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Perry found it hard to believe that only one day had passed at Sacred Heart. It had seemed like he had been attaching IVs and wiping drool off unconscious people's mouths for his whole life, even though it had only been a few hours since he went on call and discovered what an intern's job really was.

Before his dreaded pager went off for the first time, Dr. Benson had gathered all the interns preparing for their first night on the job together, and given them an overly cheery pep talk, which only served to increase their anxiety. Perry really could have done without knowing the average amount of urine a doctor was saturated with over the course of his career, never mind if it had been intended as a joke. Needless to say, Dr. Benson was the only one who laughed.

After he became aware how uncomfortable he was making the interns, he stopped chuckling. "You'll all do great," he said. "Really, there is no need to worry."

The average amount of anxiety the interns were saturated with doubled.

Dr. Kelso slid up. "Just try not to kill anyone," he advised. Anxiety tripled, and more than one intern was seized with the compulsion to run. Before they had time to act, however, Dr. Benson announced that their "time of freedom was up: they were officially on call."

No one was sure if that was supposed to be a joke; either way, nobody laughed.

The first time he had been paged was to change a bandage on a broken leg. After fumbling with the scissors on the thick cast for about five minutes without any leeway, a nurse took pity on him and finished the job. He awkwardly stood out of the way, watching her expertly take it off and begin to wrap a new one on in thirty seconds flat, wondering if he should leave or stay and watch. This was decided for him when a random doctor demanded he come help him hold down a screaming hysterical patient.

He eagerly followed, the small part of him that still held the hope of this place being an action-packed adventure slowly growing, yelling 'Ha, ha, I told you so!'

When they arrived at the patients room, though, the patient was calmly sleeping, most likely because of some kind of sedative. A nurse was coolly making her way out of the room, stepping over a mess of spilt food like she saw things like this every day. Random Doctor turned to Perry, evilness in his eyes. "Do you mind cleaning up this mess?" he asked.

Perry opened his mouth. Then closed it. He knew for a fact this place had janitors working there, so why should he have to clean it up? "Why me?"

He sighed. "The custodians have organized a 'janitorial strike' that starts this evening. Tomorrow they'll come back to work, but for now..." he gestured at the carnage of food and medical supplies. "You'll find a mop inside that closet."

After he had scrubbed most of the food off the floor, he stood up. His back hurt like hell from being bent down for so long. It turned out they did not have a mop in the closet, just a sponge, so he did what he could with that. In spite of the unsatisfactory cleaning supplies, one could easily tell apart the places he had washed and where he hadn't. The hospital could really use a good, thorough cleansing, he decided, but no way was he going to be the one to do it. No way.

That incident was only one of the reasons he was glad the day was over.

The next patient he was forced to be in contact with was a nineteen year old girl who had swallowed a little car antifreeze "just to see what it tasted like." All he had to do was start an IV on her, thank god, but even that proved to be a little harder than he expected. Another nurse took it over half way, while a couple of doctors and nurses pretended not to notice and tried not to laugh. Apparently, being unable to poke very thick needles into fully (or in this case, barely) conscious people was not considered abstaining from torturous acts; it was something that entertained all the routine needle-pokers.

This was followed by two people throwing up on his shoes (in unison, which caused a number of people to clap), a seeing-eye dog starting off his first of many urine saturations, having to wear a blue scrub top with purple scrub bottoms because no one had any extra blue ones, finally seeing another patient just to pass her on to the nearest capable nurse, running straight into Dr. Benson, running straight into Dr. Kelso (again), running straight into the random doctor from before, running straight into a random nurse, running straight into the hair obsessed lawyer, and then the only halfway decent thing to happen that night: running straight into Jordan, just as he was going on break.

"Hey, Perry," she said, staring down at where he laid on the floor.

His head ached from all the falls and crashes he had experienced that day, which he hoped was a symptom of lack of sleep and not of being a complete klutz. He still had two more hours left to go after his measly twenty minute break, so that, and the lack of sleep thing, must have been what caused him to forget about the craziness of the people who worked here. Still lying on the floor in a slightly fetal position, Perry found himself asking, "Hey, Jordan. Want to go get some coffee?"

She adjusted her grip on the big orange bag she was carrying. "I don't see why not," she replied. She looked at him a second more before turning on her heel, heading for the door. "So, are you coming or what?" she called behind her.

He let his head bang back against the floor, immediately regretting the sharp pain it caused. Not one person had ever tried to help him up from his numerous falls. Not one.

He wondered why he cared more that Jordan didn't, either.

When he made it to the cafeteria, his chest hurt, partially from the nurse who had stepped on his chest instead of walking around him, but mostly because he had run down four flights of stairs, fell again at the bottom, landing directly on top of a bed pan, then run the rest of the way to the cafeteria. By the time he got there, he was pretty winded, but at least he still got there before Jordan had finished her drink.

He ordered his own coffee and walked over to her. He noticed that she was at the same table they were at when they met all those hours ago. For some reason, it felt like eons had passed.

"Hello again," Jordan said as he practically fell into his seat.

He raised his hand in a half-wave and started to guzzle his much-needed coffee. Jordan watched with an expression halfway between boredom and interest on her face; how she pulled that off, Perry would never learn.

Once he had killed the drink, he put the empty cup on the table, feeling much more alert. "Hi, Jordaroo," he said.

She tilted her head, confused. "Jordaroo?"

Uh-oh. Did he just call her Jordaroo. He thought he said Jordan... but could he really help it if that was what he had been thinking of her as?

"What's that?" she asked.

"Well, it's a 'Jordan' and a 'roo'. I don't know," he stuttered. He hoped he wasn't blushing or anything, although he was sure he was.

She took a sip of her coffee. "I think it's sort of cute."

That caught his attention and made his need for headache medication less pressing. "You do?"

She nodded. "Yeah. I'll shoot you if you ever call me that again, but it is slightly cute."

He didn't doubt her seriousness on the shooting, but he still though it was weird that she didn't shoot him now, instead of later when (no if about it) he called her that again. He wasn't sure, but he thought that she was flirting with him. Luckily, the caffeine had taken its effect, so he didn't feel the need to belt that out too.

She drained the rest of her coffee and stood up. "I should get going," she told him. "Goodnight, Perry."

"'Night." He waited until she had gone before adding, "Jordaroo."

His pager chose that moment to make itself known. He still had two more hours of work he had to survive.

Two car crash victims needed him to ask a nurse to give them IVs, but he was completely capable of giving them some medication through a syringe. The nurse who helped him, a woman named Lavern, even clapped.

That brought to mind his patient that was actually his patient: Carla. He waited for a quiet moment between new arrivals before he slipped away to check on her. She was fast asleep, snoring lightly. The lab had told him that her new test results would be ready the next day. They had almost refused to redo her test until he told them about the janitors. They completely understood after that, though, tell him that everyone gets 'janitored' at one point or another.

That was one good thing about the place, the sense of community everyone seemed to share, even Jordan who claimed to only be here once every few months had it, and even the evil janitors had it. He hoped that someday he might have it, too.

Just as long as he wouldn't have to be 'janitored' anymore to get it.

He turned from checking on Carla again, and started walking down the hall. He really couldn't believe that only a day had passed, yet he couldn't believe that a day had passed already. He did think that being a doctor wouldn't be so... horrible, but he guessed it could have been much worse. Still, he was immensely glad when he stepped out the double doors to the hellish hospital, breathed in the cool, fresh air, and finally made it to freedom.

Until tomorrow, anyway.