A/N: Thank you for the reviews! They are greatly appreciated. This one is mainly Connie/Grace, but Lofty, Zoe and Big Mac also make an appearance. If I get the chance and idea, I'll try and write a Lily/Ethan one shot. Hope you like this, sorry it's so late to be posted but I've just finished it. X
~Mini Peacelet~
Wintry Advent
17. Baubles
"Grace? What are you doing here?" Connie halted in front of the young girl who was rapidly scurrying across the chaotic ED towards her, scowling in puzzlement about why her daughter was now present at the hospital.
"I got expelled." The girl's tone was casual, as if her announcement wasn't at all serious - and perhaps normal, "And then the nanny quit, so you're stuck with me today." She grinned, excited at the thought of spending the day with her mother.
"Great." The clinical lead's teeth were clenched, sarcasm lacing the one word response as she peered at her designer watch, irritated and repulsed that her daughter had been expelled, again. The department was hectic with a sharp fluctuations of casualties - currently a phase of vast numbers - and there was a shortage of staff, meaning resources were stretched to their limits. And the hospital was no place for her disruptive nine year old. She was desperate to learn what bedlam Grace was now the culprit off but her expertise knowledge was required urgently in resuscitation, "Grace, go wait in my office, please. I'll be back as soon as I can." She instructed, pirouetting in her Louboutins, "Ah, even better. Lofty, please keep an eye on this young lady. Thank you." She then promptly tottered off into resus before the nurse had the opportunity to object.
The little brunette grinned mischievously and scampered across to the designated nurse who was washing his hands thoroughly, "Why are you washing your hands?" She tipped her head to the side marginally, observing curiously.
"So I don't spread germs and infections from patient to patient and around the hospital because we don't want more people to get sick." He replied matter-of-factly, confidentially concerned about the rather odd and stupid question, then dreading what else his boss's daughter would have to say for herself. She certainly wasn't shy.
"But it's a hospital...so it doesn't matter if people get sick because they're already here and you make people better." She frowned as she pulled out a pair of sterile gloves from the box and began to fiddle intently with them.
"Uhm, why don't you go wait in your mum's office...I'm sure she won't be long and I'm sure I can trust you to behave..." Lofty suggested as he confiscated the rubber gloves from the girl and deposited them in the bin, "They are not for you to play with."
Grace glared bitterly at the nurse before obediently following him to the former heart surgeon's confined office and jumped onto the fabric sofa where she perched quietly with her arms folded, nodding at Lofty as he requested for her to stay put and more importantly behave. Once he had departed, she grasped her mother's tablet from her desk and began playing her favourite games to entertain herself.
Connie returned to her office after she had finished treating a patient that had been rushed in, her heels clicking piercingly against the tacky linoleum surface that lined the hospital floors, "Where's Lofty?" She inquired as she gracefully sat beside her daughter on the sofa who was successfully occupying herself.
The girl shrugged futilely, "I don't know. But I'm bored, Mummy." She whinged as she dropped the iPad onto the material beside her, "Can we decorate your mini Christmas tree?" She endeavoured as perceived the artificial tree who's pine needle branches were naked from festive decorations that lay untouched on the ground in a cardboard box.
The leading consultant nodded, "I know you are, darling. We'll go home as soon as possible. Yes, of course." She regained her equilibrium and paced across to the petite tree, enhancing the tree with a set of fairy lights for her daughter so the nine year old could then garnish the branches with baubles and tinsel. Wrapping the lights around the tree was as far as Connie's contribution got as she was called back to resus to perform a 'complex procedure'.
Grace located the large cylinder box that contained a vast number of decorative baubles but sighed in frustration as she was unable to actually get into the contents of the box because of the sticky tape that had been applied generously at the end of last year to seal the tree decorations.
Equipped with the crate of baubles, Connie's daughter wondered out of the office in search of someone with more skill who could open the box for her, or a tool to aid her in gaining entry successfully. She approached Lofty but the nurse had quickly made himself busy and therefore unavailable, so she skipped into the store room in hope of locating some scissors - she comprehended that all the surgical related emergency equipment was gathered in there. And soon enough, she found a pair of metal scissors.
