11th May, 20X5

"Jones!"

Alfred snapped sharply to attention, nearly dropping the notepad he had been scribbling in – quite literally, it seemed, with a quick glance down he could make head nor tail of his own messy writing. If it could even be considered writing.

"Doctor Jones!" The voice repeated, making Alfred jump a second time and actually lift his eyes to Doctor Hedevary – who looked far from impressed. "I'm sorry, are we boring you? Interrupting your beauty sleep?"

"Wh- I- No-!" Alfred stammered out, though as he tried to defend himself his body betrayed him with a yawn and he could swear he saw genuine fire behind the resident's eyes as she glared at him. He hadn't thought he was that tired; it was only nine! Though after the late night conversation with Matthew added to a week of poor sleep, it was no surprise Alfred was dead on his feet. He'd been dosing off where he stood and though Lovina did her best to elbow him awake, it just wasn't working. "I—" He began again, red in the face with embarrassment – and fearing that Doctor Hedevary was about to tear him limb from limb.

"Go home, Doctor Jones." Elizaveta began stiffly, cutting Alfred off when he opened his mouth to protest. "You're walking around with your eyes closed, if you don't get yourself hurt you'll end up hurting one of our patients. Go home, sleep. There's little for you to do today for you lot anyway."

Further arguments caught in Alfred's throat, barely catching a yawn with the intention to protect his dignity even just a little, though it would've made no difference at that point. Honestly, the idea of curling up in his bed was exceedingly tempting, going home and napping had never sounded so sweet. But even so, he felt guilty, abandoning his post without what he considered a real reason, abandoning patients. With a glance around at his fellow interns, he conceded with a sigh and a nod, still looking caught between tired and guilty.

"Okay. I mean, yes Doctor Hedevary." He breathed, once again stifling a yawn if only to save face. Not that there was much left to save, Elizaveta looked unimpressed and concerned, he couldn't even pretend he had any dignity to protect. She watched as he turned, shuffling more than walking down the hall and with his back to them making no more attempts to stop himself yawning.

The journey back to the intern locker room seemed so much longer than usual, probably because Alfred was walking much slower than he ordinarily would have. It was hard to keep his eyes open even then; he very nearly fell asleep in the lift without anything to occupy him, though the ding and jolt of it when it stopped startled him more awake. He rubbed at his eyes as he stepped out of the elevator, nearly knocking his glasses off in the movement but he seemed at least slightly more awake. But it didn't seem as if anyone was paying attention to him as he moved slowly through the halls.

It was probably his exhausted mind, but his thoughts kept drifting back to Arthur – Doctor Kirkland, he reminded himself, a frown on his face that was more hurt than annoyed. For once it wasn't the niggling, painful thoughts – or perhaps it was painful simply because it wasn't the reminders, rather, the softer imaginings of a tired mind that showed him Arthur curled warm against him. He shook his head angrily, nearly hitting himself in the face with his locker door. He was certain Lovina would've laughed if she'd been around, but there was no one there to laugh at his own stupidity in the moment.

He frowned at the locker door, internally blaming the thin sheet of metal for his own clumsy mistake, though his eyes focused on a small sticky note pressed neatly to the inside. A to-do list – he remembered sticking it there at the beginning of the week, a few things to do like grocery shopping and going to the bank. He'd thought such things would have to wait until his next day off, though with time on his hands there was no reason he couldn't take the bus further into the city and get those things done first. Yes, technically he was supposed to be sleeping, but Matthew would appreciate him doing the weekly shop and other adult things that he'd no longer have to nag his younger brother about.

He grabbed his bag, rifling through to check a few things and shovelling various items from his locker into it once he was happy it was all there. He was quite impressed with the speed with which he changed, only stumbling when his scrub top got caught around his shoulders (once again thankful for the fact he was alone in the room.). He grabbed his jacket, slinging that around his shoulders along with his bag before shoving his keys into the pocket of his jeans. He shut his locker, yawning into his hand and reminding himself to grab some coffee before he left.

Arthur's day seemed determined to remain bland as it could possibly manage. He had no surgeries that day, though looking at the board with Francis that morning it seemed there weren't many scheduled at all – not usual, but not unheard of. The closest he'd gotten was a last-minute question from one of his cardio surgeons on the bypass that was taking place at two o'clock and Arthur couldn't deny he almost wanted to do the surgery himself.

