First and foremost, I want to clarify: if you're a fan of New Amsterdam and not Doctor Who, this story might prove a little confusing to you. It's not very New Amsterdam-y in the end, however, I encourage you to give it a go, especially if you think Helen Sharpe is awesome.
If you are a Doctor Who but not a New Amsterdam fan, just read. You'll be up to speed in no time!
Call it a cheap trick if you like, but it's incredibly tempting to write crossovers for two 'verses that include one of the same actors. I've read Angel/Bones crossovers, Buffy/Torchwood, etc. and they're just so much fun! I've played with this a bit, using another screen name, crossing Doctor Who with Law and Order UK, The Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and Harry Potter. It's too juicy to pass up! (I'm having to sit on my hands to keep from doing a Doctor Who/Jessica Jones crossover because it would be so damn dark, I don't know if I could go there. But who are we kidding? We all know what happens when I get plot bunnies under my shed.)
Anyway, as you may have guessed, this all came about when I began watching a hospital drama on NBC that includes Freema Agyeman running around in a white lab coat, solving non-routine problems brilliantly, playing the right-hand-gal of a tall, brilliant, sharp-featured, enigmatic, charming, painfully flawed but painfully good doctor, with whom she may or may not be in love. I decided to wait until the end of the season to find out where her character goes, but in the end, I found that 'Helen Sharpe' is not at all unlike Martha Jones. Plucky, clever, good-hearted, resourceful, no-nonsense, sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and... SHE'S A DOCTOR. Come on!
Not much is known about Helen's past, except that she was engaged at some point to a man named Mohammed, who died of a brain aneurysm. There is nothing in this story to suggest Mohammed ever existed, but it doesn't negate his existence either. I'm leaving him for you to retcon for the purposes of this story, in your own way.
I don't think this story will be very long - definitely not epic. Just a fun jaunt into a "what-if" that I thought worth exploring! And it's my first time writing for the Thirteenth Doctor! I had to give her her due!
**Please excuse me - I am not a medic. I've been in and out of the ED at various times in my life, but undoubtedly, if you are in-the-know, you will find major flaws in my emergency-room protocols, and my medical knowledge. I did my best... tried to be logical, use what I know. Please be kind.
And now... here we go. (Can't say allons-y to start off this one, unfortunately!) ;-)
ONE
"Seriously? Bloody hell," Helen Sharpe sighed, as Casey Acosta shoved five clipboards at her, containing five separate sets of discharge papers.
"Bloody hell," Bronx-born Casey replied, trying to mimic her accent, and chuckling. He watched her deliver her loopy HS, and the indiscriminate squiggle that passed for the rest of her surname. She then scrawled a quick and dirty M.D. at the end, completing her intentionally affected signature. She did it five times, and Casey took a step back from her. Again, he tried to imitate her accent, though did a job of it worthy of Dick Van Dyke. "Loverly. Thanks, then. Cheerio."
"Heh… funny," she said to him, with exhausted, droopy eyes, and a dry smile. She normally didn't mind when Americans tried to get their British on - it was often cute and usually done in good fun. But today, it was annoying. Although, truth be told, from Casey, she would put up with almost anything because he was possibly the quickest, most knowledgeable and resourceful nurse in the building, and she had great respect for him.
Casey winked, and bounded away, ready to discharge five patients from New Amsterdam's ED, making room in five more beds, which would undoubtedly be occupied in a matter of minutes.
The ED was slammed, and she, an oncologist, had wound up in charge. Her erstwhile friend, Lauren Bloom, the hospital's usual Head of the ED, was still away in rehab. Dr. Candelario (whose first name she still didn't know – Helen and Candelario had a bristly relationship), the temporary Head, was out with the flu, and Max…
Ugh, Max. He was sitting down to chemo at the moment, and getting him to do so had been a fight. The hospital's charming and wicked-clever Medical Director had resisted treating his cancer, because he'd thought if he kept running from it, it would never catch him. This was absurd, of course, but it was the sort of irrational thing Helen knew that terrified people sometimes told themselves.
