It all started with a case

Gwyn opened her eyes to the welcoming sound of her alarm-clock playing the familiar tunes of Train's 'Hey, Soul Sister' with a wide smile, the early sun was shining through her bedroom-window and the frost in the corners was starting to melt away.

Her first day work-day of the new year and she was more excited than usual to go back to work. She absolutely loved her job at the hospital, being able to help people and being someone that you could ask anything and everything and who knew the answers to the families questions. She jumped out of bed and pressed the ON-button on her stereo, turning up the volume and sighing happily when one of her favorite songs: 'New York, New York' by mister Frank Sinatra.
She hummed along with the music as she jumped in the shower, ready to get the day started.

"Hey Gwyn." Valarie, Gwyn's friend and one of the other nurses, stopped at the reception-desk Gwyn was sitting at. "How was your holiday?"
Gwyn looked up from the charts in her hands with a smile on her face.
"It was good, spent most of it down at the shelter with Toby and the kids so yeah, I guess you could say it was great."

The black nurse laughed and leaned over the desk, bringing herself as close as she possibly could.
"So..." She whispered. "He give you some loving this time?"
"Val, you know as well as I do that there's nothing going on between me and Toby anymore." Gwyn laughed but Valarie just raised an eyebrow with an 'are-you-serious?' look on her face.
"Sweetie, I don't care what you say. That boy never stopped loving you." Val was interrupted by her cellphone ringing and answered it, effectively bringing an end to the discussion.

Gwyn's head traveled away from the hospital and back to the night when she had first met the man.
"Hey, baby!" Gwyn looked behind her, recognizing the older man from his previous visits to the club. He was always in front, staring at her, drooling as she danced her way to her next meal. He was a pervert and this wasn't the first time he had approached her after hours.
"My shift's over, George. Go inside or go home." The brunette sighed, she was more tired than usual, could be because she hadn't eaten for a while, and really wasn't in the mood for this.
"Oh, come on, Rose." Gwyn shivered at her stagename, she had chosen it herself but that didn't change the face that she hated it. "Surely you can give me another lap-dance."

His rough hands moved to her hips and before the girl could even react with a knee to the groin a firm voice called out.
"Get off her, George."
Gwyn looked over to where the voice had come from and saw one of the bouncers coming closer, feeling a little more safe.

"Jarvis, you can't tell me you haven't thought about banging her..." George started but stopped when the bouncer's hand grabbed a strong hold of his collar, pulling him away from the dancer.
"Leave or I will make you." The threat was evident in his voice and the older man quickly stumbled into the club again, leaving the dancer and the bouncer alone outside in the cold.

"You okay, Rose?" Gwyn looked up at the man. He couldn't be much older than herself and to be fair he was pretty handsome. Just her type: tall, muscular and a warm smile as he searched her face to see if she really was okay as she nodded.
"I could have taken him. And the name's Gwyn." She said and smiled a little knowing that her words came out a little harsher than she'd planned.
"I have no doubt." The man chuckled and reached out his hand. "I'm Toby."
Gwyn shook it and tried to force her headache to subside.

"Thanks. For the help that is." She nodded in goodbye, turned around and had only gotten a few feet away when he ran up to her.
"Are you walking home?" There was concern in his voice and Gwyn found it kind of sweet.
"Yeah, not enough money for a car." She shrugged.

"Look, why don't I drive you home? You really shouldn't be walking through this part of town alone at this time of night." He obviously noticed the slight frown that formed on the girl's face at his words and did his best to reassure her.
"I'm not gonna try anything, I'm just being a good citizen here." There was something about his whole demeanor that made him seem a lot like a puppy she used to have as a kid and that alone got her to trust him.
"Okay, but can we stop some place to eat? My blood-sugar levels are getting low and I don't want to pass out again." She said as they walked to his car, it wasn't much but seemed good enough to get from A to B.

"Blood-sugar? You're a diabetic?"
"What's the matter? You concerned?" Gwyn felt her Louisiana-accent shine through her otherwise perfect way of speaking.
"Well, yeah. When was the last time you ate?" They were in the car and the bouncer looked at her with worried eyes.
"I don't know. Six hours maybe?"
"Six hours, are you crazy?" They headed out of the parking-lot and from what Gwyn could tell they were heading to the nearest diner a couple of minutes away.

"It's not like I have the luxury of being able to eat at regular hours anymore." She sighed and looked out the window, seemingly fascinated by the streetlights flashing by.
"I've seen you dance and you look..." He seemed to try and find the right words but Gwyn didn't really feel like waiting for that.
"Like I make some money?" She tiredly stated. She tried not to but she couldn't help the bitchiness that her low blood-sugar brought on.
"Something like that." The bouncer turned quiet, like he was ashamed but before Gwyn could apologize the car stopped.
"We're here."

"Gwyn Simms, are you with us?" Valarie waved her hand in front of the girl's face to get her attention back from wherever it had gone to.
"Yeah." Gwyn shook the memories out of her head and turned her eyes back to the nurse in front of her. "Yeah, I'm here. What were you saying?"
Val sighed and shook her head with a glance at the clock on the wall.