It wasn't as if he was doing nothing, he did have things to do – just, not interesting things. He had to remind himself in his best authoritative voice that they were of course important things, even if his current mind-set didn't consider them as such. It wouldn't do to be setting a bad example to the interns if any of them caught him complaining. In fact, it wouldn't do for anyone (except, perhaps, Francis) to catch him whining and complaining about how bitterly boring his day was; he had a reputation to uphold. Besides, it was a good day, everything for once was running completely to schedule and honestly he was getting a fair amount of things done. He briefly considered sitting in the theatre for that two o'clock bypass, but quickly decided against it, he'd probably just set the surgeon on edge if his boss was watching him. He just couldn't help wanting something more interesting to occupy his time than rounds and consults.

He'd never, of course, wish for something worse to befall one of the patients in the hospital, or anyone outside. His entire job was to keep such things from having a permanent effect as far as he could manage, he didn't wish for harm to come to others. That was a foolish and selfish attitude and he'd seen more than one young doctor waltz in without due care for the human lives they were taking care of. Most of them had learnt – another had crashed and burned.

He almost wished he had his own little hoard of interns to teach and quiz as he went about his day, they could make the experience more lively. That was, almost wished. They came with far too much stress and trouble than Arthur thought it worth, he was in fact quite glad he was head of a department, no matter the added stress of that job. Besides, if he had interns he may well have had to put up with Alfred far more often and the intern put a sour taste in his mouth at the moment. He had to shake his head to clear away the thoughts, frown resurfacing on his previously placid features to accompany his disgruntled sigh. He hadn't even seen Alfred all day – not that he'd seen the lad so regularly as of recent – there was so little reason to still be plagued by thoughts of him.

"Doctor Kirkland!"

Arthur looked up from where he was leaning against the nurse's station, closing the chart he'd been checking over and handing it back to the nurse.

"Doctor Williams." He greeted, glancing behind the man to the small hoard of interns trailing dutifully behind him. No Jones in sight – excellent. "Can I help you with something?"

"Yes, actually, if you're not busy." Matthew glanced back at the young doctors behind him, looking somewhat anxious with a hand in the pocket of his lab-coat. Arthur felt a small twinge of apprehension as he noticed the little notebooks each of the interns had in their hands. What was he being roped into?

"Uhm—" He glanced down at his watch, pulling a face before he answered with a small nod. "It's alright, I'm fine for now, but I have half an hour at most."

"That's great, I've just been paged, it's not too urgent but they're supposed to be studying for now." Doctor Williams looked back to him, a pleading look in his eyes. "I'll be right back and they can head on to work, can you just – quiz them for a little bit or something?"

Arthur sighed quietly, resisting the urge to look completely unimpressed and disappointed; surely the interns had more productive things to be doing? But he liked Matthew and he trusted the man, so he conceded, not without a reluctant nod. "Alright. If I'm late to a meeting you're getting the blame."

"Yes, sure, of course. Thank you, Doctor Kirkland!" Matthew nodded, already heading off in the direction of the elevator before Arthur could think to protest. He wasn't going to, of course, he could keep an eye on a handful of young doctors for thirty minutes, give or take.

He turned back to them, noting with a small amount of concern how Doctor Honda seemed unwilling to look him in the eye. Odd. But he wouldn't question it. He crossed his arms, sighing again to himself as he looked over all of them, silent and waiting to be told what to do. "—I'm sure you've all been reading up on the more interesting or complicated things, sometimes looking for something bigger can make you miss a diagnosis. Just because the mole looks odd doesn't mean it's malignant, hm? Can you tell me the common name for Herpes Zoster?"

The ER, or the 'pit' as affectionately dubbed by the doctors and nurses in the hospital, was always busy – not surprising, after all, every part of the hospital was always busy in some way. But even on calmer days, it was constantly bustling with new arrivals, whether that was for broken bones or burn victims. Though, usually the staff weren't lucky enough to have any particularly exciting cases come in, unless there was some high-stress situation wherein victims needed to be treated quickly. But sadly for eager, adrenaline-seeking young doctors, this was usually not the case.

Today had been no different, a full ER with broken bones or more unfortunate accidents, but in the middle of the week it wasn't terribly bad. The nurses seemed quite proud of themselves for that day's running smoothly, and Matthew commended them for it. He'd never liked the ER much, as a general surgeon he had more or less little to do with it than some other doctors; Ivan and Elizaveta ended up down there more often than he.

