Chapter 4: An Unfortunate Predicament

Leela woke up the next morning bright and early. She checked her email, hoping to find any new email talking about the internship Doctor Cullen informed her about. Nothing. She shrugged and went to get showered and dressed. Then she went into her kitchen to make breakfast. Today she went for scrambled eggs, toast, and orange juice. A simple but healthy meal.

When she was done, she put her dishes in the dishwasher and looked at her phone. Her Mom had sent her a few texts about an event happening in Seattle. Clicking on the link, she read what the event was about and where it was. As she read, she absent-mindedly placed her hand on the hot stove top and leaned.

"AAAHHH!" Leela through her phone on the counter and immediately ran for the sink. She ran cold water over her burned hand and analyzed it. Blisters started to form, which meant that it was a second degree burn. After running cold water on her hand, she grabbed an ice pack, held it, and grabbed her car keys. She slides her phone into her pocket, grabs her wallet, and heads for her car. Leela had quite a high pain tolerance, but this pain level was something she had never experienced before.

Carefully and slowly, Leela drove herself to the hospital. She parks, gets out and walks towards the front desk. The emergency room was packed for Forks.

"Hi, I'm Leela Hunt, I was wondering how long the wait is?" She asked the lady at the front desk. If the wait was too long, she would just go home and deal with it herself considering she was a nurse and capable of doing so.

"Honey, the wait is going to be hours. By the time you drive to a Seattle emergency room you'll be taken in before you get in here." The lady answered.

"Ok. Thank you." Leela gave her a smile which probably confused her more than anything and started to walk out.

"Leela?" She knew that voice anywhere. She turned around and was met by those honey eyes.

"Doctor Cullen." She stated.

"What are you doing here? Did you get accepted for the internship?" He asks.

"Uh no I didn't." She held up her hand holding the ice pack. "Um second degree burn." Leela was a little bit embarrassed.

Doctor Cullen's smile quickly turned to a frown. "Well that's not good. Come with me."

"Wait what about everyone else? They were here first." Leela questioned. Always putting others first, a nurse's intuition.

Doctor Cullen walked closer to Leela, "I don't care about them right now. I care about you. And how are you supposed to help me if your hand isn't taken care of?"

Leela's mouth opened just a little but nothing came out. Carlisle grabbed her unburned hand and dragged her towards the burn unit. There he looked at it, gently and tenderly rubbed some antibiotics on it, and wrapped it up.

"There! Good as new!" He smiled. There was something about his tone that made Leela think of a child who was proud of his artwork.

Leela laughed. "Thank you, Doctor Cullen."

"No problem. Can you move it a little?" He asks as he mimics with his own hand. Leela moves it a little but it hurt a lot. She guessed her face gave it away because Carlisle left and came back.

"Ok, give me one second." Doctor Cullen leaves and comes back with a needle and extra scrubs. He sterilizes a spot on Leela's arm and injects a painkiller. Leela winces a little, not because it hurt, but because he had extremely cold hands but at least they were soft.

"Alright. That should do the trick. It should kick in within 15 to 30 minutes. Now before you can object, go change in the locker rooms and meet me back in the ER." He throws the scrubs her way. "Locker room is down this hallway." He points before turning the other way. He was gone before she even turned around to object.

Leela sighs and walks down the hall. Lucky for her, she didn't have any plans today. She finds the locker room and quickly changes. She shoves her things into a locker far from everybody else's so that she didn't disturb the peace. Grabbing her phone, Leela left and headed back to the ER.

She spotted the familiar blonde from the other side of the room.

"Hey how did you get help before my daughter?! I've been here for 3 hours!" A man stands up and starts yelling at Leela. Leela was small compared to him. He was standing at 6'3" and she was 5'8".

"Sir if you could just calm down. We have an entire ER filled with people who need to be seen." Leela went into her nurse mode. Rude patients weren't new to her.

"No this is unacceptable! I have been here for 3 hours waiting for your slow ass doctors to check my daughter! You came in not even 10 minutes ago!" He started to make a scene. Doctor Cullen was watching but he didn't move from across the room.

"I'm sorry that you have been waiting so long, but our Doctors are working their hardest to get to everyone. Please sir, sit down or I can call security." Leela frowned.

