A petite brunette woman dressed in scrubs leaned against a counter signing forms of release at the nurses' station in the emergency room. The end of the pen slid into her mouth as she reread the forms to make sure that every part of her diagnosis was spelled out clearly. She nodded her head when she was satisfied before handing the clipboard back to the woman on the other side of the counter. "Room three,Sarah," the woman said handing her another clipboard.
Sarah looked at the clock and sighed before accepting her next patient's file. It was going to be a long night. She had already been at work for hours, but she still had two hours until she was done with her shift...and that was if her replacement managed to show up. Being the newbie at the hospital left her at the bottom of the totem pole swinging the shifts no one really wanted-definitely one of the downsides of coming back to Santa Barbara. Sarah wasn't entirely sure what drew her back to the city. Some might say it was her father being back in town...others thought it was her brother's latest business adventure...but to be honest, she herself wasn't really sure why she was back. Yet, here she was in a busy E.R. crawling with people.
"Alright...Alex," Sarah mumbled as she looked at the name on the file. "Let's see what brings you here on such a fine evening." Setting her shoulders and forcing a smile on her face she knocked on the door before entering the room.
Once she had diagnosed Alex with an ear infection and bronchitis, Sarah walked back to the nurses' station and plopped down onto one of the swivel chairs before she threw her arms on the desktop and rested her head on her arms. Her feet hurt and she had a dull headache. She just wanted the night to be over. "One of those nights, huh?" a voice chuckled from above.
Sarah slowly lifted her head and looked at one of the nurses, Gloria. Gloria looked over her frames of her glasses with a motherly expression which made Sarah chuckle. "Is it too much to hope that Derick gets in early?"
"Probably. Now honey, there's a detective out front waiting for the doctor on call and last time I checked, that was you."
Sarah's brow furrowed. She couldn't think of anything illegal she had done...recently. Maybe it had to do with Shawn. But why would a detective come to the emergency room for something like that? No, that didn't make sense. Then it clicked, the John Doe. Sarah rubbed at her temples. "Of all the nights to be on call."
Gloria grinned slyly. "Well, if it helps, the detective is rather attractive and he's without a ring on a certain finger."
"Why would that help things?" Sarah looked up at the woman knowingly. Gloria had been trying to set her up with someone since she had transferred. The older woman had a reputation for match-making, but Sarah was determined to not be one of her success stories.
"Sarah, it certainly can't hurt matters." Gloria placed her hands on her hips. "But I suppose you can always go pluck the cactus spines from Room five's ass."
Sarah smirked. "Is it at least a cute ass?"
"The detective's? Yes. Room five's could use a shave."
Shaking her head as she stood, Sarah put her hands up in surrender. 'Alright, Gloria. You've convinced me. I'll go talk to the detective. But if his ass isn't cute there will be hell to Gloria. Hell. I mean it." Gloria laughed and shooed Sarah away.
Sarah's ponytail swayed as she walked out to the waiting room. People waiting to be scene looked at her with hopeful eyes, but she just smiled awkwardly as she surveyed the room for the detective. He was leaning against the front desk with his back to her, dressed in a suit. Sarah only recognized him from the gun holster on his side. She glanced a little downward and smirked, "Not bad. Not bad."
Crossing the distance between them, Sarah approached the detective and cleared her throat. He didn't move. She rolled her eyes and straightened her stance. "Excuse me, Detective." He quickly whipped around and for a moment, Sarah was stunned by the eyes most women would want to dive into. He shook his head with an annoyed expression on his face. His expression was quite evident that he wanted to know what she wanted. Sarah finally managed to find her voice. "I-uh-hi. I'm Dr. Sarah Sp-"
He put his hand up to stop her. "I don't have time for the formalities," he said rather bluntly. Sarah shut her mouth as he quickly flashed her his badge, before putting it away just as fast. "I'm Head Detective Carlton Lassiter with the SBPD and you're the doctor. Got it? Good. Now, show me to the John Doe."
Sarah shook her head and laughed. Detective Lassiter was probably used to getting his way, but she wasn't going to be bullied by him. No, her father had taught her better than that. Two can play this game. "Now, hold on there detective. I want a better look at those credentials."
For a moment, he almost looked flabbergasted, but he didn't miss a beat. "I already showed them to you. Now, show me to the man before I go back there and show myself."
"Whoa there, hold on." Sarah placed her hands on her hips and extended herself to her full height, which was still significantly shorter than Detective Lassiter. "For all I know you could be some guy pretending to be a detective. If you're not legit and I give you privy to confidential information, I could get fired. So, hand 'em over." She extended her right hand palm up and waited.
Detective Lassiter grumbled something inaudible before he reluctantly pulled his credentials out again and held them out in front of her with an annoyed expression on his face. Slowly she raised her hand to grab the credentials and brought them closer to her face to examine. When she was satisfied with them, she nodded her head. "Thank you, Detective Lassiter," Sarah said, but he said nothing. He just shook his head and returned his credentials to his person. "My dad was a cop. He taught me to cover my ass and all the little tricks you guys play. Now if you'll follow me, I'll take you back to the John Doe."