Big Mac had spotted that the door was a jar and proceeded to investigate, crossing his arms as he perceived the child, he faked a cough before speaking, "What are you doing?"
Grace's head shot round abruptly, "Opening this, what does it look like?" She was insolent yet sincere and diverted her concentration back to the task she had started and continued to cut at the sticky tape.
The porter entered the stock room and snatched the scissors from her in which she complained grumpily in response, "You shouldn't be in here, you know. And I don't think a young lady of your age should be using such sharp scissors. Now here, let me." He opened the box in a matter of seconds.
"I'm going now." She rose to her feet, clutching the cylinder of baubles, "thank you," she smiled sweetly before bouncing off to go decorate her mother's little office tree. But on her way back to the small room, she accidentally dropped the container and the baubles poured out rapidly, rolling all across the room in speed, varying in direction. They were everywhere. Instead of making any attempt to collect the baubles, she just sprinted back to the safety of Connie's office.
The clinical lead was heading back to her office to check on Grace when she paused in her tracks as she heard a scream; from Zoe. She dashed over to her fellow college, descending to her knees promptly, "Zoe, are you okay?"
The other brunette nodded, "Yeah, I'm fine." She scanned her surroundings for the perpetrator that had resulted in her tumble, frowning at all the baubles that were scattered across the ground, "Why are there baubles everywhere?" She endeavoured perplexedly, regaining her equilibrium and dusting herself off, straightening her top and skirt.
Connie peered at the baubles and exhaled an exasperated sigh, "Grace," she muttered, "Zoe, I'm sorry. I left her decorating the tree, I don't know why the baubles are all over the floor. But I will find out."
"I'm not questioning your parenting or anything because what would I know. But a hospital isn't the place of a hyperactive child, Connie. Something so simple as baubles on the ground could cause a serious accident. You should be at home with her, where she is continually supervised."
"Yes, Zoe, I am more than aware of that, thank you. But what other choice do I have? We are incredibly short staffed and she just turned up out of the blue! She's been expelled, again!" She sighed and dropped her stethoscope back around her neck.
"I understand that it must be difficult. But although you are trying your best to juggle your role as clinical lead and mother, sometimes you just have to be one or the other. And mother should prioritise." Dr Hanna stated cooly, advising tactics.
Connie didn't respond verbally to Zoe's statement but ordered that someone cleaned up the baubles, then pirouetting in her heels and pacing back into her office where she slammed the door shut behind her, "Grace, why are there baubles all over the floor put there?" She demanded, manner hinted with anger.
"It wasn't my fault!" The girl quickly announced, "Someone bumped into me and I accidentally dropped them!"
"Right, well you should have come and told someone. Gracie, why were you expelled?" Connie inquired curiously, perched on the edge of her pine desk, attitude in her tone that warned the little girl that now wasn't a good time to push her luck and it would be most wise to reveal the truth.
Grace shrugged, "Lot's of reasons. They got angry because I ate all the chocolates left on the class advent calendar." Her voice was nonchalant again, not bothered in the slightest about the reputation for bad behaviour she was obtaining.
The brunette scowled with scorn, appalled at her daughter's confession. She battled to understand her daughter's unruly behaviour because she had definitely not bought her up to act in such an unpredictable way. "Well that's not very nice is it?"
The girl's response came instantly, "It's not very nice that I was the only one in the class that wouldn't get a chocolate because I'm last on the register as I'm the new girl and there is only 24 chocolate but 25 of us!" She huffed with a frown and scuffed her shoes against the carpet sulkily, "They were all teasing me and being mean about it so I ate them all."
The former heart surgeon enveloped her daughter into her embrace, "Well, no, that isn't very nice. But you still shouldn't have ate all the chocolates, darling." Her baby's behaviour was finally taking toll on the sophisticated consultant who was struggling to find a suitable method to cope and deal with it efficiently.