Today was his third session, and it had taken hell and high water (well, high snow), not to mention some tough love, to get him motivated to save his own life. She wasn't going to bother him now with a small matter like, the ED is flooded and your Deputy Medical Director is losing her goddamn mind trying to direct traffic on her own. He couldn't afford the time spent away from focusing on his own health, and that was that.
And Helen couldn't afford any more time spent with Max. She attempted to convince herself that that fact was neither here nor there in her decision-making process today, but who was she kidding? She had already tried her best to refute the Helen/Max "vibe" that her boyfriend Akash had mentioned with that I dare you to deny it look on his face, but ultimately, she'd been down this road one too many times to lie to herself.
There was a vibe.
Call it attraction, call it kindred souls, call it codependency, call it chemistry, call it a fast and furious friendship…
Call it whatever. It was a vibe. There was something there. And if Akash was any indicator, then she and Max weren't the only people feeling it. That probably meant that Bloom (her close friend) felt it, most likely Reynolds (surprisingly sensitive), and definitely Frome (psychiatrist, practically psychic)…
…though, hopefully not Georgia, a.k.a. Mrs. Max and soon-to-be mother of his child. When Helen thought of Georgia, she became sick to her stomach with guilt. Even though she had done nothing to feel guilty about.
In her younger days, when she'd been in this boat, denial of the phenomenon had proven, at best, useless. And once she'd acknowledged the ultimately hopeless feelings, failing to extract herself from the situation had proven agonising… until she'd got, decidedly, out. And she'd learned her lesson. It meant that she had to get out from under the vibe, and keep her distance from Max.
Therefore, with the ED in flames, she triaged as best she could. She ran from bed to bed, approving treatments, diagnosing, helping prep for an appendectomy, holding down a seizure patient, getting vomited on, bled on, cursed at, her attention demanded, her credentials questioned, and every other manner of disgusting treatment available to a doctor at New Amsterdam.
It was one hell of a life she'd taken on when she decided to cut down on her media appearances, and resume practicing actual medicine, alongside the cheeky new Medical Director.
Again, Max on the brain.
A shiny new doctor with a funny turn of phrase and twinkly eyes, a bit swaggering, a bit boyish, uprooting her life. Never a dull moment. Always a challenge. Always running, always problem-solving, always life and death…
When the hell would she learn?
"Dr. Sharpe!" a voice called from across the ED. A female nurse whose name she had recently learned and promptly forgotten, was standing at reception, holding the telephone.
Helen jogged across the floor. "What's up?"
"There's been a cave-in nearby… some abandoned building, full of squatters," said the nurse. "There are some being treated at the scene, and nineteen others have been loaded into ambulances. About a third are being brought here."
"Okay, here we go," Helen said, with a big sigh. She thought, Cool in a crisis, me. Just give me a white lab coat and a problem of astronomical proportions – that's my wheelhouse.
Or, it used to be.
"Do we call Dr. Goodwin?" the nurse asked, knowing that Max was excellent at thinking outside the box in a situation like this.
"No – he's got to stay in the dark about this, or else he'll rush down here, and we can't have that. We'll be fine," Helen insisted, relatively calmly. "We've got five empty beds at the moment – see if you and the others can clear at least two more – maybe three. Have someone call upstairs and see if everyone except the ICU and NICU can go on skeleton crew for an hour... or whatever time they can spare, and send help down here. Maybe even beds. Call Kapoor and Reynolds first."
"On it," said the nurse, picking up the phone.
Helen felt distinctly sheepish at that moment, about not remembering her name. Later on, she would come clean, apologise, and ask to be told again.
The first two gurneys came bursting through the doors, with EMTs in-tow, reporting on injuries sustained, blood pressure and other vital signs. A doctor jumped on the first case, and two available nurses jumped on the second.
Helen listened to the chaos, tried to discern what was happening to each patient, and attempted to direct traffic…
The indomitable Casey reached the door just in time to meet the third gurney, where a woman was unconscious, and had a gash in her forehead, bleeding quite a bit. A male EMT was holding an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, and looking panicked.
