Disclaimer: I do not own The Night Shift, nor any of its characters. I just own my storyline and my OC Erin.
PROLOGUE
He had been at the base in Bagram for three months now. Three months in which he did nothing more than work long hours, continuously ask for extra time and try and get some rest at night. Anything to keep his mind busy and prevent it from thinking and spinning. Thinking about what he left at home when he was again deployed, all of a sudden, at the exact time when Rick and he were going through a rough patch, the roughest ever, in their relationship. Since they began to see each other they were forced to be apart depending on assignments and deployments, but as soon as they got married they became used to live together and they both felt complete, setting up their own easy and peaceful routine. That lasted for about three years, until Rick started traveling nationwide when he was promoted again. Drew was very happy for Rick, and he was supportive and encouraging him, but he also started to miss him greatly. So Rick being away on work on a regular basis had finally taken a toll on them. At first they tried to make the best of it by spending all weekends together, not leaving any room for time with friends or family, but soon Rick had to travel on some weekends too, and suddenly Drew found himself lonely at home, with nobody to share his experiences at work, his thoughts, his worries, beyond his coworkers and friends at the hospital. They all noticed that and once more they helped him go through it. They remembered how he became a mess when Rick broke up with him years ago, and they were closely watching for him.
But the situation even got worse when Rick first talked about divorce just days before they knew about the new and unexpected deployment. He loved Rick and he was terrified when he said the word, but he also knew that they could not go on like that for much longer. They both deserved to be happy. He also trusted him and was positive that they could work this out together, side by side, like they had done before, but being deployed overseas was not going to help matters. So when they said good-bye to each other at home the day he was flying (not at the gate in the base airfield, nor in the parking lot as they used to do on similar occasions), he was afraid that this time it may be a final farewell.
He cherished and also dare his telephone calls with Rick. Sometimes things seemed to be back to normal for a moment there, and that made him think that they could fix it, but they seldom had the chance to have a quiet conversation, as Rick often sounded distracted or too busy and in a hurry to do something else. And he dreaded their Skype calls the most, as he could not stand the way they looked at each other on the screen. No trace of any love could be found in their eyes.
On the bright side, all those long hours of hard work since he had arrived had pay off and he had been promoted to major six weeks ago. He was thrilled with his promotion and his first impulse was to call Rick and tell him right away, but then he thought that he might be busy and he did not want anyone to ruin that moment, not even Rick, so he called his night shift friends in San Antonio instead, who were all genuinely delighted for him. He just texted Rick with the news, and he got a text back the following day congratulating him, too cold and too late.
Some perks came along with the new rank: higher pay, better work schedule (if that is possible being a doctor in a war zone) and an assistant that would help him with paperwork. He was not comfortable at all with that part of the job, his natural places were the ER and the OR, so he was relieved when he was told that he would have an assistant under his command for all his non-medical duties, but he was somehow disappointed when he learned that his new assistant was also new to the army, having only recently joined the military. Little did he know when they were first introduced that she was going to turn his world upside down in every possible way.
Erin Kane was also in a bad place, both literally and metaphorically speaking. An Austin born and raised and an only child in a third generation Irish family (her father a bank clerk, her mother a nurse), she attended an exclusive Catholic school run by nuns. She excelled at every subject, and also played golf remarkably well from an early age. She earned a degree in Law from Harvard and after graduating she went back home to marry her childhood best friend, Owen, who lived just across the street and run his father“s construction business. She started working for a law firm and completely forgot about her dreams of helping change the world. So when her twin boys left home to go to college to the other part of the country and her husband wanted to move to his family ranch two hours away from Austin, she felt that nothing held her in her home town, her parents long gone, and it was time to pursue her dreams. Therefore, she quit her job, agreed an amicable separation with Owen and enlisted in the army as administrative staff.
And here she was, at 42, thousands of miles away from home, in a war zone, in the army with no prior military training, at a new job in the medical field, newly separated, on her own for the first time in her life, and with a new boss younger that her that apparently was not exactly happy to have her as his new assistant.
