looking Dana rushing back into the main ER room. The commotion spreads everyone out. When Dana returns, she's sputtering complaints and receiving praise from her coworkers for dealing with the mess--and you can hear the two women arguing across the rooms they'd been placed into. It's a hot minute of random movement until you see a group of people gathering to face the Kraken.
You're not someone who's particularly large or strong, and you know the risks of being the one with the syringe--so you avoid that side of the ER like the plague. It's not like you'd be asked to help anyways, but it was for your own peace of mind. You find another patient to check on while that ship sails, happily not on board. There was a patient with a fractured arm waiting on an update, so you stepped into their room and checked for an update. You were able to let them know that they wouldn't need surgery, since the bones were well aligned. The patient seemed calmer after you left, and you'd hopefully get a good satisfaction score--but across the hall, from the Kraken's room, came a burst of shouting and panic followed by an audible sigh of relief. Everyone flooded out of the room, followed last by Whitaker, who was.. well, wet with something. You sucked in a breath through your teeth as you approached him.
"Oh man," you smiled jokingly, though Whitaker looked like he'd had it up to here with his day already. Okay, no joking. "You know where the scrub machine is?"
"Yeah, been there a few times already," he muttered, not even looking you in the eye. It wasn't his fault, but the kid looked like he was not only dripping with urine but shame as well. He walked off quickly and tried to avoid people on his way, but in his attempt to avoid one nurse bumped into another. "Sorry- sorry.." he called out erratically, rushing to the nearby off shoot hallway for a change of clothes.
You felt bad for him, so you followed him to make sure he'd be alright after he changed. At a distance, of course, not wanting to seem like you were just following him around. You asked Dana on the way about what had gone down in chairs, and she explained the two women and their problems to you. You laughed about it, she mentioned something about how she felt calmer with you around. It was nice to hear, a reminder that you had a place here. Aside from being a calming presence, you were especially skilled in tactile operations and patient conversations. If there was a tough, hard-to-see intubation or a small, careful incision needed, you were someone that people could call in for help. Erratic patients were easy for you to calm down, as you knew how to keep your cool and see things from their perspective, and you were often the person people asked to convince stubborn families to make hard choices about operations that needed to happen.
Whitaker comes back from the scrub corner again, still calming himself down with deep breaths. Dana steps out from the counter behind you, gives him a pat on the arm, and rushes off to another part of the ER. It's you and Whitaker left, and you'd forgotten to say something to him.
"Oh, right- I was going to ask you, did I hear that other intern call you Huckleberry?" you questioned, raising an eyebrow. You can tell he's not the best small talker, and his eyes dart around your face, avoiding eye contact. "You're not bothered, right?"
"Oh, no, it's uh.. I think it's just a nickname. She's just really.. I don't really know, ha.." Whitaker shrugs, stating that it wasn't really a big deal. Now that you thought about it, the nickname looked a little too accurate.
"You a farmer?" You smiled, walking a foot away to type in your recent patient's chart while you spoke to the student doc.
"Yeah.. from Nebraska. I kind of miss it sometimes, but it's nice here too," he replied, walking over to the computer with you. Even if he wasn't the best at conversation, he seemed glad to talk to someone without having to report to them or talk about some hefty patient news.
"Oh, I've never been around there..." you murmur, adding to the conversation what school you went to and where you'd grown up. You spoke slowly, at the pace you were used to. Even if you were able to think quickly enough to work in this place, it never seemed like you were fully awake or moving on your toes unless there was an emergency. It didn't help that your sleep was usually interrupted throughout the night--feeling well-rested was a rare commodity in your life. You and Whitaker chatted about how the day was going, and you heard about how he'd lost his first patient on his first day and already changed clothes oh so many times, and you recalled your own first days. The conversation felt natural, and you liked the guy--he seemed nervous, but the kind of person who could get the hang of things one day and be a good leader.
Your conversation was interrupted by a loud door slamming into the wall, and a bulky, unfriendly looking man barged through into the ER. All of your coworkers' heads whip around, including yours, and multiple people and a few security guards escort him back into chairs and out of the ER. Everyone is a little bit shocked--sure, there are impatient people every day, but it's not as often that someone has the gall to actually walk through the doors. The room is uncomfortably quiet for a moment before people return to their tasks at hand.
"Does.. does that happen every day?" Whitaker whispers, stepping closer to you with a concerned look in his eyes. You shake your head.
"No, not as often as you'd think, seeing those people out there in chairs.. I wish we had more staff, this wouldn't be a problem if we had more space," you mumble to yourself, finishing up your charting and standing up. "Okay. Let's grab a new patient, you and I?" you offer, having yet to work directly with one of the students. Whitaker seemed zoned out for a second, but caught on to what you said.
