Well, now the 'Lady Of A Certain Age' is more or less stomped (except for the Special Bonus Feature Deleted Scene that the discerning Denizens demand - le sigh - which I shall attempt to write once I can dislodge Real Life's very pointy teeth from my leg), hopefully this one will whisper a little more loudly. Reviews only encourage the damned thing...

Chapter Six

"Good morning, Mr Winchester!" chirped a voice that had no business sound so pathologically cheerful at that hour of the morning. "Would you like a..."

Dean might have been officially qualified as a grumpy old man, but he was a Hunter. At the merest hint of possible threat, his body would reach for the weapon that had been under his pillow every night since he was seven, and be ready for action without having to wait for his brain to wake up completely. He had once gutted an intruding shapeshifter without waking up at all; it had silently broken into their room whilst both Winchesters were asleep, and Dean was enjoying a particularly pleasant dream about a particularly flexible and particularly imaginative young lady. It was therefore somewhat discombobulating for Sam when he woke early in the morning to find his brother in a romantic clinch with a dead shapeshifter, murmuring sweet nothings in its ear. (Not discombobulating enough to stop him taking a picture before waking his brother, but discombobulating nonetheless).

The point was, Dean was a Hunter, who if disturbed unexpectedly could go from Sound Asleep to I Will Buttfuck Your Soul in 0.003 of a second. So when the unexpected and ludicrously happy voice announced itself, then before his brain was awake, his body was already prepared to dish out ruthless, efficient and instant death with his trusty...

Wooden spoon.

"Wsflg?" commented Dean, blinking at the utensil in his hand. While his brain tried to come to terms with the fact that his knife had transmogrified into a wooden spoon, his eyes took in the pleasantly smiling middle-aged woman in a crisp light blue uniform.

"Would you like a coffee?" she repeated, indicating the small trolley laden with mugs and a pot that was wafting the delicious scent of one of the Five Food Groups According To Dean (the others being Bacon, Booze, Cheeseburger and Grease). "I'm Annabelle, I usually do the java run first thing in the morning. Your brother said that you refuse to function, or in some cases speak in any language known to humankind, before your first cup of the day." She moved to open the curtains. "I can get you something else if you prefer, tea, or chocolate. Mr Shufflebottom is quite fond of beetroot juice, although Mr Shufflebottom is a little... eccentric in a number of his habits..."

"Smglrmf?" went Dean, waving the spoon.

"The night staff put that there for you," she told him in a friendly tone, "Your brother told us that you can't sleep without a 'weapon' to hand."

Blrgmumf?" went Dean.

"If the wooden spoon is not satisfactory, I can get you something else, a spatula perhaps," she told him equably. "Mr Shufflebottom likes to have a dishmop. But then, I did already mention that Mr Shufflebottom is a little eccentric..."

"A wooden spoon?" Dean finally found some actual words, "You gave me a wooden spoon?"

"Of course," Annabelle kept smiling. "We wish to accommodate our residents' needs as best we can, without compromising the safety of others. So, in the interests of letting you feel safe..." she gestured to the spoon.

"A wooden spoon is supposed to make me feel safe?" he asked incredulously.

She nodded. "You are not the only resident with a military background, Mr Winchester," she explained, "We recognize that the trauma of active service can leave people, even an army cook such as yourself, with certain coping mechanisms that we may not be in a position to understand, but we want you to feel safe, and at home here. They also serve who man the kitchen! I certainly understand that. There are days when, having wrestled with the sump filter of the dishwasher, Mr Winchester, I feel as though I deserve some sort of citation." Her tone became conspiratorial. "It's probably not something you're allowed to talk about, but your brother told us what you did to that infiltrating terrorist patrol with an egg whisk. We were in awe! You are truly one of our country's living treasures, Mr Winchester!"

"Where's my knife?" demanded Dean, making a mental note to get the details of The Egg Whisk Offensive out of Sam, using deployment of The Wooden Spoon Of Big Brotherdom if necessary.

"It will be held for you at the nurses' station until you leave," Annabelle told him, still smiling. "Coffee?"

Dean subsided with as small a huff as he could manage, remembering that he was supposed to be an easygoing resident staying for a few weeks until he was healed up enough to look after himself again. Besides, he could lift his knife from a bunch of nurses anytime he wanted, if it became necessary. He changed tack. "I'm sorry, Annabelle," he apologised, smiling back, "You just startled me, is all. Coffee would be great."

