Bill scrubbed at the dishes in front of her miserably. It was a terribly hot day in Bristol, and the heat felt ten times worse in the back of the canteen kitchen. She finished up the last of the pots and pans, then wiped the sweat off of her brow with the rolled up sleeve at the end of her elbow. Arching her back until she felt a satisfying pop, she then turned towards the rest of the kitchen.
It was her turn to shut everything down today, and she had just finished the biggest task. Going through the mental checklist in her head, Bill sighed when she noticed the chip fryer still boiling away. 'Kim was supposed to turn that off before she left...'
Bill made her way over to the fryer, shutting it off and grabbing the basket inside, resolved to having a bit more dishes to clean. At that moment, her watch started beeping wildly, startling her and causing her to fling the basket out of the oil, banging her arm on the cabinet beside her. Drops of hot liquid went flying, causing Bill to immediately jerk her head to the side. She managed to avoid getting any oil directly on her face, but her bare arm and neck weren't so lucky.
Dropping the basket on the floor, Bill immediately ran to the sink, running cold water over her arm and splashing it onto her neck. The oil burned terribly, and Bill could feel her eyes watering even as she managed to wash the oil away. She wet the rag she had been using moments before to clean dishes and draped it onto her neck as she continued to run cool water on her hand and arm. After a few more minutes, she carefully pulled the towel off and shut off the water, then walked to the back room where she knew there was a mirror (someone had cleverly put it up to adjust hairnets) to survey the damage.
She didn't think her neck was too bad. There were maybe three major spots where the oil had gotten her, but the worst parts were just a vivid red. She could manage to hide it with her hair if she coaxed it in the right direction. Her arm was a bit worse. There were similar red spots on the back of her hand, but they could almost be missed if you didn't notice they were there. What worried Bill was the larger and more painful looking blisters that had formed on the upper part of her forearm. She didn't feel much pain at the moment- whether it was from numbing it with the cool water or shock, she was grateful. But it still didn't look very good.
Her watch went off once more, a reminder of why this had all happened in the first place. Bill suddenly remembered WHY her watch was going off. "Shite, I'm going to be late!" She hurriedly tugged the sleeve of her flannel down to hide the worst of the injury from view, ripped off her hairnet and tugged her hair into place, then hurriedly locked up and started running for the Doctor's office. She had left a bit of a mess behind, but everything was turned off, and that was the important thing. She'd just make sure to come in early before the next shift arrived and finish cleaning up.
Bounding up a flight of stairs and down the corridor, Bill screeched to a halt in front of her destination. She knocked, then entered the room without a response, as was usual. The Doctor was standing by the window, looking outside at some indecipherable subject in the distance. "Cutting it close", he said to her, his back still turned.
"Sorry," Bill panted, trying to catch her breath, "Had to... clean up... canteen..."
The Doctor walked over to his desk, grabbing some papers and shuffling them in a way Bill knew meant that he was just trying to look like he was doing something important. She was on time, so she knew he wasn't upset with her. "Well, let's get started, shall we?"
Bill nodded, pulling out her notebook and poising her pen in preparation to take notes. The Doctor started rambling on about the day's topic, and Bill dutifully wrote down what he said, interrupting him here and there to ask questions and to get him to elaborate on points. Throughout his lesson, her arm slowly started to throb, becoming more and more uncomfortable as time passed. A sudden jolt of pain made her lose her grip on her pen, sending it rolling away onto the floor and coming to rest near the Doctor's feet. "Sorry," Bill said, standing up in a flash and taking the two steps over to him. She was about to grab her pen when the Doctor started to bend over to grab it as well, brushing her injured arm as he did so.
Bill's knees actually buckled at the pain, and if it weren't for the Doctor's sharp eye and quick reflexes, she would have fallen to the floor. As it was, he helped to sit her in her chair, his expression worried. Despite that, he still had a commanding calm in his voice. "Bill? What's wrong? Tell me what happened."
Bill found that she couldn't speak, still panting through the aftershocks of pain. She gestured with her eyes towards her hand, and the Doctor was keen enough to pick up what she was trying to tell him. "May I?" He asked, reaching towards her sleeve. She nodded, and he started to roll up her sleeve as gently as possible with one hand, the other holding her upper arm steady.
