Alrighty, I've been planning this AU for a while. Now, warning, I've taken some liberties because I am not a med student and have never been one. I have witnessed firsthand my mom's med school years, residency, last two years of fellowship, and how this is all going down. I've interrogated her but its sort of hard to explain that its all for gay fanfiction O.O she wont understand. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this one!
Full Summary:
Marco Bodt is a first year OB resident, fresh out of medical school. Struggling with the everyday problems of being a resident and going through the process to become a doctor, Marco doesn't have a lot of time to devote a personal life to. This all changes when a patient comes into the ER and there's not enough doctors to go around in the Emergency Room, forcing Marco to assist his friend Armin in a compound fracture case.
When the patient wakes up on the operating table, it's like some weird twist of fate that ties the two together. Marco is reluctant to befriend a patient, but his patient doesn't seem to care one bit.
Pairings: Jean/Marco, Levi/Erwin/Hanji, Levi/Erwin, Annie/Armin, Eren/Mikasa, Bertholdt/Reiner, Christa/Ymir, Petra/Auruo
Warnings(this chapter only): Blood, Broken Bones, Compound Fractures, mentionings of pregnancy, hospital affairs, hospital romance, Freckled Jesus jokes, Star Wars
The day had been slow, excruciatingly slow. But with each passing moment, I was able to again find at least some fulfillment in my job. Being an OB resident was hard but the call hours were harder and the job was annoying most days. It was the same thing every day unless you had the blessing of working in another department for your rotation schedule.
My next month, starting tomorrow, I had the wonderful pleasure of working in the Emergency Room, which wouldn't be all too fun. The types of cases that went through there ranged from broken arms to accidentally putting a nail through your hand. If anything, it was a colorful place where you got to meet a wide range of patients.
It wasn't in my interest to become an emergency room surgeon, however, and it wouldn't ever be. I had more interest in the maternity ward. While delivering babies at odd hours of the night is not exactly a blessing, you got to meet several babies each day and you got to meet them in their first few hours, remaining one of the first faces they ever see.
Of course, the infants will never remember you but running into them later in life at grocery stores and seeing them grow is a blessing. The little interaction you have with them at the beginning of their lives is inspiring.
It was the only thing that kept me going on days like this. The slow, painful days where you're just going through the motions.
Christa, a fellow resident in my year had told me that downstairs in the ER they were getting more trouble than they could have bargained for. I had no idea what suddenly brought on the flux of incoming patients but residents and doctors were getting paged left and right for extra help. Since the maternity ward was basically empty, we'd already seen our attending Doctor Ral disappeared down there to help during the lull in patients.
"Do you think we'll get called in?" I asked, leaning in her direction. Christa shrugged from where she sat, listening to the machines running behind our main counter and desks. She was finishing logging some of her hours. "They'll need someone here to take care of things if things suddenly get busy up here. You know how radical it gets." She responded in a light tone.
I sighed and nodded. Doctor Ral would be back soon. She promised to only be away for a little while. I stood idly, hand ready to reach for my pager if needed be. No C-sections were scheduled today, or at least the few that were had been taken care of earlier.
With the need for conversation, or something to keep me occupied, I turned towards Christa again. "I heard a rumor that you were seeing someone." I prodded. It was the truth. I had heard a rumor about some girl who looked a lot like me, or at least she had freckles. Armin didn't really specify when he was slipping me the knowledge.
Christa blushed red in response. "Not exactly. She's been hitting on me." She said innocently, giving me a look that said it really wasn't anything big.
"Who is it?" I asked, curious. I was concerned for my friend. She'd had a great number of people who hit on her from time to time and most of them were bullies. We'd go out for drinks the day after our call hours would end and on more than one occasion I'd had to get some rather insistent guys to leave her alone. My height could be a blessing sometimes.
Christa exhaled before rotating on her chair to look up at me. Her eyes had been trained on the computer screen but now she didn't seem to want to focus on work anymore. "Ymir." She replied, slightly exasperated but otherwise not indicating any discomfort.
My mind backtracked for a moment and I raised an eyebrow. "The custodian?" I said incredulously and Christa nodded her head. "But she's really nice! Honestly, she's just a little abrasive." Christa defended immediately before I could make any false assumptions.
I rolled my eyes and nodded anyway. I had no right to make accusations. "Well, we all know who'll be making the money in that relationship." I grumbled, somewhat sarcastically but it was a true statement.
Christa seemed appalled and she quickly threw one of her pens at me. It wasn't mean to hurt but it did leave an inky mark on my arm. "Marco! That's rude!" She protested and I only laughed in response, rubbing at the ink on my arm.
