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Stan slurped his coffee. "Well…" he said. "We got through that."

"Right." I stirred the tea in a paper cup with a disposable stirring stick; not the same satisfying clink of metal silverware on china.

He set his paper cup down. "Vile stuff but the caffeine helps." He yawned. "Sorry. Haven't been sleeping well."

"Mm."

"And you? Getting on?"

"Fine," I said, although I did wonder what was next, for in three weeks the course would be finished.

He smiled. "We're all jittery, don't you think?"

I merely nodded. Millie apparently was infatuated with me, Daisy had far more intense carnal desires, Frank seemed to be getting along, but Ricks was a hot mess - now stitched and bandaged. Stan seemed to be the steadiest of the other students; slow perhaps but he was getting on. I had my own ideas, but I drank some tea, not wanting to reply to Stan's observation.

Stan leaned back in his chair. "And you? What are you doing here?"

"Me?"

"Yes, you, Martin. You don't belong here, not with the rest of us retreads."

"I wouldn't say that."

He stared at me for a little while. "Your diagnostic skills are amazing, and you seem to have an encyclopedic knowledge of all areas of medicine."

"Well, my psychiatric knowledge is lacking but I am coming up the curve on pediatrics and geriatrics."

He laughed, his booming voice echoing off the hard floor, walls, and ceiling. "I'm surprised that you admit a lack."

"The only way to advance in any endeavor is to admit that we do not have a firm grasp of it."

"Hm. Stay hungry?"

"Why, yes."

He sighed and held up his hands, the finger joints swollen, and I could see how his fingers were starting to bend sideways. "All the book learning and studying in the world will not repair these things. That's why I left orthopedics. Can't handle the tools well anymore. Plus the younger staff made it a point to suggest, strongly, that I move on."

"You're not that old," I stated.

"Fifty-seven, Mart. I have found these last few weeks I do have an affinity for both the younger and older cases." He grinned. "Reminds me of my grandchildren as well as the face I see in the mirror."

I had just turned forty and hoped to have a very long medical life ahead; hence this course of action.

"So," Stan said, "why are you here?"

"I… I chose to leave vascular surgery."

"Then why not general surgery? Step back a little?"

I looked away from him, hoping that any facial expression of mine would not be seen.

Stan fiddled with his stir stick, flexing it back and forth. "Unless it's the surgery itself that was the problem."

I looked around the empty corner of the canteen. "Mm. There was a problem, yes."

He pursed his lips. "Is a problem."

"What do you know?" I asked accusingly. "Who told you?"

He shrugged. "No one in particular, but I do have contacts in London. They mentioned a surgeon; prime of his career, chucking it in."

I just stared at him. "It's none of your business."

He nodded. "Just so. Look – have you considered counseling? I once knew an anesthesiologist who had some battlefield experience – Falklands War. The smell of certain sedative gasses made him leave theater. He left practice and went into teaching. He told me that it took him back to the battlefield – torn bodies and shredded limbs."

I froze, then replied, "A high-pressure environment."

"Yes…" Stan hissed. "Like you. Vascular is right out there; on the very edge. Saving limbs, organs, and brains."

I closed my eyes. "They called me 'Golden-Hands Ellingham'."

Stan nodded. "Yes that's what I heard as well; through the grapevine."

"So, you know."

He lifted his coffee cup, drank it down and carefully put the empty paper cup on the table. "As you said, 'none of my business'." He looked around the canteen his deep-set eyes roving around in their sockets. "But here you are. Good for you."

"Good for me? I didn't choose this!"

"Oh, but you did, Mart, you could have chucked it all in and run away or crawled into a whiskey bottle."

"I don't drink." Not anymore. Not since school when Edith left for Canada.

"Good for you," he winked. "Me? I don't mind a tipple once in a while. But never to excess."

"And I exercise. Walking here. Swimming back in London; Sundays."

"Yes," he nodded, "we've all commented on your solitary evening walks."

"I…" And what else had people been chatting about, I wondered.

"Not that I join in the gossip," Stan said smiling, "like Ricks hitting the bottle too much and then he and Daisy getting very close in the wee hours. Or how Millie seems to go all gooey about the face when you are near to her, or…"

I held up my hand and mercifully he stopped.

But then he added, "Not that I prattle along with the others, but I do listen." He cleared his throat. "So good for you Mart, keeping your nose to the grindstone, getting something out of this glorified medical kindergarten we are populating."

I toyed with my tea. "Well… I might as well. I didn't seem to be succeeding very well in London on my own. And yes I have been to counseling; not that it helped."

"It's the blood," he stated.

I had hoped it had not been obvious.

He sighed. "We've all seen how you turn pale when you take a blood sample. Must be difficult."

"Right."

He looked at me for many long seconds. "But you are moving on; taking action."

"I must."

Stan smiled. "This is just between the two of us, okay?"

I sighed. "Yes."

"Good then," he said with finality.

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