A/N: After two years of writing, I've learned enough to finally sit down and revise the chapters regarding grammar and phrasing! The content will stay completely the same though!

1. I'm not a native English speaker, so I appreciate any advice on my grammar and phrasing. In general, it will start off quite unappealing, but I hope it gets better in the later chapters. After finishing this story (or the first half of it), I may go back to edit all chapters. Also, since this is just a fanfic and made for pure fun, I won't take the time to look for a beta.

2. Attention: very slow buuuurn.

PART I

1. The patience of patients

"Quinn!" Around the corner of her room, early in the morning hours, Quinn heard her name. Still lying in bed, she moved her blanket from her face to gaze at the open door. A young brunette was standing at the doorway, holding a big paper sheet in her hand. "What is this?!"

Quinn tried to focus the sheet through the blurry filter over her view. "Oh, uh... this is from one of my students."

"Why the hell is the whole living room full with this crap?"

Quinn straightened from her bed, rubbing her eyes while mumbling, "this isn't crap, they did it with great effort..."

The brunette half-lidded her eyes, lowering her arm with the picture. "You don't believe it yourself, do you?"

"God damn it, I had no space in my tiny room, so I borrowed the living room!" She wasn't a grumpy person, but today was different. Every single word her friend was saying annoyed her while her brain could explode by how sensitive her ears felt.

"And why didn't you clean it up afterward?"

"I didn't feel well." Quinn lay back down and turned to the wall, pulling the blanket back on her. Too many questions within too much noise.

The brunette sighed and entered, put the picture down and opened the thick curtains next to her bed. "Majored in arts and sports, only to become an elementary school teacher; what a life."

"I'm very happy with my life...," Quinn murmured in her bed, hiding from the light. What did she mean by 'only' anyway? She had chosen that path well-thought and she had more holidays than her in two years.

Her roommate looked down at her with a brow rose. "And thereby you're like a child yourself, don't wanna get up for work?"

"I've signed off sick for today. And I'm not a child."

Rolling her eyes, she mumbled, "sure not." She sat down on Quinn's bed, careful not to sit on her legs. "You should get a guy already. You need that"

Under the blanket, Quinn rolled her eyes herself, irked by that ever-repeating topic. "He'd be the child then."

"Oh Quinn, not all men are like your ex."

"I swear, if he had told me he was 15, I would've believed him right away... My students are even smarter."

Her friend nestled down with a big blank smile. "Yeah yeah, all men are stupid, all men are selfish, what just happened to the girl that was craving romance so much?"

Jumping with her torso up, Quinn said, "that time's over since years, so stop asking!"

Amused, her friend pushed herself up too, saying "sure" until she looked at her. "Oh geez, you look awful."

"Awful sick or just awful?"

"Awful sick. You should look for a doctor."

"No thanks." Quinn buried herself back under her blanket.

Her friend got up and ripped the thick piece of fabrics off her. "Geez! You never go to the doctor! You're so childish!"

Quinn sat up, trying to get the blanket back, but she was too exhausted to do anything without strain so that giving up was, to her bad, the only choice.

Her friend rested her hands on her hips, trying one last time. "You go and look for a doctor today, okay?" She was only two years older than Quinn, but enough to feel superior if that one acted irresponsibly regarding her health. She knew Quinn was not the type to sign off ill that easy unless she was really in bad conditions; hell, that girl even got to work when she stayed awake 48 hours straight.

Pursing her lips, Quinn folded her arms in defiance and narrowed her eyes. "They can't help you anyway. You get in, they tell you you've caught a cold, they prescribe you painkillers."

"Promise me you'll look for a doctor today," her friend repeated with a daring tone.

"No."

"Quinn."

"Judy."

"The hospital isn't even that far!"

Quinn looked away. "I surely won't go looking for a hospital when I just have a cold."

Judy turned around with a big groan. "GOD why you so stubborn?!"

"I love you too."

Walking out of the room again, Judy stopped at the doorway to face her roommate with a warning. "I'll get to work now, don't dare to stay at home. You know, it's not a cold."

"See you!"

Annoyed, she left the spot and shortly afterward the apartment. Quinn sank back down, her tight lungs not even allowing her a proper exhalation. She touched her own face with the back of her hand, only to determine a warm temperature on her skin. Her condition right then was not the worst, but it was also not okay and gave her a good fight in not moaning out her complaints.

Go and seeing the doctor was in her opinion unnecessary though, sleeping was the best medicine anyway. Unfortunately, she needed to get a medical certificate, gave her no legit way around.

She exhaled and pulled the blanket back over her body. It should be just a few extra hours sleep before she would actually head to the local hospital, letting them check on her.

...

Some hours had passed since Quinn had fallen back to sleep after declaring her previous condition as worthless to mention. This time though, she was feeling a little ─ or notably ─ worse, what didn't help at all when it came to increasing her motivation to leave the house and talk to anybody.