She poured him a mug. "Since you arrived so late last night, we'll show you around today," she told him, "After breakfast. We'll get one of the assistants to wheel you to the dining room, to show you the way. Ah, here's Mandy."

"Good morning," smiled another pleasant middle-aged lady, this one in a nurse's uniform, who pushed a small metal cart into the room. "I'm Mandy, and I'm on the med rounds today. Or as some of them call it, the lolly trolley." She checked her chart, then inspected Dean's leg brace. "How is your pain level this morning, Mr Winchester? How is your leg feeling? Any numbness, or irritation?"

"The thing irritating me is the fact that my leg is busted, and I'm stuck in this stupid brace," he sighed dramatically, and she laughed.

"Well, you're allowed to have it off, and have a shower, if you'd like," she announced, inspecting his notes again.

"Oh, darlin', I'd love to have it off and have a shower with you," he grinned, eyeing her generous proportions appreciatively, "Especially if you offer to wash my back."

"Oh, you!" Mandy laughed. "No, I'm afraid that I'm on the lolly trolley, but if you like, I can ask Kim to help you. Provided you don't mind having a younger nurse give you a hand; some of our residents are a bit uncomfortable with that."

"Oh, I think I can handle it," Dean tried not to smirk too hard, "After all, I'm the guy who did the thing with the egg whisk."

"I'll arrange it right away, for as soon as you've finished your coffee," promised Mandy. "Incidentally, Kim is also studying therapeutic massage, and if you have any aching in your leg, well, just offer to be a practice subject."

"I might do that," Dean nodded, trying to throttle down the Killer Smile a bit.

Nurse Mandy was as good as her word. Dean had barely finished his nectar of the gods when Nurse Kim arrived, and assisted Dean in a friendly and professional manner, including a thorough shower, with back washing, and a foot massage for his broken leg.

All in all, Dean thought philosophically, Nurse Kim was just as nice a guy as Nurse Tristan had been.

...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...

Matron Schultz was old school in every way: she had trained as a nurse Back In The Days when learning was done mostly on the ward, usually up to one's elbows in bedpans and kidney dishes, student nurses learned their trade not by wrestling with essays but by wrestling with uncooperative patients, nurses were addressed as 'Sister' and wore recognisable headdresses and were at once terrified of and inspired to be just like Matron. She retained her professional title partly out of recognition of her seniority and experience, and partly because management were not game to try to change it.

She was what Bobby might, under other circumstances, have referred to as 'a fine figure of a woman', which would be a polite way of saying that she was a formidable older lady with a ramrod posture, a baseball-sized grey bun (that some less charitable residents told each other had been permanently nailed there like that probably when she was about seventeen), a truly magnificent bosom and a face that could stare down a rabid gorilla (in fact, during her rotation on the psych ward when she was in her second year as a student nurse, had she stared down a patient who would probably have frightened a rabid gorilla). She would have looked right at home carved on the prow of a 17th century British Navy warship.

Matron Schultz ran her wing of Twilight Towers with relentless efficiency, an iron fist in a sterile powder-free single-use glove. No aspect of her residents' wellbeing was beneath her notice: she kept tabs on what was happening in the kitchen and the laundry, the medical histories, the dining room, the rec room, the TV room and the garden. Figuratively speaking, she always had one wetted finger held aloft in the zeitgeist.

She knew about Mrs Robinson's little tiff with Mrs Onslow, about a magazine crossword being filled in. She knew about Mr Douglas's stash of alcoholic beverage (she let it slide because he was a grown man, provided he didn't become intoxicated enough to attempt to go regimental but forget to put on his kilt; adult autonomy was all very well, but civilised people did not behave like that). She knew about Mrs Green and Mr Baker's after-dark liaisons (mind you, everybody knew about their after-dark liaisons, except for Mr Pickering, who took out his hearing aids at night). She knew about Mr Palmer and Mr Grey, and their simmering feud regarding the appropriate number of cookies one person could decently take at morning tea, and had been called to referee on a couple of occasions. (The verdict: two to start with, then after everybody had had two if they wanted them, the remainder were fair game to anyone who was still hungry, but distribution was to be settled by sharing them out fairly and equally and not via drawn walking sticks at five paces, because civilised people did not behave like that).

