25. In the middle of the night

None of them had expected that this night was going to be so long, especially not Law. He was used to long nights without prior warning since it only needed the spontaneous beep of his pager on the request of his superior, but this time some other occurrence made him return voluntarily to the hospital. Surely he would love to slip under his blanket and sleep the whole night until the next night would make its turn, but some things were more important right then, like the immediate treatment of his companion. He felt obliged to perform the operation in order not to let him wait since the hospital and his current shifting surgeon colleagues were pretty busy with their schedules.

"Ah, Law... it hurts," Penguin said, lying on the operating table.

"You can put him under plexus anesthetic," the young doctor told the anesthetist. Walking up to Penguin, he eyed the tired guy, who just looked as awful as himself. "Does anything else hurt?"

"Just a headache and my chest," he told and Law glanced at the bandage around his head. His old wound had caught a new hit with the crowbar, leaving for this time a big laceration on the spot.

"We can give him Fentanyl," the anesthetist said and Law nodded.

"We'll narcotize your right arm now, I guess you're tired enough to doze off all by yourself without sleeping pills," said he.

Penguin looked up at him confused. "Ehh, you're gonna fiddle on me while I'm mentally presence?"

"Correct."

His assistance pulled a green curtain through the operating table to separate the body part from the rest. They shifted the trolley with the X-Rays attached, to him, and he glanced at it, mumbling as he studied the fractures, "so, dia- and metaphyseal..."

Beside minimalist rib fractures that need no bigger treatment than medication, it were only fractures in his arm that needed surgery. The way they had damaged his arm was for man-made wounds awfully to imagine how they actually managed that. He hoped that his attackers would receive a right punishment, and Penguin a decent sum of injury award.

"It looks like a 22-B2 and a 23-A1," Law told his assistants and turned back to Penguin's arm while it was slowly turning numb.

"Uhh Law," he moaned tiredly behind the curtain, "I'm sleeping now, please don't wake me up when you're finished..."

"Alright."

While they were still waiting for his arm to be ready, the medical assistants prepared the equipment. One of the new employed ones, just graduated last year, looked over to Law with a timid smile. "Doctor, you know the patient?"

"Yeah, he's a friend," Law replied quite disinterested while he had continued to study the X-Rays.

Surprised by the answer of the surgeon, who she heard to be known among his colleagues to be a cold and lone wolf, she tried to build some small talk. "Oh, what happened to him? His whole body's covered with suffusion. You look no well either Dr. ..., I'm sorry, I can't remember your name yet."

He let out a deep and tired sighed, ignoring her personal question and keep his professionalism. "Trafalgar. Those hematomas were caused by external forces."

"Oh, a fight? And I forgot to mention, I just talked to the radiology; they have forgotten to attach the note about his rib fractures. During the CT, they could observe how one rib just misses a lung during his arrival, but it shifted back to its natural position, they couldn't make an X-Ray of it," she said and tried to sound casual while she actually felt a little awkward about his rejection. Looking at the X-Rays herself, she pointed to the mentioned rib. "There, number six."

Unimpressed he looked at her, shooting her a cold and annoyed gaze. "You just tell me now?"

"I'm sorry, I hadn't enough sleep yesterday, so I'm pretty tired and forget things fast...," she said and bowed her head as she felt instantly intimidated by him.

Law looked over to the anesthetist and told him to set his companion under general anesthetic in order to perform additional surgery on his rib later.

The new assistant forced a smile on her lips, trying to loosen the tension in the air. "Phew, he has luck that he's spared from a rib puncture, right?"

"He has a big laceration on his forehead, did you at least provide him with Aprotinin?"

She nodded. "Uhm, yes." Law quirked a brow and turned with inner annoyance away from her, and her eyes fell to her other colleagues who shook their heads behind his back, telling their new co-worker that she should give up on approaching him.

Not only that he wasn't really on friendly terms with his colleagues, he also was too tired for any small-talk. Now and then there was someone among the staff that approached him, especially new employees, but except for Dr. Dillan, he avoided any word exchange that wasn't related to work, and he didn't care about as how rude they considered him when he obviously ignored anything else.