"Talk to me," said Casey, checking the woman's pupils for concussion.
"Mid-grade concussion," said the EMT, stuttering just a bit.
"I can see that," Casey snapped. "What else? BP?"
"That's what's weird – I can't get a stable one."
"What do you mean?"
"It was a one-twenty-one over ninety," said the EMT. "When I took it again a minute later, it was ninety over one-fifteen."
"What?"
"I took it again a minute later, and it skyrocketed. Took it again, it dropped. You get the idea. Anyway, she's also barely breathing – something's obstructing her air, but we don't know what."
"Was she in the building that collapsed?"
"Yeah."
Casey frowned, and momentarily studied her. "She doesn't look like a squatter."
Helen had heard. She and Casey made eye-contact for a moment, just as a fourth gurney burst through the door. No-one was closer, so Helen ran to catch it, instructing Casey, "Get her on oxygen, and a BP monitor first and start recording the results at thirty-second intervals – you can put a CNA on it. Treat the gash, and get her a chest x-ray."
Casey nodded, though he probably could have come up with all of that stuff on his own, and he began to wheel the woman to the nearest bed. It didn't take much for him and the EMT to left her over, and the EMT left with his gurney, seeming relieved.
The fourth patient through the door, the one to which Helen was now attending, reported that his name was Kevin McShane, and his right foot was literally turned sideways. He was clearly in agony, but handling it incredibly well. He had to be triaged beside Casey's patient until personnel could be secured to bring him up to radiology, then prep him for surgery, but Helen promised him some pain medication, ASAP.
She was taking his vitals so as to get a proper dosage of pain medication, when the woman on Casey's gurney opened her eyes.
"Oh God, oh God," she cried out. She tried to sit up, and she pulled off her oxygen mask. "Where am I? What's happened? Where are my friends?"
To Helen's surprise, the woman appeared to be British. The accent wasn't London like hers, but it was definitely from Across the Pond.
"Calm down, ma'am, everything's going to be okay. You were in a building that collapsed," Casey told her, trying gently to coax her into lying back down. "Please lie down so we… whoa. Whoa! Dr. Sharpe, her oxygen saturation has jumped back up to ninety-seven per cent. A minute ago it was at sixty, and dropping. And this is after removing her mask."
"That's weird," Helen said, prepping an IV for the man with the sideways foot. "Good news though. But if we don't know why – if Max were here, he would want to go ahead with an x-ray."
"No, no x-ray!" the woman shouted, sitting up, again. To Casey, she said, "And no offence, but I don't want you – I want her."
Helen looked up. The woman was staring directly at her, and indicating her to anyone who would listen.
"Dr. Sharpe is busy with the other patient, ma'am, but my name is Casey, and I can assure you…"
"No! I want her!" the woman insisted. With that, she looked at Casey with worried, pleading eyes. "Please?"
Helen took a moment to look her over. She was sitting down, but Helen assessed her to be about five-foot-six, which was taller than herself, and thin. She had blonde hair cut in a chin-length bob, and her clothing was, well, generally eccentric. She was wearing a purple t-shirt, with coloured stripes across the bust, along with blue trousers that seemed to be a size or two too large. Yellow braces hung from the waist, as though they'd long forgotten the woman had shoulders, and the cuffs were rolled up to mid-shin. On her feet were lace-up boots.
The woman looked at Helen with a supplicating stare.
The last gurney from the collapse came in, and another doctor was able to get it carted off to an appropriate location. All of the beds were filled, the place was in a bustling state of chaos, but at the moment, there was, miraculously, nothing demanding Helen's specific attention.
Casey shrugged, and said softly to Helen, "Saw you on TV, I guess."
The woman said, genuinely apologetically, "I'm sorry but it's really important that only she examine me."
"Okay, then. Casey, please finish inserting this IV, and get Mr. McShane ten milligrams of morphine. Then see who's up in Radiology that can come down and fetch him," Helen said.