Sarah walked toward the door and Detective Lassiter followed after her. She opened the door and motioned for him to step inside. He passed through the door and Sarah followed behind him before leading him through the E.R. "Now, normally we don't leave patients in his condition back here so long, but…" Sarah stopped talking for a moment. "You don't care why he is where he is, do you?"
"Figured that one out on your own. You're catching on quick."
Stopping in front of the entrance to the patient's room, she turned to look at Detective Lassiter. "Have you ever heard of catching more flies with honey, Detective?"
"I'm not catching flies, Doctor. I'm trying to figure out what happened to our John Doe. Maybe you could enlighten me on some of those details instead of country-bumpkin sayings."
Sarah folded her arms across her chest and shook her head before she walked into John Doe's room and walked to his bedside. "Hit and run accident, but I'm assuming you already knew as much."
Detective Lassiter narrowed his eyes at the patient. Sarah had a suspicion he knew the real identity of the man in front of them, but she said nothing. He straightened his stance and looked at her sternly. "It's not my job to share details with you-you, however, do have to share them with me."
"Internal bleeding. Coma. That's about all I got." Sarah gave him a sidelong glance. If he was going to ruffle her feathers, she could do the same. She stood a little taller beside him. "But I'm guessing that he's a suspect in something, isn't he? Robbery? Murder?"
"Doctor, that is highly inappropriate from someone in your position."
Sarah shook her head. "If you knew my family you'd know I'm probably the most appropriate of the bunch. Well, unless I'm provoked. Actually, you might know my brother. His name is Sh-"
Lassiter put his hand up to stop her once more. "Doctor, do you have anything else remotely relevant to your John Doe or are you going to continue to waste my time?"
While she knew it would be more fun to go another round with him, her sense of professionalism took over...somewhat. "Look Detective, you want me to talk straight with you? The guy's in a coma and there's like a ten percent chance of him getting out of it. Now, if he does manage to get out of the coma, the likelihood of him retaining normal bodily functions is slim. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that whatever case you're trying to build against the guy is shot to hell. Now, are you going to tell me who he is? I mean, we are supposed to work together, right?"
Detective Lassiter looked at her for a moment before opening his mouth to speak when screams came from the waiting room. Sarah looked at Detective Lassiter whose hands immediately reached for his gun. "We're here for Martin! Where's Martin?" a man shouted before the sound of gunshots rang through the air. "Oh, Marty!"
Sarah looked down at the man in the coma and then back up to Detective Lassiter who was inching toward the door with his gun in his hands. 'This wouldn't happen to be Martin, would it?" she hissed at him. "Is it?"
"Yes, that's Martin Ditter."
"What's that guy want with him?"
"Martin is a witness to a crime involving a local gang."
"So, they're trying to take him out. That's great. Where's his police detail?"
"You're looking at it. I didn't exactly have time to call in for backup since you were too busy babbling."
"Oh, so this is my fault now? You're the one who wasn't fully up front with why he was here."
Lassiter looked at her incredulously. "I only just found out this is the guy, my god. I've spent the better part of the last hour looking..."
Sarah's eyes widened when she saw another man approaching them with his gun. "Detective!" she screamed. But it was too late. The man hit Detective Lassiter with the butt of his gun causing the detective to collapse to the floor. The man gave the detective's gun a kick forcing it to slide across the room and Lassiter lay limp on the floor. "I-I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Sarah said sounding far braver than she actually felt.
"Lady, this doesn't concern you. Leave and this will be over," the man with the gun said.
Sarah repositioned herself between Martin and the man with the gun. She gulped hard before she spoke again. "I-I took an oath to do no harm to my patients. I'm afraid I can't allow you to kill him. You'll-you'll have to kill me first."
"Looks like it." The man aimed the gun at Sarah. She closed her eyes preparing for what was about to happen. The sound of a gunshot rang out. Sarah cringed waiting for the bullet to pierce through her flesh, but the sting never came.
Slowly, she opened her eyes to see the suspect falling to the floor, howling in pain. Behind him stood Detective Lassiter holding the smoking gun, quite literally. For a moment, Sarah stood there blinking, trying to process what had just happened. Everything seemed to happen in slow-motion as Detective Lassiter ran to the man on the floor and grabbed the gun in his hands.
Sarah's hand rested on her chest, over the place where her heart was beating rapidly. "You-you saved me," she said breathlessly.
"Wouldn't have had to if you would have shut up," Lassiter muttered to himself before slapping a pair of handcuffs around the man's wrists. He then walked across the room to grab his first gun, the one the suspect had kicked. He grabbed it and then took a few steps closer toward Sarah. "You should probably get the bullet out of his leg," was all he said before walking away.
Sarah numbly nodded her head and breathed a sigh of relief as she watched him walk away. "Not bad," she muttered as Detective Lassiter disappeared from her view.
Author's note: This was written for those anonymous askers on Tumblr. I hope it wasn't too terrible. :) This story will likely have slow updates. Thanks for reading!
