Author's Note: Well, first ficlet for this fandom, and it's a short one. I actually write something like this weekly for someone on for what we call 15minuteficlets. We get given a word, and have to – well, we don't have to – write a ficlet, with only 15 minutes allotted to us. We can't go over, but we don't have to use the whole time. Bah, but enough explaining… I just had this idea for this word (translation) and went with it. Hope you like, even if you're not a Ray Barnett fan…

ONLY HUMAN

Every day is tough, y'know? Every day brings with it a new challenge, and new complications… and new things to make you wish you'd chosen another job. Well, I know it's that way for me. Maybe I should have just dropped out of medical school and stuck with the band I'd had at the time… we might've made it big.

Or not… we kinda sucked.

But that's beside the point. The point is, today was tough… like any other day. We saved some patients and we lost some; we had the time-wasters and the headaches. There were some tears. There is nothing worse than having to tell a mother her little boy died in trauma because of a haemorrhage or something like that. I hate doing it… it makes me feel small and useless and… frail.

I don't like feeling frail. I don't like feeling small. And I most certainly do not like feeling useless. I don't even like feeling human… when I was little I had this stupid idea that I was some kind of superhero; I couldn't fly or whatever, but I could just about do anything else I wanted. I was the tough kid; the one who could jump the highest, talk the loudest, and get all the girls. Or maybe that was just what I thought was going on. Maybe the other kids saw it differently… I was pretty obnoxious.

Still am…

I see the way people look at me and watch me as I strut around in my punk shirts and torn jeans and my boots; I act tough, and I like it. They don't. They think I'm an idiot who's too cocky for his own good. Maybe I am… maybe one day that's gonna get me into big trouble… that is, bigger trouble. I've ignored facts that have gotten people into danger, patients or otherwise. I've overlooked important information to cut corners, and people get hurt. I remember Carter said that to me once. I didn't know how right he was at the time; I was too busy being pissy and defensive and trying to show off.

I knew this was gonna be hard when I signed on, y'know? I knew it wasn't going to be an easy, free ride, and I was gonna have to work for it, but I didn't think it would be so… exhausting.

Take today… it was the stupidest little thing that made me want to scream. There was a Spanish kid with a bad burn on her arm from an accident or something, I forget, but her mother was just ranting at me, and I'll be damned if I could concentrate in that infernal racket. She wouldn't shut up, and my Spanish is minimal at best, and it was just so frustrating. It made me want to break something, and I was trying really hard not to hurt this little girl, and her mother just was not helping. Chuny is usually there for the translation part, but I couldn't find her; someone said she'd taken a sick day. The irony of a nurse taking a sick day isn't beyond me, but I couldn't see that at the time. I just couldn't help but think 'oh great, why today?' in my usually selfish way. I didn't care if she was sick and felt like crap, because I needed her. Lockhart couldn't calm the woman down either, and… in the end, I had to give up on the case, as simple as it was, because I couldn't deal.

And I feel horrible for doing it. I feel stupid. I feel weak and small and frail… I feel human. I hate that.

I want to be a great doctor, but if I can't get a panicking and worried mother to calm down and see that her daughter is going to be fine, then how am I gonna be what I want? How am I going to show everyone that I'm not just some arrogant jerk in it for the money. I care… I really do…

I just can't show it, because it makes me weak and small and frail… it makes me human.

And I can't be human.

Because if I'm human… then I can be hurt.

For all my confidence on the outside… the idea that I'm going to get hurt terrifies me, and inside, I just break down into that insecure little boy who cried when he got yelled at, hiding in his room under the blanket to keep out of harm's way. When the idea that I'm going to get hurt comes around… I run. I find the quickest exit, and I use it. I abuse it too, and take it for granted. Whether that exit is literal or figurative, I don't care at the time, because it gets me away.

But I can't keep running… running is weakness. Running is small, and it is frail.

And it most certainly is human.

I don't want that… I can't take that. I have to put on a brave face and hide it all away. I have to be the brave one, like I always was; I have to be the one who can take all the hits and not show the slightest bit of damage.

But I don't know how long I can do that… I don't know if I can handle it for much longer, with all this death and horror, and all this responsibility weighing down on me, where I have to take care of other people.

I can barely take care of myself… how am I gonna take care of those around me?

I might as well face it… at least on the inside, where no one can see.

I'm weak… I'm small… and I'm frail.

After all, as much as I hate it… I'm only human.

Fin