Rose
Rose arrived to work earlier than eight. She guessed it was because it she was nervous. It had been a while since she really worked and she had to admit to herself that she intended to impress Dimitri and show him that she could be a strong hardworking woman that didn't need him, even if he was the one giving her the job.
She sat in her car for a moment trying to catch her breath. It was rare that Rose was nervous. She wished that Lissa hadn't left so early for work and that she wasn't still mad at her and had given her reassuring words.
Rose decided she'd try and fix things with her cousin when she got home from her first day of work but first she actually had to get out of the car and go inside the building.
It was pretty nice, inside and outside.
It was the tallest building on the lower class block and the only clinic for miles. Rose would've never guessed that Dimitri was a doctor or owned his own clinic for that matter. It had surprised her on the phone when he had told her.
She walked through the front doors of the crowded lobby full of people and little kids running. The nurses behind the counter looked frazzled and running around. Rose couldn't seem to get any of their attention so she decided she'd find Dimitri on her own. She walked through the halls unnoticed.
She passed by different offices and examining rooms until someone finally noticed her.
"It's Rose isn't it?"
Dimitri's friend from the bar, Ivan, walked up, wearing the doctor's coat and carrying a clipboard.
Rose was a little relieved to have finally found someone she knew and a little nervous that she'd been caught wandering the halls.
"Yeah. Ivan right?"
"Dr. Zecklos around here but you can get away with just calling me Ivan. Are you lost?"
"Looking for someone actually."
His eyes widened and he gave a slight knowing nod.
"Oh you're here for an examination. Pregnancy test?"
Rose froze before shaking her head vehemently. "No! No! Actually Dimitri hired me as an assistant, a replacement for his…Tasha."
She couldn't seem to bring herself to acknowledge that Dimitri had a fiancé out loud.
Ivan nodded apologetically and surprised.
"He hired…you?"
"Surprising I know but yeah. I guess it's a kind of favor for…things I did for him," she said sheepishly.
She was a little ashamed that this was how she had gotten a job but it was a job nonetheless.
Ivan nodded, probably pretending to understand, and gestured to the clipboard in his hand.
"Well I have to get back to work but I think Dimitri is in one of the rooms at the end of the hall."
Rose thanked him and walked the rest of the way.
She thought that maybe she'd missed him until she heard a deep familiarly slightly accent voice.
"…two times a day and keep it wrapped. I'll take it off in a couple of weeks."
He was talking to a kid with a broken arm and his mother. They both thanked him and left the room past Rose.
He had spoken with a bit of care in his voice that she'd never heard before, softness if she could describe it that way. He didn't notice Rose right away, looking at his clipboard, and Rose took this time to admire him in his nice slacks, long sleeved t-shirt with a similar medical coat to Ivan's, black shoes and his hair pulled neatly back.
She remembered how soft it had been, running her fingers through his hair and immediately tried to make those thoughts disappear.
He was her boss now and she couldn't think of him that way anymore.
Finally looking up from his board he saw Rose.
"You made it." He glanced at the clock on the while and was a little surprised. "And early."
"Nervous," she admitted.
He nodded and handed her the file he'd been holding.
"The best way to get over those nerves is to get right to work."
She could smell his familiar soapy clean scent and took it all in. before she came here and after she had hung up wit him yesterday she spent her time convincing herself to only think of him as a boss and nothing else but standing here in front of him was a different story completely.
She took the file.
"To get you started your job is simply to hand me files I ask for and then to put them away when I tell you. If you're able to do that then you'll be given bigger tasks. Alright?"
She nodded.
He started walking and she took this as an indication to follow. "The job is basically following me to each appointment, being quiet, handing me what I ask for, and keeping the files in order."
He stopped walking and faced her to make sure she heard and understood. His expression seemed to soften along with his voice.
"It doesn't seem like much but it's the best I can offer to someone with only a high school degree."
"I'm just glad you offered," she admitted. She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks and wished it would stop.
He nodded simply and regained his business composure.
"You have two breaks, one for lunch and one for dinner but you won't always have to stay so late. Only on certain days when I'll need you to."
He only ever wants to be with me when he needs something, she thought to herself.
"Are you ready?"
She realized he was asking if she was ready for the day and all of these responsibilities to begin and nodded.
"You can put your purse in my office."
He led the way and this time she walked beside him but it was hard with his fast pace and long strides.
"I would've never guessed you were a doctor," she said voicing her earlier thought.
He gave a slight laugh without any real amusement while unlocking his office door.
"I get that a lot."
"I mean when we were together…" she let her words and her comment trail off, chastising herself for bring it up.
"What?" he asked curious. He gestured to the drawer that she could leave her purse in.
"Nothing."
"No tell me. I'll only think the worst if you don't."
"It's just that when we were together I always kind of felt like you were examining me, feeling me out as if I was something…. wonderful or extraordinary but now I guess it's just because of your doctor's hands," she said smiling almost sadly but recovered quickly.
Dimitri freezes; at a loss for words but when he does speak it surprised Rose a bit.
"When we were together, the last thing I was thinking about was me being a doctor."
Rose was a little confused as to whether or not this was a compliment but she decided to take it as one just to get through the day.
"Are you ready?" he asks again.
"Before I say yes…can I ask you something?"
"Quickly," he says. She realizes the brief niceness of before was completely gone now and it was all business.
"Why did you hire me?"
He stares at her for what seems like an eternity before looking down at a file he's plucked off of his desk.
"The truth?"
"Yes."
"Natasha asked me to."
Rose cringed at the mention of her name but was careful to hide it.
"Oh."
Dimitri looked up again, smiling slightly amused.
"Think of it as me returning a favor to you if you have to, just to get through the day," he told her.