Waiting in the empty halls of the hospital, Quinn and Shachi played some rounds of tic-tac-toe. They sat next to each other with the magnetic drawing pad and were fighting their tiredness continuously with some little jokes and stories. The police had been holding them longer on the scene than expected, questioning them in a pace that had left the four turning old. Even the ambulance had arrived later than wanted, despite that Quinn had called them early enough.

"I won again!" she said as she made a diagonal line through three circles in the lattice. "Wohoo."

"Ah, I suck at this game..." Shachi gave up and leaned back, yawning into his hand while a tear squeezed out from the corner of his eye.

"This game's actually pretty simple, you just need to understand the system."

He looked at her and smiled weakly. "Oh man Quinn, how can you still have so much energy?"

She leaned a little forwards and whispered with her eyes drifting vigilantly to the side, "the secret is that I convince my body from having energy." Bending back again and looking at the quiet guy, she snickered somewhat. "It's already after two, hell why should I have energy around this time?"

Glancing briefly on the clock and then back to her, he laughed a little and realized just now how tired she actually looked. "You look like a panda."

"Oh, I like pandas." Eyeing him a little then, she added, "and you look like... a raccoon, beaten up on the street and left there..."

"What?" He queried in wonder about that weird simile.

Furrowing her brows, she gently wiped over the bruise above his eye, got him blushing somewhat. "Ah I'm sorry, that has sounded weird right? I mean, raccoons are also cute, but I feel sad when I see a hurt raccoon, I mean who doesn't except for bad people, and it's more likely to find one beaten by street scums than a panda. You know, pandas... raccoons... size difference, origins, blah blah. I mean, i-if you don't like raccoons, I'm sorry, then I'll take it back!"

Flattered by her care, he grinned shyly and leaned his head back, staring against the ceiling. "Don't worry, your way to say that had sounded too lovely as that it could hurt anyone."

Too lovely? Quinn deepened her voice around a few octaves and tried the manliest act she could pull. "Well Mister, back then in the jungle, I ate raccoons."

He slimmed his eyes as he wasn't sure what that weird voicing was supposed to be, snickering a bit. "What was that, Quinn?"

"Uhh, I tried to sound not like a softie...?" she replied and blushed in embarrassment as she realized how silly that was, looking awkwardly to her lap.

"No one talks like that," he said and laughed. "And since when do raccoons live in the jungle?"

"Oh maaaan, it's okay, don't laugh at me." Placing herself sideways on the bench, she put her arm on the backrest and lay her head down, giving off a sigh. "I'm so tired, how can Trafalgar work around this time?"

"He has some superpowers I guess. Why are you waiting here anyway, don't you wanna go home?"

Quinn narrowed her eyes and mumbled some random thoughts instead of paying his question attention after he had mentioned 'superpowers'. "Maybe he's really from a parallel universe... Or an alien... Trafalgar the martian..."

"Uhh Quinn?"

She shifted her eyes to him, still with her mind elsewhere. "Dr. Alien..."

"What are you saying?"

"Super Trafalgar maybe..."

Shachi laughed slightly. "Quinn, you don't wanna go home? Should I call a cab for you?"

Realizing her absence then, she looked at him more lively now and shook her head back into reality. "I-I'm sorry, you said superpowers and I was totally... yeah, anyway, can you say it again please?"

"Should I call a cab for you? Don't you wanna head home, it's pretty late."

She shook her head one more. "I wanna see Penguin being alright first, tomorrow's Sunday anyway, so I've got nothing to do and can sleep longer."

"Ah, you don't have to worry, Law will handle that without problems! He's an excellent surgeon!"

Idly, she was staring at him with a flat and blank expression. "Whenever you talk about him, you sound like being in love with that guy."

"What...?! No! I mean, as a friend I respect him and his skills as a doctor!"

She chuckled and jumped up on her feet, stretching her body from the stiffness. "I was just kidding."

Dr. Dillan already mentioned him to be a great surgeon, so she didn't doubt that; and after this long night, she didn't doubt him to be a good friend as well. Maybe he was a jerk with some sexist attitude and comments, but everyone had their bad and good sides she guessed, so she started to kind of respect those good sides of him.

