I learned today, I am incapable of writing anything short. Anything. Even stupid oneshots which are almost 4000 words.. ugh :sigh: Well, I just hope that you like these 4000 words.
I took a break from my chapter stories to write this.. its kind of random, but I hope you enjoy it, nonetheless!
Early Monday morning, Derek and Angela Stiles drove together to Hope Hospital, as they did every day for the past ten years. After Greg Kasal had taken over Dr. Robert Hoffman's position as executive Director of Caduceus, he had recommended Derek as the head of surgery, which the doctor had warmly accepted, being the youngest doctor in the history of Hope to ever hold the title – starting the position at 30 years old.
Derek and Angie walked towards the entrance at Hope, before Derek stopped.
"Oh, crud.." he said, hanging his shoulders.
"What's wrong sweetie?" Angie asked, turning around to face him.
"Residents."
The word made Angie's green eyes spring open as she scrunched her face. The hospital didn't accept many residents, and the doctors rotated taking residents every other year. Until just then, Derek had forgotten it was his turn.
Sighing, he walked towards the door, Angie rubbing his back gently. It would be a trip, all right.
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"That's him, that's Dr. Stiles!"
"I know, I can't
believe we get to get trained by the surgeon who wiped out GUILT and
the nurse who helped!"
"Now I see why it was so hard to get
into this residency.."
The chatter came to a gradual stop as Derek and Angie approached the six interns, forced smiles on both of their faces.
"I'm guessing you guys are the new residents?" Derek asked, to which they all nodded, eyes bright and shining, ready to learn. Angie rolled her eyes out of view of them, who were all practically drooling over Derek and his medical expertise like he was Justin Timberlake and they were all a bunch of 14 year old girls.
"Okay, come with me.." he said, walking down the hall where they all followed him, notebooks open and ready to write any word that came out of his mouth. Instead, he walked into his office, followed by the interns, and shortly after, Angie, who closed the door behind all of them.
"As you all probably know, my name is Doctor Derek Stiles.." he started, leaning against his desk as they all walked inside, sitting on the couch and nearby chairs. "…and this is my wife and my assistant, Nurse Angie.." he said smiling, pointing to her where she nodded, leaning against her desk as well. "The two of us are going to be your lifeline for the next ten weeks, and while you will be spending almost all of the time with me, I expect that you listen to and respect her the same way you do with me. Understand?"
They nodded silently, eyes looking back and forth between the two.
"Okay, why don't we go around, and you can introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about you." Angie spoke up, to which Derek smiled.
Michael Drake, Annie Solomon, Brad Kuhn, Thomas Purcell, Kimberly Dresden, and Alex Johnson were the names of the six interns. While they were talking, Derek couldn't help but feel bad – he remembered how bright and happy he was before beginning his residency, and knew as they spoke that during the next weeks, all of them would learn a series of painful lessons, and probably be yelled at a great many times. Like Dr. Kasal told him once, "I don't yell at you as a means of personal attack – I yell at you because you have a life or death decision in your hands, and you need to pay attention before you make a mistake you can't reverse..."
Snapping back into reality, he realized that Angie and all of the residents were staring at him, their personal spiels complete. When he realized what he had done, Derek chuckled nervously and scratched the back of his head while Angie rolled her eyes. Suddenly a noise was heard and everyone forgot about what Dr. Stiles was doing, turning their gaze over to the door as it opened hastily, a young man falling into the room.
"I knew I was short a resident.." Derek thought, smiling at the young man, who was struggling to catch his breath before he closed the door behind him. Clumsily, he removed his backpack and set it on the floor next to him, trying to catch his breath.
"S-Sorry.. I'm late… Dr.. Stiles.." he said, finally able to get his talking under control.
Derek smirked gently, slightly annoyed at his tardiness, but looked past it. "That's okay, welcome. We just finished our personal introductions, so why don't you give us a little bit about yourself?"
