"Dr Hardy," Stella called as she spotted Luke walking out of the small kitchen that the staff shared.
He turned to her and as always smiled that smile, that smile that made him so irresistible. 'He must know' Stella reasoned, 'He must know how gorgeous he is, he's got most of the nursing staff practically throwing themselves at him, why does he never respond? He's not married, he's not involved with anybody, it doesn't make any sense.'
"Nurse Davenport," Luke greeted. "Something that I can do for you?"
"I just wondered if you needed me in casualty, as Sister Bridget says she can do without me on the ward." Stella explained, Luke shrugged.
"I guess we could get do a stock check or something, it's quiet at the moment." Stella smiled pleased, she'd now have a couple of hours to try and discern why Luke kept knocking her back and hopefully get him to say yes. Sometime later, after subtle and not so subtle flirting had failed to work, Stella decided to come right out and ask him out, it wasn't conventional but she thought that it was the only tactic that hadn't been tried.
"So Dr Hardy, what are you doing tonight?"
"I'm not doing anything, why?" Luke replied cautiously, hoping against hope that she wasn't asking him out directly, that was the only thing he couldn't beat, people couldn't know, he didn't want people to know.
"I just wondered if you'd like to get a drink or something after work." Stella stopped counting bandage packets and turned to look at him, suddenly noticing how uncomfortable he looked.
"What, as friends?" Luke checked, praying that she would say yes. Stella frowned and smiled slightly.
"If you like, though I was thinking more like a date." Stella looked at Luke, for a moment he looked pained before looking surprised.
"Well um, I don't er, I don't think so. I should er, go check in with Gordon about this afternoon's surgery." Luke replied, walking backwards and then quickly away. Stella watched him leave, there was only one explanation for that kind of response.
All afternoon Luke felt like everybody was looking at him, it was a queer feeling that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end. He'd had this feeling before, everytime he walked in a room nurses and other ladies looked at him, he'd learned to tune that out though. This was a new feeling, men were now looking at him as well and joining in on the conversations that stopped the instant he walked in the room, something wasn't right. Luke tried to put it down as an odd occurrence, something that would soon die down. He had no idea why there was sudden interest in him and to be honest he didn't really care, he just wanted it to end.
Over the next few days Luke ignored it, people whispering in corners about him had happened before, he'd lasted a year in a hospital with that before it wore him down, he could cope. Perhaps it was because he'd transferred here to get away from the odd glances and the furtive comments that it wore him down so quickly, Luke didn't really know. After a week he'd had enough.
"Gordon," Luke called, running out of the casualty entrance just in time to catch Gordon before he left.
"Luke I'm in kind of a hurry," Gordon told him, hoping he'd take the hint. He had to leave now because if he wasn't there in five minutes it wouldn't be pretty and even though he didn't love his wife anymore, he didn't want anything to happen to her.
"I'm sorry Gordon it'll just take a minute, it really can't wait." Gordon frowned and checked his watch, he was intrigued. "This may sound silly but I've been getting a lot of funny looks recently, people whispering in corners or stopping conversations when I enter a room. I'm starting to realise how Jeff feels, getting given the cold shoulder isn't nice, at least he knows why though, I don't." Gordon sighed heavily, he'd been expecting something important, he hadn't noticed any odd behaviour towards Luke, he was probably misinterpreting the nurses looks.
"Luke, I'm sure you're overreacting. We can talk more about this later though, I'm sorry I've really got to run."
Without giving Luke time to answer Gordon got in his car and quickly accelerated out of the car park. Luke stared after Gordon's car thinking hard, he'd noticed the fact that Gordon often left early, arrived late and sometimes disappeared at odd times, something wasn't right there. In fact there were a lot of things that weren't right at this hospital, the staff were good at what they did but hopelessly incompetent when it came to their personal lives. In reality so was he, he just had a gift, a drive, a need, for meddling and fixing other people's lives. Maybe he'd pay Gordon a visit later at home.