It was weird though that she had called him 'friend' when she had talked to the police since their relationship was until then anything but on friendly terms. If she would ever really be befriended with him like Shachi and Penguin did was questionable; because first, he didn't appear like anyone to wanna make friends (that the other two knew him so long meant something); second, he was still a sexual and sort of love interest of Judy (he better not hurt her...).

But well, the question was: when do people consider each other friends?

After someone had the courage to word their relationship as such, or after surviving a night in a crisis situation together with police and thugs? Maybe it just happened naturally in a flow without the need of mentioning it. She and him, however, were still at war and only declared a truce.

"Peanut."

Quinn always wanted a cute nickname, that's what she had told Penguin.

"Peanut."

Well, peanuts were some natural enemies of hers, so it was pretty ironic that Law chose to address her like that; but he also was not spared with weird nicknames that literally didn't suit his taste, though she wasn't consistent with it like he was as she gave him too many.

"Hey, Peanut."

Nevertheless, 'Peanut' was somehow cute. She got used to it pretty soon.

"Peanut butter, wake up."

Hearing Law's voice the fourth time now during her sleep, Quinn slowly forced her eyes open and realized that he had been calling her the whole time. In his car she woke up tired, her gaze falling to the displayed time in the front that said something around four in the night (or morning). Straightening a little from the black leather seat while she felt the seat belt held her back from moving strainless any farther, she rubbed her eyes before she glanced on the driver to share looks with him.

"You're home," Law informed her from the driver seat as his body was tilted to the back, one arm thrown over the backrest.

She looked out of the window and recognized the four-story-building they were parking in front of as her apartment, what surprised her. Moving her eyes back to Law in wonder, seeing them alone in the car, she asked, "where's Shachi?"

"I already dropped him off."

Glaring at him with more consciousness then, Quinn saw how tired and awful he was looking at the moment. His gray eyes were tinted a light red, dressed with eye bags underneath like he hadn't had sleep for years while his face was marked with some bruises and dried blood on his lips; over his temple and cheekbones. Looked like he hadn't found time yet to clean his face.

"Doctor, you look terrible," she joked with a small smile, stretching her body a little with both her hands raising, the sound of some bones clicking back in order appeared from her neck down her spine.

"And if you're gonna stay longer, I'll blame you."

Slowly and still with drained muscles, she unfastened her seat belt. "I can't remember to actually got into this car, did you kidnap me? Is Penguin alright?"

"You fell asleep in the hospital and as it seemed impossible to wake you up, Shachi carried you in. And yeah, Penguin's alright."

Congrats, another time in this fancy car without the chance of appreciating the ride.

Not remembering at all when she had dozed off, Quinn rubbed her neck sheepishly. "Oops, I'm so sorry tehe." She pushed the lever on the side of the seat in front of her to fold the backrest down, making space for her to get outside, but her gaze fell back to Law, who was waiting patiently for her to leave the car. "Uhm Doctor..."

He looked at her.

"Don't you wanna come up and rest here?"

"Are you flirting with me?" he said in deadpan.

Quinn narrowed her eyes unamused about his joke. "No. I'm inviting you to stay at my place because you look deadly tired as that you could drive home safely."

The smiles he gave her, such as now, looked always like he had planned something malice; she wondered if he was just disabled to smile more friendly. "I appreciate your care, but no thanks."

"But what if you're falling asleep momentarily during the ride? This is super dangerous."

"I'm used to tired car rides. It never happened before."

Quinn pursed her lips and leaned down against the forward-folded car seat, staring at him innocently. "Hmm...Take it as the invitation from back then."

His eyes rolled up for a swift moment as he tried to recall what she meant before they lowered back to her. "The one that was only for that one night?"

She put both thumbs up. "Yesss..."

Law leaned back and turned on the engine. "If you don't get out now, I really have to kidnap you."

Folding her arms and settling comfortably back to her seat as well, her face changed to carefreeness and she moved her eyes casually out of the window, awaiting his drive-off. "Alright, kidnap me then."