"Security! Oh yeah that will be better! Do you even work here? Are you qualified to be here? I want to see your badge!" He demands. Leela goes pale as she literally just showed up and was asked to help.

"Actually sir. I do have a badge it's waiting for me in the office. Today's my first day here and my shift was supposed to start 2 hours from now, but I burned myself, so I came early." Leela lied.

"Right ok. Like I'm supposed to believe that! I'm not stupid bitch! You're not qualified to be here! You should be arrested for impersonating a nurse!" He spits out. Leela hadn't even noticed that Doctor Cullen had left the room until he showed up beside her.

"Here's your badge and clipboard. I'm going to give you the minor cases today, so that you can get used to the place. Any questions?" Doctor Cullen swooped in and basically saved Leela from this angry man.

"Just one. What do I do with him?" Leela pointed to the angry guy who was just showed up by Doctor Cullen and her.

"Sir I suggest you take a seat. If you would like to be helped, you'll just have to wait. I have 20 other people who need to be seen before your daughter. If you don't want to wait, you can take her to the Seattle hospital." Dr. Cullen smiles at the man before turning and guiding Leela away with his hand behind her back. When they were far enough away the two spoke.

"Well you took forever." Leela chuckled.

"I'm sorry, would you have liked to be caught in your lie instead?" Dr. Cullen laughed.

"No but you could've gone a little faster." Leela smiled and looked at the badge. "How did you get my picture for this?"

"It's in the medical databases." Dr. Cullen answered.

"Oh true." Leela facepalmed for her own stupidity. Dr. Cullen just laughed. Leela laughed with him. Working with him was very different than when she's his student. His character is so much livelier than when he's teaching.

"Alright come on. Let's get to work." Dr. Cullen smiled, and both set off to do what they do best.

-Time Skip-

Towards the end of the day, the ER was emptied out. The angry man took his daughter to the Seattle hospital. Leela had already gotten used to the hospital and knew exactly where to find things and places. She met up with Doctor Cullen back at his office.

"So how was your first day of interning?" Doctor Cullen asks her.

"It was great other than that angry man. What do you mean interning?" Leela asks confused.

"Well you know we only have 1 spot available for interning and a lot of people applied." He builds up suspense.

"Yeah but I didn't get accepted. Doesn't the board decide who's accepted for the internship? I never got an email of acceptance. I checked this morning."

"Yeah, sorry, I made you think that the board decides that." He continues.

"What they don't? Then who does?" She asks even more confused.

"I do." He smirks.

"But there are so many other people who need this internship or probably had a better application than me! Why me?"

"Leela. I watched you work all day today. That's all the proof I need." He smiles.

"You set me up!" She laughs.

"Um I believe you set yourself up. You're the one who walked into the ER this morning." He laughs back.

"I burned my hand!" Leela exclaims whilst laughing. Dr. Cullen just shrugs and smiles.

"Anyways that badge is your real badge and that clipboard you'll leave in the cubbies in the office and when you come back the next day, they'll have new cases." Dr. Cullen explains.

"Ok. Seems easy enough." Leela smiles.

"Your locker will have your name on it by tomorrow, so you'll just have to find it then, but otherwise you're good to go. Any questions?"

"A couple. Aren't you scared or nervous that people will start gossip because I'm your student and your intern? And don't I have to actually shadow you because it's an internship?" Leela asks.

"All good questions. I'm not scared or nervous because I don't really care what other people see us as. We both know that there isn't a romantic relationship between us and that's all that matters." He says. Leela was thrown off by how hurt his tone was when he said that. He continued to answer the second question.

"Technically yes, you are supposed to shadow me. But seeing as you're already a nurse and internship hours is just a part of your class grade, I don't think I need to be babying you around." He answers. Leela nods.

"Ok well. I should probably head home and get some rest before class tonight." Leela smiled.

"Oh, I cancelled class." Dr. Cullen spoke. "They need me for a few more hours so I'm going to stay and help out. So, no class."

"Ok then. I guess I'll see you tomorrow? What time?" Leela asks.

"What time do you want to come in?" Dr. Cullen asks.

"Uh 9 am?" Leela shrugged.

"Ok see you then." He smiled.

Leela made her way out and to her car. She drove home carefully due to her still burned hand. It would take some time for it to heal. She unlocked her apartment and dropped her stuff by her door. She threw her shoes off and plunked onto her bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell asleep.