"I know, I know." I smirked. Most people would think I was a friendly, always honest, couldn't ever say a bad thing about anyone kind of person but I had my perks and the people who knew me could recognize the few less desirable traits. Christa was one of those few people.
Not saying I'm not nice, but some people would claim me to be a saint and if anyone had the right to be called holy it was Christa or Armin. Armin was training to be a surgeon, though he still didn't know what for. I think he'd do well in oncology. He's got the personality and the heart for it.
"Talking about relationships, how did that date go last night?" She questioned, typing a few more words into her log. I shrugged and looked down the hallway as a custodian started cleaning the hallway floors. It wasn't Ymir.
There wasn't much to say about my love life but the fact that it's a devoid wasteland and the few dates I would manage to go on would end horribly. I'd either end up getting called into the hospital or the person wouldn't want to hear about my work but rather my pay check.
In all honesty, we don't get paid a whole lot of anything during our residency. Fifty thousand a year could get burnt through really fast when it came down to student loans, rent money and everything else. It just meant we lived the good old ramen noodle diet which really didn't benefit one's cholesterol.
"Didn't end well." I responded and Christa hummed sympathetically.
She reached over to place a hand on my arm, directly over the ink smudge. "I'm sorry." She never had the issue of a small selection pool. She was a gorgeous, bisexual female with a heart big enough for five yet she did know at least some of the pain. Most of her selection pool was filled with guys attached to her appearance and pay check.
"Nah, it's okay." I pushed off the feeling of loneliness and opted to go down to the cafeteria for food. "It's Taco Tuesday. Do you want anything? I'm running down to get a churro or something." I added, giving her a look. She cringed at the idea and shook her head no.
I nodded my head in response and started walking towards the nearest elevator. She and the few other doctors in the area could handle our severe lack of patients for the little while it'd take me to get food.
The thing with food at the hospital is that, because of the weird work hours and the level at which the day can get in business, eating whenever you can is a necessity. Who knows when five patients might roll through the door ready to have their babies?
Generally, OB residents have to eat at any chance they get and the same goes for those working in the ER. I rode down the elevator by myself for the most part, until I met a nurse from the psych ward on level two and we both went down to level one.
The nurse split off in the opposite direction. I wasn't surprised.
I quickly took off towards the cafeteria, the weight of my pager attached to my white coat reminding me I needed to speed up my pace. There was always a certain level of paranoia that came with the pager.
The cafeteria was empty aside from a few disgruntled patient family members, all feeling wary towards their loved one's condition. It was quiet.
I went straight to the line at the counter and grabbed a bag of Doritos and an instant ramen cup. My gaze met Sasha Braus, the typical cafeteria lady. Though really she was my age and had the hunger of a hungry hungry hippo. Any food left behind at the end of the day went to her, no matter how sketchy the quality. I'm guessing she was just trying to get by like the rest of us.
"Marco! No hot foods?" She grinned, her speech slightly hindered by the cracker stuffed into the side of her cheek. I shook my head politely and smiled. "No. I'm waiting to get called back upstairs. It's been a slow day and that's always a bad omen." I explained and she waved me off.
Sasha quickly rang up my food and put it towards my account. I bid her thanks and goodbye, walking into the doctor's lounge where we could eat separate from patient families.
The room was empty. Go figure.
I sighed. We were a smaller hospital in a smaller town. It was often a lot of places were empty.
I managed to open my bag of Doritos before the blaring noise of my pager went off and I cursed under my breath. I quickly grabbed the small device and held it up to look at where the page came from. It didn't come from OB. It came from the Emergency Room.
Hysterics were typical in those situations. They already had a multitude of doctors working in the dangerous department down the hall today and the fact they needed me was not a good sign. At the same time I looked up to the door leading from the hallway to the doctor's lounge.
Armin's familiar, blond hair came into view. "Marco! Christa said you'd be here. We've got a compound fracture that needs to be operated on ASAP and Doctor Bossard won't be able to get in there immediately. Come on!" He said with the urgency he always carried with him.
I nodded my head and picked up my food, quickly sticking my head back into the main cafeteria where Sasha was. "Sasha, watch my food. I don't care if you eat it." I demanded, chucking the open bag of Doritos and instant noodles at her. She had been in the middle of serving a patient when she dropped the metal spoon full of chili she was holding and went to catch both items.
I didn't check to see if she caught them. I turned and ran back with Armin who was already halfway prepared for surgery. We ran down the hall quickly, dodging Bertholdt who was hurrying into the ER with sweat pouring down his forehead. He was a pain in surgery, sweating nearly everywhere and he had his own med student to wipe his forehead twice every minute.
The second Armin and I got into the prep room, I began getting properly dressed and scrubbing my hands to the point of sterility while Armin went to see if our patient was being taken care of.