She had a number of nicknames by which some people referred to her – always out of her hearing, naturally. They included The Iron Maiden, Boss Witch, Thundergusset and, in the case of Mr Dorsch, either Die Walküre or Die Führerin, depending on whether he was admiring her figure or sulking about having his intake of lard-fried potato pancakes moderated due to his cholesterol problem. Another of her titles was Alpha Bitch. Perhaps she wouldn't have been insulted by that one; she presided over the wellbeing of her residents like a she-wolf watching over pups (or, according to Dr Blewitt the retired zoologist, an alligator watching over a creche of juveniles), always ready to pounce on any staff member or unwary Board member who did not come up to her exacting standards. (Or, according to Dr Blewitt, "Grab them and pull them under in a death roll until they drown, then she would drag their carcass back to her lair and stash it, under the desk possibly, leaving it there until it decomposed enough for her to be able to disarticulate it with her jaws, you can just see her doing that with someone, can't you? Of course, she might just smother them with that chest. That foundation garment is one serious feat of engineering, what do you think, cable suspension or box girder?...")

At the same time, she was of a generation that was not squeamish about practising tough love from time to time. Nobody had forgotten the incident in which Mr Zamilla (who had, in his younger years, wrestled as Zamilla the Gorilla) had One Of His Episodes after deciding to palm his medication. A situation that in any other ward would have required a by-the-ass-covering-book response of the summoning of the police, the notification of the Crisis Response Team, a minimum of four burly orderlies and a generous dose of sedative was quickly resolved when Matron marched into his room and insisted that he put that bottle down RIGHT NOW, Mr Zamilla, because CIVILISED PEOPLE do NOT behave like that. Mr Zamilla put down the bottle, took the proffered pills, and went back to calmly shuffling his dominoes (he might've been mildly demented, but that wasn't the same thing as suicidally stupid).

So when a resident proved immune to the usually considerable persuasive powers of the regular staff members, it was to the Alpha Bitch that they turned to set things right...

"Good morning, Mr Singer," she addressed her newest resident, who sat on his bed in his robe and a trucker's hat, in her most pleasant voice. "I am sorry that I didn't get to introduce myself when you arrived yesterday, as you came in so late. I am Matron Schultz. You may address me as 'Ms Schultz', although I prefer just Matron. I oversee the running of this wing, and it is my job to tend to the wellbeing of its residents and the supervision and direction of the staff."

"Good," griped Bobby grumpily, "Then you can just direct missy here to pay attention to me when I say I don't need no strange wimmen followin' me into the shower." He jerked a thumb at the middle-aged care assistant, who stood with the patient expression of someone who has Seen This All Before. "I'm quite capable of washin' myself, thank you very much."

"Melanie is a professionally qualified care assistant who is merely following protocol," explained Matron, "It is policy for staff to ensure that new arrivals are capable of performing daily self-care tasks for themselves to an adequate standard. You would be surprised, Mr Singer, just how many older men have decided that getting a bit wet then wiping off the grime on the towels constitutes 'bathing', and civilised people do not behave like that."

"Well, she can check behind my ears when I come out," Bobby insisted, gesturing querulously with his walking stick.

"Mr Singer, Melanie will not assist you if you are capable of doing it yourself," Matron went on with implacable, relentlessly calm logic. "And once it is clear that you can do so, there will be no need for..."

"I don't need no strange wimmen watchin' me, either!" barked Bobby, "What's she supposed to do, give me a mark out of ten? Do I get extra points for doin' somersaults?"

"Mr Singer," Matron said firmly, "It is absolutely necessary, for your welfare and your safety, that we establish that you can do this for yourself! For a man of your age..."

"A man of my age?" yapped Bobby irritably. "Hah! I'll have you know, Mrs Schultz..."

"Ms!" Matron corrected him instantly.

"Ms, sorry," Bobby conceded, "That figures, o' course, if you were a Mrs, I bet you'd eat your husband after mating..."

Melanie the care assistant drew in a sharp breath. Matron's face didn't change at all. Instead, without taking her eyes off Bobby, she held out her hand to Melanie for the apron, and said in a voice reminiscent of Darth Vader drawing a bead on Luke Skywalker's X-wing fighter,

"I'll deal with this one myself."

Hesta-Cheryl has been supplying aged care stories (and my own encounter with the genre when my grandmother finally went into care with dementia has also supplied me with some) so if you read something that you think is too far-fetched to be plausible, you can blame her, because some of the stuff that goes on you couldn't make it up...

Reviews are the Winchester Of Your Choice Requiring Supervision During Ablutions In The Bathroom Of Life! (You shameless leches...)