They started walking out of the office and Rose didn't see any sign of Tasha in the office. She didn't figure Dimitri for the sentimental, keeps-a-picture-of-family-or-friends type anyway.
"Will she be around here…a lot?" she asked.
"With you here, most likely," he said with a smile in his voice.
Rose shook her head exasperated and sighed.
Not only was she anticipating this as a long day but also as the first of many long days she'd have to endure.
The day wasn't so bad though. She followed Dimitri in and out of what seemed like hundreds of appointments for hours. There were so many different people with different and weird injuries. One of the weirdest had been a man that came in with a toilet scrubber super glued to his butt.
"I don't think I'll even look at a toilet brush or my toilet the same way again. I'm going to have nightmares for the rest of my life. Are there usually weird things like this?" Rose had asked once the man left, and Dimitri was washing his hands.
"Not even on the list of odd things I've seen as a doctor," he replied.
"So why'd you do it if you don't mind me asking?" she added, remembering she had to be professional.
"Do what?" he asked drying his hands. "Take the scrubber off? Because if I left it there it could've caused some serious chaffing and-"
"No not that. Why'd you become a doctor?"
Dimitri didn't answer right away and Rose wondered if she'd crossed some personal line but she couldn't figure out how that would offend him. He took so long to answer it surprised her when he did.
"My mother was a sort of doctor and I wanted to be like her, helping people."
He left it at that and they moved on to the next patient.
Another couple hundred appointments passed by and Rose was so interested and fascinated that she didn't even take her first break. She thought about Dimitri's answer to her question a lot. It was mostly because it surprised her. Especially when he was nothing but kind and even joking with his patients but she could see a wall he was hiding behind. It was weird to describe. He was friendly but distant.
Rose watched as he helped all of these people and not one person left unsmiling. Maybe she liked helping others to. Her concern had always been helping herself and Lissa but being at the clinic changed that a bit.
One of the last patients of the day was a little girl who had come to clinic by herself.
She had a bunch of bruises and scraps on her arms, legs and face, some of them old and some freshly bleeding.
Dimitri asked for her name but the girl didn't answer.
"Will you at least tell me what happened?" he asked.
"I fell," she mumbled.
Rose, who had been sitting quietly in the corner looked up, curious.
The girl shrugged not meeting Dimitri's eyes.
"You fell all of these times," he asked pointing to a few bruises on her arm that were yellowing.
The girl didn't respond.
Rose had seen that look before. She had worn and perfected that look so many times before, especially as a kid.
The girl was scared and lying.
Dimitri had instructed Rose only to speak unless the patient asked her something or if Dimitri himself was talking to her but she couldn't help it.
The girl was shaking.
"I used to fall a lot too."
The girl seemed intrigued.
"Really?"
Rose nodded, hopping off of her stool. She leaned against the examination table beside the girl avoiding Dimitri's eyes incase he told her to stop whatever it was she was doing.
"At school and at home. It usually happened when someone pushed me though."
The girl froze, biting her lips anxiously.
"I was so embarrassed and hurt that I'd tell people I fell and I'd keep it to myself because I thought it was my fault that people didn't like me and wanted to hurt me."
Rose had never talked about this before and she wasn't sure why she was doing it now. She figured that she just didn't want to see a scared little girl feel the same way she had without anyone around to help her.
"People don't like me either," the girl whispered as Dimitri cleaned and bandaged a few of her bruises.
"Family and the kids at school?"
The girl nodded.
Rose tugged off the sweater she was wearing and flipped her long hair over her shoulder to show the long scar that ran from the upper part of her arm across her shoulder. It was always well hidden beneath her hair.
"This was the worst scar I got when I fell and after I got this scar I decided I had to tell someone so that they could help me. Hiding it wouldn't make it go away or stop it from happening," Rose explained.
"You told someone?"
Rose nodded suddenly feeling like she was in an after school special. "I told me cousin and best friend and she made it all better."
"I think I should do that too.," the girl concluded.
"And if that doesn't help you can always come back here," Dimitri told her finishing the last of the bandaging.
The girl left, with a bit of a smile and Rose felt like she made a bit of a difference.
She walked with Dimitri as he went around to close up the clinic for the night.
"So was that story true?" he asked so suddenly breaking the comfortable silence Rose was startled.
She nodded. She was trying to balance putting her sweater back on over her bare shoulers and balancing the files in ehr hand. Dimitri stopped and helped pull her arms through but froze to run his finger along the length of the scar brushing her hair over her shoulders. Rose remembered his touch had always been warm and gentle, at least before things had gotten intense but his hands were never cold like a doctors. He pulled her sweater up the rest of the way and straightened it out on her shoulders.
"Thanks," she muttered.
Rose decided that Dimitri was one of the strangest people she had ever met. His personality always conflicted with his actions.
"I never noticed that scar before."
"You were sort of preoccupied with other things," she reminded him.
He gave her a side-glance as they walked.
"You did a good job today," he complimented.
"I didn't do much. I only did what you told me."
"That's enough to make a difference."
Rose thought back. She had done what she was told, learned a few things and saw knew sides of Dimitri and had an after school special moment with a total stranger. Yeah, she considered the day a success.
"You can take your lunch and dinner breaks next time though," he told her. "Don't feel obligated to stay."
"I wanted to. I like being here and helping."
They walked into Dimitri's office and he sat behind his desk while she put the last files away.
Her words seem to surprise him.
"The job will have that affect on you sometimes," he smiled.
"Do you think that girl will get help?"
"I hope so and if not she knows she can come back here," he reassured.
Rose felt good and all of her worries from before seemed to vanish. She was about to tell Dimitri all of this and he was about to say something too when the office door opened and Tasha walked in.
"Nice to see you again Rose," she greeted curtly.
Rose took a deep breath letting it out slowly with the only possible thought running through her head, So much for my good day.