I shouldn't have been surprised when I was paged to the ER, but something about getting called down a day before my Emergency Room rotation started seemed to almost have a fate-like twist to it. I don't know but it felt like the universe wanted me to be here today.
Armin rushed about just as they brought our patient in and set him down on the table. The lack of people around to help was astonishing but that was why I was here.
As quickly as I could, I made my way into the operating room and positioned myself next to the patient's compound fractured arm. It was a bloody, disgusting sight but Armin almost seemed excited so I didn't say anything.
"Wow, this one is a bad one." Armin remarked out loud as he began to undo the small patch job of bandaging someone had worked onto the wound. "Try not to sound so excited, the guy's knocked out and bleeding." I replied back in a slightly exasperated tone.
I spared a short glance towards our patient's face. He was knocked out, as he should be, and probably the most odd thing was he had two-toned hair. The top, also the messier part, was a light brown color and the bottom was a darker chocolate. It was kind of cute really. Though the guy did have a thug-like face in comparison to the people I hung around with.
I probably would have kept staring at the patient had Armin not needed my help and Doctor Bossard not entered the room looking pissed off as always. "I can't believe…" He started to grumble as he walked over.
"Hello, Doctor Bossard." I greeted, hoping he would recognize me or something. He did spend a lot of time upstairs in the OB department hanging around looking for Doctor Ral. He'd asked me where she was enough times.
Bossard nodded his head towards me and it looked like their might have been some slight recognition. "Who are you?" He asked, his eyes telling me that he was confused. I wasn't one of his typical students or he probably would have remembered.
"OB resident Marco Bodt. You'll have me working with you starting tomorrow for my ER rotation." I explained, slightly saddened by the lack of memory. Although, people did tell me I had a semi-forgetful face. I didn't really stand out much to most people.
Bossard nodded his head but the information seemed to just go in one ear and out the other. He didn't have much care for anyone but the other attending doctors.
"Alright what do we have here?" He muttered as he leaned down to look at the compound fracture. Knowing not to interfere with a doctor with his sort of ego, I backed up slightly and made sure that all the tools they'd need to operate were within reach.
Not exactly to my surprise, Armin got to do some of the work and Bossard was pleased with him. Armin was a good worker, I couldn't blame the guy.
Towards the end of the surgery, which didn't take too long at all thank god, something unexpected started to happen. I had been standing beside the patient when we noticed something both very bad and punishment worthy of the idiots who gave our patient anesthetic.
Slowly our patient's eyes had started fluttering open and his heart rate picked back up. "Uh…sir," I began to say just as the patient turned his head to me. I quickly moved to block his view of his arm, preventing any sudden thrashing or horror that could normally happen.
I pulled down my mask, making sure the amber eyes stayed focused on my brown ones. "Are you feeling any pain?" I asked quickly. Behind me I could hear Armin and Bossard speeding up their work, trying to make sure the male didn't notice their presence before their work was done.
"…wha…you some kinda…freckled Jesus or sumthin…?" The male stumbled over his words and it was obvious he didn't know what he was saying or where he was though in reality the overhead lights above and behind me might not have helped this little fantasy of his.
I shook my head, not exactly sure how to respond to that one. Hopefully he wasn't fully aware of anything that was going on. "What is the last thing you remember?" I tried asking but he kept staring at me all confused.
"…I thought," He paused after a moment and then kept going. "Jesus had a beard." Alright so he was taking this little fantasy of his seriously. I guess that's what anesthetic did to a person. It made them forget things and screw with their sense of reality.
Alright, I could work with this. Keeping him focused on some sort of imaginary god was better than letting him realize he was in an operating room with a broken bone sticking out of his skin.
I smiled kindly. "Not always." I prompted him, hoping it would keep his fantasy going. The guy's eyes widened for a moment before he relaxed. "Yeah, cuz…you're a young freckled Jesus…may the force be with you."
Behind me I could hear Armin choke down his laughter. I frowned slightly before returning to this really, really strange façade. "And with you as well." I didn't know what I was doing, really. There's no handbook on how to deal with a patient in an operating room that just woke up and thinks you're a deity. I might have to write that handbook after this.
The patient blushed slightly and nodded. If anything the whole situation was pretty cute. Behind me I felt a hand prod my shoulder. "Alright Yoda, we're finished." He said, grinning like an idiot over what had happened. I scowled at him and threw a glove at him. "Oh go get stranded in Tatooine." I replied back.
Armin laughed out loud at that. "It's Dagobah you idiot." Armin corrected. Next to me our patient seemed a little more than out of it. He was pretty confused by the conversation that was taking place and he didn't know how to follow it.