"Nobody wants to hear about Squirt… he's, Squirt!" Brad said, all of the other residents giggling. Angie sent a look over to Derek, confused, before she looked at "Squirt", who was very humbly shaking off the comment, forcing a smile.
"Yeah, yeah… everyone knows me as Squirt. You know, in my defense, I had NO idea that if you were just playing with a blood bag while you held it in your hands, that you could make a hole and spray down the hottest nurse in the hospital with it…"
The residents now howled with laughter, Derek and Angie chuckling softly. "Apparently you had to be there.." Angie thought.
"Okay, well now that everyone is here, I believe we're ready to get started.. Follow me.."
Derek walked out of the room, followed by his residents, followed by Angie, and finally, Squirt, who was trying to grab things out of his backpack before they all got too far ahead.
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Standing outside in the ER after the first week of the program, Derek was quizzing the residents on their basic surgical knowledge, using Mrs. Cecelia Hosner as a test patient. As he kept calling on Squirt, wrong answer after wrong answer came out of the young man's mouth, and Derek could see he was getting visibly discouraged.
"Squirt – come on, steps of the Powell Procedure..!" Derek asked again, hands on his hips impatiently.
"Come on, you know this…" Derek thought to himself. Though it had only been a day, he found himself taking an immediate liking to Squirt.
"I don't, know… Dr. Stiles.." he said, hanging his head as Kim's hand shot up in the air to answer it.
"I hate doing this so much.."
"'Squirt', is it?" Derek asked, to which Squirt nodded. "If you wish to successfully complete this residency, I suggest you get your act together, immediately.."
"If I'm not hard on them, they'll never learn.. but still..."
"Kim. Powell Procedure." Derek said, turning his gaze over to the blonde. While she was talking, Angie walked up and waited patiently for Kim to finish, before tapping her husband on the shoulder.
"I just need you to sign these papers before I have them sent off, they were from the…" Angie explained, trailing off as Derek followed her just a few feet to sign the papers on the counter. The residents watched as Angie said something in a hushed tone, making Derek chuckle just a little bit before he turned around to give the papers to her. She wasn't paying attention and when he let go of them, they all dropped to the ground, littering everywhere.
The residents looked on as Dr. Stiles and his Nurse began picking up the papers just a few feet away from them, quickly rebuilding the pile.
"Man…" said Michael, whom everyone else called Drake. "I think that just made my day, watching Nurse Angie bend over like that.. mmmh MMMH!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands together as the guys high fived him and the girls called him a pervert. Squirt stood away from the pack as he watched Drake turn his back to the doctor and make several perverted motions, before he turned around again.
"Whoops, I knew we were missing one!" Angie exclaimed, bending over one last time to grab the missing paper. Drake shot a look at the guys in the circle and chuckled slightly.
"Damn.. she has got a niiiice body… Mmm, mmm.. Dr. Stiles, you're wife is smoking hot!" he exclaimed, slapping another round of high fives before his happy expression turned to stone.
"Was I, interrupting something?" Derek asked. Drake whirled around quickly to see his Doctor's arms crossed in front of him, eyebrows raised, visibly unamused.
"Oh, no, Dr. Stiles…" he said, to which Squirt rolled his eyes. Out of his peripheral vision, Derek saw Squirt's reaction, and decided to press on.
"How about filling me in, on this little conversation.." Derek asked, smiling as he stepped a step closer to them all. All seven residents froze, unsure of what to say.
"Heh.. uh, no.. it was really, just nothing…" Drake mumbled, sticking his hands in his pockets as he watched his shoes scuffle against the tile.
"Are you sure about that? Because, it sure didn't sound like nothing.. it uh, kind of sounded like a conversation about my wife… I'm just hoping I heard wrong.."
Silence.
"Okay, we'll do this the hard way!" Derek said, smiling vengefully as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Would you like to tell me what you just said, Mr. Drake, or do I have to assign you and the rest of the residents here to a night of feeding and changing the elderly?" Derek asked, crossing his arms and raising his eyebrows.
"He, said your wifeissmokinghot!!… Dr. Stiles!" Squirt blurted out, unable to control himself. Something about the elderly always kind of weirded him out.