Nevertheless, she forced herself up to get dressed in thick sweatpants and a sweater, fulfilling her unspoken promise towards Judy. If it wasn't for her, she would just stay in bed and use one of her holidays to explain her day ─ if not days ─ off without medical evidence (she wouldn't).

Quinn left the apartment with a big headache, supported by dizziness asking her face to meet the ground of the cold street. It was the end of the winter season, February, but still, winter enough to keep calling it like that. Her face reddened by the cold breeze that hit her hard, freezing her bared fingers that she shove into her coat pockets. Her legs dragged her through the streets with the wish of just dying on the way, only to spare herself the struggle of getting to any physician.

It was a ten-minute bus ride from the nearest stop at her place, which was an additional six minutes away. Standing and waiting for the bus at the stop with only the stop sign and a faded timetable, she glared into the gray sky, dullness hovered over the city and tinted everything to melancholy. Melancholic, that was how she was feeling at the moment if she had to word her mood; but it was just the weather, just the current vibe of her surrounding that affected her a little.

Meanwhile, her breathing was heavier than before and she wheezed into space, glaring to her environment through her drowsy eyes. Go and see the doctor she said... Quinn complained in her head as she was thinking back to her cozy bed that was calling her to take a big nap in full length right away.

Reaching the hospital, the sick girl could cry by what her eyes captured. Of course, it was overfilled in there, right in the winter season where every second to third agonized from any illness. Moving like a zombie to the reception, she tried to cease her loud wheezing for air as embarrassment met her. Those waiting figures were already gazing like she was abnormal even there was nothing to be surprised about in a hospital.

And after standing in the row for a torturing time, the nurse told her to take place, waiting again ─ probably for another painful hour. On the bench in the waiting halls, she closed her eyes as she couldn't bear the chaos around. As a teacher for children, she was trained in patience, but waiting this time was just awful. The more time passed, and the more the seats emptied, Quinn couldn't keep her body straight and lay down to her side on the long bench with her legs still to the linoleum floor. Eyelids staying shut, she listened to her surroundings of nurses and ill people, hoping that it wouldn't take any longer for her to get called in.

Go and see the doctor... Her head repeated. The last time she had fallen ill, she could cure herself pretty much without paying any doctor a visit. Well, those had taken two weeks of her summer but she needed no medication, pills or drugs... Her body would handle that alone.

"Oh, Dear," Quinn heard a female voice saying, and the steps of heels getting closer to her. Opening her eyes, she could see a familiar face crouching in front of her and touching her head with worry she sometimes saw at school.

"Oh, this is where you're working," said Quinn with half-opened eyes and a small smile.

"You look horrible, Dear!" the woman stated which was one of her many student's parents she greatly got along with; one of the age that could have been her own mother. Her head shifted from side to side, and back to the girl. "Have you been waiting long?"

"Finally my turn?" asked she with a smile that was more wryly since there was no real pleasure to small talk with anyone in her current state. It had grown worse since she had left the apartment. Grasping her mind together to talk was hard; the sweat in her hands that heated on her skin thawed her froze fingers as she curled them into the warm palms.

"It's so overfilled today, I'm really sorry!"

A sarcastic laugh came out of her mouth, somewhat frustrated. "Oh boy..."

"Yeah... part of them are just exaggerating, I'm so─" The female doctor stopped her whisper and gave her surroundings and fellow people another scanning look. "Wait, wait, I'll get you someone."

"Ah no, its─"

"Trafalgar!"

Walking down the hallway of the hospital, passing the sick patients, a young man with a coffee mug already to his lips for a sip, turned his head by the call of his female coworker. As he stopped, he gave her a flat stare over his shoulder, cold and calm impression leaving his mouth. "Hm?"

She got up again. "What are you doing now?"

"Taking my break."

"Can you do me a favor please and treat that girl before you do...?" asked she and pointed with her hand to Quinn.

The guy made a full turn, lowering the hand with the mug in, and narrowed his brows with one raising to unpleasantness. "You're asking me to take over your patients after I come from a two hours operation?"

"Hey, these are your patients as well," the woman claimed with a smile, almost too obtrusive judging how her mouth corners raised.

"And why don't you?"

"I'm busy."

"GPs," he said, devaluing her position in the hospital; but she knew it was not to be taken seriously at all. Like many others was his job tiring, but he disliked that part of his contract as it was sure not as fun as being a pure surgeon.

"And one's already waiting for me, and there are so many others before her who actually could wait! She's really exhausted..."

"Not my shift."

"Pretty please?"

He let the moment rest until he turned away again, the mug pulled back to his lips. "I'm leaving."

"Please, Dear, do me the favor!"

"Geez, you already sound like my mother."

"Trafalgar, you owe me that!"

Stopping midways, he rolled his eyes with a sigh and looked over his shoulder again, moving his gaze briefly down to the pitiful person on the bench, wrapped in thick winter clothing and the pompom of the beanie, half size of the head. "Fine," he said annoyed but in defeat. Standing in a person's debt was his soft spot; she knew it and she kept looking for a situation to take advantage of it. "Call your friend in, I'll get there in ten minutes."

A/N: GP= general practitioners