She would come to look back on that day as the day he stopped seeing as her a mere receptionist, someone to file his paperwork and blend into the furniture, but as a person, someone to admire. There had been no subtle gaining of trust between them; he had gone from the gruff man in charge of running the operation to a friend in the blink of an eye; on the day that she saved him.
It was by sheer coincidence that she had happened past the patient's door that day; the floor on the lower passageway was slippery where the janitor had been mopping and she had chosen what she thought to be a more sensible route in taking the stairs and the upper hallway. Yet when she rounded the corner she heard raised voices, Doctor Sanderson and a man she didn't recognise, piercing the otherwise silent corridor. When she hurried forward a door was ajar, blocked by a clip board lodged between it and the doorframe. To her horror, when she peered through the window of the heavy metal door, she saw the face of Doctor Sanderson, fear etched in his expression and hands held up defensively. A glint of light reflected into her eyes alerted her to the presence of a knife in the hand of the man she now recognised as a patient and she grabbed a chair from the hallway and bolted into the room.
There was little time to think between entering the room and taking action, the man turned at the noise of the door slamming in time to receive a chair leg to the face and tumbled to the ground in pain. While she was still standing in shock, hands clasping the chair that had been formerly discarded in the corridor, she felt the hand of Doctor Sanderson on her back and became aware of the orderlies running into the room. Despite their late arrival to the scene they took charge almost immediately, surrounding the delirious patient, picking him up and tying him to the bed as a fellow nurse sedated him.
When Wilson turned to nod at them, conveying that they had things under control, Doctor Sanderson led her gently to the room next door and winced when he pulled his hand away from her back.
"Are you alright, Miss Kelly?" he asked softly, cradling his hand. Her eyes opened wide in horror when she realised that he was bleeding for a gash to his palm which ran down like a life line.
"I'm fine, Doctor," she murmured, reaching out to take his wrist and pull his hand gently towards her, "Are you?"
"Just a little shaken," he replied quietly, "Nothing serious."
"Let me have a look at that," she scolded when he tried to draw his hand away from her and he relaxed to let her scrutinise the wound, "Here, I'll get my first aid kit."
He followed her back down to the lobby, all the while holding his hand close to his lapel. At her desk she made him sit down and pulled equipment out of the draw; cleansing the cut she saw it was only superficial, there was a danger of scarring but little other permanent damage. She wrapped it tenderly, slightly amused by his attempts to hide his discomfort, and helped him to remove his white coat.
"Thank you, Miss Kelly," he said quietly and she smiled up at him.
"It's my job, Doctor," she said quietly and raised her eyebrows when he reached out to hold her by the shoulders.
"No, thank you, for what you did back there," he said slowly, seriously, "I'm not sure what have happened if you hadn't have turned up when you did."
"Wilson and the other orderlies came soon after," she said quietly, blushing at the unexpected praise.
"I'm still grateful to you, Ruth," he murmured.
She opened her lips to speak but found no noise escaped. He grunted quietly and looked down at his bandaged hand, touching the fabric gently.
"It shouldn't cause you any problems," she said quietly, "At least you'll still be able to write."
He looked up at her strangely, his lips parted as if to make a reply, and frowned.
"You're left handed," she said quietly, as if he might not be aware, "I know because your prescriptions are always slightly smudged, and you tend to have ink on your sleeve."
"Oh," he said quietly, "I'm impressed, Miss Kelly, and I thought I was supposed to be the observant one."
He said nothing much more to her after that; distracted by Wilson returning to the lobby to report on the rogue patient who was still strapped to the bed. She left him to his job for most of the day, interrupting him only to later reapply his bandages; her fingers working softly yet efficiently. She tried not to notice the way he couldn't keep his eyes off of her face as she worked, his expression warm and yet slightly confused, as if he were seeing her for the first time all over again.
And sometimes, long after the event itself, she caught him staring down at his right hand, stroking the scar thoughtfully, and she wondered if he was thinking of her.