Drake glowered at Squirt as all the other residents heaved a sigh of relief. Though they all were unwilling to spill the beans, they were glad that Squirt had.
Derek exhaled sharply and smiled briefly, as he shook his head. "I can't say that I disagree with you in the least… I'm a very lucky man." he said, before his gaze turned slightly vindictive, his eyes dancing with amusement. "Be that as it may… Mr. Drake, I believe Mrs. Hosner'scatheter is ready to go in now.." he said, tossing her chart to him, watching as the young man's eyes opened with panic. Derek just smirked and looked at him frozen with fear, before he spoke.
"You have three seconds to get to it before I tell my wife what you said and let her deal with you herself."
In the blink of an eye, he was gone. In the one short week they had been there, every one of Dr. Stiles's residents knew that the only thing worse than the tasks that Dr. Stiles assigned them to as punishment was the wrath that they would endure if they crossed his wife.
"Moving on…" he said, walking as his residents followed him.
-------------------
"Doctor Stiles, emergency patient was just carried in – glass embedded in the lower abdomen!" Angie rattled off, nothing but calm in her voice.
"Let's go see medicine in action, guys!" Derek exclaimed, before breaking into a slight jog down to the OR, his residents following him.
Squirt had a tendency to daydream, which was never good, because in the short time he had been Derek's resident, he had already been asked to "snap back to planet earth" so many times that he had lost count. This is why he was especially surprised that instead of hearing Dr. Stiles snap at him, he suddenly broke out of his daydream to find that surgical garments had been shoved into his grasp.
"Squirt – come with me to the prep room – you're going to be removing the glass.." Derek said, to which Squirt stood frozen in shock.
"…Me..?!" he asked, but nobody heard him. Dr. Stiles wasn't wasting any time, and was already scrubbing in. Squirt got cleaned up with him, unable to suppress his smile as he slipped on his surgical mask, and finally, his gloves. This was really happening.
-------------------
"What, are you DOING?!" Derek shrieked, as for the fourth time in a row, Squirt's forcep skills failed him and the glass was sent crashing back into the young woman's body.
"Just, let me try again, Dr. Stiles! I can do this..!"
Derek sighed loudly. "Fine, but you'll have to inject stabilizer, because vitals are not looking well right now.."
Shaking like crazy, Squirt took the syringe from Derek's hand and inserted it into the patient's side, watching vitals rebound immediately.
"Good.." Derek said, watching the monitors. "Now. Remove the glass, but for Pete's sake.. BE CAREFUL."
Trembling, Squirt wiped the sweat from his forehead with the covering on his arm, returning his attention back to the patient. He successfully removed all the traces of glass, and now just had to suture the lacerations. As he poked the needle through again and again, something wasn't going right at all, and when he looked down at the laceration, he knew why. He had been suturing in loops and hadn't even realized it, instead of making square U-knots as he went along. Now the whole thing had unraveled, and he had caused a bigger mess for Derek to clean up. While he had taken a liking to the kid, Derek was visibly frustrated – it was one thing to answer a question wrong, but it was a whole other thing to be messing up things on patients.
"No.. no.. no… no!" Derek said, looking up at Squirt, who looked as though he was trying to fight back tears. "Weren't you paying attention to ANYTHING I just told you?" he asked, voice loud, causing Squirt to wince.
"I'm sorry.. I, must've been…"
"…Daydreaming?! Yeah, I've got news for you – this is life, and death. These are people's BODIES that you're dealing with here, and there's no room for these kind of mistakes due to not listening!! I will finish this up… you're done."
"But.."
"I said, you'redone here! ..Go!"
Hanging his head and stepping back slowly from the table, Squirt walked from the room. As Derek sutured up the wounds, it took every ounce of strength he had to not go and apologize to him, but he quickly realized that this was the only way the kid was going to learn – the exact same way that he had been taught.