"And when I fall into microsleep, we both die."

"That's alright."

Law sighed with a light chuckle. "Get out now, Peanut."

"Only when you come with me," she replied. "If anything would happen to you during the car ride, it would fall into my responsibility and I would damn myself then for have been letting a sleepless guy hitting the road. Irresponsible! Irresponsible! Irresponsible!"

Law tilted a bit around again to look at her. "Do you know the cruelest kidnap stories often starts with relatives and acquaintances?"

Her eyes returned to his and the way he was staring at her was indeed uncomfortable sinister. "I'm only a bit scared of you, so I'm fine."

Seeing her nonchalance appearance tickled another upward turn of his right mouth corner. "You're trusting me that much?"

Biting her tongue, she swayed her head to her shoulder while her eyes rolled briefly away. "Weeell, I wouldn't say trust. I just saw documentaries about you and they rate you as harmless."

"What if I wanted them to think I'm harmless?"

"Then..." Stuck for an answer she slightly pinched the bridge of her nose while her eyes were still tightly locked with his'. "No risk no fun..."

"And how should that attitude save you by the end?"

"This night has shaped me to new, and I'm ready to die anytime. In any case you're a monster, I'll be prepared for that." She moved her head with scanning eyes through the car to locate her bag, grabbing it as she found it by her feet, and then went for her cell phone that she turned on to film him. "And I'll take footage from the very beginning, that makes more cash."

Law squinted one eye by the white dazzling camera light and he leaned quietly back, staring against the windshield. "A monster, I see..." Thinking about it, he tried not to show any humorous thought. There had been a few women already that considered him as such, though different in context.

"Yeah, I imagined you to transform into something gruesome that allows you no communication with your fellow people anymore due to some lack of skills, and I'm not talking about your social skills but you'll be actually unable to speak the human language."

"Okay?"

"And Shachi and Penguin will try to care for you as friends, trying to maintain your existence while your behavior loses more on more of its human characteristics. But it will be a sad story about deprivation," she added and looked pensive to the side. "Hm... I think I gonna make a collage of this and call it 'The Metamorphosis'."

"I think you're too late with this idea."

"Damn it," she said disappointed with a finger snap and put the phone down. "I knew I've heard that somewhere already."

His reddish eyes stared at her silently as she looked at his side-profile, cocked only to the tiniest to her as his head rested against the seat.

That look had similes with a gazing psychopath. The exhausted eyes on that beaten face while he stared back at her in the yellow car light with some shadows hovering over him, molested her comfort. Feeling quite unsettled by that image, she leaned forward to him, re-positioning his head with both of her hands. As handsome as he was, his skin was kind of dry as she touched it the first time.

"What's that supposed to be?" Law asked as he let her do whatever she was doing there.

"Sorry, the light incidence from that angle doesn't flatter your face at all." Close-up, his condition looked even worse than she had thought. "God, I bet bullied people in jail look like you."

"Therefore that you're speaking highty mighty all day about manners and politeness, you're insulting me pretty often."

Without re-thinking, she pulled out a tissue from her bag and wiped the sloughs and still moistened blood from his face. "That only speaks of how rude you are, and among us two you're Dr. Know-all."

"Speaks of how rude I am?" He repeated with a raised brow.

Moving her eyes back to him, she nodded and raised a brow as well. "Why should I be mean to someone for no reason?"

Closing his lids, he grinned slightly with a small laugh about her self-explaining tone. "Well, and what makes you caring for people like me then?"

"I think you're like an old loaf of bread. Dry and hard from the outside with a tiny soft spot on the inside that needs to be acknowledged soon before it dries as well."

"Maybe it's a deception I aim before I assail my victims."

"And when will be the time you assail Penguin and Shachi? Next year?" She put the tissue down and smiled sassily into his face. "I'm not scared of you Trafalgar. I mean, I do would cast you as some creep for a movie, but else, scary? Nope."

"You know that everything you have been and are telling me's saved to my head and can and will be used against you."

"Okay?" she said, not getting his point.

"I don't know how often you told me now how scary I look."

