Lottie seems like more of a brat than I intended in this chapter, but make of it what you will. This chapter is dedicated partly to Gillian Kearney Fan because I wrote it with her in mind and also to abby99jones and all the other people who took the time to give me a review or message because it is really appreciated and makes me smileeee.
"Tess have you seen my dad?"
Tess was busy trying to do too many things at once. She had a child on one arm, a set of blood results in the other and a list of things to do dancing around her arm that was as long as her arm, "Um, not right now Lottie-"
"Sorry, I just need to speak to him."
Tess snapped, she didn't have time to deal with grumpy teenagers making demands, "This is a busy emergency department, you can't just roll up and demand to see him when you want to."
Lottie rolled her eyes to the side, "Okaay. Just it's supposed to be our Saturday, he always takes me somewhere-"
"Well that can't be right because he's on shift."
Lottie nodded sarcastically, "I gathered that." She realised that Tess seemed to be a bit busy and that she wasn't really helping. "I figured he must have got the dates wrong. You don't happen to- never mind, I can see you are busy."
"Tell me about it." Tess was trying to keep track of a small boy who probably had ADHD and had a particular habit of just randomly throwing things.
The boy collided with Lottie. She scooped him up, "Who have we got here then?"
Tess shook her head, "This is Owen. His Dad's in resus and I simply don't have the staff today to-"
Lottie shrugged, she didn't have anything better to do, "I can look after him until you can find someone. It's not like I've got anything better to do for the next twelve hours."
Tess sighed, knowing it wasn't really hospital protocol, but she had reached the point where she didn't really care. "Sure, take him to the relatives room, see if you can have him colouring or something?"
Lottie grabbed the small boy's arm and dragged him in the direction of the staffroom, "Come on monkey."
Tess shook her head, Lottie really was a good kid, despite the whole wild-child-getting-into-trouble-because-neither-of-my-parents-care thing and she could hardly be blamed for that. "Thank you Lottie."
.
Lottie spent over an hour chasing after the child who was a complete and utter nightmare. She managed to keep him in the relatives room for the majority by playing catch with a tennis ball she found under a chair. But playing catch for over an hour did get tiresome and eventually her concentration slipped he ran past her and straight out of the door. Lottie ran after him, straight into Tess. "Bloody hell there is something wrong with that kid."
Tess shrugged, "Your dad saw him when he came in and said he was fine."
"Yeah well, he hasn't spent the past hour catching him as he bounces off the walls. Is he on speed or something?"
Tess shook her head with a smile, and called over a nurse with dark hair in purple scrubs, "He's a seven year old boy so it's unlikely. Thanks for your help Lottie, but Nurse Harrison here can take over now."
The nurse nodded, "I'm good with kids."
Lottie smiled, "Cool, I'm going to guilt trip some money out of my dad and then I am going shopping." She went to the relatives room and grabbed her bag and then to cubicles to find her father. Not something that was easy but somewhere among the sea of patients and their vomit, nurses in blue scrubs and doctors in green was a man who had some apologising to do.
.
She found him talking to a nurse in purple scrubs, Nurse Harrison, the one who took the child earlier. She interrupted, "Dad, have you forgotten something?"
Adam frowned, "Don't interrupt people's conversations, it's rude."
The nurse in purple scrubs looked from him to Lottie, "Dad?"
Adam sighed, "Jessica-"
Lottie turned to look at the nurse and then back at her dad, "Oh please don't tell me that you forgot which Saturday it was because you're chasing after another pretty nurse. Last chance dad, last chance." She rolled her eyes and walked away not intending to spend another second waiting in the department for her dad to sort himself out.
"Lottie- Look I can't just drop everything-" He shook his head, knowing that there was never any point following after his daughter, she had always been one to storm off in a huff, she took after her mother in that respect. He turned to Jessica, "Great, what's the date?"
Jessica raised her eyebrows, "'Another pretty nurse- Am I missing something here?"
Adam ignored her questions, "The date?"
Jessica shrugged, "It's the the 12th of January."
"Which would be the second Saturday of the month. How could I-"
"Am I missing something?"
"I have Lottie for the second week of the month, starting on a Saturday. And every Saturday since, forever, we've done something special. And it's been so busy after the new year, and last night- I just forgot to even book this shift off." He shook his head, "It doesn't matter. She'll be long gone, that's Lottie- Do you want to show me that patient?" He would call Lottie later and hope that she would see fit to answer. If not then he would just have to wait for the next inconvenient moment that she chose to show up in and hope that he managed to deal with it better.