Thank you all for the kind reviews, I'm touched :3

Lottie was waiting for her father to finish his shift. She was being patient, after all she hadn't seen him in a while, trying to avoid him noticing what was obviously a black eye and a split lip. Her black eye had faded, something that was easily hidden with subtle makeup anyway, and the mark on her lip was a lot less noticeable and a lot more easy to explain away. She felt guilty for ignoring his calls, and to be truthful, she missed him. That didn't stop her from being bored. She was sat in reception, watching the patients go in and out of the department. It wasn't something that she minded doing, in fact when the patients going past weren't drunk or vomiting it was actually quite interesting to see a snapshot of other peoples lives, but there was a limit to her patience. Her dad, after he had examined her lip and asked her a series of questions about walking into doors, had promised her he would be ready in 30 minutes at the most. It had been 54 minutes already, not that she was counting or anything. She was in her school uniform, or indeed her own approximation of it. Her skirt was too tight, too short and just slightly the wrong colour, but the teachers had given up arguing with her. Most people did after a while. Her tights, although they were black had a series of ladders up the sides that could have been deliberate. Again, her shoes were black, but brothel creepers with extreme flatforms where another attempt to subtly annoy the establishment. Her cardigan was too big and didn't have a school crest, and the last time she saw her tie it was hanging from the bridge over the main road. Not worth risking her life to collect, right? Lottie looked across at the boy sat across from her. Well, when she said boy, he couldn't have been much younger than her. He had been sat there for as long as her, and patients had moved even though they had arrived after him. "Hey, what are you here for?"

Louis Fairhead looked up, slightly surprised that the blonde haired older girl was talking to him, "I'm not a patient, I'm just waiting for my dad."

Lottie smiled, "Snap. Does he work there?"

"He's a nurse. Charlie Fairhead."

"My dad, Adam Truman, he's a doctor. I guess you spend half your life sitting here waiting for him, right?"

Lottie looked at the boy again, "I'm Lottie. You're?"

"Louis. You go to the grammar school right?"

Lottie nodded, "For my sins." She shrugged," it's not too bad actually. The teachers are dicks, but then I guess that's the same for every school." She looked at Louis, trying to judge his age, "You're what, year 11?"

Louis nodded quickly, "Yeah. You?"

"You should know better than to ask a young ladies age." She laughed at Louis face, "I'm teasing you. I'm in year twelve." She looked around, "You fancy sneaking out and going for a drink?" Lottie had got bored waiting, and when Lottie got bored...

Louis's eyes widened slightly, but in his eagerness to impress the older girl he nodded, completely unaware that she was just using him as a tool to wind her dad up. Not that he wouldn't enjoy winding his own dad up.

Lottie smiled, "Grab your coat then Louis Fairhead, I know just the place."

They were halfway across the E.D when Charlie caught Louis by the shoulder, "And where do you think you're going?"

"Dad?"

Lottie smiled her best smile, something that can't have been very reassuring to Charlie. Like the rest of the staff in the emergency department he had come to know Lottie, and not necessarily for the right reasons. "Oh don't worry Mr Fairhead, we're just going for a couple of drinks, I'll look after him."

"You what?" Charlie was not impressed and was about to give both Lottie and Louis a telling off, but Adam, who had been keeping half an eye on Lottie for the past your knowing that her patience would wear thin, intervened, "Come on Charlie, no harm done, they're just kids."

Lottie would have repeated her earlier comment, but Charlie got there first. He was already furious with Louis and Adam's obviously relaxed style of parenting was the final straw. "You might be happy to let your daughter drink and do whatever else but I won't have her drag Louis around with her."

Louis tried to interrupt, but for once was silenced by the look in his fathers face.

In contrast, Lottie was doing a good impression of looking bored. Adam frowned, "I'm not liking the implication there, mate."

They were interrupted by a stout man in a suit jacket with a bleeding wound to the head standing up and complaining loudly, "How come they're getting seen by a doctor and a nurse? I'm a head injury, the triage nurse said I would be a priority. They're young and fit and they don't look like they have a thing wrong with them."

That was too much for Lottie who snorted with laughter. Even Adam cracked a slight smile at the man's indignant glare. Charlie frowned, turning to the father and daughter, "So you think this is funny?"

Lottie nodded in mock sincerity. "Very funny."

Charlie looked to Adam, and upon realising that he wasn't going to reprimand his daughter decided to do it for him, "You may think it is funny that your cheek is interrupting the running of the emergency department-"

Adam cut in, "I think that's enough Charlie. As I said, they're just kids. Lottie go and get my coat from the staffroom, you've done enough here. Charlie if you could see to the patient, I would offer my assistance but my shift did finish over an hour ago."

Lottie rolled her eyes, turning towards the staffroom. She winked at Louis, "See you around."

Adam sighed as Charlie firmly pushed at protesting Louis onto his chair in reception and led the stout man away to a cubicle. Never a dull moment when his daughter was around.