An Infirmary Lullaby
More terminal-Genta, my apologies... Thanks to Ninety-Six Smiles for your continued help and support.
Nation's POV.
"AAAAUUUGH, PASS THE FAN!" Frank screams as he enters the on-call room, tearing his shirt off and tossing it onto one of the bunk beds. Laura and Cosmo still aren't speaking. I hand him the portable electric fan, he shoves it down the front of his pants.
"I'm never using that again." Laura grumbles,
"SHUT UP!" Cosmo screams. I need earmuffs with this bunch. My pager goes off,
"Who's that?" Laura interrogates,
"Ms Alvarado, I'm honestly going to kill her."
"That's not funny." Laura growls dangerously, I stand up and leave the room.
...
I run halfway to Ms Alvarado's door, it's open a crack, I fling it open,
"WHAT'S WRONG? WHAT HAPPENED?"
Ms Alvarado and Brad are staring at me, one of Laura's nurse friends is staring at me like a damn deer in headlights, her hands are frozen on Ms Alvarado's IV pole,
"Dr McKinley... Is there a problem?" Ms Alvarado whispers,
"I got a page! My pager went off, I thought that...-"
"Oh, that was me." says the nurse, "I noticed a sudden change in Ms Alvarado's heart rate and I-"
"Shut up." I bark at the nurse. She hides behind the bed, "And YOU." I shoot a severe glance at Brad, "YOU shouldn't encourage this behaviour!"
"Okay, really?"
Ms Alvarado coughs, Brad springs into action.
"Sweetheart, I'm fine." Ms Alvarado looks at me, "He's paranoid..."
"No, I'm just so in love with you-"
"ALRIGHT, CAN WE ALL STOP?" I shout, "GOSH! YOU PEOPLE ARE GONNA GIVE ME DIABETES!" My pager goes off again, "I'm leaving now."
...
"Okay. ROUNDS, PEOPLE!" hollers Dr. Shoshana Halminen, waving charts above her head, we all kind of start to gravitate towards her, Laura giggles from the nurses' station, "McKinley," she hands Cosmo a chart, "19 year-old-kid in Room 359, broken femur... Furter..." she hands Frank a chart, "ER. Other McKinley..." she hands me a chart, "Magenta Alvarado."
"Okay, no. Can't I do Peds with Nurse Ansalong?"
"Don't try to argue with me, McKinley, you get what you get and you don't get upset, Evans, you're in the ER-"
"Can't we talk this over?"
"What? Can't handle an AML case? We don't get that many, you should go with this while you can."
"Well... I don't like her."
"Deal with it. Dr. Sondheim, you'll be doing Peds today."
I run down the hall, Brad is standing outside the door.
"Why're you here?"
"I'm assigned to your wife."
He frowns, "Great."
"I'll have you know, I happen to be a great doctor."
"That's not what I'm worried about! Dr. McKinley, your bedside-manner is absolutely terrible. You've been nothing but rude so far, Magenta doesn't need that right now, could we maybe get Dr. Furter? At least he cares about Magenta-"
"Alright, you're blowing this waaaayyyy out of proportion."
"No, actually, I just love my wife and I want her to be comfortable if she isn't able to make it."
"First of all, we can fix your wife, second, Dr. Furter has his own work to take care of, his own patients."
Brad groans and goes back into Ms Alvarado's room. I follow him, she's dead asleep (maybe that wasn't a very good comparison...). Brad sits next to her and holds her hand, she opens her eyes,
"You're here... Dr. McKinley... Laura said you were assigned to me."
"You mean, Nurse Ansalong?"
"Sure, but we're on a first-name basis now."
"How very cute..." I turn to Brad, "Has her heart rate fluctuated at all during the night."
Brad nods a little and Ms Alvarado looks down and whispers, "It was irregular last night."
I'm silent for a few seconds, "...Well, we will have to draw some blood."
"That's okay. I like needles."
"That's creepy and weird..."
"They make me feel like I'm getting better."
"You're crazy." I pull the wrapper off a syringe with my teeth and jab it into Ms Alvarado's forearm, she stares at it going in and smiles. Brad looks like he's about to straight up pass out.
"That feels good."
"You need professional help."
"Don't worry, that's why I'm here."
The room falls silent. I'm frozen with a syringe full of blood in my hand, Ms Alvarado is staring at me incredulously and I'm pretty sure Brad is about to rip my face off.
I back out of the room, slowly.
"Wait, wait, stop." says Ms Alvarado, "Where the hell are you going?"
"Well, everything got awkward all of a sudden, so I'm going away."
"Whatever works."
I run down the hall and almost run Laura over,
"EE! NAT!"
"You need to watch where you're going, I could have spilled leukemia all over you."
"You got Magenta?"
"Why are you calling her that?"
"Why shouldn't I be?"
"Because you barely know her, she's probably terminal and she's a bitch?"
"You shouldn't say that, it's not nice."
"Oh, come on. She's a patient."
"Yeah, so? She's a human being and you should treat her as such."
I stare at Laura for a second, with her lime-green eyes and her cheesy ponytail that makes her look like a whore.
"I gotta get these down to hematology."