An elderly man had come in with severe abdominal pains and he'd been paged for a consult; he didn't expect it to take much of his time, usually they had an idea already and just wanted a second opinion. Which was fair; abdominal pains were a symptom of a great many things, though Matthew didn't yet know if there was more to it than that yet.

He was already in the ER when his pager went off again. He frowned; irritated as he assumed the doctor who'd called him was merely being impatient. He shoved his hand into his pocket to rummage around for the small device, but he found himself hesitating once he'd retrieved it. The little screen read '911' and his frown deepened in confusion. Looking up, his eyes landed on the nurses' station, frowns of concentration on all of their faces as they picked up phones and hastily wrote things down.

He'd never been in the ER when it happened, a major accident, something that required immediate attention of a large amount of staff. He'd been paged down before, yes, but standing there he found himself watching in slight fascination as nurses and doctors alike began to move less serious patients as quickly and calmly as possible out of the way to free up space for whoever the new patients were to be.

It took a gurney pushing past him to remind Matthew that he was actually needed and he rushed forward towards the nurse's station just as Doctor Kirkland appeared in the doorway.

There were four ambulances on the way and there were going to be more. The unusually calm ER had suddenly become abuzz with tense energy, the nurses and doctors glancing anxiously to the ambulance doors as new doctors were paged to the floor and less important patients were moved to make way for the incoming traumas.

"Alright, people," Arthur clapped his hands in front of the growing group of surgeons waiting before him, their faces too anxious either from worry about what they were about to be facing or excitement at the idea of these cases.

"I need Hedevary, Williams and Wang— Yes there's a head trauma— Well tell him this is an emergency."

"Someone call Beilschmidt—"

"He's right there."

"No, the other one!"

"Someone page Doctor Bonnefoy."

"Don't look at them, keep your eyes on me," He clapped again, needing to get the information out as the distant sound of sirens reached his ears. "We have four patients coming in, all gunshot victims. Doctor Wang will take the head trauma with you," He gestured to a part of the small crowd, looking backwards over his own shoulder as he continued to give instructions. "Vargas, Beilschmidt I want you with me. The rest of you, step out of the way and wait, more people will follow but these patients need to be seen to first, are we clear?" There was a mismatched hum as the not yet needed doctors parted, in time for the first ambulance to roll up and burst open its doors.

"Female, late thirties…" Doctor Wang rushed forward as the paramedics began lifting the gurney from the back, rushing the patient inside along with the medical staff assigned to the neurosurgeon.

Arthur noticed immediately the way the colour drained from some of the interns' faces, but he had no time to reassure them as the next two ambulances were already getting their patients down from the back.

"Male, fifty five, severe abdominal wound—"

"Mrs Keith, thirty, second trimester—"

"He stepped in front of me, I couldn't help him, oh god, it wasn't my fault—"

"Daughter, minor bleeding—"

Doctor Bonnefoy ran in just in time to take the pregnant woman, the elder Beilschmidt close on his heels to scoop up the hysterical young teenager at her side and sweep them both into the ER. More Doctors poured forward to take care of each patient, all soon finding their way inside the hospital amidst groans and tense yelling as doctors diagnosed and ORs called to say they were clear for each case. Arthur turned to face the last ambulance, Lovina and Ludwig close at his side to meet their trauma, though he was glad to see no fear in either of their eyes despite the heavy bleeding of each of the last trauma patients that had been brought in.

The vehicle screeched to a stop, swerving slightly with the effort to turn in its speeding and Arthur rushed forward with his doctors to catch the doors and the patient as the back swung open.

"Male, early twenties, chest—"

The man groaned on the gurney as it was wheeled onto the ground, jolting his body along with the oxygen mask and padding that Lovina quickly took over applying pressure to as the paramedics handed him off. But she faltered.

"Doctor Kirkland—"

"—Cavity, no exit wound, possible collapsed lung—"

"Not now, Vargas-"

"No vomiting or obvious major artery damage but he's lost a lot of blood,"

"Doctor Kirkland please—"

"Vargas! He needs an OR immediately, we can't stabilise here."

Arthur was busy, checking pulse and listening to the report as they ran with the gurney towards the elevator.

"Doctor Kirkland please look—"

It was only then that Arthur finally lifted his gaze from the examination of their patient, finally seeing more than just a hunk of human flesh that needed saving and following the terrified gaze of his most promising cardio intern to the face of the man under her hands.

Sky blue eyes peered over the rims of cracked glasses, a pair of terrifyingly familiar lips daring to grin weakly up at him as if there wasn't a bullet hole in his chest.

"Alfred—"