"School called. Jayden's come down with a fever and she needs to be picked up."
"So what's the problem?"
"I still have two more hours of work to do before I can go home." Val sighed and rubbed her temples, seemingly tired after another long day's work.
Gwyn threw a glance at her own wristwatch and smiled.
"Go. Get your baby home and into bed and I'll take the rest of your shift." Val's eyes lit up but at the same time Gwyn could see the guilt in them.
"Are you sure? Because maybe I could call her dad and he'll..."
"Val. If you let that creep anywhere near my god-daughter I will kill him myself and then come after you. Now go."

Valarie leaned over the counter and kissed her friend's cheek with a wide smile.
"Thank you, Gwyn! I promise I'll make it up to you later, I swear."
"Whatever, just go get your girl." Gwyn laughed as she watched the black Goddess practically run out of the hospital.

Gwyn leaned back in her chair and looked up Val's last round on the computer: One firework-related burn-wound, two women who both insisted that their injuries had nothing to do with their husbands being drunk bullies, one victim of a minor car-crash and last but not least a gunshot.
Shouldn't take too much time, she was after all one of the best nurses in the hospital. With a little luck she might even be able to catch that movie she'd wanted to see for a while now.

No such luck. The burn wounds on patient number one needed a whole lot more work than expected because some idiot nurse hadn't properly dressed them which added another hour to the seemingly otherwise easy check-up. As she was examining one of the abused women her husband came in and threatened to kill Gwyn for touching his 'property', security was called in and the man was removed while the woman in bed cried and promised the nurse that he really was a good man, he was just having a bad day.

The car-crash victim was a young man, 16 years old, who had just gotten his drivers-license and had decided that it was a good idea to steal, or borrow as he described it, his older brother's car. And although his condition was nothing but stable Gwyn had to fight the urge to slap the back of his injured head for being such an idiot.

Two hours after the movie had ended she finally reached the last patient for the night: The gunshot wound. She was supposed to meet up with the doctor in charge before actually entering the room but seeing as the doctor was one that she didn't really like she decided that she could do the job herself and she was just about to open the door when the man in white robes came marching through the corridor like he owned the place.
"Simms, where the hell is Thompson? She was supposed to work this shift." He declared with a loud voice.
"Her daughter's sick, told her I'd cover for her." She bit out not too nicely. Ever since Val started working at Georgetown University Hospital the doctor had made sure to embarrass her every chance he got and was just generally horrible to her.

"That little bastard again?" The man looked around the corridor as he snorted and Gwyn had to literally bite her tongue she was so mad. "Sometimes I think it would have been better if she would have just killed it when she had the chance." He turned to Gwyn with a sickening smile. "Well, shall we?"
"I don't care who you think you are. You never talk about Val or her daughter like that again or I swear to God I will..."
"You'll what?" He took a step closer, invading her personal space as he stared her down. "Tell me what you'll do to me, Simms." His voice took on a suggestive nature and Gwyn felt the red-hot anger seep through her veins when he put a hand on her hip, rubbing the fabric of her scrubs.

"I will make sure to hurt you in ways that'll make you useless to a woman ever again." She hissed, her voice ice-cold and she felt a smirk coming onto her lips when she saw a flicker of fear in his blue eyes. "Now we can go inside." She took a step back and waited for him to open the door, not letting the seriousness in her eyes falter for even a second.

"Well, agent Morgan." The doctor stammered slightly knowing that the nurse's eyes hadn't left his back since they'd stepped through the door. "The bullet went clean through your shoulder, muscle-damage seems to be minimal and if things proceed without complications you should be out of here by the end of next week." He hurried through his assessment and was quick to leave the room as soon as he was finished.

Gwyn let her cold eyes follow him until the door shut behind him and she then turned to her patient with the warmth back in her eyes.
"Well, agent. Looks like your stuck with me for the rest of the night." She smiled as she looked at the chart. It was already late and her plans for the night had been ruined anyways and since they were understaffed for the night she'd decided to stay for the night-shift.

The man on the bed smiled at her and spoke in a voice that made Gwyn just feel plainly happy.
"You say that like it's a bad thing." His eyebrow was raised and tried to straighten out so he could sit up properly. Gwyn watched him, her first impression of him was that he was the kind of person who liked to be able to do things himself so she waited until he was done before speaking up again.
"It depends." She shrugged with a smile causing the man to look intrigued.
"On what?"
"On when I last ate." She winked at him and continued doing her job, smirking a little to herself as she felt his eyes on her as she did it.

"So agent Morgan. What's your story?" She asked suddenly.
"My story?"
"Yeah. What brought you here on this faithful night?" She chuckled and stopped to look at him, he wasn't all that bad looking after being shot and all.
"It's all there in the chart, why would you want to hear it from me?"

"Countering my question with his own, this guy's good."

"I find it helps most patients to talk about what happened to them, be it a car-crash, a sowing-accident or a gunfight." Gwyn shrugged lightly but kept her eyes on the agent's face. He was probably used to that kind of thing, it was his job after all but he didn't really look like the kind of person who liked to talk about an incident until it didn't hurt anymore.
"Is that right?"

Gwyn nodded and sat down in the chair that had been pulled up to his bed, probably by a visitor.
He chuckled and ran his painfree hand over his shaved head, seemingly preparing himself to talk.
"You're a very different nurse, aren't you?" He said with his chocolate eyes trained on hers.
"You have no idea." Maybe tonight was going to pass fairly quickly after all.
The agent laughed and seemed to relax in his bed.

"Well, it all started with a case..."

Another shortie but I thought it'd be fun to share how they met :P Let me know what you thought!