-------------------
Long after the residents had gone home, Derek and Angie sat in their office on the couch, his arm around her as they chatted about the day. Cut off by the ringing of Angie's cell phone, she giggled looking at the caller ID.
"Who is it?" he asked, reading "Home" on the screen as she held it up to him.
"Our munchkins.." she said, flipping it open. "Hello..? Oh, okay, hang on.."
She handed the phone off to Derek who took it, smiling. "Hello?"
He beamed as his child on the other end babbled away, before beginning to cry just a little.
"Oh, honey.. don't cry.. I miss you too!" Derek said, his face pained slightly as he visibly melted from the call. "I know, Mommy and Daddy will be home soon, I promise.. Okay, I'll let you talk to your Mommy.. I love you too sweetie.. Bye.."
Handing off the phone to her, he turned confused, hearing a knock at the door. Angie rose to her feet and answered the door to reveal Squirt standing on the other side, looking apprehensive and slightly sad. Sending one more glance back at Derek, Angie removed herself from the room, correctly assuming that he was here to talk to her husband.
"Dr. Stiles – can I speak, with you?" he asked, voice shaking.
"Of course… come in, sit.." Derek said, walking back behind his desk and sitting in his chair. Squirt set down a large duffel bag on the ground and sat down across from Derek, wringing his hands as he tried to speak. Recalling something unknown to Derek, he quickly scrambled, shoving his hand into his pocket where he grabbed a shiny key and set it on Derek's desk. Looking at it and then at the nervous young man in front of him, Derek leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow.
"Would you care to tell me why you just placed the key to your locker on my desk?" Derek asked, feeling partly responsible for the situation.
"I'm, quitting.. the residency program, Dr. Stiles.." he said, his speech muffled by his head hanging down nearly stuffed into his chest.
"Why is that?"
"I just, don't have what it takes.."
"Oh? What led you to that conclusion?"
Squirt looked up, the gaze in Dr. Stiles's eyes sympathetic but hardened.
"I just, can't do anything right.. these people.. they're all so smarter than I am.."
Standing up from his chair, Derek walked around to his desk and sat on the edge right in front of Squirt, who reluctantly looked up at him.
"Look. If you want to go, you can go, I won't stop you. What I well tell you though, is there's a reason I'm hard on you.. I like you, a lot, Squirt, I did from the minute you stepped foot in my office.. But, I can't sugarcoat this stuff.. if you don't learn it and make sure you knoweverything about it, your patients WILL die."
Squirt nodded quickly, staring at the ground.
"That's the only reason I've been this hard – because I want you to learn, I want you to succeed. You have a big heart and have a sharp mind when you apply yourself.. you just, have to get with it, okay?"
Squirt nodded, the life creeping back into his brown eyes.
"But, what if I'm never good enough?"
Derek smiled sympathetically.
"You will only be as good as how much you're willing to work to be.." Derek said, crossing his arms across his torso. "And I know you can do it… you've just got to get into those books and be an informational sponge.. soak it in. Once you know it and you get to operate again, just remember this piece of advice that my mentor gave me during my residency. "Stay calm, and keep it steady.."" Derek said, smiling as he remembered all the times that Greg's advice had helped him to regain composure.
Squirt smiled, lifting his head up.
"Why did you take a liking to me so fast?" he asked, eyes curious.
Derek chuckled. "Sad as it is, you remind me so much of myself during my residency, it isn't even funny…"
The young man's eyes shot open, mouth dropping in shock. "YOU?! The famous surgeon who eradicated GUILT? Like me?! Hah!"
Laughing, Derek uncrossed his arms. "Yeah, I was exactly like you.. in fact.."
-------------------
"What's the matter Derek, shouldn't you have gone home by now?"
"Dr. Kasal, I just.. can't do this, I'm…not meant to be a surgeon."
Greg Kasal sat down next to his newest resident, Derek Stiles, on a bench outside of Hope Hospital. The warm summer breeze blew through the dark sky, as both of them looked up and on at the stars.
"Derek – you have what we like to call the "First Week Flees..""