He did as she asked, and the two swapped positions.
"Hi, I'm Dr. Sharpe," Helen said to the woman, and now digging into a drawer for some alcohol and gauze. "Well, with your oxygen saturation up, we can afford to patch up your head, so let's do that first, eh? What's your name?"
"Erm… Jane," said the woman. "Jane Smith."
Helen stopped in her tracks and looked back. "Jane Smith? Really?"
"Yeah. Problem?"
"No, just… interesting name."
"Think so?"
"Well… sort of, yeah," said Helen. Suddenly, her heart was racing, though she didn't quite know why.
Jane seemed to be watching her very intently as she prepared supplies to clean and bandage the gash on her forehead.
"Been working here long?" asked the patient.
"A few years," Helen replied. "Actually, as you might know, I'm in oncology. But our hospital's in a bit of turmoil at the moment, so… here I am in the ED."
"You must be brilliant. Versatile."
"I do my best."
"Oh, I can definitely see that."
Helen then sat down on a stool and began to clean the wound.
"See, this isn't so bad," she said. "That's the thing about knocks to the noggin – when they bleed, they always look worse than they are."
"Right," said Ms. Smith, still staring at her. She seemed to be studying Helen, as if from afar. She had dramatic features, with a prominent nose and knowing, penetrating eyes, that made Helen feel a bit on-the-back-foot.
"So, Jane, any particular reason why you wanted me to do this? Honestly, Casey's the best nurse we've got, more than capable of getting your little scrape-up taken care of."
"No doubt," said Jane. "But I, er… I don't know, you just seem like someone I can trust."
Helen chuckled. She whispered, "It's the British thing, isn't it? You don't want to leave it to the Americans."
Jane laughed along with her. She had an adorable smile, with a crinkled nose, and eyes that sparkled. "Yep. That must be it," she said.
"So where are you from?"
"Oh… well, life as I know it began in Sheffield."
"I see," Helen said, nodding. "I could have guessed northerner. I'm from London, 'case you couldn't tell."
"Yeah, I knew that."
Within a minute or so, Helen was applying the final bandage to the patient's forehead, and saying, "There, that's done it. Now, let's look at your BP and oxygen, just to see what's going on there."
Casey had already applied the cuff for the BP monitor, and the machine had been taking Jane's vitals every thirty seconds since. Helen looked at the readout, and saw that the EMT had been correct – her blood pressure was erratic.
"Ms. Smith, please lie back," Helen requested as she inserted the earpieces of her stethoscope.
"I thought you'd never ask," Jane said, smiling slightly as she allowed her back to press against the bit of bed that had been raised to a one-hundred-twenty-degree angle.
It occurred to Helen in these moments that she was being flirted-with.
But that feeling left her quickly when she pressed the auscultator to Ms. Smith's chest. She heard a heartbeat all right… and also the distinct echo of a second one.
Déjà vu flooded Helen Sharpe's senses, and for a moment, she was blind with the deluge of memories. After that moment, a flutter in her stomach caused a slight panic.
She moved the auscultator down slightly, and to the right side of the patient's rib cage, and there it was, the second heartbeat.
Her eyes instinctively moved up to Jane's, and as if on cue, the patient winked at her.
Helen's own heard leapt into her throat. She recoiled into the medic behind her, attending to another patient. "Oh my God," she breathed.
"Everything all right, Dr. Sharpe?" asked the man she'd run into.
"Yes, yes," Helen covered. "It's fine… sorry. Sorry."
Jane looked at her intently, refusing to break eye-contact, but said nothing more for the moment.
Helen returned to reception, to the nurse whose name she'd forgotten. She indicated Jane Smith to her, and said, "Will you please escort that patient to my office?"
The nurse's face contorted into a bizarre frown. "Really? Why?"
"Please, just do it," Helen replied. "And no need to mention it to anyone."
Okay, so... whaddya think? Drop me a line, leave me a review... and again, please forgive my bad medicine and/or ED etiquette.