Jude, generally speaking, handled stress very well. He'd always had a level head, and growing up in his family's clinic, he really had no choice but to learn how to deal with himself from a young age. He was good at keeping his head down and working hard, if nothing else.
Still, even if he rarely showed it, there was only so much even he could take before he broke, and he for the first time since he'd started medical school he was certain he was nearing that point. He pulled his fingers into a tight fist, unclenching it over and over. He'd known Rideaux would be coming at some point to check in on him. He'd known it, and he damn well should have been prepared for it to be at the worst possible moment. The poor girl had been fine, thank goodness, and with a decent bit of effort he'd gotten Rowen to cooperate, but...
His exaggerated groan filled the silence of the small apartment. He wanted to blame that man-Ortega, was it? Something like that. He'd given his furious, melodramatic retelling of the events to the director whilst the young doctor concluded that Elize's wound was little more than a bruise from her fall-infected, he'd said! Jude had gotten quite a scolding because of that, and with Rideaux he'd learned early on that there was no time to defend himself. 'Reasonable or not, an excuse is still an excuse,' he reminded him, and in this world, that rang very true.
He knew he'd done nothing wrong, and no one had gotten hurt, and it would have been hopeless to try to argue. The whole day felt like some kind of awful, muddled dream, in hindsight.
Jude shut the book that he'd frustratedly discarded beside him and edged it onto the nightstand. No point in lamenting it all night, at any rate. Not that sleep would come easily, but still, work would be even less fun if he didn't even try...
As he'd expected, Jude slept horribly. The day started slow, groggy, and long after he'd gotten dressed and and slunk off to work he found himself dreaming of being back in bed.
Today felt off. Even though he was in a daze, dragging his feet through the now semi-familiar halls of the hospital for the better part of the morning, even though nearly every moment including his lunch that day with the clumsy but kindhearted nurse from the day before had gone by in a blur, somehow there was one face he couldn't get out of his head. He was the third patient he'd seen that day—at exactly 7:23 AM, he clearly remembered that fact.
Why, he didn't know. After Milla and Rowen, and despite her injury being rather mundane, the situation could not easily be forgotten with Elize, as well, somehow he felt the man with a dislocated shoulder from a street brawl should have been nothing extraordinary in comparison. It wasn't as though this side of the hospital didn't see common injuries such as this regularly, among the chronic patients, from those with money to spare seeking some kind of "special treatment" or whatnot; even so, he had to regretfully admit to himself that they usually came and went as easily as the night came after the day both from the facilities and his mind.
Still, something about that particular man—Alfred Svent, Alvin as he preferred to be called, twenty-eight years of age—had incited a very deep sense of anger in Jude. It wasn't a feeling he was familiar with for as long as he'd been alive very few things had ever enraged him, with his level head and open mind, though, and that in and of itself only managed to make it worse.
It was in the way that Alvin had worn a cocky grin through nearly the entire duration of their consultation, and that he'd talked so casually about his last injury, a serious concussion from which he had only recently recovered, as though it were meaningless.
That was his first impression of Mister Svent, and it was one which would dwell in his thoughts, for better or for worse, among the other considerably more important ones which he entertained. That night he should have been relaxing, catching up on his much-needed rest, and instead he was lost thinking of a reckless stranger.
He cursed his overactive mind silently, clicking off the power of the television, abandoning what had been his last feeble attempt to distract himself from work, tossing the remote next to the case of his glasses on the nightstand.
Today had caused little but frustration, save for the high point of lunch with that nurse. He wished he could focus on that. After all, she—Leia was her name—had actually been born in his hometown, too, and she had started in the experimental ward early on in her career. Her energy had been very uplifting, and he very much longed for something like the young woman's naturally comforting as he rolled onto his side and pulled the covers over his head as though sleep would come more easily if he hid his face.
He wished it were that simple. Eat, sleep, go to work, come home, rinse and repeat—yes, if only his life were so easy as that.
Thanks to Milla Maxwell, Rowen Ilbert, Elize Lutus, and now Alfred Svent, and who could tell how many more may join that crowd later on, as this had only been the first few weeks of his career in that hospital, he was certain it never would be. It was hard to focus on the quiet lunch with a small-town nurse with all those faces burned into his mind, but damn it if he wouldn't try for just one peaceful night of rest.