He uncovered her arm to reveal what appeared to be a worse sight that earlier. More blisters had appeared on her skin, replacing where there had been red skin before, with a nasty looking bruise starting to form in the parts that she could see underneath. Bill had to look away, feeling a bit queasy at the sight. The Doctor gently started to prod around the very edge of the bruising and Bill and flinched, embarrassed by squeak of pain that escaped from her mouth. "It doesn't feel like you broke anything," the Doctor said moving his hands to an undamaged part of her arm as he scrutinized the damage, "but some of those burns look to be second degree. How did this happen?"
"I was stupid, really," Bill said, watching as he turned her arm this way and that. "They set me up with a closing shift today, but Maureen, who usually works with me, was out sick. I knew it would take longer for me to finish on my own, so I set an alarm on my watch to remind me when your lesson was about to start. Then I sort of... forgot that I set it. I grabbed the chip basket from the oil and was about to clean it when the alarm frightened me by going off. I knocked my wrist and sort of flung oil everywhere...
"-But it didn't even hurt afterwards!" She quickly added. "I mean, right when it happened, yeah, but after I rinsed the oil off it was fine. I only just started noticing it again a couple minutes ago."
With that statement, Bill thought the Doctor looked a bit more concerned, and he reached up a hand to cup her cheek as he looked into her eyes. She flinched, and his hand immediately dropped to scrutinize where it had been. "Sorry", she said unnecessarily. "I got a bit on my neck, too." The Doctor's hand went to up her chin instead as he turned her neck towards the light.
"You've got a mild case of shock," the Doctor said, dropping his hand as he stood up. "Your neck only seems to have some small, first degree burns, so you're lucky there." He went around to the back of his desk, rummaging through one of the drawers for an impossibly long time before resurfacing with a couple of different containers. He undid one of them and pulled out what looked like a purple vitamin, bringing it over to her.
"What is-" Bill was stopped short at the sudden fingers that invaded her mouth, depositing the vitamin looking thing at the back of her throat. She gagged at the taste of chocolate and sweaty socks, but could do nothing else but swallow it. "What was that for!" Bill asked him incredulously. "That thing was disgusting!"
"For the shock," the Doctor said offhandedly, paying more attention to the jar he was now unscrewing than her. "I knew you wouldn't take it once you knew what it tasted like, so I made sure you would anyway."
"Thanks, I guess," Bill said somewhat sarcastically. She could feel it working already, however. Her head felt strangely clearer than before. Unfortunately, her pain had also started to increase. "What's that?" She asked, gesturing towards the jar the Doctor had opened.
"It's a cream. It'll help with your burns." The Doctor set the jar on the edge of his desk, grabbing her arm with one hand and a glob of the bluish cream with the other. "Hold still, this might sting a little."
He started to rub the cream on her burned skin. About ten seconds after he had started, the burning sensation became more intense, until suddenly it felt like her arm was burning all over again. Bill automatically went to yank her arm away, crying out in surprise and pain. The Doctor looked slightly apologetic, but he held her arm in a firm grip so that she couldn't pull away. "It's okay, that will only last for a moment," he told her, continuing his ministrations. Sure enough, the burning stopped as quickly as it started, leaving a pleasant cooling sensation in its wake. Bill sighed in relief.
"You know," she said after a minute, "You're pretty good at this." The Doctor's hands paused for only a moment before continuing.
"I've had practice."
Bill followed his gaze to his desk. Specifically, to the two portraits, the one of the curly haired woman and the black and white one of the young girl beside it. Bill had been curious about them ever since she saw them, but never felt it right to ask, and he never offered any information. Somehow, his gaze confirmed for her that they must be his family. He tried to mask his thoughts, but Bill saw the sorrow in his expression anyways. She thought of the photographs of her mum that had been found at Christmas. Of the blurry reflection of the man in the mirror.
She decided to keep quiet.
The Doctor stopped with her arm after a few minutes, grabbing a roll of bandages and securely wrapping the wounds. He then changed focus, and Bill managed to control her flinch this time as he rubbed the cream onto the burns on her neck, finishing it all off with a large plaster. "Leave that all on through tonight, and tomorrow you should be good as new."
Bill touched the plaster on her neck, feeling no pain to indicate the burn beneath it. "Thanks."
His lips turned up in a fraction of a smile. "What are Doctor's for?"
Bill couldn't help but grin back.