"Uhm..." She mused a little just to realized, "a few times...?" Confessed it to herself, she felt stupid now for her prior sassy-talk. Quite unsure why she had claimed to be not scared for a moment, her eyes drifted awkwardly away from him as he pierced her with a mocking expression. "Yeah yeah it's okay, sometimes you are scary."

"Your brain's really anesthetized what? You even just had said that a few minutes ago."

Staring back at him, she half-lidded her eyes. "Oh boy, are you proud of that? Being scary?"

"Would it be wrong if I am?"

Quinn sighed and leaned back. "Wrong is relative. But anyway, did you notice that our conversation is totally pointless? I guess this is because we're both tired but still sitting in this car in the middle of the night, refusing to sleep."

It indeed was pretty pointless, but he wouldn't deny his joy of having that pointless conversation with her. "Well, I actually would love to sleep, but something in my car doesn't allow me to."

"Hey, I didn't say you're not allowed to sleep, you're just not allowed to drive the car like this, "she corrected him.

He moved his eyes to the timer, checking how long they had been sitting in this car now, and then back to the blonde, who then gave him some insecure looks. "If you would've woken up earlier and let me leave from the very beginning, I would be home now."

Minimizing her eyesight, she looked at him in suspicion. "Home now? How long have you been trying to wake me up?"

"Not that long, I just called you six times."

Quinn furrowed her brows. "What you are saying makes no sense, you would've been no more than half the way "

"The other time you've robbed from me, I was watching you."

Appall expanded over her. "You creep... don't mess with me..."

Law smiled slyly into her somewhat disgusted face. "Why not? Having a tired and powerless young blonde woman in my car tha-"

"Yuuuck! Stop that, you make me cringe, this is not funny!" Quinn shrieked. "And what's the point with 'blonde' anyway?"

He looked down and pressed his fist against his lips, trying to hold back his giggle. As she blushed with a grumpy face about his hideous talk, he looked back at her and said, "Miss Heady, I'm basically just telling you to be careful in a man's car. I could do anything to you right now, in fact, I can do anything to you in your apartment as well."

"What about me? I can be some psycho as well," she said.

"Psychopathy doesn't mean being physically able to conquer everyone."

"Huuuuh, you think I'm not strong enough to put you down?"

"You can prove me wrong," he responded amused.

She grinned and extended her half-balled fist, stretching up her thumb. "I've mastered thumb wrestling!"

He raised a brow to her response, asking himself why he was still surprised about anything that blonde was saying. He got to know her as a weirdo, and she probably would stay a weirdo. "Miss Heady, I'm a psycho," said he then as a last statement.

Still convinced about him being harmless, she drew her hand disappointed back and shook her head, saying, "nope nope nope." Realizing that they were just procrastinating inside the vehicle, she got up and opened the door, getting out and shifting the passenger seat back to its normal position. Without delay, she walked over to the driver side while Law's head followed her calmly as she passed the front of the car. Opening the car door then, she leaned a little down to look at him with both hands grasping the top frame while her forehead leaned against. "If it's up to me, we can stay here the whole night, Dr. Pseudo-psycho."

Law sighed. "I should've driven home and just leave you inside the car."

"Chance missed," she said. Talking about his home, she wondered where he even lived. Over two months of acquaintanceship and she knew only a crumble about that guy.

Stubborn how he was, he would have no problem to stay outside all night, but he knew he was not the only thick-headed person around. That he was tired was already enough, but being the causer for that blonde enduring the pain of sleeplessness was not in his interest as he wanted to spare himself from any complaints, avoid providing her with a target; so he spoke out his defeat. "Alright." He turned the engine off and crawled to her surprise out of the car.

She had expected a longer discussion, so she looked after him quite baffled as he casually walked up to the entrance door of her apartment, the long discussion not occurring.

"Don't tell me you prefer spending time with me outside after all," he said when he saw her still rooted beside his car.

Quinn shook her head, running up to him. "Definitely not."

She rummaged for the keys in her bag, appearing a little helpless so that Law questioned the content. "What do women carry around anyway to have a big bag with them all the time?"