"Ha, real original, Dr. Kasal.."
Greg scowled, but chuckled soon after. "Yeah, I didn't think it up – but it happened so often, we had to think of a name for it.."
Derek stopped. "So, I'm not the only one this has happened to?"
"Nope.." Greg said, shaking his head. "Afraid not.. and I'll be damned if I let you walk out of this program.."
Brown eyes sparking open, the young resident turned and looked at Greg. "Why? Why would you care if I left or not? All I ever do is mess up stuff anyway.."
Greg sighed. "Because Derek... do you know the one thing in common of all of my "first week flee-ers"?" he asked, to which Derek shook his head.
"They all became the best surgeons I could've ever hoped to train.."
"Haha, now you're REALLY yanking my chain.."
"Nope, and there's a reason for it. Those who can admit that they don't know everything, can learn from their mistakes. Those who think they already know everything, are unable to be changed. Because you have a genuine love of helping people, Derek, and you are human enough to admit your mistakes and be a man and learn from them, means that you have the right mentality to be here. The only thing is, you need to apply yourself more.. you have a brilliant mind, and I'd like to see you start using it.."
Derek chuckled. "Okay, Dr. Kasal… I will, I promise.."
Greg laughed, standing up from the bench.
"Oh, and Dr. Kasal?"
Greg turned around to see Derek stand up from the bench as well, a hand outstretched.
"Thank you.."
Greg shook Derek's hand tightly, before bidding him goodnight.
"…and those words changed my life forever. If it hadn't been for Dr. Kasal, who became the biggest mentor and role model I ever had, I might not be standing before you here today, trying to convince you of the same thing.." Derek said, returning from the flashback
Squirt smiled, unforced this time.
"I'm sorry for wasting your time, Dr. Stiles.. I just, didn't know where else to turn.."
"If there's one thing I want you to learn, its that helping someone is never a waste of time.. and also, my door is always open.."
"Thank you.. thank you very much.." he said, walking towards the door.
"Now, no more of this leaving business?" Derek asked, smirking.
"No, Dr. Stiles.. you're stuck with me.."
Derek laughed out loud and Squirt grinned. More than ever, Derek saw himself in the young man, hoping that his future would turn out to be even brighter than Derek's life was.
And with that, Squirt had left the room, leaving his duffel bag next to the door.
"Wait, Squirt!" Derek said, grabbing the bag as he dashed out the door. Luckily he hadn't gone too far, making it easy for Derek to catch up with him.
"Thanks Dr. Stiles.. I appreciate it again, really.."
"Not a problem Squ—"
He stopped.
"I'm not calling you that anymore.."
Squirt raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because – you deserve to have a name just like everyone else here does. So, effective tomorrow, whoever calls you Squirt gets bedpan duty.."
The two traded a laugh, before Derek shook his hand.
"Goodnight Dr. Stiles – and thanks again… I'm glad I have someone to look out for me.."
Derek smiled.
"Any time… I know I wouldn't be here today without your dad, because everyone needs a mentor.. So anything you need, you just ask.."
Max Kasal smiled, his dark eyes dancing, before he waved goodbye and walked down the hallway and eventually out of sight. Derek watched him go, fond of his own residency experience, and hopeful that he would be as good of a mentor and teacher as Greg had been for him, almost fifteen long years ago.
Returning to his office to see Angie waiting for him, her possessions packed and ready to head for home, he smiled, helping her close down their office for the day.
"We have to go – our little "angels" are reeking some major havoc.." she said, to which Derek chuckled.
"Well, at least we know who they get that from.." he joked, to which she hit him, scowling.
Passing by Dr. Kasal's old office on the way out of work, Derek couldn't help but smile, thinking of the legacy that was being passed on. To him, life couldn't get much better than this.
I always for some reason had the feeling that Derek was going to end up being the mentor to Greg's children that he was to Derek.. something about it just seems very "the way the world goes 'round" to me.. passing on the legacy. Sniff. How nice!
Anyway, random, I know, but I hope you liked it! Please review!