EGADS! It's another cliché time travel story! Woe is you!
Not to worry, dear reader, I'll try and keep it as heart pounding as possible with spicy sex and action as any other self respecting Patriot story involving the ravishing Colonel William Tavington tends to be.
As always, The Patriot and all characters in it belong to Columbia Pictures and any other respective holder of said intellectual property. I am not profiting from writing this material based off of their property.
Italics indicate thought or writing.
* Indicates a footnote at the end of the chapter for historical goodies or an author note on the subject.
Chapter 1 – Death and the Lady
October 31st, 1980
"Paging Dr. Brant to unit fifty six. Paging Dr. Brant to unit fifty six," crackled the intercom overhead, bringing the lumps of humans out from under their borrowed blankets and onto their feet. One small lump rested on, thankfully unassigned to Dr. Brant's unfortunate team of fresh interns.
Must be a new donor organ flown in to stick into someone on the waiting list, Vivian mused to herself in the warm cocoon of generic hospital throws. Although reeking of medicine and rubbing alcohol as most things in Saint Mary's did, they served to keep her warm in the iced air of the staff room.
The need for caffeine and a ghastly pile of paperwork waiting on her desk drove her from the bunks, sending the woman plodding out onto the linoleum of the hallway. After a short trip to the cafeteria and a round through the intensive care unit to check the progress on a stabilized trauma case she had on the table an hour or so ago, she started back towards the relatively hectic surgical unit and her cupboard of an office.
"Doctor Manners!" crowed an orderly from a nearby nursing station as she was locking up after retrieving her papers, her body twisting awkwardly as she fumbled with the lock while nodding to the staff, "Goode said she had your hours covered."
Vivian Manner blew out a sigh of relief, throwing a salute to the orderly with newfound energy. "Then I'm out before someone has time to come up with work and drag me back in here. Happy Halloween!"
After a few more short stops along the way to the front of the hospital proper to chat with familiar faces on duty at the graveyard hour, she was out in the brisk air of the night. The children and their amusing costumes were away in bed by this hour, but other sorts of masked revelers too old for curfew were out. In and out of high rises and flats, they stumbled drunkenly to other Halloween haunts.
The noise from the crowded streets gradually faded as she made her two mile trek from Saint Mary's to the Westminster area, forgoing the customary quick trip on the Underground to her place in Lambeth.
What a night, she wondered to herself as she started on the first leg across the bridge, Big Ben and Parliament crouched by the Thames over her shoulder as she made for the other side of the winding river.
The air would do her good, she figured. It wasn't often she had the time to make the trek from one part of the city to the next. Since the start of her term as a certified house officer* in the wards of Saint Mary's, her flat had become more of a temporary closet and place to shower rather than a home. Vivian ate, slept, and breathed her career.
"Duckie! You a nurse for this Halloween? Where's that nice bit o' skirt getup 'stead of those drab jimmy-jams you're sportin'!" called a heckling voice from behind.
Smothering panic under a surge of anger at the nerve of the man, she turned to face a staggering trio of punks trailing not too far behind. She only had to glimpse the shine of a switchblade dangling in one of their hands to guess their angle on her.
"Sod off! I'll scream." She tried out the threat, the tremor of doubt in her voice egging on the men as if they were hounds scenting blood in the air.
"No harm, love! Just takin' in the air, is all." One of the burliest crooned in assurance to her, the pink tone of his gelled hair belonging more to a tropical bird than any self respecting man. She swallowed, frantically trying to work a quick plan of evasion out in her head, but her damn brain seemed more bent on puzzling out the bizarre hair colours of the young hooligans in her moment of panic.
C'mon, Manners. Let's pull it together.
They had backed her into a small outcrop of a viewing platform over the Thames after a few crooning advances, effectively cornering their evening sport. She proved them wrong after a moment of hesitation, heaving herself over the rail without losing sight of them, clenching onto the metal like a cocklebur least she slip. Couldn't she hang here and pray they wouldn't step closer until a passerby came over the bridge? Oddly vacant of cars and buses, the bridge was empty at this late hour save her and the three unwelcome admirers. It was either this or let them get a hold of her. She didn't favor the latter choice.
As soon as that last realization took root, her trainers slipped on the rain slickened metal, body bending in a backward arch and disappearing from view.
"Whot'chit! Bint just tipped 'erself off the rail!" A spike haired punk yammered, motioning to the narrow strip of iron bars strutted along the sidewalk. He and his mates ambled up to the rail with much clinking from their leather and metal duds, faces peering over to scan the glimmering black for any ripple of the splash that never came. The three men could only stare on in awe at the Thames.
"Nothin'. Like her up and vanished right into thin air, I tell you. Witchy."
* A House Officer is the UK's equivalent to a resident, a person who has received their medical degree/completed their internship. They're still supervised by a fully licensed physician in a hospital or clinic while training to specialize in a specific branch of medicine, such as emergency medicine or pediatrics.