"First, I don't carry a big bag with me all the time and would like to remind you, I had your Onigiri inside that bag today." Finding the keys, she unlocked the door while she replied in deadpan, "second, I don't know what other women carry, but I carry potatoes."

"That was just a normal question."

"No, you're stereotyping the female gender."

He followed her inside, getting upstairs to the second floor. "Don't you like it that I'm stereotyping women, or stereotyping you?"

"I have no existential issues, it's about women in general," she claimed.

"I think it's not reprehensible to point out characteristics you can find on one gender more commonly."

...

Law was in wonder with himself about what he was actually doing there. Never had he thought that he would ever enter this apartment without banging the brunette, it was almost uncomfortable strange.

As Quinn carefully unlocked the apartment door, both entering quietly, she heard the weak sounds of the TV across the hall. Shifting her eyes confused at the clock on the wall, which still struck something between four and five, and tip-toed in her socks to the living room, Quinn found Judy sleeping on the couch under the blanket.

She turned the device off before she walked back to Law with a wry smile and whispered, "okay, uhh, I didn't expect that. I'm gonna try waking Judy up now to make the couch free... You can wait in my room or else she would freak out if she sees you all of a sudden."

"If I have to." Speaking of her room; from all the times he had been to this apartment, her private space was the only spot in this house he had never seen before. And that he was entering a woman's bedroom without sleeping with her was even more strange than entering the apartment in general.

Getting inside then, the scent of paint confronted his nose instantly. It smelled more like an atelier than a bedroom to be honest, and a big part of it also looked like one. But he had imagined it either to be extremely kitschy or extremely untypical anyway, and seeing how the room was filled with framed canvas; brushes; various paints; and a lot of other paraphernalia; it was indeed untypical from the average he knew a woman's quarters was supposed to look - and he had seen many.

The room was not necessarily empty, but it still smelled like a naked place you rather work in than live. His eyes shifted over to her desk that was an unbelievable mess, made him questioning how she could organize herself in that chaos. As an artist it was maybe not uncommon to have a lot of stuff flying around, but for a teacher? Unexpected as he stood beside her desk, his eyes detected a black bra with velvet polka dots on her chair, lifted one of his brows in surprise.

That woman seemed to love polka dots; besides her umbrella, even her current covers were minimal and discreet polka dotted. He wouldn't be surprised when all her undergarment was in any kind of way dotted. Amused about that private piece of clothing left lying around, he carefully picked a shirt that lay close by and put it over the bra to cover its presence in case she would get in and noticed her inadvertence. Let's spare her the embarrassment, though he would have loved to see her reaction.

A second afterward, she indeed came in with a glass of water, and Law turned around with a slight startle. "Uhh, I'm sorry for letting you wait, I just woke her up and she said she's getting up in two minutes. Anyway, I've brought you something to drink."

"I think this makes me a bearable guest again?" he said, taking and eyeing the glass.

"Weeell yeah, somehow, bearable or not, I invited you, so for this time you're theoretically my guest."

He smirked a little, saying with a hint of tease, "I see."

"Are you hungry? Wanna take a shower? Wanna anything else to drink? Painkillers maybe?"

He couldn't help but smile at her manners. "How attentive of you again, Miss Heady, but no thanks."

Quinn sat down on her bed and sighed out loudly. "What a night. I forgot my umbrella again..."

Taking place as well, he looked at her as she let herself smoothly fall onto the mattress on her side while her legs dangled from the edge. "If you would've let me drive home, you could sleep now."

She yawned into her hand. "How often do you wanna hear me say that I won't let you drive in that condition?"

"Maybe a few more times," he replied and her gaze moved up to him, idly and unamused. "You have... interesting weird mood shifts."

"Weird mood shifts?"

"Hating yet hosting me," he replied and drank from his glass.

"Hating is a little harsh."

"Your words."

Quinn pushed herself slowly up again, walking over to her desk drawer. "However, I see nothing wrong with hosting a guy after he had a rough night protecting his friend from thugs," she told casually without shame or misgiving. Taking out a little streaked kit, she sat back down next to him, unzipping it to reveal a little self-made first aid kit. "Speaking of hosting, I've got some antiseptic ointment and patches." She put two medical stripe-sets out and smiled cheekily into his face. "I've got those weird skin-colored neutral ones, and those colorful printed ones for my students."