"Okay," I paused to look at the name on the patient's chart. "Jean, let's get you somewhere else so other people can get in here." I said as Armin rolled over a bed for us. Jean gave me a puzzled look and I only grinned reassuringly.
Hopefully he wouldn't remember any of this strange freckled Jesus episode of his once he was fully awake.
The patient complied quite easily and we rolled him to one of the empty beds where he could sort out his recent life choices in deciding that a doctor was their lord and savior in peace. One of the nurses that had been walking down the hallway helped us the moment she got to us and soon I was able to return back upstairs.
I didn't leave without saying goodbye to Jean though. The still woozy patient regarded me with a confused smile of thanks and waved good bye to me with his good arm. I nodded back kindly and made my way to the elevator.
Once I got upstairs to the OB department, Christa saw my face and seemed to know there was an interesting story to be told.
"Alright that was the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me." I remarked after reciting to her the entire story that started with getting doritos to being named a deity. Christa was giggling, excited about the story but altogether unsure what to say.
After a few seconds of calming down she looked at me and smiled. "Maybe you should go see if he's into guys when he's more sober." She suggested and I laughed lightly at her joke.
Yet, she seemed serious as she stopped giggling too and gave me one of her thoughtful looks. I blinked in confusion. "Hey, we're not supposed to date patients. That's gross and it breaks like ten different moral codes." I countered before she could give any reasoning.
"Yes, but Marco! He thought highly enough of you to think of you as Jesus! That's probably the cutest thing I've ever heard." Christa said, placing a hand on my shoulder as she settled herself down on the cleared off part of the desk-counter.
I shook my head at her, still having to look down slightly to look her in the eye. "Christa, it's wrong. I could get into so much trouble for that." I replied back in a realistic tone.
She frowned sadly, taking her hand away. "I don't like seeing you alone all the time. Nowadays you'll end up being the third wheel since so many of us are finding dates. I mean look at Armin! The kid has his face buried in the books all the time and yet he's still managing to squeeze in a date or two with Annie."
"Annie?" I asked, having not thought that stray date had gone successfully. Annie was a girl he met through Bertholdt and amazingly that seemed to be going somewhere.
Christa rolled her eyes. "Stop changing the subject. I don't think Smith would care about it anyway. For god's sake, Marco, the guy's doing Levi. I don't think he cares in the slightest about patient, doctor relations." She seemed extremely frustrated by the situation.
I flinched slightly at that information. "Did that finally get confirmed? What about Zoe? Wasn't she the third party? Does she know?" I asked, suddenly my concern for Hanji the crazed lab technician growing. We'd been observing the relations between Doctors Hanji, Levi, and Erwin over the past few weeks since rumors about sexual affairs were going around.
The life of a doctor was so exciting. Getting sued left and right and then also seeing things like affairs and fraud…yeah we were living the life.
"Marco!" Christa exclaimed. I sighed, shaking my head. "Sorry, but it's against the rules Christa." I stated again. The girl looked more than upset but I couldn't do much to satisfy her. I wasn't willing to go against years of tradition, or should I say lack of tradition since a lot of doctors did weird shit anyway?
She threw a pen at me again, this time leaving an ink smudge on my hand as I tried to deflect it. The girl was a lot of fun but she could care too much sometimes. I tried convincing myself she wasn't right about the third wheel statement though. I'm not exactly the luckiest one out of our circle of friends.
Sighing, I shook my head and began doing rounds on the patients we did have. I checked on the few babies that were on our floor. Eventually Doctor Ral came upstairs from the ER to say hi to all our patients and be as kind and courteous as possible.
She made it a rule to say hi to everyone when she was in the hospital. I sat down at our department's front desk the moment she came around to look at one of the computers for something. Christa had gone down to the cafeteria with Ymir.
"You seem a little down?" Doctor Ral commented as she sat down in the chair a seat away from me. I shrugged in response. To her, the OB residents were like her family and she needed to take care of them.
"I had a patient call me freckled Jesus in the operating room." I stated almost like it was a fun fact. She laughed once and nodded. "Auruo told me." She explained when I gave her a look for her response.
Petra always used the other doctor's first names when she was talking to them or about them. She especially liked to talk about Doctor Rivaille the most. Rivaille, or Levi since no one liked calling him by his last name, was a doctor that was much alike to your everyday Doctor Gregory House. He only took cases that interested him and anyone he did get involved with had an 85% chance of surviving.
The statistics were wild considering the types of patients he got.
"You should say good bye to that patient before he leaves." She hummed, logging into the computer using her username and password. I nodded my head slightly. I could at least do that. It was likely the patient, Jean Kirschstein, would leave tomorrow.
Alright, any and all feedback is very very welcome and I hope you guys have enjoyed the first installment of Waking Up To You!