"Oh- yeah, let's do that," he nodded, taking a step back again so you had room to stand up. The raised chair-stool thing actually made you a little taller--so when you stood up, you lost an inch or two of height. You walked around to the front of the counter and saw Dana sigh.
"The gall of these patients, why I oughta silence 'em once and for all," she muttered, looking up at the patient board while her glasses rested way down on her nose. "You two pickin' up a new case?"
"Yes ma'am," you smiled, glad that she was alright. She stood up and walked off after you picked an easy-looking patient, most likely for a smoke break, and you and Whitaker took a new patient into a different room. This new patient was a middle aged woman with a young looking daughter and a nasty but manageable burn on her hand. It seemed easy enough to let Whitaker take the lead and treat her on his own while you stepped back and spoke to the family and kept the kid in check. Whitaker seemed relieved to be able to help someone without some kind of impending disaster looming over him, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he began to bandage the woman's hand. The little girl suddenly became restless and rushed towards her mother, about to bump into Whitaker--you reached out and carefully blocked her from doing so, fitting your arm between the girl and him, letting him finish up for the girl's mother without interruption.
"Be careful, our doctor is working on your mom's boo-boo," you spoke slowly to the little girl, one hand on her shoulder as you were bent over to talk to her at her own height. She nodded, though you weren't sure if she actually knew what you said, too hyper to calm down. They'd likely been waiting for an hour at least. Whitaker, finished bandaging, hadn't noticed your swift interception and accidentally bumped into you, almost sending you off balance--you reached out behind you blindly and he caught your wrist.
"Oops- uh, sorry..!" he whisper-yelled, pulling you back up. You left the little girl to jump up to her mother's lap, who thanked you and Whitaker as you two explained to her what to do for wound care and finished up her chart. She thankfully gave off the sense of someone who would give a good review. You were glad that there was a bit of a calmer job that Whitaker could do compared to the insanity he'd been through today.
"Me, one, little girl, zero," you joked, leaving the computer and closing the woman's chart. "You did good," you added. At least when things weren't crazy dire, Whitaker seemed to know what he was doing.
"Sorry for bumping into you, I didn't realize you were there," he apologized again, to which you waved away with a hand.
"Happens all the time, I just didn't want her to mess you up or anything. It's alright." You smiled, standing up from the chair and walking out of the room, the student doctor right behind you. It had only been an hour, but your intermittent sleep from the morning before was catching up with you. You paused at the center of the ER and leaned on the desk for a moment.
"Whitaker," you mumble absentmindedly, reaching out with one hand and touching his arm to let him know you were talking to him while you looked at the patient listings. "Can you grab me a coffee? Black, but with a lot of sugar. Seriously, if you think it's enough, add more," you add, hearing him reply with a 'sure' and feeling him walk off. Just as you were about to pick up a new patient, wondering where Dana might be, she rushed into frame with a hand to her nose. There was an unsightly red cloth and blood dripping down her chin.
"He hit me," she rasped through breaths, and Robby immediately stepped toward her. You could guess who "he" was--the man who had barged in earlier, most likely--and stepped closer, searching for a nearby ice pack to give to Dana. You wrapped it in a cloth and handed it to Robby, who passed it off to her. The commotion was a lot. It was rare that a nurse would get assaulted by a patient, but not so rare that it had never happened. It was unfortunate.
Robby and Dana spoke for a moment and some people brought her to a room to check on her nose. Whitaker returned with your coffee, missing the commotion entirely.
"I added an ice cube--just one, so it was a good temperature when I brought it," he shrugged, offering you the cup. You took it carefully and took a sip.
"Mm.. thank you." Whitaker looked around, wondering why the room was so still, despite you acting normal. You thought it'd be best to fill him in. "Dana just got hit in the face by a.. I think that guy that walked in here earlier. I don't think he's a patient anymore." He looked bewildered.
"Where is she--is she- uh, is she okay?" he stammered, looking around for Dana. You tap his arm to let him know that you were going to talk again.
"She seemed shaken up, but alright. She could walk and talk, at least, and she's a force to be reckoned with. I doubt she'll take the rest of her shift off, but she should." You lowered your hand--a habit you formed as someone who chose to speak quietly when you could. It was easier to get attention that way rather than yelling. Adding to the noise in the ER was the last thing you wanted to do. Whitaker seemed to get the memo, returning conversation in a hushed voice as well. He bent down closer to your ear, and with the slightest bit of humor, whispered,
"Well, this is a hell of a first day."