"You don't really ask me which one I prefer, do you?"

"Well, I think the skin-colored ones are really weird and- Oh oh and!" She rummaged through the kit and took a third set out. "These are my favorites!"

Yap, polka dots. He got it.

"Ouh, and I have these in animal shapes! My students love them, but they don't sell those anymore, so I only got this set here as my last. Well okay, uhm, I actually find those cute too, so I feel hard using them tehe; especially on fingers, since they are not water resistant and uhm, it would be quite a waste as you wash your hands every time. I mean, kids tend to do less, but-"

She stopped babbling as Law had taken the ointment himself and a cotton swab, making her pulling it out of his fingers again. "Uhh, let me do!"

"I think I'm able to treat myself," he claimed.

"Naah, it's easier when a second person does," Quinn said. "And don't think you don't need any help because you're a doctor, because even a doctor needs doctors. I mean, for example, a dentist is a doctor as well, and you're surely not trained in that field. Uhm, it's not only because you're a doctor, this is, of course, a general rule, accepting help and stuff, but yeah, every-"

"Miss Heady, you're talking too much."

Instantly sealing her lips with a light blush, she said, "I'm sorry, I-I'll be quiet." Getting up from the bed as awkward silence lingered between them, or well, she was making it awkward, Quinn said, "uhhh, wait here! I'll get a wet cloth to clean the blood stains."

She left the room and pulled the door behind her close. Her eyes swiped back into the living room as she got closer to get into the bathroom. Judy was still tightened in her sleep, there was no 'just two minutes' as she was lying in the same position when Quinn had seen her last. Well, what now?

Walking into the bathroom, she took a small towel and held it under the water stream. Perhaps she let him sleep in Judy's room then? It would be sure a positive surprise for her friend when she would walk in the next morning to find a sleeping Law Trafalgar in her bed.

As she got back to her room and opened the door, she found Law lying on her bed with closed eyes and was... sleeping?

Well, she was not sure if he really was, so she walked over and whispered, "hey, Doc, don't sleep here."

No answer followed, so she carefully moved closer on both knees, leaning a little down to his face as her arms supported her, and she listened with one ear to his breathing. Quinn pushed herself up with a tamed smile of surprise, trying to control her giggle as a small and weak snore left Law's sleeping body. She never had expected him to be someone making any sounds during his sleep, no matter how little they were.

Taking the wet towel, she gently cleaned the blood from his face though and did some self-talk. "You know Trafalgar, I called you Dr. Umeboshi or Dr. Bread just as insults because you hate those. But actually, Umeboshi Onigiri's my favorite, and I have bread as good as every morning for breakfast. Except for Dr. Pervert and Dr. Jerk, you're not that bad. Dr. Robot is scary but okay. I think you're still super arrogant and your dark joke still got me cancer, and I don't like your sexist comments and how you treat women, but you're not... that bad."

For this time, his exhausted face seemed genuinely peaceful, different from when they had been with Shachi. A real sleeping Dr. Trafalgar looked way different to an I-am-pretending-to-sleep one, it was almost... adorable. Eyeing him she somehow felt guilty and sorry for annoying him with her jokes as he had reached his limit of tiredness. He was a doctor and doctor shifts were told to be the worst, so he deserved the sleep. "Okay, I'll tell no more jokes, you don't find them funny anyway... I'm sorry for bothering you with them, Doctor." Tugging off one slim polka dotted patch, she placed it over the wound on his cheekbone after she had dabbed on some ointment. "You're a good friend, I like good friends."

A/N: Have you ever played Pirate Warriors 3? You can actually hear Law snoring there, it's so cute and funny haha.

I don't know how you guys are, but I know many people who just do pointless-talk when they're tired (me included). When I wrote that conversation in Law's car, I was indeed freaking tired as well, but couldn't sleep, so the pointless crap is reaaal lol (despite that Quinn's topics are often random anyway).